Stephen Hawking, Multi-Universes, and God's Grander Design

God's Grander Design

by R.E. Slater

May 24, 2012

It is not enough that you should understand about applied science in order that

your work may increase man’s blessings. Concern for the man himself and his fate

must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors; concern for the

great unsolved problems of the organization of labor and the distribution of goods

in order that the creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse

to mankind. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.

- Albert Einstein

                            (http://www.bartleby.com/73/1661.html)

I have lately been re-reading Stephen Hawking's book, the Grand Design, with the purpose of re-acquainting myself with quantum physics in light of the added discoveries being made to Hawking's Big Bang singularity concept describing the quantum concepts of the "bang" itself. From which has lately been postulated a very large number of multi-universes that are being spawned within this same singular event. To this Brian Greene was recently featured in a Newsweek article describing this "singular event" as a continuing physical event spawning universes at a very rapid rate (perhaps at the rate of one per second! - although time wouldn't actually exist in this space, being warped and stretched) in a very efficient renewal of self-sustaining energy. Universes which differ from each other because each universe would have a different set of natural laws differing from not only our own cosmos, but from all of the other multi-universes being spawned as well. Universes that we cannot know, see, or test, because of self-limiting natural barriers that confines us to our own universe (unless, it is theorized, that another universe somehow "overlaps" into our own and disrupts the natural laws that we have discovered; which seems to me to be a good hypothesis to test). Universes which are being birthed from Planck-size specks of infinitesimal energy which instantaneously self-rejuvenate and rapidly inflate to span incredible cosmic distances (the size of our own universe, as example) in less than the flick of our eye lash. And then repeats itself again. And again. And again. At a very high rate of speed. It seems like science fiction. It reads like a mythic tale. But the quantum world of the multi-universe is mathematically real defying our abilities to comprehend the orders of magnitude of energy that this would require.

And with this statement comes the birth of M-theory which is a theory of all theories that cannot be resolved into a single theory of poetic elegance that was once thought possible through Einstein's General Relativity theory. It is a grand network of all irreducible quantum theories into a supercomposition of theories. Similar to the lattice-like membrane found in a sponge's internal lattice network where a multitude of mathematical formulas and quantum theories stand unresolved, but integral to one another. Each seeing a different portion of the quantum "pie" but each approaching quantum physics from a different line of perspective. And with each theory standing separate, but equal, in proposition and theoretical effect to one another. Consequently, I like to think of M-Theory as "Membrane-Theory" instead of similar intriguing linguistic derivatives of "master, miracle, magic, mystery, mystical, or even manifold (as in the Calabi-Yau manifold found in quantum strings; or even, as a manifold of M-Theories quantitatively)." Moreover, the membrane example is also useful to me for envisioning the lattice-like network of our universe's local-and-supercosmic-clusters extending in a grand web of galaxies which compose the internal structures of our universe. As well as the "membrane-like" dimensionality of vibrating torus strings folding in-and-out, and twisting-in upon themselves, that create the very substances of our physical universe (that is, its particles and forces). So that M, for membrane, can picture a lot of things necessary to an explanatory theory of our cosmos.

From M-Theory we get the scientific worlds of infinities, supergravity's supersymmetry (from which we then get torus string theory, point particles and p-branes), quantum uncertainty, curved space, quarks and forces (there are four: electro-magnetism, weak and strong nuclear, and gravitational), dimensionality and the birth of 10 to the 500 different universes each with 10 to the 500 different sets of natural laws (which is a lot). It all boils down to the observation that we live in a very unique cosmos. But apparently one that isn't so unique after all, from the viewpoint of a "singular" cosmic event that we find replicated over-and-over-and-over in a very efficient, and never-ending stream of self-propagating, very high-energy creative events called singularities. Or singular cosmogonies. Or singular infinities that leaves with us a black hole to our linguistic understanding and symbolization in grasping the intense magnitude of God's ceaseless, majestic, mysterious, miraculous, mystical creation. Wherein divine action, through chaos and indeterminacy, is birthing never-ending worlds without-end.

And this is where the wonder comes in, for we once had thought (that is, in terms of newly devised quantum theorems over the past several decades) of our universe as collapsing in upon itself by the gravitational attraction of dark matter. A substance that we can't find or isolate but can measure as roughly 23% of the known universe (it makes up 84% of the known mass-energy of our universe - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter). In cosmological terms, once the Big Bang had spewed out our universe instantaneously, it then began a 5-6 billion year journey of collapsing inwardly upon itself. However, dark energy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy) then counter-acted the force of dark matter and reversed this process over the past 7.5 billion years (roughly). What is dark energy? We don't know. But it composes 73% of the universe and works as a repulsive force that accelerates the universes' expansion outward, leading scientists to propose that all will go cold and dark in scenarios known as the Big Freeze, the Big Rip, the Big Crunch, a Heat Event, or some similar kind of catastrophic cosmic ending (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_time).

