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Natural Theology in the age of particle physics

Natural Theology in the age of particle physics. Francesca Day, university of Oxford. Natural Theology. The air, the earth, the water teem with delighted existence . William Payley The greatness of the human being consists in this: that it is capable of the universe . Thomas Aquinas

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Natural Theology in the age of particle physics

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  1. Natural Theology in the age of particle physics Francesca Day, university of Oxford

  2. Natural Theology • The air, the earth, the water teem with delighted existence. William Payley • The greatness of the human being consists in this: that it is capable of the universe. Thomas Aquinas • If the bottom of Heaven is that beautiful, just think what the rest must be like.

  3. What we know now

  4. mystery Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limit of the Almighty? It is higher than heaven—what can you do? Deeper than Sheol—what can you know? Its measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea. Job 11:7-9

  5. Beauty and symmetry • The natural world • The natural laws • It seems to be one of the fundamental features of nature that fundamental physical laws are described in terms of a mathematical theory of great beauty and power, needing quite a high standard of mathematics for one to understand it. … One could perhaps describe the situation by saying that God is a mathematician of a very high order, and He used very advanced mathematics in constructing the universe. Paul Dirac

  6. The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences • Eugene Wigner, 1960 • The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve.

  7. power • The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible. Albert Einstein • And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ Genesis 1:28

  8. responsibility As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace. 1 Peter 4:10

  9. The word of god • Natural theology is no substitute for revealed theology • Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. (Matthew 25:40)

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