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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Desert Daughter, you spout the most arrogant crap sometimes
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
How can action (mind and personality?) be a consequence of free will if its nothing but chemicals making you act (or defining your mind and personality)?
My mind and personality most certainly are not just chemistry.
You know this how?
Unless reality is totally illusory (Matrix style - no objective reality) I can deduce it through a combination of reason, revelation and intuition.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
How can action (mind and personality?) be a consequence of free will if its nothing but chemicals making you act (or defining your mind and personality)?
I don't think the chemicals cause us to act. They enable us to act.
That is why depression can be so very debilitating - because the brain chemicals are often out of kilter.
I am sure most of this discussion can be filed under 'nobody knows' but Martin has a point.
It's hard to imagine our 'selves' free of the bodies which make us us.
Quite so. We are body, mind, and soul. All intertwined and all connected. The tricky bit is figuring whether the chicken or egg or society or God or genetics or behavior or what-the-effe-ever causes or effects things or feedback loops on themselves continuously.
[ 13. February 2014, 12:26: Message edited by: Evensong ]
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
How can action (mind and personality?) be a consequence of free will if its nothing but chemicals making you act (or defining your mind and personality)?
My mind and personality most certainly are not just chemistry.
You know this how?
Unless reality is totally illusory (Matrix style - no objective reality) I can deduce it through a combination of reason, revelation and intuition.
But presumably your mind and personality are made of something. And whatever that something is - call it X - you could dismiss it with a weaselly "nothing but X". That's not reasoning, its just, well, I'm not sure what it is.
And its anti-materialist Gnosticism. Fails the fundamental test of Christian teaching set out in 1 John 4 1-6
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
How can action (mind and personality?) be a consequence of free will if its nothing but chemicals making you act (or defining your mind and personality)?
My mind and personality most certainly are not just chemistry.
You know this how?
Unless reality is totally illusory (Matrix style - no objective reality) I can deduce it through a combination of reason, revelation and intuition.
I see this as a confusion of levels. We relate to each other as persons, so it would be inappropriate for me to address you as a bag of chemicals.
However, in some contexts, e.g. if you are undergoing major surgery, and you are out cold, it might be appropriate to treat you as a bag of chemicals.
When you wake up, however, hopefully the surgeon addresses you as a person.
I'm not sure how many levels there are really.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Damn and blast, I forgot to say that the above analysis (into levels) is a philosophical one, not a scientific one. I think there is a lot of confusion in these areas, because science and philosophy get muddled up; however, this is another rabbit-hole, down which we might fall on another thread.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Mertseger
Faerie Bard
# 4534
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I'm not sure how many levels there are really.
"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's tortoises all the way down!"
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Go and be who you are:
The Body of Christ,
The Goddess of Body,
The Manifest Song of Faerie.
Posts: 1765 | From: Oakland, CA, USA | Registered: May 2003
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mertseger:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I'm not sure how many levels there are really.
"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's tortoises all the way down!"
That's an interesting comment, and it suggests that 'level' is the wrong word, since there is no hierarchy - there is no 'all the way down'. There are different ways of approaching someone, and they don't depend on each other. And maybe there are lots of ways of looking at someone, as a person, as a bag of chemicals, as an economic unit, as a centre of consciousness, as a blob of matter, and so on. Again, it's not a scientific description.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Well. That escalated quickly.
Go onshore for three days and all hell breaks loose on the poverty of materialistic philosophy and the mind-body connection.
I love this ship! ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
It is, indeed, amazing what we can get up to when you're not here to make it all about your crummy jokes.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
How can action (mind and personality?) be a consequence of free will if its nothing but chemicals making you act (or defining your mind and personality)?
My mind and personality most certainly are not just chemistry.
You know this how?
Unless reality is totally illusory (Matrix style - no objective reality) I can deduce it through a combination of reason, revelation and intuition.
But presumably your mind and personality are made of something. And whatever that something is - call it X - you could dismiss it with a weaselly "nothing but X". That's not reasoning, its just, well, I'm not sure what it is.
And its anti-materialist Gnosticism. Fails the fundamental test of Christian teaching set out in 1 John 4 1-6
Saying my mind and personality are not just chemicals is gnostic? Da fuq?
Some things are material ( a rock ), some are not (Spirit). Some are a combination of both (humans).
