vol III Development:

Chapter 4: Physics

page 2: Fixed points in the divine dynamics

The medieval God

The writers of the Hebrew Bible concentrate on the personal features of their God Yahweh. The ancient Greeks also started with very human Gods whose deeds were widely celebrated in epic literature like the Iliad, written about 750 bce. Later, beginning about 500 bce, the Greeks moved toward a more scientific concept of divinity. This developed from Parmenides through Plato to Aristotle and was then taken up more than a thousand years later by Aquinas to produce the definitive Christian model of God. Hebrew Bible - Wikipedia, Iliad - Wikipedia

Parmenides wanted to know how we can have certain knowledge of a changing world. He concluded that beneath the ephemeral appearances of everyday life there existed an unchanging core of being which is the subject of true knowledge. In the fragments we have of a poem that he wrote, this core is described as 'complete, immovable, and without end'. This heart of being imagined by Parmenides became a paradigm for much subsequent understanding of God. Parmenides, John Palmer - Parmenides

Plato took up Parmenides' approach to knowledge in his dialogue Parmenides written about 370 bce. The discussion revolves around the relationship between Parmenides' contention that all is one, and the apparent existence of many things. The background to the discussion is Plato's doctrine of forms, that for every thing on Earth there exists a perfect form or idea which determines the nature of the thing. Plato: Parmenides, Theory of Forms - Wikipedia

Since Plato expressed his ideas in dialogue form, putting them into the mouths of various actors, it is not easy to tell exactly what he thought. His student Aristotle clarified the matter by bringing some of Plato's forms down to Earth with his theory of matter (υλη) and form (μορφη), named (from the Greek) hylomorphism. This approach enabled Aristotle to explain change while maintaining the eternal nature of forms. He proposed that all material things comprised two elements, matter and form. Change occurred when some matter took on new form, as when a smith converts a bronze sword into a bronze ploughshare. Hylomorphism - Wikipedia

For Aristotle, hylomorphism applied to the interactions of physical bodies. He then went on to apply this idea to everything by developing the metaphysical ideas of potency (δυναμις) and act (εντελεχεια). Using this extended model, Aristotle defined motion as the the change from potency to act: in flight an arrow moves from actually in the bow and potentially in the target to actually in the target. He also established, as an axiom, that nothing could move from potentiality to actuality except through the agency of something already actual. Potentiality and actuality - Wikipedia

Aristotle used the axiomatic relationship between potency and act to prove the existence of the first unmoved mover which he believed was responsible for all the movement in the world. This entity was unmoved, since is had no potential to change, and was thus pure act. Aquinas used this same argument in his first proof that God is other than the Universe in his Summa Theologiae. Unmoved mover - Wikipedia, Aquinas 13: Whether God exists?

Medieval Catholic theologians believed that God is completely simple, omnino simplex. Aquinas agreed with Aristotle that the divine being is pure act, actus purus. From this fact he argued that God could have none of the structural features that we associate with the world.

The idea that God is absolutely simple has mystical roots that can be traced to Pseudo-Dionysius who wrote of negative or apophatic theology. Thomas begins his study of God with a succinct statement of the negative approach.

Once we know that something may exist, it remains to study how it may be so that we may know what is it. But because we cannot know what God is, but what it is not, we are not able to consider how God may be, but rather how God may not be. Therefore we must first study how God is not; secondly, how God is known by us, and thirdly how God is to be named. It is possible to show how God is not by removing from it things which are not proper to it like composition, motion and so on. Therefore the first thing to ask about is its simplicity, through which God is denied composition. Latin original: Corpus Thomisticum: Summa I, 3 (Proemium)

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite - Wikipedia, Apophatic theology - Wikipedia

God is not a body because (according to medieval science) every body is in potentiality because it is continuous and the continuous, as such, is divisible to infinity; it is therefore impossible that God should be a body. Nor does it comprise matter and form, because matter implies potential and there is no potential in God, being pure act. Nor is there a distinction of essence and existence. If God's existence was different from its essence, he argues, its existence must be caused by something outside it, which cannot be true of God, the first being and source of all. Aquinas 14: Is God a Body? sqq

Could the Universe be divine?

