The Origin of the Universe: Big Bang to God Theory
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Is Plantinga's Argument for God Incompatible with Human Free Will?
123 IS PLANTINGA'S ARGUMENT FOR GOD INCOMPATIBLE WITH HUMAN FREE WILL? MARINA GARNER1 Abstract / Resumo es Morriston has written a few articles claiming the incompatibility of Alvin WPlantinga’s Modal Ontological Argument and the Free Will Argument against the problem of evil. According to him, the Modal Ontological Argument defends an essentially good and free God in opposition to the Free Will Argument, which defends that the best kind of freedom is the significant freedom (SF), justifying God creating us with such freedom. In this paper, we attempt to summarize the arguments and Morriston’s position. In conclusion, we will see that there are reasons to agree with both of Plantinga’s arguments without falling in to a contradiction. Key words: Alvin Plantinga; Modal ontological argument; Free will argument; Wes Morriston. es Morriston escreveu alguns artigos afirmando a incompatibilidade do WArgumento Ontológico Modal de Alvin Plantinga e o Argumento do Livre Arbítrio contra o problema do mal. De acordo com ele, o Argumento Ontológico Modal defende um Deus essencialmente bom e livre em oposição ao Argumento do Livre Arbítrio, que defende que o melhor tipo de liberdade é a liberdade significativa, justificando a pessoa de Deus ao nos criar com tal liberdade. Nesse trabalho tentaremos resumir os argumentos e a posição de Morriston. Concluindo, veremos que há razões para concordar com ambos os argumentos de Plantinga sem entrar em contradição. Palavras-chaves: Alvin Plantinga; Argumento ontológico modal; Argumento do livre- arbítrio; Wes Morrison. In the realm of Christian apologetics and the doctrine of God, all arguments would ideally be in perfect accord. -
An Examination of Charles Hartshorne's Concept of God
THE DIVINE BECOMING: AN EXAMINATION OF CHARLES HARTSHORNE'S CONCEPT OF GOD By TERRY RICHARD HALL ~ Bachelor of Arts Oklahoma State University Stillwater, Oklahoma 1971 Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate College of the Oklahoma State University in partial fulfillment of the requirem~nts for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS July, 1975 \he~~_s l ~15 1-111'fcl verf· ;;L STATE UNl'.'ERSITY Liaf<ARY OCT 23 1975 THE DIVINE BECOMING: AN EXAMINATION OF CHARLES HARTSHORNE'S CONCEPT OF GOD Thesis Approved: Dean of the Gl'a!uate C9llege 923517 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to acknowledge my debt to t~e members of the Philosophy Department· at Oklahoma. State University. They have helped immeasurably in.my sometimes faltering efforts to achieve intellectual maturity. I, would like to espe cially mention Dr. Walter Scott, my thesis adviser, and Dr. Edward La~ry, who first.acquainted me with the thought of Charles Hartshorne. They have been a constant source of aid and encouragement in my· attempts to think through the topics covered in this thesis; without, their guidance and advice this-thesis could not, have been written. In addi tton, grateful appreciation is·· extended to Professor Charles. Hartshorne; with whom I was privileged to discuss some of these ideas during his visit to the Oklahoma State Univer sity campus in the spring of.1975. I am also grateful for the patien'l; assistance of my Wife, Valerie. It·is a singular good fortune.when one's wife is also a philosopher, and many of the.ideas treated herein became clearer as a result of her perceptive com ments. -
William James As American Plato? Scott Sinclair
WILLIAM JAMES AS AMERICAN PLATO? ______________________________________________________________________________ SCOTT SINCLAIR ABSTRACT Alfred North Whitehead wrote a letter to Charles Hartshorne in 1936 in which he referred to William James as the American Plato. Especially given Whitehead’s admiration of Plato, this was a high compliment to James. What was the basis for this compliment and analogy? In responding to that question beyond the partial and scattered references provided by Whitehead, this article briefly explores the following aspects of the thought of James in relation to Whitehead: the one and the many, the denial of Cartesian dualism, James’s background in physiology, refutation of Zeno’s paradoxes, religious experience, and other kinships. In the end, the author agrees with Robert Neville that James had seminal ideas which could correctly result in a complimentary analogy with Plato. Therefore, a greater focus on the important thought of James is a needed challenge in contemporary philosophy. Michel Weber provided a very helpful article in two parts entitled, “Whitehead’s Reading of James and Its Context,” in the spring 2002 and fall 2003 editions of Streams of William James. Weber began his article with a reference to Bertrand Russell: “When Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) visited Harvard in 1936, ‘there were two heroes in his lectures – Plato and James.’”1 Although he goes on to affirm that Whitehead could have said the same, Weber either overlooks the fact, or is not aware, that Whitehead actually did compare James to Plato in his January 2, 1936 hand-written letter to Charles Hartshorne, as printed by Whitehead’s biographer, Victor Lowe: European philosophy has gone dry, and cannot make any worthwhile use of the results of nineteenth century scholarship. -
