Problems with this section (Agnosticism)

by Frank Paris , Wednesday, November 11, 2009, 19:47 (5490 days ago) @ dhw

"Now you're drawing a much clearer picture, and it's rather more conventional than the one you drew initially."-This is precisely what Griffin says about his concept of God, which others encountering the God of process theology have denied. Griffin devotes a section in his book, Reenchantment without Supernaturalism, to demonstrating that his concept of God is thoroughly Biblical, even though it denies that God is all-powerful and hence is responsible for evil in the world. It is precisely that denial that theologians critical of process theology claim makes the God of process theology "not worthy of worship" (because then God would not be fearsome enough?). In any case, I'm gratified that you now think that my concept of God is "rather more conventional than the one you [think I] drew initially."-'Given that God must be pretty clever to create the "fundamental particles", has a purpose (to see himself reflected), and has infinite time to fiddle around with his own materials, I really can't see why you should believe he's not capable of creating conscious reflections of himself, whereas blind unthinking chance is!'-Boy, that is quite a mouthful! Lots of assertions and presumptions stuck together, some of which I can go for and some of which I can't. So if the above statement is supposed to be a summary of my views, I still have not made myself clear to you. So let's break it down, one statement at a time that does not apply to what I've at least meant if not said!-'God must be pretty clever to create the "fundamental particles"'-I've expressed this creation of fundamentals as their simply being "minimal reflections of himself." There's nothing "clever" about it. It's more like just part of God's "instinct."-"God..has infinite time to fiddle around with his own materials." -Where have I ever said this??? Once created, God doesn't "fiddle" with them at all. They just "do their thing" until organisms made up of them rise up through natural evolution that are conscious enough for God to "lure" towards himself, and thus influence them internally (not externally, which would be "fiddling"). -"I really can't see why you should believe he's not capable of creating conscious reflections of himself, whereas blind unthinking chance is!"-When have I ever said that God is "not capable of creating conscious reflections of himself"? I believe that all I've ever said is that there is no scientific evidence that God has done this in our universe. More about that later, but first this. Blind, unthinking chance is "capable of creating conscious reflections of [God]" because the fundamentals are each minimal reflections of the divine essence, and when they "stick together" into higher and higher organisms, all of these minimal reflections of the divine come to a focus and eventually become bright enough to become conscious enough to burst through a "porthole" to the full consciousness of God in mystical experience. I believe I've explained this in so many words a half dozen times before.-And have I ever said that God is incapable of creating conscious reflections of himself? I believe that all I've said is that in our particular universe God has only created the fundamentals. I believe I've left it a completely open question about whether God can spin off larger "chunks" of himself that are fully conscious. That's even Biblical! What are the seven hierarchies of "angels" other than just that?-I have absolutely no idea whether God has created "angels", or whether God can create "human souls" that reflect all the memories and emotions arising out of the physical human brain. But in fact I have developed portions of my theology that explore these possibilities. It's that I don't think I've even mentioned these aspects of my theology on this forum yet, because they're pretty hard to swallow for agnostics and atheists, let alone what I've expounded so far.-So for whatever reason, you are once again making assumptions about my theology that as far as I know, I have not given you reason for making. Maybe you're just asking me whether in additional to all I've said, I also "meant" to say these other things.