Who Made.....?

I've been chatting with a friend from church over email this afternoon about the question of "Who made God?" and how it relates to first causes, the Universe, design, etc etc. As I haven't had much time to post anything of late I thought I would be cheeky and post up one of my replies to him...

I understand the answer to the question "Who made God?" as nobody did. God is eternal and something that is eternal isn't created by definition.

Who made God is a separate question (or should be) to the "Who made the Universe?" question as God transcends our Universe.

For an infinite universe there need never be a 'first cause' as its cause can just continue regressing further and further back. Since our universe is not infinite we can legitimately ask the question who or what started it.

For the Christian we can quite comfortably say God but there also exists the possibility that our universe rests in a higher-dimensional space (possibly an infinite one) in which case it could still have a natural cause and saying God started ours becomes even more so a matter of faith.

If the first cause was a being such as God it would imply choice certainly and design (in its weak sense) in the origination of our Universe but certainly not Design (in the strong and interloping sense advocates of Intelligent Design use it) as God is quite capable of endowing His creation, the Universe, with the ability to continuously create itself in an ongoing fashion if He wants it to.

And that property is certainly where the evidence from our investigations of our own universe points to.

And also consistent with Gen 1:11-12, 1:24 and 2:19.

Communal Living for the Community

There's been a lot of chat in my small group lately about communal living and what would that be like. Frankly having finally got a flat of my own and enjoying the freedom it allows me I find the idea of living with a bunch of (very nice) Christians to be horrific. I'm not overly convinced by the wisdom or need to either.

Sorry guys - I've been there and done that in the past and I'm not very communal! Although I am always prepared to be surprised.

However, all that said there is a way I would survive/cope/put up with communal living and that is if there was a larger or more noble purpose to it than just living together and learning to cope with each others worst and best tendencies.

A friend of mine I was out to dinner with the other night works as a social worker and was telling me how a large number of nursing homes in the local area are being sold off as there are insufficient funds to keep them open. Of course demand for beds in them is not exactly dropping and so it is going to result in more elderly people recovering in hospitals or inadequately supported at home. Either (and other similar 'options') will place increased strain on to other support systems throughout the community.

As Christians we always seem to talk a good talk about taking action for our communities so this situation got me thinking - what if we sold up our individual homes and got one home for ourselves in order to use the revenue generated to keep these places open so that they could continue to do the good work that is needed? Surely that would make a big impact? Of course it could not practically be done alone and would require a larger number of people possibly spanning many churches, but perhaps this is the sort of radical living we are called to as long as there is a need that should be filled?

And then I thought some more.... The church I go to is thinking and praying about new premises as we have outgrown (and then refilled) our own building and we also rent another church as well at present which is also at capacity. In many ways a new place to meet on Sundays and throughout the week, have offices, etc is really needed, but again what if rather than catering to our own needs we reinvested the (probably) vast sums of money that would be channelled towards our premises issue and instead put them into dramatic and long-term impact community needs like this?

I'm not saying we should all suddenly sell-up and forget getting a church building as having our own homes and premises can also provide much good, but I wonder what the impact of us doing so for the benefit of the community would be if even some of us did sell up...?

Two Visions

We live in exciting times:

Barack Obama's inauguration speech - Inspiring but tempered with gritty realism and determination. A vision for living in the world of today?

New space probe proposals - Ambitious and purposeful thinking on space exploration and the search for non-Earth life. Big questions with big plans to answer them.

Change of Attack

Great stuff. :)

Darwin and the Eye

As this year is Darwin Year celebrating the dual anniversary of both Charles Darwin's birth (200 years) and the first publication of On the Origin of Species (150 years) I thought I'd actually read Origin and see what it was like. I haven't it all finished yet but it is a very pleasant and well written piece of literature in itself let alone the ideas it introduces.

One particular passage has stood out to me so far and it is one that is quite often used by Christians as an apologetic tool.

The quote is:

"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."

This has always struck me as a bit pointless to be using in Christian apologetics as not only has the evolution of various forms of eyes now been well documented to have occurred multiple times over the history of the Earth, but also that even if this was not the case Darwin's quote would be an argument against evolution which in itself is not an argument for Christianity whether or not your believe Christianity is compatible or not with biological evolution.

