FredP

Well, the notion of being "co-creators with God" is based on a conception of individual beings existing side-by-side with God in the causal manifold -- which, as I've just argued in another thread, I believe is a misconception. I think we relate to God in two kinds of ways. Firstly, we relate to God as transcendent, infinite, inexhaustible. In this case, I don't think we're in a position to offer God much of anything in the way of sage advice. Secondly, we relate to God as immanent, finite, manifest in the multiplicity of the cosmos. In this case, I don't think we "help God choose," so much as we become awakened to the reality of God's indwelling presence in all things, and learn to act -- and help others to act -- in harmony with that. And yes, I really am always this argumentative.

Very nice!

Ok, apparently I STILL haven't successfully convinced you that I'm not a monist. This is going to involve some weird verbal twists -- kind of like the whole time thing -- so hang on. I would characterize monism as the belief that God is a being -- note the presence of the article "a" -- from whom the cosmos proceeds, and in whom it exists. Monism is oneness in the numerical sense: the sense in which one is one less than two, one more than zero, etc. In this conception, there could -- logically, numerically -- be other beings, or none at all. It just so happens that there is exactly one, and no more than one, being in the universe, and that being is God. Conceptually, this view could happily underlie either pantheism -- God and the universe are materially co-existent; or panentheism -- the universe is less than God, but wholly contained within the being of God. And assuming I have defined monism correctly, it is a conception I wholeheartedly reject. The problem goes right back to the article I noted above: God is not an anything. God is not one in the numerical or quantitative sense, but in the sense of being ontologically undivided: not two --> nondual. The "oneness" that applies to God is not the same oneness that applies to individual beings; God completely transcends the kind of unity and multiplicity that apply to individual beings. The idea of a individual being "other than" God is a categorical confusion -- apples and oranges, infinity plus one. Individual beings don't exist side-by-side with God; we are a completely different order of reality. To sum up: in a nondual conception, when I say that individual beings exist in God, or are expressions of the divine nature, I don't mean that there is an individual divine being in whom all other lesser individual beings only appear to exist. I mean that out of God's "beyond being" proceed the very notions of being, of individuality and multiplicity -- and therefore actual, real, concrete, distinct beings. Now, to field an objection I can already hear coming. The God I've described sounds awfully far removed from us. How can we possibly relate to such unsurpassable infinity? The only answer I can give is: we don't. We can't -- God empties himself out for us, so that we can find him on our level of reality. Anyway, that's how I make sense out of all this. Hopefully it helps to understand where I'm coming from somewhat.

Yeah... I generally don't read anything personal into formatting markup. I can usually tell by a person's words when they're losing patience with me. I've heard that there are people out there who become very hurt when somebody types to them in all caps, because they feel yelled at. I think there's a little bit of a lost grip on reality going on there. Silly men, we are!

Fair enough. I just get all excited when these topics come 'round again.

Yes, there is. (See below.) God is eternal -- that is, God infinitely transcends time -- in God's essential nature, but temporal with respect to the cosmos. This is part of the separation involved in the divine self-limitation. Prior in an ontological sequence, but not a chronological sequence: strictly speaking, it's incoherent to talk about anything coming "before time" in a chronological sequence. It sounds like you're trying to imagine a chronological sequence of events wherein God empties himself into the temporal realm; hence the question whether God is in time "now" as opposed to.... "before"? But the cosmos is a self-contained spatio-temporal manifestation -- it's unrelated to God's essential nature -- or to any other possible spatio-temporal manifestation -- as far as space and time are concerned. The emptying of God into this universe has nothing to do with where God is "now" in relation to time, because there is no "now" outside of time! Beyond the cosmos we can talk about logical relationship, but not chrono-logical relationship. Time indeed is the way we measure change, but God is not time. Time is a contraction of eternity -- a self-emptying of eternity, the same way the cosmos is a self-emptying of God. Eternity, of course, isn't a far-off future time; it is the state of being that both negates the separateness of temporality, and gives the character of true presence to each moment of time. Keep in mind that, in a trinitarian model, God is dynamic, related being. The cosmos -- and by extension, we -- are individual expressions of the infinite depth of relatedness at the heart of God's being. You say "JUST God" as though this were somehow a limited form of something. This is like asking whether the value of x is infinity plus one, or JUST infinity!

You've discovered my mantra!

To be more specific concerning your question, God is self-limited with respect to the cosmos, but not in God's essential nature, which is inexhaustible. Don't know if that helps in any way.

