One Catholic View of Science

I commend to you the book, available to read online in its entirety, __ The Cosmic Adventure: Science, Religion and the Quest for Purpose __ by John F. Haught at url =

http://www.religion-online.org...howbook?item_id=1948


I have some great links to the Science & Religion Dialogue at
http://dialogue.infopop.cc/ along with some essays on that website's discussion boards that grew out of my correspondence with people I've met on the listservs for IRAS (Institute on Religion in an Age of Science), Metanexus, Religious Naturalism, AskAnAtheist, etc You may find some of these exchanges as exhilirating as I have.

I would summarize here (what really defies summarization) by saying that, while the God of the Gaps concept can make for a good metaphysical
hygiene, at the same time, there are no grounds for a Dawkinsesque unweaving of the rainbow or for a disenchantment of our cosmos. Of course
we can't claim cosmological, ontological, moral or teleological "proofs" of God's existence, but it is also a huge category error to equate a quantum vacuum fluctuation with what metaphysics describes as "nothing".

There is an epistemological hubris, shared by some with both premodern and modern worldviews, that seems to derive from the a priori ontological claims of a supernaturalistic world by the fideists, on one hand, and of a naturalistic world by the rationalists, on the other. On the other extreme, there is an excessive epistemological humility shared by some
post-modernists that seems to derive from an ontological-undecidability.

There is a middle way, however, of critical realism, shared by believers and many agnostics, which can abide with a pluralistic epistemology and/or an epitemological holism derived from the ontological-hypothetical. So, it may be that we are all in search of a "modeling power" measured in terms of logical consistency, internal coherence, external congruence, interdisciplinary consilience and cognitive-affective consonance.

Where does this leave a catholic scientist?

Well, for starters, Hans Kung has articulated a God Hypothesis that, in my opinion, gifts us believers with a modeling power par excellence. Jack Haught has well-examined hypothetical telos and well makes the case that, however indemonstrable, hypotheses re: nonenergetic forms of causation may increasingly provide us with indispensable explanatory ideas. My good
friend, Jim Arraj, has a book available online also that I highly recommend:

__ The Mystery of Matter: Nonlocality, Morphic Resonance, Synchronicity and the Philosophy of Nature of St. Thomas Aquinas __ at url =

http://www.innerexplorations.com/catchmeta/the.htm


In the same way that the cosmological and teleological arguments of Aquinas, the ontological arguments of Anselm and Augustine, the moral argument of C.S. Lewis or Tillich�s � being itself � are not coercive proofs*[footnote below],
Stenger�s � quantum vacuum fluctuation �, Dawkins� � unweaved rainbow � and Sagan�s cosmos, which � is all that is or was or ever will be � do not solve the ontological riddle.

Willem Drees� � open space � and Ursula
Goodenough�s � sacred depths � pay better homage to Rudolf Otto�s � mysterium tremendum et fascinans �, Chesterton�s � mystical minimum of being �, Thomas Aquinas� � esse and essentia �, Maritain�s � intuition of being �, Heidigger�s � why is there something rather than nothing?", Wittgenstein�s � not how things are but that things are �, the � ontological identification � of Zen Buddhism and Spinoza�s � natura naturans (unmanifest Nature) and natura naturata (manifest nature)�. There are great catholic minds like Kung, Haught and Arraj that I find very coherent, consistent, congruent, consilient and consonant.

Assuredly, our "intuition of being" leaves us taking it all in as miracle!

Still, I say HAVE FUN speculating on implicate order, tacit dimensions, superluminality, nonlocality, after death communications, near death experiences, medical "miracles", psychic phenomena, anaomalous experiences, etc Sure, read what the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) has to say on this or that topic, but don' swallow their a priori ontological or indulge their epistemological hubris. Read, too, what the National Institute of Health is funding in the way of research at the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) and other credible sources. For example, don't out of hand reject subtle energy paradigms such as undergird the practice of Reiki at many Catholic hospitals, as taught at many a Jesuit
retreat house. Avoiding a God in the Gaps remains good hygiene but Theology In Renewal needn't totally capitulate to a rationalistic scientism and it can alternate between hermeneutics that invoke both overlapping and nonoverlapping magisteria (NOMA) views of science and religion. CSICOP, imo, has a seriously impoverished modeling power. Fides et ratio works much better, for me!

pax tibi,
jb
http://dialogue.infopop.cc

footnote: *re: not coercive proofs � still, the classical proofs, incorporated into various premises of a well-articulated God Hypothesis such as Kung�s, make for some pretty compelling inferences and add to consonance, coherence and other criteria of �modeling power� and reveal the reasonableness of super-reasonable and meta-rational approaches and frameworks, leaving the atheist�s fundamental trust in uncertain reality �nowhere anchored and paradoxical� to be sure

Well there's a substantive thread opener if ever there was one!

