God and the heavens (3)

Forever, O LORD, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens. Your faithfulness endures to all generations; you have established the earth, and it stands fast. By your appointment they stand this day, for all things are your servants.

  - Psalm 119:89-91

Since God made the heavens for a purpose, and He continues to uphold and sustain them for a purpose, it's not a stretch to conclude that the heavens and everything in them must in some sense be servants of God.

Not a stretch to conclude that perhaps, but understanding it can be a little challenging.

The heavens serve the Lord. They do His bidding and accomplish His pleasure.

The heavens serve the Lord by declaring His glory to human beings. The glory of God is just the presence of God, realized. The glory of God pervades and contains the cosmos at the same time. God is everywhere present throughout the heavens, and the heavens exist within Him. So the heavens bear witness to the reality of God. They teach us that He exists and they tell us something about what He is like.

This is what all God's servants do. Think of a minister, for example. His job is to declare that God exists and to tell us what He's like so that we might know, fear, love, serve, and obey Him. The heavens do the same thing. Only without words.

Which is a real drawback, for unless someone employs words to describe the nature, purpose, and functioning of the heavens as God's servants, God's glory is not likely to be known. Human beings know that God is speaking through the things He has made. Most of them simply choose not to pay attention (Rom. 1.18-21). Worse, refusing to see God in the heavens, as the heavens faithfully bear witness to Him, they apply their own words to the heavenly bodies and describe them as being something other than what they are and existing for some purpose other than to glorify God.

So rather than ponder the mystery of how the heavens serve the good purposes of God, science actually uses the heavens against the idea of God and on behalf of merely human projects.

The heavens still serve God, and God still sustains and upholds them. But we short-circuit our ability to know and enjoy the heavens - as God intends - when we try to wrest them from His ownership, purposes, and control and treat them as if they are some kind of self-existing entity to be studied, used, and perhaps even adored in their own right.

This is a wrong path for scientific study, but the scientists who are on the path will not see the bridge out until it's too late. Some of us need to join them in their misguided journey of misunderstanding and gradually, lovingly, but uncompromisingly help them to see that our study and use of the heavens can only bear maximum fruit when we pursue them for the knowledge of God and the purposes of His glory.

That's how the heavens are meant to serve God. And that's how we're meant to serve Him as well.

God made the heavens and He keeps them in place.

Why are the heavens so vast?

Princeton ethicist Peter Singer wonders whether the time is approaching when it may be possible to solve at least some of our moral problems by popping a pill.

Writing in the Opinionater blog at The New York Times, Dr. Singer asks, “If continuing brain research does in fact show biochemical differences between the brains of those who help others and the brains of those who do not, could this lead to a ‘morality pill’ — a drug that makes us more likely to help?”

Previous generations turned to the frontal lobotomy to control anti-social behavior – the premise behind the Jack Nicholson film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, of some years back. But if it is possible to identify differences in the brains of those who act helpfully, let us say, and those who do not, then might we not prescribe for the latter some “brain supplement” that will make his brain function more like the “moral” person?

Dr. Singer insists, “Given the many other studies linking biochemical conditions to mood and behavior, and the proliferation of drugs to modify them that have followed, the idea is not far-fetched.” He is doubtless correct. But he wonders whether or not people would “choose to take” such a pill were it available. But what if they had no choice? What if a court or other government agency required it, in order to help miscreants and ne’er-do-wells make a more positive contribution to society?

Dr. Singer rightly understands that such a possibility calls into question the role of human free will. But he is not troubled by this, because he believes that whether or not such a pill is available or prescribed or used, it will only serve to bring our brains more into line with societally-accepted notions of goodness and, hence, of freedom from bad choices – “free” will. He concludes, “whether or not we have free will, we may soon face new choices about the ways in which we are willing to influence behavior for the better.”

The problem is with that last word – “better.” “Better” on whose terms? Who would decide the criteria of ethical acceptability by which a “normal” brain – and, hence, “free will” – would be defined? And what criteria would be employed to make such determinations?

