A Response To Kevin

My blog isn't letting me post comments on my iPad right now. So this is a response to a comment in my lad apologetics post:

The issue of God suffering through others is one of semantics. A better formula would be a God of radical vulnerability. So the universe is born of radical, vulnerable love. But no vulnerability without the possibility of suffering. In point of fact, I think the universe and God are co-eternal. They form a psychosomatic unity. But the are also co-creative. It is as true to say the universe creates God as it is to say that God creates the universe. 

You can learn more here: http://theology.co.kr/whitehead/religion/

God cannot but create a world where suffering is at least possible. That is just what creation is for God: a giving over. So if one is forced between creating nothing, or creating with risk, if those are the only options one has, it seems to me one is morally required to create. I think being is inherently more valuable than non-being, life than non-life, consciousness than non-consciousness. If creation entails risk, then better creation than no risk. No one can argue one into the inherent value of existence that is for sure. But it seems to me you have a hard time imagining a God that is not all-powerful. Try this model: a mother in a real sense creates life. What's more, a mother creates within herself, and may deeply love her newborn baby. But a mother's ability to influence the baby inside her is limited. To be sure, all the baby has and is, all safety, all sustenance is due to the mother's care. But the possibility of miscarriage cannot be avoided completely. This is how I think of God. God creates within God's self. God's presence and love sustains and brings growth. But God's power is limited. A world without suffering cannot be guaranteed any more than the mother can ensure the safety of the child within. But just as the mother can in no way be blamed for the miscarriage, God cannot be blamed for the suffering in the world

 As for the beauty in the world, you admit tacitly that emptiness is not really empty, we just can't see it's fullness. In a real sense, the universe is mostly made up of math. All one needs to know is that beauty pervades the universe. All of that beauty is in-principle experience-able. If beauty pervades, and our experience of beauty itself can be trusted, me arguments stands.