Ancient Cosmology III

2018 ◽  
pp. 224-235
Author(s):  
Thomas Nail
Keyword(s):  

This chapter argues that the fourth and final cosmokinetic description of eternity occurs in the description of the figure of the ex nihilo eternal sky father, the first and only creator of all of being. In this final kinetic operation we reach the ultimate inversion of centripetal motion. Eternity appears not as the product of a theomachy or prior motion, but as the original and immobile process constitutive of all motion as such. Ex nihilo creation does not refer here strictly to the creation of the world by God, but more generally to the ex nihilo creation of motion from immobility.

The bishop of Sarum (Seth Ward) told me that one Mr Haggarn (a country man of his), a gentleman and good mathematician, was well acquainted with Mr Thomas Hariot, and was wont to say, that he did not like (or valued not) the old storie of the Creation of the World. He could not beleeve the old position ; he would say ex nihilo nihil fit . But sayd Mr Haggar, a nihilum killed him at last : for in the top of his nose came a little red speck (exceeding small), which grew bigger and bigger, and at last killed him. I suppose it was that which the chirurgians call a noli me tangere.


Author(s):  
Vlatko Vedral

Every civilization in the history of humanity has had its myth of creation. Humans have a deeply rooted and seemingly insatiable desire to understand not only their own origins but also the origins of other things around them. Most if not all of the myths since the dawn of man involve some kind of higher or supernatural beings which are intimately related to the existence and functioning of all things in the Universe. Modern man still holds a multitude of different views of the ultimate origin of the Universe, though a couple of the most well represented religions, Christianity and Islam, maintain that there was a single creator responsible for all that we see around us. It is a predominant belief in Catholicism, accounting for about one-sixth of humanity, that the Creator achieved full creation of the Universe out of nothing – a belief that goes under the name of creation ex nihilo. (To be fair, not all Catholics believe this, but they ought to if they follow the Pope.) Postulating a supernatural being does not really help explain reality since then we only displace the question of the origins of reality to explaining the existence of the supernatural being. To this no religion offers any real answers. If you think that scientists might have a vastly more insightful understanding of the origin of the Universe compared to that of major religions, then you’d better think again. Admittedly, most scientists are probably atheists (interestingly, more than 95% in the United Kingdom) but this does not necessarily mean that they do not hold some kind of a belief about what the Creation was like and where all this stuff around us comes from. The point is that, under all the postulates and axioms, if you dig far enough, you’ll find that they are as stumped as anyone else. So, from the point of view of explaining why there is a reality and where it ultimately comes from, being religious or not makes absolutely no difference – we all end up with the same tricky question. Every time I read a book on the religious or philosophical outlook of the world I cannot help but recognize many ideas in there as related to some ideas that we have in science.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Ikechukwu Ezeogamba

"Ex-nihilo creation" has always been propagated especially when one reads Gen. 1:1-2: 3 with faith and without questioning any aspect of it. Such a person will not discover the existence of " the Word" with which he commanded order to exist out of disorder which mankind enjoys today. This "Word" is the power of God. It is with this Word that he was able to bring order in the "tohu wabohu" he met (Gen. 1:2). Let it be clear from the beginning that the phrase "tohu wabohu" has remained enigmatic and defies all translations. It tries to explain the 'nothingness' of the situation before God began creating the universe. It is through the "Word" that we were told that everything that exists came into being (John 1:3). This same word became flesh (John 1:14) so as to bring back the strayed (Gen. 3:24) humanity back to their original root which is eternal communion with God. The greatest problem is that humanity has not understood the meaning of that "Word." The aim of this work is to show that God created the world through the Word and this Word always appears for the good of mankind wherever it does. To live in opposition to this Word is to create more problems for mankind and to live in communion with him is to understand the essence of the 'Word' and thus help in solving human problems. This paper argues that if John 1:1-18 is properly understood, most misunderstandings as regards the creation of the world would be halted and appreciation of the 'Word' will increase in the world. Significantly, this work will benefit all human beings that seek the good of mankind. The method we shall use is Exegetical and hermeneutic of John 1:1-18.


