Just in brief reply to your points, which are
well-taken, I think we may be talking a bit at crossed
purposes. This probably also ties into Terry's point
in his e-mail. I think we can all agree that in
principle, God is omnipotent. However, once choosing
to do something (if we can use such language about
God), He has limited Himself in some way by His
choice. Kenotic theology is certainly one way of
discussing this self-limitation in recent years. I
don't think kenotic theology is in anyway heretical
and deals with the issue of the hiddenness of God
which has been a theological issue for millenia.
Unless I missed something, I don't think anyone
proposed any sort of dualism. But once God gives some
freewill to His creation, that creates limits on God's
power, if God chooses to continue to let that freewill
operate. God thus creates things/people that are able
to act independently of, but dependent upon, God.
This is not dualism. But it is also not God in
control of _everything_ or freewill is illusory --
just like Dennett, Dawkins, and Wegner have so
ferventy and in Wegner's case recently argued in books
that it is. It is not to say that God does not
ultimately undergird everything or that things could
have been different or that He could change His mind
(however we may conceive of that).
Of course, the question of freewill is both a
theological and scientific question that is open to
considerable discussion without hitting the wall of
heresy.
Blake
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