Plato'S Demiurge

[mfbukowski]

Why does the ex nihilo God exist? What is the "ground of his being"? Himself? Don't you think that's a little circular? How is that any different? Why does anything exist rather than nothing?

But remember you have given up on "philosophy" so good luck with that

[inquiringmind]

I think it is fair to distinguish between 'God's' creation, and a 'creation' governed by natural uncreated processes

And holy men inspired by God (in both the Bible and the Book of Mormon) said the design found in the former is evidence of a Creator, but any design in the latter is no evidence of a Creator?

On what basis would you make a distinction between "God's creation" and "a 'creation' governed by natural uncreated processes"?

If eternal progression is true, wont spirit children always be born?

if it takes an intelligence, and elements to make a spirit child, wouldn't that mean there must always be enough intelligences and elements to go around?

If intelligences and elements are equally balanced, wouldn't that imply design, and a designer?

If it doesn't, why does the design in our world point to God (as prophets, saints, and philosophers have said that it does)?

And how is it that scripture wouldn't be lying when it says that the design we see around us here points to the existence of God?

Edited April 16, 2012 by inquiringmind

[inquiringmind]

Why does the ex nihilo God exist? What is the "ground of his being"? Himself? Don't you think that's a little circular? How is that any different? Why does anything exist rather than nothing?

But remember you have given up on "philosophy" so good luck with that

Do Hindu's believe in creation ex nihilo?

No.

But they do believe in one ultimate ground of being.

(As to how that's different from believing in no ground, or multiple unrelated grounds, I think the philosophical answer has something to do with simplicity.)

Edited April 16, 2012 by inquiringmind

[inquiringmind]

From another thread.

I have no issue with the God of the Bible and the Book of Mormon (Heavenly Father) employing an emanation of some infinite intelligence. I also suppose that anything else that exists is such a thing, to some degree or another.

I suppose there could be a finite or infinite regress of Gods that are all somehow emanations of some infinite intelligence..., but only one of a regress of Gods would be the God I worship, even though they are probably all the same and united in some fashion.

Thank you.

The question of whether or not a Mormon could believe that was supposed to be the topic of this thread (before it got side railed.)

Thank you very much.

Edited April 16, 2012 by inquiringmind

[dtorge26]

And holy men inspired by God (in both the Bible and the Book of Mormon) said the design found in the former is evidence of a Creator, but any design in the latter is no evidence of a Creator?

I think these scriptures reflect the word choices of the prophets whose testimonies are written therein. I'm not sure the context of their testimonies matches the questions you are asking here. The word 'design' might also have simply been a bad word choice. Reason I say that is there is usually an automatic assumption that a 'designer' is necessary for any 'design'. It's therefore unnecessary to state that design is evidence of a creator.

On what basis would you make a distinction between "God's creation" and "a 'creation' governed by natural uncreated processes"?

On the basis of whether God was actively involved in the process of creation or not.

If eternal progression is true, wont spirit children always be born?

Yes, I think that's right.

if it takes an intelligence, and elements to make a spirit child, wouldn't that mean there must always be enough intelligences and elements to go around?

Yes, I think that is right also.

If intelligences and elements are equally balanced, wouldn't that imply design, and a designer?

Not sure I agree here. There is some doctrinal ground to believe that God recycles element, especially element which has not fulfilled the measure or purpose of its creation. I think Brigham Young has some quotes there.

Also, from science perspective, I think balance is irrelevant as long as space and energy is infinite. If it is, as many suppose, then there should be no shortage of element. So, eternal progression, infinite spirit children, AND an infinite regression of Gods is then very likely.

[mfbukowski]

Inquiring

If I was inclined to see things in a more Hindu way, where Brahman is the "ground of being" and that in a sense we are all "one soul" I would see it more in terms of what we call the Church of the Firstborn in which we all become one with God- we see it as more of a family structure where we keep our individuality but become more one in love and purpose as the Godhead is one. I think that way of seeing it is totally in line with LDS beliefs. Also all matter is spirit- the earth itself has a spirit (and the doctrine of the flood is seen as the "baptism" of the earth itself- gaia if you want to see it that way)

The distinction is that we are all individuals- I see us as fields of influence more than anything with a kernal of whatever it is that sees ourselves AS selves- but that we will become one eventually, even as the Godhead is one.

Maybe that helps maybe not. To me, that is as good a metaphor as any. Ultimately this is all poetry in my view since it is so far beyond what we can understand that it kind of doesn't matter which poem works better for any individual.

[inquiringmind]

I think it's more than poetry (but thank you.)

Edited April 16, 2012 by inquiringmind

[Cobalt-70]

We don't believe in a God who is a Platonic transcendent God, therefore the answer is "no". Such a being is not a "Father" nor could it be. Our God is a social being who interacts socially- the two concepts are incompatible.

Well, he is a Father. Just ask any Protestant, Orthodox, or Catholic theologian. They are tolerant of the inherent paradox of such a God, just as Mormons are tolerant of the inherent paradox of a God that is both eternal and created, omnipotent and limited. There has never been a God that was not a paradox.

[Cobalt-70]

Yes, in that sense.

