Modern Cosmology, Biology and Christianity
(Tangent from the Cremated Remains thread)
We live in a universe which has developed along naturalistic lines for billions of years and shows no signs of not continuing to do so for billions more.
The universe consists of trillions of stars across millions of galaxies spread across millions of light years of space.
Human beings have existed for a hundred thousand years or so (depending on what you define as human)
People's personalities can be totally changed by chemical and physical changes in their brains.
However, Christian theology developed in a cosmology where the Earth was central and unique. Special. Human beings were the crown of a creation centered on that earth. Sun, moon and stars existed to give light and to show the times and seasons.
And those humans were physical beings embodying immortal souls. Our emotions, wants and desires, our wills and true selves were located in that soul.
So Christian theology developed assuming a cosmology and biology that doesn't match what we now know.
This gives me problems in some specific areas.
Exclusivity - humanity has existed for at least a hundred thousand years, depending on definitions. In that time we must have had more religious beliefs, gods and rituals than you can shake a stick at wax and wane. Is it really one of the major ones that happens to be current that is the true one? It seems a remarkable claim. This worryingly leads to an observation that I'm not the first to make - it's impossible for all religions to be true, but it's possible for them all to be false.
The Eschaton - a supernaturally created world created specifically for us a little before we arrived on it in a small universe centred upon it - it makes perfect sense that the God who created it will usher in a completely new creation on a human timescale.
But our universe has already a future. In billions of years time, our sun will become a red giant either swallowing or scorching the earth. Billions of years later the universe itself either dies a heat death or starts to collapse in a big crunch. Does Christ's return affect Earth only? Or does it herald the sudden supernatural ending of the entire current physical universe?
That's just the cosmological questions.
We live in a universe which has developed along naturalistic lines for billions of years and shows no signs of not continuing to do so for billions more.
The universe consists of trillions of stars across millions of galaxies spread across millions of light years of space.
Human beings have existed for a hundred thousand years or so (depending on what you define as human)
People's personalities can be totally changed by chemical and physical changes in their brains.
However, Christian theology developed in a cosmology where the Earth was central and unique. Special. Human beings were the crown of a creation centered on that earth. Sun, moon and stars existed to give light and to show the times and seasons.
And those humans were physical beings embodying immortal souls. Our emotions, wants and desires, our wills and true selves were located in that soul.
So Christian theology developed assuming a cosmology and biology that doesn't match what we now know.
This gives me problems in some specific areas.
Exclusivity - humanity has existed for at least a hundred thousand years, depending on definitions. In that time we must have had more religious beliefs, gods and rituals than you can shake a stick at wax and wane. Is it really one of the major ones that happens to be current that is the true one? It seems a remarkable claim. This worryingly leads to an observation that I'm not the first to make - it's impossible for all religions to be true, but it's possible for them all to be false.
The Eschaton - a supernaturally created world created specifically for us a little before we arrived on it in a small universe centred upon it - it makes perfect sense that the God who created it will usher in a completely new creation on a human timescale.
But our universe has already a future. In billions of years time, our sun will become a red giant either swallowing or scorching the earth. Billions of years later the universe itself either dies a heat death or starts to collapse in a big crunch. Does Christ's return affect Earth only? Or does it herald the sudden supernatural ending of the entire current physical universe?
That's just the cosmological questions.
Comments
In fact the ancients DID know that the earth is basically insignificant in terms of the universe, distances, size, and so forth. They had the astronomical and mathematical knowledge to work this out, though they got the exact figures wrong--still, huge is huge, isn't it?
They also did not think of earth and humanity as the important center of the universe. In the medieval cosmological setup, that was God himself (or the devil, if you prefer the physical setup). Earth and humanity were basically "suburban" as Lewis puts it--the angels (of which there were many kinds) were higher than us, and more central, in the moral setup; and in the physical setup, the closer you were to the center, the closer you were to a garbage dump. It was not an enviable place to be (See Dante's setup). In either set-up, humanity is not centrally important. We're kind of off to the side.
