Chapter 7 A Christian Viewpoint
Chapter 7
A Christian Viewpoint
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it, I see everything else” (C. S. Lewis).1 These carefully crafted words express Lewis’s core belief in the rationality of the Christian faith. Lewis (1898–1963) came to believe in God partly through his deepening conviction that God was to be compared to an intellectual sun which illuminated the landscape of reality. The Christian faith was, for Lewis, like a lens which allowed things to be seen in sharp focus. Its capacity to illuminate and make sense of reality was, he argued, an indication (but not a proof) of its truth. Not every enigma was resolved; for Lewis, the question of suffering would remain a major cause of intellectual discomfort, particularly in later life.2 Yet his faith in God offered him an Archimedean point from which he could make sense of the riddles and puzzles of the world.
In speaking of believing in Christianity as being analogous to believing that the sun has risen, Lewis makes two quite different, though related, points. First, it makes sense to believe in God. Head and heart, reason and imagination—all point us towards their goal in God. They may not take us all the way to faith, but they point us in the right direction. Second, Lewis argues that belief in God gives us a way of framing the world, allowing it to be seen properly. Faith in God is the lens that brings reality into sharp focus, the sun that lights up the world so that it may be seen more fully and clearly. Belief in God makes sense in itself and makes sense of everything else—including the success and limits of the natural sciences.
Yet an objection might be raised here. Christians talk about salvation rather than explanation. They speak about worshipping God or praying to God, rather than thinking of God as some sort of cosmic reference handbook. The idea of God making sense of things seems to play a smaller role in everyday Christian thinking than Lewis appears to suggest. Earlier we noted Terry Eagleton’s incisive statement that “Christianity was never meant to be an explanation of anything in the first place.”
It is true that there is more to Christianity than trying to make sense of things. The gospel is not so much about explanation as about salvation: the transformation of human existence through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Nevertheless, though the emphasis of the Christian proclamation may not be on explaining the world, it also offers a distinctive way of looking at things which, at least in principle, enables us to see things in different ways and thus leads us to act in ways consistent with this. Christianity involves believing that certain things are true, that they may be relied upon, and that they illuminate our perceptions, decisions, and actions.
The New Testament uses a wide range of images to describe this transformation, many of which suggest a change in the way in which we see things. It speaks of our eyes being opened, and a veil being removed (Acts 9:9–19; 2 Cor. 3:13–16). Throughout his letters, we find Paul reaffirming the transformative power of the gospel, emphasizing its capacity to change human lives, including the way in which we understand the world and behave within it and towards it.3 “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds” (Rom. 12:2). Although the Christian emphasis is on transformation of the human situation, not on how we explain things, part of the rich tapestry of faith concerns how the gospel’s “renewal of the mind” leads to new ways of understanding the world. We see it in new ways and so come to understand it in new terms.
Lewis’s argument is that Christianity provides a framework, a way of thinking, which makes more sense of the world than its alternatives, including his own former atheism. To put this somewhat formally: Christianity is characterized at one and the same time by its intra-systemic elegance and its extra-systemic fecundity. The Christian vision of reality possesses an internal coherence and consistency which is at least matched by its remarkable ability to make sense of what we observe and experience. Christian theology has a conceptual spaciousness which allows it to accommodate the natural sciences, art, morality, and other religious traditions. Christianity has the capacity to make sense of the world, simultaneously reinforcing the intellectual case for the existence of God while offering a way of “seeing nature” that enables us to appreciate and respect it in ways that would otherwise not be possible.
Seeing nature—we must linger momentarily on that highly significant phrase. Lewis declares that the Christian faith allows us to see things as they really are. Yet we are unable to see things as they actually are unless we are helped to see them properly. The British moral philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch (1919–99) pointed out that “by opening our eyes we do not necessarily see what confronts us.… Our minds are continually active, fabricating an anxious, usually self-preoccupied, often falsifying veil which partially conceals the world.”4 This veil needs to be removed so that we can see properly. The gospel allows this veil to be drawn aside so that we can see things clearly for what they really are.
This point was made repeatedly by the great English cultural critic and commentator John Ruskin (1819–1900), who declares that “the greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way.… To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion—all in one.”5 Ruskin here put his finger on what many theologians of his age overlooked—that the Christian mind does not passively receive impressions of nature but actively interprets it. The process of observation, whether scientific or religious, involves trying to match what is observed with what is believed and then making any necessary adjustments.
Furthermore, we must learn to see nature as a whole. One of the more unsatisfactory aspects of some traditional “proofs” for the existence of God is their tendency to seek explanatory gaps within nature and then try to plug them through an appeal to special or covert divine presence or activity. Whatever science could not currently explain, or more exactly, whatever one could make a case for holding that science could never in principle explain, was to be deemed the “special” work of God. Yet the approach to natural theology that I believe arises from within the Christian tradition involves seeing nature as a totality, seeking the explanatory “big picture.” How do we account for our capacity to explain things so well? How do we account for the “unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics,”6 the creation of the human mind that seems to be sculpted precisely to the contours of the universe?
