That may seem strange. Many people wouldn’t start with the Bible when talking about a scientific theory. But I’m a theologian, and I take the Bible with utmost seriousness. Talking about the Bible is a natural place for me to begin, both because the Bible was principally important in my youth, and because it remains so for me today.

I don’t mean to snub science. Science is important too. I read a lot in the sciences, and I think the evidence supporting the theory of evolution is strong. I try to take this and other evidence with great seriousness.

But the real story – for me – starts with the Bible.

Centrality of Scripture

Fortunately, my parents were committed Christians. Our family was one of those “attend-church-three-times-a-week-and-more” families. My parents were significant leaders in our local congregation, and I began following their footsteps early in life.

I doubt I missed more than a handful of Sunday school classes before I was twenty years old. And I always attended Vacation Bible School – even winning Bible memorizing competitions on occasion. (John 11:35 was my friend!) I participated on youth Bible quizzing team for a while too.

While growing up, I don’t recall anyone telling me that the Bible was the inerrant Word of God. But my passion for Scripture and my Evangelical community inclined me toward that position. Scripture was central in my life.

Besides, I wanted a failsafe foundation for my beliefs. And how could I convince my Mormon friends to become Christians if the Bible was not true in every sense, including literally true about what it said about the natural world? Witnessing to God’s truth seemed to require that I believe the Bible was without error on all matters, including matters related to science.

An Inerrant Bible?

My view of the Bible began to change when I went to college. It wasn’t that a liberal Bible professor brainwashed me away from the positions of my youth. Instead, I started reading the Bible carefully and the work of biblical scholars. I began to think it important to love God with my mind in a more consistent way.

And then I took a class in koine Greek, the language of the New Testament. In this course, I discovered several things. First, we have differing English translations of the New Testament, because the biblical text allows for a number of valid translation options. (When I later took Hebrew class, I found the diversity of valid translations even greater!) Second, we do not have access to the original biblical manuscripts/autographs. Our Bibles come from later manuscripts, the earliest of which are not complete. And, third, the oldest texts we have differ in many ways – although most differences are minor.

I also discovered discrepancies in the Bible. For instance, in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus curses a fig tree and it withers immediately (21:18-20). But in Mark’s version of the same story, the fig tree does not wither immediately and the disciples find it withered the next morning (11:12-14; 20-21). Mark says that Jesus heals one demon-possessed man at Gerasenes (5:1-20), while Matthew says there were two demon-possessed men involved in that same miracle (8:28-34). Jesus tells the disciples to take a staff on their journey as recorded in Mark 6:8, but Matthew says Jesus told the disciples not to take a staff (10:9-10). Jesus says Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly. Then, making an analogy with his own death, he says the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (Mt 12:40). But Jesus was not dead three days and three nights!

I mention only a few of the many internal discrepancies. Once I discovered a few, I noticed more. This, of course, made me question whether I should say the Bible is inerrant in all ways.

What’s the Bible For?

I’m persistent. I don’t settle for easy answers, ignore problems, or appeal to mystery at the drop of a hat. I want to give a plausible account of the hope within me.

My quest for better ways to think about the Bible prompted me to read theologians and Bible scholars from the past and present. What I found surprised me! I had assumed believing the Bible is inerrant in all ways was the traditional position of Christians throughout the ages. I assumed it was the position of my own Christian tradition. I was wrong.

Few if any great theologians argued the Bible was absolutely inerrant. Augustine did not affirm inerrancy in this way. Thomas Aquinas didn’t. Neither did Martin Luther or John Wesley – a least in a consistent way. And I discovered through reading and conversations that those considered the leading biblical scholars and theologians today also reject absolute biblical inerrancy.

I did find a few teachers who said the Bible was inerrant. But when I read their explanations of the Bible’s discrepancies and their views about the differences between the oldest manuscripts, I found they stretched the word “inerrant” beyond recognition. Their meaning of “inerrant” was nothing like the usual meaning. And it was certainly not what most Evangelicals meant when they called the Bible the inerrant Word of God.

Perhaps even more important was my discovery that great theologians and biblical scholars of yesteryear believed the Bible’s basic purpose was to reveal God’s desire for our salvation. Many giants of the Christian faith could agree with John Wesley who said, “The Scriptures are a complete rule of faith and practice; and they are clear in all necessary points.”

The necessary points of Scripture refer to instruction for our salvation. They indicate that, as the Apostle Paul puts it, Scripture is inspired and “useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17). The purpose of the Bible is our salvation!

I also discovered Christian leaders over the centuries did not feel required to search the Bible for truths about science. In fact, they sometimes used allegorical interpretations that seem silly to me now. The vast majority of Evangelical scholars with whom I talked also didn’t think the Bible has to be inerrant about scientific matters.

After my studies, I came to believe that the Bible tells us how to find abundant life. But it does not provide the science for how life became abundant.

Tomorrow, Tom will discuss what his evolving view of the Bible has to do with evolution.

"Anyone approaching the Resurrection accounts in the belief that he knows what rising from the dead means will inevitably misunderstand those accounts and will then dismiss them as meaningless" (p. 243).

In fact, if Jesus' Resurrection were "merely" coming back to life in any way that we might comprehend, then it would be of little significance.

"Now it must be acknowledged that if in Jesus' Resurrection we were dealing simply with the miracle of a resuscitated corpse, it would ultimately be of no concern to us" (p. 243).

So what then does Resurrection mean? For Benedict it represents a new dimension of reality breaking through into human experience. It is not a violation of the old; it is the manifestation of something new.

"Jesus had not returned to a normal human life in this world like Lazarus and the others whom Jesus raised from the dead. He has entered upon a different life, a new life -- he has entered the vast breadth of God himself..." (p. 244).

Because it is something entirely new, it cannot represent a violation of natural law as understood by science.

"Naturally there can be no contradiction of clear scientific data. The Resurrection accounts certainly speak of something outside our world of experience. They speak of something new, something unprecedented -- a new dimension of reality that is revealed. What already exists is not called into question. Rather we are told that there is a further dimension, beyond what was previously known. Does that contradict science? Can there really only ever be what there has always been? Can there not be something unexpected, something unimaginable, something new? If there really is a God, is he not able to create a new dimension of human existence, a new dimension of reality altogether?" (p. 246-7)

Thus, in this view, Resurrection (as with all true miracles) is not contrary to science, but an indicator that science does not (yet?) describe the full expanse of reality. Indeed, some may argue that science itself contains similar "indicators." The 11 (or so) dimensional universe required by some versions of string theory, the multiverse theory of the universe where ours is but one of an infinite array of universes with variable physical laws, quantum entanglements, "spooky" action at a distance, the mysterious emergence of consciousness from inorganic matter -- all push the limits of human reason and imagination, suggesting to some that reality may be far more complex than the human mind can grasp.

For a moment, let us entertain the possibility that Resurrection is as Benedict interprets it: not a violation of natural law but an indicator of something beyond our scientific understanding of the universe. This has interesting implications for understanding how believers and skeptics approach the issue. If Resurrection does not violate science, then science does not necessarily constitute an impediment to accepting the reality of Resurrection. If the difference between the skeptic and believer is not science, then is it just a matter of imagination? The believer imagines greater possibilities for the universe than the non-believer. While this is possible, it seems questionable. To my knowledge, no research has found differences in imaginative abilities between religious and non-religious people. Moreover, contrarian examples easily come to mind: Isaac Asimov was an atheist but hardly lacking in imagination when it came to science fiction. I tend to think that both believers and non-believers can imagine (with varying degrees of effort, I'm sure) the new possibilities implied by Resurrection.

Thus, if it is neither imagination nor science that prompts skepticism about Resurrection, then what is left? I suggest that it comes down to a question of authority: At what point does one allow imaginative possibilities to have authority over how one lives? To the believer, Resurrection has an authority that science fiction does not. Resurrection is not thought-provoking entertainment. It requires far more than just imagining greater possibilities for the universe. It requires a change of life, here and now. Unlike the microscopic hidden dimensions of string theory, the new dimension implied by Resurrection has "broken though" into everyday reality and demands a response -- even if that response is to actively ignore it.

Now, what convinces the believer that Resurrection merits such authority when other imaginative possibilities such as extraterrestrial life or time-travel do not? The answer here appears to be historical commitment. There's no record of people committing themselves to the point of martyrdom to other imaginative possibilities as they have to Resurrection. The earliest example of such commitment being found, of course, in the dramatic post-crucifixion turn-around of the Apostles. Such an astounding change of heart, followed by an unwavering commitment capable of altering human history demands a categorically unique explanation: Resurrection.

The believer's argument, however, remains unconvincing to the skeptic. However impressive they might be, a change of heart and steadfast commitment do not necessarily add up to a new dimension of reality. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Fair enough. So a key question regarding the interpretation of Resurrection is this: Is the post-crucifixion history of Christianity extraordinary? Does it compel the dispassionate observer to concede that a categorically unique event could plausibly be its best explanation?

It ought to be upon questions such as those above that skeptics and believers respectfully engage one another, rather than the simplistic and often acrimonious sloganeering that has increasingly become the norm.

Belief in God in an Age of Science

Introducing John Polkinghorne

An Englishman of Cornish descent, John Polkinghorne was born in 1930 in the coastal town of Weston-super-Mare, southwest of Bristol in North Somerset. Although his parents had three children, an older sister died in infancy and his older brother, who served in the RAF Coastal Command during World War II, died when his plane was lost over the North Atlantic on a stormy night in 1942. Effectively an only child from that point on, his family nurtured him in their Christian faith, leading him to say a few years ago, “I cannot recall a time when I was not in some real way a member of the worshipping and believing community of the Church.”  (From Physicist to Priest, p. 7)

At the same time, his gift for mathematics did not go unnoticed, resulting in several years of study at Trinity College, Cambridge (where Isaac Newton had lived and worked in the seventeenth century). As an undergraduate, Polkinghorne studied applied math rather than pure math, a typical choice for someone interested in physics. There, he formed a close friendship with a classmate, Michael Atiyah, who would be best man at his marriage in 1955 to another mathematics student, the late Ruth (Martin) Polkinghorne. Later knighted, Sir Michael was President of the Royal Society in the early 1990s, the same period when Polkinghorne was president of Queen’s College, Cambridge.

​Sir Michael Atiyah (Source)

Polkinghorne was particularly inspired by the course in quantum physics taught by Paul Dirac, whom he has described as “undoubtedly the greatest British theoretical physicist of the twentieth century,” an opinion with which it is hard to disagree. For Polkinghorne, Dirac’s lectures were simply unforgettable: “so profound was the material, and so closely structured was the argument, that one was carried along enthralled by the experience.” (From Physicist to Priest, p. 26)

Paul Dirac (Source)

Remaining at Cambridge for graduate study, Polkinghorne worked under the Pakistani physicist, Abdus Salam, who later became the first Islamic scientist to win the Nobel Prize, which he shared with Americans Sheldon Glashow and Steven Weinberg for contributions to unifying the electromagnetic force and the weak nuclear force. Then he did postdoctoral work at Caltech with Murray Gell-Mann, another future Nobel laureate for his work on quark theory, and attended the famous lectures by yet another future Nobel laureate, the late Richard Feynman.

After Caltech, Polkinghorne taught briefly at Edinburgh before returning to Cambridge, where he was soon elected to a new professorship in mathematical physics. Quantum mechanics (QM) is his specialty; his writings on both QM and its interaction with theological ideas are numerous. His book, The Quantum World, has sold more than 100,000 copies, and when Oxford University Press wanted a book on this topic for their highly successful series, “A Very Short Introduction,” it was Polkinghorne who wrote it. His former students include Nobel laureate Brian Josephson, “the most precociously brilliant undergraduate that I ever taught,” and Martin Rees, who was until recently President of the Royal Society.

