Posted on 07/19/2004 11:35:57 AM PDT by betty boop
By Jean F. Drew
As Wolfhart Pannenberg observes in his Toward a Theology of Nature: Essays on Science and Faith (1993), the present-day intellectual mind-set assumes that there is no relation or connection between the God of the Christian faith and the understanding of the world in the natural sciences.
Ironically this separation of God from the world is commonly credited to Sir Isaac Newton, the father of classical mechanics, whose ground-breaking work on the laws of motion and thermodynamics seemed to posit a purely mechanistic, deterministic, “clockwork universe” that was not dependent on God either for its creation or its maintenance.
The irony consists in the fact that this was not Newton’s view at all. In fact, the very reverse is the truth of the matter: Newton was a deeply religious man who regarded his scientific efforts as exploits in the discovery of the laws that God uses in the natural world. Moreover, Newton believed that his laws of motion implied the generation of conditions of increasing disorder in the world, such that God would have to intervene periodically to rectify it in order to save it and keep it going:
In his Opticks, Newton emphasized … that the order of nature becomes needful, in the course of time, of a renewal by God because as a result of the inertia of matter its irregularities increase.” [ibid., p. 63]
“Newton confronted with deep distrust the mechanical worldview of Descartes, which derived all change in the world alone from the mechanical mutual effects of the bodies. The Cartesian model of the world, in which the mutual play of mechanical powers was to explain the development from chaos to the ordered cosmos, seemed to him all too self-contained and self-sufficient so that it would not need any divine assistance or would even admit such.” [ibid., p. 60]
Newton rightly recognized that this tendency of the mechanical explanation of nature would inevitably lead to “a world independent from God.” For Newton, such a view would be an utter falsification of natural and divine reality both.
In his own time, Newton’s view that God continuously acts in the world was controversial. Certain leading philosophers, including Kant and Leibnitz, were offended by this view on the grounds that it implied God bungled the original creation. They argued that a perfect Creator cannot have failed to create a perfect creation. And if it’s “perfect,” then there’s no need for God to intervene. (The corollary being: For him to do so would be an acknowledgement or confession of his own imperfection.)
This despite the fact that God in Genesis speaks, not of having made a “perfect” creation, but only a “good” one. The worldview of Leibnitz reflects an early strain of Deism; that of Kant, the Calvinist theological view of God as utterly transcendent majesty.
But Newton didn’t see it either way. For Newton, God was both transcendent and immanent in the world. God created a universe in which he would be “God with his creatures” and Lord of Life forever. The supernatural and the natural had an on-going synergistic relation, and this is what maintained the natural world as a going concern, sustaining it in its evolution toward God’s eschatological goal for man and nature.
In other words, Newton believed God is constantly active in the history of salvation (of souls and world), and evolutionary process is one of his prime tools for accomplishing the divine purpose implicit in the creation event itself.
Yet by what means could God be “present with his creatures?” Newton gave his answer in the Scholium Generale, an addendum to the second edition of Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, his chief work on the mathematical principles of the philosophy of nature. The addendum endeavors to clarify the relationship of his doctrines of physics and his religious and philosophical views. Here Newton states that “God constitutes space and time through his eternity and omnipresence: ‘existendo semper et ubique, durationem et spatium constituit.’”
For Newton, God as immensitas constitutes absolute space – infinite and “empty” – and this absolute space is the sensorium Dei The great philosopher and mathematician Leibnitz strenuously objected to this conception, arguing that Newton’s divine sensorium effectively turned God into a “world soul,” and thus led to pantheism. Yet Newton had “explicitly emphasized … that God does not rule the universe as a world soul, but as the Lord of all things.” [ibid.]
What are we to make of this term, sensorium Dei – God’s sensorium? We probably should avoid the conclusion drawn by Leibnitz, who interpreted the term as indicating an organ of perception.
Newton might reply: God being eternally omniscient, he has absolutely no need of an organ of sense perception.
So what, then, did Newton mean by this term? Pannenberg writes that, for Newton, sensorium Dei refers “to the medium of the creation of things: just as the sensorium in our perception creates the pictures of things, God through space creates the things themselves.”
Thus Newton acknowledges a doctrine of creation understood as an on-going process, not just as a single start-up event – let alone a periodically recurring cycle of universal “booms” and “busts” as implied by the “eternal universe” model.
