11/14/2022 – Chapter 11 Discussion – “Overcoming Deism and the Absentee God”
Summarized excerpts:
“Deism denies God’s immanence, or presence, and pantheism and paganism deny God’s transcendence” pg 62
-“Saint Augustine says that God is nearer to us than we are to ourselves.”
Here is a two paragraph excerpt from Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli’s : “Pocket Handbook of Christian Apologetics”, Chapter 4 – “The Nature of God”, page #33:
“God is transcendent and immanent. God cannot be a part of the universe. If he were, he would be limited by other parts of it. But God is the Creator of all things, giving them their total being. He cannot be one of them, or the totality of them — for each one of them, and so the totality of them, must be given being, must receive being from God. So God must be other than his creation. This is what we mean by the transcendence of God.
At the same time God must be fully present in all things. They cannot be set over against him, for then he would be limited by them. Shakespeare was limited by his contemporaries but not by his creations; by Marlowe but not by Hamlet.”
Soli Deo Gloria!