DEDICATION
This book is dedicated
to the literate, well educated Seeker. Such a soul needs intelligent challenge
and inspiration even just to survive. This work is meant to provide such a
challenge.
Chapter
Zero Red Flag
RED FLAG
In my early college years I told myself that I must leave the
Church for science. I said it didn't matter because I could always return. But,
I wanted to live free and unencumbered, ready to explore the plains and rivers
of reality, the mountains and valleys of truth, seeking certainty in knowledge
and with no baggage of belief to weigh me down. I wanted to live life so fully
that I might actually get tired of it. And, if I did tire, I knew the Church
would take me back without question or recrimination. So I left on my long
journey, my sabbatical, full of hope and confidence.
I went so very far and I did witness, incredibly, so much that I can hardly remember it all. The verdant jungles of great national laboratories beckoned. Rivers of worthy data gushed from my computers as they dammed the experimental flows from my own custom built, sophisticated instruments in my lab at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. Mountains of information crossed my desk as I planned my teaching course-work, prepared research efforts, detailed lecture material and secured my research laboratory notes for the dissertation that would never be written. In the mean time, in the cool valleys of science research libraries all over Chicago, I rested peacefully and drank deeply of the sparkling spring waters that nourished the very ground of all human innovation. I was supremely happy.
But things must change. The mean temperature of the universe is 3.2 degrees Kelvin. Earth bakes at 284 K. Only for a perfect crystal at absolute zero does time stop. When inevitable disappointment turned into disaster, I found I could not consummate my studies for the Ph.D. in chemistry that I had worked for since my second year of high school. But I still had hope.
I founded a commercial analytical laboratory that was subject to U.S. government regulatory enforcement whims. After five years I had to close it because the frenzy of fear surrounding the infamous asbestos hysteria abated. The E.P.A. stopped emphasizing remediation of this form of environmental contamination. Markets for my lab's services evaporated in the flames of the new rage against radon pollution of indoor air.
I gave my noble quest to do science one more try, in the name of pure knowledge and of my alma mater, when an unusual new opportunity arose in the pharmaceutical world for an inorganic analytical chemist like me. But, I was hired only as window dressing to run a show-laboratory for the approbation of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Once the time for impressing the government bureaucrats had passed, my services were no longer needed. My expertise could be outsourced to any of a number of consulting laboratories. Only earnest proprietary drug firms maintained facilities in my area of analytical prowess (chemical microscopy). This was a generic pharmaceutical firm that was not really serious about aggressively pursuing quality.
After these three major setbacks I began to reconsider my trek away from God and the Church. Perhaps it was time to return, I thought. But, I had spent too much time thinking like a scientist to throw it all over now and blindly return to faith. I needed some rationale, some motivation.
I went so very far and I did witness, incredibly, so much that I can hardly remember it all. The verdant jungles of great national laboratories beckoned. Rivers of worthy data gushed from my computers as they dammed the experimental flows from my own custom built, sophisticated instruments in my lab at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. Mountains of information crossed my desk as I planned my teaching course-work, prepared research efforts, detailed lecture material and secured my research laboratory notes for the dissertation that would never be written. In the mean time, in the cool valleys of science research libraries all over Chicago, I rested peacefully and drank deeply of the sparkling spring waters that nourished the very ground of all human innovation. I was supremely happy.
But things must change. The mean temperature of the universe is 3.2 degrees Kelvin. Earth bakes at 284 K. Only for a perfect crystal at absolute zero does time stop. When inevitable disappointment turned into disaster, I found I could not consummate my studies for the Ph.D. in chemistry that I had worked for since my second year of high school. But I still had hope.
I founded a commercial analytical laboratory that was subject to U.S. government regulatory enforcement whims. After five years I had to close it because the frenzy of fear surrounding the infamous asbestos hysteria abated. The E.P.A. stopped emphasizing remediation of this form of environmental contamination. Markets for my lab's services evaporated in the flames of the new rage against radon pollution of indoor air.
