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Cornel W du Toit
Research Institute for Theology and Religion, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa
The nascent theory of emergence is not only a plausible model for the course of natural and biological processes, but also of developments at an interpersonal and social level. In order to apply it to theology, I propose a non-causal approach to the discipline. In this article non-causal presupposes a non-linear, non-deterministic causality. Brief excerpts from the classical view of causality highlight the problems it entails. The quantification of reality following the rise of statistical science introduced all the elements that were to feature in the eventual theory of emergence: chance, probability, chaos, multiplicity (which nonetheless translated into regularity, and the notion of normativity associated with the mean and the dispersion of variables around it. The control principle is criticised, and preference is given to the concepts of freedom and spontaneity. The article concludes with some applications of a non-causal theology.
Introduction: important factors in thought about causality
"Where do things come from?" "Who made everything?" "Why are things what they are and not something else?" This type of questioning appears to be part of being human. The search for causality, therefore, seems intrinsically human. We know intuitively that for everything there is a reason and that events are effects and that these effects therefore must have causes - nothing happens for no reason (ex nihilo nihil fit). At this level, people tend to attribute different causes to events: when a group of soccer players are struck by lightning on the field it is ascribed (depending on where it happened) either to natural causes (the prevalence of lightning) or to an act of God, or maybe to supernatural forces, magic, sorcery. If lightning happens to strike an enemy who is hot on your heels, it will probably be regarded as a miracle.
For aeons people's worldview was governed by a reductive notion of causality. In a geocentric worldview, which assigns humans special status in the universe, it follows that everything that happens is directed to humans. Humans are seen as the acme of creation, and hence take pride of place in the creaturely realm, are the image of God.
This contrasts with the new cosmology and physics, in which humans are paltry beings in a vast universe, a random outcome of biological processes. Events are not planned for a purpose, are not designed to benefit or harm human beings: they just happen. Causal patterns that people discern and interpret as directed to their weal or woe are projections, arbitrary reconstructions of events.
Naturally, in such causal thinking, humans and their life world serve as a norm for causal factors. These intuitions make life predictable, hence manageable. If existence was not governed by laws, there would be no way of learning how to handle it, for each new day would be different and past experience would be worthless. Reality is seen as orderly, and humans have adapted to that order. This adaptation enabled them not only to survive, but to flourish. Yet, a cosmic order does not imply total predictability: from the outset humans were aware that some things might or might not happen. God was connected with order. Laws underlying reality were posited and ascribed to God's will. These laws ruled the cosmos, hence God was slotted in as the all-determining cause of events. Thus causality was linked with determinism.
Many other (intuitive) assumptions are products of the concept of causality, as are our (erroneous) answers to such questions. If two things consistently happen in succession, we assume a causal link between them. Cause and effect operate on the principle of post hoc, ergo propter hoc: if something follows something else, the former is the result of the latter. Yet we do not see the causal factor: we simply assume it and attribute it to some agency, be it human, natural or supernatural. Regularity is attributed to causality. Cause and effect are confined to a specific space and time; cause always precedes effect; there is a consistent connection between the two. The philosopher David Hume described most of these arguments and critical objections to them (in Du Toit 2006).
To humans it is counter-intuitive that things could happen without a cause, i.e. that God (the First Cause, from a philosophical point of view) does not control all that happens; in other words, that things happen by chance irrespective of our place in the order of creation; that my lot depends largely on sheer chance; that life or any other significant development can emerge spontaneously. By contrast faith is a closed system in which human life is infinitely significant and humans are secure in the framework of the will of a loving God, in whose big book their names and destinies are indelibly written.
These typical features of causal thinking have largely disappeared as a result of scientific revolution and developments, in mainly Europe, in the 18th century. The rise of statistics ushered in a numerically oriented worldview.
In the 19th century, the realisation dawned that the world, although marked by regularity, is not subject to universal rules. For the first time, the role of chance was taken into account. However,these new scientific interpretations of causality had no corresponding impact on theology. On the whole, religions relate(d) causality to divine intervention - an issue responsible for much of the antagonism in the science-religion debate. If God chooses, God can intervene and suspend the natural laws that God laid down. This is not provable, but is assumed in faith. Theologians criticised metaphysical systems, but disregarded scientific criticism of classical causal thinking. This was probably because the abolition of such thought would affect (metaphysical) God concepts too fundamentally, concepts holding that God is sovereign, omnipotent, responsible for all that transpires; and no event, good or bad, occurs without his foreknowledge or will.]]> This article briefly reviews the decline and transformation of causal thought, the philosophical concepts and epistemological models that replaced it, and the possibility of a non-causal theology. This is necessary because the insights that transformed causal thought have a decisive impact on present-day societies. Notions of the so-called "agency" in causal relations have changed greatly. So has the notion of linear causality, which assigns a single cause to consequences brought about by a far more complex network of factors. Instead of causality, the preferred explanatory model has become that of emergence.
Note that the concept of causality is not refuted, but a reductive kind of linear causality is rejected, because it does not allow for all the known and unknown factors that contribute to new turns of events. In addition to developments in the physical sciences, the rise of the science of statistics and evolutionary epistemology has revolutionised concepts of causality.1A clearly defined, non-causal theology is proposed and some of its implications are considered. Such a theology would focus on events that are not predestined, hence predisposed, by a predetermined teleology.
At the dawn of human history, agency was largely personalised. Animism saw the whole world as en-souled: there were forest spirits, water spirits, spirits associated with all sorts of (sacred) places. Human artefacts (especially weapons) were regarded as animate. Gradually natural causes came to be distinguished from supernatural ones. In nature, agency was determined by natural causes and natural laws.2 What was humanly inexplicable was ascribed to supernatural forces (ancestral spirits, gods, demons, etc). To the ancient Greeks Ananke (rendered as power, constraint, force, necessity)3personified fate. The gods, including gods of fate, had to be personal, since agency is associated with motives and motives cannot be impersonal. Hence, neutral forces, like natural forces, were also personified. However, fate (fatum) could also be impersonal. Aristotle's world soul was said to attribute a type of animation to all matter. Even after the emergence of science, the question about the animation of material things persisted. In Puritan England the Boyle-Hobbes controversy epitomised the grappling with the non-divine agency proposed by the physical sciences. Movement of molecular particles was an accepted principle. The big issue was whether they moved of their own accord or whether their every movement depended on God. The controversy was ground-breaking, since if particles could move by themselves, humans and institutions can also act autonomously without relying on God for every move (Du Toit 2007b: 116ff). I shall not dwell on the developmental history of causality, but merely take a look at the Occasionalists - from a Christian angle they brought the issue of divine agency to a head.
The idea of creatio ex nihilo probably prompted the Occasionalists to argue that, if God could create everything from nothing, God could cause things without any need to demonstrate a logical or causal link between cause and effect (Watson 1993:76ff). Occasionalism exemplifies the difficulty of establishing a physical or scientific connection between cause and effect. Whereas, in our worldview, interaction between body and mind and between objects seems natural, to 17th century thinkers it was mystical. To the Occasionalists no creaturely substance can affect anything else. All events were attributed to God. To quote one of their chief proponents, La Forge: "... by 'occasionalism' I mean a doctrine according to which God is actively, constantly, and ubiquitously engaged causally in the world. For an event or state of affairs x ... there is a discrete volition in God, a volition whose content is specific and that is causally responsible for the occurrence of that event or state of affairs: 'Let x occur at T'" (Nadler 1993:59). Occasionalism influenced Descartes inasmuch as it involved the mind-body problem. According to him, the two entities were radically disparate; therefore they could not affect each other unless God intervened. To the Occasionalists this also applied to the influence two extensive substances can exercise on each other (Nadler 1993:72). Descartes considered interaction between extensive substances to be mechanical, like the operation of cogs, whereas "minds cannot contact bodies mechanically, and so also bodies cannot press against minds to influence them" (Watson 1993:77).4
This is very evident in Malebranche's idea that the world of humans and things is just a puppet show in which objects behave as though they are interacting, whereas in fact they do not. All that can be claimed for causality is that B follows A. The cause as such cannot see. To postulate causal powers in things would be to revert to the Aristotelian world of spirits and occult powers (Watson 1993:84, 89).
Quantification of reality: an outcome of the scientific revolution
Science is the art of measurement: no measurement, no science. In an early article by TS Kuhn, "The function of measurement in modern physical science", he wrote the following: "The road from scientific law to scientific measurement can rarely be travelled in the reverse direction" (Bartholomew 2008:62). To discover quantitative regularity one must know what kind of regularity one is looking for and devise appropriate instruments to measure it.]]> But the quantification of the world was not an exclusively scientific achievement. It was rooted in pragmatic socio-political considerations. One of its major sources was Prussia in the reign of Frederick William I (1713-1740) and especially his son Frederick II (Frederick the Great, 1712-1786) and the public service reforms they initiated.
Since earliest times, population statistics were important, since one cannot prepare for war unless one knows how many able-bodied men one has at one's disposal. Especially after the Seven Years' War (17571763) under Frederick the Great, population statistics had to be updated. Virtually one third of the population had died in battle and there was a shortage of people to cultivate the land (Hacking 1990:22).
However, before long statistics were moralised. As early as 1710, John Arbuthnot claimed that divine providence regulated the balance between the sexes by ordaining the birth of more male infants to replace the men who were killed in war. Süssmilch, in turn, indicated that high mortality rates in cities related to the sinfulness of urbanites (Hacking 1990:21).
