D, I think we want to avoid saying that God continually ‘creates’ in the sense of bringing forth new things ex nihilo, which was the case with the original creation of the universe. If it’s the case that God is continually creating ex nihilo, then the challenge (a big one) becomes articulating an adequate sense of the ‘persisting identity’ of created things and the existence of created causes, that is, explaining how what is brought forth ex nihilo endures as effect from the preceding causes which passed out of creation (out of existence) a moment ago. If ex nihilo qualifies the temporal process or distance between successive ‘states’, then there really is no ‘enduring’ universe at all. It’s just Gen. 1.1 over and over and over and over again.

Actually, Whitehead has some interesting things to say about this which I’m sure you’re familiar with. I believe he grounds the enduring identity of complex entities in their being ‘societies of actual occasions’. I’m not an expert on ANW.

The key is how Process understands how one actual occasion hands off the baton to the next state (or occasion) that follows. Just what is handed off? But the point is, there IS a handing off of the baton. There is a continuity to the cause and effect relationship that defines the frontier of the world’s becoming, an integrity to the enduring identity of created entities. But too often ‘creatio continua’ sounds like a denial of this. It sounds like a denial that present actualities arise from previous states which hand off the baton to the next moment in what we call the act of becoming. Too often it sounds like there is no real act of becoming. The present actual state of a thing doesn’t “become” at all. It just ceases to be entirely. And what follows is a new entity God creates ex nihilo. This is what we need to address. It sounds like what you have in mind is something like God’s being the only enduring entity at all, and he just agrees to create the next moment ex nihilo in such a way as to create the appearance of real creaturely causes and their effects when in actuality God is the only REAL efficient cause. This is Alan’s and Jeff’s beef.

We don’t have to deny the origin and dependency relation (that created entities have their origin in God and depend upon God so that they would not exist at all but for the sustaining activity of the powerful word of God the author of Hebrews refers to in Heb. 1.3). But we want also to avoid denying real creaturely causation and the enduring identity of created things. In the end, the point is that if there are any enduring created realities and persisting identities, then ex nihilo is necessarily relegated to the original bringing into being of the created order and doesn’t continue to characterize the temporal becoming of the universe. But if ex nihilo doesn’t qualify God’s sustaining activity (the Word’s “carrying” all things, Heb. 1.3), then technically we DON’T have ‘creatio continua’ in the sense of “a continuation of creation ex nihilo.” On the contrary, each successive state of the cosmos is created ex creatio. (My Latin sucks, I mean we have creation “from creation,” i.e., we have a self-determining creation whose identity persists, and that sounds MUCH more Process to me). What I’m interested in is what the author of Hebrews 1.3 means when he says Christ “sustains [lit. “carries”] all things by his powerful word.” I don’t want to relegate that to God’s providential acts interjected from time to time within creation. But I can see Jeff writing up just that suggestion on his laptop as we speak!

Tom

Post Edited (Similtude) : 7/26/2009 4:44:44 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (One Love) : 7/27/2009 9:46:21 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (One Love) : 7/27/2009 10:01:17 AM (GMT-5)

D, you didn’t answer Jeff's question. Applying his analogy to yours…

…If a second copy of you was created via transporter, would they both be the SAME individual? The transporter dissembles you but instead of reassembling just one, it plops out two, or three copies all at the same time. Would the same ‘continuity of identity’ obtain between the dissembled copy and each new copy? If so, then that relation obtains between the two new copies as well. We (Jeff and I) wouldn't want to say these are all the same individual. But it seems you’re committed to saying they ARE all the same identity, same person, same individual, or whatever.

Why can’t we aim to find what’s shared between all these analogies and try to express what indispensable across the board?

1. Creatures are real causes

2. Continuity of identity of an individual through time

3. Discontinuity of identity between carbon copies of an individual

4. Origin and dependency relation

2 and 3 are different claims. We want to affirm 2 but deny 3. That's my problem with D’s analogy. I mean, I don’t think anyone would deny that the reconstructed Captain Kirk is the same individual after he’s reconstructed. However, if this means having to affirm the same continuity of identity for ten Kirks reconstructed, most will say no, they’re NOT all “the same, continuous, individual; they're now discontinuous.” So we have to distinguish between just what it is we wanna afirm and what we wanna deny.

