The Book of Works

God was perplexed.

“I don’t get it. What is the point, exactly?”

Michael sighed and tried to explain. Again.

“You see, Lord, what they are saying now is that if something can be explained by science, then nobody needs to believe in You”.

“But that simply makes no sense at all. What does one thing have to do with the other? I mean, I do realize how stupid these creatures are, but you are talking about some of the brightest of them all”.

Michael sighed. “I know, Lord”

“After all, Who do they think created all their bloody science in the first place? This is very frustrating. Let me speak to…um… you know, what’s his name, that Italian chap”. Michael sent for Galileo, who appeared instantly.

“Ah, there you are. Good fellow. Now, Galileo, can you explain what the Devil (God chuckled at His own joke, as he is wont to do) are your modern colleagues up to? Don’t they understand that when something has a scientific explanation, it only further adds to my incredible glory and majesty. I mean, really, what is going on here? All you science chappies used to be my biggest fans.”

Galileo bowed in respect and agreement. “Lord, I was speaking to Sir Isaac and a few others only yesterday. We are totally mystified by this Dawkins person and his friends.”

“Well, then, what do you suggest I do. The situation is really becoming quite intolerable.”

Galileo thought for a long moment. “Lord, perhaps if you could help out some of the Intelligent Design people, you know, the ones who are trying to prove your existence scientifically….”

God shook his head emphatically. “No, no, no. Haven’t you read that previous post about why I should never prove my existence? It would destroy free will.”

“Yes, Lord, I did read that post, and I suppose it was somewhat clever. But Lord, you must do something. People are starting to think that they must choose between believing in you and believing science.” Galileo shook his head in concern. “Maybe you should ask Al.”

“I knew you were going to say that. Alright, send him in.” God rested His head in his hands. Talking to Al always gave him a headache.

Al sat down opposite God, and, without any preamble, said, “Either we believe nothing is a miracle, or we believe everything is a miracle.”

“Al, are we going to go through this yet again. Look around you. Where do you think you are? Who do you think I am? EVERYTHING IS A GODDAM MIRACLE, FOR GOD’S SAKE. (When God gets really frustrated he takes his name in a lot of vain.)”

Now being yelled at by God is not a pleasant thing. But Al, as always, took it in stride and didn’t get upset at all. Al was the only person in heaven who still claimed to be an agnostic, which drove God crazy.

In order to calm Him down, Al suggested they play a game. “I brought my own dice,” Al said, but God glowered at him, since that whole dice thing was just a touch….dicey.

“Listen Al, I need advice,  I need a proper answer. What should I do?”

“Nothing Lord. The truth will always come out. Your enemies are starting to sound as rigid and unscientific as the Young Earth people. Let them talk, let them publish, they will fade away in time. Right now they appear to be dangerous, but remember, everything is relative.”

Now even though God thought Al was an obnoxious show-off, He also knew that Al was usually right. So God decided to follow this advice and do nothing.

It was the right thing to do. Some years went by, and people began to see that science and faith were not only compatible but complementary and mutually supportive. Even some of the most fervent atheists eventually saw reason, and began to worship the Creator of all of physics, chemistry and biology. One day, God heard a wonderful prayer. “Lord God. If you are there, please help me. Please send me a sign. I know I have sinned and denied you. But I have seen the light. Please fill my heart with Your glory, and show me that your love for me is real.”

God smiled, and His love was overflowing. He spoke directly into the heart of the man who had sent this prayer to heaven. “Of course, my son. I am here for you, and will guide and protect you. Now I would ask you to do something for me. A new book, perhaps. Why don’t we call it The God Solution. Imagine the headlines.”

And so it came to pass.

Today’s blog post is from Dean Ohlman, a fellow member of the facebook group Celebrating Creation by Natural Selection (CCNS). I have adapted the post below from some comments that he posted in a discussion thread on that site. Dean will be happy to answer comments posted here.

Dean is retired from Our Daily Bread Ministries (formerly RBC Ministries) where he was a Christian nature writer, website host, editor, and associate TV producer.

