How Onto-types in Nature Engage Contemporary Science

How Onto-types in Nature

Engage Contemporary Science

Over the preceding chapters, we have made a case stating that the natural world has something to communicate to humankind regarding God’s divine excellencies and attributes. We have argued that this revelation is not “in addition to” the biblical revelation in Christ, but rather is parallel; the two represent a unified, consonant revelation that reveals the Trinitarian God. In this way, nature itself represents a natural-revealed knowledge of God. We have drawn from the rich metaphysics and theology of Jonathan Edwards who was Trinitarian in a growing Unitarian age and who saw natural types as revealing the knowledge of God. In fact, Edwards understood the ontology of nature to include communication/emanation of the knowledge of God’s glory through natural types as an integral part of God’s Original Ultimate End in creating. We have also employed Emil Brunner’s biblically founded Doctrine of Creation advocating for the analogia entis in ontological analogies found throughout nature as God’s communication to the beloved creature made in his own image. We next ask what the theologies of Edwards’ natural onto-typology, and Brunner’s advocacy for God’s revelation in nature, let us do? In other words, how might we apply these principles in terms of contemporary science in a form of doing a Trinitarian Theology of Nature?

This might entail a suggestive enterprise of a new way of thinking about scientific information such that all creation can and does reveal God in analogy, even at the cellular, molecular and quantum levels. In such an approach one must first construct a method of doing a “theological science” or a “scientific theology,” in the spirit of Torrance. This method must explicitly draw forth analogous onto-types in nature that substantiate the notion of consonance between the two books: the Book of Nature and the Book of Scripture.

One way to begin, then, might be to re-think the ordering of a legitimate Doctrine of Creation founded in Genesis. Emil Brunner’s position suggests a re-ordering of the starting point for a Doctrine of Creation to the first chapter of the fourth Gospel. In Brunner’s estimation, the Doctrine of Creation founded in Genesis has led largely to many of the problems in Science and Theology, resulting in debates over how God created and which theistic view in the Creation-Evolution continuum is the correct one (i.e., Young Earth Creationism, Old Earth Creationism, Progressive Creationism, Intelligent Design, Theistic Evolution, etc.). Brunner states that it was a mistake to equate Genesis with a science text. According to Brunner, this positioning of Genesis 1 as a starting point has produced a polarization of a literal versus a figurative interpretation of the two creation stories in Genesis over and above scientific evidence. He says, “This made the Bible the infallible textbook of natural science and historical science. The conflict with science, therefore, became unavoidable, and the war between science and theology had to end with the pitiable defeat of theology.” In Brunner’s estimation, theology forgot that God’s revelation, this “treasure we bear” is born out in “jars of clay,” contained in earthen vessels, as Second Corinthians 4:7 reminds us. We simply cannot separate out the earthen vessels, be that a molecule, a cell, an ecosystem, a galaxy or a human being, from the treasure of God’s revelation contained therein. “Theology forgot to make that critical distinction between that which is the object of natural knowledge of the world through reason, and that which, by its very nature, can only be the content of divine revelation.”

If I am reading Brunner rightly, he sees that the distinction between “natural knowledge” and God’s Self-disclosure or “revealed knowledge,” as an artificial one. Brunner, as we have also seen in Edwards as well as the scholastic and patristic theologians, contends that nature is revelation. Thus, we have arrived at a conjoiner toward a natural-revealed knowledge of God. What science discovers, models, and teaches of the structures and processes of the natural world tells us something of the mind of God, the heart of the Creator and his intent in creating. The natural world reveals knowledge of God. In this way, our focus on what nature is shifts in function and purpose. Consider, “This indicates a different way of seeing nature where the attention shifts from the meaningless transmission of force, to the communication of information—communication which may have very real effects by triggering processes of physical interaction.” Here we are encouraged to see the natural world and its functional mechanisms as only part of the story. Science aptly gives us accurate and detailed information concerning how nature functions, but carries more profound and life-giving information above physical properties and processes. Understanding God is at the very core of knowing nature, far beyond that of the Genesis narrative.