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Well. That escalated quickly.
Go onshore for three days and all hell breaks loose on the poverty of materialistic philosophy and the mind-body connection.
I love this ship!
It is, indeed, amazing what we can get up to when you're not here to make it all about your crummy jokes.
Missed you too sweetlips. ![[Axe murder]](graemlins/lovedrops.gif)
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Saying my mind and personality are not just chemicals is gnostic? Da fuq?
I don't get why the word "just" is in that sentence. Are chemical elements not special enough for you or something? Do you think you're too much of a precious little snowflake to be made of the same stuff as everything else in the universe?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
It is, indeed, amazing what we can get up to when you're not here to make it all about your crummy jokes.
Evensong: how a sense of humour writes a suicide note.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Saying my mind and personality are not just chemicals is gnostic? Da fuq?
I don't get why the word "just" is in that sentence. Are chemical elements not special enough for you or something? Do you think you're too much of a precious little snowflake to be made of the same stuff as everything else in the universe?
It's a Christian thing. Some can't write a simple declarative sentence without putting "just" in there. Is there a need to limit or minimise everything in contrast to an infinite and eternal God?
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Saying my mind and personality are not just chemicals is gnostic? Da fuq?
I don't get why the word "just" is in that sentence. Are chemical elements not special enough for you or something? Do you think you're too much of a precious little snowflake to be made of the same stuff as everything else in the universe?
What makes you think everything in the universe (and beyond the universe) is made of matter?
That's a very small and restrictive world view.
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Saying my mind and personality are not just chemicals is gnostic? Da fuq?
I don't get why the word "just" is in that sentence. Are chemical elements not special enough for you or something? Do you think you're too much of a precious little snowflake to be made of the same stuff as everything else in the universe?
It's a Christian thing. Some can't write a simple declarative sentence without putting "just" in there. Is there a need to limit or minimise everything in contrast to an infinite and eternal God?
Limit and minimise? No. Those are very negative words and matter (and our lives) are not negative things.
Include the infinite and eternal? Most definitely. Because we have them too.
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
What makes you think everything in the universe (and beyond the universe) is made of matter?
Everything's made of something.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Dark Knight
Super Zero
# 9415
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Saying my mind and personality are not just chemicals is gnostic? Da fuq?
I don't get why the word "just" is in that sentence. Are chemical elements not special enough for you or something? Do you think you're too much of a precious little snowflake to be made of the same stuff as everything else in the universe?
It's a Christian thing. Some can't write a simple declarative sentence without putting "just" in there. Is there a need to limit or minimise everything in contrast to an infinite and eternal God?
No, it isn't. It really gets tiresome when you use that particular straw man to avoid engaging with the idea.
A person's being is not equal to the matter from which said person is made. A person's being is greater than that. Hence, a person is not "just" their brain.
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So don't ever call me lucky
You don't know what I done, what it was, who I lost, or what it cost me - A B Original: I C U
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Love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6).
Posts: 2958 | From: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road | Registered: Apr 2005
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
A person's being is not equal to the matter from which said person is made. A person's being is greater than that. Hence, a person is not "just" their brain.
Sure, we're more than the sum of our parts. But that doesn't mean there's something oother than our parts that's a part of us.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
Dark Knight, I was exagerrating. "just" and "really" must be the most overused and unnecessary words in casual Christian writing and especially prayer. They sap power from prose and kill lyrics and poetry.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Saying my mind and personality are not just chemicals is gnostic? Da fuq?
I don't get why the word "just" is in that sentence. Are chemical elements not special enough for you or something? Do you think you're too much of a precious little snowflake to be made of the same stuff as everything else in the universe?
It's a Christian thing. Some can't write a simple declarative sentence without putting "just" in there. Is there a need to limit or minimise everything in contrast to an infinite and eternal God?
No, it isn't. It really gets tiresome when you use that particular straw man to avoid engaging with the idea.
A person's being is not equal to the matter from which said person is made. A person's being is greater than that. Hence, a person is not "just" their brain.
It seems more complicated to me - I agree with your first point, a person is not equal to a clump of matter; but I'm not sure about 'greater'. It just seems different to me, or if you like, not commensurate. The terms are from different forms of discourse, which don't really mesh together, although people do try to conflate them.
It's like saying that truth and justice are made up of chemicals - a bizarre mixing of categories.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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DOEPUBLIC
Shipmate
# 13042
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by DOEPUBLIC:
Maybe of interest mind mapping
That's a dead link, sweetie. It's basically asking me if I'd like to buy a website.
Oops Sorry I will try again
mind mapping
Posts: 2350 | Registered: Oct 2007
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
We are not "just" the matter that makes us up, any more than a Shakespeare manuscript is "just" ink on foolscap. It's ink in a very particular pattern. But physically all that's there is ink on foolscap. It is "made of" pigment and cotton.
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Some things are material ( a rock ), some are not (Spirit). Some are a combination of both (humans).
And they interact through the pituitary, right? ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
What makes you think everything in the universe (and beyond the universe) is made of matter?
Let's separate these:
1. What makes you think everything in the universe is made of matter?
Because that's what "universe" means: the sum total of matter (and energy, you left out energy).
2. What makes you think everything beyond the universe is made of matter?
I don't. Indeed, by definition, if there is anything beyond the universe, it is NOT made of matter.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Mere Nick
Shipmate
# 11827
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Posted
My uncle thought he had left the universe when my cousin tripped over his catheter.
Posts: 2797 | From: West Carolina | Registered: Sep 2006
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Who we are as individuals is measured by our abilities, personality and character. We know we can change this by physically altering our brains.
By physically altering our brains, we can change that which makes us who we are by any reasonable measurement or observation.
The question of personal identity is frankly a lot more complicated than that. In what sense are you you, given the rather obvious changes of you that have occurred since your birth (or your conception, if you will)?
We, as adults, are who we are because of the changes in ourselves as we grew. In one sense, it is reasonable to say I am the same entity; in another sense, I am a different person than I was as a child. That child had more potential outcomes than the one which resulted in me.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
It is true of course that you can alter my mental performance by changing my brain.
I am not speaking about performance, exactly. These is a case of a man developing paedophilia tendencies where none appeared before. An examination revealed a tumor which, when removed, also removed those tendencies. Any neurosurgeon can give you stories regarding physical trauma changing personality and behaviour. Changes which result in a different person, for all practical purpose.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Sure, we're more than the sum of our parts. But that doesn't mean there's something oother than our parts that's a part of us.
Better put than I managed.
quote:
Originally posted by Dark Knight:
I actually don't. My apologies. I reacted too strongly to your post. I'm trying to be nicer. But failing miserably.
I should have started by saving such insults for those who actually deserve them.
No worries.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
We, as adults, are who we are because of the changes in ourselves as we grew. In one sense, it is reasonable to say I am the same entity; in another sense, I am a different person than I was as a child. That child had more potential outcomes than the one which resulted in me.
If you see no particular problem with this, then I do not see why the purported case you mention (a man becoming pedophile due to a tumour and turning normal again upon its removal) would present any difficulty, even if it were true. The man with a tumour in his brain had less potential outcomes as far as his sexual behaviour was concerned, but that as such does not mean that we cannot consider him to be the same person as the same man without a tumour.
Nobody is denying that the brain is instrumental for enacting mind in this world. The question is whether (a certain part of) brain function is identical with the mind.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
One of the old arguments about that concerns the truth of propositions (or sentences, if you prefer). If you accept that a proposition can be true or false, and that a proposition is a mental entity, how about the truth (or falsity) of the neuronal activity which underlies the proposition? Can neurons be true?
Well, it just sounds bizarre really, although I suppose you can argue that 'truth' is itself neuronal activity. But again, it's mixing categories, isn't it?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
What makes you think everything in the universe (and beyond the universe) is made of matter?
Everything's made of something.
What is the soul made of? What is Spirit made of? What is God made of?
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
We are not "just" the matter that makes us up, any more than a Shakespeare manuscript is "just" ink on foolscap. It's ink in a very particular pattern. But physically all that's there is ink on foolscap. It is "made of" pigment and cotton.
Quite. So what is the leap between ink and foolscap and Shakespeare's great work?
Consciousness? Soul? Mind?
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Some things are material ( a rock ), some are not (Spirit). Some are a combination of both (humans).
And they interact through the pituitary, right?
No idea. Aristotle believed it was the soul that was the formal cause of a human being.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Evensong:
[qb]What makes you think everything in the universe (and beyond the universe) is made of matter?