There’s a lot there!
A few brief thoughts about the beginning and the end.
So far as the beginning is concerned the scientific world view not just challenges but effectively disproves the view that the universe and the world are about 6000 years old. Thats a big issue for some people but not for me and most Christians I know. The Creation story (or stories) in the Bible are read allegorically or as poetic myths. They say that God made everything including us.
The bigger challenge is to the doctrine of the Fall, the view that all was perfect, no death nor sin before the disobedience of the first human beings. Creatures have been living and dying on the world since the very start of life. It didnt require an act of human disobedience to introduce death.
Christian’s come to terms with that in various ways. Mostly they agree that human behaviour in this world is a problematic mixture of hate and love, violence and peaceful co-operation and the world would be a better place if human behaviour was better. Personally I prefer the Orthodox language of ancestral sin. Other comments should be interesting!
End Times. Fundamentally the idea that at some point God wraps things up. Which indeed is in sharp contrast to the natural prediction of what will happen to the sun in a few hundred million years. As an author I remember put it, so far as the end times go, Christian’s seem to argue the most about matters which by their very nature they can know the least.
Whatever does happen, it does not contradict the view that the Creator of this amazing universe has the power and the ability to wrap it up when it suits him. That presupposes a Creator of course.
In the light of this complex and many sided view what’s so special about human beings? Absolutely nothing. Unless the Creator for His own reasons thinks there is.
Anyway @KarlB, that’s my starter for 10.
Buddhism and Shankari Hinduism are equally developments from the polytheism of the Mahabharata and the Upanishads. They seem incompatible with Christianity, but they said that about Aristotelian philosophy too. Christian-Buddhist-Hindu religious dialogue still waits it's Aquinas.
Yes, all religions might be false. That's Paschal's Wager.
Isn't the Paschal Wager a horse race at Easter?
Morality?
That depends on having numinous or transcendental experiences.
It's not that I don't believe in numinous or transcendent experiences, rather that they aren't going to cut much ice with atheists.
I'd tend to simply present what I believe - or don't believe as they often assume that all believers are Six-Day Creationists - and leave it at that.
But an emotional appeal is not a logical appeal. If a one-time major event like the Christ event actually does take place, it has to happen somewhere and somewhen, in some particular species. And certainly whatever species happens to be the one, is going to have individuals offering just these same arguments for why it couldn't possibly be "us, here and now"--because emotionally, it seems silly to think that humble, lowly "we" could be that close to the central event in all existence.
And yet, someone has to be in that place. If it really happened, some species is going to be rubbing its eyeballs (or the equivalent), and doubting, and saying it couldn't possibly be them. But it IS them. Whether it's sheer random luck or divine choice, it's them that the Christ event happened to, the event that shakes the universe and alters its future so greatly.
Grant that and the question becomes, Why NOT us? If it had to happen to some species, why NOT ours?
Hosting the Christ event is not an honor, though everybody talks as if it were. The species that hosts that event, that becomes the way through which God enters Creation and becomes incarnate--well, it's just as likely that the reason it was chosen by God for that position is because it is exceptionally needy. Indeed this is what Scripture tells us--that the reason God became human (and not, for instance, Malacandrian or Vulcan) is because the human species became corrupted. God chose us because he pitied us, not because we were so wonderful and honored and central. And if THIS is the case, it becomes easier, at least for me, to believe that my species was chosen for this particular blessing, and that the renovation of the cosmos will start from here. Because God's personality is always to have mercy, and if a species (out of the zillions that may exist) is in deep, deep, trouble, it's totally understandable that he should pick them as his launching pad, so to speak. Because he has a bent toward helping the ones most in need. And looking around me at my species, I can definitely see how terribly needy we are, and desperately in need of What God actually did.
If we're the only fallen rational species, does that affect the whole universe? Is all creation awaiting renewal as a result?
Amen to this, and to what some others here have said.
It certainly LOOKS like that's what Paul is saying here, in Romans 8:
I don't mean about the "only fallen species." We have no way of knowing if others have fallen or not, and if so, whether there might be degrees in fallen-ness, if you see what I mean. God may have come to us because we were the worst. He may have come to us because we were the first, and thus the evil effects of our fall are showing themselves in the most suffering. Who knows?
But even if we ARE the only fallen species, it would be entirely like God to use that as his "excuse" ("occasion" might be the better term) to remake, renovate, everything. And we can see even on our own planet that the innocent creation which did not sin still shares in death. It clearly needs remaking--and more than that, glorifying.
Here's the point where I have to bite the bullet and say what most Westerners don't want to hear: That the Bible tells us we are not in fact the first species to sin, we are at least the second. The first would be the angels, and their fall led directly to ours. In some ways their fall appears to be worse and deeper than ours--we were tempted, they appear not to have been; we fell in Eden on earth, they in heaven itself, in the presence of God. And it may well be that their fall and not ours is responsible for the death, death, death that we see in the fossil record, going back to before the origin of humankind. The ancients believed (rightly or wrongly) that God entrusted the care and governance of the various worlds to angels--tutelary angels, as they are called. If one of these went wrong--fell--we should expect to see the results of it in the world that angel governed. Generally speculation is that our tutelary angel fell, and is the person now known as Satan, the adversary. But he was once good and beautiful.
Naturally this leads to questions of how the Christ event affects the fallen angels, and whether there is redemption for them--or for some of them. Scripture is mostly quiet on the subject. Jesus does refer to a place of punishment "prepared for the devil and his angels," but he does not say "all his angels." Nor does he in fact state that that place will be occupied--and with Jesus, you have to watch his exact wording and never make assumptions, because he's tricky that way. In any case, that comes in a parable, and it's about the judgement of human beings, not angels--so he isn't about to tell us a great deal about angelic affairs. God seems to value privacy between species; we know very little about the angels (naturally higher than us) or the animals (lower than us), and about questions like "What happens when they die? Where do they go? Are they saved or not?" and so forth and so on. "Nobody gets told any story but their own," and we know only as much of the angels--or the animals--as pertains to our own story and destiny.
But back to "all creation awaiting renewal." To tell the truth, I find it easier to believe that God would take occasion from our own fall and desperate need to renew the cosmos, than to believe that God would do so mighty a thing, and humble himself so far, and have it affect only a single species, while everyone else goes totally unaffected. Something like the Incarnation OUGHT to affect all things, or so I feel. (Yes, this is an emotional argument.)
So yes, I could see him further glorifying his already gorgeous work as a result of the Christ event. And to the extent that any of it needs actual redemption as a result of being involved in either Fall, it would make sense for it to participate in the Christ event (rather than, say, having a separate, repeated Christ event of its own). If God intends to renew the cosmos, it has to start somewhere. Why not with the planet that is clearly in horrible need? And having started there, why not have the ripple effects of that redemption spread out to everything else that exists, causing universal blessing and joy?
But all this hypothecating is what gives me the problems. It seems we have to propose shims to save the narrative that was really simple when it all started in a garden a few thousand years ago.
tldr: I doubt there is a human culture for which all true stories are easily understood. I'm adding the "true" in there because I don't even want to get into the whole area of "this is true for me but not for you" or "this contains truth, but not that kind of truth" or whatever. Just straight up I'm saying, different cultures complicate everything.
We can recognize our universe is vast and ancient. Some would argue we are not the only universe, for that matter. But Christianity sees God's action as relational, not spatial.
Yes, humans have evolved, and we are embodied beings. Personally I have problems with the idea we have an immortal soul. Just me. Still one of those unknowns. But the Christian message adapts by reading the creation stories mythically (not allegorically)*. We focus on our moral brokenness, not our biological origins.
The universe has a natural future, and scientists can give us a general road map of what is going to happen. Christianity adapts by seeing renewal as cosmic transformation, not the interruption of physics.
Yes, there are many religions. We need to see the hidden God as distributed through them. But we proclaim God is fully revealed in Christ.
