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ABSTRACT
The precise formal account of the contextuality of the quantum measurement provided by the Kochen-Specker theorem allows for a unique insight into the nature of the contextuality of theological language. The conceptual analysis carried out in this paper has demonstrated that despite of the methodological difficulties in juxtaposing theoretical physics and theology, legitimate bridges can be established between them whereby quantum contextuality may serve as a model of contextuality in theology. A structural factor in the form of a richer logic proper to the Divine nature has been identified as the possible source of contextuality of theological discourse.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Chris J. Isham, Lectures on Quantum Theory. Mathematical and Structural Foundations (London: Imperial College Press, 1995), 189–198; R.I.G. Hughes, The Structure and Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), 164–170.
2 Stephen B. Bevans, “Contextual Methods in Theology,” in Essays in Contextual Theology (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 1–29.
3 Robert J. Russell, Philip Clayton, Kirk Wegter-McNelly and John Polkinghorne, eds., Quantum Mechanics: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action (Vatican City State/Berkeley, CA: Vatican Observatory Publications/Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 2001); Kirk Wegter-McNelly, The Entangled God: Divine Relationality and Quantum Physics (New York: Routledge, 2011).
4 Ernest L. Simmons, The Entangled Trinity: Quantum Physics and Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014).
5 Ian G. Barbour, Myths, Models and Paradigms: A Comparative Study in Science and Religion (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1974); Robert J. Russell, “Quantum Physics in Philosophical and Theological Perspective,” in Physics, Philosophy and Theology: A Common Quest for Understanding, ed. Robert J. Russell, William R. Stoeger, and George V. Coyne (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory, 2000), 343–374; John Polkinghorne, Quantum Physics and Theology: An Unexpected Kinship (London: Society For Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2007).
6 Uwe Meixner, “Negative Theology, Coincidentia Oppositorum, and Boolean Algebra,” History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis 1 (1998): 75–89; Bartosz Brożek Adam Olszewski and Mateusz Hohol, eds., Logic in Theology (Kraków: Copernicus Center Press, 2011); Piotr Urbańczyk, “The Logical Challenge of Negative Theology,” Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric 54 (2018): 149–174; Jc Beall, The Contradictory Christ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021).
7 Frederike Moltmann, “Natural Language Ontology,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2022 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman, forthcoming, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2022/entries/natural-language-ontology/.
8 Isham, Lectures on Quantum Theory, 68.
9 Leonard Susskind and Art Friedman, Quantum Mechanics. The Theoretical Minimum (London: Penguin Random House UK, 2015), 2–3.
10 Leonard Susskind and George Hrabovsky, The Theoretical Minimum (New York: Basic Books, 2013), 3.
11 Isham, Lectures on Quantum Theory, 73–77.
12 Lev Vaidman, “Counterfactuals in Quantum Mechanics: Concepts, Experiments, History and Philosophy,” in Compendium of Quantum Physics, ed. Daniel Greenberger, Klaus Hentschel and Friedel Weinert (Berlin: Springer Verlag, 2009), 132–136.
13 Susskind and Friedman, Quantum Mechanics, 64–67.
14 Robert B. Griffiths, Consistent Quantum Mechanics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 68–71.
15 Ibid., 60–64.
16 Andrzej Herdegen, Wykłady z algebry liniowej i geometrii [Lectures on Linear Algebra and Geometry] (Kraków: Discepto, 2005), 236.
17 Hughes, The Structure and Interpretation, 178–217; Karl Svozil, “Quantum Scholasticism: On Quantum Contexts, Counterfactuals, and the Absurdities of Quantum Omniscience,” Information Sciences 179:5 (2009): 535–541.
18 Isham, Lectures on Quantum Theory, 208.
19 Ernst Specker, “Die Logik nicht gleichzeitig entscheidbarer Aussagen,” Dialectica 14 (1960): 239–246.
20 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae. Pars I (Greenbay, WI/Steubenville, OH: Aquinas Institute/Emaus Academic, 2012), 158–159, 164–167.
21 Isham, Lectures on Quantum Theory, 194.
22 Ibid., 196.
23 James Ladyman and Don Ross, Every Thing Must Go. Metaphysics Naturalozed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 122–129.
