Matthew 13,13-17, Psalm 65.9-13
Last summer a book was published called The Big Questions in Science. I took a look at some of them - the ones I could understand - and I found that with many of the questions there was an intriguing connection with religion.
Last summer a book was published called The Big Questions in Science. I took a look at some of them - the ones I could understand - and I found that with many of the questions there was an intriguing connection with religion.
Scientists often argue that science and
religion are incompatible, or at least that they're radically disconnected, and
many theologians and spiritual thinkers would agree. After all, science is
evidence based, religion is faith based. Yet the questions which fascinate
science are often strikingly similar to the things which make up the spiritual
quest of humankind.
Admittedly that's not true of all the
preoccupations of scientists and technologists. The quest to find a robot
which can look after granny while the rest of the family get on with their
lives doesn't sit comfortably with the Old Testament injunction to honour older
people.
And I don't think there's much overlap
between spirituality and the obsession of modern mathematicians with the
strange magic of prime numbers, even though without them a lot of the ways in
which we use the Internet today simply wouldn't work. We mightn't see so many
spiritual blogs and prayer diaries on-line because without prime numbers it
would be impossible to stop outsiders from hacking into them and posting
uninvited comments. But that hardly adds up to a connection between
mathematics and prayer.
For thousands of years pagan religions
have worshipped the sun as the source of all life and everything else that
exists on earth, and modern science has come to the very same conclusion. So
there’s a connection between science and nature religion, even though
the Bible and the other major world faiths view the sun as just one among all
the many created things that exist - a light to mark the difference between day
and night.
When it comes to the importance
of the sun, therefore, the major world religions and modern science would seem
to diverge, although many Christians would now accept that our traditional
hostility to Paganism blinded Christianity to the obvious reality that the sun
does after all play a critical role in nurturing life on earth. And because we
also believe that human beings are tasked with being stewards of creation, we
might now find ourselves sharing the enthusiasm of modern environmental
scientists for finding cleaner ways of harnessing the sun's energy, such as
using sunlight and water to create a clean energy source. Only this week the
World Council of Churches decided to stop investing in firms that extract
carbon for fuel and to invest its resources in renewable energy instead.
But although I’m sure we all want to
know what happened to the missing Malaysian airliner that disappeared in the
Indian Ocean, and although it's certainly one of the wonders of creation, I'm
fairly sure the seabed - the last great unexplored frontier on earth - is of
far more interest to oceanographers than it is to even the most wonder-struck
person of faith. That said, it was one of the psalmists who wrote these words,
'Ýonder is the sea, great and wide, creeping things innumerable are there,
...and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it.' Some people think Leviathan
means a whale but elsewhere he's described as having many heads, so he's more
likely to be a high octane version of the Loch Ness monster, a fiercesome
creature lurking in the ocean depths Searching for strange and as yet
undiscovered creatures is just the sort of thing that modern scientists want to
do, so the hunt for Leviathan goes on and makes at least a tenuous connection between
science and faith.
However, the sort of scientific
questions which have real religious significance today are ones like these:
What is the universe made of, and how
come it seems to have a lot more stuff in it than we can see? And, getting
closer to the nub of things from a spiritual point of view, are we alone
in the universe or are there any other beings out there with the same level of
intelligence, or a higher level of intelligence than us? Might there be spiritual
beings in the universe, beings without a physical body but nonetheless capable
of communicating with us by transmitting their thoughts, and perhaps even of
travelling forwards and backwards in time?
And where does all this speculation
leave God, who - of course - is in a different category from any other living
being, in that Christians believe he transcends the universe, meaning
that he's above and beyond it, but he’s also at the same time immanent
in it, meaning that he is present in everything which exists, or maybe it is
more correct to say - with St Paul - that everything lives and moves in him?
Then there's the ultimate question, of
course, 'Why are we here at all?' Why doesn't anti-matter cancel out all the
matter in the universe leaving only energy in its wake? And, given how unlikely
our universe is - what a miraculous or incredible combination of circumstances
was required to make it the way it is now - scientists are wondering
whether we actually inhabit a multiverse. Just as there are billions of stars
in our galaxy, and and billions of galaxies in our universe, perhaps
could there have been billions of universes in our multiverse?
Perhaps some of these universes were
viable and some were not. Perhaps some lasted for a split second and others
have endured for aeons. Some, like our own, might have expanded to a vast size,
and some of these might then have contracted again. Countless billions
might still be in existence now, and of these some might be capable of
supporting life but most would probably not.
If this all sounds highly improbable,
it's the subject of genuine scientific debate. But if a great many scientists
are sure that we don't need God to explain our universe, can they be so
sure that God isn't behind the multiverse? If we're going to believe in
the existence of billions of universes which we can never see, then it's no
less reasonable to speculate about a God who has perhaps been patiently
constructing universes - or enabling them to exist - for all eternity.
We could go on speculating about time
and space, but there are other equally profound questions which interest both
science and religion. What, for example, makes us different from a banana
plant? You can go to Nostell Priory and see some banana plants growing in the
kitchen garden there. On the surface they look very different from us.
They can't walk, or talk, or think, or feel. But, like us, they're living
things and they share 50% of our genetic make-up. So we're quite close
relatives, really, second cousins twice removed, and we're virtually brothers
and sisters with a chimpanzee, with whom we share 99% of our
make-up.
So very tiny differences can account
for huge variation. What is it that really sets us apart from the rest
of the animal kingdom, except for all that fur? Ethics professors used to think
that human beings know the difference between right and wrong, whereas
chimpanzees don't. But the behaviour of both parties doesn't quite bear that
out. Perhaps the real difference lies in our ability to reimagine the
world - to think of alternative ways to shape the world and then try to bring
them about. Is that gift of imagination what connects us to God in a
unique way compared to other living things?
And why do we dream? Religious people
have never been in any doubt, at least until the modern era. Traditionally,
they believed that dreams teach us something. Either they are the voice
of our conscience or else, if they are inspired, they can be
messages from God. Scientists pooh-poohed that idea, supposing that dreams were
where we play out our fantasies or where the brain simply unwinds after a long
hard day. But now they're connecting dreams to learning after all.
Finally, there's the vexed question of
how long we can go on living. Scientists wonder now whether it might be
possible to make someone live for ever. It's not going to be an option for most
of us but maybe the rich could pay to inherit eternal life. Would it, though,
be life in all its fullness or an increasingly brittle sort of
life, a bit like the increasingly desperate attempts of celebrities to fend off
old age by having their skin stretched ever more tightly over their shrinking
frame?
We often think that we're out of touch
with the rest of society, that they're no longer interested in the things that
inspire us. But I think we're all asking very similar questions. It's just that
we're coming up with very different answers. Perhaps we should be bolder
when these big questions come up in conversation. Perhaps we should be prepared
to challenge other people's assumptions, to come at the same question
from a bit of a tangent, to offer a faith solution - not as a complete
answer but as part of the answer.
In our Gospel reading Jesus describes a
situation in which ordinary people listen to what religious people are saying,
but never understand; look at the surface but never perceive what lies beneath.
He suggests, following Isaiah's prompting, that the fault lies with the
people themselves. Their hearts have grown dull, and their ears are hard of
hearing, and they have shut their eyes; a bit like the annoying habit of small
children when they cover their ears and shouting lalalalala because someone is
telling them an inconvenient truth. But, whether or not they share the
responsibility for their blinkered world view, God longs to heal them. And if
we are blessed with eyes that see and ears that hear that gives
us a challenge, an imperative, to share what we know.
Comments