Re: Web Page Nonlinear dynamics

Glenn Morton (grmorton@psyberlink.net)
Fri, 21 Feb 1997 21:44:36 -0600

At 06:28 PM 2/21/97 -0500, George Murphy wrote:
> Pannenberg has argued that the idea of inertia was
>a major factor leading people to think that God didn't act in the world.
>(You don't, as in Aristotelian physics, need a force to keep things
>moving.) This is perhaps a place where the energy concept is helpful,
>both in physics & theology. God's "operation" (Greek _energeia_)
>co-operates (literally) with the energy of physical systems to make
>things happen. & a free particle needs to have energy to keep going.

If I recall correctly, Andrew White in his Warfare of Science and Theology
noted that some people felt that Newton was throwing God out of the universe
because God was not needed to push the planets around. I suspect that this
might have been due to the incorporation of Aristotelean physics into
theology. 400 years after newton, no one finds this to be a difficulty.
Today the difficulty is nonlinear dynamics and the implications it has for
creation/evolution which is a problem.

glenn

Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm