Reasons for Templeton Prize Nomination
(Note: the Templeton Prize is worth over $1 million, and is the largest annually awarded prize in the world, surpassing the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes.)
Dr. Herrmann has answered the most fundamental question associated with the relationship between theology and science. Can certain theological concepts be investigated by means of the scientific method? For hundreds of years, such philosophers as Feuerbach, Marx, Engels as well as many present day philosophers and scientists have claimed that theological concepts were scientifically irrational and thus could not be investigated by scientific means. Like most questions in science a simply stated question is often the most difficult to answer. Indeed, this question could not be answered explicitly until after Abraham Robinson, in the late 1960s, had discovered the new mathematical techniques called Nonstandard Analysis. These are the techniques, coupled with exceptional creativity and innovation, that Dr. Herrmann has used to answer this question affirmatively and, hence, he has shown that this claim is false. Moreover, as described below, his methods, at the least, have extraordinary and startling application to three major and fundamental theological concepts.
Although Dr. Herrmann's techniques can be applied to all major theological doctrine, he chose to apply them to the doctrine displayed within the Judeo-Christian Bible. Using a few Biblical paraphrases expressed by C. S. Lewis, Dr. Herrmann constructed a mathematical structure that models by means of scientific logic all of the Godhead attributes described within the Bible as they are compared with attributes of His created. This yields the Grundlegend-model (G-model) and thus answers the above question affirmatively relative to Godhead attributes as Biblically described. The existence of a Divine being exhibiting such attributes can be argued for by means of scientific logic and these attributes can be comprehended and studied in the same manner as is done within theoretical science.
The Bible contains numerously many statements that compare the Divine mind or mental attributes with those of His created. Dr. Herrmann refined that portion of the G-model that gives the general approach to modeling Divine attributes and produced the deductive-world (D-world) model. The D-world model is a scientific model for all of the Biblically described Divine mental and communication attributes as they are compared with those of His created. Again this means that the Biblically described "mind of God'' can be investigated by means of scientific logic and such behavior can be comprehended and studied by using the basic methods of theoretical science.
Using a new interpretation for the D-world model and the same methods utilized for the G-model, Dr. Herrmann constructed the metamorphic-anamorphosis (MA-model). This model can be used to answer both secular and theological questions. From a secular viewpoint, it yields a solution to the General Grand Unification Problem among others. From the theological viewpoint, the MA-model gives a scientific model for the various Divine creation scenarios described within the Bible. The existence of this mathematical model shows that various Biblically based creation scenarios can be investigated by means of the theoretical aspects of the scientific method. This is exceptionally significant to the work of all of those scientists who are attempting to verify that one of the many possible MA-model creation scenarios is the specific Divine creation scenario that has produced the universe in which we dwell.
This nomination is being made since many individuals believe that scientific investigations of theological concepts, investigations that are being undertaken by hundreds of philosophers and scientists, would not be justified unless the above question could be answered affirmatively and answered by means of an exceptionally strong scientific argument. This Dr. Herrmann has done with his very significant research findings that certain theological concepts can be investigated by means of scientific logic. His application of these mathematical methods to three basic theological concepts and his mathematically derived conclusions should greatly aid our comprehension of God's attributes, in general, and increase our understanding of God's created visible and invisible kingdoms.
(Relayed from CRSnet, 12/96)
Return to
Reviews, etc.