Well, in Mage's formulation,"alien to" appeared to mean "totally other, and therefore unable to interact with," which in Christian theology is not the case. Little Dwayne was, after all, supposedly created in the image of God. This idea makes no sense whatsoever if you think there is an unbridgeable ontological gulf between Little Dwayne and God. Presumably somewhere in God's mind there an idea of Dwayne, after all.
Maybe this is a jargon thing, since many Christians have meant by "nature" "the fallen world," whereas by "nature" I mean "all the things that exist."
--- On Sat, 2/14/09, Dwayne Monroe <dwayne.monroe at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Uh oh.
>
>
> I see that the Endless Internet Discussion Alert System is
> approaching
> amber so I won't dwell on this topic, letting only a
> few comments
> suffice.
>
> What you're saying now -- that according to Christian
> theology, the
> "world is a reflection of the mind of God, created
> freely by him. Thus
> he stands in relation to it." -- doesn't
> contradict what I wrote. But
> your original statement -- "...the Christian god is
> not conceived of
> as external to nature" -- certainly does.
>
>
> We must mean quite different things by the terms
> 'external to' and
> 'part of' nature. As a lad, I was taught by my
> Vacation Bible School
> and Sunday school teachers (along with the profs of
> theology) that
> mortals like little .d. were a part of nature. Being a
> 'part of
> nature' meant being time-caught, subject to physical
> laws and limited
> in vision. God, by contrast, was an unexampled creature
> simultaneously a part of nature (originally as
> creator/observer and
> later, much more intimately, as savior) and external to it.
>
> You mentioned god becoming flesh -- that is, Christ. I was
> taught
> that Jesus' appearance was extraordinary *precisely
> because* this
> tripartite being (Father, Son and Holy Ghost) stooped, in
> the person
> of the Son, to enter time, to shackle himself to the
> limitations of
> nature in order to bridge the chasm, created by The Fall,
> between God
> and Man.
>
>
> So, when you wrote that "...the Christian god is not
> conceived of as
> external to nature" you were indeed contradicting what
> I was taught
> since God's freedom from, and externality to nature is
> a key part of
> his nature.
>
>
>
> At least, as understood by many millions of workaday
> Christians.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> .d.
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