Hegel and Whitehead - Divine Process Panentheism & Immanency

As introduction to Classic Theism, I submit Mtabaczek's article below. Unlike process theology's approach, classic theology sees God in very Platonic and neo-Platonic ways. Whereas process theology sees God, well, in very different ways, such as openness of future, experientialism, personalism, and relationalism, to mention a few. Below you will find the classic theistic portrayal of its God in positive ways as versus process' panentheistic approach seen by classicism in negative ways. In the blog piece before this I began a discursive which may serve as introduction to this piece here.

        - R.E. Slater, November 16, 2021

Hegel and Whitehead: Panentheism

https://mariopblog.wordpress.com/2014/02/02/hegel-whitehead-part-1-panentheism/

by MTABACZEK

February 2, 2014

I have just posted a new sub-page on my blog, which will contain abstracts and links to my official publications. I will try to explain the content of each one of them in several steps.

My first article in English was published in May 2013 in Theology and Science, a journal edited by the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences in Berkeley. It’s title is quite sophisticated: Hegel and Whitehead: In Search for Sources of Contemporary Versions of Panentheism in the Science–Theology Dialogue. You can read an abstract here.

First of all, what is panentheism about? It all goes back to one of the main concerns of our reflection about God, which has been the source of struggle for theologians over the centuries. On the one hand we acknowledge that God is totally different and unlike anything that we know by our sensual experience and intellectual reflection. God is totally and absolutely transcendent. He is omniscient (knows everything), omnipotent (can do everything), eternal, and above all – unchangeable. Therefore – according to St. Thomas Aquinas – while our relation to God is real and changes us, this same relation on the side of God is only a relation of thought (reason), because it cannot change God nor add anything to His essence which is pure act, without any hint of potentiality.

Comment: "Process Theology takes these same subjects and brings God near (immanent); learning experientially from creation as it recreates itself moment by moment as He had designed it; stresses all loving over power and control thus avoiding problems of theodicy and freewill; everlasting, which basically says the same thing as eternally but puts the stress on the presence of God's everlastingness into the here-and-now of His creation; and changeable in God's emotions towards His moment-by-moment immanent experience of creation even has God's character or attributes are unchanging re God's everlasting love, goodness, justness, forgiveness, mercifulness, and etc." - re slater

On the other hand we have to acknowledge that God is radically immanent, that is He is present in the world and all its aspects. Saint Thomas defines the very act of creation as a total dependence of every creature in its being on God. God is the source of the very existence of everything. Were he not present in contingent beings at every moment of their existence, they would perish at once. They actually exist because they participate in the infinite being of the Creator.

And here comes the question: how does one bring God’s transcendence and immanence together into one model of His divine action? One of the possible answers goes back to Pseudo-Dionysius (5-6th century), and was further developed by St. Thomas Aquinas. It names three ways of our speech about God:

1. The positive way enables us to formulate positive statements about the Creator. We may say for instance that God is good, and His goodness is revealed in creation (God’s immanence).
2. But at the same time we must acknowledge that He is not good in the way that we are good. In other words, God’s goodness is unlike our goodness. This is the way of negation. Following it we realize that it is more appropriate for us to say what God is not, rather than what God is (God’s transcendence). And yet the connection with our human categories is not totally rejected. 
3. The third way – the way of eminence – saves it, claiming that God is good, but in an eminent way, which goes beyond any kind of goodness known to us. God is the source of all goodness, as His goodness is identical with His essence. This way of speaking about God is based on the doctrine of analogy, which I hope to explain in a separate entry.