This site is the outcome of a project begun in the 1980s to apply mathematical modelling to theology. This project was motivated by a desire to reduce the religious friction in the world by moving theology toward becoming an evidence based science. The opportunity seemed to be there because both mathematics and theology explore the whole symbolic space bounded by consistency. These bounds have been explored by Cantor, Gödel and Turing and the mathematical work inspired by them. The theological via negativa and mathematical non-constructive proof both assume that existence and consistency are equivalent. A theory of peace 1987: 1. Mathematical theology

Theology can become a real science if we identify God and the world so that all our experiences are experiences of God. From the point of view of tradition, the biggest problem with this identification is that while God is believed to be absolutely simple, the world is exceedingly complex. Aquinas 14 sqq

We accept that God is pure action. We can also assume that there is no formal difference between the God described by Aquinas, the structureless initial singularity implied by the general theory of relativity and the structureless vacuum from which quantum field theory sees the world being created and annihilated. Vacuum state - Wikipedia, Vacuum energy - Wikipedia, Initial singularity - Wikipedia

These three systems may all be considered as pure action. Mathematically, we can represent action by mapping. Mathematical fixed point theory establishes that under certain very broad conditions, mappings of a set onto itself have fixed points, that is points x such that the map f leaves x unchanged, ie f(x) = x. Since God is all that there is, we might expect that the life of God involves God mapping itself onto itself and that there might, therefore, be fixed points in the divine motion.Fixed point theorem - Wikipedia

Expanding the Trinity

This is a very old idea which became the doctrine of the Trinity, part of Catholic Dogma. We find it in John's Gospel: In the beginning was the word. The term 'word' already had a long history when John wrote. It was a central term in ancient theories of knowledge. To know something is to have it within you in some way, and the mental word came to mean all the knowledge carried by an individual. Trinity - Wikipedia

Ancient philosophers realized that the word was not the thing represented, but an abstract version of it. When we come to know something or somebody we pick out features of interest and ignore the rest. We must because our mental capacity is limited. When they came to apply this idea to God, however, the theologians decided that God's knowledge of itself is identical to God itself. The Word of God is God. In mathematical language, the mapping of God onto itself is God itself.

The doctrine of the Trinity requires that there be three distinct persons in the Trinity. How, then are we to distinguish the Word of God from God ('the Father') if they are identical? Augustine and Aquinas developed the idea that the distinction between Father and Word (Son) could be explained by the relationship established by 'procession'. Summa: I 27 1 Is there procession in God?

From our network point of view, relationships are established by communication. Our babies gradually become independent persons which are nevertheless closely related to us by communicating with us and their environment.

How is information stored?

Fixed point theory helps to deal with another ancient problem. Aristotle had concluded that the human mind must be immaterial, because otherwise it would not be flexible enough to accomodate all the ideas we have. One important feature of classical spiritual beings is that they have no parts or physical extension. This makes it difficult to understand how information can be represented within them, since there are no marks to represent information. The problem is more difficult when we come to the ultimate spiritual being, God, who is held to be absolutely simple (omnino simplex). How can God be both omniscient (knowing everything) and yet absolutely simple? Casti: Five Golden Rules

The application of fixed point theorems to the divine dynamics enables us to understand how God can be both absolutely simple and yet manifest the huge number of fixed points which reveal the structure of the Universe. The important point is that the fixed points of the divine Universe are not distinct from the dynamic life of God, but part of it. We see here where Parmenides and all who followed him to make God distinct from the world were mistaken: they thought that stillness was necessarily distinct from motion, rather than part of it.

