
vol 8:
A new theology?
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... to restore theology to the mainstream of science
A new theology?
A Catholic Experience
1 I grew up in an Catholic milieu in
a South Australian country town. After Catholic schooling by nuns,
brothers and priests, I spent five years in the Dominican Order
learning to be a priest and monk. I managed solemn profession but
never made it to the priesthood.
2 I was awestruck by the cosmic
visions of Catholic theology but close study eventually convinced me
that they were castles in the air. To one educated in twentieth
century, credibility comes not from ancient authority but from the
intelligent processing of experience we call scientific method.
3 I expressed my doubts and tried to
discuss with my teachers the possibility of a modern scientific
theology. I could make no progress and was asked to leave.
4 I was not prepared from the shock
of losing my vocation. I went to university and found that all my
hard won philosophy and theology was considered ludicrous by my
teachers and certainly not worthy of credit toward a degree.
5 It did not take me very long to
hear that religion is an archaic mode of thought, to be avoided if
one is to be modern. I lost my faith as well as my vocation.
6 My theological and personal
heritage was totally discredited, leaving me with nothing. From birth
I had absorbed the belief that Catholic = top quality. Now it looked
like rubbish. When my sister died of cancer, I drove for twenty four
hours to be at her bedside for a final meeting, but fled the funeral.
I could not bear to hear the empty words of Christian consolation.
7 The years that followed revealed to
me the importance of belief, thought and literature in human life. I
entered a long period of pain and retreat while I worked intensely
and often quite blindly to realise a new model of existence.
8 Being a Roman Catholic had been
hell for me. It was hell because all my instincts were, by groundless
fiat, sins and wages of sin were not just death, but an
eternity of excruciating pain.
9 The magnitude of this pain was
described to me (and my contemporaries) with meticulous care. Every
year the Passionist Fathers came to terrify us into goodness by
describing hell in vivid detail.
11 Also described in loving detail
were the agonies of Jesus' passion and death. God subjected itself to
this much pain to save me from something equally bad. I knew
perfectly what I was risking every time I touched my myself or
somebody else, or even thought about it.
12 The humanity of nuns, brothers and
priests who taught us was twisted by the same iron lie, and they
passed their pain on to us. We were alternately beaten, cuddled,
driven and praised. The pain of sin was made to be a self fulfilling
prophecy.
13 There was very little about
heaven. Some of us might have been inclined to imagine it as a
tropical paradise with lots of beautiful people and pleasant action,
but this interpretation was forbidden. Paradise (beatitudo =
blessedness) came across as a very abstract and mystical experience,
well beyond the ken of small boys. It was to be striven for,
nevertheless, because it was better than anything we could possibly
feel in this life, and the only long term alternative to damnation.
14 My ' vocation' was a direct result
of the efficiency of my schoolteachers. By the end of school, I had
become convinced that I was so bad that I would only get to heaven if
I went right over the top in the service of god ('supererogation').
This was probably not a good motive, but it was enough for me, and
being the eldest son of a large Catholic family, the priesthood
seemed a natural calling.
Reconstruction
15 After many years trying and
failing to be married, to hold down a job and to be a good citizen, I
washed up on the shores of hippiedom with a lot of other rejects and
began to reconstruct myself. My feeling for the credibility of
scientific method was reinforced. I became a greenie. I began to act
on the scientific truth that the earth is our parent and a measure of
our perfection.
16 What I wanted was credible
theology, which I came to realise meant scientific and ultimately
mathematical theology. Over the years I slowly recognised that the
sort of mathematics represented by Cantor, Hilbert, Goedel and Turing
provided the necessary tools to understand myself.
17 I was saved from despair by my
scientific foundation. I am a Homo sapiens, descended through
a line of life that stretches back three billion years. This life is
itself based on the nature of a universe forged over an additional
ten or twenty billion years. Whatever Catholic doctrine says about
'original sin' , my evolutionary origin guarantees that I am as
perfect as the universe can make me. Nor is there the slightest
evidence to suggest that the universe is imperfect or suffering from
original sin.
18 Augustine said theology is faith
seeking understanding. I had a new faith. All I needed was the
intellectual underpinning to give this faith meaning and make it
communicable. In the bush I simplified my life to minimise expense,
spent all my spare cash on books, and settled down to some serious
thinking.
19 After ten years I had enough to
give a series of radio
lectures on our newly established community radio, 2BOB. Now I
feel ready to go seriously public. I feel two motivations for this.
First, I need the income. I am getting too old to beg and dig for a
living.
20 Second, I realise that religion
and theology are necessary components of peaceful human community.
Religion is the technology (art) of peace, and theology the
associated science. While the world is composed of distinct religious
communities, the Malthusian nature of life guarantees that there will
be conflict. If we are to have one human community living in harmony
with the rest of the universe, we need an theological picture of one
world soul which binds us and the planet into one organism.
21 From this point of view,
Catholicism has two major faults. First, it declares itself the true
religion and labels all non-catholics deficient. Second, it sees this
world as a defective place of trial which has no place in the final
disposition of the universe.
22 It is necessary, for the common
good, to revise Catholicism and other religions with similar defects.
Thomas Aquinas
23 In the Dominicans it did not take
me long to discover Thomas Aquinas and begin to read him from end to
end, enthralled. I began to see the Catholic model of existence as a
truly marvellous thing, and happily settled down to devote my life to
understanding and preaching it. Monastic life suited me. Apart from a
few prayers, food and a bit of exercise, one could read and write the
whole day through.
24 My
romance with Thomas began to falter in my third monastic year when I
read Insight (Lonergan) by
Bernard
Lonergan. (Lonergan) Insight
is a work of metaphysics, an attempt to understand the
attributes that are common to all beings regardless of their
particular nature.
25 Lonergan' s purpose is to relocate
Thomistic metaphysics in our current scientific and political
culture. I think he succeeds to the extent that to go beyond him, one
must go beyond Thomas and the classical Catholic world view.
26 Through Lonergan, I began to see
that it is possible, in the spirit of Occam' s Razor, to perform
major corrective surgery on the Catholic model of God. Making god and
the universe distinct introduces both unnecessary complexity and
consequent errors. It is consistent with both logic and experience to
make god and the universe one. Simply put, god is visible. Every
experience of life is part of the vision of God. Every element of the
universe is divine.
27 This did
not lead me to reject Thomas. I agreed with him that there could be
no inconsistency between religious belief and scientific observation.
Whatever God is, It is not a liar or trickster. I began to write
little dialogues with Thomas to see what he might say about various
issues if he know what we know today. These led to warnings that my
career was at risk. Undeterred, I began planning a rewrite of the
Summa.
(Aquinas)
God
28 The
first question for theology is does God exist? (Aquinas) Thomas provides five arguments for the existence
of God. All five identify some deficiency in the world and postulate
god to fill the gap. The first proof begins with indisputable
experience: things move or change in the world.
29 Thomas then introduces elements of
a model derived from Aristotle. Assume that there are real entities
corresponding to the symbols potentia and actus.
Motion is defined using these symbols: Movere ... nihil aliud est
quam educere aliquid de potentia in actum. The experience of
motion, the definition of motion in terms of potentia and
actus, the rule that governs transition from potentia
to actus, and the application of simple logical rules lead us
to assert that god exists.
30 This argument looked pretty
watertight to me, a faithful Catholic educated in a Thomist
environment. My view changed when I saw Bernard Lonergan translate
Thomas' model of god out of its native medieval Latin into English.
31 Aristotle' s use of potency and
act to model the world originated in his attempt to understand
motion. The early Greek models of motion led to an impasse.
Parmenides' logical analysis of motion led him to the view that it
was impossible, a position bolstered by Zeno's paradoxes. For
Parmenides, being was one, without origin or end, homogeneous and
indivisible, immovable and unchangeable, full and spherical (Lonergan, p 364).
32 If motion is impossible, the
experience of motion must be illusory. Behind the evermoving world of
experience, there must be the still reality of being. Thus was
rationalised a dichotomy between material and spiritual worlds.
33 The origin of this dichotomy seems
to lie in the origin of consciousness. Early people, when they became
conscious, saw themselves as entirely different form the rest of the
world. As Origen would later hold, we are spiritual beings trapped in
material bodies.
34 Heracleitus, on the other hand
felt that everything moved. If this was so, there could be no true
knowledge of the world, because as soon as any proposition was
formulated the reality it referred to would be different, and the
proposition no longer be true. We know now that everything moves, but
some things change faster than others over a range of frequencies
spanning a hundred orders of magnitude. The human lifetime lies
somewhere in the centre of this range.
35 Aristotle needed a model of the
world that would consistently accommodate both motion and stillness.