When I consider the heavens. the works of God's fingers, I too ask what is man that God is mindful on him? Christianity tells me my significance is bestowed, not earned.
For me, modern cosmology and biology do not destroy Christianity--they push it toward a deeper, more cosmic, more relational and a less literal understanding of creation, humanity and the universe.
*Just a word about the difference between myth and allegory.
A myth is a functional story that expresses truth through narratives. Myths help explain way the world is the way it is; why humans are the way we are; how evil, and suffering came to be, and how God relates to creation. Myths are truths expressed in story form.
An allegory is a story in which elements symbolize something else, It is intentionally constructed to teach a lesson through symbolic correspondence.
Myth explains reality.
Allegory illustrates a point
The Genesis creation stories are not allegory. They are not coded stories were something stands for something else. They do not teach moral lessons. They are worldview stories, not symbolic puzzles
The Genesis creation stories are myth.
If you want an biblical example of allegory, look to Revelation.
I think people who insist that Christianity must be understood as a literal replacement or rival to science are simply mistaken, whether they're atheists or fundies. The entire universe is not my concern. My life is. If I lived close enough to the edge of the universe that it was relevant to my life, that might alter my understanding thereof, but at this point I'm not there, and I must be the man I am here, not a hypothetical abstraction.
@KarlB.
If you haven’t already read it, do get hold of James Blish’s book “A Case of Conscience”. A science fiction novel which explores the dilemmas facing a Jesuit priest and scientist when he encounters an intelligent, well ordered and benevolent alien species. Very thought-provoking.
The Goldilocks Principle (conditions must be “just right”) suggests that the emergence of other life, in particular sentient life, may be relatively rare.
And of course there is significant interest in the possibility of life on other planets or moons in the solar system. Particularly Mars. The present conditions might not be all that “Goldilocksy” but maybe in the past? Certainly not sentient life. But maybe very primitive microscopic life? Particularly if there is or has been liquid water? I hope I live long enough to find out!
Basic science tells us that humanity is a species that has existed for less than a million years, a fraction of human history.
The slow realisation of this challenges the prevailing western paradigms and, as they tend to do, the existing structures pivoted to make contradictory things seem complimentary. That's all.
A writer that I have next on my list to delve into is Imre Lakatos. There's a whole conversation he was part of, but he has this concept of core and auxiliary hypotheses which is an interesting way to put it. Here's a snippet from Wikipedia
Well, it's an example, of not starting with the great Axiom, that we live in a material universe. If you start with that, surely you end up with it, or religion is a kind of luxury add-on, or a superstition. Bu I get that if the only view is that, then that's the be all and end all. Not so much turtles all the way down, as molecules.
I'm not sure these are the only two options. One could live in a universe where there is a deity but that deity has absolutely no special interest in humanity or any specific human in particular.
It's one thing to say that there is no god because everything is material. It's another thing to say there might be a deity in a sense that I cannot conceive or explain but that I see no evidence of one in relationship with humans.
Luxury in what sense?
As I understand the points:
1. The Great Axiom for Atheists is that this is a material world. Which implies that the supernatural is a contradiction in terms.
2. But theists start from a different point being that one can experience transcendental experiences
3. Theists exist who do not have these experiences so this cannot in itself be a point of division
4. The fact that theists exist who say that they do not have transcendental experiences itself might show atheists the truth of their Great Axiom in that the lack of experiences for individuals suggests that it is luxury add-on.
5. Theists exist who have different theistic positions with regard to personal transcendent experiences
6. The fact that theists exist who have contradictory beliefs about transcendental experiences is itself an indication of it being a luxury add-on
I admit that I might have misunderstood the flow of this conversation but I do not really understand how 4 flows from 5. Clearly religious belief and experiences are absolutely central to people and not a luxury.
My point 5 is poorly made now I am reflecting on the conversation flow in this way, but I think it was trying to argue that your point 4 seemed strange. Your point 6 is a restating of point 4, I think, but neither seem to answer the question of what you mean by religious experience being a "luxury add-on" to the materialist.
