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Questions and Answers
Professor John Lennox discusses Christianity, atheism and science
1. The Universe
Doesn't Care
2. Our Sense of Time
3. Intelligent Design
4. What is Truth?
As a curtain raiser - three important quotes / extracts on Orthodoxy's understanding of the relationship between religion and science, one from antiquity, two others from today.
St. Augustine of Hippo
"Even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and
the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the
stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable
eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons,
about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this
knowledge he holds as being certain from reason and experience.
Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a
Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking
nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such
an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a
Christian and laugh it to scorn. " (St. Augustine on Genesis)
Fr. Gregory's Lecture at the Orthodox Youth Festival in Ilam, Derbyshire on Monday 2nd May 2011 (Powerpoint)
Title: The Image of God and our place in the Universe
Fr. Gregory's Lecture at Manchester Metropolitan University on Orthodox Christianity and Science, 24th February 2011
Orthodox Christianity, Science and Truth from Gregory Hallam on Vimeo. In this lecture at Manchester Metropolitan University I show how Religion and Science are not incompatible. I propose that the Faith of the Orthodox Church, which is so distinctive and different from all other Christian churches, has some interesting insights to offer.
"Orthodox Christianity and the Sciences of our Time" So ....
The Participants to Date This exchange is open to anyone who wants
to contribute, (moderation rights for the discussion vest in the Web Editor).
Please contact Fr. Gregory if you
have a contribution to make. There is another page on this site that looks at
Cosmology from an Orthodox Christian point of
view. Here is the link to the
"Intelligent Design" section of this
debate.
DISCUSSION 1:
THE UNIVERSE DOESN'T CARE! Fr. Gregory writes ... Consider our sun, the celestial body without
which there would be no life on earth. This is not simply because without
the sun the earth would wander dark and cold through interstellar space but
also by reason of another more fundamental aspect of life and even of
physical existence itself. “It is almost irresistible for humans to
believe that we have some special relation to the universe, that human
life is not just a more-or-less farcical outcome of a chain of accidents
reaching back to the first three minutes, but that we were somehow built
from the beginning . . . It is hard to realize that this all [i.e., life
on Earth] is just a tiny part of an overwhelmingly hostile universe. It is
even harder to realize that this present universe has evolved from an
unspeakably unfamiliar early condition, and faces a future extinction of
endless cold or intolerable heat. The more the universe seems
comprehensible, the more is also seems pointless.” As far as death in the Universe is concerned, I think as Christians we have
to say that death was not part of God's original design for creation but
rather arose from the Fall and spread out to the whole of the Cosmos.
Likewise the benefits of Christ's victorious resurrection are by no means
limited to humankind but, in the light of Romans 8:18-25 equally spread to
the whole Cosmos. We all have to die and I don't
know, qualitatively speaking, how you can compare an 80 year old with a long
terminal illness and an 8 year old killed in Hurricane Katrina. All I know
is that life is an enormous privilege and gift for as long as it lasts. I
think that our lives are God's little experiment not only to get sentient
beings knowing themselves and the world around them but also, of course, God
himself. Our deaths then become a harvest of that intelligence,
consciousness, wisdom into that Greater Mind which is God Himself lovingly
bringing forth ever new creations to his own joy and the joy of his
creatures .... maybe eternally and without limit. To be consciously aware of
that if only for three score years and ten is an immense privilege. I look
forward to the time when we shall truly know and see him as a friend might,
face to face. David writes ... A very thought-provoking article! Fr. Gregory writes ... Ah, Mr. Kay ... I loved that guy. He
inspired me more than anyone to do Maths. Anyway, David, I think I am write in saying that
at the Big Bang there was one superforce and it was only after cooling that
symmetry broke and along with it came into being the four elemental forces,
(electromagnetism, the weak force, the strong force and gravity), along with
all those subatomic particles and fields. In other words symmetry had
to break for there to be life. The breaking of symmetry came about
from quantum fluctuations that we still theorise today in the false vacuum
of space. There is a sort of infinite regression though here.
Perhaps we should be asking not so much why the Universe isn't symmetrical
as why is the Universe so frothy? David writes ...
It’s the simple questions that usually tax science the most. Fr. Gregory writes ...
I believe that it is literally impossible for the human mind to conceive of
nothing. Here's my argument.
David writes ...
I agree completely. Following on from the first point you list, not only can
we not conceive of nothing but, for the same reason, we can't really grasp
infinity, timelessness, and the fourth or higher dimensions. Time is an
intriguing problem both in physics and theology. We can't conceive of there
being no time; yet, according to Big Bang theory, space and time came into
existence at some point. What was there before Time Zero? And, if there was
no time, how could there have been a transition from no-time to time, since
the transition must have taken place in time?! Timelessness, spacelessness,
and nothingness defy the brain's ability to analyse, it seems. Part of God,
at least, presumably exists outside conventional spacetime, in some mystery
state that our minds cannot apprehend.
DISCUSSION 2: OUR SENSE OF TIME
Fr. Gregory writes ...
The universal human experience of time is that it flows, it passes, it moves
on ... quickly or slowly of course, but the image is that of a river that
flows past us or carries us along. The trouble is that this is not how
contemporary science handles time. Space-time, the four dimensions in
which we live, move and have our being is a block concept in which past,
present and future are merely different coordinates specified by an
observer.
On this account, time has no absolute character, it exists in a relational
manner, wholly dependent on movement and change. Even if our human
sense of time is really put down to a trick of consciousness there are even
some who would describe consciousness itself in similar relational terms.
It seems as if we are condemned to live out our lives wholly dependent on a
comforting illusion.
It strikes me though that this is a rather strange way for evolution to have
driven human development. Normally evolution is a most realistic
engine for life; it assists an organism adapt to its environment for the
purpose of survival but here we seem to have been prepared for life with
Alice in Wonderland. Maybe the White Rabbit should chill out and take
on a different perspective! But why should this be so difficult?
Could it be that we should not completely distrust our senses or perhaps, to
take the other option, we should rather organise our social lives
counter-intuitively on strictly scientific principles? Of course for
most purposes we can pretend to live in Newton's absolute universe but with
our subjective sense of time this really does raise very difficult issues.
There are, of course, philosophical and religious issues concerning time.
From my own Orthodox Christian tradition a distinction is made between
chronos and kairos, sequential time and fitting or appropriate time.
The former is value (if not observer) free, whereas the latter requires a
subjective, interpretative input. Perhaps this is what consciousness
has been designed to achieve ... an adaptation of time for human purposes.
Perhaps we are not slaves to the clock after all.
David writes ...
The notion that times moves by us or, alternatively, that we move through
time is something we're all brought up with. It then becomes very hard to
think of time in any other way. But even this familiar concept of moving
time has its problems, because if time moves or we move through time, then
another order of time is needed against which to measure the movement! Then
we're quickly into an infinite regress. (I recommend J. W. Dunne's classic
"An Experiment With Time" for an entertaining theory of time - and mind -
based on this regress.) But the block universe of relativity, in which
all of space and time is already (whatever that may mean!) laid immutably
also creates difficulties, as you say. For one thing, it makes all of
existence seem extremely pointless. Since every detail of physical reality -
past, present, or future - is already determined, we have, in truth, no
freedom to bring about another outcome. What interests me greatly is the meaning that can
be attached to the present moment. There's no "now" in physics - no notion
of a special moment in time. Yet to us, individually, it is everything
because it's the split-instant at which our consciousness resides. Without
consciousness, past, present, and future are stripped of meaning. Let me ask you, Father Gregory, about your belief
about time as it relates to God. Cosmologists say that both space and time
came into being in the Big Bang. Hence, there was no "before" the Big Bang
in any meaningful sense. Yet, presumably, God exists both within and outside
our material cosmos and was instrumental in its creation. If there was no
"before" the Big Bang, how are we to grasp how God could have been active
since activity of any kind appears to demand time. Fr. Gregory writes ... As it happens, Judaism, Christianity and Islam
all agree that space and time were created along with the physical universe.
At least in our Universe there was no space or time "before" or "in place
of" the four dimensions of the space-time continuum which "now" is the
context for all existence and consciousness. The "present moment" is a slippery idea. No
sooner do we try and capture it and it becomes locked into (our) past.
We may anticipate a future moment as "present" at some point of the space
time continuum. No sooner has our lifeline intersected at this point
than we face the same problem; the coordinates recede (or appear to recede)
from our consciousness. Yet, we do not live either in the past or the
future.
Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, an outstanding bishop of the Russian
Orthodox Church in the 19th century wrote the following:- "All creatures are balanced upon the creative
word of God, That diamond bridge is both our 4
dimensional coordinates and the sustaining of the Cosmos, moment by moment,
(if we can speak in such a manner) by the creative word of God. It is
not that God somehow kick-started creation and then sat back to watch the
firework display. Still less is creation some sort of gratuitous
unnecessary extra added ingredient conjured up to displace a scientific
description of physical processes. That which God represents in
creation is, as I have said, a sustaining power. Without his
continuously creative word all would immediately collapse back into the
singularity. It follows that the present moment is God
"saying" (continuously) "BE!" Living truly "now" (rather than in our
memories or dreams, essential those these are) involves living continuously
with our consciousness connected to this creative word. "Before the Big Bang" is a meaningless phrase
both in cosmology and the aforementioned religious traditions when applied
to THIS Universe. In the conjectural Multiverse where there are many
alternate, parallel realities, arguable there is still only one (mega)
Cosmos. If THIS Cosmos had a "beginning" from nothing, then the same
argument applies. If God has always been creating then we need to
provide a model of divine activity that allows for both limited and
unlimited creations. Such a model exists in radical monotheistic
transcendence. Happily, in those monotheisms where God is
infinitely transcendent to all created categories, his activity requires
neither time nor space for he cannot create within a creation thereby
necessitating space and time which themselves must be created. To
speak of time and space in relation to God's Being is to speak nonsense as
surely as it is to speak of created existence without space and time.
God, being Uncreated and Transcendent has no such limitations.
Paradoxically, for this reason he also has the capacity to self limit in
order to manifest himself within a particular creation. Be that as it
may, it is radical monotheistic transcendence, omnipresent spatially and
temporally, that makes most sense of the world that we see around us ... or
so this writer thinks.
David writes ...
"Now" is such a mind-boggling concept. There seems to be just one now - the
wavecrest of the present that continuously separates past from future. For
us, the very nature of consciousness seems to demand existence at just one
moment. Our awareness is like a spotlight that illuminates just one
split-second at a time. I can't even conceive what it would be like to be
aware in reality across a span of time. (I'm not referring to memories or
future speculation here but actual, trans-temporal mindfulness). Yet I
presume God has this awareness - awareness that spans, in one awesome
totality, all of spacetime, in this and any other universes. So, as you
describe it, He must be sustaining all of these points in space and time
simultaneously - saying "BE!", always and everywhere. For Him, there is, I'm
supposing, no sequential time or specific now but rather an
all-encompassing, omnipresent now. Is that how you see
it? Also, I'd like to hear more about the meaning of "kairos" - the
kind of time that the physicist is not familiar with. Does this refer to key
moments in history at which God acts, or is compelled to act, in
particularly decisive ways? Also, since God is omniscient and must somehow
know how the play will unfold, what does that say about the extent to which
we truly have any free-will? Fr. Gregory writes ...
Everything you have said David before "Is that how you
see it?" is a highly accurate and lucid description of my position,
reflecting also Orthodox Christian teaching. You have also correctly
identified "kairos" as used in the New Testament, save that compulsion qua
God may only be predicated by Infinite Love, not any other kind of
necessity. The more difficult question of course
is the last. In Tom Stoppard's classic play, "Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern are Dead," two minor characters from the play, "Hamlet" stumble
around unaware of their scripted lives and unable to deviate from them.
In this Stoppard mirrors Stephen Hawking's famous "chronology protection
conjecture" by which the past remains the past. Like the play and
Calvin's topology of heaven and earth "all is fixed."
I really do think that Calvinism's conception of divine sovereignty and
omniscience / omnipotence has bequeathed a fatal legacy to western theology
... even amongst those who would most strongly repudiate Calvin. We
need to paint a new picture of human freedom and divine sovereignty ... one
where one does not collapse into the other. A similar challenge lies
before those who would seek to reconcile a completely self regulating Cosmos
and the same Cosmos as one totally dependent on God. Richard Dawkins
has referred to any theology beyond the chance product of emergent
complexity as "gratuitous." I want rather to suggest that we
appreciate a model of God's action which maintains creation's freedom and in
which gratuity as "gift" is a vital part.. In this model, without God,
creation would not be free at all. It would collapse under its own
weight, a dead thing. That is quite a different conception of God's
action and foreknowledge. In a sense we could say that God is
continuously writing the Play of Life as the actors respond within the plot.
The Orthodox Church has a theological term for this mutually enhancing
freedom of creation and God ... synergeia. Synergeia means that God's
freedom engenders ours and vice versa. That would make a completely
different rewrite of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern ... and a much better
account of the relationship between God and Creation in my view.
David writes ...
This notion of synergia is quite compelling and links up with
something I mentioned in our earlier conversation about why there is
something rather than nothing. I went through a phase in the early 1990s
when I was greatly enamoured with John Wheeler's Participatory Anthropic
Principle (my book Equations of Eternity was based on it), which sees the
universe as pulling itself up by its own bootstraps. Basically, the universe
comes into being and then evolves to the stage at which it can observe
itself into being through quantum observership. If we accept that quantum
systems don't become fully realized until they are observed - "fully
realized" and "observed" being very loaded terms! - then it may be that
global observership is needed to select and "actualize" the particular
universe we are living in. The fact that the inhabitants are active in
defining their cosmic home and place of origin ensures that it is fit and
necessary for their existence (thus explaining so-called cosmic
coincidences). In this scheme, there is a mutual interaction of mind,
matter, and mathematics (or the laws of physics) at the root of reality. But
later, I must admit, although I was satisfied by the logic and
self-sufficiency of Wheeler's PAP, it seemed curiously sterile and
pointless, as if it left out everything that was of personal interest and
meaning. Is it possible, however, to see in the PAP a kind of physics-only
aspect of the Orthodox position - in other words, what someone might
conclude about the way the cosmos was set up if they chose not to believe in
God? The Godless PAP could be seen to work in an academic sense but is
devoid of purpose, morality, love. The synergia you describe adds the vital
ingredient that gives existence any point - our realization not as mere
physical entities but as moral, spiritual beings. I could see in a
God-infused PAP the scope for human freedom of determination, from the
quantum level up, within a framework that is bound toward some inevitable
global conclusion with a spiritual root. To take your play analogy further, if we are
actors within the Play of Life then clearly we are here through courtesy -
grace - of the Playwright. We are only given meaning through divine
intervention. Is the reverse also true? Is God's existence given purpose
through the lives of intelligence and consciousness throughout the universe?
Is God even in some way fully realized through our realization? Fr. Gregory writes ...
I wholeheartedly endorse your first paragraph David. Sign me up for
"God-infused PAP"! Now to the intriguing question in the second.
Although the answer to that last question David is necessarily speculative
since we must maintain a certain agnosticism about God's own inner purpose
and realisation in relation to creation, nonetheless your characterisation
has the great merit of taking the creation seriously as a dynamic purposeful
entity once consciousness activates / is activated in relation to its
transcendent ground (God).
That God might himself be "satisfied" by the evolving character of his
consciousness imbued Cosmos and that in this satisfaction his own inner
being might be augmented need not necessarily fall at the fence of God's
matchless perfection.
We might take an analogy from mathematics in
Cantor's 19th century work on the hierarchy of
infinity sets. (Thank you for your links here David!)
Therefore, to the objection "how can one improve on infinity?" (substitute
"God" for "infinity") one might respond that this is a malformed question.
It is not a question of "improvement" but, rather, how God's perfection
becomes realised in a higher order of relation; relation that is to
something "not-God" ... in other words, creation.
One can see something of this process in Olaf Stapledon's great work:
"Starmaker." Here, the Creator in a sense becomes himself through
the evolution of his creations. Perhaps in Stapledon's work there is
an insufficient sense of the relation between Creator and creation.
Einstein never could quite affirm that either. Somehow, it is thought,
the Universe is so vast and seemingly impersonal and oblivious to us
that we must conclude that God (if he exists) is a toymaker who cares
nothing for his toys. He plays with them, breaks them, as might a
child, and discards them without a second thought. No human father or
mother neglects weaker more sickly children that the stronger might survive.
How can God's parental morality be less diligent than that of humanity at
its best? Surely this "god" is unworthy of our love. Indeed he
is.
The difference, the "added value" if you will from a Christian point of view
(and more especially from an Orthodox Christian point of view) is that God,
in the Incarnation, as a special example of a more universal principle,
subjects himself to the vicissitudes of his evolving creation. He
really does become exposed to the tragic as well as the exultant part of the
creative process itself, "even unto death." (Philippians 2:1-11).
Through this exposure he is able to bring creation to its fulfilment,
proleptically in resurrection and, moreover, he grants participation of
creation Now in that End. In conclusion I must speak of that
participation, which is an ascent.
St.
Gregory of Nyssa who died in about 395 AD is one of the key eastern
fathers in respect of stretching forward
toward the Infinite (God) in the ascetic life. He sees
humanity's calling as one of Infinite Ascent into the Limitless One whereby
the whole Cosmos is transfigured (as humanity is a microcosm of the Cosmos).
If this is true, which I believe it is, then our vocation in time is to be
part of God's final purpose for the Cosmos which is to attain to the
Unattainable, a high calling indeed, made even more glorious by the prospect
that God himself through this manifests his own glory, a glory which is
inextricably tied up with our own in synergeia.
