Exploring Evolution Series: Biologos - The Amazing Story of Carbon

Word and Fire: The Amazing Story of Carbon, Part 1: Fire

http://biologos.org/blog/word-and-fire-the-amazing-story-of-carbon-part-1-fire

Today's entry was written by Paul Julienne. Please note the views expressed here are those of the author, not necessarily of The BioLogos Foundation. You can read more about what we believe here.

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Before there ever could be biomolecules, or a genome, or living beings, there had to be carbon and the other chemical elements that are essential to life. The science of carbon is remarkable, and the more one knows about it, the more one can stand in awe of the amazing universe in which we live. My career in physics—in particular, the quantum physics of atoms and molecules and light at the interface of chemistry and physics—has taught me the depth and power of the natural sciences to understand the world. It is a pleasure to be able to contribute to the Biologos blog a few thoughts about carbon: how it came to be made in the fire of the stars of the early universe and how it enables the remarkable chemistry of life written out in the words of the genome. Putting it all together draws on connections between atomic and nuclear physics, cosmology, quantum theory, chemistry, biology, and what science is all about in the first place.

I tell the story based on all the positive knowledge we have from the sciences. Does it have anything to do with God and humanity? Tomorrow's post will help you decide. First, let us take a whirlwind tour of the picture science gives us of the early universe and of the origin of the chemical elements.

According to the best current measurements, our universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old, and had a long history before there was life on earth. After an initial “Big Bang,” the universe rapidly expanded and cooled so that after a few minutes the present abundance of most of the atomic nuclei in the universe had been established, about ¾ hydrogen and ¼ helium, plus a trace of lithium. The simplest atomic nucleus is hydrogen,1H, having a single positively charged proton, whereas the helium nucleus, 4He, known as an alpha particle, is comprised of two protons and two neutrons. In this early stage of the universe, there were no nuclei of species heavier than 7Li (lithium with 3 protons and 4 neutrons) such as carbon, oxygen, or iron.

After about 380,000 years of expansion and cooling, the positively charged hydrogen and helium nuclei recombined with negatively charged electrons to make ordinary electrically neutral hydrogen and helium atoms. The universe was still mostly uniform without clumping into galaxies and stars, but once it was composed primarily of neutral atoms, it became transparent to light, that is, light could propagate freely throughout the universe. This light has continued to cool, and its afterglow is known as the microwave cosmic microwave background radiation.

This picture shows the cosmic microwave background radiation measured by the European Space Agency‘s
Planck satellite observatory. The irregularities reveal fluctuations in the density of the 380,000 year old
universe that correlate with the future clumping of matter into stars and galaxies.

What about the heavier elements? Since stable nuclei heavier than lithium didn’t exist in the very early stages of the universe, where did they come from? How were they built up?

After the separation of light and matter in the early universe, the hydrogen and helium began to clump into large clouds of gas that under the influence of gravity condensed into galaxies and stars. The first stars and galaxies had already formed by the time the universe was one billion years old. It turns out that the heavier elements can be made in the hot interior of stars by fusing together lighter nuclei via sequences of nuclear reactions that can explain the observed abundance of these elements. It is only in the dying phase of certain types of stars that temperature and pressure is sufficiently high that these fusion processes occur to make the heavier elements. These elements are then expelled into the surrounding interstellar medium by the exploding star at the end of its life. The clouds of gas formed this way later condense into new stars, such as our sun, some of which have accompanying planetary systems. Consequently, before there could ever be carbon, there had to be a first generation of stars to be born and die. In other words, given what we understand about the laws of nature and star formation and evolution, the universe actually needs to be billions of years old before carbon-based life could be present.

How the heavier elements are made in stars was worked out in the 1940s and 1950s through discoveries about nuclear physics and nuclear reactions. A classic paper published in 1957, “Synthesis of the Elements in Stars,” by Margaret and Geoffery Burbidge, William Fowler, and Fred Hoyle, laid out the basic framework that remains with us today. Fowler received the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on nucleosynthesis, the two Burbidges received the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2005, and Hoyle was later knighted for his work in astrophysics and was awarded the prestigious Crafoord Prize of the Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1997 for his work on the formation of the elements in stars.

Getting the heavier elements requires first making a carbon nucleus, which is very difficult. Making 12C requires that three alpha particles, 4He, fuse together. This is called the triple-alpha process, but it is impossible at the 15 million degree temperature inside a normal star like our sun, because the average velocity of the alpha particles is too low for them to overcome the very strong repulsive electric forces between the positively charged4He nuclei. Hans Bethe had already shown in 1939 that a temperature of 1 billion degrees would be required for such repulsion to be overcome. But such a high temperature does not occur even in stars.

Fred Hoyle

In 1953 the young astrophysicist Fred Hoyle realized that accounting for the relative abundances of carbon and oxygen in the universe required that there be a special quantum state of the 12C nucleus that would allow it to form in stars at temperatures around only 100 million degrees. The postulated quantum state, which may or may not exist, had to have just the right properties to allow fast enough production of 12C nuclei but to prevent their destruction by rapid conversion to 16O upon fusing with another alpha particle. While visiting the Kellogg Radiation Laboratory at Caltech, Hoyle told William Fowler and his colleagues and students there about his prediction, and it was verified through laboratory experiments that the needed state existed at close to the predicted value. With this knowledge in hand, Hoyle and others could then understand how the heavier elements could be made through sequences of nuclear reactions starting with 12C and 16O, and the foundation was laid for understanding how all the heavier elements came to be.

All the elements needed for life are synthesized in the late stages of the life cycle of certain stars. Without the Hoyle state in the triple alpha process, we would not be here as living beings who can understand such things. In an article entitled “The Universe: Past and Present Reflections,” published in the Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics in 1983, Hoyle wrote the following (Vol. 20, p. 16):

From 1953 onward, Willy Fowler and I have always been intrigued by the remarkable relation of the 7.65 Mev energy level in the nucleus of 12C to the 7.12 Mev level in 16O. If you wanted to produce carbon and oxygen in roughly equal quantities in stellar nucleosynthesis, these are the two levels you would have to fix, and your fixing would have to be just where these levels are actually found to be. Another put up job? Following the above argument, I am inclined to think so. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking of in nature.

Hoyle was known for making controversial claims. While few scientists would claim that the science would establish that “a superintellect has monkeyed with physics,” the Hoyle state does provide another example where the laws of physics of our actual universe are fine tuned such that carbon-based life is possible.

Be sure to check out tomorrow’s post to learn more about the intersection of science, carbon, and life.

Paul S. Julienne recently retired from his career as a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Joint Quantum Institute of NIST and the University of Maryland. He has published over 200 scientific papers on the theory of quantum processes in atomic, molecular, and optical physics.

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Word and Fire: The Amazing Story of Carbon, Part 2: Word

http://biologos.org/blog/word-and-fire-the-amazing-story-of-carbon-part-2-word

Today's entry was written by Paul Julienne. Please note the views expressed here are those of the author, not necessarily of The BioLogos Foundation. You can read more about what we believe here.

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Part 1 of this article told us how a special quantum state in the compound state of three alpha particles plays a critical role in the production of carbon and the rest of the heavier chemical elements in the hot interior of a dying star. Carbon made this way became part of the gas cloud that eventually condensed into our sun and its planetary system, and became part of our earth where we live. Let us now skip to today and reflect a bit on science and life—life as we know it as ordinary human beings and life as made possible by the unique chemistry of carbon. Among other things, this chemistry makes possible the molecules of life, including the remarkable DNA molecule that is the basis of molecular genetics and the human genome.

Dying Red Giant carbon-rich star U Camelopardalis, 1500 light years from the
earth,  blowing off a shell of hot gas. From the Hubble Space Telescope.

I had the pleasure of knowing Francis Collins even before he founded BioLogos. We both shared the concern that too many people in our churches, in the general public, and in the sciences were being influenced by the widespread misconception that science and Christian faith must be in conflict with one another. The reality of the situation is much more interesting and subtle than can be captured by such a generalization. We also shared the concern that young people going into the sciences need not have to face a dilemma of choosing between science and their faith, as if one excluded the other. I count among my friends a number of scientists who, like Francis and myself, see no conflict between their science and their belief in God.

