Can an Intellectual be a
Christian?
If
I answer “no,” the meeting is likely to be very short and some of you may drop
classes, so I’d better ponder the question carefully. The answer must surely be “yes,” since there are many living examples
of Christian who are scientists, philosophers, writers, and artists of every
flavor. I’m not sure that I qualify as an intellectual, however, so let’s start
there.
Definitions:
My
O.E.D says an intellectual is someone, “possessing a good understanding, [an]
enlightened person.” The Buddhists
might argue with this definition since they have a special meaning for the term
“enlightenment.” The American Heritage
dictionary probably gets closer to our modern usage: “A person of great wisdom or
extensive knowledge: savant, sage, polymath, pundit, scholar, arbiter,
authority, diviner, expert, genius, guru, highbrow.”
Perhaps
we can settle on the notion of a scholar whose opinions are the result of
careful research and deliberation; someone of calculated discernment and
careful judgment. Whilst these are
lofty ideals, they say nothing of the morality of the person. We can as easily
have an intellectual villain as an intellectual saint.
Most
of us understand the meaning of the title, “Christian,” but, just in case, I
will assume we can agree that a Christian is someone who believes in the
Gospel, that Jesus IS fully God, was fully man, lived amongst us, died for our
sins, and was resurrected and now abides in Heaven. The Christian’s hope is that through faith in Jesus, his or her
sins will be forgiven and everlasting life in heaven with Christ will be theirs
after death.
We
will move forward keeping in mind Paul’s warning that the Gospel will be a
stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.
Tensions:
Since
we are meeting within a state university that prides itself in scientific
achievement, it is clear that our discussion must address the apparent tension
between science and philosophy on the one hand, and religion on the other.
Indeed our topic begs for us to do so because we are surrounded by science and
the technology that it has produced and we could not possibly call ourselves
intellectuals if we avoided this tension. I will not say very much about the
details of our Christian faith. I assume that everyone understands it pretty
well and I really don’t want to get into details of doctrine. These are intensely personal matters in
which we are bound to find differences of opinion. This is also not an attempt
at Christian apologetics. You’ll have to come back another time if you expected
one.
I
do not profess to be a philosopher, but I will attempt my own explanation of
some of the important points that must be considered in understanding the
tension between science and religion.
First, we must understand that belief and science may not be natural
enemies. They are different
things. For example, it is probably
foolish these days to oppose the theory that the universe began with a Big
Bang-like event some 10 to 20 billion years ago, yet there is actually nothing
to be gained from believing in the Big Bang. Let me explain with the aid of an experiment.
What
is science?
<drop
something>
What
just happened? Some law of physics had
a few seconds of glory right before our eyes.
What do we call that law?
Gravity.
How
do we explain the law? Newton’s laws
give us f = (m_1*m_2)/d
These
laws are impressive because they account for the orbits of the planets and many
other observable phenomena, but they only give us equations. What is really
going on?
You
might offer a relativistic description in which mass distorts space-time, but
you would only be replacing one set of equations for another.
Consider
surface tension in which it is possible to float a steel needle on the surface of
water. What is going on in such an experiment?
Again,
I fear that I will inspire a lot of equations and explanations that require me
to understand something beyond what I can observe. You might have to explain weak and strong forces at the atomic
level before you are done.
Now
let’s jump inside the head of the observer.
What happens when I observe something; I recognize a face, or I have a
little trouble remembering your name, then it suddenly comes to me? You will explain all sorts of anatomical and
neurological partitions of the brain and the neurons themselves and the latest
theories on memory. While there is no
doubt that great strides have taken place in neuro-physiology, I still hesitate
to give credence to anyone who claims to understand what is actually going on
in a network of neurons, each of which has 200 or so inputs.