My concern with the end of the spectrum where Alan and Jeff seem to be standing is its deistic, watchmaker approach to providence. I wanna pin point the difference between these. Obviously the difference is that Alan and Jeff concede God can and does intervene providentially in the world, something deists deny. But perhaps the difference between them and me is how they conceive of such intervention. They might conceive of it as God stepping into a world from without, a kind of breaking in. I don’t conceive of it like that. When God does “stuff” of “shows up,” I see it as a function of divine presence already embedded in the fabric of creation. The God who is already here ‘acts’ in this way or that, rather than ‘the God who isn’t here arrives’.

We might just ask what one means by omnipresence. I don’t think Jeff believes in omnipresence. Might be wrong. But I’m guessing Alan is a strong believer in omnipresence; God’s sentient presence supervenes upon all being. Well, if we have THAT much D, what’s the problem? We’re just disagreeing over the causal relation between the all-present supervening presence/sentience of God and the created entities supervened upon, right? Alan might want to say that supervening is a kind of passive observance, like ‘watching’ and ‘evaluating’ what’s occurring. You want to say that supervening includes a continuous and unbroken creative utterance that calls every successive moment of the world’s becoming ex nihilo. But both views can (and should) affirm a strong version of the ‘origin and dependence relation’ whereby it’s asserted that creation didn’t bring itself into existence in the first place (origin) and wouldn’t be able to sustain its continued existence apart from God’s supervening presence (the powerful word that “carries” all things, Heb. 1.3). And we all want to affirm real causality within creation. Soooo what’s the problem?

Let me ask it this way D. What do you want to say about creation’s dependency upon God or creation’s freedom as a cause of its own actions, or God’s providential acts within creation…which can’t be said if the sustaining relation is other than continuously ex nihilo?

Tom

Post Edited (One Love) : 7/27/2009 12:52:21 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (Tom) : 7/29/2009 9:30:27 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (Similtude) : 7/29/2009 10:14:38 AM (GMT-5)

J: So if bear can mean bearing in a non-physical sense, why can’t it mean that God is able to bear a creation that is characterized by VOLITIONAL EVIL and VANITY because of Christ’s role in that…

T: Well, of course it IS true that Christ “bears with” creation in this sense. The question is whether 1.3 is, in its immediate context, best understood along the lines of something like what you describe or what I describe. I’m inclined to think he’s talking about that manner of relating via the power of his word/command to the differentiated entites that make up the created order. The unqualified ‘all things’ suggests to me (if other uses are of any comparative value) that he’s talking about all created things. The immediate context is describing the Son ontologically, i.e., with respect to his divinity, his being the image of God, etc. To say in the midst of this that “he carries all things” suggests (to me) something equally ontological, equally fundamental, is being said about created things. In other words, the Son stands in a particular relation (as image and exact copy) to the Father and in an equally particular relation (as bearer/sustainer) to the entire created order. Besides, when “bear” is used metaphorically, as in 9 and 13, what’s “born” is “tolerated” or “suffered” (“sin” and “shame”). I don’t at all get that idea that this notion of “tolerating” or “suffering” creation is what the author is after in ch. 1. The mention of his “powerful word” (lit. the ‘rhema of his dunamis’) as the means by which he “bears” also suggests something less like “to suffer” or “to tolerate” some evil than it does the sort of “sustaining” of the created order that D and I have in mind. Besides, it’s simply not the case that “all” things are “born” in the sense of “tolerated” or “suffered” (as in 9 and 13). "Some" created things are unfailingly obedient (like created faithful angelic beings).

J: But that's my deal. It’s about toleration where it is epistemologically warranted. So as long as you’re tolerant to my approach until we can gather better evidence, we’re good.

T: We’ll have to ‘bear’ with each other!

J: I would like to believe that beliefs about subjects like these are not fundamental to what must be known to be competently fruitful to God.

T: For sure. If holiness and intimacy with God require certain knowledge of this stuff, I’m doomed.

J: But in the absence of something like proof, I'm at a loss as to why so many words are spent on such subjects. If we're going to say that all 3 versions listed by Alan are equally plausible, then why even discuss it?

