Matter and Mathematics: An Essentialist Account of Laws of Nature

by Andrew Younan

To borrow a phrase from Galileo: What does it mean that the story of the creation is "written in the language of mathematics?" This book is an attempt to understand the natural world, its consistency, and the ontology of what we call laws of nature, with a special focus on their mathematical expression. It does this by arguing in favor of the Essentialist interpretation over that of the Humean and Anti-Humean accounts. It re-examines and critiques Descartes' notion of laws of nature following from God's activity in the world as mover of extended bodies, as well as Hume's arguments against causality and induction. It then presents an Aristotelian-Thomistic account of laws of nature based on mathematical abstraction, necessity, and teleology, finally offering a definition for laws of nature within this framework.

Genres: Philosophy, Theory

256 pages, Hardcover

Published January 20, 2023

About the author

Fr. Andrew Youman is an author and a professor of philosophy and biblical languages at John Paul the Great Catholic University in Escondido, California.

Fr. Andrew served as rector of the Seminary of Mar Abba the Great, the seminary of the Chaldean Catholic Diocese of St. Peter the Apostle, until 2016.

He was granted the mandatum by then-Bishop Robert Brom of San Diego, as an ecclesial recognition of Fr. Andrew’s posture and commitment to teach always in communion with the Church.

Fr. Andrew has written several books. He is also a translator of Aramaic and is the translator/editor of the Emmanuel prayer book, which contains English translations of Chaldean liturgical prayers. He is the co-author of Introductory Chaldean and Chaldean Grammar and the author of Perpetual Jubilee: Meditations on the Chaldean Liturgical Year.

Fr. Andrew earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit in 2001 and a master’s degree in philosophy and theology from the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, with honors for his thesis, “The Mesopotamian School and Theodore of Mopsuestia.”