This point removes a major objection to identifying God and the world and so makes it easier for us to proceed on the assumption that the Universe is divine. Given this assumption God is no longer a mysterious other, totally beyond our ken. On the contrary, all our experience becomes experience of God. God as a whole may be beyond our ken, but this does not mean that we cannot understand the local manifestations of God. Given that we can experience God, theology can become an evidence based science like all the other sciences. All science becomes science of God and so part of theology. Our hypothesis restores theology to its traditional position as the theory of everything, the Queen of the sciences. Fortun & Bernstein: Muddling Through, Theology - Wikipedia

(revised 16 May 2016)

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Further reading

Books

Click on the "Amazon" link below each book entry to see details of a book (and possibly buy it!)

Casti, John L, Five Golden Rules: Great Theories of 20th-Century Mathematics - and Why They Matter, John Wiley and Sons 1996 Preface: '[this book] is intended to tell the general reader about mathematics by showcasing five of the finest achievements of the mathematician's art in this [20th] century.' p ix. Treats the Minimax theorem (game theory), the Brouwer Fixed-Point theorem (topology), Morse's theorem (singularity theory), the Halting theorem (theory of computation) and the Simplex method (optimisation theory).  Amazon   back

Fortun, Mike, and Herbert J Bernstein, Muddling Through: Pursuing Science and Truths in the Twenty-First Century, Counterpoint 1998 Amazon editorial review: 'Does science discover truths or create them? Does dioxin cause cancer or not? Is corporate-sponsored research valid or not? Although these questions reflect the way we're used to thinking, maybe they're not the best way to approach science and its place in our culture. Physicist Herbert J. Bernstein and science historian Mike Fortun, both of the Institute for Science and Interdisciplinary Studies (ISIS), suggest a third way of seeing, beyond taking one side or another, in Muddling Through: Pursuing Science and Truths in the 21st Century. While they deal with weighty issues and encourage us to completely rethink our beliefs about science and truth, they do so with such grace and humor that we follow with ease discussions of toxic-waste disposal, the Human Genome Project, and retooling our language to better fit the way science is actually done.'  Amazon   back

Hawking, Steven W, and G F R Ellis, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time , Cambridge UP 1975 Preface: Einstein's General Theory of Relativity . . . leads to two remarkable predictions about the universe: first that the final fate of massive stars is to collapse behind an event horizon to form a 'black hole' which will contain a singularity; and secondly that there is a singularity in our past which constitutes, in some sense, a beginning to our universe. Our discussion is principally aimed at developing these two results.'  Amazon   back

Links

Apophatic theology - Wikipedia, Apophatic theology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Apophatic theology (from Greek ἀπόφασις from ἀπόφημι - apophēmi, "to deny")—also known as negative theology or via negativa (Latin for "negative way")—is a theology that attempts to describe God, the Divine Good, by negation, to speak only in terms of what may not be said about the perfect goodness that is God. It stands in contrast with cataphatic theology.' back

Aquinas 13, Summa: I 2 3: Whether God exists?, I answer that the existence of God can be proved in five ways. The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. . . . The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause. . . . The third way is taken from possibility and necessity . . . The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. . . . The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. back

Aquinas 14, Summa: I 3 1: Is God a body? , 'I answer that, It is absolutely true that God is not a body; and this can be shown in three ways. First, because no body is in motion unless it be put in motion, as is evident from induction. Now it has been already proved (2, 3), that God is the First Mover, and is Himself unmoved. Therefore it is clear that God is not a body. .. .' back

Aquinas 160, Summa: I 27 1 Is there procession in God?, 'Our Lord says, "From God I proceeded" (Jn. 8:42).' back

Atomic nucleus - Wikipedia, Atomic nucleus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The nucleus of an atom is the very small dense region of an atom, in its centre consisting of nucleons (protons and neutrons). The size (diameter) of the nucleus is in the range of 1.6 fm (10-15 m) (for a proton in light hydrogen) to about 15 fm (for the heaviest atoms, such as uranium). These dimensions are much smaller than the size of the atom itself by a factor of about 23,000 (uranium) to about 145,000 (hydrogen). Almost all of the mass in an atom is made up from the protons and neutrons in the nucleus with a very small contribution from the orbiting electrons.' back

Atomic orbital - Wikipedia, Atomic orbital - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'An atomic orbital is a mathematical function that describes the wave-like behavior of an electron in an atom. The region in which an electron may be found around a single atom in a particular energy state can be calculated from this function. The term "orbital" has become known as either the "mathematical function" or the "region" generated with the function. Specifically, atomic orbitals are the possible quantum states of an individual electron in the electron cloud around a single atom, as described by the function.' back

Brouwer fixed point theorem - Wikipedia, Brouwer fixed point theorem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Brouwer's fixed-point theorem is a fixed-point theorem in topology, named after Luitzen Brouwer. It states that for any continuous function f with certain properties there is a point x0 such that f(x0) = x0. The simplest form of Brouwer's theorem is for continuous functions f from a disk D to itself. A more general form is for continuous functions from a convex compact subset K of Euclidean space to itself. back

Christ the Logos - Wikipedia, Christ the Logos - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In Christology, the conception that the Christ is the Logos (the Greek for "word", "wisdom", or "reason") has been important in establishing the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus Christ and his position as God the Son in the Trinity as set forth in the Chalcedonian Creed. The conception derives from the opening of the Gospel of John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." In the original Greek, Logos is used, and in theological discourse, this is often left untranslated. Word and related terms in earlier Jewish tradition prepared the way for its use here to denote Jesus as revealer of the unseen God (see Wisdom 9:1-4, 9, 17-18; Ecclesiasticus 24:1-12)' back

Compact space - Wikipedia, Compact space - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In mathematics, more specifically general topology and metric topology, a compact space is an abstract mathematical space in which, intuitively, whenever one takes an infinite number of "steps" in the space, eventually one must get arbitrarily close to some other point of the space. Thus a closed and bounded subset (such as a closed interval or rectangle) of a Euclidean space is compact because ultimately one's steps are forced to "bunch up" near a point of the set, a result known as the Bolzano–Weierstrass theorem, whereas Euclidean space itself is not compact because one can take infinitely many equal steps in any given direction without ever getting very close to any other point of the space.' back

Continuous function - Wikipedia, Continuous function - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'IIn mathematics, a continuous function is a function for which, intuitively, "small" changes in the input result in "small" changes in the output. Otherwise, a function is said to be a "discontinuous function". A continuous function with a continuous inverse function is called "bicontinuous".' back

Convex set - Wikipedia, Convex set - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In Euclidean space, an object is convex if for every pair of points within the object, every point on the straight line segment that joins them is also within the object. For example, a solid cube is convex, but anything that is hollow or has a dent in it, for example, a crescent shape, is not convex.' back

Energy - Wikipedia, Energy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In physics and other sciences, energy (from the Greek energos, 'active, working) is a scalar physical quantity that is a property of objects and systems which is conserved by nature. Energy is often defined as the ability to do work. back

FIFA (Federation International de Football Association), FIFA - Laws of the Game, 'On 1 July 2009, the new Laws of the Game, modified at the 123rd Annual General Meeting of the International Football Association Board (IFAB) in Newcastle, Northern Ireland on 28 February 2009, came into force.' back

Fixed point theorem - Wikipedia, Fixed point theorem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In mathematics, a fixed point theorem is a result saying that a function F will have at least one fixed point (a point x for which F(x) = x), under some conditions on F that can be stated in general terms. Results of this kind are amongst the most generally useful in mathematics. The Banach fixed point theorem gives a general criterion guaranteeing that, if it is satisfied, the procedure of iterating a function yields a fixed point. By contrast, the Brouwer fixed point theorem is a non-constructive result: it says that any continuous function from the closed unit ball in n-dimensional Euclidean space to itself must have a fixed point, but it doesn't describe how to find the fixed point (See also Sperner's lemma).' back

