The Doubt Essential to Faith

When I was a young Mormon missionary, I was intrigued by a dialogue that I would hear regularly during one of the lessons we taught investigators.  The lesson was entitled, The Plan of Salvation, and one of the first tenants it covered was our reasons for being born into mortality. According to Mormon theology, there are two grand purposes for our lives here on earth: 1) To gain a body and 2) To learn to walk by faith.  In combination, the two conditions allow us to be tested.  Regarding the second purpose, my missionary companion and I were very quick to point out that faith is not a perfect knowledge.  Humans, we taught, were caused to forget their pre-mortal existence with God, so that faith was not only possible, but that uncertainty would become an ingredient of their lives.  

Now, here's the interesting part of the story.  No sooner would we cover this concept than my companion would say with the greatest conviction: "I bear you my testimony that I know these things are true."  And he would repeat the same mantra, time and time again, after relating new theological concepts.  Was my companion a bit nutty?  Of course not, because that's exactly what our lesson plan taught us to say, but do you see the irony in this?  We were essentially saying: Faith isn't a perfect knowledge, but we can know that it's a necessary part of our existence and that all aspects of Mormon theology are true.  

As I've pointed out before, the fundamentalist's dogmatic and unshakable boast that he knows God's will on a matter disregards the fact that faith has far more to do with uncertainty than knowledge of what is true.  Yet, Christians deem uncertainty as a kind of failing and a sin.  When I tell my Mormon friends that I've become agnostic to everything that the church teaches, except for the most fundamental of Christ's commandments that we're to love each other, they believe I've committed some horrible wrong that keeps me from true communion with God.  I would know otherwise, they say, if I'd only humble myself and pray with real intent.  

I've done that, of course.  For decades there was nothing more important to me than to one day know that the church was true, but God answered my pleas in a way that surprised me.  The fact is, if we harbor no doubts about Noah and his ark, or if we stick to literal readings of Genesis, then we relegate Christian culture to a scientific backwater that fears facts and learning.  We might as well read chicken entrails for the value it provides.  

Press this link for a wonderful TED speech given by Lesley Hazleton, who has apparently been doing a lot of thinking on this topic.

The Evolution of the Wasp

There are over 5,000 species of a parasitic wasp occurring in North America that make up the family Ichneumonidae.  While they all live at the expense of other creatures, some take part in a reproductive process that is especially gruesome. 

A noted biologist describes the process in the following way (taken from The Greatest Show on Earth):

The female wasps lay their eggs in live insect prey, such as caterpillars, but not before carefully seeking out with their sting each nerve ganglion in turn, in such a way that the prey is paralyzed, but still stays alive.  It must be kept alive to provide fresh meat for the growing wasp larva feeding inside.  And the larva, for its part, takes care to eat the internal organs in a judicious order.  It begins by taking out the fat bodies and digestive organs, leaving the vital heart and nervous system till last—they are necessary, you see, to keep the caterpillar alive. 

Here is a question I pose to anyone who insists upon a literal reading of Genesis: Do you really believe God is, on one hand, benevolent, but on the other hand, capable of creating this horrific spook house creature?  In my darkest dreams, I couldn’t imagine such a torture leading to death.  I hope, on behalf of the caterpillar, that it doesn’t feel pain. 

Now, here’s my point: Even if evolution wasn’t empirically proven to be a description of how nature perpetuates itself (which is has) I would believe in it, rather than put my faith in a being capable of imagining and creating that poor caterpillar’s hell.  But if you can only accept literal readings of the Bible as true, let me remind you of what’s contained in Genesis 1:20:

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

Did you catch the subtlety?  It says God let the waters bring forth life.  Later in Genesis, God lets the earth do the same thing.  That, to me, suggests a creative process that gives our environment an important part to play.  After all, what fowl is born out of water, except in the way all life emerged from a primordial soup? 

If you honestly want to know whether science has it right and evolution is factual, there is plenty of evidence.  In fact, the mechanics of the theory have been replicated in experiment after experiment and seen in observation after observation.  The reason we call evolution a theory isn’t because it hasn’t been proven—again, it has.  The nomenclature is based upon the conservatism of the scientific approach.  We’ve only proven it inductively by examining all the available evidence, rather than through deduction in the way of a mathematical proof.  In the same way, relativity is also a theory, but that hasn’t stopped us from using its equations.  

If you're teaching your children that evolution is one of the devil's lies, you're doing them a great disservice.  You might as well teach them not to take the next generation antibiotic, because it will be fashioned using the knowledge evolution has imparted to us.  You might as well tell them to remain ignorant about breakthroughs in the study of DNA, because it has given us the mechanics by which evolution occurs.  In fact, you should tell them not to study biology at all, since you cannot divorce it from evolution, except in the minds of Christian apologists.  It is the framework by which biology is understood.  When I have the time I’ll summarize the results of a fascinating biological experiment to support my point.