T: I don’t think anybody whose very acquainted with the Fathers, or theology in general, would think all three views are equally plausible. I don’t. I think I’m right, and you guys suck!

J: It's not like anyone is arguing there is a 4th position.

T: Give D a bit more time!

J: Apart from EITHER a discernable degree of plausiblity OR some discernable relation of one of those positions to our ability to be fruitful to God, why should we even care what others think on these kinds of subjects?

T: Only to the extent that one argues a particular view precludes OTHER more fundamental values or beliefs about creation, like the origin and dependency relation that I talked about. What I think is MORE important to say is that creation isn’t eternal and necessary, that it came into being through the creative word/command of God (so it has its origin in God), that it can’t sustain its own continued existence in the absence of God, and that God is intimately involved in it at every level (i.e., that it depends ontologically and providentially/teleologically upon God). If we agree on this ‘origin and dependency relation’ then that’s way more important.

Tom

Post Edited (Tom) : 7/29/2009 12:14:13 PM (GMT-5)

Tom: I don’t at all get that idea that this notion of “tolerating” or “suffering” creation is what the author is after in ch. 1.

Jeff: I was really trying to imply both. God sustains creation BECAUSE it is still teleologically on track towards its destined end BECAUSE of Christ. But ...

Tom: The mention of his “powerful word” (lit. the ‘rhema of his dunamis’) as the means by which he “bears” also suggests something less like “to suffer” or “to tolerate” some evil than it does the sort of “sustaining” of the created order that D and I have in mind.

Jeff: ... this is a good point. But still, in what sense does Christ's word effect a created order that has continuous, temporal duration? Is it because Christ continually speaks it into existence? Or can the verb convey the idea that creation's very ability to undergo an ON-GOING ORDER and teleological direction is due to a divinely-imposed directionality caused, in part, by Christ's word--whether on not that word is continuously spoken? I don't know greek well enough to know if a present participle can mean that. But when we're talking about a relation between a word and a continued existence, there is no easy way for me to imagine the details of that causal relation. And thus, some looseness of language may be inevitable.

Anyway, I'm glad to know that you think Alan's and my view suck. That explains the volume of words at least. Frankly, I actually do relate to your exegetical argument. I just think the implications it has for causality are just unusual enough that I'd just as soon look for conceptual room in the text. I suspect Alan has the same gut on that.

But it's WHERE creation is headed that is really important. Even Anthony Flew never got to a benevolent God. So I guess he's just a deist. Personally, if being a theist bought me nothing more than deism, I wouldn't waste time writing books about it. But then again, maybe some people write books on such matters just to make money, though the practical implications of their books are virtually non-existent. You know your theism is empty when Dawkins says its reasonable. And Dawkins said Flew's version of theism is reasonable.

Post Edited (Similtude) : 7/29/2009 2:23:47 PM (GMT-5)

Let me suggest this, Jeff.

Would you agree that all created things conform (or not) to a greater or lesser degree to some ideal? This might be a way of expressing our teleology. Things are meant to go somewhere, become something, fulfill some ‘telos’. I know you like that much.

When you think of things existing for some ‘telos’, what do you think? In the Orthodox tradition, for example, this gets worked out not entirely unlike Process. But we’ll hold the Process piece for later. Basically, God as creator prescribes or sets the ‘telos’ of created entities, and God is really the only one who can define the true purpose and goal of created things. When I say created things can’t ‘sustain their own existence’, PART of what I have in mind is this dependency of created things upon God for their ‘telos’. Creation is teleological, yes, but it’s not self-defining. It can’t generate its own purpose. As finite and created, it gets its purposefulness, its tendency to 'become' purposefully, its inherent ‘aim’, from God.

