I had said:
Consider three concepts of what constitutes "Ultimate Reality":
1. Traditional Christian Theism: UR = God alone, no World. (It is not
essential to God to be in relationship to a World; the existence of a World
is optional to God. Hence, creatio ex nihilo.)
Dave: But here there is a covert suggestion that there had to be a time
before the creation.
hvt: I didn't intend to make any covert suggestions here. Do you have a way
to avoid that in a specification of traditional Christian theism's
specification of UR?
Back to the last post:
2. Maximal (or ontological) Naturalism: UR = World alone, no God. (The
World is self-existent and needs no relationship to God for its being.
Hence, no creation.)
3. Panentheism [briefly stated: the world is in God, but God is more than
the world] :
UR = God + World (It is essential to God to be in relationship to a World;
in order for a world to have being it must be in relationship to God; the
relationship need not be symmetric, but neither could be what it is without
the other).
Dave: But, as a matter of fact, we have a world which necessarily has a
relationship to its Creator. The question is whether God is somehow
dependent on the creation or is independent--Creator or demiurge?
hvt: I don't think we can reduce this to a binary either/or choice: Either
Christian Creator or Plato's demiurge. There's lots of conceptual space
between those two extremes.
Back to the last post:
Note that for panentheism, some form of World (not necessarily this
particular universe, which may be only one of many possible worlds to which
God could be related) is always present within God. This particular world
may be "temporal" but the larger sense of "World" need not be. Given that
possibility, it appears to me that the problem of the Eternal being
constrained by the mere temporal disappears. It also suggest an answer to
the question, What was God doing before the Big-Bang (the temporal beginning
of this particular universe)?
Dave: On this last, I suspect that Augustine's wisecrack in answer to the
question what God was doing before he created: "He was making hell for those
who ask such questions."
hvt: Augustine's wisecrack answer is of no value here.
Dave: I note that there is a relevant difference between a timeless deity
and one temporally eternal. The latter, which panentheism demands, involves
an infinite regress or sorts. The former does not. I think Aristotle's
eternal pair of Pure Form and Prime Matter make better sense than the
process view.
Back to the last post:
If I understand correctly, panentheism, although it rejects creatio ex
nihilo, nonetheless retains the concept of God as Creator in the sense of
God choosing and maintaining the 'being' of this particular universe.
Dave: But constrained by the "other," whence I refer to it as demiurge. Not
quite Plato's view, but akin.
hvt: Yes, quite different. For panentheism's God, being in relationship to
another is an essential quality, not a competitive or diminishing factor.
Back to the last post:
hvt: In the original context of this discussion, the term "coercive" denoted
the idea of a transcendent God, by supernatural intervention, overpowering a
creature (thereby coercing it to behave in a manner inconsistent with its
being). Gravity is an interaction between two creaturely entities, each of
which is acting in a manner entirely consistent with its creaturely being.
That makes comparisons of this sort difficult.
Dave: But "coercive" does not necessarily imply supernatural intervention.
It may be just the way the world works.
hvt: Help me understand how "coercive" and "supernatural intervention"
differ. I was using the two terms as interchangeable.
Howard
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