PantaRhea

Whitehead came to his view of God rather reluctantly. On the one hand he described God as the "chief exemplification to all metaphysical principles" and then he ended up making God a metaphysical exception. It is agreed by almost all who have followed Whitehead that Hartesorne made a needed correction to Whitehead in order to have a truly coherent philosophy. But, perhaps you can explain why you are more attracted to Whitehead's view than Harteshorne's? Did you understand why coercive power is a a power which can only be used in relation to one fragment of reality against another fragment? And why it would be metaphysically impossible for a Universal Individual to have coercive power? I'm not asking if you agree with the argument... I'm asking if you understand it, and if you do and still don't agree, why not? No. First, process philosophy doesn't teach that God/dess wouldn't exist if the universe didn't exist. It does teach that God wouldn't exist if 'a' universe didn't exist, but God is not dependent upon "this" universe. To understand why, we must go back to the basic process assumption about reality - we must abandon a substance ontology and accept an event ontology. If we do, we have also brought our thinking into line with the science of physics as well. Reality consists of energy EVENTS, not "things" or substance. As someone said recently (and this is very, very, important to underrstand), there is no MATTER, there is only ENERGY. We mentally project metaphysical "form" on events to interpret them as objects (see The Matter Myth, by Paul Davies. So, to better understand why God would not exist if there were no universe, we must first understand that anything "actual" is an event, not a substance. Once an event "happens" it becomes an object which is included in other events. If there are no events, there are no actualities and apart from actualilties, as the ontological principle puts it, there is nothing, nothing, nothing. Let me try another way to explain it: Do we have any existence apart from our experiences? If you think you are some kind of substance, you will think you do. You will imagine that you are an experiencer having experiences. But process thought says you don't. All events (down to the quanta) are experiencing events. Reality is created from drops of experience. Now, that's a tough one to swallow for many, but if it is not true, and if reality is simply an aggregate of vacuous (no subjective nature) entities then we have lost all causal explanation and we have to believe that nature has no intrinsic value. Unfortunately, we humans have a long history where we have regarded nature as having instrumental value only (but I digress ) So, from a process p.o.v., if you've never had an experience, you don't exist. And if all experiences of any kind (even the experiences of electrons) were to cease... that is, if all energy of any kind were somehow to be eliminated, God/dess would also cease to exist - because the process of creation - The Many (experiences) Become One (experience) and Are Increased by One (a new experience is added to the Whole)- applies to God/dess as well as any other instance of actuality. Maybe another way to explain: Right now I am an integration of all the influences in my environment. Because my environment is in the process of "becoming" I too am becoming. And yet I am a union of these influences and not simply a conglomeration of influences. I include my environment in atomistic instances of "being". If I am listening to music, the music becomes included in the series of "beings" that constitute my self. As I read these messages, those who post messages to this forum become a part of me. God/dess includes the universe - there is nothing, nothing, nothing outside each instance of God's Being. If I don't have an environment, I do not exist. If there is no universe of some kind, God does not exist. If God is the "ground of being", God must have Being. All "Beings" are contingent - because a "being" is a selection from among possibilities. A "being" is what happened - something else might have happened instead. A "being" cannot change. It is what it is. If it can change, it no longer is. But God cannot simply "be" and include a changing and growing universe. There can only be a series of "beings" or actualities, each becoming actuality including everything in the past. Each "being" has contingent existence, but the SERIES of Beings we often refer to as God, has NECESSARY existence. Ken Wilber perhaps has simpler terminlogy. According to Ken Wilber, reality consists of Whole/Parts which are called holons. God/dess is a Holon just as we are (click here for site) - Holons. I'm trying to help.

Why does the Metalibrary site list Phil Clayton as a non-process panentheist? He's about as much a process thinker as you can get! I think the site lists distinctives among various views which aren't really differences. Phil Clayton His online papers are a good read, btw.

I don't even know where to start... It was fairly obvious that John Ankerberg (sp?) didn't have a clue about process philosophy and has probably only read a few encyclopedic entries providing a summary of process thought. For the record, PROCESS THOUGHT DOES NOT UNDERSTAND GOD TO BE A "CHANGING BEING"! This is so fundamentally opposed to process thought that... Process theology is one form of panentheism. It is possible to be a panentheist without adopting process philosophy, and you can accept a form of process philosophy without being a panentheist. Process Theology is based upon rational conclusions drawn from process philosophy. Process philosophy is a speculative philosophy - which means that it speculates or provides a model for describing reality - or explaining why we experience the universe as we do. It is a general scheme of ideas which has an ontology, an epistemology, and a cosmology. One can accept the model, revise the model, or reject the model, but to reject it because of John Ankerberg's ignorance... well, it may be better to ask if Whitehead's philosophy has met his own criteria: 1. Is it coherent? 2. Is it adequate to explain the facts of our experience? 3. Is it enlightening? Open View Theology accepts some of the premises of Process Theology, but is not willing to abandon some of the traditional dogma of Christianity. Some of the dogma it is not willing to abandon is not even biblical - such as "creation ex-nihilo", which most proponents of Open View admit. Both the Bible and Process Theology understand creation out of chaos, rather than creation from nothing. Of course, as soon as we say "nothing" we have to bring our ontological understanding into the discussion. What is a "thing"? Understood from one perspective, the Process Theist can agree with "creation ex-nihilo". "Things" only exist if there is of enduring form or orderliness. There is a fair amount of dialog between some Process Theist and Open View Theist (the labels are not realy clear, because Process Theology also holds that the future is "open"). I would recommend Searching for An Adequate God by Cobb and Pinnock to see where they are similar and where they differ. What I find ironic, is that John Ankerberg tries to criticise Procss Theology from a rational or philosophical perspective when he is obviously underequipped for the job. He may try to prop up his own theology with philosophy, but the real foundation for his theology is a traditional interpretation of the Bible. Of course, all interpretations have an ontological, epistemological, and cosmological background (worldview). The question must be asked, what criteria do we use to judge other worldviews which are not our own? If we always judge another's worldview from within our own, we will always be at war with others. As to whether God "acts" on the world... Process Theology rejects the idea that God has coercive power. Coercive power can be described as "external power". My body can act upon other bodies only because it is external to other bodies. God is understood by Process Theology to be All-Inclusive (the single unique Universal Individual) and therefore can have no external power. However, God/dess does have unsurpassable internal, or relational power - sometimes called "persuasive power". This power can be described as the power of love. I believe I can make a convincing argument that of the two types of power (coercive and persuasive), the latter is, by far the kind of power which can produce the most change and is the most effective. Therefore, Process Theology understands that the "acts" of God/dess, although never coercive (God can never act as to remove the freedom of another individual), are absolutely the greatest acts using the greatest power of any existing individual. Spong's (and Tillich's) idea of God as the "ground of being" can be said to be true of the God of Process Theology - but not adequate as a full description of God. It is an abstract idea. All abstracts are derived from actualities (the ontological principle) and therefore can't exist as an idea unless it is attached to an actuality (ideas must have a ground) The concept of the "ground of being" must be "grounded" in necessary existence. All actualities are particular and therefore contingent. The only logical ground therefore, for "being", is not a particular contingent "being" (or actuality) but an entity which includes all actualities - the All-Inclusive Whole. I know this is difficult to understand. Our language is based upon not only on our experience of reality, but a shared interpretation of experience - which in turn, is based upon a shared worldview with its own metaphysical (ontological, epistemological, and cosmological) understanding. Ironically, it will only become easier to understand when more people understand it. (See Rupert Sheldrake's theory of "morphic resonance" as a possible explanation of why this is so.) I hope this has at least been somewhat helpful.

Uh-oh. It's getting really deeeeep in here! Cool!! So, you identify God with Pure Potentiality - or in process terms, 'Creativity'. This would make, as you've implied, actuality a derivative of potentiality. And yet, as Aristotle discovered, there can be no potentiality apart from actuality. Potentiality must follow actuality - as the possibility of the tree can only follow from the actuality of the acorn, or the possibility of the adult can only follow from the actuality of the child. And yet, the acorn or the child existed as potentials before they existed as actualities. If all potentialities are derived from actualities, and all actualities were potential before they were actual, we can't really say that either pontentiality or actuality is ultimate. Maybe there are TWO ULTIMATES? And neither of them is derived from the other? Now we're talkin' Process!! And, as you say, it is difficult to understand.

