Hi Howard:
A couple comments on your last post:
You wrote:
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>>Burgy, responding to my comments on his violin-making metaphor for
God's
creative action:
> And one more thing. In this metaphor, God not only conceptualizes,
> shapes and assembles the violin(creation), as you put it above, but
also
> PLAYS the violin(creation). Without this last, the metaphor is sort of
> uninteresting.
And when I suggested that it portrayed God's creative action very much
like
the action of Plato's Demiurge, Burgy replied:
> Again, the "playing" activity is key, and places it (the metaphor)
> beyond Plato's Demiurge. I think.
I don't know how to evaluate this. What kind of divine action might this
"playing" of the violin represent? Something quite different from
form-conferring interventions, I presume?
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The fact you don't know "how to evaluate this" puzzles me. It really
does. I cannot tell if we truly disagree, or are using words differently,
or talking about different things. Or maybe all of the above.
First of all -- it is a metaphor. Take it as such.
Second -- I conceive of our Creator as having a sense of humor -- so
"play" is an operative word. Think of the violin maker as also a great
musician. Perhaps he is content to make the violin and listen to others
play it. Or, just maybe, he takes pleasure in playing it himself also. So
God can take pleasure in us "playing" his creation, creating our own
concepts and technologies, and also take pleasure in playing the creation
himself. Yes -- this might involve the creation of unique new life forms
from time to time.
As you might know, I hold a type of "progressive creation" approach to
all this stuff myself. I do so with humbleness; I affirm that various TE
positions, even your FGC position, may indeed be closer to truth. But
they simply don't "fit" what I think I think I know. The violin
metaphor/analogy fits better. Are there problems with it? Sure.
You continue:
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Burgy again:
> Your FGC concept is certainly within the
> realm of possible explanations. What I argue is first that it is not
the
> ONLY explanation we should consider (I think you'd agree on that) and
> also that at least one other explanation appears (to me at least) to be
a
> better one. I could be wrong, of course. I've been wrong before. But I
> have to identify that explanation which has both more meaning and more
> explanatory value to me at the time, even if I change my alleged mind
> later on.
Fair enough, but I can't evaluate your "better one" until I know what
kind
of divine action the "playing" symbolizes.
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I can accept that. I affirm that your position is worked out much better
than mine. That will always be the case, so I have no goal of leading you
to change your mind on all this. I do have a goal to understand the FGC
position better.
You continue:
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> A question on your FGC concept. Is there room within it for God to play
> with -- interact with -- the creation? To change "how particles/energy
> fields bump into particles/energy fields" non-causally, as a result of
> his creatures (us) prayers? If not -- then our prayers are so much
wasted
> effort, IMHO. And if that is so, Christianity is reduced to a cruel
joke.
As you do, Burgy, I think we must have a way of speaking about divine
action
in a way that includes not only the invariant action that provides the
support that is essential to all creaturely action (like God's sustaining
the Creation in being) but also includes authentically variable action
(as
in response to intercessory prayer).
But speaking of God's variable action in language that portrays God as an
agent that coercively overpowers creatures (whether atoms or persons)
seems
to me to invite all manner of theodicy problems, to amplify "the problem
of
evil," and to suggest that God would violate the being once given to
creatures (coercing them to act in ways contrary to their being). So,
like
many theologians that I have interacted with, I seek to understand how
God
can act effectively (that is, effecting an outcome that is different from
what would otherwise have happened) but in a noncoercive manner.
In this endeavor I do not find traditional Christian theology
particularly
helpful. (For one thing, it was crafted before we learned what remarkable
capabilities the universe was given.) The one contemporary theological
community that seems most keen to articulate a concept of effective, but
noncoercive, variable divine action is the process theologians. David Ray
Griffin's book, _Religion and Scientific Naturalism_ represents a major
effort to do just that.
So, to get back to your question: Yes, Burgy, there is more than enough
room
in the FGC concept for God to act in, and interact with, the Creation in
any
way that is consistent with God's character and God's will. The most that
the FGC concept does on the topic of divine action is to propose that one
traditional category of divine action -- the category of form-imposing
intervention as a means of actualizing new creaturely forms -- is
unnecessary because God gave to the Creation at the beginning all of the
resources (properties, capabilities, potentialities) that would be needed
to
actualize the full spectrum of physical structures and life forms in the
course of time.
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OK. I am reading Griffin's book as part of a course I'm auditing this
quarter at Iliff. If I can get past his rather uncritical (IMHO)
acceptance of paranormal activities, and that one makes the book suspect
to me, I will maybe learn something. We are studying Whitehead, Bultmann,
Berger, McFague and a few others in this course also. At the same time
I'm revisiting Gribbin's SCHROEDINGER'S KITTENS ( a great book on QM, I
think) and trying hard to wade through Huw Price's book, TIME'S ARROW.
I think I understand FGC better as a result of your last paragraph. I
would observe that FGC, then, allows the violin maker to play his
creation as much as my concept does; it just does not allow him to make
changes to it (the violin) as he plays but rather limits him to accepting
only those changes he built into the violin in the first place. It also
says, I think, that while God is perfectly capable of creating, at any
time and in any place, an entirely new and novel life form, he has not,
does not, and will not, do this.
Thanks for the dialog, Howard.
When are you going to add your web site to the ASA members & friends
list? < G >
Burgy (John Burgeson)
www.burgy.50megs.com
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