vol 3: Development
Introduction
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... to restore theology to the mainstream of science
Introduction
In this section of the site we attempt to develop systematic exposition of the ideas driving this work.
We begin with the method of exposing and testing theological ideas, From this point of view, the principal fault with the Roman Catholic Church is its claim to infallibility:
We teach and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed: that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when in discharge of the office of Pastor and Doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the Universal Church, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed of the infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed for defining doctrine regarding faith or morals: and that therefore such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church.
But if any one - which may God avert - presume to contradict this our definition: let him be anathema. Manning at 240.
This definition is circular. If the Church is infallible, then it has infallibly defined itself to be infallible; if not, the cited definition contradicts reality. The Church poses as the puppet of an invisible deity, thus attempting to divest itself of responsibility for its actions.
Science is formally open to revision, although some ideas may die pretty hard. It is a public enterprise, responsible to those who fund it and those who rely on the information it publishes.
When one is operating scientifically one observes a situation, uses experience and imagination to explain the observations and then looks again with this explanations in mind to see if it really fits the new more enlightened observations. This cycle is believed to continue forever. We cannot imagine an end to science, when everything is known, because the detail in the universe and new details are being created all the time.
The product of scientific imagination is a model, a story (told perhaps with some mathematical symbols) to explain the phenomena. The ancients explained what happens as the work of invisible gods, and that idea remains with us. Homer, Genesis. We cannot see the wave functions of quantum mechanics, they are simply a model that fits the phenomena so well that many cannot imagine it ever being replaced.
The story begins here by trying to imagine the limits so imagination. The result is an informal mathematical model, a transfinite network which serves to explain all the events of the world as communications between semi-autonomous agents. This paradigm serves for atoms, nations, galaxies, in fact anywhere where there is interaction between independent agents.
With the transfinite network in mind, we turn to an examination of physics and biology. This is a process of both expanding and testing the model. After this bout of application, we turn back to formalism and express the model in cybernetic terms, which in turn allow us to apply the model to knowledge and control. The final step on this road is theology, the application of the model to the divine attribute of creation which physicists see as the big bang and biologists as evolution. Here we postulate a formal explanation for the creativity of the universe.
This completes the looking and thinking phase of the cycle. Now we turn to action, dealing first with love, which makes the world go round and then working our way through culture, religion, politics, economics and design to work whose purpose, we propose, is to achieve a little bit of heaven.
All this is, of course, a stab in the dark, but my hope is that I have found a starting point for a scientific and, since the world is one, universal theology. Whether I have found something real and valuable is for you to judge.
Further reading
Books
| Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologica (translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province), Tabor Publishing 1981 'Brother Thomas raised new problems in his teaching, invented a new method, used new systems of proof. To hear him teach a new doctrine, with new arguments, one could not doubt that God, by the irradiation of this new light and by the novelty of this inspiration, gave him the power to teach, by the spoken and written word, new opinions and new knowledge.' (William of Tocco, T's first biographer) Amazon back |
| Ashby, W Ross, An Introduction to Cybernetics, Methuen 1964 'This book is intended to provide [an introduction to cybernetics]. It starts from common-place and well understood concepts, and proceeds step by step to show how these concepts can be made exact, and how they can be developed until they lead into such subjects as feedback, stability, regulation, ultrastability, information, coding, noise and other cybernetic topics' Amazon back |
| Darwin, Charles, and Greg Suriano (editor), The Origin of Species, Gramercy 1998 Introduction: 'In considering the Origin of Species, it is quite conceivable that a naturalist, reflecting on the mutual affinities of organic beings, on their embryological relations, their geographical distribution, geological succession, and other such facts, might come to the conclusion that each species has not been independently created, but has descended, like varieties, from other species.' (66) Amazon back |
| Davis, Martin, Computability and Unsolvability, Dover 1982 Preface: 'This book is an introduction to the theory of computability and non-computability ususally referred to as the theory of recursive functions. The subject is concerned with the existence of purely mechanical procedures for solving problems. ... The existence of absolutely unsolvable problems and the Goedel incompleteness theorem are among the results in the theory of computability that have philosophical significance.' Amazon back |
| Denzinger, Henricus, and Adolphus Schoenmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum, Definitionum et Declarationum de Rebus Fidei et Morum, Herder 1963 Introduction: 'Dubium non est quin praeter s. Scripturam cuique theologo summe desiderandus sit etiam liber manualis quo contineantur edicta Magisterii ecclesiastici eaque saltem maioris momenti, et quo ope variorim indicum quaerenti aperiantur eorum materiae.' (3) 'There is no doubt that in addition to holy Scripture, every theologian also needs a handbook which contains at least the more important edicts of the Magisterium of the Church, indexed in a way which makes them easy to find.'back |
| Ford, David, and (editor), The Modern Theologians : An Introduction to Christian Theology in the Twentieth Century, Blackwell 1997 Preface: 'The main aim of this volume is to introduce the theology of most leading twentieth-century Christian theologians and movements in theology. ... The contributors are mostly based in Europe of North America and come from a wide range of institutions, denominational backgrounds, and countries. Most are themselves constructively engaged in modern theology, and their purpose has been to produce a scholarly account of their subject and also carry further the theological dialogue in each case." http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0631195920/tnrp">Amazon back |
| Genesis, and Alexander Jones (editor), in The Jerusalem Bible, Darton Longman and Todd 1966 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep, and God's spirit hovered over the water.' (I, 1-2) Amazon back |
| Hallett, Michael, Cantorian set theory and limitation of size, Oxford UP 1984 Jacket: 'This book will be of use to a wide audience, from beginning students of set theory (who can gain from it a sense of how the subject reached its present form), to mathematical set theorists (who will find an expert guide to the early literature), and for anyone concerned with the philosophy of mathematics (who will be interested by the extensive and perceptive discussion of the set concept).' Daniel Isaacson. Amazon back |
| Hofstadter, Douglas R, Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, Basic Books, HarperCollins Publishers Inc 1997 Amazon: 'In the fall of 1537, a child was confined to bed for some time. The French poet Clément Marot wrote her a get-well poem, 28 lines long, each line a scant three syllables. In the mid-1980s, the outrageously gifted Douglas R. Hofstadter- il miglior fabbro of Godel, Escher, Bach - first attempted to translate this "sweet, old, small elegant French poem into English." He was later to challenge friends, relations, and colleagues to do the same. The results were exceptional, and are now contained in Le Ton Beau De Marot, a sunny exploration of scholarly and linguistic play and love's infinity. Less sunny, however, is the tragedy that hangs over Hofstadter's book, the sudden death of his wife, Carol, from a brain tumor. (Her translation is among the book's finest.) Amazon back |
| Homer, and Bernard King (introduction) Robert Fagles (trnslator), The Iliad, Penguin Classic 1998 Amazon From Library Journal 'Why another Iliad? Just as Homer's work existed most fully in its performance, so the Homeric texts call periodically for new translations. With this in mind, Fagles offers a new verse rendering of the Iliad. Maneuvering between the literal and the literary, he tries with varying degrees of success to suggest the vigor and manner of the original while producing readable poetry in English. Thus, he avoids the anachronizing of Robert Fitzgerald's translation, while being more literal than Richard Lattimore's. Fagles's efforts are accompanied by a long and penetrating introduction by Bernard Knox, coupled with detailed glossary and textual notes.' - T.L. Cooksey, Armstrong State Coll., Savannah, Ga. Amazon back |
| Jones, Alexander (ed), The Jerusalem Bible, Darton Longman and Todd 1966 Editor's Foreword: '... The Bible ... is of its nature a written charter guaranteed (as Christians believe) by the Spirit of God, crystallised in antiquity, never to be changed ... . This present volume is the English equivalent of [La Bible de Jerusalem] ... an entirely faithful version of the ancient texts which, in doubntful points, preserves the text established and (for the most part) the interpretation adopted by the French scholars in the light of the most recent researches in the fields of history, archaeology and literary criticism.' (v-vi) Amazon back |
| Jones, Steve, Almost like a Whale: The Origin of Species Updated, Doubleday 1999 An Historical Sketch: 'The Origin of Species is, without doubt, the book of the millennium. ... [This book] is, as far as is possible, an attempt to rewrite the Origin of Species. I use its plan, developing as it does from farms to fossils, from beehives to islands, as a framework, but my own Grand Facts ... are set firmly in the late twentieth century. Almost Like a Whale tries to read Charles Darwin's mind with the benefit of scientific hindsight and to show how the theory of evolution unites biology as his millenium draws to an end.' (xix) Amazon back |