This way of bringing together transcendence and immanence of God saves both of them and supports the classical Thomistic model of God- world relationship which I describe on the left side of the diagram below.

click to enlarge; process theology uses the panentheism model

Aquinas’s view of God-world relation remained in a radical opposition to pantheism (the middle model on the diagram), which assumes that the world is God and God’s essence is exhausted in the world taken as a whole (an idea coming back today in the New Age and other “ecological” spiritual movements). However, commonly accepted and supported throughout the centuries, the classical model of Aquinas has been recently accused (beginning from the late 19th century) of overemphasizing God’s transcendence. God who does not have a real relationship towards His creation – says the main charge – is not the God of love. If creation cannot affect God [transcendence model], then God is not concerned with what is happening in the world. He is a [pantheist] God of the philosophers [classic theologians], but not of the Bible. [brackets are mine own - re slater]

As a remedy to this crisis, some theologians proposed a new model of God-world relationship – panentheism. It suggests that the world is in God (a link to pantheism), and yet God is more than the world (a link to classical theism of Aquinas). See the right-hand model on the diagram above. Proponents of this version of God-world relation suggest that because the world is in God, it has to affect God, therefore He is not unchangeable anymore, and His eternity is affected by time. Moreover, when creating the world God decides to limit his omniscience and omnipotence, in order to make a space for our freedom and contingent events in the world. He is not a detached ruler, but a fellow sufferer who understands. And yet – according to panentheism – God is still transcendent, because He is more than the world.

The panentheistic model has become very popular, and found many applications in contemporary theology, especially in the circles of theology and science debate, where it seems to be suitable in explaining theological implications of contingency and indeterminacy of natural events. However, at the same time, it raises some basic and crucial questions. (i) The first and the most important among them refers to God’s transcendence. If the world is in God and affects God, then it has to share God’s essence (God’s nature or substance), which challenges the truth about God’s transcendence. Moreover, (ii) if creation of the world changes God and limits some of the attributes which are substantial for His divinity (e.g. omnipotence, omniscience, eternity), it is hard to agree that He is still the [same classical] God we believe in. If this is the case, then the claim of panentheism’s proponents, who say that it gives right to both God’s transcendence and immanence, simply does not hold.

Comment: "Though I've not heard this said, still, to myself it makes more sense to say that ultimately God's "wholly Otherness" is "wholly meaningless" to creation. One may argue philosophically that its important to recognize as the "wholly Other" but ontologically it makes no sense at all as this "wholly Otherness" has no meaning to the world at large. Hence, process theology can acknowledge God's "wholly Otherness" but pragmatically God's "wholly immanence" is far, far more important, crucial, absolute, necessary, and needful in any depiction of a biblical theology." - re slater

Contemporary panentheism has many faces and versions. The truth is that it also has a long historical tradition, especially in the philosophical reflection on God and God-world relationship. It’s roots go back to ancient Egypt and Greece. In my article I concentrate on two philosophical versions of panentheism: the one which was proposed by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and the other developed by Alfred North Whitehead. The former philosopher may be regarded as the father of the modern version of panentheism, while the latter has become very popular in the contemporary science-theology dialogue. I ask the question of the possible relation between their versions of panentheism and the nuances in their understanding of God’s transcendence and immanence.

That’s it for now. It is a prelude to the main body of the article which I hope to summarize in the next episodes under the same title: Hegel & Whitehead.

- MTABACZEK

ADDENDUM 

This took me a little time to locate as a free .PDF but here is the link below. I suspect it will be very helpful in locating the difference between Hegel and Whitehead when reading Whitehead's Process and Reality. - re slater 

Hegel and Whitehead: In Search of Sources ofthe Contemporary Versions of Panentheismin the Science/Theology Dialogue by Mariusz Tabaczek, O.P.

Index to Process Theology

R.E. Slater - Essays with John Cobb: A Processual Personal God

Essays with John Cobb:

A Processual Personal God

https://processandfaith.org/ask-dr-cobb/a-personal-god-may-1998/

by Dr. John B. Cobb, Jr.

May 1998

Is God Personal?

Publication Month: May 1998

Dr. Cobb’s Response

Editing of Content Structure by R.E. Slater

I.

The answer to this, as to so many questions is Yes and No, but on the whole Yes is a better answer than No. Of course, everything depends on what is meant by “personal”. For some people, the only way God can be personal is to be very much like a human being. In the extreme case this involves attributing a body to God that resembles a human body. Obviously, the answer must then be No. If we think of God having a body, that body is the universe as a whole.