The word “science” comes from the Latin scientia, knowledge. Scientists seek understanding of the world. What it is really like? How does it work? Nobel laureate physicist Richard Feynman said that a really important aspect of science “is its contents, the things that have been found out. This is the yield. This is the gold. This is the excitement, the pay you get for all the disciplined thinking and hard work.” Most scientists I know will share Feynman’s passionate enthusiasm about understanding the world.

Scientific knowledge is derived from the scientific method of observing the world as it is. Science has been enormously fruitful and successful. Knowledge about the way the world works has enabled the marvels of modern communication, transportation, and medicine. Yet science is concerned with the world on scales of time and distance that extend well beyond those encountered in everyday human life. Much of what science discovers about the world is very counterintuitive—it surprises us. This is certainly true of the quantum theory, which is one of the most successful theories of contemporary science in its highly quantitative characterization of the atomic and subatomic world. Yet, the quantum world has dramatically different properties than our everyday world, so much so that Richard Feynman said about it: “Nobody knows how it can be like that.” Even now, over 50 years after the discovery of the theory, in spite of agreement on its mathematical formulation and the accuracy and power of its predictions, physicists do not yet agree on how the theory should be interpreted.

That the universe is intelligible is an utterly remarkable fact. It is understandable to our human minds even if it still holds mysteries for us. Perhaps one of the most profound things that Albert Einstein said is: “The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.” Why is it that we human beings can actually understand the universe so well? Why are we so passionately driven to try to grasp the truth about it, and are satisfied when we do, however incompletely? Could it be that we are meant to be this way?

The eminent French physicist and philosopher Roland Omnes writes in Quantum Philosophy: Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Science (1999) about how science, quantum physics in particular, is formal and abstract in its formulation, yet incredibly fruitful in its precise and quantitative characterization of Reality. Omnes asks:

How can science exist? Or: How is science possible? The obviousness of this question and the silence surrounding it echo Aristotle’s beautiful words: ‘Like night birds blinded by the glare of the sun, such is the behavior of the eyes of our mind when they stare at the most luminous facts.’ … The answer is perhaps as obvious as the question: science is possible because there is order in Reality. …The whole of science suggests such an answer, but science alone cannot establish or even formulate it, for this assertion is beyond science’s own representations.

There are some questions that science cannot answer. Even understanding why science is possible requires, as Omnes puts it, “leaving science and entering metaphysics.” When we do the latter, we must make critical judgments about the nature of the world based on considerations that lie beyond science per se. It takes wisdom to do that. Elsewhere in the book, Omnes does not hesitate to use an ancient philosophical term to characterize the order behind Reality, namely, its Logos, that is to say, its fundamental “logic,” “principle,” or ”ground.”

This subtle term Logos is also used in the familiar opening verse of the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word [Logos], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…. All things were made through him…” The term “Word” used here to translate the Greek λόγος has a significance that is clearly more than literal, situating the Logos at the ground of all there is, at the root of all intelligibility and order in the totality of Reality. John’s verse is also an echo of the opening words of Genesis, where God creates by speaking. The wonderfully spare and austere language in the first chapter of Genesis also tells us that human beings are made in the image of God. John goes on to tell us something even more remarkable: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

John identifies the Word-made-flesh with Jesus of Nazareth, the one who shows us—uncovers for us—the very character of God. Here is the heart, the logic, the Logos, of the whole gospel: the paradoxical story of Jesus and his self-giving, self-sacrificial love communicates to us the key to the essential nature of Reality, about the cosmos and humanity. It is the Logos-become-flesh who shows us how to bear the image of God rightly and flourish as human beings. I have yet to find anything from what I have learned from the natural sciences—physical, chemical, biological, or bio-medical—that necessarily conflicts with a robust Christian theology centered on the person Jesus of Nazareth understood as being fully God and fully human.

Words are an essential part of our humanity. Perhaps like science itself we take our words too lightly. How are words possible? Words are the basis for language by which we communicate to one another. Words tumble and cascade one after the other, yet they convey a whole. They make sense, at least if we speak the language. They communicate information. The scientific knowledge by which the universe is intelligible is communicated by words. Words can also communicate emotions, love and anger, and express poetry. They describe. They convey a tone, a mood. Words can be written or spoken. Yet words can be hopelessly inadequate to the task of conveying what we would like to express. Can we even put into words the aroma of a cup of coffee, if we wanted to express what it is like to another person who had never experienced it?

Now is a good time to re-enter the story of carbon. The incredibly rich life of a cell, and by extension an entire living organism, is based on the special chemistry made possible by the specific molecular bonding properties that a carbon atom has with another carbon atom or with different atoms like hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and many others. There is a large subfield of the chemical sciences known as “organic chemistry” that studies the structure, properties, and reactions of such carbon-containing molecules. There is an enormous variety of such molecules, since carbon can bond with other carbon atoms to form long chains with branching substructures. Different kinds of molecules make proteins, fats, carbohydrates, hemoglobin, insulin, DNA, and all the other kinds of molecules involved in life. The field of “molecular biology” studies these molecules in their biological context.

Most molecules have a well-prescribed structure and shape, conforming to solution of the quantum mechanical equation that describes the ensemble of atoms that comprise the molecule. Molecules will normally have a definite structure that corresponds to the solution of the equation that has the lowest energy for the sequence of atoms in the molecule. Quantum chemists routinely do large-scale computer calculations of such structures on moderately sized molecules. The DNA molecule that bears the genetic information in the genome of an organism is quite different from most biomolecules. While the DNA has a definite double helix structure, the genetic code is carried by the sequence of “base pairs” of 4 possible base molecules, with any three pairs in the sequence coding for one of 20 possible amino acid molecules. These base pairs that make up the genome are strung out along the sugar-phosphate backbone of the double helix structure in a sequence that is energy-neutral, that is, not determined by energetic or chemical bonding requirements. Consequently, any sequence is possible, and the actual sequence serves as the letters of a genetic alphabet that the cellular machinery reads to fabricate the particular sequence of amino acid components to make specific proteins needed by the cell. The sequence is thus neither predetermined by chemical forces nor random, but carries information of great complexity that enables the cell to grow and function and replicate accurately. The same basic genetic alphabet is universal for all life forms on earth, whether animals like human beings, plants, bacteria, or viruses.

Schematic representation of the genetic code in a DNA molecule.
From the U.S. Department of EnergyGenomic Science program website.

One of the most far-reaching revolutions in thinking in the contemporary sciences is to view the world in terms of information and its transformations. Loosely speaking, information concerns how the world is organized into complex, meaningful patterns instead of randomness. In the biological sciences, this view hinges around the realization that information is at the center of life. Whole new university departments and scientific journals are being set up in the new field of bioinformatics. One accomplishment of the human genome project is to lay out the details in our DNA like a vast encyclopedia of words. Geneticists talk of genes “expressing themselves” through the natural processes in our cells, depending both on the genome and epigenetic factors beyond the DNA sequence.

In the view of contemporary biology, we are, in a sense more literal than figurative, embodied words. The words in the genome take flesh and make a living being. They become alive in a unique confluence of atoms, molecules, cells, and organs that make a coherent whole, a living person who can understand, speak, and love. The chemistry of carbon-bearing molecules makes this possible. In the case of the remarkable human animal, we find a being with the capacity to comprehend the whole universe that makes his being possible, who can comprehend the triple alpha process in ancient stars that enabled him to be here.

If we have the eyes to see, is it too much a stretch of the poetic imagination to think of each one of us, as it were, as being a unique utterance of God, a “word” spoken with an invitation to respond? Perhaps this helps us gain new insight on what it means for humankind to be created in the image and likeness of God. Perhaps the ancient Psalmist said more than he intended when he penned (Ps. 19:1-4a):

The heavens declare the glory of God;

the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech;

night after night they reveal knowledge.

They have no speech, they use no words;

no sound is heard from them.

Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,

their words to the ends of the world. [NIV]

Word and fire: The fire in ancient stars has forged the material in which the words in the genome are written. We know this from science. This is possible because there is order in Reality, a Logos, a ground, that lies behind all that is and gives it coherence. The story of Jesus identifies the Logos and enables us to see that Reality is intelligible because the Word comes before the fire. This is not science, but represents wisdom beyond science to enable us to see why science is possible in the first place. Word begets words. It is really just as simple and deep as that.

Additional Reading:

Alister McGrath, A Fine-Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology (Westminster John Knox Press, 2009)

Sir John Polkinghorne, Quantum Theory: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2002) andScience and the Trinity: The Christian Encounter with Reality (Yale University Press, 2004)

Endnote:

A word is in order about what a quantum state is. Ordinary everyday objects can have any energy content. By contrast, a collection of quantum particles bound together in a small volume like an atomic nucleus will have a set of specific quantum states, each having a discrete quantized energy and a distinct set of “quantum number” labels. The Hoyle state is actually what physicists call a resonance state, namely, a state of a compound system that has the same energy as the individual particles that come together in a collision to form it. In this case the 12C Hoyle resonance state made from three alpha particles is an excited state that emits a gamma ray photon and decays to a stable, lower-energy form of 12C. Since the spread of energy in the hot alpha particles is actually quite small compared to the typical spread in energy between different quantum states, there is no guarantee that such a resonance would exist. That such a resonance occurs is a feature of the actual laws of physics being what they are. The actual rate of 12C production is extremely sensitive to the subtle details of the resonance, and the detailed dependence on temperature is still being worked out in papers being published in the scientific literature. Only recently has a fully first-principles mathematical calculation with powerful computers been possible to calculate the energy of the Hoyle resonance. This is explained in detail here.

Paul S. Julienne recently retired from his career as a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Joint Quantum Institute of NIST and the University of Maryland. He has published over 200 scientific papers on the theory of quantum processes in atomic, molecular, and optical physics.

Biologos - Evolution, Chance, and God

In introducing Neil Ormerod's article today I am reminded of several earlier articles I had published a year or two ago that dealt with these same issues. In the Index on Science and Religion, under the article entitled How God Created by Evolution: A Proposed Theory of Man's Evolutionary Development. I wrote specifically on four issues: the problem of original sin (category: The Fall); the uniqueness of humanity (category: the Image of God); the origin of sin (category: Metaphysics); the problems of typologies between Adam and Christ (category: Hermeneutics). Within each discussion I purposely incorporated an evolutionary point of view into popular church doctrines showing how one might integrate a plain Scriptural understanding of Genesis 1-3 with today's postmodern, contemporary sciences. Not in a typical one-to-one correlation but by creating a new set of hypotheses set within a broader (a-typical) reading of Genesis' creation texts (a literary reading of Scripture vs. a literal reading of its pages). Approached in this fashion, it allowed for popular biblical dogma to become enlarged by an external understanding of the biblical text without confusion to, or distrust of, the Word of God. It was a simple proposal that I couldn't find anywhere else  at the time. And it wedded the unnecessarily combative ideas behind theology and science in an elegant simplicity that I strongly needed to see written down by someone, somewhere.

Since those years I have steadily written about each of these issues from one perspective or another, speaking to a biblical dogma that can be enlarged without losing the God of the Scriptures. Consequently, I necessarily had to re-enter into discussions of sin and free will; chance and randomness within an evolutionary created order; God and creation; revelation and interpretation. But by allowing the possibility of evolution into the gilded pages of the biblical text required a further wholesale evaluation of biblical doctrines. When doing so, I surprisingly found a conservative interpretation that remained true to Christian orthodoxy but was now couched within a contemporary language that could speak relevantly to the church's postmodern generations. Rather than losing God and the Bible, I found God and His Word, in an amazing revelation of inspiration and illumination as led by the Holy Spirit.

And because of these studies and writings it has led to a bolder, clearer witness of biblically extrapolated thoughts and ideas I didn't think possible. As a result, I could now speak to the place of Open Theism and Evolutionary Teleology; to a Weak view (and not a Strong view) of the Anthropic Principle without diminishing God's power or provision; to God's Sovereignty without requiring the narrower Reformed idea of creational "control" that would misunderstand and confuse divine power, providence, plan, and purpose against scientific language; play chance and randomness off against one another within God's evolutionary design and still see the guiding hand of a wise Creator God throughout its processes, warp, and woof; and hear agnostic/atheistic arguments for what they were saying - as well as what they were not completely saying - about a God who isn't there based on their deterministic beliefs and/or modernistic conjectures. Overall, a good theology will allow for fuller arguments and better questions. Theologies that these would-be critics of the Christian faith don't have or hold except to point out their dissatisfactions and disagreements.

Hence, proceeding towards an Evolutionary Creational understanding of Scripture unlocked a lot of biblical confusion that had come with my older theology when based upon the idea of an immediate creation that had become so very out-of-touch with today's sciences, external discoveries, and scholarship. I needed a relevant Bible that was updated and contemporary. Not one held back in older systematic thought forms (epistemologies) and structures (hermeneutics). Some of these concerns will be evidenced in today's following article as you will see. And for those wishing further discussion on an area that once was so wide and troubling, I have attempted to guide readers within the documents of this site providing appropriate topical discussion along with an occasional index to those topics as I have had time to create or update those indexes.

To all I pray God's peace upon mind and heart. While hoping at the same time to provoke, prod, and poke towards a wider, fuller, approach to God's Word. One that might accord with our generation's more current scholarship will keeping the biblical witness and gospel of Christ in contemporary lockstep with today's generations of seekers and wanderers, lost and perplexed. Thank you for your consideration.

R.E. Slater

January 21, 2014

*It should be noted that Ormerod would like to retain classic theism in some sense. Many of my earliest articles have done the same in similar language. However, Process Theology has been utilized when, and where, it makes sense (Ormerod has noted this too). However, I suspect my theological position will be a bit more open to process theology and not as opposed to it as he seems to pose in his article below. For myself, my halfway house is found in the combine between classical theology and process theology which I describe as Relational Theology. In it, I will allow for a syncretism of thought between two disparate approaches to God... allowing neither position to hold the other hostage. Hence, Ormerod's arguments for a classical perspective are understood but when doing so his rejections to process thought will hold their own dilemmas when doing so. Thus my openness to either position, but not strictly, as I wish to seek a third, more mitigating language where possible, pertinent, or necessary. A position known as Relational (Process) Theology.

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Evolution, Chance, and God

http://biologos.org/blog/evolution-chance-and-god

by Neil Ormerod

January 20, 2014

Today's entry was written by Neil Ormerod. Please note the views expressed here are those of the author,

not necessarily of The BioLogos Foundation. You can read more about what we believe here.

In dealing with the theory of evolution the Christian believer must consider a number of difficult questions.

1- The first is how to remain faithful to the biblical text if one is to accept a scientific account which seems to negate the traditional interpretation of the creation account in Genesis 1-2.

2 - The second and perhaps more difficult question concerns the problem that arises in relation to Genesis 3, the account of the Fall, and the subsequent impact on our understanding of redemption.

3 - Finally there is the more general question of God’s relationship to the created order.

In this short piece I would like to focus on this third question, on the relationship between God and the created order. Put simply the question is, how does God act in the world? I want to be clear here that I’m not talking about instances of miraculous interventions whereby God acts with sovereign freedom, but about the “normal” course of events, the day-to-day out-workings of divine providence. Specifically the question is, Can God bring about the divine purpose through events which are chance events? Of course there are difficulties about how one might define “chance events” here, but the underlying issue concerns questions of randomness and its place in the relationship between God and creation.

Indeed it seems to me that this issue underlies some of the current debates around evolution. For example, the basic argument of people such as Dawkins is as follows:

• arguments for the existence of God depend on God being some sort of designer;
• evolution depends on chance (genetic mutations, natural selection);
• chance is incompatible with divine design;
• so God is not involved in evolution or in creation as a whole;
• therefore God is a redundant hypothesis.

Dawkins’s rejection of a creator God is linked to the position that God cannot be involved in random processes.

On the other hand I think we can find the same assumption operative in those who adopt the position of Intelligent Design. Their argument is as follows:

• chance is not enough to explain the process of evolution (for which they provide apparent evidence, viz.,irreducible complexity);
• the only way to fix the gaps in the evolutionary process is to posit an Intelligent Designer who intervenes in the system;
• therefore God is still a viable option.

What I think is going on here is a fusing of Christian belief in an efficacious divine providence, with a scientific determinism that arose out of the success of the Newtonian worldview. The ghost of Deism, linking God’s action with the “necessary” and deterministic laws of nature resulting in a clock-work universe, haunts the debate. Indeed the logic is compelling: What God wills, necessarily happens; and this necessity is conveyed through the scientific determinism of Newtonian mechanics. There is no chance because God operates through necessary scientific laws. If there is chance, on the other hand, God cannot be involved.