Ah Hah! Now Cynthia is asking the big questions! One of our cats which has owned us for over 16 yrs. died this morning. Not now, but I've got some thoughts about death I think I'd like to share sometime. Anyway, several comments: Does anybody else think it is funny that we would argue whether it is easier to think than it is to meditate? It seems to me that both require discipline and we can be just as slack in one as the other. But, perhaps some of us are more "feeling" oriented than "thinking" oriented so we find it easier to do what seems to come naturally - for us. But, this is why we need one another. Someone said that they find Process Theology too impersonal. It may be presented impersonally - that is, it is most often presented in the dry, impersonal, intellectual language of philosophy, but it is THE most pesonal theology I'm aware of - anthropomorphic, no; personal yes. This is one of the best description of God/dess as understood by process thought that I've seen. God is BOTH infinite and finite, absolute and relative, personal and impersonal... But right now I'm out of time.

If theology is so much easier to do than praying/meditation/experiencing God, why do so few do it? We can of course, retreat to the cave and spend our life in monastic silence, "experiencing God". But if we come out of the cave and into community, we enter the struggle with others to interpret or understand our experience of God. Furthermore, we discover that the interpretation of our experience affects HOW we experience God when we go back to the cave. It is easier to pray/meditate/experience God than it is to struggle with the questions.

I have some opinions about prayer, but I have a few questions I need to ask first: What are we talking about when we use the word "God"? What does it mean to understand God as Mystery? Are we saying that God is "Wholly Other"? Does this mean that there is nothing about God to which we can relate? Every word in our language points to our shared relation to reality, doesn't it? If so, and if we have no relation to God, the word "God" has no meaning, does it? Why would we use the term then? If there is nothing we can say about God which conveys meaning, isn't the term "God" irrelevant? If the word "God" does have meaning, what is it? Is it strictly a private meaning which differs from person to person? If so, does it make sense to use the word in discussions with others if what we mean by our use of the term is not related in any way to what some else might mean? If God is somehow related to all of us, what kind of relationship is it? I'm thinking that there are only two types of relationships (really only one) - an internal relationship where the "other" becomes somehow included within a subject, or an external relationship in which there is no subjective experience of any kind. Another way to ask this, does God have any awareness of our existence? Does our existence make any difference at all to God's actuality? And finally, what do we understand about the nature of reality? Is it rational (understandable)? Is it benevolent or apathetic? Does it have anything to do with our concept of God? It seems to me that our understanding of prayer is going to depend upon our answers to these questions. Eh?

I very much agree with what you say here. We do have the power to create reality, but our power is relative, not absolute. The word "ego" raises all kinds of confusion. Some equate it with pride, some equate it with the idea of a separate false or illusionary existence. For Freud it simply meant the "I" or what we mean when we refer to our individual existence. I think it would be worth your while to read some of Wilber's stuff, but just so ya know, he doesn't mean anything more, really, than what you learned about the first person, second person, and third person perspectives in your grade school English class. If you combine the "it" and "its" you can correlate the "I", "We", and "It" to art, morals, and science respectively. The four perspectives can also be related to the Intentional ("I"), Cultural ("We"), Behavioral ("It"), and Social ("Its") perspectives.

I remember listening to a speaker at a Missions conference tell us that God hadn't called us to "clean up the stream, but to rescue the fish in it".

Well, his website is part of Shambala.com, which is a buddhist publishing company. Many of the buddhists I know will run and hide (or get very annoyed) if anything that looks too much like theism shows up, in my experience. I'm not all that familiar with Whitehead and Process yet myself, but if most of Wilber's "followers" are coming from eastern traditions, that may have something to do with it. Well, Whitehead's philosophy isn't exactly theistic (depending upon your definition), and it's been said (even by Whitehead) that Process Philosophy has more in common with eastern thought than western. I wonder though... Process thought is definitely more rationalistic than mystic and it seems to me, in the little I've read on Wilber's forum, that most of the participants there lean toward the mystical side of reality. Wilber writes of two types of mysticism - one coming before rational development, and one coming after, which he labels as transrational or visionlogic. I think Wilber has taken some heat because of his position. It seems to me, that a lot of the "New Agers" almost pride themselves on their lack of rationality (which they say is part of the "ego"). Do the Buddhist also avoid the rational side of life?