More commonly, it is only the human mind or soul or spirit that God is understood to resemble. Then the answer depends on how the questioner understands the human spirit. Often it is understood substantialistically, with the relations among human spirits, and even between spirit and body, seen as quite external. When it is clear that the questioner is thinking in this way, it is still best to begin with the answer No. God is not like another human being, only greater, when one thinks of a human being in this way. But then, from a process perspective, other human beings are not like that either!

II.

In somewhat more sophisticated imagery, questioners sometimes are asking whether the I-Thou relationship exists between us and God. Addressing God as Thou has been so central to the Abrahamic traditions that to rule out such language would mean a serious rupture. Process theology allows and affirms its use.

But the language of I-Thou suggests an over-againstness or externality that is inadequate and misleading. In Tillich’s terminology it seems to imply that God is one being alongside other beings. We need to claim the language but free it from this externalistic interpretation. Paul himself helps us to do so. He says of human beings that we are members one of another and jointly members of the body of Christ. We are in Christ and Christ is in us. The Holy Spirit is also found within. Process thought interprets this to mean that we participate in constituting the very being of one another and that the divine reality participates in constituting our being as we participate in constituting the divine reality. We are quite literally in God, and God is quite literally in us.

I-Thou language by itself does not capture this. But this is not because the relationship process thinkers affirm is less personal. The mutual immanence of all things only makes the personal character of relationships deeper, more inextricable. Process thought in this way enables us to appreciate the meaning of some of the language of the New Testament that has previously been toned down because of the metaphysical assumptions of interpreters.

Even so, this emphasis on the immanence of God seems to some to count against the idea of God as a personal being. In human interpersonal relations, we transcend one another as well as participating in one another. Does God transcend us? Of course. But is the way that God transcends us similar to the way other human persons transcend us?

No, there are differences. Other people are spatially separated from us. The locus from which they experience the world is different from the one from which we experience the world. But God is equally everywhere. Where we are, God is there, too. Or else, God as transcending creatures is “nowhere” in the sense that spatial language may not apply to God. In this way God is very different from another human person.

III.

Nevertheless, God, like other human persons, is a subject who acts and is acted upon. In Whitehead’s terminology, God is an actual entity, distinct from all other actual entities. This does not make God any more like humans than like creatures in general. On the other hand, we suppose that some human characteristics, shared with some but by no means all other creatures, are shared by God. Consciousness is an important example.

As to how much further we should go in attributing human-like characteristics to God, process theologians divide. Charles Hartshorne encourages us to think of God as a closely unified succession of actual entities in which all the past ones are fully included in the present one. Since such a succession of actual entities is just what Whitehead defines as a “living person”, Hartshorne gives a clear positive answer to the question of whether God is a person. Whitehead, on the other hand, proposes that we think of God as a single everlasting actual entity. That is extremely different from any creature, including the human one. In his terminology, then, God is not a person. Yet much of what believers have in mind when they ask whether God is a person, is present in God for Whitehead as well.

* * * * * *

My Process Observations

on a Processual Personal God

by R.E. Slater

November 16, 2021

I.

Behind the subject of "Theology Proper" (e.g., the "Study of God") in systematic language comes process theology to add or take away important details. Classical language built on Platonism necessarily covers us what non-Platonic process language is speaking to.

In order, God is not a thing no more than we are. The divine soul, like the human soul - or even the "cosmic" soul - are (living and non-living) processes in motion with one another. In Platonic imagery God is a God-like entity and humans are our own kind of entity. Separate entities yet deeply connected as between Creator to Created or God, as the First Process, to creation (or us) as the successional orders of subtending processes.

Further, the divine/human emotion of love is not a thing but a resulting feeling between Creator to His creation, or between one person to another. Love is not a thing but a feeling. I believe neo-Platonism might circumscribe such secondary interactive processes as a kind of thing or substance as well (someone correct me on this if I've strayed too far). The point being, Platonism sees creation as a world of (external and secondary) objects even as it would see God as a divine object. Thus, in a literal bible, we read of God, angels, demons, humanity, heaven, hell, etc, in objectified ways rather than as interconnecting, if not metaphysical and ontological, (divine and creaturely organic) processes.