If Brunner is correct, there has been a misplaced understanding of the function of the creation stories in Genesis, and a misplaced starting point altogether. He says, “The Mosaic story of Creation is not only a wonderful testimony of the divine revelation, but it is the product of a very primitive view of the world.” He places Genesis narrative in the context of the ancient Near East, proposing that the function of the creation story was not as a science text, but rather in deciphering a God-world relation in terms of God’s revelation. Just as the first Adam was not an arbitrary assignment but served the function as a type of Christ, so the creation narratives serve a specific function typologically in relation to history, to the overarching biblical message of divine revelation, and to eschatology. Brunner’s analysis of the Mosaic story of creation becomes a powerful and wondrous testimony to the fact that God has infused knowledge of God’s own glorious Being into the creation by “speaking” creation into existence, “forming” creatures out of the clay of the earth, “breathing” into the first man the breath of life.

Although these images might seem at first glance to be an anthropomorphization, applying human characteristics to God (i.e. speaking, forming, breathing), for Brunner (and let’s add to that perhaps Edwards, Przywara, von Balthasar, McGrath, and others) the universe is, in fact, supremely the reverse. God gives us this language, in the formulation of scientific inquiry, including the particular onto-types that are found therein, to show us Himself, to reveal a God intimately involved with this creation; with intentional execution of the created order, grounded in a penetrating love, and with careful planning. In an Edwardsean way of thinking, this idea of intentionally creating the base quantum, molecular and higher order structures with communicating in mind would be within God’s Original Ultimate End in creating.

Said another way, such a vantage point sets the correct God-human relation; God Himself is at the epicenter of this glorious revelation. God’s is revealing in the structures of the world, revealing Himself in the incarnation of the Son, revealing and imparting knowledge of godly attributes by and through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. These are all divine acts of God Himself, starting with God, revealed by God, and given as loving gifts to humanity. Torrance, similarly, by his inheritance of giving us a scientific theology, places this kind of enquiry in the correct orientation, centered first and foremost in God’s revelation to humankind. Torrance, realizing the importance of avoiding an anthropocentric posture of putting man at the center of this testing, posits the revelation of God’s Self in the things that science discovers squarely in God Himself.

In response to God’s revelation through what has been made, humanity can open themselves to respond in faith to that which God reveals. Torrance states, “In scientific theology we begin with the actual knowledge of God, and seek to test and clarify this knowledge by inquiring carefully into the relation between our knowing of God and God Himself in His being and nature. Then in the light of this clarification we seek to be more and more open and ready for God, so that we may respond faithfully and truly to all that He declares and discloses to us of Himself.” Here we stand on solid theological ground, validating that God declares and discloses Himself, in whatever ways God, in perfect freedom, chooses.

As such, the creation, with all of its intricate structures and processes, serves as the “vessel” for the knowledge and glory of God. According to Brunner, theology has forgotten, as was stated above, that the knowledge of God and the knowledge of the world cannot be two separate entities, but that the earthen vessels carry the knowledge of God. The image of the vessel and its content is a poignant image here. This image aligns with Edwards’ metaphysics of creation incorporating a form of res-idealism and intentional object panentheism. For example, what Brunner is describing here, as did Edwards, is that the entire content of God’s knowledge exists in God, who chooses to communicate that knowledge into the vessel of creation. The vessel of creation exists, first and foremost, within the mind of God. God emanates or communicates this knowledge into the vessel of creation, in order to show that, as the Apostle Paul writes, “this all surpassing power is from God”—it must be God’s revelation of one unified reality, and “not from us.” There is one unified knowledge of one unified reality, and one unified communication of that knowledge from the Creator to the creature. In this respect, what science discovers about the natural world has something to tell us.

Torrance also affirmed the idea of one unified reality, in that an artificial separation of natural science from its theological origins as creation could never give us the true ontological reality of the world. Molnar’s analysis of Torrance indicates that, “Torrance was well aware of the fact that natural science could not tell us about the ultimate origin of the world of nature and that it was limited to studying nature ‘out of itself’ as it were. He maintained that it was the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo that allowed scientists to ‘understand nature only by looking at nature and not by looking at God.’” The very fact that creation was “out of nothing” was the only reason that science could study the mechanisms of the ordered natural world, but this investigation could never lead to the knowledge of the ultimate reality, i.e., God’s own acting. Torrance proposes that there would be no “real science” without belief in God the Creator, which itself implies an ontologically contingent universe that has its own “created intelligibility.”

