Last week I had an interesting dialogue with a friend who claims to be an atheist and her son who felt the term agnostic was better, because you really can’t prove beyond doubt whether there is or is not a God; ultimately you believe or don’t believe. I thought the latter argument had more rationality to it, though I must admit to some feelings of emptiness at its implications.
To defend my faith without feistiness (my computer thinks that is not a word, but you know), I thought it best to observe the frailty of our reasoning power. I’ve always been amazed when I hear a good debater utterly convince me of their thesis, yet have the same reaction to the adversary’s counter argument! (I won’t mention the profession that is so good at that). There was a look when I said I didn’t have much FAITH in reason.
Anyway, this occasion set me to thinking, always a dubious exercise. Anyway, here goes. We know what we know from our observations, including physical things, or mathematical models/ scientific abstractions from the observed and such. When we dwell on matters such as the magnitude of the universe, the Big Bang Theory (sounds like creation?), or eternity, our minds kind of warp, don’t they? They don’t seem real; we can’t quite get our minds around them. Why? Well, they are beyond our observed reality. We can’t “imagine” them.
I think the concept of eternity is the most mind-boggling. But either there is or is not eternity. Since everything we can observe changes, has a beginning, a middle and an end,the first reaction is there is no eternity. Then you say, well, if that’s so, how’d it start? Can something come from nothing? Doesn’t sound possible. So that leads to the conclusion that there has to be something that didn’t start, hence always was, an eternal being. Behold Aristotle’s “First Mover” argument as proof of a one and eternal God! Comforting, no?
Yeah, I know, you can poke holes in any argument as mentioned above, but the “First Mover” concept seems a winner to me. Nonetheless, it may well be better to have faith in your FAITH, than faith in your reason!
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Everything we observe has a beginning, a middle, and an end (maybe not taxes). If that’s reality, how’d it start from nothing? So that sounds like, to our minds, since something can’t come from nothing, there must have been something–and not things we can imagine, for everything we know changes, and eternity doesn’t. Behold Aristotle’s proof of the one eternal God, who he called the “First Mover”!
In Pope Benedict’s controversial 2006 lecture, he referred to the encounter of faith and reason found in the Old and New Testaments. John summed it up brilliantly in his Gospel…in the beginning was the Word (Logos)…. the very mind of God. Benedict challenged his audience to encounter the One in the unfolding encounter between faith and reason.
On its own, reasoning about the origin of the universe has produced some profound theories in the past 100 years. Using Einstein’s relativity theory, mathematicians and cosmologists have pushed science to the edge of philosophy. I find it interesting that one of the intellectual fathers of the “Big Bang” theory was Fr. George Lemaitre. He did see the poetic implication of an understanding of creation but preferred to stand in the “reason” camp when it came to the mathematics and scientific method supporting his theory. It took about 60 years of reasoning to “see” the afterglow of creation in a mircowave receiver in New Jersey.
I must admit that trying to comprehend how something could be created out of nothing is a wonder. But, our universe apparently began from a singularity in which the laws of space/time and matter didn’t exist. It’s so elegant and yet so mysterious.
Left alone, faith without reason can take us down some pretty bizarre roads that can lead to persecutions and holy wars.
But, going back to Pope Benedict, what do we do with the reasoning? Do we accept that fact that the universe is simply a product of a singularity? Are human beings left as bit players in a Albert Camus universe?
I think that “faith” tempers “reason”. I accept that modern reason can challenge traditional notions found in Scripture about creation, cosmology, human behavior etc. but with “faith” we can see the mystery, beauty and value of all creation as a gift from the Father.