I see these essays as a work in progress. I am going back to The God of the Gaps essay and I'm going to incorporate this info about non-Euclidian geometry there. I was not sure if or when to introduce that, but now I know, thanks to your questioning.
Actually, Mark, it is timely that you brought this up. It has been said that the collapse in faith in Britain in the 19th century was not only due to Darwin, but also due to the fact that Euclid's geometry had a quasi-Christian certainty that was destroyed by the non-Euclidian geometries when they came along.
Unfortunately for Thomas Aquinas (and Euclid, who he was citing), he did not anticipate the work of Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky , János Bolyai, or Bernhard Riemann. Here are the differences
Back to Fr. Dwight's argument. I think I would find it easier to agree with him if he didn't assert that God is breaking His own laws when miracles occur. Could it be that miracles are still in harmony with the few natural laws you mention? It's just that us humans have imperfect and incomplete understanding of those laws so it just appears to us that a law of the universe has been broken.
Agreed. There is something about the lawbreaking argument that is, well...I like Fr. Dwight, I appreciate his work, he doesn't know me from Adam, and I don't want to use words that might wound.
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"Could it be that miracles are still in harmony with the few natural laws you mention?"
That is very possible. We know of a few cases of advanced cancer where the patients came down with serious viral infections and upon recovery found the cancer was gone; it was almost as if the virus woke up the immune system. Now, I'm not going to go out on a limb and say all miracles are like that, but I can't exclude it ether, so it is conceivable that miracles are all natural. Who knows?
BTW, an upcoming essay on the Fourth Dimension will go into this a bit.
In Summa Contra Gentiles St. Thomas Aquinas notes that even God can't make a right triangle with the sum of the angles being anything but 180 degrees.
It seems Fr. Dwight disagrees. I'm putting my money on the "dumb ox".
Hi Mark:
I see these essays as a work in progress. I am going back to The God of the Gaps essay and I'm going to incorporate this info about non-Euclidian geometry there. I was not sure if or when to introduce that, but now I know, thanks to your questioning.
Actually, Mark, it is timely that you brought this up. It has been said that the collapse in faith in Britain in the 19th century was not only due to Darwin, but also due to the fact that Euclid's geometry had a quasi-Christian certainty that was destroyed by the non-Euclidian geometries when they came along.
Unfortunately for Thomas Aquinas (and Euclid, who he was citing), he did not anticipate the work of Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky , János Bolyai, or Bernhard Riemann. Here are the differences
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Lobachevsky-Bolyai geometry: hyperbolic, negative curvature, triangles < 180 degrees, pseudospherical projection
Euclid's geometry: flat, zero curvature, triangles = 180 degrees, planar projection
Riemann geometry: elliptical, positive curvature, triangles > 180 degrees, spherical projection
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General relativity makes extensive use of these geometries. ;-)
Back to Fr. Dwight's argument. I think I would find it easier to agree with him if he didn't assert that God is breaking His own laws when miracles occur. Could it be that miracles are still in harmony with the few natural laws you mention? It's just that us humans have imperfect and incomplete understanding of those laws so it just appears to us that a law of the universe has been broken.
Agreed. There is something about the lawbreaking argument that is, well...I like Fr. Dwight, I appreciate his work, he doesn't know me from Adam, and I don't want to use words that might wound.
-
"Could it be that miracles are still in harmony with the few natural laws you mention?"
That is very possible. We know of a few cases of advanced cancer where the patients came down with serious viral infections and upon recovery found the cancer was gone; it was almost as if the virus woke up the immune system. Now, I'm not going to go out on a limb and say all miracles are like that, but I can't exclude it ether, so it is conceivable that miracles are all natural. Who knows?
BTW, an upcoming essay on the Fourth Dimension will go into this a bit.