Binyawmene
Active member
I have been working on a thought and wanted to place it under the test of CARMers.
What is the ontological opposite of God? Online 'Antonyms Dictionaries' such as WordHippo.com will define God as being the opposite of Man.
Noun▲
Opposite of a deity or supreme being
mortal, human, person, earthling, individual, man, woman, baby,
child, biped, girl, guy, homo sapien, human being
I'm sure you know where I am going with this, "Jesus Christ is both God and Man". The dictionary definition above is not true, especially in monotheistic Christianity. The Trinity teaches that the one God is, was, and always will be one God. There is no ontological identical and opposite of himself or some other god being identical and opposite of himself. The God of the Bible is God alone and in a category of himself. There is no other of his kind and class, God is one. He cannot have any known or unknown ontological directional opposites and absences of himself. And there is no others before and after, above and below, backwards and forward, beside and inbetween, etc. Also the Hypostatic Union teaches that Jesus Christ is both God and man, but "God" and "man" are not directional opposites, they are in two different categories, and cannot be ontologically equivalent. The same applies to angels, the devil is not the opposite of God, as often depicted of good versus evil in context of opposite words. Angles are different categories, regardless if you can draw out opposites based on their attributes, its a categorical difference and not the same sense. God has no opposites of himself. Or any other known and unknown created thing. There is simply no identical and opposites of himself.
For example, Jesus Christ is a man entails that he is not a woman. The opposite of man is a woman from its ontological category or its kind and class of human beings. It would be a category mistake to assume that human properties being found in the category of a potent man, and then place it into the category of omnipotent God. As if God is both potent and omnipotent, ~(P ^ O). Both "God" and "Man" may have similarities and differences, but they will never be each other’s ontological directional opposites, and they will never collide or overlap into each other categories.
[Category of God
Category of Man
Category Mistake
Parallelism Expression of Oppositions: There is an exegetical structure pattern found in Scriptures of where Jesus Christ display Divine attributes as God and Human attributes as Man. For example, this is evident from the fact that Jesus Christ has divine intelligence being omniscient as God and his human intelligence that increased as man. You can also say, "Jesus Christ is"... "both omniscient and ignorant," "both omnipresent and localized," and "both omnipotent and powerless." The list goes on and on, etc. Even any Theological book under Christology can draw out those distinctions. But from a hermeneutical approach and from a logical standpoint, a conjunction is most effective and better approach Scripturally. Because the meaning of a certain phraseology is 'drawn out' from the whole of Scriptures exegetically. If we know "this" and we know "that" about Jesus Christ, then Scriptures as a whole don't contradict but harmonizes.
1. Since Jesus Christ is both God and Man, then there exist a incompatibility binary relationship of having opposite properties. Because both God and Man are in different categories and not the same category. The binary relationship in the Hypostatic Union framework are often viewed in antonyms or opposite pair of words, which is a word that has the opposite meaning of another word. But not in the same sense because there are two different natures having their own respective properties and the Person is just a subject of predication. Whatever attribute the subject does according to the Divine Nature means he cannot do the opposite as being God alone (both omnipresent and non-omnipresent). And vice versa, whatever attribute the subject does according to the human nature means he cannot do the opposite as being Man alone (both localized and non-localized). The subject can do both at the same time, but not from the same sense based on their different categorical differences.
2. These two opposite ideas of God's "omnipresent" along with Man's "localized" are being jointed together in a logical conjunction "and" for a unique and contrasting framework. The doctrine define these logical conjunctions to be parallel expression of oppositions, which is a antithesis, from anti 'against' + tithenai "to place" or in other words, "a setting opposite or contrasting of ideas is expressed by parallelism of words that are the opposites of," and those ideas might not always be structurally opposites in the doctrine, for example, "both equal and subordinate" are opposites, and "both omnipotent and ignorant" are not opposites. But both structures are logically valid within the framework, so its not always framed in oppositions to each other. This framework is to compare their indifferences and to emphasize the union.
Any thoughts, opinions, and challenges?
What is the ontological opposite of God? Online 'Antonyms Dictionaries' such as WordHippo.com will define God as being the opposite of Man.