There is a strong correlation between statistics and control.
One cannot control (plan or prevent) anything unless one has accurate statistics. Wanting to count everything that can be counted obviously leads to absurdities, yet it is basic to most sciences. Between 1800 and 1850, quantification reached unprecedented heights. Hacking (2009:58-59, 62) lists the items that Babbage proposed for quantification (to the Royal Society, the Institute of France, and the Academy of Berlin). They included the constants of the solar system (distances of planets from the sun; revolution periods; forces of gravity exercised on the earth; weight of atoms; metals (gravitation, elasticity, conductive properties, etc.); optics; numbers of all known species (including fossils); height of all mammals plus their pulse beat, period of sucking, etc.; in regard to humans, their numbers, gender, lifespan, incidence of diseases among working classes; strength of men and animals, hence work capacity - the quantity of (whatever kind of) work that can be performed per hour. And so it carried on, enumerating, measuring and computing the vegetable kingdom, the atmosphere, materials, geography, buildings (heights of temples, pyramids, churches, steeples, columns, etc.).
Most research was based on probability.5 What is the probability that patients suffering from the same disease will die from one kind of surgery as opposed to an alternative kind (Hacking 2009:85)? There was unprecedented interest in crime, in measuring the incidence of different crimes and demonstrating all sorts of correlations. The incidence and distribution of suicide in particular was in the spotlight (Hacking 2009:64ff). In 1785, Condorcet applied probability theory to jury verdicts. Arago demonstrated that, in a jury decision with a majority of seven to four, the probability of an error is one in four; when the majority is eight to four one eighth will probably be wrong. Therefore, one out of every eight convicted criminals that are hanged is probably innocent. Consequently, Condorcet proposed "to proceed to moral mathematics, and compute the optimum jury system" (Hacking 1990:89).6 The point Hacking (1990:104) makes is that "moral science was replaced by moral analysis and then by quantitative sociology".
From chance to law and normality
In the course of the 19th century, advances in statistics led to growing and increasingly probing criticism of classical views of causality. The main target was the role of chance and probability.7 The past does not necessarily determine the present, at any rate not in the sense that it was formerly supposed.8
Vast multiplicity and complexity are usually associated with chaos. This is where randomness and chance enter into it. However, what appears to be chaotic at a micro level manifests order at macro level. Chaos in the sense of randomness apparently soon creates order: "... haphazard and seemingly unguided processes prove to have more pattern than we might have guessed." These patterns may emerge with statistical regularity (Bartholomew 2008:29), implying that order arises from chaos. "Chaos" represents the building blocks, a lower order on which the higher order of regularity builds.]]> What is fascinating is the startling novelty that comes out of randomness, which we would be incapable of inventing ourselves: "Randomness achieves easily that, which by design, might have been very difficult" (Bartholomew 2008:49, 53). The trouble arises when we try to link randomness with order or purpose. How can there be purpose at a higher level if it is based on lower levels of haphazardness? "Since randomness at one level implies order at another level, then, if one expects the order at this second level to express purpose, one cannot have it without randomness at the lower level" (Bartholomew 2008). The only answer is that, to a superior being, chaos is orderly and its outcome assured.9 However, that does not always apply, as in the case of radioactive decay, which is an example of pure chance. It is wholly unpredictable when the next emission from a radioactive source will occur. Hence Bartholomew (218-219) asks the following: "... if God is the cause of everything, how can he cause something which, by definition, appears to have no cause?" Here, chance becomes a factor in its own right. Maybe we can see it as metaphysical chance characterising aspects of reality which are not associated with any form of causality. It must be distinguished from chance created by the nature and the operation of autopoietic systems, which need no antecedent cause to function. As the name indicates, they function by themselves.
The role of chance in explaining things only became apparent as science progressed, especially the ability to measure infinitely large and infinitely small (quantum) worlds. Such measurements must be viewed in the very long time spans that could be involved. The measurement of miniscule and vast numbers gave rise to statistics (the science of calculation). It was realised that, if there are sufficiently many instances, they will reflect patterns - the law of large numbers, which has come to approximate the status of a metaphysical truth.
Statistical science has given rise to terms like probability. Concepts like chance, probability and the like did not materialise from thin air as useful, idealistic keys to reality. In 1844, Quetelet observed "that a great many human attributes have a graph, or distribution, just like that which had long been associated with coin tossing, and which had been elaborated for mathematicians as the 'curve of error'" (Hacking 1990:106). That marked the advent of the familiar bell-curve idea, which identifies the mean and the measure of dispersion around it.10
As in many similar instances, the idea of even dispersion can be used as a backdoor to smuggle in the will of God, namely that it is God's will that the statistical distribution is what it is. To this Bartholomew (2008:120) rightly responds as follows: "But this is to get things back to front. The near constancy of numbers from quarter to quarter is a consequence of an underlying statistical process, not an externally imposed law." The implication is that divine agency lurks behind chance and uses it to achieve its goal after all. However, what point does that have for human beings if it remains hidden behind statistical regularity? Or is the will of the divine agency confined to the curve that represents a supernormal positive?
By now the bell-curve is taken for granted to the extent that its implications are often overlooked. The moment the mean is established it tacitly becomes the norm to which people conform. The mean is considered normal and serves as a criterion for deviancy.11 If I know the mean weight/height/intelligence/lifespan of people in my environment, any deviation from it tends to be considered abnormal, subnormal or supernormal. Quantification of the world establishes a new criterion of what is normal and inadvertently affects all of us.
We must not overlook the tremendous influence of Newton and the advent of a mechanical, law-governed universe. Although statistics could indicate the accepted mean - hence that which is considered normal - with apparent regularity, there was a great deal of underlying indeterminism, since it was impossible to establish in advance who fell within the norm (mean) and who were excluded. It was also realised that this was attributable to further (unknown) rules that determined the dispersion. That begged the question whether or not these unknown factors were deterministic (Hacking 1990:147).
The point is that the nature and interpretation of statistics had an unexpectedly great influence on people's self-image. It led to all kinds of social distinctions, including gender, class, race, nationality (migrants), income, marital status, educational level, intelligence, incidence of diseases, crime, and aspects of human behaviour. There is nothing in society that cannot be measured. If a given percentage of people are obese, suffer from certain diseases, are alcoholics, commit certain crimes and one falls in that group, it provides a measure of self-justification: it is "normal" for people to belong to these categories and one happens to be one of them. Hence, normality and deviancy are assessed through measurement; it determines what is normal or supernormal, and it inevitably influences people. "On the one hand there is the thought that the normal is what is right, so that talk of the normal is a splendid way of preserving or returning to the status quo" (Hacking 1990:168). This is the background to Foucault's criticism of what he calls biopolitics. The question is whether normality is built into the structure of the world and social orders. Bartholomew (2008:39) comments: "The ubiquity of the normal distribution arises not so much because it is built into the structure of the world but rather that it is imposed onto the world by the way we choose to observe it." However, that does not mean we can conveniently sweep all statistics under the carpet.
However, because this view was associated with regularity, it inevitably created the impression that we were back in the paradigm of determinism. "Normality" and determinism, like chance and necessity, are kindred concepts. Even in processes that we consider wholly determined things may happen that display all the attributes of chance (Bartholomew 2008:58).
CS Peirce repudiated all determinism and believed in absolute chance. We might observe regularity in nature, but that does not mean that it is regulated or exact and uniform. He counter-acted with his hypothesis of chance and spontaneity, and how these crystallise and can be measured with mathematical exactitude (Hacking, 1990:203). He combines evolving laws with evolutionary epistemology, as follows: "The 'constants' are only chance variables that have settled down in the course of the evolution of laws" (Hacking 1990:214).
If large numbers manifest patterns, we can predict fairly accurately what will happen in society, including how many crimes and suicides will be committed. We merely do not know which individuals will be involved, because we cannot compute the variables properly. Quetelet wrote in 1832: "It is society that prepares the crime; the guilty person is only the instrument who executes it. The victim on the scaffold is in a certain way the expiatory victim of society. 'His crime is the fruit of the circumstances in which he finds himself' " (Hacking 1990:114). This smacks of statistical fatalism. Obviously, nobody is forced to commit suicide, yet statistics show that many were not free to refrain from it (see quotation from Buckle in Hacking 1990:124). Hacking's response to the charge of determinism was prompt: "People are not fated to follow statistical law, because the conditions of application of the law can be changed ... Discover what are the statistical laws that govern crime, disease, vice, unrest. Then find ways to alter the conditions under which those laws apply" (Hacking 1990:118).]]> The doctrine of God was widely viewed in terms of the emphasis on chance and uncertainty. Bartholomew (2008:65-66) mentions some theologians' attraction to chaos theory (in which chance, uncertainty and indeterminism feature), since it enabled them to account for God's acts in our world without transgressing any laws. "For if such different paths are followed by processes starting from positions which differ infinitesimally, then perhaps God can engineer changes of direction at the human level by such minuscule adjustments that they are not humanly detectable." Hence, the vast number of factors that we cannot detect create an illusion of chance and indeterminism. It is something like Adam Smith's "invisible hand" that controls the economy. By the same token God's invisible hand can control a multitude of factors, leading to outcomes that conform to God's will. Unlike Adam Smith's invisible hand, however, it is often difficult to discern God's invisible hand in an unjust world. However, it brings us back to metaphysical speculation: it is a metaphysical concept of God in my view accounting for most of the problems associated with the doctrine of God. Putting the accent on the human life world and the need for God's love, care and help rather than on metaphysical "why?" questions would make faith a great deal more plausible.