So the REAL question here, Jeff, may be this: HOW is the 'telos' of a thing mediated to it? How does a created thing know or perceive (I don't mean to suggest conscious apprehension in inanimate objects, I'm using "perceive" figuratively) its purpose. You and Alan want to say that its purpose is "built in" to it so to speak, so that God can "let go" and it'll unfold according to its purpose (generally speaking). D and I want to say that there’s no naturalistic explanation for this teleology, as you’ve always argued. It betokens a benevolent creator. So D and I don't want to "sever" the relationship. God offers the world its meaning personally at all levels. It's HOW God is God to creation. He offers meaning by offering himself. By speaking. And you do get a personal presence with 'speaking' that you can't get with the "severance" model because God can't sever Godself from Godself. I did a poor job of explaining this before, and even now it's not developed, but basically I'd like to say that if what you have accounting for the hard-wired built-in 'telos' of a thing is "let go" and is running on its own, then whatever does that accounting isn't God. And if it isn't God, it's created. And if it's created, it's got its own 'telos' to account for. You see the problem.

I think it’s reasonable to attribute the teleological content (as it were) of all created entities to the personal presence of God. What we end up with is a view of part of what it means to say the world was created through the eternal Logos, which doctrine we get from Scripture. The ‘telos’ or end or purpose of a thing, that for which it strives to become, for which it's designed to become, is its ‘logos’, and those are just the creative expressions or intentions of God with respect to created things (grounded in the Logos). They’re just part of the infinite creativity of God held in and expressed through the Logos. Thus we have the ‘logoi’ of created things, those divine intentions or creative imaginings of finite things, of all those possible things God can create but considered in their perfection and fulfillment, the 'end' state of their becoming.

I won’t try to sell you on God’s contemplating these eternally, don’t worry. We don’t need that right now. All we need is for God the Logos to be the ground and origination of these ‘logoi’.

Basically, when I say God “sustains” the world (and when I interpret Heb. 1.3’s grammar to express this in terms of the Logos continually uttering that “rhema of dunamis”) all I’m saying is that the ‘logoi’ of created things are always held out to those things by the all-present Spirit of God who constantly mediates to a thing it’s possibilities for becoming. Simply put, the ‘telos’ of a created thing is ever before that thing as a necessary part of that thing’s teleological becoming, defining the scope of its possibilities for becoming. Assuming teleology is universal at both macro and micro levels—basically at all levels of being and becoming—and the divine ‘logoi’ of created beings define the aim or ‘telos’ of all things, then all we’re saying is that you don’t have purposeful becoming, becoming that tends and aims itself in a particular direction, without that direction being present. That's probably uncontroversial. But I'll want to say that this 'logos' (it's content) isn't something God can offer a thing apart from himself, apart from his personal presence. Because those 'logoi' in a sense (I'm tip-toing) ARE God's presence. There’s no severing ‘logoi’ from ‘Logos’--speach from speaker; or speach-act from actor. Created beings can't determine their own directionality, their own purpose, can't sustain their own becoming apart from God. So what better explanation is there of the constancy and purposefulness of creation’s becoming than that the Logos, the author of every entity’s ‘logos’ (or ‘telos’), standing in and at the moment of becoming by means of the “rhema of his dunamis” (the word of his power) calling, beckoning, creation toward fulfillment?

It’s elegant. It’s beautiful. And it’s simple.

Exactly HOW this takes place nobody knows. Not Alexis Nesteruk. Not Maximus. Not even D. Nobody does. Nobody can climb inside the process and observe it from the inside out. But it makes sense to POSIT that it happens. My problem with the “wind-it-up and let it become on its own” model is precisely its tendency to assume that the content of creation’s ‘telos’, the ‘logoi’ of created things, can be severed from the personal presence of the Logos. It undermines the sort of ‘relational ontology’ I’m aiming for.

I don’t want to get into a long drawn out debate over it of course, but if the “wind-it-up and let it go” model really answers more questions for you, that’s great. Over the years here I’ve learned that you perceive things right away. And if we're debating something, if I haven’t convinced you after 1 or 2 exchanges, it ain’t happnin! But what I’ve shared thus far has made a lot of sense to a huge number of believers for roughly 2,000 years. So I don’t feel especially bereft of company.  

And having said all this, I’d describe this view as Alan’s second ‘infusion’ model, not creatio continua, because I don’t think each successive state of the world needs to be called out of nothingness into being.

-------------------

I might as well ramble on a bit for D.

