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a Personalist
Cosmology in Imago Dei
Vol. I:
Personality,
Empiricism,
& God (PEG)
on the Cosmological
Argument for the Existence of God
as the Metaphysical Bedrock of
Empirical Science
F. Earle Fox
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Volume I of A Personalist
Cosmology in Imago Dei is close to being published, entitled,
Personality, Empiricism, & God (PEG).
It is the first part of my D.
Phil. thesis at Oxford U. in 1964. Hard to believe that 45 tumultuous years
have transpired since then. But the text is now done, and online here.
It will be available online for reading
until publication date in a month or so, after which only select sample
pages will be available. So read it while you can.
The book should be useable by
any well-educated high school graduate. Well, OK, with some steady
persistence and determination.
There remains only to complete
an index, and then on to publication.
The
3-volume set is called A
Personalist Cosmology... because I am saying that the basic entities
of the cosmos are not things, not atoms, quarks, or strings, but persons.
That is defendable ontological fact, not religious fluff. The course of
philosophy from Plato on has made this conclusion inevitable -- believe it
or not (read it and see...). God is the Great Philosopher in the sky, and,
like anything else, when we do philosophy His way, it works. And when we don't, it
doesn't.
The source of the cosmos is God,
who is the Person of all persons. And we lesser, created persons, so
far as we know, are His
chief creation. God, the Creator, is, of course, what is
given by
Genesis 1:1 ff, that in the beginning,
God created the heavens and the earth, and then us.
The whole cosmos is thus
designed for habitation by persons who form the community which God is
building, the Kingdom of Heaven. The creation is here for persons.
Ironically, or perhaps one should say, expectedly and predictably,
secular scientists have had to propose the "anthropic" principle, that
the universe appears to be designed for human habitation (because the
incredibly finely tuned cosmos fits that purpose). Most of them do not want to
speculate about the identity of that Designer, fearing that might just
seduce them back into that dreaded "religion" stuff. But the only logical
candidate available is the God of the Bible.
My aim is to show
(1) that
the cosmological argument for God is stabile, compelling, and is the
reliable philosophical/metaphysical answer to secularized evolution as the explanation
for the cosmos -- complementing and supporting the work of the Intelligent
Design community which is working on the empirical evidence;
(2)
that the Biblical worldview is logically consistent, and perhaps the only
logically consistent worldview there is;
(3) that science (though
usable by anyone) was given to us by God specifically to arm
Judeo-Christians in their intellectual, moral, and spiritual warfare against
forces of deception and evil; and
(4) that the personal nature
of the Biblical worldview makes a stunningly human-friendly picture,
especially when teamed up with the Gospel which emerges out of the
tough-love judgement which the Creator has for His creation.
Volume II, The Substance of
Science & Epistemology will take
the principles of Vol. I and apply them in Part I of Vol. II The Substance of
Natural Science, to subjects such as small particles, relativity,
quantum mechanics, and evolution; and then in Part II of Vol. II, The Substance of
Epistemology, applying Vol. I to the issues of how we know what we
know, and the inherently symbiotic relationship between faith and
reason --
neither one of which will survive without the other.
Volume III, Yahweh or the
Great Mother?, will carry on the principles of Volume I into theology
and philosophy, including the Biblical vs. pagan worldviews and
anthropology, and the Biblical notions of atonement and salvation.
The Road to Emmaus Website is
beginning to take on its originally intended shape to provide substantial
resources for Christian apologetics in our Western World of coming
collapse. Western Christendom has already nearly collapsed, which means we
are headed into serious disarray politically, economically, and
spiritually.
The overt anti-Christian stance
of the Obama administration is a sign that the Globalists believe they
already have sufficient control (through education and media) of the
American mind and so are coming out into the open, and that Christians are incompetent to mount a resistance, let alone an offensive. To judge by the
state of the institutional Church (the Church Debilitated), they can make a
good case.
But -- they know neither the
Scriptures nor the power of God. They have no awareness of the Church
Militant which God is re-building. They are oblivious to the fact that the
power of God to renew all things comes from a level far below that which
they can even touch (sadly, so are most Christians, but that is changing).
There is nothing, I think, that the opposition can do to stop an intellectually, morally, and
spiritually healthy Church.
We are working on a page to show
how to use the Road in a systematic way to begin to lay for yourself a
foundation upon which you can reach out to those about you with consistent
and compelling responses, and how you can take the offensive -- force the
opposition to respond.
We Christians must learn how to
take the Good News, intellectually, morally, and spiritually, into the camp
of the opposition. No compromise of truth and no dilution of love, with
reason and revelation wedded. It can be done. And when we begin to do so,
the whole landscape of Western Civ. and of the world will change. There
will be stunning clarity, which will bring enormous conflict. That is the
road ahead for the people of God.
The largely Calvinist-Reformation theology which dominated and
inspired the American colonies and revolution was beginning to wane by the end of the
1700's, collapsed during the 1800's, and was thrashed during the 1900's.
A primary task today is the rewriting of Biblical theology so that it can stand toe to
toe with modernism and post-modernism, with intellectual, moral, and spiritual
credibility.
That can be done by mining
Scripture itself, not by compromising to conform to the norms of secularism or
neo-paganism. If we do not accomplish this task, we can count on
remaining in the backwaters of Western Civ.... as it collapses into oblivion. That
is what PEG is about.
Personality,
Empiricism, & God (PEG) was my D. Phil. thesis at Oxford
University
on the relation between science and theology (1964). It has sat on the
shelf for over 40 years, but that may have been the Lord's plan, because it now
puts PEG
right in the thick of the Intelligent Design (ID) versus Evolution debate.
To
the right is a picture of the Rt. Rev. Ian T. Ramsey, who
became bishop of Durham after I left Oxford in 1964. It was he, as Nolloth
Professor of Theology, who guided me through my D. Phil. efforts at Oriel
College, Oxford, probably the only person alive who could have done what he did
for me. Deo Gratia! This picture was no doubt taken shortly
after he was consecrated bishop. He died in 1972. (Visit Wikipedia
at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Ramsey for his history.)
Visit here for the
Ian Ramsey Center for Science & Religion at Oxford
University.
Click here for preview of
the emerging PEG --
The text of Vol. I is essentially finished along with study
guides at the end of each chapter.
There is no index yet. Typos, etc., will be taken care of. But I would
appreciate the reader's letting me know if the text is unclear, or other
suggestions which might help readers. Contact me at
embus@theroadtoemmaus.org.
PEG will be very relevant to the evolution debate
because it
shows the logically necessary theological undergirding of all natural science
(well, I, at least, think it does). No God, no science -- or more accurately -- no
Biblical
God, no adequate explanation for why science works. That is true historically as well
as logically.
PEG (in Vols. I and II) will provide the foundation for Vol. III of A Personalist Cosmology in Imago Dei, namely,
Yahweh or the Great Mother?
-- on the two basic competing worldviews -- Biblical versus secular/pagan.
[PEG is in pdf format. If you need the free
Adobe pdf
reader, go to www.adobe.com, and click on the
appropriate box.]
Some interesting Side Lights --
The BioCentric
Universe Theory -- Refers to Geo. Berkeley, and issues of
Personality, Empiricism, & God.
Biocentrism: How
Life Creates the Universe -- Robert Lanza and Bob Berman -- attempting
to find the secret of the cosmos in biology rather than God. Can they do
it? Compare with PEG. which tries to answer many
of the same questions.
The Dawkins
Confusion --
In Christianity Today, Alvin Plantinga takes on
Richard Dawkins -- two well-known and very capable philosopher/scientists types
who disagree completely on the "God" question.
This is an super assessment of Dawkins'
passion against God, and of some issues involved in the Intelligent Design vs.
Evolution debate.
As the above notes, I am in the midst of revising my
doctoral thesis at Oxford granted 43 years ago, on the relation between science
& theology, in which I show (I think) that science, as a logical fact, could not
have arisen in any but a Biblical culture.
Personality, Empiricism, &
God
is relevant to the conflict between Evolution and Intelligent
Design, and will, I think, help clarify many of the metaphysical issues.
For the same theme from a superb
sociologist, read Rodney Stark's The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led
to Freedom, Capitalism, & Western Success. Also his
For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch Hunts,
and the End of Slavery. E. Fox
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