Talk:Theism/Archive 1

message: Returned the premble containing the reference to ancient Greek which had been edited out with little explanation. 
I've added an explanation with the well known example of Socrates alleged atheism.
-Meic Crahart
I’ve broken up the initial statement separating the primary and secondary meanings in order to bring out the two distinct meanings of the word. Leaving them together only adds to the confusion. The primary meaning and it’s history logically belong together, the secondary, derived and possibly loaded term should come after.
I’ve broken up the section including Henotheism & Kathenotheism as these refer only to practices concerning the worship of polytheistic deities and placed them later on in the section. I’ve also included further academic distinctions within polytheism & monotheism respectively.
I've also changed the preamble to. Theism (from Greek Θεϊσμός, theismos is used in two meanings: As the previous one presumed to make theism derive from theos, which it does not and also linked theos = God to an exlusivley monotheistic definiton of the word which the etymology wont allow.
-Meic Crahart
To whomever did the original definition, I changed some of the terminology to some more standard theological terms and added the more general initial definition. Since there was also no talk section, I added this one.
-Craig Pennington
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By definition, wouldn't monotheism, pantheism, and panentheism all be considered different sorts of theism? How can a monotheistic religion be only "typically" theistic? If a few adherents claim to be atheistic, then it would seem that those adherents are therefore neither monotheistic nor theistic as a consequence. --Wesley
Panentheism definitely is a form of theism!  In fact, it is a specific type of monotheism. Pantheism (note the subtle spelling difference) is debateable. Some forms of pantheism are indistinguishable from atheism, while others are in effect a form of monotheism.  If we get technical, even polytheism can be thought of as a form of theism; however, in everyday English useage the word "theism" refers to a belief in only one God, while polytheism is thought of as very distinct from this! RK
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More specifically, in everday English usage, "theism" refers to a belief not merely one god, but a creator God who is active in the Universe. I think the article should focus on this usage of theism, but should note the more general technical usage as well. -Craig
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More thoughts. Regarding God and the world: God is the world (Pantheism), the world is completely seperated from God (Deism is one example, but I suspect that it's possible to view God as completely transcendent yet influencing the world), God is partly the world, and the world is wholly contained in God (Panentheism) and the world is partly God and God is partly the world (???). Regarding the nature of God: personal God vs. nature/&c type non-personal God (see Spinoza or Einstein's theology for good examples of the latter.) -Craig
: Regarding Deism: I wish I knew the name for it, but I think the classical Christian and Jewish view is that God is completely transcendant, yet influences the world at least occasionally. There is a sharp distinction drawn between the creator and the creation.  --Wesley
I don't think so. The traditional Jewish and Christian view has been that it is a sin to claim that God is completely transcendent. In fact, most Christians teach that in some aspects, God is the exact opposite of transcendent; God in one form - Jesus - is completly immanent. Any claim to the contrary has traditionally been the biggest theological sin that a Christian could commit. If Jesus is not literally God made immanent in some way, then most of Christianity throughout history is false. As for the Jewish view, rabbinic literature sometimes describe God as immanent, and other times as transcendent.  This would seem to be a paradox: If God is fully transcendent, than God cannot be known in any way; if God is fully immanent, then God has no transcendence, and is not greater than His own creation. However, classical Jewish texts do not actually say that God is fully one or the other; rather, they imply that God has a di-polar nature.  God has both transcendent and immanent characteristics, and one or the other is more apparent depending on the situation involved, or the question asked.  RK
: just to add to RK's comment; the Jewish theologian Louis Jacobs defined "theism" as the belief that God is both transcendent (as deism claims) and immanent (as pnatheism claims), and that one of the fundamental tasks of theology is the confront this "di-polar" nature.  An earlier commentor defined theism in terms of God's continuing involvement in the world.  I think another crucial issue in theology is the relationship between God and people, when the theology views people as God's agents in the world (in other words, the possibility that God may not act directly on the world, but is involved in the world through His relationship with people, who act in and on the world) -- this is signaled in the Jewish notion of Tikkun, but I am sure RK can expand on this more, SR
:: Yes, there is a paradoxical aspect to the claim of full transcendance and full immanence. Perhaps that's just an Eastern Orthodox teaching; there are some things like that that they claim to embrace more than Western Christians do. Gregory Palamas taught that God's divine essence is completely transcendant and unknowable, although God is knowable in his energies, or in the ways that he interacts with our world. RK is correct when he says that according to historical Christianity, Jesus is God made extremely immanent; hence the name "Immanuel" given to him, "God with us". One hymn (and I think the Chalcedonian Creed?) also says "without change, you became man", which means that Christ did not lose any of his divine nature when he took on our human nature. He remained omnipresent, for example, even as he became present in a very specific time and place. Paradoxical? Sure. That's about the time when the Orthodox theologian simply exclaims "Oh great mystery!" ;-)  --Wesley
There are evidently two really different definitions for theism: one including deism and pantheism in theism, the other one differentiating between theism, deism and pantheism. I changed the beginning to make this clear. Nothing against a general definition, but the other one is valid as well, and to mix them will confuse things more than clear them up. --80.219.20.69 21:52, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

