BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;
}JAS, list
I'm not going to get into a 'Fling-the-Quotation' interaction with
you. I stand by my view that Peirce is a pantheist not a theist. My
reasons for this include his years of analysis of Mind and Matter,
and his cosmological self-organization. The writings on these issues
are too much to quote on this list.
And he does not reject pantheism'. A dictionary definition is a
definition, not a belief.
Again - I'm not getting into a Fling-the-Quotation' interaction and
rest my case on his writings of Mind/Matter and cosmology.
Edwina
On Wed 15/09/21 1:29 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com
sent:
Edwina, Helmut, List:
ET: I personally consider that Peirce's outline of god as
'constantly creating the universe', as Mind, and his cosmology as
self-organizing itself within Mind....is an example of pantheism.
[JAS, on the other hand, considers Peirce a theist].
Again, Peirce himself explicitly affirms theism and explicitly
rejects pantheism, as well as atheism, deism, and panentheism.
CSP: Deism is opposed to atheism, or the denial of any God; to
pantheism, which denies or ignores the personality of God; to theism,
which believes not only in a God, but in his living relations with his
creatures; and to Christianity, which adds a belief in a historical
manifestation of God, as recorded in the Bible. (Century Dictionary
entry for "deism," 1889-91)
CSP: In modern philosophy the word ["immanent"] is applied to the
operations of a creator conceived as in organic connection with the
creation, and to such a creator himself, as opposed to a transient or
transcendent creating and creator from whom the creation is conceived
as separated. The doctrine of an immanent deity does not necessarily
imply that the world, or the soul of the world, is God, but only that
it either is or is in God. (Century Dictionary entry for "immanent,"
1889-91)
CSP: A difficulty which confronts the synechistic philosophy is
this. In considering personality, that philosophy is forced to accept
the doctrine of a personal God ... (CP 6.162, EP 1:332, 1892)
CSP: I look upon creation as going on and I believe that such vague
idea as we can have of the power of creation is best identified with
the idea of theism. (CP 8.138n4, 1905)
CSP: To Schiller's anthropomorphism I subscribe in the main. And in
particular if it implies theism, I am an anthropomorphist. But the
God of my theism is not finite. That won't do at all. (CP 8.262,
1905)
CSP: "Do you believe this Supreme Being to have been the creator of
the universe?" Not so much to have been as to be now creating the
universe, concerning which see my articles in the first three volumes
of The Monist ...I think we must regard Creative Activity as an
inseparable attribute of God. (CP 6.505-506, c. 1906)
CSP: I do not mean, then, a "soul of the World" or an intelligence
is "immanent" in Nature, but is the Creator of the three Universes of
minds, of matter, and of ideal possibilities, and of everything in
them. (R 843:11, 1908)
CSP: Indeed, meaning by "God," throughout this paper will be meant,
the Being whose attributes are, in the main, those usually ascribed
to Him, omniscience, omnipotence, infinite benignity, and a Being not
immanent in the Universes of Matter, Mind, and Ideas, but the Sole
Creator of every content of them without exception. (R 843:15, 1908)
CSP: Indeed, meaning by "God," as throughout this paper will be
meant, the Being whose Attributes are, in the main, those usually
ascribed to Him, Omniscience, Omnipotence, Infinite Benignity, a
Being not "immanent in" the Universes of Matter, Mind, and Ideas, but
the Sole Creator of every content of them without exception (R
843:19&21, 1908)
CSP: But I had better add that I do not mean by God a being merely
"immanent in Nature," but I mean that Being who has created every
content of the world of ideal possibilities, of the world of physical
facts, and the world of all minds, without any exception whatever. (R
843:26, 1908)
Why would anyone not take his own word for it?
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USAStructural Engineer, Synechist
Philosopher, Lutheran Christianwww.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt [1]
- twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt [2]
On Wed, Sep 15, 2021 at 11:44 AM Edwina Taborsky wrote:
Helmut, list
I'm not a theologian and so, my responses are 'common' rather than
expert.
My understanding of theism is that it's a belief system that is
usually monotheistic, i.e., a belief in ONE god. This god is usually
understood as supreme, 'exists as itself' so to speak
,self-sustained, is the original cause of all things, transcendent,
etc. Monotheism, as I've said before, emerged only a few thousand
years ago, and was found among large, settled populations. My own
view is that it emerged as a societal means of enabling these large
populations to have a common sense of themselves as a people.
As with all belief systems, a belief system moves from one
mode...and splits into several diverse variations, and theologians
argue about revelation, miracles, whether or not god is involved with
the actions of the world and can be a personal contact [if not,
that's deism]. But the basic axioms, as I understand them, see god as
a separate entity [whereas pantheism doesn't separate god from
matter];, as the original creator of the universe, as transcendent or
outside of human experience,
Pantheism, to my understanding, rejects the notion of a separate
entity [god] and instead, sees the whole universe as god. I
personally consider that Peirce's outline of god as 'constantly
creating the universe', as Mind, and his cosmology as self-organizing
itself within Mind....is an example of pantheism. [JAS, on the other
hand, considers Peirce a theist].
I would say that a pantheist would not see this force/god/mind as a
'person', while it is easy for a theist to do so...which is also why
one sees all the religious images of god-as-a-person.
Monotheism is very different from polytheism, where the gods were
indeed 'people' - and the Roman and Greek tales are wonderful
examples of this. But eventually, as I analyze it, the population in
the Mediterranean became too large for the local identities of
polytheism - and the population moved to monotheism, which serves to
bind together a large population.
But as Jon Awbrey has pointed out, the theological analysis of 'god'
can only be an abductive hypothesis. There's obviously no scientific
evidence either way - ie, whether the conclusion is theism,
polytheism, pantheism, atheism.
The religious analysis, however, is quite different - and my
analysis of why-does-a-religion-develop...is based on population
size, economic mode, etc and can, I think, withstand scientific
evidentiary scrutiny.
Edwina
On Wed 15/09/21 10:15 AM , Helmut Raulien h.raul...@gmx.de sent:
Edwina, List, Is the difference between pantheism / universal
quasi-mind, and theism, that theism says, that God is a person you
can talk to, and also is the creator of the universe, so exists
independently of it? To the first property, the person, I would
say, why should the universal quasi-mind not have the properties of a
person? The quantums-entanglement over extremely long distance e.g.
cannot be used by humans for instantaneous telegraphing. But for the
universe itself, it may be possible, why not. So, though the universe
is the biggest possible spatial scale, it at the same time may be the
smallest possible temporal scale, and able to think and act without
delay. That would be quite a person, I would say, and trying to talk
with this person is rational and not supersticious. The second
theistic property is God being the creator of the universe, and
existing independently of it. About this point any discussion about
it is futile, because we are not able to look beyond the border of
the universe to see whether there as well is a mind, and claiming
that there is not brings about the question, what then created it. To
say, that it self-emerged can only provocate the theistic answer, that
an engineer, who does not merely make a machine, but make a generator
that provides self-emergence of machines, is an even better engineer.
So this second theist claim is a matter of plausibility alone. Only
the question remains: How plausible is plausibility? But this is a
circular question, an anti-tautology. To me the first point goes to
the theists, and the second point too, not by deduction, but by
aproximation procedure. Best, Helmut
Links:
------
[1] http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt
[2] http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
[3]
http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(\'tabor...@primus.ca\',\'\',\'\',\'\')
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