Stochastic Grace
Please note the views expressed here are those of the author, not necessarily of The BioLogos Foundation. You can read more about what we believe here.
Today's entry was written by Sy Garte. Dr. Sy Garte earned his Ph.D.in biochemistry from the City University of New York, where he also holds a bachelor’s of science degree in chemistry. In addition to publishing more than 200 scientific publications in genetics, epidemiology, the environment and other areas, Dr. Garte is the author of Where We Stand: A Surprising Look at the Real State of Our Planet (Amacom) and Genetic Susceptibility to Environmental Carcinogenesis (Kluwer) and is co-editor of Molecular Epidemiology of Chronic Diseases (Wiley). He has been a Professor of Public Health and Environmental Health Sciences at New York University, UMDNJ, and the University of Pittsburgh. He currently works as a science administrator for a government agency in Bethesda MD.
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.
For the latest comments, subscribe to our Comment RSS feed. See a comment that violates our Commenting Guidelines? Use the "Report Inappropriate Comment" tool in the upper-right corner.
December 20th 2010
” Faith unites will and knowledge to make action possible.” That is a very wise statement, and I thank you for your understanding and support.
Isn’t it true that faith does not make action possible, but rather, faith unites will and knowledge and makes action required? If action is possible, yet we do not act on that faith, is not our faith, in effect, just a wondrous ideal or in fact, dead?
James 2:14-26 (New King James Version)
.
Reply to this commentDecember 21st 2010
Robert,
Paul and James disagreed on their understanding of faith. It sems to me that James equated faith with knowledge, so he could say that knowledge/faith without appropriate deeds is dead, while I am using the defintion of Paul, where faith combines knowledge with the will to produce appropriate deeds. In either case the claim to have saving faith is tested by appropriate deeds.
However there are times when even Christians are tortured by doubt because it can be hard to see how we as individuals can make a significant difference in this crazy, indifferent world. We do make mistakes and we fail to do what we should do. The question then is, Are we willing to confess our weaknesses and mistakes and renew our strength in the LORD?
In this way every day we test our faith and God’s promises by taking nothing for granted as we live by faith and not by sight. Faith iproduces and is tested by deeds, but in no case do deeds produce salvation.
Reply to this commentDecember 21st 2010
Roger:
I don’t think they disagreed. Paul usually speaks about Faith in relation to other things, but James digs deeper. What is the Faith Paul is talking about? True Faith is hearing and then doing, “faith” is hearing and then walking away and about as if you had not heard at all.
The Faith received by God through Jesus is what both of them talk about, those who supposedly have “faith” (i.e. the outward appearance, intellectual acceptance etc.) have actually nothing.
Reply to this commentDecember 22nd 2010
Cal,
Faith is not hearing and then doing, which are actions or deeds. Faith is a relationship with God based on knowledge, that is, hearing, and the will, that is living or doing. We are not saved by hearing and doing, we are saved by God’s grace received through faith. God’s grace was made evident by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. We receive God’s forgiving grace by repenting, willfully and deliberately turning away from self, and turning toward God in faith.
Paul’s point was that Faith lasts (I Cor 13:13). James’ point was that “faith” can be superficial or phony. They both make good points. Maybe James should have been clearer because faith does not die, only “faith” that never was is “dead.”
Reply to this commentDecember 22nd 2010
Roger:
By no means am I saying that works have any merit in-of themselves. That Faith is an absolute, world shattering bond that connects Man to God through God incarnate Jesus and the outworking of that Faith is apparent in the actions of the Christian (“Christ-one”). It is a visual display. Both Paul and James attack the idea that you can do good works to merit anything and that a vocal, intellectual assent without any change of heart is all you need. Neither are any good, both are dead. Neither are Faith.
I think we’re both relatively on the same page. Again, Paul and James were on the look out for those who, as Jesus said, “were whitewashed tombs, filled with death and bones”. This is both displayed in those who try with outward works and appearances, and those who think by merely intellectually assenting it makes a difference (i.e. knowing about God, instead of knowing Him). They have different focuses, but to say they disagree or are at odds is misleading. Perhaps I’ve over read your original comment.
Reply to this commentDecember 22nd 2010
Cal,
I am very pleased to hear you call faith the bond or connection that relates God to humans through the Holy Spirit, which must never be forgotten or ignored.
There several theological traditions in the NT, Pauline, Johanine, Jamesian, Hebrews, and Mark, Luke, and Matthew. Paul is dominant for good reason, but the other points of view are also valid and give depth and perspective to Paul’s understanding of Jesus the Savior/Logos.
One must not allow the concept of inerrancy to overrule the reality of diverse points of view in the Bible.