| Lonergan, Bernard J F, and Robert M. Doran, Frederick E. Crowe (eds), Verbum : Word and Idea in Aquinas (Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan volume 2) , University of Toronto Press 1997 Jacket: 'Verbum is a product of Lonergan's eleven years of study of the thought of Thomas Aquinas. The work is considered by many to be a breakthrough in the history of Lonergan's theology ... . Here he interprets aspects in the writing of Aquinas relevant to trinitarian theory and, as in most of Lonergan's work, one of the principal aims is to assist the reader in the search to understand the workings of the human mind.' Amazon back |
| Lonergan, Bernard J F, Insight : A Study of Human Understanding (Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan : Volume 3), University of Toronto Press 1992 '... Bernard Lonergan's masterwork. Its aim is nothing less than insight into insight itself, an understanding of understanding' Amazon back |
| Manning, Henry Edward, The Vatican Council and its Definitions: A Pastoral Letter to the Clergy, Excelsior Catholic Publishing House 1905 back |
| Miles, Jack, God : A Biography, Vintage Books 1996 Jacket: 'Jack Miles's remarkable work examines the hero of the Old Testament ... from his first appearance as Creator to his last as Ancient of Days. ... We see God torn by conflicting urges. To his own sorrow, he is by turns destructive and creative, vain and modest, subtle and naive, ruthless and tender, lawful and lawless, powerful yet powerless, omniscient and blind.' Amazon back |
| Popper, Karl Raimund, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, 1992 Jacket: 'A striking picture of the logical character of scientific discovery is presented here ... Science is presented as ... the attempt to find a coherent theory of the world composed of bold conjectures and disciplines by penetrating criticism.' Amazon back |
| Reynolds, Vernon, and Ralph Tanner, The Social Ecology of Religion, Oxford University Press 1995 Jacket: 'No society exists in which religion does not play a significant part in the lives of ordinary people. Yet the functions of the world's diverse religions have never been fully described and analyzed, nor has the impact of adherence to those religions on the health and survival of the populations that practice them. ... this extraordinary text reveals how religions in all parts of the world meet the needs of ordinary people and frequently play an important part in helping them to manage their affairs.' Amazon back |
| Wiener, Norbert, Cybernetics or control and communication in the animal and the machine, MIT Press 1996 The classic founding text of cybernetics. Amazon back |
Links
| Aquinas 1 Summa Theologica An online version of the English translation of the Summa made by the Dominican Fathers of the English Province. See 'Books' above. back |
| BSPS British Society for the Philosophy of Science 'The purpose of the SOCIETY is to study the logic, the methods, and the philosophy of science, as well as those of the various special sciences, including the social sciences.' back |
| Emre Telatar A mathematical theory of communication: Claude E Shannon 'Claude Shannon's ``A mathematical theory of communication'' was first published in two parts in the July and October 1948 editions of the Bell System Technical Journal. ... Here you can find a PostScript (460 Kbytes), gzipped PostScript (146 Kbytes) and pdf (358 Kbytes) version of Shannon's paper. PDF files can be viewed by Adobe's acrobat reader. Tarred and gzipped contents of the directory (63 Kbytes) that contain the LaTeX code for the paper is also available.' back |
| Landauer Irreversibility and Heat Generation in the Computing Process Rolf Landauer: Abstract: 'It is argued that computing machines inevitably involve devices which perform logical functions that do not have a single-valued inverse. The logical irreversibility is associated with physical irreversibility, and requires a minimum heat generation, per machine cycle, typically of the order of kT for each irreversible function. The dissipation serves the purpose of standardizing signals and making them independent of their exact logical history. Two simple, but representative, models of bistable devices are subjected to a more detailed analysis of switching kinetics to yield the relationship between speed and energy dissipation, and to estimate the effects of errors induced by thermal fluctuations. back |
| Martin Irvine and Deborah Everhart Labyrinth Latin Library 'Sponsored by Georgetown University The Labyrinth provides free, organized access to electronic resources in medieval studies through a World Wide Web server at Georgetown University. The Labyrinth's easy-to-use menus and links provide connections to databases, services, texts, and images on other servers around the world' back |
| The Holy See The Holy See The Vatican official site back |
| University of Cambridge Theology and Religious Studies, Faculty of Divinity, back |
| Washington University Dictionary of Philosophy of Mind 'This dictionary is intended as a free resource for all those interested in the philosophy of mind.' back |
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Revealing Vatican attempts to propagate its religion by international treaty
