This past Friday, with great joy, I presided at the wedding of my dear friends Jason and Hana Lowe.  Here is the message I shared.

 

I Corinthians 13:1-13

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

 

John 15:9-12

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

 

Sermon

“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;

it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.

It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

 

Everyone loves this passage from Corinthians,

            but there is something hard there.

            It sounds wonderful, but it does not sound easy,

                        this selfless love.

It is not selflessness in the sense of loss, but a recognition that your true self

is something greater – something more – than this

bounded, mortal individual.

In a very real way love crosses the borders

            between one person and another,

            between each of us and God.

The love of Hana and Jason, has brought them together.

            In it, they see a chance to become more than they are alone.

            And through it, they come closer to understanding

                        what it means to love truly.

 

In marriage, we let go of isolation, and recognize that we are one.

            It is a mystery and perhaps a miracle.

            And many would try to convince you that it cannot be done,

                        that you cannot transcend yourself,

particularly in this age of individualism.

            And they would be right to warn you about losing yourself.

            It is not good to give up on all that God has called you to be

as an individual – your gifts and talents.

            There is a you that will always be just you.

            But these things can be so much more

                        when joined with the gifts and talents of another.

 

And so, in the church we have rituals and practices,

rites and sacraments,

            That both celebrate this union

and help us to achieve it,

            to transcend ourselves.

 

 

I must warn you, though.

It will take work to let this love overcome all else,

            to recognize grace and fellowship growing within you,

            to make decisions, not for one another, but with one another,

            to discover that “my way” or “your way” can be replaced with our way,

            to bear one another and bear with one another.

It will take daily effort to uphold what is in each one of you individually,

                        while feeding the spirit of oneness;

            to seek to understand the other as they are,

                        while reaching for what you both can be together.

Love takes trust, courage, and commitment;

            Trust that in letting go of yourself you will discover

that you are greater than you could have imagined,

both together and apart;

Courage to speak truly to one another,

to open your hearts and be vulnerable;

            Commitment to work with one another,

even when that work seems the most difficult;

for better for worse,

for richer for poorer,

in sickness and in health.

 

Know that times of trial, need, and sickness

            will challenge your commitment to one another.

            You will ask “Why am I tied to this person?”

            “The weight of them seems too much.”

Know that times of success, riches, and health

            will also challenge you.

            You will ask “Why do I need them?”

            “I can manage on my own.”

 

But through all of this, remember what you mean to each other,

            a friend in adversity and a constant companion,

            a hand to comfort and an ear to listen,

            a little bit of you that’s more than you alone,

            and a little bit of the outside world,

                        as close as your own heart.

I ask you to look deep into one another’s hearts.

            Dare to hope that this person will fulfill you,

                        in your fulfillment of them.

            Work hard to make that hope a reality.

 

 

Know also that this is only the very beginning.

 

We find it almost impossible to imagine the idea of true oneness with God;

            And yet we strive for this greater life,

                        we struggle to have true love for all,

                        as God loved us, truly and fully.

 

May your marriage open your hearts to the possibility

            of loving each and every person you meet.

No other person can be to you what you are to one another,

            but there is a place in your heart for all,

            a place that will only grow stronger, and warmer, and fuller,

                        because you love one another,

                        and strengthen one another.

 

Today, we have an opportunity to see two become one,

            and to see what love may do.

 

 

 

I’ve been reading Alvin Plantinga’s book Where the Conflict Really Lies.  I’ve really enjoyed some of the thoughtful analysis, but I’m also confused about why people find miracles and divine intervention so complicated.  Perhaps we’ve gone too far down the enlightenment rabbit hole.  Perhaps I’m missing something – it’s always possible.  Here’s a short thought experiment on God’s action in the world.

 

Let us construct a metaphor.  It’s going to be imperfect, but all metaphors are.  For good and ill, the clockwork metaphor of Newton and Descartes is no longer familiar, so start with something you know:  video games.

Let us say that God is video game developer.  She codes for a massive multiplayer environment that we will call the World.  Two caveats are in order.

1)      Who are the players?  That’s indeed a difficult question, but I want to focus on miracles for the moment, so for now let us presume that there are players.

2)      Development does not equal Creation.  Granted.  Christian doctrine suggests that our developer created the hardware out of nothingness (something even sys admins have trouble with), created the players, assembled the hardware, wrote the language, and the compiler.  For now, though, let’s just look at her function as developer and coder.

