Open Theism Discussion Board
  HomeLog InRegisterSearch the ForumHelp
   
Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Theological Q&A > Threefold Structure of Reality  Forum Quick Jump
 
New Topic Post Reply Printable Version
570 posts in this thread.
Viewing Page :
 
[ << Previous Thread | Next Thread >> | Show Newest Post First ]

aranjuez
Registered Member


Date Joined Aug 2001
Total Posts : 18
 
   Posted 8/1/2001 10:23 AM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Sorry about that! I hadn't posted for a long time and I don't know how to use this new stuff very well!

Aranjuez

Back to Top
 

PotOnWheel
Registered Member




Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
 
   Posted 8/1/2001 10:28 AM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
SAYINGS:

"Hook, line, and sinker" ---- from fishing.

"Lock, stock and barrel" ---- from flintlock gunmaking.

Going, going, gone ---- from baseball.

"It could be, it might be, it is! Holy Cow, a home run" ---- from -OO- (Ya gotta know that one!)

JOKES:

"A priest, a rabbi and a duck walked into a bor....."

PotOnWheel



Edited by - PotOnWheel on 08/01/2001 3:32:28 PM
Back to Top
 

pia†desideria
Registered Member


Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 301
 
   Posted 8/1/2001 11:47 AM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Aranjuez: Way to triple-post!

POW: How about Superman’s “Up, up, and away” or Mozart’s “Figaro, Figaro, Figaro!” or Caesar’s “veni, vedi, vici,” or Kierkegaard’s “Socrates! Socrates! Socrates! One might well call thy name thrice!”

Doc and Trosie: In addition to the three Graces, three Fates (Moerae: Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos—“the ineluctable”—i.e. “Death”), there were also three goddesses of the Seasons (Horae) in ancient Greek mythology: winter, spring, and summer. Fall was added in late Greco-Roman times. In German mythology there are three goddesses called Norns, whose names mean “What was,” “What is,” and “What shall be.”

Some fairy tale threes off the top of my head: three blind mice, three billy goats gruff, three little pigs, Aladin’s three wishes, Cinderella (like Aphrodite and Psyche) is one of three sisters.

pia

Back to Top
 

pia†desideria
Registered Member


Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 301
 
   Posted 8/1/2001 12:01 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
…There are also three Gorgons (Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa) in Greek mythology

And let’s not forget the triptic icons that adorn so many altars.

Then there’s three-petalled, three-leaved trilliums that bloom in the early spring.

Ok, those are my last three examples. I’m done now. pia

Edited by - pia†desideria on 08/01/2001 6:04:11 PM
Back to Top
 

GregBoyd
Registered Member


Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
 
   Posted 8/1/2001 12:28 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
WE ARE ROCK'N IN THREES! This is a blast.

aranjuez, you say you could go on.... please do. The anatomy stuff was great, as were three little pigs, more mythology, threefold slogans etc...

I now recall two arguments in Church history for the necessity of God's triunity, both based on the truth that "God is love."

1. Love Requires a Three. Victor of St. Hugo, and more recently the Oxford Philosophy Richard Swinburne, have argued that Love necessarily involves three. The logic is basically that love is inherently unselfish. A love between two alone could not be perfect, for it is self-enclosed. Hence the two beget (or breath forth, or whatever) a third to share the love of the two. Father, Son, Spirit.

2. In the Augustinian tradition an argument was put forward that Love involves a three. There are the two who love, and the love that joins them. (This is the western traditions view that the Holy Spirit is the unity of the Godhead, for he IS the love of the Father for the Son and Son for the Father. C.S.Lewis made this argument in Mere Christianity. The love that joins two people is a third thing that defines the two. The "we" is greater than the "I" and "thou" considered alone. In perfect love the "weness" of the "I" and "thou" would constitute a distinct personage, without destroying the "I" and "thou."

hmmmmmm.....

This is exciting.
Doc

Ps. I have never read Bullinger's book on numbers in the Bible, but a word of caution may be in order. Biblical numerology has a rather bizzare history, with people finding the numerical equivalents for letters reaching hidden phrases all over the place. (kind of like the bible code fad that unfortunately sweeping evangelical circles). Also, numbers of all sorts are quite arbitrarily given values. It can lead in odd directions. I can't say that its ALL bunko, but when people start finding hidden symbols in everything, always ask, "Why thinkthis number has this meaning?" Most of the time its quite arbitrary.

What justifies looking for threes (if it in fact is justified) is that a) we are not yet trying to say WHAT it means, only noticing THAT it occurs ; b) We may have OTHER reasons for thinking three is significant. The Creator's being involves an essential threeness, and we find it all over the place (as we are discovering).

Just a note, that's all.

Appreciate ya'll.

"Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having." C.S.Lewis
Back to Top
 

aranjuez
Registered Member


Date Joined Aug 2001
Total Posts : 18
 
   Posted 8/1/2001 12:36 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.

Doc,
For more on "three's" try "The Book of Threes" by Michael Eck (I think that's how you spell his last name)
Have fun!!
Aranjuez

Back to Top
 

pia†desideria
Registered Member


Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 301
 
   Posted 8/1/2001 1:05 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
quote:
Doc,
For more on "three's" try "The Book of Threes" by Michael Eck (I think that's how you spell his last name)
Have fun!!
Aranjuez


Hey, that’s cheating! pia

Edited by - pia†desideria on 08/01/2001 6:07:00 PM
Back to Top
 

Triskal
Registered Member


Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 198
 
   Posted 8/1/2001 2:08 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Hahha wow this thread really took off! Great input guys!

Doc,
what about the numbers 7 and 12 in the Bible? 7 being God's perfect number. The 12 disciples of Jesus. What do you make of those numbers?


In His Grip,
Matt

"In Him we live and move and have our being" - Acts 17:28
Back to Top
 

pia†desideria
Registered Member


Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 301
 
   Posted 8/1/2001 3:04 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
quote:
what about the numbers 7 and 12 in the Bible? 7 being God's perfect number. The 12 disciples of Jesus. What do you make of those numbers?
What about ? Eek! Only one number at a time.

Modes wanted me to pass on some more examples: “We three kings” and the “three uses of the law.” Plus I thought of some more: Monkey see, monkey hear, monkey do; three parts to an egg—shell, yolk, white; three brothers Karamazov (unless you count Smerdyakov), Been there, done that, movin’ on.… pia

p.s. This is the 33rd response in this thread.

Edited by - pia†desideria on 08/01/2001 8:09:56 PM
Back to Top
 

GregBoyd
Registered Member


Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
 
   Posted 8/1/2001 3:38 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Aranjuez: Try "The Book of Threes" by Michael Eck.

Doc: WHAT, someone already wrote my book? What’s this book about? (Yes, "Threes," but in what sense? To what purpose? What thesis does it support?)

Triskal: "what about the numbers 7 and 12 in the Bible? 7 being God's perfect number. The 12 disciples of Jesus. What do you make of those numbers?"

Doc: There’s something to it, especially in apocalyptic literature (e.g. Revelation) which utilized numerical symbolism. But as I said, I’m cautious about the allegorical method which many numerologists fall into -- viz. the "real meaning" of a verse is the secret symbolic meaning found in various numbers.

Here's another one: I have argued (Trinity and Process) that we need three categories of being to render reality intelligible: Actuality: possibility: and disposition (or some category which transitions possibility into actuality).

A word of explanation about Pierce's categories. Take any experience whatsoever. Analyze it. What do you find? He suggests three things.

1) The "feeling" of the experience: the sheer datum, prior to analysis, interpretation, or anything. The sheer FACT of experiencing such and such. This he calls "firstness"

2) The "resistance" or "over-against-ness" of WHAT you experience. WHAT we experience comes to us. This is what gives us our sense of a world outside ourselves. This he calls "secondness"

3) The AWARENESS of the experience and the resistence, the THOUGHT of it, which encompasses both and is not reducible to either. This mediates and interpretes the experience. This he calls (guess) "thirdness".

