Sure it's great to be alive!
Sure it's great to be alive! In the space of a few minutes we can enjoy a good meal, play sport, watch sport, enjoy music, be light years away in our dreams, relax in the sun, travel to the other side of the world, surf the net or get a degree(!).
Of course life has its downside too - like exams, or overdrafts or Man United winning yet again or Ireland losing to the English.
It's astounding that there is such a range of essential and also inconsequential activities which occupy us and provide enjoyment or fulfilment.
Do you think it's the same for - say - snails? We have loads of them in our back garden - older gardens have more apparently. Life for the snail seems to be one long slow munch.
Maybe they have a giggle half way up the lupins, but I doubt it! Yet even they are fascinating as is all of life - fascinating to think about, never mind experience.
But - where is life from and where is it going? How do we make sense of our existence or need we try? Is the structure of life the product of chance or design?
There are obviously no shortage of views or opinions on the matter. Writing in the Sunday Times, Brian Appleyard was exploring the fascination with apocalyptic end time scenarios. In contemplating his theme he wrote:
"In an age whose affluence has given us everything but purpose, the old tale of the end time rushes in to fill the vacuum."
Throughout the piece he sets the speculation of the end of the world in the context of the origins of the world. He writes:
"Humanity is not nature-perfected; it is a lucky botch-up that happens, for the time being, to work. … Our genetic inheritance is a weird and arbitrary patchwork …"
He suggests that through the development of technology we have discovered that:
"The popular image of the world as a solid, robust and almost infinite resource had been destroyed. In its place was a vision of the delicate fabric of life sustaining itself against the crushing forces of chance and the cosmos, and doing so by stripping Earth of her riches. The first pictures of Earth taken from the moon endorsed that vision for ever. There we were, a blue-green sphere swimming in the void. We were, it was clear, barely clinging onto existence on Spaceship Earth. We were an exception, a freak. The void was the steady state of the universe."
John Horgan - staff writer for the Journal Scientific American - in his book 'The End of Science' discusses the thoughts and views of a range of contemporary scientists and thinkers. He poses the question, "Is it possible that science could come to an end? … Could scientists, in effect, learn everything there is to know? Could they banish mystery from the universe? "
Horgan's view is that scientists are, these days, anxious. Their enterprise is threatened by technophobes, animal-rights activists, religious fundamentalists and stingy politicians.
Moreover, he argues, some important scientific principles such as Einstein's theory of special relativity; quantum mechanics and chaos theory set limits on just how far science can hope to go. In addition:
"…evolutionary biology keeps reminding us that we are animals, designed by natural selection not for discovering deep truths of nature, but for breeding."
Horgan's view about evolutionary biology and humanity reflects the kind of statements made by Richard Dawkins from Oxford. Dawkins is an evolutionary evangelist. He is not the sort of scientist who thinks science and religion address separate issues and can therefore coexist. Most religions, he contends, hold that God is responsible for the design and purpose evident in life and Dawkins is determined to stamp out that view.
"All purpose comes from natural selection," he says.
In his book 'River out of Eden' he says:
"At the inception of the life explosion there were no minds, no creativity and no intention. There was only chemistry." (p.149)
"The replication bomb" or "atomic billiard" as he describes the big bang, has given us a river of DNA flowing through geological time. Life is about the survival and replication of selfish genes.
Birds are good at flying, fish are good at swimming, monkeys are good at climbing, viruses are good at spreading and we humans love life, love sex and love children because, says Dawkins, "we all, without a single exception, inherit all our genes from an unbroken line of successful ancestors. …. That in a sentence is Darwinsim." (p.2)
Dawkins is passionate about his science but also passionate about ridding the world of religion and the foolishness of the notion of God as an explanation for anything.
"…one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn", he says, is "that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous - indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose." (p.96)
"We humans have purpose on the brain", he says. "The desire to see purpose everywhere is a natural one in an animal that lives surrounded by machines, works of art, tools and other designed artefacts."
Dawkins would argue that 'Why?' questions are silly questions, "inappropriate questions, however heartfelt their framing." (p.97)
When the function of life is DNA survival, as Dawkins believes it to be, then, "So long as DNA gets passed on, it does not matter who or what gets hurt in the process. … Nature is neither kind nor unkind… Nature is not interested one way or other in suffering, unless it affects the survival of DNA."
Dawkins refers to an incident which happened when a bus full of children crashed with wholesale loss of life. He mocks the clerics who struggled with the theological question "How can you believe in a loving, all powerful God who allows such a tragedy?" Dawkins then gives us the truth:
"In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. As that unhappy poet A.E. Houseman put it:For nature, heartless NatureDNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music." (p.133)
Will neither know nor care.
Sure it's great to be alive - !?
Thank God for engineers.
Engineers can be people who know the limitations of science and who deal with the concepts of design and creativity and not simply the concepts of chemistry and chance.
One engineer, Professor Gosling of Bath University (Professor of Communications Engineering) argues that science as a discipline is incapable of passing judgement on the validity of religion. In the 20th Century science has been transformed "because it weaned itself from simple determinism and discovered (through Quantum mechanics and chaos theory) a universe both indeterminate and chaotic. Chance and chaos give us freedom and God His room to steer the universe." As Gosling says, "At the heart of all contemporary scientific explanation is to be found a mysterious first cause, which for the atheist is pure chance, for the believer God."