Gersonides ◽  
2010 ◽  
pp. 28-58
Author(s):  
Seymour Feldman

This chapter is devoted to the single problem of the creation of the world. According to Gersonides, Maimonides' theory of creation was deficient because of its hasty scepticism about the decidability of the question, but it was also erroneous in its uncritical adoption of the ex nihilo account of creation and in foisting the theory on Scripture. It provides Gersonides' argument against Maimonides that the creation of the world is provable, and the world was not created ex nihilo. This chapter also details an indirect criticism of Maimonides' cosmological scepticism by means of a direct refutation of Aristotle's cosmological dogmatism. Gersonides considered the creation of the world to be one of the central dogmas of Judaism, especially because it highlights the volitional and providential character of divine activity.


Author(s):  
David Cheetham

What is the nature of the creaturely view? This chapter critiques some of the contemporary literature concerning the theology of creation primarily to discern what kind of vehicle it might be for interreligious dialogue. It will give some attention to the different perspectives on creation: the emanationist, pantheist, and feminist views, and so on. However, the chapter settles on a non-contrastive ex nihilo understanding or what has been called ‘the Christian distinction’. This view makes it clear that finite causal world is emphatically not a model for understanding the relationship between God and the world. The difference is of an entirely different order. The chapter argues that this ‘non-contrastive’ relationship allows one to speak of the freedom of God as well as the gift of meaning to the creation. It thus sets the stage for wisdom to speak ‘for itself’ in the immanent.


2010 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 203-224
Author(s):  
Myroslav Feodosijeviè Hryschko

The text examines Sergej Nikolajeviè Bulgakov's description of the philosopheme as thoroughly "immanent" (viz., the immanence of man qua being, such that ontology in Bulgakov becomes a conceptual analogue for immanence) and the corollary that such immanence necessarily excludes the problematic of the "creation of the world." Because of this resolute immanence and the notion that the creation of the world in the form of creatio ex nihilo requires a non-immanent or non-ontological thought and concept, the problematic for Bulgakov is approached only by a theologeme. Appropriating this argument as material for a cursory philosopheme, the text attempts to transform Bulgakov's theologeme into a philosopheme through an elision of God and dogma that overdetermines the theologeme. This philosopheme (nascent within Bulgakov's work itself, in both his hesitation to the overdetermination of immanence and the commitment to the problem of creation) would be a thoroughly non-ontological philosopheme, one that allows for the treatment of the problematic of "creation" or singular ontogenesis, yet with the corollary that this philosopheme must rely on an "ontological zero" Such a philosopheme qua ontologically empty formula nevertheless remains ontologically significant insofar as it is to evince the limit of ontology, in the ontological zero's non-relationality to ontology.


Author(s):  
Roberto D. Hernández

This article addresses the meaning and significance of the “world revolution of 1968,” as well as the historiography of 1968. I critically interrogate how the production of a narrative about 1968 and the creation of ethnic studies, despite its world-historic significance, has tended to perpetuate a limiting, essentialized and static notion of “the student” as the primary actor and an inherent agent of change. Although students did play an enormous role in the events leading up to, through, and after 1968 in various parts of the world—and I in no way wish to diminish this fact—this article nonetheless argues that the now hegemonic narrative of a student-led revolt has also had a number of negative consequences, two of which will be the focus here. One problem is that the generation-driven models that situate 1968 as a revolt of the young students versus a presumably older generation, embodied by both their parents and the dominant institutions of the time, are in effect a sociosymbolic reproduction of modernity/coloniality’s logic or driving impulse and obsession with newness. Hence an a priori valuation is assigned to the new, embodied in this case by the student, at the expense of the presumably outmoded old. Secondly, this apparent essentializing of “the student” has entrapped ethnic studies scholars, and many of the period’s activists (some of whom had been students themselves), into said logic, thereby risking the foreclosure of a politics beyond (re)enchantment or even obsession with newness yet again.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 206-210
Author(s):  
Ra`no Ergashova ◽  
◽  
Nilufar Yuldosheva

The creation, regulation, lexical and grammatical research and interpretation of the system of terms in the field of aviation in the world linguistics terminology system are one of the specific directions of terminology. Research on specific features is an important factor in ensuring the development of the industry. This article discusses morphological structure of aviation terms. The purpose of the article is to analyze the role of aviation terms in the morphology of the Uzbek language and its definition.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 156-160
Author(s):  
Khurshida Salimovna Safarova ◽  
Shakhnoza Islomovna Vosiyeva

Every great fiction book is a book that portrays the uniqueness of the universe and man, the difficulty of breaking that bond, or the weakening of its bond and the increase in human. The creation of such a book is beyond the reach of all creators, and not all works can illuminate the cultural, spiritual and moral status of any nation in the world by unraveling the underlying foundations of humanity. With the birth of Hoja Ahmad Yassawi's “Devoni Hikmat”, the Turkic nations were recognized as a nation with its own book of teaching, literally, the encyclopedia of enlightenment, truth and spirituality.


