Plato'S Demiurge

[inquiringmind]

I came across an interesting quote from someone named Sterling McMurrin (not really sure if he's Mormon or Anti-Mormon.)

“As a constructor or artisan God, not entirely unlike Plato’s demiurge of the Timaeus, the Mormon deity informs the continuing processes of reality and determines the world’s configurations, but he is not the creator of the most ultimate constituents of the world, either the fundamental material entities or the space and time that locate them. . . . it is a basic article of Mormon theology that God is related to a world environment for the being of which he is not the ultimate ground and by which he therefore is in some sense conditioned. This means that God is a being among beings rather than being as such or the ground of being, and that he is therefore finite rather than absolute.”

Sterling McMurrin, The Theological Foundations of the Mormon [p.67]Religion (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1965), 29.

I'm interested in thoughts on the following questions:

1.) Is it legitimate to compare the Mormon concept of God to Plato's Demiurge?

2.) If Heavenly Father isn't the "ultimate ground" of being, is it still possible that there is some ultimate ground (of everything--including what McMurrin here calls "the fundamental material entities" and "the space and time that locate them")?

3.) Is it possible that God has hinted at this "ultimate ground of being" in the way He uses terms like Intelligence, Light, and Truth?

Edited April 1, 2012 by inquiringmind

[inquiringmind]

P.S. Sterling McMurrin does appear to be a Mormon, so I guess it is fair to compare the Mormon concept of God to Plato's Demiurge.

Edited April 1, 2012 by inquiringmind

[inquiringmind]

Here is another very interesting quote from McMurrin.

I am aware of the various attempts by Mormon writers to justify this belief--an infinite series of Gods, the God of our corner of the universe, and so on. But it seems to me that none of them makes sense, unless it was Orson Pratt’s attempt to invoke the Platonic universals in his famous statement in The Seer that TRUTH, in all caps, is the ultimate God and that it is TRUTH dwelling in the deity that makes him divine and an object of worship (Vol. 1:2, para. 22). Pratt was severely disciplined for his efforts, as he apparently described the ultimate divine as impersonal. But he was just trying to do what theologians are supposed to do, make some kind of sense of what the people believed. He was quite right in holding that there must be something over and above this process of a being becoming God.

Edited April 1, 2012 by inquiringmind

[Log]

Sterlin McMurrin was, so far as I can tell, a cultural Mormon - raised LDS but not a believing member (agnostic or atheist, if memory serves).

Personally, I have little issue with the statement you cite in the OP, except for the bit about time and space, which, to me, reaches beyond the information available.

With respect to your question #2, if it is true that element and intelligence can neither be created nor destroyed, then it is not possible that there exists an ultimate "ground of all being."

Edited April 1, 2012 by Log

[Chris Smith]

if it is true that element and intelligence can neither be created nor destroyed, then it is not possible that there exists an ultimate "ground of all being."

I don't think this is accurate. The "ground of all being" doesn't need to have the power to create or destroy matter. The ground of being is little more than a substrate, like for example the "strings" of string theory. The law that matter can neither be created nor destroyed could simply be one of the "rules" according to which the substrate operates. In other words, the "Ground of Being" is that which gives rise to matter, but there's no reason this process of giving rise to matter would need to have a beginning or ending.

[inquiringmind]

Sterlin McMurrin was, so far as I can tell, a cultural Mormon - raised LDS but not a believing member (agnostic or atheist, if memory serves).

It was the quote from Orson Pratt that I really found interesting (even if it was second hand.)

Edited April 1, 2012 by inquiringmind

[inquiringmind]

I don't think this is accurate. The "ground of all being" doesn't need to have the power to create or destroy matter. The ground of being is little more than a substrate, like for example the "strings" of string theory. The law that matter can neither be created nor destroyed could simply be one of the "rules" according to which the substrate operates. In other words, the "Ground of Being" is that which gives rise to matter, but there's no reason this process of giving rise to matter would need to have a beginning or ending.

Thank you.

Edited April 1, 2012 by inquiringmind

[SearchDog]

Too much philosophy and not enough memory. The Mormon God is the great I Am. By His own words He is the ultimate "ground of all being." Our God is the Word; so too, the spoken TRUTH. We come close to God as we speak His inspired word. God is Spirit and we each have a portion of His divinity in us.

Philosophy is a mental exercise which brings us closer to understanding man.

Faith is an act of love which brings us closer to understanding God.

[inquiringmind]

Too much philosophy and not enough memory. The Mormon God is the great I Am. By His own words He is the ultimate "ground of all being."

By "God," do you mean Heavenly Father?

And by "all being," do you mean "all"?

Matter, energy, law, element, intelligences. spirits?

Are you saying that Heavenly Father is the personal ground of all this?

Edited April 1, 2012 by inquiringmind

[mfbukowski]

Too much philosophy and not enough memory. The Mormon God is the great I Am. By His own words He is the ultimate "ground of all being." Our God is the Word; so too, the spoken TRUTH. We come close to God as we speak His inspired word. God is Spirit and we each have a portion of His divinity in us.

Philosophy is a mental exercise which brings us closer to understanding man.

Faith is an act of love which brings us closer to understanding God.

But what do you do when God IS a man?

In my opinion, McMurrin is one of the few guys who really understood the historical grounding for LDS philosophy, but he was mostly a historian and not a philosopher.

He got excommunicated if I am not mistaken.

[SearchDog]

By "God," do you mean Heavenly Father?

And by "all being," do you mean "all"?

Matter, energy, law, element, intelligences. spirits?

Are you saying that Heavenly Father is the personal ground of all this?

Sure. God is our Heavenly Father and God is matter, God is energy, God is element, intelligence, and spirit.

Edited April 1, 2012 by SearchDog

[Log]

In other words, the "Ground of Being" is that which gives rise to matter, but there's no reason this process of giving rise to matter would need to have a beginning or ending.

For any particle of matter, if it never began to exist, and cannot cease to exist, then there appears to be no semantic or informational content in the phrase "giving rise," as used above.

Of course, I could simply be intellectually deficient.

[SearchDog]

But what do you do when God IS a man?

In my opinion, McMurrin is one of the few guys who really understood the historical grounding for LDS philosophy, but he was mostly a historian and not a philosopher.

He got excommunicated if I am not mistaken.

God showing Himself as a man does not negate his being God.

[mfbukowski]

"Ground of all being" is a pretty meaningless phrase, but the Mormon God cannot be the "ground of all being" because elements exist independent of him. He doesn't create elements- he organizes them, just as all men do when we create something.

You take trees make boards and make a house. Do it again and again and you have a city. Throw in language and describe the process and you have "culture" and you have created your own "world" independent of nature. Let that culture grow a few thousand years and people won't even know what to do if you put them in real nature (us).

So in a real sense, mankind organizes its own world. Sounds a little like God right? That's the whole point. You make God a man, and humanism suddenly becomes theology.

[inquiringmind]

Sure. God is matter. God is energy. God is element, intelligence, and spirit.

So if you take ex nihilo to mean what it was originally intended to mean (not that something was created out of nothing, but that nothing in the universe was created out of anything but God), you believe in creation ex nihilo?

[mfbukowski]

http://www.hum.utah.edu/humcntr/PDF/Sterlingbio.pdf

[mfbukowski]

God showing Himself as a man does not negate his being God.

No, in Mormon theology he IS a man. You are obviously not Mormon you Platonist you!

[SearchDog]

So if you take ex nihilo to mean what it was originally intended to mean (not that something was created out of nothing, but that nothing in the universe was created out of anything but God), you believe in creation ex nihilo?

I believe God (like matter) is neither created nor can it be destroyed.

[inquiringmind]

For any particle of matter, if it never began to exist, and cannot cease to exist, then there appears to be no semantic or informational content in the phrase "giving rise," as used above.

Of course, I could simply be intellectually deficient.

If a body the size of the earth always existed, wouldn't it's mass still (continuously) produce gravity?

Wouldn't the Sun still (continuously) produce light and heat if it always existed?

I don't think this is accurate. The "ground of all being" doesn't need to have the power to create or destroy matter. The ground of being is little more than a substrate, like for example the "strings" of string theory. The law that matter can neither be created nor destroyed could simply be one of the "rules" according to which the substrate operates. In other words, the "Ground of Being" is that which gives rise to matter, but there's no reason this process of giving rise to matter would need to have a beginning or ending.

That still makes perfect sense to me.

Thank you Chris.

Edited April 1, 2012 by inquiringmind

[The Nehor]

God is man but this does not preclude him also being more.

I am always wary of philosophical musings on the nature of God. It shows arrogance and not humility. There may be things tied to the nature of God that we have no conception of that make our musings misguided or even irreverent. Plus philosophical explanations about God seem to contribute to apostasy. Reason will not find God. Only his choice to reveal Himself will. We do not reason from first principles to discover God. He shows Himself to us.

The Savior did not teach philosophy. He taught truth and revelation from God directly.

This old joke shows how silly our philosophies often sound when compared to revelation:

Jesus said, Whom do men say that I am?

And his disciples answered and said, Some say you are John the Baptist returned from the dead; others say Elias, or other of the old prophets.

And Jesus answered and said, But whom do you say that I am?

Peter answered and said, "Thou art the Logos, existing in the Father as His rationality and then, by an act of His will, being generated, in consideration of the various functions by which God is related to his creation, but only on the fact that Scripture speaks of a Father, and a Son, and a Holy Spirit, each member of the Trinity being coequal with every other member, and each acting inseparably with and interpenetrating every other member, with only an economic subordination within God, but causing no division which would make the substance no longer simple."

And Jesus answering, said, "What?"

Edited April 1, 2012 by The Nehor

[mfbukowski]

God is man but this does not preclude him also being more.

