"natural theology > notes > 1999

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Cantor, Georg, Contributions to the Founding of the Theory of Transfinite Numbers (Translated, with Introduction and Notes by Philip E B Jourdain), Dover 1955 Jacket: 'One of the greatest mathematical classics of all time, this work established a new field of mathematics which was to be of incalculable importance in topology, number theory, analysis, theory of functions, etc, as well as the entire field of modern logic.'
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Carroll, Lewis, Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland Illustrated by Ralph Steadman, Clarkson Potter 1973
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Denzinger, Henricus, and Adolphus Schoenmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum, Definitionum et Declarationum de Rebus Fidei et Morum, Herder 1963 Introduction: 'Dubium non est quin praeter s. Scripturam cuique theologo summe desiderandus sit etiam liber manualis quo contineantur edicta Magisterii ecclesiastici eaque saltem maioris momenti, et quo ope variorim indicum quaerenti aperiantur eorum materiae.' (3) 'There is no doubt that in addition to holy Scripture, every theologian also needs a handbook which contains at least the more important edicts of the Magisterium of the Church, indexed in a way which makes them easy to find.'back

Diamant, Anita, The Red Tent, Picador 1988 Amazon editorial review From Library Journal 'Skillfully interweaving biblical tales with events and characters of her own invention, Diamant's (Living a Jewish Life, HarperCollins, 1991) sweeping first novel re-creates the life of Dinah, daughter of Leah and Jacob, from her birth and happy childhood in Mesopotamia through her years in Canaan and death in Egypt. When Dinah reaches puberty and enters the Red Tent (the place women visit to give birth or have their monthly periods), her mother and Jacob's three other wives initiate her into the religious and sexual practices of the tribe. Diamant sympathetically describes Dinah's doomed relationship with Shalem, son of a ruler of Shechem, and his brutal death at the hands of her brothers. Following the events in Canaan, a pregnant Dinah travels to Egypt, where she becomes a noted midwife. Diamant has written a thoroughly enjoyable and illuminating portrait of a fascinating woman and the life she might have lived. Recommended for all public libraries.' Nancy Pearl, Washington Ctr. for the Book, Seattle Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Gödel, Kurt, and Solomon Feferman et al (eds), Kurt Gödel: Collected Works Volume 1 Publications 1929-1936, Oxford UP 1986 Jacket: 'Kurt Goedel was the most outstanding logician of the twentieth century, famous for his work on the completeness of logic, the incompleteness of number theory and the consistency of the axiom of choice and the continuum hypotheses. ... The first volume of a comprehensive edition of Goedel's works, this book makes available for the first time in a single source all his publications from 1929 to 1936, including his dissertation. ...'
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Hesse, Hermann, The Glass Bead Game (Magister Ludi), Peter Smith Publishing 1992 Amazon Editorial review: 'Final novel by Hermann Hesse, published in two volumes in 1943 in German as Das Glasperlenspiel, and sometimes translated as Magister Ludi. The book is an intricate bildungsroman about humanity's eternal quest for enlightenment and for synthesis of the intellectual and the participatory life. Set in the 23rd century, the novel purports to be a biography of Josef Knecht ("servant" in German), who has been reared in Castalia, the remote place his society has provided for the intellectual elite to grow and flourish. Since childhood, Knecht has been consumed with mastering the Glass Bead Game, which requires a synthesis of aesthetics and scientific arts, such as mathematics, music, logic, and philosophy. This he achieves in adulthood, becoming a Magister Ludi (Master of the Game).' Merriman-Webster Encyclopaedia of Literature
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Lonergan, Bernard J F, and Michael G Shields (translator), Robert M Doran & H Daniel Monsour (editors), The Triune God: Systematics, University of Toronto press 2007 Translated from De Deo Trino: Pars systematica (1964) by Michael G Shields. Amazon Product Description 'Buried for more than forty years in a Latin text written for seminarian students at the Gregorian University in Rome, Bernard Lonergan's 1964 masterpiece of systematic-theological writing, De Deo trino: Pars systematica, is only now being published in an edition that includes the original Latin along with an exact and literal translation. De Deo trino, or The Triune God, is the third great installment on one particular strand in trinitarian theology, namely, the tradition that appeals to a psychological analogy for understanding trinitarian processions and relations. The analogy dates back to St Augustine but was significantly developed by St Thomas Aquinas. Lonergan advances it to a new level of sophistication by rooting it in his own highly nuanced cognitional theory and in his early position on decision and love. Suggestions for a further development of the analogy appear in Lonergan's late work, but these cannot be understood and implemented without working through this volume. This is truly one of the great masterpieces in the history of systematic theology, perhaps even the greatest of all time.'
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Monsarrat, Nicholas, The Nylon Pirates, House of Stratus 2009 Amazon Product Description 'Alcestis, a British luxury liner, moored in New York and bound on a cruise to the Caribbean, South America and Africa, awaits her exclusive passengers - businessmen with mid-life crises, large bank balances and unforgiving wives; legacy-laden women looking for love and adventure; and divorcees with settlements to squander. But another group of passengers threatens to upset their opulent trip. These are the twentieth-century pirates - suave, elegant, discreet and utterly unscrupulous, with a singular purpose in mind and a collection of ruthless strategies.'
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Papers

