CCEL Classics CD: works by Saint Augustine, John Calvin, John Donne, Julian of Norwich, Brother Lawrence, Martin Luther, Saint Teresa of Avila, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas a Kempis, John Wesley, and more!

CCEL Classics CD: works by Saint Augustine, John Calvin, John Donne, Julian of Norwich, Brother Lawrence, Martin Luther, Saint Teresa of Avila, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas a Kempis, John Wesley, and more!
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CCEL Classics CD: works by Saint Augustine, John Calvin, John Donne, Julian of Norwich, Brother Lawrence, Martin Luther, Saint Teresa of Avila, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas a Kempis, John Wesley, and more!
Dr. W. Harry Plantinga
Manufacturer: Christian Classics Ethereal Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: CD-ROM

Mariology | Catholicism | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
General | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
Luther, Martin | ( L ) | People, A-Z | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Augustine, Saint | ( A ) | People, A-Z | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1931848076
Release Date: 2006-12-15

Product Description

The most important spiritual writings of Christian history are available on this Classics CD by the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) at Calvin College. It contains 118 Christian classics, including three versions of the Bible, several commentaries, Bible dictionaries, readings, spiritual guides, sermons, poems and journals -- all in a convenient, searchable form. Books are available in HTML and PDF formats. The easy-to-use CCEL Desktop software powering the CD enables users to browse and print books and install additional books from the Web. The top-of-class search engine can search for words or phrases in books, in authors works or in the whole library. In addition, it can search for dictionary definitions of words and commentary or references to scripture passages. The interface is a Web browser. The CD is compatible with Windows 2000+, Macintosh 10.3+, and most Linux versions.

The Nature of Necessity (Clarendon Library of Logic and Philosophy)

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valuable and not at all wrong, but importantly incomplete
An enduring classic
Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing
The classic work on the metaphysics of modality.
Excellent application of Modal Logic to traditional problems

The Nature of Necessity (Clarendon Library of Logic and Philosophy)
Alvin Plantinga
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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God and Other Minds: A Study of the Rational Justification of Belief in God (Cornell Paperbacks)
Essays in the Metaphysics of Modality
Warranted Christian Belief
God, Freedom, and Evil
Warrant and Proper Function

ASIN: 0198244142

Book Description

This is a reissue of a book which is an exploration and defence of the notion of modality 'de re', the idea that objects have both essential and accidental properties. It is one of the first full-length studies of the modalities to emerge from the debate to which Saul Kripke, David Lewis, Ruth Marcus and others have contributed. The argument is developed by means of the notion of possible worlds, and ranges over key problems including the nature of essence, trans-world identity, negative existential propositions, and the existence of unactual objects in other possible worlds. In the final chapters Professor Plantinga applies his logical theories to the clarification of two problems in the philosophy of religion - the Problem of Evil and the Ontological Argument.

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valuable and not at all wrong, but importantly incomplete.......2006-09-28

Plantinga's aim at the outset of this book is to defend the notion of de re (of objects) necessity against those (most notably Quine) who contend that all necessity is de dicto (of words). His strategy is not unlike that of his apologetics-style work in philosophy of religion such as _Warranted Christian Belief_ (25 years later!) in that he takes the more limited tack of meeting opposing arguments rather than positively establishing his own considered position. As in _WCB_, in _NN_ it is the de jure question of "is this not on all fours" rather than the de facto "is it true".

In the matter of Christian faith, this is a more or less fruitful and appropriate _philosophical_ route to take (since the de facto question in this case would be one that properly goes beyond human reason and philosophy), but in the case of this book it makes for an incomplete study, to my mind, of a topic that is philosophically important through-and-through. Plantinga gives no clue as to how we would actually _find out_ what the essential and what the accidental properties of a thing are, and the ongoing implicit assumption at work seems to be that our untutored intuitions are entirely reliable in this capacity. Plantinga's own approach does nothing to stave off any suspicions that his own procedure for picking out some properties as essential and other as accidental is any less "invidious" than Quine thought. For example, the favored example of an accidental property is Socrates as "snubnosed," but how is this to be played out? Assuming Socrates' snubnosedness is hereditary and not the result of an unfortunate encounter with a wall, it must be taken to be possible that Socrates' genetic makeup be different than it was. If that is granted (instead of saying, as I would, that counterfactual genetic difference in Socrates would have made for a person other than Socrates himself), then there's no bar to almost any feature of Socrates one would care to name coming out accidental, except the stipulation that he be "Socrates" (the referent of the proper name, in actual fact). Indeed, Plantinga actually takes seriously and even countenances the possibility of a reptilian Socrates! (Presumably, Plantinga would take the "conceivability" of Socrates as an alligator to be an argument for dualism--to anyone who thinks that, I direct you straight to Mark Johnston's "Human Beings"--but I'm getting off topic.)