GEOgraphia ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (19) ◽  
pp. 103
Author(s):  
Alexandre Domingues Ribas ◽  
Antonio Carlos Vitte

Resumo: Há um relativo depauperamento no tocante ao nosso conhecimento a respeito da relação entre a filosofia kantiana e a constituição da geografia moderna e, conseqüentemente, científica. Esta relação, quando abordada, o é - vezes sem conta - de modo oblíquo ou tangencial, isto é, ela resta quase que exclusivamente confinada ao ato de noticiar que Kant ofereceu, por aproximadamente quatro décadas, cursos de Geografia Física em Königsberg, ou que ele foi o primeiro filósofo a inserir esta disciplina na Universidade, antes mesmo da criação da cátedra de Geografia em Berlim, em 1820, por Karl Ritter. Não ultrapassar a pueril divulgação deste ato em si mesma só nos faz jogar uma cortina sobre a ausência de um discernimento maior acerca do tributo de Kant àfundamentação epistêmica da geografia moderna e científica. Abrir umafrincha nesta cortina denota, necessariamente, elucidar o papel e o lugardo “Curso de Geografia Física” no corpus da filosofia transcendental kantiana. Assim sendo, partimos da conjectura de que a “Geografia Física” continuamente se mostrou, a Kant, como um conhecimento portador de um desmedido sentido filosófico, já que ela lhe denotava a própria possibilidade de empiricização de sua filosofia. Logo, a Geografia Física seria, para Kant, o embasamento empírico de suas reflexões filosóficas, pois ela lhe comunicava a empiricidade da invenção do mundo; ela lhe outorgava a construção metafísica da “superfície da Terra”. Destarte, da mesma maneira que a Geografia, em sua superfície geral, conferiu uma espécie de atributo científico à validação do empírico da Modernidade (desde os idos do século XVI), a Geografia Física apresentou-se como o sustentáculo empírico da reflexão filosófica kantiana acerca da “metafísica da natureza” e da “metafísica do mundo”.THE COURSE OF PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF IMMANUEL KANT(1724-1804): CONTRIBUTION FOR THE GEOGRAPHICALSCIENCE HISTORY AND EPISTEMOLOGYAbstract: There is a relative weakness about our knowledge concerningKant philosophy and the constitution of modern geography and,consequently, scientific geography. That relation, whenever studied,happens – several times – in an oblique or tangential way, what means thatit lies almost exclusively confined in the act of notifying that Kant offered,for approximately four decades, “Physical Geography” courses inKonigsberg, or that he was the first philosopher teaching the subject at anyCollege, even before the creation of Geography chair in Berlin, in 1820, byKarl Ritter. Not overcoming the early spread of that act itself only made usthrow a curtain over the absence of a major understanding about Kant’stribute to epistemic justification of modern and scientific geography. Toopen a breach in this curtain indicates, necessarily, to lighten the role andplace of Physical Geography Course inside Kantian transcendentalphilosophy. So, we began from the conjecture that Physical Geography hasalways shown, by Kant, as a knowledge carrier of an unmeasuredphilosophic sense, once it showed the possibility of empiricization of hisphilosophy. Therefore, a Physical Geography would be, for Kant, theempirics basis of his philosophic thoughts, because it communicates theempiria of the world invention; it has made him to build metaphysically the“Earth’s surface”. In the same way, Geography, in its general surface, hasgiven a particular tribute to the empiric validation of Modernity (since the16th century), Physical Geography introduced itself as an empiric basis toKantian philosophical reflection about “nature’s metaphysics” and the“world metaphysics” as well.Keywords: History and Epistemology of Geography, Physical Geography,Cosmology, Kantian Transcendental Philosophy, Nature.


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