Faith as a Grain of Mustard Seed

Be patient with me here, because I’ll attempt to show that a popular interpretation of an important scripture is incorrect and leads to corrupted thinking.  First, let me make a rather obvious statement: Math and logic are types of languages. For example, the function f(x) = a + xb can be expressed in plain English as an equation that describes a straight line, where x is the slope. Similarly, the statement “If x, then y” also has a corollary in both grammar and logic.

Consider, for example, the following sentence that is a reference to the game of basketball: “If you are tall, you can rebound.” Here, the initial clause establishes that being tall is a necessary condition for what follows, which is the ability to rebound. Now, I’m not saying the sentence is true. I’m only summarizing what the expression is trying to say. Regarding its veracity, however, most people would agree that all else being equal—relative athleticism, strength, experience, and the ability to leap and grasp—the taller of any two men will be the better rebounder in a game of hoop.

Let’s now make a small adjustment to the sentence. Add the word “even” to the beginning of it and the result is this: Even if you are tall, you can rebound. Anyone who thought the previous sentence was intuitively correct will find fault in this one. Why? With this change the condition of being tall is disparaged. The meaning of the sentence is, in effect, that the ability to rebound is a fait accompli. It will occur despite one being tall.

This is an important distinction because it’s at the center of what I consider a misreading of an important declaration Christ makes in Matthew Chapter 17. In a passage that begins with verse 14, Jesus performs a miracle His disciples had attempted, but failed, to accomplish. When asked why previous efforts had been ineffective, Jesus answers that it was because of the “unbelief” of His followers. He goes on to say:

For verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

Notice that Christ’s words are couched as a conditional statement similar to the one I introduced above. That being said, when people quote the scripture, they tend to disparage faith the size of “a grain of mustard seed” and interpret the statement as though it begins with the term, “Even if.” In doing so, they imply that bigger is better. However one can assume from a literal reading of the scripture that Christ isn’t being critical of a small grain-sized amount of faith, but is presenting a necessary pre-condition for the miraculous in life to occur. It’s possible that He’s describing an ideal!

Perhaps what He’s saying is that faith doesn’t imbue us with power despite its small size, but rather because faith at its most powerful is small and inconspicuous, that it doesn’t walk with a swagger but admits that it doesn’t know. Admitting to a lack of knowledge is the beginning of true learning. On the other hand, when we convince ourselves in an a priori fashion that the Bible is an infallible rendering of reality, then we become apologists to everything it contains, including, for example, its approval of slavery. In this way, apologists don’t discover anything new, because they don’t seek knowledge or wisdom. What they seek is only comfort and confirmation and they’ll obtain both, even if it requires them to ignore facts and discrepancies.

The difference in people who practice true scholarship verses apologetics is remarkable. The difference is especially clear when comparing the accomplishments of the people of my church—the Mormons—verses people who identify as being Jewish. I once heard a Jewish friend of mine say that if you put two Jews in a room, you will have between them five different opinions. That’s because they welcome questions and intellectual inquiry, even if it countermands previously held notions of truth. One of their heroes, the 13th Century thinker Maimonides, coined the phrase “Teach my mouth to say I don’t know.” Maimonides taught that to admit to a lack of knowledge was a noble and courageous act.

To Mormons and other fundamentalist Christian sects, however, doubt and questioning has been elevated to a sin. Disbelief is deemed the fault of individuals, rather than an implication of life’s uncertainty. When scriptures lead to moral ambiguity, it becomes the duty of Christian apologists to ignore the discrepancies. That’s the message of Mormon leaders who have excommunicated church intellectuals for speaking truthfully—but too critically—about the organization’s past. One of its leaders, Boyd K. Packer, has demonstrated his mistrust of intellectual inquiry by saying, “Some things that are true are not very useful.”

How these two differing worldviews translate into a regard for scholarship is clear. There are roughly as many people in this world who self-identify as being Jewish as there are Mormons, but while 185 Jews have earned Nobel Prizes, no Mormon has yet to receive the honor.

Coincidence? I don’t think so.

God Told Me to Run

When I was a student at BYU, many young men were coming home from missionary service eager to get on with their lives and praying for guidance to find a future marriage partner.  A not-atypical returned missionary—after receiving what he presumed to be an answer to prayer—would go to a young woman and tell her that God had revealed to him that they should marry.  This sometimes resulted in great confusion for the young lady and it happened often enough that the church’s ecclesiastical leaders assured BYU co-eds that they were equally entitled to inspiration before making a decision as important as marriage. 

A corollary to this is the declaration made by multiple presidential candidates that God told them to run for office.  This, I’m sure, will sway many fundamentalists who will accept the assertion as “revealed word” and vote in accordance with it.  However, when it comes to group decision-making, the claim to having received revelation is, in my opinion, a death knell.  This is due, in part, because there is no way to prove the claim and therefore no demands for proof, a condition that leaves little basis for examination.  It’s deemed enough to say, “God told me so.” 

The problem with this, however, is that where there is no examination, there is no debate.  And when ideas aren’t compared and discussed, there is no progress.  Take, for example, the case for global warning: No logic or empirical evidence can sway fundamental Christians from the idea that God gave them dominion over the earth and that if global warming becomes a problem, the righteous can pray it away.  Never mind that this is tantamount to kicking the ball into God’s court.  Never mind that He helps those who help themselves.

