On Sat, 30 Mar 2002 16:20:38 -0500 "Howard J. Van Till"
<hvantill@novagate.com> writes:
From: "D. F. Siemens, Jr." <dfsiemensjr@juno.com>
The first thing I note from the quotation from Hartshorne is that its
language is emotionally loaded.
Agreed.
.... I note that Polkinghorne presents a problem in the last sentence
here quoted. Contrary to what he says, an omnipotent God does not "allow"
things to be: he rather sets the principles by which they exist and
function, and providentially holds them to those principles.
The question is, Did God have a choice in setting those principles, or is
God bound by God's own being and the nature of the God/world
relationship?
This strikes me as a nonsense question. Of course God is consistent with
his own being. But "the nature of the God/world relationship" suggests
that the Eternal was constrained by the temporal. In other words, it fits
the notion of pantheism or panentheism, not the notion of theism. I may
take an analogy from some current cosmological theories, that ours is
only one of an infinite number of universes. On this view, there is no
constraint that all the universes observe the same physical laws.
Similarly, God could have made a different type of universe, one with
different principles--and perhaps has. He is sovereign. Put a different
way, what determines God and his will? Only himself. Otherwise he would
not be the Creator.
He is not the kind of deity of the pagans, influenced by whim but subject
to ananke, an external necessity.
I, too, would find "whim" out of place. "External" necessity also; but
how about "internal" necessity, the necessity to be consistent with One's
own being, including One's relationship to "world"?
Again, you bias the answer.
Since he is orderly (evidenced by the effectiveness of scientific
investigations), we can speak of causal necessity.
Question for thought: Is "orderly" the most fruitful label for that
aspect of God's character that leads to causal necessity? (I'm not sure I
know exactly what 'causal necessity here entails.) Does the system of
creaturely cause/effect relationships apply universally (and perhaps
without exception if supernatural intervention is rejected) because God
is "orderly" or because God's action is never coercive, never violating
the being of any creature by overpowering it?
Take your choice, it is probably analogical any way you try to phrase it.
Is gravity coercive? It certainly does not give me any choice if I am not
adequately supported, and it does not allow me to change my weight except
by finding a different gravitational field. Is my need for air, food and
water coercive? Or is this something that Satan introduced because God
would not be that stiff?
................skip a bit...............
There is a different area involving human beings which has often been
mistaken for indeterminism, human freedom. Actually, free will or choice
falls under a special type of determinism, self-determination, an area
where we are, though limited, initiating causes. (Only God is an
unlimited or unrestricted originating or initiating cause.)
Are we back to the question about God being, in some beneficial way,
restricted"? I'm not convinced that all restrictions are necessarily to b
e rejected
Again, you beg the question. Is how God chooses to work an external
constraint? Saying yes IMO makes a Creator impossible. One is into
emanationism like Plotinus, or some version of pantheism. To be a
consistent pantheist in the face of the Big Bang seems an impossible
exercise.
This human freedom cannot be demonstrated empirically, but is assumed by
all, including dogmatic determinists.
It is my opinion that God so values the freedom he has given us that the
ultimate principle of morality may be to do that which provides the
maximum amount of liberty for all. It seems very clear that God intended
creatures who could choose to love him, even though that also meant that
they could reject him and his love for them. May I suggest that even God
cannot create entities who must (i.e., of necessity, not of duty) choose
to love him.
Yes, I see that an an appropriate suggestion -- a form of beneficial
restriction.
I call this self-restriction, for he could have wiped Adam out and
started over. He was under no compulsion to provide a redeemer. I have it
by revelation that he did, but that's the only way I could possibly learn
of it.
Dave
Howard Van Till
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