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1 the Concept of Nature in the Thought of John Philoponus “We The Concept of Nature in the Thought of John Philoponus “We must now ask how this dynamic and relational way of thinking in his science, strictly in accordance with the nature or reality of things, affected Philoponos’ theology in giving it a dynamic form in the doctrine of God and of salvation.” ---Thomas F. Torrance in Theological and Natural Science, p. 6 This essay is an attempt to clarify the way that the great 6th Century Alexandrian Grammarian, John Philoponus, thought to employ his concept of nature both in his philosophical or scientific works and in his theological works. It is argued that, for Philoponus, there exists a real cognitive interface between the science of his theology and the science or philosophy of his physics and cosmology. It is further argued that, standing on the holy ground of this interface, we may seek to understand the contingent order of the Universe as it comes to us from the Word or Logos of the Almighty. Take the concept associated with the term ‘Israel’. It means different things to different people, even in the Biblical World. It signifies differently to different peoples in various epochs in the history of the Biblical World. At Fuller Theological Seminary, the Bible scholar William Sanford LaSor, in his book entitled Israel, explored the meaning of this term across the epochs of the Biblical history with some sense of its mystery in its times and spaces in the history of the world. As a concept, the term possessed various significations across different centuries in numbers of diverse contexts, indicating a range of meanings with regard to the realities to which such a concept belongs. The Bible reader if referred all of these realities by this one term.1 In a similar way, the concept of Nature had meant different things to different people in various times and different contexts in our efforts to read the nature of the Universe. The great Quantum physicist, Paul Dirac, could employ the term in his science with the assumption of the real solidity of its significance for his physics.2 Yet only a few years later, the Cambridge physicist, Roger Penrose, in his magisterial work entitled The Road to Reality, can write about the possibility of understanding the wholeness of this Universe: “True---so they might argue- --we have been fortunate enough to stumble upon mathematical schemes that accord with Nature in remarkable ways, but the unity of Nature as a whole with some mathematical scheme can be no more than a ‘pipe-dream’. Others might take the view that the very notion of ‘physical reality’ with a truly objective nature, independent of how we might choose to look at it, is itself a ‘pipe-dream’.”3 In contrast to the reserve of our more modern scientists about the concept of nature, we find with our philosophers about 1 W.S. LaSor, Israel, (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 1976) 2 P.A.M. Dirac, Directions of Physics, (John Wiley & Sons: New York, 1978.) “The argument of the variation of the gravitational constant comes from a study of the constants of Nature. Nature provides us with the various constants: the velocity of light, the charge of the electron, the mass of the electron, and quantities like that.” (p. 72) 3 R. Penrose, The Road to Reality, (A. Knopf: New York, 2005), p. 1027 1 science, like André Mercier, ample attention to the concept along the lines of Dirac’s assumption.4 What has happened here? Professor Penrose’s only reference to the term nature in his Table of Contents is made with regard to the ‘holistic’ nature of the wave function in the Quantum World.5 However, he has contributed to a study exploring the concept of nature where he has distinguished SUPERB theories from USEFUL or TENTATIVE ones about the nature of the physical world.6. Still there is no reference in his index to the term. No effort is made to define the Universe as a whole.7 We will not find a discussion of nature as a general principle or concept in his thought. It seems implicit in his many of his explications of the various phenomena throughout this magisterial work, whose science he attempts to show us, but the concept of nature as a whole, it seems, remain something of a ‘pipe- dream’ for scientists today. Evidently, we can speak about the nature of various fields, with their continuums and their particles of energies, as we speculate about the ways we might become able to integrate these fields and particles in the future, yet knowledge of the Nature of the Universe as a whole must remain presently beyond our grasp. Unlike the ancient philosophers, today’s physicists are reluctant to conceive of the Nature of the whole Cosmos or Universe, let alone the Nature of God Himself.8 Concepts like ‘Israel’ then and