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Logic and Logos by William S. Hatcher
Modern mathematics and logic meet religion and philosophy in a new and stimulating way in five essays.
- GenresBaha I
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First published January 1, 1990
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January 22, 2022
🤯💥🧠!!!
Revolutionary, intellectually stimulating and full to the brim with profound insights, Hatcher’s five essays on the relationship between Science, Religion and Philosophy are an invaluable contribution to humanity’s understanding of our purpose and place in the world.
Hatcher, a former Professor of Mathematics at Laval University, Quebec, begins his exploration into such relationships by sketching the possibility of a ‘realist ontology’ in Essay 1: Platonism and Pragmatism. In this essay, he highlights the initial necessity of a ‘positivist’ (materialist) approach to reality for the emergence of modern science, the present need to be skeptical against positivism, and how a departure from positivism towards ‘platonic pragmatism’ will allow us to reconcile Religion with the scientific method and in due course, modern science.
Essay 2: Myths, Models and Mysticism, builds upon his thesis from Essay 1 by providing the reader with an ingenious view of history — drawn largely from the writings of Baha’u’llah and Abdu’l-Baha — from our collective ‘childhood’, through our painful ‘adolescence’ and finally our collective maturity into ‘adulthood’. Hatcher describes humanity’s childhood (the stage of ‘integration’ from prehistory until the scientific revolution) as being characterised by an attachment to ‘myth-making’ as our means for understanding the ‘truths’ about reality. The period of adolescence (the stage of ‘differentiation’ from the scientific revolution until the present-day) is said to have been largely focused with ‘model-building’ as our approach to understanding ‘truth’. And finally, Hatcher proposes that humanity’s adulthood (the stage of ‘secondary integration’ from now and into the future) must needs be characterised by the ‘organismic theory’ paradigm (a term he coins which echos the concept of ‘progressive revelation’ described in the Baha’i canon) in order to resolve the present conflict between Science and Religion, ushering in an age of peace, security and unity.
Essays 3 & 4: From Metaphysics to Logic, and A Logical Solution to the Problem of Evil, give a modern formulation of Avicenna’s cosmological proof of God’s existence, and a logically cohesive discussion on the philosophical ‘problem of evil’, respectively. I would love to say more about these essays, but to be quite honest, they went 99.999% over my head.
Essay 5: Science and the Baha’i Faith — just read it, it’s SO GOOD!
Revolutionary, intellectually stimulating and full to the brim with profound insights, Hatcher’s five essays on the relationship between Science, Religion and Philosophy are an invaluable contribution to humanity’s understanding of our purpose and place in the world.
Hatcher, a former Professor of Mathematics at Laval University, Quebec, begins his exploration into such relationships by sketching the possibility of a ‘realist ontology’ in Essay 1: Platonism and Pragmatism. In this essay, he highlights the initial necessity of a ‘positivist’ (materialist) approach to reality for the emergence of modern science, the present need to be skeptical against positivism, and how a departure from positivism towards ‘platonic pragmatism’ will allow us to reconcile Religion with the scientific method and in due course, modern science.
Essay 2: Myths, Models and Mysticism, builds upon his thesis from Essay 1 by providing the reader with an ingenious view of history — drawn largely from the writings of Baha’u’llah and Abdu’l-Baha — from our collective ‘childhood’, through our painful ‘adolescence’ and finally our collective maturity into ‘adulthood’. Hatcher describes humanity’s childhood (the stage of ‘integration’ from prehistory until the scientific revolution) as being characterised by an attachment to ‘myth-making’ as our means for understanding the ‘truths’ about reality. The period of adolescence (the stage of ‘differentiation’ from the scientific revolution until the present-day) is said to have been largely focused with ‘model-building’ as our approach to understanding ‘truth’. And finally, Hatcher proposes that humanity’s adulthood (the stage of ‘secondary integration’ from now and into the future) must needs be characterised by the ‘organismic theory’ paradigm (a term he coins which echos the concept of ‘progressive revelation’ described in the Baha’i canon) in order to resolve the present conflict between Science and Religion, ushering in an age of peace, security and unity.
Essays 3 & 4: From Metaphysics to Logic, and A Logical Solution to the Problem of Evil, give a modern formulation of Avicenna’s cosmological proof of God’s existence, and a logically cohesive discussion on the philosophical ‘problem of evil’, respectively. I would love to say more about these essays, but to be quite honest, they went 99.999% over my head.
Essay 5: Science and the Baha’i Faith — just read it, it’s SO GOOD!
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