In the beginning...

[The Reality Salesman01]

Hold on, you asked me to come here and speak with you guys. If you want to debate with DR.Craig, then speak with him, if you want to speak with me, then speak with me.

Ok Stone. How does God will creation onto nothing and create something? Without anything to be effected by his power (no matter how much it may be) the power itself is useless and not effective.

The very concept of him willing it into place suggests there was a state of change within His will

(A state that He did not will it, into a changed state of His will from which it occurs) Without time, how is there change? Even change as in his difference in will?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Here's an up-dated version of my interpretation of Panentheism:

The Totality is all that is, was, and ever will be. The Totality is complete since by definition it cannot lack anything. It already contains everything that could possibly be. As such, only the Totality could be the “Supreme Being”. This does not mean that the Supreme Being, the Totality, is the same thing as physical reality. The Totality is also called the One. The Totality has at least three essential aspects: form, substance, and potential. The Totality as to its substance is Primal Matter. The Totality as to its form is Ideal Form. The Totality as to its potential is called Emanation. None of these divisions within the Totality has priority over any other nor can any one aspect be contingent upon the other. They exist as a perfect unity.

Particular entities come into being when substance actualizes form through emanation. Nothing can be only substance. Nothing can be only form, though you can imagine. Nothing could come into being without emanation. Creation simply means causing something to exist. Within the Totality entities have their identity within a larger context. As such you experience each entity as a unit, a one, even though physically no definitive demarcation separates any one thing from another. Intellection singles out a specific portion of physical reality and call that portion one thing, a whole unit. Parts come into being and persist for as long as they partake of the Totality's inherent unity, or oneness as perceived by a consciousness entity. Parts are contingent upon the One. Each person is one consciousness. The One is the fullest expression of consciousness that extends completely throughout reality and is fundamental to it. Each personal existent would dissolve into nothing if its oneness was not maintained through unity with the One.

[The Reality Salesman01]

... God's causal power alone provides the potential for a universe to exist,...the potentiality to create is wholly predicated upon the existence of something upon which that power might exert itself. Power is made manifest only when it is exerted upon something.

I don't disagree with this statement, since it only applies to creation "out of nothing." Out of nothing, nothing comes. That has been understood as true since ancient times.

Then what are you suggesting God changed into the universe? A second ago I think you said it was Himself right?

Would you care to elaborate on the state God existed in before he decided to will the universe into existance?

I realize to say "before the universe" is silly because the universe and time are part of the same, but it is implied when one posits that God willed it into existance, there was at the very least a state of afairs that God did not will it and therein change occurred (if only in Him changing his mind) and change is a product of time which is a product of our universe....you see what i'm getting at?

[Baalzebutt]

Here's an up-dated version of my interpretation of Panentheism:

The Totality is all that is, was, and ever will be. The Totality is complete since by definition it cannot lack anything. It already contains everything that could possibly be. As such, only the Totality could be the “Supreme Being”. This does not mean that the Supreme Being, the Totality, is the same thing as physical reality. The Totality is also called the One. The Totality has at least three essential aspects: form, substance, and potential. The Totality as to its substance is Primal Matter. The Totality as to its form is Ideal Form. The Totality as to its potential is called Emanation. None of these divisions within the Totality has priority over any other nor can any one aspect be contingent upon the other. They exist as a perfect unity.

Particular entities come into being when substance actualizes form through emanation. Nothing can be only substance. Nothing can be only form, though you can imagine. Nothing could come into being without emanation. Creation simply means causing something to exist. Within the Totality entities have their identity within a larger context. As such you experience each entity as a unit, a one, even though physically no definitive demarcation separates any one thing from another. Intellection singles out a specific portion of physical reality and call that portion one thing, a whole unit. Parts come into being and persist for as long as they partake of the Totality's inherent unity, or oneness as perceived by a consciousness entity. Parts are contingent upon the One. Each person is one consciousness. The One is the fullest expression of consciousness that extends completely throughout reality and is fundamental to it. Each personal existent would dissolve into nothing if its oneness was not maintained through unity with the One.

So what is the origin of the Totality?

[Neo-Scholastic]

So what is the origin of the Totality?

It has no origin. It is all that is, was, or ever will be.

Then what are you suggesting God changed into the universe? A second ago I think you said it was Himself right? Would you care to elaborate on the state God existed in before he decided to will the universe into existence?

