Wondering About the Facts

In our world, something is not real if it is not factual—not true if it doesn't accord with the facts.  This is so obvious that it is just plain common sense, beyond any the need to question.  We believe in facts.  They are our portal into reality.

Fair enough.  Fair enough, that is, until one starts to think about the meaning of the word, "fact."  The Free Dictionary definition of "fact" seems to be both representative of and somewhat more precise than other online definitions; and what it boils down to is that a fact is a fact because it states or describes something that is real.  It is a fact because it really happened.  It is factual because it really is the case.  It is a fact because it describes a piece of what is really real. By that same token, a scientific fact is "an observation that has been confirmed repeatedly and is accepted as true (although its truth is never final)" and, more simply, "facts learned by observing."

We normally consider facts to be transparent.  We can see through them to subsequent facts leading to the confirmation of hypotheses.  We are less often aware of factuality as a mindset, a set of values, and a prejudice.  How we define reality determines our conception of factuality, and there is no value-free, neutral, unprejudiced definition of reality, not even in the sciences.  Equally important is what we define as unreal.  In science, divine causation is considered to be not real scientifically, and the Holy Spirit  considered outside the realm of scientific reality.

Our definitions of reality by which we determine factuality are all human definitions based on what we think is real.  When theists absolutize their definitions, we are justly criticized for doing so.  Scientists often escapes criticism for absolutizing their definitions because they supposedly have a handle on what is really, really real.  The trouble is, of course, that they don't.  All human definitions of reality are limited ones, incomplete and open to criticism—all of them.  Facts are ultimately human creations.  Vast numbers of what people take to be "facts" do not in fact accord with actual realities.  Scientific "facts" turn out not to be factual.

The point is a simple one: we put too much trust in factuality.

Beyond the Newtonian Jesus

Christian orthodoxy across all denominations and traditions affirms the dual nature of Christ as both human and divine, man and God.  In the Age of Science, the European branches of the faith have largely treated the Doctrine of the Incarnation as if it is a fact on the order of scientific factuality.  Gravity attracts, Columbus discovered the Americas in 1492, and Jesus was human and is divine.  These three "facts," however, exist in three different realms of their own.  Gravity is an observable physical phenomenon.  It requires research to explain it, but explain it or not it is.  The discovery of the Americas is a historical fact, which itself is not observable.  It does not even exist because it lies in the past, which by definition no longer exists in the present.  It is over and done.  We require research to know that it even took place.

The doctrine of the incarnation takes us into a third realm.  All spiritual experiences do.  In and of itself the dual nature of Jesus of Nazareth was not observable, even after his resurrection.  It took the early church centuries of controversy and debate to develop the doctrine.  It cannot be established by observation or by research.  It is a matter of faith that is both experiential and philosophical.  It is philosophical in the sense that it had to be thought through using the powers of reflection and reason.  It is experiential in the sense that on reflection the earliest church saw in their experience of Jesus an experience with God and succeeding generations of Christians have affirmed that we too see in our experience with Christ an experience with God.  None of this fits the profile of a physical phenomenon or historical event.  Jesus did not have a special God organ.  According to the biblical accounts, he was observably human.  And while the doctrine of the incarnation and its development is historical as a doctrine, the purported divinity of Christ is not itself a historical fact.  All that historians can establish is that there was and is a belief in Christ's divinity, not the divinity itself.  Historians are not equipped to deal with spiritual events any more than carpenters are equipped to drill teeth.

For those of us living on the postmodern bridge between the Newtonian world (a.k.a. "modernity") and whatever is coming next, it is excruciatingly difficult to separate divinity from factuality.  For us, God is not a physical phenomenon.  There is no science that deals with God or has the tools to establish the factuality of God in any way that makes scientific sense.  I am personally convinced that one day future science (or whatever comes after science) will discover God, but I don't have a clue what that even means.  Future science will rely on technologies and ways of thinking that have yet to be developed.  In the meantime, we must rely on spiritual sensitivities and the insights we draw from them to discern the Beyondness and the Presence of God.  And we have to unlearn our worshipful respect for facts.  We have to move beyond the doctrine that only what is factual is real.  We have to stop thinking that science is the last stop in our cognitive evolution.