The so-called God-of-the-Gaps approach tries to defend the existence of God by an appeal to gaps in scientific explanation. I must confess that I have never been impressed by this approach. While studying chemistry as an undergraduate at Oxford University back in the early 1970s, I came to know and respect Charles Coulson (1910–74), Oxford University’s first professor of theoretical chemistry, who was a vigorous critic of this approach. For Coulson, reality as a whole demanded explanation: “Either God is in the whole of Nature, with no gaps, or He’s not there at all.”7 Much the same point was made earlier by the Scottish theologian Henry Drummond (1851–97):
How do we account for our capacity to explain things so well? How do we account for the “unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics,” the creation of the human mind that seems to be sculpted precisely to the contours of the universe?
When things are known, that is to say, we conceive them as natural, on Man’s level; when they are unknown, we call them divine—as if our ignorance of a thing were the stamp of its divinity. If God is only to be left to the gaps in our knowledge, where shall we be when these gaps are filled up? And if they are never to be filled up, is God only to be found in the disorders of the world? Those who yield to the temptation to reserve a point here and there for special divine interposition are apt to forget that this virtually excludes God from the rest of the process.8
Christianity is not seen at its best if it becomes preoccupied with looking for temporary explanatory gaps in the scientific view of the world. God is not to be found in the gaps and recesses of the world. God is the one who gives meaning to the whole universe, who alone is able to explain why there is anything at all and to explain what it means. The Christian faith offers an alternative way of viewing nature, which at times may challenge exaggerated versions of the scientific method; yet it welcomes and sees itself as part of the human quest for truth, whether scientific or religious. Christian faith, when subjected to the same rational scrutiny that science demands of its data and theories, shows an honest pursuit of truth accompanied by a confidence in its rational motivation. It expects to find, and does in fact find, a significant explanatory resonance with what is known of nature from other sources, while at the same time insisting on its own right to depict and describe nature in its own special way—as God’s creation.
So what way of “seeing” reality does Christianity make possible? We need to make it clear that the rich vision of God which excites and informs the Christian faith goes far beyond the somewhat impersonal notions of God that are often found in traditional defences of the existence of God—such as the remote and detached idea of a creator God, often dubbed “the divine watchmaker.” Rather, reality is seen in the light of the glorious Christian vision of God as Father, Son, and Spirit: a God who creates, redeems, and sanctifies; a God who is present with us at this moment, while remaining the transcendent ground of order and existence within the universe. This vision of God moves us to worship and prayer, where the older vision of God as the watchmaker leads at most to admiration of technical competency.
The process of reflection on reality that has its origins from within the Christian faith is guided and nourished by this vision of God. The grand themes of the Christian faith provide an interpretative framework by which nature may be seen, allowing it to be viewed and read in profound and significant ways. Christian theology is the elixir, the philosopher’s stone, which turns the mundane into the epiphanic, the world of nature into the realm of God’s creation.
Like a lens bringing a vast landscape into sharp focus, or a map helping us grasp the features of the terrain around us, Christian doctrine offers a new way of understanding, imagining, and behaving. It invites us to see the natural order, and our selves within it, in a special way—a way that might be hinted at, but cannot be confirmed by, the natural order itself. Nature is “seen” as God’s creation; the “book of nature” is read as God’s story—and ours. It is as if a veil has been lifted, or a bright sun has illuminated a mental landscape.
So how does this impact how we see nature? How good is this framework at making sense of what we observe? Limits on space mean that I must restrict myself to exploring just two of its many aspects. We shall consider, briefly, the notion of the “economy of salvation” and the idea that humanity bears the image of God. Each of these are integral elements of the Christian vision of reality; each casts light on reality, illuminating its complex landscape and allowing us to understand what we see.
We begin by considering the concept of the “economy of salvation,” which sets out the idea that God’s interaction with the world is described in terms of a narrative of creation, fall, redemption, and final consummation. The notion of the economy of salvation, although clearly developed in the New Testament, was given its traditional formulation by the second-century writer Irenaeus of Lyons.9 Reacting against gnostic interpretations of salvation history in the late second century, Irenaeus laid out a panoramic vision of the economy of salvation, insisting that the entire breadth of history, from creation to consummation, was the work of one and the same triune God. Both the human observer and the natural things observed are located in “the midst of this era” (Augustine of Hippo)—in other words, at a point that is theologically distant and removed from the creation that was declared to be “good” in the creation narrative. That creation now groans, and those groanings are observed by those whose judgements are clouded and obscured by sin. This leads to the theologically significant conclusion that a fallen humanity reflects on a fallen world of nature.