This idea was addressed by Harvard physics professor, Lisa Randall, who recently wrote in a Time magazine article, the following:

With science, we put together observations with explanatory frameworks, whose predictions can be tested and ultimately agreed on.  Empirically based logic and the revelatory nature of faith are very different methods for seeking answers, and only logic can be systematically improved and applied.

Combine this idea with the difficulty of reaching agreement on matters of faith and it’s clear that reliance on revelation is dangerous.  There are over 10,000 Christian sects that profess a wide variety of beliefs.  Which of their interpretations of sacred text is correct?  Furthermore, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere in this blog, anyone who thinks the Bible is consistent in its worldview simply isn’t paying attention.  On nearly every important topic of the day, the Bible can be used to support a range of conclusions that leads to moral ambiguity.

When it comes to personal issues, inspiration can be an important part of life.  It is not helpful, however, when directing the lives of others. 

Catch the Irony?

I served a mission for the Mormon Church in Tokyo, Japan.  While I don't share many of the fundamental beliefs of its membership anymore, I consider my missionary service as one of the finest things I've ever done.  But here's a tiny example of what I find disturbing about the work and what it does to the young men and women who provide the selfless service. 

One of the lessons we taught to investigators of the church was a doctrine referred to as the Plan of Salvation.  According to Mormon theology, we came to earth after living as spirits in God's presence and did so for two important reasons: 1) to gain a body and 2) to have the memory of the pre-existence taken from us so that we could learn to live by faith.  Regarding the second purpose, we were quick to say that faith was not a perfect knowledge, but something akin to belief.  However, no sooner would we teach this than my companion would invariably say (because I refused to make such a statement) that he knew these things were true. 

Do you see the irony?  So few Christians do.  For the most part they acknowledge the need for faith--even agree that faith has more to do with uncertainty than perfect knowledge--but then they fill their lives with dogma.  Saying one has faith in the Bible is entirely different than forcing one's reality to conform to the Bible's teachings.  Yet, that's what many Christians do when rejecting science in favor of scripture.  Remember how pious church leaders forced Galileo to do the same and turned back the clock on the human understanding of the solar system?  Recall also that a variety of evil acts have been perpetuated--slavery, for example--by using scripture to support them. 

In my opinion, faith should be the thing we cling to until the truth of a matter is made evident.  Now, of that I can bear testimony.

Christian Rejection of Science

I was recently driving in an area that I don’t frequent often and was in search of a news broadcast.  As I flipped through various radio channels, one caught my attention.  It was from a Christian station that played what sounded like a public service announcement.  The gist of the message was this:

The complexity of life couldn’t possibly have been the result of an accident.  Think about it.  Doesn’t it make more sense that a divine being made everything around you, just as it is?

The point was clear: Evolution is a lie and the Bible tells us so. 

I immediately felt a mixture of sadness and anger.  My feelings were especially sharp as I had recently finished the book, Endless Forms Most Beautiful by geneticist Sean Carroll.  It’s a wonderful summary of recent discoveries in the science of evolutionary development (or Evo Devo, as some call it).  Evo devo looks at genetic processes that occur during embryonic development for clues to how evolution works.  It’s a fascinating new science, from which we’ve learned a considerable amount.  In fact, the book startled me with its sweeping understanding of how life comes about. 

To thoughtful and open-minded people it’s clear that evolutionists haven’t been deceived.  On the other hand, those who believe that an ancient text (written for a civilization with no grasp of basic science) must be read literally are sadly mistaken.  Even if we assume God wrote the Bible, we have to believe He simplified the truths of His existence for us to understand it.  As I’ve said before, there’s a reason Genesis quotes God as saying, “Let there be light,” instead of, “Let the universe be filled isotropically and homogeneously with a high-energy density.”  It’s the same reason we don’t describe light’s wave-particle duality and how each wavelength corresponds to our perception of a color when a child asks, “Why is the sky blue?” 

One of the interesting discoveries coming out of evolutionary development is that genomes are not, as many people assume, blueprints of the creatures they represent.  Rather, they’re more akin to recipes that direct the expression of various proteins during embryonic development.  A small portion of any genome—less than 2% in humans—are so-called toolkit genes that provide key instructions.  Another 3% act as switches that turn the toolkit genes off and on.   What’s remarkable is that the same toolkit genes appear in species after species—fruit flies as well as humans—with only minor variations that determine when and where they’re expressed.  Using these learnings as building blocks, one can draw an evolutionary roadmap based upon gradual changes in genetic makeup. 

I think it’s tragic that some people will read this and dismiss it immediately, all because of an interpretation of the Bible that misses the point of who we believe God to be.  If God is so great, how can we assume He speaks to us on His level?  Isn’t it more reasonable to assume that he relates to us as children and speaks to us in simple ways that might not fully express the details behind broad assertions?

For more information about evo devo, click here. 

