Re: [asa] on TE and deism

Ted said: *My own biggest problem with panentheism, which perhaps you share
(judging
from your reference below to the miraculous), is that panentheism strongly
mutes or even rejects divine omnipotence (for an evaluation of this, see the
article on "Panentheism" by panentheist David Nikkel in the Thomson/Gale
Encyclopedia of Science and Religion).*

Also, for a dramatized version of panentheism, read Stephen Baxter's science
fiction novel Transcendent (http://tinyurl.com/2gzjyr) In short, the novel
involves a post-human networked mind that essentially evolves into "God"
with the help of an artifical intelligence. It's a crummy novel, but it
illustrates how alot of the impetus behind artificial intelligence /
transhumanism is this panentheistic notion that "god" emerges from such
structures as "mind" emerges from our biological structure.

Ted said: * This world is not like that, and this world must be
replaced by a new world with new properties before we have heaven.*

Query: does this world necessarily get "replaced by a new world," or does
the existing world get repaired / completed -- as in some Reformed
eschatologies or as in someone like Ted Peters' notion of "proleptic
co-creation"? Does Peters lean towards panentheism? Are panentheism and
process thought linked?
On Jan 23, 2008 12:23 PM, Ted Davis <TDavis@messiah.edu> wrote:

> IMO, Jon, the position you outlined is simply classical theism, not
> panentheism. Lots of traditional Christians, for many centuries, would
> affirm what you wrote. Boyle and Calvin would be two prominent examples,
> Aquinas probably another. Newton, too, though his theology was
> non-Trinitarian.
>
> In panentheism, unless I badly misunderstand it (which is certainly a
> possibility), it is typical to understand God and the world as co-existing
> in something pretty close to a symbiotic relationship. God actually needs
> the world, and thus the world was not and is not a free creation: God
> could
> not have chosen not to create. The world is "within God" (hence the
> name),
> not actually God (as in pantheism), but sometimes the lines get blurred
> pretty badly.
>
> My own biggest problem with panentheism, which perhaps you share (judging
> from your reference below to the miraculous), is that panentheism strongly
> mutes or even rejects divine omnipotence (for an evaluation of this, see
> the
> article on "Panentheism" by panentheist David Nikkel in the Thomson/Gale
> Encyclopedia of Science and Religion). Your view below, in which God
> actively sustains the universe, challenges panentheists, some of whom
> might
> want to say what you do, but will not invoke omnipotence in doing so.
> Without omnipotence or something darn close to it, IMO, you get no bodily
> resurrection -- which I take as the real historical source of Christianity
> -- and IMO no immortality either. A lot of theologians in the past 100
> years have denied the bodily resurrection, on the grounds that it's
> incredible and could not have happened (ie, God doesn't have the power to
> do
> it: our confidence in the uniformity of nature overcomes our confidence in
> God's power), but have affirmed some sort of personal immortality. (Some
> panentheists seem to want a more impersonal immortality, in that we are
> "remembered" by God, but this is not the kind of immortality that
> interests
> me or most other Christians.) The disconnect in this combination is
> amazing, but it was quite common 80 years ago. God somehow, some way,
> would
> give us eternal life -- as long as that didn't involve some kind of
> miracle,
> such as the resurrection. As I say, an amazing disconnect, but there it
> was. And still is, for some thinkers. Either too much thinking, or not
> enough, seems to cause this.
>
> On the other hand, Polkinghorne has lately been talking about how heaven
> is
> panentheism realized -- everything exists entirely within God. Maybe so;
> there's something to think about. But to get there, as P realizes, we
> need
> an act of omnipotence. This world is not like that, and this world must
> be
> replaced by a new world with new properties before we have heaven. Just
> as
> Christ has a new body, like but not like ours. Can't get rid of
> omnipotence
> here, and P knows it. But then, he also believes in the bodily
> resurrection, and you can't get rid of omnipotence there, either.
>
> Ted
>
>
>
> >>> "Jon Tandy" <tandyland@earthlink.net> 1/23/2008 10:32 AM >>>
> Upon further reflection and a little more reading, I believe the view I
> expressed below is actually better described by (at least one variation
> of)
> the theological term "panentheism". Deism would hold instead that God is
> separate from the creation, and in fact remains separate from it after
> "spinning it up" in the first place, letting it operate without divine
> intervention. Pantheism (at least a form of it) would be the better
> description of the view that "the universe is God".
>
> And finally theism -- someone help me out here. Does strict theism, or
> theism in some of the major Christian traditions, require God to be
> separate
> from and transcendent of creation, as opposed to panentheism? It seems
> from
> reference.com (http://www.reference.com/search?q=theism) that theism is a
> very broad category that can include such diverse ideas such as
> polytheism,
> pantheism, panentheism, dystheism, etc.
>
> If theism can be so broadly defined, is this one reason so much difference
> and robust discussion exists around the concept of "theistic evolution"
> (aside from any scientific arguments)?
>
>
> Jon Tandy
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
> Behalf Of Jon Tandy
> Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2008 8:12 AM
> To: asa@calvin.edu
> Subject: Re: [asa] EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed
>
>
> As to your discussion of deism, I'm not sure where that came from. I
> certainly don't argue for deism. If anything, I'm leaning toward the idea
> that regardless of the "apparent" natural history of the universe, God is
> in
> all and through all things, and "by him all things consist" (Col 1:17).
> This is not to say that "nature is God" (which, as I understand it, is
> deistic). Rather, God not only makes his appearance within nature to
> openly
> perform what we would call miracles, but He is actively involved in all of
> creation, accomplishing His ultimate purposes in it from Day 1. Thus, we
> can say that God "sends the rain", even though we can also describe
> humidity, warm and cold fronts, and the condensation of water as the
> source
> of rain in a temporal sense. In the end, it is an incarnational model --
> God joined actively with nature, accomplishing His will through it, not
> just
> sitting on a throne in heaven and coming by once in a while for a visit.
> This is perhaps the ultimate in theism, not deism at all, because it
> doesn't
> deny God's active involvement, but embraces it through and through
> (including the miraculous).
>
>
>
>
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Received on Wed Jan 23 14:11:52 2008