We have to live in faith.

This does not mean we stop thinking critically but precisely the opposite.  It means that when we sense the divine in a sunset and find peace in meditation we accept that we are participating in a different realm of reality—one where Christ is human and divine for those of us who put our faith in him and where the logic of science is flawed, open to criticism.

It All Makes Sense

Reality makes sense to us in at least three ways.  First, reality makes sense to us in an everyday, which is for us common sense.  We sense the world, physical and cultural, and these ordinary, everyday things make sense to us.  Only philosophers wonder if they are real.  For the rest of us, the common world of our physical and cultural senses is real.  Second, we have a moral sense, which helps us navigate our social world.  It is a sense composed of values, attitudes, and ethical principles and behaviors.  It is, to be sure, related to our common sense, but it is also something universal across human cultures.  Finally, we have a spiritual sense, which again is culturally bound in many ways yet universal across human cultures.  With it, we sense a realm of metaphysical realities, such as the human spirit, awe, wonder, mystery, and the mystical.  For people of religious faith, it is with this sense that we sense the Presence of God or the reality of the Dharma.

The boundaries between these realities are porous, but they all make sense to us—in different ways of course.  Cultures define reality, up to a point.  So, too, do our individual personalities define how we sense what is real.  Experiences shape our senses and sometimes radically change what makes sense to us—what is real for us.  We, nonetheless, all have common, moral, and spiritual sensibilities, which all make sense to us.

Rushing On - But Where Are We Going?

Teleportation as imagined on "Star Trek"

Anyone who pays attention is aware that science is rushing forward with new discoveries leading to new applications on a variety of fronts.  A recent article on ABC Science, entitled, "Making teleportation 'fuel-efficient'," is but another witness to that fact.  Apparently, teleportation—"the transfer of matter from one point to another without traversing the physical space between them" (Wikipedia)—is not just a theoretical possibility.  It is also a technological possibility, meaning that scientists are now convinced that we can devise ways to transfer matter from one point to another without moving it through the space between those two points.  If I understand the article correctly, this is now theoretically possible at the quantum level, and that fact has important technological applications toward the construction of  "quantum computers."  Quantum computers are the next step in computing, one that will allow computations many magnitudes greater than today's computers can perform.  Apparently, most of the applications of quantum computing haven't even been discovered yet.  That is, we're headed somewhere, but we don't know where that where is or where we will be when we get "there," wherever "there" is.

We really, really need to think about these things in church—even in worship—and not in the luddite fashion of resistance and fear.  We dare not hide behind our theologies because science and its technologies are rapidly leaving our ancient truths in the dust.  Or, better, seem to be doing so.  Religious faith at its best, perceives a deeper plane or a more central aspect to life, which is not physical yet has physical manifestations.  That deeper plane is the world of the spirit and the Spirit.  Spirit is a life-giving, animating, inspired "presence" in that which has life.  The Spirit is the life-giving, animating, inspired "Presence" that impels cosmic evolution forward.  The Spirit has gifted us with love, faith, kindness, compassion, insight and wisdom, patience, and even self-control.  These are not tangible, physical properties, but they are real realities that we sense and experience with an almost physical clarity.

But is science and its technologies taking us in the direction of spirit and the Spirit—or not?  If not, should it?  What is the ultimate purpose of science and its technologies?  Will science one day achieve a breakthrough to that deeper plane, one that brings it into the presence of spirit and the Spirit?  Or is it a hinderance to the human quest for deeper meaning and wisdom?  These are among the most pressing theological questions of our day.  We need to reflect on them more deeply in local worshipping communities—in worship as well as in local study groups.  Ultimately, the right uses of science, the spiritual uses of science will depend on our collective spiritual will to seek the Spirit.  I'm not suggesting that science become somehow more religious but that it become more spiritual.  It is our calling as people of faith to encourage it in that direction.  Amen.

