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To: Alamo-Girl; marron
Who knows, perhaps Whitehead would have endorsed that concept [i.e., the "methodologically naturalist" conjecture]....

Perhaps he would, Alamo-Girl; but the question why he would choose to account for the Universe that way would still (apparently) be insoluable for us today.

Got home from work, instantly got distracted; and then when I had a chance, went digging for the source I particularly needed to give an account of Pannenberg's trinitarian theology of nature. [I was looking for something Voegelin wrote about the three Persons of the One God, after Aquinas. But I haven't found it yet. :^( ]

But then I realized: I don't need that particular cite. Pannenberg's theology directly follows the theology of -- surprise! surprise! -- Sir Isaac Newton, founder of modern mechanics, the very mind that conceived and specified the great physical laws of motion.

So I have had to "rethink" the piece. :^)

Still working on it, hope to be back on that topic soon....

As to whether Whitehead was an adherent of the "steady state" cosmological model -- I don't know how we could really find out. He's been dead now for some 58 years so we can't exactly ask him. And people can read a whole lot into him that maybe he didn't exactly intend.

What I am especially grateful to him for is that he evidently believed that no exhaustive description of the Universe could be made without the helps of philosophy and theology. Certainly Whitehead's was in no way a "doctrinal" theology. It seems to me Whitehead had a sort of primitive intuition of the nature of the "Unknown God" referenced in the Acts of the Apostles. This god it seems was the very god to which Plato referred as the "Beyond," the Epikeina. I think Whitehead was trying to "update the ancients" in the way he decided to present his theology.... But only the Greek ones; not Israel's.

Ruminations before calling it a day. Thank you as always, my dear sister in Christ, for your ever excellent correspondence and companionship.

131 posted on 06/27/2005 10:15:00 PM PDT by betty boop (Nature loves to hide. -- Heraclitus)
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To: betty boop
Thank you again for your excellent insights!

I must have presumed he was oriented to a "steady state" model for the universe because of his infinite/finite hypothesis. It would certainly be nice if we could have a Q&A with some of these people. LOL!

132 posted on 06/27/2005 10:38:36 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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