Creatio ex deo

[shunyadragon]

OK! Seer brought up something new, very close to the Baha'i view of Creation. Let's talk about it.

Creatio ex deo

[Kelp(p)]

My biggest question regarding the idea is how it accounts for moral agency. If we're all made out of God, then does that mean God is corruptible?

[Jedidiah]

I fail to see any reason to even consider it. Why should I?

[Kelp(p)]

If Creatio Ex Nihilio is an incoherent concept, then this is a promising alternative.

And in a sense, I suppose modern science has already proven Monism, which is the first step. We're all made of energetic particles in one state or another.

[JohnnyP]

What I was talking about in the other thread, there's a happy medium:

Infinite Father God limits Himself (Tzimtzum/Kenosis) to create something not infinite God in order for creation of non-God things to happen, and that limitation remains as force of the The Spirit with instructions of God's Word to take the form of Creation: there's Trinity in a nutshell.

In Genesis it's Creation, with all things that are not infinite God and goodness having some evil.

In the NT it's reflected as Jesus a new firstborn Creation, also a limited God that is otherwise infinite, the same type of Kenosis.

So all things are created from a limited God, not just out of nothing, otherwise you'd have chaos. If all things were created from an infinite God you'd have pantheism, all things are God, God is corruptible, evil, etc. The playful Hindu God in one of those threads.

[shunyadragon]

My biggest question regarding the idea is how it accounts for moral agency. If we're all made out of God, then does that mean God is corruptible?

I do not believe Creatio ex deo assumes 'all made of God.' It basically assumes there is a medium or matrix of existence that exists eternally with God from which all Creation or universes are Created from.

First of three.

Source: http://unsettledchristianity.com/tag/creation-ex-deo/

Our Evolving Theological Position: Panentheism

The Classical Theistic position was one which came to fruition against Gnosticism and Platonic thought at a time when Platonic logic was giving great support to the Christian faith. It was made in reaction to pressing issues. Today, we have pressing issues with the advent of science. There will be some who will dismiss the influence of science on theology, but if we are true to the historical picture, we will easily see that Christian doctrine has often been shaped, from the Canon to the Creeds, by reactions to outside pressures. It is not that the truths of Christianity are changing to match the times, just the opposite. The first chapter of Genesis was written to shape the identity of the Jewish exiles in Babylon, giving them hope in YHWH. They used Babylonian concepts to redefine the idea of Creation to stand against the onslaught of the cultural hegemony being promulgated through the exile. Today, we aren’t merely allowing scientific principles to become our theology and thus deny God, but we, like the Christians who formulated ex nihilo to withstand the approach of Gnosticism and to dismiss that anything existed alongside of God and the Israelites who threw out the Babylonian creation myths in favor of upholding YHWH, we can called to allow that all truth is God’s truth, and to change our truth to fit it. Creation ex nihilo is no longer a tenable position for the Church and must be changed; however, what changes it must answer the objections of the Classical Theists, meet the scientific revolutions of the past decades, and be true to the ancient creeds that God is the Creator of heaven and earth. To meet the scientific claims of this present age, much like our spiritual ancestors of the past, I propose that we do nothing new, but return to an older, allowable, Christian belief, creatio ex deo, and supplement this with panentheism.

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[shunyadragon]

Source: http://unsettledchristianity.com/tag/creation-ex-deo/

What is panentheism? As Baruch Spinoza claimed in his book, Ethics, “Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived.” This is not pantheism which posits that everything is God, but that everything exists within God. The term, first coined by Karl Christian Friedrich Krause, represents a concept which goes back much further than the recent scientific revolutions. We find this first articulated by the ancient Greeks such as Heraclitus and Plato. The former found a panentheistic expression in the use of Logos to dictate the pervasion of the cosmos by an ordering principle. Platonic Philosopher turned Christian Theologian Justin Martyr would later use Heraclitus’s Logos to define John’s Logos. This concept focuses on the divine omnipresence. In the West, it is found among Process theologians and in the East, slightly redefined to exclude a complete union between God and creation; however, given scientific principles, a complete separation may be impossible.