Although Polkinghorne has never won a Nobel Prize, in 1974 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society, the highest honor in British science. Three years later, at the top of his scientific career at age 46, he astonished his colleagues by announcing a decision to pursue ordination as an Anglican priest; two years later, he resigned his chair at Cambridge to enter seminary. Partly, he felt played out. As a former physics student myself, I do not find his diagnosis hard to accept: “In mathematically based subjects you do not get better as you get older. Somehow one needs mental agility more than accumulated experience, and it becomes progressively harder for an old dog to learn new tricks. It is unlikely that most people do their best work before they are 25, but most do before they are 45.” Or, to put it more succinctly, “I simply felt that I had done my little bit for particle theory and the time had come to do something else.” (From Physicist to Priest, p. 71)

Nevertheless, he also felt a genuine call to the ministry, for “Christianity has always been central to my life” and ‘becoming a minister of word and sacrament would be a privileged vocation that held out the possibility of deep satisfaction.” (From Physicist to Priest, p. 73) After seminary, Polkinghorne served as a parish priest for many years and later as canon theologian of Liverpool Cathedral. He was knighted in 1997—although, as an ordained minister, he declines to use the title, “Sir John Polkinghorne”—and was awarded the Templeton Prize in 2002. It has been altogether a life well lived for the kingdom of God.

Looking Ahead

I’ll return in about two weeks with a summary of Polkinghorne’s basic attitudes toward science and religion, which (in his view) have a “cousinly” relationship. In the meantime, readers are invited to read Zeeya Merali’s essay, “The Priest-Physicist Who Would Marry Science to Religion,” from the March 2011 issue of Discover magazine, and “An interview with John Polkinghorne,” by philosopher Paul Fitzgerald.

References

John Polkinghorne, From Physicist to Priest: An Autobiography (2008).

The majority of health care workers deal with the confusing issues of life, death, and the apparent random tragedy of disease that can devastate families emotionally, financially, and spiritually. In fact, when I separate myself from the sterile aspects of a lab test review or ordering of radiographic images, I often find myself extremely saddened by the reality that children suffer from chronic disease, and in that aspect, I have found my faith to be a salve for me. I have been involved in the field of medicine for a relatively short time, only 21 years since first starting medical school. I marvel daily about the advancements of this tool that we have named “modern medicine”. Indeed, in the past 20 years alone, the progress we have made in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and infectious disease has been seemingly unstoppable. Despite these advances, we have not adequately addressed how we handle various aspects of suffering (physically, spiritually, and mentally) in long-term hospitalized patients, in patients with chronic disease, and in the elderly.

I have often been asked if my faith has been affected by being exposed to illness and death. I would resoundingly say “No”, but I know health care workers run the entire gamut of a belief in God. There was a time when I would have said otherwise; however, my lay interest in the processes of our Earth (biologic and geologic) has convinced me of a Creator. I am a Christian, and this essay will discuss how I use my scientific and medical background to justify my faith. If you are an atheist reading this essay, you will have realized that you and I have belief differences from the beginning of this writing. If you are an evangelical Christian, I want you to realize that I am not going to talk about my conversion or my baptism. That aspect of my life is not the point of my essay, but you should know, for background, that I do accept Jesus Christ as my Savior.

I was born and raised in central Texas where a large percentage of the population is evangelical Christian. As I progressed through public education, I had convinced myself that I was agnostic. This was a personal decision, not based on any family influence. In fact, I had Christian parents who were educators and who had an interest in my pursuing a science career as a way of opening my mind to the needs of humanity and intellectual fulfillment. However, my trail away from my Christian faith lasted about 15 years and was most influenced by many of my evangelical classmates, especially in high school and college. I was exposed to Young Earth Creationism (YEC) by many friends, and at that time, I did not think it was even possible to reconcile a Christian faith with my interest in science.

In particular, I was interested in pursuing a career in paleontology or ecology, and I became even more convinced in college, that I had to make a profound choice – either I chose a career in science and reject YEC claims that had no basis in reality, or I would have to abandon a science career all together. I was only aware of those two options at that time and was not aware of a third way leading to a reconciliation of my faith. I will admit that I was fairly angry about the absolutism provided by so many of my YEC-minded friends in the face of massive amounts of biologic and geologic data. I became angry about the concept of religion in a very self-centered sort of way. Eventually and after much contemplation, I ended up going to medical school after college as opposed to a career in natural history, as I decided that the job market was more stable in medicine.

Two particular events enabled me to completely reconcile my faith with science. First, I took a field research class that involved traveling through the southwest United States during the summer of my junior year of college. Seeing geologic layering and signs of erosion up close in areas such as the Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon, as opposed to hearing about the concepts in the lecture hall, made me truly appreciate deep time (Figure 1). For example, although random events over millions of years formed beautiful geologic structuring of hoodoos in Bryce Canyon, the wind and rain making these amazingly beautiful sandstone columns spoke of the mechanistic properties of erosion. Seeing the effects of long-term erosion as being “beautiful” led me to wonder in my tent at night why consciousness was formed to allow humans to appreciate the majesty of nature. I was able to see the Milky Way at night as I camped in the various national parks, and I further contemplated the mechanisms of gravity, light, and star formation. I was captivated by this imposed beauty on the desert floor around me, the stark ruddy canyon walls, the conifer-filled woods, and the cloudless night with a waning moon. I kept a journal during my trip which I wrote in daily. I have read it again years later, and there are passages written, crossed out by pen, then written out again with some my first inklings that I likely believed in a Creator God.

Figure 1: In this picture, I am showing my daughter the various rock groups of the Grand Canyon at Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. My visit to the canyon in college brought home to me the immensity of deep time and the beauty of a natural structure suggesting to me, in a strong way, that God must exist. When this picture was taken, I wanted my daughters to see what I saw, felt what I felt, thought what I thought, when I began to really be convinced there was a Creator.

The second aspect that brought me back into Christianity was exposure to a pastor in my late 20s. At this point, I was deep into my medical training as a pediatric gastroenterologist, but I was starting to attend church again, although not regularly. I also was working in a lab where we were using “knock-out” mice (mice with a gene removed to assess the resultant phenotype, or the observable traits) in order to determine the mechanisms of cirrhosis of the liver. Although my contribution to the lab was not ground-breaking, I was fascinated as to how a single gene deletion could lead to down-stream effects, including morphologic changes in the liver (i.e., cirrhosis). My research had demonstrated that specific gene mutations were leading to a diseased organ, and I came to believe that the genetic code encompassed in all living creatures was not likely explained as a random, undirected process.

The pastor with whom I was interacting with at that time had trained in astronomy prior to going into ministry, and it was fascinating to hear him reconcile his belief in an ancient universe with his faith. He was not the least bit worried about an ancient Earth and a far more ancient universe. He believed in a Sovereign God who could certainly provide for the mechanisms of the Big Bang and the resultant world that we live in. Over the months, my discussions with him led me back to reading my Bible daily for the first time, really, in my life. In my very humble and limited opinion, I could see that God, especially through the Gospels, provided an answer to what my purpose consisted of during my time here on Earth. I was to love and serve others as best I could, and I should let God be in control of the big stuff of life.

Here in the lab (and previously for me in the American southwest) there appeared to be sublime mechanisms at play in the world. Even when I looked at random processes (and I do believe that God allows randomness), the grandeur of life forms that have been present on our planet for hundreds of millions of years fascinated me. I did try to convince myself that randomness was evidence of no God, but I then decided that a Creator could certainly build randomness into any biologic or geologic system to allow for the abundance of detail that we see in the natural world around us.

Taken together, all of these views of the world in the micro- and macro-scale convinced me to come back to Christianity. I believe strongly that there is God who has allowed natural mechanisms to take place, random or not so random, which are exhibited throughout the universe. I certainly know that my wife, my children, and I will die someday, but a re-reading of the Gospels as well as reading the great Book of Nature around us reinforced in me that there was something more for all of us, even after death.

I have never regretted the re-discovery of my Christian faith. I especially take these thoughts with me, when I have to talk to families about sick or dying children. These are hard conversations to have, and I find comfort knowing that evidence of a creator God is ever present around us, even as each of us heads towards the end of life and subsequently, eternity.

Conversations about science and faith can be like that. People hold clearly discordant points of view, and it would be dishonest to ignore the conflict. Yet some voices emphasize the dissonance without any note of harmony to put it in context. Too often, science and faith becomes a hostile battle of worldviews, sounding angry, dissonant chords even among fellow Christians. But civil, gracious dialogue is possible. On the BioLogos Forum, we invite authors from a range of positions, including some that don't agree with all our beliefs, but we strive to set these dialogues in a context of respect and civility. When authors are fellow Christians, we don’t shy away from disagreements, but remember the broader context of our unity as fellow believers, the harmony that binds us together.

My own story is more harmonious than dissonant. My interest in music was paralleled by my interest in math and science and my involvement in church. My family and teachers encouraged my interests in science, and I remember how fun it was to play math games with my dad and brother. And every week we were in church: twice on Sunday, plus Wednesday night club, youth group activities, and Bible quizzing. While my church accepted the young earth position, they didn’t emphasize it, and I was never told that a particular science view was essential to being a Christian. When I encountered the evidence for the age of the universe and the evolution of life, I also found Christian authors who showed me how this scientific evidence could fit with Christian beliefs.

But others have experienced more dissonance. Nearly four years ago, Dr. Francis Collins launched this website with the story of a young university student in the midst of a profound personal crisis, what Dr. Collins called “a wrenching crisis of worldviews shaking her deepest foundations.” Without a context of harmony, too many people – young and old – feel they have to choose between two incompatible positions, either Christian faith or the findings of science. BioLogos exists to show another way. We hold fast to the authority of the Bible and the core beliefs of Christianity, and at the same time, accept the rigorous conclusions of mainstream science.

It is with these chords of dissonance and resolution in mind that I come to this opportunity to lead BioLogos. I have long sensed God’s calling to serve the church as part of this dialogue. Some of you know of me from a book I wrote in 2007 with my husband Loren, called Origins. I’ve been speaking and writing on science and faith for many years, but I did this around the edges of my primary career of teaching and research in astronomy. While I thoroughly enjoy teaching students and doing research, over the last year I have recognized God’s hand in leading me to shift my fulltime work to the science and faith dialogue. Now I’m looking forward to using and developing my gifts in service of BioLogos.

Joining me as a new member of the leadership team is Dr. Jeff Schloss, who will serve as our Senior Scholar. Many of you are already familiar with his work, and know he brings not only a strong track record of scholarship in evolution and philosophy, but tremendous skill in communicating to lay audiences. Jeff and I share a deep commitment to the unity of the body of Christ and a desire to remove barriers for people to come to Christ. I am delighted to have him on board.

Jeff and I inherit a strong and vibrant organization from our outgoing President, Dr. Darrel Falk. Darrel brought his deep love and concern for the church, along with his considerable creativity and hard work, to this effort. We plan to continue and build on the excellent programs he established.

One of the pleasures of my first few weeks on the job has been getting to know the BioLogos staff. Kathryn, Lisa, Stephen, Mike, Laura J, and LeAnne each bring key skills to the organization, as well as energy and a passion for the mission of BioLogos. The team keeps BioLogos functioning behind the scenes, from finances to computer programming to event planning. Two team members, Mark Sprinkle and Tom Burnett, have decided to move on to other opportunities after a year of dedicated service to BioLogos. As web editors, Mark and Tom revamped the blog, making it a forum for rich scholarly dialogue and vibrant testimonies, and drawing in new authors to write on a great mix of topics. They also organized the archived material, so that the best of BioLogos is readily accessible. We wish them well in their new endeavors. Joining the BioLogos team is Emily Ruppel as Interim Web Editor. You may know Emily from her work to develop and edit the e-zine God & Nature for the American Scientific Affiliation; she will join us part time at BioLogos while she continues to work with ASA.

We believe God has great things in store for BioLogos. We will continue to focus on connecting with scholars, pastors, teachers, and lay people, but in the months ahead, we will also be sharpening our vision and engaging afresh in strategic planning. We’ll be considering new audiences, new programs, and new priorities. I invite your comments below on directions you’d like to see BioLogos take.

In just a few years, this organization has impacted the lives of thousands of Christians and brought an important voice to discussions taking place within the church. Thanks to the strong support from The John Templeton Foundation and many other generous donors, the vision of Francis Collins is thriving. BioLogos is on the cusp of enormous opportunities and huge potential. While transitions are times of risk and vulnerability, they are also times of great opportunity. My prayer is that God will give us wisdom and guidance to be good stewards of this opportunity. May God continue to use BioLogos to bring harmony to a conversation that has emphasized dissonance for far too long.

