We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater
There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead
Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater
The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller
The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller
According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater
Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater
Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger
Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton
I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon
Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII
Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut
Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest
We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater
People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon
Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater
An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater
Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann
Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner
“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”
Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton
The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon
The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul
The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah
If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon
Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson
We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord
Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater
To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement
Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma
It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater
God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater
In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall
Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater
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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater
Showing posts with label God and Process. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God and Process. Show all posts
When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life's Sacred Questions Sue Monk Kidd (Author)
Description Combining personal experience and classic Christian teachings, this inspirational autobiographical account of a woman's personal pain, spiritual awakening, and divine grace received "Virtue" magazine's "Book of the Year" award.
Publisher - HarperOne Publish Date - October 11, 2016 Pages - 240
About the Author Sue Monk Kidd is the author of the bestselling novels The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair, as well as the award-winning The Dance of the Dissident Daughter and God's Joyful Surprise.
Reviews
As I read her book, Kidd became a companion. I love having her walk with me on my journey.--Eugene Peterson, author of The Message
"A joy to read....Honest and healing."--Alan Jones, dean of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, and author of Soul Making
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Teihard de Chardin is NOT a process theologian but one which uses a small bit of process theology's relational process philosophy and theology tucked into the mythic realm of de Cardin's own Westernized (non-processual) system.
And though de Chardin describes this relational approach as a myth... a true process theologian will not; more aptly, relationality is one of the concise descriptors to how the God of all, and the creational products of the God of all, work and react to one another.
Thankfully, Ilia Delio, the author of the title below, IS a process theologian to which I am in hopes she makes this distinction as her publisher, Orbis, has not in it's published blurb below. - re slater
We are a species between axial periods. Thus, our religious myths are struggling to find new connections in a global, ecological order. Delio proposes the new myth of [Jung's] relational holism; that is, the search for a new connection to divinity in an age of quantum physics, evolution, and pluralism. The idea of relational holism is one that is rooted in the God-world relationship, beginning with the Book of Genesis, but finds its real meaning in quantum physics and the renewed relationship between mind and matter.
Our story, therefore, will traverse across the fields of science, scripture, theology, history, culture and psychology. Our guides for a new myth of relational holism are the psychoanalyst Carl Jung, and the Jesuit scientist-theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The complex human can no longer be simplified to one view or another: one must see the whole of our existence or one does not see at all.
Ilia Delio, OSF, a Franciscan Sister of Washington, DC, is Josephine C. Connelly Endowed Chair in Theology, Villanova University, and founder of the Center for Christogenesis. Her many books include The Hours of the Universe, Christ in Evolution, The Emergent Christ, The Unbearable Wholeness of Being, Birth of a Dancing Star: My Journey from Cradle Catholic to Cyborg Christian, and Re-Enchanting the Earth: Why AI Needs Religion (all with Orbis).
Reviews
"Over ten years ago, Ilia Delio boldly asserted that evolution is the metanarrative for our age, changing even our understanding of God. Engaging the God question in this evolutionary context requires the myth of the relational whole, the story of a living God in relationship with a living earth. God is incomplete, not‐yet, and we are incomplete, not‐yet! With her unique creative literary flair, Ilia Delio draws on the relational holism of the psychoanalyst Carl Jung (whom she names as the saint) and the Jesuit scientist‐theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (whom she describes a prophet) to create a new framework for thinking about God. The outcome is a highly original synthesis--spiritually inspiring and theologically ground-breaking." --Diarmuid O'Murchu, author, Doing Theology in an Evolutionary Way
"Ilia Delio offers a brilliant and breathtaking look at the relational wholeness of God and world through the lenses of Teilhard, Jung, and contemporary science. If you're seeking faith in the future or a unitive vision that will revitalize our understanding of the participatory inter-becoming of God, humans, and world, this book is a must-read." --Sheri D. Kling, director, Process & Faith
"From the psycho-sentient depths of matter to the heights of divine becoming, Delio's cosmotheandric entanglement of Jung and Teilhard, modern science and ancient mysticism, achieve a new relational holism for a new axial age. The theology of the future will be "theohology"--experiential talk of the God-whole that is still coming into being." --Andrew M. Davis, The Center for Process Studies
"Ilia Delio is right: we need a new framework for thinking about God and salvation in an age of quantum physics and evolution that overcomes obstacles in the Church and beyond. Delio offers such an obstacle-overcoming framework: theohology. Building on insights from Jung, Teilhard, and many others, she provides a vision of the God who is the Whole of the whole, the distinct source of love but inseparable from everything that exists. This is an amazing book!" --Thomas Jay Oord, author, Open and Relational Theology
"The Not-Yet God is an important work and a major contribution to the fields of theology and depth psychology. In comparing Teilhard and Jung, Delio reveals new aspects of both thinkers and allows us to appreciate them from new angles. This work demonstrates wide reading and research in these fields and is written in a clear and concise language, so that not only specialists but general readers can glean many insights from Delio's excellent scholarship." --David Tacey, emeritus professor, La Trobe University, Australia; author, The Postsecular Sacred: Jung, Soul and Meaning in an Age of Change
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Process Pop-Up: The Not-Yet God and the Relational Whole
January 8 @ 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm PST
We are part of a creative whole of unlimited potential whereby God, self and world are constantly drawn into new existence together
The new science, especially quantum physics, has changed our understanding of space, time and matter; hence it raises new questions on the meaning of God. Is God outside space and time? Or is God integral to the unfolding of the universe? If consciousness is fundamental to matter, is consciousness fundamental to the reality of God as well? We will discuss these questions and more as we explore the essential role of consciousness in relation to the religious experience of God.
