Are Laws of Physics/Nature Descriptive or Prescriptive?

 

According to Alfred North Whitehead Christianity contributed to the early development of science.  “In the first place, there can be no living science unless there is a widespread instinctive conviction in the existence of an Order of things (his emphasis), and in particular, in the order of nature.”[1]

This is a significant theological issues becuase the one side is the basis of modern naturalism while the other forms the basis for the implications of a creative mind at work behind the universe.

            In this chapter I will not be so concerned with actually making arguments to prove that God exits, but with the possibilities for observing indications of God and how that depends upon one’s perspective: the question of God and how it arises in relation to our observations of the universe. I wouldn’t argue to prove to the existence of God anyway, but to demonstrate the rational nature of belief. Arguing to prove that God exists [2]gives one an unnecessary burden because since God is beyond our understanding there’s really no way to prove there is a God. Nor should we want such a thing because that would mean that God is subject to our calculations. If we can make God an object of our observations we have demoted God to the level of a thing in creation. The potential for such arguments depends entirely upon the assumptions we are willing to make and the perspective from which we view the marital supporting the arguments. The point here is that our presuppositions govern the way we see to answer the question of God and the proper presumptions are philosophical and not scientific; we must do philosophy to answer the question of God.

            I’m going to start with a discussion about how physical law is understood today; the quote by Whitehead above is not so out of date as some might assume. There is still a contingent in science that will argue for law-like reality that is independent of the mind of the observer. I start with this issue for two reasons: (1) because the question about order of things and  what makes for order underlies one of the major God argument, from design; (2) it also underlies one of the  major (although not the only) reason for belief in God, the appeal to an origin, or an ordering principle upon which the existence and nature of the universe can be pinned. That view is so despised by the scientistic despisers of religion, yet it is far from being abandoned by all modern scientific thinkers.

            The modern view of physical law understands “law” as more or less a metaphor. Even though text books still speak in the language of law the popular understanding among “scientific thinkers” is that laws of physics are merely descriptions of the universe and how it seems to behave. The language of law is a hold over from the early days of the Greeks and the Christians, from philosophy and religion. Things have changed radically in the years since 1997 when Smolin’s words were first published but they still summarize the issue:

Even now that science has been severed from its religious roots, the idea that the laws of nature have an ideal and unchanging character have continued to be a central part of its basic world picture. For this reason it may seem strange to us if someone suggests that the laws of nature might be as much the result of contingent and historical circumstances as they are reflections of some transcendent eternal logic. But this is exactly the idea that I’m going to propose here. If we are willing to give up the idea that the laws of physics, or at least the parameters that measure the masses of the particles and the strengths of the forces, are fixed and immutable, we will see that new possibilities open up for understanding…[3]

Stephen Mumford excludes both simple regularity statements and Ayer’s concept of statements as laws in understanding the behavior of the universe. Statements summing up the nature of law must be made. If patters are found in nature then we know regularities exist. These things have their place in discussion of law, but that doesn’t mean that’s what law reduces to. In characterizing the “lawless” view point he tells us: “The world contains just a series of events on this account. Sometimes we find a pattern in the series but according to well known Humean arguments, there is nothing that has made the pattern. The pattern has just occurred there is no necessity in nature.”[4] Howard Sankey edits an anthology, Causation and Laws of Nature, which is billed as “Australasion” studies, Australian and Asian studies in history and philosophy of science, in which he demonstrates a controversial distinction between Hume’s empiricism as the limitation of the mind’s perception vs. the assumption of mind as independent reality.[5] The Humean view is that laws of nature/physics reduce to “phenomenal regularities,” in other words, the billiard balls; all we see is one stop and the other start, we don’t see causes, our understanding is limited to what we observe and that’s all. We observe a regularity we can describe but we can’t observe the reason for it. The counter to this view, in Australasian studies is the “realist” view that holds to the assumption of mind independent reality. Alan Chamlers’s article “Making Sense of the Laws of Physics”[6] while Brian Ellis leads the scientist essentialist contingent.[7]

            What we find is that there is still a lot of discussion about what the laws of physics and nature are, what makes them, and it doesn’t all reduce to description with no attribution to a framework or a “higher” set of “rules.” It depends upon what part of the world you are in as to how this all plays out. While in America laws of physics and nature are seen as purely descriptive.[8] There is a distinction between laws of physics which are rules of understanding physics, such as Newtonian laws, and laws of nature which are more a creation of philosophers and more general. Santo D'Agostino, who is an accomplished physicist and mathematician complains about text books that give the impression that mathematical equations really tell nature what to do.

If you really believe that a scientific law tells a physical system how to behave, what happens when there is a historic change of perspective (a “scientific revolution”)? One can end up tied up in mental knots. Imagine saying in the 19th century that a physical system “obeys” Newton’s laws of motions, only to have to revise your opinion in the 20th century in light of Einstein’s theory of relativity. Do you now say that the same system “obeys” the equations of relativistic mechanics, and only approximately “obeys” Newton’s laws? Or do you say that you were wrong in your earlier statement, but now you’ve got it right; this is problematic, because how do you know you’re right? What if there is yet another revolutionary change in perspective? I find this awkward.[9]

This laves us with two views battling it out for supremacy in the area of modern thought about the nature of natural and physical laws. It’s the “scientific essentialists” or those who posit something like prescriptive laws that tell the universe how to act, vs. the Hume crowd, those who just see physical law as a description of the way the universe seems to work and don’t bother to explain how or why. Both sides represent modern science; both are stocked with atheists, theists, deists, and so on. In thinking about the nature of natural and/or physical law as a potential indication of God’s reality, both sides have their problems.

            The scientific essentialists (the prescriptive law side) have the problem of explaining how disembodied laws can just “exist” somewhere (where that is we don’t know) outside of a mind. To explain that one must dart over to the other side in saying “it’s not really law.” “Law” is just an unfortunate choice of terms. It’s a bit more than that. Award Wining Physicist Paul Davies points out the traditional view of transcendent laws is just a hold over from the seventeenth century monotheism with God removed. As Davies said, “Then God got killed off and the laws just free-floated in a conceptual vacuum but retained their theological properties,”[10] It seems that “law” is not just an unfortunate choice but a hold over from the older concept that the order and regularity we see is the result of a mind that created it to be orderly, the use of the term law is apt because it refers to the command of that mind that created it. This of course raises the question “why does it have to be God?” Even to ask this question is to invite theological issues and open to the door to theological questions. To open the door to theology is to invite physicists to show their ignorance of theology.

