tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post4407399336215833907..comments2024-03-28T14:16:42.371+00:00Comments on Bruce Charlton's Notions: The gulf between creator and created - qualitative or quantitative? Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-31057726322060541462014-08-14T07:12:59.758+01:002014-08-14T07:12:59.758+01:00@tgj - On the other hand, you could engage with th...@tgj - On the other hand, you could engage with the actual argument - instead of name-calling...Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-67467627156726965142014-08-14T01:56:52.695+01:002014-08-14T01:56:52.695+01:00This is emanationism, which is a popular idea in G...This is emanationism, which is a popular idea in Gnostic systems, the Kabballah, and the occult in general. It's never been a Christian belief, as far as I know. If it's a Mormon belief (I don't know enough about Mormonism to say whether it is or not), then it's another example of how Mormonism departs from Christian theology.<br /><br />In Orthodoxy, the distinction between the created and the uncreated is key. The uncreated is God. Everything else is created. You cannot find two kinds that are more different than the created and the uncreated. The means by which the two are joined together is deeply mysterious, but they are never confused with each other, and neither one obliterates the other. Deification occurs within those boundaries.<br /><br />After the schism, the West decided that the uncreated is entirely unknowable and that we cannot participate in it in any way. The Orthodox Church maintains, especially in St. Gregory Palamas, that the energies of God are uncreated, and thus God, and we can come to know them and participate in them and even distinguish them from created things through the life of the Church (including Orthodox baptism, the Orthodox Eucharist, etc), and that this is how we become gods like God without ever knowing or participating in God's essence.<br /><br />There is no way to deification in Western systems. On the theory side, there is only Christianities or Christianisms (i.e. more or less "correct" dogmatic teaching without the life of the Church) and occultisms, all of which worship created things in one way or another. In practice, worshiping the creation does not lead to deification. It is idolatry. It can lead to participating in the energies very exalted created beings, such as Lucifer....tgjnoreply@blogger.com