From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Thu Sep 04 2003 - 10:04:19 EDT
Steve Petermann wrote:
>
> Ted,
>
> > Or something like that. His picture of the Demiurgos is, IMO, a precursor
> > of the modern process God, who can't exert absolute power of nature
> > either--that is, IMO the process God can't determine the nature of nature.
> > Rather the nature of nature is a given, the God must simply do his best
> with
> > what he's got. This is why I think of process theology as Platonistic,
> > though one can also see it as deeply Aristotelian also (an eternal
> universe
> > eternally in the process of becoming).
>
> I think you're exactly right on the parallels. What has always bothered me
> about process theology is its use of the term "God". Unlike Plato, process
> thought doesn't seem to understand that the term "God" springs from the
> notion of ultimacy. Plato certainly recognized it by having God be
> transcendent even if his idea of perfection might cause problems. When
> process theology leaves out a transcendent ultimate it, in effect, makes
> their god a Demiurgos. Since in their view God is constrained by something,
> then logically whatever constrains God is really God...........................
This is a good point. Process theologians often say that one has to speak of
God and the world together (as in Cobb's _God and the World_). In an important sense it
is the God + World combination that corresponds to "God" in traditional theologies.
But traditional theologies have their own problems. I find it strange &
somewhat disheartening that on this list people think that they can discuss "God" &
"creation" in some detail without ever referring to the one who by & for whom, according
to the NT (Jn.1:3, I Cor.8:6, Col.1:16-17, Heb.1:2), all things have been created. To
put it bluntly, most of the discussions of creation here - from the standpoints of both
process thought & more traditional theism - are of very little value because of this
defect.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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