David writes ...
Stapledon's "Starmaker" sprang to my mind, too! Nothing else in SF comes
quite so close to spectacularly portraying what an all-powerful being might
be capable of. Yet, as you say, the Starmaker seems often to suffer from our
own weaknesses - growing bored with his creations and tossing them aside
when they don't work out they way he'd hoped. One of the problems I have
with my simplistic interpretations of the Old Testament is that the OT God
seems behave exactly this way - flooding us into near-extinction when we
don't measure up to expectations, etc! The cosmic scheme you espouse in your last post,
Father Gregory, is very attractive to me, both scientifically and
spiritually. I'm still struggling, however, over some issues regarding the
extent of God's omniscience and our own apparent impotence - which returns
us to the nature and necessity of time but places more questions over the
extent of our freedom of action. The Resurrection is an integral and
essential element in the fulfillment of God's creation, as I understand what
you say. So, the events leading up to the Resurrection - the execution of
Jesus, etc - in some way had to happen. Hence, God must have known "in
advance" what would take place. This gave the executioners of Jesus no real
choice - they had to play their part, however dastardly, in order for the
cosmos to turn out the way it has and will. It seems that God required that
some people be prepared to kill his Son in order for the cosmic plan to work
out. This seems like prejudgement of a high order. I know, as you point out
(though Stephen Hawking might disagree!), that we can't know the mind of
God. But how can it be that to save Man and allow the universe to realize
its full spiritual potential, some individuals were required to commit the
ultimate evil? Fr. Gregory writes ...
Let's pen an alternative gospel David. Jesus experiences opposition
but is not killed by others but rather dies naturally of old age in his bed.
Through a long life he continues to heal the sick and manifest the Kingdom
of God, showing us all how to be reconciled to God and each other and how to
live. Upon his death, 3 days cold in the morgue, HE STILL RESURRECTS.
There is nothing at all pre-determined about his life. Sin still
exists and virtue also. Death still remains the final enemy; the
resurrection its undoing. To be an Orthodox Christian is to completely
unlearn Augustinian determinism in both its (moderate) Roman Catholic and
(extreme) Protestant form. In the Orthodox frame of reference; if hell
exists, we are responsible for creating it, not God, and God is well able to
"uncreate" it ... indeed this is what we believe the POTENTIAL of the
resurrection means for all the Cosmos (or Multiverse). Orthodoxy is
indeed a very different way of being a Christian!
DISCUSSION 3: INTELLIGENT DESIGN
For Fr. Gregory's Blog article on
"Orthodoxy and Creationism" go
here. It has some relevance for this section of the debate.
Welcome to another correspondent! Gillian
Peall
Gillian writes on a connected issue ...
Intelligent Design (ID). I’ve heard several versions of
this. One end of the spectrum being, basically, Young Earth Creationism
without the young earth! If evolution is allowed at all then it is
controlled evolution, by God, and nothing to do with chance mutations and
what have you. And a lot about if we had so much more or less
oxygen/atmospheric pressure, or were further from or nearer to the sun, we
wouldn’t be here – just seems to make us unique in a very self-centred
way, At the other end of the ID spectrum, all that is said is that
God=Creator-with-a-plan.
This is where I get confused! I know we can’t say ‘before’ the
Big Bang, (BB), as there is no ‘before’. But if God is Creator, then he
must have pre-existed the BB. But can you talk about God ‘pre-existing’?
If he is beyond time and space, which he must be to be God, then everything
is ‘now’. Including the BB and today.
Is this so? When I think about the vastness of the Cosmos my
mind alternately worships God and wonders about his existence! I can’t
believe that homo sapiens is the only sentient life-form in our
galaxy, let alone among the millions of other galaxies. But I don’t
believe man will find that out before the end of our world. Whenever that
is. And I have to confess that the return of Jesus is another of my deep,
deep doubts!
So, is ID a reasonable concept? I believe all that geology,
astronomy, physics and the biological sciences tell us about the age of the
universe, the earth and how the flora and fauna of this planet evolved.
But presumably God didn’t just light the blue touch-paper and retire! I
can’t imagine the God I read about in the Bible being surprised by how
things turned out. (“Good grief! There’s a man!”) And this is mainly
because he must know, if he is God.
Sometimes I imagine everything like a huge tapestry
wall-hanging, like they had in medieval castles to keep the draughts out!
It tells a story, starting, say, at the bottom left hand corner, with a man
setting out on a journey. Then a few inches further in, we see the same
man having a problem, and so on until he reaches the other side of the
tapestry and gets to the castle/distressed maiden/home. But we can only
see one spot at a time – the ‘now’ for ourselves. We can’t even see the
‘now’ for other people, only where our spotlight catches them. The
‘tomorrow’ and the future is invisible, the past badly lit and fragile.
But God, as God sees the whole tapestry, from first to last, alpha to
omega. And more, for he sees the whole cosmos.
Is this ID? Or a fragment of my imagination? I’m never sure
how God can, or does, influence things. As you know, I have trouble seeing
him as a personal God who loves me though I never doubt that he
is a good God. Nor do I have trouble reconciling the Almighty
God of the Cosmos with the God in the design of a snowflake, or the beauty
of the smallest of cells. I can, just, hold that paradox together. I
think it just makes my worship and wonder greater.
I do struggle though. Are there really any answers? Can
faith ever be black and white, right or wrong?
Fr. Gregory writes ...
From where I am standing your description and explanation makes perfect
sense. The trouble is that "Intelligent Design" and "Creationism" represent
movements, themselves diverse, which are flawed in their understanding of
the relationship between revealed truth and natural science. We don't need
to use them. Let's sketch a few issues.
Gillian writes
Could you enlarge on this statement
...:
"To be an Orthodox Christian is to completely
unlearn Augustinian determinism in both its (moderate) Roman Catholic and
(extreme) Protestant form. In the Orthodox frame of reference; if hell
exists, we are responsible for creating it, not God, and God is well able
to "uncreate" it ... indeed this is what we believe the POTENTIAL of the
resurrection means for all the Cosmos (or Multiverse). Orthodoxy is
indeed a very different way of being a Christian!.
Fr. Gregory writes ...
Certainly Gillian!
One of the most disastrous legacies of St. Augustine to the Christian west
has been his doctrine of double predestination. In this doctrine he
asserted that human choices for and against God (heaven or hell in their
consequences) are false and illusory. God directs the response for in
no way can his power and responsibility be diminished by anything human.
Double predestination asserts that even the damned have no choice in the
matter. God has chosen their fate as well. In his latter life
Augustine became very sombre, even morbid in his preoccupation with human
depravity and the transitory nature of this life. He lived to see the
barbarian horde destroy a once cultured and lively North African church
(where he was bishop), Perhaps this explains the dark turn in his
later thought that, arguably, made God the author of evil as well as good.
A negative assessment of human freedom and human nature, in evidence
since his youth, now reasserted itself much more strongly. Much of
this theological determinism was honed in Augustine's disputations with the
British monk Pelagius who asserted a much greater role to human freedom than
most Christian theologians and Augustine in particular were prepared to
allow. One cannot avoid the conclusion though with St. Augustine that
the more he emphasised grace and God's sovereignty, the more he denied any
aspect of human freedom whatsoever.
The Church in the west never accepted the more
extreme aspects of his thought. Indeed the famous monastery at
Lerins challenged and tempered Augustinianism in the Catholic tradition.
In this, the west remained at one in spirit with the Christian east where
Augustine was never such a significant figure. At the Reformation,
however, Jean Calvin, in particular, fearlessly took up the standard of
Augustinian grace and for the greater part of the Protestant world
consolidated its position. It's noteworthy that most of the Reformed
Tradition in recent times has either clung tenaciously to double
predestination in a shrinking sectarian constituency or abandoned it
altogether and become universalist. The cultural heritage of this
theology in the post-Christian west has been much more persistent such
that it is now almost impossible nowadays to converse about God without
the objection arising that theism is fatally compromised by evil.
Well, if God is the source of evil, then yes. One then either has to
deny the reality of evil or suppose a dualism in which Satan becomes God's
equal adversary. Either way, human freedom is still not accommodated
... nor can it be whilst the religious infrastructure remains unmodified
Augustinian or Calvinist.
I hope I have showed
in some measure here that Orthodox Christianity has a very different take on
human freedom, the evolution of the Cosmos and God's activity.
David writes ...