He proposed a dual structure for the universe: potency, which
makes change possible, and act which makes things what they
are between changes. His assumption that a potency can be only
actualised by something already actual became a foundation stone of
Catholic theology.
36 In the
Metaphysics Aristotle uses this doctrine of potency and
act to establish the existence of the primum movens immobile
for which he is famous. (Aristotle,
Metaphysics, Book XII). In
Thomas' hands, the unmoved mover metamorphosed into the Christian
God.
37 The dichotomy of the world into
matter and spirit was matched by a dichotomy of knowledge. While
sensation was coupled to matter, we could only communicate with
spirit through intellect, itself a part of the spiritual soul at the
core of human being.
38 Lonergan uses the same model,
deriving potency and act not from a study of physical change from A
to B, but of psychological change, from ignorance to understanding.
Like Plato, Aristotle and Thomas Lonergan begins with the assumption
that being (true reality) is detected with the intellect. At most the
senses provide input for intellectual processing. Being is the object
of the pure desire to know (Lonergan, 348).
39 Lonergan' s proof for the
existence of God follows the same track as Thomas:
... the five ways in which Aquinas proves the
existence of God are so many particular cases of the general
statement that the proportionate universe is incompletely
intelligible and that complete intelligibility is demanded (678).
The proportionate universe contains proportionate
being. Proportionate being may be defined as whatever is known by
human experience, intelligent grasp, reasonable affirmation (391).
40 Lonergan claims that the
proportionate universe is incompletely intelligible because it
contains empirical residue. The empirical residue ... consists of
positive empirical data, ... is to be denied any immanent
intelligibility of its own ... . (25-26)
41 Lonergan approaches the empirical
residue through
inverse insight: ... while direct insight meets the
spontaneous effort of intelligence to understand, inverse insight
responds to a more subtle and critical attitude that distinguishes
different degrees or levels or kinds of intelligibility. While direct
insight grasps the point, or see the solution, or comes to know the
reason, inverse insight apprehends that in some fashion the point is
that there is no point ... the conceptual formulation of an inverse
insight affirms empirical elements only to deny an expected
intelligibility. (19)
42 An example of an inverse insight
is Newton' s conceptualisation and formulation of the first law of
motion: ... a body continues in its existing state of uniform
motion in a straight line unless that state is changed by an external
force. Newton's discovery is to be contrasted to the common view
(developed from situations where friction is operative) that
continued motion requires the continual application of force.
43 Almost as soon as I read Lonergan,
I became fixed on the idea that the proper framework to understand
the world was established by the mathematical theories of computation
and communication. A couple of readings later, I saw that Lonergan' s
empirical residue was model dependent: it does not correspond to
anything in reality. This has turned out to be the most important
discovery of my life.
44 Lonergan' s misunderstanding is at
least as old as Parmenides: he mistakes an abstraction for reality.
In an abstract way it is true, as Lonergan says ... that (1)
particular places and particular times differ as a matter of fact,
and (2) there is no immanent intelligibility to be grasped by direct
insight into that fact.
45 The physical models which we use
to summarise the relationships of events in the universe are formal
constructs which were never meant to imply that there is no
intelligibility in the relationships of real events such as the
impact of a particular hammer on a particular nail at a particular
time in the construction of a particular house. Einstein' s general
theory of relativity does not require the existence of space and time
independent of events.
46 I could see no reason to believe
that the world is not completely intelligible. It just happens that
neither Lonergan nor any other person understands it in its entirety.
If the attempt to prove that God is other than the universe falls
down there is no reason to believe that the universe is not divine.
Nor is there any reason to believe that there is a real distinction
between the entities symbolised by matter and spirit,
sense and intellect or soul and body.
These distinctions are simply elements of a model used to elucidate a
seamless world.
47 While I was thinking these things,
aggiornamento was sweeping the Church: the Order was asking
its members for suggestions for renewal. I couldn' t wait to announce
my new approach to theology. If I was right, the Church could take a
new grasp on reality and rise above the ancient texts that seemed so
strange to modern ears.
48 My ultimate effort was short
paper which attempted to show
that there is no limit to the size of the universe. It may, in fact,
be as big as god. The model in this paper was far too small (being
only countably infinite), and justly criticised for its naivete. What
I had not anticipated was that my student publication was fatal to my
career as a priest. I had stepped outside the pale of orthodoxy.
