A somewhat peculiar article by Richard Carrier, in which he critiques a Christian theologian who sounds almost pantheist or perhaps panentheist. He (Carrier) also makes what almost sounds like an atheist "confession of faith"...
>>>Ward now steers back to his thesis, that all concepts are “contained” within God. Which is just as true of spacetime: every point of spacetime possesses the property of potentially realizing any logically possible thing (especially if every possible thing is, or is the logically necessary outcome of, some geometric arrangement of spacetime).>>>
>>>The universe, as-is, contains all possibilities. This includes alternative physics, which simply require some reshaping of spacetime to suit. One dimension can be twisted into two, and two into three, and thence into a thousand or whatever one needs; and likewise whatever property of spacetime manifests the fundamental universal constants can be tuned to some other value; and so on. Anything physically impossible in this universe can be made possible again by changing some property of spacetime; and spacetime has the potential to possess any logically possible property.>>>
>>>Spacetime is thus omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent (just as I pointed out originally to Edward Feser): spacetime possesses all powers (just no intelligence to select when or how to use them); spacetime possesses all knowledge, by containing within itself all logical possibilities as potential outcomes (just no awareness of this so as to do anything with it); and spacetime is everywhere (you can’t go anywhere and not be in it).>>>
>>>It’s also omnibenevolent in the only sense theists can ever get their God to be: it possesses all possible goods, and makes all goods possible; and just as well evils—so spacetime, like God, is also omnimalevolent. It just isn’t intelligent or conscious, so as to select only the good and de-select all the bad. In other words, spacetime contains everything (including every potential thing), but it’s still just spacetime. It knows nothing in the cognitive sense, and wants nothing in the moral sense. It’s not a person. It’s just a thing.>>>
I think there´s more than one pantheist in the room, cough cough....
Of course that raises the question "What is evil?" "What is good?" So we're back to living the duality. As you probably know, the initiates first problem to solve is the resolution of duality. Also sounds like someone "dropped some Acid!"
ReplyDeleteA pantheist on atheist acid? A term like "pantheism" can of course be defined in different ways, but I often wonder if Carrier´s atheist materialism isn´t really a kind of pantheism (perhaps against his intentions). Note the references to the Tao. Carrier was a Taoist before he became an atheist. A Taoist-friendly person I chatted with on Amazon about 10 years ago also wondered if Carrier is still "Taoist" in some sense. He kind of liked Carrier´s book on ethics.
ReplyDeleteJust add some cosmic consciousness to the mix and you´re done (or acid, ha ha).
ReplyDeleteCarrier gets the reference to the Lion almost right. It´s Charles Williams, not C S Lewis, but they were close. The theology guy at one point talks about "the place of the lion", the title of one of Williams´ novels. The stuff about "angels" is probably also Williams, who argued against abstract Platonic forms in favor of - suprise - angelic-personal ditto.
ReplyDeleteMany rabbit holes/links in Carrier's article. I somehow wound up reading wiki's version of Giordano Bruno's life and subsequent death at the hands of the Catholic Inquisition.
ReplyDeleteBingo. I ended up looking at bizarre clips from the film "Zardoz" on YouTube!
ReplyDeleteAnd Soyen Shaku 'Zen for Americans' ca 1906. Probably should get that one.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyen_Shaku
ReplyDeleteNever heard of him, but I know about D T Suzuki (even have some of his books) but never really read them, mostly because Zen doesn´t move me. But then, maybe it will ten years from now! ;-)