I was excited by The Phenomenon Of Man by Teilhard de Chardin. At last there was a churchman speaking out for the evolution of man. He was a paleontologist and evolution was part of the fabric of paleontology. Evolution was not a theory. It was a fact.

He was immersed in paleontology and passionately driven to argue for a divinely inspired momentum towards a cosmogenesis and ultimately to an omega point.

This is a mix of science, natural theology and supernatural theology. Paleontology is science. The rise of complexity and the biosphere are natural theology. Cosmogenesis and the Omega point are supernatural theology.

He does not directly affirm human participation in creation. He does affirm that humans are moving towards the omega point without discussing a method for humans to follow to get there.

David Shaw

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Claudius Ptolemy (c. 100-170 AD) was a Roman astronomer, astrologer, geographer, musicologist, and opticologist. He worked in Alexandria, Egypt. Little else is known about his life. Ptolemy’s Almagest is the only surviving comprehensive ancient treatise on astronomy. It served as the guide for astronomers and students of astronomy for some 1300 years until Copernicus published his Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres in 1543.

The only hope for survival an astronomer who lived before Ptolemy had was to be incorporated within the Almagest. Of interest is Hipparchus’ star map that included the positions of about 850 stars. Ptolemy included Hipparchus’ data and increased the number of stars in the collection to 1,022. This resource was available for any interested person to do a comparative study of the positions of stars observed by Hipparchus (c. 190 – c. 120 BC) with their own observations.

The intellectual climate was not encouraging for anyone reporting differences between the original data and current observations. This would indicate instability in the heavens. Copernicus feared the consequences of moving the Earth from the center of the universe. He consented to publication of his Sun-centered universe only on his deathbed.

The intellectual climate had changed within certain countries after the Protestant Reformation especially England and the Netherlands. The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge was granted a charter by King Charles II in 1663. The society’s motto is Nullius ad verbum, take nobody’s word for it. It expresses a determination to resist the domination of authority and to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment.

Edmond Halley participated in this society and financed the publication of Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica in 1687. Among Halley’s many other accomplishments was his presentation of the first evidence against the solid sky in 1718. He compared Hipparchus’ positions of stars with his own observations and found three stars out of place: Procyon, Arcturus, and Palilicium (Aldebaran). If it were not for Hipparchus’ star map preserved in Ptolemy’s Almagest Halley would not have had an ancient reference to compare his observations with.

 

Science has had a decisive role is demolishing the ancient cosmos. Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, and Halley have joined together to leave the cosmos in fatal tatters. I am not an expert on these scientists, but I doubt that any of them were conscious of what they had done. I can’t recall any of them leaving a written mention of the word cosmos describing what the word meant. Even in our own time, we are entertained by the TV series Cosmos which appears to be unaware that cosmos is a theological term. Carl Sagan explained within the series that cosmos is a simple word for order. If this were true cosmos could not be a synonym for universe.

Sagan made no mention of Pythagoras who was the first to apply the word cosmos to the universe. Plato and Aristotle acknowledged Pythagoras and added definitions to the cosmos:

• the planets moved in perfect circles;

• beginning with the sphere of the moon and outwards the universe was made of eternal matter;

• the Earth stood at the center of the cosmos;

• the stars are equally distant from Earth;

• the motion of bodies on Earth was explained in terms of the four elements, earth, water, air, and fire.

With these definitions disproved, Pythagoras’ universe-cosmos was also disproved. The meaning of cosmos was demoted from the theological level to its prior meaning, simple order.

If this was what Sagan meant by cosmos how could his TV series be named COSMOS? Did Sagan have a conception of the cosmos that prevailed for two thousand years until the revolutionaries? If he did why did he never describe it? Is science aware that cosmos was a theological optical illusion that science has destroyed? This was a great accomplishment. Cosmos is over as an astronomical conception. Nothing in astronomy is clarified or enhanced by continuing to use the word cosmos.  Cosmos is no longer a synonym for universe. If cosmos is a simple word for order as Sagan has stated it does not apply to the universe. If Sagan like the theologian Pythagoras saw God’s creative intention in the universe then cosmos is not a simple word for order. It is a theological affirmation that steps beyond the boundary of science.

Cosmos was associated with a model of an eternal universe such as the Hebrew cosmos and the Greek cosmos. Our universe is not a cosmos. Our universe has a history. Our universe is in the process of creation. Aristotle recommended contemplation of the universe-cosmos as the highest possible activity for the human intellect. Today contemplation of the universe is not the highest possible activity of the human intellect. Today speculation regarding the divine creative intent is the highest possible activity of the human intellect.