The apostle Paul points out that everyone worships–some worshiping the creation and some worshiping the Creator. At some point the apparent eternality of time and space indicated by a microcosm getting forever smaller and a macrocosm getting forever larger will cause an observant and humble person to wonder. Then the forces of the natural world, the beauty of mathematics, the anthropic principle, and the existence of humankind as predominant among sentient creatures (plus numerous other mysteries and wonders) will create in a humble person a sense of awe. And that awe/worship will find its object in either the Creator or the creation. The creation is the god of the atheist, whether he acknowledges it or not. Believing such, he eventually will not be capable of acknowledging the Creator. (My own unpacking of the meaning of Romans 1:20+).

I believe that material human beings making merely material judgments about the material creation will always come to material conclusions. And material human beings who have dismissed God from their minds will find that God has also removed Himself from their awareness. At one time they would not see God; now they cannot see God (Rom. 1:18-21)

If naturalistic scientists cannot make definitive conclusions even about the ultimate nature of matter, the nature of life, or the nature of light—something they can experience with their senses and study in their laboratories, how can they believe they can reach a definitive conclusion about the existence and nature of God, whom they cannot know with their senses, and about the manner in which God brought all things into existence?

I often wonder what would happen in the mind and soul of an atheist who spent a considerable amount of time attending the church’s I have been involved with and observed the love and graciousness of most humble believers. In a time of doubt and spiritual struggle where the silence of God was deafening, I was lovingly tended to simply by my good Christian friends–pastors, family, and church friends. In the midst of my crisis I laid my head in my wife’s  lap and cried, “I just wish God would step out of heaven, put his arms around me and say, ‘I am here, and everything will be all right.” Instead, Marge put her arms around me and said, “I am here, and I am telling you that everything will be all right.”

Gradually and finally the truth expressed so eloquently by the apostle Paul dawned on me: God is present to us mostly in his church and in his people who are led by his Spirit to be the light to the world demonstrating love so profound that even an atheist would be touched. God, forgive us for our failure to be salt, light, and love in the world.

There is a very popular meme floating around these days. It’s about how immensely huge the universe is. How many billions of galaxies there are, each with billions of stars and planets, and doesn’t that make you feel small? Insignificant? Maybe even worthless? Sometimes we hear that our star is in a suburban part of a mediocre galaxy, and there is nothing really special about it. Sometimes it’s because so many folks, including scientists, have concluded that no doubt there must be millions of intelligent species all over the universe (or even the galaxy) and humans are just, well, nothing special.

The universe is unimaginably large, and the Earth, our planet, is easily lost in such immensity. Consider that there are hundreds – no, thousands – no, millions of solar systems in just one galaxy. This should make the individual human being feel like an ant who has somehow discovered that the patch of backyard he knows so well is a minuscule part of an enormous landscape filled with so many unknown creatures and objects.

Sorry, but I don’t agree. The size of the universe has no bearing on how I feel about myself or my fellow humans. Maybe it’s because I was born and raised in New York City, and I’m used to big. Standing on a midtown street and watching a hundred people pass me per minute doesn’t faze me. (I know it does some folks).

As for aliens, I guess there is probably life on other bodies. I doubt there are many other planets with large animals (it isn’t intelligence that is the big deal; it’s multicellularity), but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there were quite a few, considering the huge numbers. I would be very surprised if we ever had any contact with them, considering the huge distances involved. (See my previous post Alien Civilizations? for more on this.)

But either way, quite frankly: so what? I don’t know what’s out there, but I do know what’s here on this blue planet. I have seen some of it in real time, and a lot more in photos, films and videos. There are impressive mountains, powerful rivers, vast oceans, wonderful birds, pretty flowers, and all kinds of creatures. We have thunderstorms and sunny days and volcanoes. And there are people here. Lots of them, and all kinds. And I happen to like people a lot, a lot more than I like frozen planets or gas planets or craters or even planets with liquid water.

I am here, and so is the love of my life. So are you, and so are a bunch of other humans I can call my friends. Sometimes I can help them out, sometimes they help me. Sometimes they make me feel very special, worthwhile, and significant. A billion galaxies can’t take that away.

This was first published on the Biologos Website in December 2010. 

I was raised in a household of atheists. My parents were card-carrying members of the American Communist Party, and therefore the atheism in my household was quite close to the militant anti-theism of the so-called “new atheists”. I learned that not only was religious faith incorrect, but actually evil. Like my father, a physical chemist, I rejected all forms of spirituality, and became a biochemist (I was able to stray that far from the paternal model).