Loop Quantum Gravity: the First 25 Years Carlo Rovelli
Loop quantum gravity: the first 25 years Carlo Rovelli To cite this version: Carlo Rovelli. Loop quantum gravity: the first 25 years. Classical and Quantum Gravity, IOP Publishing, 2011, 28 (15), pp.153002. 10.1088/0264-9381/28/15/153002. hal-00723006 HAL Id: hal-00723006 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00723006 Submitted on 7 Aug 2012 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Loop quantum gravity: the first twenty five years Carlo Rovelli Centre de Physique Th´eorique de Luminy∗, Case 907, F-13288 Marseille, EU (Dated: January 27, 2011) I give a synthetic presentation of loop quantum gravity. I spell-out the aims of the theory and compare the results obtained with the initial hopes that motivated the early interest in this research direction. I give my own perspective on the status of the program and attempt of a critical evaluation of its successes and limits. I. INTRODUCTION The history of quantum gravity is full of great hopes later disappointed. I remember as a young student sitting in a major conference where a world-renowned physicists Loop gravity is not quite twenty-five years old, but announced that the final theory of quantum gravity and is getting close to such a venerable age: several basic everything had finally been found. -
Toward a Theory of Everything? Exploring at the Edges of the ERM Construct
Toward a Theory of Everything? Exploring at the Edges of the ERM Construct Dr. Kathleen Locklear 2012 Enterprise Risk Management Symposium April 18-20, 2012 © 2012 Casualty Actuarial Society, Professional Risk Managers’ International Association, Society of Actuaries Toward a Theory of Everything? Exploring at the Edges of the ERM Construct Dr. Kathleen Locklear Call Paper Submitted for the 2012 ERM Symposium April 18-20, 2012 Abstract During the past 10 years, enterprise risk management (ERM) has evolved considerably into a best practice approach for identifying, managing and monitoring risk across an entire organization. At the level of theory, ERM standards and frameworks such as those created by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) and the International Organization for Standardization, have provided guidance and a direction forward. Nevertheless, there remains no single, universally accepted ERM framework. At times, the multiplicity of approaches to ERM can produce confusion, leaving companies and practitioners alike wondering which method is “right.” Moreover, despite advances in ERM theory and practice, transboundary risk, extreme events and emerging risk continue to stretch ERM to its limits. This “stretching,” in combination with other observations regarding the current state of ERM theory and practice, suggest limitations in the ERM paradigm as it exists today. This raises several compelling questions, which are the focus of this paper. 1) What is the current state of the ERM paradigm, -
The Theory of Everything
The Theory of Everything R. B. Laughlin* and David Pines†‡§ *Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305; †Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter, University of California Office of the President, Oakland, CA 94607; ‡Science and Technology Center for Superconductivity, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801; and §Los Alamos Neutron Science Center Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545 Contributed by David Pines, November 18, 1999 We discuss recent developments in our understanding of matter, we have learned why atoms have the size they do, why chemical broadly construed, and their implications for contemporary re- bonds have the length and strength they do, why solid matter has search in fundamental physics. the elastic properties it does, why some things are transparent while others reflect or absorb light (6). With a little more he Theory of Everything is a term for the ultimate theory of experimental input for guidance it is even possible to predict Tthe universe—a set of equations capable of describing all atomic conformations of small molecules, simple chemical re- phenomena that have been observed, or that will ever be action rates, structural phase transitions, ferromagnetism, and observed (1). It is the modern incarnation of the reductionist sometimes even superconducting transition temperatures (7). ideal of the ancient Greeks, an approach to the natural world that But the schemes for approximating are not first-principles has been fabulously successful in bettering the lot of mankind deductions but are rather art keyed to experiment, and thus tend and continues in many people’s minds to be the central paradigm to be the least reliable precisely when reliability is most needed, of physics. -
Musings on the Theory of Everything and Reality (PDF)