Entanglement is the inextricable and insuperable relationality of all that is, including God. If pantheism conjures up the collapse of God into matter, then entanglement holds everything together in a relational whole. There is no transcendence without immanence and no immanence without transcendence; there is no God without matter and no matter without God. God and matter form a complementary whole.
Ilia Delio, OSF, PhD is a Franciscan Sister of Washington, DC and American theologian specializing in the area of science and religion, with interests in evolution, physics and neuroscience and the import of these for theology.
Ilia currently holds the Josephine C. Connelly Endowed Chair in Theology at Villanova University, and is the author of twenty books including Care for Creation (coauthored with Keith Warner and Pamela Woods) which won two Catholic Press Book Awards in 2009, first place for social concerns and second place in spirituality. Her book The Emergent Christ won a third place Catholic Press Book Award in 2011 for the area of Science and Religion. Her recent books include The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution and the Power of Love (Orbis, 2013), which received the 2014 Silver Nautilus Book Award and a third place Catholic Press Association Award for Faith and Science. Ilia holds two honorary doctorates, one from St. Francis University in 2015, and one from Sacred Heart University in 2020.
I am a Christian deeply involved in interfaith communities. I look for books that Jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and others might explore together as springboards for thought and conduits for friendship. "The Not-Yet God" by Ilia Delio is such a book. I am also a member of an adult Sunday School class in a local Methodist Church. I am on the lookout for books that might be helpful for my Sunday School class. Here, too, "The Not-Yet God" is such a book.
Let me explain. On the one hand, with its emphasis on Christian theologians and teachings, "The Not-Yet God" is relevant to Christians with its novel understanding of Christ and the birth of Christ in the human heart. It offers new ways of thinking about Christ, God, Church, and Christian spirituality.
On the other hand, with its focus on a religion of tomorrow that understands God as the sacred Whole of the universe and spirituality as respect and care for the planet, "The Not-Yet God" is relevant to people of all faiths. She speaks of a church of the planet, but she could as easily have said a sangha of the planet, or an umma of the planet, or a temple of the planet. Her hope, and mine as well, is that people of many faiths, and people without any faith, might find some of the ideas she proposes important, helpful, and inspiring.
I am also a process theologian, as is she, although she is much more influential and talented than I. I am chair of the Board of Directors of the Center for Process Studies, on the advisory board of Process and Faith, and active in the Cobb Institute for Process and Practice - all of which seek to introduce process ways of thinking to the general public. I am always on the lookout for books that I might share with people in study groups who want to learn about the process tradition. "The Not-Yet God" is such a book.
Delio is a unique kind of process thinker: weaving together insights from Teilhard de Chardin, Whitehead, Hartshorne, Carl Jung, David Bohm, Marshall McLuhan, Cynthia Bourgeault, and many others. The subjects she addresses, too, are unique, especially computer technology and artificial intelligence. She is one of the very few who have developed theologically sensitive and appreciative approaches to AI as a potential partner in helping bring about a better world. As part of the process family, she is among our pioneers in charting new ground - a very Whiteheadian and Teilhardian thing to do.
Disclaimer: Use my videos as a rough guide to a topic. I am not an expert, I may get things wrong. This is why I always post my sources so you can critique my work and verify things for yourselves. Of course I aim to be as accurate as possible which is why you will only find reputable sources in my videos. Secondly, information is always subject to changes as new information is uncovered by archaeologists. www.stefanmilo.com
The NOVA vid I recently watched by Dr. Steve Austin denies the science of evolution and promotes the pseudo-science of Young Earth Creationism (YEC) based upon "Flood Mythology" by extending the Story of Noah in the book of Genesis found in the bible.
Firstly, as a former evangelical YEC'er my first book I read on this subject was "The Genesis Flood" by Henry M. Morris which "presents a thorough system unifying and correlating scientific data in the earth’s early history. Morris, and co-author John C. Whitcomb, propose a biblically based system of creationism and catastrophism. A modern classic, this title has become required reading for creationists. Here's are several "reviews" by creationists authors and preachers:
Editorial Reviews
Review
“The Genesis Flood by Morris and Whitcomb is one of the most important books of the past century. Prior to its publication in 1961, evangelicals were for the most part unprepared to answer evolutionists’ and modern geologists’ claims about the antiquity of the earth. Many blithely assumed that the days of creation in Genesis 1 represented long ages; others held to the 'gap theory'―the idea that vast eons elapsed between the initial creation of the heavens and earth (Genesis 1:1) and the formation of life as we know it (starting in Genesis 1:2). The Genesis Flood showed why such theories don’t do justice to the inspiration and authority of Scripture. The book revived evangelicals’ interest in flood geology, demonstrating that most of the geological phenomena usually cited as 'proof' of the earth’s antiquity are better explained as evidence of a catastrophic universal flood, as described in Genesis 6–8. In recent years young-earth creationism has come under heavy attack in evangelical circles again, and The Genesis Flood is as timely, thought-provoking, and helpful as ever. . . . A tour de force and a must-read resource for pastors, teachers, scientists, and anyone who is troubled by the conflict between the biblical account of creation and the ever-changing claims of modern evolutionary theory.” -- John MacArthur, President, The Master’s University and Seminary
"When The Genesis Flood was published it was the combined voice of two courageous men crying, as it were, in the wilderness. They dared to take a stand against the pervading compromise on the issue of creation and the flood by robustly tackling head-on the uniformitarian geological assumptions that underpin the secular worldview on origins that had mesmerized so many Christians into compromising the opening chapters of God’s Word. Single-handedly these men with this book kindled a fire that today is still raging. Little did they know the global impact this book would have. Like so many others I know, I read this book as a young Christian in my teenage years when I was already a budding geologist, and it totally resolved my ongoing struggle to reconcile the geology I was learning in the secular textbooks with the true account of earth’s history in God’s Word. Not only did this book convince me that God’s Word provides the only reliable basis for understanding geology, but it was foundational in igniting my passion for and calling into full-time creation ministry to uphold the truth of God’s Word and defend it from compromise, beginning at the very first verse. This book remains a classic work that is a must-read for those who would be informed and equip themselves both to stand on the authority of God’s Word in every area of life and knowledge and to defend their Christian faith." -- Andrew Snelling, BSc (Applied Geology) PhD (Geochemical Geology)
"I have been privileged to have witnessed the rising biblical creation movement for the past forty years and have seen it used mightily by God to blossom into a major international force. The movement not only has shaken the evolutionary, “millions of years” establishment, but more importantly has equipped the church to share our Christian faith with renewed boldness. The publishing of The Genesis Flood fifty years ago is the recognized birthdate of a movement blessed by God, and this classic work is also now recognized as a monumental milestone in the fight against compromise in the church and for biblical inerrancy in general during our skeptical modern era. Finding a copy of The Genesis Flood in an Australian bookstore and devouring its contents was a key event that led me to join the modern biblical creation movement in the 1970s. Drs. Whitcomb and Morris became real ‘heroes of the faith’ for me. I saw them as giants in Christian apologetics." -- Ken Ham, BSc (Environmental Biology), President, Answers in Genesis and The Creation Museum
About the Author
John C. Whitcomb studied at Princeton University and has a Ph.D. from Grace Theological Seminary. Henry M. Morris was president of the Institute for Creation Research, Santee, California. He studied at Rice University, obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, and served on the faculties of several major universities.
After watching about 30 minutes of the YEC-based Christian film spouting a lot of global flood jargon and nonsense I turned it off and wrote out a few comments about this quasi-science.
