dfsiemensjr@juno.com wrote:
>
> On Sat, 8 Apr 2000 11:09:28 -0400 John Burgeson <burgy@compuserve.com>
> writes:
> > Dave wrote, in the middle of an excelleny (IMHO of course) post,
> > " The natural outcome is something like process theology, which is
> > not
> > properly theistic."
> >
> > Why is process theology not "properly theistic."
> >
> > Would you, perhaps, expand on both what you mean by "process
> > theology"
> > and by "properly?"
> >
> > In my theology, and it is just my thinking, I see at least the real
> > possibility
> > of God not being all-powerful, or, at least, deliberately limiting
> > his
> > powers
> > both the see and control the future outcome of life on this earth.
> > Is this
> > process theology, or merely a pale subset of something else?
> >
> > Burgy
>
> The quick answer is that process theology is panentheistic, which is a
> kind of intermediate between pantheism and theism. It seems to insert
> personality into what is essentially impersonal in Hinduism, for example.
> Basically, process theology places the deity within time or restricted by
> time, so to be as surprised as its (they would say 'his' though I think
> they take away too much personality for that) creatures at what comes up
> in the future. To put it into the vernacular, the deity is winging it.
>
> A proper theism cannot place God as creator within the universe
> _simpliciter_. Even deism meets this criterion, the difference being that
> with deism God winds it up and lets it go until he steps in for a final
> judgment, whereas theism insists on God's providential care--whether this
> is separate from creation as is usual in Reformed thought, or whether
> Creator-Providence are merely two aspects of the same divine activity as
> in Lutheran thought. This is one of the places where I think Calvinism
> tacitly bootlegs time in, even while overtly excluding it.
>
> It is certain that an almighty Being may limit himself: he did it in the
> incarnation. But I note that it is the Second Person who emptied himself
> to become incarnate, not the Father nor the Spirit. Had the Trinity
> emptied themselves, the providential care of the universe would not have
> been possible. This is obviously crude language, but I find none better
> when faced with the ineffable, the mystery of the Trinity.
>
> In another sense, God limited himself in giving us freedom rather than
> making us mere robots programmed to act in certain ways. In other words,
> he neither threw the suicide off the roof nor made Mother Teresa care for
> the hopeless. Both chose their actions, whatever we may note further of
> motivation. This does not mean that God will ever be surprised at any of
> the creatures' actions. Because he is outside of the creation as Creator,
> and absolutely eternal (timeless), all is known to him.
>
> In process theology, when one rings the changes, one is faced with only
> two possibilities. Either God and his universe are eternal, or God and
> his universe came into being. The second seems a worse choice than the
> beginning of the universe from the quantum vacuum in an atheistic manner.
> The first seems to run into insuperable problems with the Big Bang. In
> addition, I insist that process theology is constructing a deity in the
> image of man, more sophisticated than the beautiful statues in the Greek
> temples, but an idol nevertheless.
>
> Finally, thanks for your kind words about my post.
I suspect that Dave would be surprised if I didn't chime in here & in fact he
seems to have included a pre-emptive strike against something he expects me to say.
So not to disappoint anyone -
1) First, what is "a proper theism"? Precisely what is it that disqualifies
panentheism, e.g., from being a member of the class of proper theisms?
2) Process theism does have some serious problems, notably
a. a difficulty of adequately formulating process trinitarianism, &
b. the mutual interdependence of God & the world which makes it
impossible to speak of _creatio ex nihilo_.
3) Process theism involves divine temporality but is hardly unique in doing
so. Much of the work which has reinvigorated trinitarian theology in the past 70 years
has involved the belief that it is appropriate and even necessary to speak of God as
"having time" and being involved with the world's time. This has been accompanied by
the recognition that there is no good biblical reason to speak of God as "timeless", and
that doing so is part of the heritage of Greek philosophy rather than Scripture. It is,
in fact, an idolization of an ideal - "Stay, you are so beautiful."
4) It is taking the Incarnation seriously, & realizing that it means that the
history of Jesus is part of God's history, & thus that God _has_ a history, which makes
it clear that "timelessness" is really incompatible with the Christian claim. That one
who shares the divine nature with the other persons of the Trinity can suffer means that
the Trinity itself is not immune from suffering.
Dave's argument, "Had the Trinity emptied themselves, the providential care of
the universe would not have been possible", rephrases the traditional challenge which
has always been made to kenotic christologies, for it is the one who _did_ "empty
himself" in whom "all things hold together." I won't attempt to give a detailed answer
to that now, but just note that the arguments assumes that what holds all things
together is power of a controlling sort rather than the type which is "made perfect in
weakness."
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Apr 09 2000 - 16:41:39 EDT