ALL experience has this triadic quality, according to Pierce. The triadic quality cannot be further reduced, and any addition to it is extraneous to the experience itself. The three are necessary, and only these three are necessary.

Keep thinking -- and sharing.

Doc (three letters!)

ps. Why do we read several times the triadic "holy, holy, holy" applied to God? hmmmm




"Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having." C.S.Lewis
Back to Top
 

GregBoyd
Registered Member


Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
 
   Posted 8/1/2001 3:47 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
IDEA: When we are exhausted of triadic observations (give it a couple of weeks?), what do you think of me compling all this, categorizing it, and weaving a bit of explanatory narrative around it, then posting it on this site as a GROUP ARTICLE? I've always held (as did Pierce) that thinking is intrinsically communal -- though its usually one individual who synthesizes the group-think and gets most the credit for it. All who make any contribution to this threeness thing will be posted as co-authors (by your alias' I suppose). And, of course, a disclaimer will be made that none of us necessary share all the convictions of the group. Sound fun?

We could call it, "Reflections on Three: A Christus Victor Community Reflection" -- or something like that. (However, I or the site moderator would have to be given editorial rights of expression and perhaps omission, for not EVERYTHING would be included.)

Give me more threes and tell me what you think.

Doc

"Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having." C.S.Lewis
Back to Top
 

geej
Registered Member


Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 93
 
   Posted 8/1/2001 5:35 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Sheesh you guys! Were y'all born with seven brains????? Greg, you lay awake thinking of THREE???? Since my stupid thesis has been completed, my brain's turned to mush! The most complicated things I've read have been my Trixie Belden mysteries! Aside from the Trinity and the Three Wisemen, the only three's I could think of were the Three Little Pigs, the Three Muskateers and that time on Sesame Street when Count Dracula taught us dummies about the number 3!

Have fun with your three extravaganza! I'm just going to read and hopefully, some of my brain cells will rejuvinate themselves.

GJ


Back to Top
 

Triskal
Registered Member


Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 198
 
   Posted 8/1/2001 5:43 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
I've got a few more to add to the pile:

The perfect ice cream cone has THREE scoops.

"It's easy as 1-2-3"

People generally have THREE names: first name, middle name, and last name.

There are THREE colors on the American flag: Red, White, and Blue.

Hahha wow... I can't think of anything else that hasn't already been used.

"In Him we live and move and have our being" - Acts 17:28
Back to Top
 

Triskal
Registered Member


Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 198
 
   Posted 8/1/2001 5:46 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Hey,

I just remembered a childrens tape I used to listen to when I was younger called "The Bugs". I remember one episode where the main charector's little brother had a thought that everything came in threes. In the episode he listed SEVERAL such examples of things coming in threes. I'll try and get a copy of the tape, if I can. Just thought i'd share that considering this discussion brought back the memory of it.


In His Grip,
Matt

"In Him we live and move and have our being" - Acts 17:28
Back to Top
 

Pseudo-Intellectual
Registered Member


Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 58
 
   Posted 8/1/2001 5:50 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
okay i wasn't going to get involved in this three's thing because numeralogy scares me a little bit, but i'm inTHREEged by what doc's interpretive naritive might be that holds this all together, and i couldn't pass up a chance to show up on the radar screen of some sort of legitamet intelectuall collaboration so here it goes:

i've read certian analyitic philosophers suggest a triatic congnitive architecture that can be used as a sort of meta-narative to places all philosophic programs. it consists of three parts and three relationships between these parts.

There is the subject, the world, and representations. the relationship of subject to representation is the self, representation to world is truth, and world to subject is causality. supposedly this is all we need to understand each philosophical project.

