What has religion contributed to our body of knowledge?  When was the last time religion cured a disease?  Found a new planet?  Developed a method to provide clean drinking water?

Theologians can scoff at Stephen Hawking all they want, but all they have to send his way is hot air.  It is the scientific method that most contributes to what we know.  Religion gave its best answers hundreds of years ago, and most of those are now known to be in error.

Whether it's Norse mythology, Christian mythology, Islamic mythology, or Scientology crapology, it's just a bunch of wild guesses in metaphorical format.  It can be poetic.  It can show an understanding of human nature.  But it's not "true", any more than any random work of fiction can be "true".

It's funny.  All these people, saying what they want to say, saying iterations of Hawking is saying that G_d is no longer needed, and forgetting that when they say that, IT IS THEIR NOTION and not Hawking's.

It's funny.  Because people do this all the time.  ALL.  THE.  TIME.  It's just that it is 'hidden' most of the time because we don't pay attention to it.  Like robots following their programming.

It's funny.  The opportunities universe gives us to WAKE UP from our robot ways.

Afraid to take that step, into the light of responsibility for our world, with all of its horrors and beauty, all the stupidity and genius, all that is profane and all that is sacred.

Life as art and life as play.

Hawking, to me, is a very spiritual person. And so is Einstein and other scientists.

Monkeys imitate; people create. We humans have evolved one step beyond the imitativeness of our animal nature, into creators.

In the authoritarian Abrahamic religions there is a strong pressure for conformity, uniformity, and imitativeness. When life becomes art, then we evolve from authoritarian to libertarian, from conformist to unique, and from imitative to creative.

"The universe will create itself from nothing"? Sorry guys, think about that statement for a minute, it's a pretty ridiculous thing to say. Is that science? Have they observed "something from nothing"? How about, "Something from as of yet we know nothing about?"

My brother delt with this issue when he was 10 or so, So what was there before the big bang?...... and what was before that?.......and what was before that? etc. We have come to an area of assumptions which, by no stretch of the word, can be called science. Fine they are welcome to assume as they will, but don't call it science.

Hawking's is suggesting a model based on established laws.  Religious answers to this question are based on precisely nothing.

Chansen, have you considered that Atheism is also based on a philosophy?  (for example Nietzsche's "Parable of a Madman")

Meaning that we have to substantiate our ideals with common thoughts that are determined by first the imagination and then following through with the experiment by living them? To live in a world totally devoid of a belief in God has not yet been achieved. How do you " imagine" that will look?

" A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love. " Frederick Nietzsche

"The universe will create itself from nothing"?

Dang where have I been, I'm gonna create a Lamborghini out of nothing , Now That

Just saved a tone of money on my car insurance

Unmoving energy can't be measured or detected; it is a nothing. Rapid movement makes energy into a measurable something.

Energy, appearantly, transformed itself from unmoving to moving and from unquantified to quantfied, and thus became measurable energy and matter. Energy seems to occur in a non-energetic, unmoving, and unquantified basic state, but possesses the power to transcend this state and transform itself into its opposite.

This transformative or transcendental power to become one's opposite, or be one's opposite (nonduality), probably is an innate quality of energy. Moreover, energy appears to be a singularity in an inseparable state of synthesis (it can't be pluralized).

Energy appears to be a singularity, it appears to be eternal, it appears to be self-energetic, self-transcendental or self-transformative, and self-generative or self-creative. It appears to be the creative substance as well as the creative power of the universe. All of this qualifies energy as the spiritual as well as the physical substance of the universe. Self-generative energy/spirit, as an inseparable whole in a unitive state of synthesis, is a definition of God that scientifically inclined people can and do agree with.

This is the common ground where religion and science can and do meet.

Two great Truths: A new Synthesis of Scientific Naturalism and Christian Faith.

By David Ray Griffin, Westminster/John Knox Press,2004 130pp.