So if we do the math and add dark matter's 23% of mass-energy to dark energy's 73% m.e. we come up with 96% of the universe as unknown. Which leaves 4% that we do know (or think we know), can see, and have measured - stuff like stars, planets, galaxies, local galaxy clusters, and super-clusters. Only 4%? Apparently so. The stuff that permeates - and radiates - uniformly throughout our cosmogony we don't understand. Nor is it the same as the vacuum of space which is a quantitatively barren desert of blackness that experiences quantum fluctuations, or jitters, of particles and (force) fields quivering in-and-out of existence.... meaning that space is never empty. Nor can it carry a zero value of energy because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle but must always bear some minimal level of energy which we abstrusely call the "vacuum of space" (which seems more like an oxymoron actually) where elementary particles are in sparse existence (but virtual particles are infinitely numerous!).

What does this mean? That the Earth's evolution came from a very intricate history of cosmological inflation and formation. Without the Big Bang there would be no hydrogen, helium or lithium, the building blocks of the universe. Without stars blowing up as supernovas there would be no heavier elements used in the formation of carbon-based ecosystems. Without Earth itself absorbing the skewed collision of a Mars-sized planet there would be no Earth-moon symbiosis that gives to us Earth's rotational spin, the orbital incline around the Sun, the internal core mass of magnetic fields protecting us from cosmic radiation, or even the basic tidal / seasonal rhythms that sustains life. Without the outer planets absorbing the myriads of incoming stellar debris Earth would not exist. Without our own Milky Way in proximate constellation with Andromeda and other locally situated galaxies there would be additional correspondent fluctuations and disturbances created upon our Sun - or even the Milky Way's very own black hole sitting in the middle of it! Each of these factors tell us that we live a very delicate balance between life and lifelessness (which is yet another one of those things that we may infer from M-Theory's postulations).

Essentially this means that life on Earth developed because it could develop under these scenarios. Without those indeterminant coincidences there would be no us. And from part 1's earlier argument it has been said that this randomness is but the beauty of the creational sovereignty of God's rulership. From chaos, order. From darkness, light (Or is it from light to light?!). From nothing, all. (Which refers to ex nihilo creation; though I am beginning to re-think this paradigm in "both/and" terms but without necessarily identifying God as creation, and creation as God; which would then lead us to panentheism, which has already been discussed under the sidebars of "Theism;" which many process theologians posit but here I am positing a synthetic position called Relational Theism keeping some, but not all, of the elements of process theology). Hence, it could be said that we are a random creation bearing a random cosmic history. But when all is added up, and placed into epistemologic terms, we find rather the active activity of a Creator-God "nudging" the universe into formation so that it might bring forth living life which He may commune with, find pleasure in, and gain deep satisfaction from the work of His hands. Creating from joy (or even, from divine necessity) much like an artist creates out of the deep well-being of his soul, fashioning art to convey insight, purpose and artistic resonance from joy (or from a deep personal necessity) that reverberates within his soul of creative mastery and hollowed inspiration (meaning, us, our cosmos, and all that it contains!).

For the real mystery is that we are constituted as relational beings (science refers to man as sentient beings, which seems to be a mostly cold and impersonal pejorative). Who may walk in fellowship with the divine Godhead's co-Trinitarian fellowship, and each with the other, the finite with the infinite, the living with the everlasting. That we should not get lost in the numbers, and formulas, of scientific statements, discoveries, or arguments. But see the mystery of God through the grandness of His creation. A cosmic creation made all the grander in its design-and-outcome through astute and brilliant physicists like Stephen Hawking seeking the internal, quantum structures of natural laws, and consequently discovering the intricacies and wonders of God's natural laws, that some would deny ontologic purpose and design to. However, even agnostics and atheists cannot but declare the majesty of God's creation though they titillate on the epistemologic value of God's grander ontology and metaphysics of divine being and wisdom. Hence, if this is what we have discovered of our own known universe, can it be of any further value when inferring the wonder of God's power and depth of being? His knowledge and majesty? As Job was once asked by God, "Who darkens knowledge with words?" (Job 38.2)... So be the knowledge of man!"

In part 3, I will describe quantum indeterminacy, some aspects of quantum physics itself, and speak to probabilities and histories, all of which forms the subject lines of today's commentary but require some further examination as we continue the theme of divine action and process theology from part 1's discussion. For now, I wish only to take the discoveries of science and apply them to the larger design of our universe. One that is as mysterious as it is majestic. As convoluted as it seems plain. To envision a Godhead that is vast, fearsome, and beautiful. And to think through the incredibility of this Earth's evolution from the aspect of its wondrous cosmological origins.



Job 38

English Standard Version (ESV)

The LORD Answers Job

38 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

² “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
³ Dress for action^[a] like a man;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.

