Tim Labron

Theology and philosophy are predominately found within an analytical context, that is, a context within which a ‘rigorous’ system of thought is built from one element to another element. In parallel fashion, the same can be said regarding classical physics and its mechanical casual movement from one point to another point. Yet there are voices stepping out of these systems and moving towards a more ‘living’ thought. The move toward the ‘living’ can be found in post-classical physics with the inclusion of the observer, but long before this shift in physics there is the long standing Orthodox theology, and in between there are well known yet often misunderstood philosophers, such as Ludwig Wittgenstein. These ‘living’ voices want to draw us away from inert abstract systems back to ourselves and thereby back to humanity.

Introduction

Why is there a seemingly insatiable desire for templates behind our lives to secure knowledge, the ultimate physical building blocks of reality, causality, and perhaps even determinism? This yearning consumes much of Western philosophy, theology, and science; and frequently Aristotelian logic drives this mode of thought. There is no question regarding the general value of such logic, but to what extent can it be questioned? Archbishop Lazar Puhalo certainly does bring questions when he states: ‘The Platonism and quasi-Gnosticism of Augustine of Hippo distorted theology in the West into a system of philosophical speculation, and forever separated it from the existential, living theology of Orthodox Christianity’.¹ Likewise, as noted by Léon Rosenfield in conversation with the Japanese physicist Hideki Yukawa: ‘I asked Yukawa whether the Japanese physicists had the same difficulty as their Western colleagues in assimilating the idea of complementarity … He answered “No, Bohr’s argumentation has always appeared quite evident to us;… you see, we in Japan have not been corrupted by Aristotle”’.²

Certainly, in our daily lives it can be very useful to check a barometer and a thermometer. We see the air pressure and temperature falling, dark clouds forming in the sky, and decide that there is a good reason to bring one’s jacket and umbrella

1. Archbishop Lazar Puhalo, The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Orthodoxy and Modern Physics (BC, Canada: Synaxis Press#, 2013), 16.

2. Léon Rosenfeld, ‘Niels Bohr’s Contribution to Epistemology’, Physics Today 16 (1963): 47.