Today, as I write, I am no longer in the desert of southern California, nor in the beech-maple forest of New Hampshire, but on a glacial drumlin in Waubesa Wetlands—a large marsh four miles south of Madison, Wisconsin. Here Ruth and I have our home, and here I study creatures whose watery habitats my neighbors and I have worked to save from eventual destruction. While my desert study site now is covered by a city where people live alone in the land—absent the desert creatures—my wetland study site remains occupied by all kinds of native plants and animals. Embracing it is the Town of Dunn, whose land stewardship plan helps people understand, serve, and maintain this and the other ecosystems. Our town stewardship plan encourages restoration of the landscape, protects agricultural lands, and strives to transmit an intergenerational heritage of secure and wholesome homes, livelihoods, and habitats for the animals, plants, and people that live here. We live largely in harmony and accord.

House-building on slabs poured onto desert sands first alerted me to the question of praxis, the third point on the napkin. But it was later, in my work as organizer of the Waubesa Wetlands Scientific and Agricultural Preserve, and as supervisor and later as chair of the Town of Dunn, that I came to realize that science and ethics do no earthly good unless put into practice. In serving my town, I came to apply what I had learned in the desert: praxis uninformed by science and ethics usually creates more problems than are solved.

“How do you put it all together?” those students in New Hampshire wanted to know. For me, it was building a framework for stewardship that simultaneously considered the questions “How does the world work?” “What is right?” and “What then must we do?” This science-ethics-praxis triad is a framework for living, for learning, for teaching, and most importantly for acting. It is a framework for stewardship.

In order to live and act rightly in the world, we need to know how the world works. We need to know how the systems that sustain us work, and how we interact with them. Without such knowledge we could drown in a flash flood, have our homes undercut by desert winds, cross the street in the path of an oncoming car, or get sick from consuming foods with toxic ingredients. As human beings develop more and more of the world, and as the reach of human actions extends regionally and globally, our knowledge must increase accordingly. This knowledge is not limited to what we acquire from a formal education; it also includes the knowledge we gain from family and friends, and from experience and experiment. In order to live and act rightly in the world, we need to know how the world works.

In order to live and act rightly in the world, we need to know what we ought to do. A century ago, this question was addressed in many colleges across America in a course for graduating seniors on moral philosophy. The purpose of this course was to convict students that they should apply their knowledge for the pursuit of good instead of pursuing self at others’ expense. At my university, this aspect of college education is expressed in a quotation from Abraham Lincoln carved in stone on a bench behind Lincoln’s statue at the top of Bascom Hill: “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, dare to do our duty.” The question “What is right?” is represented by the ethics corner of our triad. Moving directly from the Science corner to the praxis corner, or from the ethics corner to the praxis corner, proves problematic, even disastrous. Consider the result of going from knowledge of nuclear fission (science) directly to producing and dropping an atomic bomb (praxis), or moving from the belief that death is bad (ethics) to removing dead wood from forests (praxis); both are examples of these disastrous shortcuts.

But knowing the science and observing the ethics of this stewardship framework does absolutely no good if it is not put into practice—placed into service. By themselves, the very best science and the most substantial ethics are no substitutes for action. We need to act appropriately and deliberately in the light of scientific and ethical knowledge. Praxis by itself, without being grounded in science and ethics, results in mere activism—activism that is unlikely to do good and that may produce harm. All three corners of the triad are essential—but not by themselves. Taken together and working interactively, they provide a framework for stewardship.

But will these three operate in dynamic interaction? Will they interact in ways that preserve and achieve the integrity of human life and the environment? The answer depends on what we know and understand about ourselves and the world (science), what we believe we should do (ethics), and what we in fact do, and how we respond to our successes and failures (praxis). It depends on our will, our motivation, our determination, and our dedication to strive for a harmonious world of creatures before their Creator. What might make us strive for such a world?

Part 3 explores the challenge of translating ideals into concrete actions.

Part of the BioLogos mission, then, is to show how all things hold together in Christ—to show how a Christian worldview integrates the knowledge we have of God through the Scriptures with the knowledge we have of God through the other areas in which he reveals himself as Creator and Redeemer. Our website contains a wealth of Christian scholarship in a wide range of fields—from biology, to cosmology, to mathematics, to Biblical studies, to history, to theology—all demonstrating that the best contemporary science is compatible with Biblical Christian faith. But today we introduce a new tool—the BioLogos Navigator—to make these posts more accessible, and to show how they inter-relate (see sidebar on the right).

Modeled on the astrolabes that early astronomers and sailors used to orient themselves under the heavens, our Navigator makes the cross of Christ the starting point by which we understand the cosmos. Each of the four arms of the cross represents one of the domains of knowledge and experience through which God reveals himself to the world: Scripture, the Church, Nature and Culture. These domains are not in opposition to each other, but are complementary and inter-related areas through which we can recognize God at work in the world. Linking these four domains is a network of specific topics relevant to the science and faith conversation. Their arrangement suggests how each relates to the four domains but also to teach other. Clicking on an individual topic tag highlights not only that topic, but other topics that are linked to it—sometimes in unexpected ways.

Clicking a topic tag a second time takes you to the Topic Landing page: a curated selection of the best resources on that subject from the BioLogos archives. (The image above shows the Christianity & Science—Then and Now Landing page, complete with Navigator and highlighted tags.) At the bottom of each page is a link to our Resource Finder, where you can investigate additional materials on that topic, as well. By exploring the relationships between the topics on the Navigator itself, and by delving deep into each topic via the resources presented on the landing pages, readers can focus on specific aspects of the harmony between science and Christian faith while also getting the wide view of God’s providential work in all things in the heavens and on the earth.

In the coming days and weeks, the BioLogos Navigator will be more fully integrated into the rest of the site, accessible directly from the Forum homepage and from the Resources dropdown list at the top of every page. We’ll also be including features that help place each blog post on the “knowledge map” defined by the domains and topic tags. Finally, the Topic Pages will also be periodically updated with the latest and best new materials in each topic. In the meantime, you can access the Navigator by clicking anywhere on the small image in the sidebar, above, and find a link to this post at the upper right corner of our homepage. So take some time to explore our site with this new tool, which we think will to help orient our readers in the science and faith conversation, while always pointing to Jesus, the Christ, through whom all things were made.

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience.

Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men.

If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?

Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.¹

– St. Augustine of Hippo (AD 354-430)

For a good portion of my life, I had an extremely difficult time admitting that I was wrong. To do so was an admission of intellectual failure, faulty logic, or simple ignorance—not knowing everything about everything.² Being wrong is a hard pill to swallow sometimes, because in many cases it equates to losing face. As it pertains to the creation-evolution debate, I believe that we evangelical Christians tend to express that fear by “holding the line” against certain areas of scientific study, rather than being willing to admit that we might be wrong. In most cases, we have no problem accepting the authority of the world’s best physicists, chemists, meteorologists, engineers, and physicians. Our problem tends to be with scientific authorities in only certain areas of study, such as biology, anthropology, paleontology, geology, and astronomy. Why? It’s because the Bible is the divinely inspired word of God and these areas conflict with the plain reading of Scripture, right?

When we evangelicals come to the table of scientific discussion, we tend to pick and choose those “foods” which appeal to us, while wrinkling our noses at what our theological tastes find disagreeable. As long as the menu includes a wide assortment of things we already like, and we share the table with people with similar tastes, we can get along just fine with this strategy. But is this wise in, say, a survival situation? Food is food, and if we’re hungry enough and don’t have a life-threatening allergic reaction to something specific, I would venture to guess that we’d dig right in without a second thought. In regard to the creation-evolution debate, I am convinced that the evangelical church will find itself in dire straights if we intentionally starve ourselves intellectually, especially with a healthy banquet in full sight and within reach. I also think having a too-restricted “diet” limits our ability to sit down with those outside the church and can, as Augustine believed, play a role in actually prohibiting the secular world at large from coming to a saving knowledge of Christ, “to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil.” Several years ago, Bruce Waltke, former Evangelical Theological Society president and former professor of Old Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary, updated Augustine’s caution in a brief video production for BioLogos, suggesting that the church risks losing our ability to really interact with the world if we don’t trust God’s providence in this area. Wheaton College’s Professor of Christian Thought, Mark Noll, as the very first sentence of his book The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind writes, “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.”³ If not for the fact that I’ve never met Professor Noll, I’d believe he was talking about me a decade ago.

What drives us evangelical Christians to “hold the line” against acknowledging truths in these certain categories of scientific knowledge? After undergoing several theological shifts myself over the last decade, and seeing others do the same, I believe I’ve been able to “reverse engineer” what happened in my own life: It was a subtle slide from a confident faith into a comfortable, unwitting arrogance. When we believe that we are in an intimate spiritual union with the Creator of the universe, it’s quite easy to forget (if we ever understood this in the first place) that God can couch theological truth in a variety of literary genres and, yes, even in the context of ancient, scientifically inaccurate cosmologies.⁴ Caught up in the awesome truth of spiritual union, what makes perfect sense to us at any particular point in our spiritual walk can be easily confused with “the truth.” We also gravitate toward churches that conform to our particular belief systems. We prefer pastors who preach to the choir. We buy books that support our particular theological system. To attend another church, listen to a theologically edgy pastor, or read a book from a completely opposite viewpoint from what we’re accustomed to would be to invite a considerable measure of tension into an otherwise comfortable intellectual and spiritual environment.

How many of us actually have or take the time to study evolutionary biology, theology, the history of biblical interpretation, ANE literature, or modern translations of Babylonian creation myths? I would venture to guess that very few of us have the same opportunities that professional scientists and theologians take for granted in their academic careers. To overcome the fear of losing intellectual face, I recommend exposing oneself to different ways of thinking about these topics, including perspectives that you might deem “outside the box.” Reading multi-view comparisons and critiques, such as those found in Zondervan’s wonderful Counterpoints series, is particularly helpful in this regard. Familiarity with and exposure to these views helps temper that initial fear or shock when we come across those few brothers and sisters in Christ who opt to take another approach to any one topic. (One youth pastor friend of mine, when discovering my views on a particular topic, approached me and excitedly exclaimed that meeting me was like meeting a dragon: “You hear stories about them, but you never see one!”)

A word of warning: Before I adopted evolutionary creationism, my neatly packed theology was virtually stress-free. Ignorance was truly bliss. Then came the paradigm shift, and all sorts of previously suppressed tension, questions, and doubts rose to the surface. Another word of warning: If you’re not confronted with tension, questions, and doubts in your day-to-day spiritual walk, something’s wrong. Wrestling with theological issues is not an activity to be avoided; it is a discipline to be vigorously pursued! If you are comfortable enough in your relationship with the risen Savior, you should not fear admitting your ignorance on various topics and entering into a period of temporary uncertainty. This fear can be remedied by taking advantage of a fully informed palette of theological options provided by genuine Jesus followers, including those that embrace biblical criticism. If one’s faith is truly rooted in the One by, for, and through Whom all things were made, all the theories put forth by the higher biblical critics and esoteric scientists should be no cause for fear—but all should be cause for loving dialogue.

Notes

1. St. Augustine of Hippo, The Literal Meaning of Genesis (De Genesi ad litteram), Trans. J. H. Taylor, in Ancient Christian Writers (Long Prairie, MN: Newman Press, 1982), vol. 41.
2. “Ignorant,” Oxford Dictionaries, accessed October 08, 2012, http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/ignorant.
3. Mark A. Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994), 3.
4. See Denis Lamoureux, Evolutionary Creation: A Christian Approach to Evolution (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2008); Brian Godawa, “Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography in the Bible,” accessed October 04, 2012.

The first video, “10 Questions with Katherine Hayhoe”, introduces the scientist in a brief and lighthearted interview. Hayhoe is presented with 10 questions concerning her personal life and beliefs. When asked, she explains that one thing people should know about Christianity is that having a relationship with the God of the universe is one of the most incredible experiences that a person can have. As the video unfolds, the viewer quickly begins to realize that, despite her unique profession of two seemingly incompatible beliefs, Hayhoe is a remarkably sane and “normal” individual. Her role model, she explains, is her father-- the person who first introduced her to science and showed her that it could be “really cool”. On a more serious note, the scientist admits that being both a scientist and a Christian can be difficult. The most frustrating thing about her position, she says, is the amount of disinformation which is targeted at her very own Christian community.