Design of a non-causal theology
Metaphysics groans under the tyranny of ontology - that immutable, final ground, the Unmoved Mover, encapsulated in the term "substantial ontology". A relational ontology stresses relations, but it is no longer ontological for, in contrast to ontology, relations are open and variable. Ontology in the absolute sense has always been important, because humans have anchored themselves and their lot in its primeval ground and ultimate promise. The yearning for ontological certainty often becomes an alibi for anchoring our own mortality in the infinite. It is a major shift to uproot ourselves from our metaphysically construed certainties and settle for an incomplete, open, relational existence. Establishing a doctrine of God in this realm means transposing God from eternity to the transience and unpredictability of this world, whose fleeting nature can accommodate the possibility of transcendent experience that fulfils our humanness. Ontology should make way for a quest for experience of life and that which elevates life - with all its chance, probability and chaos, its openness and unpredictability - to sublime meaning.
In such a case, how must we handle the view that chance is such a major factor? Despite their tacit awareness that many events are coincidental, most people prefer to replace chance with perceived patterns, which they then transpose to some agency that is considered responsible for everything. It is not that we do not know how natural laws operate and the confluence of circumstances that lead to specific experiences, but we choose to link events with determinism and intelligent causality.
In the final analysis, human beings gave birth to the notion of a First Cause and an Unmoved Mover! A plan for our life, the choice to believe that everything turns out for the good ... It seems as if we lack a capacity to live with chance and randomness. The sciences themselves are not free from this. Control is a hallmark of modernism, which still provides the framework for physical science. We study reality in order to control it, thus making our lives safer and more predictable.
The secret of evolutionary, economic and social success, however, probably lies in that which cannot be controlled and fully grasped.
In his The company of strangers: a natural history of economic life Paul Seabright (2004:9ff) details the complexity of a simple exercise like buying a shirt. Here are some excerpts from his argument:
This morning I went out and bought a shirt. There is nothing very unusual in that: across the world, perhaps twenty million people did the same. What is more remarkable is that I, like most of these twenty million, had not informed anybody in advance of what I was intending to do. Yet the shirt I bought, although a simple item by the standards of modern technology, represents a triumph of international cooperation. The cotton comes from India, grown from seeds developed in the United States; the artificial fibre in the thread comes from Portugal and the material in the dyes from at least six other countries; the collar linings come from Brazil, and the machinery for the weaving, cutting and sewing from Germany; the shirt itself was made up in Malaysia. The project of making a shirt and delivering it to me in Toulouse has been a long time in the planning, since well before the morning two winters ago when an Indian farmer first led a pair of ploughing bullocks across his land on the red plains outside Coimbatore. Engineers in Cologne and chemists in Birmingham were involved in the preparation many years ago. Most remarkably of all, given the obstacles it has had to surmount to be made at all and the large number of people who have been involved along the way, it is a very stylish and attractive shirt (for what little my judgment in these matters may be worth). I am extremely pleased at how the project has turned out.]]> To make their task even more challenging, they, or people very much like them, have been working at the same time to make shirts for all of the other twenty million people of widely different sizes, tastes and incomes, scattered over six continents, who decided independently of each other to buy shirts at the same time as I did. And those were just today's clients. Tomorrow there will be another twenty million - perhaps more. If there were any single person in overall charge of the task of supplying shirts to the world's population, the complexity of the challenge facing them would call to mind the predicament of a general fighting a war.
He proceeds to show how it would be all but impossible to appoint a team to manufacture such a shirt without all the individuals who did the spadework outlined in the foregoing paragraph. Yet, even though nobody is exercising specific, overarching control, shirts and millions of other items are readily available all over the world. "In fact there is nobody in charge. The entire vast enterprise of supplying shirts in thousands and thousands of styles to millions and millions of people takes place without any overall coordination at all" (Seabright 2004:10).
John Byl maintained that the principle of sufficient reason requires that everything that happens must have a cause. If there is no physical cause, some human or divine agency must be responsible for it. Hence a sovereign God is responsible for everything, more especially for events at quantum level (quoted in Bartholomew 2008:199). We have seen that randomness at a lower level gives rise to order at a higher level. At the higher level we can speak of purpose, but the two levels are inseparable. The same principle is involved in Aquinas's distinction between God as the primary cause and other, secondary causes. Secondary causes operate at a physical level and are the way the natural order functions. Here God's action cannot be proved, because it is secondary. God, the primary cause, determines such secondary causes (Watson 1993:84).
Locating God's actions at the microscopic levels of chance, randomness and indeterminacy has the advantage of leaving God in charge of everything without transgressing natural laws. Does it make sense to base a doctrine of God on such a notion? "The bizarre picture of God seated in front of a celestial control panel watching microscopic happenings throughout the universe and reacting to them almost instantaneously may be logically possible but it hardly fits with the notion of the loving heavenly Father of orthodox Christian belief' (Bartholomew 2008:152).
God moves and is moved by people
Causality implies control, determinism, even fatalism. It implies absolute power, abolishes freedom, and precludes personal relationships. Of course, that does not mean that God does not exercise influence, even a decisive influence. All interpersonal relations are marked by influencing. A relationship in which the will of one partner is imposed on the other is un-free. When it comes to God's involvement in physical and cosmological processes, we should rather keep quiet instead of requisitioning so-called "gaps" (eg quantum indeterminism) to accommodate God's acts. Besides, it would be impossible to trace the ascent from quantum level to the level of classical physics, human biology, consciousness and, ultimately, human decision-making. Does that entail acceptance of Gould's NOMA (non-overlapping magistrata) principle? Not exactly. Theologically we cannot pronounce on God's involvement in physical processes because, as noted already, our understanding of these leaves no scope for divine intervention. That might pose problems for the existence of a metaphysical God, but not that of a personal God. Theologians have already dismissed classical cosmological proofs of God's existence. The level at which people experience God is that of a personal relationship. We have to abandon a theology of power (causality), as the following excerpt from De Exupéry demonstrates.
In his The little prince (1991: section x) Antoine de Exupéry recounts how in the course of his travels the little prince comes to a planet occupied only by a very august king. When the little prince yawned at some point in their conversation the king commanded him not to yawn, since it was improper to do so in his presence. When the little prince explained that he couldn't help it, the king was obliged to command him to yawn in order to maintain his dignity. The king then admitted that he could not command one of his generals to change into a seagull, for the man could not do it through any fault of his own (implying that the ruler has to adapt to the natural order!). When the prince begged leave to ask a question, the king commanded him to do so. And so the story goes on. Eventually, when the little prince wanted to leave, he told his majesty that if he wanted implicit obedience, he would command him to leave within a minute or so.
In a way our interaction with God is similar. The little prince is a metaphor for science (and theology!) engaging in dialogue with God and, via the intrinsic necessity of the natural order, indirectly demanding that, in order to remain in control, God must command natural laws to be what they are. For God to retain his sovereignty and divine dignity he must constantly adapt his nature to science and people's logic, insight and worldviews. The God concept cannot be logically inconsistent. So, we postulate that God subordinates himself to the laws he himself imposed; that he designed his creation as an autopoietic system; that he is beyond space and time yet at the same time contains them; that he is somehow present in all physical and natural processes, for he has to control everything, hence nothing happens outside his absolute will and presence.
A non-causal theology puts God as a First Cause and an Unmoved Mover. Aristotle's unmoved mover culminated in "the One" of Plotinus's Enneads. It was taken over by Augustine, as Aristotle was taken over by Aquinas. The God of predestination accords with the closed Calvinist image of immovable omnipotence, the deistic God concept with a mechanistic Newtonian worldview. A mystical God is in harmony with Romanticism and subjectivism. The suffering God (Moltmann) stems from the helpless suffering of World War II. By the same token a God who emerges from the complexities that characterise life might accord with our contemporary understanding of evolution.]]> Theologically, strictly speaking, we cannot talk about God; but neither can we keep silent. We can, however, keep silent about issues like the exact way in which God is supposed to determine and control everything. The aim is not to make pronouncements about precisely what God is like or is not like.12 Indeed, if God is the Totally Other an apophatic theology is all that remains. The motive for saying at least something about God is to reformulate God concepts generated by a worldview that we have outgrown in light of our present-day understanding of ourselves and the world. That does not mean we have to kowtow to modern science - but certainly not to outdated images of bygone days.
The proposed non-causal theology would endeavour to shed the unnecessary metaphysical baggage that has characterised philosophy and theology since Greek antiquity. It would dispense with God's cosmic sovereignty, which conflicts with the scientific interpretation of reality. What was said in the past was either symbolic or a reflection of the worldview of those times. The causal God is a philosophic, metaphysical God. "The real problem, as we all know, is that God explains too much. God can do anything. And when God does everything, there is nothing to explain. Or, rather, the explanation of everything is this: God created the heavens and the earth. Nothing more is required" (Watson, 1993:83). God need not be the explanatory principle for creation, cosmology, and physical processes. Whether we "see" God's hand in them or not makes no difference to physical processes as we know them today.
A non-causal theology will distinguish between God and causally determined natural processes. It will abstain from literal interpretation of creation stories, which has become a major headache for proponents of the traditional Christian God concept. God is not forcibly infused into all matter willy-nilly, be it by way of pantheism, panentheism or absolutely sovereign theism.
One of the more plausible explanations of God's involvement with the world is process theology. I confine myself to the following quotations from Whitehead, which tally with the proposed non-causal theology.
Whitehead identifies three focal points that emerged from the early development of theism: God as ruler, as personification of moral energy and as a philosophic principle. He sees this as contrasting with what he calls the "Galilean origin of Christianity". "It does not emphasize the ruling Caesar, or the ruthless moralist, or the unmoved mover. It dwells upon the tender elements in the world, which slowly and in quietness operate by love; and it finds purpose in the present immediacy of a kingdom not of this world. Love neither rules, nor is it unmoved; also, it is oblivious as to morals. It does not look to the future; for it finds its own rewards in the immediate present" (excerpt from Process and reality, cited in Frankenberry 2008:183). Whitehead opposes the notion of God's omnipotence: "the presentation of God under the aspect of power awakens every modern instinct of critical reaction ... The Church gave unto God the attributes which belonged exclusively to Caesar" (Frankenberry 2008:180).
Whitehead conceives of God's nature as dipolar: a primordial and a consequential nature. His consequential nature is the history he incurs with us, which influences his primordial nature. "He does not create the world, he saves it: or, more accurately, he is the poet of the world, with tender patience leading it by his vision of truth, beauty, and goodness" (Frankenberry 2008:187).
To my mind this does not imply that God should be regarded as the cause of all natural processes that are actualised moment by moment (see also Frankenberry 2008:185).13 Such an approach remains at the causal-deterministic level. It is a vestige of our animist past which imbued all matter with vital force. God is not to be found in matter, in atoms, in energy transfer, or in entropic processes. That is part of the causal-control syndrome, the foundation of metaphysics.14 However, regardless of culture or era, God has always surfaced as the deepest question and deepest answer whenever humans are challenged by their circumstances and experiences. God is manifested in our response to the major challenges of life. That does not necessarily imply that events are reversible, sickness can be miraculously healed, the dead can come to life, the clock can be turned back, accomplished deeds can be undone. What it means is that God influences my way of coping with all eventualities.
A non-causal theology is not about a God who exercises no influence. Influencing induces change, and that needs to be emphasised. So, the point is the way God is manifested in events that affect people profoundly and how he influences them to cope with these. A non-causal theology has no ready-made blueprints or determinism; its hallmarks are freedom and an open encounter between God and human beings.15One could call it a consequential theology, a theology of the moment. After all, religion is the experience of God one has in moments of distress, fear, tribulation, worship, prayer, encounter. It is a confluence of many circumstances that prepared the moment when the transcendent God manifests himself (is experienced) in immanent reality. The accent is on awareness of God's presence in and via events. Humans know nothing about the hypothetical God who is supposedly active in quantum, cosmic or biological processes, nor are they influenced by him.
Dingemans (2001:105) cites Houtepen, who says that we must bid "God the First Cause" goodbye and look forward to the God of the future: God is an open question. As far as I know the implications, especially the cosmological and physical implications of doing away with the First Cause or Unmoved Mover, have however not yet been indicated. $$$
A causal God controls everything, whereas a non-causal approach proceeds on the premise that human beings are so profoundly moved by events experienced as encounters with the transcendent that they themselves make things happen, change their perceptions, change their their actions. The freedom implicit in a non-causal approach entails assuming responsibility and facing up to unhappiness (i.e. actions/thoughts that make us unhappy). In such a context we feel we are fighting on God's side against the evils, injustices and suffering in the world. After all, these things are not caused by God.]]> We have learnt that the world is not predetermined or controlled, because determinist causality at the level of multiplicity is unlikely. Maybe the Archimedes shift required in this instance is to see God as an outcome, not a cause. Once something has happened it is a fait accompli. We cannot alter it, but we can analyse, reconstruct, look for causes, level charges - and then get on with it and make the best of the situation. Being caught up in a labyrinth of "why me?" questions consumes a lot of energy and condemns us to lifelong repetition of bad experiences imprinted in memory, which does not mean that we must acquiesce in everything that comes our way and not take measures to prevent a recurrence of unpleasant events.
Thus a non-causal theology operates with the concept of emergence. "The term 'emergence' connotes the image of something coming out of hiding, coming into view for the first time - something without precedent and perhaps a bit surprising" (Deacon 2008:121). The causality at issue is again determined by lower-order processes, but not by any form of predetermined law. "These phenomena are often called self-organizing, because their regularities are not externally imposed but generated by iterative interaction processes, occurring in the media that comprise them" (Deacon 2008:123).
God is not simply the permissive cause (will) behind incomprehensible suffering, injustice, poverty, sickness and death: he bears the consequences alongside humans and is present during the process of recovery and resuming our lives. That surely accords with our interpretations of the words and deeds of the earthly Jesus. Most Gospel narratives are not about Jesus' account of the causes of events (see John 9, where Jesus' observation about the man who was born blind to some extent severs the chain of causality), but about his concern with the consequences: sickness, death, hunger, injustice, transgressions.
What makes better sense is the existential relational level where - in human circumstances, however dire or fortunate they may be - we have a relationship with a living God. God invariably manifests himself in moments of crisis. That is when his existence and interaction become real, including also in beauty and in moments when justice is done.
The accent is on a God who reacts rather than one who merely acts deterministically. Here he is one of many causes at work that influence circumstances; not the sole, all-determining (deterministic) cause. The Old Testament image of God travelling with his people presents a facet of God who looks with his people to see what the future holds and helps them contend with it. After all, it is pointless to travel with someone if you have mapped the journey in advance and already know what will happen. In fact, the only authentic way to understand the interaction between people is when the relationship is "open" and no outcome is predetermined. God happens. Yet events can never be imposed: we often have to wait for God, and the outcome of God's interaction with humans is often startlingly new. God changes in the process, just as people change. It is analogous with any relationship between equals in which shared experience influences the role players in all directions.
Works consulted
Bartholomew, D.J. 2008. God, chance and purpose. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [ Links ] De Exupéry, A. 1991. The little prince. London: Mammoth. [ Links ]]]>
Deacon, Terrence, W. 2008. Emergence: the hole at the wheel's hub, in Clayton, P. & Davies, P. (eds.), There-emergence of emergence. The emergentist hypothesis from science to religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 111-150. [ Links ]
Dingemans, G.D.J. 2001. De stem van de roepende. Kampen: Kok. [ Links ]
Du Toit, C.W. 2006. Tout est bien? Natural and supernatural causes of evil. Perspectives from Hume's treatise and Voltaire's Candide. Scriptura 93(3), 315-329. [ Links ]
Du Toit, C.W. 2007(a). Limitations of the concept 'law of nature' as a source in science, philosophy, theology and law, in Drees, Willem B., Meisinger, H. & Smedes, TA. (eds.), Humanity, the world and God: understandings and actions. (Studies in Science and Theology, Volume 11, (2007-2008), 175-190, ESSSAT Lund. [ Links ])
Du Toit, C.W. 2007(b), Seasons in theology. Inroads of postmodernism, reference and representation, Pretoria: Research Institute for Theology and Religion, Unisa. [ Links ]]]>
Eigen, M. & Winkler, R. 1983. Laws of the game. How the principles of nature govern chance. Hammerworth: Penguin. [ Links ]
Frankenberry, N.K. 2008. The faith of scientists in their own words. Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press. [ Links ]
Gregersen, N.H. 2008. Emergence: what is at stake for religious reflection? in Clayton, P. & Davies, P. (eds.), The re-emergence of emergence. The emergentist hypothesis from science to religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 279-302. [ Links ]
Hacking, I. 1990. The taming of chance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [ Links ]
Kulstad, M.A. 1993. Causation and preestablished harmony, in Nadler, S, (ed.), Causation in early modern philosophy. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 93-118. [ Links ]]]>
Lewis, M. 1997. Altering fate: why the past does not predict the future, New York: Guilford Press. [ Links ]
Nadler, S. 1993. The occasionalism of Louis de la Forge, in Nadler, S. (ed.), Causation in early modern philosophy. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 57-74. [ Links ]
Pearson, K. 2010. The scientific law, in Turner, S. (ed.), Causality I, 201-226. London: Sage. [ Links ]
Rutherford, Donald, P. 1993. Natures, laws and miracles, in Nadler, S. (ed.), Causation in early modern philosophy, pp. 135-158. Pennsylvanie: Pennsylvania State University Press. [ Links ]
Seabright, P. 2004. The company of strangers: a natural history of economic life. Princeton: Princeton University Press. [ Links ]]]>
Van der Kooi, C. 2005. As in a mirror. John Calvin and Karl Barth on knowing God: a diptych. Leiden: Brill. [ Links ]
Watson, R.A. 1993. Malebranche, models, and causation, in Nadler, S. (ed.), Causation in early modern philosophy. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 75-92. [ Links ]
Weber, O. 1972. Grundlagen der dogmatik, Vol. 1. Göttingen: Neukirchener. [ Links ]
1 Darwin (1809-1882) never dealt with or criticised the concept of causality, but he was open to the new science of statistics (Darwin knew nothing about mathematics).It is intriguing that many of the fundamental evolutionary concepts - chance, variability, measurement, etc. - were basic to the development of statistics. Darwin did draw on the work of his cousin Francis Galton, a pioneer in this field. In 1865, Galton demonstrated that statistical analysis of heredity supports the idea that moral and mental qualities can be inherited.