I am always wary of philosophical musings on the nature of God. It shows arrogance and not humility. There may be things tied to the nature of God that we have no conception of that make our musings misguided or even irreverent. Plus philosophical explanations about God seem to contribute to apostasy. Reason will not find God. Only his choice to reveal Himself will. We do not reason from first principles to discover God. He shows Himself to us.

The Savior did not teach philosophy. He taught truth and revelation from God directly.

This old joke shows how silly our philosophies often sound when compared to revelation:

Jesus said, Whom do men say that I am?

And his disciples answered and said, Some say you are John the Baptist returned from the dead; others say Elias, or other of the old prophets.

And Jesus answered and said, But whom do you say that I am?

Peter answered and said, "Thou art the Logos, existing in the Father as His rationality and then, by an act of His will, being generated, in consideration of the various functions by which God is related to his creation, but only on the fact that Scripture speaks of a Father, and a Son, and a Holy Spirit, each member of the Trinity being coequal with every other member, and each acting inseparably with and interpenetrating every other member, with only an economic subordination within God, but causing no division which would make the substance no longer simple."

And Jesus answering, said, "What?"

You won't believe this, but I agree. There is a reason I gave up on academic philosophy, but when someone asks a philosophical question I try to answer it.

What makes sense, makes sense. If that is "philosophy" then so be it. But making sense is not always important.

[inquiringmind]

For any particle of matter, if it never began to exist, and cannot cease to exist, then there appears to be no semantic or informational content in the phrase "giving rise," as used above.

Of course, I could simply be intellectually deficient.

What you're saying is that every cause has to proceed the effect, and I think you're wrong..

Surprising as it may be to most non-scientists and even to some scientists, Albert Einstein concluded in his later years that the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously. In 1952, in his book Relativity, in discussing Minkowski's Space World interpretation of his theory of relativity, Einstein writes:

Since there exists in this four dimensional structure [space-time] no longer any sections which represent "now" objectively, the concepts of happening and becoming are indeed not completely suspended, but yet complicated. It appears therefore more natural to think of physical reality as a four dimensional existence, instead of, as hitherto, the evolution of a three dimensional existence.

Einstein's belief in an undivided solid reality was clear to him, so much so that he completely rejected the separation we experience as the moment of now. He believed there is no true division between past and future, there is rather a single existence. His most descriptive testimony to this faith came when his lifelong friend Besso died. Einstein wrote a letter to Besso's family, saying that although Besso had preceded him in death it was of no consequence, "...for us physicists believe the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one."

Most everyone knows that Einstein proved that time is relative, not absolute as Newton claimed. With the proper technology, such as a very fast spaceship, one person is able to experience several days while another person simultaneously experiences only a few hours or minutes. The same two people can meet up again, one having experienced days or even years while the other has only experienced minutes. The person in the spaceship only needs to travel near to the speed of light. The faster they travel, the slower their time will pass relative to someone planted firmly on the Earth. If they were able to travel at the speed of light, their time would cease completely and they would only exist trapped in timelessness.

http://everythingforever.com/einstein.htm

So even if a particle of matter never began to exist, and cannot cease to exist, there would seem to be strong philosophical and scientific reasons to believe there could be semantic or informational content in the phrase "giving rise" (as used by Chris, in post # 5.)

Edited April 1, 2012 by inquiringmind

[SearchDog]

No, in Mormon theology he IS a man. You are obviously not Mormon you Platonist you!

True, but the doctrine does not take away anything else that we know God to be.

[Chris Smith]

For any particle of matter, if it never began to exist, and cannot cease to exist, then there appears to be no semantic or informational content in the phrase "giving rise," as used above.

Of course, I could simply be intellectually deficient.

To understand the "Ground of Being" concept, you have to think of matter as a sort of hologram rather than as concrete "stuff". Imagine that the Ground of Being is a computer, and the universe is a piece of software that has been running on it for all eternity. The computer continually "gives rise" to the simulated matter, but this does not mean the simulated matter has a beginning or ending. Classical articulations of the "Ground of Being" idea work the same way. In Platonism, matter isn't real; it's a mere shadow cast by the being of God. In Yogacara, the universe is a dream in the Cosmic Mind. In Tantra (and string theory), matter is a sort of cosmic vibration. Most of these philosophies stress that knowledge of the illusory nature of matter somehow allows one to transcend the illusion and access a higher level of reality. There's also a strong impulse here to show that the apparent diversity of the universe arises from a fundamental unity, which explains why everything in the universe seems to cohere together and conform to the same set of rules.

Edited April 1, 2012 by Chris Smith

[Log]

Chris,

Your analogy again communicates no real content, because it has no apparent purchase on reality. I might likewise say "Imagine a square circle."

Nevertheless, the putative unity of the constituents of the universe is, to me, a literal absurdity. It's binity or bust.

Have a nice thread, guys.