I gave my noble quest to do science one more try, in the name of pure knowledge and of my alma mater, when an unusual new opportunity arose in the pharmaceutical world for an inorganic analytical chemist like me. But, I was hired only as window dressing to run a show-laboratory for the approbation of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Once the time for impressing the government bureaucrats had passed, my services were no longer needed. My expertise could be outsourced to any of a number of consulting laboratories. Only earnest proprietary drug firms maintained facilities in my area of analytical prowess (chemical microscopy). This was a generic pharmaceutical firm that was not really serious about aggressively pursuing quality.
After these three major setbacks I began to reconsider my trek away from God and the Church. Perhaps it was time to return, I thought. But, I had spent too much time thinking like a scientist to throw it all over now and blindly return to faith. I needed some rationale, some motivation.
But, I could find no solace in the writings of apologists for
faith whose works had already been considered and discounted. They all sounded
lame and trite, almost canned and prefabricated, like a sermon that had been
delivered for the four hundredth time. I needed something different, something
new, something convincing and above all, something intelligent and challenging
as well as inspiring.
C.S. Lewis offered some new insight, but I needed even more.
There must be seeds of faith in the very science I had been studying, for
scientists pursue truth and Truth is what I coveted. So I looked at what I had
been taught and searched it for the most pertinent and profound veracities that
I could find in. In all of Modern Science, there must be some Truth that I
could actually use.
During my sojourn, my faith had shriveled and was crippled with the diseases of disuse. So I crawled around in the dust and found a few good pieces of nice wood, a couple of sturdy rods from which I could fashion some strong trustworthy crutches. When I had finished my work, I set these tools, my new instruments, on flat hard ground and used them to painfully climb to my feet. I stood, but I could not walk. I was amazed at what I saw from that so very slightly loftier vantage.
During my sojourn, my faith had shriveled and was crippled with the diseases of disuse. So I crawled around in the dust and found a few good pieces of nice wood, a couple of sturdy rods from which I could fashion some strong trustworthy crutches. When I had finished my work, I set these tools, my new instruments, on flat hard ground and used them to painfully climb to my feet. I stood, but I could not walk. I was amazed at what I saw from that so very slightly loftier vantage.
* * *
Now, from this surprising new perspective I can see just above the milling crowd to distant places that before I could not even imagine. One tall, fine man quickly walks past in the distance. The crowd is parting in front of him and closing in behind, as though he is being propelled by the pressure of the multitude behind and attracted by the welcoming vacuum of clear perfect space in front. He seems to sense my presence and gently alters his trajectory toward me. As the humanity between us thins, I can see his kindly young face wears a wide new smile as if he had just been laughing.
He beams at me for a moment, examines my peculiar stance and the odd pieces of furniture I had fashioned out of wood and twine. ‘It is good!’ he declares.
I grin. ‘Yes. It took awhile, but now I am up again for the first time in years!’
‘Now walk. Come to me. And cast down your crutches. They are indeed just crutches!’ Jesus commanded.
‘Oh no, Sir, I have not taken a step for so long - I have forgotten how!’
‘Walk! Come to me. Throw away the lumber, you don't need it!’
There is something about a direct command from Jesus that cannot be ignored. I don't even want to. So, I hunch my shoulders; I draw a deep breath and take one, slow strangely painless step. Then the other foot follows. Suddenly I yield to an explosive urge to ditch the crutches. I walk!
After that, I come straight to Jesus, having journeyed almost thirty years. I walk to Him despite my atrophied muscle, my weakened bone. I follow Him with the crowd. I grow stronger; my legs carry me with growing vigor with each new step. I walk straight, upright with strength and stamina at every stride.
Great Good God, I even jump for joy!
But I do not forget my crutches. I have drawn up a design. I describe my plan here in great detail. I offer it with this book of instructions. It will help get your head up above the crowd so Jesus can be seen, and He will see you! Then, at His command and only then, you will come to Him unaided, walking tall and strong with gladness, confidence and hope equal to my own.
But I do not forget my crutches. I have drawn up a design. I describe my plan here in great detail. I offer it with this book of instructions. It will help get your head up above the crowd so Jesus can be seen, and He will see you! Then, at His command and only then, you will come to Him unaided, walking tall and strong with gladness, confidence and hope equal to my own.
A.
FREE
GOD!
FREE GOD!