First, it isn't science but is using science to tell a different story than science would tell.
Next, I find it disingenuous and misleading to the naive and uninitiated. I've had grown adults laugh at the audacity of evolution well believing that the earth cannot be any older than 6000 - 10,000 years ago (respectively, Bishop Ussher and a later subjectional correction to Ussher's date developed in the 1600's).
Third, learn to think of evolution as a process initiated by God. It's process is not immediately and utilizes what is available in the Earth to continually form and reform living organisms. It isn't an immediate process and isn't a perfect process. It is simply a divine process lumping along experimenting and trying out new biological derivatives. Sometimes successfully. Sometimes not.
Fourthly, I now think of the bible as no more inspired than we are today. The Spirit of God is continually filling all our present moments with God's soul even as the earth was filled by God's soul in ancient superstitious cultures. We just need to listen and discern what that is or isn't.
Which is why I say all the time that God is not hard to understand. We love because God loves. Whereas the bible narratives of 750 -350 BC (2800-2400 years ago) were being collected by people trying to figure out who or what God was. Thus we get mythologies of a violent God according to some beliefs; a penitent God; a God of wrath and judgment; an avenging God; a jealous God; a shepherding God; a kind and compassionate; a forgiving God; a world-ending God; etc. The bible is no less nor no more inspired than a well written book today, or a well constructed (progressive) theology, or an insightful sermon by a loving, passionate individual.
To be therefore comparing ancient flood lore as global news events is misleading. Those who wrote of the Noahic Flood did not know anything about the continents or seas or of glaciation events. Meaning, we need to use the bible as we would any other ancient narrative... as a way to judge where people were in their cultural understanding of history, religion, and themselves.
This is not unlike the theological teachings which Christian churches, fellowships, seminaries, and ministries are presently extending today when asking, "Who is God and what is God doing?" Some are conservatively traditional and others are progressively scientific. The divide shouldn't be science but our own outlooks, prejudices, and beliefs about God. It would seem obvious that the bible's collection of cultural beliefs should be examined and judged by what we know today rather than to be taken ipso facto as a stubborn persistency of closed belief.
Fifthly, we can say that the bibliolatry surrounding the bible, or the many magical-thinking ideologies about the bible, are quite unhelpful. The best we can say about the bible's inspiration back then is that God is as fully, thoroughly loving as God was, and is, today. This is supportable by God's incarnation as Jesus and the atoning Messiah/Christ spoken of in the Old and New Testament Scriptures. Ultimately, God's Soul is as redemptively motivated as God is loving. I, myself, am consequently forming a "Theology of Love" rather than a "Theology of Wrath and Judgment".
As an aside, it is my judgment that the people and cultural narratives of the bible were struggling with whom God is and misread their circumstances through their own religious fears and errant beliefs. I find a parallel in the recent Covid pandemic a few years ago wherein churches preached their beliefs of a judgmental God visiting humanity with wrath and vengeance for our sin. This would be an incorrect application of theodicy (the theology of sin and evil).
Moreover, from the bible we read of Jesus atoning for our sins and being raised from the dead. Consequently we learn that redemption is all around us bc God is always redeeming earth and man moment-by-moment. That much is helpful from the bible. It gives us a way to think about God without becoming loonies about the kinds of gods the bible depicts through it's pages
The violence in the OT or the presumed violence by God in the future from the NT book of Revelation is not the real God of love. When looking at the violence and sin around us we would be in error in thinking that these are judgments and acts of God upon us. Violence and sin comes from us and not from the God of love. Thus so with the bible naratives attributing God with violence. Ppl were wrong then about God even as they are wrong now in their attributions and presumptions about God.
Which is yet another reason I cannot support deterministic Calvinism in an open future even as freewill Arminianism also needs to be uplifted so that we learn to write from both perspectives a theology of love and no longer of wrath, hell, and judgment. These latter come from us, not from God. And by the way, for any contemporary progressive theology to work it needs to be based upon an open and relational process theology.
Bottom line, we don't need quasi-Ph.D's making up Christianized pseudo-evolutionary events to prove bible things. The bible is not a science book. It is a book about God's love and redemption. Abandon yesteryear's well intentioned but misleading beliefs and dogmas. It's time "to eat meat and grow up," said Paul.
