Episode 33 - Probing the Cosmos: The Synergy of Science and Theology in a Christ-Centered Universe

Join us as we delve into the roots of the modern scientific project, born in the 17th century and steeped in puritanism.

We dissect how theological beliefs shape scientific outcomes and lament the void of theological depth in today's scientific research.

We argue for the necessity of challenging societal and commercial constraints on scientific inquiry and advocate for theological depth to unlock the universe's grand potential.

Our discussion then veers into the influence of materialistic nihilism on ideologies such as communism and hedonistic capitalism.

What if the underlying theology behind many scientific projects is fostering a culture of disbelief in science?

We underscore the importance of understanding the religious and philosophical motivations of historical figures in science.

We champion the role of Christian belief in a rational and reliable universe in the formation of the scientific method. We highly recommend Vishal Mangalwadi's book about The Bible and the Western World for more in-depth insights.

Lastly, we challenge ancient beliefs, arguing for a shift from viewing the physical world as chaotic to recognizing its underlying order and goodness. Are you ready for this riveting journey?

The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:30

So welcome to the Christ-centered cosmic civilization podcast. And we're continuing to look at science as part of that Christ-centered cosmic civilization, or at least as a project that arises from that big Christian vision. The sciences, as we've thought, began certainly in the modern form in the 17th century, in the theological setting of puritanism. Now I want to be cautious when I say something like that, in that really the scientific project goes back to Moses and is something that arises in in the strong form that we think of it in the medieval period, and we're thinking of Bernadette Clauveau especially we might spend a whole week on him but in what we'll call it is, the modern scientific project really begins in the 17th century, in the theological setting of puritanism, and when the Royal Society was formed it was utterly dominated by puritan scientists. Science is not a dispassionate, disengaged way of studying the world, and different scientific conclusions and different scientific concerns emerge from different theological beliefs. So science goes in different directions and makes different kinds of discoveries and different ways of imagining the world and describing the world on the basis of different theological visions. Helen Longano in her book Science as Social Knowledge from 1992, points out that the 20th century debate about quantum probability which Einstein and Feynman. That's one of the clearest examples of this different theological visions of the universe and therefore different scientific theories, science and technology, and that those two things are different. Science is really a trying to understand, I mean, yeah, I mean science is a kind of a knowledge based pursuit and technology is more to do with a how. It's a technique. Technology technique it's much more practically orientated, or, yeah, and so science and technology are directed by particular human concerns.

Speaker 1: 3:42

The poverty of theological vision supporting so much of current scientific work is a key reason for the problems in modern scientific research. The lack of theological depth behind it means that it's so limited what is done and why it's done. So the reason for that is, as we've already thought, the natural world doesn't shout questions and answers at us. We need to ask questions and then investigate them as we study the heavens and the earth. So if we ask questions, we get answers, but as we collect data and probe and improve our questions or ask completely different sorts of questions, so we ask the questions. The, the, the universe doesn't ask the questions. It's in that sense. We ask questions, probe with our questions, get kinds of answers and sometimes the answers are very different than what we expected, and but the questions are what drives that. In other words, we can only find answers to the questions that we ask, and so it's very important to know what kinds of questions are we asking the universe? What do we think are suitable questions or what do we?

Speaker 1: 5:28

I mean, I'm always staggered about this kind of double message that is given in loads of contemporary education. On the one hand, there's this idea we want to provoke questions. We want children asking questions. We don't want them stuck in like narrow traditions and we want them, to their minds, to be open and ask questions and be critical of the world around them. There's a whole propaganda about that. But then, on the other hand, there's a very rigid limitation on what kinds of questions are permitted, and that comes up particularly in science, where you have to only ask certain kinds of questions that are prescribed, and you're kind of taught to ask a very narrow band of question and expect a very narrow kind of answer.

Speaker 1: 6:42

I always think about when children ask why is the sky blue? What they're asking is initially a very deep question to do with what is the nature of the universe such that there is blue portrayed above us? Why blue Like why, specifically, what is the meaning of blue in the sky? That's really what children are asking, but what the told is ah, the answer to your question is something to do with light refracting in the atmosphere. Or if they ask why is grass green, they're told, ah, because it's to do with chlorophyll in the grass and that is green. But what the child is really asking is ah, but why is chlorophyll green? Why green? Why isn't it orange? Or why isn't it purple or something? That's really what they're asking, but they're not allowed to ask that question because that's considered oh no, we can't answer that question. Well, I don't know whether we can answer that question, but we don't ask that question and therefore we don't pursue that question anymore.