Sartre tried to reduce all things unto the world so that representations and subjects were mere things amoung other things. Berkeley got rid of the world, Nitchze got rid of truth, etc.

this sounds similar to pierce's stuff but maybe a little different.

d.c.

dudechild

"If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex?" -Art Hoppe
Back to Top
 

GregBoyd
Registered Member


Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
 
   Posted 8/1/2001 5:54 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
" the main charector's little brother had a thought that everything came in threes. In the episode he listed SEVERAL such examples of things coming in threes. I'll try and get a copy of the tape, if I can.

Matt: Cute stories like this make great introductions. "Out of the mouth of babes..." Get it if you can. I'd love to hear it.
Doc

"Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having." C.S.Lewis
Back to Top
 

GregBoyd
Registered Member


Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
 
   Posted 8/1/2001 5:57 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Psuedo, can you supply the names of the works of the philosophers your thinking of? Thanks.
Doc

"Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having." C.S.Lewis
Back to Top
 

chambes
Registered Member


Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 41
 
   Posted 8/1/2001 6:01 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
I think we've got a group that loves brainstorming!! This is fun!

  • Amino Acids have three functional groups: acid, amino and sidechain
  • Energy comes in three forms: kinetic, potential and rest mass
  • We always reward first, second and third place
  • "First is the worst, second is the best, third is the one with the treasure chest!"
  • The default on this list function gives you three bullets
  • God, humans and angels


Doc, I like your idea for a group article.

quote:
ps. Why do we read several times the triadic "holy, holy, holy" applied to God?
Just as I was reading this, the chorus to "Holy, Holy, Holy" was playing on my computer...crazy.

chambes

Edited by - chambes on 08/01/2001 11:08:42 PM
Back to Top
 

Pseudo-Intellectual
Registered Member


Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 58
 
   Posted 8/1/2001 6:03 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
oh i just thought of another one. i don't know much about math but isn't triganomitry based on three's and triangles and stuff?

anyway don't base three systems work better than base ten ones? they allow for the most interrelationships between parts. isn't this why math folks use 360 degrees for the divisions of a circle, so that it can be divided into the most parts with the most relationsiops to one another.

for example 360 can be divided by 2;3;4;5;6;8;9 and 10 and yeild whole numbers (all but perfect 7. any sig?) whereas 100 can olny be divided by 2;4;5; and 10.

a triangle is not only the symbol for the trinity but it is also the most structurally sound form. a cord of three bands is not eaisly broken?

d.c


dudechild

"If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex?" -Art Hoppe
Back to Top
 

PotOnWheel
Registered Member




Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
 
   Posted 8/1/2001 6:06 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Hi Greg:

Thanks for sharing the narrative behind all this fun. I can't quite supress at least one analytical question, though--I'd never make it as an accountant (bless them).

Actually two: (1) How is this different and/or similar to the Hegelian dialectic that we learned about in high school? and (2) isn't it interesting that it seems (to me) NOT to dscribe the triad of "Creation, Fall, Redemption"? It might decribe the "Sin, Redemption, Response" triad of Lutheranisms and the Reformed Heidelberg Confession. But not Creation, Fall, Redemption -- which I find very interesting.

(I also liked the way changes in numbers in the second and third derivatives (differential calculas) signaled something really cool in how you could expect an inversion from convex to concave--you'ld look, and there it was.)

1. Hegel?

2. Creation, Fall, Redemption?


quote:
A word of explanation about Pierce's categories. Take any experience whatsoever. Analyze it. What do you find? He suggests three things.

1) The "feeling" of the experience: the sheer datum, prior to analysis, interpretation, or anything. The sheer FACT of experiencing such and such. This he calls "firstness"

2) The "resistance" or "over-against-ness" of WHAT you experience. WHAT we experience comes to us. This is what gives us our sense of a world outside ourselves. This he calls "secondness"

3) The AWARENESS of the experience and the resistence, the THOUGHT of it, which encompasses both and is not reducible to either. This mediates and interpretes the experience. This he calls (guess) "thirdness".