We’re not so far away from having to deal with these questions, and given the increasing antipathy of secular science – in particular, neuroscience – toward all things religious, together with the increasing involvement of government in matters of health care and medicine, this is a question Christians working in the arenas of ethics and science should be addressing right now.

Or before we know it, we could all be living in a potential cuckoo’s nest, with somebody else deciding what “free will” and “ethics” mean in our case.

Marcelo Gleiser is concerned that not enough people are interested in science.

Writing on his blog at the NPR website, Mr. Gleiser ask, "Why Should You Care About Science?" and then, of course, proceeds to offer an explanation.

He allows that it would be "unrealisitc to expect that the whole population of the United States would be interested in the latest scientific advancements." However, he is alarmed at "the level of disconnect between the science people use and the science they know." Science has an enormous impact on culture, and, hence, on our lives. If only for this reason, you'd think more people would pay attention to it.

He explains that science itself is in part to blame, but not intentionally. Science has become more complex and abstract than it was in previous generations, requiring more sophisticated kinds of thinking and equipment, and these are beyond the reach of most people. "So," Mr. Gleiser explains, "there is a growing distance between most people and the way objects of interest to scientists are seen and studied, and how the results from the various observations are interpreted."

He could be right about this. Well, I'm pretty sure he's right; however, I don't think this is the only reason why more people don't keep up with what's going on in the sciences.

Consider: Who of us likes to be in a group of know-it-alls who delight to brandish their knowledge and put on airs of superiority toward others? A lot of science writing comes off like this to me - arrogant, condescending, and oh-so-absolutely-certain. There's no room for us outsiders to do anything but nod in agreement and, I suppose, genuflect.

I don't say this is a conscious attitude on the part of scientists or science writers, but it's there. Here's is how, for example, Mr. Gleiser expresses his frustratiion with those who just don't get it: "Perhaps this is why, some time ago, a reader told me that, to him, believing in an abstract God or in a claim that the universe is 13.7 billion years old was not so different. And yet, these two couldn't be more different! The same sort of difficulty arises when people doubt what scientists have to say about global warming. Without a concrete, tangible in-your-face evidence, people find it much harder to 'believe,' even though global warming, as any other scientific claim, has nothing to do with belief."

"Nothing to do with belief"? Come on. Science is all about believing things without being able to prove them. I'd like to see Mr. Gleiser prove that last statement. Science is founded on certain unprovable assumptions, and the really inconvenient thing for secular scientists is that those assumptions are not inherent in their own naturalistic, randomized worldview. They derive from the Christian worldview within which the modern scientific endeavor had its beginnings.

Science depends on faith as much as, well, faith depends on faith. The scientist who will not admit that is simply unwilling - or perhaps, unable? - to engage in a discussion of the foundational beliefs of science.

This unwillingness to be honest about the real nature of science is as offputting to me in science writers as any of the difficulty I may have in trying to understand the substance of their reports.

A little more humility - and honesty - on the part of secular science writers might make for more dialog with the unwashed masses like myself who really are interested in science but who do not enjoy interacting with bores.

Inference has played a role in the work of science from the beginning.

A scientist observes various phenomena and infers a relationship between them. He then establishes a series of tests or experiments in an effort to create conditions which reproduce his observations at some level, thus, hopefully, demonstrating the validity of his inferences and establishing what we might refer to as a scientific truth.

Inference works because scientists can observe and manipulate material phenomena and processes – or their numerical proxies – to achieve measurable results. But what if we cannot actually observe a phenomenon? What if we can only observe certain effects? How can we infer either the cause of those effects or how that unobservable cause might affect other phenomena, without actually being able to observe or manipulate that unobservable cause?

I’m thinking, of course, of black holes and dark matter. Scientists can observe neither, and their attempts to define them are merely guesses, at least for the present. How, after all, can we define something we can neither observe nor manipulate? As reported at The Daily Galaxy recently, “Black holes cannot be seen directly, but their influence on nearby stars is visible, and provides a signature…”

We see the “signature,” but not the hand that signs it. However, since the scientific community is committed to the idea of a purely materialistic cosmos, they assume that the hand which produces the “signature” must be some form of matter. Hence, “dark” matter and “black holes.”

