Process problems from Re: Evolution: A few questions

From: bivalve <bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com>
Date: Thu Jun 24 2004 - 19:46:17 EDT

>>Process theology seems rather vulnerable on this ground; a god that does not require anything of us nor do anything we might not like seems too convenient to be realistic. >>

I don't think advocates of process theology are deliberately setting out to make an irrelevant god, but I can't think of an observational difference between a deity that obeys the precepts set by process theology and one that doesn't exist. I know that the postulates are different, but what evidence can one use to decide? Elijah's method is inappropriate for a process view, but what could one do instead?

How can a deity require anything of us us without being coercive? It might like it if we behaved nicely, but why should we care?

If I attribute every event that I don't like to the inability of deity to do something about it, then that does not leave much possibility for said deity to operate contrary to my preferences.

    Dr. David Campbell
    Old Seashells
    University of Alabama
    Biodiversity & Systematics
    Dept. Biological Sciences
    Box 870345
    Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0345 USA
    bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com

That is Uncle Joe, taken in the masonic regalia of a Grand Exalted Periwinkle of the Mystic Order of Whelks-P.G. Wodehouse, Romance at Droitgate Spa
Received on Thu Jun 24 20:03:49 2004

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