The Physics of Immortality

Frank Tipler’s book, The Physics of Immortality, came out in 1994 to mixed peer reviews and much hoopla. I read it that same year, hoping it would point to a future in which science and spirituality might rest together in harmony. While I’m still hopeful that the two disciplines will find common ground, to me, Tipler’s book points to some of the difficulties in getting there. In case you haven’t read it, let me offer my take on the book.

Tipler is a mathematical physicist and former agnostic, who while attempting to debunk the notion of a resurrection, inadvertently convinced himself that life after death was not only possible, but inevitable. His methodology was similar to a process mathematicians have, for centuries, used to disprove a false premise: First accept it as true and then show how such acceptance leads to a logical inconsistency. In this manner, Tipler considered ways the resurrection might occur, looking to prove its impossibility. Along the way, he developed a theory that he subsequently called the Omega Point, which he claims is a logical proof of life after death. How is the resurrection to occur? Essentially, we’re brought to life as part of a computer simulation that is so accurate that all possible quantum states for all human beings—including everyone’s DNA—is part of the code. Tipler shows how this could happen by “proving” that:

• At some point in the future there will be sufficient computing power to accomplish the task
• Until such time, all information about the universe will be preserved
• The preserved information will be used in a virtual reality emulation of infinite experiential time that will simulate the universe and all the intelligent creatures that have lived in it
• All of this must occur to avoid breaking known physical laws.

To me, the thesis is intriguing, but it doesn’t make me any less uncertain of immortality than I was before reading the book. Specifically, I have two problems with it. First, I don’t understand the logical leap Tipler makes by showing how the resurrection is possible then asserting it’s inevitable. After reading a few peer reviews, I can happily say I’m not alone in this regard. The theory includes what Tipler calls an Omega Point Boundary Condition that results in the inevitability of the resurrection, but other physicists have not found the idea compelling. Second, the theory assumes that any emulation that precisely models the DNA of individuals will essentially create (or recreate) the humans emulated. In other words, there is no perceived difference between reality and a perfectly accurate simulation. As a consequence, Tipler claims there is no such thing as a soul—that DNA determines everything about a person that experience does not, including sentience and self-awareness.

While I’m open to the possibility of the non-existence of the soul, I’m disturbed by the idea that DNA describes everything about us. It seems to me that while DNA puts constraints around our development, growth is representative of a chaotic system that leaves considerable variability, even if the genetic code is identical. One need only observe identical twins to find proof of that notion. While they share the same DNA and may resemble each other, they can exhibit a range of physical and behavioral differences. The same can be said of a cloned pet that may have different mannerisms—even coloration—than the Fifi who provided its genetic material.

The study of such chaotic systems (sometimes referred to as chaos theory, which is a misnomer since it hasn’t resulted in a practical or workable theory) is the study of systems that are bounded but unpredictable since they are not subject to any physical laws we understand. These systems include, for example, weather and turbulence. To illustrate their unusual qualities, let me mention that the great physicist, Werner Heisenberg, once said he had two questions for God. They were:

1. Why is general relativity so weird?
2. And how do you explain turbulence?

Heisenberg claimed he was certain God would know the answer to the first question, but not so the second. This is from the man who, as author of much of quantum mechanics—including the Uncertainty Principal that bears his name—was arguably as familiar with bizarre physical systems as anyone. To him, however, turbulence went beyond weird into the realm of inexplicable. It’s not a deterministic system. In other words, try to predict the movement of a grain of sand moving through a water pipe, and it quickly becomes apparent that there are no discernible physical laws guiding it. Such is the case no matter how precisely one models the imperfections in the pipe, the weight and dimensions of the grain of sand, the flow and pressure of the water, and all other possible variables.

Weather, too—which has been modeled with as much precision as is humanly possible—is another chaotic system. Climate simulations that measure the precise interactions of thousands of variables, including geothermal, solar, air current, tidal and others, have done little to accurately forecast weather more than two to three days into the future. In fact, time and time again, such simulations have predicted that the earth will freeze over and remain in that condition. Why? In the course of its normal range of climate variability, the earth will eventually receive an unusually high amount of snowfall, which will deflect the sun’s rays and lead to a cycle of even greater precipitation and falling temperatures. Yet, experience teaches us that there are moderating influences directing changes in climate that we don’t understand.

The same lack of predictability is true of growth. After inception, the subsequent division of the fertilized cell first resulting in a zygote, then an embryo, then a baby, is a chaotic process that is subject to great variability. This variability can’t be understood by referencing known physical laws—including DNA replication or even the probabilities associated with quantum fluctuations. Like weather, growth can’t be simulated in a computer, no matter how sophisticated the program. That’s just my opinion.

I suppose in the end, Tipler’s book contributes to a debate that the writings of Plato and Aristotle first introduced. Do we have souls independent of our bodies as Plato claimed? Or are our souls simply the actuality of our bodies as is the opinion of Aristotle? These are perhaps more examples of questions that can only be answered on an individual level through a leap of faith. Like I said earlier, Tipler’s book is intriguing, but it doesn’t reduce the uncertainty of life after death. Maybe uncertainty was always meant to be.