⁴ “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
⁵ Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
⁶ On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone,
⁷ when the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

⁸ “Or who shut in the sea with doors
when it burst out from the womb,
⁹ when I made clouds its garment
and thick darkness its swaddling band,
¹⁰ and prescribed limits for it
and set bars and doors,
¹¹ and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
and here shall your proud waves be stayed?’

¹² “Have you commanded the morning since your days began,
and caused the dawn to know its place,
¹³ that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth,
and the wicked be shaken out of it?
¹⁴ It is changed like clay under the seal,
and its features stand out like a garment.

¹⁵ From the wicked their light is withheld,
and their uplifted arm is broken.

¹⁶ “Have you entered into the springs of the sea,
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
¹⁷ Have the gates of death been revealed to you,
or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?
¹⁸ Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?

    Declare, if you know all this.

¹⁹ “Where is the way to the dwelling of light,
and where is the place of darkness,
²⁰ that you may take it to its territory
and that you may discern the paths to its home?
²¹ You know, for you were born then,
and the number of your days is great!


Job 40

English Standard Version (ESV)

40 And the Lord said to Job:

² “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?
He who argues with God, let him answer it.”

Job Promises Silence

³ Then Job answered the Lord and said:

⁴ “Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you?
I lay my hand on my mouth.
⁵ I have spoken once, and I will not answer;
twice, but I will proceed no further.”

* * * * * * * * * * *



continue to -

Index to past articles on "Particle Physics, Quantum Science, and the Universe"





Other related articles that I've written may be found here:

QUANTUM PHYSICS, INDETERMINACY & MULTIVERSES

Stephen Hawking: The Strangeness of Quantum Physics and Cosmic Indeterminacy, 6/27/12

Stephen Hawking, Indeterminacy, God & Quantum Physics, 5/30/12

Stephen Hawking, Multi-Universes, and God's Grander Design, 5/24/12

Process Theology - "Divine Action, Indeterminancy, and Dipolarism", 5/19/12

Stephen Hawking, The Grand Design of God and the Cosmos, 4/26/12

Seeing Indeterminancy and Randomness in God's Creation

That’s Random! A Look at Viral Self-Assembly

http://biologos.org/blog/thats-random-a-look-at-viral-self-assembly2

by Kathryn Applegate

May 16, 2012

Related topics: Math/Physics/Chemistry

"The BioLogos Forum" frequently features essays from The BioLogos Foundation's leaders and Senior Fellows. 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.

Today's entry was written by Kathryn Applegate. Kathryn Applegate is Program Director at The BioLogos Foundation. She received her PhD in computational cell biology at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif. At Scripps, she developed computer vision software tools for analyzing the cell's infrastructure, the cytoskeleton.

While the BioLogos Forum continues to bring new voices and ideas to the science and faith conversation, it is also worth looking back to essays and articles we've posted previously–especially when they touch on topics we're approaching from other angles right now. As the connected concepts of divine action, chance, and purpose in evolution are the subject of active discussion in recent posts and among our commenters, we wanted to highlight this essay from Kathryn Applegate on what randomness as a scientific concept really entails.

You hear it all the time: “That’s so random!” When used by people of my generation, the word “random” can simply mean “cool” or “surprising.” Or it can mean something like “disconnected,” as in the phrase, “I had a random thought” (which returns 189,000 hits on Google, by the way—random!).

Despite this usage, most of us know that randomness has something to do with probability, and that it often implies a lack of conscious intentionality. But what do mathematicians and scientists mean when they say something is random? Can a random process lead to an ordered, even predictable outcome? Is there evidence that God makes use of random processes to fulfill his creative purposes?

These are big questions, and we won’t address them all today. But I think randomness is an important topic to cover for two reasons: 1) it is integral to many processes in biology (and math, physics, chemistry, etc.), and 2) it is commonly misunderstood to be incompatible with Christianity.

As I said above, most of us know that randomness has something to do with probability. If you pick a card “at random” from a shuffled deck, you have a small probability of drawing an ace (4 out of 52, or a 7.7% chance). If you flip a coin, you have an equal probability of getting heads or tails.

Randomness also seems to imply a lack of intentionality or purposefulness. After all, you might hope for an ace when you draw a card, but you can’t choose one on purpose. You might call heads when you flip a coin, but you can’t know beforehand what the outcome will be. Thus the outcome is indeterminate, but is it purposeless? Not necessarily. Indeterminacy simply means the result cannot be predicted from the outset.

It should be noted that indeterminacy does not imply that God does not have foreknowledge of future events. Christians ought not to be uncomfortable with the idea of God interacting with his creation through chance. We often describe a seemingly-random (i.e. unplanned by us) sequence of events as being “providential,” or planned by God. A good introduction to the way divine action could drive physical processes can be found in this Question.