I jumped for
joy because Jesus made me free. We humans use the language of metaphor like
this not only to tell inspiring stories but also to attempt the reverse: we
strive to enslave God. We use words, dogma, doctrine, expert interpretation of
scripture, propagandistic religious commentary and even crass public prayer to
try to control That which cannot be controlled.
The following
section of this chapter will show how language can describe God approximately,
but can never enclose His Essence. Only meditation, silent, unarticulated
peaceful attention, can approach God and then only roughly. But even so, we
still hope our crude articulated representations of God get better and better
with time, over millennia. We trust that God’s Revelation to us will make this
happen.
Except ing
our articulating, lexical minds which are indentured to inevitably bad logic,
God is unlimited. God is, was and ever will be unlimited, whether we like it or
not. For our sake, God does need to be liberated, however. He needs, we need,
to be emotionally freed from the shackles we place on Him in our own minds. We and He need to be freed from the
boundaries we place on Him in our irresponsible use of various kinds of
languages. He and we need to be freed from the wordy prison we put Him in, in
order to make Him do as we wish. We say to ourselves He must be our servant or
we will never let Him out of this our deep, dark logical dungeon.
I have heard
Christians pray: “Father God, I bind thee to listen to the plight of
our brother, your son…” My brain
recoiled and my soul cringed.
God cannot be
chained. God can be freed by acknowledging that nothing we can say about Him is
perfectly certain or one hundred percent complete. We must realize that the
lexical and other language boundaries of God do not exist.
...
Their
indescribability and their non-existence do pose questions and answers. These
are all contradicted in the ‘Residuum’.
There is a
sort of Heisenberg uncertainty about articulated statements pertaining to God
(and about everything else, actually). Language and even the ideas it represents
and especially mind itself generally act in a quantum physical way. Werner
Heisenberg said that if you want to know where a small particle is, you cannot
know much about its motion. If you know its inertia, its tendency to move, you
can never deduce exactly where it is.
Then there is
the superposition principle. Words and ideas, even images, can not only
superpose, interfere and reinforce, they follow a law of irreducible
uncertainty that is defined by how much effort we are willing to put into
refining them. There is a point where more effort and more description and more
information become counterproductive to any improvement in understanding. We
can never afford to put an infinite amount of work into it.
One more
word, one more noticeable brush stroke, one more sigh raises more questions
than it settles. God is freed when we open the door to His cage into the Residuum of the inexpressible and
unexpressed plausible unknown.
The best way
to open the door is to shut up.
Dogma,
ritual, doctrine and all artistic representations of truth are all
fundamentally limited and uncertain. The time comes when it is appropriate only
to be quiet. Conflict and violence over words, semantic war, speeds this time
forward and expands the Residuum of
Plausible Deniability.
Silence in
the presence of God is required or He will not be present. Still and peaceful
apprehension must be employed to find Truth.
Thus, we can free God.
B.
Quantum Campbellian Teilhard
Quantum
Campbellian Teilhard
The Ultimate
Goal of All Human Truth and Knowledge is to know God - as well as to free Him.
There are
more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in the philosophy of the
illustrious emeritus Episcopal Bishop (Generalissimo) John S Spong and his
mighty rebel army of Believers in Exile. The Primal Empire strikes back and the
Force is with all of US, however.
Quantum
science proves utterly that it is valid to superpose or mix mathematical
equations that describe matter in opposing states or in quite different states.
Our best, most thoroughly verified physical law thereby gives an explicit
mandate for us to add together or mix logical expressions of ideas, even ones
that appear contradictory. This we do in order to synthesize better indicators
that more perfectly describe reality. Quantum science shows that this
philosophical ‘syncretism’ is an inherently valid exercise.
Furthermore,
Joseph Campbell reveals that High Myth incarnates the most profound human truth.
The dictionary definition, or “denotation” of detailed ‘myth’, is incidental. The
connotation of ‘Myth’ is what is
important. Between the lines, the metaphor is the message.
So, quantum
Campbell implies that it is not merely desirable but necessary to add or combine
(but not to mix or scramble) metaphors. We must superpose them appropriately,
the way quantum science sums algebraic expressions, combining solutions to Schrödinger’s
differential equation.
My analysis
of the metaphorical basis of all types of human language or communication suggests
that this is the only way to satisfy the need for more precise (but still
approximate) descriptions of deepest human truths.