The Tension of Semantics

Recognition of the force of the tension between divine design and contingency of outcome was not invented by Deism, though Deism did give the argument a certain scientific respectability. In the Summa contra Gentiles [henceforth SCG] medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas deals with questions concerning divine providence and its relation to chance and necessity. The objections raised by our modern debates are already evident.

If all things that are done here below, even chance events, are subject to divine providence [read: divine design], then, seemingly, either providence cannot be certain [read: there is no real design], or else all things happen by necessity [read: there is no chance]. (SCG, 3, c.94.)

This is the issue underlying the debate between Dawkins and Intelligent Design. However Aquinas does not accept either of their conclusions. Among his long and detailed response we find the following illuminating comment:

If God foresees that this event will be, it will happen, just as the second argument suggested. But it will occur in the way that God foresaw that it would be. Now, He foresaw that it would occur by chance. So, it follows that, without fail, it will occur by chance and not necessarily. (SCG, 3, c.94)

Certainly Aquinas could see no contradiction between God acting through chance events and the certainty of divine design.

This same conclusion was adopted in the document “Communion and Stewardship” published in 2004 by the International Theological Commission, a body established to advise the Catholic Church on theological debates. Its comments on the present debate over evolution are instructive.

But it is important to note that … true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation ... Divine causality can be active in a process that is both contingent and guided. Any evolutionary mechanism that is contingent can only be contingent because God made it so.

This notion of “radically differ in kind and not only in degree” corresponds to Aquinas’s distinction between God as primary cause of being, and secondary created causes, which are genuine causes in themselves, but are only able to operate because God causes them to exist as genuine causes (see Rev. Austriaco’s recent post on this issue).

Indeed it is not difficult to find analogies in our own experience which can help us understand the randomness and purposefulness are not opposed. Consider the link between smoking and lung cancer. It is well established that smoking causes lung cancer with a certain statistical frequency. We know that if we reduce the rate of smoking in the general public we will reduce the incidence of lung cancer. Suppose we introduce a public health advertising campaign to reduce the incidence of smoking. Some people will see the ad, others will not. Some people will be moved by the ad to quit smoking, others will not. Some will succeed in quitting, others will not. At each step along the way there will be an instance of chance variation around a statistical norm. In the end if the campaign is successful we will see a decrease in the number of deaths by lung cancer. We will have achieved our goal intelligently using a method full of chance processes. Perhaps the dichotomy between chance and purposefulness is somewhat overstated.

None of these ideas precludes the possibility of special creation, or the interventions of an Intelligent Designer, but it does remove anxiety that the adoption of an evolutionary perspective is necessarily to adopt a materialistic and atheistic worldview. The affirmation of genuine chance and randomness in the universe does not rob the universe of meaning and purpose. In fact it creates the opportunity for genuinely novel things to occur, not in a mechanical and pre-determined way as the necessary outcome of pre-existing conditions but as truly “unpredictable” in terms of those pre-existing conditions. And so, novel events of quite low probability can still arise because in a universe as big, and as old, as the one we live in, even things with a very low probability of occurring can happen somewhere, sometime. And all this can occur within a framework of divine providence utilising statistical means to achieve God’s purpose.

Is Process Thought Necessary?

Significantly all this can be accommodated within the framework of classical theism, the belief that God is eternal, immutable, and omnipotent. Some, particularly those who have adopted the process framework of Alfred North Whitehead, argue that in order to accommodate the contingent, the novel and genuinely unpredictable, it is necessary to posit contingency in God. As process theologian Charles Hartshorne puts it:

The entire history of philosophical theology, from Plato to Whitehead, can be focused on the relations between three propositions:

1. The world is mutable and contingent;
2. The ground of its possibility is a being unconditionally and in all respects necessary and immutable;
3. The necessary being, God, has ideally complete knowledge of the world.

[Together] they imply the contradiction: a wholly non-contingent being has contingent knowledge. 

(Charles Hartshorne, Aquinas to Whitehead: Seven Centuries of Metaphysics of Religion (Milwaukee: Marquette University Publications, 1976), 15.)

The difficulty that Hartshorne is alluding to is the apparent paradox of how this “wholly non-contingent being has contingent knowledge”; that is, How can God know things “in advance” that occur by chance?

What the process position does not take into account is that God’s knowledge is not a passive receptive knowledge, but an active and creative knowledge. God’s knowledge creates reality, it does not simply grasp a reality as already existing. As with the positions of Dawkins and Intelligent Design, the underlying assumption is that this divine creative act precludes chance and contingency. To accommodate contingency, the God of process thought is no longer a genuine creator of all that is, but can be surprised by novelty as new things emerge in the world. It is difficult to see how this aligns with the sovereign God of Christian belief.

---

[note by R.E. Slater: I do not share the same sympathies here as Ormerod does.... My inference from process thought is that "divine creative act precludes chance and contingency" only on the basis of an evolving world set alone upon itself (the s-c-i-e-n-c-e side of the discussion). However, as set within the metaphysical affirmation for the Sovereignty of God (the t-h-e-o-l-o-g-y side of the discussion), this cannot be the case because all things proceed from Him by His designs and commands. Hence, Ormerod's argument is an argument of epistemological preference and not a factual statement leading to any closing arguments.]

---

Significantly, process thought also makes God subject to time, temporal, and changing. In our book, Creator God, evolving world (Fortress Press, 2013), we argue in fact that such a position is incompatible with an Einsteinian account of relativity, because it privileges one timeframe (God’s time) above all others. So in seeking to accommodate itself to the scientific account of evolution, in fact process thought falls foul of what we know from Einstein’s account of relativity. See Chapter 3 for details.

---

[note by R.E. Slater: This is true. Process theology in fact proposes that God IS subject to time, temporality , and is changing in His experiential relationship with His creation. It is what gives to us an OPEN universe and an OPEN future. However, this does not discount that God is not leading all time and space, event and history, to a purposeful conclusion. Just a conclusion that is open, temporal, and changing. Classic Theism's definitive eschatologies would allow this too, and must allow it as can be seen in the general confusion of the church in just HOW God will redeem all creation. The future is known only so far as God is there. It is unknown as to its end and destiny except for the fact that all will be redeemed.

Choosing classical theology's closed system (or, non-open system) prevents these kinds of discussions. It leads to a closed bible. A closed faith. And a closed God. None of which are desirable. Process Theology opens up the bible. Opens up one's closed faith with its set boundaries. And opens up a closed God who is impassive to our peril and mechanistic in His response to our human / creational dilemmas. The charm to process thought is this very aspect of holding to a God in experiential relationship to His creation.

As such, this God feels our pain. Is in sympathy with our suffering. And wishes to provide meaning to a life that can appear meaningless when held in the colder streams of classical theology. Free will is everything in this discussion. Both with God and with His creation. Nothing is predetermined and yet all is being determined by a Sovereign God whom we can't explain and should not box in within our preferred metaphysical systems.]

* * * * * * * *

Neil Ormerod is research Professor of Theology at Australian Catholic University, Sydney Australia, and co-author with Cynthia Crysdale of Creator God, evolving world (Fortress Press, 2013). He is widely published in leading international theological journals and has another book, A Public God: Natural Theology Reconsidered, under contact with Fortress Press, to appear, 2014.

Is God Just Playing Dice?

Differences between Evolutionary Creationism and Darwinian Scientific Naturalism

How God Created by Evolution:

A Proposed Theory of Man's Evolutionary Development

Teleology Then and Now: The Place of Open Theism within Evolutionary Teleology

Evolution and the Separate Problems of Teleology and Human Consciousness

What Do We Mean by God as "Creator-Redeemer"?