Today I am a Christian with a deep sense of the grace of God and an ongoing feeling of wonder at the redeeming power of the Lord in all of creation and in my own life. I remain a scientist, as I have been for the past 30 years. I find tremendous satisfaction in my absolute conviction that science and faith are complementary and mutually supportive. My faith is strengthened by what I know of the natural world, and my scientific thinking has been given a great boost by my faith in the creative power of the Lord.

What sort of journey led me from my youth of fervent atheism to where I am today? The answer is simple: God called me, insistently and clearly, though it took me decades to finally listen and hear.

I remember the first clarion call quite clearly. As a young man I saw the film “The Gospel According to Saint Matthew” by Passolini. In the film, the musical score alternates between a number of sharply contrasting styles. After the crucifixion, a slow, somber, Russian hymn reflects the mood of despair and loss felt by Mary and the disciples. This music continues as the women and John visit the tomb on the third day. The stone of the door is rolled back and the tomb is revealed as empty. At that instant the music immediately changes to a joyous African melody from a piece called the Missa Luba.

The effect this moment of the film had on me was intense and dramatic. I felt a shiver of emotion, and a sense of miraculous joy. The art of the filmmaker had conveyed—through music and visual splendor—the truth of the Gospels to me. As John started running to spread the word to his friends, I remember thinking, wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could believe in the lovely myth of the resurrection. And then I thought no, this is just a trick of my mind to elicit emotions originally evolved to allow for human beings to experience empathy, and so on. (See Dennett for a full explanation of how we are “fooled” by such feelings).

So while the seed had been planted, it grew slowly, and required a great deal of care and tending to finally bear fruit. I read the Gospels. I became interested in mysticism and transcendence. I started attending a Catholic Church. All of this was interesting in an intellectual sense, but it had nothing to do with faith. I was an observer, a sympathetic and friendly one, but I was still on the outside looking in.

Meanwhile I worked at doing scientific research, and read Dawkins and Gould, Lewis Thomas and Carl Sagan. I have always been fervent in my admiration for the explanatory power of evolutionary theory, and even communicated with Dawkins concerning one of Darwin’s letters that I discovered in the British Museum, which got a mention in The Devil’s Chaplain.

I was finally given the gift of God’s grace directly from Christ in a dramatic and undeniable way. But in order to fully accept this gift, and to know that I belong to Christ, body and soul, I needed to reconcile this new faith with my scientific sense of reason. As it turned out, I found this (as many others have) to be surprisingly straightforward, especially after reading The Language of God. My journey to faith began with art and emotion, but it reached fruition with my growing understanding of how the characteristics of the natural universe point to God.

My scientific world-view encouraged me to ask questions, some of them unusual for a scientist: Why does beauty exist? Consider the magical Ode to Joy, or every note ever penned by Bach, or Kandinsky’s paintings, or the elegance of Einstein’s fundamental equations. Look at the wonderful mathematical artifact of the Mandelbrot set, a pure fractal, conceived by the genius of man’s mind, and only made visible by modern computer graphics. Yes, these are all works of man, and man is a wondrous creation. But why is the universe beautiful? What is the source of this beauty?

When we look at nature and see that the apparently-artificial, mathematically-strange concept of a non-scalar, self-similar fractal can be found in almost all biological structures (including DNA), as well as in clouds, coastlines, mountains, and galaxies, we must wonder at the source of all of this complexity, all of this beauty.

We know from physics that our world is stochastic, not strictly deterministic. In other words, it changes according to seemingly “random” influences, allowing for—even insisting on—creativity and surprise at every turn. It is beautiful, not dull; highly complex, not simple. Biological organisms appear to have been formed with the innate ability to evolve. And human beings, organisms with a soul, represent the grandest mystery of all.

Why is it so remarkable that we live in a stochastic universe? We can predict the result if we toss 1000 coins, treat a million cells with a mutagen, examine the behavior of a billion molecules, or trace the fate of trillions of subatomic particles. In that sense our science can describe the world very well. But, we know nothing about what happens when you toss a single coin, explore the mutational fate of a single cell, try to predict the path of a single photon, or look at the life of a single human being. It indeed appears magical (especially when we examine the science of quantum theory) that our universe is fundamentally stochastic at the level of the individual. I believe that this property of the natural laws we describe through science was built in by the Creator to allow for chance, beauty, evolution, humanity and even faith. What we perceive as random chance is not the enemy of faith, but the opposite. It is God’s tool.