So is the existence of God.

What difference does that make?

Unfalsifiability is not a problem in theology, but it is intolerable in archaeology. If you want to enter the game, you have to play by the rules.

[mfbukowski]

Well, he is a Father. Just ask any Protestant, Orthodox, or Catholic theologian. They are tolerant of the inherent paradox of such a God, just as Mormons are tolerant of the inherent paradox of a God that is both eternal and created, omnipotent and limited. There has never been a God that was not a paradox.

In your opinion.

[mfbukowski]

Unfalsifiability is not a problem in theology, but it is intolerable in archaeology. If you want to enter the game, you have to play by the rules.

He teaches the position as an apologetic possibility, not as archaeology.

[Cobalt-70]

We are talking about stone and perishable houses in a culture where most could not right. There was no vinyl in BOM times and there were no granite vaults containing microfilm

Assuming that not enough Nephites were literate to leave behind any artifacts containing writing. But the Book of Mormon describes a literate people. See Mosiah 29:4, Alma 33:12-14 (assuming that a group of very poor people had read the scriptures), Mosiah 24:4-6 (stating that all the Lamanites were taught to write the Nephite language), 3 Ne. 20:11, Alma 46:12, 19, etc.

[Cobalt-70]

Note that it says it's a "collection" of "theoretical perspectives" based on a "premise" that the universe is describable by information.

...

I think that is true, but rather tautologous. If it is ever to be "described" and made intelligible to humans, which is the usual definition of the word "described" it had BETTER be in what humans call "information".

It seems to me that all this is, is that physicists finally realize that philosophical antirealism is the only way we can make sense of the world around us. That's good, but certainly the view is not a new one.

I was referring mainly to the perspective along the line of John Wheeler, reflected in his article, "It from Bit." This line of thinking builds on the holographic theory, which is only a couple of decades old. It basically says that the three-dimensional universe is written on a two-dimensional surface. This has nothing to do with antirealism. The two dimensional surface full of information is just as realmaginary as the three dimensional universe.

Also, to the mathematical physicist, if one description of the universe is isomorphic to another description, the one description is no more or less "real" or "imaginary" than the other.

[mfbukowski]

Also, to the mathematical physicist, if one description of the universe is isomorphic to another description, the one description is no more or less "real" or "imaginary" than the other.

Read a description of "anti-realism". What that means is that there are many possible descriptions, one no more or less "real" than the other.

Sound familiar?

Two difficulties are immediately apparent regarding the realist aspiration to infer truth (approximate truth, existence of entities, etc.) from hypotheses or theories that are judged best on explanatory grounds. The first concerns the grounds themselves. In order to judge that one theory furnishes a better explanation of some phenomenon than another, one must employ some criterion or criteria on the basis of which the judgement is made. Many have been proposed: simplicity (whether of mathematical description or in terms of the number or nature of entities, properties, or relations involved); consistency and coherence (both internally, and externally with respect to other theories and background knowledge); scope and unity (pertaining to the domain of phenomena explained); and so on. One challenge here concerns whether virtues such as these can be defined precisely enough to permit relative rankings of explanatory goodness. Another challenge concerns the multiple meanings associated with some virtues (consider, for example, mathematical versus ontological simplicity). Another concerns the possibility that such virtues may not all favour any one theory in particular. Finally, there is the question of whether these virtues should be considered evidential or epistemic, as opposed to merely pragmatic. What reason is there to think, for instance, that simplicity is an indicator of truth? Thus, the ability to rank theories with respect to their likelihood of being true may be questioned.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-realism/#SceAboInfBesExp

Edited April 17, 2012 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

Quotes from Wheeler:

"The word wasn't in the room when I came in even though I thought it was,"

Wheeler explained. In some ways, the electron, before the physicist

chooses to observe it, is neither a wave nor a particle. It is in some

sense unreal; it exists in an indeterminate limbo.

Yet Wheeler himself has suggested that there is nothing _but_ smoke. "I do take 100 percent seriously the idea that the world is a figment of the imagination," he once remarked to the science writer and physicist Jeremy Bernstein. Wheeler is well aware that this view is, from an empirical viewpoint, unsupportable: Where was mind when the universe was born? And what sustained the universe for the billions of years before we came to be? He nonetheless bravely offers us a lovely, chilling paradox: at the heart of everything is a question, not an answer. When we peer down into the deepest recesses of matter or at the farthest edge of the universe, we see, finally, our own puzzled faces looking back at us.

http://suif.stanford...WWW/wheeler.txt

When humans look into the universe, it is not at all unexpected that what we see looking out is a reflection of ourselves.

That can be seen in Mormonism and also in the newer physical theories.

We see now as in a glass, darkly, but then face to face.

Edited April 17, 2012 by mfbukowski

[inquiringmind]

Quotes from Wheeler:

http://suif.stanford...WWW/wheeler.txt

That's very interesting, and makes a lot mere sense to me than something I was reading today.

Joseph Smith was proclaiming that the known elements (the ones listed on the Periodic Table found in school science classes worldwide) are without beginning and without end. The elements themselves—the building blocks of all things which exist—have the very same nature that the world’s religions have ascribed only to God!

http://refmogospeldo...losophy-is.html

How many of you would view this as an exaggeration (or over-simplification) of what Joseph taught?