Lecture Notes 7: Musings on the Theory of Everything and Reality 1 Is a \Theory of Everything" Even Possible? In Lecture Notes 6, I described the ongoing quest of theoretical physicists to day in uncovering the “theory of everything” that describes Nature. Nobody knows yet what that theory is — it would have to somehow reconcile the conflict between quantum theory and general relativity, i.e., it would have to be a theory of “quantum gravity” — but people are certainly trying, and many optimistic people even feel that we’re “almost there.” I personally have no idea if we’re close at all, because I am definitely not an expert on any candidate theory of quantum gravity. However, I do feel that we’ve come a long way in the past 100 years. And, when I marvel at the progress we’ve made, it makes me feel that, some day, we will finally have the correct theory of quantum gravity. Whether that day is 50 years from now or 500 years I won’t try to guess. But it seems like we can understand the Universe. In deed, as Einstein once mused: “The most incomprehensible thing about the Universe is that it is comprehensible.” But is the Universe really comprehensible? We can certainly understand aspects of the Universe today, but could we someday understand everything about it? The prospect of understanding everything — not only the laws of physics, but also the state of every single object in the (possibly infinite) Universe — probably seems rather bleak. After all, we humans are only only small, finite systems in an incredibly vast (possibly infinite) Universe, so maybe complete knowledge of every system in the Universe is impossible to attain. -
Modern Moral Theory: a Process Response
MODERN MORAL THEORY: A PROCESS RESPONSE by BRADFORD O. DOWNS (Under the Direction of William Power) ABSTRACT The dominant consensus in modern moral theory suggests that comparative judgments concerning moral values can be adequately made apart from theism. Building on the thought of Charles Hartshorne and other process thinkers, I hold that values such as good, desirability, or importance are meaningless unless we posit God, properly understood in a metaphysical theory, as real and the basis or telos according to which moral values are established and measured. INDEX WORDS: Process, Process Theology, Neoclassical, Moral Theory, Theistic Arguments, Global Argument, Charles Hartshorne, Immanuel Kant MODERN MORAL THEORY: A PROCESS RESPONSE by BRADFORD O. DOWNS A.B., The University of Georgia, 2001 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF ARTS ATHENS, GEORGIA 2003 © 2003 Bradford O. Downs All Rights Reserved MODERN MORAL THEORY: A PROCESS REPSONSE by BRADFORD O. DOWNS Major Professor: William Power Committee: Carolyn Medine Bradley Bassler Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May, 2003 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PART I INTRODUCTION Moral Theory and the Ground of Moral Assertions………………1 II MODERN MORAL THEORY Ethical Nihilism: A Response to Secularism……………………………4 The Modern Consensus in Moral Philosophy…………………………………5 Autonomy………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………6 III THE MORAL RELIGION -
A Theory of Everything? Vol
Cultural Studies BOOK REVIEW Review A Theory of Everything? Vol. 24, No. 2 Steven Umbrello 2018 Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies Corresponding author: Steven Umbrello, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, 35 Harbor Point Blvd, #404, Boston, MA 02125-3242 USA, [email protected] DOI: https://doi.org/10.5130/csr.v24i1.6318 Article History: Received 04/05/2018; Revised 02/07/2018; Accepted 23/07/2018; Published 28/11/2018 As someone educated in the analytic tradition of philosophy, I find myself strangely drawn to Graham Harman’s Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything, which is firmly situated within the continental tradition that is often avoided in my neck of the philosophical woods as overly poetic. My initial exposure to continental thought did not come from reading © 2018 by the author(s). This Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre or Merleau-Ponty, however, it came from reading Timothy Morton, is an Open Access article whoworks at the intersection of object-oriented thought and ecology. Heavily laden with distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons allusions and references to works of fiction,h istorical events and people, Morton’sstyle was, Attribution 4.0 International to me, almost inaccessible andrequired considerable effort to understand even the shortest of (CC BY 4.0) License (https:// phrases.Still, I found something of serious worth within what remains a revolutionary and creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), allowing third parties somewhat shadowy corner of philosophy, now known as object-oriented -
Remembering Charles Hartshorne
