John Polkinghorne's, "exploring Reality" commentary on his views of science and religion

[mitchellmckain 0]

Chapter 10 continued

 

I would like to begin by mentioning a book by N. T. Wright called "Surprised by Hope" in which you will find many of the same ideas regarding an eschatological hope in a future physical resurrection rather than a spiritual hope founded on a belief in the immortality of the soul. The point being that JP is far from being alone in his ideas and convictions in this regard. Also I can say that it was from reading that book by Wright that I formulated a lot of the objections I am expressing in response to this idea as it is expressed by JP in his book as well.

 

To continue, the thrust of JP's reasoning about an interchange of material with the risen Jesus is to lead us to his conclusion that our personal destiny, human destiny and the desiny of all material creation is one and the same: a recreation by God. However, I feel that this has some serious theological flaws. A need for God to recreate the world impies that either God's original work of creation is flawed or that mankind has managed to contaminate God's creation and make it evil and in need of redemption. Together with JP denial of a spiritual reality apart from the physical, this implies that this contaminatation is of a physical nature for why else would it require a physical transformation. The more common Christian view is that the evil in the world is purely spiritual both root and effect and the only transformation of the world that is required is a transformation of the human spirit.

 

I suppose that one of the reasons why people are brought to JP's way of thinking is the existence of what they call natural evil: things like physical death, disease and natural disaster. But it seems to me that this is a remnant of thinking from before the theory of evolution and an imperfect absorbtion of its implications because the scientific theory of evolution necessarily implies that all these are a perfectly natural part of God's creation, for you cannot have evolution without physical death and even the challenges of disease and natural disasters are spurs for evolutionary development. If one understands evolutionary development to be an objective manifestation of God participatory role in the creation of living things then these "natural evils" are no different from the other challenges in life by which God helps us to grow in spirit, mind and responsibility for our own existence. The plain fact is that just as stable populations cannot evolve, so also does comfort and security lull us into apathy, atrophy, and stagnation.

 

JP continues his spectulation with the question of "how will that transformation come about for the great bulk of matter still remaining in the old creation, untouched so far by the resurrection?" He answers saying that "God will continue to hold this present world in being while its processes are still capable of fruitful development." The part in italics raises a common belief by many Christians that I do not agree with, and this is the idea that the continuing existence of the universe requires exertion of God's will. The problem is that this implies that God is incapable of creating anything truly apart from himself, and that this world is more like a dream in the mind of God that will vanish when God's attention is elsewhere. I have a difficulty distinguishing this view from panentheism, and I don't believe that it makes any sense, for either you limit God's power to create things apart from Himself or you contradict His obvious intention to create things with free will an thus acting independent of His own will, which could never be complete or real if we did not even exist independent of His will. It is my suspision that this belief is a logically inconsistent product of misplaced piety, but our dependence on God must be derived from an acknoweledged need for His guidance and not from some philosophical rational for why we really have no choice.

 

In any case, JP suggests that the fact that the universe cannot go on forever, because the second law of thermodynamics makes this universe a wind up affair that is inevitably running down, supports his idea of God transforming it into a new creation. But I do not think that the finite span of the universe is in any way relevant to what JP would have us believe. My own expectation is that in the spirit we will be free to admire and enjoy the the universe in its entirety as a beautiful creation of God, including our own very small contribution from when we were a part of it. The rather common belief that the spiritual exists outside of time and space, strongly supported by the implications of modern physics, means that the finitude of the universe's temporal expanse is no different from the finitude of its spatial expanse. Furthermore this adds an additional absurdity in seeing the development of God's kingdom as somehow dependent on the passage of time in the progress of human history.

 

The idea that God requires this universe as raw materials for a new creation sheds a very different light on JP's comment regarding God creating "continua" rather than the traditional idea of creation ex-nihilo. As far as creating living things I certainly agree that God created living things by stimulating the process of evolution just as God stimulates our own spiritual developement as Christians. But this is entirely due to nature of living things and not any limitation on God's power of creation and so although I envision God creating this universe out of knowledge rather than magic, I would certainly not think that God creation of this universe required some pre-existing material. But that means that I also would therefore not think that God's creation of a new heaven and earth would require God to use this universe as raw materials for it.

 

The most natural conclusion to draw from scriptures implying that the kingdom of Heaven is both now and in the future, is to take Jesus at His word when He says that His kingdom is not of this world. Yet when we understand this, like most Christians, as a spiritual kingdom, then as God who is spirit, not only interacts with this world but can dwell within us, so also can Jesus' spiritual kingdom transform this world until it finally resides within and inhabits this world as well. This is not only rather naturally suggested by numerous scriptures in the Bible but it is far more natural resolution of this problem than resorting to intersecting branes and subspaces.

