GOD IN THE AGE OF SCIENCE: HOMELESS AND LONELY . . . “The progress of religion is defined,” writes the early-twentieth-century philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, “by the denunciation of gods.” Gods become fewer in number until there is only one—or a Father, Son and Holy Ghost adding up to one. And the qualities of the lonely God that is left are also denounced. He loses His home: God is no longer to be found inside a temple or even, after airplanes, enthroned atop a cloud. He loses His physical form: His beard, His voice, perhaps His body or even His gender. He is neither seen nor heard in public. He grows wispier, more abstract. . . . In Newton’s understanding, and that of many of his scientifically inclined contemporaries, God was losing not only eyes, a nose, bluster and his two other manifestations, but the inclination to fiddle with natural laws. Newton was offended by the odd arithmetic of the Trinity—insisted upon by Anglicans as well as Catholics. He inclined, in his private writings, toward a view of Jesus as human rather than as one of three parts of one God. In addition, this physicist was suspicious, as was Spinoza, of the idea that miracles “are the works of God” rather than just rare and poorly understood phenomena. Like Spinoza, Newton, when writing for himself, also had no use for a corporeal view of God. Indeed, Newton—when not looking for hidden predictions, at least—was partial to Spinoza’s reading of the Bible as a human document. One question Newton and his contemporaries certainly struggled with was what role a Perfect Being would have after a presumably perfect Creation. Wouldn’t He be redundant post-Genesis—after functioning as the First Cause? Wouldn’t Jehovah end up resembling one of the Epicurean gods—left with no responsibility but to enjoy Himself? And with science continuing to pick up speed, new observations kept arriving. The British scientist Edmond Halley undertook some calculations in 1694: The Rain of forty Days and Nights will be found to be a very small Part of the Cause of such a Deluge, for supposing it to rain all over the Globe as much in each Day, as it is now found to do in one of the rainiest Counties of England in the whole Year, viz. about forty Inches of Water per Diem, forty such Days could cover the whole Ear with but about twenty two Fathom Water, which would only drown the low Lands next the Sea. Francis Bacon [stated that] “the world was made for man.” This happy fact is demonstrated by the world’s multitudes of helpful touches, including, according to one of these scientists, the horse’s ear, which conveniently turns backward to better hear commands. Thus we comprehend God’s plan. And if we happen to see some things that don’t appear to be doing a lot for humankind—distant heavenly bodies, for example, or the aforementioned snakes—well, that’s just a sign that we can never fully comprehend God’s plan.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 18:10:26 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015