In the second video, “Climate Change Evangelist”, Katharine Hayhoe delves into deeper discussion of the perceived conflict between climate change and Christian faith. She explains that admitting her identity as a Christian scientist can be uncomfortable. Since evangelicals are the targets of much disinformation concerning science in general -- and specifically the science surrounding climate change -- many people in the church have a misguided view of the subject and do not look kindly at her career choice. One woman encountered by Hayhoe at a church in Texas, for example, believed that global warming was a lie taught in schools to mislead her children. In an effort to realign misguided views like these, Katharine Hayhoe and her husband wrote a book addressing the deep-rooted emotions often associated with climate change. People fear that addressing the climate issue will bring forth changes in the economy and uproot their way of life. However, Hayhoe encourages her viewers to act out of love, as the Bible calls us to do, rather than out of fear. Acting out of love inspires us to consider the poor and disadvantaged people around the globe when we respond to the reality of a changing climate.

In the final segment of this three part video montage, Hayhoe addresses the question of what climate change means. Specifically, she is concerned about how global warming affects people on a personal level. While global warming generally brings to mind melting ice caps and polar bears, its implications are far more widespread, affecting the lives of everyone around the world- from cotton farmers in Texas to public health workers in Chicago. If nothing is done to change current emission levels, the number of days per year which exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit, for example, will begin to increase dramatically, and if emissions are increased, many areas will even develop extreme conditions like those seen currently in Death Valley. Hayhoe’s goal is to demonstrate clearly that the only way to preserve the world for future generations is to significantly reduce dependence on inefficient means of getting energy and instead transition to cleaner renewable energy sources.

Editor's Note: These videos first appeared on the Nova program "The Secret Life of Scientists & Engineers".

Growing up, David believed that Young Earth Creationism was the Christian position on origins and how God created. As he endeavored to learn more, he was intrigued by Francis Collins book The Language of God because Francis did not present evolution as a rival theory to Christian faith, but as something that described God's method of creation. David studied biblical interpretation and found John Walton's scholarship to be tremendously helpful in understanding the original purpose and intent of the Genesis narrative.

Reflecting on his personal journey, David thinks that it is important that we don't oversimplify questions related to science and faith, but that we explore them deeply in order to understand science in a robust, Christian way.

Darwin’s finches are some of the most visible and recognizable symbols of evolution in the world today. Biology textbooks feature them prominently, and the National Academy of Sciences has enshrined them in the entrance of their headquarters in Washington, DC. Surely the finches that Darwin collected on the Galápagos islands were a central feature of his evolutionary theory, right?

Lobby of The National Academies Building. Courtesy of CPNAS. Photo by Robert Lautman

Actually, the Galápagos finches are never even mentioned in Darwin’s famous work On the Origin of Species. Nor do they appear in Darwin’s famous notebooks on “Transmutation of Species”, in which he formulated the idea of evolution by natural selection.¹ Even Darwin’s private diary of his voyage on the HMS Beagle only mentions the Galápagos finches briefly in passing.²

It was only in 1845, in the second edition of The Voyage of the Beagle, that Darwin included a tantalizing sentence about the Galápagos finches:

Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure in one small, intimately related group of birds, one might really fancy that from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends.³

However insightful this statement may have been, Darwin never published anything else about the Galápagos finches for the rest of his life. Nor did he publically present these birds as direct evidence for this theory of evolution.⁴

If these finches were so important to Darwin’s evolutionary theory, why did he remain silent about them? One of his comments in The Voyage of the Beagle provides us with a clue:

Unfortunately most of the specimens of the finch tribe were mingled together; but I have strong reasons to suspect that some of the species of the subgroup Geospiza are confined to separate islands.⁵

When Darwin was exploring the Galápagos himself in 1835, he had not formulated his theory of evolution yet, and thus he did know what data would be necessary to make definitive conclusions about finch evolution. In particular, he did not keep careful track of which of his specimens came from which islands. Moreover, as was customary among naturalists at that time, Darwin only collected a small number specimens—he brought home only 31 finches and 64 total birds from the Galápagos.⁶

Though Darwin sensed that these birds were truly special, he lacked sufficient evidence to reach any specific conclusions about their evolutionary origins. It would be up to the rest of the scientific community to carry out the necessary empirical research. Subsequent expeditions in 1868, 1891, 1897, and 1905 brought back thousands of Galápagos finch specimens, but instead of unlocking the mysteries of evolutionary theory, the Galápagos finches became a great enigma.⁷

A century after Darwin's voyage, scientists still struggled to explain the staggering variety of finches on this tiny, remote archipelago. By the mid-1930’s, British Museum ornithologist Percy Lowe argued that the finches presented a "biological problem of first class importance", and he told the British Association for the Advancement of Science that the finches displayed a "bewildering diversity, intergradation, and distribution".⁸ Who would be up to the challenge of making sense of such tremendous biological complexity? It was David Lack.

David Lack

Ornithologist David Lack

David Lack had an exceptionally keen eye for bird-watching, and he possessed a passion to match it. By age 15, he had already observed 100 distinct species of birds, and before entering college, authored his first scientific paper. At Cambridge University in the early 1930’s, Lack was disappointed to find that his zoology professors taught “nothing about evolution, ecology, behavior or genetics, and of course nothing about birds.”⁹ In fact, at that time, there were only two professional ornithologists in all of Britain!

Thus David Lack took it upon himself to create his own learning opportunities. As an undergraduate, he became the president of the Cambridge Ornithological Club, traveled to Greenland for a bird-watching expedition, and cultivated a relationship with the prominent biologist Julian Huxley (grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley). Huxley was an inspiring mentor and encouraged Lack to expand his research further by studying tropical birds.¹⁰ Following this advice, Lack embarked on a research trip to Tanzania in the summer of 1934, but his greatest adventure was yet to come.

In 1937, Lack became fascinated by the scientific mysteries surrounding the Galápagos finches. But in order to study their behavior, Lack would need to travel to remote islands halfway around the world. How could he possibly get there? Once again, Julian Huxley was tremendously supportive and raised funds from two prominent scientific societies to pay for his expedition. After a long delay, David Lack and five companions finally set off on their journey.

Instead of residing in comfortable quarters aboard a royal naval ship, Lack’s group subsisted on a shoestring budget, traveled on commercial steamers, and stayed with local settlers. Their experience was definitely not a romantic tale of imperial expedition:

The Galápagos are interesting, but scarcely a residential paradise. The biological peculiarities are offset by an enervating climate, monotonous scenery, dense thorn scrub, cactus spines, loose sharp lava, food deficiencies, water shortage, black rats, fleas, jiggers, ants, mosquitoes, scorpions, Ecuadorian Indians of doubtful honesty, and dejected, disillusioned European settlers.¹¹

Whereas Charles Darwin spent only nineteen days on the shores of the Galápagos, Lack and his crew conducted more than five months of meticulous and exhausting study in the harsh climate. At that time, even the finches themselves provided little solace. Lack wrote,

Darwin’s finches are dull to look at, not only in their orderly ranks in museum trays, but also when they hop about the ground or perch in the trees of the Galápagos, making dull unmusical noises. Only the variety of their beaks and the number of their species excite attention.¹²

Large Cactus Finch on Española Island in the Galápagos Islands

The repetitive tedium requisite for important scientific discoveries is rarely discussed in public, and even today many bright-eyed science students become disillusioned by the painstaking work demanded by their Ph.D. programs. But one of the things that distinguishes great scientists is their unwavering commitment and tenacity in completing major projects. David Lack's efforts were not in vain:

"Despite his personal discomforts (or perhaps because of them), Lack did see something on the Galápagos that no one had ever seen before—natural selection at work among its finches through interspecies competition." ¹³

When the birds’ breeding season ended in 1939, Lack was ready to return to his home in England. But the captive finches that he had brought with him fared so badly on the voyage home that he detoured to San Francisco and put them in the care of the California Academy of Sciences. Turning this mishap into an opportunity, Lack stayed there for five additional months to study the Academy’s enormous collection of Galápagos finch specimens.¹⁴

To complete his systematic research, Lack then travelled across the United States to study the Galápagos finch collection housed at the American Museum in New York.¹⁵ Altogether, Lack examined more than 8000 specimens and specifically measured the length, width, and depth of all their beaks.¹⁶

Lack’s final obstacle was in getting his research published. Though he completed his academic manuscript “The Galápagos Finches—A Study in Variation” in 1940, paper shortages during World War II delayed its publication by the California Academy of Sciences until 1945. Were he only interested in making an original contribution to science, Lack could have stopped here and congratulated himself on a job well-done. However, his motivation sprung from a deeper source:

David Lack's drawing of 14 species of Galápagos finches, p. 19 of Darwin’s Finches

"I did not watch birds primarily for scientific reasons but for sheer enjoyment, and from the age of 15 onward returned day after day in a glow of excitement after seeing a new bird or a new habit." ¹⁷

Lack’s joyful fascination with the Galápagos finches inspired him to continue developing his conclusions long after returning from his expedition. While waiting for his academic paper to be published, he began writing a book that would enable students and the general public to share his excitement about these remarkable birds and the evolutionary processes that shaped them.

First published in 1947, Lack’s book became tremendously influential. Before this time, biology textbooks had never even mentioned the Galápagos finches. But after David Lack’s study, the finches became a primary example of evolution by natural selection, specifically adaptive radiation. Not only did textbooks fully rely on Lack’s findings, they also followed his lead in calling them “Darwin’s finches”, the title of Lack’s famous book.¹⁸

Iconic Finches

What was it about these birds that made them such a prominent symbol of evolution? As Darwin himself pointed out, the numerous Galápagos finch populations each have distinctive beaks, and he speculated that they could have evolved from an ancestral species that came to the islands. But a complete picture of finch evolution would have to wait another hundred years, when David Lack arrived.

During his five months on the Galápagos, including both the rainy and dry seasons, Lack observed that these beak differences enable the finches to subsist on different kinds of food:

The beak differences between most of the genera and subgenera of Darwin's finches are clearly correlated with differences in feeding methods. This is well borne out by the heavy, finch-like beak of the seed-eating Geospiza, the long beak of the flower-probing Cactornis, the somewhat parrot-like beak of the leaf, bud, and fruit-eating Platyspiza, the woodpecker-like beak of the woodboring Catcospiza, and the warbler-like beaks of the insect-eating certhidea and Pinaroloxias.¹⁹

Lack's image of beak adaptations from Darwin’s Finches

Specializing in such different sources of food enables these finches to live in close proximity without directly competing with each other or driving populations to extinction. The fact that so many of these closely related finches are able to co-exist is a remarkable fact in itself. As Lack himself put it, “It is not only the origin, but also the persistence, of new species which require explanation.”²⁰

But it is also fascinating to consider how these birds got to be so different in the first place. How did a finch come to have a beak like a “parrot”, “woodpecker”, or “warbler”? The answer lies in the distinct characteristics of the Galápagos. Because the islands are so remote, no actual parrots, woodpeckers, or warblers ever settled on it. In the absence of these species, the Galápagos finches were able to adopt feeding habits and forms that they would never have taken on a large continent full of other birds competing for food. The isolation of these islands offered just the right conditions for us to see living examples of adaptive radiation.²¹

Conclusion

Considering the immense popularity of the Galápagos finches, it is quite surprising to learn that Charles Darwin himself had so little to say about them. In fact, it was actually David Lack, one century later, who conducted the critical research that immortalized the finches in biology textbooks and popular lore. By naming his landmark book Darwin’s Finches,²² Lack paid homage to the man whose voyage on the HMS Beagle helped transform the study of natural history. But at the same time, Lack also obscured the fact that evolutionary biology is an enterprise conducted by a large community of brilliant scholars, not just the product of one man’s efforts.

This tendency to immortalize “great men of science” has also led many people to refer to modern evolutionary theory as Darwinism, despite the fact that it has substantially changed and developed over the past 150 years. It is important to give credit where credit is due, and if that’s the case, we should seriously reconsider how we refer to the Galapagos finches. Evolutionary biologist Dolph Schluter, who studied the finches several decades after David Lack, had this to say:

I find Lack's intuition really stunning given how little information he had. He's my hero actually… They should be called Lack's finches.²³

In the second part of this series, we’ll explore the fact that David Lack, in addition to being a world-renowned evolutionary biologist, was also a devout Christian. His study of evolutionary theory did not cause him to lose his faith; in fact, he actually converted to Christianity after completing his Galápagos finch research.

For Discussion

Further Reading

• Grant, Peter R.; Grant, B. Rosemary. How and Why Species Multiply: The Radiation of Darwin's Finches, Princeton University Press, 2008.
• Sulloway, Frank J. (Spring 1982), "Darwin and His Finches: The Evolution of a Legend" (PDF), Journal of the History of Biology 15 (1): 1–53.
• Weiner, Jonathon. The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time. Vintage Books, 1995.

Notes

1. Sulloway, F. (1983). "Darwin and his finches: The evolution of a legend." Journal of the history of biology 15(1): 32. Darwin’s notebooks on transmutation mentioned Galapagos tortoises and mockingbirds, not finches.
2. Lack, David. Darwin’s Finches. Cambridge University Press, 1947: 9. Confirmed by Sulloway (1983), p5.
3. Darwin, Charles. Journal of researches into the natural history and geology of the countries visited during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle round the world. London: John Murray. 2d ed. 1845: 379-80. This edition of the book also contained the drawings of four different finches that have become enshrined in biology textbooks and on the walls of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC.
4. Sulloway, p35. Sulloway points out that the first published evolutionary account of the Galapagos finches was not until 1876, by Osbert Salvin: "On the Avifauna of the Galapagos Archipelago." Trans. Zool. Soc. London, 9:447-51.
5. Darwin (1845), p395.
6. Sulloway, p40.
7. Sulloway, p40.
8. Larson, E. J. Evolution's Workshop: God and Science on the Galapagos Islands. New York, Basic Books, 2001: 166-67.
9. Lack, David. (1973) “My life as an amateur ornithologist.” Ibis: 424.
10. Lack (1973), 425-27.
11. Lack (1947), p1.
12. Lack (1947), p11.
13. Larson, 167-68.
14. The California Academy of Sciences sponsored an expedition to the Galapagos in 1905-06 and collected nearly 9000 Galapagos finch specimens (Sulloway, p40).
15. In New York, Lack roomed with the curator of the finch collection—German émigré zoologist Ernst Mayr. By developing this relationship, Lack had close ties with two of the biggest figures in the neo-Darwinian synthesis, Julian Huxley and Ernst Mayr (Larson, 168).
16. Larson, p168.
17. Lack (1973), p424.
18. Larson, p198.
19. Lack (1947), p60.
20. Lack (1947), p158.
21. See Lack’s concluding chapter on “Adaptive Radiation”, pp146-159 of Darwin’s Finches (1947).
22. British ornithologist Percy Lowe originally proposed the name “Darwin’s finches” in 1935, but the name did not catch on until Lack used it in his book. See P.R. Lowe, (1936) "The Finches of the Galapagos in Relation to Darwin's Conception of Species." Ibis, 13th ser., 6:310-321. (Cited in Larson, p287)
23. Schluter, in an interview with Edward Larson, 16 March 2000.

Asa Gray

If Thomas Huxley earned the title of "Darwin's bulldog," then Asa Gray should be remembered as "Darwin's dove." Whereas Huxley enjoyed a good fight in his defense of Darwin's theory, Gray sought to mediate and bring sides together around a common understanding of "good science." As Darwin's strongest and most vocal scientific ally in the United States, Gray recognized the scientific importance of Darwin's efforts for the growing professionalism of biological researchers.

But as an orthodox Christian, a Presbyterian firmly devoted to the faith expressed in the Nicene Creed, Gray saw in Darwin's theory both evidence for his philosophical commitment to natural theology and support for his opposition to the idealism advocated by Louis Agassiz and the Naturphilosophen in both Europe and America. Indeed, Agassiz's advocacy of Platonic forms as a basis of biological understanding (e.g., "A species is a thought of the creator")¹ would be a major source of American opposition to Darwin's theory.

Professor of botany at Harvard during most of the middle half of the nineteenth century, Gray was one of the few members of the scientific community to whom Darwin revealed his theory before the publication of On the Origin of Species, and, from what I can tell, the only American. Gray and Darwin met briefly in January 1839 during one of Gray's visits to England. Later, during the 1850s, Darwin wrote Gray on several occasions requesting information--a practice that Darwin frequently employed. In 1854, Darwin's friend and confidant, Joseph Hooker, showed Darwin Gray's review of Hooker's Flora of New Zealand, in which Gray had argued strongly against Louis Agassiz's idealism and had raised questions from his own work on the stability of species. Gray was not yet ready to deny their permanence, but hybrids and other observations were beginning to trouble him.

The next year Gray wrote a lucid and penetrating positive evaluation of Alphonse De Candolle's two-volume Géographie botanique raisonnée, a pioneering work dealing with plant geography and distribution from a statistical perspective. Hooker had sneeringly dismissed the work. In A. Hunter Dupree's authoritative biography of Gray, he describes Gray's puzzlement at Hooker's response in these terms:

Although in the long view Gray's evaluation of the epoch-making nature of De Candolle's book was more justified than Hooker's sneers, [Gray was confused by his response, for] Hooker seemed to be talking with a more comprehensive theory definitely in mind, some reason for taking his position, which he did not divulge and which his friend [Gray] did not possess.²

Darwin, however, saw in both Gray's review of Hooker's book and in his comments on De Candolle's tome that Gray was troubled by some of the same empirical data that had been bothering him. In April 1855, Darwin wrote Gray to urge that Gray update his Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States first published in 1848, and especially to address the issue of the range of Alpine plants in the United States. Specifically, he said: "Now I would say it is your duty to generalise as far as you safely can from your as yet completed work."³

Behind this request was Darwin's desire to test his impression that Gray could make a good ally. Gray passed the test, and finally, in July 1857, Darwin let Gray in on his theory of the transmutation of species. Gray was never an uncritical supporter, and there are many evidences in the correspondence between these two scientists that Gray was willing to challenge Darwin and disagree with some of his conclusions. Nevertheless, Gray saw the importance of Darwin's work and the ways in which it provided answers to the troublesome issues that he had confronted in his own botanical efforts.

Gray responds to Darwin's theory

After considerable interchange--one might even say debate--among Gray, Darwin, and Hooker, Gray wrote to Hooker in October 1859 (one month before the publication of On the Origin of Species) saying that he had absolutely no problem with cognate species arising by variation. He did, however, raise a concern that would be the source of much future discussion. He wondered about Darwin's "carry[ing] out this view to its ultimate and legitimate results,--how [do] you connect the philosophy of religion with the philosophy of your science." He added: "I should feel uneasy if I could not connect them into a consistent whole--i.e., fundamental principles of science should not be in conflict."⁴

When Origins was published, Gray wrote a clear, positive, yet critical review in The American Journal of Science. Aware of mounting religious opposition, he ended his review by arguing that whereas one could use Darwin's theory in support of an atheistic view of Nature, one could use any scientific theory in that way. He wrote: "The theory of gravitation and ... the nebular hypothesis assume a universal and ultimate physical cause, from which the effects in nature must necessarily have resulted."⁵ He did not see the physicists and astronomers who adopted Newton's theories as atheists or pantheists, though Leibniz earlier had raised such reservations. And a similar situation existed with the origin of species by natural selection. Darwin, Gray continued: "merely takes up a particular, proximate cause, or set of such causes, from which, it is argued, the present diversity of species has or may have contingently resulted. The author does not say necessarily resulted."⁶

This far Gray could go with Darwin. But there was a point at which he parted company, and that was the fortuitous randomness of the process that Darwin's theory seemed to imply.

In part 2, Dr. Miles describes Darwin's struggle with the problem of natural evil and design in nature.

Notes

1. Cited in A. Hunter Dupree, Asa Gray: American Botanist, Friend of Darwin (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1959), 151. 2. Ibid., 236.
3. Charles Darwin, More Letters of Charles Darwin, ed. Francis Darwin, (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1903), 252.
4. Dupree, Asa Gray, 266.
5. Asa Gray, "The Origin of Species" in Darwiniana (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1963), 44.
6. Ibid.

Judging from the flurry of headlines over the past week, one might be tempted to think that proof positive of God’s existence (or lack thereof) had just appeared out of a 27-km-tunnel buried beneath the Swiss-French border. This frenzy of news headlines and blog titles hailed the recent news that CERN’s Large Hadron Collider has discovered a brand new particle of a mass of 125-126 GeV, which is assumed to be the Higgs boson, or the so-called “God particle.” The discovery of the Higgs boson would certainly be a breakthrough for particle physics and cosmology, but would such a finding also radically redefine theology’s understanding of God or challenge the existence of such a deity? Is there actually any theological or religious significance in Higgs physics at all?

The short answer is “no,” which becomes apparent when one considers the widely-reported story of how it got named. In 1993, Nobel Laureate physicist Leon Lederman, along with science writer Dick Teresi, wrote a book detailing the history of particle physics starting with Pre-Socratic Greek philosophy Democritus and culminating with the hunt for the Higgs boson. Until this latest discovery, the Higgs boson was the elusive final missing piece of the puzzle known as the Standard Model—a collection of the fundamental particles that constitute our universe and the complex and mathematically-sophisticated relationships between them. Considering how incredibly difficult finding the Higgs boson was proving to be, Lederman wanted to name the book after that “goddamn particle,” according to some of his collaborators. His editor, however, would not allow it and so the name was shortened to “The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What is the Question?” And thus ‘the God particle’ was born, carrying with it more than enough social baggage for such a miniscule particle.

Particle physicist Dr. Zosia Krusberg (at right) is visiting assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Vassar College and thinks “the term ‘god particle’ is unfortunate. The Higgs boson is no more (or less) divine or spiritually significant than any other elementary particle within the standard model of particle physics.” It may be fundamental to explaining one of the most basic characteristics of the universe—namely the existence of matter and mass in addition to energy—but “it is no more (or less) important than any other physics principle underlying the Standard Model.”

Last week’s discovery was monumental in that it may have finally provided experimental evidence for the Higgs Mechanism and defined the specific energy of the resulting Higgs boson, but even this “breakthrough” for particle physics leaves many scientific questions unresolved. Finding the Higgs boson completes the Standard Model, but it does not do away with many other questions and shortcomings of the current state of particle physics, such as the constituent particles of dark matter, a quantum theory of gravity, and other “mathematically subtle problems.” Not to mention that there is still significant work to be done to determine the exact nature of this newly-found particle. According to Dr. Krusberg, this particle might behave just as the Standard Model predicts or it could instead be “a Higgs-like particle that will serve as a gateway into explorations of physics beyond the Standard Model." Krusberg continued, “And I guarantee that it is this latter scenario that most of us are hoping for: physicists love nothing more than discovering the shortcomings of their theories, since this is the first step toward more fundamental theories with even more predictive power!”

No, finding the Higgs boson does not answer all the questions of particle physics, much less lend insight into the existence (or not) of God. For that reason, Dr. Krusberg (like most physicists) bemoans the term ‘God particle’ and insists, “There really is nothing either literally or metaphorically god-like about the Higgs boson.” Indeed, one writer for the British journal The Guardian reached such a point of frustration about the name that he ran a competition for alternatives. The winner was “the champagne flute boson,” ostensibly because the bottom of a champagne bottle is an excellent and oft-used demonstration of the energy potential of the Higgs Mechanism. Or then again, perhaps it is simply because physicists thought that finally finding this shy particle would call for some of the bubbly.

On the other hand, some science writers and scientists can appreciate the ‘educational benefits’ of such a mysterious and controversial name because it attracts the attention of the general public and puts a relatable face on an extremely esoteric physics concept. Krusberg herself admits that “People are naturally drawn to the mysterious and the controversial, providing educators with great teaching opportunities.” But she worries about the larger social implications involved in “mixing the vernacular of physics and spirituality,” not least because such uncritical mixing can lead the non-scientific community to draw conclusions about the authority and reach of science that are not justified.

Understanding that the Higgs boson is not the literal stuff of God and that it does not prove or disprove God’s existence (as the name seems to suggest) extinguishes the fire under any sort of religious outcry. But this does not mean that its discovery is irrelevant to the discussion of science and faith, nor to the Christian community as a whole. As Dr. Krusberg remarks, “The recent discovery of [this] new boson at the LHC perfectly embodies the scientific process at its best (and thereby illustrates to the public why and how science works).” Scientific exploration of nature is not a fool-proof endeavor; healthy skepticism and accountability to a wide community of other researchers are absolutely critical to its success. But such evidence of the power and finesse of well-executed science as we saw last week is a testament to our ability to explore and understand the ‘how’ of the universe. God has equipped humanity with the desire, the intellectual abilities, and the collective will to recognize and explore the cosmic order and beauty of his creation. God has made our home knowable, and has given us the tools and capacities by which to know it.