Also, I and
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin aver that Revelation is ongoing so that, among other
sources, science is adding to the store of human knowledge of both the secular
and the divine. Scientists and all other seekers after truth share the noble
goal of lifting human understanding to higher and higher levels. The motto of
science is ‘Excelsior!’
Thus, as time
progresses, not merely the human organism but also the human wealth of
intellect, the expressed and expressible mind, evolves by a process of natural
selection toward more perfect understanding of all things, particularly of God.
The Quantum Campbellian Teilhard thesis
declares that ‘God’ is a word we use that cannot be else but metaphor. To
achieve an understanding of God that is closer to ultimate Truth we must evolve
our idea by insouciantly compounding metaphors. We must allow definitions of
divinity that cover the known spectrum from theistic ‘Father God’ to deistic ‘Allah’
to quintessential ‘Ground of All Being’.
The science
of document interpretation, especially of scripture, is called hermeneutics
(her-men-OO-tiks).
Application of quantum principle to scripture at once simplifies this science
and complicates it. It offers more degrees of freedom to the directions of
possible interpretation but demands that equal attention be paid to several,
possibly contrary, simultaneous initial premises. There are often very few ways
that this can be done consistently with Spirit, that is, with the Spirit of
Scripture.
But what is
unknown is just as important. To take this into account in a formal sense, I have
postulated the Residuum of Plausibility in
the above text. This ‘Residuum’ is
the repository of all doubt about what is claimed or denied. Most pertinently,
it is the sum of all nascent countercontrary statements about the existence of
God that have not yet found expression such as: God exists → God cannot exist →
God really does exist.
This Tao or
Infinite Ocean of Residual Truth is the vacuum into which is rapidly expanding
the inflationary Big Bang of human knowledge and understanding of all things,
including of our metaphor for God. It is the ecological niche that supplies the
reason for existence and the motive power for the evolution, indeed the
perfection, of all human knowledge.
The Residuum binds together apparently
disparate equations in the logic of language. For the scientist, one may say
that the Residuum undergoes a phase
change when it ‘evolves’ into human knowledge. It allows older essential
metaphor to coexist with eloquent new poetry in their joint portrayal of truth
that would be inexpressible by any other means.
God exists
because quantum science allows all our expressible ideas of Him to be true
simultaneously, even statements of His non-existence. All things are true in
Him. Language is infinitely malleable, yet bounded. Once ideas of God are
consciously expressed in ‘literal’ truth, they can be truthfully denied. But,
the quantum algebra equation of divine
state collapses to any definition we require whenever we conduct any real
or even any kind of ‘thought’ experiment.
Without
matter to get in the way, this ‘thought’ experiment always takes the form of
some type of decision. For instance, one way or another, we may decide about
God. For example, we can decide that He exists. Then, for us and for all
others, as far as we ourselves are concerned, He does.
Those who
decide in the opposite way focus only on the inevitable imperfection of the
multiple metaphorical expressions that we use to define Him ‘between the lines’.
For them and for all others, in their own view, He really does not exist. This
is a good definition of Hell.
The damned
condemn themselves.
Hell is a
place, this place. As the designated righteous custodians of our own destiny,
we are all responsible Christian existentialists whether we know it or not. We
are commissioned by God to know or to deny Him. If we decide to know Him, we
transform this place into Paradise. Our Paradise is not lost. We do not wander
aimlessly in the jungle of language or crawl in the desert dust of our dismal
dreams. With thanks and praise we shatter the shackles of word, sentence and
paragraph which articulate the bonds that our minds try to tighten around God.
As Christian
Believers at Court who know that we are one with our King, wary of the metaphor
inherent in all language and at the same time celebrating it, we love and honor
our
Great God,
Unbound.
C.
The
following offering is proffered
Einstein’s
God
“The
metaphorical or pantheistic God of the physicists is light years away from the
interventionist, miracle wreaking, thought reading, sin punishing and prayer
answering God of the Bible, of priests, mullahs and rabbis and of ordinary
language. Deliberately to confuse the two is, in my opinion, an act of
intellectual high treason.” -- Richard
Dawkins.
