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Stanley L. Jaki's Critique of Physics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Kevin J. Sharpe
Affiliation:
Maclaurin Chaplain, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Extract

Disorder and suffering are increasing significantly in our society. Violent crime, unemployment, escape through drug-taking are all on the increase. It is apparent, also, that much of this disorder and suffering, and the anxiety it fosters, is rooted in science and its technological off-spring. The un-employment produced by a micro-technology is only one small example. It is also apparent that one of the principal foundation stones for the scientific enterprise was Christianity.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

page 55 note 1 Jaki, Stanley L., And On This Rock: The Witness of One Land and Two Covenants (Notre Dame, Indiana: Ave Maria Press, 1978), p. 13.Google Scholar

page 55 note 2 In terms modelled on those of Austin, William H. in his The Relevance of Natural Science to Theology (London: The Macmillan Press Ltd, 1976), pp. 68CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Jaki is advocating theology's indirect relevance for science, religious beliefs blocking the advocating of scientific theories not comporting well with or contrary to them, and also because of their involvement in the origin of scientific theories. Theology is furthermore directly relevant for science in that Jaki would presumably like science to hold theories which reflect his religious beliefs in such things as the linearity and createdness of the cosmos.

Jaki is also following the lines suggested by Wolterstorff, Nicholas in his Reason Within the Bounds of Religion (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1976), chap. 11.Google Scholar

page 56 note 1 Jaki, Stanley L., The Relevance of Physics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966).Google Scholar

page 56 note 2 MacKinnon, Edward, review of The Relevance of Physics, Theological Studies, 29, no. 1 (March 1968), 157–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Cauthen, Kenneth, review of The Relevance of Physics, Zygon 2, no. 2 (June 1967), 203–6.Google Scholar

page 56 note 3 Cauthen, , p. 203.Google Scholar

page 56 note 4 Jaki, , The Relevance of Physics, pp. v–vi.Google Scholar

page 57 note 1 Jaki, Stanley L., The Paradox of Olber's Paradox: a Case History of Scientific Thought (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969).Google Scholar

page 57 note 2 Jaki, Stanley L., The Milky Way: an Elusive Road for Science (New York: Science History Publishers, 1972).Google Scholar

page 57 note 3 See also Jaki, Stanley L., ‘Goethe and the Physicists’, American Journal of Physics 35, no. 3 (03 1967), 200–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 57 note 4 Jaki, Stanley L., Planets and Planetarians: a History of Theories of the Origin of Planetary Systems (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1977).Google Scholar

page 57 note 5 Ibid. p. 2.

page 58 note 1 Jaki, Stanley L., Brain, Mind and Computers (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969).Google Scholar

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page 59 note 1 See Jaki, Stanley L., ‘The Role of Faith in Physics’, Zygon, 2, no. 2 (June 1967), 187202CrossRefGoogle Scholar; God and Creation: A Biblical-Scientific Reflection’, Theology Today 30, no. 2 (July 1973), 111–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Science and Creation: From Eternal Cycles to an Oscillating Universe (New York: Science History Publishers, 1974)Google Scholar; ‘Theological Aspects of Creative Science’, in Creation, Christ and Culture: Studies in Honour of T. F. Torrance, ed. by McKinney, Richard W. A. (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark Ltd, 1976), chap. 11Google Scholar; ‘The History of Science and the Idea of an Oscillating Universe’, in Cosmology, History and Theology, ed. by Yourgrau, Wolfgang and Breck, Allen P. (New York: Plenum Press, 1977), chap. XVICrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lambert and the Watershed of Cosmology’, Scientia 113, no. 1 (1978), 7595Google Scholar; and The Road of Science and the Ways to God (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1978).Google Scholar

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page 60 note 1 Whitehead, Alfred North, Science and the Modern World (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1925)Google Scholar; Foster, M. B., ‘The Christian Doctrine of Creation and the Rise of Modern Natural Science’, Mind 43, no. 172 (October 1934), 446–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Klaaren, Eugene M., Religious Origins of Modern Science: Belief in Creation in Seventeenth-Century Thought (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1977)Google Scholar; and Hooykaas, R., Religion and the Rise of Modern Science (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1972).Google Scholar

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page 60 note 4 Jaki, , Science and Creation, p. viii.Google Scholar

page 61 note 1 Jaki, , God and Creation, pp. 920.Google Scholar

page 61 note 2 Jaki, Stanley L., ‘The Chaos of Scientific Cosmology’, in The Nature of the Physical Universe, ed. by Huff, Douglas and Prewett, Omer (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1979), pp. 103–4.Google Scholar

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page 62 note 1 Peacocke, Arthur R., review of Science and Creation, journal of Theological Studies 26, no. 2 (October 1975), 512–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 62 note 2 Thibodeau, Kenneth F., review of Science and Creation, Isis 67, no. 236 (March 1976), 112.Google Scholar

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page 63 note 2 Jurgensen, Richard, ‘Awesome Awareness’, The Christian Century 96, no. 2 (6–13 June 1979), 648–9.Google Scholar

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page 63 note 4 Jaki, , The History of Science and the Idea of an Oscillating Universe, p. 240, n. 10.Google Scholar

page 63 note 5 Jaki, , The Milky WayGoogle Scholar; and Seymour, P. A. H., review of The Milky Way, The British Journal for the History of Science 10, pt. 2, no. 35 (July 1977), 162–4.Google Scholar

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page 64 note 2 Hendry, George S., review of Science and Creation, Theology Today 31, no. 4 (January 1975), 370–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 64 note 3 Jaki, , The History of Science and the Idea of an Oscillating Universe, p. 244.Google Scholar

page 64 note 4 Hodgson, P. E., review of The Road of Science and the Ways to God, Nature 278, no. 5707 (26 April 1979), 796–7.Google Scholar

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page 65 note 3 Hetherington, Norris S., review of Planets and Planetarians, Science 202, no. 4371 (1 December 1978), 968–9.Google Scholar See also Seymour, P. A. H., review of The Milky Way, The British journal for the History of Science 10, pt. 2, no. 35 (July 1977), 162–4.Google Scholar

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page 66 note 1 For one example, see Jastrow, Robert, God and the Astronomers (New York: W. W. Norton and Co. Inc., 1978), epilogue.Google Scholar

page 66 note 2 Jaki, The Relevance of Physics.

page 67 note 1 Jaki, Planets and Planetarians.

page 67 note 2 Lovell, Bernard, In the Centre of Immensities (London: Hutchinson and Co., 1979), pp. 24–5, 4551.Google Scholar

page 67 note 3 Jaki, , The History of Science and the Idea of an Oscillating Universe, p. 246.Google Scholar

page 67 note 4 Ibid. p. 247. See also Jaki, Science and Creation, pp. 350–1.

page 68 note 1 Milne, E. A., Modern Cosmology and the Christian Idea of God (London: Oxford University Press, 1952), p. 157.Google Scholar See also Barbour, Ian G., Issues in Science and Religion (London: S.C.M. Press Ltd, 1966), p. 367Google Scholar; and Jastrow, , pp. 111–2.Google Scholar

page 68 note 2 See p. 12 n. I above.

page 68 note 3 Morrow, Lance, ‘In the Beginning: God and Science‘, Time, 5 February 1979, pp. 6970.Google Scholar

page 68 note 4 Jastrow, , p. 116.Google Scholar See also Jones, W. Paul, ‘Did It Begin?’, review of God and the Astronomers, The Christian Century 96, no. 2 (17 January 1979), 56–7.Google Scholar

page 68 note 5 Jastrow, , pp. 119–23.Google Scholar

page 68 note 6 Barbour, , p. 368.Google Scholar See also Ibid. pp. 383–6, 417–8; Peacocke, Arthur R., Science and the Christian Experiment (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 128–9;Google ScholarMacKay, Donald M., Science, Chance and Providence (London: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp. 49;Google Scholar Jones, p. 56; and Dutton, Denis, review of God and the Astronomers, Sky and Telescope 58, no. 1 (July 1979), 66–7.Google Scholar

page 69 note 1 Jastrow, , quoted in Morrow, p. 70.Google Scholar

page 69 note 2 Quoted in Morrow, p. 70.

page 69 note 3 Jones, , p. 56Google Scholar; Jastrow, , p. 117.Google Scholar

page 70 note 1 See, for instance, Jaki, Stanley L., ‘Knowledge in an Age of Science’, University of Windsor Review 11, no. 1 (1975), 80103, especially pp. 8690.Google Scholar

page 70 note 2 Jaki, , The Road of Science and the Ways to God, pp. 326–7.Google Scholar

page 71 note 1 See Barbour, Ian G., Myths, Models and Paradigms (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), pp. 116–7.Google Scholar

page 71 note 2 See in this regard Jaki's especially negative criticism of Lonergan's, Bernard J. F.Method in Theology (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972)Google Scholar, in his The Road of Science and the Ways to God, p. 457, n. 45.Google Scholar

page 71 note 3 Jaki, ‘The Role of Faith in Physics’, for instance.

page 71 note 4 Hetherington, p. 969.

page 72 note 1 Barker, Eileen, ‘The Purpose of Science’, review of The Road of Science and the Ways to God, The Times Higher Education Supplement, no. 353 (18 August 1978), p. 13.Google Scholar

page 72 note 2 Monod, Jacques, Chance and Necessity: an Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971).Google Scholar

page 72 note 3 Peacocke, , review of Science and Creation, p. 513.Google Scholar

page 72 note 4 See my ‘Beyond Complementarity: The “Ladder” Model for the Integration of Science and Theology’, ms.

page 73 note 1 Cauthen, , p. 205.Google Scholar

page 73 note 2 See Jurgensen's (p. 648) comment.

page 73 note 3 Jaki, Stanley L., ‘Introductory Essay’, in To Save the Phenomena: an Essay on the Idea of Physical Theory from Plato to Galileo, by Duhem, Pièrre, transl. Doland, G. Edmund and Moschler, Chaninah (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), pp. xxvxxvi.Google Scholar

page 74 note 1 Jaki, Stanley L., ‘A Hundred Years of Two Cultures’, University of Windsor Review 11, no. 1 (1975), 5579, especially p. 76.Google Scholar

page 74 note 2 Jaki, , The Relevance of Physics, p. viGoogle Scholar; ‘The Role of Faith in Physics’, p. 200.Google Scholar