The Process of the Cosmos: Philosophical and Theology and Cosmology

by Kelly, Anthony Bernard

• ISBN13: 9781581120608
• ISBN10: 1581120605
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 1999-12-01
• Publisher: Dissertation.com

Summary

The thesis argues that the world can be understood as a process involving the possible self-creation of an entity like God. In the series of the emergent ontological strate of reality, the physical, biological, conscious and spiritual strata, each stratum is less rigidly determined, and exercises greater freedom than does the previous stratum. The laws of nature vary from stratum to stratum, becoming less deterministic at each new stratum. The present human moral-cultural, or spiritual stratum, exercises complete freedom in relation to the law of this stratum, the moral law. The moral law commands but can not compel. The possible outcomes of this process of Emergence could be either the self-creation of a stratum which is not significantly different from God, or the self-destruction of humanity. In this context, Christ could be considered to be a proleptic exemplar of the final emergent stage. Book jacket.

Table of Contents

Summary	p. 5
Introduction	p. 9
The Problem of the Motive for Creation	p. 11
Madigan's argument	p. 12
Madigan's claim	p. 16
Assessment of Madigan's argument	p. 16
Aristotle's initiation of the argument	p. 17
Avoiding Aristotle's argument	p. 17
The problem of direct Creation	p. 18
Confronting Aristotle's argument	p. 20
Aristotle's hidden assumption	p. 20
Is the world in process?	p. 21
Madigan's other claim	p. 23
Natural Theology and the Motive for Creation	p. 24
The Work of Nicolai Hartmann	p. 33
The Teleological nexus and the Causal nexus	p. 34
Hartmann's analysis of Spiritual Being	p. 35
Hartmann's Ethics and the role of Values	p. 39
An explanation of these phenomena	p. 45
Hartmann's antinomies	p. 47
Hartmann's Ontology	p. 50
Strata and Levels distinguished	p. 52
Hartmann's analysis of Freedom	p. 57
The Emergence of Homo Sapiens Ethicus	p. 59
The Nature of Man	p. 59
Homo Sapiens Ethicus	p. 61
The Relevance of Myth and History	p. 67
Emergence of Spiritual Consciousness	p. 69
The Axial Period	p. 71
The Process of the Cosmos	p. 74
The Process of Self-Creation	p. 74
Altruism and Morality	p. 76
The Emergence of a Moral Sense	p. 77
The Problem of Evil	p. 78
Man, Culture and Deity	p. 80
The Role of Culture	p. 83
The Good of Man	p. 84
Emergence and the World Process	p. 87
Emergence	p. 89
Criteria of Emergent Levels	p. 90
The Emergent Levels	p. 91
Theories of Emergent Evolution	p. 93
The Miracle of Life	p. 100
Miracles and Emergence	p. 101
The World Process	p. 101
The Laws of Nature and Natural Law	p. 103
The Explanation of the World	p. 105
Self-Existence	p. 105
The Emergence of Life	p. 108
Challenges to Neo-Darwinism	p. 109
Does Life have an Intrinsic Ordering Principle?	p. 111
Critique of Harris	p. 116
Other Critiques of Neo-Darwinism	p. 117
Neo-Darwinism and Biochemistry	p. 121
Cosmological Natural Selection?	p. 122
Conclusion	p. 124
Bibliography	p. 127
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