Newton] designates space as the effect of the presence of God with his creatures…. The expression sensorium … even when it is understood as the place of the production of its contents and not as the organ of their reception, cannot itself be a product of the perceiving individual,” whereas with God, space is at once a property and effect of the divine immensitas.
For Newton, the conception of infinite space is implicit in the idea of the omnipresence of God. But, as Pannenberg notes, “it is implicit in it in the way that it has no divisions: infinite space is indeed divisible but not divided, and the conception of division always presupposes space.”
At this point, it might occur to a scientifically-inclined Christian that sensorium Dei could well refer to an infinite, universal creative field, “originally empty” of all content, designed to be the matrix and carrier of all possibilities for our universe, and thus the locus where the “supernatural” [i.e., transcendent] and the “natural” [i.e., immanent] constantly meet.
One thinks of a primary universal vacuum field, whose characteristic associated particle is the photon – light -- which, having zero mass, is the “finest particle” yet known to man (noting that, on the Judeo-Christian view, God preeminently works with Light).
It has been speculated that, if an observer could stand outside of “normal” four-dimensional space-time and take a view from a fifth, “time-like” dimension, the singularity of the “big bang” would appear as a “shock wave” propagating in 4D space-time. If this were true, the shock wave would require a medium of propagation. Perhaps this medium is the universal vacuum field itself, the “ZPF” or zero-point field that extends throughout all of space, giving rise to all possibilities for our universe in every space direction and time dimension – which yet finds its source outside the space-time continuum that human beings commonly experience.
That is to say, the source is “extra-cosmic,” or transcendent. Its creative effect works within the empirical cosmos via the ZPF, which is hypothetically the sensorium Dei of the Immensitas….
Perhaps one day it will be shown that the intimate communication of divine and natural reality is facilitated by the primary universal vacuum field -- the intersection of time and the timeless, the creative source of our universe, the means of its sustenance and renewal over time, the source of the power of the human soul and mind to participate in divine reality, the paradigm of human genius, as well as the source of the continued physical existence of our planet and the universe.
It has been said that Life is the result of “successful communication.” Perhaps the ZPF, as suggested above, is the carrier of information (Logos, the singularity propagating in time); living creatures carry information also – DNA -- information that specifies what they are and how all their “parts” work together in synergy so as to give rise to and sustain their existence. It appears all living creatures have the capability of doing at least some kind of rudimentary information processing. That is, it seems they can “decode” and “read” instructions – perhaps via energy exchanges with the ZPF. When the creature is no longer able to access and process information, successful communication cannot take place, and so the creature dies.
By the way, I do not mean to suggest that information/energy exchanges with the primary universal vacuum field are necessarily consciously experienced events. Probably the reverse is the typical case. Yet we know that the human brain does most of its important work at unconscious levels: the governance of autonomic bodily functions, for instance, is a subconscious process.
Interestingly enough, it was Faraday who first articulated the field concept, and he apparently did so to refute Newton’s sensorium Dei. Apparently he wanted to get rid of the Immensitas altogether, and put Newton’s insight on a purely physical basis.
Yet in the end, it appears Faraday did not so much refute Newton, as lend credence to his basic insight.
Thanks for the ping…
A little food for thought....
Burrrrppppttt!!! Thanks!
Great defense of Newton’s teleology. Unfortunately, people will always try to Divine no Providence from the writings of others.
“Newton confronted with deep distrust the mechanical worldview of Descartes, which derived all change in the world alone from the mechanical mutual effects of the bodies. The Cartesian model of the world, in which the mutual play of mechanical powers was to explain the development from chaos to the ordered cosmos, seemed to him all too self-contained and self-sufficient so that it would not need any divine assistance or would even admit such.” [ibid., p. 60]
Chaos? Did you say ‘chaos’ agent 86? I think you’ve exposed Maxwell’s demon. “How can chaos make cosmos which made intelligent life to discover its origin?”
To deny order and design in our cosmos would be similar to denying ‘compressed design’ in DNA. We see, have evidence of, and study design with science. The use of teleology while denying teleology is again, divining no providence in an attempt to ‘Get Smart’.