ALL experience has this triadic quality, according to Pierce. The triadic quality cannot be further reduced, and any addition to it is extraneous to the experience itself. The three are necessary, and only these three are necessary.


I'd love to hear from you.

P.S. After tomorrow I'm off this vacation. Back to work.

Thanks Doc for this opportunity. I'll check back sometimes.

Thanks Modes.



PotOnWheel

Back to Top
 

churchmouse522
Registered Member


Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 163
 
   Posted 8/1/2001 6:19 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Cool thread.

How about Hegel's Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis? And let's not forget I Corinthians 13:13 "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

By the way, I am deeply disappointed that I stumbled on this thread too late to be the first to contribute Three Blind Mice. Oh well.

Mouse

"If we agree to search for Truth, we do violence to that search any time we silence a voice." Modes of Thought
Back to Top
 

Pseudo-Intellectual
Registered Member


Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 58
 
   Posted 8/1/2001 6:26 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
oh oh oh and threes in myths are cool too. i wish i knew more about myths but let me just start with the three fates.

painters usually paint triptics for alterpeices (check out grunwald and beckan for my favs)

carl jung had a bunch of stuff on threes in mythic archtypes i think but i don't know enough about him.

the key for 3 is also the key for # on cumputer keypads? coinsidence i think not!

trilogies in books and movies our countless

lots of flags for countries limit themselves to three colors (maybe this is just a eurocentric phenom?)

fruedian stuff: woman has two breasts and one vagina, man has a phalis with two testicals and one (what should you call it?)

three colors in colgate toothpaste.

countless three act plays.

the three stodges.

threes company

being non-being and becoming

truth, falsehood, and illusion

cool people come in threes:
socrates plato and aristotle
leonardo michelagnlo and rapheal
three spokespersons for charter77 jan patocka, valclov havel and i forget the other guy.

heterosexual homosexual and ahsexual

the three graces, the three mary's (mother of Jesus, magdaline and ? someone else)

three crosses on calvery

three denials, three 'do you love me's'

three bloods A B and O (and AB but i don't know what to do with that)

me myself and i (three ways to be egocentric)

what about threes in language? some languages, like ours, seem to be built around threes (like gender and tense and verbs and stuff) but others seem different? is this a liguistic bias?

i'm just wondering if threes are all that special. couldn't we pick any small number and find a whole ton of stuff that 'coinsidentally' consists of that many parts? are we reading three's into reality?

dudechild

"If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex?" -Art Hoppe
Back to Top
 

Springs
Registered Member


Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 636
 
   Posted 8/1/2001 7:00 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Great thread! too fun!

Some of the instances of three that have been cited may be incidental, but I have a profound one.

Paper, rock, scissors!! ha

Now I'm going to be dreaming in threes.

the mother of three sons
springs

Back to Top
 

trosie
Registered Member


Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 550
 
   Posted 8/1/2001 8:04 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
This is way fun! I have a few more that I am not sure have been mentioned:

THREE parts to an orchestra -- the brass, percussion, and stringed instruments

THREE part harmony (?)

The water cycles in THREE parts -- evaporation, condensation, and precipitation

There are THREE branches to the U.S. Government -- Legislative, Executive, and Judicial

From a mother of THREE,
trosie




Edited by - trosie on 08/02/2001 06:15:30 AM
Back to Top
 

GregBoyd
Registered Member


Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
 
   Posted 8/2/2001 1:22 AM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
YOU GUYS ARE BRILLIANT!


A few responses, questions and additions.
Dudechild:" for example 360 can be divided by 2;3;4;5;6;8;9 and 10 and yeild whole numbers (all but perfect 7. any sig?) whereas 100 can only be divided by 2;4;5; and 10".

Doc: This is all making me wish I didn’t develop a horrendous distaste for all forms of math when a student. (I think it was my anal Alegra teacher who hated me). I vaguely recall something alone the lines of this claim: all numbers (positive integers) can be arrived by the combination of 1,2 and 3. Less or more than 3 can produce them. True? (does "combination" here mean "addition and multiplication"?)