Gosh. Thanks for the welcome! Perennial philosophy, eh? Here's one source for information: http://www.philosophy-religion.com/perenni.../philosophy.htm Or you could go directly to Huxley's writings who, I believe, coined the term. The idea was, to find some basic commonalities with all religions. If there is any validity to religious intuitions, if religious intuitions are intuitions of something real, then we should be able to at least find some points of intersection. Even though we are like the blind men examining the elephant, there should be some way of putting all of our descriptions together and making sense of them - IF we are all examining the same elephant. I interpret Wilber to say that yes, the ancient mystics were indeed saying something true about the elephant, but their interpretation of their experience was limited at that time because of their (relatively) limited understanding of reality. We, of course, are also limited. However, modern science has provided us with much more information than they had. Therefore, we don't simply dismiss the mystics but we integrate their descriptions of interior reality with that of science and its descriptions of exterior reality.

I've read the book by Foster (many years ago) and I've fasted for extended times (usually at least 3 days, never over 7) with others. I can't really remember why we fasted, but it was usually for a reason. Oh yeah, I remember on one occasion we fasted for, or because of, one of the women in our community who was going through a very tough divorce situation. The fasting was done in order to keep her in our mind - as the Quakers put it, "to hold her to the Light". The idea was that whenever one felt hunger, that desire was translated into a desire for well-being for this person. It's been a few years, but I remember this as a very powerful experience. Say what you will about moderation vs extremes but some things simply can't be accomplished with moderation. An athlete who is really in competition won't get very far if he/she trains in moderation. What one experiences after 2-3 days of fasting is much different than experiences up to that time. Perhaps a measure of control over one's appetite is gained through extended times of fasting? I don't know... but I don't think testing the limits of our endurance, patience, bodily demands, etc., is such a bad thing. You know (if you can't tell, I'm typing as I think), doesn't Foster have something about the discipline of prayer and meditation as well? As I understand it, the mystics will usually say that transformation of consciousness requires extended times of meditation and/or prayer. Hmmmmm...

Lolly, Before you spend your hard-earned money, you might sample Ken here: Wilber Sample It seems to me that he provides a much needed correction to a lot of the gnostic teaching which is popular among the "enlightened". It seems to me, that he is able to integrate Process Philosophy with Perennial Philosophy. Or so it seems to me... BTW, Ken Wilber mentions Whitehead all the time but it seems that very few of his "followers" are familiar with Process at all.

I've been running into more and more people who say they have been helped by "A Course in Miracles". I don't get it though. I have begun thinking of ACIM as a course in "Nothing-Matterism". "My grandmother just got raped, but it doesn't matter because it didn't REALLY happen, and she doesn't REALLY exist anyway." Is this a fairly accurate understanding of what ACIM teaches? Can anybody provide a better understanding? Jeep?

Wow! Lolly you articulated so much of what seems to just buzz around in my head when I read some of the New Age material. I don't know which is worse, actually - the traditional idea of a God who punishes us if we are not obedient, or the idea that WE are gods (or simply thoughts in God's consciousness) and that anything negative which happens to us is of our own creation. Although I've got some friends who deny it, it seems to me that to teach that the world is an illusion, rather than teaching (as you have put it) that our perceptions of the world are constructed, is tantamount to the avoidance of suffering by the means of denial. It's not psychologically healthy. Perhaps the pathology of much of this gnostic teaching is that the power of the mind to create is absolute, rather than relative. As you say (which is very much in agreement with the concepts found in Process thought), reality is co-created. I'm very interested at this time in Ken Wilber's Integral model of reality. Ken WilberIt seems that we may be able to diagnose worldviews by looking at how how much they are able to integrate the perspectives of I, We, It, and Its. New Age thought seems to exclude all perspectives except the "I".

Hi! I've been gone for a liitle while but I hope to be able to spend more time on this board. As to the topic... an interesting development of New Thought can be found here: Process Philosophy and New Thought

Hi Ken, Welcome... and please send the small fee (mentioned earlier) to this office (email me privately for address and details).

