Newton Vs. The Clockwork Universe

Imaginary numbers (inter alia) have no different basis than the integers do. Historically imaginary numbers were invented before negative numbers.

Thank you for pinging me to your excellent reply to Diamond!

En Sof, however, does not seem to fall within the scope of any known human concept of "nothing" -- or of any demonstrated human ability to fully, consciously, finally understand a concept such as "Nothing." Plato called it Chora, "Space (Necessity)".

In the various authentic Jewish meditations I've read on the subject of En Sof - the meaning includes the infinite everything and the infinite nothing as well. IOW, En Sof exceeds all which can be ever be described as spatial, temporal or corporeal - and En Sof also exceeds all which can ever be described as non-spatial, non-temporal or non-corporeal. IMHO, most conceptualizations of God center on the former and ignore the latter.

In further meditations on En Sof, I have concluded that there was a beginning because God wanted to reveal Himself. Thus, everything in creation exists to that end - including spiritual beings, such as we are, some of whom will be of His family or in the community.

Even such things as good and evil serve the purpose of revealing God. For instance, how would one know courage if he never knew fear, or health without sickness - so how would he know that God is good without knowing what evil is? All of creation reveals some of God to us and prepares some of us for Him.

Everything in Scripture from Genesis to Revelation 20 builds to the arrival of the new heaven and earth described in Rev 21 and 22.

My two cents...

Thank you so much for pinging me to your excellent discussion with cornelis!

I think the point might be that human beings ought every once in a while to get their nose out of doctrine, and try on God-given reality for size. Doctrine is enormously helpful. But unless a person eventually can verify it spiritually -- that is, by means of the light and grace of the Holy Spirit -- then it cannot, and will not, change a human soul.

I cannot possibly agree with you more on this, betty boop!

Personally, I do not embrace the doctrine and tradition of mortals - whether Calvin, Arminius, Joseph Smith, the Pope, Billy Graham, etc. It simply doesn't matter at all to me whether the living Word of God (the indwelling Spirit and the Scriptures) has led me in a path which sounds like a bad intellectual pedigree to someone else.

And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, [even] as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able [to bear it], neither yet now are ye able.

For ye are yet carnal: for whereas [there is] among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I [am] of Apollos; are ye not carnal?

Who then is Paul, and who [is] Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? - I Cor 3:1-5

Jeepers, I must have been fading fast last night - I truncated an important part of the passage. I Cor 3:1-5 continues at verse 6-7 as follows:

I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.

Taken altogether, the passage supports the view (which I believe you share) that it is the working of the Spirit and not the pedigree the doctrine that matters.

I also truncated my reply. I had intended to address this comment from post 112:

In short, truly it has been said: "The Word was made Flesh...." It seems to me this happened at the Creation (metaphorically speaking), just as it happened at the Incarnation, both events part of the historical world process. Or so it seems to me, FWIW.

It is not just a metaphor. One of the often overlooked testimonies of Scripture is that everything that was made, was made through Jesus:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. - John 1:1-3

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. - John 1:14

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by [his] Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of [his] glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; - Hebrews 1:1-3

In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. - 1 John 4:9

A believer can miss the diety of Christ if they are under the impression that His life began inside of Mary. To the contrary, Jesus was with the Father from the beginning and will be, to the end. (Revelation, John 6).

Thus the similarity you see between the creation and Christ's entering the world in the form of a man is quite real.

A believer can miss the diety of Christ if they are under the impression that His life began inside of Mary. To the contrary, Jesus was with the Father from the beginning and will be, to the end. (Revelation, John 6).

Thus the similarity you see between the creation and Christ's entering the world in the form of a man is quite real.

I have no doubt of this, Alamo-Girl! Both times -- the creation and the incarnation -- the Word -- the Logos, the Alpha and Omega -- was made flesh. My use of the word "metaphor" does not refer to the "process," but to the word "flesh." For it seems people do not think of that word as applying to such things as photons, electrons, and quarks -- which may be, if the QED theorists are correct, the "stuff" that God used to make a Universe -- IF indeed He did so by means of a primary universal vacuum field, through its "instrumental agency"(for lack of a better term), the ZPF.

All of this is highly speculative, of course. Yet to me, it seems an elegant "solution" to the problem of how everything in the created universe came forth out of an original, absolute nothing. The primary universal vacuum perhaps really was "nothing," or "empty," until it generated the zero point field, ZPF. (In the language of En Sof, God's "descent by chariot" into the "Heavenly Man.")