Disclaimer: I do not endorse, support, nor encourage Young Earth Creationism (YEC)
- R.E. Slater
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For over four decades, we have worked to ensure that what is taught in science classrooms and beyond is accurate and consistent with the best current understanding of the scientific community.
Here is one source of many which seeks to correctly teach contemporary science
When most people hear the word "creationism," they probably think of the variety called Young Earth Creationism (YEC). Young Earth Creationists adopt a method of Biblical interpretation which requires that the earth be no more than 10,000 years old, and that the six days of creation described in Genesis each lasted for 24 hours. Young Earth Creationists believe that the origin of the earth, the universe, and various forms of life, etc., are all instances of special creation. The doctrine of special creation involves direct divine intervention, suspending the laws of nature to achieve a given result. This doctrine contrasts with a view common among theistic evolutionists that God can work through natural laws.
Young Earth Creationists are among the more organized creationist movements. Two of the largest groups, Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research produce magazines, websites, books, and videos for general audiences as well as publish journals which report on so-called "creation science". In May of 2007, Answers in Genesis opened a multi-million dollar Creation Museum in Kentucky, aimed at attracting a wide public audience. The Institute for Creation Research, was founded by Henry Morris in 1970, and operates the Museum of Creation and Earth History in Santee, California.
YEC writings tend to focus on attempting to explain why much of modern science cannot be correct. For example, Young Earth Creationists spend considerable effort trying to explain why the earth cannot be 4.5 billion years old. They also make arguments for the feasibility of Noah's ark and for the occurrence of a single worldwide flood within the last 5,000 years. A major YEC endeavor is to explain how the 15 million or more species alive today could have evolved from a much smaller number of "kinds" which they believe were created in Genesis. This project is sometimes referred to as baraminology, named after the Hebrew word min, which is traditionally translated as "after its kind," in passages like "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after its kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after its kind." A central tenet of Young Earth Creationism is that evolution is possible only within these created kinds, a form of evolution they call microevolution, while it is not possible between kinds, which they distinguish as macroevolution. This is not the way those terms are used by the scientific community.
Attempts to force YEC teachings into public schools were rejected by the Supreme Court in 1968's Epperson v. Arkansas decision, and again in 1987's Edwards v. Aguillard.
How to hold true to your faith and embrace modern science
Ever since the Scopes Monkey Trial in the early twentieth century, American evangelicals have considered scientists public enemy #1. But this antipathy to modern science turned deadly during the COVID-19 crisis, when white evangelicals snubbed precautions and vaccines. Herself an evangelical Christian and a science educator, Janet Kellogg Ray explains how we got here and how to fix it.
As the follow-up to Baby Dinosaurs on the Ark?, this lively volume covers evolution as well as the coronavirus pandemic, vaccines, climate change, and the frontiers of genetic research. Ray explains the facts accessibly and with verve. Along the way, she vividly narrates the scientific achievements—and political and religious drama—that got us to where we are today.
Ultimately, Ray calls for evangelicals to speak to science, rather than deny it. We need Christian ethics now more than ever to determine how best to act in light of current scientific data and for love of neighbor. If you’re afraid of science hurting your faith, this book will show you how to be true to both
A scientific look at creationism from a former creationist
A significant number of Americans, especially evangelical Christians, believe Earth and humankind were created in their present form sometime in the last 10,000 years or so—the rationale being that this is (presumably) the story told in the book of Genesis. Within that group, any threatening scientific evidence that suggests otherwise is rejected or, when possible, retrofitted into a creationist worldview.
But can this uncomfortable blend of biblical literalism and pseudoscience hold up under scrutiny? Is it tenable to believe that the Grand Canyon was formed not millions of years ago by gradual erosion but merely thousands of years ago by the Great Flood? Were there really baby dinosaurs with Noah on his ark?
Janet Kellogg Ray, a science educator who grew up a creationist, doesn’t want other Christians to have to do the exhausting mental gymnastics she did earlier in her life. Working through the findings of a range of fields including geology, paleontology, and biology, she shows how a literal interpretation of the book of Genesis simply doesn’t mesh with what we know to be reality. But as someone who remains a committed Christian, Ray also shows how an acceptance of the theory of evolution is not necessarily an acceptance of atheism, and how God can still be responsible for having created the world, even if it wasn’t in a single, momentary, miraculous event
Scientists use fossils to reconstruct the evolutionary history of hominins—the group that includes modern humans, our immediate ancestors, and other extinct relatives. Today, our closest living relatives are chimpanzees, but extinct hominins are even closer. Where and when did they live? What can we learn about their lives? Why did they go extinct? Scientists look to fossils for clues.