Reply to this commentDecember 23rd 2010
“One must not allow the concept of inerrancy to overrule the reality of diverse points of view in the Bible.”
Newspeak (Doublethink) for sure.
Reply to this commentDecember 26th 2010
Sy, you are a good man.
God bless you brother.
Now look at M-theory!
It will knock the socks off of conventional Christians.
Reply to this commentDecember 26th 2010
M-theory tells us that there MUST be many other universes.
All of our communication is through the electromagnetic field [e.g. Radio Tv cell phones etc.]
We also live in a gravitational force field where the graviton [as opposed to the photon] is the force particle.
Gravitons communicate with other universes.
[Photons do not.}
We have no idea how to send or receive signals or messages through gravitons.
BUT GRAVITONS FREELY GO TO OTHER UNIVERSES.
THE PEOPLE IN THE OTHER UNIVERSES MAY KNOW HOW TO COMMUNICATE ON THE GRAVITON NETWORK.
THEY MAY SEND SIGNALS TO IUS!
They may send messages to us which influence us.
That is part of string theory,.... the “theory of everything”.
Einstein died with his notes in his hand as he spent his life seeking the “theory of everything” right up to his last breath.
Now that theory has been found,... M-theory of Dr. Edward Witten.
Biologos should look at it.
Dr Witten has the highest rating of any scientist on earth in terms of how often he is cited in the bibliography of other scientific articles.
Perhaps we should look at him.
IT IS AFTER ALL “THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING”.
Reply to this commentDecember 27th 2010
‘seems a recurring theme Faith’s unprovability and the Intractable soul.
I have clarified these points for myself and hope my comments prove helpful to others.
1) Any god subject to the laws of nature in such a way as to be provable by reference to those same laws is no God.
God’s existence can not be proven. Any god whose existence can be proven is no god I worship. I believe this to be by design. Jesus never attempted to convince anyone, only asked “Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?”
2) My experience of my own immortal soul is likewise impossible to communicate to another. I understand well how trillions of nearly identical neurons each acting on nearly identical emergent rules can produce unimaginably complex cascades of useful information. That biological machine generates every natural thought, desire, inclination, and cognition we have, except for true charitable love whose origin defies any natural process.
Still I am unable to communicate my feelings of brotherly love to another who does not already feel the same. They merely misunderstand and misidentify that ember of the divine spark for an emotion that does have a natural origin.
God bless.
Jerry
Reply to this commentDecember 27th 2010
Hi Conrad,
Just to clarify. Are you suggesting that gravity waves might could be manipulated with a resolution fine enough to alter DNA or communicate thoughts by subtlety altering the intractable ways in which neurons interact?
I don’t mean to discourage you. Your suggestion is thoughtful, but seems so unlikely that a divine creator still seems more likely and answers all the usual ontological questions which creatures from other universes would leave unanswered.
At some point the laws of physics themselves must have come into existence. In the absence of a benevolent being which does not need the laws of physics to maintain itself, and which can generated the laws of physics, there was an infinite number of ways for the universe to go wrong and a small number of ways for it to go right. In the absence of a good God, over time, the universe’s annihilation becomes inevitable.
Jerry
Reply to this commentJanuary 4th 2011
@ Sy 43717,
“The very statement that such faith in human understanding of God’s work through science cannot be contradicted by God’s Book, “
By this statement I take it you mean to say that human understanding of the material world [evolutionary “science”] is more authoritative than the actual word of God when it comes to creation.
By this statement I also understand that you read Genesis 1 and 2 and then say to yourself - this is not true of the real world. It is actually some kind of wishy washy way of describing the deep understanding we’ve gained from our understanding of evolutionary “science” which is over all and above all. So in effect you choose to put man’s interpretation of physical evidence above what the word of God has to say about it.
Sy, just in case you haven’t come across a different point of view, please go and have a look here:
http://www.creation.com or www.answersingenesis.org or even http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/
There are some deeply scientific models to explore regarding the age of the earth, the global flood and also how it would be possible for light from billions of light years away to reach the earth in just six days.
Your scientific bent would be thoroughly entertained. Try it.
Reply to this commentJanuary 5th 2011
Thanks for your comment Trevor. I dont mean to say that “human understanding of the material world [evolutionary “science”] is more authoritative than the actual word of God when it comes to creation.” The word of God is by definition inerrant, since God does not make mistakes. But we humans (as I know you agree) are very errant. Our science can be wrong (as has been often shown) as can be our interpretation of work of the Lord, as written and read by human minds. Many theologians have published learned books interpreting Genesis differently from those in the web sites you cite. Creationism is a large tent. I, and I believe most of Biologos are creationists in some sense, namely that we all are firmly committed to a view that everything we know and see was created by God.
Reply to this comment