[I suppose this post’s thought does not count as a “devotional,” but it moves me to worship.]
Fun Thought Twister (explained below)
The Christian thinker said, “I entrust myself to God, but I do not believe God
exists.” Hint: there is a point here about our human comprehension
of God’s existence.
Thesis
The beingness of the created world “demerges” from the beingness of God with
the result that creation has limited, but shared, dimensions with its Creator.
Brief Background*
Going back to Thomas Aquinas, Dominicans held that God’s beingness
was only analogical to human beingness; they are not the same. Moreover, because of human’s different
beingness, true knowledge of reality depended on revelation from God. A perceived problem with this position is
that God becomes too transcendent to be even spoken about. Going back to Duns Scotus, Franciscans in
response posited that God’s beingness is the same as that of the created world
but that God was infinitely greater.
Though Duns Scotus should not be blamed – his thesis was quite complex –
modern epistemology and skepticism about God in the West developed out of this concept of same
beingness. As a result, it became claimed
that true knowledge of reality could be gained by observing nature alone empirically. This trajectory eventually led to agnostic/atheistic
claims that if God cannot be proven empirically, there is no God. Or, in a different way, one of my colleagues states,
“Since there is no such thing as disembodied agency [he is assuming empiricism],
there can be no God.”
Thesis Developed
First, I accept the notion of panentheism, that our cosmos is “in”
God while yet being distinct from God.
(See posts of Nov. 1, 2023; March 14, 2024; and April 24, 2024.) Second, emergence, as a concept that I want to turn
round, takes place within our cosmos, more complex systems emerge
from less complex ones. (One could think of
self-consciousness as an emergent property, and perhaps even the ability to be
conscious of God’s Presence as emergent.)
Third, although String Theory has nothing to do with theology – it is not
science proving God – it is intriguing to me that such mathematicians posit nine
or even twenty dimensions beyond that of our empirically knowable dimensions. Putting the first and third notions together
and reversing the second, leads me to the thesis that the created world “demerged”
(to coin a word?) from the Creator, such that our cosmos has fewer, albeit shared,
dimensions of some sort with God.
Like Aquinas’s position, then, our
restricted dimensionality means that empirical observation alone cannot truely lead to
understanding reality; revelation is ultimately needed. However, like Duns Scotus’ position, God is
not completely transcendent; we share dimensions with God, something that
allows us as embodied creatures to be touched and moved by the Presence of God.
I will have to
give this more thought and am certainly open to critique; however, for now this
thought leads me to marvel at a Creator who is so otherly transcendent and yet
concomitantly immanently connected to me. Moreover,
this God condescended to become enfleshed in our limited dimensionality so that we
could know God better. Breathtaking.
Praise you Lord Most High! I do not understand, but I bow in marvel and amazement. Amen.
Fun Thought Twister (explained)
The Christian thinker recognizes that one cannot simply equate our limited
human notion of “exist” or “beingness” with God, but yet personally/relationally
knows the reality of God and is moved to entrust oneself to God.
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*First, I am addressing a complex theological conflict that is
beyond my expertise. Second, such conflicts often arise when followers
of sophisticated thinkers like Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus miss the original
subtlety of those thinkers and see the other party’s God language as leaning toward
error. I imagine that had the two great
thinkers met, they would have worked out a language comprise that would have
satisfied them both.
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P.S. (10/29/2024) Having a dog might help me. A dog would look attentively and lovingly at me while I
ramble.
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