Nick_A wrote: ↑Sat Dec 19, 2020 1:39 am
Panentheism oppose it?
Yes. From the very first verse, Genesis 1:1, the Bible makes it clear that Creation is a creation...as such, it is not "the body of God," and is not God, but is a contingent entity, something that once didn't exist when God did, and could not-exist again. But God is the eternal I AM, the self-existent and eternal One. So right from the start, the Bible is a denial of both Pantheism and Panentheism.
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
Panentheism ("all in God”), from the Greek πᾶν pân, "all", ἐν en, "in" and Θεός Theós, "God")...
I know Panentheism.
An additional problem is this: scientifically, we can see that the universe is not eternal. It had a commencement point in a singularity prior to the Big Bang, and is declining measurably by way of entropy. This gives us a "clock" by which to reckon how old the universe can possibly be,
in extremis, and how long it can possibly last before heat death. If we are off by even a hundred million years (which we have no reason to suppose we are), then it would still present the same problem for Panentheism: namely, that the universe is verifiably NOT eternal.
And that, I think, is why Panentheism is not generally believed today.
I am part Russian and Armenian
Ah..."Nicholas," then. Not just "Nick."
The demiurge written of by Plato and Plotinus doesn't appear in the Bible
Right. Instead, God is called "the Creator." So there's no Demiurge.
...which is not to say the Bible opposes it. In Genesis 3 it is written:
21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”
Who is "us?"
There are different answers to that question. Many Christians take it to be an early statement of the Trinity. But it also fits with some more recent scholarship by people like Michael Heiser, who maintain it refers to the divine council. But that's a complicated matter, and doubtful. It's certainly not obviously a reference to a demiurge, especially because, as you point out, the demiuge idea gets no play at all in Scripture, and is contradicted by a number of key theological points in Christianity, such as God being the Creator, and flesh being redeemable, and preeminently, by the Incarnation.
It invites us to use our powers of conscious contemplation.
I think it "invites" us not to start speculating, actually. It invites us to withhold judgment until we know more information, so that speculations don't mislead us and carry us away into whimsy.