[Talisker]

It doesn’t work that way, Tal. God can cause things other than God to be. If you try to philosophize through it, you will go crazy. The essential issue is that God can do more than you can and so you can’t figure it all out and this is EXPECTED. If you BELIEVE then you find out yes it is good and yes it makes sense.

So believing that everything is part of the infinite God, is somehow limiting to the concept of the infinite God?

Infinite is infinite. In addition, why would anyone cognize a need that something exist outside of God at all? Why "require" such a thing for a philosophy? If you have God be infinite, isn't that enough, since it encompases everything?

The way I see it, requiring something to be "outside" of the infinite God is to not really believe in the infinite God. Is to find the infinitude of God somehow "lacking," and therefore requiring something else. So for me, the faith part of this is precisely that nothing is outside of God - in other words, that God truly is infinite.

In addition, once you start throwing out logic, where do you stop? It's not that faith isn't necessary, but only where terms or ideas fail. And the term and idea of infinity doesn't fail! Infinity is without limit, and so perfectly represents the limitlessness of the power of God. I simply see no need for even trying to get beyond that, since it is both conceiveable and inconceivable at the same time, and so, for me, fully satisfies the "scale" of the concept of "God."

[HiTech RedNeck]

I don’t play philosophical games with God. He outwits me every single solitary time I try.

[HiTech RedNeck]

All I can say is that the bible assertions are not nonsense. They are self consistent. They require an “implementation domain” that transcends our mortal coil, but cannot be shown wrong by any kind of reductio ad absurdam.

And the main question is not even “what?” but “who?” The “what” is there because of the “who.” Existence doesn’t just exist for the sake of existing. It’s got a purpose.