Should you still be interested, let’s start with Physics. Please don’t be scared off.

But, first, I need to bring back to these pages my friend, Gary, who is rather an interesting man.

By training he was (he’s now retired) a high energy physicist. What that really means is that he was a Ph.D. working with huge machines that basically recreated the conditions of the sun in a laboratory. Now, when I mean “huge machine,” I mean just that. The machine and the support system that allowed it to function occupied large buildings that would just as easily have housed jet aircraft, I suppose. In any event, what they were trying to do is something called “fusion” science (the atomic reaction in our sun as opposed to our normal “fission” nuclear reactors.) In essence, they were looking at particles smaller than any of us can imagine to see how they function and why that’s important.

While he was not alone as a Christian in his field, he was in a small minority. Through his observations as well as other experiences, Gary recognized design as behind reality.

In the late 1920s, the astronomer Edwin Hubble (yes, that Hubble after which our first large space telescope was named) announced that he’d confirmed that the universe was actually expanding and doing so in every direction at the same rate. In other words, every celestial object was moving away from every other celestial object. Viewed on a grand scale, this meant that all of the hundreds of billions of galaxies are each regularly moving apart from one another as if a balloon had them imprinted all of them on its surface and was being systematically inflated. You get the picture.

He proved this by observing what has been called the red shift. Look it up if you’d like. It’s never been disproven and, in fact, led the way forward both in exposing the mistaken view that we are in a steady state and in leading us backward in time to an actual beginning. This scientific viewpoint has received no real counterargument. Einstein gladly admitted its truth and stated that it neatly aligned with his theory of General Relativity (too complicated to unpack here).

Well, it was quickly understood that, if the universe is consistently expanding (and our increasingly advanced telescopes were able to confirm this), then we can put our lenses on reverse and look backwards. Kind of like rewinding the clock, observing as the numbers proceed accordingly. Larger and larger telescopes, enhanced through all sorts of new and exciting technologies, were eventually able to look backwards in time to the earliest moments in our universe, about 14 billion years ago.

While you may know what comes next, we have to realize what a big deal this was.

As much as I’ve studied this (and I’ve studied it a whole lot), my mind staggers at what has been discovered.

You see, without any alternative viewpoint, virtually all scientists now understand that all matter and energy in the universe can be traced back to single moment before which there was neither matter, energy, time or space. I wrote about this recently.

And, then, something happened and existence came into existence. We call that event, somewhat inexactly, The Big Bang. (Of course, there was no “bang” because there was no sound but what actually happened, I guess, closely resembles an explosion of epic proportions!)

This immediately created all sorts of confusion in the broader scientific community. Without going into detail (I’ve found it fascinating as I’ve studied the evolution of the philosophy of science), the dominant view shifted to the point that there was really no longer a question of when the universe originated but of how and why.

In essence, something came out of nothing. Again, something (really all of the stuff in the universe and there is a whole lot of stuff, won’t you agree?) came out of nothing. Zero. At least that was what was being proposed.

Of course, alternative explanations have cropped up, including that the universe is constantly expanding until gravity takes over and it contracts down to “almost” nothing before it “blows up again.” (This is no longer taken seriously.) And, then, we later get the multiverse and string theories, each of which is the search by scientists to find some possible explanation other than there was a creative Intelligence behind the beginning.

In essence, their work starts with the grand assumption that there is no Creator or God, so there must be another explanation. Unfortunately, for them, they have found no evidence to support such conjecture. They’re hunting, while simultaneously trying to circumvent evidence to support a creative intelligence behind it all. Because to do so will not only open a door in the wall but, perhaps, a fatal crack in the entire edifice.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1

At this point, one can see some overlap between the theory and understanding of the Big Bang and two of the most well-known verses in scripture, the first at the beginning of the Old Testament and the second at the beginning of the Gospel of John in the New Testament.

But, for our purposes, we’ve only just begun and, perhaps the most amazing thing has yet to be mentioned.

What have new technological tools allowed us to see that have substantially shifted the debate and why is this debate not being held publicly in the mainstream?

What recent discoveries are threatening to topple the dominant views of physicists, chemists and biologists for the major part of the last two hundred years?

And, we can’t forget that science has tremendously influenced philosophy, which, itself, is a building block for worldviews that govern thought and behavior.

Some big questions.

I’ll say it again because it really deserves repeating.

We are talking about the things that scientists are discovering that are leading to the unraveling of basic tenets that have governed the assumptions of the general scientific community for generations.

This is not theology. This is not the Bible Belt proclaiming their traditional beliefs. This is not seminaries or missionaries or pastors at the Sunday pulpit. This is high level science being conducted objectively using the very methods used by scientists such as Darwin and Einstein.