Similarly in Brunner’s Doctrine of Creation, God gives this knowledge to us in exact science. Science, then, is “in the service of God.” Brunner says this, “For this reason alone can science be in the service of God, and for this reason alone so many of the great scientists have been able to regard their work as the service of God and their knowledge the gift of God.” Although language of God and legitimation of God’s divine intervention have largely been displaced in the age in which we live, particularly in the sciences, it does not preclude the reality of what actually exists. Science as a discipline of discovery, then, can continue as it is even if it does not affirm the need of God, or acknowledge that it is in the “service of God.” The claims of a Trinitarian Theology of Nature is that it is whether science acknowledges it or not. In this theology, what science discovers is simply the ways God acts and communicates, for those who have ears to hear.

In this way, a Trinitarian Theology of Nature serves as a scientific theology in that it can be subject to the rigors of a valid methodology for rational evaluation among competing theories. Ted Peters, turning to Wolfhart Pannenberg’s work in bridging science and theology in methodological terms says this:

A theologian cannot follow a method of direct verification because the existence of its object, God, is itself in dispute and because God—defined by Pannenberg as the all-determining reality—is not a reproducible finite entity. An indirect method of verification is available, however. Building in part on Karl Popper’s procedures for critical verification and falsification, Pannenberg submits that we can test assertions by their implications. Assertions about a divine life and divine actions can be tested by their implications for understanding the whole of finite reality, a wholeness which is implicitly anticipated in the ordinary experience of meaning.

Referring here to Pannenberg’s Toward a Theology of Nature, Peters reminds us of what is essential: that a hypothesis can be generated regarding the ontology of the natural world, and answering to such a hypothesis can lead to greater understanding and meaning. However, it is important here to note that we are not testing the hypothesis of the existence of God, as in an outdated version of Natural Theology, but rather we are examining the hypothesis of the consonance of God’s revelation in Scripture with God’s revelation in the natural world in light of scientific discovery. This is represented by biblical revelation and the dynamic experiential revelation of the Holy Spirit to the human mind and heart.

In his Theology of Nature, Pannenberg challenges scientists: he calls upon scientists to consider the unthinkable and to incorporate the idea of God into their understanding of the reality of the mechanisms they uncover. He boldly asserts that a full apprehension of the ontology of the natural world cannot be fully realized by scientific explanations alone. Pannenberg, like Torrance, goes on to say that in praxis, the method of the sciences and the method of theology are not all that divergent and, in fact, are much the same. According to Pannenberg, hypotheses are created in both disciplines and are tested. In the sciences, hypotheses are tested according to the Scientific Method using controlled, repeated experimentation. In theology, “assertions about a divine life and divine actions can be tested by their implications for understanding the whole of finite reality, a wholeness that is implicitly anticipated in the ordinary experience of meaning.” Although the specific method of testing is different, the overall methodology is, in fact, quite similar.

In terms of methodology, particularly that of the sciences, Torrance designates that theology can learn from contemporary and ancient scientists to think in unitary ways that “do not separate the spiritual from the material or the intelligible from the sensible.” Scientists who do not know God are still given this knowledge, but they do not attribute it to God, nor do they have the language to frame this knowledge in ontological terms of ultimate reality. Eberhard Jüngel affirms, “Science has no need of Him, neither as a ground of its own legitimation nor as a reference to the ground of legitimation for that which science itself cannot legitimize. There is no sense in which Science needs God. It excludes Him. We are living in an age of the verbal placelessness of God.” Here, we aim to bridge an artificial separation, perhaps most keenly sensed and apprehended at present by scientists who have faith. As Emil Brunner goes on to say, “Therefore in the mind of a Christian scientist there is no conflict between his faith in Jesus Christ and his scientific work which is based on, and controlled by (very strictly) the work of the intellect; on the contrary, he is aware of an ultimate unity between the two.”

In this way, we are examining the hypothesis of the consonance of the natural world in light of biblical revelation, scientific discovery, and the dynamic experiential revelation of the Holy Spirit to the human mind and heart. The goal in this work, then, is not to force an integration of Science and Theology, but rather to embark on a path of discovery into a unity that already exists. Exploring this hypothesis might begin by rightly recognizing that God reveals Himself, and then by complying with the pattern for interpretation which God has prescribed. Torrance eloquently asserts the same: “but whatever is not-God is laid open by God Himself as set in the creation of man, and which faith makes clear to him, that man can fulfill his function as an interpreter of nature.” The fruition of scientific discovery in light of God’s Self-revelation is an expanded recovery of the Psalmist’s observation of nature (along with many other writers in Scripture). This, along with the intellect of reason, combined with a heart of sincere enquiry, bring us face-to-face with an ontological reality far beyond a naturalistic worldview. Natural onto-types, intentionally embedded in nature by God, supply an ever-growing expansion of the depth of the natural world, instressed with an infinite array of messages of the Divine character and glory, ethics, redemption, ecclesiology, and so on, for discovery. These spiritual truths are to be revealed to humankind concomitant with scientific discovery. In this way, God’s acting becomes a dynamic revelation to the creature in and through an understanding of the natural world; by learning to read the language of nature.

In order to engage such a discovery, we might question whether Edwards’ method can be tested, not with his science, but with ours. Can Edwards’ method of typological meaning be applied to complex mechanisms in fine detail? In other words, is Edwards’ method extensible to the findings in contemporary science? If so, what might complex mechanisms offer in terms of natural types that may carry the knowledge of God? What we are doing here expands an Edwardsean reading of the natural world down to the fundamental mechanisms undergirding life itself. Perhaps some examples might be helpful here. In Edwards’ Shadows of Divine Things, he outlines over two hundred elements from nature and describes the hidden spiritual message they carry. Edwards refers to elements of nature such as the sun, moon, stars, trees, rivers, and spiders. He also expounds upon scientific information he found in the science texts of the day describing human circulation, embryogenesis, and optics. In each of these elements, Edwards sees underlying spiritual truths pointing to the things of God. In Type No. 14 he says, “The sun’s so perpetually, for so many ages, sending forth his rays in such vast profusion, without any diminution of his light is a bright image of the all-sufficiency and everlastingness of God’s bounty and goodness.” Here Edwards sees that God made the sun to continually pour forth light not only to sustain life on the green planet, but as an all-important image of how God’s “bounty and goodness” are always being poured out to us. By seeing the sun, we can know something of God’s unfailing love toward us, especially when it may seem that the clouds of life are blocking this light. In some other types, Edwards sees seed germination as a type pointing to the resurrection of Christ, the grinding of wheat and corn into bread as a type pointing to the refinement of the soul leading to spiritual nourishment, the uphill ascent of hills and mountains as pointing to spiritual trials leading upward to heaven, and many more.

A keen investigation into the contemporary mechanisms of science also reveals such spiritual truths. Moving forward from Edwards’ onto-type of the sun’s rays pointing to the antitype of God’s consistent love and goodness, one can further understand a deep spiritual truth by understanding the photon itself, the basic unit of light. At the quantum level, light is composed of photons which are unique among quantum structures. Photons, as energy-carrying units, are similar to electrons in that they have a wave nature, but also have a mass and occupy space as a particle similar to protons. Classical and well-established experiments in physics, such as the Photoelectric Effect and the Compton Effect, have confirmed the particle theory of light. In this way, light behaves as a particle much like that of any subatomic particle. However, Young’s double slit experiment on interference and diffraction have also equally confirmed the wave theory of light indicating that light behaves as a wave, much like other forms of energy such as electromagnetic energy. Thus, a conundrum exists where photons of light are fully particle and fully wave. The conundrum was settled by taking all of these experiments into account and affirming that photons have a dual nature- referred to as the wave-particle duality. Neils Bohr proposed his famous Principle of Complementarity allowing for a co-equal state of properties in the wave and the particle aspects of light.

Thus, photons, have a fully dual wave-particle nature. In this way, light serves as an onto-type pointing to Christ, the Light of the world. Since as photons have a dual nature—wave and particle—so Christ has a dual nature—divine and human. The wave quality of the photon might represent a type of the divinity of Christ and the particle nature of the photon the physical, material aspect of Christ’s humanity. Just as created light illuminates the world so that the creature is able to see, apprehend, and understand all manner of visual objects and visual stimuli, so the light of Christ illuminates the spiritual world to the creature, giving spiritual sight and enlightenment in order to see, apprehend, and understand the things of God, the ways of God, the knowledge and glory of God and the salvation of God.