Steven Weinberg plays theologian:

QUESTION: Over the past decade, many physicists have been making an association between their science and "the mind of God". What do you think of this association being made?

MR. WEINBERG: It makes me nervous when physicists use the word "God" loosely, as talking about the laws of nature as the mind of God, or even Einstein's famous remarks about God playing dice with the cosmos. I think mostly they're just using the word "God" in the metaphorical sense.

By "God" most of them simply mean the laws of nature, the principles that govern everything. And, well, there's nothing wrong with the metaphor, I suppose, but the word "God" is charged with so much meaning, it carries so much historical freight, and I think one ought to be careful about how one uses it.[11]

Since we don’t know Weinberg’s theological education level it is entirely possible that his understanding of theology is not up to par with his understanding of physics. It’s possible that he thinks God has to be a big man on a throne with a white beard (and he has to be literally a male). This is just another example of physicist playing theologian because he assumes that knowing physics means he knows it all. God need not be male, need not have a white bread, need not be anthropomorphic and need not even be “personal” or ‘sentient.’ Any transcendental signified is by definition (top of the metaphysical hierarchy) God. Thus the idea of disembodied laws making things happen and having no explicable origin of their own is not an alternative to belief in God, it may well be a belief in God. It is an alternative to belief in a theistic God. Moreover, that side also has a problem proving how laws could exist outside a mind.

            The descriptive (Humean) side has a similar problem. Similar because as the recourse to the prescriptive side is to lighten up on the concept of a law, so the fact of description results in the obvious point that what is being described is very law-like order. Davies’s statement above was in response to a reaction against his statement that science required faith. He was deluged with “letters to The Times, pointing out that the order we perceive in nature has been explored and tested for more than 2,000 years by observation and experimentation. That order is precisely the hypothesis that the scientific enterprise is engaged in testing.”[12] The order is always there, it dependable enough that glider pilots and roller coaster makers can risk the lives of their passengers on it. There surely must be some point to the never ending scientific testing, that point must be something along the lines of  eventually placing confidence in the findings. Nor is it the case that the predominant school has always been the Humean or descriptive. If we look at the history of science references to the transcendent law idea are much more prevalent than are the descriptive side. For example Whitehead writes about it (as late as 1925) as though no one would dare question the omnipotence of physical law:

We are content with superficial orderings form diverse arbitrary starting points. ... Science which is employed in their development [modern thought] is based upon a philosophy which asserts that physical causation is supreme, and which disjoins the physical cause from the final end. It is not popular to dwell upon the absolute contradiction here involved. [13]

It hasn’t been that long that the law side was strong. It seems also that it’s just an ideological take on things because what is being described is order. To make a philosophical position on the nature of the order, even if that position leaves it up for grabs, is a metaphysical move and thus in the sense that imports metaphysics into science its basically an ideological move.

            One more problem with the descriptive side, unless our descriptions are 100% accurate then inclusion of other descriptions broadens the base for behaviors in which we might find the universe engaging. That is to say one might be justified in saying “people don’t grow back new lungs overnight.” That’s just not part of the description. Yet the Catholic saint making miracles recorded that it is in at least one case. So as a rarity sometimes the universe does grow back lungs.  Or one would be perfectly justified in saying “people just don’t come back form the dead.”  Yet that’s not a 100% accurate statement because it’s part of the description of several hundred people in the Vatican achieves that some did come back form the dead.[14] Yet the skeptic will always come back and argue, if nothing else, as did Hume that these events are not to be believed:

a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined….The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), “That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish: And even in that case, there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force, which remains, after deducting the inferior.[15]

His argument is predicated upon the idea that the laws of nature are stable law-like facts. We have seen that a whole school of thought (one named for him in fact) sees them as nothing more than the compilation of a description of what happens in the world—that description can’t be 100% accurate and it is challenged by those who observe other things. The school that bears his name sees them as description rather than law. In essence what he’s saying is that we can’t accord these kinds of events as much acceptance as we do ordinary events because we never have before. It doesn’t conform to our observations of the way the universe behaves and thus has presumption against it. That’s just a matter of where you come from. For some, those who have seen such things, they do conform to the way the universe works at times. Of course the real assumption is the natural vs. supernatural origins of the phenomena. All Hume is really saying at that point is that we choose not to value such claims because we never have before. The principle he says out is self defeating because anything more miraculous would have to be doubted more, nothing could ever establish a miracle no matter how good the evidence was. We see this in the words of Hume himself:

When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should have really happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of the testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.[16]

The principle is argued against both testimonial evidence of miracle and those directly experienced.[17]  By the power of this premise nothing could ever establish a miracle, they must always be doubted. But upon what basis is it doubted? That is Hume privileges his position as 100% even though we know it’s not?  If one is coming from a tradition where such things are accepted as being within the realm of possibility then they are part of the description. After all to say “a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature” either assumes laws of nature (with all their problematic of disembodied law makers) or they are the result of a description of the way the world operates, one that is not 100% and is challenged. While this doesn’t mean that there’s proof for the existence of God or some higher reality, it certainly gives a reason to think there might be. The miracle denying skepticism is basically circular reasoning or question begging. Moreover, we might consider the fact that Hume never had the M scale of Hood to tell him that religious experience is universal when it should not be, or that it has a vast dramatic transformative effect which can’t be reduced or explained away (see previous chapter). How would those facts change the assumptions Hume would make?

            It is understandable that naturalistic thinkers are uneasy with the concept of miracles. So should we all be watchful not to believe too quickly because it is easy to get caught up in private reasons and ignore reason itself. Thus has more than one intelligent person been taken by both scams and honest mistakes. By the same token, however, it is equally a danger that one will remain too long in the skeptical place and become overly committed to doubting everything. From that position the circular reasoning of the naturalist seems so reasonable. There’s never been any proof of miracles before so we can’t accept that there is any now. But that’s only because we keep making the same assumption and thus have always dismissed the evidence that was valid.

---

[1] Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern world. Cambridge England, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1926, 1932, 4.