In
all these discussions, we are doing science. We are explaining phenomena
through the language of science. A
language that has been developed through painstaking experiments repeated
thousands of times by hundreds of scientists of all races and religions. But when we talk science, we talk models. We
draw pictures of sub-atomic particles orbiting other particles that are bound in
atomic nuclei. The particles may or may
not have mass and charge and some spin. We draw boxes to represent receptors,
such as eyes, and lines to represent nerve fibers, and strange symbols to
represent neurons and neural nets and we say, “A-ha,” we understand.
What
precisely do we mean? We mean that we
have a model, mathematical, graphical, or just in words, that behaves similarly
to our observations of nature. In fact
the level of similarity is often so very close that we can, for practical
purposes, assume that our model is correct. But do we take that leap of faith
and say that our model is irrefutably correct?
Why would we?
Beliefs:
Do
scientists say, “I believe Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity?” I’ve been reading scientific papers for 30
years and not once have I seen such a statement. Why would anyone say such a thing? Wisdom has it, of course, that science evolves fairly rapidly.
Although we remain comfortable in our acceptance of Relativity, there is a lot
more science to be done. The great
unifying theory of the forces still remains illusive. My school-day image of
the atom, due to Bohr, has been outdated by quarks and superstrings. Science
evolves.
When
will we know that our scientific models are completely true? Some scientists have taken a leap of faith
and suggested that a completely accurate model of matter would be discovered
within their lifetimes. Most of them
are dead. They were not behaving as scientists when they made such predictions.
Please
understand that I am not trying to discredit science, but merely establishing a
difference between it and something we call a belief system.
Completeness
and Consistency:
Let’s
turn to some dark holes in science that it seems will never be filled. We have known for many years that we need at
least 2 models to simulate the behavior sub-atomic particles. They behave as
particles and as waves. In the
two-particle experiment, a pair of sympathetic particles fly off in opposite
directions from a certain reaction. Their spins must be opposite for the rest
of their lives. If one of them passes through a field that alters its spin,
then the spin of the other must instantly change. The problem is that, in the world in which we live, nothing can
travel faster than the speed of light, yet the experiment requires an instant
change. It turns out that quantum
information flow is not limited by the speed of light.
There
is nothing offensive about the need for dual theories. It should be clear that we may well require
dozens models to explain the behavior of matter. If the physicist uses the correct model, or family of models,
then close agreement with nature may be achieved.
Some
famous physicists hold the view that there are some theories in physics that
can never be reconciled with others – there will always be some areas of
physics in which our knowledge is incomplete or inconsistent. Roger Penrose
suggested this in his talk at UTD last year.
In
mathematics we have a similar situation.
By 1900, all was well with mathematics. One
example of its great achievements was the proof of Gauss's Theorem (that every
integer could be expressed as the sum of the squares of 4 integers) that
literally took hundreds of steps to prove. It was believed that mathematics was
complete, consistent, and decidable. The term completeness
requires that all true statements in a mathematical system can be proved from
the axioms of that system. Consistency means that it is impossible to derive
two conflicting theorems from the axioms, while decidability requires that, for
every problem in mathematics, a definite, or mechanical method exists within
mathematics to solve the problem. In 1928 Hilbert asked exactly these three
questions of mathematics, saying that in his opinion all three were in fact
true properties of mathematics.
Kurt Gödel was able to show that
mathematics is incomplete. There are true assertions that can never be proven
using the axioms within the system. He also showed that mathematics must be
either incomplete or inconsistent. If arithmetic were consistent, he reasoned,
then every assertion would be provable. In fact, arithmetic cannot be proved
consistent within its own axiomatic system.
Suppose we classify all the assertions in
a given mathematical system into two groups, Group I contains all true, but
unprovable assertions and Group II contains all true assertions that can be
proved. Gödel constructed a sentence that asserts that it is in Group II. He
said, “This sentence is not provable in this system.” If this statement is false, then what it says would be untrue,
and hence the sentence would be provable in the system, but all provable
sentences must be true, hence a contradiction. The sentence must be true.