What is the opposite of "From Nothing"? There was some phrase like Creatio Ex Deo which I think is creation from God, not sure. But I'm wondering if there are variations?
I bring this up because I'm writing a story where a person is using a pseudonym that is a reversal of Ex Nihilio and I'm wondering if there's a cool way to say something cryptic as a name. Ex Deo or something else?
I usually use creatio continua at my process theology site. It refers to the continuing creative acts of God throughout every moment and eon of the universe or multiverses. In effect, you may think of God's creational activity as never ending and which adapts to the conditions and environments of the present tense universe.
Others have used the following:
creatio ex sustaina - similar to "continua" but focused on the necessity of God's sustaining of creation thus leaning into the immanence of God without denying transcendence of God. That is, God cannot abandon or be separate from creation lest it become "unsustained". The Christian gospel gains more energy from the knowledge that a loving God ever loves and never abandons creation (contra conservative traditional doctrine which places "holiness" as a more important condition of God's character than what process theology states that God's Love dictates the kind of holiness God is.
creatio ex materia - creation out of material which exists. This is a bit more specific than creatio continua and they each can be used together. Here, we may use the example of a tiny acorn giving birth to a colony of trees, so the biblical "void" which in this sense I fill with a timeless 1 dimensional space of hot plasmic gas without any disruptions, making it homogenous, and void-like (think of a Black Hole which doesn't emit light NOR radiate any energy from its vortices).
creatio ex creation a natura amoris - creating from creation birthed by love. Meaning that God's eternal nature of Love supersedes all other divine attributes. God's love is what gives to God his/her divine holiness. Traditional Christianity says that God's apartness from sin gives to God his/her quality of holiness. Process theology says "No." God's Love is what gives to God his/her divine holiness... not God's quality of apartness from God's creation. Again, leaning into the immanence of God without denying God's "Otherness" (sic, transcedence, per se). Hence, creatio ex creation a natura amoris is more adequate for Christians speaking to God's eternal nature includes love for creatures. Love for creation is God’s motive and motion when creating. And God has always been creating in love.
creatio ex nihilo nihil fit - out of nothing, nothing comes. This reinforces the early definitions of creatio continua et al.
creatio ex deo - creation out of God. But this is inspecific and leans towards creation out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo)
creatio ex nihilo - God creates out of nothing. Which is impossible. There must be a something there to create from. Hence, supposing a primal plasmic 1D space (no time) that God comes to, "stirs" or reorganizes, and releases to become all that it may become (perhaps a Marine combat soldier! haha).
The possibilities are limitless. It only required a primal source or initial relational contact with God as the Primary Process whom/which (sic, "context") to initial all resulting processes organic, inorganic, and psychic.
The Imago Dei has thus embedded itself into creation that it more fully in relationship to itself, experiencing those relationships as they come into contact with one another, and has embued or taken in those relationships to evolve or "become" in some new sense when filled with "relational feeling" within itself (this is the panpsychic, sentient, consciousness, spirituality part).
In process theology, all creation began with these potential attributes and were enhanced by the God of process to become more than its own static being. So one might say God comes upon all that is and enriches it, regerates it, causes it to thrive, and become more than it was. It's basically how God's Love works. It gives without taking. Blesses all it touches. Is the Causation above all other causes without removing creation agency/freewill.
Creatio ex nihilio basically means that God didn't use any resource to create everything (in contrast to us humans, we need resources).
Ex Deo means that God himself was the resource, so he transformed some part of himself to create the world. So the opposite, as it looks to me, it to make something using a resource. Aedificātiō/Fōrmātiō Ex Rē? Because in Genesis, when God creates something out of nothing the word creare is used, but when God made the man out of earth, the word formare is used. And when the woman was made out of a body part, aedificare is used. So the author saw a difference between creatio and the other words. Edit: Not sure about the ex re (it is supposed to mean out of something).
I'm glad you bring that up, I was kinda going for the bible reference because it tends to be a recurring theme in stories.
The character name I wanted is supposed to be a direct counter of another opposing character that represents a machine. One is a computer program, the other is a man.
So one idea is that computers can be just as human as us, if not more so. The other is that humans are capable of much deeper, richer lives that have compassion and understanding.
So the program is called ex nihilo, and the other something else. Maybe I could use a Formatio Ex Re, perhaps.