Some disclaimers with explanation:

I’m not a scientist although I’ve long been fascinated by what it has to tell us about the physical world. And, I’m quite familiar with a thing we can call “scientific method,” having studied it both formally and informally.

I’m about as far away from a mechanical engineer as you can get but I love reading about and listening to how things function, especially really big things like stars and galaxies and very little things like particles and waves.

I’m not a mathematician but I love numbers and logic and their perfect symmetry and how it all orders reality.

I’m not a linguist but I’m fascinated with how language operates, sequencing together seemingly random letters to create symbols we call “words,” then piecing them together to communicate the most amazing concepts that can change the destiny of nations or touch the deepest parts of our souls.

I’m not a neurobiologist but I love learning about the brain and how it operates, while also trying to figure out the difference between Brain and Mind.

I’m not a psychologist but I have studied most of the famous ones and am not unfamiliar with their beliefs and practices.

I’m neither an economist nor an anthropologist nor a sociologist, although I can probably speak at least somewhat intelligently for a few minutes on the disciplines of each.

I’m not a computer engineer or programmer but I get what code is and how computers function and what they do.

I guess I’d qualify as having some recognized expertise in education theory and practice, leadership theory and practice, history, political science, philosophy and theology.

I share this long-winded disclaimer because I think at least some variation of it can encompass all of us.

So, while we may not feel we are adept at understanding this or that because it appears daunting, I suspect we’re doing ourselves a disservice. We ought to pay attention and ask questions, especially when it comes to really important stuff.

Like I did, as an undergraduate history major taking a course in Microbiology taught by a professor who we were told was the runner-up for the Nobel Prize in biology for his work in the study of virology (or viruses).

I can remember like it was yesterday when he drew a picture on the blackboard of a T4 Phage virus and explained its function. It blew my mind on so many levels. I learned that this insidious little thing was neither really dead nor alive but sort of lived in between. It is one of the most incredible things in biology. While the professor’s graphic was 2D in chalk in 1974, I’m including a link to a very brief contemporary YouTube animation and narrative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFXuxGuT7H8

It didn’t feel all that dissimilar to when I looked through a small telescope in our backyard and clearly saw the differentiated rings of Saturn, right in front of my eye, filling a good part of my field of view.

In each, I experienced a sense of wonder and it is that wonder, like so many other experiences that have grabbed ahold of me, that have placed in me a desire to know more.

So, with that little detour, what exactly has happened, via new technologies, that is transforming the discussion and threatening the edifice?

To be grossly simplistic, we’ve developed really big and powerful telescopes to look into the furthest reaches of our physical universe. We’ve developed incredibly gigantic machines to explore the nature of minute particles and forms of energy. And we’ve developed the most sophisticated microscopes and related equipment that have allowed us to dive into the most incredible and miniscule parts of organic (living) chemistry.

In other words, the tools we use in physics, chemistry and biology are developing in sophistication far more rapidly than ever before, allowing us windows into the physical world almost unimaginable not that long ago.

There has been this fundamental tenet in computer science, called Moore’s law (around since the 1960s) that computing power doubles and the price of such computing power is cut in half every 18 months or thereabouts. This is a phenomenal observation but easily recognized by the power of the computer in our hands (that we can talk through) compared with similar computing power relatively recently.

One of the direct results of this phenomenon is that new technologies, which are really just tools (such as hammers or stoves or automobiles), are radically changing the landscape of what we can discover in the various sciences. Features that have previously been unavailable to us are now cascading into our consciousness and bringing us to newer levels of understanding about what we really are and where we came from.

And this, like it or not, has created a newly-opened door through the wall.

Chance or Design? Where is the evidence leading us?

I promise I will get back to themes that really touch on specific aspects of Christianity, for those of you who glance at this current stuff and find it somewhat unappealing. For whatever reason, I feel called to write about these things because, unlike much current discourse, I find Christianity entirely rational and consistent with scientific explanations of natural phenomenon.

So we left off with this wall. A wall built up during what I’d call the second, or modern, epoch. This epoch pretty much coincided with an historical period that ran from the late 18^thcentury to the late 20^thcentury. (I’ll put a nice starting peg in the timeline at 1789, which was the beginning of the French Revolution and just two years after the adoption of the revolutionary U.S. Constitution. For a frame of reference, Adam Smith’s seminal work, The Wealth of Nations, acting as the philosophical foundation for economic capitalism, coincided exactly with our own Declaration of Independencein 1776. This was also the exact time when the Industrial Revolution began and the beginning of some remarkable breakthroughs in science. Heady times, indeed!)

