... Some Notes on Thomas Woods' Orderly Universe Argument

1) ... on Historical Capacity of Understanding, 2) ... Some Notes on Dr Thomas Woods' Debunking of Flat Earth Myth, 3) ... Some Notes on Thomas Woods' Orderly Universe Argument, 4) ... to Thomas Woods on the School of Chartres, Mainly, 5) ... following Thomas E. Woods Jr. from Bacon to Boscovich

Was the Catholic Church the Builder of Civilization?
francispearson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYcI9KzlIIk
first episode of three about Catholicism as foudner of Western Science.

I 28:25

Wisdom 11:21 ... second half "but thou hast ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight."

Note two things:

• 1) Protestants have started getting onto this train. But Wisdom is a Catholic Bible book outside their 66 book "canon".
  
  
• 2) It has inspired the thought that natural law must be expressible in quantifiable terms. I have seen this brought to extremes, like people asking, against Thomistic Metaphysics, how one quantifies the influence of spirit on matter, whether it be human mind chosing which letter to write or angelic spirit guiding a star. But the verse has a context:

[16] But for the foolish devices of their iniquity, because some being deceived worshipped dumb serpents and worthless beasts, thou didst send upon them a multitude of dumb beasts for vengeance. [17] That they might know that by what things a man sinneth, by the same also he is tormented. [18] For thy almighty hand, which made the world of matter without form, was not unable to send upon them a multitude of bears, or fierce lions, [19] Or unknown beasts of a new kind, full of rage: either breathing out a fiery vapour, or sending forth a stinking smoke, or shooting horrible sparks out of their eyes: [20] Whereof not only the hurt might be able to destroy them, but also the very sight might kill them through fear. [21] Yea and without these, they might have been slain with one blast, persecuted by their own deeds, and scattered by the breath of thy power: but thou hast ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight. [22] For great power always belonged to thee alone: and who shall resist the strength of thy arm?

I have even been asked by atheists to quantify God's possibility of turning the Universe around the Earth each day. Here is Wisdom 11:23

[23] For the whole world before thee is as the least grain of the balance, and as a drop of the morning dew, that falleth down upon the earth:

I recall Juliana of Norwich (Saint?) seeing Our Lord holding all he had created in His hand "and it was no greater than a hazelnut" ... or "than a nut".

And verses 24 seq:

[24] But thou hast mercy upon all, because thou canst do all things, and overlookest the sins of men for the sake of repentance. [25] For thou lovest all things that are, and hatest none of the things which thou hast made: for thou didst not appoint, or make any thing hating it.

Just in case som idiot should think my attributing all this strength to God makes me anxious.

II 33:48

Babylonians and modern science ... I have heard Newton described as "the last Sumerian".

Babylonians did not per se believe the Universe was orderly, but they had Mages engaged in - essentially, not unlike Pythagoras - finding order under the chaos, and that to the end of making predictions. Astrology was Babylonian, Pythagorean and in some ways also Medieval. The same Bradwardine who saw there was something logarithmic about movement, like distance and speed or time and speed, and thus gave an impetus to later development of logarithmic tables, was named a bishop by one of the Avignon Popes - and he believed in Astrology.

III 34:01

"that does not mean the Universe is so orderly that God can't make miracles"

Actually this was one error that showed up its ugly head in scholastic surroundings.

"Quod sine agente proprio, ut patre et homine, etiam a deo non posset fieri homo."

This was proposition 35 on the list of 219 propositions condemned by Bishop Tempier in Laetare Sunday of what to them was "still 1276" (since 1277 would start only 25 of March) but to us is "already 1277".

Here is the list of errors about God or the first cause:

Collectio errorum in Anglia et Parisius Condempnatorum ... Et primoordinantur qui sunt de deo
[on blog En lengua romance en Antimodernism y de mis caminaciones]
http://enfrancaissurantimodernism.blogspot.com/2012/01/collectio-errorum-in-anglia-et-parisius.html

And here is the index of all the chapters:

Index in stephani tempier condempnationes
http://enfrancaissurantimodernism.blogspot.com/2012/01/index-in-stephani-tempier.html

The footnotes are my work, the text in that form was given as an appendix in the recent book by D. Piché - his own major contribution was translating the propositions in order into French and giving an introduction about them.

IV "34"

- proposition 34 of the condemned ones is what I like to call the "Narnia clause":

"Quod causa prima non posset plures mundos facere."

V 35:29

"the functioning of the universe is one of those promises"

Indeed. But it is NOT in that promise that for instance day and night shall be explainable in principle as continuations of something previous merely inherent in creation rather than as a new but identical to previous act of God each time.