In biology, it is very hard or impossible to calculate precise probabilities for most processes, so when we say a process is random, we typically mean it is extremely unpredictable. Eventually we will discuss randomness within biological evolution, but first we must consider some simpler processes, like the self-assembly of a virus.

Viruses are remarkably efficient entities. Coiled tightly within a protein-based shell is a small amount of DNA needed for self-replication. The shell, called a capsid, is made of many repeating protein subunits and is therefore highly symmetrical (see figure). Important biomedical insights have certainly been gleaned from structural studies of viruses, but viruses also teach us about the emergence of order from non-order.

The virus life cycle has four main steps: 1) enter a host cell, 2) hijack the cell’s replication and translation machinery to make many copies of itself, 3) assemble into many virus particles, and 4) exit the cell to invade another host.

When I first learned about this process, I found it very hard to believe it just “happens.” The idea that a bunch of molecules bumping into each other inside a crowded cell could spontaneously assembly into a fully-functional virus seemed a bit far-fetched. Many viral capsids have over 100 protein subunits that must interact with each other in just the right way, or it won’t work. Surely there must be something driving this process, right?

There is! Random motion. I had to see it to believe it. I distinctly remember sitting in class during my first year of graduate school when the professor demonstrated self-assembly of a virus using a 3D model as shown in the following video. In less than 30 seconds, you can watch a jumbled heap of proteins become a beautifully ordered structure.

self assembling virus

As the narrator explains, sub-assemblies form and break apart en route to the most stable structure, the full capsid. As the sub-assemblies begin to form, further associations with free subunits become more favorable and as a result occur rapidly, while the final steps may take considerably longer. While the subunits in the model are rigid, in reality the proteins take on multiple conformations, allowing the capsid to “breathe.”

Amazing as it is, the system we just considered—one virus capsid in a jar—is pretty simple. One wonders how self-assembly can happen in a crowded cell, where there are countless other molecules diffusing around, potentially getting in the way. We can’t directly see how it happens in a cell, but we can reconstitute the process in a test tube using different combinations of constituent molecules.

Consider two viruses, where each protein subunit in one virus is the mirror image of the corresponding subunit in the other. Putting the two viruses together by hand would be pretty tricky, because the constituent parts look so similar. But random motion can do the job in short order:

chiral resolution of virus models

From this model, we can see clearly, in real-time, how distinct complex structures can arise from their parts randomly interacting with one another. Many large viruses also use special scaffolding proteins to assist in the assembly process, and some even use their own genomes as a scaffold. In addition, two closely-related viruses that happen to infect the same cell can exchange parts to create a new virus. This is one way viruses can evolve quickly to evade the host’s immune system.

Here we have seen how viruses demonstrate a principle inherent in God’s world—that order can emerge out of chaos from random processes. In my next post, we will look at some other biological processes that make use of—rather, depend on—randomness. This will set the stage for us to see that such processes can not only assemble a structure within seconds or minutes, but also generate complex, information-bearing molecules over billions of years. Even though the freedom inherent in nature sometimes produces unintelligently-designed structures (like viruses, which can kill us), we see that God has made, and continues to oversee by his providence, a good creation that, at least in part, is capable of creating itself.

continue to -

Index to past articles on "Particle Physics, Quantum Science, and the Universe"

N.T. Wright asks: Have we gotten heaven all wrong?




Christian apologist N.T. Wright's insistence that Christianity has got it all wrong seems to mark a turning point for the serious rethinking of heaven.
http://www.religionnews.com/faith/doctrine-and-practice/N.T.-Wright-asks-Have-we-gotten-heaven-all-wrong

by John Murawski
May 6, 2012
Comments

(RNS) The oft-cliched Christian notion of heaven -- a blissful realm of harp-strumming angels -- has remained a fixture of the faith for centuries. Even as arguments will go on as to who will or won't be "saved," surveys show that a vast majority Americans believe that after death their souls will ascend to some kind of celestial resting place.

But scholars on the right and left increasingly say that comforting belief in an afterlife has no basis in the Bible and would have sounded bizarre to Jesus and his early followers. Like modern curators patiently restoring an ancient fresco, scholars have plumbed the New Testament's Jewish roots to challenge the pervasive cultural belief in an otherworldly paradise.

The most recent expert to add his voice to this chorus is the prolific Christian apologist N.T. Wright, a former Anglican bishop who now teaches about early Christianity and New Testament at Scotland's University of St. Andrews. Wright has explored Christian misconceptions about heaven in previous books, but now devotes an entire volume, "How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels," to this trendy subject.

Wright's insistence that Christianity has got it all wrong seems to mark a turning point for the serious rethinking of heaven. He's not just another academic iconoclast bent on debunking Christian myths. Wright takes his creeds very seriously and has even written an 800-plus-page megaton study setting out to prove the historical truth of the resurrection of Jesus.

"This is a very current issue -- that what the church, or what the majority conventional view of heaven is, is very different from what we find in these biblical testimonies," said Christopher Morse of Union Theological Seminary in New York. "The end times are not the end of the world -- they are the beginning of the real world -- in biblical understanding."

Still, the appearance of a recent cover story in Time magazine suggests that putting-the-heaven-myth-to-rest movement is gaining currency beyond the academy. Wright and Morse say they have both made presentations on heaven research at local churches and have been surprised by the public interest and acceptance.

"An awful lot of ordinary church-going Christians are simply millions of miles away from understanding any of this," Wright said.

Wright and Morse work independently of each other and in very different ideological settings, but their work shows a remarkable convergence on key points. In classic Judaism and first-century Christianity, believers expected this world would be transformed into God's Kingdom -- a restored Eden where redeemed human beings would be liberated from death, illness, sin and other corruptions.

"This represents an instance of two top scholars who have apparently grown tired of talk of heaven on the part of Christians that is neither consistent with the New Testament nor theologically coherent," said Trevor Eppehimer of Hood Theological Seminary in North Carolina. "The majority of Christian theologians today would recognize that Wright and Morse's views on heaven represent, for the most part, the basic New Testament perspective on heaven."

First-century Jews who believed Jesus was Messiah also believed he inaugurated the Kingdom of God and were convinced the world would be transformed in their own lifetimes, Wright said. This inauguration, however, was far from complete and required the active participation of God's people practicing social justice, nonviolence and forgiveness to become fulfilled.

Once the Kingdom is complete, he said, the bodily resurrection will follow with a fully restored creation here on earth. "What we are doing at the moment is building for the Kingdom," Wright explained.

Indeed, doing God's Kingdom work has come to be known in Judaism as "tikkun olam," or "repairing the world." This Hebrew phrase is a "close cousin" to the ancient beliefs embraced by Jesus and his followers, Wright said.

"It's the recovery of the Jewish basis of the Gospels that enables us to say this," Wright said. "We are so fortunate in this generation that we understand more about first-century Judaism than Christian scholarship has for a very long time. And when you do that, you realize just how much was forgotten quite soon in the early church, certainly in the first three or four centuries."

Christianity gradually lost contact with its Jewish roots as it spread into the gentile world. On the idea of heaven, things really veered off course in the Middle Ages, Wright said.

"Our picture, which we get from Dante and Michelangelo, particularly of a heaven and a hell, and perhaps of a purgatory as well, simply isn't consonant with what we find in the New Testament," Wright said. "A lot of these images of hellfire and damnation are actually pagan images which the Middle Ages picks up again and kind of wallows in."

Wright notes that many clues to an early Christian understanding of the Kingdom of heaven are preserved in the New Testament, most notably the phrase "your will be done on earth as it is in heaven," from the Lord's Prayer. Two key elements are forgiveness of debts and loving one's neighbor.

While heaven is indisputably God's realm, it's not some distantly remote galaxy hopelessly removed from human reality. In the ancient Judaic worldview, Wright notes, the two dimensions intersect and overlap so that the divine bleeds over into this world.

Other clues have been obscured by sloppy translations, such as the popular John 3:16, which says God so loved the world he gave his only son so that people could have "eternal life."

Wright offers a translation that radically recasts the message and shows how the passage would have been heard in the first century. To hear it today is to experience the shock of the new: God gave his son "so that everyone who believes in him should not be lost but should share in the life of God's new age."

"And so it's not a Platonic, timeless eternity, which is what we were all taught," Wright said. "It is very definitely that there will come a time when God will utterly transform this world -- that will be the age to come."

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N.T. Wright - How God Became King

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/01/nt-wright-how-god-became-king.html


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N.T. Wright, Scripture & the Authority of God - "How to Read Scripture"

continued from -

N.T. Wright, Scripture & the Authority of God

"Enlightenment, Postmodernism, and Misreading Scripture"

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/05/nt-wright-on-enlightenment.html


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Wright's 5 Recommendations

for Reading Scripture Today
http://rachelheldevans.com/wright-5-recommendations-scripture

by Rachel Held Evans

May 21, 2012

Comments

It’s Monday, which means it’s time to continue our series on learning to love the Bible for what it is, not what we want it to be.

As part of the series, we’re working our way through several books, and have already discussed The Bible Made Impossible by Christian Smith. Up next up is Inspiration and Incarnation, by Peter Enns. But currently, we’re discussing Scripture and the Authority of God by N.T. Wright, and today I want to discuss Chapter 8, entitled, “How to Get Back on Track.”

Wright really picks up the pace with this chapter, which begins with a reminder to readers of what he means when he talks about “the authority of scripture.”

The authority of scripture...