That said, there is a lot of valuable work done here on the structure of modality de dicto and de re, from Plantinga's "kernel function" of expressing de re modal ascriptions in terms of the de dicto, through the nature of essence, worlds, "books," and so forth. One interesting quirk is that Plantinga seems to think the accessibility relation has some heuristic value for describing epistemic relations, but has no objective reality. This is a bit contentious, really, and he does not acknowledge other views on the subject. For that matter, this book is not at all a treatise on modal logic per se: you'll get no explorations of the various systems, S4, S5, etc., and their metaphysical implications to the system presented here. There are a lot of good points made about David Lewis's counterpart theory (the one rival to the "received" modal metaphysics Plantinga expounds on here), though, and some devastating criticisms of it on semantic grounds, especially.

The last few chapters see an application of the foregoing to some important topics in philosophical theology, and the results are a valuable resource for students of these topics. Plantinga's exploration of versions of the Ontological Argument I found especially interesting. The appendix examines, in somewhat greater detail than in the body of the book, various views on de re modality, and it's helpful to those who may want to look at the issue carefully.

This is one of the more difficult and technical philosophy works that I've read, but I found it (yes, you guessed it) valuable and helpful.

An enduring classic.......2001-01-31

Plantinga's Nature of Necessity is a philosophical masterpiece. Although there are a number of good books in analytic philosophy dealing with modality (the concepts of necessity and possibility), this one is of sufficient clarity and breadth that even non-philosophers will benefit from it.

Modal logic may seem like a fairly arcane subject to outsiders, but this book exhibits both its intrinsic interest and its general importance. If you think there are good and bad arguments, conclusions that follow from some premises but not others, then you ought to be concerned with modal logic. If you're interested in the problem of evil and the ontological argument for the existence of God, you should read this book.

The Nature of Necessity has the added virtue that it maps most peoples' modal intuitions quite well (unlike some modal theories). Perhaps it is for this reason that certain philosophers treat the book a bit snippishly. I've read the book a half a dozen times; and I'll probably read it a few more times before it's all said and done.

Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.......1999-06-10

I am always amazed at how overwhelmingly positive the reception of Alvin's book has been. When sycophantic readers describe this book as one of the greatest works of metaphysics of 'all time' (see above), I take personal effront. Granted, Alvin is a kind and witty man, but his treatment of de re modality and possible worlds theory leaves much to be desired--however 'funny' that treatment may be. Alvin is clear, to be sure--clearly wrong. Nevertheless, as a colleague and friend, I am both professionally and personally obliged to recommend this book unreservedly. I would strongly advise you spend your time reading 'counterfactuals' instead, but, alas, this book is now out of print. Then again, if we are to believe Al, this is just a modal accident.

The classic work on the metaphysics of modality........1997-07-19

Perhaps Peter van Inwagen put it best when he called this book a "treasure trove." Plantinga's _The Nature of Necessity_ contains deep and sophisticated work on some of most important and interesting issues in metaphysics: de re modality, the nature of essences and possible worlds, nonexistent objects, and the Ontological Argument. As far as this reviewer is concerned, Plantinga's work stands as one of the greatest works of metaphysics of *all time*. I cannot recommend it highly enough

Excellent application of Modal Logic to traditional problems.......1997-06-20

Plantinga always amazes me with both the subtlety and clarity of his thought. His application of abstract logical theory to traditional philisophical problems is inspired and inspiring, opening up some new avenues of thought in places we believed too travel-worn to bother with

The Divine Lawmaker: Lectures on Induction, Laws of Nature, and the Existence of God

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Good discussion of induction
A Beautiful Book
A Sly Argument for Design

The Divine Lawmaker: Lectures on Induction, Laws of Nature, and the Existence of God
John Foster
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0199250596

Book Description

John Foster presents a clear and powerful discussion of a range of topics relating to our understanding of the universe: induction, laws of nature, and the existence of God. He begins by developing a solution to the problem of induction - a solution whose key idea is that the regularities in the workings of nature that have held in our experience hitherto are to be explained by appeal to the controlling influence of laws, as forms of natural necessity. His second line of argument focuses on the issue of what we should take such necessitational laws to be, and whether we can even make sense of them at all. Having considered and rejected various alternatives, Foster puts forward his own proposal: the obtaining of a law consists in the causal imposing of a regularity on the universe as a regularity. With this causal account of laws in place, he is now equipped to offer an argument for theism. His claim is that natural regularities call for explanation, and that, whatever explanatory role we may initially assign to laws, the only plausible ultimate explanation is in terms of the agency of God. Finally, he argues that, once we accept the existence of God, we need to think of him as creating the universe by a method which imposes regularities on it in the relevant law-yielding way. In this new perspective, the original nomological-explanatory solution to the problem of induction becomes a theological-explanatory solution. The Divine Lawmaker is bold and original in its approach, and rich in argument. The issues on which it focuses are among the most important in the whole epistemological and metaphysical spectrum.

Customer Reviews:

Good discussion of induction.......2007-01-04

Positive:
a.) A methodical, yet readable, discussion of the problem of induction.
b.) Concludes rightly that laws of nature are a necessary pre-condition for induction to be true.

Negative:
a.) His argument that we cannot accept options with any "unnecessary complexity" is personal, subjective, and emotive. If we used the same basis for science, we might still believe in ether, Aristotelian physics, or some other nonsense that has been placed in the trash-bin of history. There are many things in existence that go against human intuition.
b.) He doesn't believe that God can exist outside of time because, as he believes, humans cannot comprehend such a thing. The problem with this is that the very God Foster is trying to prove says numerous times in the Scriptures that He is above human understanding. Just because man cannot comprehend transcendence doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.
c.) His argument for a front-loaded creation (through evolutionary means) is personal, subjective, and emotive. Just because God has the power to do it doesn't mean that He should have. Has Foster ever met God or searched the depths of God's Being? Foster simply doesn't know all the reasons why God created things individually.

Philosophy should be the tool of theology; it should not determine it.

A Beautiful Book.......2005-08-23

Foster presents here a solution to the problem of induction and an argument for the existence of God. He argues that the past regularities of nature are best explained by the existence of natural laws, and that these are in turn best understood as regularities causally imposed by God. The existence of such laws allows for rational inductive inferences.
Foster's development of the theistic hypothesis (his preference for a single omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly good God) seems to borrow from Swinburne, but there are differences.
I worry that there is no non-circular justification for the criteria for hypothesis choice that Foster relies on; Hume's problem of induction may re-emerge for inference to the best explanation. But perhaps it is no problem that inference to the best explanation is a fundamental form of correct reasoning which cannot be justified in a non-circular way (along with deduction), and the problem may be that induction faces an additional problem such that it is not a fundamental form of correct reasoning. (This has been suggested to me by a couple of people, and note Foster at Lecture 2, V).
Foster covers some of the most interesting and important topics in philosophy, including the problem of induction, laws of nature and the existence of God. Very few people compare to Foster in clarity and grace of writing.
This book may (or may not) be difficult for beginners, but it is strongly recommended for anyone seriously interested in induction theory, laws of nature and philosophy of religion.

A Sly Argument for Design.......2004-06-24

The Divine Lawmaker: Lectures on Induction, Laws of Nature, and the Existence of God by John Foster (Oxford University Press) presents a clear and powerful discussion of a range of topics relating to our understanding of the universe: induction, laws of nature, and the existence of God. He begins by developing a solution to the problem of induction-a solution whose key idea is that the regularities in the workings of nature that have held in our experience hitherto are to he explained by appeal to the controlling influence of laws, as forms of natural necessity. His second line of argument focuses on the issue of what we should take such necessitational laws to be, and whether we can even make sense of them at all. Having considered and rejected various alternatives, Foster puts forward his own proposal: the obtaining of a law consists in the causal imposing of a regularity on the universe as a regularity. With this causal account of laws in place, he is now equipped to offer an argument for theism. His claim is that natural regularities call for explanation, and that, whatever explanatory role we may initially assign to laws, the only plausible ultimate explanation is in terms of the agency of God. Finally, he argues that, once we accept the existence of God, we need to think of him as creating the universe by a method which imposes regularities on it in the relevant law-yielding way. In this new perspective, the original nomological-explanatory solution to the problem of induction becomes a theological-explanatory solution.
The Divine Lawmaker is bold and original in its approach, and rich in argument. The issues on which it focuses are among the most important in the whole epistemological and metaphysical spectrum.
The Divine Lawmaker is a slightly revised version of a series of lectures that Foster gave at the University of Oxford under the title of `Induction, Laws of Nature, and the Existence of God'-a title that explicitly indicates the topics that form their subject matter.
Foster covers quite a lot of philosophical and theological ground. And, on the face of it, diverse ground. But there is a connection between the different topics. One of his main aims is to provide an argument for the existence of God-a personal God of a broadly Jewish Christian type. Foster develops his arguments in four stages that include the topics of induction and laws of nature.
Foster begins by looking at the familiar problem of induction, claiming that certain ways of attempting to solve it do not work. The idea of induction occupies the first two lectures. Next-at stage two- Foster introduces and defends what he asserts is, in its core, the right solution to the problem of induction. It is a solution that the Australian philosopher David Armstrong has also proposed independently at virtually the same time-Armstrong presenting it in his 1983 book What is a Law of Nature?, Foster in his 1983 paper to the Aristotelian Society entitled `Induction, Explanation, and Natural Necessity'. Armstrong and Foster are at opposite ends of the metaphysical spectrum. Armstrong is the foremost modern champion of total materialism. Foster is one of the few modern defenders of a Cartesian conception of the mind; and, more exotically, Foster combines this mind-body dualism with an idealist view of the physical world (though claim is not developed in the context of this book). Both Armstrong and Foster find it amusing, and in a sense reassuring, that, with such contrasting metaphysical outlooks, they manage to converge on the same view in this understanding of induction and natural law.
Now this proposed solution to the problem of induction involves accepting the existence of laws of nature, and it involves recognizing these laws not just
as regularities in the behavior of things (consistencies in how the world works in different places and times), but as forms of natural necessity-as laws whose obtaining ensures that things behave and interact in certain regular ways. It is this that brings the discussion to its third stage in Foster's argument. Foster demonstrates that accepting the existence of laws of this kind, though facilitating a solution to the problem of induction, creates its own problem. The problem it creates is simply that, given the kind of necessity these laws involve, it is hard to see how to make sense of such laws-how the relevant notion of a law can be considered coherent.
It is in relation to this new problem that, in the fourth and final phase of the discussion, Foster constructs an argument for the existence of God. For he argues that, given the problem of unintelligibility or lack of coherence, one can only achieve a satisfactory account of the of the coherence of laws if we entertain that there is a God of the relevant (broadly Jewish and Christian) type, and that it is God who is the creator of the natural world and the source of its laws. With the argument for theism in place, Foster concludes the discussion by looking again at the issue of induction, and showing how his earlier proposal needs to be reworked, in certain key respects, in response to the theistic necessity of holding moral and natural law. Foster's arguments, if one is able to follow them, may bolster faith and might seems irrelevant to those with nonthestic neutrality.

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Why People Should Be Outdoors
A Thoughtful, Inspiring, and Unique Work

The Necessity of Empty Places
Paul Gruchow
Manufacturer: Milkweed Editions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Nature & Ecology | Science | Subjects | Books

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Grass Roots: The Universe of Home (World As Home, The)
Boundary Waters: The Grace of the Wild (World As Home, The)

ASIN: 1571312234

Book Description

An evocative personal narrative that takes us to some of America's least traveled corners in Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana.

Customer Reviews:

Why People Should Be Outdoors.......2003-04-07

This book is an enjoyable mix of travelogue and environmental philosophy, but the travelogue portion is more limited than it seems at first glance. A few chapters describe Gruchow's visits to interestingly empty places in Minnesota and Nebraska, but most of the rest of the book deals with two backpacking trips in the mountains of Wyoming. In each chapter Gruchow's writing evolves quickly from a scenery-based travelogue to soul searching and very in-depth musings on mankind's place in nature. The book essentially becomes a series of essays on why people have become disconnected from nature in the modern world, and should spend far more time in the empty spaces that Gruchow enjoys visiting. His thoughts on these matters are deeply philosophical with a real talent for big-picture analysis on the state of human society. Some great examples are Gruchow's use of the population distribution of robins to describe how corporate America is homogenizing our natural diversity (chapter 9), and a staring contest with a trout in a mountain lake that kicks off a wave of social and personal philosophy (chapter 18). Gruchow's writing has the tendency to get drifty and to go off on very long and mundane tangents - beware of sections that are written in the second person especially. But this style of writing (and thinking) is what happens when you're alone in nature with nothing but your thoughts. Gruchow proves that more people should experience this state of mind.

A Thoughtful, Inspiring, and Unique Work.......1998-07-21

I thoroughly enjoyed The Necessity of Empty Places. It's vivid desciptions of the praririelands of the US and it's thought provoking insights into the relationship that humans have with their environment make the book a satisfying page-turner. Bits of humor and humility keep the book fun and refreshing

Laws and Symmetry (Clarendon Paperbacks)

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Laws and Symmetry (Clarendon Paperbacks)
Bas C. van Fraassen
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

The Scientific Image (Clarendon Library of Logic & Philosophy)
Quantum Mechanics: An Empiricist View (Clarendon Paperbacks)
What is a Law of Nature? (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy)
Counterfactuals
How the Laws of Physics Lie

ASIN: 0198248601

Book Description

Metaphysicians speak of laws of nature in terms of necessity and universality; scientists do so in terms of symmetry and invariance. This book argues that no metaphysical account of laws can succeed. The author analyses and rejects the arguments that there are laws of nature, or that we must believe that there are. He argues that we should discard the idea of law as an inadequate clue to science. After exploring what this means for general epistemology, the book develops the empiricist view of science as a construction of models to represent the phenomena. Concepts of symmetry, transformation, and invariance illuminate the structure of such models. A central role is played in science by symmetry arguments, and it is shown how these function also in the philosophical analysis of probability. The advocated approach presupposes no realism about laws or necessities in nature.

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A good read and a good logical exposition of materialist weakness as a philosophy
A good introduction
Accessibility gained at the expense of sophistication
Psuedo-scientific theism disguised as real science
Bad science and bad logic

God Chance and Necessity
Keith Ward
Manufacturer: Oneworld Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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In Defence of The Soul
God: A Guide for the Perplexed
Pascal's Fire: Scientific Faith and Religious Understanding
Concepts of God: Images of the Divine in Five Religious Traditions
Is Religion Dangerous?

ASIN: 1851681167

Book Description

This work challenges the assumptions made by so many than religion and scientific belief are incompatible, exposing a number of fallacies through a carefully argued refutation of scientific atheism.

Customer Reviews:

A good read and a good logical exposition of materialist weakness as a philosophy.......2007-06-27

The author does a good job of laying out fundamental philosophical arguments in favor of theism and its non-conflict with real science. The book helps counter the popular anti-Christian ravings of bigoted authors like Dawkins who knowingly uses rhetoric and deception to get his particular world view (sad as it is) accepted by others [misery loves company!]. It was nice to see Dawkins' "memes" concept so nicely trashed in a single paragraph (Chapter 9).

A good read and highly recommended.

A good introduction.......2006-07-22

Contrary to the misunderstandings of some of the earlier reviewers, this book is not really an apologia for theism. Nor is it in any way, shape or form an attack on science as such. One can only speculate how such misunderstandings can come about when the intentions of the author are so clearly stated.

Obviously, those reviews completely miss the purpose of this book, which is clearly stated by Ward himself:

"The view I shall take is that, on most issues, there are no conflicts (between science and religion) and that the success of scientific investigation corroborates theism, rather than the reverse" (p.12 - my addition).

This intention provides a starting point that can be illuminated with the following analogy (mine, not the author's).

If we want to go fishing in a lake with the intention of actually catching fish, we pre-suppose in some sense that there are fish to be caught. Otherwise, we are wasting our time.

Likewise, if we want to examine the universe with the intention of finding some orderly explanation for its operation, we pre-suppose in some sense that the explanation we ultimately arrive at will, in fact, be orderly. Otherwise, we would again be wasting our time.

Beginning with this common-sense starting point, Ward wants to draw out the implications of that pre-supposition. He chooses to base his program on the naturalistic arguments of two prominent British scientists, Richard Dawkins and Peter Atkins, both of whom are clearly in the reductive materialist camp. But he wishes to nuance the very observations that are used by them to actually support his starting point - rather than, as they do, to support the materialist view.

In a way such a program can be considered a rebuttal of the arguments supporting reductive materialism. The idea, however, is not merely to show where those specific arguments break down, but to use the observations that they are based on to go in a different direction.

Ward's program is not without real difficulties, however. Perhaps because he is using the arguments of others as a base, he is never as consistent in his philosophical approach as is, for example, Mariano Artigas in The Mind of the Universe. Just to take one aspect of Ward's approach, consider his view of science as a search for a natural order. It is sometimes difficult to grasp if Ward is saying that the order being sought by science is to be found in the scientific explanations as such, or if there is a real order that science `discovers' over time. For a scientist `doing science', it actually doesn't matter. One can `do science' either way. But for Ward and what he is trying to get it, it actually does matter.

So like a plane flying through a thunderstorm, the ride can get very choppy. But ultimately, Ward seems to emerge from the storm going in the direction that he seems to have wanted.

That direction can be called the descriptive model of science. The model goes something like this. It is unquestionably true that science explains natural actions in an orderly fashion. The explanations are what we call the `laws of science'. But the order obtained by those explanations cannot in itself be causative. To put it bluntly, equations and words cannot be the source of any real actions. Therefore, if the natural actions are real (and they are), and if the order is real (and it is), we must seek the real source elsewhere.

Unfortunately, all that Ward's program gets us is that there is an order-producing reality to the universe, and that such a reality is the source of real actions. It doesn't actually tell us what the nature of that reality is.

Ward concludes that the order-producing reality can be identified as the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God, but he doesn't actually provide the ontological necessity that this conclusion requires. To get to that necessity, Ward would have to consider ways of knowing that go beyond the empirical-objective experiences he is limiting himself to. Perhaps that would have made the book much longer than the author wanted, or perhaps the author felt that a sufficiency argument met his stated purpose. Nevertheless, I think that at least some pointers for going further should have been included. So I can only give this book a four star rating.

With that qualification, I do recommend this book as an introduction to those who are confused about the falsity that `doing science' requires a non-theistic worldview.

Accessibility gained at the expense of sophistication.......2005-10-13

Keith Ward's "God Chance and Necessity" is extremely accessible to the general reader, much like Richard Dawkins' book, "The Blind Watch Maker". I think he does the public a service by making it so easy to read. Unfortunately, this accessibility is largely gained at the expense of a certain philosophical elegance, if you will. For example, in some contexts he'll use the word "universe" as meaning physical spacetime, and in other contexts he'll use it to mean "everything that exists, including God." Initially, he tells you when he's changing his meaning, but then he later doesn't.

In short, if you are used to the clarity and rigorous approach used by many philosophical authors (e.g., Immanuel Kant, Aristotle, etc.), then you may find Ward's approach a bit less deductive (or even inductive). He is mostly concerned with rebutting Dawkins and Atkins than actually developing an original philosophy.

For instance, he develops many interesting metaphysical ideas (for example, human free will is not incompatible with God's omniscience, since God could conceivably know of every *possible universe* while the future of the *actual universe* was indetermined), but he doesn't lay down a rigorous metaphysical system. I suppose one reason he does this is because he wants to appeal to a wide crowd of religious people who have their own doctrines, and they might feel alienated if Ward was to make truth claims beyond what is universally accepted about how the universe works.

Not clearly a good thing, he often waxes lyrical in poetic tangents that don't do much to help his case, except maybe emotionally or aesthetically. Though, I suppose if intuition and aesthetics are any basis for concluding something about reality, then these tangents aren't entirely wasteful. Oh, and for some reason he frequently employs awkward transitional adverbs to begin sentences like, "In fact, of course, it is true that...," which I found distracting.

I think this book's greatest success is in highlighting the grave limitations of natural selection *alone* to explain intelligent life. He effectively proves that the idea of life existing for the propagation of genes (Cf. Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene") is completely ludicrous (it would be, he points out, like suggesting that the cake exists for the propagation of the recipe; but the recipe does not have intention, and neither does DNA!). Again, these are not couched in philosophical language, and, if you want a more rigorous approach that supports Ward's position, I recommend you see any of John Searle's essays or books about consciousness.

Psuedo-scientific theism disguised as real science.......2004-03-15

Both logic and science are faulty in this book. This is little more than another weak attempt to establish a scientific basis for theism. Theism is about faith. Science is about evidence. The author fails miserably to link the two.

Bad science and bad logic.......2004-03-15

God, Chance, and Necessity is an attempt by Keith Ward to demonstrate that science, far from being incompatible with God, provides strong confirmation of God's existence. To support his case, Ward attempts to refute arguments by Peter Atkins and Richard Dawkins, two prominent atheist scientists.

Ward's critique of Atkins, although not perfect, does seem to be reasonable for the most part. I agree with Ward that Atkins attempts to make the process of our universe coming into existence naturally seem simpler than it probably is.

However, I find Ward's critique of Darwinian evolution and Dawkins in particular to be highly problematic. Although Ward pretends to accept modern science, most of his chapter "Darwin and Natural Selection" is nothing more than an attack on the theory of evolution that is almost unanimously accepted by biologists today.

What is most appalling about Ward's discussion of evolution, however, is that he has a very poor understanding of the subject. A notable example is Ward's mention of the theory of punctuated equilibria. According to Ward, "Eldredge and Gould have developed the hypothesis of 'punctuated equilibria', according to which long periods of gradual mutation are punctuated by episodic events in which large, fast, saltatory genetic changes (i.e. changes by large sudden jumps) occur in conditions of relative genetic isolation. Such changes occur before any selectional control, though of course they are subject to natural selection once they exist" (Ward, p. 75).

It is clear that Ward does not understand what punctuated equilibria is. The "episodic events" that Ward describes are not saltatory genetic changes that occur before any selectional control. Rather, they are periods when, through mutation and natural selection, evolution occurs relatively rapidly. Niles Eldredge explains this common misconception in his book Time Frames:

"The most common misconception about `punctuated equilibria' [is] that Gould and I proposed a saltationist model of overnight change supposedly based on sudden mutations with large-scale effects ...[W]e used conventional speciation theory and the notion of adaptive change through natural selection to explain the origin of new reproductive communities (species) and the adaptive modifications of organisms through time!" (Eldredge, pp. 141-142).

This misconception is clearly explained in the chapter titled "Puncturing punctuationism" in Dawkins' book The Blind Watchmaker. Since Ward criticizes this book extensively, it is surprising that Ward didn't read or read but didn't understand this chapter.

In the chapter titled "The Metaphysics of Theism" Ward proceeds to justify belief in God. Ward writes that God is "not a theory invented to explain particular occurrences in the world. What, then, is the idea of God for? God is primarily the supreme object of worship and prayer" (Ward, p. 96). How does this fit with Ward's previous assertion that "only the existence of God that can explain the propensity to complexity and consciousness that seems so clearly present in evolution"?

Throughout this chapter, Ward tries to argue that theism and materialism (the belief that nature is all that exists) are both equally valid hypotheses, except that theism explains more data. I agree with Ward on the latter point, because assuming God exists, any unexplained phenomenon can be explained with the suggestion that God wanted it. However, I believe the former point is invalid, because theism requires the assumption that an unexplained complex being exists, while materialism does not require this assumption. The theist objection that a complex God requires no explanation is no better than a materialist objection that a complex universe requires no explanation.

In chapter "Evolution and Purpose," we find that Ward doesn't like Dawkins' suggestion that the Utility Function if life is the survival of DNA (Ward, p. 137). Ward writes that "In fact, the survival of genes is not maximized by evolution, since the whole process proceeds precisely by the mutation of genetic material, that is, by replacing genes with better ones." This would be relevant if Dawkins referred to the "Utility Function of evolutionary change" rather than the "Utility function of life." Dawkins agrees that evolutionary change is detrimental to any genes that are lost in the process of that change. In his book The Selfish Gene, Dawkins explains that "Evolution is something that happens, willy-nilly, in spite of all the efforts of the replicators (and nowadays of the genes) to prevent it happening" (Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, p. 19). This is consistent with the fascinating error-correction mechanisms we observe in DNA (Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, p. 126).