49 The
specific problem was that I appeared to contradict some of the
twenty four theses
propounded in 1914 by Pius X in his Motu Proprio 'Doctoris
Angelici', 29 July 1914 (Denzinger
3601-3624).
50 These theses attempt to reproduce
in concise form the Thomistic model of being. The first three theses
are sufficient for now:
- Potency and act divide being so that whatever exists is
either pure act, or of necessity unites potency and act as first
and inward elements
Potentia et actus ita dividunt ens, ut quidquid est, vel
sit actus purus, vel ex potentia at actu tamquam primis atque
intrinsecis principiis necessario coelescat.
- Act, since it is perfection, is limited only by potency,
which is the capacity for perfection. Hence, in the region where
act is pure, it exists unlimited and unique; where act is finite
and of many different kinds, it is found in true composition with
potency.
Actus, utpote perfectio, non limitatur nisi per potentiam,
quae est capacitas perfectionis. Proinde in quo ordinae actus est
purus, in eodem nonnisi illimitatus et unicus existit; ubi vero
est finitus ac multiplex, in veram incidit cum potentia
compositionem.
- Because only god, one and completely simple, exists in the
realm of pure being, all other things which participate in being
have a nature which limits their being and are synthesised from
the really distinct principles, essence and existence.
Quapropter in absoluta ipsius esse ratione unus subsistit
Deus, unus est [sic] simplicicissimus, cetera cuncta quae ipsum
esse participant, naturam habent qua esse coarctatur, ac tamquam
distinctis realiter principiis, essentia et esse constant.
An alternative
51 The starting point for true
theology is the same as that for any other science: our shared
experience of the world and our common acceptance of mathematics.
This community has unified the 'hard' sciences, which no longer
respect national or religious boundaries. We now need a similar
unification in theology to generate the foundations of religion based
on evidence, not on ancient text and tradition.
52 Science translates the language of
nature into human language. The purpose of scientific method is to
guarantee the truth of this translation. Translations are tested by
translating them back the other way to complete a cycle. We can then
test the original and the retranslation against one another. If they
agree, good. If not, either the translation or the retranslation or
both are at fault and further work is necessary to get a reliable
result.
53 True expression of nature is
necessary to design technology that will work. We daily experience
the benefits of modern physics, chemistry and biology. With a
scientific theology, we can expect similar wealth from religion.We
begin by assuming that there is no real distinction between god and
our universe of experience.
54 This new assumption, if it can be
shown to be true, demands a reinterpretation of the whole of Roman
Catholic theology and all the Christian theology that is contained in
catholic theology or derived from it.
55 This
reinterpretation will change none of the facts. It will simply put
them in a different light. It is what Thomas Kuhn calls paradigm
change. (Kuhn, 10, 12, passim) A famous episode in the history of
science illustrates what I mean. There was once intense debate about
whether the earth stands still and the sun rotates around it, or the
sun stands still and the earth revolves. Either way, the movement of
the sun across the sky seems the same to a person standing on the
earth. The sun rises in the east, crosses the sky, and sets in the
west.
56 It eventually became clear that it
was much simpler to put the sun at rest and let the earth and the
other planets revolve around it. Not only did the whole picture
become clearer with the sun at rest, but the new point of view led to
new and deeper insights into the structure of the heavens.
57 The new paradigm not only fits a
wider ranger of observations better, but it explains how people
arrived at the old paradigm and shows clearly where they
oversimplified reality. Newton, for instance, ignored the finite
velocity of propagation of force through space. When we take this
into account, we get Einstein' s relativity.
58 The dethronement of earth and its
inhabitants from the centre of the universe also caused a profound
change in people' s view of the planet and their place in the
universe. This change has continued. These days, we, or at least our
children, are quite prepared to accept that we are one of millions of
intelligent species on planets scattered throughout the universe.
Some of these aliens may be hostile, but others, like ET, are cute.
59 Copernicus' results came from
mathematical work in astronomy. They followed logically from a few
simple assumptions, and observations and have stood the test of time.
Their strength is not in the authority of Copernicus, whose only
power was his ability to look and think, but in their fidelity to the
evidence.
60 The laws of nature are here for
all to see. Who actually discovers them seems to depend partly on
chance and partly on who is looking for them. They are not subject to
human whim.
61 King Canute demonstrated this fact
very elegantly. His sycophants (the story goes) told him that he was
so wise that even the tides would obey him. He had his throne put at
the waters edge at low tide and commanded the waters to stay where
they were. They did not. No king or pope or dictator can tell the
world how to behave.