Therefore there are indeed assertions in mathematics that, while true, cannot
be proved. It is important to realize
that we can only deduce the truth of the statement by considering it from the
outside. Its truth cannot be proved from within the system of mathematical
logic, hence mathematical logic is an incomplete system.
Alan Turing, a British mathematician and
Computer Scientist, showed that mathematics is also undecidable.
These discoveries do not weaken the powers
of science or mathematics, or weaken the resolve of scientists and
mathematicians to continue their search for new meaning and new applications of
their theorems. They are truths that we must accept.
Beliefs again:
Mathematics deals with the abstract. One
can invent worlds way beyond those that we have consciously observed and solve
problems in these strange worlds.
Sometimes these domains, as they are called, contain the real world at
certain points and, of course, a great deal of mathematics deals with
simplifications of, or special cases of our world. Does anyone believe in mathematics? It would be a strange statement to make. No doubt someone will say that farmers have
complete faith in the ability of arithmetic to count sheep. We might hear a child say, “I believe 2 plus
2 equals 4,” and the computer scientist will add, “except for very large values
of 2,” but it is still a strange statement to make. Why, because there isn’t ANY doubt in our minds about these
applications of the world of mathematics. We rarely say that we believe
something that is irrefutable. It has become much more compelling to say, “I
know it to be true.”
Our difficulty rests in the need for a
definition of the verb “to believe”.
Say we use the definition, “to live one’s life as if the object of one’s
belief was without doubt true.” With
this definition at hand, it seems safe to assume that we do believe in the
veracity of arithmetic and most of us do believe in a great deal of science. We
never consciously commit to such beliefs. There is no public profession of
faith in trigonometry or geometry, save for those SATs. For most of us, the phrase, “I understand”
is a sufficient stretch. This definition of belief falls short because we CAN
live as if Newton’s laws are true, knowing fully well that they have
limitations. Similarly, we can conduct research in our physics labs as if particles
really are super-strings while knowing that some day a better model may
appear. Even more troubling, we can
live our lives as if God exists without actually believing in His existence. Paul tells us that we will fall short,
because no one can be without sin, whether we believe or not.
We need something stronger than “to live
one’s life as if.” Perhaps we could try
an analogy. We might say that I believe
X to be true in much the same way as I believe 2+2=4. In other words, I have absolutely no doubt that X is true now and
always will be.
Clearly this enables belief in
mathematics, but makes belief of science less attractive.
This definition probably isn’t the same as
belief in God as expressed in the New Testament. To rectify this, I would argue that the Christian should possess
this kind of belief AND be totally devoted to following the Christian life and
leave it to you to decide what that last clause means.
I contend that belief in science is
unnecessary. Neither science nor I benefit from such belief, but I suppose such
logic will not prevent some from doing so. One may believe almost
anything. I recall my daughter asking
why she should believe in Jesus when we had lied to her about Santa Clause.
Beliefs are often traded with great flippancy.
Brief History of Philosophy:
If we look back at the great scientists
who lived before about 1650, many openly gave thanks to God for their
discoveries. Science was carried out in religious establishments and many of
the early universities were religious institutions. Artists and great thinkers
of medieval times devoted themselves to religious thoughts. Francis Shaeffer,
in a little book entitled “Escape from Reason” discussed the gradual separation
in Europe between God and the pursuits of the intellectuals: the artists,
scientists, and philosophers. I will
only give a few highlights.
It was Aquinas (1225-1274) who first tried
to understand the split between the universals and the particulars, between grace
and nature. Art had glorified the Holy Family up to this time by depicting them
symbolically in gold, larger than life. This was the birth of the humanistic
renaissance. Aquinas had drawn a line separating grace and nature, thus freeing
nature from the Holy, and allowing man to consider it apart from the Creator.
The thinker could suspend faith while reasoning about natural things. Aquinas
felt that the will of man had fallen in the garden, but not his intellect. Thus
philosophy was separated from the scriptures and divine revelation and could
fly where it wished. Aquinas hoped that this free spirit in philosophy would
eventually lead to unity, but it did not. In simple terms, he had taken God out
of school and the result was the gradual erosion of God from the entire man.
