Time and Eternity: A Christological Perspective | The BioLogos Forum

What you are describing is GR as first describe by Einstein. GR and SR have been tested well by science and continues to be tested and upheld as the best model of the space-time of the universe. What Aron Wall describes has not been tested nor has any sound mathematics. GR and SR is sound science was as Aron Wall is just pure speculation.

@Patrick
Patrick, I wonder whether you’re assuming that Aron Wall is putting forth his speculations as physics, rather than metaphysics/theology. It’s clear there’s no way of scientifically testing assertions that God created space-time or any of the other interesting thoughts Wall set down.
I believe the physics he described is correct (and I am not an expert in either SR or GR, although I have gone through the derivation of the FLRW model) . Perhaps you could point out to me the specific scientific assertions (as distinguished from the theological or metaphysical ones) that Wall made that were incorrect and then I might be able better to respond to your comment.

Bob,
Yes, I was assuming the Aron was putting forth speculations as physics. And yes his physics seem to agree with GR, SR. Regarding his metaphysics/theology, well I have no interest in them.
Thanks.

Roger, while I have been a bit delayed in replying due to a busy schedule, I would like to comment that I agree that our experience of time as human beings needs both the sense of chronos and kairos in order to express the fullness of our existence in time as embodied creatures with a sense of past, present, and future. As for what “science” is or should be, it is a bit frustrating that in saying things simply or briefly, one can not say everything at once, for there is much that can and needs to be said.

Science is a human enterprise of a large international community encompassing many viewpoints and spanning many disciplines. While science spans a vast range of phenomena with methodologies appropriate to that which is being investigated, “science” as commonly understood ultimately is limited in its range and–as many of the great scientists have said–does not and can not answer some of the most important questions facing us individually or collectively as human beings. Therefore, the claims of science should not overreach but be situated in a broader human context of what it is perhaps best to call “wisdom.”

Some scientists claim that science either has no need of or has done away with “philosophy” or “metaphysics.” But as Michael Hanby points out in his book that I mentioned in my essay, if science makes this claim it has already embraced a tacit metaphysics; and if it rejects “god” it can only do so on the basis of a tacit theology that defines the “god” to be rejected, which is not the God of classical Christian theism. Consequently, I would say we need to integrate considerations from the hard and soft sciences, history, philosophy, theology, and literature, into the category of “wisdom” if we are to build sound conceptual foundations for a broader society where we can flourish as human beings.

Perhaps the greatest failure of any totalizing reductive “science” is a failure of vision–it blinds itself to the whole in its focus on the smallest individual parts. A scientist is more than the roughly 10 to the 28th power atoms that comprise his body. In the early parts of my scientific career I became convinced that the reigning positivism of that era was hopelessly impossible as a philosophy of the whole. Perhaps science itself is at a point where it can again gain a sense of the whole which is more than the sum of its parts. That would be a gain for science and for humanity.

Classical Christian theology has the conceptual and philosophical resources to integrate all we know from contemporary science within the scope of a greater wisdom, centered on the “logic” of the Incarnation. The authors whose books I mentioned, Roman Catholic Hanby and Eastern Orthodox Hart, bring the rich patristic perspective to bear on this, Mark Noll brings an Evangelical perspective, and I would also commend the great British theologian from the Reformed tradition, Thomas Torrance, or Anglicans Alister McGrath or John Polkinghorne, as ones who have done quite fruitful work. There are many others, including C. S. Lewis from an earlier generation.

The nature of language and how it bears upon Reality is a crucially important question about which much care is needed. Hanby and Hart remind us of the need to be mindful of the kataphatic and apophatic dimensions of language: what we can say and what we can not say. It is an essential distinction that pertains both to theology and to physics. Epistemic humility is a part of wisdom.

In my previous Word and Fire essay, I raised the question of how science is possible in the first place: what is the fundamental “logic” or “logos” of the world that makes it intelligible to us? As Hanby puts it in his book, “If a science predicated on creation and commenced in love is preferable to a science predicated on the nihil and commenced in a quest for control, it is because its objective logic is truer to the logic of being and thus more adequate to the truth of a world commenced in love.” Indeed, if the world is commenced in love, we are free to receive the world–and one another–as a gift. We are then not free to make of the world whatever we will. If we can see the world that way, we are living in a kairos moment, partaking of eternity.