As pointed out, both creationism and ID span large spectra. However, it's
becoming increasingly difficult for anyone - scientists especially - to give
publicly any kind of credence to these ideas without immediately being
pigeon-holed with the rabid Religious Right. And so the debate and debaters
become increasingly polarised. Yet, surely, what's being proposed in our
conversations here is that God is the overall architect and designer of the
cosmos and therefore that (lowercase!) intelligent design is indeed a
fundamental principle. I'm intrigued by Father Gregory's assertion that
randomness is an essential element of the universe as he understands it. Do
you think this God-instigated randomness is effectively the uncertainty
principle we see in quantum mechanics? In other words, did God inject
quantum uncertainty into the cosmos to give it the necessary freedom of
action and evolution? Of course, there are those - disciples of David Bohm -
who are still hoping to find hidden variables at work which would take the
randomness out of the subatomic realm. In a sense, are you saying, Father
Gregory, that Orthodoxy would expect those efforts to fail? And this gets me on to another point. It's the
contention of supporters of ID that the complexity we see in the universe
could not have come about by chance alone - that it must have been supplied
(by God). In other words, they are saying that high-order complexity alone
stands as a scientific (or at least a logical) proof of the existence of
God. And, as Gillian says, they say there are too many very special
conditions required for life for these conditions to have come about with
divine intervention. Nonsense, replies the atheist scientist. Complexity -
or the propensity for it - is just another one of those things that the
universe happens to have been born with. Of course the universe is complex,
they argue, because otherwise we wouldn't be here to wonder about it. There
could be countless trillions of non-complex, essentially randomly-structured
universes "out there". We just happen to be in one that has evolved, and by
good fortune had the built-in qualities, to become wonderfully ornate. So, I
ask two questions. How is one to answer this challenge from the atheist
scientist? And second, is there, in fact, any way that science can prove,
beyond reasonable doubt, the existence of God, or are all such efforts
ultimately doomed to failure? After all, if we could supply very strong
evidence for God through science, who would need faith? Oddly enough, as a scientist, I always find
myself feeling most removed from a Christian God when I contemplate the
vast, objective cosmos of astronomy and physics. In those moods I become
quite Buddhist in my thinking. But when I switch to the personal, to the
individual, then I'm more in tune with the notion of a caring Creator who's
mindful of each one of us. For me, science as it's normally practiced and
understood seems to take me further away from Christianity.
Fr. Gregory writes ...
I think I need to tweak and clarify my own thought about randomness here
David. It is not so much randomness itself that is required but the
freedom of the Cosmos to evolve its own complexity, and with it, life.
Freedom within the realm of inanimate or unconscious matter translates to
randomness-within-law. Freedom in the conscious real translates to
purposefulness-within-law. Consciousness is a higher order freedom for
matter than mere randomness because with this comes a boost to complexity
and purposeful self-reference ... the Cosmos knowing and directing itself,
self aware evolution if you like.
There is
an inherent, God given power of growth here that can only work when there is
freedom. A similar argument can be made for love as the highest level
order of complexity; in a slogan, "no freedom, no love." In this
essay Father Deacon Andrey Kuraev refers eloquently to the God give
inherent creative power of the Cosmos itself, evoked by God ... "Let it be!"
God does not create a finished product but rather a potentiality, and
materials over which he invokes a word, (the Word).
I, therefore, disagree with most (if not all) proponents of ID in so far as
they reject even in the slightest degree the freedom of the Cosmos to be
itself and to generate its own complexity. I also disagree with the
atheist whose only objection to God is that there are possibly many
universes which don't work or "take" as far as life is concerned. How
could we possibly know what significance those worlds have? We have no
data to reject God simply because of an all too human understanding of
"wastage." As far as your second question is concerned, nobody,
believer alike, can prove the existence of God. We may propose
evidence of design in complexity, albeit generated by the Cosmos itself in
response to the putative divine 'fiat.' Decisions of faith may be
based on such intimations, tendered more plausible; but at the end of the
day one has to decide for oneself how to "read" the world ... which brings
me to your last personal reflection on a personal God and a seemingly
impersonal Cosmos. I can only offer you my own ruminations about this
based on my own experience, thought and spirituality.
When you and I were at school together David and shared our passion for
science and astronomy (as we still do) I developed an unshakeable conviction
that God existed and my evidence toward that decision of faith was precisely
the vastness and beauty of the Cosmos. I could not (and indeed did
not) derive from that alone though my belief that (to paraphrase) "every
hair on my head is numbered" and "not a sparrow falls ..." For this
more personal dimension of faith I encountered Christ himself in the lives
and faith of Christians. They had a relationship with Christ and a
reality to prayer that I found utterly fascinating and compelling.
However, I only met those people for two weeks of my life when I was 22
years old. Everything that has happened subsequently in my life
developed out of that first step of faith I made in 1975. It was and
is a matter of experience, not conjecture, that I came to know Christ as the
human face of God. Since then and
continuously I have returned to science many times to deepen my
understanding of this wonderful Cosmos and this wonderful life that I have
been privileged to share albeit for a short time. I cannot believe
that such beauty is without meaning for beauty is meaning and beauty is
Christ, (for me at least). I have not, therefore, experienced any
disjuncture between my knowledge of God as Creator and God as Lover.
Even suffering and death itself has not shaken that, primarily because in my
faith Beauty itself was crucified and rose again into a New Creation.
Maybe this is because there is a place for certain Buddhist truths in
Orthodox Christianity as
well! I certainly derive much insight from the Buddha's
characterisation of the impermanence and flux of all material existence.
Where I must part company with him of course is in the basic agnosticism of a faith that
has rendered the gods "useless." But, Buddhism's antecedent background
is Hinduism not Judaism; so I am not starting from the same place.
I have to speak of what I know and, notwithstanding my sin, frailty and
finitude, I know Christ. He is the Pantocrator (as we say in the
language of the Christian East). The King of the Cosmos.
FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION OF CREATION, EVOLUTION
AND ORTHODOX THEOLOGY, LISTEN TO THESE LECTURES ONLINE:-
AUDIO FILES
Revd. Fr. Dr. Christopher Knight
NON-ORTHODOX BUT INSIGHTFUL AND COMPATIBLE WITH ORTHODOX THEOLOGY
DISCUSSION 4: "WHAT IS TRUTH?"
David writes:-
I was
thinking it would be a good idea, on the subject of bridge-building
between different belief systems, to ask not what we believe but why we
believe what we do. Is it because of happenstance or upbringing, or
because it makes us feel comfortable, gives us security or peace of
mind, or helps bring meaning to our lives? Why do people, who
are members of a single species inhabiting the same planet, arrive at
such a variety of different beliefs, religious and philosophical? And
where does science fit into all this? Science, too, is built largely on
beliefs and even faith -- faith that the world is orderly, that the
scientific method works, that the efforts of countless investigators is
valid and can be trusted.
Fr. Gregory writes:- Why do we
believe what we do? Why is there such a great diversity of beliefs
globally? What can be trusted? The trajectories toward belief are manifold and have
different forces and conditions impelling them. For some belief is a more or less uncritically
received aspect of culture. A shamanistic tribe lives according to
certain beliefs about the spirit world. There are no schools
beyond the training and initiation of a new shaman as an adept of an
older practitioner. The tribe has certain understandings and
expectations of the shaman in the way that those ignorant of orthodox
medicine trust and depend on the expertise of a doctor. Beyond
that there is little need of analysis in the culture outside those “in
the know.” In some belief systems a sacred text, codifying
revelation to a prophet or guru has pre-eminence. This has authority
within the guided community as the voice of the divine. Here there
is a certain democratisation of the cult. Anyone through literacy
and / or memorisation can gain access the truths of the text.
Where the text may be variously interpreted there may be established
commentators and schools but all may access these as well. There
is no cultic hierarchy. The text and the interpretation of the
text is everything. One thinks here of conservative evangelical
Christianity, Sunni Islam or Sikhism. In other belief systems mystical experience can trump
codified religious law. The Buddha for example did not leave
behind him an authorised established canon of religious writings.
His disciples had his teaching, the community and the call to
Enlightenment. Mystics may surface in religions that focus on a
text. One can think of the trouble al Rumi caused for himself
within Islamic orthodoxy where he prioritised not place or belief but
the religion of the heart. Christian mysticism likewise has had a
troubled relationship with the established order. In Orthodox
Christianity St. Symeon the New Theologian is one of only three persons
designated “theologian” yet in his life and his work he was attacked for
sitting light (as his detractors saw it) to established religious
authority. Some religious intuitions defy categorisation and are
more individualistic and ephemeral. Some connect with reason and
critical enquiry; some don’t. Some draw deeply from the well of
human knowledge others are more dualistic and world denying. Who is to decide between all of these? Is it
not impossible to negotiate the competing claims of extremely diverse
paths and orthodoxies, of the multivalent apprehensions of the divine?
I contend that the study of comparative religion is not an idle one nor
are its objectives futile. Diversity of expression does not always
indicate radical difference in content. The Tao and the Logos have
obviously different provenances and articulations in the philosophy of
ancient Greece and China, yet both overlap in their intuition of a
divinely rational and fecund cosmos. Is the Pentecostal
practitioner of ecstatic prayer that different from the shaman?