These first two paragraphs then get to what Dr. Cobb is referring to externalistic interpretation, that is, reading the bible Platonically rather than in its process sense. One leans on an older Greek philosophy, the latter on Alfred North Whitehead's more recent observations of the world we live in, known as process philosophy. Philosophy is a way for humans to explain the world around them. In the 21st Century, given the evolutionary and quantum sciences, we are beginning to see the world not in Newtonian terms of substances but in terms of processes. 

Whitehead had observed this early on as he interacted with Hegel and other earlier ideas contemporary with his own (including much earlier non-Platonic Greek ideas of process speculation) as well as at Einstein's work both on a personal level as well as on an academic level (ahead of the idea of Niels Bohr's quantum mechanics by some 20+ years).

Process thinking was a relatively new way of looking at the classical cosmology and viewing it as a living,  feeling, organic process highly interrelated between the whole to its parts and its parts to the whole. Whereas classical science had viewed creation as a clock-work mechanism reducible to its parts, contemporary (process) science was looking at the motion and movement of those process-driven EVENTS as forming the "cosmic organism" it was looking at more in terms of energy particles and quantum forces interacting with each other rather than in terms of external , "atomic" objects interacting with one another.

II.

Next, the I-thou relationship between God and creation or God and man takes on the more broader area of panentheism v classical theism. The former centers on the immanence or "nearness" of God with creation or mankind whereas the latter concentrates on the transcendence or "farness" of God away from creation or mankind.

One of the more discussed theological ideas on the topic of God's nearness with us can be found in the subject matter of open theology and relational theology. When I came to these subjects myself based upon my study of Arminian (Wesleyan, qua Methodist) theology over that of Calvinistic (Reformed) theology, I brought both ideas together without hesitation. Thus, Open AND Relational theology, as neither should stand alone without the other.

My reasoning stood along the lines that the future is unknown and therefore as open to us as it is to God. God does not know the future even as God is intimately (or immanently) involved in the future's future as both its image-maker as well as it's designer. What I've done is go over-and-beyond classical theism's imagery of God "directing" the future in a deterministic (or controlling way) to the imagery of God being "in" or "inside" the future which is unfolding in its own process way as given to it by its process Maker. Hence, the teleological edge of creation is imbued with God's own process Image which urges a freewill creation of forces, energies, and creational "souls" forward towards "becoming" in its being, and striving for its own "wellbeing" in its "becoming." Thus, the future is open because God is open in His Love and divine freewilled Soul. God IS the process (process theology qua Arminianism) more than just being its Determiner (Calvinism)

Secondly, relational theology speaks to the freewill "soul" of the cosmos, creation, and sentient creatures. God cannot "direct" or "control" or "determine" freewilled processes but God has IMBUED freewill processes to strive towards surviving, to living (or being), to becoming beyond what it is. There is this very mystical divine urge towards the struggle of becoming. It cannot be controlled but it is this (divine) urge which propels all energies, forces, and "souls" towards interactivity with one another is a processed way in finding wellbeing within its synthesis.

Thus, to speak of Open Theology and Relational Theology is to speak of both processes working together in an intimately (or better, immanently) panrelational, panexperiential - even panpsychic - kind of way. This then begins to describe the idea of an immanent world of God and creation in a divinely intimate process way of being and becoming together. It recognizes the "otherness" of God but states God's "otherness" has no meaning to us unless God is deeply - immanently - connected with us into the very fabric of our being as God is with all of the process-based order. Transcendence then becomes both an unnecessary idea as well as a very hollow, empty Platonic idea of classicism which can immediately be jettisoned from our bible-based theological categories.

III.

Here, Dr. Cobb wishes to further explain Whitehead in terms of process immanency. Let's leave this subject matter to another time. Just know the further you go into Whitehead, the further you will go into the obscuratus and arcane linguistic semantics of the process philosophical language (aka, Process & Reality). And to the degree I've read Whitehead and been involved in it's study with John Cobb is the degree that its finer detail makes process process.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

November 16, 2021

click here for Cobb re "P&R"

click here for Cobb's Study Classes I-VI

Authoritarianism has entered the Church; but not in a good way...