The connection between science and religion is again a topic of considerable interest.  Griffin’s book is a welcome addition to the discussion.  In this short book he brings together his extensive writings on the subject in this accessible book.

I have used it as a discussion book with lay people who have different experiences with science.  Most often they have taken the route of two cultures that our age affirms.  Most people use the idea that science does the how, what could be called methodological naturalism, and religion the why, the ontological character of reality.   However, there is another view that dominates which is scientific materialism.  This is a naturalism that address both the methodological and the ontological questions. 

Because of this many religious people have compartmentalized religion and science.  However, this is not sufficient in face of the complex questions that modern science asks about the nature of humans and the world.  So there are many who are seeking a better grounding for their faith.  For such people this book will make faith more than mere wishful thinking for it gives them a ground to speak of experiencing God as a reality just as we speak of other experiences as real in light of scientific skepticism that under pins most of our thinking.

As we go about our daily activity we are not conscious of the history of science and religion and how they became radically different ways of thinking about the world.  Religion, for the most part, gave up showing how God causally operates in the world in a naturalistic way.  Griffin provides away of being able to speak faithfully about a God who interacts with the world in our time and space. 

To do this he first traces how science as a great truth got distorted.  For at one time there was a synthesis of science and religion and that is now gone. 

Griffin argues that scientific atheistic materialism need not be nor is a logical outcome of the scientific method or naturalism. He traces the history of scientific ideas from Greek naturalism, to Plato’s theistic naturalism.  He shows how the middle ages rejected this view in favor of ex nihilo.  This was to protect the idea of supernaturalism and miracles.  So part of the reason for the distortion of science is Christian theology. This is when it depends on Supernaturalism and  a doctrine of Creation out of Nothing.

In a attempt to affirm a naturalistic understanding of the world it was proposed that God is the God of the gaps.  To hold that view as our knowledge increased, God was moved to prime mover, or original cause but not now active.  To be able to speak of miracles and other such religious ideas, creation out of nothing was suggested to show how God did operate and is now using natural experience to be efficacious.  This is a form of deism that most scientists affirmed until our time, and is still a way some still affirm their connection connection to faith. 

He also reminds the reader of the role of Islam in keeping alive  Greek thought.  However, later in the thirtieth century it was the Christians who gave a remarkable freedom to universities.  At the same time, there was a new emerging idea of magical naturalism, this is where nature has influence  on its own becoming.  This was a rediscovery of Aristotle's final cause where nature had its own goal.
To reject this turn, both theology and science moved to  a more mechanistic understanding.  The importance of  supernaturalism and ex nihilo was highlighted.  This was to deal the issue of the soul and God’s influence in the world.  The scientific mechanism became a deism and then materialism.  All of this ended in splitting science and religion and leaving the door open to scientific atheistic materialism.

The problem with scientific materialism is it leaves important questions out of the discussion, or cannot adequately answer them.  There is the issue of freedom.  Deterministic naturalism leaves no room in nature for freedom or self awareness.  It doe not answer how self awareness or consciousness has arisen.  In reaction some suggest the role of nurture.  However, even nurture is touched by such deterministic thinking.  This is because of our tendency to reductionism as an explanation of why things are what they are.   Another problem is self awareness that cannot be explained by sensationalist doctrine of perception which is where we can only perceive physical things.  This has lead to a mechanistic view of nature.

Griffin says naturalism does not have to be materialistic and atheistic.  He offers another philosophical history to recreate a scientific world view based thinkers like James, Piece and Whitehead.    He achieves his goal of showing how religious experience is real using this new understanding of scientific naturalism.

Before he gets to his conclusion he also shows how Christianity has been distorted. As well, he argues that until it too finds a new world view,  we will not arrive at an synthesis. 

