jenna wrote:ok. while i agree that God is the creator of this world, and is not contingent on us for His existance, i have to disagree that He is immaterial. He has features just like we do. He has feet, hands, a backside, and a face. Although no human has ever seen Him, that is merely because no one can look upon His face and live. All the above things are described in the bible as features that God has. so one cannot say He is immaterial, simply because no one can look at Him. Moses was in His presence, and the mere closeness of proximity to God caused Moses's hair to turn white, and his face to shine. can you imagine the reaction if Moses had actually seen the full image?
Rick is right. Those are anthropomorphisms. I don't think we can say that God actually has hands and face and a back and other such things. I'll give you a reason from Scripture and another reason from reason itself based squarely on Scripture:
First, 1 John 4:24 says directly, "God is Spirit." It does not say that God
has a Spirit, but rather that He
is Spirit. but then Jesus says, "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." (Luke 24:39). Thus, by Jesus' authority, we must say that God does not have a body. That is, He is immaterial.
Second, Gen 1 tells us that God created the heavens and the earth. John 1 tells us that everything came into being by Jesus, that nothing came into being apart from Him. Everywhere in Scripture, the consistent position is that everything that exists, exists because God willed it. Only He is eternal. But if He is eternal, then He cannot have a body. He cannot be material. For if God has a body and is material, then
a) He could not have created space. Matter is located in space, so without space, there can be no matter. But if God is material, then space has always existed to accomodate God's physical location; and
b) He could not have created time. Material beings are necessarily located in time, so that without time, there is no matter. Buf if God is material, then time has always existed to accomodate God's temporal location
There are other arguments we could make (e.g., if God has a body, it would turn out that He is contingent on us after all), but this is enough to show that you cannot say God actually has a body without contradicting Scripture. So I think the rest of my argument follows.