At this point, perhaps the most helpful thing that I can do is show you a few  theories that wanted to cover everything that were proposed an ontology, how  does it all hang together, so that you get the idea of what what I'm talking about.  No doubt, you have not heard of any of this stuff before. So you need some  examples. So I'm going to start, I'm going to leave this list over here. And I'm  going to start with the theories of Pythagoras. And his followers, they not only  did mathematics, if you remember from schools, studying the Pythagorium  theory and other things, such as that in geometry, but they had an ontology. And  they recognized at the same time, that what they regarded as generating  everything else, was also divine. It won't surprise you maybe, maybe it will, to  hear the what they said this was is numbers. Everything is made of numbers. So whereas you and I might think more of atomic theory, I think everything is made  up of atoms. For Pythagoras and his followers, it was not it was numbers.  Things are clusters of numbers. And numbers combined this way in that way to  form different things, but the numbers themselves are self existent and generate everything else. So they normally did mathematics as a commune, they prayed  to numbers, they, they worship them. Almost nobody does that anymore. But  there's still people who think that the mathematical is that on which everything  else depends. And that's what they held. So to use the metaphor, I started with  the necklace, and the string of the beads. But their claim is, this isn't just one  bead on the necklace. This is the string, everything else is held together,  because numbers combined in different ways, such as to produce things that  have these other different characteristics. So it's what hangs everything  together. And mathematical truth is therefore the most fundamental truth that  there is. It's eternal, it's uncreated. It's changeless. It generates the world of  change in which we live. But it's the explanation of everything in the world in  which we live. That's an ontology that's a theory of reality that's hanging  everything together. Though, that's not the only one. Here's another one. I  already gave you Thales so why don't we take Plato, this is a little more  complex. But you you will see why it's an example of what we've been talking  about. Plato looks around the world says there are a lot of things that we are  puzzling about this world running really puzzling. For one thing, every object that we see, is only in one place at one time each object is distinct from any other  object. But then they have qualities, that are the same. This chair isn't that chair, but they're both blue. Blue then isn't like an object. Blue can be many places at  once. And he calls terms that apply to many things at once. universals. How are  you? How is this universal knowledge possible? That's what he asked himself.  And he comes up with a theory, his theory is ready for this. There's another  realm of reality. And in the other realm of reality, is the perfect blueness. And all  the blue things in the world in which we live, are imperfect copies of it. So that's  why trees are the way they are. There's the perfect tree in this other world. And  all the trees that we see are imperfect copies. The model for this and it grows 

our concerns. In mathematics, especially geometry, we have an idea of a perfect circle. But there's no such thing in this world. Where do we get that idea? We  have an idea of a perfectly straight line. But no matter how you try to draw one,  under enough magnification, it's not perfectly straight. It's irregular and jagged.  So where did we get the idea? Well, it's because it's played over our minds are  in touch with this other dimension of reality that's got all the perfections in it.  There's not only the perfect green in the perfect what it is to be a tree in perfect  what it is to be a horse. There are also perfect lines and points and they're all  the numbers are in the other world. So he absorbs he takes in part of what  Pythagoras was, was saying the math of mathematical is the does constitute the fundamental law order. In the universe, but it's only one of a lot of things in this  other world. There are also other kinds of perfections. And that's why we also  have the idea of perfect justice or goodness. Those are things that make  something better to have them or not have them. And we see imperfect  instances of those in this world, the perfection is in the other world. So for Plato,  there are two ways to explain what's going on in the world. There is the material  things are made of, that's what Thales is worried about, what kind of stuff is  that? And then there are the perfections. In the other world, and the perfections,  control how the matter gets shaped into things in this world. A lot more  complicated. And Plato now has two beads not one perfections, including  mathematical laws, but not limited to them as Pythagoras had it and matter and  matter would just be chaos, without the order imposed on it from the world of  perfection. Some later, Christians thought that sounded a lot like heaven, and  they identified heaven with the perfections, and read the perfections into God,  I'm going to argue that that was a serious mistake. Scripture doesn't speak, ever speak of God as all and only perfections, or even say anything about perfection,  when speaking of God. But that's another story for another day. And we will get  there in this course. So here are a few illustrations, we have Thales saying,  things are made of matter of what kind of matter well, maybe it's water, that's the most basic form of matter. And as you may remember, if some of you have read  this, the Greeks had other theories, he said water, others said earth, air or fire.  And finally, when we get to 500, BC, Democritus Democritus, and Leucippus  proposed, no, it's none of those. It's little things called atoms, and how the  atoms combined makes Earth, air, fire or water. So that theory goes all the way  back to 500 years before Christ. I wish I could hear your questions. But these  examples are to show how people come over here and what they pick out and  what they don't. They pick out the mathematical or the physical, they want  matter to be the certain kind, the laws to be quantitative, having to do with  mathematics, Aristotle, Plato's great student, proposed the theory of reality,  which was different, it was matter, and you might call them perfections. But he  thought the main characteristic of them was logical rather than mathematical.  And rather than say they were in another realm, he said they were in each and 

