The difficulty in considering such issues is that they are replete with
assumptions and no "experiments" to discern the different theories from each
other nor whether any of them makes any sense at all. To say that God must
create, as if He had no other choice, is to be a bit presumptuous. If one
goes beyond our human experiences or data collected by machines, then one
get into a realm that is purely speculative and fruitless. Such endeavors
are more powered by pride than an honest search for truth. Moorad
----- Original Message -----
From: "Howard J. Van Till" <hvantill@novagate.com>
To: "Moorad Alexanian" <alexanian@uncwil.edu>; "george murphy"
<gmurphy@raex.com>; <rdehaan237@aol.com>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2001 3:07 PM
Subject: Re: Staged developmental creation.
>From: Moorad Alexanian <alexanian@uncwil.edu>
> Who or what preserves or sustains "the continuity of the creaturely
> cause/effect system?" Is the whole creation self-existing with no need of
> God but that of the origianl creator? I truluy believe that only God is
> self-existing and so God sustains the creation instant by instant and so
the
> continuity cannot be understood apart from God. Moorad
To the best of my recollection, the need for the action of God to sustain
the being of the universe has not been seriously questioned on this list. It
is normally assumed that the existence of the universe is "radically
contingent." That is, it need not exist at all, and only God's existence is
"necessary" -- needing no further explanation. That's part of the theology
of _creatio ex nihilo_. That's not at issue in the present discussion.
Process theology, on the other hand, sees the existence of both God and a
World as inseparable. To put it in Q&A form:
Why is there a universe rather than no universe?
Because there is a God whose existence is necessary. Furthermore, an
essential part of Godıs nature is to be intimately related to a World. In
Griffinıs version of naturalistic theism, "what exists necessarily is not
simply God, as traditional theism holds, or simply the world of finite
existents, as atheism holds, but God-and-a-world." [Reenchantment Without
Supernaturalism, p. 140]
Howard Van Till
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