Yes, substantially, eerily, so! That's why it's possible to nit-pick such fine points with you, because we're of such similar mind about the generalities. Ah ha! But time came into existence WITH the emptying. Chew on that one... No, G-d remains transcendent and inexhaustible; but veiled in manifestation. If you're asking whether the infinite G-d peers into the world of time and observes, or maybe even influences, it... Well, do you pray and act? And did you think it was you? Well, I'm not much of a dancer..... Actually, that's a completely different question. My immediate thought is that we lost ourselves to come here, so I suppose we'd gain ourselves to go back. But of course you mean do we lose our personality, right? I think so; but my certainty on that one hovers between 49% and 51% on a daily basis! I have faith that union with G-d will make up for whatever I sacrifices I make along the way. Indeed!

That is typical! Reminds me of: the apparent contradictions in the bible aren't really contradictions, but... Yeah, something like that. Well, if we're talking about the literal belief in some piece of religious literature as scientific history, then yes, for purposes of education, that is a matter of personal religious belief. But if we're talking about the concepts of design and purpose, on some level, potentially being part of the mechanism of nature, then you can't get much more public than that. If it were true, and we censored it for political reasons, we'd be committing intellectual suicide. What you're not allowed to say in this debate is that the claim that there is no meaning or purpose in the mechanisms of nature, as an axiom, is just as much a statement of faith as a belief in a mechanism of intelligent design. If science can't prove the existence of God, then by the law of symmetry, it can't deny it either. The unfortuntate problem, as far as I can see, is that both sides of the debate shout their picture of God (or lack thereof) and the universe so loudly, that the public begins to think Fundamentalism and Naturalism are the only two choices.

That is correct, but there is another important difference, with respect to the buck having to stop with God. In the case of God foreordaining murderers, rapists, and earthquakes to separate and/or test us, God still remains essentially outside of us. However, if the cosmos is truly a divine self-emptying, then God also experiences each and every moment of suffering immediately and directly in us -- in such a way that God doesn't have the knowledge of divine infinity as a comfort. The "problem of evil" looks a lot different when God takes the whole of universal horror and suffering on himself in the process. This is actually one interpretation of the meaning of the demiurge in Gn. cosmology. The demiurge represents the very same attributes that characterize "fallen humanity": power, competitiveness, jealousy, self-assertion, cool detatchment, etc. Ayn Rand's self-made hero, basically. Not that there attributes are necessarily "evil" per se -- there is a certain egalitarian impartiality to them, for example -- but the point is that they perceive a separated world, and act on it as such. When Gn. claims that we humans and "our world" are created by this being, I see that in one way as a symbolic statement about who we are and where we "come from," psychologically speaking. We've seen the demiurge, and he is us. But even more than that, it suggests that this archetype transcends merely human psychology to grasp something truly cosmic about our situation.

It is funny, isn't it! Kinda goes to show you that most "trinitarians" don't understand Trinitarianism to begin with. I do what I can.

Yes, there is much self-organization and intelligence in the cosmos. ID says everything that exists was consciously designed by an infinite intelligence, and so even "apparent" mistakes are there for a reason... But it makes much more sense to me -- as I've been arguing elsewhere -- to view the false starts, dead ends, and just plain outright mistakes as the result of divine self-limitation, and of the freedom to let the cosmos come into existence on its own.

Food addiction? What ever do you mean? I read Addiction and Grace a few years ago, and I thought it was excellent. A really good book for any kind of fast or examination of one's attachments.

I can understand the value of awareness-raising for PC. I'm certain there are many people out there who are simply dissatisfied, but can't quite put their finger on why, and don't really know what else is out there for them. So in that sense, PC is sort of an instrument for hooking up people with, dare I say, "actual" communities and/or organizations that resonate with their own particular convictions, etc. That, in itself, is probably enough reason to justify PC's existence. Thanks for the thoughtful response, Lib. See, I said I wasn't trying to be mean.

Definitely on the same page there.

I know, I was exaggerating for effect. We're definitely in agreement that humans weren't created materially and spiritually perfect, as traditional Christianity claims. As for being created by a literal "demiurge" or flawed god, as many ancient gnostics would have held, no, I don't believe this. But taken symbolically, the idea of the universe being the product of a more limited -- or self-limited -- creative impulse is starting to really make sense to me. The idea of God, in full knowledge and power, engineering a world of pain and suffering for us to awaken in, seems frankly cruel; but God utterly emptying himself, generating the very conditions of our existence out of his own supreme self-sacrifice... that's astounding. Talk about a God who is with us in our suffering, a God who upholds the downtrodden. Maybe this is a different way of expressing what you mean anyway.

I'm pretty much recovered, a little pain left along my gumline and from my cheeks being pinched from the stitches. A whole lot better than Tuesday!

