Christ, creation, and the world of science: against paradox

Both the incarnation and quantum theory have been deemed paradoxical. Yet in investigating the paradoxicality of both issues, there is an implicit assumption that it is possible to divide the world into discrete binary categories such that something is either A or not-A. Whilst such Boolean logic has served the progression of modern science well it rests on the idea that it is only possible to make unambiguous statements if one has already suppressed and/or ignored the apparently “irrelevant” features. This particularisation of the world is not given a priori as an ontological “brute fact” but arises from our context dependent categorisation. In this thesis I argue that the metaphysical “paradox” of the incarnation is caused by an implicit adherence to binary logic, misrepresented as ontological fact. In contrast to this, the holistic ontologies provided by Michael Esfeld and Hans Primas’ interpretations of quantum theory offer a metaphysics more suited to accounting for the “fuzziness” of reality. In doing so they provide the theologian with two alternative accounts of reality, which are not only in line with current scientific understanding of the world but that offer opportunity to remove the charge of “unreasonableness” from one of the central Christian doctrines – Christ was fully God and fully human. This thesis examines the role that radically holistic, scientifically informed, metaphysics may have on our understanding of the connection and interaction between the divine and human “substances” in Christ. How the incarnation occurred rightly remains a mystery, but holism offers chance to reconsider the metaphysical claims associated with our interpretation of Chalcedon

The Science and Religion Forum discuss information and reality: Questions for religions and science

The Science and Religion Forum (SRF) promotes discussion on issues at the interface of science and religion. The forum membership is diverse and it holds an annual conference to encourage exploration of issues that arise at the interface of science and religion. This article provides an overview of the hybrid conference that took place at the Woodbrooke Centre in Birmingham in May 2022. The conference addressed the issue of information and reality for religions and science across two broad themes. The first focused on metaphysical matters and the impact of the idea that information (quantum, biological, digital) are the fundamental building blocks of the universe, on our theological discourse. The second took a more ethical turn focusing on the issues raised by the interaction of information (biological, personal, digital) and science in society. This thematic section includes articles that span both strands of the conference including the public Gowland Lecture and the winning essay from the Peacocke Prize

Navigating the "human" and "divine" natures in a holistic world

In a world in which it might be argued strict materialism is under threat, it is necessary to question whether nature and that which is “beyond” are as distinct now as they once were, or whether the rise of scientific accounts of holism fundamentally challenge our categories of “material” and “immaterial”. Science now raises deep and unavoidable metaphysical questions in a way that perhaps haven’t been seen since it was understood as “natural philosophy” and offers a worldview in which holism, and a move towards a holistic account of the incarnation challenges our definition of “natural” being amenable to scientific discovery. If we are to understand fundamental reality as something that is neither material nor immaterial, or as being based in a relational ontology then the question of the nature of the hypostatic union becomes a question of how we are to define “divine” and “human” “natures”. This is not to imply that the incarnation is to be understood in purely semantic terms, but that the divide of part-whole and substance-accident that can be applied to the medieval models also produces a far more productive division of the discussion than can be achieved by the traditional modern divisions. The reason for this division of the discussion rests in the fact that once one removes the properties of “material” and “immaterial”, “body” and “soul” as ontological categories, the distinction between different “substances” comes down to a discussion of different “properties” in a way that is more meaningful than accidental qualitative properties, but that isn’t occurring at the ontological division of “substance”. The reason that the move to ontological holism as opposed to reductionism offers such a paradigmatic shift for our understanding for our theological discourse rests in the very fact that understanding the metaphysics underlying the incarnation is fundamental in understanding the doctrine as a whole. This paper will examine the theological implications of holism on our understanding of “nature” with a particular emphasis on the relational models of holism proposed by Michael Esfeld. Having examined the importance of our definitions of “material” and “immaterial” at an ontological, rather than purely semantic, level I argue that these need to be radically changed in order to capture the nature of the incarnation, and conclude by tentatively setting out how God may be understood to sit within (or without) a natural world in which “material” and “immaterial” and indeed “human” and “divine” are not incompatible bi polar categories

Eternity and time in science: what role do theories of relativity play in the formation of a coherent model of eternity

Historically models of eternity have been grounded in divine attributes rather than the intrinsic structure of space-time. I examine the topology of Minkowski spacetime in comparison to the Euclidean space of Newtonian Mechanics, before highlighting five common approaches to eternity. Both atemporal and temporal models of eternity are examined to establish what they tell us about the nature of eternity outside the divine attributes, before being evaluated for their coherence with the Special Theory of Relativity. I argue that the most coherent models of eternity in light of the Special Theory of Relativity are those that appeal to metaphysical rather than physical time as it remains unaffected by the conventionality and relativity of simultaneity. I conclude that the special Theory of Relativity has a valid role to play in establishing the coherence of eternity. However, due to the discontinuity of concepts of time between the Special Theory of Relativity, the General theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, it cannot single-handedly be used to establish which models of eternity cohere with scientific models of time, but must be use alongside the General theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics

Duality of Positive Currents and Plurisubharmonic Functions in Calibrated Geometry

Recently the authors showed that there is a robust potential theory attached to any calibrated manifold (X,\phi). In particular, on X there exist \phi-plurisubharmonic functions, \phi-convex domains, \phi-convex boundaries, etc., all inter-related and having a number of good properties. In this paper we show that, in a strong sense, the plurisubharmonic functions are the polar duals of the \phi-submanifolds, or more generally, the \phi-currents studied in the original paper on calibrations. In particular, we establish an analogue of Duval-Sibony Duality which characterizes points in the \phi-convex hull of a compact set K in X in terms of \phi-positive Green's currents on X and Jensen measures on K. We also characterize boundaries of \phi-currents entirely in terms of \phi-plurisubharmonic functions. Specific calibrations are used as examples throughout. Analogues of the Hodge Conjecture in calibrated geometry are considered.Comment: Minor typographical errors have been correcte