vol 2: Synopsis
part IV: Divine dynamics
page 33: Relationship
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Relationship
How does a network of Turing machines come to be? Modern physics suggests that there are particles with no size, for example electrons and quarks. Particles with size are created by the bonding of particles without size. In other words relationship creates distinction, that is space. This insight was developed by Thomas Aquinas in his theory of the Trinity, the Christian notion than the one God has three personalities.
According to the big bang model, the universe began as a pointlike entity which expanded and complexified into the universe we now know. The quantum mechanical description of the world centres around three quantities, energy, momentum and action, all three of which are conserved. If this is the case, the energy, momentum and action of the universe have stayed constant since the first moment until now and will remain the same until the end, if any. Why does the initial singularity grow?
The standard explanation, called the standard model, relies on the theory of gravitation and a process called symmetry breaking to explain this growth. From the point of view of general relativity, the universe is acting as a time reversed black hole, expanding where a black hole contracts. It is not clear why this is so, but we accept the observational evidence that it has happened. From our point of view, this expansion arises from reflection and consistency.
The standard model does not currently embrace gravitation but does deal with the three other known forces, electromagnetism, the strong force and the weak force. The properties and consequences of these forces are described by the quantum field theory.
Here we introduce a theological idea developed by Thomas Aquinas to provide another view of how the universe obtains and maintains its structure. Thomas was concerned with showing that the Christian view that there are three persons in the one God is self-consistent. He did this using the notions of generation and relation.
The Father, knowing himself, generated the Son. The distinct reality of the Father and the Son is maintained by the relationships they bear to one another of fatherhood and sonship. These relationships are real, and so found a real distinction. The Father's love for the Son generate the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. Thomas holds that no further persons were generated because knowledge and love exhaust the generative processes.
We take this doctrine as a starting point, but do not halt the recursive process after two steps but allow it to go on for ever. The initial singularity, knowing itself, broke symmetry to form a first generation of new particles, which gave rise to a second generation and so on. The evolution of new particles (which broad term includes ourselves) continues to this day and beyond. The relationships of these particles to one another is what gives the universe its structure.
We express the relationships between different entities in the universe by transformations that carry one part into another. Such transformations encode the difference between the two entities in question. By transforming Father to Son and Son to Father, we understand the relationship between them. The theory of transformation is well developed in physics and dynamics in general. The means of such transformation is communication between tranforming enttites.
The traditional model of God allows for no internal divine conflict. Our model of God must admit conflict, since it a fact of life, and we wish to identify life with the experience of God. In a network, connections break as well as form, and this occurs at all scales (that is all peer levels). From the human point of view, this is tantamount to saying that good and evil are both part of the whole. A good relationship for one may be a bad relationship for another.
A good religion, we believe, should manage human relationships to create and maintain peace.
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 |
| Hawking, Steven W, and G F R Ellis, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time , Cambridge UP 1975 Preface: Einstein's General Theory of Relativity ... leads to two remarkable predictions about the universe: first that the final fate of massive stars is to collapse behind an event horizon to form a 'black hole' which will contain a singularity; and secondly that there is a singularity in our past which constitutes, in some sense, a beginning to our universe. Our discussion is principally aimed at developing these two results.' Amazon back |
| Lewis, Clive S , The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition, Oxford UP 1979 Jacket: 'The Romance of the Rose, its ancestors and its descendants are here studied not as an obstacle to be surmounted on our way to Chaucer, but as a true expression of the ages which produced them. The allegorical form is found to be at once an imagninative bridge from mythical to reflective consciousness and a principal origin of Romanticism; ... " http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0192812203/tnrp">Amazon back |
| Lonergan, Bernard J F, 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 |
| Misner, Charles W, and Kip S Thorne, John Archibald Wheeler, Gravitation, Freeman 1973 Jacket: 'Einstein's description of gravitation as curvature of spacetime led directly to that greatest of all predictions of his theory, that the universe itself is dynamic. Physics still has far to go to come to terms with this amazing fact and what it means for man and his relation to the universe. John Archibald Wheeler. ... this is a book on Einstein's theory of gravity (general relativity).' Amazon back |
| Weinberg, Steven, The Quantum Theory of Fields Volume I: Foundations, Cambridge University Press 1995 Jacket: 'After a brief historical outline, the book begins anew with the principles about which we are most certain, relativity and quantum mechanics, and then the properties of particles that follow from these principles. Quantum field theory then emerges from this as a natural consequence. The classic calculations of quantum electrodynamics are presented in a thoroughly modern way, showing the use of path integrals and dimensional regularization. The account of renormalization theory reflects the changes in our view of quantum field theory since the advent of effective field theories. The book's scope extends beyond quantum elelctrodynamics to elementary partricle physics and nuclear physics. It contains much original material, and is peppered with examples and insights drawn from the author's experience as a leader of elementary particle research. Problems are included at the end of each chapter. ' Amazon back |
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