Mank, Judith E, "Sexual Selection and Darwin's Mystery of Mysteries", Science, 326, 5960, 18 December 2009, page 1639-1640. 'Darwin referred to the origin of species as "that mystery of mysteries", and despite decades of study, evolutionary biologists still cannot agree on the underlying processes that have produced the great diversity of life around us. Most contentious of all has been the question of whether speciation can occur within a population (sympatrically). On page 1704 of this issue, van Doorn et al. suggest that mating preferences can halt the movement of genes within a population. Their work gives credibility to the concept of sympatric speciation, which has long been the ugly duckling of evolutionary biology, and suggests that both local adaptation and sexual selection may play a far more important role in speciation than previously thought.'. back

van Doorn, G Sander, Pim Edelaar, Franz J Weissing, "The Origin of SDpecies by Sexual and Natural Selection", Science, 326, 5960, 18 December 2009, page 1704-1707. 'Ecological speciation is considered an adaptive response to selection for local adaptation. However, besides suitable ecological conditions, the process requires assortative mating to protect the nascent species from homogenization by gene flow. By means of a simple model, we demonstrate that disruptive ecological selection favors the evolution of sexual preferences for ornaments that signal local adaptation. Such preferences induce assortative mating with respect to ecological characters and enhance the strength of disruptive selection. Natural and sexual selection thus work in concert to achieve local adaptation and reproductive isolation, even in the presence of substantial gene flow. The resulting speciation process ensues without the divergence of mating preferences, avoiding problems that have plagued previous models of speciation by sexual selection.'. back

Links

Aquinas 264, Whether the angels differ in species?, 'I answer that, Some have said that all spiritual substances, even souls, are of the one species. Others, again, that all the angels are of the one species, but not souls; while others allege that all the angels of one hierarchy, or even of one order, are of the one species. But this is impossible. For such things as agree in species but differ in number, agree in form, but are distinguished materially. If, therefore, the angels be not composed of matter and form, as was said above (Article 2), it follows that it is impossible for two angels to be of one species; . . . ' back

Ernst W Mayr - Wikipedia, Ernst W Mayr - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Ernst Walter Mayr (July 5, 1904, Kempten, Germany – February 3, 2005, Bedford, Massachusetts U.S.), was one of the 20th century's leading evolutionary biologists. He was also a renowned taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, historian of science, and naturalist. His work contributed to the conceptual revolution that led to the modern evolutionary synthesis of Mendelian genetics, systematics, and Darwinian evolution, and to the development of the biological species concept.' back

fqxi.org, FQXi: Foundational Questions in Physics & Cosmology, 'Mission: to catalyze, support, and disseminate research on questions at the foundations of physics and cosmology, particularly new frontiers and innovative ideas integral to a deep understanding of reality but unlikely to be supported by conventional funding sources' back

From Little Things Big Things Grow - Wikipedia, From Little Things Big Things Grow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, '"From Little Things Big Things Grow" is a rock protest song recorded by Australian artists Paul Kelly & The Messengers on their 1991 album Comedy, and by Kev Carmody (with Kelly) on his 1993 album Bloodlines. It was released as a CD single by Carmody and Kelly in 1993 but failed to chart. The song was co-written by Kelly and Carmody,[1] and is based on the story of The Gurindji Strike and Vincent Lingiari as part of the Indigenous Australian struggle for land rights and reconciliation. back

June Carter Cash, June Carter Cash - Keep on the Sunny Side Lyrics, back

Numinous - Wikipedia, Numinous - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Numinous . . . (from the Classical Latin numen) is an English adjective describing the power or presence of a divinity. The word was popularised in the early twentieth century by the German theologian Rudolf Otto in his influential book Das Heilige (1917; translated into English as The Idea of the Holy, 1923). According to Otto the numinous experience has two aspects: mysterium tremendum, which is the tendency to invoke fear and trembling; and mysterium fascinans, the tendency to attract, fascinate and compel. The numinous experience also has a personal quality to it, in that the person feels to be in communion with a wholly other. The numinous experience can lead in different cases to belief in deities, the supernatural, the sacred, the holy, and the transcendent.' back

Theodosius Dobzhansky - Wikipedia, Theodosius Dobzhansky - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Theodosius Grygorovych Dobzhansky, also known as T. G. Dobzhansky, and sometimes Anglicized to Theodore Dobzhansky (Ukrainian — Теодосій Григорович Добжанський; January 24, 1900 - December 18, 1975) was a prominent geneticist and evolutionary biologist, and a central figure in the field of evolutionary biology for his work in shaping the unifying modern evolutionary synthesis. Dobzhansky was born in Ukraine (then part of Imperial Russia) and emigrated to the United States in 1927. back

Thomas Williams, Saint Anselm (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), 'Saint Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) was the outstanding Christian philosopher and theologian of the eleventh century. He is best known for the celebrated “ontological argument” for the existence of God in chapter two of the Proslogion, but his contributions to philosophical theology (and indeed to philosophy more generally) go well beyond the ontological argument. In what follows I examine Anselm's theistic proofs, his conception of the divine nature, and his account of human freedom, sin, and redemption. . . . Anselm's motto is “faith seeking understanding” (fides quaerens intellectum).' back

vol VII: Notes

1999

Notes

Sunday 3 January 1999

Monday 4 January 1999

Tuesday 5 January 1999

Wednesday 6 January 1999

Thursday 7 January 1999

Friday 8 January 1999

Saturday 9 January 1999

Further reading

Books

Papers

Links