The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Sword to the Heart: Creation and the Second Person

Theology Philosophical
#1

SWORD TO THE HEART
(presented in its third edition as “JRP’s Bite-Sized Metaphysics” series, here on the EU forum)
Sword to the Heart (Full 3rd Edition).pdf (2.06 MB)

If you’ve received a free version of Sword to the Heart (and/or my novel Cry of Justice), feel free to tip me $10 here at Amazon. You can tip me for multiple books of course. (I’ll get $6.75 of any $9.99 tip, Amazon gets $3.24.) You may have to scroll down a page or two to find the $6.00 listing; last I looked Amazon put it in a weird place (probably because I’ve got two listings for the same ‘book’ for sale as New.)

OVERVIEW OF
SECTION THREE: CREATION AND THE SECOND PERSON

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

comment 1 (this one): TOC and links to other Section Overviews
comment 2: overview of the overviews
subsequent comments: links to, and topical summaries of, each series of entries in this section.

Section One (How Should I Be A Sceptic) can be found here.

Section Two (Reason and the First Person) can be found here.

Section Four (Ethics and the Third Person) can be found here.

Section Five (The Story of Passion and Atonement) can be found here.

Is the Trinity unintelligble nonsense?
Sword to the Heart: The Story of Passion and Atonement
Sword to the Heart: Ethics and the Third Person
Is everything a reflection of God - the first Cause?
#2

In order to provide a handy topical overview and linkset to the ongoing series of progressing metaphysical argument (which in my own past experience establishes the foundation of Christian universalism via orthodox trinitarian theism), I have created this series of “Overview” threads. Each comment will link to a particular series of entries, and will provide a quick topical description of that series.

This thread topically summarizes and links to the series of entries for Section Three, “Creation and the Second Person”. (This is roughly the halfway point of the book, by the way.) Along the way I’ll be deciding between naturalism and supernaturalism (thus between naturalistic theism, or pantheism, and supernaturalistic theism, such as typically held by Jews, Christians and Muslims.) I’ll also be looking more closely at the issue of privative or positive aseity: does the Independent Fact exist uncaused, or does the IF cause itself (or Himself rather)? More broadly, as the section title indicates, I’ll be discussing God’s relationship to the evident field of natural reality we find ourselves in; and so I’ll also be discussing in more detail God’s relationship to ourselves. This will help settle the major question left over from the prior Section: can it make sense for derivative actions to exist?–for actions to be dependent upon Action?

Although this is the shortest of the four argumentative Sections, it’s certainly packed full of topics! And it will logically lead into the question of personal relationships between persons, whether between man and God, or between man and man. Which will be Section Four.

New entries and links will be added below with the establishment of each new series of entries. Summary topical descriptions of each series, however, will be withheld until that particular series is finished.

Each series of entries represents a chapter or (far more likely) part of a chapter from the original SttH text composition. Chapter designations will be provided as I go along.

#3

Chapter 22 – “The Aseity”

Series 301

#4

Chapter 23 – “The Unity”

Series 302: aseity and the Unity of God

(One of these days I hope to get back to providing summaries of the series, too… :wink: )

#5

Series 303: the interpersonal Unity of God

#6

Chapter 24 – “Creation or Creator?”

Series 304

#7

Chapter 25 – “Supernature”

Series 305

#8

Chapter 26 – “God’s Relationship To Nature”

Series 306

#9

Chapter 27 – “My Relationship To God And To Nature”

Series 307: an argument from disparity

#10

Series 308: God and system generation

#11

Chapter 28 – “Principles Of A Commonly Shared Nature”

Series 309

#12

Chapter 29 – “Resolving the Grand Paradox”

Series 310: a foundational summary

#13

Series 311: relational creation

#14

Series 312: the creation of me

#15

Chapter 30 – “The Doctrine of Derivative Spirit”

Series 313: a personal story

#16

Series 314: an evolutionary story

#17

Series 315: a genesis story