I’ll try, cornelis. But first, some unfinished business from your earlier post. I apologize to any Calvinist or Deist who took umbrage from the statement, “the worldview of Leibnitz reflects an early strain of Deism; that of Kant, the Calvinist theological view of God as utterly transcendent majesty.”
I was drawing conclusions from certain statements that Pannenberg – Professor of Theology, University of Munich – offered in the work that inspired this essay. Presumably – I don’t really know -- Pannenberg is of Lutheran confession. Frankly I don’t know whether Kant was of Calvinist persuasion or not. Maybe I read too much into what Pannenberg said. However, the point is that Kant did very much reject Newton’s concept of absolute space; Kant’s concept of space appears to boil down to subjective perception.
Earlier, RightWhale offered the observation that Kant was influenced by Newton’s thought; and I think this is clearly true. Yet Kant would not follow Newton here. The speculation as to his reason for this (as offered by Pannenberg): the putatively “Calvinist” idea that a perfect creator cannot have failed to create a perfect creation – which by virtue of its perfection would obviate the need for any further intercession by God into his works.
In any case, I do not at all wish to involve myself in doctrinal disputes among the Christian confessions. Nor to give offense to any adherent of any confession. Forgive me, if insult was felt by anybody, owing to my remarks.
To return to the present main issue, you wrote:
The best I can contribute to the idea of sensorium Dei is in line with a revelatory agency or energeia.
I think that both Newton’s theory of absolute space and the En Sof concept refer to something which is much more than the concept of energeia – if by this term we mean the ability of the human mind and spirit to resonate with “incoming data of God-given revelatory nature.” I think Newton’s term – and the En Sof -- in their main effect refer to the creation and on-going sustenance of the life process at all the levels of being, throughout all of time.
In short, absolute space/En Sof conceptualize both the (unimaginable by human beings) solitary, yet infinite and eternal, Life of God prior to the Creation, and God’s continuing activity to sustain the Creation after the fact of its creation. “God with his creatures,” the Lord of Life, cannot refer to a once-done and completed cosmic creation; for it is God’s will to be present with his creatures through all of space and time, forever. By this we are to understand that by virtue of his presence “with his creatures,” he alone sustains the life process itself, in all its forms and functions.
So it seems your “revelatory agency” is a part of the idea; but such can only be useful to conscious thinking beings. Yet it is more than human beings that “God with his creatures” actively sustains on an on-going basis.
In other words, God actively works, not only in the field of consciousness, but also in all the domains of living and even non-living nature. On Newton’s view, he is the creative foundation and eternally present sustainer, renewer of the Life Principle of the universe, in all its departments.
The En Sof seems to place a greater emphasis on the completely unknowable (by humans) life of God prior to the creation of the universe than Newton’s concept of absolute space does. Actually, the whole idea of “prior” is here suspect; for it makes no sense to speak of “priority” before time has commenced. But that’s the kind of problem one has in trying to imagine anything about the Life of God, who is Lord of Life, and try to convey it in words. But as it turns out, I think both Newton’s concept, and that of Kaballah, are about the “nature” of absolute space as an expression of the Life of God.
Let’s start by isolating the key statements about En Sof as given in Alamo-Girl’s cite:
1. It is “...the Deity prior to His self-manifestation in the production of the world…,” who is “alone.”
2. It is not something that can be “comprehended [by man] how He was before the creation…Hence it is forbidden to lend Him any form or similitude, or even to call Him by His sacred name,” or to imbue Him with “attributes” of any kind. “God so transcends human understanding as to be practically non-existent,” and this means that he cannot be described in principle, nor even named. For a name “implies a limitation on its bearer; and this is impossible in connection with the ‘En Sof’.” For En Sof is unlimited, infinite, eternal, undivided, and at-this-point, i.e., pre-creation, “nothing.”
Yet we are reminded: God creates out of nothing – “ex nihilo!”
3. But that “after He created the form of the Heavenly Man, [the universe I think is indicated here, and also the sons of God], He used him as a chariot wherein to descend….” [i.e., into the creation, so as to be “God with his creatures” and Lord of Life].
The analogy to Newton consists in Newton’s concept of absolute space – defined as unlimited, infinite, undivided, “empty” – nothing. Just as is the case with the En Sof, it’s “size” is determined by God’s infinity and eternity; and the size of its “first offspring,” the sensorium (or ZPF), is determined by God’s omniscience and omnipresence “with His creatures”. In both cases “size,” from the human point of view, is absolutely incalculable in principle.