Are monotheists of differing religious traditions worshipping different
gods or the One God in differing expressions? Is God beyond
all of these things or to be found in all or some of these things?
These are the questions upon which believers and non-believers alike
disagree. However, that dialogue is possible; that comparative
study has yielded fruit; that certain religious teachers have been able
to speak a universal language without sacrificing the distinctiveness of
their own ... these facts fill me with hope. St. Justin Martyr was an early Christian philosopher
convert. He had this broader vision, this enlarged heart that in
Christian terms comes with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He
was prepared to affirm that Plato served the Greeks in the same manner
that Moses served the Jews as heralds of Christ. His vision of
truth was unitary. His voice in history has been neither singular
nor exceptional. How does science fit in to all of this? Science has truth concerns that are not of the same
character as the religious, metaphysical or philosophical. Serious
errors are made when these truth variants are confused; when religion is
forced into a scientific mould or when science is forced into a
religious mould. Different methodologies and research tools are
applied to each. Even aspects that might imply some common ground
can never be extended too far. Evidence, reason, falsifiability
apply as much in most religious traditions as they do in science yet
within a different range of applicability and confidence.
Likewise, modelling, belief, inspiration also play their part in
science; but again the range and confidence one places in these human
faculties and their role within the whole differs. If science and
faith are allowed to get on and to listen to each other much may be
achieved. If an antagonistic relationship is presupposed there
will always be more heat than light and that is never good. Yet
for all of the dangers inherent in any encounter, both disciplines need
to remain in dialogue for in the End there can only be one Truth amidst
and encompassing all the diversities. Some call that Truth God.
Some do not. We shall all know one day perhaps.
David writes:- Of the many factors that shape and influence belief,
a particularly powerful one, I suggest, is our early environment -- the
experiences and circumstances we are subjected to in our first few years
when much of our neuronal wiring is taking place. As far as religious
belief goes this is obvious. The majority of people follow the faith of
their parents and immediate family, or some approximation to it. And
that faith, in turn, is largely, a geographical accident. Most Indians
are Hindus, most Italians are Catholics, and so on, not because these
systems are obviously more true, but because they are the locally
accepted claims to spiritual authority. I agree, therefore, that it's important to look to
comparative religion for some understanding of what is common to all
deep faiths and spiritual philosophies, and what therefore is most
likely to be existentially valid. Among these appear to be: a
transcendent aspect of reality which lies behind and is (sometimes)
regarded as the source of the universe we see; some version of "love thy
neighbour as thyself" as a primary moral edict; and, a view of
consciousness that goes beyond (and indeed may contradict) the
conventional view of science. Two aspects of life, in particular, seem
to touch common ground in all great religious traditions. The first is
living selflessly. The second is the mystical experience in which
somehow we glimpse an underlying unity and harmony behind the world of
ordinary perception. Science, as you say, is a very different pursuit. It
offers greater certainty and opens itself to falsifiability through
public experiment and observation. Mathematics offers greater certainty
still and in some way seems to touch upon timeless, unassailable truths.
But science, as we commonly understand it in the modern sense, is also
very limited in that it excludes the inner world, the personal, the
emotional, the subjective. Indeed it excludes the "what it is like to
be-ness" of consciousness, which, of course, is the very essence of
human existence. Scientific belief is attractive because it can be
tested in the open and is the same worldwide. Religious belief is more a
matter of circumstance and personal narrative, yet there is enough
common ground among the world's religions to hope that they, like
science, embrace fundamental truths about reality. Fr. Gregory writes:- I agree that much may be gained by identifying common
elements between most if not all religions and your list is
unexceptional and widely accepted. However, NO religion simply
sets down these common factors as entirely sufficient and it is at least
interesting that the commonality has taken root in a wider and deeper
corpus of experience, practice and writings that each religion adheres
to as part of its nurturing tradition. I want to suggest, therefore, that consistency, so
rightly valued in the natural sciences is of dubious value in the
religious sphere, indeed it might be very limiting if self imposed; we
might say a Creed of the Church of the B******g Obvious wouldn't
illumine anyone. I think it is precisely because we have such
diverse circumstances and influences at the root of our social nature
that our religious sensibilities MUST reflect that to be authentic. Of course Feuerbach supposed that this was all that
needed to be said about religion ... a diverse social construct.
Like most atheists who can only conceive of religion as an alternative
explanation for the world to that provided by science it never seemed to
occur to him that the phenomenological aspects of religion remain
necessary to any attempt to live by a transcendent way, (for every god
there is a temple). Describing the subjective response to the
divine does not by itself account for objective reference of that
response, one way or the other. If the social constructs of religion are necessarily
polymorphic and only reducible across a partial range then even after
allowing for deformations (suicide cults and the like) truth in
religion, and ultimately God must be resolvable at deeper levels and
over much longer timescales than that afforded by the rather narrow
windows of historical human perceptions. What all religions need, and what science needs in
its analysis of religion as a social phenomenon, is a much stronger
sense of the enormous range and capacity of the human spirit (in the
image and likeness of God as the Judaeo-Christian tradition would say).
Seen in this way the adventure and exploration of science is matched if
not in kind yet still in degree by the religious quest of humankind. David writes:- I can only speak personally on this, but for me it is
the inconsistency between religions which is most disconcerting and a
barrier to confidence in a specific tradition. The various different
faiths, Western and Eastern, have grown up in different places and times
and so one can allow that their style and content will differ to some
extent. But if a person is to take a free and broad-minded view of
religion -- start afresh, as it were, without the blinkers and shackles
of one's particular upbringing and the tradition handed down to us --
then, looking at what is on offer, some consistency would certainly be
an aid to credibility. But in fundamental ways this is lacking. Most
obviously, Christianity gives a central role to Jesus and basically
teaches that lack of faith in him is an impediment to spiritual
salvation. Judaism and Islam portray Jesus in a very different light.
The major Eastern faiths make no mention of him and describe everything
from a panoply of gods to no god at all. What is a free-thinking person
to think when faced with such fundamental contradictions? For my own part, as a scientific thinker, consistency
and common ground among religions are very important. Beyond that I look
to inner reflection -- meditation -- in an effort to touch some bedrock
of truth. What I find is good reason, and experience, to believe that
there is a transcendent aspect to the universe and a benign intelligence
at work in it. That is simply what I think may be true. Lest I seem anti-religious, let me state that nothing
is more important to me than trying to come to grips with the great
questions of existence that elude science. But whereas science, and the
scientific method, is something that doesn't require belief (or, at
least, doesn't expect it without good evidence), conventional religions
almost seem to demand a leap of faith as a condition of entry.
Unfortunately, having made that leap one can never then be sure if the
indoctrination process -- i.e., the acceptance of certain tenets of a
given faith -- has not left us in a state of wishful thinking that
comfortably satisfies our inner needs. Fr. Gregory writes:- There are several possible responses to the issue of
the inconsistency of teaching between different religions but they
broadly belong to two opposed approaches. (1) One is true, the others are partially right
perhaps but essentially false. This is so unacceptable to the
contemporary mind (we could with more space and time examine the reasons
for the predominance of that view) but as a simple proposition there is
seemingly nothing irrational about it at all. However, It might be
objected that the irrationality lies in a God who would leave people in
dangerous ignorance through accidents of birth and culture. In
that case we would have to conclude either that falsehood and its
consequences don't really matter to God in which case the original
proposition is fatally undermined or that it does matter to God but he
can't or won't do anything about it in which case this god is not worthy
of our worship. So, the view that all is falsehood outside the One
True Religion is incompatible with both the sovereignty and love of God
.... a fairly widespread view at least amongst all religions. (2) Where there are commonalities between
religious traditions but major and religiously important differences of
historical claim and / or theological interpretations or teachings ...
for example the identity of the son that Abraham nearly sacrificed as
between Christianity (Isaac) and Islam (Ishmael), then either the
historical data can be assessed according to the usual standards and
criteria of historiography or the theological interpretations can be
rendered and maybe even to some extent resolved through dialogue. As to the theological divergences I don't understand
why we should be either surprised or alarmed by such inconsistencies.