Former United States president Donald Trump's photo op at St. John's Church has been
described as following the "playbook of authoritarian-leaning leaders the world over".

Constitution of the United States - The First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Authoritarianism has entered the Church; but not in a good way...

by R.E. Slater

This morning's news of Michael Flynn's extremist speech last night at a radical right rally in San Antonio, Texas, is cause for concern to all Christians and Churches teaching an openness of dialogue, irenic critique of beliefs amid doctrinal tenents, and welcoming of all religions different from themselves as is proper in an expanding, polyplural, civil democracy of the 21st Century.

However, under the recent Trumpian era of gaslighting fundamental and conservative evangelical Christian churches, white religious nationalism (aka, white supremacy) has gained a new traction in American churches once content in arguing doctrine with one another rather than attacking the democratic institutions of the United States of America as expressed in the Constitution's First Amendment Rights.

The church in the past twenty years has changed. And not in a good way. For those interested in see how these changes have taken place I have put together a complete podcast series of 14 discussions held by Tripp Fuller with Diana Butler Bass and Brian McLaren this past Fall. All these speakers (and friends), like myself, were at one time part of the fundamental / conservative evangelical church, but have now transition to a wake-up call in Jesus to step away from any self-referential belief systems into a more expansive, and tolerant, progressive Christian frame of mind where beliefs and dogmas might be discussed more patiently with one another.

R.E. Slater

November 15, 2021

News References

November 14, 2021

The Guardian -

Trump ally Michael Flynn condemned over call for ‘one religion’ in US

MarketWatch -

Michael Flynn draws condemnation for saying

 U.S. should only have one religion

Google Search - Extremist Authoritarianism in the Church

One may also add multiple examples in European history
of both Catholic and Protestant authoritarianism

Religion and Authoritarianism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Most measures of religiosity, such as church attendance and affiliation, are positively correlated with the authoritarian personality cluster, which includes submission to authority, conventionality, and intolerance of out-groups. The correlation is especially strong between religious fundamentalism (defined as belief in an "inerrant set of religious teachings") and authoritarianism, both of which are characterized by low openness to experience, high rigidity, and low cognitive complexity. In particular, authoritarianism "is positively associated with a religion that is conventional, unquestioned, and unreflective".

Background

United States president Donald Trump's photo op at St. John's Church has been described as following the "playbook of authoritarian-leaning leaders the world over".

Hundreds of scientific articles have been published investigating the connections between religion and authoritarianism. There is a distinction between psychology, which treats authoritarianism as innate to the personality, and sociology, which considers authoritarianism a result of one's environment and posits that it may be influenced by factors such as religion.

A longitudinal study of Americans born in the 1920s found that this effect held for traditional church-centered religion but not for those that are seeking non-institutional spirituality. The latter mode of religion is "characterized by an openness to new experiences and by creativity and experimentation, characteristics that are antithetical to the conventionality that adheres in authoritarianism".

* * * * * * * * * *

Christianity 20 Years after 9/11/2001
by R.E. Slater

I've been finding Tripp's 14 or so podcasts on white authoritarian religious groups very relevant. These past recent years has shown to America the highly uncivil rhetoric and radical nationalism which has swept up the greater part of evangelicalism. If you, like myself, are finding yourself at a greater and greater distance from your church, family and friends, this is why.

Theo-Politicism has swept into the church and neatly divided 30% of us from our present fellowships. In these podcasts Diana has been tasked with reporting from the Pew Surveys and PRRI surveys issued recently during the discussions (the ones I listed not long ago that are always available to the public)....

Diana's religious focus is on reporting on the history of the contemporary Christian church as a religious sociologist who participates with these surveys on a regular basis and has written many books and blog articles over the years based upon her findings. You may also walk with her weekly on her website, "The Cottage".

