BEING AND TIME

Quotable Quotes Origen (3rd Century): if it were

practically possible for everyone to abandon the concerns of daily life and spend their leisure doing philosophy – then this is indeed the only path we (Christians) should be pursuing.

Albert the Great (12th /13th Century): when it comes to theology and morals I’ll read Augustine, but when it comes to science, I’ll read Aristotle and when it comes to medicine, I’ll read Galen.

Ancient Science How useful are the following terms today

for explaining things? Being Substance Essence – nature Logos Hypostasis (underlying material),

individual Elements: Earth, air, fire and water

Modern Science Energy Atoms, particles Gravity Nuclear forces Atomic properties, Molecular properties Electromagnetic fields Inertia, motion, action and reaction Evolving biological kinds

God beyond the world If God is the creator of all that exists then

God cannot be identified with any part of creation

So technically, none of the things around us within nature can tell us about God, beyond saying ‘God is not that’.

Yet we need to talk about God and his relationship to our world. Are there any ideas in modern science that can help us?

Boundary MetaphysicsAncient science worked within the bounds

of what we can see and experience as human beings.

Modern science is weird and only works by using ideas which run counter to our daily experience of the world

Is there anything here that can help us when we try to think about God?

Weird idea one The smallest particles of the universe are

not exactly in one place… until you look.

If I’d known about those damn jumps I’d never have got involved.

Weird idea twoWhen we look out into the universe, the further we look outwards, the further into the past we look.

The faster we travel, the slower time becomes for us.

Unfortunately in spacetime, a straight line is not the shortest distance between two points!

Time

Boundaryof spacetime If you want to stay young, keepmoving!

Space

Did you catch this one? O God, strength of those who hope in you.

Graciously hear our pleas

Since without you mortal frailty can do nothingGrant us always the help of your grace

That in following your commands we may please you by our resolve and by our deeds.

An ancient debate about causality, freedom and responsibility

The ‘lazy argument’

If there is prophecy and fate, then everything is already decided, so whatever we choose to do is what was going to happen anyway. So we might as well do nothing and save ourselves the effort.

Different ancient takes on the debate

Epicureans, Sadducees, Cicero: no prophecy, no fate, humans completely free, complete responsibility.

Essenes (Jewish group): everything is foreknown and predetermined, we are all sinners utterly dependent on God’s grace.

Stoics (and Pharisees): fate and freedom - destiny and human responsibility.

‘All is foreknown and yet there is freedom of choice’ (Rabbi Akiva)

Holy words and science words

The theological debate about grace (a holy word) is also a scientific/philosophical debate about causality (a science word).

It is an important because it affects our ideas about how free we are to do good and bad, and how far we should be rewarded and punished.

Are any of our weird scientific ideas able to help us?

Augustine and Hawkings

Augustine (relying on Plato and Aristotle) talked about God being ‘outside time’ and therefore having a complete view of world history.

Stephen Hawking refers to Augustine’s idea in a ‘Brief History of time’ - and uses it to give a non-theistic account of a universe that is already complete.

A thought experiment

O1 O2O3

O1 O2O3

O

W1 W2W3

W1 W2W3

W1 W2W3

ALL HISTORY ALL HISTORYALL HISTORY

ETERNITY ETERNITY fastest

ETERNITY faster

The History of the universe begins at W1 and ends at W3

Divine foreknowledge does not exclude human freedom

A further thought experiment

O1 AO2

O1 AO2

AO

W1 W2W3

W1 W2W3

W1 W2W3

ALL HISTORY ALL HISTORYALL HISTORY

ETERNITY ETERNITY fastest

ETERNITY faster

The History of the universe begins at W1 and ends at W3

Divine action does not exclude human freedom

The Word and the Masterplan

Logos: form, definition, explanation, argument, the commanding word of God.

Blueprint or Space of Possibility?

Space of possibility?

Logos as the space of Possibility

The evolution of forms – space for the emergence of different life forms.

The space for co-creation,creative, human living

The Word of God The Divine imagination, open to a creative dialogue

with humanity.

Human beings, creatures open to sharing freely in the realm of creative possibility.

Why Doctrine is incomplete

Not even Theology itself, {52} though it comes from heaven, though its truths were given once for all at the first, though they are more certain on account of the Giver than those of mathematics, not even Theology, so far as it is relative to us, or is the Science of Religion, do I exclude from the law to which every mental exercise is subject, viz., from that imperfection, which ever must attend the abstract, when it would determine the concrete.

Our religious understanding is bound to all human knowledge

For even the teaching of the Catholic Church, in certain of its aspects, that is, its religious teaching, is variously influenced by the other sciences. Not to insist on the introduction of the Aristotelic philosophy into its phraseology, its explanation of dogmas is influenced by ecclesiastical acts or events; its interpretations of prophecy are directly affected by the issues of history; its comments upon Scripture by the conclusions of the astronomer and the geologist; and its casuistical decisions by the various experience, political, social, and psychological, with which times and places are ever supplying it.The Idea of a University, Discourse 3, part 4.

Reason and Revelation The Quest continues…