PotonWheel and Mouse: What about Hegel?
Doc: He’s certainly one of the great philosophers who perceived a triadic structure to all of reality, especially manifested in the movement in history as thesis, antithesis, synthesis. He thought this was the structure of GOD.

PotonWheel:" isn't it interesting that it seems (to me) NOT to describe the triad of "Creation, Fall, Redemption"? It might describe the "Sin, Redemption, Response" triad of Lutheranisms and the Reformed Heidelberg Confession. But not Creation, Fall, Redemption -- which I find very interesting."

Doc: How does it NOT describe Creation, Fall, Redemption? You may mean that the FALL can’t be a structural part of creation that reflects the triune God. But then how can you claim that the pattern "SIN, Redemption, Response" DOES fit the pattern? Not sure what to make of this, except it reminds me of Aristotle’s triadic analysis of drama (roughly, beginning, middle, and end) and Joseph Campbell’s claim that all mythology follows a union, separation, re-union pattern.

PotonWheel: "I also liked the way changes in numbers in the second and third derivatives (differential calculas) signaled something really cool in how you could expect an inversion from convex to concave--you'ld look, and there it was."

Doc: When you get back from vacation, can you explain this to us?

Doc: Someone today reminded me of Newton's three laws of motion. One was "all things at rest remain at rest unless moved." What were the other two?

Dudechild: i'm just wondering if threes are all that special. couldn't we pick any small number and find a whole ton of stuff that 'coinsidentally' consists of that many parts? are we reading three's into reality?

Doc: This is exactly the right critical suspicion to have. Are we finding threes because we're looking for them? Now, of course, in many examples the answer is yes. But the theory we are investigating, advocated, as we have seen, by some pretty heavy-weight thinkers long before the doctrine of the Trinity was arrived at, is that this is not the case with THREE. The claim is that there is something INTRINSIC to the number, something STRUCTURAL in reality, and something ARCHITYPICAL in the human mind, about the number of three. The only way to confirm or refute this that I can think of is to TRY out other numbers and see what you find.

On this thread, however, I'd like to keep flushing out the thesis that THREE is central. [If someone wants to start a different thread exploring the possibility of 2 or 4 or 5 being fundamental, have at it]. Three things make this on-going investigation worth while: a) we Christians already have the revelation that the Creator is TRIune and that we are made in his image; b) we have an impressive tradition of people, including especially pre-Christian and non-Christian philosophers, who have surmised the centrality of threeness; and c) we have, it seems, at least very interesting examples of threenss already to encourage the search.

Chambes: I checked out the website you suggested: http://math.bu.edu/DYSYS/arcadia/sect2.html. Through the use of games it gives people the chance to demonstrate fractal geometry. It shows how random processes can produce order. Now, so far as I can see, the threeness aspect is incidental. Other figures can be produced through other random processes. But the cite is nevertheless invaluable for a different reason. It allows people to demonstrate for themselves how you CAN have predictable order embodying random processes. Theologically, it thus allows people to see for themselves how God can be "in control" of the world, as a whole, and predict and even predestine ASPECTS of the future, WITHOUT needing to micro-control what free agents do. It allows people to demonstrate for themselves the invalidity of one of the most fundamental and frequent criticisms of open theism: namely, that a God who didn't control, or at least foreknow, the specific actions of every individual throughout history could not guarantee ANY outcomes. One cursory checking in on this site would render the basic thesis of Ware's "Lesser Glory of God" completely untenable. Thanks for the citation.



"Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having." C.S.Lewis
Back to Top
 
New Topic Post Reply Printable Version
570 posts in this thread.
Viewing Page :
 
   
Forum Information
Currently it is Monday, November 09, 2026 11:17 AM (GMT -6)
There are a total of 97,718 posts in 6,040 threads.
In the last 3 days there were 0 new threads and 0 reply posts. View Active Threads