We are able through science to find magnificent and overwhelming evidence for God’s intervention and on-going engagement in our world, from its creation to our everyday lives, in every aspect of reality, including in our ongoing discoveries of the secrets of the natural world. We now know that the universe was not always here. It had a beginning. It was created. That is Gospel, but it is also science.

But although we find many pointers to divinity, God so designed the world that His hand in its creation can never be proven beyond doubt. If that were not true, then free will and the beauty of faith would disappear. Faith is a gift to be accepted by an open heart, and an open mind. The knowledge of God’s grace cannot be forced on anyone by the discovery of any irrefutable fact that proves His existence. But the converse is also true. No scientific endeavor will ever prove the absence of God, and so we are free to believe.

The best thing about my journey from atheism to faith is that it isn’t over. I have learned a lot, but there is much more to explore, and I would like to thank BioLogos for being the vehicle for so much exploration of the natural works of the Lord in the context of His amazing grace.

One bright sunny day, the Lord God paid a visit to Earth. He arrived in a huge, flaming chariot that was visible to millions of people as he circled the globe a few times. Behind the chariot was a banner that read “The Lord God, Creator of the Universe” in every human language. After a few circuits, the Chariot landed, and God stepped out. He looked a lot like Morgan Freeman, but with a beard.

Angels were busy handing out press releases, and several news cameras were trained to catch His first words.

He spoke in English, at least according to those around him (He had landed not far from Oxford University), although the Portuguese news team swore he spoke Portuguese, and the Swedes, Arabs, Japanese, and so on all commented on the fact that He expressed his thoughts to the world in their own native languages.

“Greetings, human beings” He said. “I am here for one purpose only. To prove that I exist.”

At that point he raised his hand toward Oxford University, and with a small puff of smoke it was gone. An instant later, Professor Richard Dawkins, who had been sitting in his office, ignoring all the hoopla, was standing next to God, looking somewhat perplexed.

God spoke again.

“Any questions?”

A reporter from the Southern Baptist Conference Newsletter asked, “Are you really Black, I mean African American, I mean, you know, African?”

“Of course I am. I made man in my own image, right? And what color do you think Adam and Eve and all the first humans who were living in Africa were? Next question”

“Is the Bible literally true?”

“Yes. Are there any useful questions? What about you Richard? Do you have anything interesting you would like to say?

Dawkins stared in disbelief. Then he caught himself. “Is evolution true?”

“Of course it is. Another dumb question. OK, I’m out of here. Gabriel here will set up an answer line, and you all can call in. Bless you all, and try to be good.”

And with that God was gone.

A month later there were no more doubters on the planet. Gabriel had been very clear and specific. Christianity was the true religion, specifically, the Dutch Reformed Lutheran Church. Heaven and Hell were real, and, sinners had better repent.

Dawkins became an ordained minister in the Lutheran Church, and millions of Muslims, Hindus, Catholics and Buddhists became Protestants. Most of the Jews held off for a bit, claiming that they wanted to open some further discussions with God, which Gabriel finally agreed to after muttering some slightly anti-Semitic comments.

A year later, everyone in the world was attending the local Lutheran Church, where they would be told the latest edict from God. There were no more atheists, or agnostics. Everyone believed. The proof of God’s existence and power was undeniable, as the big hole where Oxford University used to be clearly testified.

Two years later, The Church put out an advertisement for ministers, because nobody was signing up. Church attendance was down to practically nothing. Surveys showed that while everyone believed in God, nobody expressed any pleasure in worship or attendance at Church. Satan worship was the new big thing, even though Gabriel had made it clear that Satan was finally defeated, and would never show his face on Earth again.  The leader of the Satan cult, a man named Joel Osteen, gathered millions of followers with his slogan, “Have Faith. Only Satan can overcome the tyranny of Gabriel.”

God looked down and sighed. “Oh brother,” he said to Michael. “I guess I blew it. By proving my existence, I destroyed faith. Big mistake.”

Michael shook him. “Lord, wake up, you were having a bad dream.”

God woke up and looked at Michael. “A bad dream? Which part? You mean creating humans was just a bad dream?”