Index to past articles on "Science & Religion"

Biologos' Continuing Series on Evolutionary Basics, by Dennis Venema

http://biologos.org/blog/series/evolution-basics

Evolution Basics: A New Introductory Course on Evolutionary Biology

Evolution Basics: Evolution as a Scientific Theory

Evolution Basics: Darwin’s Early Observations on Biogeography

Evolution Basics: An Introduction to Variation, Artificial Selection and Natural Selection

Evolution Basics: Artificial Selection and the Origins of the Domestic Dog

Evolution Basics: New Genes, A New Diet, and Implications for Dog Origins

Evolution Basics: Natural Selection and the Human Lineage, Part 1

Evolution Basics: Natural Selection and the Human Lineage, Part 2

Evolution Basics: The Basis of Heritable Variation, Part 1

Evolution Basics: The Basis of Heritable Variation, Part 2

Evolution Basics: From Variation to Speciation, Part 1

Evolution Basics: From Variation to Speciation, Part 2

Evolution Basics: From Variation to Speciation, Part 3

Evolution Basics: From Variation to Speciation, Part 4

Evolution Basics: Genomes as Ancient Texts, Part 1

Evolution Basics: Genomes as Ancient Texts, Part 2

Evolution Basics: Genomes as Ancient Texts, Part 3

Evolution Basics: Genomes as Ancient Texts, Part 4

Evolution Basics: Genomes as Ancient Texts, Part 5

Evolution Basics: Species Trees, Gene Trees and Incomplete Lineage Sorting

Evolution Basics: Incomplete Lineage Sorting and Ancestral Population Sizes

Evolution Basics: An Introduction to Homoplasy and Convergent Evolution

Evolution Basics: Convergent Evolution and Deep Homology

Evolution Basics: Coevolution and Predator / Prey “Arms Races”

Evolution Basics: Parasitism, Mutualism and Cospeciation

Evolution Basics: Endosymbiosis and the Origins of Mitochondria and Chloroplasts

Evolution Basics: The Cambrian Diversification and Assembling Animal Body Plans, Part 1

Evolution Basics: The Cambrian Diversification and Assembling Animal Body Plans, Part 2

Evolution Basics: Assembling Vertebrate Body Plans, Part 1

Evolution Basics: Assembling Vertebrate Body Plans, Part 2

Evolution Basics: Assembling Vertebrate Body Plans, Part 3

Evolution Basics: Assembling Vertebrate Body Plans, Part 4

Evolution Basics: Assembling Vertebrate Body Plans, Part 5

Evolution Basics: The Placental Revolution, Part 1

Evolution Basics: The Placental Revolution, Part 2

Evolution Basics: From Primate to Human, Part 1

Evolution Basics: From Primate to Human, Part 2

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To read further in this series as it evolves click here

Biologos, "Science and Faith Issues in Ancient and Medieval Christianity, Parts 1-3"

Science and Faith Issues

in Ancient and Medieval Christianity

Part 1

http://biologos.org/blog/science-and-faith-issues-in-ancient-and-medieval-christianity-part-1

by Pablo de Felipe and Robert D. Keay
December 2, 2013

Today's entry was written by Pablo de Felipe and Robert D. Keay. Please note the views expressed here are those of the author, not necessarily of The BioLogos Foundation. You can read more about what we believe here.

Pablo de Felipe obtained a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain). He worked as a Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews (Scotland) before joining the Spanish Medicines Agency. He is in charge of the Centre for Science & Faith, part of SEUT Faculty of Theology (Madrid, Spain). 

Robert Keay earned the PhD in New Testament at the University of St Andrews (Scotland), where he also served as a Teaching Fellow in New Testament. He then moved to Northern Ireland where he taught for several years as a Lecturer in New Testament and Hellenistic Greek at Queen's University, Belfast (N. Ireland). He has recently entered the ministry as Pastor of First Baptist Church, Wolfeboro, New Hampshire.

Preface

To be labeled a “flat-earther” is probably one of the most potent insults in our modern scientific era, suggesting that the person being insulted is unaware of, or unable to understand, the more basic scientific facts. This very accusation has, since the 18^th century, been hurled at Ancient Christians.[1] But was the invective ever an accurate assessment of what early Christians believed? What did they really think about the shape of the earth or the cosmos? Medieval Christians have also been identified with the denial of antipodeans, sic, "humans living on the opposite side of the earth."[2] Is this accurate? Is this in any way related to a flat-earth belief? This essay aims to clarify these historical issues as well as draw insights for science and faith relations that are still relevant in our present day.

Introduction and background

Science and faith debates did not start with Darwin or Galileo. As Christians, we have a long tradition of wrestling with the relation between our theology and our scientific knowledge. Of course, to portray the history of these relations as one of continuous conflict is neither helpful nor accurate, but neither is it helpful to ignore potentially embarrassing episodes in our history or to portray them as insignificant or unimportant. We need to learn from past conflicts in order to avoid errors in the present and future of Christianity.

Cosmological issues were among the most vigorously debated topics from the early Church to Galileo’s time. In fact, any careful reader of Copernicus, Kepler, or Galileo will discover that they identify these precedents, seek to learn from them, and apply lessons learned to their contemporary heliocentric debate. Unfortunately, many Christians today are not sufficiently aware of these precedents to learn from them, and we are in danger of falling into Santayana’s doom (“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”). The aim of this paper is to help us to regain this historical perspective.

The cosmological issue in the 16^th-17^th centuries was the movement of the earth, in great part, because previous debates had already been settled. This question did not emerge ex nihilo, but was a continuation of a series of earth-related questions. This historical line of debate provides essential context for understanding any individual question, because la longue durée reveals the more fundamental but somewhat hidden hermeneutical foundations of the debates. In ancient times the issue was the shape of the earth. Once settled by affirmation of sphericity, the Medieval discussion moved on to the habitation of the earth; that is, whether it was possible to have inhabited landmasses on both Hemispheres. It was only at the end of the 15^th century that this mystery was solved when sailors actually crossed the Equator and found people living on the other side of the earth.

The view of nature from the Bible to the Early Church

Christians have often made two claims about the Bible and/or Christianity and modern scientific achievements. First, it is said that Christianity provided the foundation on which the modern scientific edifice could be built and, second, that God reveals truth through two books: the Bible and the book of nature. But both of these claims must be carefully nuanced in order to avoid historical and biblical inaccuracy.

When asking questions about the relationship between the Bible and science it is important to understand and respect the approach the biblical writers take toward the natural world. It is very easy, especially in our scientifically-minded world, to ask questions of the biblical text that the biblical writers would have little or no interest in answering. We can ask scientific questions, such as, ‘What is the shape of the earth?’ or ‘Does the earth move?’ but the biblical writers may have no interest in those questions, and it is unwise of us to try to force the biblical texts to answer them.

How do the biblical writers approach the natural world, then? It is important to recognize that no one in the ancient world could approach the natural world with the same methods of inquiry as are standard in today’s world. Aristotle comes the closest in his work Physics, but even then his methods of investigation were more philosophical and less investigative and rigorous than today’s methods. But even granting that Aristotle approached the natural world with probative (sic, "designed for testing or trial") and critical questions that yielded helpful knowledge of the physical world does not mean that he was typical or that the biblical writers followed a similar path. In fact, the biblical writers repeatedly turn to the natural world for other reasons - to learn about God, and for practical lessons in living well. They do not investigate the physical world for knowledge of that world itself.

For example, the wisdom writer in Proverbs instructs those who are prone to laziness to consider the ant (Prov 6:6). Indeed, not only ants, but badgers, locusts, and lizards all provide examples to humans in living well (Prov 30:24-28). According to the Psalmist, the ‘book of nature’ speaks, but not of itself; it reveals God: the heavens declare the glory of God (Ps 19:1). Likewise, the Psalmist pictures the natural rhythms and cycles of the physical world as the creation responding to its creator with praise, and this becomes an example to humanity (Ps 96:11-13; 98:4-9). Nature also groans, along with humans, waiting for the day of redemption (Rom 8:18-25). Indeed, nature appears to run in a parallel track with humanity in regard to salvation.

Humanity’s rebellion against God is pictured in the natural world as chaos and curse. The restoration of humanity in the kingdom of God is pictured by the harmony of nature: wolf and lamb, leopard and goat, lion and calf, bear and cow, cobra and infant all live together happily (Isa 11:6-10). The natural world recognizes the birth of its Savior (Mt 2:9), and responds in submission to him (Mt 14:23-33; John 2:1-11; cf. Lk 19:40), while humanity continues to rebel (John 1:11).