“What’s inside a black hole is one of the biggest mysteries in physics,” The Daily Galaxy continues. That only makes sense. Since we don’t really know what a black hole is, we would expect knowing what’s inside one to be a “mystery.” But that sounds more like the language of faith than of science.

“Mysteries abound” reports The Daily Galaxy. To be sure. “Many researchers have offered theories of how supermassive black holes might have formed, but there is no consensus.” Since we don’t really know what they are, or what’s inside them – or whether there even is an “inside” to them – it’s hard to imagine anything like a consensus existing on how they were formed.

For something we really can’t define, filled with stuff that remains a mystery, scientists express a good deal of confidence about “black holes.” They now posit that “most, if not all, of the universe’s hundreds of billions of galaxies have supermassive black holes at their core.” That, without ever having seen a black hole or even being able to explain what one is. All scientists can see are influences. From those influences they infer some form of matter, because matter is what they believe in.

But what if the influence scientists are observing is coming from something other than dark matter and black holes? What if those signatures are being signed by something beyond or outside the realm of mere matter?

The anti-supernatural bias of the scientific community will not allow its members to embrace such a notion, much less pursue it, whether by research or additional speculation. All the attempts to understand black holes and dark matter from a materialistic perspective have accomplished little more than closer observation and cataloging of the effects – the influence – of these phenomena. No one really knows what they are or even, on the basis of the methods of science alone, whether they really exist.

That something exists out there seems pretty clear. Is there an explanation for the presence of a powerful, unseen influence, existing throughout the cosmos, that resolves this question in something other than a materialistic way?

If there is, it will not be discovered by the methods of materialistic science, but by the methods of faith. But materialistic science is no stranger to faith. Just as the faith of materialistic science insists that these phenomena can only be some as-yet-unknown form of matter (hence, “dark” matter or “anti-matter”), so the faith of one who considers the cosmos from more than a naturalistic perspective – from the perspective of a supernaturalist – might give rise to different faith-based inferences about such powerfully influential phenomena. Would such inferences be any less valid than those of materialist science?

I know of no such inferences being proposed as yet; however, since, as I understand, a good many Christians are at work in the fields of physics and cosmology, perhaps such an explanation – an inference regarding certain influences that allows for spiritual presence disbursed throughout the cosmos – may be forthcoming at some point.

We’ll see.

Yep. Sorry to report nothing has changed in this category.

And now science is weighing in to fix this conclusion even more firmly – as if it needed fixing.

According to Keith Kleiner, writing on the Gravity and Levity website, statistics continue to lead to the conclusion that all human beings are going to die and that the older we get, the more certain death becomes.

We can deny it all we want, kick against it with the fury of a Camus, or act like it’s no big deal, but death is still the elephant in the room for every one of us.

The reason for this, explains Mr. Kleiner, is that our bodies are meant to die: “By looking at theories of human mortality that are clearly wrong, we can deduce that our fast-rising mortality is not the result of a dangerous environment, but of a body that has a built-in expiration date.”

Like all material things, bodies break down and wear out. No amount of our medicating, exercising, or implant-chipping them is going to change that. According to Mr. Kleiner, we are created to die, so get over it.

Well, not so fast. Mr. Kleiner is certainly looking for more. He hopes that one day “some brilliant biologist” will be able to give us “real insight into why we age the way we do.” Then, at least, we can die knowing why. That should be comforting.

I beg to differ with Mr. Kleiner’s otherwise very interesting article in two points. First, biologists will not be able to discover why we age and die. Certainly they will observe and isolate processes and variables that change and decay over time, and then they’ll have to explain those, and then the explanations behind those. But in a purely materialistic worldview, it can only ever be turtles all the way down, ad infinitum, and that doesn’t provide any real ultimate explanations.