They are after all present in equal measure in science as well. So
there are those who suppose dark matter and those who favour MOND
gravitational reform; proponents of string theory and those who are
developing loop quantum gravity and countless other examples from times
present and times past. The only difference in the two situations
(religion and science) concerns HOW the different approaches are to be
resolved. The discernment of truth is just as vital for
believers who work within the framework of BOTH human exploration and
revelation as in those who pursue empirical resolution of contested
scientific theories. The touchstone of scientific truth is
perhaps fidelity to what we observe in creation; the lodestone of
religion's compass is that which makes sense of BOTH the human
apprehension of the divine in all its global plurality AND the
revelatory content which both sustains and describes that ... but this
is still a sort of empiricism for all that. So, I contend that it is just as unreasonable to
expect religion to speak with one voice as it is to expect science to do
the same. Looked at more positively, both disciplines work within
pluralities that are necessary to the method and which may be resolved
according to accepted procedures in each. David writes:- It's true that science, like the various religions,
is full of conflicting claims and theories. However, in science there's
good reason to believe that the competition between rival theories today
will be resolved within a matter of a few years or decades, because this
is the recurring experience of scientific progress. For example, in the
1960s, as you'll remember, one of the great rivalries in physical
science was between the steady state theory of Hoyle, etc., and big bang
cosmology. At the time I was a fan of steady state because I liked the
idea of the universe staying pretty much the same and the continual,
unobtrusive "creation" of matter. I supposed the issue would be resolved
at some point during my lifetime, and so it has proved and I'm happy to
have become a big bang convert. Now there are new questions as you point
out, between different flavours of quantum gravity, the nature of dark
matter and dark energy, and so on. But no one, I suspect, believes these
will go unresolved indefinitely. Within a few tens of years at most we
will have moved on to a fresh set of questions and theories having
established new, firm knowledge on which to forge ahead. This isn't the case with organised religions. The
same discrepancies and inconsistencies exist now as they did centuries
ago, and these are, at least in the way they are presented to the
layperson, fundamental and crucial. To take an obvious example, in the
vast majority of Christian churches one is left in no doubt that faith
in Jesus as a saviour is a sine qua non. Whatever theologians may
believe in private or professionally, what is usually conveyed to the
punter, to put it crudely is, "believe in Christ as a divine being, or
else." I've attended numerous services, Catholic, Methodist, Anglican,
Lutheran, etc, where this message has been central, and never a word of
criticsm or debate. But in the absence of any convincing personal
experience or epiphany, or of any corroborating historical data, what am
I to do? I assume that many smart theologians of Judaism and Islam and
the eastern faiths have read the New Testament. Why do they reach such
different conclusions, and on such a critical issue as the nature of
Jesus? I understand that theology has to be watered down and
simplified for the masses, just as science has to be simplified in order
that the public can begin to make sense of it. But if people are told
different things in science -- for example, about different theories of
gravity or cosmology -- they can look forward to a time when these
various interpretations are put to the test empirically. That isn't the
case with religion. Go to a service in one religion and you will be told
that this particular doctrine is the one truth. Go to a service in a
different faith and you will be taught an entirely different doctrine as
if that were the only reality. That is why, personally, although I know
science doesn't have all the answers, I prefer to pick and choose from
the various spiritual traditions what works for me and what I can find
credible. Fr. Gregory writes:- Religions, all religions, operate on different time
scales than science. This reflects the differing nature of both the task
and the context. Whereas the empiricism operating in science might
reasonable lead one to expect a resolution of contested theories within
a few decades; the process of discernment within and between religions
is necessarily more extended because it has to factor in the experience
of diverse peoples with diverse experiences and commitments. The
discernment process and its outcome is no less valid however. " ... but who do you say that I am?" [Mark 8:29] David writes:- The fact that religions take longer than science to
decide if what they are talking about corresponds to existential
reality, I think, ought to be conveyed more openly and frankly from the
pulpit. Theologians may among themselves be aware that there is deep
uncertainty about the nature of God, the connection between the physical
universe and anything transcendent that lies beyond, the role and
existence of Jesus (or other central figures), the nature of the human
soul, the possibility of reicarnation, etc, etc. But none of this
"soul-searching" is reflected in what the masses are told in the holy
gathering places. I've never personally been to a service, of any
denomination or faith, in which the speaker portrayed anything other
than a firm, invioable conviction in a particular worldview or sequence
of events. I know very well, having spoken to a number of
theologians in private, that they don't believe with the same conviction
that they teach. They have personal doubts. They change their views over
time. But none of this is ever conveyed to those sitting in the pews.
Why? Because if it were the pews would be empty (except possibly for
doubters like me). People don't go to services for lectures on
comparitive religion or a questioning of the Word. (And if the basic
tenets are questioned, as by the Bishop of Durham, the public is
generally offended.) They go, in the vast majority of cases to have
their faith topped up, to be reassured, to be comforted, and because
they'be been made to feel guilty since early childhood if they don't.
Since we're talking about why people believe what they do, I have to say
those reasons have never appealed to me. I don't want reassurance or
comfort. I want the truth. And if the truth isn't known outside of
simply accepting what is written in scriptures of uncertain provenance,
then I'd rather pick and choose what seems to make most sense based on
my limited experience. Again I'm not arguing, as for example Richard Dawkins
does, that religion is bunk and that we shouldn't seek out a spiritual
dimension to the world. Quite the opposite. But I've never had a good
enough reason to accept en bloc the teachings of a particular faith.
Religion, for my taste, needs to become more like science, accepting and
proclaiming openly that what it preaches are theories at best, and that
it is not only likely but almost inevitable that much of what it
professes today is quite simply wrong. In answer to the question "... but who do you say
that I am?" I would respond: How do you know that the question was ever
asked? Fr. Gregory writes:- Christianity is not one lumpen mass David.
There are, shall we say, "Christianities." The fundamentalist
sort you describe may have been unfortunately the only kind you have
encountered. All I can say is that in Orthodoxy we have a very
important theological method which is correlative in some respects to
falsification in the scientific method. So for every "is"
statement or claim ... "God is good" for example (and empirical evidence
might be adduced for that but that is not my point here) there is a
corresponding apophatic statement ... "God is NOT good, NOT light, NOT
(a) / being" etc. To paraphrase St. Cyril of Jerusalem ... "God is
more surely known in what he is not than in what he is." There are
some echoes of Zen here ... "If you meet the Buddha, kill him." In this context (an inbuilt a-theism as as
anti-objectifying of the divine) fundamentalism is impossible. So,
an Orthodox Christian teacher will not repress doubt or mystery or
questioning in his or her task of truth searching.
Apophaticism will not allow such repression and anyone who starting
pontificating from an Orthodox pulpit would be given short shrift
indeed. Whereas western Christianity has a certain obsession
with definition and certainty we positively revel in agnosticism as the
true language of faith. In the context of contesting naive atheist
polemics (which I know you don't share) I have written about this
elsewhere on
my blog. So, as the wise man say ... "Your mileage
may will vary."
In as much as there is "daft" science (cold fusion perhaps or the latest
bon mot of Monsieur Dawkins) there is also "daft" religion.
Avoiding both involves much the same discernment and critical realism. Now as to the "who do you say that I am?" .... the
significance of the question does NOT depend on who may or may not have
first uttered it. Even if Christ never said it .... it is still a
legitimate question. Did Archimedes really shout "Eureka!" ?
Who cares? What matters was what he was going on about. David writes:- I'm not referring to literal interpretations of the
Old Testament when I say that what is taught to the masses in many
churches is, to me, not acceptable, but rather more to the completely
unsubstantiated claims made about what Jesus said or did. I've no
compelling reason to start from the assumption that there was such an
entity as Christ, as a divine being, because I'm not prepared to believe
things simply because that's the spiritual diet I grew up on, and also
because I'm not one of those who've had a personal experience that
persuades me in this direction. On the other hand, I find it heartening that, at a
level which unfortunately seems to be rarely shared with those who
attend church, theological debate is more wide-ranging. It is good to
know that learned practitioners of Orthodoxy are open to the perennial
philosophy. Orthodoxy may not be original in that respect, or as
verbally efficient as Lennon, but the willingness to question every
statement that can be made about God or gods or the absence thereof is
encouraging to hear. It's a pity that more of this kind of critical or
challenging thinking is not projected from the pulpit. More often than not, religions have to play catch up
with science, making sure that they're not out of step with the latest
worldviews from the physics of the very small or the very large. But in
one respect, deep spiritual teachings, eastern and western, can claim
that they have the edge on modern science. And this, I believe, has to
do with the nature of consciousness. When you quoted Christ as having said "who do you say
I am?" there were two implicit assumptions, first that he said it and
second that he existed (as someone other than a mortal charismatic
figure). The second point is far more significant than the first. Even
if he did say it, he wasn't the first to do. The nature of personal
idenity, and the nature of consciousness, are questions about the nature
of reality as a whole, and, in my estimation, call for thinking outside
the confines of Christianity. Fr. Gregory writes ... This seems a good place to wind it up David because
it fairly reflects where we are both at and the issues involved.
This is my first attempt at recording. The quality is average but I have learned lessons for next time!
Here is the Powerpoint Presentation I used:-
Slides (PDF format)
-
Slides (Powerpoint hosting and download link)
This is the video embedded in the last slide and referred to in the
lecture, (transcript footnote page 9)
Video: The Amazing Game of Life
I owe this man a lot for the clarification
of our shared Orthodox heritage in respect of God and Nature, Creation
and Science.
Fr. Christopher Knight
Now you know where I stand!
Conversations with Fr. Gregory
I am your Web
Editor, Fr. Gregory Hallam,
parish priest of St. Aidan's Orthodox Church in Manchester.