He shows the history of the idea of creation out of nothing and how it made it impossible for religion and science to be synthesized.  When one begins with absolute nothingness (creation out of nothing) then everything that is, is created by God - God is the author of all the evil in the world because in the creation of out of nothing God set in motion the conditions for evil. Now one could argue it was the fall and thus humans create evil.  However here God is less than perfect or good because God potentially could have created another type of person. So one response is to reject the one will all determining God. For example,Augustness tried to solve this with a two will answer- eternal and commanding. The eternal is how things are brought about, sin is going against the commanding will. The problem still is, if our sinful choices are determined by God's eternal will, how can we be responsible?  Voluntarism was introduced as answer.  It is an emphasize on God’s divine will and freedom - something is good because God determined it be good.  Even if our decisions are determined so we could not do otherwise and that does not prevent us from being free to make a decision.   God’s grace saves us from our bad decisions even if God is both the first and final cause of them

Aquinas tries to solve this problem with primary and secondary causes - It is secondary causes that does not take away free will but (and this is a real but)Thomas says that our acts of free choice are caused by God. The conclusion is freewill is an illusion.

Luther and Calvin make it worse- Luther " nothing happens but at God's will," "there is no free willing man."   Some say this means only salvation not in respect to decision making. However " the very free will is overruled by the free will of God.” Luther sees this as a problem with evil so he goes on to say "believing in Him when to us He seems unjust". He did not want to ask why God allowed this and made it a mystery. So evil is made good by acts of God, evil appeared to be evil from our side, not God's. Calvin is essentially the same -just makes it worse with predestination - "God does not inquire into what men have been able to do ... but what they have been willed to do." In other words, we are condemned to sin because we were willed by God to do evil. He also says " God always has the best reasons for his plan."   Of course Luther and Calvin solve the salvation issue by voluntarism - of God’s grace we are saved.

Griffin then deals with free will theists.  There is the problem for traditional free will theism where God COULD determine all-things, but God self limits God. In this self limitation free will, actually becomes free will. Since most free will theists see only humans as having free will this still leaves the problem of natural evil. Moral evil is a result of humans refusal to turn themselves over to the will of God. Still, since God has the all the power to act, that is could unlimited God’s self where is the critical mass of evil that ought to cause him to act?  The holocaust? The Tsunami?  There is a second problem of,  "he is too young to die.”  If God loves us and has the power to intervene why not? Is God less moral than us, for our other stories of superman etc suggest there are times to break the so called laws of nature.
 
Another answer to the problem of evil is deism -which many people unconsciously are - it comes out in " God set the laws of nature into place and is limited by them." Interestingly even scientist believe laws of nature are mutable so why can't God fix this problem to get better laws.

He traces how theologians actually help remove God as an active agent in history.  It is true that within conservative circles the doctrine of revelation allows for God to intervene in history.  This means, though, religious knowledge becomes privileged knowledge.  Only those who had read the bible  correctly could see this hand of God in human events.  And the bible ( and tradition) became the revelation of God.   Ontological supernaturalism became its grounding, that there is a power that can interrupt the world’s normal processes, and has and might still do so in the future.

However, such a view is hard to hold for most modern people so  liberal theology rejected ontological supernaturalism.  So modern liberal theologians had to deconstruct theology to save the possibility of religious experience.  They settled the issue of truth by experience and reason.  However, their experience was the modern sensationalist doctrine of perception. which is the idea that all perception comes through our physical senses.  So they in turn, by understanding faith is determined by the linguistic community, or is mythical or/and through metaphorical turns, made God  a distant actor, not  present reality.  Faith becomes a private experience and is not testable except by action of the believer.  The testing was based on faithfulness to tradition and /or how the believer showed their faith by ethics. The foundational mode of religion, the reality of God was not sustainable. 

Griffin traces how this has come to be.  An “Act of
God” becomes something that evokes faith in the believer. It could be how a passage of scripture seems to be so right for a moment. It could be healing that we recognize as a product of medicine still has a sense of awe about it.  He shows how this turn makes Christology problematic.  It is the work and teachings of Jesus that become the grounding, not the person.  so incarnation cannot be metaphysical.  These views, while in part helpful, call into question divine activity.  This further undercuts religious experience as a direct experience of God.