“The whole of my argument so far leads to the following major conclusion,” says Wright, “that the shorthand phrase ‘the authority of scripture,’ when unpacked, offers a picture of God’s sovereign and saving plan for the entire cosmos, dramatically inaugurated by Jesus himself, and now to be implemented through the Spirit-led life of the church precisely as the scripture-reading community...We read scripture in order to be refreshed in our memory and understanding of the story within which we ourselves are actors, to be reminded where it has come from and where it is going to, and hence what our own part within it ought to be.”

According to Wright, “this means that ‘the authority of scripture’ is most truly put into operation as the church goes to work in the world on behalf of the gospel.”

One thing I’ve appreciated about Wright’s approach in this book is the emphasis he places on dynamic, spirit-led activity—the call to God’s people to join in God’s work of redemption, reconciliation, peace-making, and creative activity in the world. This way of speaking about the authority of Scripture stands in contrast to how it is often spoken of among Christians, as a phrase invoked to shut down conversation and bolster one particular interpretation of Scripture. (For example: “I don’t believe in evolution because, unlike you, I believe in the authority of scripture.”)

To me, Wright’s approach makes the most sense of 2 Timothy 3:16: “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

The authority of scripture affects the work of God’s kingdom, “at every level, from the cosmic and political through the personal,” says Wright. “Though this can happen in the supposed ‘desert island’ situation,’ where an individual reads the Bible all alone,” he says, “it normally comes about through the work of God’s people, from those who translated and published the Bible itself (even on a desert island, one is dependent on others!) to those who, like Philip with the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8, helped others to understand it and apply it to their own lives.”

In other words, the Bible is intended to be read, wrestled with, applied, debated, cherished, and celebrated in community.

Tradition....

Honoring the authority of scripture means living in dialog with previous readings and respecting tradition, Wright says. Those Christians who have come before us may have been wrong about some things, he notes, but “every key figure in the history of the church has left his, her or its mark on subsequent readings of scripture.”

“Paying attention to tradition means listening carefully (humbly but not uncritically) to how the church has read and lived scripture in the past. We must be constantly aware of our responsibility, in the Communion of Saints, without giving our honored predecessors the final say or making them an ‘alternative source,’ independent of scripture itself.”

This approach reminds me a little of Scot McKnight’s approach in The Blue Parakeet, where he encourages Christians to read scripture with tradition, not merely through it.

Reason...

Honoring reason in the reading of scripture means “giving up merely arbitrary or whimsical readings of texts, and paying attention to lexical, historical considerations,” says Wright. This keeps us from accepting readings that propose, for example, that Jesus was really an Egyptian freemason or that the book of Mark is about overcoming alcoholism. (Apparently, these views can be found in actual published books!)

In other words, the interpretation should make sense.

Honoring reason also means “giving attention to, and celebrating, the many and massive discoveries in biology, archaeology, physics, astronomy, and so on, which shed great light on God’s world and the human condition,” says Wright....

And it means engaging in civil, reasonable discourse. “This is why public discussions and debates, rather than shouting matches, are such an urgent requirement, says Wright. “Far too much discourse on contentious issues has consisted of rhetorical moves designed to wipe one’s opponent’s pieces off the board before the game has begun...Reasoned discourse is part of God’s alternative way of living, over against that of violence and chaos."

A good reminder.

Five recommendations...

Wright concludes with a five-part recommendation for approaching scripture today:

1. A totally contextual reading of scripture: “Each word must be understood within its own verse, each verse within its on chapter, each chapter within its own book, and each book within its own historical, cultural, and indeed canonical setting,” says Wright. A contextual reading of scripture also means understanding and appreciating our own contexts and the way they predispose us to “highlight some things in the Bible and quietly ignore others,” Wright adds. “Such a contextual reading is in fact an incarnational reading of scripture, paying attention to the full humanity both of the text and its readers. This must be undertaken in the prayer that the ‘divinity’—the ‘inspiration’ of scripture, and the Spirit’s power at work within the Bible-reading church—will thereby be discovered afresh.” (Love that.) This is an exhilarating process that will never be finished, Wright says, (with all the enthusiasm and joy of someone who truly loves his job as a biblical scholar).

2. A liturgically-grounded reading of scripture: “The primary place where the church hears scripture is during corporate worship,” says Wright. “This means, we must work at making sure we read scripture properly in public, with appropriate systems for choosing what to read and appropriate training to make sure those who read do so to best effect.” Anglican worship, (to which Wright is certainly partial!), at its best, serves as a “showcase for scripture” in which “the authority of God places a direct challenge to the authority of the powers that be,” and in which the reading of scripture together in community is itself an act of worship. (Wright offers some specific suggestions for preserving a liturgically-grounded reading of scripture—including warnings against dropping certain portions of scripture from liturgical readings because they are startling or strange, as well as warnings against making sermons the focus of corporate worship— that we don’t have time to discuss in detail here.)

