You raise some objections to some of the points in my last letter. You raise the point that in my example of the spider, the spider is not consciously doing something. It is just instinct that drives all creatures to have their genetic code survive and this is the driving force behind the evolutionary struggles and the spider is doing what evolution demands by insuring that the spider’s offspring survive. This is therefore an act of selfishness as opposed to something done otherwise.

There is something here of fundamental importance and I want to draw your attention to it. The basic question that all science addresses is how. It studies and elucidates mechanisms whereby changes occur. But, as soon as the question – why – intrudes, we have strayed from science and entered into another domain. You see when the claim is made that evolution wants to, strives to or what ever other expression is used, we are no longer in the realm of science. So to claim as Dawkins and others have done that the objective of evolution is the survival of genes, this is not science but speculation posing as science. Use this acid test – the how versus why test – on statements, because it will clarify the confusion that is often sown for reasons other than science. If the why question is in the center of the discussion, it is not science.

I did not claim and still do not claim that the spider was doing anything that approaches human love or human behavior. The spider was probably acting on instinct. I will accept this because I think that it is the most likely explanation for the action carried out by the spider. We cannot and should not attribute human characteristics to every creature or every action carried out by the creature. To ascribe human motives to non-human beings obviously makes no sense. But there is an even more important conclusion that comes from this little illustration.

If instinct is operating here, where did it come from? To me, it indicates that somehow the universe is seeded with certain signals, with certain attitudes. What the example tells me is that underlying the universe is sacrificial love and that is the prime driving force behind the cosmos. It is not survival of the fittest, it is not that might makes right, but it is sacrificial love. The spider is an illustration of this principle and there are many others that can be referred to.

We have concentrated on biology but there is much more to science than just biology and it must be admitted that even in physics and other disciplines there has been a conflict with faith. So, let’s take a closer look at that.

One of the bones of contention lies in the question as to origins of the universe. Was it a chance occurrence totally explainable by scientific laws or is there more to it? Our faith teaches us that when we speak about creation we are not just talking about origins only. Creation seen in Christianity is a much richer concept than just that. Moreover, we can readily see that the idea of creation is crucial for the Bible – it opens and closes with creation.

There is always an underlying fear that the power and consistency of scientific laws makes God seem almost unnecessary. But central to the formulation of scientific laws is mathematics and remember that mathematics is not something invented by scientists; mathematics is discovered by mathematicians and scientists. And scientific laws for all their power, give us a rather superficial view of reality. They really give us a very restricted view on reality and do not open the door to the deeper truths of the universe. The question that is often ignored by scientists is very simply: where did the laws of science come from? The answer to this question lies outside the realm of concern for science. Science cannot answer this question and from this we see that science cannot give us any deep meaning about the cosmos or creation in general.

There was another major discovery in the early twentieth century and this has to do with some fundamental aspects of mathematics. It was shown by Gödel, an Austrian mathematician, that mathematics is incomplete in that it cannot give us any final answers. No mathematical system contains proof of its own consistency. We can get no final and complete answer about the world in mathematics. Mathematics itself has limits. Remember as a general rule that the temporary cannot give absolute knowledge. What we know cannot be final and total. It is always incomplete and we should not delude ourselves into thinking that we can conjure up final truths by simply using our intelligence and mathematical logic.

The mathematics of probability and chance arose through an effort to improve betting results in casinos. But we also came to see how important chance is in the operation of the world. It is through chance that we see new creatures forming and this is in keeping with what our faith teaches. This creation is a work in progress. We could call it creativa continua . We can envisage creation as increasing order out of disorder, as a battle of God against the chaos that wants to engulf creation and which science refers to as entropy.

In spite of its failings, nature does speak to us of God and we see hints about Him if we are open enough to observe what is there. Obviously, we cannot totally describe God in language and in a sense, the role of atheism is to underline the inadequacy of our language. But our pride raises its head and does not want to accept the fact that we are limited in what we can say and know about the world.

Creation is fallen and we should not expect to get a clear vision of God through creation. But what is also important is that creation cannot be fully understood without reference to Christ. Any hypothesis regarding nature but omitting Christ is incomplete because it fails to take into account God’s intimate relation to the world, a relation best achieved through worship and through prayer and through struggling against our selfishness. Without Christ, we are back to deism which sees the world as essentially autonomous from God and unfortunately, this is the position held not just by scientists, but also by many Christians. We can summarize by saying that the modern and the Biblical views of the natural world differ in the relationship of God and the world, and this is a fundamental difference. The deistic view of the world is contrary to that of the Bible. Our faith clearly and strongly teaches and insists that God is intimately involved with the world.

There is another subtle temptation that haunts a lot of us and that is our avarice for knowledge. We feel that our most important role in life is to increase in our knowledge. To grow in knowledge is an admirable goal but it must also be tempered by the fact that knowledge is not the fundamental point of life. An increase in knowledge can also be abused by turning it to our domination of nature and of our neighbors. Knowledge may give us a false sense of security and increase our overweening pride. These are all subtle temptations into which it is so easy to fall.

We are called on to live, to experience. It is to encounter life in all its sometimes tragic contours and to not be defeated by this but to be able to perceive something deeper in our existence which we term love. It is not enough to say – we must also do. Christ, time and time again, calls on the disciples to go out and to do – to feed, to console, to simply be there. And this is what I pointed out earlier about Christianity in that it is not so much about dogma or teachings as it is about what Christ has attained, what he has done for all of creation and which we are called on to spread throughout our world. This is a fundamental difference between Christianity and ‘religions’. Christianity is very different because it concentrates on what has been done – redemption – and not on explanations or lengthy discussions but on action. Yes, we cannot just ignore the head and concentrate only on the heart. We are called on to give a reasoned account and defence of our faith. Our liturgy specifically talks about an ‘intelligent flock’ because the head is important in defining a human being, but it is not the only thing and sometimes it is not the most important aspect of humanity. Otherwise, what do we have to say to those who have an impaired grasp of reality, those who are mentally ill? Both the head and the heart are necessary and important in forming us as people who have faith, who love and hope.

In our discussions we are focusing on the head and on arguments and explanations and these, of course are important and necessary. But they are only the beginning point of our growth. We will see that there is so much more that we need to focus on but that will come with time.

Sincerely,
Bar-Abbas