Let's find out if there is aseity
Mar 14, 2013 4:38:15 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2013 4:38:15 GMT -5
Mr. Polkinghorne has been greatly disturbed recently by a book he has been reading. It is called "A Universe from Nothing" and has been penned by Mr. Krauss, a northern american. [No doubt one of those tediously over-confident materialists.] As Mr. Polkinghorne correctly points out, any discussion of why there is something rather than nothing will depend crucially on how one understands the meaning of "nothing." The most severe sense is total non-being, but the problem encountered there is that nothing seems to come from nothing defined in this radical way. It is hard, continues Mr. Pokinghorne, to see how an argument could rest on "so null a basis." The american Krauss essentially proposes that "nothing" should be understod as the quantum vacuum (lowest energy state), with the laws of Nature taken as simple brute fact. He emphasizes - "rightly" comments Mr. Polkinghorne - that "nothing" should not be taken simply to be empty space, remarking that (admittedly highly speculative) theories of quantum gravity can suggest that space-time emerged from this yet more primitive matrix to generate this universe, and perhaps many other [sic] universes. A related point, points out Mr. Polkinghorne, was made by Saint Augustine in the fourth century, when he emphasized that space and time are themselves creatures, so that God did not create the world "in time" but "with time."
Mr. Polkinghorne has a great deal more to say, all of it valuable, and some of it profound; but let us pass at once to the way he rounds off his review. The attraction of the idea of "a universe from nothing," he reminds us, is that the existence of nothing, if it really were understood in the most radical sense of non-being, seems to need no explanation whatsoever and so one gains a total metaphysic completely cost free. [And indeed that is the infantile life is it not - "no explanation needed."] Yet the truth is that nothing comes of nothing, and every scheme of explanation has to assume its unexplained basis of explanation. In Western thinking there have been two principal strategies. One is materialism, whose basic fact is the given properties of matter. Yet its metaphysical picture is of a kind of lunar landscape, populated by replicating, information-processing systems, but with no persons in it. Music is simply vibrations in the air. The other strategy is theism, whose basic fact is the existence of [a] God. A theistic metaphysic offers an inclusive view of our encounter with reality. Its account of the nature of ethical knowledge as arising from intimations of the good and perfect divine will is something he has already mentioned, Mr. Polkinghorne reminds us. Human experiences of beauty are to be seen as sharing in the creator's joy in creation, and not just emotions induced by biochemical discharges in the brain. "The debate continues, but there is very much more to be said for theism than Krauss seems willing to consider," concludes Mr. Polkinghorne.
Actually my advice to Mr. Polkinghorne is not to bother with Mr. Krass and in general not to worry: there is nothing whatever he can do that would make the slightest difference. It is all just the juggling of definitions - not so much "the understanding of meanings" as "the creation of meanings."
Mr. Polkinghorne has a great deal more to say, all of it valuable, and some of it profound; but let us pass at once to the way he rounds off his review. The attraction of the idea of "a universe from nothing," he reminds us, is that the existence of nothing, if it really were understood in the most radical sense of non-being, seems to need no explanation whatsoever and so one gains a total metaphysic completely cost free. [And indeed that is the infantile life is it not - "no explanation needed."] Yet the truth is that nothing comes of nothing, and every scheme of explanation has to assume its unexplained basis of explanation. In Western thinking there have been two principal strategies. One is materialism, whose basic fact is the given properties of matter. Yet its metaphysical picture is of a kind of lunar landscape, populated by replicating, information-processing systems, but with no persons in it. Music is simply vibrations in the air. The other strategy is theism, whose basic fact is the existence of [a] God. A theistic metaphysic offers an inclusive view of our encounter with reality. Its account of the nature of ethical knowledge as arising from intimations of the good and perfect divine will is something he has already mentioned, Mr. Polkinghorne reminds us. Human experiences of beauty are to be seen as sharing in the creator's joy in creation, and not just emotions induced by biochemical discharges in the brain. "The debate continues, but there is very much more to be said for theism than Krauss seems willing to consider," concludes Mr. Polkinghorne.
Actually my advice to Mr. Polkinghorne is not to bother with Mr. Krass and in general not to worry: there is nothing whatever he can do that would make the slightest difference. It is all just the juggling of definitions - not so much "the understanding of meanings" as "the creation of meanings."