nice topic :)
Submitted by F.O.D. on April 08 2000 18:59:29
In reply to For F.O.D.: Creation ex nihilo submitted by Ray on April 08 2000 10:02:26
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Nice not to be "arguing" about sexuality for a change ;) Looks to me look we're really fussing over semantics. It comes down to what we mean by "chaos" and "nothing". I phrase the issue in these terms: there are three ways of understanding the relationship between divinity and matter (by "matter" I'm not necessarily restricting myself to physical matter. I just mean "stuff".) Well maybe there are more, but anyway, the three I identify are 1) matter (the universe) came first. Out of it sprang God (or gods) who established order and made other things. What label does this have? Paganism? But this is equivalent to saying the universe is God, insofar as you "define god" to be the prime mover. 2) the universe is god. Everything, us, the birds, the rocks, the stars, is all "god". This is pantheism. 3) God came first, and created the universe. This is the usual Christian position. Should we call this monotheism? Anyway, in objecting to creation ex nihilo, it sounds like you are promoting cosmology #2, with God and matter being one and the same but on closer inspection I could agree you are maintaining #3, but we're just arguing over the difference between "chaos" and "nothing". Unless you're promoting dualism (which would be cosmology #4 no doubt), where the chaos has being and form in it's own right. If I understand the problem more correctly, your real objection is the "distancing" of God from creation apparently implied by creation ex nihilo, an objection to deism with an outside and uninvolved God starting up his clockwork universe and letting it run without him. This problem I resolve by understanding God to be "through" or "in" the universe he created from nothing. So, the universe is not God, but derives it's life and being from his "entry" ("entanglement"?) in it. Col 1 seems to support that idea. I think of it as God having his "fingers" in the universe, sustaining it, or perhaps "breath" is a better metaphor, his living breath is in the universe and keeps it alive. If he withdrew his breath, the universe would collapse. I apply this thinking to the laws os physics, that they are not a law unto themselves, but carry validity only insofar as God maintains their validity. (when he does not, we have supernatural miracles). The clockwork universe does not fit this view, and has the laws of the universe holding true without God's presence in them. But nothing has being or life without God's breath in it [I'm not sure how that statement fits in with hell, though] As for time, don't pass by that curious phrase somewhere in the NT "before the beginning of time"... Peace, Fod |
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