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@Paul_Julienne

Thank you for your detailed and thoughtful response.

I hope you have gathered that you and I share a common interest and concern, It is important that people of like mind work together to discover some of the answers which perplex the minds of many today. Too many seem to be concerned more to argue, rather than solve.

I have said many times that poverty of philosophy is an important reason for the conflict we see between science and theology, however theology and science are not exempt from their share of issues.

I am not confident that Classical Christianity can solve these issue, but it probably depends on how one defines Classical Christianity. If one defines Classical Christianity as Relational, Trinitarian, with a Triune worldview, then I would agree. However I am not aware of any classical theologies that that take this form. Of course the WORD/Logos is another important part of the Trinitarian key.

If you are interested in receiving my input into these issues, please contact me by email and I will send you my book.

I moved 20 posts to a new topic: Do we need faith in order to have morality/meaning/purpose in our lives and societies?

The discussion has taken some interesting diversions, and I can not respond to all. But I will take my response to Roger’s comment as an opportunity to expand a bit.

I am a scientist, not a philosopher nor a theologian, but I do like to study and reflect upon history, philosophy, and theology so as to situate science in the wider sea in which it swims. To be a scientist is to welcome a healthy skepticism about things, keeping in mind that conventional wisdom many turn out not to be wisdom at all. My skeptical streak makes me wary of the atheist faith and its reductive handmaiden. While reductionist methods have perfectly valid uses in science, reductionist metaphysics seems overly simplistic, a bit like magic, perhaps even superstition. I say this as a scientist who knows at least a little bit about philosophy. What philosophy can achieve, at its best, is to bring clarity of thinking to the important questions we face, and we surely need to apply our best brainpower to the task. Science ignores philosophy to its peril. Classical Christianity offers much experience in deploying philosophical tools skillfully and can still call upon such resources.

I agree that “classical Christianity” is nebulous. Is it Catholic? Orthodox? Reformed? The “Mere Christianity” of C. S. Lewis? All of these draw from Scripture and the historical legacy of the church and read Scripture authoritatively in the light of Christ. All of these affirm the Incarnation and Trinity, the Cross, the Resurrection, and the work of the Spirit in the world. We need all that if we claim to be Christian, but a mere return to the past is not sufficient. We also live in a time when we have radically more knowledge about the world and the details of how it works than the church “fathers” ever had, and we must take into account what we now know.

The ultimate source of any Christian theology is the story of Jesus in the context of Israel’s story. One can make the case, as Polkinghorne and Torrance have done, that the way by which the church came to flesh out its understanding of Jesus as human and divine, and God as a Trinity of Persons, has much in common with how we come to know the world through the sciences; but that is a story for another time. And what do we want to know most but to know what it means to be human? Jesus as Logos/Word is a key to that. Polkinghorne says that his best candidate for a “theory of everything” is Trinitarian theology. If it all sounds a bit radical, remember that to be radical is to get at the root of things: so back to the sources, the roots.

Thus, I have in mind that watchword of the Reformers, ad fontes (to the sources), or more recently the Catholic Ressourcement which led to such towering figures as von Balthasar or John Paul II, to whom the Triune nature of God is so central. For a sympathetic Reformed perspective on the Ressourcement, see Hans Boersma. Going to the sources can bring about great ferment and renewal when passion and creativity have something substantial to chew upon. This is what Polkinghorne means by a “thick” engagement between science and theology: a real conversation where each brings substance to the table and can have meaningful communication. To my way of thinking, it is a conversation to which Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox voices all need to have a presence along with voices from the sciences.

We live in a universe where one Jewish rabbi, Paul of Tarsus, said of another rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant.” A universe in which such a statement is possible—nay, not only possible but true—is a universe shot through with paradox and a strange beauty, a universe in which I am pleased to live and feel at home as a scientist, practicing at the forefront of science.

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I agree with your comments and would underscore the notion of “what it means to be human”. The various sciences have provided a great deal of information that impacts on this question, especially when some promote a view of a small step-wise transition from animal to human, almost one without a boundary or demarcation. An additional area that perhaps brings confusion to these conversations is that of equating an area of study and reflection as good or bad (i.e. science is good, religion is bad, or vice-versa). This strange simplification forgets that all of these activities are performed by humans (science, theology, philosophy) and notions of what is good and evil are ones within the human being - the notions of activities as good or evil are found in human acts and the way knowledge and power is used by us.