2 Pearson (2010:205-16) points out that the universality and absoluteness attributed to natural laws are relative to human thought. For a discussion of the concept of natural law, see Du Toit (2007). ]]> 3 Also see Moira for tragic fate and Pronoia for deterministic forces.
4 For lack of space I cannot deal with Leibniz's monadology, more specifically his notion of pre-established harmony and the role of causality in that regard. Monads operate autonomously through divine intervention and harmonise, not because of causal factors, but as a result of pre-established harmony. Unlike the Occasionalists, Leibniz assigns substances sufficient inherent power to determine their own states and changes (Kulstad, 1993:109ff; Rutherford, 1993:137).
5 A probability is a number purporting to measure uncertainty, commonly expressed as a number in the range 0-1, with the upper end of 1 denoting certainty and the lower end of 0 corresponding to impossibility (Bartholomew, 2008:69).
6 It was formulated as follows: "When the excess of the majority over the minority is d, and the reliability of an individual juror lies between 1/2 and 1, the probability that a jury is correct is 1/(3d + 1)" (Hacking, 1990:94).
7 The concept of probability (read in conjunction with chance) could have emerged as early as about 1660 (see Leibniz [1646-1716], The emergence of probability). Galton postulated the law of probability in 1889.
8 For a severance of the causal connection with the past (upbringing and background) in people's development and self-image, see Lewis (1997).
9 Here we have to do with epistemological chance, being instances where we lack causal factors, and ontological chance, being chance that characterises the nature and evolution of aspects of reality (Bartholomew, 2008:4).
10 The bell-curve varies with changes over time, yet the curve remains fairly constant. However, reality continually changes: "The more of reality we comprehend, the more aware we become of horizons that keep receding before us and are as unattainable as the peripheries of the expanding universe" (Eigen and Winkler, 183:187).
11 According to Hacking (1990:160) the word 'normal' acquired this meaning in the 1820s.
12 Watson (1993:81) observes: "The two main problems with God in philosophy are first, that resort to God explains too much, and second, that when we talk of God we do not know what we are talking about." ]]> 13 Gregerson refers to this as temporal theism (ibid).
14 It was also a feature of positivism: "Cause, in the canons of positivism, was a metaphysical notion. A good way to surpass metaphysics was to annul causation" (Hacking,1990:187).
15 The classical theological concept of concursus would be appropriate. It forms part of the doctrine of predestination, which distinguishes between conservatio, cuncursus and gubernatio (governing). Hence the notion of concursus is indissolubly linked with God's prescience (Weber, 1972:568:ff).


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By Matt Gardner
The Appling County Pirates (2-0-1 overall) travelled to Sylvania on Friday, September 14 to face the Screven County Gamecocks (2-1) in a non-region contest. The Pirates were able to get the victory 45-34 and will start Region 1-AAA play this Thursday, September 20 against Johnson of Savannah (0-3) who are coming off a 0-22 loss to Liberty County (2-1).
Pictured above are members of the Pirate defense including (85) Devontae Wilkerson, (24) Samuel Ryan and (83) Anthony Gibbs making a tackle on a Gamecock runner during the Pirates 45-34 win on Friday.
Pirates capture Gamecocks, pick up second win
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There's a lot of terms floating around that people use to describe themselves when they want to make their position sound more appealing, even if those terms are a completely (and very deliberately) misleading. One such
lie term is "pro-life."
John Fugelsang said it best: "Only in America can you be pro-death penalty, pro-war, pro-unmanned drone bombs, pro-nuclear weapons, pro-guns, pro-torture, pro-land mines, and still call yourself 'pro-life.'" Indeed, the term "pro-life" has come to represent a group of people whose values have nothing to do with protecting life, and living people, and more to do with protecting unborn fetuses to the exclusion of all other considerations.
The only way to effectively kill a misnomer, such as "pro-life," is to replace it with a more accurate description. I would encourage everyone to pick one of these terms, and start using it in place of the words "pro-life," when discussing abortion.
10 more accurate terms for the "pro-life" movement.
1. Anti-Abortion: People who call themselves "pro-life" oppose abortion. Since that's the only argument the "pro-life' moniker is applied to we should just call their position what it is: opposition to a woman's right to get an abortion, or anti-abortion for brevity.
2. Anti-Choice: This term works because the people who proclaim that they are "pro-life" are using that term to describe their position in regards to whether or not a woman can choose to have an abortion and absolutely nothing else. See the Fugelsang quote above. Therefore they are anti-choice. "Life" does not even enter the equation.
3. Pro-Fetus: This term works because a large swathe of the "pro-life" movement are the same people who support cutting funding to programs like WIC, food stamps, and other programs which generally help mothers and children. If they were really concerned with "life," and not just the fetus, then they would aggressively commit themselves to make sure children have enough food to eat, a proper education, and a place to live. Since their concern for the fetus ends as soon as it is born, they are clearly pro-fetus.
4. Pro-Birth: Same reasoning as "pro fetus," this term works because so many people who consider themselves "pro-life" stop caring about whether or not the baby is adequately taken care of the instant it's born.
5. Pro-Controlling Women: It's irrefutable that the people who would deny women the right to have an abortion are trying to control women. If someone thinks they're more qualified than a pregnant woman to decide what she does with her body, without her input, that's control, pure and simple.
6: Pro-Abuse: Attempting to dominate or control another person in a relationship is considered domestic abuse, so how is attempting to control women whom you've never met not considered abuse? A woman in Ireland died last year because she was denied a lifesaving abortion for a pregnancy that was already ending in an unavoidable miscarrage. How are the doctors who denied her that life saving procedure any better than a man who tells a woman how to dress, or what to do? If controlling what a woman does with her time is considered abuse then denying that same woman a medical procedure should be considered equally abhorrent.
7. Anti-Sex: My friend Justin insisted for a long time that the people who oppose abortion do so because they think that a baby should be punishment for premarital sex, and I was admittedly skeptical, but he actually proved it, here. I'll let his words on this topic speak for themselves, he makes an excellent argument.
8. Pro-Religious Control: A lot of the arguments that fuel the anti-abortion debate are religious in nature. Since not everyone follows the same religion, trying to assert your religious beliefs over other people can be considered nothing less than pro-religious control. Not all of the "pro-life" movement is opposed to abortion, necessarily, but they are in favor of controlling people on the basis of religion. Rick Santorum, for example, who strongly opposes abortion for religious reasons, had no problem with his own wife having a life saving abortion. Despite the fact that his own wife needed one, because of his religion, he continues to insist that it should be denied to other women. What's more controlling than that?
9. Misogynist: Misogyny is defined as the hatred of women, and what's more hateful to women than treating them like they're too stupid to decide what to do with their bodies, by denying them a procedure which could be life saving, medically necessary or, in many cases, the responsible choice to make? I can't think of many things more hateful than letting women die, or forcing them to carry a rapist's baby to term, because you think you're more qualified to make their medical decisions than they are.
10. Hypocrite: I thought I'd end with this one, because after the previous examples it should be glaringly obvious that this isn't a debate about "life," it's a debate about abortion and what women are capable of deciding in regards to their own bodies. History, and extensive studies, have shown that making abortion illegal doesn't get rid of abortion; it only makes the procedure more dangerous and unregulated, which causes more women to die from complications. According to the World Health Organization, "illegal abortion is usually unsafe abortion." Anyone who would call themselves "pro-life," while simultaneously trying to outlaw abortions, making them more deadly, is a hypocrite.
I consider myself pro-life because I support programs and policies which help people to thrive, including abortion. There's nothing "pro-life," or noble, about forcing a woman to carry an unwanted fetus to term, especially when that fetus could put her life in danger, was conceived through rape or incest, or would be subjected to a life of difficulty and poverty because the mother is unable to provide for a child.
We can't continue to allow people to pretend that they support life, on the basis that they oppose abortion. We have to be willing to say, "No, that's not what you are, and I'm not going to let you lie about your position in order to make it sound more appealing. You are not pro-life. If you were, you would be fundraising for orphanages instead of protesting at abortion clinics."
Feel free to share your own thoughts in the comments below.
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Clint Eastwood
Sponsored By
Matthew Polly: 'Bruce Lee Wanted To Be The Next Clint Eastwood'Author Matthew Polly talks with CBS Local's DJ Sixsmith about his new Bruce Lee book.
Men Who Stopped Train Attack To Star In Clint Eastwood FilmThe three California men who thwarted a terror attack on a French train in 2015 will make the rare move of playing themselves in a Clint Eastwood-directed film about their heroics, a studio announced Tuesday.
Hollywood's Biggest Stars To Present At 'The 68th Annual Tony Awards'Hollywood and Broadway's brightest stars will take center stage at "The 68th Annual Tony Awards."
Best Halloween Costumes Of 2012Step away from the prepackaged Halloween costumes in a box. Get a bit creative and find some inspiration from today's pop culture. Here are a few great costume ideas to get your Halloween creativity going.
Opinion: Does Mitt Romney Have An October Surprise For The Debate?Is Mitt Romney planning an October surprise of sorts for tonight? Has he been saving big policy announcements and details for the debate?
