Friday, February 15

It’s all about Theology!


Einstein was even righter than he realised. The famous genius of the 20th Century was able to use mathematics to show links between time and motion (Theory of Relativity) and between matter and energy, and closed out his career developing a "Unified Field Theorem." There has to be a unity to the Universe, he reasoned, but just what was the keystone that held it all together?

Without near the intellect of an Einstein, but actually one who wonders if high intelligence might not be a "disability" in this world, one might wonder if the one fly in his ointment, keeping him from actually bringing his theorem together, might have been his theology.

Einstein was convinced that God, if there were such, would most likely be defined (divined?) on the lines of Spinoza's philosophies. In other words, a deity which was part of the Universe, and visible in its workings. This would mean that, to find or understand "God" one must understand those workings. If we can gain a clear enough view of enough of the particulars, we will see the general picture they comprise!

In theory, this sounds nice enough, though the number of particulars is mind-boggling. Just think of the story of the blind men who wanted to find out what an elephant was. After hearing of one at a passing circus they gained access to its pen. One examined its tail, one its hind leg, and one its trunk. On the way home, they argued whether this creature was more like a rope, a tree, or a great serpent!

Ecclesiastes tells us, "He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end." There is so much to learn- so much to know, and as part of our divine make-up (The Imago Dei, or image of God which is upon each of us) is that we are drawn to the beauty and complexity we find all around us. The very fact that we do find a complexity, and not chaos, shows a coordination which in turn begs a unity somewhere, somehow. Interestingly, it is the beauty, the order, and the over-all coordination that both draws us into
further study and which points us, like Prof. Einstein, toward the existence of some keystone which ties it all together.

What is that keystone? If God is behind Creation, then we can expect evidence of design. Is there coordination? Is there a food cycle for each of the billions of species on this planet? Isn't the very fact of planets and moons in orbit suggestive that Someone must have calculated mass, velocity, gravity, and set them there in those paths? (The "accidental capture" idea is an amazing stretch!) The bottom line is that the study of natural phenomena ("Natural Theology") can only take us so far, but it does point us to a unity. But it does accomplish two things: It leads to discoveries about a hypothetical Creator ("For every
effect, there is a cause:" First Law of Physics.) who is greater than Creation (The cause is greater than the effect:" Second Law.) and, hence, not part of it. This Creator loves order and detail (a first class in anything from Algebra to Zoology will bear this out!), and He loves us (the beauty in Nature, the beauty that covers and surrounds our planet, great array of tasty foods we enjoy...). Any contrary opinions would have to argue from the exceptions, and just in acknowledging them to be exceptions does that argument a fatal blow!

If this Creator is like our best science indicates, then it would make sense that He wants us to know about Him. So, then, if there is a Creator who is free from the obligations of citizenship in this Universe, (time, space, causality..), who communicates through order and beauty that we can recognise, and who is kind; and who wishes to be known to us, it does stand to reason that if this Creator wanted to do something, it would get done, and so it probably has caused there to be some kind of record of such a revelation. We can look through all kinds of possibilities, but an earnest, open-minded, search is bound to wind up with this:

For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that
whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

4 comments:

  1. The bottom line is that the study of natural phenomena ("Natural Theology") can only take us so far, but it does point us to a unity, and so the word "Universe," literally "Single word or expression." But it does accomplish two things: It leads to discoveries about a hypothetical Creator ("For every
    effect, there is a cause:" First Law of Physics.) who is greater than Creation (The cause is greater than the effect:" Second Law.) and, hence, not part of it.

    I agree that there is a connection with natural theology and reasoning out that there is a first cause that is the creator. The creator is greater than his creation and existed prior to it. Here his infinite nature can be deduced and there cannot be two infinite spiritual beings. Matter did not exist prior to creation and this leaves God (and perhaps created spiritual beings) in existence before the creation of matter.

    Cheers:)

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  2. Dear Robert,

    I've followed your link over from your posting at Jake's Place. While I think that your scientific analysis might attract comment (not to say disagreement), I would simply mention that "universe" doesn't mean "single word or expression": rather, it means "the whole thing"--literally, "that which turns into one." The "verse" part means "to turn," like an ox at the end of a furrow: it's the same element as in "reverse," "obverse," and so on. "Verse" in reference to a line of poetry comes from the image of the reader's eyes turning at the end of one line to go back to the beginning of the next one.

    Peace,

    4 May +

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks, Fr. May! Corrections have been made!

    Good to hear from you, Russ! When we think of Revelation as including the "fingerprint of God" in all His works, and the fact that the whole idea of Creation came from within the relationship of perfect love and knowledge within/amongst the Trinity we realise that Theology is not only the "Queen of the Sciences" philosophically, but all realms of study, taken rightly, do qualify as studies of one realm of theology or another. It's really about how far we take it.

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  4. Just to let you know I found this article through BlogRush!

    Russ:)

    ReplyDelete

So what's your take?