Fundación Tomás de Aquino, Corpus Thomisticum: Summa I, 3 (Proemium) , Quaestio 3 Prooemium Cognito de aliquo an sit, inquirendum restat quomodo sit, ut sciatur de eo quid sit. Sed quia de Deo scire non possumus quid sit, sed quid non sit, non possumus considerare de Deo quomodo sit, sed potius quomodo non sit. Primo ergo considerandum est quomodo non sit; secundo, quomodo a nobis cognoscatur; tertio, quomodo nominetur. Potest autem ostendi de Deo quomodo non sit, removendo ab eo ea quae ei non conveniunt, utpote compositionem, motum, et alia huiusmodi. Primo ergo inquiratur de simplicitate ipsius, per quam removetur ab eo compositio. Et quia simplicia in rebus corporalibus sunt imperfecta et partes, secundo inquiretur de perfectione ipsius; tertio, de infinitate eius; quarto, de immutabilitate; quinto, de unitate. Circa primum quaeruntur octo. Primo, utrum Deus sit corpus. Secundo, utrum sit in eo compositio formae et materiae. Tertio, utrum sit in eo compositio quidditatis, sive essentiae, vel naturae, et subiecti. Quarto, utrum sit in eo compositio quae est ex essentia et esse. Quinto, utrum sit in eo compositio generis et differentiae. Sexto, utrum sit in eo compositio subiecti et accidentis. Septimo, utrum sit quocumque modo compositus, vel totaliter simplex. Octavo, utrum veniat in compositionem cum aliis. back

Gravitational singularity - Wikipedia, Gravitational singularity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'A gravitational singularity (sometimes spacetime singularity) is, approximately, a place where quantities which are used to measure the gravitational field become infinite. Such quantities include the curvature of spacetime or the density of matter. More accurately, a spacetime with a singularity contains geodesics which cannot be completed in a smooth manner. The limit of such a geodesic is the singularity.' back

Hebrew Bible - Wikipedia, Hebrew Bible - Wikipedia, The Hebrew Bible . . . is a term referring to the books of the Jewish Bible as originally written mostly in Biblical Hebrew with some Biblical Aramaic. The term closely corresponds to contents of the Jewish Tanakh and the Protestant Old Testament (see also Judeo-Christian) but does not include the deuterocanonical portions of the Roman Catholic or the Anagignoskomena portions of the Eastern Orthodox Old Testaments. The term does not imply naming, numbering or ordering of books, which varies (see also Biblical canon).' back

Hylomorphism - Wikipedia, Hylomorphism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Hylomorphism (Greek ὑλο- hylo-, "wood, matter" + -morphism < Greek μορφή, morphē, "form") is a philosophical theory developed by Aristotle, which analyzes substance into matter and form. Substances are conceived of as compounds of form and matter.' back

Iliad - Wikipedia, Iliad - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Iliad (sometimes referred to as the Song of Ilion or Song of Ilium) is an ancient Greek epic poem in dactylic hexameter, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy (Ilium) by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles.' back

Initial singularity - Wikipedia, Initial singularity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The initial singularity was the gravitational singularity of infinite density thought to have contained all of the mass and spacetime of the Universe before quantum fluctuations caused it to rapidly expand in the Big Bang and subsequent inflation, creating the present-day Universe.' back

John Palmer - Parmenides, Parmenides (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), First published Fri Feb 8, 2008 ' Immediately after welcoming Parmenides to her abode, the goddess describes as follows the content of the revelation he is about to receive: You must needs learn all things,/ both the unshaken heart of well-rounded reality/ and the notions of mortals, in which there is no genuine trustworthiness./ Nonetheless these things too will you learn, how what they resolved/ had actually to be, all through all pervading. (Fr. 1.28b-32) ' back