Opinion: Thanks To Clint And Clinton, We Almost Stayed AwakeThe Republican and Democratic National Conventions of 2012 – yawn-per-yawn – have to be the most uninspiring political conventions in recent history.
Opinion: Famous People Should Keep Their Mouths Shut During Political ConventionsIt is strange that famous people think the world gives a hoot about their political views. Last week, a good number of famed and fortuned people spoke their anti-Republican and anti-Romney prejudiced-minds regarding the Republican National Convention.
Opinion: Empty Chair Day 2012 and #EastwoodingInstead of getting rowdy at a demonstration or protest regarding the lack of jobs throughout the country, people can voice their discontent with the nation's current unemployment rate on this Labor Day by simply placing an empty chair in their front yard.
Opinion: Clint Eastwood Made My DayLast night, Clint Eastwood produced the most bizarre and uncomfortable moments in modern convention history. If Mitt Romney cannot get his campaign right. If he cannot even get the things that he can control right, how can he make the case that he can run the country?
Million-Dollar Duds: Many Super Bowl Ads Were Anti-ClimacticThe New York Giants may have won the big game, but who won the other competition during the Super Bowl? What was the most talked about commercial?
Smithsonian Honors Eastwood, Opens Theater On MallThe Smithsonian Institution is honoring Clint Eastwood for his six decades of work in American film, and the actor and director is cutting the ribbon to open a new theater to showcase film at the National Museum of American History.


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Polls open for spring election in Wisconsin
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Polls are open for the spring election in Wisconsin.
Voters Tuesday are deciding races for state superintendent and Supreme Court, among many other local contests.
The Government Accountability Board is predicting that 20 percent of eligible voters will cast ballots. That would be more than double the number of voters who showed up in the February primary.
In the two statewide races, the current officeholder raised significantly more money than the opponent and benefited from television advertising from third-party groups. Justice Pat Roggensack faces Marquette University law professor Ed Fallone, while Superintendent Tony Evers is being challenged by Republican state Rep. Don Pridemore. Both races are officially nonpartisan.
The polls close at 8 p.m.


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Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700
Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 deliver everything you expect—and things you never imagined possible. They let you send messages, search for information, and more by simply tapping into Siri with the single touch of a button. An unrivaled four-microphone system hears your commands with unmatched accuracy and makes your voice sound crystal clear on calls—even in noisy environments.
When it comes to noise cancellation, Bose did more than improve the performance—they evolved how you use it. Choose from 11 levels of noise cancellation that range from eliminating noise to bringing in ambient sound so convincingly it's like you're not wearing headphones at all. They also feature Bose AR, a first-of-its-kind audio augmented reality platform that makes astonishing new audio experiences possible.
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One GOOD thing is that Canon is finally offering a decent wide angle zoom that goes to 24mm. 28mm just doesn't cut it, no matter how many "professionals" work within that 28-100 range as someone else has stated..
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0508/05082207canonlenses.aspAs you can see, I didn't recall correctly, the weight is 670g.That's light enough for you, isn't it?
Theoretically, yes (and often so in reality). But there's something special about those Leitz Summicrons, Summiluxes, etc...
One thing to keep in mind is that the vast majority of photos taken by pros (and amateurs) are in the 28-100 mm range,
The reference to 28-100 is a statistical fact, nothing else. It has nothing to do with status (pro or amateur), but is just a fact, not opinion.
Yes, Canon's recommended retail prices in Australia are silly. Presumably Canon Australia doesn't like selling equipment (all that import paperwork, you know) and prefer customers to buy via international online retailers. :laugh:
Quote(From what I recall, though, the weight was 770 grams, and dimensions were comparable to the EF 24-70 f/2.8L.)That is disapointing, I would have been interested in a lighter f4 version of the 24-70 (perhaps 24-85) as a walkaround for full frame.
(From what I recall, though, the weight was 770 grams, and dimensions were comparable to the EF 24-70 f/2.8L.)
Optics have undergone a few revolutions lately, and modern CAD/CAM should yield significant benefits towards actually making noticeably better lenses, versus old hat design methods.
Personally, I wish that Canon would make an IS version of the 400 F5.6L.
I just hope it has a 77mm filter ring like the other two, to keep it a lean and lightweight system.


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The Ruby Sanctum loot list is up and I can honestly say that I am underwhelmed. How underwhelmed? More underwhelmed than a troop of boy scouts being given a single badge? More underwhelmed than being told by your boss that your expected pay rise has been deferred until 2020? More underwhelmed than a hooker being told that she's a pretty good lay? Yes, more underwhelmed than all of those.
We have in 10 man loot a chest, a ring and a neck piece. In 25 man loot we have some armbands, the same ring and neck and a trinket. Well, whoopee fucking poopee. Would it be too much to ask for some fucking weapons? Like some daggers? Or how about some cool stuff that we can't get from badges, like some boots? Those would be nice. Nope, none of the above.
"But we get a trinket!", I hear you say. Have you seen the stats on that trinket? Armor penetration and attack power. And what 2 stats are going the way of the dodo in Cataclysm? Lets see … having a look here … hmmm …
Armor penetration and attack power. So you tell me what the fuck is going on and I'll give you a few more scout badges.


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An Encyclopedia is must now a days for all people. That is the best reference book for our project works and for any occasion to present the facts for discussion.
Here is a page with more than 5000 fact-filled articles to help you all in your educational and professional assignments. More than 30 experts have made their best to verify the contents of this page. This is useful for extensive cross-reference as well. This is an ideal page for School Projects.
The contents of this page are arranged in the Alphabetical order for your quick reference. This page contains 700 main entries. To get the information on the subject of your choice, simply click the link which will take you to the page.
This premier online library and research Web site puts a number of articles from some of the world's most authoritative and highly respected publications at your fingertips. Plus, our online dictionary collection is an invaluable research tool with exhaustive information for all of you. This page offers a number of free articles, pictures, facts, and biographies along with information about topics like the arts, science, sports, medicine, accounting, and management. This page is an ideal online reference source for researchers, students, educators, and professionals alike.
• Central Asia
• Chile
Encyclopedia Index


text: They don't concern themselves with value meals or club cards. They spend their days basking in the glory of their riches -- diving into bouncy houses full of cash, swimming in infinity pools filled with Cristal, and jet-setting into different time zones to eat meals that cost more than most tax-payers' monthly paychecks. They are the elite One Percent, and like their lifestyles, their gadgets are lavish, amazing, and categorically ridiculous. Here are some of the hardware treasures they might be buying with their 2011 tax refunds -- if, in fact, they're paying any taxes at all. Speakers: Megatrend MkIII - $80,000 The term "wall of sound" is often thrown around too liberally in reference to large stereo systems. But the Megatrend MKIII speakers really do form an actual wall at seven feet tall and more than three feet wide. And that's just one speaker. They come in pairs. Each speaker (if you can call it that) comes in two pieces: the aforementioned wall with 24 eight-inch woofers, and an accompanying ribbon-line speaker tower for the high end. With four separate pieces covering the lowest lows to the highest highs, the Megatrend MKIII is a more than just an expensive speaker system -- it's an audiophile's dream. According to the manufacturer, Transmission Audio, the Megatrend MKII uses a dipole system that doesn't rely on a cabinet case, yet delivers superior sound with only an eight-inch baffle. In lay terms, the speaker sounds amazing without having to rely on a deep speaker cabinet.Watch: Harry Winston Opus 12 - $260,000 While many of us have forsaken wristwatches in favor of smartphones, the wealthy still adorn their wrists with amazing pieces of art. But unlike those Rothko paintings that simply surround the uber-rich with pure abstract emotion, an elite wrist-worn timepiece still fulfills a utilitarian task. Albeit in beautiful fashion. The Harry Winston Opus 12 forgoes traditional minute and hour hands for startling blue metal arms that resemble daggers. A long hand indicates five-minute intervals, while a short hand indicates hours. A driving wheel turns the hands from grey to blue to indicate the time. At the top of the hour, the inner crown wheel rotates all of the hour hands in succession, then rests on the current hour. All this fancy technology is demonstrated in the video below. The watch is constructed of 18-karat white gold with an anti-reflective sapphire crystal. The band is hand-sewn black alligator leather. Announced March 2012, only 120 pieces will be made, so sell your home and get your orders in soon. <script src="http://admin.brightcove.com/js/BrightcoveExperiences.js" type="text/javascript"></script><object class="BrightcoveExperience" id="myExperience1555647643001"> <param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF"></param> <param name="width" value="660"></param> <param name="height" value="423"></param> <param name="playerID" value="3698508001"></param> <param name="publisherID" value="1564549380"></param> <param name="isVid" value="true"></param> <param name="dynamicStreaming" value="true"></param> <param name="@videoPlayer" value="1555647643001"></param></object><script type="text/javascript"> runMobileCompatibilityScript('myExperience1555647643001', 'anId'); </script><script type="text/javascript">brightcove.createExperiences();</script>Motorcycle: Ecosse Titanium Series RR - $300,000 Before anyone brings up the $555,000 Dodge Tomahawk, let's agree that it's barely a motorcycle and more of a four-wheeled abomination. A real motorcycle has two wheels, and is a metaphor for freedom, justice and being a badass while whipping through