Pittsburg State University Pittsburg State University Digital Commons Faculty Submissions Philosophy 9-29-2016 A Slice of Immortality: Remembering Charles Hartshorne Donald W. Viney Pittsburg State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.pittstate.edu/phil_faculty Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Viney, Donald W., "A Slice of Immortality: Remembering Charles Hartshorne" (2016). Faculty Submissions. 43. https://digitalcommons.pittstate.edu/phil_faculty/43 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Philosophy at Pittsburg State University Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Submissions by an authorized administrator of Pittsburg State University Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A Slice of Immortality: Remembering Charles Hartshorne (Including a Note on Unpublished Manuscripts of Charles Hartshorne) Donald Wayne Viney Charles Hartshorne February 21, 1981, Moore, Oklahoma (Photo by Don Viney) 2 A Slice of Immortality: Remembering Charles Hartshorne Donald Wayne Viney Events far reaching enough to people all space, whose end is nonetheless tolled when one man dies, may cause us wonder. But something, or an infinite number of things, dies in every death, unless the universe is possessed of a memory, as the theosophists have supposed (Borges, 39). I knew Charles Hartshorne for the last two decades of his life. One does not easily forget a meeting with him: the smiling eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses; the disheveled eyebrows; the beak-like nose; the voice, pitched high with age, cracking with excitement at some philosophical insight; the contagious sense of self-importance tempered with humility before the genius of Plato, Peirce, or Whitehead (or a musician); the witty anecdotes; the fondness for birds; the blink and nod that bade a charming farewell. -
Stop All the Clocks
COMMENT SPRING BOOKS (My quick check online showed that pairs from three species of cotinga sell for US$25 to $45. I easily found feathers on sale from birds on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species.) US thief Willie Sutton allegedly said that he robbed banks because “that’s where the money is”. Museums are where the feathers are. In July 2009, senior curator Mark Adams found the drawers with missing specimens; 16 months later, Rist was caught. He pleaded guilty to burglary and money-laundering. The court fined him £125,150 (US$200,000 at the time), of which he had about 10%. He also got a mere 12-month suspended sentence, owing to a diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome (an autism spectrum disorder). Of the 299 skins stolen, police retrieved only 102 with the labels intact. More had been stripped of the essential data that such labels provide, and 106 were missing. John- son’s exhaustive sleuthing tracked down some feathers in 2016, but nothing more. Museum specimens are a unique, con- textualized archive, as Robert Prys-Jones, a scientific associate at the Natural History Museum, makes clear in the book. They hold information about where and when species lived, who collected them and perhaps why; and they can be studied for visual and genetic clues. But after interviews with individuals PHYSICS in the fly-tying community, Johnson feels that only some are horrified by the theft. His investigations revealed that the bulk of the birds “dissolved into the bloodstream of the Stop all the clocks feather underground”, some realms of which seemed to trade in endangered species and flout the Convention on International Trade Andrew Jaffe probes Carlo Rovelli’s study arguing in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and that physics deconstructs our sense of time. -
Process Theodicy and the Life After Death: a Possibility Or a Necessity?
PROCESS THEODICY AND THE LIFE AFTER DEATH: A POSSIBILITY OR A NECESSITY? Sofia Vescovelli Abstract: In this paper I argue for the necessity of eschatology for process thought, and against the idea that the belief in a life after death is not an essential element for this theodicy. Without reference to an eschatological dimension, a process theodicy is led to admit a consequentialist conception of divine love and goodness that is inconsistent with its notion of a responsive and participative God who loves each creature. In the world many creatures suffer atrocious evils, which destroy the value of their lives, but the process God does not redeem these sufferings in a personal post-mortem life in which the sufferers participate and can find meaning for their individual evils. In order to support my thesis, I intend to examine some difficulties in process theodicy, especially in Charles Hartshorne’s position, showing how his doctrine of objective immortality is unsatisfactory. My starting point will be some criticisms advanced by John Hick against Hartshorne and the replies made by the process philosopher David R. Griffin. I conclude by contending that process theodicy, at least in its Hartshornean version, in denying the necessity of a personal afterlife, does not provide a satisfying answer to the soteriological-individual aspect of the problem of evil, namely the problem of the individual salvation in which the individual person can find redemption and meaning for the sufferings undergone or inflicted. In the process perspective the divine love is conceived in consequentialist terms and evils suffered by the individual are merely considered a by-product or the negative side of the divine creation out of chaos.