“No, Lord, that part is true. You really did that. The bad dream was that ridiculous thing about proving your existence.”

“Phew, what a relief. I didn’t think I would be that stupid. I can never allow my existence to be proven. That would be the end of free will.  Also, why the hell would I have saved Dawkins like that? I can’t stand the man.”

Now that water has been found on Mars, the question of life outside of our own planet is likely to be a major discussion topic for a while. Since liquid water is a necessary (but insufficient) requirement for life, journalists, bloggers, and everyone else will be even more certain that life, including intelligent aliens, must exist throughout the galaxy.

When people claim that there must be millions or billions of advanced civilizations in the universe, I often hear a subtext:  “After all, why should anyone think humans are unique or special?” Sometimes there is even a sub-subtext that goes “Finding other life in the universe will put a nail in the coffin of theism”.

This is an odd idea. I admit that many creationists and fundamentalists think that only the Earth holds life, and that humanity is specially graced as the image bearers of God, ruling out aliens. But that is the view of a small number of Christians, who also reject evolution, the Big Bang, and most of science. We can forget about them. Most Christians, including some very prominent scientists in the search of ET life (I think of Jennifer Wiseman and Stephen Freeland, whom I have met) have no religious qualms about the existence of life on other worlds. I don’t either.

My skepticism is based on science, and I am a bit baffled why other scientists have not publicly mentioned why the science doesn’t support the existence of numerous alien civilizations, ready to be contacted and…well…whatever comes after that.

Here are some of the facts about what is needed for a planet to sustain life: (We know nothing about what is needed for the genesis of life, even on Earth.)

1. A rocky crust (as opposed to a gas planet) with liquid water available year round, or at least on a regular and frequent basis.
2. A circular or almost circular orbit. Elliptical orbits cause extreme temperature fluctuations that won’t allow for life to persist.
3. A single sun that allows for a regular orbit. At least half of all star systems are dual or multiple suns, and planets rotating around them will have unpredictable and irregular orbits that would not allow for life to exist.
4. A roughly Earth size mass. Gravity is proportional to mass. Planets that are too small would not have enough gravity to hold their atmospheres. Planets much larger than Earth have other issues (see below)
5. A molten core to allow for a magnetic field that can shield the planet from solar flares.
6. A very large nearby planet with a gravitational field strong enough to attract most meteors and asteroids, thus protecting the planet from bombardment that would create adverse conditions for life. Jupiter and Saturn fill this role for us.
7. A large moon to stabilize the planetary rotation. Unstable rotation can lead to large shifts in temperature and to other conditions not conducive to life.
8. A plate-tectonic or other variable crustal environment that would cause slow yet continuous variations in environmental conditions to allow for a constant evolution of life forms. A very stable planet might harbor life, but life would not evolve on it. An overly unstable planet would not allow enough time for evolution to occur. (Evolution must occur at a specific rate due to constraints on mutational rates).

The above are the constraints on planets required to host any kind of life. Planets that meet all of the above criteria are probably not terribly rare, and given the huge number of stars and planets in our galaxy, there must be some large number (Hundreds? Thousands?) of candidates that pass all of the above tests. But that means they would be amenable to single cell life. There are another set of conditions required for large multi-celled animals with complex nervous systems.

1. A planet much larger than Earth would have too strong a gravitational field to allow for larger animals.
2. An atmosphere containing oxygen similar to that of Earth. Oxygen-based metabolism is far more efficient than any form of non-oxygen-based metabolism and is required for complex multicellular life forms; this is especially true for any organism with a brain. Too much oxygen in the atmosphere is toxic to life. The right amount of oxygen is produced as a by-product of the metabolism of some rare species, such as blue-green algae in Earth.
3. Even with planets where all this were true, the odds of self-aware, intelligent creatures evolving appear to be very small. Dinosaurs had 250 million years to evolve and it does not appear that intelligence ever showed up in any dinosaurs sufficient to allow for civilizations. Even those terrestrial species that exhibit some degree of intelligence (canines, elephants, dolphins, corvids, other primates) failed to form technological civilizations, despite millions of years of existence.

The Drake equation, used for discussions about the chances of finding intelligent life, has two parameters that need rethinking. The first is the fraction of formed stars, f_p, that have planets. The value of this parameter, which was unknown at the time the equation was proposed, now appears to be quite high. The second is the average number of planets per star, n_e that can potentially support life. That number could be quite low for life in general, and much lower (possibly near 0) for life that is capable of technological advancement.