R.E. Slater

November 15, 2021

You may subscribe free of charge -

https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com/

diana's podcasts -
https://dianabutlerbass.com/online/

also check youtube for more of diana's podcasts -
https://www.youtube.com/results...

and of course anything tripp fuller -
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tripp+fuller

Homebrewed Christianity -
https://www.youtube.com/results...

tripp's site -
https://trippfuller.com/

mine own site -
https://relevancy22.blogspot.com/

* * * * * * * *

Tripp Fuller Live Streaming W/ Diana Butler Bass

Jun 16, 2021

Invite to "Oh God, What Now?"

with Brian McLaren & Diana Butler Bass

Aug 25, 2021

Session 1

20 Years of Religious Decline

Aug 31, 2021

Session 2

The Rise of Authoritarianism

Sep 7, 2021

Q&A - Session 2

with Brian McLaren & Tripp Fuller

Sep 8, 2021

Session 3

Repentance and Resistance

Sep 14, 2021

Q&A - Session 3

with Diana Butler Bass & Tripp Fuller

Sep 16, 2021

Diana Butler Bass' Session 4 discussion | artwork by Steve Thomason

Session 4

Theology and Spirituality in a Time of Rupture

Sep 21, 2021

Q&A - Session 4

with Diana Butler Bass & Tripp Fuller

Sep 23, 2021

Session 5

Inter-Religious Learning w/ Brian McLaren

Sep 28, 2021

Q&A - Session 5

with Brian McLaren & Tripp Fuller

Sep 30, 2021

TheoCon Presentation by Brian McLaren

the Parable of the Kayakers

Jul 12, 2020

More TheoCon here - Https://Theologycon.Com

Session 6

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

with Diana Bass, Brian McLaren, and Tripp Fuller

Oct 5, 2021

Moral Injury & the War on Terror

with Army Chaplain Dr. Josh Morris

Sep 9, 2021

Process vs Classic Church Theism: Cobb v Geisler, Part 2

Process vs Classic Church Theism:

Cobb v Geisler

Part 2

by R.E. Slater

Process Theology Debate:

Norman Geisler vs. John Cobb

Posted: Aug 21, 2021

De Veritate Apologetics and Philosophy

In this debate, Norman Geisler defends the position of 

classical theism against the process theology of John Cobb.

Comment: "As a former evangelic I totally understand the need for evangelicalism to claim victory in this debate. But now, as a process guy, I see all too plainly the obtuseness of Geisler's claimed victories and how he argued from his own self-referential and self-reinforcing theistic system putting words into Dr. Cobb's speech as well as process thought itself that aren't there. Pleases note: Part 2 is not on the youtube video nor could I locate it anywhere except here as linked below." - R.E. Slater

Overview: Geisler defends Evangelicalism

"Process Theism versus Classical Theism" - Click here to hear Part 1 and Part 2 of a fascinating debate from the 1980s between Norman Geisler and John Cobb on Process Thought (a.k.a. Process Theism, Process Theology, Process Cosmology, Process Philosophy) and the strange, panentheistic God-world model of process philosopher A.N. Whitehead. John Warwick Montgomery was present at the debate and told Norm that he had just totally destroyed Process Thought.

* * * * * * * *

Earlier Posts

Part 1 - Process Theology v Classical Theology

Part 2 - Process Theology v Classical Theology

Part 3 - Process Theology v Classical Theology

Part 4 - Process Theology v Classical Theology

* * * * * * * *

The Story of the Bible 2

"Every good theology needs a great philosophy to rest upon

even as a great philosophic-theology must rest on love."

- R.E. Slater

When it comes to evangelical theology one must realize almost immediately that its theology lies in the eclectic collection of many, many philosophies upon which it has been built. Mostly Greek Platonism, and later, Hellenised Neo-Platonism. Afterwards it goes through various permutations of Aristotelian Scholasticism, Reformational Enlightenment, pre-industrial Modernism, 19th Century Neo-Modernism, and now some kind of pre-structural postmodernism. All the while claiming evangelic theology has remained "true" to the Bible.

Which I find convenient as the evangelical bible curiously has remained amazingly "true" to their preferred collection of church creeds, dogmas, tenants, and doctrines. Each one formed as a faith-outcome under the philosophical theories of their century and belief system.