[2] I use the term “exist” advisedly as it is a contradiction to my Tillichian view (Paul Tillich) that “existence” refers to contingent things while God Is the ground of being.

[3] Lee Smolin, Life of the Cosmos Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. 76.

Preview on Google books.

Smolin Is professor of physics Pennsylvania State Universe, center for Gravitational Physics and Geomeery. He’s contributed several key Ideas to the search for a grand unfied theory of quantum theory, cosmology and relativity.

[4] Stphen Mumford,  Laws in Nature. London, New York: Routledge. This edidtion published in the Taylor &Francis e -library 2004, 8.

Mumford is professor of philosophy at University of Nottingham.

[5]Howard Sankey. Causation and Laws of Nature. Accord Station, Hingham Ma: Kluwer Academic Publishers, Howard Sankey, editor, xi 1999.

[6] Alan Chalmers in Sandey, op cit “Making sense of the laws of Physics,” 3-18

[7] Brian Ellis, in Sankey, op cit, “Caual Powers and Laws of Nature” 19-34

[8] My rendition of things may be a bit slanted. First of all, there are realists in Ameirca and realizing is not necessarily about laws of physics being prescriptive, but I think that may be an implication of it. Realism is very general term that’s used in many different ways by those who claim it’s banner. Essentially it means that the aspects of physics such as slingalruty and the phenomena described in physics are real and actually there, while the anti-realists and other groups have a  large variation on the theme that sees these objects as theoretical the result of verisimilitude; the theoretical placeholders for our calculations, in other words, “constructs.” Just to make things more confusing I know atheists with phsyics degrees who style themselves in the anti-realist camp but hwo mock and riedicule constructivists such as Thomas Kuhn. For documentation on this point and an excellent article on the subject of scientific realism see:

Chakravartty, Anjan, "Scientific Realism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = .

[9] Santo D'Agostino, “Does Nature Obey the Laws of Phsyics?” QED Insight Posted on March 9, 2011 blog URL: http://qedinsight.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/does-nature-obey-the-laws-of-physics/  visited 12/18/12

[10] Dennis Overbye, “Laws of Nature, Source Unknown.”New York Times, “science,”  (December 18, 2007)

[11] Steven Weinberg, Interview on PBS, full transcript on “Interview” website PBS. Org. http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/transcript/wein-body.html  visited 12/18/12

[12] ibid.

[13] Alfred North Whitehead, Science and The Modern World,. New York: free Press, 1925, (1953) p.76

[14] Douffin, Jacqueline, op cit (see previous chapter).

[15] David Hume,  1748 et seq., An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Ed. Tom L. Beauchamp. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.86-87

[16] ibid

[17] Michael Root, “Miracles and the Uniformity of Nature,” American Philosophical Quarterly.26 (October 1989) 338-339.

Misconceptions About Religion

Andy Wright makes comments in response to "More on Extraordinary claims," I will answer his comments here because they are typical of certain atheist misconceptions that I have been trying to correct since I started on internet apologetics boards. The average atheist on the net seems to believe that religion is for feeble minded dullards who can't think, that's its effects are clearly proven to be very bad for both the individual and society, and that belief is receding into he mists of history. Not only are these ideas totally wrong, but they are the exact opposite of truth. Not only so, but that these things are totally false is clearly demonstrably provable with the best scientific evidence. Religion is actually very good for you, religious people are much better adjusted, by and large, than most atheists. Religious people are happier, they are less likely to commit crimes, if you except fundamentalists their marriages are better.

Wright was reacting to my statement that religion is normative for human experince, and the point of saying that was to show that belief is not an extraordinary claim. So let us keep that in mind, because most of Wrights arguments lose sight of this poin.

Andy Wright:

you say "religious belief is normative for human behavior. It is not merely "normal" but "normative" meaning it sets the standard. Belief is basic to human psyche, to our understanding of the good, of meaning in life, the ultimate limits of reality, the grounding of nature and being itself,"
this is not true. there have been and continue to be successful human societies where religion is not part of the society, where simply not knowing was acceptable.

This is clearly disproved by history. There has never been a single non religious society anyone where on earth. There have only been a handful of attempts to make societies that were non religious, and in not only did those cases fail, but they were the imposition of an ideology by an elite who imposed its will upon the masses.There has never been a single organic culture where the masses were just naturally not religious. Even in the Soviet union and china, where the only attempts to destroy the faith of the masses was imposed, it failed miserably. At the height of the cultural revolution in China when the government was the most anti-religious, the people were still 51% religious and Christianity made up a huge portion.

Wright again:

you seem to define religion as belief in a single higher power, yet among the societies that have religion, there have been as many societies that beleived in multiple spirits in a range from every single thing having a spirit to there being many extra powerful beings that you would call gods.

This is my true definition of religion, I've given it hundreds of times on message board all over the net and it is on my website in my credo where I clearly go over the all the beliefs I hold. I got this definition from Dr. Neil McFarlane in his lecture notes in his class on "religion in a Global perspective" at Perkins School of Theology (SMU). I think it was influenced by Dr Fredrick Strung ("string").


My definition of religion:

In my view Religion is an attept to identify a human problemic, that is the basic problematic nature at the heart of being human. Having identified it, reilgious traditions seek to resolve the problematic nature of human life by offering a transformative experince which allows one to transcend the difficulty and to be fulfilled or feel more human or be "saved." Religious traditions also usually seek to mediate this transformation through cerimony or some sort of theological orientation. These three things make up the nature of religion:

(a) identification of the problematic

(b) Transformative power to overcome the nature of the problematic

(c) a means of mediating this transformative power.

All religions offer these things, weather the problematic be seen as separation from nature, or imbalance with cosmic forces, re-birth through desire which leads to suffering, or moral sin in rebellion against God.

Transformations come in all sorts of packages too, they can be the big experince of born again Christianity (mediated through the "sinners prayer") or they can be the mystical experince, mediated through the mass, or enlightenment, mediated through mediation, mandala, mantra and other mediation aids, or what have you.

The reason for identifying with a particular religious tradition is because one feels that this particular tradition identifies the problematic better than others, and offers mediation in a more sure or certain or compelte way. One must go with the tradition with which one feels the strongest connection.


For me that is the Christian Tradition, primarily because I feel that the historical connection to Jesus of Nazareth, and the unique concept of Grace mark the Christian tradition as the best mediation of the Ultimate Transformative Experience. But more on that latter.