The word ‘logos’ and the concept of ‘logoi’ were popular among ancient Greeks (and Hellenized Jews as well) to express what they intuited about the meaningfulness and design they observed in the cosmos. What explains its universality at every observable level? What they saw was right on. It was left to the Greek Fathers (following John) to unpack it. Everything has its own ‘logos’, that ‘meaning’ or ‘principle’ to which it conforms or not.

Human beings are unique as rational creatures in that, in addition to having their own unique ‘logos’ that expresses the perfection of their being and becoming, they are ‘logikoi’, or ‘meaning-makers’. They’re able to apprehend the ‘logoi’ of created things, this ‘way the world is’, and in apprehending it, contribute to the realization of the ‘telos’ of created things. In other words, part of the ‘logoi’ of all non-human created entities, part of their purpose, is to be apprehended and affirmed as meaningful by human beings and in being apprehended (and even enjoyed we might say, but let’s leave that for now) they reach their ‘telos’. And of course this apprehending, meaning-perceiving, meaning-making capacity in human beings is part of the ‘telos’ of human being. It’s our purpose to discern and contemplate our own ‘logoi’ and the ‘logoi’ of created things and in turn offer ourselves (and all creation by virtue of our having contemplated it meaningfully) to God for whom, and by whom, and through whom, and to whom are all things! Creation finds its fulfillment in human being rightly related to God. This is why Paul says, for example, that Creation groans waiting for the redemption of the sons of God. It can’t be redeemed until we are, and it is redeemed IN and THROUGH our redemption. We literally mediate creation’s fulfillment and purpose to it and back to God. Simply put, the enjoyment God seeks from created things God intends to get through the instrumentation of human beings contemplating, apprehending, and enjoying their own being and the being of all other entities. Of course, humankind only reaches ITS fulfillment "in Christ," the Incarnate One. That’s chapter two.

D?

--------------------------

More words! Was gonna post the above and then saw you had posted when I got online.

Tom: The mention of his “powerful word” (lit. the ‘rhema of his dunamis’) as the means by which he “bears” also suggests something less like “to suffer” or “to tolerate” some evil than it does the sort of “sustaining” of the created order that D and I have in mind.

Jeff: ... this is a good point.

Tom: Whoopeeeee!

Jeff: But still…

Tom: Oh crap.

Jeff: …in what sense does Christ’s word effect a created order that has continuous, temporal duration?

Tom: How do ‘words’ effect anything? It’s fascinating. And like you said, let’s also ask what sense Christ’s one-time word is able to impose ongoing order and directionality in a created order’s ability to be a self-determining cause of its own becoming. It’s not like that option jumps off the page in HD clarity. Any option stretches us beyond our limits.

Jeff: Is it because Christ continually speaks it into existence? Or can the verb convey the idea that creation's very ability to undergo an ON-GOING ORDER and teleological direction is due to a divinely-imposed directionality caused, in part, by Christ's word--whether or not that word is continuously spoken?

Tom: Deep waters of course. It’s not every day shopping list lingo: “carries all things by the rhema of his dunamis”? The present participle suggests ongoing, contemporaneous, sustained action. That’s my guess. But like I said, I don’t think this entails creatio continua of the “every moment is ex nihilo” sort.

Jeff: I don't know Greek well enough to know if a present participle can mean that.

Tom: I do. It means what I say. I win. Go to hell all who disagree!

Jeff: I just think the implications it has for causality are…

Tom: I can totally appreciate that. I share it too. We can’t give up created entities as self-determining causes.

Jeff: Even Anthony Flew never got to a benevolent God. So I guess he’s just a deist.

Tom: He is. That’s right!

Jeff: Personally, if being a theist bought me nothing more than deism, I wouldn’t waste time writing books about it.

Tom: I totally agree. I find his arguments for theism valuable only because I take them on to arguing for a benevolent first cause. But to just stop where he does. Oh well.

Jeff: You know your theism is empty when Dawkins says it’s reasonable. And Dawkins said Flew’s version of theism is reasonable.

Tom: Wow. I hadn’t heard that. That’s like Ahmadinijad being happy Obama won the election. Ha!!! Sorry D. Just kiddin.

Tom

Post Edited (Tom) : 7/30/2009 8:03:16 AM (GMT-5)