Einstein’s
God is the physicists’ God, the God of metaphor and poetry. No other God makes
sense. The God described by Bishop John Spong when he decries the tiny
fundamentalist mini-God of the rabbis, mullahs and priests is unworthy of
worship, any more than is the universe itself. But, we do not worship the Milky
Way anyway, any more than we worship the law of gravity. As scientists, we do
not worship our God. We respect Him or It.
Our God is
not a personal God, except in the sense that He infuses the whole universe with
His presence and makes Himself part of each of us by nature, like ponderable
mass is part of our bodies and living rational energy is within us by means of
our profoundly active souls. The laws of the universe are part of us as is our
fundamental nature as men and women, as humans. We think, therefore we are. We
are what we think we are. We are existential creatures of the light.
We are creatures
of the light and of the night who nevertheless do not live in darkness. We
carry that light that we make inside our skulls. We spread the light within us
by every means we know. We are teachers.
We love
truth. If anything, Truth is our God. Understanding is our highest value.
This is
worthy of respect. We are not atheists. We subscribe to a higher principle.
That principle is one that establishes rationality as the organizing principle
of the universe. Einstein said “The most incomprehensible thing about the world
is that it is comprehensible.” Comprehensibility is the key. If the universe
were not comprehensible, men would not care about it. Science would not exist.
We would be blind and in darkness too, with no hope of seeing.
But, we do see.
We see plenty. We have almost solved the
riddle of the universe. We have the unified theory of everything within our
grasp. Even so, when it is achieved, it will still not be worshipped by
scientists. Worship is for children. We are adults. At least we like to say so.
We must give up childish things to make it so. When we were children we laughed
as children, we played as children, we thought as children and we spoke as
children. Now, we are grown and childish things are of the past. We would not
have it otherwise.
The
following offering is proffered
The following
two sections are offered to the reader in the hope that he or she may
understand where the rest of this book is aimed. Like driving a car too fast,
one cannot really steer language to a conclusion, one can only ‘aim’ it.
I read John Spong’s
Why Christianity Must Change or Die [i]
and was impressed by the seriousness of some of the issues he raises. I feel
his book simply must be answered with urgent attention and I do not see
anything filling this bill just yet. So I think I'll give it a whack.
I apologize
for the title. I mean no disrespect for God or for believers in Him. I only
mean that some of our talk about God has attempted to limit Him and I deny all
limits on God and declare that he is free of all boundaries and cannot be
shackled. As of now, He is unbound in the sense of His having no manacles of
the type forged by human language and in the sense that He never has had any
kind of boundaries. Now I declare that we explicitly know it and we must
constantly say it.
God cannot be
bound by language. He subtends or encompasses all contradictions, the children
of language. All things are true in Him. He can be both a Ground of all Being
and a Father God at the same time. I use Joseph Campbell’s idea of Myth
and scientific quantum law to answer John Spong who says Christianity must
change or die.
My argument
is non-scriptural. But Spong’s argument is non-scriptural too, although he
tries mightily to prove otherwise.
My secular
arguments, inasmuch as they involve Joe Campbell’s study of the high truth of Myth,
are not repugnant to scripture. Campbell has respected with a deep and abiding
love all Given human scripture in everything he wrote.
Campbell’s
Christian critics have focused more on his discussion of the origins of
scripture than on his interpretations of it. His interpretations were inspired.
The
philosophy I express is one that parallels the idea that one dies to hatred
when she eschews rancor. She denies to enmity the fertile ground in which it
would grow into those most loathsome thorny vines with their bitter fruit of
animosity. By an identical construction, the Church dies to change when it
discovers anew the living water and vital soil of love and forgiveness.
Conscious of
their stewardship, faithful Christians endeavor toward a spiritual
environmentalism. Thus, we conserve this, our sweetest fruitful tree of many
ancient values and traditions. These have helped make Christianity the great
religion, indeed the salvation, of billions of sons and daughters, brothers and
sisters, all around the world. The Church dies to change by denying the
destructive tendencies of contemporary social evolution.
The Quantum
Church must also die in order to change. Dead forms must be discarded when they
shrink and become obsolete, like a snake's old skin. Otherwise those thin
outward forms will strangle the spirit of the people. New ways of worship and
praise must be invented, discovered or affirmed. Tolerance of every Christian's
efforts to prayerfully enjoy the Triune Godhead through Jesus with the help of
the Holy Spirit must be shown by every other Christian. The walls of this
Church, this living tomb, this verdant mausoleum that so divide us must
themselves die ‑ they must utterly disappear.