More so, evangelics know they are the right God and right belief because their preachers and theologians each tell them of the "correctness" of their faith as only a dogmatist can say such things. And for those bible teachers and theologs who would dare question evangelical church tradition? Well, excommunication from evangelical churches, schools, journals, publishers, and social media is the usual result. All-in-all its a nice, neat, tidy little system of religious control by evangelics of their contents and message.

But the Bible Tells Me So

Well yes it does, doesn't it? Especially if read in such a way which parrots back to us our belief systems. If you want a warrior God of wrath and hell, it's there. So too, a gospel based upon the Jewish legal propitiation tradition. Inerrancy? Inspiration? Divine revelation? Just read the bible and you'll find it. Reason to hate gays, condemn feminism, mock false teachers who preach God's love. There's plenty of sin verses to warn of "other gospels." My favorite are the knowing the will of God so certainly that any question we have can be found in the real Hebrew and Greek manuscripts that have been copied and recopied. In them we can instantly know the ancient customs of the day and how the religious people back then went wrong and God had to judge them with suffering, death, exile from their homes, and whatnot.

Yes, I'm being cynical as I look around at the church of my day and wonder how we are any different from the religious people back in the bible with only their rabbi's and the Holy Spirit to guide them. So if the bible tells me so and God's love is not being visibly seen, shared, or felt, then I suppose all of us better re-examine how our beliefs got to a place where all people are condemned, going to hell, and disbelieved because our preachers, books, journals, and schools have told us only our own interpretations of the bible are the correct versions of the "true" bible we know and love.

Philosophies now and then

I know of no philosophy which would say it is the correct, God-given philosophy to read the bible in. But they are there across its pages to the scholarly eye versed in ancient, pre-modern, post-scholastic forms of thinking, being, and doing. And when interpreting the bible's collection of ancient legends and narratives it would be best if those passages were better considered from their point of view rather than our own glossy point of view.

So let's take a further step back and ask what kind of philosophies permeated the collection of ancient Semitic (Near-Eastern) narratives within the sanctified, inspired pages of the inerrant evangelic Bible. Pick any ancient Kingdom - from the Akkadians to the Sumerians, from the Amoritic to the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Perian Kingdoms. And don't forget to include the many Egyptian dynasties either to complete this short list of cultural beliefs, legends, superstitions, folklore, and mystifying astrological observations where each empire, each civilization, held a kind of philosophy unique to their religious belief systems. And if you read the Bible knowledgably - that is, being familiar with ancient language, customs, and beliefs, you can see each of these era-specific philosophies readily standing out.

click here to enlarge

What's the point? Over nearly 4000 years of ancient Old Testament history, plus another 2000 years of New Testament history (if we include the historic creedal eras of the church) you can imagine the kaleidoscope of philosophic variants washing up upon the shores of religious beliefs and civilization to be imbibed, composed, synthesized, re-composed, and re-synthesized, into a labyrinth of religious  beliefs again, and again, and again.

At which point the Bible scholar comes along to decipher these beliefs to pick and choose among them the most accurate portrayal of God and religion. This scholar would be a man or woman knowledgeable in ancient linguistics, morpho-orthography, social anthropology, ancient Semitic and Greek culture, Hellenistic culture, and over-and-above all this, hopefully knowledgeable with all major Western, Continental, Near-Eastern, and Oriental philosophies over the past 2000 years.

All this so that we can state as "true" believers that we have a "true" bible which tells us of the "true" God we believe in. So let me ask again... "How do we know we have come to have all these theistic assurances? For one, biblical theologs, like Norman Geisler, have come along in their day to tell us what we should believe. But I also suspect evangelic beliefs like yesteryear's creedal doctrines all hinged on the kind of religious tradition we were raised in - or are actively involved - to claim such religious hubris.

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The Art of Biblical Hermeneutics

Historically, as cultures have grown they tend to be built upon each earlier generation's labors and energies. It would not be uncommon to walk around London, England, to dig down 80 feet, perhaps more, and discover, layer by layer, the earlier histories of the men and women living their lives out in Old London stretching across the eras of its past back to its earliest days upon the Thames.