At left, Cern researchers present their findings to a few hundred of their colleagues in Melbourne, Australia. Image © 2012 CERN

It is valuable, then, for the Christian community to understand and appreciate how science works, in part to recognize that there are many instances in which science and the church work in tandem in order to better understand and better serve the world. But I think there is something else we can draw from the story of the Higgs boson, too. The nickname ‘the God particle’ has touched nerves in religious communities because it implies that science has the ability to prove or disprove divine existence by physical means. Even though the physics community is by no means claiming insight into the divine, it is sometimes assumed by the religious community that scientists view their work as chipping away at God’s existence when they begin to understand something that was previously unknown, or known only “by faith” in esoteric theories and models.

And yet, regardless of motives or metaphysical interpretations, perhaps physicists' search for the Higgs boson is in fact an apt picture of our own search for God. How many times have we stared up at the starry ceiling in times of crisis and prayed fervently for some kind of sign from God to assure us of his presence? And how many times has that much-desired evidence appeared only in retrospect, when we look back to see God’s hand faithfully and elegantly working in ways inscrutable at the time? It took a community of physicists to discern the presence of the Higgs boson. But even so, they could only do so after the fact from the cascade of particle decays it sparked; they could not observe the particle itself directly. In a similar way, though we often do not see the working of God directly, “in the moment,” we still trust in his presence and providence, often depending on friends, family and the community of the church to help us see his hand in hindsight.

So while the discovery of the Higgs boson does not itself explain God, we rejoice at the subtle yet striking new insight we have into God’s creative genius via the Higgs boson and at the way God gives evidence of his faithfulness in the ordered creation itself. Perhaps, however, the greatest insight we can glean from this breakthrough is an analogy for the way God calls us to seek him and find him together, in the community of those who follow his son.

Tomorrow, Baylor University physicist Gerald Cleaver answers the question, "What is the Higgs boson?"

A scientist, my dear friends, is a man who foresees; it is because science provides the means to predict that it is useful, and the scientists are superior to all other men. --Henri de Saint-Simon¹

Scientism is a rather strange word, but for reasons that we shall see, a useful one. Though this term has been coined rather recently, it is associated with many other “isms” with long and turbulent histories: materialism, naturalism, reductionism, empiricism, and positivism. Rather than tangle with each of these concepts separately, we’ll begin with a working definition of scientism and proceed from there.

Historian Richard G. Olson defines scientism as “efforts to extend scientific ideas, methods, practices, and attitudes to matters of human social and political concern.” ² But this formulation is so broad as to render it virtually useless. Philosopher Tom Sorell offers a more precise definition: “Scientism is a matter of putting too high a value on natural science in comparison with other branches of learning or culture.” ³ MIT physicist Ian Hutchinson offers a closely related version, but more extreme: “Science, modeled on the natural sciences, is the only source of real knowledge.” ⁴ The latter two definitions are far more precise and will better help us evaluate scientism’s merit.

A History of Scientism

The roots of scientism extend as far back as early 17th century Europe, an era that came to be known as the Scientific Revolution. Up to that point, most scholars had been highly deferential to intellectual tradition, largely a combination of Judeo-Christian scripture and ancient Greek philosophy. But a torrent of new learning during the late Renaissance began to challenge the authority of the ancients, and long-established intellectual foundations began to crack. The Englishman Francis Bacon, the Frenchman Rene Descartes, and the Italian Galileo Galilei spearheaded an international movement proclaiming a new foundation for learning, one that involved careful scrutiny of nature instead of analysis of ancient texts.

Descartes and Bacon used particularly strong rhetoric to carve out space for their new methods. They claimed that by learning how the physical world worked, we could become “masters and possessors of nature.” ⁵ In doing so, humans could overcome hunger through innovations in agriculture, eliminate disease through medical research, and dramatically improve overall quality of life through technology and industry. Ultimately, science would save humans from unnecessary suffering and their self-destructive tendencies. And it promised to achieve these goals in this world, not the afterlife. It was a bold, prophetic vision.

As this new method found great success, the specter of scientism began to emerge. Both Bacon and Descartes elevated the use of reason and logic by denigrating other human faculties such as creativity, memory, and imagination. Bacon’s classification of learning demoted poetry and history to second-class status.⁶ Descartes’ rendering of the entire universe as a giant machine left little room for the arts or other forms of human expression. In one sense, the rhetoric of these visionaries opened great new vistas for intellectual inquiry. But on the other hand, it proposed a vastly narrower range of which human activities were considered worthwhile.

The Enlightenment

A century later, many of the Enlightenment intellectuals continued their love-affair with the power of natural science. They claimed that not only could science enhance the quality of human life, it could even promote moral improvement. The Encyclopedist Denis Diderot aimed to collect, organize, and preserve all human knowledge so that “our children, becoming better instructed, may become at the same time more virtuous and happy.” ⁷ Many of the French philosophes even claimed that science could be a substitute for religion. In fact, during the French Revolution, numerous Catholic churches were converted into “Temples of Reason” and held quasi-religious services for the worship of science.⁸

Positivism

The 19th century witnessed the most powerful and enduring formulation of scientism, a system called positivism. Its founder was August Comte, who built his positive philosophy from a deep commitment to David Hume’s empiricism and skepticism. Comte claimed that the only valid data is acquired through the senses. Nothing was transcendent, and nothing metaphysical could have any claim to validity.⁹ The task of scientists was twofold—first, to demonstrate how all phenomena, including human behavior, are subject to invariable natural laws.¹⁰ Second, they would reduce these natural laws to the smallest possible number, and ultimately unify them under the laws of physics.¹¹

Comte also subsumed all of human intellectual history into a single process which he called the Law of Three Stages. In his view, each branch of knowledge passes through three stages: the theological or fictitious, the metaphysical or abstract, and lastly the scientific or positive state. He believed that through the continual advancement of human understanding, religion would fade away, philosophy and the humanities would be transformed into a naturalistic basis, and all human knowledge would eventually become a product of science. Any ideas outside that realm would be pure fantasy or superstition.

Logical Positivism

Positivism did not lose its appeal in the 20th century. To the contrary, a group known collectively as The Vienna Circle reinvigorated the fundamental tenets of positivism with enhanced symbolic logic and semantic theory. They called their approach, fittingly, logical positivism. In this system, there are only two kinds of meaningful statements: analytic statements (including logic and mathematics), and empirical statements, subject to experimental verification. Anything outside of this framework is an empty concept.¹²

Given its sweeping claims, logical positivism came under heavy scrutiny. Karl Popper pointed out that few statements in science can actually be completely verified. However, a single observation has the potential to invalidate a hypothesis, and even an entire theory. Therefore, he proposed that instead of experimental verification, the principle of falsifiability should demarcate what qualified as science, and by extension, what can qualify as knowledge.¹³

Another weakness of the positivist position is its reliance on a complete distinction between theory and observation. Observations, essential to the empirical approach of science, were claimed by positivists to be brute facts which one could use to establish, evaluate, and compare the theories. However, W.O. Quine pointed out in his “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” that observations themselves are partly shaped by theory (“theory-laden”).¹⁴ What counts as an observation, how to construct an experiment, and what data you think your instruments are collecting—all require an interpretive theoretical framework. This realization does not deal a death-blow to the practice of science (as some post-modernists like to claim), but it does undermine the positivist claim that science rests entirely on facts, and is thus an indisputable foundation for knowledge.

Scientism of Today

Scientism today is alive and well, as evidenced by the statements of our celebrity scientists:

The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. –Carl Sagan, Cosmos

The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless. –Stephen Weinburg, The First Three Minutes

We can be proud as a species because, having discovered that we are alone, we owe the gods very little. –E.O. Wilson, Consilience

While these men are certainly entitled to their personal opinions and the freedom to express them, the fact that they make such bold claims in their popular science literature blurs the line between solid, evidence-based science, and rampant philosophical speculation. Whether one agrees with the sentiments of these scientists or not, the result of these public pronouncements has served to alienate a large segment of American society. And that is a serious problem, since scientific research relies heavily upon public support for its funding, and environmental policy is shaped by lawmakers who listen to their constituents. From a purely pragmatic standpoint, it would be wise to try a different approach.

Physicist Ian Hutchinson offers an insightful metaphor for the current controversies over science:

The health of science is in fact jeopardized by scientism, not promoted by it. At the very least, scientism provokes a defensive, immunological, aggressive response from other intellectual communities, in return for its own arrogance and intellectual bullyism. It taints science itself by association.¹⁵

Noting that most Americans enthusiastically welcome scientific advancements, particularly those in health care, transportation, and communications, Hutchinson suggests that perhaps what the public is rejecting is not actually science itself, but a worldview that closely aligns itself with science—scientism.¹⁶ By disentangling these two concepts, we have a much better chance for enlisting public support for scientific research than we would by trying to convince millions of people to embrace a materialistic, godless universe in which science is our only remaining hope.

Distinguishing science from scientism

So if science is distinct from scientism, what is it? Science is an activity that seeks to explore the natural world using well-established, clearly-delineated methods. Given the complexity of the universe, from the very big to very small, from inorganic to organic, there is a vast array of scientific disciplines, each with its own specific techniques. The number of different specializations is constantly increasing, leading to more questions and areas of exploration than ever before. Science expands our understanding, rather than limiting it.

Scientism, on the other hand, is a speculative worldview about the ultimate reality of the universe and its meaning. Despite the fact that there are millions of species on our planet, scientism focuses an inordinate amount of its attention on human behavior and beliefs. Rather than working within carefully constructed boundaries and methodologies established by researchers, it broadly generalizes entire fields of academic expertise and dismisses many of them as inferior. With scientism, you will regularly hear explanations that rely on words like “merely”, “only”, “simply”, or “nothing more than”. Scientism restricts human inquiry.

It is one thing to celebrate science for its achievements and remarkable ability to explain a wide variety of phenomena in the natural world. But to claim there is nothing knowable outside the scope of science would be similar to a successful fisherman saying that whatever he can't catch in his nets does not exist.¹⁷ Once you accept that science is the only source of human knowledge, you have adopted a philosophical position (scientism) that cannot be verified, or falsified, by science itself. It is, in a word, unscientific.

Notes

1. "Un savant, mes amis, est un homme qui prévoit; c’est par la raison que la science donne le moyen de prédire qu’elle est utile, et que les savants sont supérieurs à tous les autres hommes." Translated into English by Valence Ionescu in The Political Thought of Saint-Simon. Oxford University Press, 1976. Page 76
2. Olson, Richard G. Science and Scientism in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 2008.
3. Sorell, Tom. Scientism: Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science. New York: Routledge, 1991.
4. Hutchinson, Ian. Monopolizing Knowledge: A Scientist Refutes Religion-Denying, Reason-Destroying Scientism. Belmont, MA: Fias Publishing, 2011.
5. Descartes, Rene. Discourse on Method
6. Sorell, p176
7. Sorell, p35
8. Ozouf, Mona. Festivals and the French Revolution. Harvard University Press, 1988.
9. Zammito, John H. A Nice Derangement of Epistemes : Post-Positivism in the Study of Science from Quine to Latour. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
10. This view is a form of strict determinism, and current popularizers of continue to enthusiastically endorse it. Perhaps they are “determined” to do so?
11. This view is a form of extreme reductionism, also widely endorsed by current popularizers of science.
12. Zammito, p8
13. Popper, Karl. Logic of Scientific Discovery. 1959
14. For an extended discussion, read Zammito’s chapter “The Perils of Semantic Ascent: Quine and Post-positivism in the Philosophy of Science” in A Nice Derangement of Epistemes. University of Chicago Press, 2004.
15. Hutchinson, p143
16. Hutchinson, p109
17. Giberson, Karl, and Mariano Artigas. Oracles of Science: Celebrity Scientists Versus God and Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

The astronomy community is particularly interested in this event because exoplanets throughout the Milky Way galaxy regularly transit their parent stars in just the same way. This local example will allow astronomers to test and refine techniques used to determine the composition of these exoplanets' atmospheres, providing insight into whether these distant planets could possibly harbor life.

As Venus begins to cross in front of the disk of the Sun, Venus's atmosphere will refract the Sun's light, illuminating the backlit portion of the planet's atmosphere. Telescopes on the ground and in orbit will be trained on this thin arc of atmosphere lit up by the Sun. Astronomers will use spectrometers to break the light up into its constituent colors, from which they can determine the chemical composition of our over-heated sister planet's atmosphere. Once perfected, this same technique can be used to examine the atmospheres of planets far beyond our own solar system, offering us one of our best clues as to the habitability of these distant worlds.

