[Holding post now updated(*)]
Philip Goff (oft referenced here for his attempt at panpsychism) has been quiet for a while. I thought he had actually been ill / injured a couple of months ago, but for whatever the reason, his deep thinking opportunity has led him to Christianity – a heretical form he says.
An interview with Capturing Christianity here:
And an Aeon paper here:
I Now Think a Heretical Form of Christianity Might be True
I’ve only skimmed both so far(*), but already seeing X/Twitter traffic.
He says it’s actually mainly what his last book “Why? The Purpose of the Universe” (2023) was really about, and I’ve not read that yet either. Anyway after that skim, I Tweeted:
I think a Spinozan pantheism, or panentheism as McGilchrist would say, is tenable. Odd you don’t mention Spinoza?
(Anyway, whatever we mean by god, it doesn’t “exist” or have causal powers in this world. Not a being but a source of being itself, a metaphysical position. Pretty much mainstream Christianity as a theologian @Elizaphanian told me when I discussed McGilchrist’s take on god.)
Unsurprisingly the X/Twitter dialogue has become about what we call it and whether it’s Christianity. But whatever it is it’s (a) real, and (b) basically a kind of metaphysical monotheism – I call it sacred naturalism– and only Christian in particular if we bring the ideas of Jesus, the resurrection and the trinity into it?
If this has legs I may have to come back to it?
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[Post Note: And for comparison
here he’s arguing the opposite, only a year ago.]
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(*) Having now read the whole article – but still finding it impossible to subject myself to the “CC” interview – I see he does mention panentheism, and does, as expected, focus on the Jesus mythology of Christianity specifically. Still feels a bit like metaphysical theology 101, but good that he has got there. Also talks about meditation in terms of engaging with nature. More pragmatic than heretic? Welcome to the sacred naturalism club.
Still feel I’m left with one difference. He talks about a god having limited power in this world, rather than none (other than the power of the mythological narratives of the monotheistic religions – choose your favourite prophet?) So for me, rather than the problems of good and evil and the miracle of intelligent life – in a cosmos where life is possible, the evolution of intelligent consciousness and purpose is indeed inevitable – my metaphysics is limited to the first-cause / something-rather-than-nothing-question. The miracle in this universe is simply the most basic version of the anthropic perspective – it’s the one we’re in, and we can never have any knowledge of any other anyway.
I realise now why I wasn’t drawn to his latest book “Why?”. I was already cool with the purposeful inevitabilities. Obviously if you’re not it might be a book worth reading?
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That God is the source of being is a powerful theological tradition. That God became man is a powerful mythological expression of the same idea.
Goff’s heresy is to suggest that God is not omnipotent, and needs time to accomplish his works. This theology interprets the event of God becoming man as part of a historical process upon which God must wait. The alternative, and in my experience the more common interpretation of God becoming man, is that the eternal enters into the temporal. That this happens at a moment in history is its necessary expression in mortal terms, and part of the appealing genius of Christian theology.
The Christian doctrine is not to be underestimated; metaphysically, it’s easily as sophisticated as Buddhism or any other major tradition, and its gravitational attraction has won many converts over millennia.
Sure.
Not sure it adds any heresy to drop the omnipotence in this world (except for the power of mythology, on humans in this world)?
(BTW have you had chance to read and listen to the whole of Goff’s story yet? I still haven’t)
I read the Aeon paper, but I haven’t watched the video.