Noun▲
Opposite of a deity or supreme being
mortal, human, person, earthling, individual, man, woman, baby,
child, biped, girl, guy, homo sapien, human being
I'm sure you know where I am going with this, "Jesus Christ is both God and Man". The dictionary definition above is not true, especially in monotheistic Christianity. The Trinity teaches that the one God is, was, and always will be one God. There is no ontological identical and opposite of himself or some other god being identical and opposite of himself. The God of the Bible is God alone and in a category of himself. There is no other of his kind and class, God is one. He cannot have any known or unknown ontological directional opposites and absences of himself. And there is no others before and after, above and below, backwards and forward, beside and inbetween, etc. Also the Hypostatic Union teaches that Jesus Christ is both God and man, but "God" and "man" are not directional opposites, they are in two different categories, and cannot be ontologically equivalent. The same applies to angels, the devil is not the opposite of God, as often depicted of good versus evil in context of opposite words. Angles are different categories, regardless if you can draw out opposites based on their attributes, its a categorical difference and not the same sense. God has no opposites of himself. Or any other known and unknown created thing. There is simply no identical and opposites of himself.
For example, Jesus Christ is a man entails that he is not a woman. The opposite of man is a woman from its ontological category or its kind and class of human beings. It would be a category mistake to assume that human properties being found in the category of a potent man, and then place it into the category of omnipotent God. As if God is both potent and omnipotent, ~(P ^ O). Both "God" and "Man" may have similarities and differences, but they will never be each other’s ontological directional opposites, and they will never collide or overlap into each other categories.
[Category of God
Omnipotent
Omnipresent
Omniscient
Omnipresent
Omniscient
Category of Man
powerless
Localized
Ignorant
Localized
Ignorant
Category Mistake
God is both omnipotent and powerless.
or,
Man is both powerless and omnipotent.
God is both omnipresent and localized.
or,
Man is both localized and omnipresent.
God is both omniscient and ignorant.
or,
Man is both ignorant and omniscient.
or,
Man is both powerless and omnipotent.
God is both omnipresent and localized.
or,
Man is both localized and omnipresent.
God is both omniscient and ignorant.
or,
Man is both ignorant and omniscient.
Parallelism Expression of Oppositions: There is an exegetical structure pattern found in Scriptures of where Jesus Christ display Divine attributes as God and Human attributes as Man. For example, this is evident from the fact that Jesus Christ has divine intelligence being omniscient as God and his human intelligence that increased as man. You can also say, "Jesus Christ is"... "both omniscient and ignorant," "both omnipresent and localized," and "both omnipotent and powerless." The list goes on and on, etc. Even any Theological book under Christology can draw out those distinctions. But from a hermeneutical approach and from a logical standpoint, a conjunction is most effective and better approach Scripturally. Because the meaning of a certain phraseology is 'drawn out' from the whole of Scriptures exegetically. If we know "this" and we know "that" about Jesus Christ, then Scriptures as a whole don't contradict but harmonizes.
1. Since Jesus Christ is both God and Man, then there exist a incompatibility binary relationship of having opposite properties. Because both God and Man are in different categories and not the same category. The binary relationship in the Hypostatic Union framework are often viewed in antonyms or opposite pair of words, which is a word that has the opposite meaning of another word. But not in the same sense because there are two different natures having their own respective properties and the Person is just a subject of predication. Whatever attribute the subject does according to the Divine Nature means he cannot do the opposite as being God alone (both omnipresent and non-omnipresent). And vice versa, whatever attribute the subject does according to the human nature means he cannot do the opposite as being Man alone (both localized and non-localized). The subject can do both at the same time, but not from the same sense based on their different categorical differences.
2. These two opposite ideas of God's "omnipresent" along with Man's "localized" are being jointed together in a logical conjunction "and" for a unique and contrasting framework. The doctrine define these logical conjunctions to be parallel expression of oppositions, which is a antithesis, from anti 'against' + tithenai "to place" or in other words, "a setting opposite or contrasting of ideas is expressed by parallelism of words that are the opposites of," and those ideas might not always be structurally opposites in the doctrine, for example, "both equal and subordinate" are opposites, and "both omnipotent and ignorant" are not opposites. But both structures are logically valid within the framework, so its not always framed in oppositions to each other. This framework is to compare their indifferences and to emphasize the union.
Any thoughts, opinions, and challenges?
