Re: How does God act in the world today?

[aleggett]

James, How wonderful to get back to theological reflection after so much discussion about resolution 84.   Your question is a very good one and I will do my best to explain it from my panentheistic understanding of God. Panentheism simply means that everything is in God and God is in everything. This tends to move us away from understanding God as a "supernatural being" to being the "essence of all being" or to quote Paul Til, "The ground of all being." Everything exists in God and beyond God nothing exists.   At a workshop we had earlier in the year with Michael Morwood and Sarah Mitchell, (both professed panentheists) Michael began by asking the question "where is God in the universe?" After detailing the enormity of the universe and then getting an agreed response that God was everywhere, he then went on to ask, "well where is God conscious of being God?"   He then went on to argue that assuming that God is everywhere, the only place we can say that God has come to consciousness that we know of is in the development of life on this planet and that the highest known level of that consciousness was to be found in the evolution of the human species.   I have found this a fascinating playground for my mind to play in ever since the workshop. I'm not sure as I am yet able to comprehend or espouse the ramifications of such a belief or even if I can give an unqualified 'yes' to the suggestion, but I have to say it makes sense and I certainly can't name any other place where I can say that God is conscious of being God.   Michael referred to the work of scientist Paul Davis and his use of quantum physics to demonstrate that 'mind' seems to have some form of presence in all matter. He wants to argue, however, that it is only when mind has a highly complex nervous system such as the human brain that it can it can achieve such levels of consciousness that it can become conscious of itself.   What a frightening thought. Humans might be the highest _expression_ of God on this planet.   Morwood goes on to suggest that throughout the evolutionary process there have been Einstein's who seem to have been able to use the grey matter better than others around them, but there have also been people who seem to have been able to touch into a deeper level of being and reveal a sense of transcendence, or what we might call God. He cites Jesus as one of these people. As Christians, we might want to claim that for us, Jesus becomes the ultimate revelation of the divine nature within us, but of course we have no way of proving this and we therefore have no right to expect that following of other paths may not be at least equally valid.   So in all of this, we have to say that God works with what God has to work with and that means for all intents and purposes within what we might call the laws of physics or nature. God, in this sense, may be understood as gently nudging the evolution of being from within the process. Occasionally certain things happen which seem to us to be outside the natural laws as we understand them and we call these occurrences miracles. But of course as our knowledge of the universe increases and the phenomena behind many of these events is explained, such happenings become much rarer.   This of course has been a relatively simple answer to a very deep question. But it is this sort of understanding of God that can make sense in the world as we know it today. It is also why I believe that the church can't continue to simply quote doctrines and creeds that were formulated from an era that held a vastly different cosmology to that which we hold today. It is also why I believe that the old argument that the church has been in decline before so the current decline is simply part of a cycle will have to be abandoned. The simpler fact is that traditional church theology is being challenged from knowledge and reason in ways that has never happened in the past. A retreat into orthodoxy will only supply comfort to a limited number of people for a limited time.   I hope people will feel free to discuss any point or all of this response.   Grace & Peace. Allan                   ----- Original Message ----- From: James Tonson To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, October 13, 2003 12:40 PM Subject: How does God act in the world today? G�day all   I�ve been waiting a while for a quieter space on this list to ask this question�   I�ve been wrestling for a while with theological ideas about how God acts in the world today, and I�d be interested to hear different people�s takes on the issue.   Allan I remember sometime back you outlining your beliefs/theology � was panantheism the way you labeled it? � and wondering particularly how you resolved this issue.    But I definitely want to hear from others as well, I firmly believe that the open diversity on this list is one of it�s strength.   Thanks James -------------------------------------------------------------- Do you think the world is okay as it is? or do you think it needs changing? If so what are you doing about it? ********************************************************************************************* PLEASE CONSIDER THE ENVIRONMENT BEFORE PRINTING THIS EMAIL *********************************************************************************************