Friday, January 1, 2010

Disneology #4: The “Ding Dang,” Einstein, and Aristotle

ASSIGNMENT #4: IF YOU DON’T REMEMBER EVERYTHING FROM THE LAST ASSIGNMENT, VISIT THE ATTRACTION “UNIVERSE OF ENERGY” AT EPCOT AGAIN. THIS TIME, PAY VERY CLOSE ATTENTION TO WHAT BILL NYE, THE SCIENCE GUY, CALLS THE “BIG BANG” AND ELLEN CALLS THE “DING DANG.” IF A SCULPTOR PLANS TO SCULPT A STATUE, S/HE MUST DECIDE WHETHER TO SCULPT IT OUT OF SOAP, ICE, ROCK, GOLD, BRONZE, WOOD, ETC. WHAT “MATERIAL” WAS USED TO FORM THE UNIVERSE, ACCORDING TO THE FILM? HINT: IT MAY BE RELATED TO THE NAME OF THE ATTRACTION.

Two thousand three hundred years before Burke explained his Pentad, with its Agent and Purpose, another genius, Aristotle, contended that there was PURPOSE in the natural world. Aristotle’s term for Purpose was one of Aristotle’s four major causes of action. TELOS is known as the Final Cause—the purpose for which things in nature occur. Aristotle also saw an Agent in the natural world--the person, force, or cause that began the act. ARCHĒ is known as the Efficient Cause. Aristotle taught that the agent/ARCHĒ used a third type of cause to accomplish the Purpose. HULĒ is known as the Material Cause.


I explain how these causes of Aristotle relate to Kenneth Burke’s views in my book, Implicit Rhetoric: Kenneth Burke’s Extension of Aristotle’s Concept of Entelechy. Here, I especially want to emphasize the Material Cause—HULĒ. If God created the heavens and the Earth, what material did He create them out of? Was there some sort of preexisting material (HULĒ) that God used?

Theologians since the second century A.D. have debated whether the universe was created EX NIHILO (out of nothing), EX MATERIA (out of some preexisting material), or EX DEO (out of God’s nature itself). If you hold the position (mentioned as a possibility in my previous commentary) that the exact point in the beginning of creating that the first day described in Genesis is somewhere in the beginning, but the Earth is apparently already in existence, albeit in a formless and chaotic state, it is possible (but not necessary) to hold an EX MATERIA “biblical position.” Actually, you are not required, by accepting this translation, to hold any specific position on the origin of the material used to form the universe. You could also hold an EX NIHILO or an EX DEO “biblical position.” Honestly, if you accept this translation, you could even hold an agnostic position on this issue, and still be a Bible believer. You could say that the Bible does not tell us, so we “do not know” (=meaning of the term agnostic).

On the other hand, there is John’s creation theology in the first chapter of his gospel. Even if Genesis 1:1 does not absolutely commit Judeo-Christians to a position that the material world is not eternal, the first chapter of John seems to do the trick, at least for Christians: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. By [the Word] all things came into being. And without [the Word] nothing was made that was made.”

This is where Ellen’s “Ding Dang,” Bill Nye’s “Big Bang,” Einstein’s E=MC², Aristotle’s HULĒ, Disney’s Universe of Energy, and Kenneth Burke’s Logology all converge. And, theological discussions of EX NIHILO, DEO, and MATERIA are not far removed from this issue. According to Einstein, Mass (or Aristotle’s HULĒ) can be changed into Energy, and vice versa. Einstein explains his theory of relativity, as follows:

"It followed from the special theory of relativity that mass and energy are both but different manifestations of the same thing -- a somewhat unfamiliar conception for the average mind. Furthermore, the equation E is equal to m c-squared, in which energy is put equal to mass, multiplied by the square of the velocity of light, showed that very small amounts of mass may be converted into a very large amount of energy and vice versa. The mass and energy were in fact equivalent, according to the formula mentioned above. This was demonstrated by Cockcroft and Walton in 1932, experimentally."

You may listen to Einstein make this statement “in his own voice” at http://www.aip.org/history/einstein/voice1.htm.

The Big Bang theory of the origins of the universe is based on the notion that “in the beginning” there was a huge conversion of Energy into Mass—a Big Bang. But what was the source of this tremendous supply of Energy? Theological answer: God. Even more specifically, for John, the energy present in the spoken Word of God. Although John eventually equates this spoken Word with Jesus, at first he is just stating the Jewish theological concept of the origins of the universe:
• God is Spirit.
• Spirit is spoken word.
• God’s Spirit was the energy source that created the heavens and Earth, originally it their chaotic (formless and void) conditions.
• God’s Word/Spirit brought into being all of the order in the universe.

This view is not at odds with a hypothetical Big Bang theory. In fact, this view supplies an important answer for adherents of the Big Bang Theory that physics and Disney’s Universe of Energy do not supply—the source of the tremendous supply of Energy that was converted into Mass.

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