As nature was made free of God, it began
to eat up grace. Philosophers, artists, and scientists eventually worked in a
rational way, without mention of God at all. Artists used realism in religious
paintings and began to use models, as in Lippi's Madonna (1469) (his mistress),
and Fouquet's Madonna (1450) (the king's mistress, painted with one breast
exposed.) These paintings must have been seen by Christians of the day as the
ultimate blasphemy, but nothing in comparison with the more recent depiction of
the Madonna embellished with elephant dung.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) thought that
if you start with rational thought, void of God, you get a kind of machine. The
universe and all of its inhabitants are in a machine. He tried to paint the
spirit of man in an attempt to find a universal to put above the line, but he
failed. According to Shaeffer, Leonardo died of despondency trying to find a
unity between the universals and the particulars.
reasonable universe which could be studied
and understood by man as God's revelation through nature. So science was not
free from God. By the time of Kant
(1724-1804) and Rousseau (1712-1778) philosophy and science were completely
free from God. This was the beginning
of rationalism: that all things can be understood by rational thought without
need of God. In Physics, determinism is
the term used to explain everything without God. Nature had totally devoured grace and there were no universals.
There is another way of looking at the
separation. Philosophers of the 18th century argued that science
must be free from religion simply because it must confine itself to the study
of the repeatable, consistent, laws of nature.
In other words, it must avoid the miraculous. This makes sense. In the
same way, religion ought to be careful not to interfere with science. The arguments can be understood in Hume’s
writings (1711-1776). On the subject of miracles, he wrote:
There must therefore be a uniform experience against every miraculous
event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as an uniform
experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and full proof, from the
nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle; nor can such a proof
be destroyed, or the miracle rendered credible, but by an opposite proof which
is superior.
He defined a miracle to be an event that
is and always will be a profound violation of concrete, well understood, and
eternal laws of nature. He went on to explain how we should behave when faced
with an account of a miracle:
When anyone tells me that he saw a dead man restored to life, I
immediately consider with myself whether it be more probable, that this person
should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact which he relates should
have really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other and; and
according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and
always reject the greater miracle.
Science must always reject the greater
miracle.
Hume was an atheist philosopher. He said
that miracles are the result of lies, ignorance, and the susceptibility of the
human race to the sensational.
Pollution of Politics:
Unfortunately politics and the desire for
fame and power have invaded both science and religion throughout our
history.
Natural history is replete with fake bones
and bone collections that were supposed to be from transitional forms. The
best-known examples of transitional ape-men species are Java man, Peking man,
Piltdown man, Kenya man, and Nebraska man. The bones of Java man came from two
different subjects, the skull of a gibbon and the femur of a man. The remains
of Peking man were found in China in 1927.
Several skullcaps and other bones were found and dated 350,000 years old
by using nearby fossils and the geological column. The skull capacity and major
bones resemble those of modern man. The samples remained controversial and were
mysteriously lost in World War 2.
Piltdown man was a hoax. It was supposedly
discovered in 1912 in England, but found later to be composed of an orangutan
jaw and a relatively modern cranium of a man. It fooled the experts for 40 years.
Orangutans have never been natives of England. Another example of our
gullibility is Nebraska man. The sample was of a single tooth found in Nebraska
in 1922 and touted for years to be from an ape-man. When the rest of the skeleton was finally found, it was clearly
an extinct pig.
Francis Hitching wrote the following of
the geological column:
It was as much
for political reasons as scientific reasons that the new theory of
uniformitarianism grew up to challenge the Biblical theory of creation. If the
Bible told the truth, then there was no way of peaceably challenging the
monarchy in Britain, for sovereignty was supposed to descend from God to the
king; but if the Bible could be shown to be inaccurate, particularly in respect
to the key event of the Deluge, then the whole philosophical foundation on
which the monarchy based its power would be shattered.