I think the physical universe sits within the Totality. The Totality remains unchanged, although it contains change within it.

[LastPoet]

It has no origin.

Nothing like having an exception to the rule, in other words... a special pleading.

[Neo-Scholastic]

It has no origin.

Nothing like having an exception to the rule, in other words... a special pleading.

Actually, you're the one special pleading because you have made an exception for the physical universe. Every physical object with which we have experience has a beginning and persists and presumably ends. The coming into being of any physical object depends on something other than itself into order to begin and persist (which is just continual coming into being).

The known universe is a physical object, the same as all others. So even as a whole, the physical universe should not be treated differently than any other physical object. I avoid special pleading by posit the existence of necessary non-physical attributes. These two taken together, the physical and non-physical constitute the larger reality, which I call the Totality (because it is neutral with regards to divinity) or what the ancients called the One or the All or the Good.

Nice try, though. Attempting to pidgen-hole my position into something familiar that you think you can easily refute. I'm going to make you work for it.

[stone]

Hold on, you asked me to come here and speak with you guys. If you want to debate with DR.Craig, then speak with him, if you want to speak with me, then speak with me.

Ok Stone. How does God will creation onto nothing and create something? Without anything to be effected by his power (no matter how much it may be) the power itself is useless and not effective.

The very concept of him willing it into place suggests there was a state of change within His will

(A state that He did not will it, into a changed state of His will from which it occurs) Without time, how is there change? Even change as in his difference in will?

Imagine for a minute that you are a monkey. You find a car parked next to your banana tree and can't figure out what it is. The keys are in the ignition. After a couple of weeks, after you figure out that the horn isn't going to eat you, you go back inside the car and start playing around with all the buttons and switches. You want to know how to work this thing you found, but you just can't put your mind around what it is and in between picking your butt and your friends butts and eating lice and bananas you occassionally play with the vehicle.

I could explain to you how to drive the car, I could even put you in a simulator and you could learn to put it in gear and press on the gas and the break, however, chances are your just going to drive yourself over the cliff a hundred or so feet away.

The same would be like for me to explain to you about how God creates by speaking.

Your 1st problem is that you don't understand that there are things in this world that you don't understand. It would be the same as you teaching a monkey to drive a car. You may think that you can do it, but you can't.

God creates something out of nothing by speaking the words, let there be light. You don't know what all that entails. If you claim to, then you have some kind of God complex, where you think that you are more smarter than anything that there is on the planet. When the reality is, you are only a monkey. This is where you are now, a little monkey that thinks he knows everything and is only going to drive himself over a cliff.

True wisdom will come from being humble and understanding that there are many things in this world that you will never understand.

---

Nothing like having an exception to the rule, in other words... a special pleading.

Actually, you're the one special pleading because you have made an exception for the physical universe. Every physical object with which we have experience has a beginning and persists and presumably ends. The coming into being of any physical object depends on something other than itself into order to begin and persist (which is just continual coming into being).

The known universe is a physical object, the same as all others. So even as a whole, the physical universe should not be treated differently than any other physical object. I avoid special pleading by posit the existence of necessary non-physical attributes. These two taken together, the physical and non-physical constitute the larger reality, which I call the Totality (because it is neutral with regards to divinity) or what the ancients called the One or the All or the Good.

Nice try, though. Attempting to pidgen-hole my position into something familiar that you think you can easily refute. I'm going to make you work for it.

Why do you think you can use science to prove God?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Why do you think you can use science to prove God?

1) It is not science. It's philosophy. The same approach used by the Church Fathers. 2) It is not actually a proof, so much as a clarification of the choice between belief and nihilism.

True wisdom will come from being humble and understanding that there are many things in this world that you will never understand.

That has never been an excuse for remaining ignorant. God wants us to know Him, not only from His revelation but also through observation of nature and the application of reason.

[stone]

Why do you think you can use science to prove God?

1) It is not science. It's philosophy. The same approach used by the Church Fathers. 2) It is not actually a proof, so much as a clarification of the choice between belief and nihilism.

True wisdom will come from being humble and understanding that there are many things in this world that you will never understand.

That has never been an excuse for remaining ignorant. God wants us to know Him, not only from His revelation but also through observation of nature and the application of reason.

Is it more ignorant to think you know everything or to understand that there are things in this world that we don't understand? Which is the fool?