everything. So the perfect form for what it is to be a horse is in every imperfect  horse. We're not going to go into that any further, you would be relieved to hear  that, but these are examples of picking one of the beads or two of the beads.  And claiming, here we have the string that tells us how all things in the widest  sense of things hang together in the widest sense of hanging together. It's  remarkable to me that how appropriate that quote is, when the New Testament  has a comment already about that, in Colossians 1, this is exactly what Paul  wrote in that letter, that through Christ, all things hang together, you begin to get  the picture. If you don't put Christ there, then you put some part of creation. You  do what Paul called in Romans 1, replace the creator with something he  created. You make that what holds all things together, when in fact, it's God  through Christ only. That also can give you a little foretaste of the critique to  come of picking any one of these, or any two and saying this is what hangs all  things together. No, it's God through Christ. So we should have a distinctive  point of view. Let me give you one more example. And then we'll quit the  examples for the day. These are all ancient examples. So let's take something  contemporary what's going on now. Materialism forms today a theory of reality  advocated by a lot of people. I don't know that it's, it's certainly not, I don't think  it's a majority of philosophers. But it's, it may be a plurality, it may be the largest  single group. And it's a very vocal and loud group, and a group that has a lot of  talent. And what they're saying is, everything is fundamentally physical. The  fundamental realities, we can't name, we it's not atoms, we know that, because  atoms are not indestructible. But whatever it is, that is the divine basis of  everything else, whatever it is, that generates everything else, and is itself self  existence is something physical, we don't know what but whatever it is, it's going to be physical. So physics is the science that's really going to hang everything  together. Because all of these, the rest of these are real, if they are real, only to  the, to the extent that they're produced by matter. So what we have, at the basis  of all reality, and this is their expression, is the purely physical. Whatever those  things are, they might turn out to be quantum entities or something, but no one  knows quite what they are. But they're sure that whatever it is, that is  fundamental to all reality, and hangs everything else together, is the purely  physical. And they are perplexed most by human rationality, by what we would  call minds. What are minds? Some of them are extreme physicists, and they say nothing. Listeners, nothing has any characteristic except physical  characteristics. And physical laws are the only laws that hold for reality. That's  pretty difficult to defend, because it means that would mean that there really are  no logical laws, which are the very laws by which we think and propose that  theory. But others will tell will tell us, there's the basic physical reality. And if it  gets complex enough, then other these other kinds of characteristics emerge, or supervene, on the physical. And that's what we call mind. So some of them think there are really only brains and brain processes. But what we think, by using 

those processes, is what we call a mind. So the mind isn't another non physical  thing. It's different from the brain in the way that a software program is different  from the computer in which you run it. The brain is the hardware. And what we  call mind the thoughts, concepts, desires, fears, hopes. They're like the program that runs it so that programs completely dependent on the, on the brain. And yet  others differ a little again, they say there's the brain, and there's the mind and  the mind is a separate and distinct thing. Even if it depends on only arises from  the brain. It has characteristics that brains don't, and it's in that experience that  we find such things as logical laws, or beauty or ethical right and wrong.  Whatever. Those are all versions, so there are many versions of materialism.  But here it is. It means what's fundamental in reality, the string again, that hangs together all the beads. Materialism in philosophy then doesn't mean that  somebody's interested only in accumulating wealth, and objects and things.  That's what we sometimes use it that way. And it's common speech. But that's  not what it means in philosophy means being a physicalist. It means saying,  what's fundamental, what hangs everything together, whatever else you're going to allow, in your theory, it hangs together because of the physical, but purely  physical. And we'll come to that stuff as well later in this course. I will argue that  actually the expression purely physical is meaningless. So that, again, is a piece of the Christian critique of the way that often gets done these days. Okay,  quickly, a recap. What we've done today in this lecture, these three parts is first  of all explain what a theory is. They're our guesses that we insert in the gaps of  our knowledge, in order to get an explanation that happens within the sciences  that are represented by all these things over here. And it happens in ontology it  happens in philosophy when we, when we take one of them we try to show why  it's the cause of all the rest. It's what hangs the rest together. Then we looked at  the fact that this theory making replaced myth making as a way of explaining we distinguished series that occur within any of these areas with ontologies that try  to give us the big picture how it all hangs together. And we saw some examples  of all of this, of course, plays off of our experience, our common experience, so  the world around us prior to making theories. Christian philosophy is going to  accept that and not try to refute it as though it's some kind of false theory.  What's presented to us is the world as God made it and as we experience it, so  we're going to take that part seriously, you're not going to turn around and say,  for example, some of the materials do well, the physical is the only real one. All  the rest are illusions. And they do say that there are people with their bare faces  hanging out, they tell you that, how they can fail to die of embarrassment, I have no idea but they do it. So we're going to also have our theory about how all  things hang together. But the identity of the one who causes all things to hang  together is not a theory that's been revealed to us in God's word, as God  through his Son Jesus Christ, and only God through His Son Jesus Christ. We'll  end there for today.