-----Original Message-----
From: Howard J. Van Till [mailto:hvantill@novagate.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2001 11:55 AM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: staged developmental creation
>From: Woodward Norm Civ WRALC/TIEDM <Norm.Woodward@robins.af.mil>
> ---And, so, from this POV, the creator did not exist before his creation?
Correct.
Thomas Aquinas, many centuries ago, offered a similar (but not identical)
possibility. The world (as a creation) need not have a beginning in time. As
Aquinas saw it, the essence of the Creator/creation relationship is not that
one preceded the other in time, but that one (the creation) is at all times
dependent on the other (the Creator) for its being.
---Now, I know this is not identical to the first item in the original
Humanist Manifesto, that is:
"Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created."
But I somehow get the feeling that it is, in effect, a distinction with a
difference..
Also, this naturalistic theism would seem to predicate an eternal universe.
Does the Big Bang and Cold Death concepts put a damper on this "religion?"
> Or is it, a being can exist without "an essential part of (its) nature"?
No, that entails a contradiction.
Thanks, I was worried there for a moment....8^)
Norm
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