An Immaculate Misconception
So where once the eponymous Professor Hawking suggested that one day we might know "the mind of God" (once Physics had produced a grand unified theory), now he thinks that the universe at its initiation no longer requires God to get it started. Many have asserted in reporting his views (including the Times in its frontpage headline on the 2nd Sept) that this is a claim that God doesn't exist. The reaction soon arrived by means of various media, and was fairly predictable. But at the heart of many of the views expressed appears to be a misconception. Once we have a "scientific" explanation for a phenomenon, it squeezes out all other explanations. And not just theological ones, but philosophical explanations too. For having killed God, apparently Physics now has its hands around the throat of philosophy.
The misconception is this: science explains everything. In case this smacks just a bit too much of intellectual hubris, let me amend it for the sake of humbler colleagues: science explains everything, or at least in principle can explain everything and in practice probably will explain everything once we know enough. There are a number of fundamental problems with even the amended version.
As far as I'm aware science has never attempted to explain "everything". And even the eventual "grand unified theory" that some physicists claim they will one day construct, doesn’t explain everything. Science has produced some fantastically successful explanations of certain phenomena which share a number of characteristics. Among these is the characteristic that a given phenomenon (or its effects) can be prodded, poked, measured, observed or recorded. And usually the prodding etc has to be done more than once - it has to be repeatable. In other words, in science we carve off certain aspects of the universe, study them, and produce explanations for them. But we all know that there are other things that don't fall neatly into the repeatable-prodable category.
Unique, one off events, for example. These can have remarkable consequences. Many of them happened in the past, some in the remote past. They may still have reverberations in the present day. I don’t mean the big bang, although it certainly was a unique event (at least from our perspective). Consider great thoughts, great speeches, great art from the past. We don't study these primarily with science. They are the province of a different discipline with its own rigorous and accepted methods - history. Are historical explanations now to be displaced as inadequate?
And it's not just the scope of science that is being misconceived. There are also the twin issues of depth and level. Consider the Mona Lisa for a moment. Chemistry is able to explain the composition of the pigments used, and why and how they have changed over the centuries. The science of optics can explain the formation of a sharp image of the painting on the back of your eye. It will explain quite adequately why, for instance the image is upside down. The neurosciences can explain how the image at the back of the eye is decomposed into lots of electrical signals in the retina, which are then transmitted to the visual cortex at the back of the brain. We can explain how different features in the image cause distinct parts of the visual system to activate. We can explain why the inverted image is not perceived as being inverted. Personally I reckon this is all still far short of explaining how all this adds up to you “seeing” the Mona Lisa, and appreciating it. But even if we agree we have an explanation for all of the processes involved in seeing, would we feel that we had said all there was to say about the Mona Lisa? We haven't yet said anything about its purpose and meaning, all we have talked about is mechanism. And this leaves a lot out of the account.
But suppose we explained the Mona Lisa in terms of its meaning and purpose. Would that negate all the stuff above about chemistry and optics and neuroscience? Of course not. These explanations are not competing, they are complementary. And here's where we come back to the misconception. God is not a competing explanation that is being increasingly made redundant by the advance of science. He is not a phenomenon but a person whose power underpins and sustains all the processes studied by science. That's why science can neither prove not disprove Him. He's not that kind of repeatable-prodable thing, along with money, football scores, and Tony Blair's grin.
Of course my statement above about who God is and what He does is not a scientific one. You'll notice that it's no less understandable or rational for that. You may disagree with it, but that simply makes it, in your view, wrong. Not mad. And I have my reasons for making such a statement and evidence upon which I base it.
This all has little to do with blue touch paper the instant before the big bang. Here's the really breathtaking thing. God was not merely active in the remote past. That’s the God of the deist, not the God of the Bible. He's been involved with this particular universe ever since. He's involved with it right now. But you can't measure His involvement with the methods and techniques of science. This does not make Him spooky, or mysterious and unknowable. He has, in fact, made Himself knowable. You can't get much more knowable than Jesus Christ, who was born, breathed, lived and died on this particular planet. Who lived one of the best attested and evidenced lives ever lived. And, I and others claim, both died a unique death, and returned from the dead to prove it. Never mind Professor Hawking’s new book. I don't think even he would claim that reading it would transform your life now and your eternal destiny. Try Luke's book in the New Testament if you are of a scientific frame of mind, or John's book if you're more arty!