 

With that beginning, we can talk about the modes of interaction our developer has with the program.

A)     She wrote the program: Creation.  Pretty straightforward.

B)      She maintains the program, not only by keeping the server running, but by patching, allocating memory, and making upgrades.  Christians call this “sustaining” or continual creation.

C)      She might act as a player, taking on an avatar and playing by the rules everyone else plays by.  This would be a perfectly legitimate way to interact with the environment she created, which in no way involves “supernatural”, “metaphysical”, or “transcendental” interference  – at least not any more than that of any other player taking on an avatar.  Indeed, this is quite close to what most Christians believe of Jesus Christ.  It’s not quite the same because we usually say Christ performed miracles and rose from the dead.  Some tweaking may be in order.

D)     She might act as a player, maintaining full knowledge of the environment she created.  It may be that every player is capable of extraordinary feats within the environment if they only knew the rules.  Still nothing funny going on, and it seems perfectly consistent and reasonable to suppose that the developer would have a comprehensive knowledge of the environment.  When I speak of Jesus’ authority, it comes awfully close to this sense.  Of course the author knows what’s been written better than anyone else.  Thus “miracles” would be good evidence of Jesus’ authority without in any way being supernatural.  Jesus’ apparent ability to pass on his miraculous abilities supports this “cheat code” theory of miracles.

E)      She might enter the game as a special kind of player.  To mix metaphors, we could imagine Jesus as a super-user.  There is nothing in scripture or science that suggests all humans interact with the environment in the same way.  We do not all have identical abilities, nor anywhere close.  For a trivial example consider the range of sight from blind to test-pilot.  The concept of extraordinary abilities in no way suggests that the rules of the system are being broken.  Any computer game runs on code and the world runs on laws.  Unexpected or extraordinary events in no way suggest that the code or laws have been broken.  Only that they are more complicated than they first appeared.

Most Christians want more from their deity, however.  They want direct interaction – often called intervention – by God, from outside the world.  This after all has something to do with the idea of a personal God who has a loving relationship with individual creatures, who acts in their lives.  Let’s take a look at that kind of interaction.

F)      She might run a help line.  Let’s call this prayer.  Players have an avenue for communication which may be inside or parallel to the environment of play.  The developer responds directly by words or by adjusting the environment.  There is no reason this avenue needs to be empirically available or detectable, even if the inputs and outputs are.

But how does she “adjust the environment”?  I suspect this is where the real problem lies, but wanted to get all the other stuff out of the way, because people insist on bringing it up.  Can the programmer change the rules of the game?  Yes.  Why not?

G)     She might update the game, such that there are new features, either unique or universal.  She would have to do this, under our metaphor, by writing new code.  No laws would be broken within the game, even though the laws had changed.  [This, by the way, is how I read Leibniz when he says we live in the best of all worlds.  God has “rewritten” the code countless times in response to our input, but does all of this from a standpoint outside of time so that all users enter the fully optimized game.]  The key thing to note is that the laws regulate time within the virtual environment as well as space within the environment.  The new code proactively and retroactively changes.  If we only exist in the game we could not (even in principle) be aware of previous versions.  If we have a memory outside the game, that’s going to beg all sorts of other questions.

H)     She might change one of the variables in the game, without changing the code.  For example, we might find ourselves of more, or less, health points, wealth, or energy.  Note she has not changed the code.  The rules have not been broken, our sense of cause and effect has.  What’s at stake is a question of whether the system is closed; it has nothing to do with consistency inside the system.

I)        She might write a whole different code, inserting a virus so that you are – for all intents and purposes – playing a different game for a few seconds, before returning to the standard game.  I have to say that, as a programmer, this strikes me as a hideously inefficient and inelegant way to get the job done.  You’re going to have to add H or G to have lasting effects anyway, so I can’t imagine what possible utility this option has.  Nonetheless, most people I talk to – both pro- and anti-Christian seem fixated on defending Option I.  Really?

 

I see no reason miracles cannot be out of the ordinary and display Divine action and intent without ever appealing to something which breaks the laws of nature.

