philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

, theophysics is an approach to

cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount (lexicographer), Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in ...

that attempts to reconcile physical cosmology and

religious cosmology Religious cosmology is an explanation of the origin, evolution, and eventual fate of the universe from a religious perspective. This may include beliefs on origin in the form of a creation myth, subsequent evolution, current organizational form ...

. It is related to physicotheology, the difference between them being that the aim of physicotheology is to derive theology from physics, whereas that of theophysics is to unify physics and theology.

Usage

(2002) uses the term in a critique of physicotheology, i.e. the view that arguments for the existence of God can be derived from the existence of the physical world (e.g. the " argument from design"). Theophysics would be the opposite approach, i.e. an approach to the material world informed by the knowledge that it is created by God. Richard H. Popkin (1990) applies the term to the "spiritual physics" of Cambridge Platonist Henry More and his pupil and collaborator Lady Anne Conway,Richard H. Popkin, "The Spiritualistic Cosmologies of Henry More and Anne Conway", in (ed.), ''Henry More (1614–1687): Tercentenary Studies''. Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 1990, p. 105. who enthusiastically accepted the new science, but rejected the various forms of materialist mechanism proposed by Descartes,

Hobbes Thomas Hobbes ( ; 5/15 April 1588 – 4/14 December 1679) was an English philosopher, considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book ''Leviathan'', in which he expounds an influent ...

and Spinoza to buttress it,Popkin, "Cosmologies", p. 98. as these, More and Conway argued, were incapable of explaining productive causality.Popkin, "Cosmologies", p. 111. Instead, More and Conway offered what Popkin calls "a genuine important alternative to modern mechanistic thought", "a thoroughly scientific view with a metaphysics of spirits to make everything operate". Materialist mechanism triumphed, however, and today their spiritual cosmology, as Popkin notes, "looks very odd indeed". The term has been applied by some philosophers to the system of Emanuel Swedenborg. William Denovan (1889) wrote in ''

Mind The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for various m ...

'': "The highest stage of his revelation might be denominated ''Theophysics'', or the science of Divine purpose in creation." R. M. Wenley (1910) referred to Swedenborg as "the Swedish theophysicist". Pierre Laberge (1972) observes that Kant's famous critique of physicotheology in the '' Critique of Pure Reason'' (1781; second edition 1787) has tended to obscure the fact that in his early work, ''General History of Nature and Theory of the Heavens'' (1755), Kant defended a physicotheology that at the time was startlingly original, but that succeeded only to the extent that it concealed what Laberge terms a theophysics ("ce que nous appellerons une ''théophysique''"). Theophysics is a fundamental concept in the thought of Raimon Panikkar, who wrote in ''Ontonomía de la ciencia'' (1961) that he was looking for "a theological vision of Science that is not a

Metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

, but a Theophysics.... It is not a matter of a Physics 'of God', but rather of the 'God of the Physical'; of God the creator of the world... not the world as autonomous being, independent and disconnected from God, but rather ontonomicly linked to Him". As a vision of "Science as theology", it became central to Panikkar's "cosmotheandric" view of reality.

Frank J. Tipler Frank Jennings Tipler (born February 1, 1947) is an American mathematical physicist and cosmologist, holding a joint appointment in the Departments of Mathematics and Physics at Tulane University. Tipler has written books and papers on the Omeg ...

's Omega Point theory (1994), which identifies concepts from physical cosmology with theistic concepts, is sometimes referred to by the term,Theophysics: God Is the Ultimate Physicist
/ref> although not by Tipler himself. Tipler was an atheist when he wrote '' The Anthropic Cosmological Principle'' (1986, co-authored with

John D. Barrow John David Barrow (29 November 1952 – 26 September 2020) was an English cosmologist, theoretical physicist, and mathematician. He served as Gresham Professor of Geometry at Gresham College from 2008 to 2011. Barrow was also a writer of popul ...

, whose many popular books seldom mention theology) and '' The Physics of Immortality'' (1994), but a Christian when he wrote ''The Physics of Christianity'' (2007). In 1989, Wolfhart Pannenberg, a

liberal theologian Liberal Christianity, also known as Liberal Theology and historically as Christian Modernism (see Catholic modernism and Fundamentalist–Modernist controversy), is a movement that interprets Christian teaching by taking into consideration ...

in the continental

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

tradition, welcomed Tipler's work on cosmology as raising "the prospect of a rapprochement between physics and theology in the area of

eschatology Eschatology (; ) concerns expectations of the end of the present age, human history, or of the world itself. The end of the world or end times is predicted by several world religions (both Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic), which teach that negati ...

". In subsequent essays, while not concurring with all the details of Tipler's discussion, Pannenberg has defended the theology of the Omega Point. The term is also occasionally used as a

nonce word A nonce word (also called an occasionalism) is a lexeme created for a single occasion to solve an immediate problem of communication.''The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language''. Ed. David Crystal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ...

in parodies or humorous contexts, as by Aldous Huxley in ''

Antic Hay ''Antic Hay'' is a comic novel by Aldous Huxley, published in 1923. The story takes place in London, and depicts the aimless or self-absorbed cultural elite in the sad and turbulent times following the end of World War I. The book follows the ...

'' (1923).Aldous Huxley,
Antic Hay
', Chapter I, third paragraph.

References

External links

Theophysics
A website mainly about Tipler's Omega Point Theory, with links to short nontechnical articles mostly by Tipler, but also some by Deutsch and Pannenberg.
entertheophysics
A website containing the 12 principles of Theophysics as explained by the author, training consultant and conference speaker Lawrence Poole. Poole also relates several applications of Theophysics including a "unified field formula". Religion and science Religious cosmologies

Usage

See also

References

Further reading

External links