Hydrogen atoms are mostly composed of empty space.

Could space be an element?

Does D&C 93 really teach that 118 elements of the periodic table are self -existent?

Edited April 26, 2012 by inquiringmind

[RadioFreeDeath]

I dont think that his reference to elements is just to elements, but a specific reference to part of a much larger idea that the universe in general is eternal. He is just pointing to the elements as part of this. Also what do you mean by self-existent?

[Cobalt-70]

Does D&C 93 really teach that 118 elements of the periodic table are self -existent?

Since early in the 20th century, we've known that the physical elements are mutable. We learned how to be alchemists, to change one element into another. In fact, matter itself, in any form, is mutable and temporary because it is convertible to energy. You might suggest that if you define matter broadly to include energy, then that matter/energy cannot be created or destroyed, as a result of the law of conservation of mass/energy. However, there is a loophole: gravity is a form of negative energy. So when the universe was formed, it was indeed possible (and apparently required, based on what the WMAP telescope is telling us) that the matter and energy we see around us was created out of nothing, through the equal and opposite creation of negative gravitational energy.

So what is the eternal "element" that Smith was referring to? I don't know, but if it is simply matter, than Smith's views represent the common, and incorrect, scientific belief in his day that mass could not be created or destroyed..

[inquiringmind]

I emailed this question to a couple of LDS I know, and I received these replies..

To me the elements are the building blocks that everything is made from – I would call the core foundational element spirit matter.

To me, all he is saying is that the core foundational element is spirit matter, and that God does not create out of nothing

These things are deep, and there is certainly room for many different interpretations and shades of understanding. The basic concepts are not definitively defined (for example, what actually is "intelligence," and where does it definitively say this? Etc.). So much so, that dogmatically insisting on a certain interpretation as being mandatorily binding on believers is incorrect.

Both replies were helpful.

Edited April 27, 2012 by inquiringmind

[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?

Charles W. Penrose apparently answered these questions in the affirmative.

But if God is an individual spirit and dwells in a body, the question will arise, “Is He the Eternal Father?” Yes, He is the Eternal Father. ‘Is it a fact that He never had a beginning?” In the elementary particles of His organism, He did not. But if He is an organized Being, there must have been a time when that being was organized. This, some one will say, would infer that God had a beginning. This spirit which pervades all things, which is the light and life of all things, by which our Heavenly Father operates, by which He is omnipotent, never had a beginning and never will have an end. It is the light of truth; it is the spirit of intelligence. We are told in the revelations of God to us that, “Intelligence or the light of truth never was created, neither indeed can be” (JD 26:23).

Edited April 29, 2012 by inquiringmind

[mfbukowski]

Charles W. Penrose apparently answered these questions in the affirmative.

But if God is an individual spirit and dwells in a body, the question will arise, “Is He the Eternal Father?” Yes, He is the Eternal Father. ‘Is it a fact that He never had a beginning?” In the elementary particles of His organism, He did not. But if He is an organized Being, there must have been a time when that being was organized. This, some one will say, would infer that God had a beginning. This spirit which pervades all things, which is the light and life of all things, by which our Heavenly Father operates, by which He is omnipotent, never had a beginning and never will have an end. It is the light of truth; it is the spirit of intelligence. We are told in the revelations of God to us that, “Intelligence or the light of truth never was created, neither indeed can be” (JD 26:23).

Mc Murrin also points out, I think correctly, that LDS theology has a kind of double identity - a strange compulsion to incorporate sectarian Greek philosophy so that we sound "Christian". I see this all the time. In my opinion all this "ground of being" stuff along with the "first cause" argument and "substance" and "transubstantiation" "God is everywhere" and here, the "spirit of intelligence" is essentially mumbo-jumbo with a Platonic base.

You may not get this reference, but to me, it is a mass of confusion.

It is pure sectarianism where it does not belong- in Mormon thought.

[inquiringmind]

Mc Murrin also points out, I think correctly, that LDS theology has a kind of double identity - a strange compulsion to incorporate sectarian Greek philosophy so that we sound "Christian". I see this all the time. In my opinion all this "ground of being" stuff along with the "first cause" argument and "substance" and "transubstantiation" "God is everywhere" and here, the "spirit of intelligence" is essentially mumbo-jumbo with a Platonic base.

You may not get this reference, but to me, it is a mass of confusion.

It is pure sectarianism where it does not belong- in Mormon thought.

From a General Authority who served in the First Presidency?

[mfbukowski]

From a General Authority who served in the First Presidency?

Why not?

I don't believe everything Brigham Young said and he was a prophet. He even told us that sometimes he himself was mistaken.

Edited April 29, 2012 by mfbukowski

[inquiringmind]

He makes a lot more sense to me than you do (and if a President and a GA could be wrong, I guess you could be wrong when you call something "mumbo jumbo.")

Edited April 30, 2012 by inquiringmind

[Log]

IM, MFB has a very unique approach to epistemology and communication theory - don't take him too literally, nor too seriously.