So your statement is quite false. I do not limit by view of religion to belief in a single "powerful being." In fact that view of what I believe is so far off, you clearly know nothing about my views. Obviously you are merely reacting to the label "Christian" and have not bothered to find out that Christianity is very diverse. I do not believe that God is a single powerful being! I do not believe that God is "A being." I believe that God is "being itself." That means God is the basis of what being is, the foundation of all being, not a being, but the basic ground of all being. I further believe that differing religions and concepts of God and gods are merely sign posts that point to this foundation of being. The are metaphors and analogies that point to something beyond themselves, something beyond our ability to understand. I have written many pages on this on my website. The major such pages can be found here: The Ground of Being

Wright goes on:

the range and differences among them are so great as to make lumping them all under 'religion' is almost ridiculous.

That is indicative misunderstanding the nature of religion is. Religion is so much bigger, better, and more important than you are willing to accept, or even than you suspect.

there have been many societies around the world where a human was thought of as the current incarnation of god. this differs so much from Christianity as to again, be almost impossible to be considered the same thing.

That's a misconception. It doesn't really matter, it's a meaningless point anyway, because I'm sure I know much more about world religion than you do. Remember the class I mention, above, "religion in a global perspective?" Neil McFarland who taught that class lived in Japan for 30 years. He was the leading expert on the New Religions of Japan (his book was Rush House of the Gods--I love that title!). He was very sympathetic to Eastern religions and he studied them with major Shinto and Buddhists priests in Japan. That class focussed on religions of Asia, especially Japan. There are not other societies or religions which have exactly the same understanding of deity as Christianity. There are none where a human being was thought of as God in the way that Christian theology came to regard Christ after the second century or so. But to say that these religions can't be regarded as the same thing is just poppy cock. They all fit with the definition given above and they all fit with the concept of mystical union which I have clearly espoused for years.

Wright:

and in all of those societies, there were a wide range of level of belief in the locally accepted 'religion'. some were vigorous hyper believers and most belived some of it but had doubts about a little of it and some believed very little or none at all of it. societies varied a great deal in how much they tolerated the non-beleivers, from none at all to total tolerance, and still, even when there was no tolerance, there were non-beleivers who kept silent about it. your claim that religion is 'normative' lacks anthropological basis for societies and is lacking even more when applied to individuals.

Notice that you don't give a single example. Prior to the eighteenth century true atheists who really believed there was no God at all of any kind were very rare, and mostly they were uneducated. They had no scientific basis for their claims, merely anger toward religious people and institutions.No actually your misconceptions lack anthropological backing. I am quoting anthropologists. I'm quoting major social scientists such as Abraham Maslow who did studies on the nature of religious experience and found that its one of the greatest things or people. Maslow's book was Peak Experience and there is a copy online. A vast body of social sciences data shows that religion is far better for you than unbelief.


Wright:

Atheists today have all that stuff you claim belief is basic to and they have it without . . . guess what . . . belief in any god or religion. you might not want to admit there are well adjusted atheists making positive contributions to the world, and i am not sure why you are so intolerant of atheism or why it threatens you so, but you claim about belief being essential to a person or a society is . . . bogus.

Saying that religion is normative is not at all the same as saying that there are no well adjusted atheists. That's not the issue at all. In fact the data does show that believers are much better "adjusted" and less mental illness and less depression than unbelievers.

again from my website:


Religioius belief indicative of good mental health

a)Religous Pepole are More Self Actualized

Dr. Michale Nielson,Ph.D. Psychology and religion.
"http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/ukraine/index.htm"

Quote:

"What makes someone psychologically healthy? This was the question that guided Maslow's work. He saw too much emphasis in psychology on negative behavior and thought, and wanted to supplant it with a psychology of mental health. To this end, he developed a hierarchy of needs, ranging from lower level physiological needs, through love and belonging, to self- actualization. Self-actualized people are those who have reached their potential for self-development. Maslow claimed that mystics are more likely to be self-actualized than are other people. Mystics also are more likely to have had "peak experiences," experiences in which the person feels a sense of ecstasy and oneness with the universe. Although his hierarchy of needs sounds appealing, researchers have had difficulty finding support for his theory."

Gagenback

Quote:

In terms of psychological correlates, well-being and happiness has been associated with mystical experiences,(Mathes, Zevon, Roter, Joerger, 1982; Hay & Morisy, 1978; Greeley, 1975; Alexander, Boyer, & Alexander, 1987) as well as self-actualization (Hood, 1977; Alexander, 1992). Regarding the latter, the developer of self-actualization believed that even one spontaneous peak or transcendental experience could promote self-actualization. Correlational research has supported this relationship. In a recent statistical meta-analysis of causal designs with Transcendental Meditation (TM) controlling for length of treatment and strength of study design, it was found that: TM enhances self-actualization on standard inventories significantly more than recent clinically devised relaxation/meditation procedures not explicitly directed toward transcendence [mystical experience] (p. 1; Alexander, 1992)

b) Christian Repentence Promotes Healthy Mindedness

william James
Gilford lectures

Quote:

"Within the Christian body, for which repentance of sins has from the beginning been the critical religious act, healthy-mindedness has always come forward with its milder interpretation. Repentance according to such healthy-minded Christians means getting away from the sin, not groaning and writhing over its commission. The Catholic practice of confession and absolution is in one of its aspects little more than a systematic method of keeping healthy-mindedness on top. By it a man's accounts with evil are periodically squared and audited, so that he may start the clean page with no old debts inscribed. Any Catholicwill tell us how clean and fresh and free he feels after the purging operation. Martin Luther by no means belonged to the healthy-minded type in the radical sense in which we have discussed it, and be repudiated priestly absolution for sin. Yet in this matter of repentance he had some very healthy-minded ideas, due in the main to the largeness of his conception of God. -..."

e. Recent Empirical Studies Prove Religious Believers have less depression, mental illness lower Divorce rate, ect.