Proof of Uncertainty

Kurt Godel proved that in any axiomatic mathematical system there are propositions that cannot be proved or disproved within the axioms of the system.

You’ve heard me say that logic invariably leads to faith, but don’t take my word for it. There’s considerable evidence to support the idea and people who love the hard sciences will especially appreciate it, because the confirmation comes from logic itself.

As an introduction, consider the 19th Century worldview and how it changed going into our modern age. Throughout the 1800s, there was great enthusiasm and optimism in the power of logic. Earlier scientific and mathematical discoveries—Newton’s classical physics, for example—had uncovered what seemed to be an elegant symmetry in nature, which gave intellectuals a view that all things could be understood in terms of scientific laws. In fact, people (the great Emmanuel Kant, included) believed the logic inherent in science would eventually lead to an understanding of the mind of God.

But cracks began to appear in this deterministic construct. One of the first was the development of non-Euclidean geometries that rejected a postulate used in the plane geometry we study in high school. The possibility that other postulates might be incorrect or of limited value ushered in an age of uncertainty that additional scientific and mathematical discovery only amplified.

The study of physics, for example, added to the disquiet. As physicists delved more deeply into the interactions of subatomic particles, they discovered that such relationships were based upon probabilities rather than strict rules as had been previously supposed. To make matters worse, one implication of the discovery was that the result of any subatomic interaction didn’t finalize until a sentient being observed it. To understand what this means, consider that old philosophical conundrum: If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Well, according to one interpretation of quantum mechanics—the Copenhagen version first posited by the Nobel Laureate, Niels Bohr—the tree doesn’t even fall! Its subatomic particles remain in what is referred to as a probability wave until a sentient observer comes along. Thereupon the particles “choose” one of the infinite range of possibilities available to them. (My son, who is working on a physics PhD, tells me no one really believes that’s what happens, although it is consistent with the inexplicable results of various experiments. For more on this, see the book Schrodinger’s Kittens and the Search for Reality, by John Gribbin, which in my opinion is the best book about quantum mechanics written for lay people).

Perhaps one of the most significant discoveries that increased the uncertain worldview of our time was made by Bertrand Russell, a man who had once been a proponent of mathematical determinism. Russell discovered a logical inconsistency in set theory that is evident in the following question:

A man of Seville is shaved by the barber of Seville, if and only if, the man doesn’t shave himself. Does the barber shave himself?

The paradox can be described in a rigorous mathematical way, but consider the following simplification: Obviously, the barber of Seville either shaves himself or he doesn’t. Regardless, however, the result is illogical. If he shaves himself, he cannot be shaved by the barber of Seville, but since he is the barber of Seville and he shaves himself...well, you get the point. The problem, as Russell was able to distinguish, can occur anytime a set is an element of itself. For example, the set of men shaved by the barber of Seville (let’s call this A) is not an element of itself, because A is not a man shaved by the barber of Seville. However, let’s create another set (which we’ll call R) and include in it everything that is not in set A. Since set R is also not a man who is shaved by the barber of Seville, it is an element of itself, a characteristic often called self-referencing. This may seem like a trivial matter, but self-referencing can lead to serious logical problems and points to the limitations of logic.

Finally, let me describe a theorem that is simplistically sneaky, but has implications that have essentially put an end to strict mathematical determinism. I’m talking about Kurt Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem, which like Russell’s Paradox, has a rigorous mathematical rendering, but can be described in simplified terms.

Let’s say you create a computer that you call the Universal Truth Machine (or UTM for short) which you’ve programmed to tell the truth. Before approaching it, you write the following words on a sheet of paper:

The UTM will never say this sentence is true.

Now, you turn the UTM on, show it the paper and ask if the statement is true. What happens? First, the UTM can’t say the statement is true. Can you see why? If it does, the statement will be rendered false, which is contrary to the UTM’s programming. In a paradoxical way, the fact that the computer will not say the statement is true is your greatest evidence that the statement is, in fact, true. On the other hand, the UTM can’t say the statement is false, either, since as we’ve already demonstrated, that would be untrue. (Another way to look at it is if the UTM said the statement was false, it would render the statement true).
Again, the result seems contrived and trivial, but the math is sophisticated and full of implications. In short, Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem suggests that rational thought can never penetrate to the ultimate truth, or said another way: There are truths that cannot be discerned, or proved, strictly through the use of logic.

Logic Leads to Faith

In an earlier blog, I reiterated a statement that I’ve made numerous times. In short, I believe that behind each momentous decision we make, we can trace a logical line of justification that eventually leads to a leap of faith. At various times I’ve described that process as a leap into a canyon of uncertainty or wonder. In response, DC said the following:

True, logic—and evidence—take us only so far in knowing and understanding, but “canyons of wonder” can thrive happily in “faithless” uncertainty. Wonder does not lead inevitably to faith…

Let me try to articulate why I think otherwise by first saying that my idea of faith includes any reliance on an unproven premise as a guide to correct behavior. For example, I don’t know for a fact that the phenomenon we call global warming is caused by greenhouse gas emissions, yet there seems to be evidence of a causal link between the two and so I’ve taken steps to reduce my consumption of the earth’s resources. In the final analysis, I believe we all have a responsibility to the earth. To me, that is as much a leap of faith as refraining to murder only because the Bible says it’s a sin.