St Thomas saw the turning of the Universe around Earth as a proof for God's existence. Less clear as Prima Via in I-Q2-A3, more clear as its parallel in Contra Gentes and as St Thomas refers to Prima Via when later in Pars I (Q11, I think?) proving that God is one from fact that the turning of the Universe around the one axis where earth is proves there is exactly one first mover. Riccioli considers this point as superfluous, and prefers the Ontological argument (the most noble thing cannot lack the perfection of existing) because he saw Lucretius and Epicure unconvinced of God and attributing the daily rotation of Universe (which they admitted too, they were not Heliocentrics) to mere chance.

Also it is NOT in that promise that the movement of celestial bodies must be as motorically explicable as the movement of falling objects, doing without for instance angelic movers (which both St Thomas and Riccioli agreed on).

Day and night proclaim God's glory. God calls out to the stars and they answer "here I am". That is also very much in Scripture.

VI 37:01

"what looks like a law to you may be one of Allah's habits which he can discontinue at any time"

This is not in conflict with Christianity (unless we involve moral law, God is never immoral), and it is not against Catholic Christianity.

Chesterton had expressed it in Orthodoxy while he was an Anglican, and far from being asked to revoke it when converting, Orthodoxy is still on his bibliography. The Minim Friar Mersenne was an Occasionalist - and he founded the science of Acoustics. So, it is not against science either.

Malebranche and Guélingx (if that is the right spelling of that Belgian) were both Occasionalists, and only one of them is on the Index.

I am sorry, but Dom Stanley Jaki is wrong on this one.

VII a personal note here too:

I have precisely on these points been accused of having a basically not just erroneous, but actually anti-Catholic concept of God's relation to the universe. And that despite the fact I was actually agreeing with Scholastics like notably St Thomas Aquinas, and despite the fact of not being an Occasionalist even. If fire burns flax, indeed, God can discontinue that at any time, but it is also an inbuilt working of the universe, God has wanted this to be the normal order. Even when God does miracles, He does not take away the natural properties involved in normal causalities. Water wasn't weightless when Jordan was cut in two or when the Red Sea was parted in two. Fire wasn't deprived of its burning power when presumably the angel of that fire in the furnace (I speak with St Hippolytus here) seeing Christ - God the Son - as the fourth young man respected God's will it should not burn the three young men.

... Some Notes on Dr Thomas Woods' Debunking of Flat Earth Myth

1) ... on Historical Capacity of Understanding, 2) ... Some Notes on Dr Thomas Woods' Debunking of Flat Earth Myth, 3) ... Some Notes on Thomas Woods' Orderly Universe Argument, 4) ... to Thomas Woods on the School of Chartres, Mainly, 5) ... following Thomas E. Woods Jr. from Bacon to Boscovich

Was the Catholic Church the Builder of Civilization?
francispearson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYcI9KzlIIk
up to end of intro episode of video at about 24 - 25 minutes.

I 16:41

I am not saying EVERYBODY believed in a flat Earth, but some did.

St Augustine posed on looking at the Northern axis around which stars circle every day the question whether there was a similar one to the South. I e, he considerd it at least thinkable that Earth was either flat or only semispherical - though he favoured the spherical model.

Pope St Zachary on hearing one bishop Virgil believed in a round Earth posed some questions about how he considered possible Antipodes. Virgil was thus suspect of believing in non-Adamite Antipodes, which the Pope of course condemned. And Virgil was of course innocent. But if a spherical Earth had been entirely universal, Virgil would hardly have been suspect in the first place.

II 16:58

Lactantius having no influence on anybody is of course wrong. He was a great writer. Otherwise, not being a saint, his writing would hardly have survived.

His speaking allegorically in the text as a whole does not mean every detail in it is supposed to be true in allegory only, and sth he did not literally believe in. Our Lord did not literally disbelieve what he allegorically considered credible, that fathers get happy when lost sons turn up or that housewives get happy when finding coins they had lost.

III 17:07

Yes, I have heard ALL about Cosmas and his opponent John Philoponus!

When I studied Greek there was the lady Baptist pastor (I was in love with her daughter at the time and wanted to convert her to Catholicism) who was doing her theses on these guys. OK, ALL is exaggerated but all she would say in my presence and Cosmas being such a prohibitive example for fundies I have heard.

Besides, you underestimate Greek literacy of Latin West.

I am pretty sureone could find references to Cosmas Indicopleustes and John Philoponus in St Thomas Aquinas - at least the commentary on Aristotle.

IV 19:57

[why does the flat earth myth continues] "it fits the Englightenment stereotype"

Not only with Secularists, but also with Fundamentalists, since they essentially hanker back to Locke. CMI - Creation Ministries International - is not supporting the flat Earth stereotype, but they are whenever it is brought up supporting a story in which Catholic Church had mixed up its teaching with Pagan Aristotelic Geocentrism and Biblically they had no leg to stand on against Galileo.

On the other hand Secularists may more than once repeat typically Protestant stereotypes like "Catholic Church can't be the Church of Christ since it is idolatrous" (referring to iconodulia and honouring of the BVM and the Saints who have been canonised) or even "since it sold indulgences" (repeating a lie about selling involved and a Protestant stereotype about indulgences as such being anti-Biblical).