For my own part, I am convinced that there two key reasons which make believing in God so difficult.
The first is due to the understanding of the nature of God as commonly imagined.
The second is the dislike of accountability or subservience to anyone beyond ourselves.
Taking the first I would argue that the god of our thinking is too small and this image of a small god is sadly perpetuated by the religious institutions of the Church.
This small god is the god of hate-filled sectarianism, greedy materialism, mindless fundamentalism.
The God of the Bible is of an altogether different order and character.
He is presented as the God who creates out of nothing, the God who is spirit and truth, the God who at one and every moment inhabits the universe, the God of design and purpose.
The problem is that we tend to humanise God. We make him more like us or our thinking.
Or we replace God - what the Bible calls idolatry.
In a way Dawkins has deified the gene - giving it ultimate purpose and power.
Dawkins over-rates the gene and under-rates God.
Dawkins has, in his scientific humility, bowed to the gene. Dawkins has indulged in a modern idolatry.
This is a variation on the age-old theme in which, as the Bible says, it is common for us to under rate God by over rating ourselves:
"…they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. The result was that their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise they became utter fools instead…so they worshipped the things God made but not the Creator himself, who is to be praised for ever." Romans 1:21
The God of the Bible - though I grant you not necessarily of those who claim to know this God - is beyond human comprehension. But he is a God who is (must be) capable of communication and the Christian conviction is that he has communicated to us through his Word.
This concept of Word is important.
- It was by his Word he created the universe.
- It is his Word who is before us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
- It is His Word we have before us in the scriptures - the Bible.
He is a God of all knowing who has introduced himself in terms which we can understand, human terms - in the person of Christ. But we must not confine him to human terms!
As John in his gospel says:
"In the beginning the Word already existed. He was with God, and he was God. He was in the beginning with God. … The Word became human and lived here on earth among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness."
Paul in Colossians says:
"Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before God made anything at all and is supreme over all creation. Christ is the one through whom God created everything in heaven and in earth. … He existed before everything else began, and he holds all creation together."
Hebrews tells us,
"Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. But now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son. … through the Son he made the universe and everything in it. The Son reflects God's own glory, and everything about him represents God exactly. He sustains the universe by the mighty power of his command. After he died to cleanse us from the stain of sin, he sat down in the place of honour at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven."
The issues of cause, design, destiny and purpose are revealed - not in abstract formulations, nor in pre-scientific creation accounts - but in the person of Jesus Christ and in the issues of his life, death and resurrection.
Where are we to find God in the universe?
The Christian answer is that he is not to be found - he is.
He is the beginning and the end, the past and the present, the eternal and the now.
But he is to be seen. At a moment in time. In the person of Jesus and most clearly at the cross.
The Christian message is that the cross is the starting point for the discovery of God.
In the place where we least expect to find God, at the point of greatest shame, at the most profound human suffering and at the receiving end of human wickedness - there is God. One with us, suffering with us, dying for us.
This takes us to the second problem - recognising that if this portrayal of God is right it has profound implications for my humanity.
We in the West like to be in control of our lives. Our investment in health care, pensions, savings, education, science, technology, litigation and democracy illustrates a desire to be in control of our own lives and to limit the measure of control that is exercised upon us by others. If we are not able to control all aspects of life - its origins and its destiny - we most surely will not accept that anyone else can. Chance, genes, chemistry, anything is preferable to the idea of a controlling intelligence beyond ourselves.
Neither authority nor accountability beyond ourselves is acceptable for our human pride knows no limits. Believing in God is perceived as being ridiculous, not because it is ridiculous but because it demands humility and acceptance of authority.
The biggest barrier to faith in God is not the overwhelming power of scientific reasoning, or even the hypocrisy of those who claim to be his followers but the hurdle of humility which we must straddle to begin to accept our status as created, accountable beings and not the product of unaccountable chance.
The Bible is unabashed in its declaration of this message: "The day will surely come when God, by Jesus Christ, will judge everyone's secret life." (Romans 2:16) Writing to first century Christians the Apostle Peter says, "…your former friends are very surprised when you no longer join them in the wicked things they do … But just remember that they will have to face God, who will judge everyone, both the living and the dead."
The unfathomable God who is seen in the person of Jesus Christ meets our fear of and inability to cope with such accountability in mercy and unwarranted kindness. Jesus, voluntarily, through his death on the cross offers his life to meet the judgement we could not carry or survive. Yielding to his authority, confident in his sacrifice for us we discover the freedom to be what we were designed to be - people in fellowship with our maker - rejoicing in the design and intention of the creator.
Sure it's great to be alive!
Brian Appleyard quoted from Sunday Times Magazine, Feb. '99
Richard Dawkins quoted from River out of Eden, Weidenfield & Nicholson, 1995
Professor Gosling quoted from The Daily Telegraph, September '96
Bible quotations from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, Tyndale House Publishers.
John Horgan quoted from The End of Science, Little Brown & Co. 1996