One-

I wanna try to state the basic objection that we stumbled into at Greg’s house regarding our being “contingent expressions of God.” If this is an expression Greg uses in his dissertation, I’d love to know how he uses it. But first I want to get the essentials of what you’re saying.

OK, I hear you essentially saying that “God is all that exists” metaphysically speaking. “God” is the only thing out there, i.e. the only stuff (personal, sentient, volitional stuff) that comprises the universe, us included. God creates ex theo, not ex nihilo. The entire cosmos is just a nexus of relationships that function under a set of laws God establishes to give continuity and uniformity to his own experience contingently expresses in terms of creation. We humans are centers of volition that freely determine their form. So the only real difference between me and a rock or a beetle is that set of variables and relationships that God set up to limit and define the various forms of his own experience. But one of those forms of experience, one of the ways in which God wished to express himself, is in a fully volitional, consciously sentient, affectively evaluative way (i.e., human) but free with respect to love (and so sufficiently limited in all necessary ways).

All said and done, this essentially means that the entire universe is just, as you say, God relating to himself. God decides to instantiate himself under certain circumstances, and those circumstances account for all the individual human perspectives that exist. Human “spirits” are God, i.e., are the “energies of God” (in the Greek Orthodox sense). How do we account for all the crap in the world? Is God sinning? Is God privated? Well, you suggest that the answer is something we all agree God can and does do, and that is, ‘self-limitation’. We know God limits the exercise of his power to make room for worldly becoming. So all we need to do is locate all the necessary ‘circumstances’ and ‘variables’ that we know are required to account for our existence as contingent, volitional, sentient, freely determining, privated (sinful), beings in God’s choice to limit himself in this or that way. So what we define as OUR ignorance, the exercise of OUR freedom, OUR evil, etc., is, you say, nothing more than God (ala Whitehead) “negatively prehending,” which I understand to be God choosing to limit himself epistemically so that freedom with respect to love (and evil) becomes possible for us (well, actually for God “as” us). God does it all in his head (his mind). We’re all just God “thinking” the universe to himself but under a commitment to self-limitations, rules, and variables that (a) give the whole thing continuity and (b) define all the difference ways “existence” (and divine existence is the only existence) gets expressed, as “human” ways, “plant” ways, “animal” ways, etc.

Is that it?

Tom

Post Edited (One) : 4/13/2007 1:11:25 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (One) : 4/13/2007 1:17:35 PM (GMT-5)

OK, I’m gonna say what I think Greg would say (cuz I’m his etewnal twin; I compwete him!)

It’s Greg talking, but One’s bold and underlining.

One: The disposition of God to create a non-divine reality—which is itself a contingent feature of God's necessary disposition to be God (One's note: Self-Relationship!)—

Tom: OK, from your underlining it’s clear that you think Greg is here saying non-divine reality is itself a contingent feature of God’s necessary disposition. Trust me on this one, D, this isn’t what he means here. You’re linking the relative phrase “which is itself…” back to the wrong preceding item. You refer it back just to “non-divine reality” (i.e., creation itself). That’s incorrect. Greg intends “which is itself…” to refer back to “the disposition to create.” It just means that the disposition to create is not necessarily exercised. I forgot the two terms Greg uses to categorize dispositions; I think “definitional dispositions” are capacities that are possessed AND exercised necessarily while “contingent dispositions” are capacities possessed necessarily but exercised contingently. So as I read and understand it, it's creating at all which is a “contingent feature of the necessary disposition of God,” that is, the disposition to create is a capacity that is possessed necessarily by God but exercised contingently. God can be God without creating. But God can’t be God without the capacity to create. Maybe he could have worded it better, but this surely is his meaning.

Don’t overlook the fact that Greg clearly says it’s a “non-divine” reality (i.e., non-God reality) that God creates. So he can’t mean that creation is just divinity/God contingently expressed. In fact, “non-divine” is all over the place.

One: The divine disposition "diffuses itself" (Edwards) into a…

Tom: I don’t know what other word Greg could have used. Remember, he said he’s an idealist inasmuch as he admits that (a) all creation has a mind-like quality, and (b) non-God reality exists by virtue of this all-permeating mind-like quality. But beyond that he didn’t want to be dogmatic. The fact that Greg prefers to describe creation in terms of “non-divine being” ought to figure into what he can be understood to mean when he says the divine disposition “diffuses itself” into creation. Remember, the energies of God are as divine as God. If we’re the energies of God (as you say), we’re divine. And Greg clearly doesn’t mean to imply this by saying creation is a diffusion of the divine disposition.

One: It is at this point of this "diffusion" that the distinction between God and the non-divine world occurs.

Tom: There you have it. A “distinction” occurs with the act of diffusion. In fact, the diffusion issues in distinction. And we know from last night that for Greg this “distinction” is real and is not overthrown by theosis. On the contrary, it is necessary to the reflective-beauty for which creation is purposed.

One: The non-divine disposition arises out of God--it is an aspect of God's self-disposition to delight in Godself--and results in what is not God.

Tom: You deny there is any “non-God reality.” All is God. Creation is divine self-relation. Creation just is the divine energies of God (contingently expressed and self-limited, yes, but still God). How is Greg encouraging this here? What do you do with his “non-divine” and “results in what is NOT God”? It looks to me like he goes out of his way to avoid saying what you want “continent expression” to mean.

One: As with Edwards, we can in this way assert that God's creativity is, in one sense,"the substance of bodies", the "ens entium" of all things, without thereby endorsing pantheism.

Tom: I’d comment if I had any idea of what he’s saying.

One: The relative autonomy of the non-divine dispositions is manifested in their autonomous--viz. not divinely determined--creativity, though their relative dependence is manifested in their tie to the primordial disposition of God as the ground of their creativity.

Tom: “Tied,” yes. But surely two beings that are not one and the same can be tied together. In fact, it wouldn’t make sense to say I’m “tied” to that which IS me. Looks like Greg’s just saying that God is the “ground” of our creativity. I don’t see Greg as denying non-God reality here. He even says, “the divine ground thus defines the essence of the non-divine creature.” There you have it: non-divine. Now, you want to pick up on “the divine ground defines the essence of” and say, “See? We are essentially divine, or essentially God.” Do you think this is what Greg intended?

You should email him this portion of his thesis and ask him what he means.

Tom

Post Edited (TGB) : 4/13/2007 3:45:04 PM (GMT-5)

Moreover, as I see it, the "diffusion" is nothing more or less than the act of divine limitation upon dispositional reality. How is "non-God reality" anything more than Divine Creativity (the necessary dispositional reality) that has LIMITS and TENDENCIES prescribed upon it by God to express the invisible Reality in VISIBLE ways?

Seriously.

Post Edited (One) : 4/13/2007 5:05:23 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (One) : 4/13/2007 5:11:49 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (BBBCanada) : 4/13/2007 7:19:22 PM (GMT-5)

Tom is so smart. I love him.

Post Edited (jefscott) : 4/14/2007 11:25:45 AM (GMT-5)