nature, face us with perplexing referencing power. They belong to a realm of consciousness and conscience that confronts us with on-going challenges as to the actual substance of their significance. I would refer to them as ‘fluid axioms’ in the history of thought. We may employ them without a final definition, even as we are free to seek to discover and understand some real correspondence between them and the realities to which they would refer us in our times. The history of our experience with these axioms evidently requires an appreciation of our freedom to learn with our use of them of realities we apprehend only with a deep appreciation for the incomprehensible. These problems that we face about some real correspondence between theory and experience, the intelligible and the sensible, when we seek to understand the whole and parts in any field of knowledge, is wondrously evident throughout the works of Philoponus.9 Evidently, the use of terms and concepts associated with nature, their 4 A. Mercier, God, World, and Time, (Peter Lang: Berne, 1996). His index lists no less than 65 references to the term nature. He quotes Pascal for the general idea: “Man isn’t but a reed, the weakest, one in the whole of Nature; yet a thinking reed.” (p. 2-3) Also see, D.C. Lindberg and R. Numbers, God & Nature, (University of California Press: 1986), especially pp. 38-39 for Philoponus. 5 R. Penrose, op. cit., p. ix, where he writes ‘Wave functions have a strongly non-local character; in this sense they are completely holistic entities.’ The problem of ‘instantaneous communication’ is wondrous in the relationship between the holistic wave and the particle in the theory (pp. 512ff). 6 Roger Penrose, ‘The Modern Physicist View of Nature’, in John Torrance, ed., The Concept of Nature, Clarendon Press: 1992). Chapter 5, pp. 117-166. 7 Ibid, p. 363, ‘Mathematical elegance alone is not enough to determine correspondence with physical laws.’ 8 See R. Sorabji, Time, Creation & The Continuum, Cornell University Press: Ithaca: Yew York, 1983) for Philoponus on the nature time, infinity, and creation out of nothing in the Beginning (especially pp. 194- 231). Sorabji sides with Philoponus against his contemporaries, but up against modern developments of of concepts of infinity he is not so compelling. 9 See T.F. Torrance, Theological and Natural Science, (Wipf & Stock: Eugene, Oregon, 2002), Chapter Six, where a full discussion of the important terms in the debates that include the concept of nature in 2 universal and particular properties, their wholes and their parts, are to be variously assessed in diverse fields of knowledge across the centuries of the development of human thought. Our efforts to understand the fundamental realities that belong to the vital correspondence between thought and experience in our relations with nature is in fact at the very heart of the interface of our concerns both then and now. In 6th century Alexandria, the Grammarian, John Philoponus, sought to understand anew the nature of the Creator and the nature of the physics of His Creation, the nature of God and the nature of the Cosmos as it was conceived in his time. This same problem has confronted the both ancient and modern philosophers in fact, both modern researchers and ancient seekers of wisdom among the ages of civilization. It remains fundamental to our progress for human thought and knowledge. In these efforts, wonder and knowledge, freedom and the human imagination, are seen to resonate across centuries of civilized endeavor. They mark with steady progress the miracles of our understanding, the blood, sweat, and tears of human life and endeavor. We believe, with Philoponus, that those who seek the fruits of such efforts in our Creator become Incarnate in His Cosmos may find directions in their times that characterize the advance of civilization. If we work for the joy and beauty of this understanding, we work to obey His Command among the nations in our world. Perhaps in our time the confrontation between the Biblical World and the Physical World is more vital than ever for this progress. Perhaps it will take a new courage for philosophers, scientists, and theologians alike to discover our obedience to this Command. In any case, we may and we must seek still today for such resolutions between these worlds that must belong to the real future of our race upon this earth.10 Such challenges arise when we seek to understand the wholes and the parts of our experience, the universal with its particulars, in dynamical fields of knowledge that together make up the potential and actual relations between the physical universe and human consciousness. These challenges that Philoponus sought to face still face us Greek Science and Christian Theology with Philoponus.
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