message: How could one be a strong atheist under this circumstance? Isn't that illogical? I'm ok w it saying that if it's true (is it? I don't know any "strong" atheists to ask) but there will need to be some mention of the curious nature of anyone possessing a degree of certainty in an area where they admit they have little evidence. I would say the same about theism, but there aren’t strong/weak categories for theists (in common usage anyways, I would say these are probably valid concepts, even if there are not terms for them, many theists are IMO "weak" theists). A similar yet lesser question is inspired by a "strong" theist/atheist who "believes proof/disproof is not possible". These positions would all seem to be hinged upon inductive reasoning, and not a particularly sound usage of it either. Sam [Spade] 19:51, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: One can be a strong atheist under those circumstances in the same way that one can be a theist under those circumstances; by faith. There are plenty of people out there who know they can't prove the things they believe, but who still believe them anyway. Bryan 20:35, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: A discussion of and link to faith would seem necessary then. Sam [Spade] 20:50, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: A good idea, and I'm surprised in hindsight that there wasn't already one in the article. This article looks like it's currently just a big list of various sub-types of theism, without any real discussion of theism in general. I'm not really the right person to add such discussion, but I'll throw in a line at the bottom which I hope will cover this particular issue. Bryan 21:00, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Believes proof/disproof may be possible but is not currently known 

message: The following table is an attempt to categorize some of these positions systematically relative to each other:
                                                                  	Believes at least one god exists	Believes no gods exist        	Does not have any beliefs regarding the existence of gods	Believes gods are irrelevant
Believes proof/disproof is possible and is known                  	theist                          	strong atheist                	weak atheist                                             	apatheist
Believes proof/disproof may be possible but is not currently known	weak agnostic theist            	weak agnostic strong atheist  	weak agnostic weak atheist                               	weak agnostic apatheist
Believes proof/disproof is not possible                           	strong agnostic theist          	strong agnostic strong atheist	strong agnostic weak atheist                             	strong agnostic apatheist
Believes proof/disproof is irrelevant                             	Theist apatheist                	Strong atheist apatheist      	Weak atheist apatheist                                   	Apatheist (possible weak atheist)
Some of the positions on this table may seem contradictory, or at least unfounded, but where theism is concerned a great many people rely on faith and thus can believe strongly in things which they do not believe have been or can be rigorously proven.
:I think this table would be better served at atheism, and clarified as a view of some atheists, if that is the case. I am very doubtful that very many people would agree with the way the labels are placed on this chart, even among atheists, but certainly among believers. Sam [Spade] 00:33, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Good luck. It started out in agnosticism originally. :) (that's not meant to be sarcastic, BTW. I can certainly see your point, in that most of the cells of the table are occupied by various types of atheism rather than by shades of theism; it might well be better suited there.) Bryan 01:08, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I didn't see this, so I edited it in the paragraph above. Take a look. Jules LT 23:05, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Table moved to talk 

message: Deity is no longer neutral, Bryan. Have a look at the deity article. Were finially starting to make some progress w the religious articles, and distinctions are being made. Deity has decided to exclude monotheism. If you don't agree, hash it out on talk:deity. Until then, we need to be consistant. Sam [Spade] 01:21, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not trying to be unilateral at all, BTW. I held off on this until the concensus came along. See my talk page, talk:God and Talk:Deity. Sam [Spade] 01:25, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as I can tell, aside from the disambig notice at the top the deity article still encompasses the monotheistic god. I'll bring it up over there. Regardless of the status of "deity" at the moment, however, I still object to the capital G. That's the name of a specific god, and "theism" is about as non-specific as you can get. Bryan 01:47, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Good recent edits Bryan. They don't seem to want the chart at atheism, maybe it can go to one of the spin-offs of atheism, weak atheism or whatever? Maybe all of them, since they havn't much content and are hard to understand? Sam [Spade] 20:35, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deity