The biblical writers use the natural world in much the same way medieval churches used stained-glass windows. Both provide opportunities to tell stories that give guidance and instruction for life. Furthermore, events in the natural world are understood as acts of God, typically as God’s response to human behavior, whether to bless or to curse. Human rebellion brings on the flood (Gen 6:5-7, 11-13, 17; Ps 29:10). The curses for covenant disobedience are initially natural events: famine, plague, disease (Deut 28:15-24). God’s decision to rescue Israel from Egypt is accompanied by several natural phenomena that bring about the fulfillment of God’s plan (Ex 15:3-12). Likewise, the conquest of the land of Canaan is accomplished by God’s hand in directing natural events (Ex 23:28; Josh 10:9-11). And the subsequent blessings of living in the land are natural occurrences (Deut 11:8-17). The natural world is seen as God’s tool for accomplishing his plans and purposes. All of nature is at his disposal (Job 37:2-13; Ps 114:1-8). Therefore, the physical world is under the sovereign control of God and it is best approached as a revelation of him (Ex 19:16-20; Ps 19:1-6; 50:1-6; 97:1-6; Rom 1:18-20; Mt 5:44-45; 6:28-32; 10:29-31) and his ways (Ps 65:9-13; 104:21-30; 147:7-9, 12-18; Jer 10:13).

Origen of Alexandria reflects this biblical approach to nature when he writes in the early 3rd century:

I think that He who made all things in wisdom so created all the species of visible things upon the earth, that He placed in some of them some teaching and knowledge of things invisible and heavenly, whereby the human mind might mount to spiritual understanding and seek the grounds of things in heaven.[3]

Peter Harrison, in an important and fascinating book, The Bible, Protestantism and the Rise of Natural Science[4], has related the Bible and science in a unique manner and has argued that the Protestant Reformation, with its emphasis on the Bible as the ground of truth in additin to its hermeneutical shift from allegorical to literal readings of the Bible, motivated an important and fundamental shift in the Christian’s approach to the natural world, from seeing nature as allegorical teaching about God and life to seeing nature itself as something to be studied in a ‘literal’ manner.

However, long prior to the Reformation, some scholars, following the ancient Greek natural philosophers, did consider the natural world in a naturalistic manner (that is, the understanding of nature itself through observation) and at the same time some Christians read the Bible in a literal and historical manner, seeking information about the natural world. These two groups, not surprisingly, clashed, and one can find a rather vituperative polemic for the ‘Christian’ view of the natural world amongst some of these theologians. Indeed, beginning in the 4^th century, the Antiochian School of Christian Theologians promoted a more literal and historical biblical hermeneutic. And these literal readings proved to be potentially problematic, especially concerning the development of science, because some of their interpreters argued that the biblical texts mentioning the natural world should be read in a literal manner and were instructional about nature itself. Some of these interpreters bequeathed to Christianity the idea that the world is flat, or more accurately, is box-shaped, on the model of the tabernacle. When this kind of literal reading of Scripture is combined with the belief that the Bible is the ground of truth, scientific investigation stalls, and polemical rhetoric blossoms, and it is no surprise that modern science does not emerge from this paradigm.

The 4^th century Cappadocian Basil the Great of Caesarea exemplifies a slightly less polemical and apologetic approach, being content to go no further than the biblical writers go, by encouraging his readers to consider the theological and practical implications of biblical texts about nature:

As to the form of them [the heavens] we also content ourselves with the language of the same prophet, when praising God ‘that stretches out the heavens as a curtain and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in.’[5]

Nevertheless, Basil enjoys explaining and defending the scientific accuracy of the biblical texts against prevailing views, such as when he considers how the firmament upholds the waters above the earth (Hexameron 3:4), falling again, in a different way, into conflict with the science of his time.[6]

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1. The reason for that happening since the 18th century is out of the scope of this paper and will be discussed in a paper we are preparing for publication: P. de Felipe and R. D. Keay. ‘The flat earth “flat error” and the origins of the science and faith conflict ideology’. [back to body text]
2. For a detailed description of this topic, see P. de Felipe. ‘The antipodeans and science and faith relations: the rise, fall and vindication of Augustine’. In: K. Pollmann and M. J. Gill (eds.). Augustine beyond the Book: Intermediality, Transmediality, and Reception. Leiden: Brill, 2012, pages 281-311. [back to body text]
3. Origen, Song of Songs, Commentary and Homilies, translated by R. P. Lawson. London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1957, page 220. [back to body text]
4. The book was published in 2001 by Cambridge University Press. A short version of Harrison’s argument is available in ‘The Bible and the Emergence of Modern Science’. Science and Christian Belief 18 (2006):115-132. [back to body text]
5. Hexameron 1:8. Transation by B. Jackson in P. Schaff (editor). Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers 2.8. Hereafter NPNF. [back to body text]
6. Efthymios Nicolaidis writes, “From their publication, Basil’s homilies on the Hexaemeron aroused a storm among pagan philosophers, at the time still numerous and powerful. These philosophers found Basil’s theses unfounded because they were in flagrant contradiction to science.” Science and Eastern Orthodoxy. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press (2011), page 7. [back to body text]

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Science and Faith Issues

in Ancient and Medieval Christianity

Part 2

http://biologos.org/blog/science-and-faith-issues-in-ancient-and-medieval-christianity-part-2

by Pablo de Felipe and Robert D. Keay

December 2, 2013

to help this article's flow and organization I have
subjected it to a small amount of editorial outline
and pagination marked by [...]
- R.E. Slater

[The School of Antioch (pro-Scripture, Context, and Flat-Earth)
vs.
The School of Alexandria (pro-Science, Allegory, and Sphericity)]

The flat earth in Ancient Christianity

The School of Antioch arose as a reaction to perceived excesses in the allegorical interpretation of Scripture as practiced by the School of Alexandria. Eustathius, the 4^th century bishop and patriarch of Antioch, wrote the radical and groundbreaking early treatise On the Witch of Endor and Against Allegory highlighting inconsistency in Origen’s allegorical interpretations and emphasizing the importance of contextual readings for maintaining consistency and faithfulness in interpretation. Antiochene scholars argued that a text could not say more than could be connected to its literal and historical context. The leading teachers included Diodore of Tarsus and two of his students: the exegete and commentator Theodore of Mopsuestia and the great expository preacher John Chrysostom. The School of Antioch is known more for its influence on the development of Nestorianism, a Christology that advocates two natures in Christ, a divine and a human. But its influence is seen in its development of biblical reflections on the natural world. Chrysostom displays such a literal reading in his discussion of the earth being carried on waters:

Whence does this appear, that the earth is borne upon the waters? The prophet declares this when he says: ‘He founded it upon the seas and prepared it on the floods’, and again, ‘To him who founded the earth upon the waters’ What do you say?[1]

This hermeneutic, when pressed consistently, leads to a cosmology that includes a flat earth. The Homilies on Creation and Fall (circa 400 A.D.[2]) by Severian of Gabala, a Syrian bishop who moved to Constantinople in the early 5^th century and became closely associated with John Chrysostom (to the extent that his writings were transmitted under the name of Chrysostom for many centuries), exemplify a group of Antiochian interpreters who read the biblical text as teaching that God created heaven and earth in the shape of the tabernacle and who therefore were compelled to reject and attack belief in a spherical cosmos. For example, Severian writes against those who believe in a spherical world:

He did not create heaven as a sphere, as the idle talkers claim; he did not make it as a sphere moving on its axle. Rather, as the prophet asks, what course does the sun follow? ‘He arches the heaven like a curved roof and extends it like a tent’ [Isaiah 40:22]. None of us is so impious as to be convinced by the idle talkers. The biblical authors say that the heaven has a beginning and an end; hence the sun does not climb—it travels. Scripture says, ‘The sun had emerged upon the earth when Lot entered Zoar’ [Genesis 19:23]; so it is obvious that the sun emerged, as Scripture says, and did not climb. And again, ‘from the furthest point of heaven was its emergence’ [Psalm 19:6], not its ascent: if it were a sphere, it would not have a furthest point; what is the furthest point of something completely circular? Surely it is not only David who says this, therefore, or even the Savior? Listen to his words [Matthew 24:31]: ‘When the Son of man comes in his glory, he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from one end of heaven to the next.’[3]

Going even further, Cosmas Indicopleustes (whose true name was Constantine of Antiochia[4]) exemplifies in the 6^th century the fiercely polemical and apologetic approach against the Hellenistic ‘pagan’ science that was mainly associated with Alexandria. Cosmas extracted as much science as possible from these very same verses to defend a box-like ‘biblical’ cosmology with a flat-earth at the bottom in his Christian Topography.