But just as in the concept of En Sof, Newton’s absolute space is a very peculiar kind of “nothing,” because it is also the field of all potentiality that can possibly be expressed in and by the Creation itself. God is not identical with Newton’s sensorium Dei, just as En Sof does not refer to an identity of God; only God is identical with Himself – the significance of the statement, “I Am That I Am.” But God produces a universe out of that “self-identity,” and sustains it by means of Newton’s sensorium, understood not as an organ of perception, but as the field in which the living beings are constantly created, and constantly renewed and sustained by God – the God who is at once eternally “with His creatures” and Lord of Life – but who still maintains His “nature” as En Sof in that He ever surpasses all categories of human understanding.
We humans can know things “about” God. These are the things he has seen fit to tell us – in the Holy Scriptures and in the “book of nature.” But we do not see God “face-to-face”; meaning: We do not and cannot know God as He is in Himself – at least, not from this side of the grave (so to speak).
But at the moment of creation – with God’s speaking the Word specifying all the created things -- the divine “absolute space,” insofar as it acquired “immanence” as a process in created nature, produced the sensorium as property and effect of God’s will and purpose for Creation, and became the means whereby God acts in the world of his creatures.
In the case both of Newton’s absolute space and the En Sof, the closest concept that one can find to describe this relation of the creator with His creatures is that of an ultimate universal vacuum field. This is an insight from quantum field theory, some of whose theorists believe that the primary universal vacuum field is the “mother” or ultimate matrix producing all other fields in nature. Perhaps its first production, from the very earliest beginning of the cosmos, is the Zero Point Field (“ZPF”), whose characteristic particle is the photon, light. (Don’t forget God’s first creation was Light.) It has been hypothesized that electron-photon exchanges constantly taking place in the electromagnetic field coupled with the ZPF, may be the mechanism for the propagation and dissemination of information necessary to the emergence and sustenance of living beings and also the non-organic world. Thus the divine creative process does not consist of one single act of Creation “in the beginning,” but is constantly, actively going on through all of space and time as we humans understand those concepts.
Well, so much for my little speculation. I don’t know if any of the foregoing helps clarify the issue, cornelis, which is quite complex, as you can see – for we aren’t speaking of “just” theology or philosophy or cosmology, but also of such things as quantum field theory, quantum electrodynamics, information science, etc.
And the jury’s still out: relativity theory, for instance, denies both absolute space and absolute time. Just as an aside, however, absolute time seems to be but another name for all eternity. Pannenberg has an interesting way of putting this point:
I asset that eternity itself is described by statements of time. With a musical parable one might speak of eternity as the sounding together of all time in a sole present. Elsewhere I have developed this concept of eternity from the human experience of time, from the relativity of the distinction of past, present, and future corresponding to the relativity of the directions in space. In view of the relativity of the modes of time to the aspect of the human being experiencing time, this resulted in the assumption that all time, if it could be, so to speak, surveyed from a ‘place’ outside the course of time, would have to appear as contemporaneous…. Understood in the sense of the suggestions above, the concept of eternity comprehends all time and everything temporal in itself – a conception of the relation of time and eternity that goes back to Augustine and is connected to the Israelite understanding of eternity as unlimited duration throughout time.
Pannenberg’s Toward a Theology of Nature is a most provocative and substantial read, IMHO. I think you might enjoy it, cornelis – if you have the time and interest. Thanks so much for writing!
I have nothing substantive to add to your comments. The only thing I can offer is perhaps some clarification for those who may be concerned about a conflict between these musings and theology.
As I understand it, energeia is actualization rather than potential. Dynamis, on the other hand, is the potential rather than the actualization of it. I believe this is yet another Plato v Aristotle cut – with Plato asserting the dynamis; Aristotle, the energeia. But I digress…
In meditating on God, some theologians have concluded that God must be Actus Purus simply because they have reasoned that potentiality cannot apply to Whom is perfectly actualized.
The only objection I have in such reasoning is that mortal beings are on “thin ice” making any presumptions about what God cannot do beyond what He has said in Scriptures that He cannot do (e.g. lie).
For instance, in the case at hand, actus purus taken to its extreme conclusion might suggest strong determinism, predestination (Calvinism), etc. Such a conclusion could be countered by Scripture as follows: although God knows the future as if it were already past (Psalms 90:4, Daniel, Revelation, etc.) --- yet He provides the choices for mankind (commandments, etc.) --– and has changed (or will change) His mind according to those choices (Genesis 6:6, 2 Ch 7:14, etc.) IOW, has He then retained the "potential" to change His mind?
BTW, this is just an illustration of the theological import of the discussion. I do not wish to derail this terrific thread into the neverending argument of predestination v free will.
You are doing tremendous battle with the unnamed Center.
The En Sof is an extrinsic logical, conceptual denotation for transcendence, not the effect of divine agency in the cosmos. The emanation from a Plotinian One is evil.