3. A privately studied reading of scripture: “For all of this to make the deep, life-changing, Kingdom-advancing sense it is supposed to,” Wright says, “it is vital that ordinary Christians read, encounter, and study scripture for themselves, in groups and individually.” Wright notes that Western individualism tends to highlight individual reading as the primary mode, and liturgical reading as secondary, where he sees the two working hand-in-hand.

4. A reading of scripture refreshed by appropriate scholarship: “Biblical scholarship is a great it of God to the church, aiding it in its task of going ever deeper into the meaning of scripture and so being refreshed and energized for the tasks to which we are called in and for the world,” says Wright. This means honoring the “literal sense” of scripture—not by taking everything literally, but rather seeking to understand what the writer intended. Biblical scholarship can help Christians do this better, and therefore “needs to be free to explore different meanings.” Such scholarship needs to be accessible and applicable to everyday Christians.

5. A reading of scripture taught by the church’s accredited leaders: Leaders must be trained and encouraged to keep the teaching and preaching of scripture at the heart of the church’s life, “alongside and regularly interwoven with the sacramental life focused on the Eucharist,” says Wright.

I think these are strong recommendations. I especially appreciate Wright’s emphasis on both individual and corporate readings of scripture. This is one reason why I love combining Episcopal worship on Sundays, with good, old-fashioned Bible studies on weeknights, with private “quiet time” with my Bible and a book of hours each morning and/or evenings. For me, this represents the best of all worlds, and powerfully integrates scripture into my daily life. (Too bad I rarely engage them all in a given week!)

What do you think of Wright’s five recommendations?

Where do you see your own church tradition excelling, and where do you see it falling short?

Process Theology - "Divine Action, Indeterminacy, and Dipolarism"

Religion without science is confined; it fails to be completely open to reality.

Science without religion is incomplete; it fails to attain the deepest possible understanding.

- John C. Polkinghorne, Science and Creation:

The Search for Understanding, (Boston: New Science Library, 1989), 117.

"Of Being and Becoming" in the

Process World of Mediation and Experience

by R.E. Slater

May 19, 2012

Process theology is a way of viewing divine action. As such, would it be more correct to say that by divine action God would deny the universe its freedom to become? Or that through divine action the universe is allowed every opportunity to become? Or that God's divine action is of no importance whether the universe becomes or not. It is of no consequence and the universe simply runs on its own with or without God?

The first view is one of bleak pessimism and cosmic austerity. Or perhaps the competing view that the universe has already attained a completed state of fullness. As such, we are living out the remaining remnants of time caught within the impersonal machinery of cause-and-effect without regard to the ideas of meaning, of poetic evolvement, or of a future hope moving towards some thing, some idea or reason. The second view is the more common Christian view that sees present day processes as incomplete and unfulfilled. It is a more hopeful cosmic view of progress and evolvement. While the latter view is usually attributed to the atheistic view in bald denial of anything divine or holy. However, the agnostic would take no position at all and leave it as a running debate.

Ideally, science as an objective discipline and methodology, could be considered agnostic to these philosophical questions. And yet, if left in the hands of the theologian would see God in the process. Whereas science in the hands of a disbeliever would only see natural laws without a spark of divinity to be found anywhere at all. However, it would be fair to say that most scientists apply the agnostic methodology to their work; and it is imagined that both the theistic and atheistic scientist would likewise apply this more common perspective to their labor, and only afterwards import their personal reflections and philosophies upon the results. Or better yet, simply leave it to the theologian and philosopher to debate.

Hence, given these introductory views could one then assume freedom to be inherent at all levels of creation, or that there is no such freedom within creation and all is deterministic? In other words, is the universe lively with creative opportunity? Or is it a cold, dark, mechanistic machine ticking away on its own clock and rhythm? Curiously, this time around it is the theist who would claim that all is determined (sic, Calvinism's theological system of austere Sovereignty). But (agnostic) science has shown time-and-again that all has been indetermined, leaving the widest possible opportunity for anything to occur at any moment. Curiously, it is the theist this time that sees God, or His creation, as the machine, and the scientist who sees the universe lively with creative freedom.

But if we admit to a divine action that allows the universe a freedom to become, and if that freedom is inherently indetermined at all levels of creation, than does this mean that divine action can be regarded as insignificant? Or, significant? In other words, is it plausible to say that without divine action nothing can become. That all is deterministic. And that divine action is without effect? The non-theist would mostly shout, Aye! But to the process theologian this would not be the case.

For it is the premise of process theology that God, through divine action, provides the widest array of unique possibilities to the universe at each given moment on its journey towards becoming; that He will actively encourage those creational possibilities that align with His divine will and vision to be chosen; and that He responds accordingly depending on which possibility is chosen. Hence, divine action mediates over creational opportunities inherent within the creational process of becoming. It is indeterministic but wholly significant for the accomplishment of divine will and vision.