This is the first heaven, shaped like a vaulted chamber, which was created on the first day along with the earth, and of it Isaiah speaks thus: He that hath established the heaven as a vaulted chamber. But the heaven, which is bound to the first at the middle, is that which was created on the second day, to which Isaiah refers when he says: And having stretched it out as a tent to dwell in. David also says concerning it: Stretching out the heaven as a curtain, and indicating it still more clearly he says: Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters. Now, when Scripture speaks of the extremities of heaven and earth, this cannot be understood as applicable to a sphere. […].[5] 

[…] we have exhibited the Christian theories concerning the figure and position of the whole world from divine scripture; […].[6]

Cosmas found support in Eccl. 1:6 for his view that the sun circles a huge mountain in the north, thereby producing the night when it is behind it:

[…] according to the wise Solomon, […] The sun ariseth and goeth towards the south and moveth round to the north; the wind whirleth about continually and returneth again according to its circuits.[7]

Cosmas directed vitriolic attacks against Christians who accepted the Hellenistic science and, particularly, the sphericity of the earth, which he considered the major mistake of that scientific worldview.

[…] some supposed to be Christians, holding divine scripture of no account but despising and looking down upon it, assume like the Pagan philosophers, that the form of the heavens is spherical, being led into this error by the solar and lunar eclipses.[8] 

Were one to call such men double-faced he would not be wrong, for, look you, they wish both to be with us and with those that are against us, thus making void their renunciation of Satan whom they renounced in baptism, and again running back to him.[9] 

[…] those miserable men admit the spherical form of the heaven to be true, disbelieving, yea, rather execrating, the whole of divine scripture […].[10]

[Philoponus Countermands Cosmas' Hermeneutic]

Interestingly, these attacks were rejected in his own time by Philoponus of Alexandria, the 6^th century Christian philosopher and scientist who represented all that Cosmas hated. Philoponus never mentioned Cosmas directly; instead he criticized the top representatives of the Antiochian school (particularly Theodore by name and, indirectly, the ideas from Severian that Cosmas quoted).

Philoponus denied that the Bible was a book of science, being instead a path to reach the knowledge of God. He considered himself a follower of Basil on the theological side of the debate, and a defender of the Ancient Hellenistic science on the scientific issue of the shape of the earth and other astronomical knowledge (stating clearly his rejection to astrology).

This was a difficult position to hold, and at times he fell into the complexities and inconsistencies of science-Bible concordism (sic, "the difficulty of finding agreement between two vastly different disciplines"), like Basil, as he tried to fit Genesis 1 with Hellenistic science to avoid the conflict. However, he was admirable in his commitment to defend both Christianity and science in his commentary on Genesis, and rebuttal of Cosmas, De Opificio Mundi.

Philoponus devoted the third book of this seven book treatise to attack the Nestorian Antiochian school, using Hellenistic science as well as sophisticated biblical hermeneutics, frequently influenced by Basil, to respond to their many arguments, not being afraid to counter-attack with strong language.

If certain people, owing to the uneducated state of their soul, cannot attain to what has been said and are troubled about the way the facts are put together, silence will help them to cover up their own ignorance. And let them not tell lies about God’s creation out of their own lack of experience and the slowness of their mind, fearing the retributions for a lie. […]. What punishment do they deserve who lie about such works of God? Let them hear it from him: “My name is blasphemed by you everywhere among the nations.” 

For those who grasp investigations of matters of the heavens with accuracy and witness in their words that they possess perception both about the other things I have already said and about eclipses of the sun and moon, […].[11] 

[…]. Thereby it is again patently demonstrated that as much of the heaven as is above the earth, so much again of it is below the earth, being one single sphere complete out of two hemispheres. […].[12] 

Some people’s saying that it [the sun] is carried by the north winds to return to the east, being hidden by very high mountains, was an ancient and foolish notion held by some which deserves the laughter befitting it, […].[13]

The End of the Flat Earth Society

Interestingly, and contrary to the impression commonly left after the rediscovery of Cosmas in the early 18^th century, his work was not the beginning or even the pinnacle of flat-earth cosmological influence among Christians. It was rather the opposite; this most elaborate defense of the flat earth seems to have brought the discussion to its end. As far as we can track in the extant Christian texts of late Antiquity and the early Medieval period, there seem to be no followers of Cosmas.

The two known direct references to Cosmas in Eastern Christianity were critical (Shirakatsi, 7^th century, Armenian scientist) and very negative and even sarcastic (Photius, 9^th century, Patriarch of Constantinople: “he [Cosmas] may fairly be regarded as a fabulist rather than a trustworthy authority.”[14]) Additional criticisms were directed at the flat earth beliefs of Diodore of Tarsus. Consideration of other contemporary authors addressing topics of cosmology suggest Cosmas carried no weight since these writers ignore him and show no interest in his ideas. Instead there is a continuation of the Ancient Hellenistic cosmologies.

Likewise, the situation in Western Christianity was not favorable to Cosmas’ views. We know from Augustine (4^th-5^th centuries, Bishop of Hippo) that debates on the shape of the earth existed at the time, and in the early 4^th century, the Christian writer Lactantius attacked with vigor the sphericity of the earth in connection with his aggressive denial of the antipodeans (see below).

[The Other Ancients: Augustine, Isidore, Bede]

Augustine himself was never very clear on the topic and, indeed, there has been a discussion up to our present time on whether Augustine himself was a flat-earther, sphericist, unsure, or just did not want to commit himself. In any case, it is very clear that he was not a defender of the flat earth in the way Cosmas or even Lactantius (whose work Augustine knew and used in other contexts) were. In general, we can say that Augustine followed a line of thinking going back to Ambrose in the West and Basil in the East that highlighted the irrelevance of the cosmological speculations for the spiritual life of a Christian, and therefore was prone to show a non-committal position on these topics. Of course, this position was sometimes a disingenuous position, crafted to avoid the pagan attacks on the Bible as supporting antiquated cosmological ideas. Retreat was a better strategy than fighting on topics where a victory was seen as unsure, a far cry from the naïve and dangerous attacks from Cosmas and Lactantius to Hellenistic science.

Another author of great influence in the West was Isidore (6^th-7^th centuries, Archbishop of Seville). As with Augustine, there has been an ongoing debate up to our time on whether he was a flat-earther. Although his work contains some ambiguous passages, we cannot find any clear defense of a flat earth cosmology or attacks to the sphericity of the earth. In addition, his disciple, the Visigothic king Sisebutus (6^th-7^th centuries) composed an astronomical poem where he explained the eclipses in the traditional sphericist fashion. Finally, the English monk Bede (7^th-8^th centuries) explained very clearly the sphericity of the earth in his scientific work, which became one of the most important influences in the West during the early Medieval period.

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1. Homilies on the Statutes 9:7 W. R. W. Stephens’ translation in Schaff’s NPNF 1.9. [return to body text]
2. R. E. Carter. ‘The Chronology of Twenty Homilies of Severian of Gabala’. Traditio 55 (2000):1-17. [return to body text]
3. Translation by R. C. Hill in Commentaries on Genesis 1-3. Severian of Gabala and Bede the Venerable. Ancient Christian Texts. Series edited by T. C. Oden and G. L. Bray. Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 2010. Text from Homily Three, page 44. [return to body text]
4. W. Wolska-Conus. ‘Stéphanos d’Athènes et Stéphanos d’Alexandrie. Essai d’identification et de biographie’. Revue des etudes Byzantines 47 (1989):5-89. [return to body text]
5. Cosmas Indicopleustes. The Christian Topography IV. Tr. J.W. McCrindle. London: Hakluyt Society, 1897, page 130. [return to body text]
6. Idem, VII, page 265. [return to body text]
7. Idem, V, page 152. [return to body text]
8. Idem, Prologue II, page 4. [return to body text]
9. Idem, V, page 10. [return to body text]
10. Idem, III, page 128. [return to body text]
11. Philoponus. De Opificio Mundi III.8. Tr. L. S. B. MacCoull (unpublished, 1995, kindly provided by the translator), page 106. [return to body text]
12. Idem, III.9, page 111. [return to body text]
13. Idem, III.10, page 117. [return to body text]
14. Bibliotheca 36 [return to body text]