J. Gartner, D.B. Allen, The Faith Factor: An Annotated Bibliography of Systematic Reviews And Clinical Research on Spiritual Subjects Vol. II, David B. Larson M.D., Natiional Institute for Health Research Dec. 1993, p. 3090

Quote:

"The Reviews identified 10 areas of clinical staus in whihc research has demonstrated benefits of religious commitment: (1) Depression, (2) Suicide, (3) Delinquency, (4) Mortality, (5) Alchohol use (6) Drug use, (7) Well-being, (8) Divorce and martital satisfaction, (9) Physical Health Status, and (10) Mental health outcome studies....The authors underscored the need for additional longitudinal studies featuring health outcomes. Although there were few, such studies tended to show mental health benefit. Similarly, in the case of teh few longevity or mortality outcome studies, the benefit was in favor of those who attended chruch...at least 70% of the time, increased religious commitment was associated with improved coping and protection from problems."

[The authors conducted a literature search of over 2000 publications to glean the current state of empirical study data in areas of Spirituality and health]


This part is very important becasue it speaks diretly to what you said about atheists being well adjusted.


2) Shrinks assume religious experience Normative.
Dr. Jorge W.F. Amaro, Ph.D., Head psychology dept. Sao Paulo

[ http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/amaro.html]

a) Unbeliever is the Sick Soul

"A non spiritualized person is a sick person, even if she doesn't show any symptom described by traditional medicine. The supernatural and the sacredness result from an elaboration on the function of omnipotence by the mind and can be found both in atheist and religious people. It is an existential function in humankind and the uses each one makes of it will be the measure for one's understanding."

I know you are going to get angry about that because people usually do. but this is a scientific fact. It comes from many studies that compare those who have reilgious experiences to those who do not. They find constantly that those who are are better ad musted, less depression and mental illness. It's not just anyone says "I am a Christian" but those who have religious experinces.


b. psychotherapeutic discipline re-evalutes Frued's criticism of religion
Quote:

Amaro--

"Nowadays there are many who do not agree with the notion that religious behavior a priori implies a neurotic state to be decoded and eliminated by analysis (exorcism). That reductionism based on the first works by Freud is currently under review. The psychotherapist should be limited to observing the uses their clients make of the representations of the image of God in their subjective world, that is, the uses of the function of omnipotence. Among the several authors that subscribe to this position are Odilon de Mello Franco (12), .... W. R. Bion (2), one of the most notable contemporary psychoanalysts, ..."

[sources sited by Amaro BION, W. R. Atenção e interpretação (Attention and interpretation). Rio de Janeiro: Imago, 1973.

MELLO FRANCO, O. de. Religious experience and psychoanalysis: from man-as-god to man-with-god. Int. J. of Psychoanalysis (1998) 79,]



c) This relationship is so strong it led to the creation of a whole discipline in psychology; transactionalism
Neilson on Maslow

Quote:

"One outgrowth of Maslow's work is what has become known as Transpersonal Psychology, in which the focus is on the spiritual well-being of individuals, and values are advocated steadfastly. Transpersonal psychologists seek to blend Eastern religion (Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.) or Western (Christian, Jewish or Moslem) mysticism with a form of modern psychology. Frequently, the transpersonal psychologist rejects psychology's adoption of various scientific methods used in the natural sciences."
"The influence of the transpersonal movement remains small, but there is evidence that it is growing. I suspect that most psychologists would agree with Maslow that much of psychology -- including the psychology of religion -- needs an improved theoretical foundation."

3) Religion is positive factor in physical health.

"Doctrors find Power of faith hard to ignore
By Usha Lee McFarling
Knight Ridder News Service
(Dec. 23, 1998)
Http://www.tennessean.com/health/stories/98/trends1223.htm

Quote:

"Some suspect that the benefits of faith and churchgoing largely boil down to having social support — a factor that, by itself, has been shown to improve health. But the health effects of religion can't wholly be explained by social support. If, for example, you compare people who aren't religious with people who gather regularly for more secular reasons, the religious group is healthier. In Israel, studies comparing religious with secular kibbutzim showed the religious communes were healthier."Is this all a social effect you could get from going to the bridge club? It doesn't seem that way," said Koenig, who directs Duke's Center for the Study of Religion/Spirituality and Health .Another popular explanation for the link between religion and health is sin avoidance."

"The religious might be healthier because they are less likely to smoke, drink and engage in risky sex and more likely to wear seat belts.But when studies control for those factors, say by comparing religious nonsmokers with nonreligious nonsmokers, the religious factors still stand out. Compare smokers who are religious with those who are not and the churchgoing smokers have blood pressure as low as nonsmokers. "If you're a smoker, make sure you get your butt in church," said Larson, who conducted the smoking study."


see also: he Faith Factor: An Annotated Bibliography of Systematic Reviews And Clinical Research on Spiritual Subjects Vol. II, David B. Larson M.D., Natiional Institute for Health Research Dec. 1993 For data on a many studies which support this conclusion.

4) Religion is the most powerful Factor in well being.

Poloma and Pendelton The Faith Factor: An Annotated Bibliography of Systematic Reviews And Clinical Research on Spiritual Subjects Vol. II, David B. Larson M.D., Natiional Institute for Health Research Dec. 1993, p. 3290.

Quote:

"The authors found that religious satisfaction was the most powerful predicter of existential well being. The degree to which an individual felt close to God was the most important factor in terms of existential well-being. While frequency of prayer contributed to general life satisfaction and personal happiness. As a result of their study the authors concluded that it would be important to look at a combindation of religious items, including prayer, religionship with God, and other measures of religious experince to begin to adequately clearlify the associations of religious committment with general well-being."

(5) Greater happiness


Religion and Happiness

by Michael E. Nielsen, PhD


Many people expect religion to bring them happiness. Does this actually seem to be the case? Are religious people happier than nonreligious people? And if so, why might this be?

Researchers have been intrigued by such questions. Most studies have simply asked people how happy they are, although studies also may use scales that try to measure happiness more subtly than that. In general, researchers who have a large sample of people in their study tend to limit their measurement of happiness to just one or two questions, and researchers who have fewer numbers of people use several items or scales to measure happiness.

What do they find? In a nutshell, they find that people who are involved in religion also report greater levels of happiness than do those who are not religious. For example, one study involved over 160,000 people in Europe. Among weekly churchgoers, 85% reported being "very satisfied" with life, but this number reduced to 77% among those who never went to church (Inglehart, 1990). This kind of pattern is typical -- religious involvement is associated with modest increases in happiness



Argyle, M., and Hills, P. (2000). Religious experiences and their relations with happiness and personality. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 10, 157-172.

