Polkinghorne is a very enjoyable man to listen to, complete with the sophisticated accent and diffident air of a proper British mathematical physicist. His topic was a scientific and philosophical defense of Theism. He outlined five major aspects of the Universe that support the claim that God not only created the Universe, but did it for a purpose:
- Fruitfulness -- Despite its exceedingly simple beginning (the Big Bang), the Universe contains extraordinary diversity and complexity, crowned by the existence of intelligent life. This complexity is only made possible by staggering precision in many fundamental properties, including the cosmological constant and the relative strengths of gravity and electromagnetism. This fine-tuning is not found solely in the Universe's initial conditions, but crops up throughout its history, implying that God has been intimately involved in the workings of his Creation all along. Although we may not be able to categorically disprove the rebuttal that these staggering odds are compensated for by a vast number of Universes, there is no evidence for such an elaborate assumption; the "more economical conclusion" is a single Theistic Universe.
- Consciousness and Value -- Carl Sagan and others have pointed out how incredibly tiny we are on the scale of the cosmos, but small does not necessarily mean insignificant. Polkinghorne quotes Blaise Pascal, who said that, though we are "mere reeds" compared to the stars, we are "thinking reeds." Thus we are greater than the stars, for we know them and they know nothing. Polkinghorne calls intelligent life "the most surprising thing in the history of the Universe," and argues that we cannot sidestep the question of why it exists. He rejects reductionism (the view that mental activity is derived entirely from the physical, made up of nothing more than electrical currents in the brain), noting that such claims are at least grossly premature, given the enormous gap between the findings of Neuroscience and the simplest mental experience. Going beyond the issue of Consciousness, Polkinghorne also rejects naturalistic explanations for our innate sense of Moral Value, arguing that the belief that it is "wrong to torture children" is neither an evolutionary strategy nor a social convention, but simply a fact of life. Similarly, our sense of Beauty is not merely a neural response to sensory input, but a sharing in the joy of the Creator. All three of these -- Consciousness, Morality, Beauty -- argue not only that we were created, but that we were created by a Personal God.
- Creativity -- We understand this world far more deeply than what we need for survival. In other words, our ability to be creatively productive, in pursuits that range from physics to music, cannot be understood in purely evolutionary terms. Another remarkable fact (though we often take it for granted) is that our abstract creative thoughts can be usefully applied to the physical world. Not only is our understanding of physics (reality) utterly reliant upon mathematics (pure abstract thought), but it is usually the most simple and elegant mathematical equations that best describe physical processes. Science cannot answer the question of why this is so; science is simply glad of it. The best answer comes from Theism: that thought and reality are compatible because they have a common origin in God.
- Relationships -- The Universe has the capability of relational phenomenon that are rather unexpected. It is not remarkable for knowledge to occur at a distance. (Example: Without looking, you and I each take a pebble from a box containing one white pebble and one black one. You then travel hundreds of miles away before looking at your pebble. Instantly, despite the distance, you then immediately know the color of my pebble.) On the other hand, causality at a distance is quite remarkable. Quantum Entanglement is such an effect: if two particles are "entangled" and then separated, anything that happens to one particle will instantaneously affect the other, without regard to the usual rule that information never travels faster than the speed of light. Einstein thought that this effect, which was predicted in his equations, was "spooky." But modern experiments have now confirmed that it is real. As a disclaimer, this was the point of Polkinghorne's that I understood the least well, but I think his point was that relational aspects of the physical universe reflect the relational nature of human beings, and that this ultimately reflects the personal and relational nature of God.
- Eventual Futility -- Despite its Fruitfulness, the ultimate future of the Universe is dark. Whether it collapses back into a single point, or expands into a cold death, physical models are agreed that the Universe will eventually come to an end. It was surprising to me that Polkinghorne brought up this grim notion as evidence for Theism, but he sees the coming death of the Universe as a reflection of our own human deaths, and ties it all together with the hope of Resurrection. He says that the essential "pattern that is me" constitutes the Soul, and exists apart from the body. After all, Polkinghorne notes that his own body has "practically no atoms in common with the schoolboy of 60 years ago," implying that the essential things must be more fundamental than the physical. He believes that this "pattern" will dissolve when he dies, but will be retained in the memory of God, and that "God will not allow anything of worth to be lost," not in us and not in the physical realm either. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
Polkinghorne closed, as he had opened, by saying that none of these things can provide an airtight proof of Theism. He doesn't "say that you're a fool if you don't agree with me," but he does submit that his principles form a coherent Theistic philosophy that is worthy of consideration. In my opinion, this is precisely how a Christian Apologetic argument should be presented, with gentleness and respect towards the person you are conversing with, and without the attitude that your arguments are self-evident and unanswerable. Apologetics, including scientific philosophy like Polkinghorne's, can be very useful in clearing away "roadblocks" that are keeping a person from faith; but no one will ever come to Christ solely because they have been convinced by arguments. I could write much more on that subject, but maybe another time.
One subject that I have thought a lot about recently is whether/how the Scientific Method can accomodate a belief in Miracles. Christianity, of course, is fundamentally based on Miracles that occurred in history. Can the evidence for such a miracle ever be conclusive, or is it always necessary to exercise Faith apart from the evidence? What happens when putative miracles fall into scientific fields of study, like geology or archaeology? Is it possible for a scientist to believe in such a supernatural event without abandoning his obligation to thoroughly investigate all possible natural explanations, as demanded by the Scientific Method? I have begun to think that scientists are obligated to always pursue natural explanations for any event, whether it is the Origin of Life or the Miracles of Christ; though there may come a point where personal belief tends towards the supernatural explanation as the most sensible, even as the scientific search continues for a natural alternative. Whether or not I am on the right track, I am still far from satisfied with my understanding of this issue. I was able to ask Polkinghorne about it during the Q&A session after the lecture, and he essentially answered that he does not see miracles as a scientific problem at all, but rather a theological one. He believes in the Resurrection of Christ, for example, because of what he believes about God, not because of scientific/historical evidence (or, at least, not primarily because of it). I don't think I am comfortable with such an outright divorce between the spiritual and the physical, so I am still working on this question. But that also is another essay for another time.
Posted by Matt on 4/11/2003 12:14:00 AM 