V 20:34

[If one invented something about what a known person said or thought:] "it would last about three seconds"

No.

• CSL never admitted he was philosophically defeated after the Anscombe debate, only he had been stumped on a point (he reworked a chapter of Miracles) and he felt he was over and done with as specifically a philosopher.
  
  
• Pacelli never endorsed Nazi ideology, he penned what Pius XI signed as Mit brennender Sorge. Still, he is pretty often portrayed as Hitler's Pope (when he became Pius XII), because he was a Nuntio while the concordate was signed.
  
  
• Alojzije Stepinac never endorsed Ustashi persecution of Serbs or other non-Croats. He is said to have told Nikolaj Velimorivc of some Serbian see he was not wanted, but that might have been an attempt to save Velimirovic. Yet Stepinac is pointed out as having given his blessing to killing of Serbs in Jasenovac.
  
  
• For my own part, I have readers of my blogs in more than one country. I have been pointed out as endorsing specifically racialist excuses for Southron slavery, when I have simply said slavery is - unlike slave hunt - sometimes permitted. Freeing a bought person from slavery is fitting to a Christian buyer, but not a natural due to the person bought (and that the black man bought had often enough been sold by black slave hunting kings in Africa). I have been pointed out as endorsing total submission of wife to husband, when I said they have to submit to each other in bed, and wives have to submit if disagreeing on decisions concerning the family (two persons cannot decide by majority vote, and marriage must survive disagreements). I have been pointed out as wanting to lower the life expectancy because I want to get certain aspects back to Middle Ages - and because I insist life expectancy was not really low then.

But, in these cases too, the lies have served a purpose.

VI 24:19

Before going on to "next time", one other guess about persistence of "Flat Earth was believed in Middle Ages" myth.

18th C everyone really knew the Earth was a sphere. By 19th C. everyone all over Europe expluding Eastern Europe and Spain was also learning it in near compulsory schools.

So, a 19th C scholar finds even one Patristic or Medieval author saying Earth was flat, he is so used to the theme being culturally a one option theme he imagines that was the case in Middle Ages and that then the one option was flatness.

Moreover, 19th C starts getting an interest in Norse Paganism. One side issue would be "pagan origins" attacks on Christmas, imagining Midwinter was celebrated at winter solstice (which was not the case, it would seem, and which would have brought the feast into Advent rather than Christmas - at one point Winter Solstice was feast of St Lucy, before the Ember Days) and that this was the origin not just of many Northern European Christmas customs, but of Christmas celebration itself. But another side issue thereof would be, since Pagan cosmology of Odinists placed Middangeard/Midgárd as a disc under the disc of Ásgárd and above the broader disc of Utgárd, when were the people supposed to have transited to a spheric Earth position? There is no trace of this being any kind of big issue during Christianisation. My guess is Swedes, Danes, Norsemen adopted spheric Earth cosmology very gradually as more and more of them came back from Sorbonne as clergymen.

You mentioned "educated" Europeans. Presumably you think, as I, a lot of farmers or peasants still thought the Earth flat up to geographic discoveries. But non-farmers did not all have same education.

Clergymen had a scholastic or monastic education (not quite same thing) and at least the scholastic one clearly thought a spheric Earth. Noblemen had for long time little letters beyond poetry and novels. Or perhaps that is a 19th C stereotype. Anyway, it is a condition ending about 1400. Up to Camoes poetry/epic was not quite spheric Earth oriented. Burghers tended to enjoy vulgarised versions of both clerical, specifically scholastic, and noble culture. They would know the Earth was not flat, by at least 1300, or so. But Spain was not typical, it had recently been liberated from Moors. If I heard any evidence from relevant epoch (like Christopher's diaries) that his sailors worried about falling off the edge, or one of them, I wouldn't throw it out.

However, I think main objection was that, just as equatorial zone would be too hot (wrong) a Western zone would be too stormy to pass (wrong again). Besides, Columbus really did calculate diameter of Earth erroneously, since he thought he was a few miles off East Asia. So, the "Earth is too big" objection had something going for it.

VII a personal note

I have been accused more than once of holding to a flat earth myself, when that also is simply not true.

I do believe there are "four corners" and that you can fall off them - but then it is into the sea you fall. The four corners do not imply a "strictly Euclidic" - i e flat, two dimensional - surface between them. The four corners might for instance be considered as being those of the then known landmass, i e of Eurasia and Africa or of "Old World". Roughly UK would be NW corner, Sachalin-Koreas-Japan NE corner, Singapore-New Gunea-Australia the SE corner and the SW corner would be Cape of Good Hope.

Of course, Euclid would not deny you can take an apple or a spheric Earth globe and choose 4 points and draw lines between them, he would just not have called that a square or a rectangle (or their Greek counterparts), since he had reserved those words for other, flatter, usages./HGL