To further demonstrate what I mean, let’s say three men (Alex, Bob and Corey) at different times come across the same parked car at the side of a road. They notice that the vehicle is unlocked with the key still in the ignition and the identical idea occurs to each of them—I could easily take this car—but, based upon vastly different premises, they resist the temptation. The grounds by which they make their decisions are as follows:

• Alex thinks he would get caught in the act, the consequence of which would exceed his desire for the car
• Bob decides to act in accordance with the law, which he believes is the key to social harmony and stability
• Corey considers the needs of the car owner and reconfirms his commitment to do no harm to others

In terms of the construct I introduced in my very first blog, Alex is following the Law of the Jungle, which encourages him to insure his own survival and seek personal gain to the exclusion of any and all other objectives. Presumably, if he’d thought he could avoid the possible consequences, Alex would have stolen the car. Bob, on the other hand, is following the Mosaic Law, which instructs him to avoid certain acts, including theft. This heuristic set of rules has become his reference guide to life. Finally, Corey is following Christ’s gospel, which encourages him to let love and conscience direct his behavior. The gospel’s requirements are less formalized and often require some amount of improvisation. How do we love our neighbor? There is no gospel equivalent to Leviticus.

In the end, all three men take what is arguably the correct course of action by not stealing the vehicle, but their motivations put them on differing planes. Of the three, who do you consider to be the most trustworthy? As William James was famous for asserting, knowing a person’s “philosophy” is quite possibly the most important thing we can understand about him, since it is the best predictor of how he will act in the future. Now, for purposes of my argument, it’s important to point out that, despite their contrasting motivations, each man could have reached his conclusion by first asking, “Why shouldn’t I steal the car?” and validating the answer by asking, “How do I know my conclusion is correct?”

For inquiring minds, the second question often leads to a string of logical inquiries, until the questioner eventually arrives at one of the canyons of uncertainty of which I spoke. For instance, returning to the example above, Bob, upon seeing the unlocked car, might have processed the following logic in his head.

Question: Why shouldn’t I steal the car?
Answer: Because God commanded me to do otherwise
Question: How do I know that?
Answer: Because the Bible says so and it’s God’s word
Question: How do I know that?
Answer: Because the spirit testifies that it is so
Question: How do I know that?
Answer: Because I’ve felt the spirit
Question: How do I know that?

Eventually, a truly honest Bob will admit that he doesn’t know if he has felt God’s spirit testify of the Bible’s truthfulness. He may have been moved by the Bible’s words, but that isn’t evidence of a Godly communion. People of other faiths, after all, seem similarly motivated by texts they deem sacred and are willing to die as proof of their confidence. So the way we’re sometimes touched by Biblical teachings could be an emotional response (though admittedly a powerful, life-changing and often good response) rather than a spiritual communion, whatever that entails.
Yet, even if we were in contact with God’s spirit, how can we know we've interpreted it correctly? As I’ve said before, if God is as great as we believe, His thoughts must be beyond human understanding. (Think of Einstein squared, or cubed). Is it possible, for example, that the nightmare of the inquisition was God’s will? Or could it have been a terrible misinterpretation of God’s intent. What I’m trying to say is that at some point in the process of logically defining who and what we are, we must admit that we’re making value judgments that we cannot know as fact.
Furthermore, one need not be a Christian to go through the same exercise. Let's say Bob is a scientist, who has no religious bias, whatsoever. Perhaps his thinking would follow more along these lines:
Question: Why shouldn't I steal the car?
Answer: Because that would be wrong
Question: How do I know that?
Answer: Because society has decided, through long experience, that stealing leads to chaos, which would be intolerable for everyone
Question: How do I know that?
Answer: Because I can imagine the consequences of a world in which all people steal, but I guess that is a supposition on my part and I really don't know that for a fact
That doesn’t mean, however, that we live life in a corner, shaking from the possibility—no, the certainty—that we will occasionally be wrong. On the contrary, once we know where we stand, we act with assurance that we’ve done our best to define the lines that make us who we are. However, we are equally willing to redefine those lines, when contrary evidence demands it, and we respect the actions of others to define themselves, as long as such actions do no harm.

Dimensions, Time and Separate Universes

After his longtime confidante, Michele Besso, passed away, Albert Einstein sent a letter of condolence to his friend’s family, in which he wrote:

He (Besso) has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubborn illusion.

Einstein’s point was rooted in his own scientific theories, an implication of which is that time is a façade disguising a deeper reality. He likened our understanding of that reality to the limitations a child experiences upon entering a library. The library is filled with books written in various languages, and though the volumes have their authors and appear to have been placed in some order, the nature of that arrangement is beyond the child’s grasp.