Who is this materialist and what do they actually believe in your framework?
(I’ve never been quite sure of the natural/supernatural binary division. I can see it says something but so do the understandings of sacraments and thin places. Glimpses of glory? Encountering the eternal through the material? Religious experiences do involve encountering the numinous but I suspect they are rather wider than that allows. A sense of wonder is quite common. Too easily described as aesthetic or emotional responses. There may be more to it than that.
There needs to be a stronger foundation to religious belief than simply individual numinous experiences. And that's what I'm convinced I've found in Jesus Christ.
It doesn't bother me too much, in that I assume that if God exists God knows what God is doing. There's some possible solution. To God all finite timespans are equally instantaneous and equally all-encompassing. Fourteen billion years or four thousand years or nine seconds are equally uncountable from the point of view of infinity. I speculate that the new creation could be a parallel universe into which people are transferred when resurrected, but that's just speculation.
Christian doctrine didn't start with considerations of ancient cosmology. It started with considerations of the life of Jesus.
Quite. But it started with considerations of that life set within a particular phase space of cosmologies which the people of that time might have imagined existed, in which humanity plays a central part.
Incidentally I do not believe my OP is an appeal to emotion. I grant it's somewhat subjective and definitely not in any way quantitative, but "appeal to emotion" feels like dismissing very real issues I feel as if I shouldn't feel them if I'm thinking rationally.
I know I keep saying amen but you know you and other people keep saying things so well that I have nothing to add but “amen” and that I agree.
As for whether we would be here if the world had not had physical death, no one knows what “would have happened.” How God would have worked with a Creation in which death never existed, we don’t know. Would evolution have worked the same way, or even happened? Would there be more direct miracle, rather than providence within aspects of the natural world? There could have been anything.
—
As a side note, I would have no problem with the idea that the fall of the angels, or even the fall of man, broke time and space in some way that it worked backwards as well, or across the entire time/space continuum, so that a world which once had no death, even animal death, now always had death, even in the past, with new laws of nature (greater entropy?) that we’ve never known anything different from. I don’t know that this is what happened, but I could see it. (Some of us who are more into SF and fantasy and such may have read various stories in which the timeline changes and various things are now “always been that way.”)
I’m also thinking of the Song of the Ainur in the Silmarillion, in which Melkor/Morgoth (Lucifer/Satan) tries to mess with the Song that creates the world, but Eru (God) takes those themes and weaves them into the great song, creating new harmonies rather than disharmony, like the way God took the Fall and used it and will, as some have argued, use it to make a better world than we even might* have had—the “fortunate fall,” as some have called it.
* I almost said “would ” have had, but then again we don’t really know what “would have happened”…
I am not a philosopher or historian of religion, but death seems to be a fairly fundamental part of many religious rituals.
I was involved in a discussion on the Ship not too long ago in which we explored Bertram Russell’s opinion which I reproduce here.
@Basketactortale
Is that somewhere close to what you believe?
Now imagine that we had perfect scientific knowledge and that we had a way to take regular snapshots of the DNA of the organisms living on that rock.
We would see cycles of constant change. Sometimes maybe there would be lichens and specific microbes. Maybe if the rock was big enough there would be birds, insects perhaps even mammals living on it.
Forgetting evolution as a complication for the moment, one could make a study over X years thinking about how the lichens change or how the birds change or whatever; longer periods probably means more change.
Humanity is a lichen that has dominated the surface of this ball of rock for a few hundred thousand years. There was a long time before we were here, there's probably going to be a long time after we are gone.
Heroism is a real thing. Despair is a choice, in this context.
Russell apparently rejects that; unless we embrace the futility of life itself in terms of our species, there's nothing else to build on.
Do you mean dualism in the sense that there exists a "human world" and a "natural world" which are different things? That humans are not part of the wider ecosystem?
I have some thoughts about this but I am aware that I am already being boring so will not continue with that thought.