I'll hang my hat on Jack Haught's explanations on how God and creation interact. And I strongly recommend The Cosmic Adventure to anyone who's interested in this topic. Glad to see it's online now.

There's much more to your post, of course, but I'd like to congratulate you here on your dialogue web site. I see you've even got an infopop discussion board and a good start on a few forums. There are some great links posted there.

From The Cosmic Adventure: Does the universe have any purpose? Is the emergence of life anything more than a cosmic accident? Was there any intelligence operative in the universe prior to the appearance of man? Is life anything more than atoms and molecules? Is mind anything else than the result of complex movements of the physical and chemical components of the brain? Is there any divine influence present in nature? Is evolution moving in any meaningful direction? Do our individual lives have any ultimate significance in the unfathomable depths of cosmic time and space?

Wow, I haven't read such a profound first paragraph since "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times."

Weighty stuff--But perhaps out of my field a bit and I doubt if I will be posting here much;

however, I did want to add that some psychologists (like Steven Pinker) are using a mind-as-computer model in their thinking, which seems to result in a separation of body and soul.

Also, some psychologists seem to feel that everything we do today is based on brain functions that were established during prehistoric hunter-gatherer days. There have been quite a few critiqes to that arguement, and it seems rather earth-bound.

I'm not sure where I stand, but my guess is that I'm not going to wholeheartedly endorse either argument, especially the latter in light of archaeological evidence.

My intuition suggested that all of the above might be relevent, but if not, leave it on a park bench and continue on. There is certainly already enough to carry this thread.

shanti

Re: The Cosmic Adventure (which is a VERY interesting book so far):

Whether there is meaning out there, a deeper reality, I don�t know. But the online book, from what I�ve read so far, leads me to believe that we all want meaning in our lives. Is that because we are meaningful creatures in a purposeful universe, or is it because we go out of our way to construct meaning to make sense of the random things that happen to us? And how would one know the difference? Ultimately it seems that faith gives one a certain �knowing,� as I believe Phil has told me more than once. How one distinguishes that kind of faith from (perhaps) similar intuitions, such as �only that which is scientifically knowable actually exists,� I do not know. I haven�t much faith that I�ll find the answer in my lifetime � no pun intended.

This is a great read, Shanti and Brad, re: computational and constructivist paradigms:
http://www.utc.fr/costech/docs/cognition_life.pdf

It is worth plowing through, by-passing what may be too shop-talkish, and finding some ideas addressed, which we all grapple with, at times.

pax,
jb

It is worth plowing through, by-passing what may be too shop-talkish, and finding some ideas addressed, which we all grapple with, at times.

I tried reading a bit of that and I feel like Maxwell Smart when he responds to the Chief�s question of �What part of it didn�t you understand, Max?� and Max replies �Everything after �Now here�s the plan��. Part of the problem, JB, is that no matter how hard I try to wrap my mind intellectually around this stuff it doesn�t get to the root of it for me. It�s kind of like explaining the color red to a blind person. I suppose one just has to experience it. Your efforts are appreciated even if they do help along the lines of that old Sherlock Holmes maxim: When you eliminate the impossible, whatever you have left, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

I�m still reading through The Cosmic Adventure and do recommend it, at least based on what I�ve read so far

I don't know who wrote this, but it simply must be shared:

UNIFIED FIELD THEORY



In the Beginning there was Aristotle,

and objects at rest tended to remain at rest,

and objects in motion tended to come to rest,

and soon everything was at rest,

and God saw that it was boring.



Then God created Newton;

objects at rest tended to remain at rest,

but objects in motion tended to remain in motion,

and energy was conserved

and momentum was conserved

and matter was conserved,

and God saw that it was conservative.



Then God created Einstein,

and everything was relative,

and fast things became short,

and straight things became curved,

and the universe was filled with inertial frames,

and God saw that it was relatively general

but some of it was especially relative.



Then God created Bohr,

and there was the Principle,

and the Principle was Quantum,

and all things were quantified,

but some things were still relative,

and God saw that it was confusing.



Then God was going to create Furgeson,

and Furgeson would have unified,

and he would have fielded a theory,

and All would have been One,

but it was the Seventh Day

and God rested,

and objects at rest tend to remain at rest.

That was great!

Yes, let's hear it for Aristotle!

Seems like there�s some space there between Aristotle and Newton:

Then God created Leonardo;

objects at rest tended to acquire a coat of paint,

whether canvas or a wall,

and objects in motion became mechanical things,

men with wooden wings,

and God went back to the drawing board.

Brad, you're a genuis! by the time I've digested these weird things from jb, you've analyzed and responded in like pattern. It is such fun to read the exchanges between you and jb.