tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post7236933598647527086..comments2024-01-01T08:18:36.278-05:00Comments on Real Physics: Phillip Johnson, Put Down that Kool-Aid!Lawrence Gagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-34452014473781847392008-06-09T07:26:00.000-04:002008-06-09T07:26:00.000-04:00In terms of speaking of God as personal, the sense...In terms of speaking of God as personal, the sense of the term "person" as used by Chalcedon and later councils applied primarily to God as a subsisting relational subject. So, to refer to God as supra-personal seems to deviate from the standard Christian orthodox position. I suppose that if one holds to the God of Process thought, as Peacocke does drawing from Hartshorne, one is bound to use such terms since their concept of God is rather unorthodox. For instance, Peacocke holds that God suffers in the kenosis of creation, such language and thought is highly problematic in its ontological underpinnings since this God is somehow subject to change and motion in terms of potency and act.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-44707460945855256022008-06-08T08:45:00.000-04:002008-06-08T08:45:00.000-04:00Thank you, Dr. Cage, for an informing article. I t...Thank you, Dr. Cage, for an informing article. I think you hit the nail right on the head here.<BR/><BR/>I have studied the position of Peacocke's panentheism a bit, and I have seen the reference made to him by Rick. I think I could clarify a bit on both Saint Augustine and Peacocke.<BR/><BR/>First, Saint Augustine had the cosmic vision of the world as embedded in God as a "sponge in some vast sea" (<I>Confessions</I>). This vision is directly comparable to modern day panentheisms, which see God as transcending and penetrating the world at the same time. But the insight of Saint Augustine is all the more astonishing when one considers that he acknowledged that time equals motion, and before creation there would be no time at all (<I>Confessions</I>). These statements, when taken together, equals what some panentheists envision as a block-universe with a "sponge" in a "vast sea".<BR/><BR/>Peacocke did not subscribe to the notion that God knows the future, but he rejected this notion on theological grounds. In this respect Peacocke seems to adhere to Process theology. But it is not correct to claim that Peacocke rejected the notion of God as personal. In fact, he assumed that God would be "at least personal", and that "personal" is the least misleading way of describing God. He preferred term was that of God as "supra-personal". This view can be clarified, I think, if one considers that by talking of God as "just another" person, one does not do justice to God as the source of all persons.Under_the_moonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14192432808589455460noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-48245653056930492762008-06-03T21:12:00.000-04:002008-06-03T21:12:00.000-04:00I am on the road and without my Schoenborn, so a p...I am on the road and without my Schoenborn, so a precise quote must wait a week or so.TheOFloinnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14756711106266484327noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-25367182608155443512008-06-02T15:38:00.000-04:002008-06-02T15:38:00.000-04:00Thank you for the references to the articles. Re:...Thank you for the references to the articles. <BR/><BR/>Re: panentheism, it was also used by Rev. Arthur Peacocke, the biologist and Anglican priest, though for some reason I often got the sense that his writings reaked of naturalism and Process thought. He came to lecture to one of our classes, and I remember that he did not like the concept of "person" applied to God, stated that he found it "limiting" and he offered no elaboration on that statement. I am not stating that others who evoke panentheism hold Peacocke's views. Other than the Cardinal's book, one of the clearest presentations of Thomistic natural philsophy I have read is Fr. Emonet's trilogy on Being, Person and God which I think would be consonant with the defintion you offer above regarding panentheism. Through out the texts, he uses the images of poets and artists in combination with metaphysics to show God as the divine artist in creation. In this sense, the analogy of conception is apt. <BR/><BR/>In the Cardinal's book, he references creatio continua as part of God's primary causality, though no explicit reference is made to Augustine. Ironically, Peacocke made a similar reference to that term, though I do not think he was using it in the same sense as Cardinal Schonborn.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-47566436295117536292008-06-01T22:07:00.000-04:002008-06-01T22:07:00.000-04:00Thanks for your comment, Mike. I haven't (yet) rea...Thanks for your comment, Mike. I haven't (yet) read the Cardinal's book, though I hear it is very good. Would you mind providing a reference or even a quotation from Augustine?<BR/><BR/>I think I see what you mean by conception (the start of something new), but I wonder if you could elaborate a bit.<BR/><BR/>LGLawrence Gagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01242322119143922513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10944560.post-26837691944185111472008-06-01T15:53:00.000-04:002008-06-01T15:53:00.000-04:00the teaching of [the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental...<I>the teaching of [the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox] Churches is that God is not merely necessary to have created the universe, but that His active presence is necessary in some way for every bit of creation, from smallest to greatest, to continue to exist at all.</I> <BR/><BR/>This is precisely what Cardinal Schoenborn wrote in his latest book, <I>Chance or Design?</I> It is called <I>creatio continuo</I> and goes back at least to Augustine. His former professor, Ratzinger, now the B-15, once wrote that it is misleading to compare creation to making artifacts; the proper image is that of conception.TheOFloinnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14756711106266484327noreply@blogger.com