Divine Challenge

The Divine Challenge: on Matter, Mind, Math and Meaningby John Byl2004, Banner of Trust : The Divine Challenge: on Matter, Mind, Math and Meaning by John Byl 2004, Banner of Trust Reviewed by Russell W. Howell Book Review


Recent Popular Books : Recent Popular Books A Brief History of Time (Steven Hawking) Paradigms Lost: Images of Man in the Mirror of Science (John Casti) Hyperspace (Machio Kaku) Visions (Machio Kaku)


Quotation from Visions (Page 352) : Quotation from Visions (Page 352) “According to this startling new picture [of infinitely many parallel universes], in the beginning there was Nothing. No space. No time. No matter or energy. But there was the quantum principle, which states that there must be uncertainty, so even Nothing became unstable, and time particles of Something began to form.”


The Divine Challenge(Chapter Titles) : The Divine Challenge (Chapter Titles) 1. The Challenge Framed 2. Worldview Wars 3. Naturalism 4. Mysteries of Matter 5. Chance, Cause and Chaos 6. From Matter to Mind 7. From Mind to Math 8. Mysteries of Mathematics 9. Beyond Naturalism 10. The Christian Worldview 11. God and the Physical World 12. Free Will and Responsibility 13. Body and Soul 14. A Christian View of Mathematics 15. The Challenge Settled


The Divine Challenge(Chapter Titles) : The Divine Challenge (Chapter Titles) 1. The Challenge Framed 2. Worldview Wars 3. Naturalism 4. Mysteries of Matter 5. Chance, Cause and Chaos 6. From Matter to Mind 7. From Mind to Math 8. Mysteries of Mathematics 9. Beyond Naturalism 10. The Christian Worldview 11. God and the Physical World 12. Free Will and Responsibility 13. Body and Soul 14. A Christian View of Mathematics 15. The Challenge Settled


The Divine Challenge(Chapter Titles) : The Divine Challenge (Chapter Titles) 1. The Challenge Framed 2. Worldview Wars 3. Naturalism 4. Mysteries of Matter 5. Chance, Cause and Chaos 6. From Matter to Mind 7. From Mind to Math 8. Mysteries of Mathematics 9. Beyond Naturalism 10. The Christian Worldview 11. God and the Physical World 12. Free Will and Responsibility 13. Body and Soul 14. A Christian View of Mathematics 15. The Challenge Settled


The Divine Challenge(Chapter Titles) : The Divine Challenge (Chapter Titles) 1. The Challenge Framed 2. Worldview Wars 3. Naturalism 4. Mysteries of Matter 5. Chance, Cause and Chaos 6. From Matter to Mind 7. From Mind to Math 8. Mysteries of Mathematics 9. Beyond Naturalism 10. The Christian Worldview 11. God and the Physical World 12. Free Will and Responsibility 13. Body and Soul 14. A Christian View of Mathematics 15. The Challenge Settled


The Divine Challenge(Chapter Titles) : The Divine Challenge (Chapter Titles) 1. The Challenge Framed 2. Worldview Wars 3. Naturalism 4. Mysteries of Matter 5. Chance, Cause and Chaos 6. From Matter to Mind 7. From Mind to Math 8. Mysteries of Mathematics 9. Beyond Naturalism 10. The Christian Worldview 11. God and the Physical World 12. Free Will and Responsibility 13. Body and Soul 14. A Christian View of Mathematics 15. The Challenge Settled


Suggestions for Improvement : Suggestions for Improvement Allow opposing views more grace


Reppert’s Apologetic Strategy(From CS Lewis’s Dangerous Idea, pp. 12 – 14) : Reppert’s Apologetic Strategy (From CS Lewis’s Dangerous Idea, pp. 12 – 14) “It seems to me that many discussions of Lewis’s arguments treat these arguments as finished products, to be accepted or rejected as they stand … There are, of course, valid points to be made on the side opposing Lewis … [who] can either be offered as a final answer or as a spur to think the relevant issues through oneself.”


Suggestions for Improvement : Suggestions for Improvement Allow opposing views more grace Add some preliminary remarks as Reppert does Avoid saying, “Such questions xxx is unable to answer.” Avoid criticisms of silence Byl on Hasker (page 243): “Hasker gives no detailed argumentation as to how the soul-field can transcend physical properties. Nor does he give any rationale for the soul-field becoming self-sustaining at, or before, the death of the brain.”


Byl on the Soul (page 243) : Byl on the Soul (page 243) “The separation [of body and soul] occurs at death [but] … the soul is ultimately to be reunited with a renewed body.”


Suggestions for Improvement : Suggestions for Improvement Firm up some arguments Byl’s claim that faith is a gift cannot be sustained by the scriptural reference cited. Ephesians 2:8 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.”


Suggestions for Improvement : Suggestions for Improvement Firm up some arguments Byl’s claim that faith is a gift cannot be sustained by the scriptural reference cited. Ephesians 2:8 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” touto – neuter pistis – feminine


Suggestions for Improvement : Suggestions for Improvement Firm up some arguments Byl’s claim that faith is a gift cannot be sustained by the scriptural reference cited. Ephesians 2:8 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.”


Suggestions for Improvement : Suggestions for Improvement Correct some inaccurate statements Kant is labeled an empiricist (page 38). Euclid’s theorem on the infinitude of primes: Byl claims it is an indirect proof that “starts off by assuming the number of primes is not infinite” (page 145). Goldbach’s conjecture Cast as “any even whole number can be written as a sum of two primes” (page 145).


The Divine Challenge: on Matter, Mind, Math and Meaningby John Byl2004, Banner of Trust : The Divine Challenge: on Matter, Mind, Math and Meaning by John Byl 2004, Banner of Trust Reviewed by Russell W. Howell Book Review