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Science and Faith Issues

in Ancient and Medieval Christianity

Part 3

http://biologos.org/blog/science-and-faith-issues-in-ancient-and-medieval-christianity-part-3

by Pablo de Felipe and Robert D. Keay

December 2, 2013

The antipodeans in Medieval Christianity

Of course, flat-earthers like Lactatius or Cosmas rejected the antipodeans, seeing such as impossible, and absurd, upside down beings that could not inhabit the underneath side of our flat living space. While Cosmas exploited the lack of historical evidence and, again, abused biblical texts, Lactantius considered the antipodeans the consequence of the belief in a symmetrical distribution of people around a spheric earth, which for him was the root of madness: “Thus the rotundity of the earth leads, in addition, to the invention of those suspended antipodes.”[1] However, both shared criticisms based on a "vertical top-to-bottom view of gravity," instead of a "spherical surface-to-center view":

How is it with those who imagine that there are antipodes opposite to our footsteps? Do they say anything to the purpose? Or is there any one so senseless as to believe that there are men whose footsteps are higher than their heads? or that the things which with us are in a recumbent position, with them hang in an inverted direction? that the crops and trees grow downwards? that the rains, and snow, and hail fall upwards to the earth? […].[2]

However, acceptance of the sphericity of the earth does not automatically imply acceptance of the existence of antipodean landmasses and inhabitants on the other side of the earth. The criticisms from Augustine in City of God (composed in the 420s) became the model for Medieval Christianity, at least in the West. They were based on the absolute lack of reliable historical information on their existence (as later in Cosmas) and a denunciation that antipodeans were the result of a speculation based on imposing a symmetrical view of the planet (with inhabitants all around its surface), as Lactantius had argued (whom Augustine quoted in other contexts, but crucially, not in this discussion). It was clear that there was no realistic basis to defend the existence of landmasses on the antipodes and even less to suppose that they were inhabited by living beings, not to mention by humans. To this extent, the denial of the antipodeans was a very different thing than the denial of the sphericity of the earth. While the latter was a gross mistake that ignored the solid arguments for the sphericity that were gathered by Ancient scientists, the Augustinian criticisms of the antipodes/antipodeans were completely reasonable with the scientific/historic information he had at hand.

In the light of the above discussion, this seems to be a scientific debate with no theological implications. Unfortunately, and differently from the anti-antipodean criticisms of Lactantius, Augustine introduced a final theological argumentation in a few confusing sentences that started with the words: “For there is no falsehood of any kind in Scripture.”[3] The silence of the Bible on the existence of antipodeans was there combined with the defense of the unity of humanity (apparently challenged by the existence of humans in landmasses out of reach on the antipodes). This transformed an apparently innocent and irrelevant scientific topic into a science and faith issue for over a millennium. The debate became of great relevance in medieval cosmology, and some quarters of Christianity considered it an obligation of orthodox Christians to reject the idea of the antipodeans as opposed to the authority of the Bible. Therefore, the topic became a question of biblical authority, as with the flat earth before it and the heliocentric view after it at the hands of Cardinal Bellarmine in the 17^th century.

However, the rejection of the antipodes/antipodeans was far from being uniform among Medieval Christians. Like Cosmas’s [flat earth] attacks on Christian sphericists, the furious attacks of some Christian authors on other Christians who considered the issue of the antipodes/antipodeans worth discussing, showed that the topic would not go away easily. The speculation on these lands and people was common even in popular medieval literature, as Travels of John Mandeville (c. 1370).

The cosmological debate on the distribution of land and seas over the sphere of the earth intensified in the 15^th century in connection with the beginning of the era of geographical discoveries that started with European trips down the Western African coast. The Equator was crossed in 1473 by Portuguese sailors, who became familiar with the Southern hemisphere and its inhabitants, while Spanish sailors explored the Western American Hemisphere and completed the first trip around the Earth in 1522.

Unfortunately, this complex history has often been confused from the 18^th century onwards. As we mentioned before, many modern authors supposed that most Ancient and Medieval Christians were anti-scientific flat-earthers, while they were neither. On the other hand, the frequent (but by no means uniform) denial of the antipodes/antipodeans during the Medieval times was neither anti-scientific nor connected with a flat earth belief. Sadly, some modern authors went even further to portray Christians as flat-earthers up to Columbus’s times (as famously depicted in the fictional account by Washington Irving in 1828, A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus).[4] This confusion was at times no mistake, but part of a well-orchestrated campaign (that we are currently investigating) to discredit the influence of Christianity on science throughout the Late Ancient and Medieval centuries.[5]

Conclusion: what can we learn from these old science and faith stories?

The Ancient and Medieval debates over cosmology may seem irrelevant and at times bizarre to us now. However, this superficial response fails to recognize that they have much to teach us about the significant role of biblical hermeneutics in these matters; how Christians have approached specific scientific topics deemed to be important in the history of science; and how Christians sought to relate the Bible with these topics. Much more work is needed in the primary sources for understanding the relations between science and faith in the Ancient and Medieval Church, and it is encouraging to see more publications of scholarly works focusing on the Eastern contribution to these questions. We now offer a provisional categorization that reveals four main strands of thinking. But it should be understood that these categories are more theoretical than actual, for authors can be found in more than one category.

[Four Main Strands of Thinking]

First, probably the largest category is made up by those Church Fathers who were uninterested in matters of science. Their concern is basically with religious ideas. This is not to suggest they had a negative attitude to science, but simply that it was not their topic and they did not discuss it.

Second, there are Fathers who had some knowledge of both the Bible and Hellenistic scientific views but saw little or no conflict between the two. We might find three subcategories here:

1) Those whose specific biblical hermeneutic (i.e., Alexandrian-allegorical) taught them to read the Bible as teaching theological or spiritual ideas through mention of the natural world, such as Origen;

2) those whose general view of the Bible (Alexandrians, Antiochians, or neither) was that it was intended to be read for religious, not scientific, knowledge, such as Augustine (and later Calvin) who viewed revelation as accommodated communication for human comprehension; and,

3) those who were able to harmonize the biblical statements about nature with Hellenistic scientific views (concordism).

These categories are not necessarily exclusive, and we find that several authors converge in this category and display concordist tendencies.

Third, there are those who had some knowledge of both the Bible and Hellenistic scientific views and saw conflict between the two.

Here we find that most of these writers encounter conflict because of their specific biblical hermeneutic, a literal hermeneutic influenced by the Antiochian School. Some of these, such as Basil, offer an apologetic of the biblical texts, but do so in a restrained manner; others, such as Cosmas, take a more polemical stance and seek to discredit Hellenistic views while building a robust biblical cosmology, including such views as a box-shaped cosmos.

Finally, a fourth category includes a small number of Christians who had a very good knowledge of scientific and philosophical matters and were able to enter into a rigorous discussion of both the Bible and science. Philoponus stands out as an example here; another is probably Photius. These were able to show that Christian theology does relate to scientific matters, not in a literalistic manner of reading biblical texts for specific information about the natural world, but rather in a manner that recognizes that our understanding of God impacts our stance toward the natural world. It is from this particular view that modern science can develop, for it reflects positively on the correspondence between humanity, made in the image of God, and the created order, made by a rational intelligence, and more specifically on the trustworthiness of the human senses to gain knowledge of the physical world.

These theoretical categories, along with their exemplars, can provide models and lessons for understanding the later debates surrounding the movement of the earth, the age of the earth, the origin and diversity of species through Darwinian evolution, and the ‘Big Bang’ theory. To focus on first millennium discussions might help diffuse some of the heat and emotion surrounding the contemporary debates and also clarify the proper role of the Bible in such discussions, while also revealing strengths and exposing weaknesses of particular approaches to scientific questions.

Throughout our discussion, we would do well to follow the advice of Philoponus:

. . . let the truer position prevail: let nothing come before the truth.[6]

. . . someone honoring what is true, wherever it may be found, honors Christ, the Truth.[7]

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1. Lactantius. The Divine Institutes 3.24. In: P. Schaff (editor). The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 7, Fathers of the Third and Fourth Centuries. Edinburgh: T&T Clark and Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1886. [return to body text]
2. Idem. [return to body text]
3. Augustine, City of God 16.9. ed. R. W. Dyson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998; repr. 2001, page 710. [return to body text]
4. See J. B. Russell. Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1991. [return to body text]
5. See ref. 1. [return to body text]
6. Philoponus. Op. cit., III.17, page 132. [return to body text]
7. Idem, III.13, page 126. [return to body text]