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Thomas B. Fowler
Causality, Personal Causality, and the Science/Religion Dialogue


Abstract

Causality has been a key concept throughout the history of philosophy. One of its main uses has been in securing proofs of the existence of God. A review of the history of causality discloses five distinct phases, with major changes to the uses and understanding of causality. The first phase saw the development of the traditional notion of causality, on which rests the best-known proofs of God’s existence. In this phase, causality was considered to be a principle of nature. Later phases rejected proofs based on causality understood in this fashion but still relied upon the same basic idea of causality for other purposes. The whole notion of causality became very confused, especially after developments in physics during the 20th century. Zubiri pointed out that there are really three elements conflated in our idea of causality: real production of effects, functionality, and power of the real. By sorting these out and recognizing that causality in the majority of cases is merely a type of functional relation between “cause” and “effect”, many problems are greatly clarified. The type of functionality involved varies greatly and can involve notions unknown to Aristotle, Hume, or Kant. But especially important is the case of causality involving human beings, since knowledge of direct production of effects is available there that is absent elsewhere. Combined with understanding of the power of the real, Zubiri shows that we have knowledge of what he terms a “reality ground,” which theists call “God”. Causality once again becomes a key element of natural theology, though in a different and more rigorous way than in traditional proofs of God’s existence.



Biography

Thomas B. Fowler is founder and president of The Xavier Zubiri Foundation of North America, devoted to disseminating the work of Xavier Zubiri in the English-speaking world.  He serves as editor of two journals, The Xavier Zubiri Review and The Telecommunications Review, and is author of over 100 articles, papers, and reviews.  He has translated two books of Zubiri’s writings, and has given courses and papers in the United States, Canada, Mexico, South America, and Europe.  Evolution, especially its systems and mathematical aspects, has been a subject of lifelong interest to him.  His book, The Evolution Controversy, A Survey of Competing Theories was published in 2007 by Baker Academic.  He serves as adjunct professor at George Mason University, teaching graduate courses in optics and optical communications.  He has a doctorate in systems and control theory from George Washington University, a Master of Science from Columbia University, a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from the University of Maryland, College Park.  He is also a Senior Principal Scientist at Noblis, Incorporated, a not-for-profit consulting firm working entirely in the public interest specializing in objective analyses of issues, proposals, and problems in science and technology. 



 

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