David Darling (below) is an old school friend of mine and is far
better equipped to explain the science bits than I am. However,
I do like to keep my hand in!
David Darling runs an excellent news
site,
"The
Worlds of David Darling" for matters concerning Astronomy,
Cosmology, Spaceflight and Astrobiology. He has a PhD in
Astronomy from Manchester University and is a prolific author and
science journalist.
More
here ...
The Sun is made up of an incandescent mix of, primarily, gas in plasma form.
It is composed of about 75% hydrogen and 25% helium. About 0.1% consists of
metals (made from hydrogen via nuclear fusion). This ratio is changing very
slowly over time as the nuclear reactions continue, converting smaller atoms
into more massive ones. Since the Sun formed 4.5 billion years ago, it has
used up about half of its initial hydrogen supply.
Our Sun is a second or third generation star. Second generation stars do not
just burn hydrogen; they also burn heavier elements, like helium and metals
(elements heavier than hydrogen and helium), and were formed from supernova
explosions (the debris of exploded population II stars).
In other words, a significant percentage of our bodies and everything you
see around you was forged in the heavy element fusion process of much more
massive and hotter stars than our sun that exploded billions of years ago
and bequeathed their products to the interstellar gas that eventually
contracted under gravity to form our own star and planets. This is what I
mean by saying that the sun is a second or third generation star.
When wags say that we are stardust; it is true. Even stranger is the fact
that we are stardust from elsewhere in the galaxy!
Let's stop a bit and reflect.
Without the gargantuan energies powering supernovae explosions there would
be no solid earth beneath our feet and no chemical life as we know it.
It gets curiouser! The subatomic processes that lead to nuclear fusion and
life-capable matter are governed by quantum and sub atomic forces that are
incredibly fine-tuned. If the laws governing these processes were nudged out
of alignment ever so slightly, not only would life be impossible in the
Universe but also the Universe as a long lasting physical reality would be
seriously compromised. Some versions of these laws have the Universe
collapsing back into nothingness almost as soon as it has been formed.
Scientists call this the “anthropic principle” and it makes the unbelieving
ones very twitchy and defensive. There are only two general possibilities:-
(1) "The Universe knew we were coming" as the physicist Freeman Dyson once
said. The strong version of the anthropic principle is part of the
Intelligent Design, fiercely resisted by such atheist scientists as Richard
Dawkins. According to this account, for all the seeming indifference and
brutality of the cosmos in which we find ourselves, we live in a Universe
that is positively benign toward life and highly driven toward its emergence
from "dust." (Echoes of Genesis of course). Lets us recall that in Genesis
it says "let the EARTH bring forth ...." In other words, God not create
without the agency of a physical process ... and it is that physical process
that science investigates.
(2) Quantum Cosmology allows for the formation of countless eternal
universes each generated by their own Big Bangs and budding off previous
universes in a vast infinite ever-branching network. This is the weak
anthropic principle and does not necessarily lead to belief in a Creator,
(although it can do, albeit of the disinterested deist sort). Some of these
Universes will be extremely short lived or dead. In some universes different
laws will promote life, in others not. We just happen to live in one that
does ... so no surprise there then on this account! Nonetheless, even the
weak anthropic principle based on the "multiverse" model cannot answer the
question:- "Why is there something rather than nothing?"
Some of these issues are spelt out a bit more hear by Dr. Michio Kaku ... a
fine physicist and communicator. Read him on this subject here.
Here is his web site:-
Michio Kaku's Web Site
His latest book, "Parallel Universes" is brilliant! (Can I have my cheque in
the post please Dr. Kaku? Thanks).
Another physicist called Steve Weinberg, is famous for this broody
depressing comment from an old book of his "The First Three Minutes" ...
It all depends on one's perspective. Here is the paradox of faith .... it
gives the right perspective in the face of evidence that depresses some
(Weinberg) and inspires others (Polkinghorne).
For years, as a child, I would gaze up at the deep blackness of the 1950's
north country sky and be moved almost to tears at the shear beauty of it
all. I knew then that the Universe was an immense violent place, but to me
it was just about the most convincing sign of a Creator that I could
imagine. Some years later I came to know this Creator as my Saviour as well.
You can imagine what this did to my spirit! Anyway, everyone's path is
different albeit we can hint to others of different perspectives.
You might find this Roman Catholic's guy's answer to Weinberg's pessimism as
enlightening. I like the bit about the Big Bang being the Big Bloom!
"The Meaning-Full Universe" by Benjamin D. Wiker
What though of suffering, of death and of evil?
(the next
paragraph re-edited: 1st February 2007 in the light of new discussions
initiated by Colin for
which this is the link on this site.
From the purely scientific point of view, there is another possibility why
the universe is the way it is - i.e. surprisingly well-tuned for life -
without the need for a multiverse or God in the conventional sense. This
stems from John Wheeler's participatory anthropic model. It invokes the
notion that we actively take part in making things real by observing them -
a spinoff of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. According
to this, the more we observe, the more reality-creating we do. Ultimately,
in the far-future we - our vastly evolved descendants, that is - observe the
finest details of cosmic creation into existence and thus initiate the
process that will eventually lead to powerful beings that can be the means
of their own... well, you get the picture! What you end up with is a sort of
self-sustaining, self-sufficient, pick-yourself-up-by-your own-bootstraps -
version of Einstein's "block universe". I wrote a book about this back in
1993 called "Equations of Eternity". Although I've since come to doubt the
reality of it, having moved more toward spirituality as a way to address the
deepest mysteries of existence, it does have a certain logical neatness
about it.
Why is there something rather than nothing? The quickest - but not very
satisfying answer - is that there can't be nothing. Nothing is the one thing
that cannot, by definition, exist. I remember Mr. Kay, our old maths teacher
(for the benefit of other readers, Father Gregory and I were at school
together), asking a similar question: Why isn't the universe exactly
symmetrical? Or, to turn that around, how did asymmetry enter the picture?
For instance, why should there be something instead of nothing? The Universe
is so outrageously enormous and elaborate. Why did it - or God, if you
prefer - go to all the bother?
Yes, I know that if the Universe wasn’t more or less the way it is then
there’d be no one to reflect on such problems. But that’s a comment, not an
explanation . The fact is, nothing could be simpler than nothing - so why is
there something instead?
Science has started delving into the minutiae of genesis. No one bats an
eyelid these days when cosmologists talk about what conditions might have
been like around one ten million trillionth of a second after the moment of
creation. And once we’ve got the tricky business of linking gravitation with
quantum mechanics sorted out, then maybe we can push things right back to
the very first instant of all.
Well, I've read the party manifesto on this and I don’t buy it. I can go
along with the quantum foam stuff, the good news (for once) about inflation,
the quark soup and so on. That’s fine.
I may not be able to imagine it - who can? But, as far as I am concerned,
the fact that the Universe was an incredibly weird place 10^-43 seconds
after “time zero” is no big deal.
What is a big deal - the biggest deal of all - is how you get something out
of nothing. Don’t let the cosmologists try to kid you on this one. They
haven’t got a clue either - despite the fact that they’re doing a pretty
good job of convincing themselves and others that this really isn’t a
problem.
“In the beginning,” they’ll say, “there was nothing - no time, space, matter
or energy. Then there was a quantum fluctuation from which...” Whoa! Stop
right there. You see what I mean?
First there’s nothing, then there is something. And the cosmologists try to
bridge the two with a quantum flutter, a tremor of uncertainty that sparks
it all off. Then they’re away and before you know it, they’ve pulled a
hundred billion galaxies out of their quantum hats.
I don’t have a problem with this scenario from the quantum fluctuation
onward. Why shouldn’t human beings build a theory of how the Universe
evolved from a simple to a complex state. But there’s a very real problem in
explaining how it got started in the first place.
You can’t fudge this by appealing to quantum mechanics. Either there’s
nothing to begin with, in which case there’s no quantum vacuum, no
pre-geometric dust, no time in which anything can happen, no physical laws
that can effect a change from nothingness into somethingness; or there is
something, in which case that needs explaining.
One of the most specious analogies that cosmologists have come up with is
between the origin of the Universe and the North Pole. Just as there’s
nothing north of the North Pole, so there was nothing before the Big Bang.
Voila! We’re supposed to be convinced by that, especially since it was
Stephen Hawking who dreamt it up.
But it won’t do. The Earth didn’t grow from its North Pole. There was not
ever a disembodied point from which the material of the planet sprang. The
North Pole only exists because the Earth exists - not the other way around.
It’s the same with neurologists who are peering into the brain to see how
consciousness comes about. I don’t have a problem with being told how memory
works, how we parse sentences, how the visual cortex handles images.
I can believe that we might come to understand the ins and outs of our grey
matter almost as well as we can follow the operations of a sophisticated
computer. But I draw the line at believing that this knowledge will advance
our understanding of why we are conscious one jot.
