On Feb 14, 2009, at 5:14 PM, Chris Doss wrote:
>
> I hate to break this to you, but the Christian god is not conceived
> of as external to nature, given that he created it.
If a god *created* nature, it existed prior to nature, and therefore its existence is external to nature--and therefore creation by such a god is impossible.
> Neither is Plato's, of which nature is a dim reflection.
>
If by "Plato's god" (about whom Plato says absolutely nothing) you
mean Timaios's demiourgos, then I agree--but the demiourgos does not
create--it shapes the semi-preexistent "matrix of becoming" into
nature according to the eternal fundamental forms of "sameness,'
"difference," and "existence."
> --- On Sat, 2/14/09, Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com> wrote:
>>
>> No deity need have anything to do with it, and a deity
>> *external* to nature cannot conceivably have anything to do
>> with it. All that is required is the proposition that the
>> ultimate course of events takes form in the determining
>> context of formal natural law. Einstein's phrase was an
>> idiomatic expression of this (Platonic) concept.
>> Sheldrake's suggestion of a "morphogenetic
>> field" is another (nonmathematical) expression of that
>> concept.
>>
Shane Mage
> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos