Synopsis
This work primarily supports the truth of Christianity by examining correlations among theology, science, and philosophy. 2500 years ago, science was barely in existence and non-distinguishable from philosophy. It probably would not have seemed strange in that day if someone had postulated that everything that is originated in the abstract. It certainly does to us, but the Prime Mover must be an abstraction because only abstractions do not need creation in order to be. 2 + 2= 4 regardless of whether anyone says so or not, and the same goes for, "Love is a good thing." A hunk of wood is composed of atoms that contain so much more space than substance that we can hardly comprehend it, and these atoms have in their nuclei protons that consist so much more of space than they do of substance that one may compare the volume of a house vs. that of our solar system in characterizing them. Then, when we examine the substance of which I speak, we find that the best we can do with regard to its composition is to say that it is energy. Now, we do not know what energy is, though we do know that it accelerates and heats things in accordance with mathematical equations. Thus, matter reduces to math, an abstraction. I have said that abstractions are autonomous, but we know they can also proceed from minds. If both of these observations are true, is it possible that mind can emanate from abstraction? Well, mind IS an abstraction; therefore, it may not have to proceed from anything in order to be. We would seem at this point to be close to the mechanism of the origin of God. In this book, I claim to become closer. Let us now move on from the connection of philosophy with religion to the connection of science with theology. Sir Arthur Eddington, associate of Einstein, and Sir James Jeans, associate of Hubble, concluded, in the late 1920's that (in Eddington's words) "The stuff of the world is mind-stuff." By this, they meant that all we perceive is thought, probably that of a Being of stupendous magnitude and mathematical ability. Something like a half century later, John Archibald Wheeler, mentor of Richard Feynman and other famous theoretical physicists, stated that the universe is information, and and it would appear that all information proceeds from an informer. We can support Eddington's and Jeans's contention by examining a premise of quantum physics called quantum observation. We know that elemental particles of matter and force have dual existences in that they may be waves at one moment and quanta, tiny packets, at another. Physicists have also shown in the laboratory that, the greater the observation of elemental particles e.g. electrons, the greater the degree to which they exist as quanta, and, the less they are observed, the more they exist as waves. Now, the phenomenon of quantum observation extends into the macroscopic world such that quantum physicists believe that nothing exists until it is observed. This suggests that the creation of matter has a two-fold nature, wherein potential, virtual reality, appears first and is subsequently actualized by observation. (This probably refers to force as well as matter, since, at least according to string theory, the two are, on the quantum level, virtually indistinguishable.) Since we require mind for observation, we must conclude that, in the absence of any other cognitive mind, that of God serves as the Observer. Finally, we move to the book of Genesis and find that it shows God creating in exactly our dual manner, as He first thinks, "Let there be....," and follows this by observing that His potential creation is good, which actualizes it. His creation is good because it is derived from The Truth, which I define as everything that is good for the cognitive and which I tout in my book as the abstraction of God, and, with God, its Personification, the ultimate origin of everything that is. It is vastly more difficult to feature creation without God than with Him.
À propos de l'auteur
I have been actively researching in the spheres of Relativity, quantum physics, and cosmology for about thirty years. For nearly ten years, I have been taking advantage of the offerings of The Teaching Company, intensively assimilating university level material, mostly on the subjects of philosophy and history. My father was a pharmacist whose hobby was science, especially astronomy, and who regularly read Scientific American magazine. Many evenings we were to be found in our backyard looking through his telescope. My brilliant maternal grandfather was an attorney who had been a mathematics professor; he also loved astronomy and did calculus for fun. He playing the piano and violin, introducing his family to a love for music that has thus far continued for five generations. His college yearbook comment read something like this (from Shakespeare), "And still they looked and still their wonder grew, that one small head could carry all he knew. I myself have been steeped in music, that wonderful combination of mathematics, physics, and art, since age five, when I began my eleven years of piano lessons. I was married for forty-three years to a woman of deep and apparently innate Christian faith. We raised a large family on the Alaskan frontier, where I experienced God’s world on many occasions from the perspective of a pilot in the most beautiful country on Earth. I began my undergraduate schooling at Duke University and finished it at the University of Florida, moving on thereafter to medical school at Emory University in Atlanta. I have practiced family medicine for about fifty years, experiencing in depth that combination of art and science that teaches one to demand evidence for what he is expected to believe and, like the ministry of the Gospel, brings one into intimate contact with fellow humans and their daily difficulties. My practice has always involved much counseling. I mentored family practice residents in two locations for several years and am now from time to time teaching medical students at the University of Florida. I hold there a courtesy assistant professorship in family medicine. My Christian activities have included membership in the Christian Medical and Dental Society for many years and ordination as a Presbyterian elder at age 26. Later, I became a lay pastor in that denomination. I have prepared daily devotionals on Jesus’ words in from all four gospels.
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