He outlines what he calls the the primary doctrines of the church.  These are God as creating the world, acting providentially, saving, and self-reveling in it, as being experienced as Holy spirit, and as being wise, good, purposive, and concerned for justice. (p.73)  He also makes a distinction with what could be called secondary or tertiary doctrines.  These are the doctrines that have been developed to support primary doctrines.  In other words, the linguistic turn of the tradition and open to revision or rejection when they lead to distortion. It means such doctrines like virgin birth, or the atonement of the cross or Jesus as God.

Having argued the problem he turns to the solution which of course is James, Bergson, Hartshorne, and Whitehead.  Whitehead  achievement is to offer a naturalism that involves “prehensive-panexperientialist-panentheistic version” (p76).  This means rather than a sensationalist doctrine of perception we now have a view where sense perception is secondary, derivative from a non-sensory perception called “prehension”.
James has pointed out that we feel or perceive things that are deeper than sense perception.  This allows for the reality of religious or moral experience as part of what makes things as they are.  

Whitehead developed this further.  He showed we have a direct perception of the world beyond our minds as causally efficacious.   This can include such things as memory, our sense of a past.  It gives “scientists with an explanation for four of their basic concepts: the actual world, causation, the past, and time.” It also explains how we apprehend mathematical and logical forms.  (p77)

Panexperientialism helps solve the mind-body relationship in a non dualistic way.  If all matter has some experience and there are different degrees of it as we go up the hierarchy of life, than the mind, as consciously experiencing, could interact with the brian, as experiencing bits of matter.  This would help a central problem in neo-Darwinism of the appearance of consciousness.  Further, this view helps affirm human freedom as a reality.  The power of self determinism is real in a naturalistic sense.

For the religious person it is panentheism that is most helpful.  Because the ultimate units of the world are momentary events, or actual events, we can make sense of God creating out of moments of experience.  This could be called relative nothingness which means there are  events which have primordial creativity and freedom.  Each actual event has both  efficient and final causation.   Actuality, “each event arises out of the totality of causal influences of the past and then completes itself by deciding how to respond to those influences in light of its own aims.”  (84)  The impact of this is that the world and God both have creative power.  God is unique and exists in relation to the world (some world).  The world exists in God and God and world have their own creative power.  This means each is distinct and hs some self direction that belongs to its  nature.

To speak, then, of God’s influence it is always persuasive.  When we  test this with moral evil we find that increasing the possilbities of good, the enjoyment of values means an increase in power in the human, and that power is used for good or for ill.  God’s power is persuasion directed to enjoyment that is rich in beauty.  How that is actualized depends on the receiver.  God could have decided not to lure humans into existence and thus save us from the evil we create. However it is in the nature of God to have relationships with an increasing conscious other.  Thus, because of intrinsic freedom of actual events and the need for novelty and increased beauty God has to risk evil.

Griffin then deals with the issue of the existence of God as an actual occasion of reality and how that divine reality relates to  the world.  In what could be hard core common sense we have a sense of God.  Not only God but normative ideas such as logical, moral and aesthetic norms.  We also have an awareness of mathematical principles.  Other concepts such as novelty are also historical and universally experienced.  a panentheistic understanding makes a God who has such initial  aims and offers them to the world  believable again.
This understanding allows a sense of God who provides initial aims to every occasion of experience, offering “ideal impulses” to personal centers of energy.”  (william James p94)  

We can speak of God offering each individual the best possibility for it in each moment.  God seeks to persuade the individual to actualize in each moment the best that could be for that moment.  Which is not to say that it is the best for all time, for out of what has been achieved, in the next moment is a new possibility.