But neither does this infer that divine action may only act in one direction. Depending on the level of complexity of a specific actuality in creation, divine action may indeed reflect a basic determinism while at other levels (such as is found in evolution, or in the human consciousness) it may be highly indeterministic. Process thought affirms variable divine action on all levels.

And most importantly, process thought affirms that God's nature changes like everything else. And yet, the better question to ask is what do we mean by this? For the answer can only be both yes-and-no. And this is the famous dipolarism that is found in process theism for on the one pole God does, and will, change in response to the universe as it evolves (and resolves) towards His holy purposes. And as it changes so God Himself will change in His experiences with the changes that are occurring. This is no less different from our own experience as imaged in God's image... as our world changes about us, so do we change in our relationship with that world. Whether from the perspective of maturing from an infant to an adult. Or in our academic prowess and acumen educationally. Or in our experiences of love and death, suffering and pain, fairness and injustice. We respond to each and every experience as God's image bearers and we should expect no less of God whose very image responds to all the universe's livelihood to all that it contains.

Similarly, residing on the other ontological pole of God is His eternal character and divine vision that remains resolute providing to the universe the infinite possibilities of being and becoming. Of opportunities of aligning with His divine vision of full and uncharted freedom to become grounded in His eternal being. So that, on this half of the equation, God remains the same in His essence. He remains creative, loving, persuasive, redemptive, eternal in all that He is. But because of this dipolar arrangement, even God Himself is becoming like everything else in the universe and is no more static, nor no less dynamic, than creation itself.

And so we see instances of the variableness of God's mind to Moses as He repents of the destruction He would bring upon His people Israel. Or revokes, and then invokes, His covenant with Israel as they disobey at one moment and then repent at the next. Causing God to be angry one moment, while at the next He relents in response to Israel's rent heart at their sin and repentance laced with grief and pain. Like a loving parent, God acts and reacts to His children. He grows up with them as they mature in their faith, trust and hope. Each experiences the other in new ways unthought and unprecedented. From experiences of slavery to becoming a federated group of bonded tribes. From a promising nation-state to an impoverished exilic people. From the joys of liberation from the bonds of a conquering enemy to the remorseful renewal of covenantal faith. From the rejection of God's Son, Israel's hoped-for Messiah, to faith in the hope of salvation that God's Messiah brings. Dithering from experiences of oppression and persecution, to great joy and triumph. Even as the early church responded to God's salvation by its own experiences of great joy and spiritual redemption later attested by its historic charters, popular confessions and public admissions. At every moment God experiences the pangs and joys of His people (and, generally, of the world in the throes of sin and death, life and recreation).

Thus we should expect no less in our (post)modern times of civilization as societies from around the world are bound closer together in renewal of all that it means to be humanity. By accepting and embracing the turmoil that will come within the ever-expanding worlds of multi-ethnic globalism, the rich and variegated experiences of pluralism coupled with societal individualities, and the technological solidifications rapidly expanding globally throughout all the regions of the world.

Whether we admit this or not, the reality for the Christian is that there is a God. That He has not left us to ourselves. That there is a divine purpose in all things. Just as there is an inherent rebellion in all things towards His purposes because of sin and sin's darkness. That in the chaos there is order. That through chaos order is being restored even though it is similarly left in place. That we live in a uniquely free universe that is allowed choice at every level. A choice of freedom that is inherently indeterministic but following patterns of regularity-and-form within each of those same levels. That the eternal God who is Creator of this universe is likewise experiencing with us the chaotic renewal of divine purpose and plan within the creative order of blessing and shalom. A God  who is maximizing the potential for every discordant possibility to find eternal completion within His own eternal being, presence, and fellowship.

In part 2 we will examine process theology through the lens of science by examining quantum physics from a renowned physicist who states quite flatly that divine action is not needed in the functioning of the universe. That it has within itself its own order, freedom and inherent possibilities. That natural laws require no God. No divine action. No holy word from the divine. That all is set from within itself. And that humanity is the temporary beneficiary of a grand cosmogony started on its own, ending on its own, and transforming on its own. With no singular beginning. And with infinite possibilities of becoming through the infinite arrangement of simultaneous multi-universes. To that quantum world of being we'll travel. One that I look forward to thinking through and reviewing. Stay tuned....

* * * * * * * * * *


continue to -

Index to past articles on "Particle Physics, Quantum Science, and the Universe"






Other related articles that I've written may be found here:

QUANTUM PHYSICS, INDETERMINACY & MULTIVERSES

Stephen Hawking: The Strangeness of Quantum Physics and Cosmic Indeterminacy, 6/27/12

Stephen Hawking, Indeterminacy, God & Quantum Physics, 5/30/12

Stephen Hawking, Multi-Universes, and God's Grander Design, 5/24/12

Process Theology - "Divine Action, Indeterminancy, and Dipolarism", 5/19/12

Stephen Hawking, The Grand Design of God and the Cosmos, 4/26/12