Speaker 1: 8:17

I think in the medieval period you could pursue questions like that, or much, much greater range of question was available to be asked and pursued, and then you might find out we can't get very far with this question at this time, or we don't know where to take the question, or whatever. But you can ask the questions. They're all considered good questions, whereas now there's this sense of being narrowed down to only ask particular kinds of questions and expect only very limited kinds of answers. So we do need to ask what are the questions we are asking of the world around us and what are the limits on the questions we're asking and what are the limits on the answers we're expecting, because that determines so much. What is the propaganda or what is the worldview that we've adopted and been indoctrinated into that determines the kinds of questions we're asking and the kinds of answers we're getting, or what is the vision of reality that shapes the scientific questions we're asking?

Speaker 1: 9:29

If our questions are about the best way to make money for a pharmaceutical company, or the best way to enable middle-aged men to still perform intimately, or the best way to make faster computer chips, or how to produce car engines that are powered in one way over another way, or whatever, if we're asking those sorts of questions, then we're only going to get very limited answers from the glorious and multifarious treasures of the heavens and the earth. So here's this incredibly deep, complicated, wonderful, multi-leveled, hierarchical cosmic civilization that is the heavens and the earth, and we're saying what we want to know an answer to is how middle-aged men can perform better intimately, or perform at all intimately, or we want to know how to make batteries for cars. In this for the following reasons whatever they are, it's a very poor set of questions when we think what could be asked, when we think about the much earlier generations of questioning, in the medieval period, of things where questions might be asked about which we would now call alchemy or astrology, things like that, a much, much bigger range of questions to do with the meaning of the layout of the galaxies in the sky above us, or how base things can be transformed into noble things, and so on. These are like amazing, exciting questions to ask of the universe. And so the challenge is what bigger and better questions can we ask? And to do that we need better and deeper and more sophisticated and richer theological vision. The natural world doesn't just shout answers or questions or an answers at us. We need to develop theories and questions so we can probe and feel our way into the wonderful diversity and splendor of reality, and that is what theology. That's one of the uses of theology. That's one of the reasons theology is important to enable science to be something more than a kind of mundane, practical solution to industrial questions or something like that.

Speaker 1: 12:55

So the quality of our theories and the quality of our questions depends on the quality of our vision of reality. So if we have a poor quality vision of reality and let's be honest, that is the era we live in then our questions and theories tend to be poor and limiting. So yeah, the that problem of we need good questions drawn out of good visions of reality, and that enables us to propose good theories. You know that come from an imaginative vision of the universe. And then that enables us to gather data, directs a scientist to look at specific areas, pay attention to certain details and have a radically open mind and heart to the depths and wonder of creation. And as the observations are made, so the theory can be modified, developed. Better theories, better questions, so on.

Speaker 1: 14:17

One writer says I think it might be, michael Polanyi says the theories, scientific theories, are like a stick or a cane that a blind man uses to probe the way ahead, and that's. I love that image of what we're doing when we're asking scientific questions and imagining scientific theories. In other words, science arises out of beliefs and traditions that already shape the way we think and the values we hold. Science doesn't happen in a theological vacuum. Science is governed and shaped by theological beliefs and concerns, even if a particular scientist sees himself as an atheist, as even as an atheist, that is in itself a theological vision. But atheism really and we're in a later series in this podcast will spend several weeks looking at atheism, because atheism is essentially a kind of Christian heresy. It's only really possible within a Christian worldview to think atheistically, and so an atheist is deeply Christian in so many ways. But that's something that we'll come to later.

Speaker 1: 15:38

Here's a quotation from Jürgen Moltmann's book God in Creation. He says these concerns are governed by he's talking about the concerns that drive science and the modern vision. These concerns are governed by the basic values and convictions of human societies, and the values and convictions which prevail in human societies and regulate public life themselves derive from fundamental human convictions about the meaning and purpose of life. So when we talk about the ecological crisis of modern civilization, we can only mean a crisis of the whole system with all its part systems, from the dying of the forests to the spread of neuroses in us, from the pollution of the Seas and Rivers to the nihilistic feeling about life which dominates so many people in our mass cities. Brilliant quotation that the problem scientific problems and mental health problems are both emerging from a theology problem, a theological vision of who we are, the nature of the universe, what kind of life are we leading, what are we doing with the world? All of that, and so they're all parts of the same basic problem of how we view ourselves and the world, the theology of ourselves and the world Brilliant Now.

Speaker 1: 17:36

Materialistic nihilism is the belief that there is no higher meaning or purpose in the creation, but that matter, self-formed and self-organized, is all that there is Materialistic nihilism. There is no meaning, there is no purpose and there is no depth or height to existence. That was the engine behind communism, and communism is incredibly powerful and resurgent belief system. It's in some ways, if we think of the major belief systems in the world today, a kind of hedonistic capitalism, communism, islam and this ancient kind of Christian vision. Really, islam and communism are so strong and resurgent at the moment, and communism because the theological vision is this nihilistic heresy kind of flat view. Communism is compatible with that. But yeah, so this materialistic nihilism continues to be the theology behind many of the scientific projects that our world is engaged in, and it leads to the so many other problems that we've been considering about the lack of belief in science and the well, what Maltman calls the neuroses of public life.