Scripture teaches that we die because of sin: “The wages of sin is death.” Biology will never be able to isolate and measure that. It’s an article of faith, just as the belief that there is no such thing as sin is itself an article of faith. But the Christian view provides a cogent explanation for death, not to mention a great many other things as well.

Second, the human body was not created to die. It was created to live forever, glorified and in the presence of the glorious God of heaven and earth. It is indeed appointed to every human being (most of us, anyway) to die physically. But they who know Christ and trust in Him look forward to being clothed with immortality, in new, decay- and death-proof bodies, where neither worm nor rust nor faltering health will be able to lay us low.

The materialist can only contemplate death and shrug (and, for most of them, fear, Heb. 2:15).

The Christian looks at death, nods, and looks beyond it to a glorious new and eternal beginning, without death, and without the curse that makes death a scourge for every living creature.

The Christian way is the way of hope and contentment.

The materialist way is the way of, Oh well.

We have a message of hope to proclaim to a dying world. Let’s not allow secular science to have the last word on so important a subject as this.

The vulnerability of the scientific method

If we don’t want science to be corrupted by sin, we need something to check the power of sin.

The method of scientific discovery is frequently presented as reliable for discerning truth because it follows strictly objective protocols and procedures. Science gives us the truth about the world because its method is virtually foolproof.

Except, of course, when it is taken up by outright fools. Lots of folks, over the years, have appealed to the methods of science to “prove” their pet theories, only to have their folly exposed and their contribution erased. It seems the scientific method may be rather more pliable than some would have us think.

This is especially true when the methods of science are applied in the realm of the social sciences. Andrew Ferguson reported in The Weekly Standard on one Dutch social scientist whose experiments, studies, and conclusions are so corrupted by bias and deceit that his entire corpus of work is now being called into question.

Writing in the December 5, 2011 issue, Mr. Ferguson explained what he refers to as “the chump effect,” which he defines as “the eagerness of laymen and journalists to swallow whole the claims made by social scientists. Entire journalistic enterprises, whole books from cover to cover, would simply collapse into dust if even a smidgen of skepticism were summoned whenever we read that ‘scientists say’ or ‘a new study finds’ or ‘research shows’ or ‘data suggest.’” He explains that “Most such claims of social science, we would soon find, fall into one of three categories: the trivial, the dubious, or the flatly untrue.”

It is this last category that, according to Mr. Ferguson, describes the work of Dutch psychologist Diederik Stapel. I won’t go into the details here. Suffice it to say that Mr. Ferguson ably demonstrates how bias, manipulation, and overweening pride can corrupt the practice of social science, leaving students and the public deceived on matters of important social concern.

Mr. Ferguson’s animus is particularly against the hubris of social scientists whose conclusions are frequently promulgated on the basis of minimal data and using non-repeatable studies and experiments. But in recent years we’ve seen enough playing with data (the UK environmental change brouhaha of a couple of years ago) and rushing to press (more and more retractions of published papers) within the “hard” sciences to know that the scientific method is at all times vulnerable to the biases of practitioners.

Science does quite well when it sticks to the data. It’s when it scientists seek to influence social or moral agendas that they can be tempted to violate the norms of legitimate scientific practice and try to pull one over on their colleagues and the world.

Evolutionary theorists may find it difficult to account for such behavior, since lying about the findings of scientific research is not likely to benefit the survival of the human species. Why do we do it? According to Robert Trivers, in his new book, The Folly of Fools, lying and deception are pervasive, and not just among human beings. All species seek to deceive in one way or another. Human beings are especially adept at deceiving ourselves.

The reason for this, Dr. Trivers explains, is because deceiving ourselves helps us to deceive others more effectively, which, in turn – somehow – conduces to the survival of our genes, which are the real culprits in all this lying and corrupting of science and everything else.

That’s gonna be a little hard to demonstrate under the microscope, methinks.

But Dr. Trivers is right: the lying and deceiving are everywhere. The Christian knows this is because of the presence and powerful effects of sin. If we don’t want science to be corrupted by sin, we need something to check the power of sin.

Hmmm. Any ideas?