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[shunyadragon]

Source: http://unsettledchristianity.com/tag/creation-ex-deo/

Panentheism allows a focus on the ontological existence of Creation. Admittedly, we have grown as a species in our cosmological outlook since the days of the Hebrews, but we share some of the same concerns. What does it mean to exist? Further, panentheism allows that God continues to be involved and to evolve the processes which produce this cosmos. Polkinghorne argues that “It is the Creator who ordains the laws of quantum theory and general relativity… who ‘breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe.’” (Polkinghorne:99)[6] Building upon this reality, we should be hesitant about redefining ‘Creator’ by our persistently wrong interpretation of a Creator who created out of nothing. Instead, when we understand the creeds and our canonical traditions to mean that God is creator, we must seek to understand this term both without existent biblical traditions and theology influenced by science. God is ontologically the creator, just as we are ontologically created, but what does this mean?

I argue for a liberal use of panentheism to answer scientific discoveries while maintaining the core faith of the believer, that there is indeed a God. In this view, matter and energy does not exist apart from God, but within God. Because God is an indescribable substance, it is entirely possible to maintain that the eternality of matter and energy are so uniquely related to the substance of God as to be indistinguishable from God. It is not that God created something out of himself, but that God formed all that there is through himself. This is not a true ex deo position, as I maintain that the cosmos is not out of God but still in God, or with God. Thus, the Creation is good because the fountain of it, as Milton said, is good. Here, I note Max Weber’s prophetic warnings of the growing dualism, almost as humanity had given up hope in Creation,

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My view is that matter and energy can exist apart from God in an eternal matrix.

[Kelp(p)]

Ok. So let me try an analogy:

God is like a crock pot full of stew. As long as the stew is in the pot, it is warm. But if I dish up a bowl of stew and leave it out, it will cool. So in the same way, everything is perfect when it is in God, but when it "exits" God to be formed into matter and energy and souls within the matrix and be created, it becomes susceptible to corruption.

[seer]

Ok. So let me try an analogy:

God is like a crock pot full of stew. As long as the stew is in the pot, it is warm. But if I dish up a bowl of stew and leave it out, it will cool. So in the same way, everything is perfect when it is in God, but when it "exits" God to be formed into matter and energy and souls within the matrix and be created, it becomes susceptible to corruption.

Sort of. I would put it differently. Intelligence is the key here. Can God generate energy from His being that does not share all of His attributes? Here is an analogy: If you take my kidney to help save another person does that person become me - no. Even though he has part of me in him. What he lacks is my mind and personality. So can God do that - break off a part of Himself, or generate something out of Himself, that doesn't share His intelligence or personality?

[Leonhard]

Sort of. I would put it differently. Intelligence is the key here. Can God generate energy from His being that does not share all of His attributes? Here is an analogy: If you take my kidney to help save another person does that person become me - no. Even though he has part of me in him. What he lacks is my mind and personality. So can God do that - break off a part of Himself, or generate something out of Himself, that doesn't share His intelligence or personality?

Ah, but God did not create the universe out of his own substance. That would be impossible.

[seer]

Ah, but God did not create the universe out of his own substance. That would be impossible.

Then what did God create matter and energy from? Nothing?

[JohnnyP]

Then what did God create matter and energy from? Nothing?

Source: Gerald Schroeder

Such a vacuum fluctuation allows the creation of something from a potential nothing provided that the laws of nature are in existence prior to the existence of the universe. Nature is not in existence, but the laws of nature.
...
Our concept of time begins with the creation of the universe. Therefore if the laws of nature created the universe, these laws must have existed prior to time; that is the laws of nature would be outside of time. What we have then is totally non-physical laws, outside of time, creating a universe. Now that description might sound somewhat familiar. Very much like the biblical concept of God: not physical, outside of time, able to create a universe. -Source

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Following what I said here: "Infinite Father God limits Himself (Tzimtzum/Kenosis) to create something not infinite God in order for creation of non-God things to happen, and that limitation remains as force of the The Spirit with instructions of God's Word to take the form of Creation..."

In that view, the limited God would always be part of creation creatio ex deo as the Laws of Nature causing matter from nothing and dictating how the universe operates. Example:

Source: KJV

Genesis 1:2-3 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep (vacuum). And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water. And God said, Let there be light (Laws of Nature): and there was light (matter).

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[seer]

Such a vacuum fluctuation allows the creation of something from a potential nothing provided that the laws of nature are in existence prior to the existence of the universe. Nature is not in existence, but the laws of nature.

How/where do the laws of nature exist prior to the actual universe? I can see them existing in the mind of God, but not otherwise.

[shunyadragon]

Ah, but God did not create the universe out of his own substance. That would be impossible.

I do not believe this, but why do you think it is impossible?