Category: random thoughts

There have been a few occurrences recently that have prompted people to ask me about various issues related to God and science, so I thought I’d take a moment or two outline some views here.

I think the only way to begin the discussion is with two simple points:

1. The first point, I think, is summed up extraordinarily well by Daniel Gilbert in his book Stumbling on Happiness:
   

   [S]cience is one of those words that means too many things to too many people and is thus often at risk of meaning nothing at all. My father is an eminent biologist who, after pondering the matter for some decades, recently revealed to me that psychology can’t really be a science because science requires the use of electricity. Apparently shocks to your ankles don’t count. My own definition of science is a bit more eclectic, but one thing about which I, my dad, and most other scientists can agree is that if a thing cannot be measured, then it cannot be studied scientifically. It can be studied, and one might even argue that the study of such unquantifiables is more worthwhile than all the sciences laid end to end. But it is not science because science is about measurement, and if a thing cannot be measured – cannot be compared with a clock or a ruler or something other than itself – it is not a potential object of scientific inquiry.

2. In addition to Gilbert’s point, I would also add that science must be repeatable. In 1989, two scientists from the University of Utah reported achieving nuclear fusion at room temperatures. The announcement was met with a great deal of excitement and energy. There was only one catch. Nobody else could get it to work. In order for something to be proven scientifically, it cannot be a one-off event. Science searches for answers to questions that are both empirical and repeatable. If you can’t repeat what happened, it isn’t science.

Taken together, these two prospects do not bode well for connecting God or creation with true science – and not for lack of effort to discover or suppress “evidence” on either side.

The prophet Isaiah writes:

To whom, then, will you compare God?
What image will you compare him to?

The very idea that – if God is all-powerful and “wholly other” like we claim he is – we could somehow observe, measure, or place him in some sort of “test tube” and experiment with him is quite frankly absurd. The problem is not that we haven’t gotten the right tools or haven’t looked in the right places – it’s that the very philosophy of doing so is bankrupt. As Gilbert argues, saying that we shouldn’t look at God scientifically isn’t saying that we shouldn’t study him, or that study of God in some sense isn’t valuable – rather it’s saying we should study “God” in a way that makes sense, and that way is not with lab coats, telescopes and microscopes.

The second point drops the underpinning from creation arguments (on both sides, incidentally) in a similar way because, by definition, they’re not repeatable. We know about star formation because we can observe millions of stars in various stages of their lives. We know about galaxies and black holes and supernovae because we can witness them across the universe. But we can’t roll back the clock and observe the creation of the universe, regardless of which side of the fence we’re on. We can’t see the big bang or ask God to do it over again – this is the one universe we have, and witnessing the creation of a second one isn’t really something that’s going to happen any time soon. As a result, we’ll be left with lots of questions, searching for answers, many of which we’ll never have ironclad answers to.

Finally, with regard to many creationist (including intelligent design) arguments, it is essential, in light of the two bullet points at the top, to consider the claim that is being made, and whether that claim makes any sense in the realm of science. The claim made by any creationist argument is as follows: “In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.” Regardless of your belief on the validity of that statement, I hope you can see why it is not a scientific statement in any way. I firmly believe that the study of the origin of the universe is a tremendously interesting and important metaphysical question, but not one at all suited for scientific inquiry.

Ultimately, belief in God, as Scripture points out constantly, is about faith, not knowledge. For centuries, philosophers have struggled with philosophically proving and disproving the existence of a higher power, and each attempt ends with the conclusion that the question is “non-falsifiable” – it cannot be proved or disproved by observation or experiment. For generations, Christians glorified what they called “the Mysteries of Christ” – comfortable with a certain amount of “unknown”. While we continue to search for knowledge, my hope is we can become more comfortable with the Mysteries of Christ, and ultimately not feel the need to Q.E.D. prove something beyond our comprehension.

I don’t remember the first time I heard the names of Alexander or Thomas Campbell, or of Barton W. Stone, but I’m fairly certain I was in college before I began to learn the story of the brave men to whom I owe so much. As these men found themselves in a changing world with an uncertain future, they rejected the formalizations promoted by the churches of which they were a part, instead positing the radical position that the Good News of Jesus was open and accessible to everyone.

“It is not necessary,” Thomas Campbell wrote, “that persons have a particular knowledge or distinct apprehension of all divinely revealed truths in order to entitle them to a place in the Church; neither should they, for this purpose, be required to make a profession more extensive than their knowledge: but that, on the contrary, their having a due measure of Scriptural self-knowledge respecting their lost and perishing condition by nature and practice; and of the way of salvation thro’ [sic] Jesus Christ accompanied with a profession of their faith in, and obedience to him, in all things according to his word, is all that is absolutely necessary to qualify them for admission into his Church.” In other words, we don’t all have to agree about every issue of doctrine before we can all be one in Christ. What really matters is that we understand our helplessness without God, acknowledge our dependence on Him for salvation, and declare our obedience to Him as Lord of our lives.