There were most definitely sects within Gn. that naively regarded all matter as evil, and all spirit as good, and thus treated their bodies with abject hatred. As the movement matured, the more perceptive philosophers, like Valentinus -- who actually had a pretty good shot at becoming pope at one point -- grew to understand the light/dark polarity in a much more nuanced and subtle way. On the whole, Gn. ascetisicm was probably on par with the asceticism of orthodox spirituality. I think it's really difficult, from our cultural perspective, to understand what drove asceticism in pretty much all forms of spirituality up until modern times (17th/18th century, enlightenment, etc.). This was not just a western phenomenon, by any means... Anyway, we're almost unable to view it in any other way than as bodily hatred. The writings of the Desert Fathers (and Mothers), for example, make it abundantly clear that it was primarily about self-examination and self-understanding. The modern practices of poverty and chastity, in Christian and Buddhist monastics, still carry on that tradition today -- as well as people who practice Lent beyond giving up TV or chocolate.

Really? Ignorance, suffering, and death, are simply part of the wondrous natural cycle of life, and it's just the ego that creates the illusion of separateness? If the universe is so shimmeringly radiant, why do we virtually universally "fall" from childlike union into selfishness and separateness? Why does the very fabric of the universe around us seem to tempt us to embrace this illusion? Gnosticism dares to answer that the universe is itself already "fallen" from union with God -- or at least from awareness of it -- that the ignorance and illusion are part of what makes it what it is, not something inculturated, or socialized, or learned, but your cosmic inheritance for being born on this plane of existence, at all. Now, that may need to be qualified in certain ways, but I've still got to respect it for being willing to deal so unflinchingly and systematically with these aspects of reality. Have you read Wilber's "Pre/Trans Fallacy," or his book-length treatment in The Eye of The Spirit? Here's the introduction: http://twm.co.nz/kwilb_eyspir.html. The last section ("Now, there is indeed a falling away from Godhead ...") sums up what I'm getting at about as well as anything could. Well, what philosophy can't you say that about?

How he can continue to gleefully chortle in the face of disaster is beyond any concept of humanity I can muster up. That being said, I don't necessarily have a problem with introducing the ID concept -- as an abstract concept, not as a particular religious view, which can be done -- into scientific debate and/or education. Let's face it, it's already there, what's the point of denying the elephant in the living room? If it really is so faulty, let it fall on its own. Supression works both ways -- kids are going to start wondering what's so interesting about this view that their school needs to censor it. Debate it in the light of day. I think Neodarwinism and ID are both wrong anyway, big surprise.

I don't think they necessarily had it out for Love, per se. Gn. was just a bit too freeform and ill-defined, at a time when definition was of paramount importance -- and I don't mean that as a slam. To make matters worse, where Gn. was not ill-defined, it insisted on a fundamentally flawed cosmos, which is at odds with both Judaic and Christian conceptions of cosmology. (As it turns out, the truth is probably more subtle and interesting than all of these conceptions.) As a system unto itself, I think Gn. does have some insurmountable problems; but rather than integrate and correct them, Orthodoxy chose to bury them and deny their existence during its process of self-definition. Again, not a slam. This is how evolutionary development proceeds. It's just so damned easy to get stuck. A different, but extremely good, question. If I had to answer off the top of my head, I'd say that real love requires intense self-examination and self-understanding -- to truly know another, one must let oneself be truly known. Love is a fire that consumes all the comforting illusions of self; beware people who peddle the sentimental love of God. I've created a monster.

From a very brief look around, this seems to rely on prior assumptions about God other than as creator. I'd be interested to hear more from someone familiar with the ideas. Yeah, I googled for it yesterday after I posted this, and realized that there is a lot of variety in kenotic theology, and much of it I don't adopt either. Basically just the self-emptying aspect of it. It's fun. Just don't feed the animals.

Good question. What is the point of trying to marshal a larger community around such a vague conception of Christianity? I'm sincerely not trying to be mean here, I just genuinely don't see what PC offers as a constructive alternative to traditional Christianity. There are many alternatives to traditional Christianity that, while not being monolithic, are sufficiently fleshed out for me to say, Yes, that is my view; or No, it isn't; or some combination thereof. Not insisting that other people believe as I do is all well and good: in fact, it's the foundation of a free democratic society. But to help me uncover, explore, and define what I believe requires different approaches to actually be built upon that foundation. The funny thing is, I really don't disagree with anything in the 8P (except maybe #6 -- I'm not sure what the "search for understanding" is, if you don't intend to actually find it). I just don't really find anything compelling enough in it to say, Yes, here I stand.

Piaget pioneered the whole notion of "cognitive development." If you liked Piaget, you might enjoy James Fowler's Stages of Faith -- kind of a Piaget-ish approach to faith development, how people view God, meaning, etc. at various levels of understanding. I read it in college, back before I actually got it. Well, that's the $1,000,000 question, isn't it! Is the "poetic" sense of somehow belonging to God and to the universe in some way, really "truth on a very deep level," or just a comforting lie that happens to have evolutionary survival value? At last, the question that logic can't answer. You know the answer, but not in your mind.