Using it in this way is to set up a false choice between evolution and Christianity that makes me cringe every time that I hear it repeated or see it reprinted in leaflets or books advocating Christianity. It shows a poor understanding of not only the science involved but also of judgement in what makes a reasonable argument or not for Christianity when attempting to use science as a persuasive element in your argument.

However upon reading the quote in the book itself it becomes very clear that this quote has also been taken entirely out of context by the many Christians who like to use it - something we Christians like to complain about when non-Christians attempt to use the Bible against us ourselves.

Here is the full passage in which the quote comes from:

"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory."

Darwin goes on to talk about strategies for and some examples of showing gradual development of the eye that were already being filled in during his time and have been done so multiple times over since. The means of inheriting variation that Darwin was looking for was later discovered to be DNA and the rules of operation of inheritance were being discovered by the priest Gregor Mendel even before the publication of Origin.

So although Darwin admits that at first glance the evolution of a complex organ such as the eye seems counter-intuitive that is not the conclusion he is making. I think that this alone is enough to render the use of the cherry picked (partial) quote redundant and dishonouring as a tool in Christian apologetics and amounts to little more than an attempt at point scoring against a well-supported idea that is neither for nor against Christianity in common with most other inputs into our thinking that science brings to us.

Evolution does challenge us to think deeply and carefully about some of our traditional viewpoints on some aspects of our theology, but that is not going to be done by trying to take cheap and unnecessary shots at it or misusing the writings of the individuals who formed the first evidenced based ideas about it.

On the Origin of the Species is available for free online here courtesy of Project Gutenberg and a vast selection of Darwin's other writings and correspondence can be found here.

A Further Part of the Puzzle

An interesting news report this evening concerning the potential of possible present day life on Mars. Or some volcanoes letting of gas.

Either is good really. Original paper here.

Too True or False?

From an article in the New York Times:

"There is a middle way, theologians and even some scientists like Mr. Miller keep insisting, but it’s not easily arrived at. The trouble with many of the new philosophies, like Mr. Miller’s idea of “evolutionary cosmology,” which sees our existence in the world as an inherent part of nature itself, is that they lack the clarity, simplicity and emotional satisfaction of traditional religion; and even what Stephen Jay Gould used to call the “cold bath” of Darwinism, when we finally get over thinking of ourselves as the pinnacle of life’s purpose, is in its own way just as powerful and arresting. Mr. Bowler thinks that if we understand the history of the debate better we might be able to depolarize it, but that may be too much to hope. Most of us are in the blissful position of having already made up our minds without bothering to think about it."

Books

Here's an interesting idea for book-lovers.

Ushuring in the Kingdom?

Good news to the poor or playing God?

There's been no small fuss over this story in the news today which I think is a good thing as it is not only a fantastic achievement for the doctors and scientists involved, but is also a turning point not only for the girl in question and her immediate family but also for successive generations of that family to come.

There are naturally concerns and worries from some groups about where this technology might lead. Some of those concerns I would perhaps agree with (such as the need for careful application of this technology to prevent its abuse into non-medical areas) and others I would disagree with (such as this being the start of a slippery slope towards eugenics).

It is important that these worries are acknowledged and not just ignored if this sort of procedure is to be accepted and understood by wider society. This seems to be the case despite particular interest groups saying this is not so and being very opposed to this sort of procedure. We also perhaps need to exercise a little faith and trust in the regulations and people that we have as a society and community already put in place to prevent potential abuses by any particular individuals whatever the motivations or justifications.

In the case of disease elimination or constraint such as here this sort of procedure should be used and welcomed. Fears that it could lead to 'designer babies' where parents select for socially desirable traits (musical ability, etc) are generally ill-founded as these are not solely genetically influenced and are heavily tied up with the nurture of as well as the genetic nature of the child. To what extent genetics plays a factor in individual children for social traits is probably as varied as the upbringing children can receive.

Here relief from future potential suffering has been reduced and the associated quality of life for that family for far into the future has been strengthened. Without the burden that this genetic disease forced on that family they can now live life more freely and fully than before.

A great good has been done here and it should be celebrated not condemned.

Stronger, faster... more alive?

Interesting.