Not only that, Heartlander, but I think this operation reveals a fatal self-contradiction in the very basis or premise of this type of argument. At least, according to the methods of Aristotelian logic.
You ask: “How can chaos make cosmos which made intelligent life to discover its origin?”
With brilliant concision, you state the question that it seems the many in increasingly doctrinaire academic life and the wider intellectual community are implacably, strenuously determined to avoid engaging in the first place.
Thank you so very much for writing, Heartlander!
Because in order for a thing to be detectable, it must first exist. If we detect it, it probably exists.
You are standing the argument -- and the experience on which it is based -- on its head, Doc; or so it seems to me.
Thanks! Interesting article. I have read a bit of Newton's works, but had been unaware of his theocratic leanings.
Personally, I would argue that if God himself is absolute and fixed, then perfection is absolute and fixed.
If that was the case, we might as well blow the planet to hell and gone, and all, each of us, do ourselves in.
SO now I return to one of the things I have said frequently, it's not the BEING, but the DOING that seems to be important.
It is the DOING of things, and our constant attempts to do things better, and be better people, that makes it impossible to compress the universe into a singularity.
And interestingly enough, it makes the outcome still somewhat questionable.
I'm with you.
However, experiments designed to detect such a medium show negative results. People have looked and are still looking for such a medium. Rather than absence of evidence, we really do have evidence of absence.
The objection would be that space/time is created as the universe expands, i.e. it doesn’t expand into anything. But your point was not that space/time pre-exists. You argue persuasively against an “eternal universe”. Correct me if I misread, but I believe your point is that the zero point field could be the medium of the expansion itself and the carrier of information within the universe.
For Lurkers: a zero point field is roughly the least amount of vibration energy in a particular space or the self-radiating signal of an isolated particle. It is being examined closely as an explanation for mass and for use in propulsion:
A NASA-funded research effort has been underway at the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto and at California State University in Long Beach to develop and test a recently published theory that Newton's equation of motion can be derived from Maxwell's equations of electrodynamics as applied to the zero-point field (ZPF) of the quantum vacuum. In this ZPF-inertia theory, mass is postulated to be not an intrinsic property of matter but rather a kind of electromagnetic drag force that proves to be acceleration dependent by virtue of the spectral characteristics of the ZPF. The theory proposes that interactions between the ZPF and matter take place at the level of quarks and electrons, hence would account for the mass of a composite neutral particle such as the neutron. An effort to generalize the exploratory study of Haisch, Rueda and Puthoff (1994) into a proper relativistic formulation has been successful. Moreover the principle of equivalence implies that in this view gravitation would also be electromagnetic in origin along the lines proposed by Sakharov (1968). With regard to exotic propulsion we can definitively rule out one speculatively hypothesized mechanism: matter possessing negative inertial mass, a concept originated by Bondi (1957) is shown to be logically impossible. On the other hand, the linked ZPF-inertia and ZPF-gravity concepts open the conceptual possibility of manipulation of inertia and gravitation, since both are postulated to be electromagnetic phenomena. It is hoped that this will someday translate into actual technological potential. A key question is whether the proposed ZPF-matter interactions generating the phenomenon of mass might involve one or more resonances. This is presently under investigation.
Stochastic processes in quantum theory
Basic formulation (QFT, QED, SED)
Casimir effects
The nature of fundamental particles
The origin of inertia
The empty vacuum of older physics is today replaced by an active one in which virtual particles come into and go out of existence on timescales shorter than what would be inferred from Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. A concrete proof of this is the measurement of the distance (or energy) dependence of the fine-structure "constant". This is explained by vacuum polarization, wherein the electric charge of a (real) particle is partially screened by those of other (virtual) particles. In general, the physics of the quantum vacuum is a rich if complex subject. Apart from explaining the origin of apparently stable particles, such as the electron, it is also necessary to explain how they acquire mass and inertia (the resistance to acceleration). A formal approach to the origin of particle mass can be made via the Higgs mechanism, which involves the breakdown of quantum symmetries. (Though there are restrictions: for example, vector particles cannot acquire mass from nothing because of gauge invariance.) A better understanding of the origin of inertia would lead to new insights into the laws of motion, perhaps with practical applications such as to spacecraft propulsion. The laws of the quantum vacuum are not completely understood, but certainly their manifestations are frequently stochastic. Fluctuations of vacuum fields are irregular, but their averaged effects can be calculated using quantum field theory (QFT). Within the rather broad scope of the latter term, calculations agree with observations to great accuracy in processes where electrons interact with photons, i.e. quantum electrodynamics (QED). The basic formulation of QFT as a theory of quantum electrodynamics can be extended also to the theory of the strong or nuclear interaction, where under the term quantum chromodynamics (QCD) it may be a subject for study in the future. Right now, probably the best-studied consequence of QFT as applied to electrodynamics comes from measurements of the Casimir effect. This effect, wherein parallel plates in apparently empty space experience a force of attraction, clearly shows that the quantum vacuum is not passive. Useful calculations can also be done in this subject using a semiclassical approach to the interactions of charged particles with an electromagnetic field known as stochastic electrodynamics (SED). One version of the latter envisages a zero-point electromagnetic field whose quanta buffet charged particles, producing a microscopic "buzzing" motion ("zitterbewegung"). Using the techniques of SED an intriguing new theoretical approach is suggesting a deep connection between electrodynamics, the origin of inertia and the quantum wave nature of matter.
