Comments on George Murphy's Article (2018) "The Nuts and Bolts of Creation"

By Razie Mah

For 40 years, George Murphy has been examining the sciences from the viewpoint of the Trinity. In this article, he first considers how Christians came to appreciate the Trinitarian nature of God, especially when it comes to creation. God cooperates with creatures, respecting the capacities and limitations that He Himself endowed them. Thus, there is something akin to a "causal joint" between the actions of God and His creatures.
Mimicking the scientific principle of uniformitarianism, Murphy projects this portrait of a causal joint back into the beginning. He can see it in the formation of our solar system and our planet. He can see it going back all the way to a fraction of a moment after the Big Bang. The causal joint associates to God's self-emptying or "kenosis".
These comments rely on a category-based model for the presence underlying the word "religion" (appearing in How to Define the Word "Religion"). Religion is characterized by two types of objects in the society tier. One type of object is organizational. Organizational objects define an institution and inform an organization. The other type is relational. The relational object brings all into relation. It serves as the actuality in the normal context of "assume". It is powered by the potential of consilience.
This relational object belongs to actuality. Therefore, it is dyadic, consisting in two contiguous elements. For Christians, the two elements are triadic relations. One relation is theological. The other is cosmological or anthropological. The contiguity between these two relations consists in the dual natures of Christ.
Seventy years ago, Eric Voegelin described the Christian relational object as the most differentiated in human history. He concluded that all other relational objects must be compared to this.
Murphy's investigations are interesting and stand alone. But, in as much as they discuss the Trinity and science, they are open to models based on the philosophy of Charles Peirce. Peirce re-discovered triadic relations. What a productive revelation it has turned out to be.
Attend to a Trinitarian understanding of God. The rest will follow.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Razie Mah
• Release date: Apr 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9781942824473

Razie Mah

See website for bio.

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Comments on George Murphy's Article (2018) The Nuts and Bolts of Creation

By Razie Mah

Published for Smashwords.com

2018

Notes on Text

This work ponders an article by George Murphy, a Lutheran pastor with a doctorate in physics. For 40 years, he has worked on a Trinitarian approach for appreciating the world of science. His many publications cautiously interweave threads from theology and physics. The article under consideration examines the nuts and bolts of creation.

I introduce a category-based model developed in How to Define the Word Religion. This model offers a Christian version of the society tier. On the suprasovereign level, the object that brings all into relation consists of two contiguous category-based nested forms. One is theological. The other is anthropological.

Some of the methodology behind this model is discussed prior to the comments on Murphy's article.

Single quotes and italics are used to group words together.

Prerequisites include A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form, A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction, the chapter on presence and the first interlude in How to Define the Word Religion, plus The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace.

Table of Contents

A Note on Method

Introduction

Why Say That God Acts?

The Work of the Word and Spirit

Divine and Creative Energies

How Does God Act?

How Does God Not Act?

Moving to an Open Creation

A Note on Method

0001 George Murphy has been building a Trinitarian approach to creation for two score years. The article under consideration addresses the nuts and bolts of God's action in the natural world.

0002 The realization that God is One Trinity of Three Persons comes from Christian revelation. The three persons are called various names. The most familiar is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each corresponds to an age in the unfolding self-revelation