a Personalist Cosmology in Imago Dei
Vol. I:
Personality, Empiricism, & God
on the Biblical Metaphysical Bedrock of Empirical Science

[PEG is in pdf format.  If you need the pdf reader, click on www.adobe.com, and look for the free reader to download.] 

Chapter V, "Freewill & Causality" is, as of 2/16/08, online. 

Freewill has been a subject of debate since the beginning of thinking.  But the Biblical worldview begins with a God who has total freewill, and who fills His cosmos with it through His creatures such as ourselves.  The Biblical cosmos is based on freedom, which is why it alone has given us a kind of government for a free people. 

The largely Calvinist-Reformation theology which dominated and inspired the American colonies and revolution was beginning to wane by the end of the 1700's, collapsed during the 1800's, and was thrashed during the 1900's.  A primary task today is the rewriting of Biblical theology so that it can stand toe to toe with modernism and post-modernism, with intellectual, moral, and spiritual credibility.  

That can be done by mining Scripture itself, not by compromising to conform to the norms of secularism or neo-paganism.  If we do not accomplish this task, we can count on remaining in the backwaters of Western Civ.... as it collapses into oblivion.  

My current major (re)writing project is Personality, Empiricism, & God (PEG), which was my D. Phil. thesis at Oxford University on the relation between science and theology (1964).  It has sat on the shelf for over 40 years, but that may be the Lord's plan, because it now puts me right in the thick of the Intelligent Design (ID) versus Evolution debate.  

Below is a picture of the Rt. Rev. Ian T. Ramsey, who became bishop of Durham after I left Oxford in 1964.  It was he, as Nolloth Professor of Theology, who guided me through my D. Phil. efforts at Oriel College, Oxford, probably the only person alive who could have done what he did for me.  Deo Gratia!  This picture was no doubt taken shortly after he was consecrated bishop.  He died in 1972.  (Visit Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Ramsey for his history.) 

  PEG will be Vol. I of A Personalist Cosmology in Imago Dei, a two volume set.   

Click here for preview of the emerging PEG --  The text of Part I, The Substance of Community, is essentially finished. 

The Table of Contents grows as the text grows.  There is no index yet, and the Study Guides at the ends of chapters are not done.  Red bars you may see at the left sides of columns are "change bars", indicating where changes have been made in the text.  They will, of course, disappear as the text is finished, and the formatting will be tidied up.  You will also see notes to myself typed in to make sure I integrate current text with coming text.  

Typos, etc., will be taken care of.  But I would appreciate the reader's letting me know if the text is unclear, or other suggestions which might help readers.  Contact me at emmfox@theroadtoemmaus.org. 

PEG will be very relevant to the evolution debate because it shows the logically necessary theological undergirding of all natural science (well, I, at least, think it does).   No God, no science -- or more accurately -- no Biblical God, no adequate explanation for why science works.  That is true historically as well as logically.

NOTE:

PEG will provide the foundation for Vol. II of A Personalist Cosmology in Imago Dei, namely, Yahweh or the Great Mother? -- on the two basic competing worldviews -- Biblical versus secular/pagan. 

Over the 1800's, we Christians almost totally lost track of our Biblical worldview, and so fell prey to the secular Enlightenment, with no adequate response.  We could no longer explain how God was relevant, so we were run from the public arena during the late 19th and all through the 20th centuries.  But that is changing, not least due to the renewed energy supplied by the Intelligent Design movement.

I believe that PEG and Y or GM? will help provide a new foundation for Biblical theology to regain its footing in public debate.  As that happens, the future of Christianity in the West, and then throughout the world, will take a new turn. 

(I have given up predicting when I will get a book finished.... :-)

[PEG is in pdf format.  If you need the free Adobe pdf reader, go to www.adobe.com, and click on the appropriate box.] 

Some interesting Side Lights -- 

The Dawkins Confusion --  In Christianity Today, Alvin Plantinga takes on Richard Dawkins -- two well-known and very capable philosopher/scientists types who disagree completely on the "God" question.    
       This is an super assessment of Dawkins' passion against God, and of some issues involved in the Intelligent Design vs. Evolution debate. 
        As the above notes, I am in the midst of revising my doctoral thesis at Oxford granted 43 years ago, on the relation between science & theology, in which I show (I think) that science, as a logical fact, could not have arisen in any but a Biblical culture.  Personality, Empiricism, & God is relevant to the conflict between Evolution and Intelligent Design, and will, I think, help clarify many of the metaphysical issues.    
        For the same theme from a superb sociologist, read Rodney Stark's The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, & Western Success.   Also his For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch Hunts, and the End of Slavery.     E. Fox