24 Werner G. Jeanrond, Theological Hermeneutics: Development and Significance (New York: Crossroad, 1991). The basic discussion of the notion of contextuality in theology is taken from (Wojciech P. Grygiel, “Evolutionary Theology: A New Chapter in the Relations Between Theology and Science,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae 56:3 (2020): 101–123).
25 Edward Schillebeeckx, “Towards a Catholic Use of Hermeneutics,” in God the Future of Man (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014), 1–30.
26 Sigurd Bergmann and Mika Vähäkangas, Contextual Theology: Skills and Practices of Liberating Faith (London: Routlege, 2021).
27 John F. Haught, God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution (Boulder CO: Westview Press, 2008); Wojciech P. Grygiel and Damian Wąsek, Teologia ewolucyjna: założenia—problemy—hipotezy [The Evolutionary Theology: Foundations—Problems—Hypotheses] (Kraków: Copernicus Center Press, 2022).
28 Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity (New York: Seabury Press, 1978), 190–193.
29 Ibid., 71–78.
30 Karl Rahner, Magisterium and Theology. Theological Investigations 18 (London: Darton Longman & Todd, 1983).
31 Karl Rahner, “Dogmen und Thelogiegeschichte—Gestern und Morgen,” Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 99:1 (1977): 1–24.
32 John H. Newmann, An Essay on Development of Christian Doctrine (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994).
33 John F. Haught, Resting on the Future (New York: Bloomsbury, 2015), 115–126.
34 Ibid., 149–158.
35 Ibid., 120.
36 Isham, Lectures on Quantum Theory, 196; Karl Svozil, “Classical Predictions for Intertwined Quantum Observables Are Contingent and Thus Inconclusive,” Quantum Reports 2:2 (2020): 278–292.
37 This inference is reached on the premise of the formal fiber bundle based reconstruction of the Aristotelian mechanics consistent with the static geocentric Universe. This reconstruction reveals an invariant structure of the Cartesian product in the bundle covering all dynamic theories of motion ranging from the Aristotelian mechanics to the general relativity thereby attesting to the internal logic of the development of physics and non-zero empirical adequacy of this mechanics (Roger Penrose, “The Structure of Space-Time,” in Battelle Recontres: 1967 Lectures in Mathematics and Physics, ed. Cecile DeWitt and John A. Wheeler (New York: Benjamin, 1968), 121–235; Andrzej Trautman, “Fibre Bundles Associated with Spacetime,” Reports on Mathematical Physics 1 (1970): 29–62; Derek J. Raine and Michael Heller, The Science of Space-Time, (Tucson: Pachart, 1981).
38 George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1980); Janet M. Soskice, Metaphor and Religious Language (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985).
39 Karl Lehmann, “Transcendence,” in Encyclopedia of Theology, ed. Karl Rahner (Tunbridge Wells, Kent: Burns and Oates, 1993), 1734–1742.
40 Alexuis, J. Bucher, “Transzendenz,” in Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche. Vol. 10, ed. Walter Kasper et al. (Freiburg: Herder, 2006), 190–191.
41 Michael Heller, “Generalizations: From Quantum Mechanics to God,” in Quantum Mechanics: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, ed. Robert J. Russell, Peter Clayton, Kirk Wegter-McNelly and John Polkinghorne (Vatican City State/Berkeley, CA: Vatican Observatory Publications/Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, 2001), 191–210.
42 Alain Connes, Noncommutative Geometry (New York: Academic Press, 1994).
43 Heller, Generalizations, 116–124.
44 Ibid., 116.
45 Michał Heller, Ważniejsze niż Wszechświat [More Important than the Universe] (Kraków: Copernicus Center Press, 2019), 33.
46 Michał Heller, The Sense of Life and the Sense of the Universe (Kraków: Copernicus Center Press, 2010), 172–173.
47 Heller, Ważniejsze niż Wszechświat, 29–54.
48 Michael Heller, “Science and Transcendence,” Studies in Science and Theology 4 (1996): 3–12.
49 Hans Urs von Balthasaar, Truth Is Symphonic: Aspects of Christian Pluralism (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987).
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Wojciech P. Grygiel
Wojciech P. Grygiel works in the Department of Philosophy at the Pontifical University in Krakow, Poland.