Abstract
As the creator, God is the source of the abundance for immense variety manifest in creation. The reservoir for this abundance is the primordial chaos, identified as the Pandemonium Tremendum. God manages this inexhaustible “storehouse of the snow” through decisions or “willings,” giving rise to constraints that result in the ordered array of creation. Without this active and decisive vigilance, the Pandemonium Tremendum would scour and ravage the creation. Also, as an omniscient, unobtrusive, and impartial witness, God manages the primordial chaos without compromising its unfettered variety. What is the role of chaos as the Ungrund? All creatures are the consequence of acts of decision. God alone is self‐decisive and, hence, the uniquely sovereign creator. That is, God arises spontaneously through an aboriginal act of in–speaking. Otherwise, and in utter contradiction to its radically unprincipled character, the primordial chaos would provide the arche or sufficient reason for divine causation. This mythic and metaphysical account falls in the tradition of Meister Eckhart and Nicolas Berdyaev and is expressed in the rubric of communication theory.
Keywords
primordial chaos, Pandemonium Tremendum, Meister Eckhart, Ungrund, tsimtsum, variety, cosmological question, divine sovereignty, Nicolas Berdyaev, communication theory
How to Cite
Huchingson, J., (2002) “Chaos, Communications Theory, and God's Abundance”, Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 37(2), 395–414. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/0591-2385.00435
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© 2024 The Author(s).47
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