I exuberantly
embrace Darwinian evolution with spiritual and intellectual evolution in the
sense advocated by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in his powerful work The
Phenomenon of Man [ii]
and many letters to his close friends. Yes, I do also consult the ultimate
meaning of mythologist Joseph Campbell's life work. See The Power of Myth
[iii],
written with Bill Moyers. Those vivid mathematical descriptions of the ground
of all being, Quantum Science, are also crucial elements in my approach, but my
discussion is non-technical.
I differ with
Bishop Spong. I do not believe that God is solely the Ground of All Being. He
is utterly beyond ‘being’. I think that Spong falls into the very trap that he
criticizes others for failing to see: he puts God in a box. He defines Him and
he believes his own definition. I say, now, not for the first time, we can
consciously decide not to shackle
God. We can deliberately avoid putting the manacles of language on Him. We can
thereby free Him to do the wonderful things that He has always wanted to do for
us. We can give Him the very permission that He gave us: the authority and
responsibility to grant or withhold from Him our trust. Finally, in modern
times, partly with the help of science, again I say to you
God is Truly Unbound
I am a
scientist. John Spong is an (emeritus) Episcopal bishop. He uses secular
arguments to advance his thesis that Christianity must change. So, I feel
compelled to do so also. Yes, I do indeed explain my position in terms of
quantum science, Darwinism including the evolutionist views of Teilhard and the
essentials of Campbell. But I maintain, as Spong does, that the evidence is
everywhere in scripture. I have provided appropriate references to the Bible
and to sources of scriptural commentary.
Suffice it to
say that scripture and extended scripture, consisting largely of today's
continuing revelation in the form of fully verified science, existentially
implies that God really does exist and He is responsible for us, in His truest
image. This implication is inherent in our impossible human quest for final
essential truth, Absolute Truth. For if we had no notion of such a truth,
falsehood would reign supreme and we would not even realize it. But more
importantly, we would have no standard with which to judge either. That
standard is an ideal, and we must take this particular ideal as real or it will
have no motivating power. We have no choice, existential or not, but to believe
in God.
I take that ‘God
made us in his image’ to mean He made us responsible beings. He cannot
interfere in our affairs to save us from ourselves. We are responsible, so we
must bear the consequences of our actions. Jetliners crash and hundreds are
killed. But humans designed the aircraft, piloted it, maintained it and human
air traffic controllers decided to land it in dangerous conditions. God would
thereby revoke our privilege to act responsibly if He were to miraculously
prevent the inevitable unholy accident.
We build
cities in earthquake zones and at the feet of volcanoes, God doesn't. We build
resort cities in the paths of tsunamis, God does not. We sail ocean liners at
full speed through iceberg laden waters, God doesn't. We poison the air and
water so that even the tadpoles are encouraged to grow into grotesquely
deformed frogs while we suffer from heretofore most‑rare types of cancer. God
doesn't poison things: He cleanses them.
* * * * *
I illustrate using religious graphics
of the type that were made available to me by my very good friend and erstwhile
mentor, Rev. George B. Koch, pastor of the Anglican Church of the Resurrection
in West Chicago, Illinois.
Art is a driving force in
Christianity. Our religion cannot be discussed adequately without reference to
it. Artistic endeavor has elevated Christian thought since long before The
Middle Ages. It is so important that we can barely speak without referring to
some concept, idea or notion that has not been influenced by artistic
convention. The artist’s metaphor is part of faith.
This book is for those readers who are
searching their hearts and souls for an answer to the modern question ‘Is God
real?’ You want to believe, maybe even attend church, but you wonder if there
can really be a God in the light of science. I have written an apology for the
Christian Faith and thereby apologize for all faiths. You are the same ladies
and gentlemen who sought John Spong's answer and I know that you will seek this
book also.
This introductory chapter is mainly
comprised of a letter I wrote to John Spong responding to a letter he wrote to
me. His letter was in regard to essays that I gave him entitled God and God 2.
The essays have been incorporated into this book as part of Chapter 1.