Let's separate these:
1. What makes you think everything in the universe is made of matter?
Because that's what "universe" means: the sum total of matter (and energy, you left out energy).
2. What makes you think everything beyond the universe is made of matter?
I don't. Indeed, by definition, if there is anything beyond the universe, it is NOT made of matter.
So where do soul and Spirit, God and consciousness fit in? They exist in this universe.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Quite. So what is the leap between ink and foolscap and Shakespeare's great work?
Consciousness? Soul? Mind?
Pattern. As stated.
quote:
So where do soul and Spirit, God and consciousness fit in? They exist in this universe.
I've dealt with consciousness. It's a pattern imprinted in matter. As for the rest, how would you go about demonstrating their existence in this universe?
And God is in this universe? That's not terribly kosher theologically. God is not a thing.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Yes, I thought that classical theism explicitly states that God is not an item in the universe. I suppose that some anthropomorphic views almost seem to suggest that (theistic personalism).
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
I do rather worry about people who want to make God fit.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
I do rather worry about people who want to make God fit.
Jengie
You could drop a big hint.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Quite. So what is the leap between ink and foolscap and Shakespeare's great work?
Consciousness? Soul? Mind?
Pattern. As stated.
No. It is pattern but it's not just pattern. It's pattern that effects symbol that effects subjective experience.
Art is not just matter. Matter is the material medium.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
So where do soul and Spirit, God and consciousness fit in? They exist in this universe.
I've dealt with consciousness. It's a pattern imprinted in matter. As for the rest, how would you go about demonstrating their existence in this universe?
Demonstrating their existence can be done metaphysically but that's a different question to what we're dealing with here. I'm assuming Christians believe God exists and working from there.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
And God is in this universe? That's not terribly kosher theologically. God is not a thing.
According to your definition of what constitutes the universe it's not terribly kosher no. But your definition is too small.
As Christians, we believe God exists in the universe so there must be an immaterial reality to the universe.
If you don't believe God exists in the universe then you end up with a watchmaker God. And that is very bad theology.
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, I thought that classical theism explicitly states that God is not an item in the universe.
What do you mean by classical?
If you're referring to Aquinas (who built on Aristotle) then classical theism states God (pure being, pure potential) is how we live and move and have our being at every moment of our lives. Take God away from the equation and we would cease to exist.
It's only the later philosophers in Descartes that introduces a mind/body, matter/spirit dualism that removed God from the world to an extent.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
You guys keep it up with the theological mutual masturbation. I never expected to feel so much smarter reading a Hell thread.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I've dealt with consciousness. It's a pattern imprinted in matter.
FWIW, hylomorphic dualism (Aristotle, Aquinas et al.) would agree with this statement. It is quite a different beast to Cartesian dualism (not that Cartesian dualism has been shown wrong by actual philosophical argument, it has merely been rhetorically mocked into oblivion).
The key question is however if this pattern - this form - imprinted on matter subsists only in the matter, or whether it also has an incorporeal activity per se. The classical teaching is that the form of animals - including incidentally their animal consciousness, which is not classically a mark distinguishing humans - has no activity per se. It really is just that pattern in matter. Whereas the human pattern has an activity per se and hence subsists incorporeally. And that activity happens to be intellectual in a strict sense, the ability to understand, to extract universals. The arguments for that are not a mile away from quetzalcoatl's "Can neurons be true?" (Though obviously in the middle ages they did not make the point in terms of advanced biology.)
Perhaps an analogy helps: in hylomorphic dualism the activity of the body (brain in particular) would be like the front of a horse, and the incorporeal activity would be like the back of the same horse. They are really a unit and work together, as the horse runs, jumps etc.. But imagine that for some reason we can only observe the front of the horse, and the back is invisible to us. If we are not very careful in our observations, we may well conclude that the horse happens to be a two-legged creature. However, we may see subtle hints in the overall motions that the balancing isn't right unless there is a back to this animal which we cannot see. And if we are very lucky, we may see the horse rear on its hind legs. Or more accurately, we may see the front of the horse rise into the air, in a prolonged manner that really seems at odds with any kind of jumping that the two legs which we see could possibly do.
So this kind of theory is in principle testable, even in an empirical-physical sense. However, I doubt very much that we will in practice get there in my lifetime, if ever. The brain really, really is horribly complicated, and to hunt for subtle imbalances or rare but telling events appears like a losing proposition for the foreseeable future...