The Conservative Dilemmas

In a thoughtful, critical piece, entitled, "Creating a Conservative Counterculture: Harder Than It Sounds," Alex Wainer not only laments the "fact" that liberals dominate American popular culture but also observes that conservatives are going to find it very difficult to take back culture, evidently because they lack the creative passion of liberals and they are too blatantly political in expressing their creativity.  Wainter writes, "Maybe conservatives, instead of trying to score political points, might try aiming higher, creating real art that touches people in their souls."  The article concludes with this advice to American conservatives, "So tell your stories, lots of them, in various media, but tell them because you love stories that express what you believe is true and real."

As I read this piece, I felt mixed emotions welling up in my liberal-ish heart of hearts.  On the one hand, it was good to read an article from the Right devoid of demonizing the Left (and, yes, we demonize the Right, too) and to gain a little bit of insight into the soul searching of one American conservative.  The failure to defeat President Obama last November has evidently had a profound effect on many thinking conservatives, which can only be seen as a good thing.

However, I was also painfully aware of two fundamental dilemmas facing American conservatives.  The first has to do with the reality of 21st century society and culture.  Ever accelerating change is built into the very fabric of society today, put there by science and technology.  The very definition of being conservative is resistance to change, especially rapid change, and the doubt that change is a good thing.  An article by Russell Kirk, cited by Wainer, elucidating, "Ten Conservative Principles,"makes it clear that the core of the conservative approach to life is to limit and restrain change.  That's a problem in a world where change keeps coming faster and faster and still faster.  We stand on the verge of still greater changes in the next few decades, and there doesn't appear to be any force on Earth to halt our plunge onward.

The second dilemma facing conservatives is that they are anti-homosexual.  They stand on the wrong side of the moral divide between justice and injustice.  In the past, conservatives have upheld slavery, institutional racism, the marginalization of women, and most recently have done all "they" can to thwart the full and fair social inclusion of those who do not share their sexual orientation.  This is not true, of course, of all conservatives.  There are, after all, Log Cabin Republicans.  Yet, as seen in Wainer's own article, there is a link between conservatism and the suppression of homosexuals—a link that is unjust.  It is also rapidly falling into disfavor, as conservatives themselves painfully realize  (see the Christian Post article, "Survey: Fewer Americans Believe Homosexuality Is a Sin; Nation's View 'Evolving' With Obama's?").

The second dilemma is the one most easily addressed.  There is nothing that says that a conservative philosophy has to be anti-homosexual.  Truth is, many good conservative folks are not (or are less so), often because someone they love  does not share their sexual orientation.  The first dilemma is the harder issue.  The great majority of Americans of all political persuasions embrace the scientific and technological changes inundating our modern world.  We live in a world dominated by the reality of change, and we know that the pace of change is accelerating exponentially.  What does it mean to be a "conservative" in an age when rapid, systemic change waits on no one?

There Never Was A Brontosaurus

Brontosaurus - the critter that never was

According to an NPR posting entitled, "Forget Extinct: The Brontosaurus Never Even Existed," there never was such a thing as a brontosaurus. The belief that there was turns out to be the product of a "Bones War" between two over-zealous, fame-hungry nineteenth-century paleontologists. The thing is scientists have known since 1903, one hundred and nine (almost ten!) years ago, that there never was a creature that we have called by the name, "brontosaurus".  Weird.  Up until this morning, I believed in the brontosaurus and would have answered, "Yes, of course," had I been asked if I did.

Now, one could head off in a couple of directions from the fact that the brontosaurus was invented by bad science rather than discovered by good science.  We could explore the boundaries between belief and fact, which are not nearly as sharply drawn as we might think.  Or, it would be fun to rag a bit on science, which is a whole lot more fallible and human than some of its devotees like to pretend.  But, why ruin a perfectly good story?  If you have the time, I'd suggest you follow the above link to the story about how and why there never was such a thing as a brontosaurus.  And, if that isn't enough, check out this posting, entitled, "The Great Brontosaurus Hoax." It points out that scientists continued to use the name brontosaurus until 1974, which may help explain why we the public didn't know it was a name without a thing to be named.  The picture accompanying this posting is from yet another source, "Brontosauruses Never Existed," which has still more facts on the matter.

All of this makes one wonder what else there might be that we know is true that isn't true.

Scientific Power & Spiritual Power

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love