Returning to creation a panentheistic viewpoint answers questions raised by ontological supernaturalism.  It deals with the problems of chance in evolution and gradualism which is not supported by the data.  “Whitehead’s position includes and account of how creatures can, by pretending novel forms in God, incorporate them into themselves in such a way as to pass them on to future generations.”(108)

The power of this idea is the scientific community could come to understand that theism does not need to mean supernaturalism and thus rule out the contributions theology could make to cosmology.  This is a third alternative to either materialism and supernaturalism and allows room for the under girding of scientific work a panentheistic approach.

Griffin offers some quick responses to the meaning of the trinity, resurrection, incarnation, and interfaith questions.   By offering a new understanding of divine efficacious activity which is persuasive, general to all, and particular to each time/ space and individuals.  Given this outcomes can be radically different given history, culture, awareness and openness to the lure of God.   For example, Jesus could be one who is radically open to this lure and because of his history and time articulated the best for that moment.  This allows Christians to apprehend Jesus as a decisive revelation of God’s character, purpose, and mode of operation without denying that other religions also give us some sense of God.  To quote John Cobb “That Jesus was the incarnation of God does not deny that Gautama was the Enlightened One.”(110)

In this book Griffin offers us a way to affirm Christianity without denying the truths of other great traditions, including the tradition of scientific naturalism.

Hi chansen,

Theology is the queen of the sciences.  It was the reason for being of most institutes dedicated to higher learning.  True, those same institutions may have moved on to what they consider to be bigger and better things.  Just as true is the fact that the genesis of science was the study of God.

When was the last time science got out of bed at 2am just to go and sit with one afflicted with disease?  When was the last time mathematics cured a disease?

+1 to science provided we ignore where such dreams originated

+1 to science provided we also ignore science has provided all of the technology which fouls water as well.  Slurry anyone?

And as such it is the scientific method which is completely and absolutely free of all philosophic underpinning.  

I think that you may be confusing "true" with "factual."

Grace and peace to you.

John

Arminius:

Has this unmoving- unmesurable- undetecable energy been observed transforming into moving- mesurable-detectable energy?

You say, "Energy seems to occur in an unmoving state"? Why is that, because we prefer this assumption over some other assumption? To me this seems like sheer guesswork.

Why should one believe that energy is self creative instead of believing that a outside force was the creative agent? As far as I can see there is no good "scientific" reason to accept one over the other.

Am I wrong?

This space for RENT.

Pan,

Thanks for your post.

I find the notion of God's influence being "persuasive" intriguing.

Can you relate that to day to day living, with examples which illustrate the concept more easily?

 Funny, I think most religions have creation stories that begin with nothing, or a "void" out of which substance or god/goddess appears.   Isn't Hawking saying something very similar, using mathematics as the language, instead of words?  Where did the christian God come from anyway? Did God appear spontaneously, out of nothing too?

The author of the essay above, Dr. Carl Seigfried, simply attempts to point out that physics currently doesn't really line up with christian doctrine, but it does with Norse mythology, and that the criticisms from some christians of Hawking have tried to paint him and his ideas into an either/or corner, which may ultimately not be correct.  I think the choice of christian God or nothing is a rather closed proposition.  Hawking's work is well beyond that.

Arminius, thank you for your usual eloquence!

Pan, what a wonderful addition to this thread!  I'll have to find that book. You mentioned Panexperentialism, a concept I agree with, that essentially all matter is in some way sentient, to various degrees.  I didn't know it had a name, lol.

Well a lot has changed: We have learned there there is no such thing as "nothing" and that particles do emerge into (and out of) existance...and time itself is a dimension.

Think about THAT for a minute. And assume ---uh--the position

No, onewman, you are not wrong. Most of what I wrote is speculative. Some speculations, however, are more scientifically plausible than others. That energy is self-generative, for instance, seems more scientifically plausible than a separate, supernatural creator.

I think science will, in due course, come up with some sort of proof for the self-generative quality of energy. Or, if energy is mere substance that is moved by an outside power or force, then science will discover that force.

The existence of a seperate creative agent, however, begs the question: "what created the creator?"