These examples help point to the possibility that onto-types exist, and they exist all the way down to the fundamental elements of the natural world. However, this immediately leads to the question of their validity, what warrants such an investigation, and how can it be qualified? One suggestion might be to use a set of criteria or guidelines used in discerning onto-types and their meaning. Using Edwards’ method in Shadows of Divine Things, as well as accepted methods in current biblical typology, I propose four main criteria for qualifying a natural onto-type/antitype construct:

1. In a type/antitype, the factual nature of the item in question remains such that the meaning and use of the word, person, object or situation does not change, it is only different in its relation.

2. There must be a rigorous correspondence between the type and its corresponding antitype, not just a mere resemblance.

3. There must be a chronological or systematized prefiguring or foreshadowing of the type to its corresponding antitype.

4. The type/antitype must convey truth regarding knowledge of God as affirmed in scripture

With this foundational guideline, we proceed with the enterprise at hand, that is, to explore the hypothesis of consonance to see if Edwards’ method of natural onto-typology is extensible all the way down to the base mechanisms of the biological world. Can there be theological onto-types ensconced in cellular and biochemical pathways? Perhaps even at the atomic, subatomic, and quantum levels? In other words, has God truly emanated communication of the divine Self, God’s eternal glories and fullness all the way down to the fundamental structures of the world?

. This will be taken up in a later chapter.

. Although these positions are all worthy of exploration within the context of a Trinitarian Theology of Nature, we will not explore them here. A discussion of this kind is beyond the scope of this work and would distract from the task at hand.

. Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, 28.

. Schwöbel, “We Are All God’s Vocabulary,” 55.

. Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, 28.

. Torrance, Theological Science, 9.

. As the Apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:7, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.”

. Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, 28.

. Molnar, Thomas F. Torrance: Theologian of the Trinity, 23.

. This, as we have seen in Chapter 1, is affirmed by Wolfhart Pannenberg also, “God makes himself knows in exact science.”

. Note that both Emil Brunner and Thomas Torrance used this phrase, “science is in the service of God.” It is unclear whether Torrance knew of Brunner’s use of this in his doctrine of creation, or if each scholar arrived at it independently. See Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, 30; Torrance, The Ground and Grammar of Theology, 67; Molnar, Thomas F. Torrance: Theologian of the Trinity, 30.

. Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, 30.

. Peters, ed., Science and Theology: The New Consonance, 24.

. I refer the reader to the Introduction.

. Ted Peters, ed., Science and Theology: The New Consonance, 24.

. Jüngel, God as Mysstery of the World, 5.

. Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, 30.

. Torrance, Theological Science, 69.

. Edwards, Typological Writings, 54.

. The Compton Effect, discovered in 1923 by Arthur Holly Compton (for which he was granted the 1927 Nobel Prize), showed that a collision of photons with a target causes the release of bound electrons from the outer shell of atoms in the target. The scattered radiation from the collision also produced a shift in wavelength that could not be explained in terms of classical wave theory. The combination of these two phenomena (electrons emitted from a substance after photon bombardment and a shift in the energy state of the wavelength of light) supported Einstein’s photon theory indicating that light possessed both a wave nature and a particle nature. Likewise the photoelectric effect demonstrates that energy can be transferred from a photon to material substrates resulting in elevating an electron to a higher energy state. This can only be accomplished if the photon has both wave and particle properties, known as discrete wave packets. Since photons consist in two co-equal “natures” or properties, this is referred to as the wave-particle duality of light.

. Thomas Young in 1801 (note this is a century before quantum mechanics) performed an experiment that supported the wave theory of light. In the original version of this experiment, a concentrated light source shines on a plate pierced by two parallel slits. The light passing through the slits is observed on a screen behind the plate. The wave nature of light causes the light waves passing through the two slits to interfere, producing bright and dark bands on the screen, This result demonstrated classic wave behavior and would not be expected if light consisted of “classical” particles. Young’s Double Slit experiment (and many others after) combined with quantum experiments such as the Compton and Photoelectric Effects, have led to the Photon Theory of Light stating that photos are not “classical” particles, but possess a dual wave/particle nature that can be explained by each set of experiments.

. Giancole, Physics, 782.

. The following are several Scripture references to Christ typified by light: John 8:12 “When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Cf. John 1:4–5; 2 Corinthians 4:4–6; and Ephesians 5:14.

. These criteria were derived from the current and historical criteria used in biblical typology combined with Edwards’ “method” found in Shadows of Divine Things. These are the criteria that will be used in this and further analyses.

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