A Biblical debt

The Christmas Day edition of the New York Times Sunday Book Review section had a story on the front page, The Book of Books - What literature owes the Bible by Marilynne Robinson, a Pulitzer-Prize winning author. I am not sure I really understand, fully appreciate, or agree with her piece. However, it is worth reading and highlights a point I have made before: you can't understand the literature (and history) of the Western world without a deep knowledge of the Bible. Hence, it needs to be an important component of a secular education. As I posted earlier, The Prime Minister of Australia agrees (in words but not in policy).

Who is Jesus?

I have been reading through the Gospel of John. Central to this Gospel are the seven "I am" statements that Jesus made.

I AM the bread of life.  John 6:35,48
I AM the light of the world.  John 8:12,9:5
I AM the door.  John 10:7
I AM the good shepherd.  John 10:11-14
I AM the resurrection and the life.  John 11:25
I AM the way, the truth and the life.  John 14:6
I AM the true vine.  John 15:1,5

To the reader/hearer familiar with the Old Testament this is meant evoke association with the name of the God of Israel, YHWH, "I am who I am".
Two earlier posts In the name of God and It is all in the name consider Barth's view of the significance of the name YHWH, particularly with regard to the unveiling and veiling of God in revelation.

Would you side with Newton or Leibniz?

Ard Louis has a nice article How Does the BioLogos Model Need to Address Concerns Christians Have About the Implications of its Science?

It has a fascinating beginning discussing the contrasting views of Newton and Leibniz about the sufficiency of natural processes to explain the observed order in the world. Does invoking God's interventions to make up for what science cannot explain reflect well or not on the character of God?

Ard also highlights how the origin of many Christian's discomfort with evolution as a scientific description of the biological world arises from a discomfort with some of the associated language and metaphors such as "random", "survival of the fittest", "chance", and "purposeless". He associates the underlying presuppositions with the metaphor of 90 per cent of the iceberg below the surface.

Running from injustice

Last night my son and I enjoyed watching the movie, The Fugitive (the 1993 version). It is good "harmless" fun. On the other hand, although just fiction it does highlight two significant issues. First, the desperate ends to which drug companies and medical researchers may be tempted to go to increase or preserve profits. Second, the criminal justice system is imperfect. If wealthy white surgeons can be incorrectly convicted of murder what hope do unemployed black men have?

Artistic idolatry in the U.S. Capitol

I finished reading The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. Given so much of his material is of dubious scientific and historical accuracy I was curious to verify his claims about The Apotheosis of Washington, the giant mural on the dome of the U.S. Capitol building. In this case he is correct, it does depict George Washington becoming a god!

Maureen Dowd's scathing review of the book in The New York Times is also worth reading. Here is some of the beginning

 the terrifying thing about “The Lost Symbol” is that Brown — who did not flinch when the Vatican both condemned the “The Da Vinci Code” and curtailed the filming of “Angels & Demons” in Rome — clearly got spooked by that other powerful, secretive ancient sect, the Masons.
His book is a desperate attempt to ingratiate himself with the Masons, rather than to interpret the bizarre Masonic rites and symbols that illuminate — as in Illuminati! — how the ultimate elite private boys’ club has conspired to shape the nation’s capital and Western civilization ever since George Washington laid the cornerstone for the Capitol building in a Masonic ritual wearing full Masonic regalia, including a darling little fringed satin apron. If the Masons are more intimidating than the Vatican, if Brown has now become part of their semiotic smoke screen, then all I can say is, God help us all.

Against the arrogance of the reductionists

Phil Anderson is one of the most influential theoretical physicists of the second half of the twentieth century. He has also been a strong critic of reductionism, emphasizing the role of emergence in all of science. He recently published a book of his essays, More and Different: notes from a thoughtful curmudgeon. I highly recommend it. Here is small extract from an essay "Emergence vs. Reductionism".

Physicists - and scientists in general - love to do two things; (a) to take apart, to analyze into simpler and simpler components; (b) to mystify, to say it is not really this, it’s that. They like to take upon themselves the role of the shaman or the mullah. Everything comes from a First Cause – the First Equation – and only the appropriate scientist can investigate this with his very expensive equipment, and understand it with his abstruse theories. 

The arrogance this attitude fosters has to be experienced to be believed. Such books as Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time covers the whole of science in six brief chapters, spending the rest of the book on personal speculations about the first millionth of a picosecond of time when, he seems to feel, all that matters happened.

The Lost Saviour

As I have confessed before, I love Dan Brown novels. They are a great read. But, the science (usually presented as "fact") is ridiculous and the history is dubious.
I have just started reading Brown's latest, The Lost Symbol. Again there is comical science. In this case it is "Noetic Science" which is a mish-mash (a synthesis!) of modern physics with ancient mysticism. The frontpiece of the book has a page entitled "Fact" which states that the Institute of Noetic Sciences exists. This is indeed correct. I found the Institute web page fascinating and disturbing reading. This is probably best summarised by The Double Slit Experiment: Experimental Tests of the Role of Consciousness in the Physical World. None of anything I could see had any signs of real science: i.e., experiments that were or could be reproduced by other scientists and published in traditional scientific journals.

Like The DaVinci Code the novel is rich on symbols, puzzles, secrets, and "The Ancient Mystery." The Freemasons are central and portrayed in a sympathetic manner. What is most striking to me is how the world of some of the characters seems to resonate with aspects of the world of both the Old and the New Testament. The preoccupation with images and symbols aligns with idolatry or ritualistic religion. The preoccupation with mysteries and secret knowledge sounds very gnostic. [Paul's Letter to the Colossians addresses these issues]. The responsibility of man [and particularly select men (n.b. not women)] is to use his cleverness to find and discover the secret knowledge. Through ritual he is to find the strength to act in a moral manner.

In contrast, the person of Jesus Christ is not a symbol, an artefact, or a puzzle that man decodes, but rather a real person who reveals the mystery of God to all humanity.