Unfortunately, the few reasonable arguments that Ward makes in his book are overshadowed by the glaring scientific and logical errors he makes. I think most people who have read the books The Blind Watchmaker, The Selfish Gene, and A River Out of Eden by Richard Dawkins will find that most of Ward's objections to Darwinian evolution and Dawkins' claims have little basis. I would recommend approaching this book with skepticism.

The Philosophy of Nature: A Guide to the New Essentialism
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The Philosophy of Nature: A Guide to the New Essentialism
Brian David Ellis
Manufacturer: McGill-Queen's University Press
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Scientific Essentialism (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy)

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Atonement, its necessity, nature, and extent with answers to objections (Pamphlets)
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Atonement, its necessity, nature, and extent with answers to objections (Pamphlets)
Joshua Lacy Wilson
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Beyond Chance and Necessity: The Limits of Science and the Nature of the Real
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An intellectual and personal document, and a sign of our times

...A BOOK TO CHANGE THE WAY YOU SEE THE WORLD--AND YOURSELF!

Beyond Chance and Necessity

Beyond Chance and Necessity: The Limits of Science and the Nature of the Real
Lorna Green
Manufacturer: Writers Club Press
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ASIN: 059526493X

Book Description

These essays propose a new "Copernican Revolution": Consciousness, not matter, is basic in the universe. They are non-technical, simply and clearly written.

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An intellectual and personal document, and a sign of our times.......2005-09-29

Canadian cell biologist and philosopher Lorna Green is part of a broader panpsychist current within contemporary philosophy, which aims at radically reforming science. Green does not only stress that we encounter a non-physical consciousness in man and (other) animals, but in her view, every living cell and even matter as a whole would be animated by spirit. She mentions a new 'Copernican revolution' and explicitly opposes the shamelessly reductionist book How the Mind works by Stephen Pinker. The author shows that within materialist science only chance and blind necessity are recognised as principles of order. She counters this with Plato's vision of an animating intelligence behind physical reality that acts according to a preconceived, 'artistic' plan.

Green's panpsychist programme is mainly founded on the fact that we exclusively have direct access to our own consciousness, whereas of other people and animals we can only see the outside. It is more plausible to hold that other beings are conscious as well, than to assume that consciousness only occurs in ourselves. In fact, all of matter would have to be accompanied by consciousness.

Furthermore, Green explicitly emphasizes that Near-Death Experiences show that consciousness can be separated from the brain. She stresses that all the cells of our bodies are vitalised by consciousness, but this does not imply that consciousness should always be linked to a physical vehicle.

Concerning the reduction of ordering principles to chance and necessity, she points at all kinds of phenomena that go against this. Such as good deeds that cannot be reduced to biological motives, cases of synchronicity (meaningful coincidence), the playfulness of organic evolution, beauty, the power of prayer and religious emotions. The fact that science has denied all of this for a very long time, may have created a fertile ground for the depressions that harass the western world on such a large scale.

Then, Green tries to elaborate on her panpsychist monism. All of matter would have been produced by a cosmic consciousness. Unfortunately, I could hardly follow the description she tries to give of this hypothetical process, as she seems to use terms like love, consciousness and vibrations rather unconventionally. At any rate, she mainly sees Spinoza as a kindred spirit. Thus, she also tries to 'overcome' mind-body dualism. At this point she clearly goes astray, as he describes consciousness as a special kind of fluid. Brain cells would interact with consciousness as cells 'drink fluid'. Also, she claims without much elucidation that consciousness and matter would at their deepest level amount to one and the same principle, as both would exist as 'vibrations'. Similarly, she reveals that she is directly inspired by messages from channelled 'entities'.

However, she is right to restate here that Near-Death Experiences cannot be reconciled with the identity theory of brain and mind.

The main part of this book consists of a mixture of valid insights, often vague intuitions and even some incorrect, unrealistic ideas, e.g. that animals (while alive) would in spirit continuously leave and return to their bodies. Or that genetically engineered produce would be bad for health because it would possess a confused consciousness of its identity as food.

Another part of her book describes a spiritual growth which the author herself underwent during her stay of about six months in psychiatric hospitals and also at a Roman Catholic monastery. In fact, this part may be seen as a separate book that mainly relates to the first part by the common theme of spirituality. Green endorses the views that it's really normality rather than lunacy that is disturbed (something which of course can hardly be denied, at least in certain respects), that the atmosphere in psychiatric hospitals may be compared to that of convents because of their openness towards the non-rational, and that psychiatric disorders may stimulate a person's spiritual development. Nowadays she follows the spiritual path of the Carmelites, though interwoven with non-christian concepts such as reincarnation.

In the last part of the book, the reader is offered a lot of short statements, for example that Green regards her philosophy as essentially pre-Sokratic. An interesting statement concerns the fact that Kant would have rejected metaphysics less easily (because of its apparent lack of consensus) if he had known about the uniformity of mystics when describing their spiritual experiences.