Speaker 1: 19:34

Here's another good quotation. It's from a book by Percy M Fakston called the Soul of Science, christian Faith and Natural Philosophy, published by Crossway Books. This is a fascinating quotation. It's talking about how textbooks scientific textbooks give a false view of how science works the typical here's the quotation. Now, the typical science textbook is narrowly designed to acquaint students with major scientific discoveries. It presents little of the scientists underlying philosophical or religious motivations, the soul. Exceptions to that rule seem to be instances when philosophical or religious beliefs were rejected, such as Copernicus's rejection of Ptolemaic geocentric cosmology or Galileo's rejection of Aristotelian physics. This selective textbook presentation tends to create in the student an implicitly positivistic impression of science, that progressing science consists in its emancipation from the confining fetters of religion and metaphysics. Typically, the student also assumes, at least unconsciously, that the historical characters who led this emancipation must have shared the same derogatory view of religion and philosophy. Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is that we cannot really understand Isaac Newton, rené Descartes or Kuvier without delving into the religious and philosophical ideas that drove the scientific work. Again, that's a great quotation, because the constant idea is religion gets in the way of scientific progress, and so these very small number of stories are told where the Aristotelian philosophy gets in the way of something or Ptolemaic cosmology does.

Speaker 1: 22:12

What were the theological beliefs of those who overthrew Aristotelian physics or Ptolemaic geosembrics? The Christian views of those that change these things are considered to be irrelevant. The only time theology is referenced in public western education, in science, is when they wish to show that a theological or philosophical view was wrong. And yet all the successes emerge from the correctness, the fruits of the success of the theological vision. None of that is mentioned.

Speaker 1: 23:03

So, using scientific methods, we can think hard about what we see around us and develop imaginative visions and theories, and then, with these theories that our imaginations enable, we can probe and examine the world even more. To test and improve our theories, and science or the scientific method is a way of testing our ideas or imaginations, testing our imaginations against the physical world. Now let me just state that again that we have this confidence that the world will make sense and that there's, everything is rational, reliable, real and good and all of that, and that it is our minds correspond to the rationality of the universe and that when we imagine and think and probe and discover and test that will, that the improvements in our imaginative theories are bringing us closer and closer to the intrinsic rationality of the universe. That that's possible Now. That idea then, that science is a way of testing our ideas against the physical world. To the follower of Jesus, to the follower of Jesus, that sounds such a natural and obvious thing to do. But without the Lord, jesus Christ, the cosmic divine emperor, it's impossible to even imagine such a way of discovering the truth.

Speaker 1: 24:55

Here's a quotation from Mangalwadi's book about how the Bible created the Western world. I think I might give several quotes. Let me just begin with this one the scientific perspective flowered in Europe as an outworking of medieval biblical theology nurtured by the church. I'm going to repeat that sentence because it's so correct and powerful and important. The scientific perspective flowered in Europe as an outworking of medieval biblical theology nurtured by the church. Theologians pursued science for biblical reasons. The scientific spirit germinated during the 13th and 14th centuries and blossomed after the 16th century Reformation, after Europe became a more literate place where people could read the Bible themselves and become consciously biblical. Such a helpful quotation. There's a lot more to it. I would strongly recommend getting Mangalwadi's book. On pages 222 to 223, if you get the book, there's so much that is about these traditions of scientific inquiry that grew up at that time. Yeah, look, there's something amazing and almost impossible about science.

Speaker 1: 26:50

Human ways of thinking about the world have always tended to chaos and confusion.

Speaker 1: 26:59

Merely human wisdom in our fallen, dying mess. Human wisdom has generally seen the physical world as either evil or unreal, and nearly always as irrational. The idea that the whole of the heavens and the earth are real, good, logical and in harmony, all tied together with one underlying unity, is perhaps the most amazing and incredible truth that human beings have ever known, certainly in terms of the universe. If we look at all the blood, passion, pain and turmoil of the world around us, how could such a world really be carefully governed by law and order? How can a world cursed with death and decay be good? And yet that is the conviction where we look at all the blood, passion, pain, chaos, trouble, disasters, disease, all of that, and say nah, but underneath that, sustaining even all that, that is this logic, this reality, this reliability, even that. There's a kind of goodness that supports all this. That is kind of counter-intuitive and emerges only from this Christ-centered vision of reality.

Speaker 1: 28:41

Most of the ancient world thought that the physical world was simply evil and deceitful, and they assumed that to get it real and eternal truth, we had to turn away from the physical world to concentrate on the world of the mind or the world of ideas. Physical things were seen as misleading and unreliable. Our own bodies were seen as too weak and faulty to be taken seriously. So real life and real eternal truth had to be found not in human bodies or not using human bodies, but had to be eternal truth had to be found in souls or spirits that were detached from this messy physical world.