So where once the eponymous Professor Hawking suggested that one day we might know "the mind of God" (once Physics had produced a grand unified theory), now he thinks that the universe at its initiation no longer requires God to get it started. Many have asserted in reporting his views (including the Times in its frontpage headline on the 2nd Sept) that this is a claim that God doesn't exist. The reaction soon arrived by means of various media, and was fairly predictable. But at the heart of many of the views expressed appears to be a misconception. Once we have a "scientific" explanation for a phenomenon, it squeezes out all other explanations. And not just theological ones, but philosophical explanations too. For having killed God, apparently Physics now has its hands around the throat of philosophy.
The misconception is this: science explains everything. In case this smacks just a bit too much of intellectual hubris, let me amend it for the sake of humbler colleagues: science explains everything, or at least in principle can explain everything and in practice probably will explain everything once we know enough. There are a number of fundamental problems with even the amended version.
As far as I'm aware science has never attempted to explain "everything". And even the eventual "grand unified theory" that some physicists claim they will one day construct, doesn’t explain everything. Science has produced some fantastically successful explanations of certain phenomena which share a number of characteristics. Among these is the characteristic that a given phenomenon (or its effects) can be prodded, poked, measured, observed or recorded. And usually the prodding etc has to be done more than once - it has to be repeatable. In other words, in science we carve off certain aspects of the universe, study them, and produce explanations for them. But we all know that there are other things that don't fall neatly into the repeatable-prodable category.
Unique, one off events, for example. These can have remarkable consequences. Many of them happened in the past, some in the remote past. They may still have reverberations in the present day. I don’t mean the big bang, although it certainly was a unique event (at least from our perspective). Consider great thoughts, great speeches, great art from the past. We don't study these primarily with science. They are the province of a different discipline with its own rigorous and accepted methods - history. Are historical explanations now to be displaced as inadequate?
And it's not just the scope of science that is being misconceived. There are also the twin issues of depth and level. Consider the Mona Lisa for a moment. Chemistry is able to explain the composition of the pigments used, and why and how they have changed over the centuries. The science of optics can explain the formation of a sharp image of the painting on the back of your eye. It will explain quite adequately why, for instance the image is upside down. The neurosciences can explain how the image at the back of the eye is decomposed into lots of electrical signals in the retina, which are then transmitted to the visual cortex at the back of the brain. We can explain how different features in the image cause distinct parts of the visual system to activate. We can explain why the inverted image is not perceived as being inverted. Personally I reckon this is all still far short of explaining how all this adds up to you “seeing” the Mona Lisa, and appreciating it. But even if we agree we have an explanation for all of the processes involved in seeing, would we feel that we had said all there was to say about the Mona Lisa? We haven't yet said anything about its purpose and meaning, all we have talked about is mechanism. And this leaves a lot out of the account.
But suppose we explained the Mona Lisa in terms of its meaning and purpose. Would that negate all the stuff above about chemistry and optics and neuroscience? Of course not. These explanations are not competing, they are complementary. And here's where we come back to the misconception. God is not a competing explanation that is being increasingly made redundant by the advance of science. He is not a phenomenon but a person whose power underpins and sustains all the processes studied by science. That's why science can neither prove not disprove Him. He's not that kind of repeatable-prodable thing, along with money, football scores, and Tony Blair's grin.
Of course my statement above about who God is and what He does is not a scientific one. You'll notice that it's no less understandable or rational for that. You may disagree with it, but that simply makes it, in your view, wrong. Not mad. And I have my reasons for making such a statement and evidence upon which I base it.
This all has little to do with blue touch paper the instant before the big bang. Here's the really breathtaking thing. God was not merely active in the remote past. That’s the God of the deist, not the God of the Bible. He's been involved with this particular universe ever since. He's involved with it right now. But you can't measure His involvement with the methods and techniques of science. This does not make Him spooky, or mysterious and unknowable. He has, in fact, made Himself knowable. You can't get much more knowable than Jesus Christ, who was born, breathed, lived and died on this particular planet. Who lived one of the best attested and evidenced lives ever lived. And, I and others claim, both died a unique death, and returned from the dead to prove it. Never mind Professor Hawking’s new book. I don't think even he would claim that reading it would transform your life now and your eternal destiny. Try Luke's book in the New Testament if you are of a scientific frame of mind, or John's book if you're more arty!
posted by Paul at 11:59 AM
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