The cosmological constant problem
Membrane, string and Kaluza-Klein theory
Large extra dimensions
Higher dimensions are not only the stuff of science fiction but the basis of intricate calculations which are moving steadily towards experimental test. Einstein and others showed that the world has (at least) 4 dimensions. In the general theory of relativity, a manifold consisting of space and time is curved by matter and other sources, including the cosmological constant. The latter is a parameter which can either be viewed as measuring an extra non-material force, or as measuring the energy density of the vacuum. Currently, data from astrophysics show that it is finite but very small. However, calculations based on particle physics (otherwise verified) imply that it should be very large. The mismatch is a trifling 10120 or so. This is the cosmological constant problem. There are in principle several different ways to resolve this conundrum, some of which are drastic. However, the one currently favoured is reasonable and elegant, even if somewhat surprising. If we imagine that the world has more than 4 dimensions, we find that the manifold breaks naturally into (4 + other) D, and that the 4D part acquires a small cosmological constant. This approach actually has a venerable history. Kaluza and Klein in 1921 and 1926 extended general relativity to 5D, as a means of unifying gravity and electromagnetism. Modern developments include 10D superstrings and 11D supergravity, theories which are based on general relativity but attempt to incorporate the interactions of particle physics. Divergences in the formulation of point particles can be avoided if they are viewed instead as strings, and the most recent and more generic approach to ND field theory is via membranes. Properties of the last are not yet fully worked out; but it is already known that 5D Kaluza-Klein theory (which can be viewed as the low-energy limit of even higher D theories) produces not only a small cosmological constant associated with the vacuum, but also acceptable real matter in 4D from empty space in 5D. It should also be mentioned that the prototype 5D theory is the simplest to incorporate a scalar field of the sort mentioned above as an energy source for inflation. Work on N=5, 10, 11... D theory is exciting. But there is a sobering question to be answered: Why do we not see the extra dimensions? Klein argued that they are rolled up or compactified to invisibly small sizes, an assumption which has been traditional in higher-dimensional field theory. However, that assumption leads to problems, and recently attention has focussed on another possibility: there could be large extra dimensions, but we would be unaware of them if for physical reasons we were constrained to a 4D hypersurface. An analogy is an ant walking about on the surface of a soccer ball, constrained to move in 2D and unaware of the 3rd dimension of depth. Calculations on large dimensions in ND field theory are underway with a view to experimental test, so what used to be science fiction may turn into science fact.
Science, by it's nature, looks for a one to one relationship between cause and effect, something that is entirely repeatable.
But it could never rule out the possibility of some kind of cause-effect relationship that is outside of that limited scope.
Broken symmetry sculpture at Fermi Lab
Vacuum Genesis
"Broken symmetry, a Robert Wilson sculpture that stands at the entrance to Fermi lab, expresses one of the beliefs of modern physics—that the universe may have begun in a state of perfect symmetry. The theories say that matter froze out of energy while the early universe was expanding and cooling. That form arose from formlessness, like ice crystals congealing in a freezing pond. The mathematical symmetries that the unified theories have exposed at the foundations of natural law are more subtle and complex than those of snowflakes, but their principle is the same; they imply that we live in a crystallized universe of broken symmetries."Perfect symmetry may be beautiful, but it is also sterile. Perfectly symmetrical space means nothingness. As soon as you introduce an object into that space you break the symmetry, creating a sense of location; there is a place where the object is, other places where it isn't, and out of that comes tumbling all the geometry of space as we know it. Perfectly symmetrical time means that nothing can happen. As soon as you have an event, then you break the symmetry, and time begins to flow in a given direction.