Why shouldn’t the brain do everything it does and still be completely
unaware? Why shouldn’t it just process information and trigger survival
responses without going to the trouble of generating consciousness?
You only have to read the musings of Daniel Dennett, Roger Penrose, Francis
Crick and others to appreciate that we’re discovering everything about the
brain - except why it’s conscious.
No, I'm sorry, I may not have been born in Yorkshire but I'm a firm believer
that you can’t get owt for nowt. Not a Universe from a nothing-verse, nor
consciousness from a thinking brain.
I suspect that mainstream science may go on for a few more years before it
bumps so hard against these problems that it is forced to recognise that
something is wrong.
And then? Let me guess: if you can’t get something for nothing then that
must mean there has always been something.
Hmmm. And if the brain doesn’t produce consciousness...well, no, that is
just too crazy isn't it?
(1) Thought and logic always proceed from the familiar to the unfamiliar.
If there was no (minute even) correspondence between reality and either
sense recognition or theorisation both of which constitute the very basis of
conscious thought or unconscious neural activation, then extrapolation could
not proceed within the brain.
(2) Where there is the putative "no-thing" (where 'thing' is anything
capable of sense recognition or theorisation), conscious or unconscious
mental processes would be completely incapable of registering it as input,
let alone extrapolating from it and interpreting it.
(3) Therefore, "no-thing" is closely allied with non-existence and humans
have great difficulty in coming anywhere near registering mentally "no-I."
Even in trance like states or states of non-cognition facilitated by Zen
koans, the transition to that state is a "thing" that the brain registers
even if the new no-I state cannot in any way be explained. Some religions
of course transpose the problem so that "I" materialises somewhere else on
the space-time continuum. Arguably we might then question whether the "I"
is the same "I" that had gone before.
My conclusion, therefore, is that it will remain completely and utterly
impossible for the human mind to conceive of "no-thing" and all its
prepositional constructs, eg., creation out of nothing. Faced with this
impasse the brain demands either total agnosticism concerning this aspect of
reality, or, more commonly the reaction that "no-thing " is really
"some-thing" somewhere else or in disguise.
We know that scientists do not like the multiplication of infinities and
absurdities that arise from singularities, "summat from nowt" states. So,
what do they do? They theorise strings which obviate the difficulties of
both point like particles and out of nothing creations. This, also of
course, neatly does away with troublesome religious and philosophical issues
for if there always has been "some-thing" then no reality can ever be
conceived of as logically prior to that any-thing if reality is itself
eternal.
However, such a dodge round the problem violates Occam's razor in my opinion
as creations, parallel universes and alternate realities multiply in a
frenzy comparable to that of those infinities they sought to replace in the
out-of-nothing creation accounts. There may indeed have already been and
continue to be and unfold zillions of creations but the question of why
there is something rather than nothing is not only unanswerable but
literally inconceivable. There comes a point where self destructive
nihilism or reasonable, intelligent faith based on the evidence is the only
choice before us.
as if upon a bridge of diamond;
above them is the abyss of divine infinitude,
below them that of their own nothingness."
Evolution works through the genetic flexibility conferred by mutation. For
atheist, deist and creationist, ID-ist alike, divine activity is recognised
not just by purposeful outcomes but by foreknowledge, intervention and
planning. The trouble for science with this tweaking God is that it
introduces a non-scientific variable (God) in a process that for them must
be explained wholly and solely by natural processes and laws. The atheist
simply says:- "there is no Maker, Tweaker." The deist says:- "there is a
Maker but he doesn't interfere after kick-starting the process." The
creationist says:- "there is a Maker and natural processes are only
incidental phenomena revealing God's purposeful activity, (and since as a
literalist as to the Bible), preferably or definitely without evolutionary
mechanisms. There's a whole spectrum there but what unites them all is the
problematic nature of chance, of randomness. Atheists rejoice in it as a
supposed God-killer; creationists reject it on exactly the same grounds.
They are both wrong in my opinion. The faulty assumption is that God cannot
and / or does not work through chance.
The tapestry analogy is very good and has a long provenance in Christian
apologetics. For all its truthfulness though, it is a bit of a "cheat" when
it comes to accounting for chance. It's not that we can't see the whole
that accounts for chance. One could imagine a Universe without chance in
which we still didn't see the whole. These are separate issues. When the
Universe functioned according to Newton, a deterministic picture of forces
and measurable events, theoretically, if one had enough data one could map
out the course of the Cosmos to its conclusion. Isaac Asimov wrote a
science fiction trilogy called Foundation. In this he envisioned a galactic
empire whose social function, notwithstanding apparent human and alien free
will, was as deterministic as any pendulum clock. The whole future of the
galaxy was simply an extraordinarily complex but predetermined game. Raise
this up a notch or 3 to the level of the Cosmos and you have a God who is
not free (because he is constrained by the predictability of the Plan) and
humans who are not free (because they are merely actors in the Plan. Since
Einstein and especially since the development of quantum mechanics, that
deterministic Cosmos has simply collapsed at the point of describing the
very small and the very big. Einstein was himself wrong in one aspect of
theology. To turn on its head his objection to quantum mechanics:- "God
DOES play dice!"
Now John Calvin with his double predestination and all-God-or-nothing
approach might be happy with cosmic determinism but an Orthodox Christian
cannot (and to be fair ... neither can many other Christians). We are
free. The Cosmos is free. Evolution is free. We can and should say that
God sees the whole from eternity but it's still a dodge from the pressing
question of the nature of OUR existence right here and now. We are part of
the space time continuum and we can't simply say that God is beyond all of
that so we can be as well. So, how do we make sense of real, true chance
and God's activity in the light of that?
Here is a tentative approach.
(1) Creation and life within creation is purposeful in the sense that
complexity is an emergent reality from very simple matter / energy wave
units interacting with each other according to rationally accessible "laws"
but which are, at the subatomic level probabilistic, NOT deterministic.
(2) Such complexity which gives shape to creation and life is hard wired
into:-
(a) The initial conditions of the Big Bang, (which, if there are many
Universes succeeding each other cyclically might have been carried over in
an evolutionary manner from previous creations).
(b) The interaction of matter and energy as the Cosmos cools and entropy
increases (complexity crystallises out of increasing disorder ... as
paradoxical as that might seem).
(3) God is not merely responsible for 2(a) but for 2(b) as well. This
would be the deterministic view. The creation is a "work-in-progress." The
cosmos and life is a fine tuning which continues precisely because true
randomness and chance exists! Without this ability to GROW (and growth
requires movement) the Cosmos would be nothing than a huge piece of
clockwork and God an absentee Clockmaker.
So, God's creative activity is the same as what happens in the random flux
of 2(b). We can't see DIRECTLY how he does it (the tapestry DOES apply at
this point) but faith and experience can claim that chance ALONE cannot
account for the emergent complexity and purposefulness of creation and
life. Chance without a wider view direction would be just as likely to
generate a degrading, dissolving Cosmos as one that shows genuine signs of
growth and development.
These problems only arise, I submit, because atheist scientists and
fundamentalist believers alike can't cope with freedom. God and freedom are
thought to be incompatible. Well, in Calvinism they are and the
philosophical roots of the relationship between science and religion in the
west have a very definite Calvinist input. For those Christians, however,
who are not rattled by freedom, either as to God or the Cosmos, there is no
problem. It also makes it much easier to believe that this Creator God
loves us BECAUSE he gave us this freedom.
An illustration from the day to day life of faith will suffice. Have you
experienced one of those incredible coincidences when something has happened
in your life just at the right time with a set of events so highly
improbable as to be impossible? I know I have. These are often very
personal happenings not easily conveyed to others. Are we free when such
things happen? Of course we are! Is God free? Of course he is! Then how
come such things, such improbable things can and do happen? Well, let's
take a leaf out of the art of a playwright. God is such a consummate
playwright that nothing lies beyond his capacity when he writes a script
that writes itself into his purpose. The cusp of this paradoxical joining
is prayer where our consciousness meets with God's consciousness. At that
point the whole Cosmos becomes ablaze if only for an instant.
Perhaps let me have your further thoughts. I hope this helps.
Professor George Theokritoff
Very Revd. Archimandrite Kyril Jenner
Professor Richard Swinburne
Wendy Robinson
I would additionally like to believe that we have personal souls and
that Jesus was a divine being who can offer us salvation, because that
would be comforting faced with the inevitability of death and the
uncertainty of what, in anything, comes next. But I have nothing on
which to base such a belief, other than scriptures, the historical
accuracy of which seems questionable. And I'm extremely skeptical of
belief that is comforting!
As to the sense that someone (perhaps such as yourself perhaps) can make
of this who has no particular locus within any one tradition, then only
one's own discernment, on whatever grounds, (extrinsically of course)
can possibly prevail. That I recognise. Yet, for all this, the challenge
presented by each religious tradition remains valid in respect of its
own claims. In respect of Christianity this remains that posed by our
Lord himself at Caesarea Philippi:-