According to science, energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Energy, in one form or another, even in the form of no form, is forever. If it cannot be created, then it could be the creator. So far, energy is the only thing we know—with scientfic certainty—to be forever and to possibly be its own creator.

Moreover, if reality is in a basic state of nonduality, oneness, inseparableness, unity or synthesis—and the scientific Principle of Complementarity seems to confirm that—then creator and created are diamatric opposites that complement each other and are distinctly different in the analysis but united in synthesis, with the synthesis being the ultimate and primary TRUTH and the analysis secondary and subordinate to synthesis. Then creator and created are both separate and united, with the unification being the ultimate TRUTH and the separation the subordinate truth.

In the Gospel of Judas that was published a few years ago by National Geographic, the author of that Gospel describes God as "The Great Self-Generative Spirit" who created the universe by and out of itself.  

Happy Genius:

You wrote:

"We have learned that there is no such this as nothing"

Hawking wrote:

"The universe can and will create itself from nothing"

Umm.... apparentley no one told Hawking that there is no such thing as "nothing" yet, maybe you could let him know. Or, maybe this is that whole play on words, that when you say "nothing" you really mean "something"? When Hawking uses the word "nothing" people get all impressed because they think that science really has proven that "something" can come from "nothing" A.K.A a true origin. But it seems, as you point out, that this is not really the truth of things. The truth is......wait for it.......science has now proven that .....something, has come from....something else! AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!

If you mean "something", don't say "nothing", it's false advertising, and for many, IMHO, it's wishful thinking.

Persuasion means the receiver has to embrace the idea - the idea that God's power is only persuasion means God offers to the world an idea which the world can accept or reject.  And that offering is in every nano second and is effected by how it was receieve.  It is like this - here is a good idea, try it and see if will create a better idea.  Persuasion depends on the beauty of the idea - it has to be attractive.  It is like suggesting to ones child a task - it cannot be forced but offered in away that the child will take it up-  Now we can say do this and force the child to do it once but if we want it to become a habit the child has to see it as something worth while and appealing. 

In every day experience we know that we will do things if they have some value, in otherwords, has some intrinsic beauty to it.  Yes there is an appeal to self interest but it is also an appeal to transcend self interest - how will the world be more beautiful.

We know that ads work when they are persuasive - have an appeal... so when we speak of God working persuasively it means God offers beauty - a sense of awe - a sense of more - a sense of love that calls the best out of us.  It is like the old saying God is perfect in love and that love is appealing.  God cannot force because God's nature is only one of persuasive power.

Pan, what do you mean by "persuasion"? because now it sounds like we're talking about that bearded guy in the sky.

Do we have a "spiritual gene" that can only be activated by certain thoughts that are receptive to an ancient memory that remembers a time before we were born?

The problem is in rejecting the big daddy in the sky - which we should - we have to find a new way of speaking of a personal God - a God who has an interest in what happens.  When one suggests a spiritual gene the question is still how did it get there?  In a reductionist, substance based metaphysics there is a  non reducible thing.  But we know that what is real is not reducible to a thing for what is is formed by relationships that create a thing for a moment in time.

Worhip depends on an other - a more - a transcendent reality.  So we must come up with new images that capture the old daddy in the sky yet is not that image.  God has an interest in the becoming of reality and offers to each moment a possibility for more beauty which can be accepted or rejected and God is dependent on that.

Here is the problem-  God as subject.   The postmodern and scientific  turn in thinking has  made us  rethink  what is meant by subject or the human person.  Substance thinking held there was a irreducible core that was the person or the meaning of  a thing - what some have called the soul as the non perishing part of the person.  Well substance thinking has been destroyed by modern physics et al.  We no longer have ‘thing’ based ontology of substance, we have living ontology of subjects.  A person is its relationships - we now have a metaphysics of subjectivity. (C.F. Hegel)

Often theologians used the idea of God as person using the analogy of presented.  Now  the biblical record offers us a “God is personal”, to explain God’s relation to the world.  However, the biblical insight is not sufficient to address in what way or how metaphysically God is personal.   It can give us only metaphors which are real but when pressed open new questions. God relates to us as persons is a placeholder for an answer rather the answer itself.   The modern period made it more difficult to speak in this way, unless one choose to depend only on the bible or supernatural explanations.  This is because the grounding analogy of presented no longer was a substance base reality.  The question became one of subject relating to subject. And given modern sense perception where was this other reality that is a subject? To relate was to be in space and time.   This then calls into question any notion of God beyond space and time,  or self sufficient its self, or merely transcendent.  

