Question. SMM states: “life began because love started budding in God’s heart” (2.1. God created human beings as His object partners in love, 57-21, 1972.5.21). The language is temporal — started budding, began. But God is eternal. Does this introduce a temporal sequence within the eternal God that classical theism would reject, or is the temporal language adapted for human comprehension of an eternal act?
Why it matters. If literal, this is closer to Process Theism than to classical theism — God moves through experiential stages. Combined with csg-god-himself-had-to-develop (Phase 2 promotion candidate from Ch 1 deferred), the picture is of a God whose inner life has temporal structure. If figurative, the language is straightforward accommodation: a logical priority (love precedes life ontologically) rendered in temporal terms for pedagogical reasons.
The stakes affect how CSG relates to (a) classical divine atemporality, (b) process theology’s view of God as in time, and (c) UC’s own claim that God is “all-knowing and almighty.”
Current best guesses. Likely accommodation-language — UC theology elsewhere affirms God’s eternity. But the pattern of temporal language about God’s inner life (developing, grieving, searching) is consistent and load-bearing across CSG, which makes the figurative reading harder to sustain than it first appears. Resolution may require treating God’s inner life as eternally-temporal in a way classical theism resists.
Triggered by. csg-love-not-life-is-basis-of-creation (Ch 2 atomic, 38-152 and 57-21).