@Paul_Julienne

Thank you for that wonderful statement.

St. Paul wrote about the problem of knowledge, which I think applies both to science and theology. “When I was a child, I thought like a child, but now that I am an adult, I have put away childish things. Now I see as through a glass darkly, but then I shall see face to face. Now I know in part, but then (in heaven with Christ), I shall know fully and know God as God knows me.” paraphrased in part 1Cor 13:11-12

The problem in large part is that science thinks it understands evolution, which it does in part, while theology thinks it understands why evolution of evolution is not true, which it does in part. Neither side is willing to sit down to try to resolve this issue, apparently because in our dualistic philosophy where something is either right or wrong, not both.

I do feel like a broken record criticizing “Western dualism” because of the Logos and the Trinitarian God, and I am glad that others pointing to the Trinity as the source of understanding Reality. My concern is that they do not seem to be digging deep enough and understand the serious nature of the problem.

We need to go beyond Darwinism, because Darwinism is not perfect. We need to go beyond philosophy because traditional philosophy is not perfect. We need to go beyond theology because traditional theology is not perfect. Our faith must be in the God of the past, present, and future, not just the God of the past.

I moved a post to an existing topic: Do we need faith in order to have morality/meaning/purpose in our lives and societies?

Indeed, given the tremendous strides in genetic manipulation technology and the Transhumanist movement, perhaps the biggest challenge posed by the 21st century is to come to an understanding of “what it means to be human.” The challenge thus pertains as much to the future as to the past. Most of the great scientists (Einstein and Feynman provide a couple 20th Century examples) have been clear that science can not give us ethics, that is, tell us what we should or should not do with our scientific discoveries. Therefore, science can give us tools to change our future, but can not tell us how or whether we should use them. That takes something beyond science, an integration of knowledge from all sources that I like to call wisdom.

It is a blindness of our time that we think we can explain what something is by looking to its past. But if we do not know what a thing is for, what its end is, we will not know what it is nor how to treat it. Since science excludes ends–final causes–from its considerations, we should not be surprised if it claims not to find them. That, of course, does not mean that there is no purpose or meaning in the universe. It just means that science is not competent to find them, by its own choice.

If Jesus reveals to us the Logos of the universe, then we see meaning and purpose written all over it. As I have pointed out in my essays, this is a matter of discernment or critical judgment, that is, wisdom or knowledge based on the totality of our wider experience beyond what science is capable of delivering (thus is evidence-based–none of this nonsense about “blind faith” being required). Furthermore, Jesus as Logos reveals to us how to be truly human–the Christian tradition looks to Jesus, not to Adam, as the prototype of authentic humanity. Jesus is also the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. So we come full circle–time and eternity meet at the beginning and the end, giving us enduring hope and direction to live the present. As Irenaeus of Lyons put it in the 2nd Century, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive!”

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Your remarks make sense to a Christian; I add to these, matters that are observed, and also as knowledge provided by the Sciences in a limited way – these contribute to our understanding of what it means to be a human being. Generally, science depends on measurements and data what are characteristic of the object undergoing measurement (the limitation stems from the fact that humans make such measurements and place these within a theoretical framework as part of such understanding). On this basis, ethical/moral considerations may be classified from the outcomes under the categories of good and evil, and applied as such to the agent involved in the particular activities. It is scientifically absurd (and also defies common sense) to avoid the obvious conclusion that intentional acts are uniquely human in origin, yet materialists do this on a daily basis – albeit they will camouflage their comments using various phrases, such as animal variations and survival advantages. It is also humorous to realise they invoke various freedoms, such as free to make up their minds on what is good and evil, and thus trumpet not been forced into decisions by some external tyrannical power they identify as god.

The Gospels and Epistles make clear and universal statements regarding attributes of humans as God intends us, and we understand these attributes have been exemplified and provided to us in their total reality by Christ. I would add however, that Adam and Eve also show us in a limited sense that God’s will for humanity has been, from the beginning, to live as truly human in an ideal world. It is also part of the wisdom you speak of to comprehend that aspect of human nature that is tempted into error and self-deceit, as illustrated by the writings in Genesis (and the entire Bible). I think it is straightforward to conclude that both science and faith contribute to our collective wisdom regarding humanity, but we need to desire such wisdom – perhaps ironically this may be close to finding common ground with some atheists (those who deny faith but seek wisdom).