In one further example, recapitulation
theory suggested that the embryo of any species undergoes a complete
evolution from a single cell through all transitional forms to its final form
during gestation. A human baby goes through fish and monkey stages in the womb
before acquiring the master race characteristics. Haeckel vigorously touted
this idea in Germany. Hitler, amongst others, was greatly influenced by it.
White supremacists and other racists have used this theory to justify their
cruelty and bigotry. It is nonsense.
The behavior of established churches
through the ages has also been highly politically motivated, void of Godly
grace.
The Divide:
We arrive at the great divide; science and
grace going their own ways. Scientists and
philosophers suspend faith in God while
they reason about nature, just as Aquinas had suggested. They may independently give thanks and pray
to God, just as anyone else but, in the execution of their professions, they
behave as if God created a universe that is reasonable and can be studied
without reference to God.
Do the rigid disciplines of science and
philosophy threaten our beliefs in a loving Creator God? Apparently not. Even when we accept the cautions of Hume, recognize our
vulnerability to an amazing story, and realize that our belief requires us to
accept the miraculous, we still believe.
Are we weak and pathetic individuals who need the crutch of religion? I argue that many of us are not. The intellectual carefully studies the
evidence before making a commitment.
For the Christian, the evidence begins with the Bible and includes the
literary and archaeological discoveries from the Holy Land, as well as the
great wealth of scientific discovery.
We look at the evidence that God created the universe and we look at the
science that says that it came about without the hand of a loving Creator God,
and we reject the greater miracle.
It is easy to discount the OT writers as
ignorant nomads, but just an hour or two in the book of Job, considered to be
one of the earliest books of the Bible, will convince most that there were some
pretty fancy lawyers in those days. We think that we have progressed so much
since Job, but read and learn.
The wisdom of Solomon is a clear testament
to the desire of the philosopher to understand and control nature. Solomon was a control freak who did not
rejoice in the order of nature (as expressed in the “Times for everything”
poem). He wanted to understand the
reasons for the seasons and all the other features of nature that he observed
and was frustrated in his efforts. In a
little exuberance unbecoming a great philosopher, he took 300 wives and 700
concubines, many from pagan tribes, and experimented with every drug and wine
that could be found. In the end, he
returned to God.
It isn’t too much of a stretch to compare
Solomon’s life with those of the existential movement, such as Aldus Huxley and
Sartre who, without the universal in their lives, were troubled by being parts
of Leonardo’s machine. They spent their lives in futile searches for defining
moments. For Huxley, drugs were to play a vital role in looking for that
defining moment.
In my previous talk to this group I spoke
of the Levitical food laws and their efficacy for preventing disease amongst
God’s people. These are remarkably valuable rules that sustained the race
through the centuries and it is hard to understand how they could possibly have
been devised by anyone who did not possess an intimate knowledge of
microbiology and the ways of parasites, pathogens, and diseases.
I could go on, but our time is short. The thinking Christian, to my mind,
continues to gather the evidence available, weighs it carefully, and then
rejects the greater miracle. The
miracles of the Bible are not a problem if we first accept the presence of a
Creator God and we see that those miracles are consistent with His stated
mission and His nature.
Where science and the Scriptures come head
to head, such as in the story of the Flood, and the Genesis account of
creation, the intellectual Christian must continue to weigh the evidence,
understanding that the scientific evidence continues to pour in. Inevitably our
understanding of these things will be limited and many ideas will be left for
(almost) endless debate.
For those who are interested in what one
group of Christian scientists has to say about the reconciliation of the Creation
story and scientific discoveries, Hugh Ross’s Reasons to Believe (www.reasons.org) is a great source. He shows
that the ordering of events, including the appearance of the species, given in
Genesis is in close agreement with the scientific model. His exegesis is based
on the “long day,” or “old earth” interpretation of the creation week. Hugh is an astronomer with a Ph.D from
Toronto. He did research at Cal. Tech. on Quasars.