I've been reading randomly from two very different books: 1. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and 2. The Evidential Power of Beauty by Thomas Dubay. They are as alike as a granite boulder and a piece of cheese. One looks at life in the universe as happening purely by chance (no God or gods, no supernatural presence whatsoever), and the other sees God present all the while, supercharging every proton and particle that is, peering like a lover through the lattices of all things created. (Can you guess which book I'm diggin'?)
Now this is just a thought (a weak analogy, actually). I want to put it out there without a hint of sarcasm. I am serious. Let's get beyond agendas, either to the right or left, materialist or theist. Let's strip away everything but a desire for the TRUTH.
Look at a building. Think of its foundation, the complexity of its structure, the electrical system, the plumbing, all of these parts working in harmony to provide shelter and comfort for people. You could conceivably live and breathe and move about in this building your whole life and not once find any trace of the architect. Perhaps you might see his likeness on a wall, a painting of him from the early days of the building's history. Maybe there are those in the building who remember hearing stories of how he once visited the place and walked around the halls and even took the elevator once or twice when the place was still new. But none of it can be proved now, seemingly. At least you'd have to go on human faith and trust that the Man made the place. It just shouts of a designer from every delicate curve and arch, from the lighting to the fountain in the lobby, to the care put into each office, each room, each resting place.But you've never seen the Man Who made it. Would you conclude that the building had no maker? Would you conclude that particles of steel and iron and glass must have randomly coalesced over the years and happened to form by chance this magnificent structure, with its indoor plumbing, electricity, spa and fine cafeteria?
To my mind that would just be... silly. Kinda ridiculous. I'm not being sarcastic here. I'm being a realist. I'm using my reason. It's only logical to admit in the midst of such design a designer.
This admittance, like it or not, will take us into a number of other places.... which we can comment on tomorrow.... I hope.
I love this stuff.
6 comments:
Great Blog! Totally get "I love this stuff"!! Read this Thursday but couldn't comment til today--hope there is some follow-up! Also, the podcast was great but even though your blog is one I check daily--I only found it browsing around (which there is so much great "stuff" to take in!) Hopefully there will be more of them soon too! Thanks for your thoughts!
Thanks! I will follow up soon; summer's coming and for me that means blogs and podcasts can take the front seat to teaching! (podcasts are new to me so I'll be working out the bugs) Thanks for your kind words, that means alot.
Peace!
Bill
Bill, Some thoughts on the design analogy. From a inductive perspective, I agree that there is overwhelming scientific evidence for design in the universe. Stephen's Barr's Modern Physics and Ancient Faith offers some great arguments in this vain as well as materialism of Dawkins' kind.
However, deductively based on your analogy one cannot go from what is epistemically warranted to the ontological necessity of design. This is the same mistake the materialists like Dawkins make, except they go the opposite way. Also buildings, like Paley's watch, are artificial so one knows that there is a designer in this sense. Whereas "nature" could have natural causes for its empirical/material existence, but to posit the cause of its existence one then ventures into the realm of metaphysics.
God Bless,
Rick
Rick,
Thanks for the thoughts. I hear what you're saying. I still feel that the thoughts and the thinker, the art and the artist are so closely tied that the leap becomes simpler. It's forever the balance between the scientist and the poet, isn't it? We need to be scientific poets, or poetic scientists! I always lean towards John Paul's phenomenology, where the subject lies at the heart of every objective; to quote my new favorite song from Five for Fighting.... "There's a reason for the world.... you and me."
Bill, I guess the problem today is that many scientists want to be closet metaphysicians. Most of the design arguments from the time of Paley were not used for proving God's existence but for the purposes of piety. But, then along came Darwin who as Dawkins stated sort of made atheism credible because he disproved such arguments to an extent. This coupled the Newtonian mechanistic view sadly led toward naturalism. Every time a materialist like Dawkins claims there is no God he ceases being a scientist and becomes a metaphysician. On the other hand, we see books like Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe that describe the universe in aesthetic terms but stop there. Science has been trying to kill classical metaphysics for a long time but like Natural Law it buries its undertakers, but the catastrophe of this battle is that humans have been lost in the cosmos ever since. From a non-religous perspective, I guess that is what we need poetry for, because at the heart of every poet is a metaphysican who in his wonder searchs for and finds the reason for his being, God.
AMEN!! It's the harmony of the two, the unity of the scientist and the poet that will bring the full and proper perspective. The sign of the times is painted with that Cartesian brush.... dividing, separating, pulling apart, "murdering to dissect" the human person and the created universe. One of my favorite lines from Pope JPII is in Fides et Ratio: "Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit soars to the contemplation of truth." That's the only way to fly!
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