Thanks for the feedback. The question of good and evil are surely compelling ones for humanity. I find it quite ironic that one of the chief arguments made by the militant “new atheists” to criticize religion is a profoundly moral argument: namely, “religion” does bad things to people, that is, it is an “evil” thing. Thus, to be human, even if an atheist, is to have a moral sense. I have to agree at least in part to this atheist critique: some religion indeed has done and still does quite “bad things” to some people. But that clearly is not the whole story: great evil has been done in the name of atheism, and great good has been done in the name of religion.

The esteemed physicist Richard Feynman in a posthumously published book of essays entitled “The Meaning of it All” said (pp. 47-48) that the two great heritages of Western civilization were science and Christian ethics, the latter being based on love, the brotherhood of all, the value of the individual, and humility of spirit. Feynman admired these, but admitted he was an atheist and quite frankly said that he did not know how to put these two great heritages together. Feynman showed the scrupulous honesty (a moral trait) one should expect of a scientist and raised the challenge to all us of how we might put science and faith together. So maybe atheists can join the conversation after all, if they are honest and not just playing games. They can raise legitimate questions for us and we for them, and we might actually make a move towards wisdom. There is no such thing as a bad question if we are really trying to learn.

John Paul II and Dietrich Bonhoeffer are two figures who have looked at “the beginning” in Genesis in compelling ways, drawing out of the story of Adam and Eve its significance for us in the light of Christ, reading the Scriptures in an authoritative but non-literal way. BioLogos is tackling the complex of questions of how to read Genesis authentically given our evolutionary history and the Christological center of Christian theology. This is not a simple task, but it is one to which authentic Christian voices should contribute. As human beings we have to deal with the reality of evil and how we respond to it. The problem of theodicy is an old one. There are no easy answers, but any Christian answer has to point to the scandalous cross of Christ, knowing that God is with us in the depths of our suffering and there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

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I appreciate your comments as they are relevant to fundamental issues that concern all of us, theists or atheists, and so I will continue the theme of good and evil.

> “Feynman showed the scrupulous honesty (a moral trait) one should expect of a scientist and raised the challenge to all us of how we might put science and faith together.”

This is correct – my view is that each person s assessed by his/her conscience as to the moral content of character. In this context, a Christian is taught that her condition is one that is the result of God granting revelation of Himself, and when we include this in our discussion, the sense of responsibility for our actions becomes acute. Scrupulous honesty is thus required from a Christian to perhaps a degree that atheists may not fully appreciate – this may be one of the reasons why at times a conflict may appear to exist between faith as expressed by Christian scientists and science as expressed by honest atheists. Thus good for a Christian is synonymous with the goodness that is God – an atheist would prefer to regard outcomes to activities and assess these within a context of what he judges to be good and evil. It is here the influence of Christian teachings have transformed Western thinking, in that we now accept the notion of good to include the content of the character of the acting human and the outcomes of his acts. Intent, agency, means, and general outlook towards ones neighbor, are included in this outlook – and I am convinced that all human beings understand this, be they religious or otherwise. This has transformed areas such as ethics, but has also focused our attention on “what type of people we are and become”. I found Aristotle’s discussion of ethics interesting as he discussed these as the way acts of individuals are viewed by the agent, and also how these acts may be understood by his community, pointing to self interest and communal interest. Christians on the other hand are admonished to consider our acts as reflecting our character (who and what we are), our standing with God, and simultaneously our impact(s) on others (our neighbors). An atheist would, I feel, be inclined to self-interest, and a good atheist would act on enlightened self-interest, as he would understand the importance of good will from his fellow human beings. Thus at a deeper level the notion of good and evil would differ between a Christian and an atheist.