This illustration would not be unlike a theologian's efforts - be they ancient or modern. Each bible scholar of the past has waded across the muck of outrider gnostic philosophies intermixed with their own philosophical cultural traditions. And in their mirey treks have attempted to ask the question who is God? How would God communicate Himself to mankind? What would God say to us now? What would it mean to us today? And why would God's revelation be important?

We might ask the further question of whether a biblical speaker speaks for God or man; and if his or her revelations fairly represents the God we think we know off the biblical page? Whether in our defensive Christian apologies we are really sharing the God of the bible or the God of our belief systems? When I listen to dear Norman Geisler I find myself asking this question again and again as he strives to be the best servant of the Lord in the history of servant leaders of the bible and the church.

For myself, I've tried to make it really, really simple since I don't pretend to be a smart man. Perhaps  a diligent student of the Lord's trying to put things together in my own way, but I need something unremarkable about God and His church to help me know if what I believe about God is worthy of my time, attention, life, family, and energies.

The Art of Christian Living

After 6000 years of communicating to man - which the bible tells is what God has been doing through human voices, convictions, events both natural and man-made, His prophets, priests, apostles, and especially Jesus, His Son, Word, and very God of very God. Jesus, who upended all previous and future religious voices with a simple dictum....

Can you guess what that dictum was? What Jesus summed up as man's duty to God? Jesus said He could sum up God's revelation in one word which would hold us responsible before His Father and one another. That word? Yes, the word love.

Imagine, all the time and effort so many have put into their faith and belief systems coming down to understanding, receiving, giving, being, and becoming the incoming and outgoing process event of love. More a verb than it is a noun, except as a noun it defines the verb which is to be acted upon. God is love. Not was. Is. Love. The Apostle John wrote and rewrote this simple little word across the pages of his first epistle, I John. In Jesus he heard the word love and so reminded the Jesus follower to learn to love because it's the hardest thing to do, be and share.

Certainly, there's got to be more to the Christian religion, or any religion!, than this simple word love, isn't there!? I mean Yahweh took pains to tell us of Himself as the God above all other polytheistic gods! That He is the Sovereign Creator over every creative force! That He is the Heavenly Guide to all furtive soul travellers seeking the meaning of life! But to camp down on the word love when power, glory, divinity, majesty, rulership is so much more to God than love!???

Yes, perhaps Jesus got it wrong. That Jesus really didn't understand Himself as the Creator God of the universe. As the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. But I don't think so. When I read bible I read of a Suffering Servant (Isaiah 52.13-53.12). Of a God who was "Cut as Abram' Covenant of Protection and Guide (Genesis 15.12-19), the Altar upon which lambs are slain before the foundation of the world (Exodus 12.21-28), whereupon sin and evil has been laid upon His uplifted Cross (John 19.23), that all rulers and kingdoms come before the God of sacrifice, love, and service, to be judged for their deeds (Revelation 19-21).

How can God's love rectify a host of philosophies, religious traditions and beliefs, and human effort? Because, my friends, it does. It will. It can. Love God. Love neighbor. This was my very simple determinant if a church or a society or a belief is worthy of being trusted, followed, and exampled. Of course, I wish to speak the most correct thoughts about the God I love. Which is also why I am being quite disagreeable with my past fundamental and evangelical heritage gone off the rails in so many unloving, ungodly directions.

So I think we can do better. But to start let's learn to love. The knowledge part is irrelevant without the loving part. That we, as Jesus followers, know and share the God of love who defines His holiness, His Being, His Essence as LOVE first, last, and foremost. Our Lord is the Alpha and Omega of love worthy to be heard, imagined, and testified to by word and deed.

Lastly, Love is a lifelong lesson in itself. I can't imagine anything harder to do then to love one another in all our differences. Let's start today as Jesus had asked His followers many years ago. Let's leave everything else aside until our spouses, kids, family, friends, workmates, neighbors, schools, churches, and communities know we our the children of God because we love as God loves and wish to love all we meet in loving support, encouragement, respect, thought, service, act, and deed. Help us, O' Lord ,to love. Amen.

R.E. Slater

November 12-13, 2021

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The Meaning of Life According to Different Philosophies

https://blog.adioma.com/meaning-of-life-according-to-philosophy/