town. The Ecosse motorcycle is a piece of art that just happens to blow the doors off of every car you've ever owned. With a titanium chassis atop carbon fiber wheels, the bike might empty your bank account, 401(k), and any sort of college fund you've saved up for your kids. But when you're barreling down the road with 200hp between your legs, you won't care. You also might want to invest in a gym membership; 210-foot pounds of torque will rip your arms off if you're not careful.PC Workstation: MWE Emperor 200 - $45,000 All the ergonomic challenges of sitting at a mass-produced desk should disappear when you settle into the custom-built Emperor 200 -- or at least they better for $45,000. Each scorpion-shaped workstation is hand-built to customer specifications with three monitors, touchscreen control panel, air filtration system, light therapy illumination, and electric powered leather seat. Upon sitting in the Emperor 200, users tap on the touchscreen to lower the monitors and nestle themselves into a computing bubble worthy of a Bond villain. Because each workstation is built to order, MWE labs can customize each installation to handle different computing platforms, even adding peripherals like iPhone docks. But this level of customization doesn't come quickly. After placing your order, it'll take six months to build your Emperor 200 -- just enough time to get the volcano hollowed out for your secret lair.Toilet: Kohler Numi - $6,400 Calling it a toilet is like calling the Bugatti Veyron a car. Never has a toilet been more deserving of the term "throne." The feature-rich toilet resembles a minimalist work of art, so it's almost a shame that its main function is to collect human waste -- even if the waste is sourced from caviar and $175 burgers. For the price of a used car, the derrières of the rich and famous are treated to a toilet that not only opens when approached, but also includes a touchscreen interface, and houses a bidet for the cleaning and drying of one's undercarriage. Not only is the adjustable seat heated (like the buckets in a luxury sedan), but a vent blows warm air to keep feet toasty on chilly mornings.Headphones: Stax SR-009 - $5,250 While Beats by Dre have filled a generation of ears with heavy bass via rapper endorsement, they're not the headphones you'll find on wealthy audiophiles. Apparently, when the One Percent demand 100 percent from their music, they look to a Japanese company for headphones. The Stax SR-009 are currently considered one of the best sets of headphones on the market. With a frequency response of 5 - 42,000Hz, it's no wonder these full-size open electrostatic headphones are adored by audiophiles. Actually, the company doesn't refer to them as headphones, but rather as earspeakers. For $5,200, we suppose any of us could get a pair if we saved long enough. Oh wait, you need a special $2,000 amplifier to power them. Never mind.Bike: S-Works + McLaren Venge - $18,000 Purchasing a new road bike is already an expensive endeavor. A top-of-the-line bicycle can cost upward of $2,500. This would explain why so many cyclists can be seen riding at 5 a.m.: They're trying to get their money's worth, even if it means cycling 18 hours a day. But for maximum road speed and technology, you turn to racing -- car racing. The Specialized S-Works +McLaren Venge brings together the usually confrontational worlds of cars and bicycles in a single, lightweight, carbon-fiber rocket. With the help of the McLaren Technology Center, Specialized was also able to improve the stiffness of the frame. So, if you're looking to go faster not only because your bike was designed by an exotic super-car company, but also because your wallet is significantly lighter, this is the bike to buy.Phone: Vertu Constellation Red Gold and Mixed Metals - $13,800 When most people think about high-end phones, they imagine an iPhone encrusted in diamonds and other precious stones. The phone, the operating system, the apps, the services -- they're all the same features we regular folks enjoy. But Vertu takes the luxury smartphone to the next step. Sure, it's running Symbian and uses a Swype keyboard, but in addition to a red gold exterior on the high-end Constellation, the phone also includes around-the-clock concierge service, which you access and track via the pre-installed Concierge Live app. The service helps you get into exclusive clubs, make travel bookings, order fine wines, and even contact a dedicated security specialist. Oh and you can probably call your friend with it too. Learn more in the video below. <script src="http://admin.brightcove.com/js/BrightcoveExperiences.js" type="text/javascript"></script><object class="BrightcoveExperience" id="myExperience1535255636001"> <param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF"></param> <param name="width" value="660"></param> <param name="height" value="423"></param> <param name="playerID" value="3698508001"></param> <param name="publisherID" value="1564549380"></param> <param name="isVid" value="true"></param> <param name="dynamicStreaming" value="true"></param> <param name="@videoPlayer" value="1535255636001"></param></object><script type="text/javascript"> runMobileCompatibilityScript('myExperience1535255636001', 'anId'); </script><script type="text/javascript">brightcove.createExperiences();</script>Thumb drive: Victorinox 1TB Swiss Army Knife - $3,000 While "the cloud" has made sharing and moving files a relatively simple process, large files can still choke a network. In fact, once a file hits 1GB, it's usually quicker to grab a thumb drive. But if a file hits 1TB, it's time to grab a knife. The Victorinox 1TB Swiss Army Knife will not only hold every digitized season of Dallas, it also sports a knife, scissors and file. The USB 2.0 thumb drive detaches from the knife so users won't have a blade hanging off their computer, potentially stabbing people as they walk by. If you're in the market for 1TB of walk-around data, the knife with be available later this year.


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rate of return(redirected from Log return)
Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Encyclopedia.
Rate of return
Calculated as the (value now minus value at time of purchase) divided by value at time of purchase. For equities, we often include dividends with the value now. See also: Return, annual rate of return.
Rate of Return
In securities, the amount of revenue an investment generates over a given period of time as a percentage of the amount of capital invested. The rate of return shows the amount of time it will take to recover one's investment. For example, if one invests $1,000 and receives $150 in the first year of the investment, the rate of return is 15%, and the investor will recover his/her initial $1,000 in six years and eight months. Different investors have different required rates of return at different levels of risk.
rate of return
1. See current yield, total return.
2. See return on investment.
Rate of return.
Rate of return is income you collect on an investment expressed as a percentage of the investment's purchase price. With a common stock, the rate of return is dividend yield, or your annual dividend divided by the price you paid for the stock.
However, the term is also used to mean percentage return, which is a stock's total return -- dividend plus change in value -- divided by the investment amount.
With a bond, rate of return is the current yield, or your annual interest income divided by the price you paid for the bond. For example, if you paid $900 for a bond with a par value of $1,000 that pays 6% interest, your rate of return is $60 divided by $900, or 6.67%.


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Phone: (860) 928-6595
Judy Walberg
Christine French
Fax: (860) 963-7557
Email: Click on names above to send an email
Mailing Address:
As Town Clerk, Registrar of Vital Statistics and Election Official, I have many duties here in the town. I hope you find the information below helpful and Thank You for taking a look at my departmental page. Judy Walberg
Click here to learn about YOUR local government
Woodstock has one polling place at the Woodstock Town Hall. Elections and Primaries are from 6am to 8pm and Referendum votes typically run from 12 noon to 8pm. You can register to vote here at the Town Clerks office during our normal business hours.
Registrar of Voters also hold special voter making sessions.
Click here for a list of our Congressional Delegation
Land Records
Our indexes are now available on-line. Click here to access the Grantor Grantee Index for Woodstock CT.
The Town Clerk's office maintains records pertaining to property transactions in the Town of Woodstock such as deeds, mortgages, liens, maps, condominium documents, easements and certain probate matters.
- Recording fees are $60.00 for the first page of a document and $5.00 for each subsequent page.
- When recording a document with conveyance consideration, an additional $2.00 fee is charged to cover administrative costs for filing the forms with the State of Connecticut Revenue Department. (www.ct.gov/drs)
- The recording fee for a map is $20.00, Subdivisions are $30.00.
- Copies of land records are available for $1.00 per copy.
- There is a $2.00 fee to certify a copy of a document.
- There is a $10.00 fee for hand-held scanner usage.
- All fees and charges are set by State of Connecticut Statutes.
Dog Licensing
- Pursuant to Connecticut General Statute the owner of each dog over the age of six (6) months must license their dog(s) with the Office of the Town Clerk in the town of residence no later than the 30th of June each year.
- For first time licensing, or if your dog's rabies vaccination has expired, you must include a valid rabies certificate in order to license your dog(s). To obtain the discounted license fee for spayed or neutered animals you must include a copy of the spay/neuter certificate.
- The licensing fee is $19.00 for each unaltered dog or $8.00 for each spayed or neutered dog. There is a $1.00 per month late fee assessed for overdue licenses. Failure to license your dog(s) is punishable by a fine in the amount of $75.00 per dog.
- Licenses may be obtained in person at the Woodstock Town Clerk's office during normal business hours. You may also obtain licenses through the U.S. Postal Service. Please print the Dog License Application and return it with full payment to the Town Clerk, 415 Route 169, Woodstock CT 06281, along with a self-addressed stamped envelope for the return of your dog tags. Checks must be marked payable to "Town of Woodstock". Please complete a separate application for each dog you must license. You may also drop your envelope in the drop box outside of the Town Hall.
Marriage Licenses - Marriage Certificate Copy Request Form - Marriage License Application Worksheet
- Individuals getting married in Connecticut must obtain their marriage license no more than 65 days before their wedding from the Town Clerk's office in the town where the wedding is to take place.
- Both parties must apply for the license in person.
- The fee for a marriage license is $50.00.
- The fee for a certified copy of a marriage license is $20.00
- Changing your name for land record purposes? Click here for the Change of Name due to marriage form.
- Note: Same sex marriages became legal in Connecticut on November 12, 2008.