Inglehart, R. (1990). Culture shift in advanced industrial society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Nielsen, M. E. (1998). An assessment of religious conflicts and their resolutions. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 37, 181-190.

Nielsen again:

In the days before research boards reviewed research proposals before the studies were conducted, Pahnke devised an experiment to induce people to have a religious experience. On a Good Friday, when they were to meditate in a chapel for 2.5 hours, twenty theology students were given either psilocybin or a placebo. The students who were given the psilocybin reported intense religious experiences, as you might imagine. Their levels of happiness also were significantly greater than the control group reported. But what is especially interesting is that these effects remained 6 months after the experiment, as the psilocybin group reported more "persistent and positive changes" in their attitudes to life than did the placebo group.



Pahnke, W. H. (1966). Drugs and mysticism. International Journal of Parapsychology, 8, 295-314.


Now finally let's not forget the context of the original issue. I was showing that belief in God cannot be an "extraordinary claim" because it's normative for human experince. That means it sets the standard. I have proven that it does. This has nothing to do with proving that it's true, it is merely a matter of proving that it is standard for human experince. The vast majority of all humans who have ever lived have believed in some form of God, we are fit to be religious, it's better for our minds and our bodies. We were religious 65,000 years ago, our distant ancestors, our cousins the Neanderthals, were religious. Humanity has been religious longer than it has been human! Obviously then it is normative. IT doesn't matter that there are few exceptions, that's not the point. It doesn't make you a bad person, to not be religious. Nor does it make you abnormal or somehow lacking. But is the standard human experience to be religious. that is simply a fact.

Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Being itself, and the Personal God.

Hans Urs Von Balthasar (1905-1988)

I feel like I talk too much about Tillich and not enough other theologians who agreed that God is being itself. Balthasar is not as well know but is as deeply respected as Tillich in Catholic circles. He believe God is being itself and personal.

Balthasar one of the most interesting and brilliant figures of the twentieth century, yet hardly anyone has heard of him outside the confines of academic theology. Even most theological students in the Proestant world are not very familiar with his works. He was a friend of John Paul II, called “the most cultured man of our time by Henri de Lubac. His achievements are called ‘breathtaking’ my one of the major catholic theologians of the century, Carl Rahner.[1] He wrote over a thousand books and articles. He was born in Lucerne Switzerland, 1905, and Grew up a Catholic, son of a pious mother.[2] He took his doctorate from the Liberal Protestant University of Zurich, having grown up educated by Benedictines and Jesuits. He became a Jesuit priest. He worked as a student Chaplin in the 30s. He became good friends with Protestant theologian Karl Barth, one of the greats of the century.

Balthasar was unable to work as a full fledged Jesuit priest due to the war years and the arrangement the government had between Protestants and Catholics, he was seen as belonging to the area of south Germany. He made a living as a translator and lecturer and editor. He ran publications and started a spiritual community. He spent most of his adult life this way, in association with a woman named Speyr who was never recognized as a mystic by the church. He had miracles and visions but being unrecognized, Balthasar’s community was not accepted and he was unable to gain a post. This situation dominated his life in the 40s,50’s, and 60s. He had to leave the Jesuits. He also lectured in these years on spiritual topics and made a living that way, but his health deteriorated as a result. In the 60s he began to be recognized as a theologian and was given honors and doctorates. In 1988 John Paul II made him a cardinal. That was also the year of his death. His community of st. John was a publishing house and he ran a journal called Communio. These eventually found great success in the 70s and were recognized by the Vatican. The major avenue to his success was his books and his lectures.[3]

Balthasar’s overall theological project centers upon the dualities between human conflict with ourselves and our place in being. Examples of the dualities that fascinate Balthasar include: our own contingency and that of the world around us in contrast to the sense of being itself.[4] Balthasar openly and obvious equates being with God. In his work about Balthasar’s live, David L. Schindler includes a short article by Balthasar himself called “a Resume of my Thought.”[5] He begins this “resume” by talking about the dilemma between human contingency and limitation in contrast to the infinite nature of being. This does not necessitate asserting God up fornt although he’s not concerned with a “proof.” His thesis is that all human philosophy either explicitly or tacitly concerns itself with this topic and by implication tacitly affirms the infinite and the absolute.[6] He comes to the conclusion that the duality is inescapable. The finite is not the infinite. Even the monism of the east is seen through nuanced dualities. Thus he asks the question “why are we not God?” The basis of the question is that we are aspects of being. We are products of being, yet we are contingent being, Why are we contingent and not necessary? The solutions that he ponders seem to end in one way or another with an indignant God creating a finite world out of need or alienation from his own infinity. He finds that only the God of the Bible offers a satisfactory answer, and that answer is in a sense the opposite of what we would think.

The common human tendency is to think God created because he needed something. Balthasar is hinting, I think, that God creates because its his nature as being to foment more being, in other words, its creative and God is Creative. It is not for God’s need that he creates but for what will become our need once we are created. In other words, God created us so that we can enjoy being, not because he needed us because once a part of being we would need and would be fulfilled in the need by love.

No Philosophy could give a satisfactory response to that question [why did infinte create finite?] St Paul would say to philosophers that God created man so that he would seek the Divine, try to obtain the Divine. That is why all pre Christian philosophy is theological at its summit. But, in fact, the true response to philosophy could only be given by Being himself, revealing himself from himself. Will man be capable of understanding this revelation? The affirmative response will be given only by the God of the Bible. On the one hand this God, creator of the world and of man, knows his creature. “I who have created the eye do not see? I who have created the ear do not hear?” And we add who who have created language, could not speak and make myself heard?” This posits a counterpart: to be able to hear and understand the auto-revelation of God man must in himself be a search for God, a question posed to him. Thus there is Biblical theology without a religious philosophy. Human reason must be open to the infinite.[7]

Notice how he capitalizes “B” in being and refers to being as “himself.” He personifies being and clearly speaks of it as the creator.

