Readings (4 August 2014)

Physicist George Ellis Knocks Physicists for Knocking Philosophy, Falsification, Free Will, by John Horgan, from the Scientific American weblog. Interviewed by Horgan, Ellis criticizes ideas like that of Lawrence Krauss, that physics can by itself explain why the universe exists.

He is presenting untested speculative theories of how things came into existence out of a pre-existing complex of entities, including variational principles, quantum field theory, specific symmetry groups, a bubbling vacuum, all the components of the standard model of particle physics, and so on. He does not explain in what way these entities could have pre-existed the coming into being of the universe, why they should have existed at all, or why they should have had the form they did.  And he gives no experimental or observational process whereby we could test these vivid speculations of the supposed universe-generation mechanism. How indeed can you test what existed before the universe existed? You can’t.

Thus what he is presenting is not tested science. It’s a philosophical speculation, which he apparently believes is so compelling he does not have to give any specification of evidence that would confirm it is true. . . . The belief that all of reality can be fully comprehended in terms of physics and the equations of physics is a fantasy.

Why Europe Has Trouble Fighting Anti-Semitism, by Eylon Aslan-Levy, in The Tablet. Aslan-Levy, gives three reasons for this trouble, which mixes trouble fighting with trouble recognizing or admitting. One is that “this upsurge of prejudice is coming not only from the nationalist far right, but also — at the risk of political incorrectness — from Muslim quarters.”

This fact complicates efforts to tackle anti-Semitism, because it involves extremists from one minority preying on another. . . . Combatting this hatred requires recognising uncomfortable facts about its provenance, but politicians are loathe to single out a minority for public criticism — especially not one that is itself targeted by the far-right, and one that far outnumbers the smaller Jewish minorities. The problem is exacerbated by the aforementioned perception of Jews as members of the establishment: any attempt to address Muslim anti-Semitism specifically might be interpreted as a witch-hunt by “powerful Jews,” further entrenching the usual stereotypes

Getting Some Thoughts Into Text, by Gary Jenkins, from his weblog. Jenkins, an Orthodox professor at Eastern University (formerly Eastern Baptist), reflecting on the late Stratford Caldecott’s Secret Fire: the spiritual vision of J R R Tolkien (a very good book), notes that

What The Silmarillion shows then is the absolute powerless of even the high elves, in the created order nearly the equal of the Maia (Gandalf was a Maia, and so too was Sauron) who were just below the Valar, the lesser gods, to overcome the hate and viciousness of Morgoth. Indeed, this is what made Sauron, Morgoth’s great servant, so powerful was his vicious bending of his will to domination and hatred. Only self-renouncing love, as seen in Beren and Luthien, and then in Frodo and Sam, could hope to overcome it. That is, when one stands not in their own strength, or for their own purposes, but for others. Yet even this has its limits . . . .

Hence the need for the Incarnation.

Some Thoughts on Our Mother, also by Gary Jenkins, in which he, a convert to Orthodoxy, reflects on the Theotokos as our Mother.

Our Lady, as believed by the Orthodox, the Catholics, and the Oriental Orthodox, now lives in a glorified body as we all shall someday live, in that union which was prepared for her before the world began, in that Love that the Father, Son, and Spirit have shared from eternity. And entering into this eternal Love, she bodily enters into the life of God, even as Her Incarnate Son exists bodily in the Life of God. This is something no angel, archangel, throne or principality, cherubim or seraphim (or any of the ranks of angels) can obtain. In that she is now higher than all of them, we must now understand that she is higher also than Satan, and thus along with St. Michael and all the other angels lives as our defender against the assaults of the enemy.