The Sensorium Of God

It is the late seventeenth century and still the movement of the planets remains a mystery despite the revolutionary work of Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei and Tycho Brahe almost a hundred years previously. Edmond Halley - dynamic adventurer and astronomer - seeks the help of Isaac Newton in unravelling the problem, but though obsessed with understanding the orbits of the planets, Newton has problems of his own which could undermine the essential work. The reclusive mathematician and alchemist has a guilty secret. He stole some of his ideas from Robert Hooke, and the quarrelsome experimentalist is demanding recognition. While capable of the loftiest ideals and theorising, the three men are just as quick to bicker and hold petty grudges which could derail scientific advancement. The men's lives and work clash as Europe is pushed headlong towards the Age of the Enlightenment and science is catapulted into its next seismic collision with religion.

These chapters analyze texts from Isaac Newton’s work to shed new light on scientific understanding at his time. Newton used the concept of “sensorium” in writings intended for a public audience, in relation to both humans and God, but even today there is no consensus about the meaning of his term. The literal definition of the Latin term 'sensorium', or its English equivalent 'sensory', is 'thing that feels’ but this is a theoretical construct. The book takes readers on a process of discovery, through inquiry into both Newton’s concept and its underlying model. It begins with the human sensorium. This part of his concept is situated in the context of the aforesaid writings but also in the context of the writings of two of Newton's contemporaries, the physicians William Briggs and Thomas Willis, both of whom were at the forefront of their respective specialties of ophthalmology and neurology. Only once the human sensorium has been explored is it possible to generalize to the unobservable divine sensorium, because Newton's method of reasoning from experience requires that the second part of his concept is last in the order of knowledge. And the reason for this sequence is that his method, the short-hand term for which is 'analogy of nature', proceeds from that which has been observed to be universally true to that which is beyond the limits of observation. Consequently, generalization passes insensibly into reasoning by analogy. Readers will see how certain widespread assumptions can be called into question, such as that Newton was a theological voluntarist for whom the will is superior to the intellect, or that, for Newton, not only the world or universe but also God occupies the whole extent of infinite space. The insights afforded through this book will appeal to scholars of the philosophy of science, human physiology, philosophy of mind and epistemology, among others.

In 1715 the German philosopher Leibniz warned his friend the Princess of Wales of the dangers posed to religion by Newton's ideas. This book presents extracts from Leibniz's letters to Newtonian scientist Samuel Clarke.

A wide, accessible representation of the interests, problems, and philosophic issues that preoccupied the great 17th-century scientist, this collection is grouped according to methods, principles, and theological considerations. 1953 edition.

Thomas F. Torrance is the most prominent theologian to have taken seriously the challenge posed to theology by the natural sciences. His model for interaction between the two disciplines is based on the theological heart of the Church: the Incarnation. Luoma here offers a thorough overview and critique of Torrance's insights into the theology-science dialogue.

The larger project of which this volume forms part is an attempt to craft a coherent doctrine of divine eternity and God's relationship to time. Central to this project is the integration of the concerns of theology with the concept of time in relativity theory. This volume provides an accessible and philosophically informed examination of the concept of time in relativity, the ultimate aim being the achievement of a tenable theological synthesis.

The question of divine agency in the world remains one important unresolved underlying obstacle in the dialogue between theology and science. Modern notions of divine agency are shown to have developed out of the interaction of three factors in early modernity. Two are well known: late medieval perfect-being theology and the early modern application of the notion of the two books of God's revelation to the understanding of the natural order. It is argued the third is the early modern appropriation of theAugustinian doctrine of inspiration. This assumes the soul's existence and a particular description of divine agency in humans, which became more generally applied to divine agency in nature. Whereas Newton explicitly draws the parallel between divine agency in humans and that in nature, Darwin rejects its supposed perfection and Huxley raises serious questions regarding the traditional understanding of the soul. This book offers an alternative incarnational description of divine agency, freeing consideration of divine agency from being dependent on resolving the complex issues of perfect-being theology and the existence of the soul. In conversation with Barth's pneumatology, this proposal is shown to remain theologically coherent and plausible while resolving or avoiding a range of known difficulties in the science-theology dialogue.