For the info of interested Lurkers, to the best of my understanding, quantum electrodynamics suggests that the ZPF, via its characteristic particle, the photon -- light in its particle form -- is a universal field that mediates the activity of photons interacting with the matter of the universe [by means of virtual particles that seemingly "pop in" out of nowhere, and then just as suddenly "pop out"]. Photons constantly, universally interact with two types of particles: electrons and quarks. From quarks we have all the baryons -- the constituents of the atomic nucleus. The atomic nucleus (strongly bound protons and neutrons [except in the case of hydrogen, which doesn't have a neutron] plus one or more electrons, gives rise to all the elements of the periodic table. The atom, of course, is the basic constituent of all matter, living and non-living. But only living matter is called "flesh."

Which suggests that evolution, therefore, is fundamental to the expression of God's purposeful design in 4D space-time. For the living beings were the last of God's creatures to appear on earth. But this idea of evolution is not the Darwinist conception of natural evolution, which basically states that creatures evolve based on the need to adapt to changes in the "outside," environmental conditions in order to survive and successfully reproduce.

There is another concept of evolution that is often called "emergence." Emergence essentially means a successive disclosure of what is implicit in (or "designed into") a natural system, living or non-living. Thus it is not a response to an "outside pull," but to an "inside push." Very crude analogies for emergence are the seed becoming flower, or the acorn becoming oak tree.

The point is: God wants flowers and oak trees. There is Purpose in the divine design....

Anyhoot, it appears that emergence depends on the successful communication of information. Indeed, for creatures displaying sufficient "complexity" (degrees of freedom), successful communication is what gives rise to life itself.

But this is a whole 'nother bear of a topic! So I'll leave off.... This will conclude my fevered speculation in regard to cosmic origins for now!!! FWIW

Thank you so much, Alamo-Girl, for your beautiful posts -- and for the valuable links to sources.

Thank you so much for your final reply and for your wonderfully engaging speculation on origins and the cosmos! And thank you for the clarification on the subject of the metaphor.

part of the historical world process There's an analogy there, but contemplation of the world-process doesn't lead anyone to the incarnation because the world process is itself not a member of the trinity. The consideration of human nature provides a better clue.

Thank you for your reply!

There's an analogy there, but contemplation of the world-process doesn't lead anyone to the incarnation because the world process is itself not a member of the trinity.

Indeed. I don't believe that was Pannenberg's objective, though. In reading his book, I am of the understanding that he is seeking a theology of nature and not a gospel via nature.

By my reading, he suggests that a new doctrine of the Trinity which emphasizes the role of The Word in creation (and continuance) would be helpful.

"Perhaps a renewed doctrine of the Trinity would combine the Logos doctrine of the ancient church with contemporary information theory and recognize the activity of the divine spirit in the self-transcendence of life and its evolution [or to borrow a term from science, its "emergence"]. Only a Trinitarian theology is able to meet effectively the emancipation of the concept of the world that Newton had in mind -- that is, the mechanical description of nature that is not only a theoretical construction but takes place in the actual processes of the world itself. A Christian theology of creation will be able to develop a description that does justice to this emancipation of the world process and at the same time removes its disassociation from its divine origin only by way of the theology of the Trinity, in a perspective of the history of salvation. In this way it will also cope with the critique of Leibnitz insofar as as Newton's idea of God was not commensurate with this task. However, a theology of nature must not go back behind Newton's thought on the presence of God with his creatures through space and time, if theology is to avoid the spell of a powerless dualism of spirit and matter."

The Word in creation is recorded in Scripture. Not surprisingly, science seems to agree with those passages: harmonics as the least common denominator of resonance in the universe, the zero point field. And also the sound waves in the cosmic background radiation at the moment photons decoupled and light went its way.

Or, if one prefers to emphasize Logos extended to "logic" - the unreasonable effectiveness of math, dimensionality, physical constants, etc.

None of these observations of nature constitute a Gospel message, but rather could be seen as physical evidence of the Scriptural message of the Trinity.

There's an analogy there, but contemplation of the world-process doesn't lead anyone to the incarnation because the world process is itself not a member of the trinity.

Thanks to you both for your replies!

cornelis, I didn't mean to suggest that the world process is a member of the Trinity. What I did mean to suggest is that the world process is the result of the purpose and actions of the divine Trinity -- Father, Son, and Spirit.

I'm sorry if what I wrote was confusing....

You might like this: Click here and use find with this phrase "Now the world is good" to locate the 4th century passage on the Logos.

Thank you so much for the link!!! That was a very interesting read!