It should be noted that I am only talking about our own galaxy here, since life in other galaxies would have no way of contacting us, or vice versa.  Even highly advanced civilizations cannot exceed the universal speed limit for light, and if we ever did get a message from them, it would be over 2 million years old. Our answer would take just as long; not a great way to have a meaningful conversation.

I love science, and I will always consider myself to be an active scientist. But there are some things going on in certain scientific areas of enquiry that trouble me. I have seen some people (most of them not actually scientists) claim that “science tells us” things that in fact are speculative, not well established, and sometimes quite wrong. The venerable name of science is being used quite often to persuade people of the truth of assertions that are not based on science but on various agendas.

In some cases, such distortions are clear and evident. Arguments by the powerful anti-vaccination or vegetarian lobbies often quote the scientific literature, usually misunderstanding or misrepresenting the actual findings. The entire anti-GMO movement is based on non-science, although again, the advocates are not shy about quoting (usually misquoting) the literature. Appeals to pseudo-scientific arguments to advance philosophical and political agendas is probably familiar to most, and it is nothing new. From eugenics to Lysenkoism to “scientific” racism, the name of science has been misused to cloak controversial ideas in a mantle of unassailable truth.

Recently an entirely new paradigm of faulty science has made an appearance, but this one is not related to kooks or crazies. It has grown up among a group of scientists and science supporters, many of them quite respectable and worthy scholars. The development of this paradigm, which has made strong inroads in physics, biology, and cosmology is, I believe, related to a noble cause – namely, the defense of science against attack from religious fundamentalism and political expediency. The problem is that, like many movements that started as defending worthy goals, this one has gone too far and seems to be out of control.

When the teaching of creation science, and later Intelligent Design, was being proposed as an alternative to Darwinian evolution, biologists and other scientists were rightly worried and angered. A strong campaign to bolster the teaching of evolution as the only valid scientific explanation for biological diversity was mounted by many popular figures in science and science communication, including Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, Bill Nye, Kenneth Miller, and others.

At some point during this effort, things began to get complicated. One group of thinkers, led by Dawkins, Daniel Dennet, Jerry Coyne and Sam Harris — all militant atheists – began to equate all religious belief (and thus all believers) with an anti-science attitude. It didn’t matter to them that many scientists who had always been on the side of evolution and science as the best path to understanding nature were also Christians (Francis Collins, Kenneth Miller, John Polkinghorne, and many others). These atheists began to strongly influence various fields of science, which became hostile not only to the idea of faith, but to any theory, finding or supposition that could possibly be connected with religion.

There are many examples of this throughout science, and I will write about them in coming posts. One of the most prevalent and insidious (to me) is what I call the Theory of Human Mediocrity, which claims that science has found that human beings are not really as special or unusual as we used to think we were. There are many subthemes to this overall meme, including studies in animal behavior, neuroscience and consciousness studies, anthropology and human origins research. Even some areas of astronomy have joined in. I recently saw an internet meme which showed a tiny speck surrounded by an immense sea of stars and objects, with an arrow pointing to the speck labeled “Earth. You are here”. The caption read “Doesn’t this make you feel small?”

Here are some of the scientific and what I consider to be pseudo-scientific ideas that have become popular recently. All of them are based on the same anti-theistic (often specifically anti-Christian) philosophy that has taken strong root thanks to the efforts of the new Anti Theists.  I will be posting separate essays on each of these. My goals are to show where the actual science is either nonexistent or misleading, and to trace the objectives and fundamental points of each to the overall paradigm of anti- theism.

Human Mediocrity (and Human Evil)

Intelligent Life on Other Planets

Environmental Collapse

The Sixth Great Extinction

The Upper Paleolithic Revolution Debunked

Atheism and Science

The Multiverse

The Logic of Science

Origins

Scientism

I am planning this series as a warning to non-scientists not to believe everything they hear as being “scientific”. Think of it as science myth busting. But please remember: I AM NOT ATTACKING SCIENCE. I would never do that. What I will be attacking are the hidden anti- religious agendas behind the speculations, inferences, hypotheses, and subjective interpretations that too many scientists in too many fields are perpetrating on science and the public. In the long run, such behavior is bound to be counterproductive, because it is absolutely true that  in science the truth will always eventually come out.

I have just read an excellent blog post by theologian Ryan Patrick McLaughlin entitled The Real Theological Challenge of Evolution. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/evangelicalpulpit/2015/09/the-real-theological-challenge-of-evolution/.

The author raises an issue I have seen many times: that the problem with evolution is not that it contradicts Genesis in origins, but that it implies a creative God who allows and even requires suffering among living creatures, including humanity. As one commenter puts it, a loving God would have made things in a way that pediatric oncology would not exist as a discipline. If evolution is in fact (as I believe) God’s law of nature to govern life, than why is it that a loving God included the horrors of parasites, predators, illness, and so on?

This is nothing particularly new, but I think McLaughlin presents the case in a very compelling way. And it is an important issue to tackle for all theists.

My answer is related to a previous post called The Default Position (posted Aug 26,2015). The Default Position for many Christians and others is that the world should be good and suffering limited or non-existent. As McLaughlin and many others point out, that isn’t possible. The predator may thank God for a successful hunt, while the prey animal dies and thanks no one. My favorite analogy is that while a Yankee victory clearly proves that God answers prayers, I am aware that there are human beings in Boston who view the same event as a calamity. As McLaughlin says, there must be losers. But, why must there be killer typhoons, and terrible plagues and all the bad things that happen that are not caused by evil or sin, but just…happen?

This issue doesn’t trouble me.  I think the reason that it doesn’t is because my own DP is entirely different. Growing up as an atheist, in a very materialistic and hyper-rational household, I learned that it isn’t the bad things, but the good things that are rare.  I was never surprised when I learned that a young friend of mine was dying; instead, I was  amazed to hear that another friend had overcome a disability to achieve glory. I was quite ill as a teenager, but I never questioned God about that, since I knew there was no God. I simply knew that such things were bound to happen, and I was unlucky. And then, when I recovered, I felt that luck had swung in my favor. But I knew not to expect such things.

The world as I saw it was harsh, uncaring, unforgiving of mistakes, and dangerous. If people survived for decades, that was pretty good, and if they were able to get some enjoyment and pleasure out of life, well that was more than anyone could expect. Suffering? Of course, there is suffering, how could there not be? My Default Position was that I lived in a cold and dark world, and any hint of light or warmth was a welcome and wonderful thing.

So, when I became aware that Christ was real, and that God loved the world, I felt that a beautiful light had been turned on. Now I could see that all of those good things I had thought were rare examples of extraordinary luck were actually miracles. And the more I could see, the more miraculous everything appeared. I saw that the world, even the world as it is, is not a terrible place, but a place of beauty, of intricate design, a cleverly woven fabric of amazing order and perfect harmony. As a biologist, I became and remain transfixed at the miraculous unending complexity of life, and as a person, I fell in love with the wonder of the human spirit. I have seen courage, humor, love, creativity, passion and devotion in so many of my fellow creatures, far beyond what I would ever have expected from my original default position. The beauty of this world, and the magnificence of the living creatures in it, leads me to thank the Creator every day for allowing me to experience such joy, and to behold such wonders.

I don’t deny suffering, of course. But I embrace joy. That suffering exists is no mystery for me. That joy exists is a divine gift to us all.

“What is truth?”

“Oh boy, is that the topic?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“I mean, like are we still in college or what? Cmon, what is truth, you got to be kidding.”

“OK, wise guy, can you answer the question?”

“Sure. Truth is whatever I say it is.”

“Ha ha. I mean, seriously, gimme an answer.”

“OK. Truth. True things are things that really are, you know like this chair, like me, like the fact that I just said that stuff.”

“Oh, but wait a minute. What chair? Who are you? You didn’t say anything, you are not real, you are a character in Sy’s mind, and no one is saying anything. Sy is just typing words, so no that isn’t truth at all, is it?”

“OK, the truth has a real and tangible effect on the world that can be measured.”

“Is fiction true?”

“No, by definition.”

“Is fiction false?”

“Um….yeah.”

“So, you, for example, don’t exist.”

“Right.”

“And yet here you are, a fictional character, saying things, making me and maybe a few others think about things. This means you are having an effect on the world even though you are not verifiable, and admittedly not real.”