While the outlook of the Faith is extensive and ensures we may strive to achieve what is good before God and man, the emphasis on self-awareness and conscience makes the Christian faith vulnerable to abuse by hypocrites and those who can deceive others. This makes it relatively easy for such people to give our religion (and other faiths) a bad name, and also enables such people to deceive others and cause a great deal of harm while appearing to be religious. Unfortunately this can also be said for non-religious people (who claim atheistic moralities), so while we are the human beings we are, we will always be confronted with the problem of our actions as either good or evil.

“As human beings we have to deal with the reality of evil and how we respond to it. The problem of theodicy is an old one. There are no easy answers, but any Christian answer has to point to the scandalous cross of Christ…”

This is an area that I suspect would cause atheists to question religion, and yet it provides hope to a Christian to strive for what is good because Christ has conquered sin (evil). I think a scientist with faith may have an advantage in that such hope can motivate towards better science in terms of science that seeks the good of humanity and this planet – but another interesting area that requires lengthy discussion to define a clear position. It is in this area that materialists bolstered by the vague generalities of evolution, have caused a great deal of confusion, and when implemented as social policies, have caused great harm. Unfortunately many religious people have often agreed with such harmful social policies – so we get back to good and evil.

Thanks for continuing the discussion. Your thoughts have the mark of wisdom.

It is interesting how a thread that started out about time and eternity leads to a discussion of good and evil. It points out something useful to keep in mind: if everything is connected, it is hard to keep fundamental questions confined to boxes of our own making. And I have to add that in a universe that is the fruit of a Trinitarian God, everything is, in fact, connected. This follows from the very logic of the Trinity in the first place.

Indeed, atheists, agnostics, and theists have a stake in good and evil. Feynman expressed an intuitive appreciation of something being good about Christian ethics, even if he did not have any clear way to relate it to the world of science. Augustine’s great work, The City of God, addresses how the two “cities” can live together, the city of God and the city of man . The supreme good or end of both cities is peace, although these have different meanings for the two cities (I acknowledge Robert Louis Wilken’s The Spirit of Early Christian Thought for this insight). The two cities are forever entangled, and Christians are called upon to be good citizens and work for the good of both cities.

I agree that it is true that atheists and Christians will have different notions of good and evil, for we only know whether something is good or bad if we know what it is for, what its end is. And we have a different sense of ends, depending on whether we perceive that we live in time only or time as touched by eternity. The reigning moral paradigm in Western societies is some form of pragmatism or utilitarianism, the most good for the most people, with “good,” for the most part, being defined by the individual. By contrast, the “good” for a Christian is transcendentally rooted in love of God and love of neighbor, such that any consideration of the good can not just be centered on the individual but on its consequences for all. Thus, some things that may appear “pragmatic” are not permissible. The open question is: are there enough people of good will to work towards a shared wisdom. Not necessarily agreement, for that is probably impossible, but at least for a measure of peace, for that benefits all. Christians are always called to work for the common good, as discerned from a Christ-centered perspective.

Amen. I have to expand on such a good comment before leaving this thread.

I agree that “Western dualism" is problematic. It is a legacy of the Enlightenment and the earlier scientific turn towards analytic methods, that is, breaking a thing down into distinct parts that can be studied in isolation from one another and reducing our understanding of the world to the scope of analytic reason. While that can be quite good and right for getting a certain kind of scientific understanding of a thing, if overdone it can blind us to the whole from which the part is abstracted. Thus, we have the modern dichotomies of head and heart, fact and value, subjective and objective, faith and reason, matter and spirit, public and private, creation and evolution, even the separation of knowledge into individual, unrelated disciplines with their own university departments, etc. The “separated” and atomistic way of thinking so characteristic of modernity leads us to think, as you say, that something must be either one thing or another, unequivocally. Not both at the same time.

The world is not so simple. The science of complexity and emergence has made great strides in the last few decades, cutting across many “disciplines.” Science is learning that the whole is not merely reducible to the sum of its parts, but the whole affects the parts too. We learn this from ecology, for example, where the parts and the whole of an ecosystem exist in networks of relationships and mutual interdependence. The same is true of our bodies and the cells and biomolecules of which they are comprised. Such relationships extend across vast ranges of scale, as touched upon with respect to time and life in my essay. The cosmos is a large ecosystem of which the earth is but a small part. A “part” is never something that is “entire of itself” (to borrow John Donne’s felicitous phrase), but it is a “part of a larger whole” where the whole may be that which determines the significance of the part.