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
As Christians, we believe God exists in the universe
No we most certainly do not. We believe the universe exists in God.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Same thing.
It's like the whole structure of sentences in English has completely passed you by.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
Hardly. Think panentheism. Think circles that are not mutually exclusive. The one infuses the other and exists within it but is not defined by it or limited to it.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
But isn't the whole point of panentheism that it's a form of heresy denying God's transcendent nature and positing a God that changes, rather than unchanging?
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Jack o' the Green
Shipmate
# 11091
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Posted
I think you are confusing both being true, with both being the same thing. Reality existing in God is usually taken to mean that God is continually upholding everything in existence i.e. reality's contingent existence exists in God's necessary existence. God being present in us, I take to mean that God dwells in humans in a more specific, personal way, and more in some than in others. More in Jesus than in me for example, and not necessarily in the same way. Again, in a different way in Jesus than in me.
Posts: 3121 | From: Lancashire, England | Registered: Feb 2006
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Jack o' the Green
Shipmate
# 11091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
But isn't the whole point of panentheism that it's a form of heresy denying God's transcendent nature and positing a God that changes, rather than unchanging?
There are different varieties of panentheism, but I think all seek to preserve God's transcendence as against pantheism. In pantheism, no universe, no God. Some Christian writers e.g. N.T. Wright and I think John Macquarie prefer the term Dialectical Theism to avoid confusion, but others e.g. the late Anglican Bishop of Birmingham Hugh Montifiore and Bishop John Robinson used the term.
Posts: 3121 | From: Lancashire, England | Registered: Feb 2006
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Jack o' the Green
Shipmate
# 11091
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Posted
Sorry, double post. Rev Marcus Borg also defines himself as a panentheist in the book "The God we never knew".
Posts: 3121 | From: Lancashire, England | Registered: Feb 2006
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
It's very confusing, since some varieties of theism such as process theism embrace panentheism, and also move away from the idea of an unchanging God.
But that doesn't mean that panentheism itself always has a changeable God.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Jack o' the Green
Shipmate
# 11091
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Posted
Agreed. Also, some writers e.g. the philosopher and Anglican priest Keith Ward would argue that God is both necessary and contingent - necessary in that he exists, and contingent in the way he acts and interacts within a contingent creation.
Posts: 3121 | From: Lancashire, England | Registered: Feb 2006
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
But isn't the whole point of panentheism that it's a form of heresy denying God's transcendent nature and positing a God that changes, rather than unchanging?
No. That's process theology.
Spawn of the devil!
(Also very Jungian)
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Jack o' the Green
Shipmate
# 11091
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Posted
Also (at risk of sounding like a utter pedant, or 'theological masturbater' thank you Kelly), God must be unchanging in some sense as a total change of something means it no longer exists. There needs to be continuity of existence as well as change. Also, if God is initiating the change in himself, then he must in some way transcend the change, so even Open Theism or Process Theology require God to be changeless in some aspects of his being. The difference between this and some examples of classical theism e.g. Aquinas is that for Aquinas, God doesn't even have the logical potentiality for change, everything is necessarily in an 'eternal now'.
Posts: 3121 | From: Lancashire, England | Registered: Feb 2006
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I think, Yonatan, you prove too much. If something needs an unchanging core (to use a possibly inappropriate term, advisedly) to stay itself through change (Aristotle would approve), then so do we, and there is no distinguishing us from God.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Jack o' the Green
Shipmate
# 11091
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Posted
I would argue that there is plenty of things which distinguish us from God, (or perhaps distinguish God from us would perhaps be a better way of putting it). In this particular instance, the point that we must have an 'unchanging core' if change isn't to mean that we change to the extent that we no longer exist is simply a logical argument or statement. There is nothing which is intrinsic to our nature which means that this could never happen to us. If God is necessary as opposed to contingent being, then his changing to the point of non-existence is an ontological impossibility. In the case of a human, we are simply saying that a human can't change in his or her entirety and still be thought of as the same human being. With regard to God, he can't change in his entirety period.
Posts: 3121 | From: Lancashire, England | Registered: Feb 2006
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yonatan:
With regard to God, he can't change in his entirety period.
From your wording I was thinking you were saying God can change, but must have an unchanging inner core. Sorry about that.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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