Hints of the importance of this consideration can be seen within the New Testament. For example, it is well known that Paul makes an appeal to creation as the basis of a knowledge of God. Yet while Paul clearly holds that God can be known through the creation (Rom. 1), at other points he qualifies this by referring to the “groaning” of the creation (Rom. 8). The created order is to be seen as in transition, from what it once was to what it finally will become. There is a profoundly eschatological dimension to an authentically Christian natural theology, in that the natural order should be observed in the light of its goal, not merely in the light of its origination. Paul’s statements can thus not only be interpreted in terms of the fall of creation from its original state, but also as an extension of the Old Testament prophetic theme of the hope for the future renewal and restoration of creation.
The importance of this point is easily appreciated when we consider this question: Why is there evil in the world? Why is there suffering in a supposedly good creation? The Christian framework of the economy of salvation helps us to appreciate that we have to locate this problem on a theological map. The world was created good; one day it will be restored to an even greater goodness. The images of the garden of Eden and the new Jerusalem are visual markers for key moments of this narrative. At present, we are located within this journey, not at its beginning or end. This idea of journeying within the context of the economy of salvation was often expressed in the Middle Ages by using the Latin term viator (wayfarer/traveller).
The theological framework set out in the economy of salvation affirms that God has created all things good and that they will finally be restored to goodness. Yet at the present, it insists that good and evil coexist in the world, as wheat and weeds grow together in the same field (Matt. 13:24–30). Without collapsing one into the other, it allows us to locate good and evil within the context of the theological trajectory of creation, fall, incarnation, redemption, and consummation.
Our second theme is that God created humanity bearing the “image of God” (Gen. 1:27). This is widely interpreted by Christian theologians as affirming two central themes: first, that humanity is able to relate to God in a manner analogous to other personal relationships; and second, that humanity has been created with the capacity to make sense of God’s creation. The fourth-century theologian Athanasius summarizes this second point as follows: Humanity was created by God in such a way that, “by looking into the heights of heaven, and perceiving the harmony of creation, they might know its ruler, the Word of the Father, who, by his own providence over all things, makes the Father known to all.”10 Although Athanasius holds that human nature has been corrupted by sin, he still maintains that humanity retains a God-given capacity to discern its creator within the created order.
This point is of obvious importance in dealing with one of the most discussed features of the universe: its intelligibility. Scientific advance has disclosed the fundamental explicability of much of the natural world. Though some might see this as eliminating any notion of mystery, others have rightly pointed out that it raises a far deeper question: Why can we explain things at all? We have already noted Albert Einstein’s emphatic assertion that “the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.” For Einstein, explicability itself clearly requires explanation. The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible. The intelligibility of the natural world, demonstrated by the natural sciences, raises the fundamental question as to why there is such a fundamental resonance between human minds and the structures of the universe. From a Trinitarian perspective, this resonance between the human mind and the deep structure of the universe is to be explained by the rationality of God as creator of the fundamental ordering of nature and of the human observer of nature.
The theologian and physicist John Polkinghorne (born in 1930) is one of many who have grasped the importance of this point. Polkinghorne points out that “modern science seems, almost irresistibly, to point beyond itself.” A scientifically disclosed universe that is ordered and intelligible clearly needs explanation, unless we are to suggest that our capacity to make sense of the universe is simply accidental or random:
We are so familiar with the fact that we can understand the world that most of the time we take it for granted. It is what makes science possible. Yet it could have been otherwise. The universe might have been a disorderly chaos rather than an orderly cosmos. Or it might have had a rationality which was inaccessible to us.… There is a congruence between our minds and the universe, between the rationality experienced within and the rationality observed without.11
There is a clear need, Polkinghorne argues, for “an intellectually satisfying understanding of what would otherwise be unintelligible good fortune.” Both the scientist and the theologian thus work by faith, a trust in the rational reliability of our understanding of experience.
Earlier we emphasized the importance of the laws of nature. But where do these laws of physics actually come from? Why are they the way they are? And why can they be represented so well by mathematics? A typical atheist’s answer is that there is no reason at all why the laws of physics take their present form. That’s just the way things are, and there is no need to explain anything. These laws of nature exist without any reason and without any need for a reason. Yet if this is the case, then the universe could be argued to be ultimately absurd, since no reason may be given for either its present laws or its present forms. This leads to a troubling conclusion that the entire scientific enterprise—which is ultimately grounded on the notion that there are natural reasons for physical phenomena and that such explanations are rational and logical—is ultimately rooted in absurdity or an accident. If that is so, we must ask why such an absurd universe seems to mimic the rational universe of the mathematicians. Perhaps it is purely accidental, a piece of good fortune for mathematicians and cosmologists alike. But it’s not a particularly persuasive answer.
The argument of this book is that Christianity offers an intellectual sun that illuminates an otherwise dark and enigmatic world: it gives a deeply satisfying “empirical fit” between theory and observation, which suggests that the map of reality that it offers is reliable and may be trusted. In what follows, we shall explore how it makes sense of some aspects of the world.
We begin by reflecting on what we know about the beginning of the universe.