It would be interesting to apply Popper's theorem to itself. Is the falsifiable principle falsifiable? This is the classic, and somewhat trite, critique of the positivists, that their theory is self-refuting. However, it is a noble endeavor to try to understand what counts as science and what does not. But, there are many different types of science and they each have their own particular sets of what counts as verifiable and what doesn't. And yet, they all have some sort of principle whereby hypotheses can be tested.

Marx was deeply influenced by Hegel whose theory of history he imported into his materialist views. I would say the Hegel's theory is metaphysics and not science, but I'm not sure Marx would disagree. He was a man of his time and the 19th century hadn't heard of Karl Popper yet. I think that Marx is not writing a science, though, at least not by today's standard, which, like someone above said, doesn't mean that it isn't useful or important, or even true. We tend to judge everything by results and instrumental rationality today, looking for its use-value and exchange-value. Science has dominated the Western world because it has been successful in uncovering mysteries, but it still needs philosophical assumptions to proceed (thinking of Hume's notion about conceiving of the future to operate much like the past).

I like Popper. I think he has a lot to offer. I wouldn't jettison metaphysics, but after Popper, it is useful to demarcate the proper spheres of influence between metaphysics and the sciences.

I'm not sure we could make sense of our current scientific paradigms without special relativity. And as you've indicated, there have been experimental confirmations of it. However, the question of time isn't a closed one as scientific paradigms change over time. With new data come new hypotheses, eventually leading to new insights, new experiments, and new theories. I think that the nature of time has an appeal because it seems so intuitive. I mean, time is a measure of change, like you say, but if what it's measuring changes as well, it seems that time itself could change.

Are you looking for something more stable to measure with? Or, are you asking whether or not time is a valid measurement of change because time itself changes? If the latter, I think that's a good question. What is ultimately doing the measuring if time is changing, too? What is the standard? It seems there would need to be another reference point.

I'm sure you're familiar with the other theories of the atonement. Satisfaction and Penal Substitution are only two, closely related, versions explaining what Jesus may or may not have done. There are a few others, even within the Western traditions. For instance, the earliest view of salvation/atonement was the idea that God paid Satan in order to redeem humanity. The idea is that Satan had laid claim to human souls through our rebellion in the Garden of Eden and therefore God could not simply forgive sinners but had to purchase them back from their post-fallen ruler. Jesus is this payment. However, since Jesus was a perfectly sinless substitute, Satan could not hold him and he was thus freed.

My other favorite is the Cristus Victor theory which suggests that God in Jesus was challenging and transforming the evil powers of the world through his life and ministry. This doesn't have a payment or a satisfaction to make, but is more of an example by which God would win over the world to be more merciful and peaceful.

There are other examples, but this doesn't really get to the heart of your question which is about the nature of God based in a specific atonement theory. My point in bringing these up was to show that Christians do not agree on the life and meaning of Jesus, especially throughout history.

But, if God did need a perfect substitute in order to fulfill justice and assuage wrath, then He would be limited, but only by His nature. The Christians I know who hold to this position, and I used to be one of them, claim that nothing external to God has ultimate authority over God. This is what omnipotence means to them. So, if God were to be limited in needing a sacrifice from Jesus to fulfill the Adamic covenant, the covenant the Adam and Eve broke, then this theistic model would say that it is only God's nature that limits Him. Gos is simply appeasing Himself. It cannot be within God's nature to have an external authority.

I do not hold to this view as we see Jesus forgiving sins without a perfectly just payment all the time in the New Testament, not to mention that this God is entirely fearsome. I hold that God can indeed simply forgive people, but this is because God's nature allows it. Your question is a good one because it gets to the heart of who we think God is.

I like this a lot, and have thought a bit about Feuerbach's work, but have been troubled recently by a work which questions his assumptions. Essentially, the argument is Jungian and suggests that the foundational archetypes of reality exist prior to humans. These are the elements which we use to make our images of God. So, if I am understanding Winks argument, the archetypes are more primordial than humans and thus cannot be directly related to a human construct. Sorry, that was poorly written, but the point is that God made the archetypes out of which we have fashioned our notions of God.

You say quite a lot of good things in this post. I will definitely check out Berdyaev. I have heard of him, but haven't gotten around to reading any of his works. I think the point about God's intervention is that, just like parents, God wouldn't allow his children to be raped if God could stop it. I'm not sure what the lesson to be learned there is. So, I try to keep in contextual when I focus on God's potency. It helps me stay on target when constructing my thoughts about God and God's ability to intervene. Generally, I take a process panentheistic position these days, when my radical theological mind isn't flared up. That is, I see God as limited by love, but not because God can do anything. God is a weak God who cannot intervene but can only persuade and lure, never coerce.

I agree that God is wise, but that if God knew what I was going to do tomorrow, and God knew it completely and infallibly, I could do nothing else unless God's knowledge was wrong. So, my point was about placing limits on God, reasonable limits to preserve our freedoms and God's goodness. This might be where our revelations about freedom inform God about who God is.

I love Tillich, though I need to read more. Most of the thinkers I was inspired by here when I wrote this post are deeply influenced by him. I like his notion of God as the Ground of Being. I have come a ways since this discussion and no longer hold to either kataphatic theology or apophatic theology, though I am partial towards the latter. I simply don't know what I think God is. These thoughts were my exorcising the Calvinist version of deity I came to believe in for some time and have had to shake. Radical Theology has given me a new home to think as a Christian.

The heretic label doesn't bother me. Everyone is someone's heretic. There are a few notable philosophers and theologians who are Death of God theologians and their takes on God are different, but Thomas Altizer best illustrates how God can both exist and cease to exist. He does so by using a Hegelian metaphysic of the Absolute's kenotic self-limitation whereby God creates the world (self-limitation one) in order to fully enter into it (self-limitation two) in the Incarnation. So, Altizer's reading of the Incarnation is atheistic in the sense that the transcendent God is now fully a part of history in the Holy Spirit. It's akin to a Hegelian reading of modalism in the early church.