Indeed, dearest sister in Christ!
But if a man does that, what he winds up with is not God, but merely an idol in glorification to himself. (Which seems to have been Spinoza's main takeaway from his efforts along these lines ... but further explication of this point will have to wait for another time.) Therein lies perdition. In such a decision, man freely chooses his fate, constructs his own eternal Hell while still living....
Somehow I imagine that Isaac Newton, although a heretic by Christian standards, managed to escape this fate of self-constructed eternal Hell. (Heaven already knows I sincerely hope and pray so.) Newton was a monotheist, and espoused the concept of God Pantocrator. That is, of God not only as Creator, but as absolute ruler of the universe in every moment of time in space, Who has to constantly intercede to make necessary "course corrections" occasioned by the very operation of the mechanical laws.... Which Newton felt could only accrete increasing disorder over time, unless God were to step in as needed to restore and correct His created order.
It seems a strange way to think about God. But evidently, this was Newton's basic view.
And yet this "God-addled" person articulated the most sublime account of the mechanics of material bodies on any and every scale, from subatomic particles to the cosmos itself — which still stands as the best description we have of the behavior of massive bodies (of whatever size) within the perspective of four-dimensional physics.
The only problem with Newtonian mechanics nowadays is that it does not seem terribly helpful when the scientific problem is biological, not merely physical. The expectation of the past 400 years is that Newtonian mechanics is absolutely universal. Yet the fact seems to be that it is only universal with respect to material bodies, not living organisms (which are "material bodies" PLUS the "something else" which makes them living). With respect to living organisms, Newtonian mechanics has no real purchase at all.
Whatever. In any case, it's soooooooooo good to be back again! I really missed you guys!
Thank you ever so much, dearest sister in Christ, for your outstanding essay/post!
I'm very much looking forward to hearing more about Spinoza, too.
And of course I very strongly agree with you, dearest sister in Christ, that biological systems are unique in that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. And organization and information (successful communication) are key to understanding it.
~~~~~~~
I suppose that I may admit to a minor form of Newton's "Pantocreator" viewpoint: I believe that our Creator established the laws of physics as a part of his overall design, set things in motion, and allowed them to proceed accordingly. However, I suspect that He keeps things in order and proceeding according to His plan by the exertion of subtle, and mostly undetectable, corrective actions. (We scientists describe such actions via the esoteric and technical term, "tweaks"...) LOL!
Chaos theory describes such effects by analogies -- such as the cascading effects of the flap of a butterfly's wing in some remote place eventually causing a profound effect elsewhere. IOW, if He does guide by intrusion, His actions are imperceptibly subtle -- and, when He does intercede to the extent of violating His physical laws ...we call that a "miracle"...
~~~~~~~~~
FWIW, as a scientist, I probably would not be as accepting of the possibility of divine intrusion and intervention in the physical realm -- were it not for the profound experience of having experienced His guiding hand in my own life -- many times!