Our world, according to Einstein’s letter, is strange in that it hides the true nature of time as a physical property inextricably linked to space. If we could perceive the past, present and future as they truly are, we would see them as differing locations, rather than events that occurred or will occur. Time, in this way, is an illusion that humans comprehend imperfectly, because we’re three-dimensional beings who are incapable of perceiving that illusive fourth dimension of space time.

The idea of life in a world of limited dimension is not new with Einstein. In the book Flatland, which first appeared in 1884, Edwin A. Abbott tells a story set in a two-dimensional world without height. In this world any object—a circle on its side, for instance—is perceived by its inhabitants as a straight line across the horizon. The book is an interesting treatise on the conditions of such a universe and describes the difficulty one would have in perceiving other dimensions beyond it. After reading the book as a young man, I became fascinated with the idea of worlds with dimensional constraints and began to see physical corollaries all around me.

For example, let’s say you notice a wasp in your car as you travel 65 MPH down the freeway. Afraid of getting stung, you crack open your window and shoo the insect outside. That’s good for you, but think of what has happened to the wasp. Suddenly it has been whisked away from a world of limited space into one that seems upwardly and outwardly unbounded. The temperature, too, is probably different and because of the speed of the car, the wasp feels the effects of friction that quickly slows it down. The turbulence is so great, the poor insect offers up some wasp puke. For an instant, it must believe it has been sucked through a vortex into a very different universe.

I could go on and on with such examples, but here is my favorite. I took a bush flight into the Bristol Bay watershed one day, when we happened over a section of the Nushugak River. The Nushugak is known for many things, but it’s especially famous for large runs of king salmon and the bears that come to feed on them. As we flew over, the river didn’t disappoint. We spotted salmon—as numerous as maggots on a carcass—and a brown bear sow with two cubs.

What happened next, I will never forget. The sow leaped into the water in a manner that seemed without stealth or forethought and raised a commotion that scattered the salmon upstream toward an oxbow bend in the river. At first I thought the bear had clumsily missed her chance for a meal, but by her next actions it was apparent she’d been employing a stratagem, all along. The sow simply crossed to the opposite bank, ran up an incline through scrub willows, then back down to an upstream section of water, where she waited until the fish came to her. When they did—believe me—her reaction was swift and effective. She came out of the water with a salmon in her mouth and immediately fed it to her cubs.

The scene made me think about the separate worlds all around us. The fish—if they’re capable of such thoughts—may have believed due to the river’s undeviating flow that they were in a universe that stretched in a single unwavering direction. Moreover, unaware of the wormhole that crossed a fold in their universe, the fish may have assumed they’d encountered two different bears. The sow, on the other hand, had a different perspective of the salmons’ world and understood the twists and turns of it. That knowledge she used to great advantage.

This is my hope: If there’s really a future part of the universe and if a wiser and better me resides there, it would be nice if he could send a kind thought or two through the twists and turns of my universe in this direction. After all, there has to be a few wormholes he can use along life’s way.

Musings on the Nature of Time

What is eternity? Is it simply a never ending series of days?

If Einstein taught us anything, it’s that time possesses extraordinarily complex physical properties. For example, one of the questions Brian Green raises in his book, Fabric of the Cosmos, is: Why does time appear to have an arrow? Why, in other words, does it seem to progress only into the future, when nothing in Einstein’s equations prevent it from slipping into the past?

Interest in the nature of time isn’t a recent phenomenon, as people have been musing on its properties for centuries. A central theme in Jewish mysticism, for example, is the unknowable quality of the infinite and eternal. The Greeks, too, considered time’s many complexities, asking whether it could be subdivided to some atomic equivalent, or if it was continuous in a way that defied division. They had two words for it: chronos and kreinos—the former being man’s time and the latter God’s time—which suggests it comes in two versions.

The study of mathematics has had far-reaching effects on our ideas of time. Einstein’s general theory of relatively, for instance, relies upon a complex number line to define what has been labeled the fourth dimension or time space. Complex numbers—sometimes referred to as imaginary numbers—appear often during the course of solving certain mathematical equations (the term x2 = -1 is an example) that results in the square root of a negative number. Such a solution shouldn’t exist—at least not in any world we understand. Mathematicians have invented a sleight-of-hand to deal with them, but for a long time people didn’t know what to do when complex numbers appeared. Then Einstein came along and showed how they were essential to a fully developed theory that would replace much of Newtonian physics.

Perhaps the most interesting discovery that furthered our understanding of time is Georg Cantor’s studies on infinity (which, if you think about it, is the mathematical corollary of eternity). His proofs are elegant and simple, but rather than show them here, let me summarize the implications of his work with a single sentence.

Infinity comes in various levels of value and complexity!

It seems incredible, I know, since every infinite set has no end to it, but they can differ with respect to dimension. One of the least complex varieties is, for example, the set of all integers, which relates to our common reckoning of eternity as a never ending number of days. It can be thought of as a number line—a single dimension. However, there are higher—much more complex—versions of infinity that are not bound by anything resembling a series of integers.