Edited September 8, 2008 by mitchellmckain (see edit history)

[mitchellmckain 0]

Chapter 10 continued and conclusion.Next JP considers the question, "what will Jesus be like in this resurrected kingdom of God in the future?" Here perhaps JP is forced to depart from his side by side view of the new and old creations as is evident by his phrasing of this question in the future tense. This is another indication that JP is on the wrong track, for if we believe in the kingdom of God as a spiritual kingdom we would not need to ask this of the future for it would be equally valid for the present, experienced by those who are in the spirit already and by those to whom Jesus has visited. Furthermore, JP's answer that Jesus would be in human form would be quite obvious for there is no reason to think that Jesus would appear in any different form than that which He has already appeared to His disciples after the resurrection. JP's appears to be concerned about how a vast human throng could all have access to a Jesus in human form but where JP must resort to magical ideas in a physical setting these difficulties naturally vanish in the spiritual setting outside the limitations of time and space. I would however add that I really do not expect Jesus sitting on some throne or as a constant companion in the way that some have envisioned and this is because I do not see the kingdom as and end to personal growth but only beginning. In such growth I would not expect Jesus to constantly hold our hand but only to come to us as an unexpected visitor to turn our world upside down and thereby give us what we need just and exactly when we need it, much like in the film named "Joshua". But this is another part of the fundamental differences between our views of heaven. For JP heaven seems to be an end of growth, strife, free will and thus equivalently and end of life which I see as a fundamental contradiction to the promise of eternal life. Apparently for JP, eternal life is little more than eternal existence.Next JP considers the concept of the corporate Christ as described by Paul where Christians form a single body with Christ as the head. JP says that the best sense that he can make of this is simply that our encounter with the human Jesus will not be a sequential affair but partaking of something like the simultaneous individuation and unity of the Trinity. I see something quite different in this concept of the body of Christ. I see the next stage in human evolution in the formation of a communal organism, where individuals can cooperate with the same kind of productivity, exceeding the capacities of the individual, that is found in the community of cells making up the physical body. Perhaps one of the industries where we can see such cooperation at its peak is in the production of a major motion picture, where the creativity of many individuals results in the creation of new worlds for people to see and explore. I see this as part of both the future of mankind on the earth and the future in the spirit as well. I think this reveals another flaw in JP's view as, ironically enough, too other-worldly and so far from the hopes, dreams and expectations of non-Christians or even other Christians that they could not relate to it. This, of course, does not mean that JP is wrong but I think that the fact of the diversity of religion and human thought does suggest that JP probably is wrong. Furthermore, I think it makes more sense to base ones speculations upon the clues that are all around us in this world.Finally JP extends his speculative inquiries to their most daring by considering the possibility of other intellegent beings elsewhere in the universe with their own awareness of God. JP asks the naive question of whether Christ died for these beings as well. I think this presumes too much similarity between these beings and ourselves such that they would even need anything like the salvation that we do. JP draws on the thinking of Gregory of Nazianus that Jesus assumption of humanity is essential to His work of saving humanity. With this I certainly agree and would add the very simple obervation that Jesus being the salvation for non-human beings makes no more sense than supposing that these beings also fell into sin as a result of the actions of Adam and Eve. But more importantly I think we cannot make any assumptions that there are any similarities in regards to the needs of these beings or the nature of their relationship to God. I imagine exploring the enormous differences in a very large number of such different beings may be one of the neverending vistas that we can look forward to as a part of eternal life and our discovery of the infinite nature of God. So JP asks how this fits into the idea of encountering Christ in human form and imagining these aliens as a part of the corportate Christ suggests that Christ must take different forms appropriate to whatever species He encounters according to similar incarnation events on their worlds. I do not even imagine these alien beings as a part of the body of Christ at all, but expecting far more vast differences between us and them (which requires no imagining of any analogy to Christ in their lives) would suggest that a unity with such beings would most likely represent a completely different stage in the process of evolution, where the human community is just one individual in a greater communal organism. In Christian rather than scientific imagery this would represent another stage in our discovery, relationhsip and union with God.ConclusionI have certainly found enormous similarities in our approch to many things in Christianity and especially concerning the relationship between science and religion. Furthermore I have encountered many interesting ideas that are new to me, but as you can see, I also have many ideas that I would share with him as well. The differences in our thinking are primarily rooted in two things: one is a very different metaphysical conception of reality and the second is our position on the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Clearly our disagreement on these two issues are fundamental and important to the way we think affecting many different considerations. But hopefully our differences can ultimately be seen as just one of those things that make life interesting.

[iGuest 3]

Science and ReligionJohn Polkinghorne's, "exploring Reality"

Science seeks objective truth while spirituality seeks subjective truth. The area of search is different. But since both seek truth there really cant be a contradiction. A study on the relationship between the subject and object can conclusively prove their interdependence.

Further, I think, Science and religion are not exactly on a level playing ground. This is the reason why I wrote spirituality instead of religion.

I believe that application of science is technology and likewise application of spirituality is religion.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

ASHOK

-reply by ASHOK