It's not necessarily the term a pantheist would use, but I believe the concept of a single actuality is an accurate description of the view. Would the term "single Actor" help. The problem with using substituting that term is that it would already imply that a "single actuality" can create. All "acts" are creation of reality, agreed? I don't think philosophy necessarily muddies the waters, but it can point out all the mud that is already in the water which we failed to notice when we thought it was clear. I agree that our faith should rest on our experience of God. However, we tend to experience what we believe it is possible to believe - altough we can have an experience which can shake our beliefs and cause us to re-examine them. On the other hand, philosophy should provide a reason to re-examine our beliefs by keeping us uncomfortable with its relentless probing questions. Where are the physical substances? Take a closer look at one of the tables used at the party. If anything should be an example of a physical substance, it should be this, right? And yet if we really look close, and I mean with the best instruments that are available, we won't find any substance. What we will find are events. This is what science tells us - not just process philosophy. Although terms like "particle" and "matter" are used, it is now understood that the terms are abstract. They don't really define reality. The problem is that our language and "common sense" hasn't caught up yet with science. The difference between the party and the table is that the party begins and ends and doesn't endure except as an object of the past. The table is made up of "parties" which last for quantum units of time but as each party ends, another party with the same "theme" begins. From our perspective, the repetition of these "parties" give the appearance of an enduring "stuff". Although light, or a photon can be described as BOTH a particle and a wave, the use of the term "particle" shouldn't lead you to believe that it is any kind of substance. If you were to travel at 186,000 miles per second and have a look at a photon, what would you see? Nothing. The photon is an energy event. It is not a "thing".

What kind of relationship would this have been? If this idea is used to ground the concept of love (which requires an "other") in God, it may do more than its proponents wish. Rather than a trinitarian view, it would be tritheism. Also, it doesn't explain how God could have created contingent existence. Presumably all 3 persons would have had necessary existence and there is simply no way to derive contingent existence from necessary existence. Judaism historically has had a different type of ontology than Christianity or Islam although it didn't ask the same questions as the early Greek metaphysicians. In fact, as I understand it, Judaism didn't view the "person" so much as a substance (a "soul" having experiences) but a body/soul which acted. Christianity and Islam were very much influenced by Aristotole through Aquinas. The point is that Aristotle didn't have an infallible ontology. Once we rid ourselves of the "substance" ontology it is possible to understand how the creature can be included in the Creator and not be an "amalgam". An analogy of the teacher/student relationship may help to explain the concept. As the teacher shares his/her knowledge with the student, something of what the teacher "is" becomes included in the student. It might be said that what the student is becoming under the influence of the teacher is being "created" by the teacher.

Yes! By the time I made my reply, the definition for "qualified monism" had already been posted. Story of my life... always behind. Well, first I don't think it will ever make sense as long as we view reality as "stuff". I know it's very difficult to conceive of it in any other way, and yet we do have hints of another way of understanding reality within our language. For instance, do we normally consider a party as a "stuff"? It has a form of definiteness, and yet it is not a "thing". It is an event. But even if we look at a rock, we will see that it is not made of "stuff", but events. In Process Thought the most fundamental units of reality are called 'Actual Occasions'. Actual occasions (or actual entities) “are the final real things of which the world is made up. There is no going behind actual entities to find anything more real.” (PR18) By “actual” it is concrete or real. By “occasion” it is an event, an act, a happening, a process. It corresponds to the “atom” of Newtonian physics, but it should be more properly visualized as a wave of energy than a bit of matter or a particle. Like a wave, it cannot be separated from its environment, nor can it be divided. We might also say of the world that it is made up, not of inert bits of matter, but organisms. These actual occasions are forms of life – if we equate life with that which has feelings or experience. But actual occasions do not have experience; they are experience – “drops of experience, complex and interdependent”. They are interdependent because each "becoming" event includes all the events in its past. It includes them by "feeling" (or, in Process terms, 'prehending') them. Each actual occasion is internally related to the world and to God/dess. God/dess includes or 'prehends' the universe. Nothing exists externally to God/dess. Every moment of joy, pain, and sorrow is felt by God/dess. If love is defined as a sympathetic awareness of the "other", God/dess IS love. An analogy is the relation that we have with our own bodies. If our thumb gets hit by a hammer, we feel the pain in our thumb sympathetically. "Chaos" is a lack of order. At one time there were only random energy events but from that God/dess brought order out of chaos which by providing her own vision of beauty and harmony to each becoming actual occasion. In Process terms this is called the 'initial aim'. However, each actual occasion is itself a center of creativity. It has its own 'subjective aim'. This accounts for the existence of evil. Process Theology understands that "a" world has always existed. There has never been a state of existence of a single actual occasion. Probably clear as mud, eh?

