RE: Humble Approach

Thomas S. Jones (indqual@access.digex.net)
Tue, 12 Mar 96 12:50:36 PST

>To be more specific let me quote from a section of the book.
>
> A man or woman pursuing the humble way to God could adopt a credo similar
>to the following:
> God is billions of stars in the Milky Way and He is much more.
> God is billions of billions of stars in other galaxies and He is much
>more.
> Time and space and energy are all part of God, and He is much more.
> The awesome mysteries of magnetism, gravity, light, knowledge,
>imagination, memory, love, faith, gratitude, and joy are all part of God and He
>is much more.
> God is five billion people on Earth and He is much more.
> God is untold billions of beings on planets of millions of other stars
>and He is much more.
> God is all the things seen and also the vastly greater abundance of
>things unseen by man.
> Men who dwell in three dimensions can comprehend only a little part of
>God's multitude of dimension.
> God is the only reality - all else is fleeting shadow and imagination
>from our very limited five senses acting on our tiny brains.
> God is beginning to create His universe and allows each of the children
>to participate in some small ways in this creative evolution.
> God is the infinitely large and also the infinitely small - He is each of
>our inmost thoughts, each of our trillions of bodily cells, and each of the
>billions of wave patterns which are each cell.
> God is all of you and you are a little part of Him."
>
>And on page 48: "Differing concepts of God have developed in different
>cultures. No one should say that God can be reached by only one path. Such
>exclusiveness lacks humility because it presumes that we can and do comprehend
>God. The humble person is ready to admit and welcome the various manifestations
>of God."

However, if one accepts Jesus of Nazareth as God incarnate, and accepts that He said "I
am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
[John 14:6] then there really isn't a whole lot of other paths one can take seriously,
are there?

>
>>From this and other expressions in his book I presume that Templeton does not
>believe that God uniquely revealed himself at a certain point and time in
>history in the person of Jesus.
>
The whole argument, as you have presented it, seems to smack rather strongly of
pantheism. While not a unique opinion, it still fails on a lot of the "majors."

Tom

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