“Wait a minute, are you going to say that this shows that God is real because the belief in God has had very real effects? I mean, pulease, that is so old.”

“No, but I am saying that while fiction is not real, it is also not unreal. In other words, it has a strong and tangible effect on reality.”

“Maybe you are right, maybe the products of  imagination are actually real in some sense.”

“Wow, we agree. Clearly this is a fictitious conversation.”

How important is human imagination in the general universal scheme of things? We create worlds, we make up stories. Why? How does imagination fit into the truth of the universe? I don’t know the answer, but I do have some thoughts on the matter. To be shared another time.

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

1 Corinthians 13:13

The young woman was crying. She stood at the front of the crowded bus. Her man was soothing her.”It’s OK, honey, we’ll find a way to get home. Don’t worry, we’ll be OK,” he murmured to her. But she was terrified, in shock. She kept staring at a couple who were seated on the bus, as still as stone, staring straight in front of them, not moving, not speaking, and covered from head to toe in gray dust.

The bus was not moving. Nothing on the street was moving. The driver was improvising. He picked up passengers whenever they came over. He didn’t ask anyone to pay the fare. He said he wasn’t sure where he was going. “I’ll go North, anyway I can,” he said at one point.

Around the silent, dust-covered couple, there was conversation between strangers. I heard an older woman tell a young woman that she had room in her apartment to put up several people, and the young woman said thank you, and lowered her head.

A young man was cursing, addressing no one in particular, but when I looked at him, he addressed me. “I mean this is so f***ked up, Right?” I had to agree, and I nodded. Somebody realized, and said out loud that we were stopped right next to a pretty well-known landmark¸ a potential target, and at the same time, the driver said into his microphone that it might be better if we got off, because there was no sign that we would be moving soon, and it might not be safe to stay in that particular area. He suggested we keep heading north on foot, and get into the park where there were no buildings. The park wasn’t very far away.

An hour earlier, much further downtown, I had stood on a corner, and looking South, I had watched as the second tower crumbled into dust. I had seen the beautiful sparkle in the sky as tons of glass refracted the pure light into a magnificent,  shimmering rainbow of colors. This effect was not captured on the TV images I saw later. I felt the death of those souls in my heart as I watched the tower fall.

I was in the park, part of a long line of people walking north, towards home, when the F16 fighters flew low over us. We cheered. We had just heard from a radio set up on a large rock that the Pentagon had been attacked, and we knew we were at war. We didn’t know with whom, and we didn’t know if worse was yet to come that day. But we knew that those two planes were ours, and that at least for now, the skies over our city were safe again.

When I got to my building, some of my neighbors were standing, talking. I heard rumors, stories, expressions of fear. A woman and her two children arrived with a wagon filled with bottled water. “My husband is taking these downtown,” she said. “We heard they need water.” One of my neighbors arrived with a family from Michigan who hadn’t been able to get to the airport and had lost their hotel room. A man passing on the street told us that he had heard that all of the firemen from the local firehouse were dead. This rumor turned out to be true.

For hours I was alone. The phones were dead. Later in the afternoon, I began to get calls from people who loved me. They told me they were worried about me. I reassured them, I cried a little. I did not feel alone.

Five days later, I went back to the Park. It was Sunday, a day for music, sports, picnics. It was quiet on that Sunday. No tourists, no visitors. There were no baseball games. I didn’t see any picnics. But there was music – more than usual, in fact. People played guitars and sang, while others listened, joined in and cried. There was a lot of Gospel music, and songs  about peace and love, songs of hope and brotherhood.

And there were the drums. The large drum circle, which always played on weekends, was going strong. Dozens of folks had come with their drums, and they were playing loud and hard. Less dancing than usual, more crying. But not me. I wasn’t sad – I was proud. I watched one tall blonde guy, a regular, who was standing, a large Conga drum strapped around his shoulders, playing at a manic pace. He was leading the group, while the African man who usually set the beat was taking a break and sitting quietly tapping on a small bongo. The bench of drummers (representing every population of the city, which means the whole of the world) were playing with fierce concentration. The drum music I heard that day was the most powerful song I had ever heard. The words of the song were:

“You cannot defeat us. This music, this love, this freedom, this hope, this struggle, this city, this country will survive and recover.”

And here we are, 14  years later. And as it always does, love has vanquished death.