62 I am not an authority. I am not
even an expert. My words must stand or fall on their own internal
logic and their demonstrable relationship to the world of experience.
Their strength has got nothing to do with me. Anyone could say these
things.
63 From a practical point of view,
the most significant effect of my model is to change our
understanding of original sin. Original sin is not a defect in
humanity, but rather in the institutions that have evolved to bind
people into groups.
A new model
64 To prove or disprove the statement
that the universe is god, we need some ground for judgment. This
ground is the further assumption that what exists is consistent. If
the assumption that the universe is god leads to inconsistency, we
consider it disproved, and must throw it out. This could lead us to
assert that the universe is not god.
65 So we need to prove the existence
of god. To begin, we need a model of God. My starting point was
Thomas' s model of the Trinity. The problem with the Trinity is how
to assert consistently that there are three distinct persons in God,
while yet maintaining God' s unity, eternity and simplicity.
66 There is a similar problem in
asserting that all the myriad entities which make up the visible
universe are 'personalities' of one god. We cannot see the Christian
God, but we can imagine that the three Persons see themselves as
distinct and communicate with one another, just as we see ourselves
as distinct and communicate with one another.
67 Thomas' model of the Trinity is
developed from his model of knowledge and will in human beings. My
programme for a long time has been to build on Lonergan' s update of
Thomas to expand the doctrine of the Trinity to deal with an infinite
set of 'persons' , so that we may understand that the multiple world
of experience is in fact one and divine. The history of this
programme is long and tortuous. I will state the conclusion now and
link it to its history later. This linkage is part of the testing
phase of the model.
68 Metaphysics is the study of being
as such. It models observations that are common to all beings. It is
a generalisation of physics, which models the interactions of all the
different particular beings we observe.
69 Physics has developed since
Aristotle' s time, and we can expect parallel changes in metaphysics.
Lonergan documents many of these changes, particularly the
introduction of 'genetic method' .
70 We believe that evolution occurs
because fitness is reproduced and unfitness allowed to die out. This
is true both for models and for organisms. This statement is
effectively tautological, because we define fit by saying that it is
what survives. Since all living organisms seem to have finite lives,
survival requires reproduction.
71 People say that tautologies have
no content, they are simply formal logic. Nevertheless they can come
alive when we look at how they are implemented. At the molecular
level, evolution is extremely interesting because it has faced and
overcome some exceedingly difficult problems. It is only since we
have begun building automata ourselves that we have become aware of
these problems and learnt to marvel at the elegance of their natural
solutions.
72 We are now beginning to look at
our planet and the universe as a whole, and see how its various parts
fit together. The literature describing the interactions of all the
identified parts of the earth (atoms, molecules, cells, continents,
etc etc etc) runs to billions of pages.
73 We imitate the behaviour and
interactions of all these components with mathematical models. Modern
physics is becoming applied software engineering. Software
engineering is the implementation of the formal discoveries of
mathematics.
74 Mathematics began to talk about
itself at the time of Cantor, and reached its first great results in
the period from Hilbert to Goedel and Turing. In this period, we
might say, mathematics has become conscious of itself. An important
consequence of these developments is that it is no longer sufficient
to see mathematics as the study of number. Mathematics is now the
symbolic exploration of the properties of all symbols, numbers
included.
75 This development of self awareness
has happened before with natural languages. Philosophy is based on
the study of language. This became possible when people became
conscious of their speech and began to analyse it. It may be that
this development coincided with the invention of efficient systems of
writing, that is of recording the spoken word in some medium (stone
or quantum storage device makes no difference).
76 All our practical experience at
software engineering in on finite machines, even though they may be
very big, with terabytes of memory and gigaflops of processing power.
Even when all the computers on earth are linked into one big network,
the processing power will still be finite.
77 The theory of this machinery,
however, deals with infinite machines as well as finite ones, and
tells us what they can and can't do. This infinite realm is big
enough to model both individual human existences, the interactions of
all humans with eachother, and the whole universe.
78 We cannot implement it with a
finite machine, because it is infinite, but we can approximate it. It
seems to me that the infinite theory is implemented only in the
universe itself, which we may consider to be at least as rich as an
infinite universal machine.
79 We cannot implement it, but we can
represent it symbolically. Let us therefore specify a structure
called a transfinite network. The source of this formal structure is
Cantor' s theorem which establishes the endless hierarchy of
transfinite cardinal and ordinal numbers. The transfinite ordinals
can be used to represent the individual entities of the universe. As
Cantor notes, a transfinite ordinal number can represent anything
thinkable (including a Turing machine).
80 Each entity can be considered as a
black box with certain inputs and outputs. The mapping of inputs to
outputs is achieved by a computer within the black box. To apply the
model, we map named black boxes onto named elements of the observed
universe.
81 The theory of communication and
the theory of computation (an all the other theorems of mathematics)
enable us to delineate structures in this model. Science uses these
mathematical structures to implement finite models of the things it
studies. As computers become bigger and bigger, these models can be
made to approximate more closely to the infinite.
Does God exist?
82 I want to finish this paper with
an outline of a proof for the existence of an image of god in the
transfinite network.
83 Let us begin with the assumption
that god is the mysterious controller of the universe. Does god so
defined exist? In the formal world, exist means to follow
necessarily from the assumptions of the model.
84 If we find that the model
faithfully represents reality, and that computations in the model are
valid, we have faith in its predictions. The general theory of
relativity, for instance, predicts the existence of black holes. The
theory fits the universe as we observe it, and Hawking has shown that
black holes (singularities) are not simply a mathematical artefact.
Astronomers are therefore spending big money searching for black
holes and think they might have found a few.
85 Cantor soon became aware that his
theory of transfinite sets could lead to paradox. This and similar
paradoxes led to a careful reexamination of the foundations of
mathematics. The upshot of this work has been that there are some
aggregates too big to talk sense about. Such aggregates must remain
mysterious.
86 An important attack on the
foundation problem was led by David Hilbert. Hilbert treated
mathematics as a purely formal game played with marks on paper (or
any other sort of symbols). The only rule is to avoid inconsistency.
The assumption behind this approach is that the paradoxes of set
theory arose from something concealed in the semi-natural language
used by the mathematicians of the day. By eliminating natural
language altogether, Hilbert hoped to eliminate paradoxes.
87 In 1928 Hilbert was able to
encapsulate his thoughts on the nature of mathematics in three
questions: Is mathematics consistent? Is mathematics complete? Is
mathematics computable?
88 He
believed that the answer to all three questions would be yes, proving
that there were no limits to mathematics. He was to claim in 1930
that ' there is no such thing as an unsolvable problem'. (Hodges,
92)
89 Goedel and Turing destroyed this
belief. Consistency in mathematics can only be bought at the expense
of incompleteness and undecidability, just as consistency in quantum
mechanics requires us to accept uncertainty. I feel that these
results are related and that the exploration of this relationship may
lead to a new understanding of motion and stillness and open the way
for a new understanding of god.
90 Goedel and Turing showed that some
of the apparently pathological behaviour which Hilbert attributed to
natural language was essential to consistent formal systems.
Mathematics is complete if every mathematical statement that
obeys the formal rules can be either proved or disproved. Mathematics
is computable if there exists a definite mechanical process, like the
execution of a computer program, which can decide whether a given
proof is valid or not. The proof of completeness is thus logically
dependent on the proof of computability.
91 Turing proved that mathematics
contained incomputable statements by devising a universal
machine that could perform all possible logical operations and
showing that there were proofs that this Turing Machine could
not complete. Using the structure of the Turing machine as a mapping
tool, Turing transformed the problem of computability into a question
about the relationship between aleph(0), the cardinal number
of the set of rational numbers and aleph(1), the cardinal
number of the set of reals, using the diagonal argument pioneered by
Cantor.
92 We might extend this argument to
get a transfinite hierarchy of computability. This generalization of
Turing' s argument is based on the notion that for n greater than
m, a system whose complexity is measured by aleph(n)
cannot be computed by a system whose complexity is measured by
aleph(m).
93 Now assume that one system A
may know another system B only insofar as B is
computable using the resources of A. Assume further that
insofar as the complexity of B is beyond the computing
resources of A, we are justified in calling B mysterious
relative to A (musterion = secret). Since we know from
Cantor' s theorem that given any system X there must be a
system of greater complexity Y, we are therefore guaranteed
the existence of mystery for any system. This, in outline, is a proof
for the existence of god.
94 A similar
argument shows that god controls the universe. Cybernetics is founded
on the principle of requisite variety: one system can only control
another system if the controller is of equal or greater complexity
than that controlled. (Ashby 202 sqq)
Since the mysterious is mysterious because it is more complex
than the knower, this principle tells us that the visible cannot
control the mysterious. Since there is control (the system is stable)
it must come from the mysterious. This mysterious controller we call
god.
Conclusion
95 This article is a brief taste of
an enormous body of data and theory which I have been exploring
alone.
96 I have often tried to find
collaborators without success. One the one hand all the theology I
have been able to discover in the established religions is based on
ancient scriptures. On the other hand, nobody with a scientific and
mathematical education wants to have anything to do with theology and
religion. My fondest hope is that if this article is published, I may
be able to find a community of people who share my faith in the
future of theology and religion.
January 1996
Further readingBooks
Click on the "Amazon" link to see details of a book (and possibly buy it!)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 |
Aristotle , and (translated by H Tredennick and G Cyril Armstrong), Metaphysics X-XIV, Oeconomica and Magna Moralia, Harvard University Press, ; William Heinemann Ltd. 1977 Introduction III Aristotle's Metaphysical Theory: 'The theory of universal science, as sketched by Plato in The Republic, was unsatisfactory to Aristotle's analytical mind. He felt that there must be a regular system of sciences, each concerned with a different aspect of reality. At the same time it was only reasonable to suppose that there is a supreme science, which is more ultimate, more exact, more truly Wusdom than any of the others. The discussion of this science, Wisdom, Primary Philosophy or Theology, as it is variously called, and of its scope, forms the subject of the Metaphysics. page xxv 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 |
Bell, Diane, Daughters of the Dreaming, McPhee Gribble 1983-1988 Amazon back |
Cantor, Georg, Contributions to the Founding of the Theory of Transfinite Numbers (Translated, with Introduction and Notes by Philip E B Jourdain), Dover 1955 Jacket: 'One of the greatest mathematical classics of all time, this work established a new field of mathematics which was to be of incalculable importance in topology, number theory, analysis, theory of functions, etc, as well as the entire field of modern logic.' Amazon back |
Cohen, Paul J, Set Theory and the Continuum Hypothesis, Benjamin/Cummings 1966-1980 Preface: 'The notes that follow are based on a course given at Harvard University, Spring 1965. The main objective was to give the proof of the independence of the continuum hypothesis [from the Zermelo-Fraenkel axioms for set theory with the axiom of choice included]. To keep the course as self contained as possible we included background materials in logic and axiomatic set theory as well as an account of Goedel's proof of the consistency of the continuum hypothesis. ..' (i) Amazon back |
Dawson, Jr, John W, Logical Dilemmas: The Life and Work of Kurt Goedel, A K Peters 1987 Jacket: 'This definitive biography of the logician and philosopher Kurt Goedel is the first in-depth account to integrate details of his personal life with his work, and is based on the author's intensive study of Goedel's papers and surviving correspondence. ...' 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 |
Goedel, Kurt, and Solomon Feferman et al (eds), Kurt Goedel: Collected Works Volume 1 Publications 1929-1936, Oxford UP 1986 Jacket: 'Kurt Goedel was the most outstanding logician of the twentieth century, famous for his work on the completeness of logic, the incompleteness of number theory and the consistency of the axiom of choice and the continuum hypotheses. ... The first volume of a comprehensive edition of Goedel's works, this book makes available for the first time in a single source all his publications from 1929 to 1936, including his dissertation. ...' Amazon back |
Hodges, Andrew, Alan Turing: The Enigma, Burnett 1983 Author's note: '... modern papers often employ the usage turing machine. Sinking without a capital letter into the collective mathematical consciousness (as with the abelian group, or the riemannian manifold) is probably the best that science can offer in the way of canonisation.' (530) Amazon back |
Kuhn, Thomas S, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, U of Chicago Press 1996 Introduction: 'a new theory, however special its range of application, is seldom just an increment to what is already known. Its assimilation requires the reconstruction of prior theory and the re-evaluation of prior fact, an intrinsically revolutionary process that is seldom completed by a single man, and never overnight.' [p 7] 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 |
McKeon, Richard, and (editor), The Basic Works of Aristotle, Random 1941 Introduction: 'The influence of Aristotle, in the ... sense of initiating a tradition, has been continuous from his day to the present, for his philosophy contains the first statement, explicit or by opposition, of many of the technical distinctions, definitions, and convictions on which later science and philosophy have been based...' (xi) Amazon back |
Links
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Related sites:
Concordat Watch
Revealing Vatican attempts to propagate its religion by international treaty
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