GOD EMBODIED IN, GOD BODYING FORTH THE WORLD: EMERGENCE AND CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY

Author: Crain, Steven D.

Source: Zygon, Volume 41, Number 3, September 2006 , pp. 665-674(10)

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Abstract:

I expand on Philip Clayton's application of emergence—in the context of a metaphysical position he calls emergent monism—to conceiving God's relationship to the world. Like Clayton, I adopt a panentheistic perspective, but in a way that I argue is consistent with classical philosophical theism and its grammatical analysis of Christian discourse about divine transcendence. In order to exploit further the analogical potential of an emergentist account of human mentality and agency, I argue that the standard panentheistic metaphor The world is the body of God should be complemented by the metaphor God is the body of the world.

Keywords: divine transcendence; emergence; emergent monism; panentheism

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9744.2005.00767.x

Affiliations: 1: Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Theology, University of Saint Francis, 2701 Spring Street, Fort Wayne, IN 46808;, Email: scrain@sf.edu.

Publication date: 2006-09-01