But, beginning mid-20^thcentury and accelerating rapidly through the 1970s and 1980s, gathering more and more steam until it’s now on full tilt mode, was the launch of a new epoch, an epic that is quickly casting away all sorts of things we’d been relying upon for how we live our lives and for trying to make sense of the things that are important to us.

Now, to use the term postmodern to define this new era, in which we are currently residing, would be to court a term that has some very distinct meanings, not necessarily in the context I’m examining. One such interpretation is that it defines an era which abandons a thing like objective truth. It’s certainly an era when the trust in traditional institutions like governments, churches and even schools is diminishing. Just look at the polls and other studies.

I have certainly talked about the nature of truth and concepts of whether it is an objective or subjective (relative) thing. But that’s not the focus here.

Instead, I want to look at what very recent scientific developments have done to destabilize that wall.

We should dwell momentarily on such a statement.

The wall has been constructed largely by scientists (who translate their scientific beliefs into philosophical worldviews) and by the philosophers who align with them and large swaths of he  public who believe them. From their side of the wall, the objective is to influence vast numbers of people that the believers in Theism or Supernaturalism are misguided and should be sidelined or even destroyed. Of course, this is happening all around us and has been accelerating, especially in the universities and popular media.

But, this wall was not built just by scientists and associated philosophers who discarded God as a figment. It was also supported by many Christians who were reluctant to engage with science, holding to very rigid viewpoints such as young earth creationism (the belief that the earth is only a few thousand years old). This latter approach only served to cement the opinions of many that such religious “fundamentalists” were irrational and that their “faith was blind.” Regardless, popular culture was making its decision that the fundamental issues were firmly settled.

But a funny thing happened on the way to ending the debate.

And, that thing was and is technology, the product of incredible investments of time and resources within the scientific community.

If the Industrial Revolution is the major economic element of the modern era, then the Technological (or Information) Revolution is the economic element of the post-modern era. I will refrain here from getting into the relationship between economic forces and their impact upon things like institutions and belief but there are some fascinating connections.

In our case, however, it is to the massive advances in technology employed by scientists in physics, chemistry and biology that are not only creating cracks in the edifice but also suggest the portent of some remarkable new understandings.

As the debate is now launching, new sophisticated technologies are allowing us to peer far more deeply into the complexities of the tiniest organisms as well as the furthest reaches of space, including the nature of matter, energy and time. And through these, a single radical new perspective is emerging. And, it’s emerging from science, not theology.

Simply put, maybe the theists had it right all along. We’ll see.

Now, for those of you who are committed believers in God, especially of a Judaic or Christian God, this may come across as largely irrelevant. You’ve managed to sustain your beliefs for all sorts of reasons (faith in the inerrancy of the Bible being a common one accepted by large groups of Christians). Others may come to faith through a rational examination of fundamental values and principles, such as C.S. Lewis did and as expressed beautifully in his great Mere Christianity. Still others had such influences as a conversion experience or the mentoring by parents, pastors and friends that led you to belief and help sustain those beliefs. It’s a long list.

But, relatively few people over the last two hundred years have come to belief in God because physics, chemistry and biology actually point to God. As I’ve been saying, it’s largely the opposite.

Enter technology and this unfolding Age of Information and let’s put on our seat belts.

As any of you who valiantly wade into my stuff will undoubtedly know, I’m pretty fascinated with the intersection of faith and science or, maybe put a little differently … culture that recognizes the supernatural and culture that doesn’t.

I think this goes a long way to helping bridge the gap between people of different beliefs and I’m a big fan of dialogue, especially when that dialogue challenges us to do two things: First, go more deeply into how and why we believe something and, second, to grow into better understandings of how and why others think differently.

Anyway, that’s me and I’m sort of going to continue with a thread from a recent series that I find helpful to explore as a believing Christian and, also, as a way of rationally communicating with others who hold alternative viewpoints.

Because, I think, some fascinating stuff is happening if we’re willing to pay a little attention. In fact, I believe it’s on a scale that can be called truly revolutionary in many respects. And, I don’t say that lightly.

I’ll begin with this very interesting phenomenon that is occurring right now in a place where science, philosophy and theology intersect. As I’m doing a great deal of reading, listening, and thinking about this, I can’t help but put on my cap as an historian to examine what’s really going on.

(Admittedly, I geek out when I see broad historical patterns emerge as if they are colorful waves on a 3D tapestry, linking complex features of the human condition and all that goes into that. And, we always need to contextualize our perceptions of things. The way we confront our circumstances and the realities of our existence are conditioned by all sorts of forces, many of which can be illuminated by a careful examination of various histories.)

This series will dive more deeply into the fundamental nature of our reality, specifically by further unpacking the notions of whether that reality is the product of chance or design. It is this quest that is producing some remarkable new findings.