Cantor showed, for instance, that all the numbers between 0 and 1 (let’s call this set A) is greater than the set of all integers (this we’ll call B). Again, I won’t show the proof, but suffice it to say that A contains dimensions not included in B, including an infinite set of transcendental numbers. Transcendental numbers, as you probably know, include pi (π), which in their various decimal representations never end or repeat. (Pi is approximately 3.14159, but the digits continue on and on without pattern). If you’ve ever thought about transcendental numbers, you’ll have considered how they relate to a number line. We can show approximately where they are and do so with increasing degrees of precision, but they defy being placed in a precise location.

Is it possible that eternity is more than an endless number of days, but something that is unbound by time in the way of a complex number? Can a particular moment in eternity defy placement in the way of a transcendental number? At the very least, these are interesting ideas to ponder.

God's Intercession with Humanity

On a scale from one to ten—one representing the collective power, wisdom and knowledge of a dozen worms in a can, and ten representing the same attributes for God—where would human beings rank?

Think about it, because I want to make a point.

I’ve asked this question to numerous people of faith and they’ve replied with answers that average just north of two—not very high on the scale. If you concur with their assessment, let me suggest the following. After you’ve watered your lawn one afternoon, go outside once it's dark and peer into the grass with a flashlight. There you'll see an occasional glint of light, and when you do, stop. Upon closer inspection, you’ll see that you’ve discovered an earthworm. If you’re not squeamish about such things, grab it quickly and put it into a can. Don’t worry. It won’t bite.

Now here is the tricky part. Once you’ve gathered several earthworms, set the can down and preach the gospel to the residents inside. They are, after all, God’s creatures, too, and deserve to hear the good news.

What’s that you say? Worms don’t communicate with humans? That’s not necessarily the case. You can engage in a rudimentary form of communication with a worm and here’s how. Let’s say you want to express the need that they return underground. Look for another worm in the grass and simply step close to it. The vibration alone will alert the earthworm of potential danger and you’ll be amazed at how quickly it reenters the hole from which it emerged. And there you have it, a basic exchange of ideas, including: 1) a message delivered, 2) a message received, and 3) a response to the message.

I know what you’re thinking: That level of communication isn’t sufficient. Besides, worms have no idea what our world is like and therefore have no basis for understanding the gospel. How could we, for example, teach the Parable of the Good Samaritan, when they can’t possibly know about Samaritans, or a place called Jericho, or the concept of thievery?

If that was what you were thinking, then you’re absolutely right. But here’s where I make my point. If God is so great that compared to Him we’re worm-like in intelligence and glory, how much more difficult must it be for Him to tell us about His world and the thoughts of His heart?

There's a brilliant novel (one I’m still writing) entitled Exalted Man. The narrator of the story happens to be deceaced, which hasn't diminshed the fact that he's quite pompous. In one passage he’s asked the question: What’s it like, this reality where the dead exist?

And he answers this way.

I mean no disrespect, but I might as easily describe Newtonian physics to a water bug. If you’re familiar with holy script, you have, no doubt been tantalized by hints of an elegant calculus central to immortality. (Consider, for example, the opaque references to time found in the Bhagavad-gita or the Bible). But do not assume God’s written word—His talk of commandments and heavenly reward—to be a comprehensive, or even precise, rendering of truth. Compared to our Maker, mortals are little more intelligent or self-aware than so many cans of worms. How might anyone, therefore, expect the Great I Am to speak of eternity in a manner to be comprehended by human minds? To assume as much is both arrogant and outrageous, when in fact, God condescends and relates to mortals as a wise man to a litter of puppies.

Hear this and ponder its implications: The texts you deem sacred—the law of Moses and Christ’s gospel, Gautama’s eight-fold path and the suras of Muhammad—are primers only, a collection of ABC books, as it were. You will, at some point outside of time, be allowed a clearer view of the truth, but for now it’s far more complex than you can even imagine.

Is it possible that the words, “And God said, Let there be light: And there was light,” only hint at an elegant calculus behind a Big Bang? I’m not belittling the scriptures. In fact, there is nothing I’ve read (and I read a lot) that rings as true and inspiring to me as Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. Yet, doesn’t it make sense that if an infinitely wise creator spoke to us, He would—out of necessity—simplify the complex truths of His life, so that we, as spiritual kindergarteners, could understand them?

I have a good friend who recently complained to me about the teaching of evolution in schools. The complaint surprised me and I asked why he was so concerned. He said evolution was clearly erroneous, since the Bible said so. I told him that the Bible said no such thing, that in fact Genesis records God as saying: Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life. Did you catch that? God let the waters bring forth creatures. Doesn't that suggest a process-driven creation and not a single event?

I'll never forget my friend’s reaction. He said, “Well, if evolution is correct, why don’t we see elephants in trees?”

My heart stopped and I was overwhelmed with sadness. When we take the scriptures too literally and become apologists for their content, we twist our notions of truth into a tortured conformity that rejects so much of what can be useful. Once a dogmatic appeal to the Bible is seen as virtuous and an open mind as the devil's temptation, learning ends. It's a situation I wish we could avoid.

By the way, do you want to know how I replied to my friend? I said, “We do see elephants in trees…but we call them squirrels.”