Interesting that you've almost quoted my friend's book, It's all One Truth - The problem, as I see it, is with the idea that "God created" - IF we understand that God (or the ONE) is the only ultimate and primordially a single actuality or "Being". From where would this creativity come? There are several ways of seeing the problem, one of them being from the view of necessary existence. If God has necessary existence, God must create necessarily if we are going to say that God does indeed create. Therefore, God cannot create contingently or have some experiences which are creative, and others which are not. However, creativity by definition, involves novelty or something new. "Something new" is by definition contingent existence. Therefore, the concept that a necessarily existing God understood as a primordially existing single actuality (or a ONE without parts) can create, is incoherent. But God can be understood as a ONE which includes the MANY (as in panentheism coupled with panexperientialism) whose existence is BOTH contingent and necessary (because every member within the "set" of actualities (the world) has contingent existence, whereas the "set" (a world) has necessary existence). This is a "qualified monism" or perhaps can even be defined as a "qualified pluralism" because this view further understands that there are TWO ultimate realities. God, as the ONE who includes the MANY is the Ultimate Personal Reality, and Creativity understood as the Ultimate Principle of existence (in other words, God does not create creativity) or the Ultimate Impersonal Reality. This would not only be a coherent solution to the problem of the ONE and the MANY, but, as David Griffin argues, it may explain why the Eastern religious experience is often of an impersonal ultimate reality, while the Western religious experience is of a personal ultimate reality. At least it makes sense to me.

It seems we are in major agreement concerning "qualified monism"! David Griffin has an interesting discussion of Ramanuja's view in his book, Reenchantment without Supernaturalism. p. 278-279

Why do you think so? I think only supernaturalism (dualism) and monism are diametrically opposed. Do Christianity, Judaism and Islam require a supernatural worldview?

This can become rather involved, but for me the simplest way of making a distinction between non-dualism which is ultimately non-relational, and a non-dualism which is relational, is to see where they begin - what do the views understand to be primordial. It is here that we see the difference between pantheistic and panentheistic views. Back in the earliest days when philosophy had its beginning, panentheism wasn't even seen as an option - unless we can count Heraclitus who may have had a glimpse of it. Otherwise the philosophical arguments consisted of figuring out what kind of substance(s) the world was made of. There are three main arguments of this type - dualism (DesCartes, supernaturalism), monism (modern science, Spinoza, gnosticism) and pluralism (Liebnitz). What they all have in common is the idea that there is some kind of enduring "stuff" which undergoes change (or appears to undergo change) yet retains its numerical self-identity through a period of time. The problem is in getting over Parmenides who argued effectively that a substance cannot change and retain its identity. Therefore, as Parmenides said, change is an illusion (his arguments were backed up by Zeno's paradoxes). Monism then says that there is only one "thing" - we can label it as the ONE. Pluralism says that there are many things - we can label its view as the MANY. The problem is that we experience the MANY and the ONE. But logically (when we view reality as substance) we cannot derive the MANY from the ONE, or the ONE from the MANY because there is no way to account for relatedness. A common solution to this logical conundrum, is to claim that it is unsolvable - it can only be understood by faith; it is Mystery. For instance, for Christians, Jews, and Muslems, the idea that God created the world ex nihilo makes no sense logically but that doesn't stop them from believing it. Interestingly enough, it seems that in areas of life other than religion, if it doesn't make sense it is rejected. It is exactly this problem of understanding how the MANY can be related to the ONE which can lead to a monistic view which is non-relational. Relations can only be understood in terms of "otherness". If "otherness" is understood to be an illusion, then we are deceived by our experience. This deception is seen to be the root of our problems. If we notice that most of relations with others are screwed up, one way to solve the problem is to deny that the others exist. If this is so, there is no evil, God is impersonal (without relations), and terms like 'love' are reinterpreted to avoid the connotation of relationships. For instance, love usually means having a sympathetic response toward the "other". It is reinterpreted to mean an "unconditional acceptance". This can still resonate with those who hear this reinterpretation. However, the reinterpretation is deceptive in that it leaves out the implicit understanding that love is unconditional because there are no conditions. If there is no "otherness", there are no conditions, no relations, no values. I've worked with enough people who had problems with alcohol, spousal abuse, etc., to see that the method of denial (which is what I believe ACIM ultimately offers), only hides the problem while giving the appearance that it has been solved.

Hallelujah!! The Gospel has indeed been preached throughout the whole of creation! Must be time for the RAPTURE!!