Category: Panentheism
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Creation: Ex Nihilo or Ex Deo?
Classical theists hold that God created the world ex nihilo, out of nothing. This phrase carries a privative, not a positive, sense: it means not out of something as opposed to out of something called ‘nothing.’ This much is crystal clear. Less clear is how creation ex nihilo (CEN), comports, if it does comport, with…
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Do Aquinas and Spinoza Refer to the Same God?
I put the following question to Francis Beckwith via e-mail: Thomas Aquinas and Spinoza both hold that there is exactly one God. Would you say that when they use Deus they succeed in referring to one and the same God, but just have contradictory beliefs about this one and the same God? When I put…
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Creatio ex Deo and Pantheism
The following post draws mainly upon Robert Oakes, "Does Traditional Theism Entail Pantheism?" American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 20, no. 1 (January 1983), pp. 105-112. Reprinted in Tom Morris, ed. The Concept of God (Oxford U. Press, 1987). The question arises: Does my construal of creatio ex nihilo in terms of creatio ex Deo commit me…
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Creation: Ex Nihilo or Ex Deo? Am I a Panentheist?
In an e-mail Michael Sudduth asked me what I thought of panentheism. I suspect my position, as developed in A Paradigm Theory of Existence and various articles, points in a panentheistic direction. For when I think about the relation of the One and the Many, I think of the Many as 'in' the One in a manner…
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Sudduth, Simplicity, and the Plotinian One
Dave Lull has once again pointed me to a fascinating post, Michael Sudduth Follows His Monad Back to Vaishnava Vedanta. Excerpt: A major problem with Scholasticism is the innate desire that all men have to participate directly and ontologically in their God. We all want that real connection. Sudduth explains, “I pondered this experience for…
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Why James Anderson is not a Panentheist
The Sudduth conversion prompts Professor Anderson to explain. (via Dave Lull)