I’ve long been fascinated by cosmology, although my deficiencies as a mathematician preclude my really following the arguments of astrophysicists, high-energy particle physicists, and others exploring the origins of the universe. Yet the fascination remains and it was kindled anew by a May 12 article in the Boston Globe Magazine about Alan Guth, a key figure in current explorations of what happened in the Big Bang, the orthodox explanation for How Things Started.Continue Reading »
I started this series of reflections on Genesis by thinking about when Creation was not yet good : when the man is without the woman in Genesis 2, and when heaven is without the earth in Genesis 1 (when we do not hear the expected refrain, “And God was that it was good” on the second day). Now, . . . . Continue Reading »
There is a striking omission from the Hebrew text of Genesis 1, on the second day of creation. It is the day when God creates Heaven, and the omission is that he does not see it as good. Every other day of creation has God seeing that his work is good, but not this one. The omission is so striking . . . . Continue Reading »
Natural Law and Metaphysics I was puzzled by many aspects of Phillip E. Johnson’s exposition of the Grisez-Finnis natural law theory in his review of my book In Defense of Natural Law (November 1999). One mistake, however, is so fundamental and important that it cannot be passed over in silence. . . . . Continue Reading »
In 1971, I published In Defense of People , the first book-length critique of “the ecology movement” that was then in ascendancy and that pretty much shaped the arguments that continue to swirl around the varieties of environmentalism today. There are significant differences between then and . . . . Continue Reading »
The rules of chaos are simple: A mountain is never a perfect cone. A lake is never really a circle. A dropof dew is not a microcosm. No. Flowers wither. Dust collects. There is therelentless return of what we do not want. Everything inclines to disorder. But then how . . . . Continue Reading »
It is harder to see what one seesthan anyone knowsbecause it is easier, far far easierthan on can suppose.That still point of the turning world—look! this light through the petal—where there are no shadowsand where it is never a problem never to have shadows,neither haunted by undaunted . . . . Continue Reading »