To answer this problem some conservative theologians continued in ontological supernaturalism where “God is wholly other and beyond and self sufficient.  This still leaves us with the problem of personally relating.  It has to be take on faith.  It is beyond experience.

Process thought following  William James offers a “thicker and more radical empiricism.”   It is called “perception in the mode of causal efficacy.”    We have direct experience of the world beyond our minds - we feel at a deep level with our bodies.  This allows for influence of others at the feeling level, and the influence of the past and the actual world - all having causation.

The answer is complex and let me give a simplified version of panentheism.  “In” is a metaphor as in the world is ‘in’ God and God is ‘in’ the world.  The claim is there is an interdependence of God and world.  The world depends on God and God depends on the world.  The world depends on God because is the necessary and eternal source; it is God’s creative act that takes ‘no thing’ into some thing- out of chaos God brings order.  God depends on the world because the nature of God’s actual experience depends on the interaction with finite creatures like ourselves.  God is in the world and the world is in God and God is more than the world.(C.F. Philip Clayton). M Suchocki says God is the supremely related one.

While this can be related to the biblical view of God who relates and seeks to bring God’s kingdom to earth, this also relates to the scientific view of emergence,  Paul Davis suggests the cosmos is an emerging reality between simplicity and complexity.  It is moving to more and more complexity an “interacting system forming a hierarchy of structure.”  This is the lure of God calling self determining reality into new forms of reality.  This is the abstract pole of dipolarism.  In God’s primordial nature- the consistency -is the aim of God to more beauty et al - the pure love or perfect love.  In this sense God is unchanging - in the abstract because can do no other thing then be creative love. God must by necessity desire to love and be in relationship. In God’s consequent nature is the necessity to relating and being affected by the relationship.  God is influenced by the world.

“Creative love” of God is that God aims at the greatest possible good for each individual that be achieve. The outcome of this aim God only knows when we actualize.   In “responsive love” of God, God responds sympathetically to the world.  God experiences the evil and joys and pain and sorrows we experience.  In that experience God responses with an aim to wholeness.  Again the biblical understanding of responding and sustaining is given metaphysical grounding.  It is real in the sense of deep empiricism and not just some false hope that we have created.  It is in the very nature of what is.

Wow Pan, I don't know how you type such an in depth answer so fast. Food for thought . I need to let it digest a bit before replying.

I meant nothing. As nothing existant. Anti-particles. Popping into and out of existance. It's not wishful thinking,  as I have a lot of don't care. It's curioustly interesting, that's all.

The vacuum, "empty space," turns out to be a complicated and dynamic place, the stage for some of the greatest mysteries in physics. Our current understanding of the vacuum, and what we may learn from it in the next ten years about the origin of mass and the fate of the Universe, is going to be more than just curiously interesting...as Hawkings already knows.

waterfall - no fast as part of it  is  from my article in the oct issue of the observer.

Pan,

Thanks for  explaining further on God and persuasive interaction with us.

It makes sense to me when I look back on my own life.

Thanks also for the examples - when I'm grappling with a "new" concept I find that examples from everyday life often sharpen the focus and bring about clarification.

So, that's a request to all you wordy types who seem to colonise the Religion and Faith forum - please give examples from everyday life.

It's a tried and tested way to get your message across. That's what Jesus was doing with his parables - illustrating his message from everyday life.

It worked for him!