Momentum - Wikipedia, Momentum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In classical mechanics, momentum (pl. momenta; SI unit kg·m/s, or, equivalently, N·s) is the product of the mass and velocity of an object (p=mv). For more accurate measures of momentum, see the section "modern definitions of momentum" on this page.' back

Parmenides, Fragements 1-19, Burnet's English translation, '8 One path only is left for us to speak of, namely, that It is. In it are very many tokens that what is is uncreated and indestructible; for it is complete, immovable, and without end.' back

Parmenides - Wikipedia, Parmenides - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Parmenides of Elea (early 5th century BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Elea, a Greek city on the southern coast of Italy. He was the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy, his only known work is a poem which has survived only in fragmentary form. In it, Parmenides describes two views of reality. In the Way of Truth, he explained how reality is one; change is impossible; and existence is timeless, uniform, and unchanging. In the Way of Opinion, he explained the world of appearances, which is false and deceitful. These thoughts strongly influenced Plato, and through him, the whole of western philosophy.' back

Plato, Parmenides, 'Parmenides By Plato Written 370 B.C.E Translated by Benjamin Jowett Persons of the Dialogue CEPHALUS ADEIMANTUS GLAUCON ANTIPHON PYTHODORUS SOCRATES ZENO PARMENIDES ARISTOTELES Scene Cephalus rehearses a dialogue which is supposed to have been narrated in his presence by Antiphon, the half-brother of Adeimantus and Glaucon, to certain Clazomenians. back

Potentiality and actuality - Wikipedia, Potentiality and actuality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In philosophy, Potentiality and Actualit are principles of a dichotomy which Aristotle used to analyze motion, causality, ethics, and physiology in his Physics, Metaphysics, Ethics and De Anima (which is about the human psyche). The concept of potentiality, in this context, generally refers to any "possibility" that a thing can be said to have. Aristotle did not consider all possibilities the same, and emphasized the importance of those that become real of their own accord when conditions are right and nothing stops them.[3] Actuality, in contrast to potentiality, is the motion, change or activity that represents an exercise or fulfillment of a possibility, when a possibility becomes real in the fullest sense. back

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite - Wikipedia, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (Greek: Διονύσιος ὁ Ἀρεοπαγίτης), also known as Pseudo-Denys, was a Christian theologian and philosopher of the late 5th to early 6th century (writing before 532), probably Syrian, the author of the set of works commonly referred to as the Corpus Areopagiticum or Corpus Dionysiacum. The author pseudonymously identifies himself in the corpus as "Dionysios", portraying himself as the figure of Dionysius the Areopagite, the Athenian convert of St. Paul mentioned in Acts 17:34.[1] This false attribution resulted in the work being given great authority in subsequent theological writing in both East and West, with its influence only decreasing in the West with the fifteenth century demonstration of its later dating.' back

Schrödinger equation - Wikipedia, Schrödinger equation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In physics, the Schrödinger equation, proposed by the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1926, describes the space- and time-dependence of quantum mechanical systems. It is of central importance in non-relativistic quantum mechanics, playing a role for microscopic particles analogous to Newton's second law in classical mechanics for macroscopic particles. Microscopic particles include elementary particles, such as electrons, as well as systems of particles, such as atomic nuclei.' back

Simple harmonic motion - Wikipedia, Simple harmonic motion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In mechanics and physics, simple harmonic motion is a type of periodic motion where the restoring force is directly proportional to the displacement. It can serve as a mathematical model of a variety of motions, such as the oscillation of a spring. In addition, other phenomena can be approximated by simple harmonic motion, including the motion of a simple pendulum as well as molecular vibration. Simple harmonic motion is typified by the motion of a mass on a spring when it is subject to the linear elastic restoring force given by Hooke's Law. The motion is sinusoidal in time and demonstrates a single resonant frequency. In order for simple harmonic motion to take place, the net force of the object at the end of the pendulum must be proportional to the displacement.' back