This book may mainly be characterised as a document about the intellectual and personal life of the interesting 'revolutionary' personality Lorna Green, but it may also be seen as an interesting sign of our times, in which materialism in both philosophy and science is more and more losing its credibility.

...A BOOK TO CHANGE THE WAY YOU SEE THE WORLD--AND YOURSELF!.......2004-03-04

Lorna Green challenges the scientific establishment to recognize the limits of their present assumptions about mind and brain and hence to start over again with a new first principle-that consciousness, not matter, is the fundamental "unit" for explaining the universe. This argument is well-established in her first two essays, using data from near-death experiences and elsewhere. What follows from this realignment of first principles is astounding, for now the divisions between science and spiritual traditions, for example, fall away, and almost everyone's perspective finds a legitimate place in a non-dualistic worldview.

She explores her own personal experiences further in the third essay, about so-called mental illness and what many of those who are said to experience it might really have happening to them on their inner side. You will not, and should not, look at such cases the same way again after you read this tantalizing essay, which itself feeds back into Ms. Green's earlier two essays about the role of consciousness in the universe.

Finally, the fourth essay, appearing more like a mystical afterthought, lets you into her own personal world of experience as she "speaks" to various friends about life and how it might be lived-in fullness-of-being (her term), not in fear and trembling.

Lorna Green's earlier book, Earth Age, is equally enlightening, as is her latest, Guiding Principles for the Planet (2004). Both are less philosophical or technical-if that is the right word-than Beyond Chance and Necessity and both are extremely important if the current crisis-economic, ecological, and political-is to be solved. All three books are available from www.amazon.com.

Beyond Chance and Necessity.......2003-10-04

Beyond Chance and Necessity , by Lorna Green, challenges one of the basic assumptions that has led to our cultural view of the universe we live in. The scientific viewpoint, as observer of what we can see and measure, has led us to an understanding of the outer of things but is blind to the inner. What we cannot see as the observer and thus explain by our science is either deemed not to exist or is rationalized as an as yet unexplained complexity of the elements we posit as fundamental. No one can deny the existence of the inner of one's self or by inference and through verbal communication with others the inner in them. This inner consists of feelings, emotions, images, dreams, ideas, memories and spirit. Even when we cannot experience the inner in another through verbal communication we assume their inner exists because of their responses. And yet, we are hesitant to attribute this same inner to animals who have similar non-verbal responses or to trees whose responses are even more remote. This inner, unexplainable by science, is consciousness, and according to Green it is the fundamental thing of the universe. Her hypothesis is that everything in the universe is derived from consciousness. Matter, the outer, is simply consciousness "stepped down".
Green uses this construct as an assumption, a first principle, upon which she builds an interpretation of the universe which is fundamentally different than that of modern science and philosophy. This reader admits ignorance of the near-death phenomena that Green uses as proof of the separability of mind and body. Even without this "proof" there is a fundamental question raised by her thesis: Is it more likely that conscious precedes matter or that matter precedes consciousness?
When I was a teenager there was a charismatic Jesuit priest at my high school who challenged our wavering faith in God by suggesting that even if we could not know whether God exists, we should bet on his existence because then we could not lose. I, for one, was not convinced to take this bet. But, if I had to bet on the primacy of matter versus consciousness, I find myself swayed to betting on consciousness because it is easier for me to conceive of matter coming from consciousness than vice versa.
Green's argument is founded in logic appealing to the mathematician - if the axioms of a system lead to too many unproveable results, one looks to adjust the axioms. There are many unexplainable phenomena in the system of knowledge based on chance and necessity; in particular, phenomena related to consciousness. Perhaps we need to change the basic assumptions we take as axioms to see if a new system of knowledge arises which more fully explains the more important phenomena of our lives. By positing consciousness as the first principle, Green opens the door to a possibly richer interpretation of the universe. The challenge Green puts before the scientific observer is whether he is courageous enough to consider changing the axioms upon which he bases his understanding of the universe.
If loving consciousness, with intent and creativity as its driving energy, is the prime mover, we have a very different construct than we do by positing matter as primal.
Green's sources may be inaccessible for many readers who have not traveled her unique life path; a path which is shared in an honest, open, brave and selfless way in her book. Also, her thesis, derived from her experience, reflection and deep studies in science and philosophy, may be out of reach to many who have not traveled her spiritual path. However, her basic tenet, that consciousness and not matter is primal, is one that opens any reader's eyes to a new possibility of finding meaning and acceptance in the universe. One can argue with her constructions and conclusions but one is awakened by her basic premise to explore his own conclusions that might follow from this exciting stating point.

The Christian Profession: a Series of Letters to a Friend, on the Nature, Duties, Necessity, Trails & Supports of the Christian Profession

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The Christian Profession: a Series of Letters to a Friend, on the Nature, Duties, Necessity, Trails & Supports of the Christian Profession
Joseph Claybaugh
Manufacturer: Moore, Wilstach, Keys & Co.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000L1YW8Y

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