Balthasar sees the understanding of the revelation of “being himself” (my phrase based upon his) to humanity as rooted in the most fundamental human relationship. He says, “the infant is brought to consciousness of himself only by love, by the smile of his mother. In that encounter the horizon of all unlimited opens unto him.”[8] What he means by that is it is only through being por soir, for itself, in other words, consciousness, that we are able to comprehend the infinite and that only in contrast to the finite. Before we can do that, however, we have to become aware of ourselves so we can know we are finite. I think he’s making an implication that love is a link to being itself, and that through our encounter with love, the mother, we encounter the father, so to speak—by way of encountering love. We can see this in four truths that Balthasar finds rooted in this encounter:

(1) realizing that he Is other to the mother, the only way the child realizes he loves the mother; (2) love is good, therefore, being is good; (3) love is true, therefore, being is true; (4) love evokes joy therefore being is beautiful.[9] Notice the link between being and love. He is one of the rare theologians to point out this curial link.

The one, the true, the good, the Beautiful, these are what we call the transcendental attributes of being, because they surpass all the limits of essence, and are coextensive with Being. If there is an insurmountable distance between God and his creature, but if there is also an analogy between them which cannot be resolved in any form of identity, there must also exist an analogy between the transcendentals—between those of the creature and those in God.[10]

In this quotation he as much as equates being and God, since he speaks of the attributes of being then connects the understanding of these to the link between God and the creature. There is more to be said about Balthasar based upon this observation and it will figure importantly in two more chapters, including the last one, and the over all conclusion.

Balthasar confirms for me so many things I thought but didn't have the courage to say, or that I "sort of thought" but didn't have the intellect to formulate. I think he boldly and unabashedly resoled the problem of paradox between personal God and being itself. He was the first to show me the link bewteen being and love (although Tillich does mention it but I saw it in Balthasar first). He capitalizes "B" in "Being" and speak of Being a "he." The idea that God created not becasue he "needed to" but becasue his nature is creative.

---

[1] Joel Graver, “a Short Biography,” website:Hans Urs Von Balthasar, an Internet Archieve. URL sighted: http://www.lasalle.edu/~garver/bio.htm (visited 12/3/10).

[2] Ibid

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid, “overview of Balthasar’s project: URL: http://www.joelgarver.com/writ/theo/balt/overview.htm

[5] Hans Urs Von Balthasar, “A Resume of my Thought,” in David L. Schindler, Hans Urs Von Balthasar: His Life and Work. San Francisco:Ignatious Press, 1991, on like version p1-2 URL:

http://books.google.com/books?id=LLhBuwGFEugC&pg=PA237&lpg=PA237&dq=Hans+Urs+Von+Balthasar+connection+between+Love+and+Being&source=bl&ots=E6-L_5GF4p&sig=A-MzjMjMmqjBqRmAaUOWGYiOUww&hl=en&ei=xrTSSdLiJdqJnAe4tNTgBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=7&ct=result#v=onepage&q=Hans%20Urs%20Von%20Balthasar%20connection%20between%20Love%20and%20Being&f=true

[6] Ibid, 1

[7] Ibid., 3

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

What is Panentheism? Does it require an impersoanl God?

Panenthism* is the idea that God is both in creation and beyond it (emphasis mine) The Westminster dicitionary of Christian theology defines it thus:

panenthism, the doctrine that all is in God. It is distinguished from pantheism which identifies God with the totality or as the unity of the totality, for it holds that God's inclusion of the world does not exhaust the reality of God.Panentheism understands itself as a form of theism, but it criticizes traditional theism for seeing the world as external to God. [1]

Charles Hartshorne is one of the most famous panentheists. He juxtaposes the monopolar God of much of the theistic tradition with his from of mulit-polar (di-polar) theism (process theology). God is inclusive of the world God is also changing in his consequent or concrete structure, yet unchanging in his absolute or potential structure, thus "God is in process" and is di polar. [2] "Hartshorne argues that this conforms better than traditional theism or pantheism to the Biblical understanding of the living God who loves and knows, the world, acts within it and shares the joys and sorrows of the creatures."[3] Hartshorne takes the mono-polar view of God as based upon the Greek prejudice agaisnt time and change.[4] Cobbs articles only with Harshorne's view of panentheism but Paul Tillich is also Known as a Panentheist. David H. Nikkel provides an indepth comparision between the views of Hartshorne and those of Tillich on panentheism. Tillich is understood as arguing that God is not a thing in creatin or along side other thing in creation but is the basis of all that is. To that extent God is not a being but is being itself. That means that God is manifest in the beings. God is part of creation but also goes beyond it. That doesn't mean creation is divine it doesn't mean we are Gods or any such nonsense. Hydrogen is part of water but it's not indistinguishable form water.[5] 

Some charge that this makes Tillich sound pantheistic. It's the pantheistic aspects that sound pantheistic. They are not the same. Tillich gives three caveats about pantheism that must be remembered.There are three negative side affirmations that pertain to pantheism (in terms of Tillichian theology: “Not Universal essence,” “Not found in totality of beings,” “Not Pantheistic.” There are two kinds of pantheism in general, the first kind I will discuss is daubed by Tillich as “not true pantheism” but I can tell you most message board opponents of Christianity calling themselves “pantheistic” will disagree. That is the version that says God is the essence of all things, the abstracted amalgam of everything that is; God the collection of the world as a whole. Weather true pantheism or not, this is not the concept Tillich has of God and he repudiates it specifically. This is what he means by “not universal essence” or “not found in the totality of beings.” When he says “not pantheistic” he means the other kind, because he’s already nixed the first kind, the “other kind” (what he calls “true pantheism”) is sort of a personification or deification of nature. There’s a power of nature, a collection of laws of nature and that collection is revered in the way a god is revered. Though Tillich describes God as “the power of being” he does not mean the power of nature alone. Tillich rejects both forms of pantheism.

 
 Jergen Motlmann


Smith contrasts Tillich with Moltmann and protrays Molatmann and much more orthodox in terms of Trinity and Chrsitoloogy.

Chris Smith's Carrel
Readings on religion, Politics, and...
Jan 14, 2008
http://chriscarrollsmith.blogspot.com/2008/01/two-very-different-panentheisms-of.html

Moltmann’s panentheism is considerably different than Tillich’s. Although I think Moltmann would technically agree with Tillich’s statement that God is the Ground of Being, he prefers tospeaks of God in more personal, redemptive terms. For Moltmann, God “created” space and time within himself in order to make room for the universe. He withdrew from this space, and it became the Godforsaken place. Thus while the universe remains contingent upon God (meaning that its existence depends upon him), it is not as ontologically identical with him as in Tillich’s thought.[6]

I question smith's understanding of these theologians. He wants to go beyond Panentheism and tack Trintiaian and Christilogical doctrines on to laud Moltmann and chide Tillich.