- List of Justices of the Peace for Woodstock
Birth Certificates - Birth Certificate Copy Request Form
- Copies of birth certificates are on file in the Town Clerk's office in the town of occurrence, in the Town Clerk's office in the town of residence of the mother at the time of birth, and the State of Connecticut Department of Vital Statistics.
- You may obtain a certified copy from any of these sources.
- The fee is $20.00 per copy.
- All requests for birth certificates must be made in writing. If you are requesting a birth certificate by mail, please include the following:
- Full name and date of birth of individual named on the certificate
- Parents' full names when birth occurred (including mother's maiden name)
- Proof of identification (copy of your current driver's license or any other photo ID)
- If photo ID is not available, copies of two of the following may be used: Social Security card, written verification of identity from employer (on letter head), automobile registration, copy of utility bill showing name and address, pay stub with name on it, checking account deposit slip stating name and address
- Please be sure to include address where the certificate is to be sent, and all requests must be signed.
The Government of Puerto Rico has enacted a new birth certificate law effective July 1, 2010 requiring new, more secure certificates to be issued. For more information or to apply for a new birth certificate go to www.pr.gov.
Death Certificates - Death Certificate Copy Request Form
- Copies of death certificates are on file in the Town Clerk's office where an individual died, the Town Clerk's office where an individual resided before their death, and the State of Connecticut Department of Vital Statistics in Hartford.
- In order to obtain a certified copy of a death certificate, you must provide the name and date of death of the individual
- The fee for certified copies is $20.00
- The fee for a Burial or Cremation Permit is $5.00.
Genealogy Research & General History of Woodstock
- Please see our hours above that we are open to the public.
- We have vital records back to 1686
- Land Records back to 1749 (Prior to 1749 go to Worcester County Massachusetts Registry of Deeds)
- Probate Records back to 1831
- Woodstock Gazette - Weekly newspaper published between 1905 and 1917 (All issues)
Sporting Licenses - Ct Department of Environmental Protection
- Sporting licenses are issued for a calendar year. For current licensing fees click here.
- No hunting or trapping license will be issued to any person unless proof is provided that they held a resident license within the last five years, a certificate indicating successful completion of a Connecticut Conservation Education/Firearms Course or certificate showing completion of equivalent state course.
- Licenses may now be purchased online directly from the Department of Environmental Protection.
Veteran's Papers
- Any veteran may file their discharge papers with the Town Clerk's office free of charge. Original DD214's or certified copies of DD214's are acceptable. Click here for downloadable forms to request a replacement DD-214. Click here for next of kin to request a copy of a DD-214.
- After filing their DD214, any veteran who served in the military during a time of war as defined in Connecticut General Statute may apply for a property tax exemption on their home or automobile in the Assessor's office.
Absentee Ballots - Voter Registration
- General Voting Information
- Register to Vote On-Line or change information on your voter registration
- Absentee Ballot Application
- Permanent Absentee Ballot Information (New)
- Voter Registration Form (downloadable)
Trade Names
- State of Connecticut Statute Section 35-1(a) requires any person doing business in Connecticut, except as provided by statute, under any name other than name of the person or persons conducting or transacting such business, must register a trade name certificate with the Town Clerk's office in the town where the business is or is to be conducted or transacted.
- Trade Name certificates are available by clicking here
- The fee for filing a Trade Name Certificate is $10.00
Other Duties - Fees
- Liquor License Filing Fee - $20.00
- Filing of Notary Commission - $20.00 (renewable every 5 years) We also provide Notary Services. Fees are as follows: Resident, per visit, first seal is free, after that $2.00 per seal. Non-Residents, per visit, are $2.00 per seal.
- Transfer Station Permit Fees
- Foreclosure Registration Requirements FEE IS NOW $60 PER REGISTRATION
More Information
The Booklet "Know Your Town Government" contains useful information on elected and appointed officials and boards, policies and procedures, general meeting schedules, filing requirements, and Freedom of Information. Click on the link above, or see the Forms tab to download a copy.
You can also see the Connecticut Town Clerk's Association website.
See sidebar "additional links" for additional resources.


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JobbeschreibungJob Summary
Dutch speakers! Don't Scroll away just yet. Stay for a moment and read more on how your next career move could be in Belfast Northern Ireland where you will work in the Sales department for a top player in their industry. You will be challenged on a daily basis but you will love it - everyone loves the chase and you will have a supportive team right behind you. Click today for this Dutch Sales Job in Belfast and look forward to earning up to
£22,000 OTE gross. What are you waiting for get reading & we'll talk to you soon.
What will you do in this job?
Joining this particular Sales team in Belfast means that you will be responsible for managing your very own pipeline - understanding where you stand with all customers. You should be able to forecast just how much your expect to bring in for the following months, help co workers when needed and know our clients product/service offering inside so as to be able to offer and anticipate what clients will need.
Who will you be working for?
Our client nearly 15 years established now employing over 600 employees in the UK and Northern Ireland is a technology and services provider. With this particular client looking for a number language speakers they are currently looking for a Dutch speaker to fill the position of sales adviser.
With quirky benefits offered such as a weekly snack and getting you birthday off of work this client know how to treat their employees well.
Who are we looking for?
For this Dutch Sales job we are of course looking for excellent Dutch communication skills and for you to have a good level of English. Having at least 1 years previous experience in either B2C or B2B sales would be great for your application. You will need to have worked in a target driven environment as sales is a job for those who love a challenge and are not afraid of hearing no. Lastly of course we are looking for you to have some hard selling skills and a creative personality where you are not afraid to think outside the box.
Where would you be working?
Belfast is where you will be working, Belfast is in Northern Ireland a city bursting with life, where the local are great craic (fun), there are plenty of bars and restaurant's to socialise and you will always have amazing things to do and see with the likes of Giants Causeway, the Titanic Museum and its beautiful views.
Interview & Salary
The interview process for this sales adviser job is 3 fold, you will be invited for a quick phone screen, then an online email assessment and lastly a phone interview making it great for those who live abroad, you don't have to fly over for an interview.
If you are successful you will offered a yearly entry level salary of £16,500(gross) not forgetting that you could earn up to £22,000 OTE on commission, along with great benefits such as a monthly transportation allowance, a number of discounts on goods or services and much more.
If you have any questions about this Dutch sales job please do not hesitate to contact us on +353 15 24 24 20.
If you like what you see then APPLY TODAY and send us your CV in English.
Pssst did you know we also have a Careertrotter.nl ?
Why not check it out today & don't forget to tell your friends.
Why not check it out today & don't forget to tell your friends.


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Celebrating over 75 years of interconnect manufacturing excellence, Amphenol Corporation is one of the largest manufacturers of interconnect products in the world. Founded in 1932 in Chicago, Amphenol designs, manufactures, markets, and distributes electrical, electronic and fiber optic connectors, interconnect systems, coaxial, and specialty cables to various customers, ranging from large multi-billion dollar OEMs to consumers. Amphenol is publicly-traded (NYSE: APH) since 1999 and is a component of the S&P 500 Index. With decades of manufacturing expertise and over 65 production facilities around the globe, Amphenol offers cost-effective solutions for each application need. We employ more than 30,000 people worldwide. Cables on Demand, a division of Amphenol Corporation, has offices located in New York and California.
At Amphenol Cables on Demand™ (ACD), we guarantee our interconnect products to be of the highest quality as demanded by our largest OEM customers. Only premium materials and quality engineering are used in the design and manufacturing of our Amphenol Cables on Demand™ product offerings. ACD takes great pride in our compliance with global industry standards and environmental compliances, such as UL, CSA, and RoHS compliance. ACD offers thousands of cables in stock and same day shipping for most orders made before 3pm eastern. ACD's fulfillment warehouse is built with state of the art systems and equipment to guarantee expedited shipment of your order.
As a commitment to offering high-quality, reliable, and on-demand products, ACD continually tests and develops new products to meet the growing needs of today's customers and tomorrow's future applications. To maintain position for the highest standard of excellence in an ever-changing market, Cables on Demand continues to embrace the latest technology and relentlessly improve the product quality, breadth, and innovation. Exceeding customer expectations will always be our benchmark for providing top customer service.


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OVERVIEW: 3 things to know about the focus of this exciting new text, "Dynamic Business Law": -Emphasis on the BUSINESS in business law. "Dynamic Business Law" emphasizes the tie of legal issues back to the core business curriculum. This will help both students and faculty. Students need to understand how the concepts they learn in this course tie into their business careers. Instructors can easily show that the study of business law is best seen as a foundational component of the larger study of business administration. -Emphasis on TEACHING. We know that many of you teaching this course are practicing attorneys, have little prep time for this course, and often don't have a lot of resources at your disposal or teach the course as effectively as you might like. "Dynamic Business Law" is written with you in mind. It contains a very detailed and helpful instructor's manual, particularly for the many adjuncts teaching this course. And most importantly, the author team has won dozens of teaching awards, both state and national, and they are dedicated to help you get started using this book. -Emphasis on ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING. In chapter 2, the authors introduce a framework for making ethical business decisions that students can use on a regular basis. Following each case there are questions designed to train students to apply this approach. Then repeatedly throughout the chapters, questions about business ethics are raised in the text. This framework is designed to help improve the learning process of students and to give a sense of relevancy to the ethical decision making process.Dan Herron is the author of 'Dynamic Business Law', published 2008 under ISBN 9780073524917 and ISBN 0073524913.[read more]
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