I’m going to begin by painting with a really broad brushstroke here (almost to the point that it’s way over-simplified) and say that we can break history into three different historical epochs with implications for our topic. And those epochs are the pre-modern, modern and post-modern periods encompassing the last several thousand years. I’ll say again that this is way over-simplified, so please don’t quote me to any experts. 🙂

Anyway, I’ll suggest that the pre-modern epoch (at least in the west but I suppose it can be argued for the non-western world as well) could generally be characterized, for our purposes, by the dominant assumption that there was meaning and purpose to both the physical realms and our own individual realms as having come from a supernatural (outside of nature) entity. And, that such an entity was behind the creation of all things.

This dominant viewpoint in what we’ve come to call the West (which was founded upon Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian worldviews), began to give way to the reasoning of groups of scientists and philosophers principally in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, culminating in the 20^th century. In this time period (which we can begin referring to as the modern), we witnessed the flowering of systems such as industrialization, democracy, the rise of powerful nation-states and a shift to philosophical humanism that posits that mankind itself reigns supreme in all things and that we contain in ourselves the perfection of our condition. (If I haven’t yet been clear, this is a really big generalization but, while generalizations have trouble standing on their own without specificity, they can be useful for starting points.)

If one wants a picture of modernity, think of very organized systems such as assembly lines (including schools where students are placed in neat rows and columns in order to ingest the stuff whereby they will pop out the end fully formed). From such thinking came the great political and economic systems such as democratic-republics, capitalism and socialism, communism and fascism. The history of the 20^thcentury is not a particularly appealing one, taken from a number of vantage points.

In the realm of science, biologist CharlesDarwin’s fundamental theory claimed that the origin of life and the development of species came from random chance, accompanied by spontaneous variations or mutations whereby certain traits were naturally selected to dominate. His theory quickly took center stage and has remained there, fairly successfully fighting off all others for the past one and a half centuries.

In this view, life began by chance (maybe a lightning bolt hit a non-living chemical soup of sorts and out popped the first cell). After that, nature guided a non-externally-guided process and we are who we are because of it. So, a non-rational force (nature) guided (an accepted function of reasoning) process.

(This way of thinking tangentially led to a thing called Social Darwinism which was not at all unlike Nietzsche’s view of a super race and which led to the push for eugenics… which advocates for selective human breeding and even the killing off of undesirable humans who possess the weaker traits. What this really meant is that humans could jump right in and help accelerate the process in order to more quickly reach our evolutionary potential. Of course, Nazism, with its accordant philosophies, experiments and abhorrent practices, is also a byproduct of this overarching worldview.)

In physics, there was a strong belief that the universe was infinite and had been around forever. There was no beginning and certainly no pre-beginning. A prevailing view of most theoretical physicists through the mid 20^thcentury was that the universe was in a kind of steady state. (A theory that the great Albert Einstein even adopted but later admitted was a mistake). One way to characterize a tenet of this viewpoint is that time stretched out from and to eternity.

It is here that the wall between those who believed in God as the fundamental explanation for reality and those who believed in science as the fundamental explanation for reality was pretty rock solid. Quite high and thick.

The broad and very public scientific community that dominated the universities and science-oriented institutes and journals sent a clear message over the wall to the theists that the latter were adhering to what the scientists and associated philosophers described as god in the gaps.

This viewpoint held that, as science advanced, mysterious forces attributed to the powers of a supernatural being became consistently exposed as fully natural events now demonstrated through scientific experimentation and analysis. God, they explained, was like the tooth fairy, good for explaining something to an immature mind but, in the end, just wishful thinking or a kind of fairy tale. This following statement is characteristic.

“Because you are stuck in your archaic ways of thinking and don’t listen to science, you call something “supernatural” for stuff that can easily be explained by resorting to reason and science. You always fall back on the Bible (a grand mythology) for explanation when we’ve already figured stuff out. There is no creation moment or event. There is no overriding purpose other than that which is contained in the nature of particles and energy, as well as the forces which organize them (gravity, the strong and weak nuclear forces, etc..), chemistry and biology.”

And so, God began to rapidly fall out of favor. Churches closed all throughout Europe as millions abandoned what they were now convinced had no place in reality. God was dead or at least dying. Long live science and reason.

America is in that battle right now.

Here’s Neil deGrasse Tyson, one of a small group of very popular scientists who inundate public media in the U.S.

“God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance that’s getting smaller and smaller and smaller as time moves on.

Or as the most famous popular astronomer of the past half century, Carl Sagan, forcefully said,

“It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying or reassuring.”

“The cosmos is all that is, or ever was or ever will be.”

However, the tectonic plates are beginning to shift again and it’s actually fascinating to observe!

Stay tuned.