Process Creationism

The Word Creationism in This Context

Special Creation, which I will also call Genesis Creation, was a one time act in the past. The temporal aspect, that is, happening at a specific time and being limited to a one time occurrence is salient, but the other aspects of limitation are of equal importance, even as they are overlooked.

Local, Temporal and Discrete = Limitation

Genesis Creation happened in a discrete place, here, and not some where else in the boundless space that surrounds our world. I’m calling it here because I can think of no other descriptor and the strong subjective character reveals something about Genesis Creation. Special Creation is OUR creation, it defines our place in things. The Deity of Ordinary Theism did not create a world HE created Our World.

Before Genesis Creation there was no here and now for limited beings like us, there was only boundless space, eternal time and God. So, Genesis Creation brought into being a distinct, that is discrete thing, Our World.

So, Genesis Creation in the creation of our world also initiates limitation. Before the Special Creation of our world there was only limitless space, eternal time and God, in theory, a spirit being of Limitless Personality.

That God in ordinary theism is an incorporeal spirit deity is made necessary because the stuff of physical things did not exist before Genesis Creation brought them into being (ex nihilo is the Latin term, meaning ‘out of nothing’).

These considerations demonstrate why Christian theologians categorically object to Pantheism. In Ordinary Theism God is separate from things, despite some bible verses and the idea that God is everywhere. Creator is not creation and certainly not creature.

So, in Ordinary Theism the relationship of God to things is one of separation from our world of things, where discrete things come to be, exist for a time and then pass away. As to those processes, in Ordinary Theism god began them and God will perhaps end them at some distinct future time.

Eternal and Infinite Creation by the Universal Process of God’s Being

Because Process Creationism cannot be narrated as a story audience expectations will be fatally disappointed.

Expecting an origin story listeners will tune out complicated explanations that avoid the anthropomorphizing of causes.

Accustomed to powerful dramatic myth of biblical proportions the idea of all things coming to be, existing for a time and then passing away within the physical being of God’s embodiment can only leave a curious inquirer nonplussed. Then, with the concept of boundlessness, by needs, introduced they will be utterly baffled.

Genesis creation may not be factual, but it is exciting and easily understood. It enjoys the favor our penchant for the dramatic gives to narrative driven by the strong intentions of a powerful heroic protagonist.

Process Creationism has none of that, so perhaps I was wise to explain it within narratives that do, the novel, Logic of Limitless and the short story Thank You, Mr. Darwin.

Part of Limitation Philosophy

Process Creationism, is a part of Limitation Philosophy. It can only be understood within that larger context. The all encompassing reality that the living universe is the physical essence of The Deity enables us to see all things as part of one organism. In science the whole organism exercises a constraint on its parts. In Limitation Philosophy the Deity is the organismic whole and the parts, including life here on earth are the result of the processes of God’s being.

So creation is by the eternal, infinite and boundless process of God’s being, not the local, temporal and discreet intentions of a limited personality.

Intention in this scenario, is general and organismic. The basic subconscious intention to thrive present in all living organisms is the character of intentional aspects of process creationism.

Causation is unified. Unlike the discreet, local and temporal causes operating in our heuristic existence, ultimate causation is eternal, infinite and rests in the processes of the boundless being of God.

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