"We live in a universe that is full of objects and events and that means the universe is imperfect and the symmetries in the universe we live in are broken. It may even be that we owe the very origin of our universe to the imperfection of the breaking of the absolute symmetry of absolute emptiness. There is even a theory to this effect. It is called vacuum genesis and it suggests that the universe began as a single particle arising from an absolute vacuum. Curious as it may seem, this idea violates none of the known laws of physics.
"We've seen how virtual particles come into existence all the time from a vacuum and then fall back into non-existence. There appears to be no upper limit on the size and the longevity of the particles that can be created in this way. It's just possible that there might have been absolutely nothing out of which came a particle so potent that it could blossom into the entire universe. It's not very likely, but then it only had to happen once.
"Out of nothingness could have come the spark of genesis. As the universe expanded and cooled, darkness descended, then light dawned anew with the formation of the first stars. Each star is a nuclear furnace where matter is coaxed into releasing a little of the energy it inherited from the primordial fireball. Thanks to imperfection, to the fractured symmetry that produced differences among the particles and forces, atoms in their varieties could build themselves into molecules, and molecules arise up in alliance as life, and life give birth to thought, and thought produce theories about the creation of the universe."
[Narration by Timothy Ferris in the PBS production, Creation of the Universe]
YEC - read later
Thanks for the sculpture and narrative!
Ok, pal. I just read it -- and a finely flowing read it was! (once I got rid of work, the Presidential campaign, IL Senate candidates, North Korean misilles, bills, debating my liberal brother, Saddam's WMD distribution among the ME's, taking the dog out, etc. in my little head).
Well, it all fits so well that I'm prone to say, "Elementary, my dear Newton!" It's very nice to know that the finest known scientist in human history is holding up so well. But you and I know that he cheated -- he allowed himself to be informed in his heart.
As for the quantum/cosmological how to's, well, they seem to fit too, to the degree we can be (un)certain about such things.
Maybe I can jump in on some unsuspecting other's post, a bit later. As for now, I'd just underscore that it is critical to understand that fragile,* complex order must needs be maintained as well as designed. Even more important to understand is the dependency of relationship that Newton and you (did I get that order right? ;-) portray. If something is not connected by "communication" (what a word that is!) to the "other" upon which it depends, it is not alive. And ultimately, the whole stuff of life as we know it -- the whole complexity of voracious dancing Russian dolls of "self" things depending upon "other" things for life -- the cosmos itself is not exempt from this rule.
IOW: "I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God."
I also found your bringing up the subject of specificity to be very significant. If you and IN are in the right (and you are) that would mean that God's communication with man is consistently one of specificity and not just some nebulous, conveniently puralistic, make-of-it-what-you-will kind of otherness to usness. And I just inferred another attribute you describe: that God is the initiator; not us. And that has to do with all of His communication with us, all of His shared "knowledge," from the acutely relational, "Biblical knowledge" on outward.
__________________________________________
* "fragile" - Why is it that we humans are so prone to speak of some kind of (disorderly?) development of ordered complexity, yet we are so prone to ignore the obvious 'quality' of fragility?
Pride, ya think?
And, since I have thought about it a bit more, I will add this:
There seem to be a few who comment on these threads who insist that even though something is not known, it is understandable.
I have thought about this for a great many years, and it was with great reluctance I finally admitted that there are things I could never understand.
There are things which are not known and are not understandable.
Certainly you both agree that there is at least one thing that is known but is not understandable:
Faith
regards,
djf
...and of course about that Other, we then communicate to each other:
"He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together."
...and we are fed, so that we can live.
Philosophies about God are interesting. Maybe he is 51% good and 49% bad.
Still better than me, no doubt!
BUMP
No. Scientific investigation is much broader than that. Random causes need not be one-to-one and earthquakes are not entirely repeatable.
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