Furthermore, the quantum world of elementary particles and photons lies beneath it all, where quantum entities can be, so to speak, “two things at once.” Explaining this would take a bit of mathematics, but few physics graduate students would find this very surprising these days. The billions of “classical” bits in a laptop computer are switches that are either “on” or “off.” In stark contrast, a quantum bit, or “qubit,” is able to be “on” and “off” at the same time. The power of a “quantum computer,” if we can learn how to build one, will come from the fact that the whole evolves with an unbroken wholeness where the individual qubits are non-locally correlated, or “entangled,” in a way that we do not find in our ordinary “classical” world.

The really remarkable thing is that the “logic” of the Incarnation and the Trinity seems closer to the “logic” of the quantum world than to the binary “classical” logic of Western dualism (but let me be very careful not to push analogy too far here lest I say nonsense: analogies have an intrinsic “is” and “is not” character, and we must be mindful of what they cannot say as well as what they can.) But if the Incarnation provides the logic (“logos”) and controlling analogy by which we have to understand the world in relation to God–Jesus as fully human and fully God—then the world is not explicable in binary logic, where a thing must be one thing or another but not both. Jesus reveals a deeper Trinitarian logic based on an infinite distinction of three Persons-in-free-relationship who are simultaneously infinitely One—mindful here that the language breaks and the analogy fails even as it begins to get traction. If the fundamental 'Logos" of the universe is Trinitarian, then we have a much more subtle and interesting universe than that of Western dualism and its reductive science.

My point is that science and Christian theology may finally be at the point where they can talk to one another again in constructive ways, after half a millennium of drifting apart. As I have said, we need to understand how the world can be intelligible, that is, why science is possible in the first place. The world that empirical science actually finds–spanning all categories of science–seems to be the kind of world we could expect, given the Incarnation. Might we even view the comprehensibility of the universe to our finite minds, correlated as they are with the neurons and molecular biology of our brains, to be an expected and intended emergent property of a cosmos that is a free gift of its Trinitarian Source, the God of love revealed to us in Jesus Christ? Minds whose intended end it is to know and love their Source. I do not see anything that science has actually discovered that would forbid such a view, although clearly it does not require such a view. Wisdom demands a more expansive metaphysics than reduction. Then the modern dichotomies in the list above can be deconstructed at their root, and we can arrive at a saner postmodern rationality that is more faithful to the way that science finds the world actually is. And, might I add, more faithful to what is needed for human flourishing.

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Eddie, thanks for your insights. What a world or meaning–or better, unmeaning–is contained in that little word “entirely.” The sources you mentioned are all well-known representatives of philosophical trains of thought. As I see it, philosophy is both part of the problem and part of the solution (as the book by Michel Hanby I referenced goes to great length to point out). Sir Francis Bacon was a highly influential voice in articulating the basic philosophical principles of the new “scientific revolution” and its empirical reductive methodology. His book published in 1620, Novum Organum Scientiarum, the “New Instrument of Science [knowledge]”, or the New Organon as it is usually called in English, represents a deliberate and determined rejection of the reigning Aristotelian system of logic and knowledge universally taught in the universities of his era. Bacon’s title represents a takeoff on the Organon, the title of Aristotle’s works on logic.

Bacon argued that a new instrument of knowledge was needed to counter the arid and unproductive disputations and endless speculation going on under the then current paradigm of knowledge. Rather, look at nature to see how it actually works and put the knowledge to good use in mastering nature to the good of humanity. I have no quarrel per se with Bacon on that or on reduction as a sound and valid method to deploy where appropriate in seeking better knowledge about the world. Reduction is sound as “science” but is questionable as metaphysics, the final word on ontology, the way the world really is. Not only questionable but ultimately incoherent, for it blinds us to the greater whole that allows the parts to cohere, to make sense. For a scientist is not only comprised of 10 to the 28th power of atoms, but the ensemble of atoms that comprise the scientist make a coherent dynamical pattern correlated with the mind of the scientist who comprehends the whole. Can we not see the significance of that? Are our eyes so fixed on the ground that we can only see its univocal roots? Such univocity speaks only of death, where the words and consciousness of the scientist are literally reduced to a transient illusion of lifeless matter. I prefer to soar in the open and life-giving air of analogy, where words can fulfill their purpose in apprehending the truth and mystery of the world, and we can again see its full potential and beauty. That is the lesson of the Incarnation and why I can bear witness to its universal appeal. It is a matter of vision, theoria, not science, scientia.