Not only is this process of discovery exciting for natural science, but it has profound theological ramifications as well. Surely a God capable of orchestrating both the majestic swirls of a spiral galaxy and the intricate language of DNA could bring forth life where and when He chooses, but only now are we on the verge of being able to answer the age-old question: “Did God confine His creative life-giving actions to our own planet, or does His abundant fertility extent far beyond our limited experience?”

In 1882, William Harkness, the Director of the U.S. Naval Observatory, was one of two astronomers to determine from the transit of Venus the distance from Earth to the Sun. Just as previous viewers could never have imagined calibrating the scale of the solar system from such an event, Harkness could not predict its importance in 2004 and 2012 (the most recent Venus transits). As we look to the future, we can hardly imagine what new frontiers the next Venus transit of 2117 will find us exploring.

The image above shows Venus on the eastern limb of the Sun during the 2004 transit. As described in Tucker's essay, the faint ring around the planet comes from the scattering of light through its atmosphere, which allows some sunlight to show around the edge of the otherwise dark planetary disk. The faint glow on the disk is an effect of the TRACE telescope through which the image was captured. For more on the historical significance of the transits of Venus (including the voyage of Captain James Cook), see this article from NASA, which also includes links to several live webcasts of today's transit.

It didn’t seem right to deposit such a gift unreflectively into our bank account, allowing it to be swallowed up anonymously into our daily expense fund. My wife Sarah and I talked about a symbolic way we might use the money to honor John’s mark of grace on both of our lives. We very quickly settled on our decision: an SLR camera with a fine telephoto lens.

Many people remember John Stott for his books and preaching, but fewer remember him for his love of creation, his ornithological passion, and his knack for bird photography. On the very first day of my job working as his study assistant, I found on my desk a brand new set of binoculars and a copy of “Birds of Europe,” by Lars Johnson (the definitive guide). No study assistant was to work for John unless we shared in his love for birds, or at least could ably feign it. I soon discovered how seriously he took this avocation. In London he would stop whatever meeting we might be rushing off to in order to catch a look at a passing Kestrel. At his writing cottage in Southwest Wales we would begin every Sunday morning at Pickleridge Pools to see the Loons and Cormorants. Wherever we traveled, whether Uganda, India or Hungary, we would always schedule an extra few days to visit the local bird life with the accompaniment of a local expert.

But I also discovered that his love for birds was an extension of his love for creation and for its Creator. Uncle John took seriously the Psalmist’s words, “Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them” (Ps 111:2). Taking “the works of the Lord” to include both God’s work of creation and redemption, he would often say that nature study and Bible study must go hand in hand. He was ahead of his time in calling Christians to have a more robust doctrine of and appreciation for Creation, and he viewed having at least one pursuit in the realm of natural history as an outflow of Christian discipleship. Indeed, it is striking that in his very last book, The Radical Disciple, in which he reflects on “some neglected aspects of our calling,” he includes “Creation Care” among Christian responsibilities like Christlikeness and Dependence.¹ And as remarkable as his accomplishments were in authoring such influential books as Basic Christianity and The Cross of Christ, it was his much less well known book The Birds Our Teachers,² which includes over 150 of his own photographs, that he would most often pull out to show visiting guests.

Some criticized John for his theistic evolutionary position and even his appreciation for Darwin, who John viewed as a man genuinely conflicted with how his discoveries could be integrated with his personal Christian faith. But Stott saw no contradiction between his own commitment to the authority of Scripture and his openness to God’s use of evolution in His creative process. He was of course unequivocal in his assertion that “One cannot be a Christian and not believe in creation.”³ Yet believing that Genesis 1 speaks more to the “why” rather than the “how” of creation, John also affirmed, “Those Christians who believe in evolution…mean that the huge variety of animal and vegetable forms can best be accounted for not by the independent creation of each, but by a gradual process of ‘descent with modification’, whether or not Darwin’s ‘natural selection’ is the best explanation of its mechanisms.”⁴ If anything, for John the possibility of God’s implementation of the evolutionary process was a striking example of the way God does not simply create but is also actively involved in sustaining and ordering His world.

So on the date of John’s birthday, April 27, we used his gift and bought our new camera. Laying it out on the table, I realized I needed a spacious and protective carrying case to hold the various lenses and equipment. I climbed up into the attic and retrieved John’s old camera bag, which he passed on to me after he had his second embolism and could no longer see well enough to take photographs. As I opened it up and examined the various lenses and mounts inside, now too old to adapt to any of the modern equipment, I realized I was holding in my hands the tools of one man’s passion and an expression of his love for his triune creator God. Deeply moved, I picked up my own camera, a new tool for my own stewardship of created life, and headed outside.

Notes

1. John Stott, The Radical Disciple (IVP, 2010).
2. John Stott, The Birds Our Teachers: Biblical Lessons from a lifelong bird-watcher (Angus Hudson, 1999).
3. Ibid.
4. John Stott, People Our Teachers (Angus Hudson, 2002), 110.

Realizing such a beautiful thing made me desire God even more, and I began regularly attending the church a friend had introduced me to early on in my relocation to San Diego. The pastor’s messages were funny, relevant, convicting, and oftentimes full of scientific facts used to illustrate God’s majestic creation. As a college student pursuing a degree in biology, it seemed to be the perfect church. One Sunday the topic of evolution came up and I listened as he proceeded to explain how the “theory” was not only utterly ridiculous (it should really be called a “hypothesis”), but that it was incompatible with the Bible. Because the last biology class I took was in high school, I couldn’t quite recall what I learned about evolution; in my new-found zeal for righteousness, I figured doubting the theory was somehow pleasing God more.

Around this time I also began listening to a lot of Christian talk radio, and one of my favorite programs was a call-in show where listeners could join the discussion on that day’s topic. Every now and again evolution happened to be the topic, and whenever people would call in to defend it, the host always seemed to win the debate by countering every point they tried to make with a logical and persuasive argument that was also consistent with Scripture. Just as with my pastor, the radio host appeared to have done a thorough investigation of the matter. Because they were both Christians in leadership positions (and because they exuded absolute surety on the matter), I believed them when they claimed that, not only was there zero evidence for evolution, but that believing it was not consistent with the Christian faith. But the talk-show host didn’t stop there. According to him, evolution was not only a fraud, but a belief system that leads to suicide, Nazism and atheism. Furthermore, because it was being taught in public schools, evolution was responsible for the moral decline in our country. To be fair, this talk show host wasn’t alone. Nearly every program (on all three radio stations I listened to) mentioned similar sentiments about evolution at one time or another. I quickly got the sense that all Christians were in agreement on this issue, and since I wanted to be a good Christian, I determined that I was, too.

During this period I found myself in a very awkward situation. On the one hand I was a follower of Jesus Christ who loved the Bible, knew that it was God’s Word, and, therefore, knew that it was not full of lies. However, I also was someone who had loved science for many years and was planning on pursuing a career in research. Given all that I had learned about the incompatibility of the two worldviews, it seemed that I would have to choose. Or did I? One day on my commute home I turned on my usual AM radio station and heard something quite unexpected – the voice of Ben Stein. Intrigued as to why the teacher from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was on Christian radio, I continued listening as the host and Mr. Stein discussed Intelligent Design and the new documentary that highlighted it, Expelled! No Intelligence Allowed. Loving movies and having never heard of ID, I saw it as soon as it came out. The film did not disappoint: I left excited and relieved that an alternative to evolution had arrived—one that also seemed to be compatible with my faith.

By this time I had graduated from college and decided to pursue a career in education rather than research. I struggled immensely as I pondered what I would do when it came time to teach evolution, but considering that I had been offered a job amidst rumors of hiring freezes, I didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize my position. During the week before the official start of the school year, there were several faculty meetings and department planning sessions. I was pleased to find out that I was going to be sharing a classroom with another Christian teacher. However, when it came time for the evolution unit, I was confused at the enthusiasm this same teacher had for the topic. I listened in as she taught her students that evolution makes the most sense of homologous structures, the phylogenetics of cytochrome c, and the apparent fusion of two chromosomes to make our chromosome 2 (accounting for the fact that we have one fewer pair than chimpanzees)—and that these features pointed to a common origin of all species, including our own. I couldn’t help but wonder, “What was going on here?! I thought she was a Christian, how could she stand up there and twist the truth?”

I figured that she must be one of those people who call themselves Christians, but really aren’t.

But something else concerned me more than my fellow teacher’s apparent divergence from the faith. Although I remember learning about homologous structures and the phylogenetics of cytochrome c, I never realized their significance like I did at that moment. Furthermore, the fusion of chromosomes our ancestors shared with those of chimpanzees was previously unknown to me. Taken together, these three bits of information were admittedly breathtaking; but even so, I wasn’t ready to accept them as anything more than peculiarities.

As my first year of teaching came to a close, I accepted an invitation to attend an info night for Point Loma Nazarene’s Master’s in biology program, designed for working teachers. I was certainly excited at the prospect of getting a graduate degree in biology rather than in education, but I was most excited to have my first taste of Christian education. During the Q & A period, however, that excitement was quickly turned to disappointment: I discovered that the faculty’s position on evolution and natural selection was one of acceptance. I thought to myself, “This must be one of those colleges that say they’re Christian, but really aren’t.” Despite this somewhat bitter conclusion, I went ahead with the application process anyway, and within a few weeks was sitting in my first graduate class. SEASAND was a summer workshop for teachers which we could use as an elective and that year’s topic just happened to be evolutionary developmental biology. Suffice it to say that I was a little worried at what I was getting myself into.

For the first week and a half I experienced serious internal conflicts trying to come up with rational alternative explanations to the apparent common descent of organisms such as fruit flies, mice, and humans as outlined in our textbook, Endless Forms Most Beautiful. I also took one of the professors up on his offer to answer our questions if we were having trouble with the course content as it pertained to our faith—an offer that caused me even more cognitive dissonance: here was a person who claimed to be a Christian and yet he was completely comfortable with saying that Genesis was not a literal creation account. Combining the terms “Christian” and “a non-literal interpretation of the Bible” was just not compatible with my understanding of things. I felt so lost that I did the one thing I should have been doing a lot more of from the start of the class – I prayed.

Through my times in prayer and reflection I discovered many things. For one, I learned that I had been putting God in a box: I was making him fit into my ideas of how he should create life, as if I knew the correct way it should have been done. I also learned that I had been awfully judgmental in mentally accusing the teacher I shared my classroom with, the people at Point Loma’s info night, and my SEASAND professors of only pretending to be “real Christians.” I even judged God himself by thinking that (if I were to admit that evolution were true) he had chosen a hideous way to bring about life as we know it. Finally, I discovered that a major barrier to my accepting evolution was that I didn’t want to say “I was wrong” to the many people I’d argued with about it; I would rather suppress the truth than swallow my pride. Having realized all of this, it was only a matter of days before I decided to stop ignoring the mountain of evidence being laid out in favor of evolution. As ridiculous as it may sound, I felt a weight lifted off my shoulders and a peace settle into my soul.

It’s now been nearly three years since that transitional summer, and to all those who claim a belief in evolution leads to atheism or any of those other unfortunate fates, I am here to say that you are greatly mistaken. I still love Jesus, I still love the Bible, I still attend a conservative evangelical church, and I even still listen to Christian talk radio. But the best part is that I am not an anomaly: there is an incredible group of Christians out there who accept God as creator and evolution as his process, and I have the privilege of working and collaborating with some of them every single day.

Transcript

My name is David Wilkinson, I teach at Durham University in the department of theology, I used to be a physicist and I still am fascinated by science and theology. I became a Christian at the age of seventeen, and at that point Christian faith was very new and exciting to me. I’d also decided to do a physics degree at university; now I’m not that type of person who built a telescope at the age of four or anything of that sort. I did physics at university, I have to admit, because I was quite good at mathematics and therefore I knew I wouldn’t have to work very hard doing physics. I could spend time doing real things at university, such as cricket and other things-- typically British of course.

However what happened for me as I began to study physics at Durham University was that my new-found faith and this new area of science began to enrich each other, and Kepler of course once said that science is thinking God’s thoughts after him. And I think what was happening in hindsight was that as I was encountering the God of creation in and through Jesus, so what God had created became more and more valuable, more and more interesting to me, just as when our children brought back drawings and paintings from their school class. They weren’t great pieces of art but they were put on our kitchen walls because we knew the person who had created them, and because I was being introduced to the God of creation, so the science itself began to live for me.

Another thing was that the science at university level, particularly as one starts to explore relativity and quantum theory, cosmology, is that as John Polkinghorne would say, “It breaks the tyranny of common sense.” This isn’t a mechanistic world of Isaac Newton and those theologians who think that every question is wrapped up. This is an exciting open world of exploration and questions, of freedom both for God to work and the universe to explore. And this became more and more fascinating to me as time went on. My faith enriched my science, and my science enriched my faith. Now that wasn’t always a process where there were easy questions to answer; there were often difficult questions. But I have to say that continually, the science and the faith have gone together and have enriched each other.

My own particular interest then over the years has been how one takes the issues of science and faith and communicates them to folk who aren’t Christians. As I go around the world these days, I find many people who are fascinated by some of the questions that modern science raises, questions such as the intelligibility of the universe. How can our minds understand the universe back to such an early stage? The fact that the universe is very carefully balanced, fine-tuned for the existence of life. The question of human significance in such a vast universe. The sense of awe and wonder as you look not just at the vastness of the sky but also the fact that underneath the complexity of the universe are rather simple, elegant, beautiful laws. And I find that many folk, whether they are people of religious faith or not, find themselves drawn in by these questions that say “Is there a deeper story to the universe? Are these pointers to something that goes beyond science?” I don’t believe that they can prove God in any way, but I do think that they are pointers towards a God who in Christ is the best explanation for all of these different areas.

Off camera: “Let me ask you one question here: you mentioned John Polkinghorne. You studied with him, I believe. Would you tell something about your relationship to John Polkinghorne, and you might begin by saying, ‘John Polkinghorne was my mentor or whatever’. Just a few things about your relationship with him.”

Wilkinson: One of the most important things for me in the science/faith relationship has been those mentors, those great men and women of faith and science who have helped me along the way. Those have been many for me. One of the key people for me in this area has been Sir John Polkinghorne. John was teaching theology in Cambridge, having retired as head of the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, trained as an Anglican priest, and then started to teach theology just as I arrived in Cambridge also to study theology. And what I found in his thinking was a commitment to the rigor of science, and someone who not only philosophized about science but had a feel for science as a working scientist, but someone who’s prepared to take that science and contemporary science and use it in theology today.

If I have one criticism of my fellow theologians from time to time it’s that they’re often stuck in the physics of the 19th century rather than the 20th and 21st centuries. They’re still dominated by this clockwork universe, whereas Polkinghorne and others have taken seriously that the universe is very different. And Polkinghorne with many others have spent time with me answering my questions, being gracious to the type of questions I’ve wanted to push, but they’ve impressed me by showing integrity both towards Christian faith and to science by holding the two together and not compromising on either.

I came to history relatively late. When I started college, I wanted to be an astrophysicist, and things went very well in that direction when internships were arranged for me at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. They were exciting experiences—quasars and pulsars had only recently been discovered, and NRAO was in the process of designing and building the Very Large Array telescope. I ended up working for several different astronomers, including the late Donald Backer (who discovered the first millisecond pulsar), NAS member Morton Roberts, and Seth Shostak, who later became a leading participant in the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (in those days, he focused on galactic astronomy). On one particularly memorable weekend, I got to decide which galaxies needed a second look with the old 300-foot radio telescope. Ironically, seeing cutting edge science up close showed me that I probably didn’t want to do it for a living. I decided to try my hand at teaching high school science and mathematics, partly because I thought I might like teaching (I did), and partly as a way of keeping my hand in science while I sorted out my career plans.

Three things happened in the next few years that still influence my life profoundly. First, I got married to a wonderful woman who has always encouraged me to be true to myself. Second, I became interested in the relationship between Christianity and science and joined the American Scientific Affiliation, an organization of Christians in the sciences that owns the oldest journal of science and faith published in the United States. Through the ASA, I met some fascinating people and discovered some wonderful books. Any Christian with scientific training—or even any Christian who wants to think hard about science—should consider joining the ASA.¹ My involvement with the ASA soon led to my third decision: to do graduate work in the history and philosophy of science at Indiana University. There I had the great privilege of studying with the late Richard S. Westfall, author of the definitive biography of Isaac Newton and a leading expert on the Scientific Revolution—the period from Copernicus to Newton, when modern science was born.

Westfall’s lectures are legendary, even many years after his death. They were mainly read from a prepared text, his slightly scratchy voice rising and falling dramatically, such that (as a fellow student quite fittingly said) it was like hearing a fine sermon in church. Several other scholars at Indiana also influenced me, especially Edward Grant, a specialist on medieval science and the universities where it flourished. Grant’s excellent course on the history of science and religion was my first formal introduction to the topic, although I had been reading about it extensively for several years at that point.

Westfall and Grant both provided timely and very helpful comments on my dissertation, which examined the influence of theological ideas about God, nature, and the human mind on conceptions of scientific knowledge during the Scientific Revolution. Focusing on four of the most important figures from that period—Galileo, Descartes, Boyle, and Newton—I argued that an emphasis on divine freedom (in which God’s acts do not always conform to “rational” expectations) was closely linked with the development of modern science. Those thinkers who emphasized God’s freedom (sometimes scholars call these folks “voluntarists”) saw nature as a “contingent order” (to borrow a term from Thomas Torrance) that could be studied only through a combination of reason and experience—a method that Reijer Hooykaas called “rational empiricism.” In short, if God created nature freely, not from rational necessity, then we need to discover how it works by actually studying it, not by dictating what it must be like from pure reason.

Some of my earlier publications developed these ideas more fully. Others focused more narrowly on Boyle, a great chemist who contributed fundamentally to the development of laboratory science and the philosophy of science. For many years I worked with an English historian, Michael Hunter, on a complete edition of Boyle’s works. That is undoubtedly the project with which I am most often associated. More recently I’ve been studying aspects of science and religion in modern America, especially the religious lives and ideas of several scientists who were prominent in the period between the two world wars. The two most famous scientists in this project were both Nobel laureates for physics: Robert Millikan, the person who was mainly responsible for making Caltech such a great university, and Arthur Holly Compton, whose famous experiment with x-rays and electrons is crucial to wave-particle duality, an idea at the core of modern quantum theory.

The people I’m now studying were all almost all Protestants who identified with the “modernist” side during the famous “fundamentalist-modernist” controversy of the 1920s (the only exception, Columbia physicist Michael Idvorsky Pupin, was Serbian Orthodox). We know a great deal about fundamentalist views of science and religion, but very little about modernist views. The more I’ve learned about the modernists, the more I’ve been struck by the magnitude of the gap between these two camps in the decade surrounding the famous Scopes trial of 1925. The fundamentalists rejected evolution and upheld orthodox Christian beliefs, while the modernists embraced evolution but rejected the deity of Jesus, the Virgin Birth, and the Resurrection. There was virtually no middle ground; the historian looks in vain for leading Protestant scientists who accepted both evolution and the Resurrection—someone like Francis Collins, William Phillips, or Joan Centrella. Nothing like BioLogos existed in the 1920s, a fact that (in my opinion) had a deleterious effect on American conversations about science and religion for several decades and still has a sizeable impact today.

Overall, my scholarly work aims to debunk the now-common view that the history of science and Christianity is one of ongoing, inevitable conflict—with science winning a bitter war against religion. Although this view is still widely held by scientists and science journalists, historians of science (the relevant group of experts in this case) have given up this myth in the past two generations. However, the message has been slow to get across to the general public. Not only do I try to dismantle that myth, I do what I can to help replace it with more accurate historical work. Many others in my field are doing similar things, though each of us has something unique to contribute.

Anyone who wants to hear more about the warfare view and its problems, or more of my views on evolution and Christian faith, is invited to listen to an interview that was kindly and expertly done by Michael Dowd. Dowd is not a theist (at least not a theist of any traditional sort), and his idea of “Evolutionary Christianity” is in my view nothing like Christianity, but he let me speak for myself. The result is the best summary of my ideas that you can get in one sitting. I hope that many readers will listen to it—and make comments or pose questions for me in the comments section here. I’ll respond to as many as I can.

Finally, let me tell you where this column will go in the next few months. Does anyone remember the Monty Python film, “And Now for Something Completely Different”? In that spirit, I’ll offer an online course on “Science and the Bible” for several weeks, interspersing informational columns with “assignments” to read a few things by other authors (among them Galileo) that we can discuss here. I leave it to each reader to decide whether or not the “assignments” are worth the time of doing them (some are short, others are longer), but those who do them will probably get more out of the course than those who don’t. And, if this experiment turns out well, I’d like to do more online courses on other aspects of science and religion. Let us know what you think: we’ll be listening.

Next week, Ted gives an overview of and ground-rules for the course: Science and the Bible: Five Attitudes & Approaches.

Notes

1. The American Scientific Affiliation is not connected with BioLogos and, unlike BioLogos, it does not endorse a specific view of evolution and Christian faith.

In my own life, the question “What is Truth?” led me on a path of discovery. I cannot say that I knew I was searching for Truth early in my life, but I was certainly searching for explanations and meaning. The drive to learn how to do things, what made things work, and how things were made so that I might create them myself fueled my first vocational dream to be an engineer like my father. Later I was taken by the visual as well as functional beauty of buildings and structural environments, so modified my dream toward becoming an architect. But while in college, I fell in love. My new mistress was the cell and the incredible choreography of the organelles and intra-cellular structures that danced an intricate ballet of function and reproduction. My love led me on a path that took me into medical research and towards the Truth behind the beauty and wonder of the human body.

In my approach to biomedical research, I always saw myself as participating in a piecemeal revelation of the mysteries of this world. My search was given a new focus while I was in graduate school. I can remember being in the middle of Gross Anatomy my first year, going from cadaver to cadaver for an exam, and suddenly realizing that we could do this, and we could successfully perform surgery, because 99+% of the time whatever we were looking for was in the same location and had the same appearance regardless of the particular body. The beauty and efficiency of the packing of the organs, nerves and blood vessels within the body cavities, as well as their predictability even among vertebrates of different species was a work of art in my eyes. At the level of logic it became increasingly difficult for me to interpret such an observation as supporting the argument for chance and serendipity. The only other alternative to chance would be design or meta-narrative, and that would dictate a narrator. If it were to be a true over-arching narrative, then the speaker must be outside what was being spoken. For me that One is God, the Creator.

It followed that if I were going to seek the Truth about the physical universe, I would need to come to know its Creator. Ultimately this focus on knowing God resulted in a growing understanding of who he had been preparing me to be. And while the change from science to theology seems dramatic, it was really only a shift from one form of healing to another, more holistic form. Still, my call into the ordained ministry was a twelve-year process of experimentation and discernment, rather than a particular transformative event. I purposely use the term “experimentation” because I approached the question of my being ordained as a scientist would—by designing various experiments to test the call. I was seeking the Truth for my life.

This thumb-nail sketch of my faith journey does not describe the full spectrum of influences that drew me to find the Truth in a Person. Relationships tend to lose their enlivening nature when studied under the microscope of science. For example, you may “Google” the name of a person-of-interest in order to learn more about her, but until you commit to the adventure of personal give-and-take, the richness and beauty of that person cannot be fully known. To do otherwise is to learn about an object – the pigments and techniques used by the artist to produce the work, without ever learning the nature of the artist himself. As physicists and mathematicians see beauty in an equation that renders an elegant explanation rather than just a correct answer, Truth is beautiful and becomes known when it is experienced and not just as it is studied.

In his Commentary on the Divine Names (IV, 5-6), Thomas Aquinas taught that beauty in the created order reflects the beauty of the Creator God. The One who in the beginning brought order out of the chaos (Genesis 1) is reflected in the music of Bach and Handel, the painting of Monet and Raphael, the fine tuning of the physical universe and the exquisite detail of the genetic code. When we experience beauty we are touched by the Spirit of Truth and drawn toward a relationship with the One who is Truth. Beauty of itself is not the Truth, but rather a window into the Truth. Just as the Incarnate Lord stood before Pilate and Pilate for a moment uncharacteristically declared him innocent (Luke 23:4), beauty stands before us as we ask the question, “What is Truth?” Pilate walked away without finding the answer (John 18:38). Beauty beckons us into a relationship that will answer our question. If we want to find the Holy Grail of our Quest we must enter into beauty and be guided to the prize. As we engage beauty in this world we find that Truth is not an object or a concept, but a Person – the Beautiful Person, Jesus Christ.