Where Tillich would likely agree with Aquinas that God only appears to suffer, love, or have any emotion at all, Moltmann declares that God actually feels emotion. He is its creator, but all the same he chooses to subject himself to it. This likely would not be possible for Paul Tillich’s Ground of Being. The difference between the two in this regard is best demonstrated by a comparison of their Christologies: Tillich denies any real incarnation of God in order, presumably, to maintain his transcendence. Moltmann, however, believes that Jesus Christ was actually God.[7]

He's just reducing the issues to Chrsitology and Trinity as a red flag on Orhtodoxy rather than confronting the issues about the intrinsically Christian nature of the concept of panentheism itself. I don't know what Smith's view point is. I don't know that he is evangelical. There are evangelicals who are highly critical of panentheism.


Evangelicals are so deeply afraid of pantheism they keep trying to force penentheism into a mold of pantheist likeness. It's almost as though they are hedges their own saftey, they wont be mistaken for patheists themselves, if they  accuse panentheism of being pantheism and reject it. One such example is that of Roger E. Olson.[8] He points out being panentheist is the kiss of death for teaching at an evangelical seminary. I have a easy remedy for that one. Don't teach at one. This is especially good if you are a panenthist. He also points out the the meaning has changed to the extent that one can't be sure what is meant by it. The same things happens with all view points that become popular. People always enlarge upon terms and change various nuances about them until you can't know what they really mean. This happened with existentialism it happened with Postmodernism, and so on. It's going keep happening. it's just the way it works when one is overly concenred with labeling everything. I am opposed to labeling. I'm not concerned with doctrinal labels people put on ideas, that's becuase I'm a existentialist. Want to know what kind? The kind that doesn't like labels. Also the kind whose witting style is too cute and who labors to make obvious jokes.

Olsen does a good job in mentioning the historical background of the term. Apparently "it was coined by German philosophical theologian Karl Friedrich Krause (1781-1832) who invented the German word Allingottlehre which literally means 'the doctrine that all is in God.'" [9] Olsen comes to the real meat of the matter. In bring Hegel in to understand God and his relationship to the world in a dialectical fashion some assert as Hegel said "without the world God would not be God." That gives it a sort of pantheistic cast. It makes it seem that God is dependent upon the world. Or perhaps God is the world.

A consensus used to exist that panentheism is any view of the God-world relationship that portrays God and the world as essentially interdependent although God’s essence is not contributed by the world. One of the first whole books exploring the concept was Philosophers Speak of God by Charles Hartshorne and William Reese (University of Chicago Press, 1953). They defined panentheism as any view in which “To be himself [God] does not this universe, but only a universe.” (22) They asserted that, at the very least, panentheism denies creation ex nihilo (23).[10]

Olsen states that he can accept a view that asserts the world is in God in the sense that Paul said it in Acts, (in him we live and move and have our being) but the real issue is creation ex nihilo.[11] The I have a problem there. I agree with Olsen on that concern. I think Moltmann is right that the world as creation is distinct form God, I doubt that Tillich would have disagreed.

The problem is exnihilo means that God didn't use a pre existing material to create the world. But does it mean that he just zapped it out of true absolute nothing? I'm willing to believe that he could have, but it makes more sense to thin that he somehow created a sort of inanimate material out of his own thoughts. The doctrine doesn't really specify. If my view of the world as a thought in the mind of God is true that problem would be side stepped or resolved in the latter idea, since it would require that the world is a thought in the mind, thus God's actually thoughts provide the ground for matter. Does that satisfy the orthodox? If we dont' worship inanimate matter as part of God what difference does it make? Yet I do agree with the concern of honoring and staying in as par as possible the bounds of orthodoxy. Color in the lines.

That leaves the final issue as the one about the personal nature of God. Panentheism is often castigated as the belief that God is impersonal. Tillich does deny the notion of a personal God yet in so doing he is not choosing an inanimate God. He's just being aware of the term personal and how it reflects human personality and ego involvement. My views on this have been set down in this very blog numerous times. See "Paul Tillich and the Personal God." [12] (part 2).Tillich himself seems to refute this idea in Systematic Theology no. One where he says HE CARRIES WITHIN HIMSELF THE ONTOLOGICAL POWER OF PERSONALITY.he is not a person BUT HE IS NOT LESS THAN PERSONAL." [13] I've always thought of process theology has an impersonal view of God but the things Cobb (who is a major process theologian) says about Hartshorne's view in the article mentioned above, that doesn't sound too impersonal. Certainly Moltmann seems to be cast in the role of a panentheist yet one with a personal sort of view of God.[14]





*I put in the red "en" and balded and italicized it to distinguish it from pantheism at a glace becuase it is hard to see that "en" in there. It makes it easier to know at a glance which is being discussed. No one else does that it's my own idiosyncrasy.

Sources:


[1] John Cobb, "Panentheism," Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, Philadelphia: The Westminster Press. Alan Richardson, John Bowden, ed., 1983, 423.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] David H. Nikkel, "Panenthism in Hartshorne and Tillich" Pdf Dissertation published by Lang Publishing 1995. pdf http://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncp/f/Panentheism%20in%20Hartshorne%20and%20Tillich.pdf  (accessed 3/9/14).
[6]Chris Smith's Carrel,  Readings on religion, Politics, and...Jan 14, 2008
 http://chriscarrollsmith.blogspot.com/2008/01/two-very-different-panentheisms-of.html
[7] Ibid.
[8] Roger E. Olson. "What's Wrong with Panenthism," My Evangelical Arminmitian Mustings, August 7, 2012. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2012/08/whats-wrong-with-panentheism/
[9]Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11]
[12] Metacrock, "Paul Tillich and the Personal God: was Tillich's ground of being an Impersonal Force part 1," Metacrock's Blog,  March 14, 2011.
http://metacrock.blogspot.com/2011/03/paul-tillich-and-personal-god-was.html
see also part 2
http://metacrock.blogspot.com/2011/03/paul-tillich-and-personal-god-part-2.html
[13] Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology Vol 1, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951. 245
[14] Smith, op cit.