So Bacon was right in one sense: it all comes down to “logic” or “logos” after all. Perhaps what we need again is a new Organon, a new logic, that does not dogmatically insist that it be metaphysically reductive, a move that blinds us to wholes and their significance. The findings of science itself push us in this direction. The vision that Trinitarian logic offers–but remember that the analogy is incomplete-- is that of distinction (parts) in unity (the whole) with freedom (novelty). Is not that the kind of cosmos that science has uncovered? Christian theology can issue an invitation from its Christological (and thererfore Trinitarian) center for science and theology to be in substantial conversation with one another, neither subsuming the other in a claim of power. Is not that a way to reach a greater wisdom for the sake of all and take up Feynman’s challenge to put science and faith together.

It would clearly take me a book to unpack this. But keep on asking good questions. I certainly can’t answer them all, since I am a physicist and not a biologist. But that is why we have one another. I do know that the science of evolution continues to change and develop, as evidenced by a Comment article in the October 8, 2014, issue of Nature, entitled “Does evolutionary theory need a rethink?” subtitled “Researchers are divided over what processes should be considered fundamental.” The controversy is stimulated in part by how one should respond to the findings coming from developmental biology and the new science of epigenomics, which is finding there is more to inheritance than genes. This is the kind of thing that goes on in normal science, where one tries to make the most sense of the data one has, given the theoretical framework available. It points out that science is not fixed, but continues to respond to the requirements of incorporating new data into its understanding. That is its genius. Theology needs to take care not to tie itself too closely to the science of its time, for such science will inevitably change and theology will be left behind. Theology points to something permanent amidst the flux of time. Permanence addresses wholes, flux addresses parts. Science is really good at understanding the parts. It should not blind itself to the whole.

@Paul_Julienne, @GJDS,@Eddie, @Relates Relates

You may have seen me mention this before; however, there is a way to solve dualism within Christianity. As I see it, time and eternity are not the same. We are three dimensional creatures; we do not see everything that happens beyond these three. God, on the other hand, sees everything. All creation is open to him. As Dr. Frank Stagg of the Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky said: “I Corinthians 15 seems to say that resurrection is at the Second Coming of Christ; however, II Corinthians 5 says we go to heaven at death in our risen bodies.” How can this be? The Roman Church tried to solve this question by combining two views of life after death: immortality of the soul and the resurrection at the Second Coming. Augustine of Hippo used Neo-Platonism to solve this problem; however, must we accept this combining of views to explain going to heaven at death and at the Second Coming? I say “no.” As I have said, time and eternity are not the same. God sees every moment of time and the eternal “Now.” To me time can be compared to a group of children’s building blocks. When I was a child, I would put one building block upon another. The bottom represents the past, the middle is the present, and the top is the future. Beyond time, there is no building block because that represents infinity. This very moment in which we are “now” living may have happened many times to God. We just don’t realize it. Let’s say that God uses his hand to remove the bottom building block. If He does, the building blocks would fall. Time would no longer exist. Every moment that will happen has occurred. When a person dies to this world,he steps outside of the line of time. This person who has died to this world now experiences the resurrection of the dead. There is no need for two kinds of immortality in the Holy Scripture. C. S. Lewis seems to use this concept in the Last Battle in his Narnia series. The children on earth have just died in a train wreck; however, they enter a stall door that takes them to Heaven. They have bodies and are not disembodied ghosts. The Apostle Paul never talks about the Platonic Concept in his writings; however, he does say that we go to heaven at death and the Second Coming. He juxtaposes both ideas in a single Epistle. Jesus said to the malefactor on the cross: “Today you will be with me in paradise.” I admit that this concept is only conjecture. It could be that the Roman Church, Augustine, and Plato were correct. Perhaps Thomas Aquinas was correct when he said that we have an eternal soul and there is also resurrection of the body. I can accept that too. I do say also that the time and eternity construct could be correct as well. Dr. Paul, it has been an honor to contact you. I do hope that my thoughts make sense and interest you. If they do not, I do apologize. Do have a jolly evening.

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