Towards a New Apologetic Part One

8/11/2019 Towards a New Apologetic Part One

1/15

Towards a New

ApologeticThree lectures by Protopresbyter Dr Doru Costache on the AnthropicCosmological Principle and its usefulness for a contemporary

Christian apologetic

Greek Orthodox Youth Fellowship of Kogarah13, 20 & 27 October 2014


2/15

Towards a New

Apologetic13 Oct - A New Way of Thinking

What is the AnthropicCosmological Principle and why

there is there so much oppositionto it?


3/15

Old and New

AlliancesIn the early Christian centuries, theapologists sought to ally with the

philosophers against an oppressive paganism

Today, against atheism and agnosticism,Christian apologists should seek alliance

with certain scientists and philosophers ofscience who are not foreign to theaspirations of the ancient sages


4/15


5/15

Thinking

AnthropicallyThe anthropic cosmological principle is acomplex philosophical and scientific

narrative, which proposes the integration ofall aspects of reality - as perceived bymodern culture - namely, human, biologicaland cosmic. And because human conscience

can no longer be ignored as significant inthe making of reality, meaning andpurposefulness can no longer be ignored.


6/15

Thinking

AnthropicallyIn the perspective [] of these reaches of space and time, is notman an unimportant bit of dust on an unimportant planet in anunimportant galaxy in an unimportant region somewhere in thevastness of space? No! [] Meaning is important, is even central.It is not only that man is adapted to the universe. The universe isadapted to man. Imagine a universe in which one or anotherfundamental dimensionless constants of physics is altered by afew percent one way or the other? man could never come intobeing in such a universe. That is the central point of the anthropic

principle. According to this principle, a life-giving factor lies atthe centre of the whole machinery and design of the world. JohnA. Wheeler, Foreword to John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler, TheAnthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford and New York:Clarendon Press and Oxford University Press, 1986) vii-ix, vii.


7/15

A Short HistoryThe phrase anthropic principle wascoined by Brandon Carter

See his Large Number Coincidences andthe Anthropic Principle in Cosmology.Longair, M. S. (ed.). Confrontation of

Cosmological Theories with ObservationalData. Dordrecht and Boston: D. ReidelPublishing Company, 1974: 291-98.


8/15

A Short History

The classical work in the field is

that of John D. Barrow and Frank J.Tipler, The Anthropic CosmologicalPrinciple. Oxford and New York:

Clarendon Press and OxfordUniversity Press, 1986.


9/15

My WorkMy most recent dealing with the anthropicprinciple and related matters: At the

Crossroads of Contemporary Cosmology andthe Patristic Worldview: Movement,Rationality and Purpose in Father DumitruSt!niloae. Studii Teologice 2 (2013) 141-63,

155-60.https://sagotc.academia.edu/DoruCostache/Papers
https://sagotc.academia.edu/DoruCostache/Papers


10/15

Towards the Anthropic

Cosmological PrincipleJohn D. Barrow, we must admit to a rationality larger thanthe material universe The Origin of the Universe, ScienceMasters series (New York: Basic Books, 1994) 45.

The numbers or constants of nature whose coincidence lead tothe idea of a fine-tuning of the universe (cf. Wheeler)

Integrating conscience, life and physics in one scientificnarrative for which the observers (human beings) condition theobserved (life, universe) the anthropic principle. [W]hatwe can expect to observe must be restricted by the conditionsnecessary for our presence as observers. Brandon Carter,Large Number Coincidences and the Anthropic Principle inCosmology 291.


11/15

A New Way of

Thinking?The idea of a rational structure ofreality, at times expressed numerically,

features prominently in the classicalGreek cosmologies, where from it wasborrowed by various Christian authors

Clement the Alexandrian, Exhortationto the Gentiles 6: the Logos of God isthe measure and number of all things.


12/15

A New Way of

Thinking?The notion of a connection betweenthe human being and the universe was

shared in common by both the ancientGreek philosophy and the earlyChristian worldview

St Athanasius the Great, On theIncarnation 41: the race of humanbeings is a part of the whole.


13/15

CriticismsThe anthropic principle is philosophical in naturenot scientific

As much as we would like to live in a meaningfuland purposeful universe, in reality there is nopurpose to speak of

The anthropic principle is an anachronistic return

to anthropomorphism and anthropocentrismThe anthropic principle ends up in mysticism andtherefore irrationality


14/15

Ideological

PresuppositionsAddressing the criticismsIt cannot be scientific to dissociate the humanphenomenon from biology and cosmology, or to ignore

the fine-tuning and its anthropic implications

Behind the criticisms levelled at the anthropic principlelies the instinctive fear of the critics that the anthropicprinciple brings back religion atheism, agnosticism

Reading: St Athanasius the Great, Against the Gentiles 47(dismantling the logic of dissociating the universe fromthe Mind that established it for our contemplation andwellbeing)


15/15

A New Alliance

Insofar as it discloses the meaningfulness

of a universe conditioned by/toward ourexistence, with or without it beingendowed with theological connotations theanthropic cosmological principle opens upnew avenues for the dissemination of theChristian worldview and values today

Documents

Towards a New Apologetic Part One