The men who founded our fellowship were courageous activists who leave to us not only words, but their priceless example. As ministers of established churches with long and noble histories, they questioned the practice and teachings of their institutions, seeking to make the Gospel more relevant and accessible to their communities. It is often times all too easy for us to take the ideas put forth by our founders and set them up in a system of creeds and dogmas of our own making while ignoring the true spirit and purpose of their actions. We, like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, insist that “because of our traditions, every one of us knows who he is and what God expects him to do,” though, when asked how and why these traditions were started, he can only reply “I don’t know.” In the same way, we enshrine the teachings of our fathers as unimpeachable pillars of a new institution, an institution they likely would have fought just as strongly against.

Our fellowship was born of innovative men in uncertain times questioning the doctrines and dogmas of their day, and asking why they could not set these traditions aside to be, in their words, “Christians only”. Now we who inherit their legacy face our own uncertain times and difficult questions – questions and challenges which they could neither foresee nor imagine. We do not honor our fathers with blind allegiance to their creeds, but by boldly continuing their spirit of innovation, crafting new approaches to changing questions of faith while preserving our heritage to whatever extent we can. As we move to the future, we must look to the past and learn its lessons without seeking to return there, knowing we live in a world different from the one we remember.

Last night I was coming back from checking some equipment we have installed at a substation when I saw a car stopped on the side of the road. For some reason I felt compelled to turn around and see if I could help, which launched Sam and I on a long, interesting, funny, and sad misadventure for the next several hours.

Over the next few hours, we ferried around and towed two guys, a girl and their Camaro from College Station to 15 miles the other side of Caldwell. We didn’t charge them for gas, and we gave them a bit of money along the way. After I’d given them $25 and said not to worry about it, one of the guys said, “Man… you must make a lot of money…” Well… no… not really…

“Nobody’s ever done anything nice for us before…” he said, talking more to himself than to me.

The reality was that we didn’t do that much. We bailed them out of a situation their own stupidity had gotten them into. We gave them a little time, a little money, and a little attention, and somehow that was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for them.

I wonder what our world would be like if more of us took the time to be nice to people in small ways. It’s hard for me to believe what we did was literally the nicest thing anyone had ever done for them, but I live in a very different world than they do, and sadly I don’t know that our worlds meet that often. I hope they meet more. I hope we all have more opportunities to “be nice” to people… even – especially – when it costs us something.

These, my wedding vows…

Today I pledge myself to you in the sacred bond and covenant of marriage.

Each morning I will remember the blessings you bring to my life, giving thanks to God for drawing us together as one.

I will daily strive to be more Christ-like in my thoughts and my actions, learning to embrace and express the perfect love of Jesus in our marriage.

I will listen to and respect your feelings and desires, valuing your thoughts and opinions as we make decisions through life.

When we disagree, I will look first for my own failures and shortcomings.
When I am wrong, I will admit it quickly.
When I am wronged, I will forgive unconditionally.
In both joy and sorrow, I will support and encourage you.

Today I promise these things to you
before God and in the presence of those we love –
a covenant between us for as long as we both shall live.

A couple of weeks ago, I received an anonymous email stating that I’d “hurt a fellow brother in Christ” due to “[my] actions regarding his choices”. The fact that I have no idea who I’m alleged to have hurt or what I’m alleged to have done notwithstanding, the email caused me to think quite a bit.

As I’ve thought about it on various occasions over the past few weeks, there are two things I keep coming back to. First, it’s interesting to me what people will write when their name isn’t attached to something. I was talking with Seth, who told the story of a preacher who received a letter in the mail with only the word “fool” on it. “I’ve had a lot of people send me letters and forget to write their name,” he quipped, “but this is the first time I’ve ever had someone write their name and forget to write the letter.” A policy I’ve inherited from multiple mentors is that anonymous complaints are best sent straight to the circular file. The sad commentary, I think, is that we are willing to write things without our names attached that we would never write if people knew it was us. One of the challenging things about writing on this space for the past two years has been that everyone out there knows it’s me, and has a direct line of fire this direction.

The more important point of the story, at least for me, is that the person who wrote the email, despite their assertion to the contrary, didn’t really want to solve the problem. While I generally don’t respond to anonymous complaints, I did write a brief note back stating that I would be more than happy to apologize and make the situation right, but I had no idea how to do that. As expected, I have yet to receive a response. There are dozens of ways the situation could have been improved, and almost all of them involve coming to me personally. The real issue, though, is not pointing the finger at my anonymous critic, but myself.

How many times am I exactly this way? Often, I am faced with something I don’t like, and my first instinct is to complain about it, even when an easy solution is at hand. It will be late at night, I won’t have any food in the house that can be made quickly, and, talking to a friend, I’ll say that I’m hungry. “Go get something to eat,” comes the response. “That requires that I get up and get my car keys/walk into the kitchen/expend some effort… I don’t want to do that – I just want to complain about it.”

I just want to complain about it. How true. How often are there situations in my life when my first response is to complain before doing anything to fix the problem? I’m reminded of a story in John 5 where Jesus comes to a man who’s been an invalid for years and asks him this simple question: “Do you want to be healed?” Instead of answering the question, the man quickly starts making excuses, causing me to question whether he really wants to be healed or just wants to complain.

I think the main lesson I’ve taken from this episode is that when confronted with a situation I don’t particularly like or am upset about, I want to make a renewed effort to be a part of the solution, rather than part of the problem. I don’t want to stand there while someone offers to fix the problem, and turn them away, preferring simply to complain.