Space - Wikipedia, Space - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The concept of space has been of interest for philosophers and scientists for much of human history. The term is used somewhat differently in different fields of study, hence it is difficult to provide an uncontroversial and clear definition outside of specific defined contexts. Disagreement also exists on whether space itself can be measured or is part of the measuring system. (See Space in philosophy.) Science considers space to be a fundamental quantity (a quantity which can not be defined via other quantities because other quantities — like force and energy — are already defined via space). Thus an operational definition is used in which the procedure of measurement of space intervals (distances) and the units of measurement are defined.' back

Theology - Wikipedia, Theology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Theology is the systematic and rational study of concepts of God and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university, seminary or school of divinity. . . . 'During the High Middle Ages, theology was therefore the ultimate subject at universities, being named "The Queen of the Sciences" and serving as the capstone to the Trivium and Quadrivium that young men were expected to study. This meant that the other subjects (including Philosophy) existed primarily to help with theological thought.' back

Theory of Forms - Wikipedia, Theory of Forms - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Plato's theory of Forms or theory of Ideas asserts that non-material abstract (but substantial) forms (or ideas), and not the material world of change known to us through sensation, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality. When used in this sense, the word form or idea is often capitalized. Plato speaks of these entities only through the characters (primarily Socrates) of his dialogues who sometimes suggest that these Forms are the only true objects of study that can provide us with genuine knowledge; thus even apart from the very controversial status of the theory, Plato's own views are much in doubt. Plato spoke of Forms in formulating a possible solution to the problem of universals.' back

Time - Wikipedia, Time - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Time is a basic component of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify the motions of objects. Time has been a major subject of religion, philosophy, and science, but defining time in a non-controversial manner applicable to all fields of study has consistently eluded the greatest scholars.' back

Trinity - Wikipedia, Trinity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (from Latin trinitas "triad", from trinus "threefold") defines God as three consubstantial persons,[2] expressions, or hypostases: the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit; "one God in three persons". The three persons are distinct, yet are one "substance, essence or nature". In this context, a "nature" is what one is, while a "person" is who one is.' back

Unmoved mover - Wikipedia, Unmoved mover - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The unmoved mover (ού κινούμενον κινεῖ oú kinoúmenon kineῖ) is a philosophical concept described by Aristotle as a primary cause or "mover" of all the motion in the universe. As is implicit in the name, the "unmoved mover" is not moved by any prior action. In Book 12 (Greek "Λ") of his Metaphysics, Aristotle describes the unmoved mover as being perfectly beautiful, indivisible, and contemplating only the perfect contemplation: itself contemplating. He equates this concept also with the Active Intellect. This Aristotelian concept had its roots in cosmological speculations of the earliest Greek "Pre-Socratic" philosophers and became highly influential and widely drawn upon in medieval philosophy and theology. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, elaborated on the Unmoved Mover in the quinque viae.' back

Vacuum energy - Wikipedia, Vacuum energy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The effects of vacuum energy can be experimentally observed in various phenomena such as spontaneous emission, the Casimir effect and the Lamb shift, and are thought to influence the behavior of the Universe on cosmological scales. Using the upper limit of the cosmological constant, the vacuum energy of free space has been estimated to be 10−9 joules . . . per cubic meter. However, in both quantum electrodynamics (QED) and stochastic electrodynamics (SED), consistency with the principle of Lorentz covariance and with the magnitude of the Planck constant requires it to have a much larger value of 10113 joules per cubic meter. This huge discrepancy is known as the vacuum catastrophe.' back

Vacuum state - Wikipedia, Vacuum state - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In quantum field theory, the vacuum state (also called the vacuum) is the quantum state with the lowest possible energy. Generally, it contains no physical particles. Zero-point field is sometimes used as a synonym for the vacuum state of an individual quantized field.' back