Sadly, I think what both sides want is an excuse to stop thinking.  The anti-miracle-ists want to insist that these things couldn’t have happened.  “The universe doesn’t work that way.”  When did they achieve perfect knowledge of the universe?  They’re unwilling to wade into the dangerous and complex ground of how we justify induction (reasoning from specific knows about general unknowns).  I have had great discussions with people about whether specific events occurred.  Whether those events cannot categorically occur is beyond my scope.  We can only say that we don’t know how they could occur and, yes, base our actions on a low confidence in their occurring.  Christians have been straightforward about admitting we expect low probability events on the basis of a personal promise.  Anti-theists should be just as straightforward about arguing against trust in that source.  Stop hiding behind analytic philosophy, empiricism, and probability.

On the other hand, there is an even larger camp of pro-miracle-ists who insist that God’s breaking of the rules is proof that something beyond the game exists.  If it were a simple statement of humility, I would be delighted.  “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”  Unfortunately, they go on to add: “And let me tell you exactly what they are.”  Absence of evidence is just that – absence of evidence.  There’s no point in asking if a theory is perfect – be it Keynesian economics, evolution, gravity, or general relativity.  Breaking one theory does not ever entail another theory.  (On a rare occasion it will strongly justify a null hypothesis, but even then one must be very careful in constructing the null hypothesis.)  Atheists have been straightforward in asking “What’s Christianity good for?”  Christians should be just as straightforward in answering that question.  Stop hiding behind ignorance, scriptural literalism, and heartfelt anecdotes about personal experience.  (The latter can be helpful for personal conversion, but don’t take the place of rational arguments.)

Everyone tries to make sense of the sum of experience they have, in light of the sum of reports they hear from others.  Theists and non-theists begin with different assumptions about the types of rules the universe might operate under.  I hope both sides will be mindful of doing so systematically, thoughtfully, and kindly.

This afternoon, I was honored to be the keynote speaker for the Foundation for Episcopal Campus Ministry (http://www.fecm-tucson.org/) which supports the University of Arizona chaplaincy. 

 

Dear friends,

this week I keep coming back to one particular line

            from an Easter hymn.

In Hail thee, festival day, we speak of the Holy Spirit:

“Spirit of life and of power,

now flow in us, font of our being,

light that dost lighten all,

life that in all dost abide.”

It speaks to me of the research I want to do,

            the research I’m headed off to do,

            but it also speaks to me of evangelism,

            and, in a very important way,

                        an issue I see as central to out question

                        of who we are as a church.

 

In Genesis 1, we hear of the Spirit moving over the face of the deep,

            the Ruach, or breath of God.

And God making creatures,

                        nephesh chayah, living things with breath.

Humans, though, are special,

            being fashioned in the very image and likeness of God.

In Genesis 2, we hear of God breathing onto the dust

            to make Adam.

So, in a very real way, we can speak of God’s breath in us

            being necessary to simply being alive.

Every living breathing thing lives and breathes

            Because God breathed life into it.

 

On the other hand, we can speak of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,

            the inbreathing of God’s breath.

The New Testament speaks of both unclean spirits and the Holy Spirit,

            using this one word – pneuma, breath.

John 14 speaks of the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive.

In Acts , the Apostles are filled with the Holy Spirit in a special way.

And Paul speaks of the spirit, the breath, and the soma, the body.

So in some way we must also speak of the breath of God,

            the Holy Spirit, as a special thing,

            which humans may or may not have.

 

 

And then there is light.

We call Jesus the light of the world,

            a light to enlighten the nations.

In the Nicene creed, we say Phos ek Photos,

light from light in the platonic sense

            as that which illuminates the universe.

We call him the Way, the Truth, and the Light,

            believing that to know anything truly,

            is to know it in Christ.

This gift of perception, intellect, and understanding,

            we say that every time we use that,

            we do so by the light of Christ.

 

And yet, still we think of “Seeing the light,”

            being “blinded by the light.”

Isaiah speaks of those who walk in darkness.

And John of those who prefer darkness to the light.

So there must also be a light that we may have,

            but we may also refuse.

 

Or the image of God,

            Genesis says we are made, all of us,

            In the image and likeness of God,

and yet in baptism we can put on Christ (Galatians).

We can enter into the fullness of God (Ephesians).

 

 

We are left with this dichotomy,

            between having physical life and having spiritual life,

            between being born of the flesh or born of the spirit,

            between life and eternal life.

Our definition of life is, and must be,

a metaphor for our understanding of life everlasting.

For Christians the two cannot be separated,

            because God redeemed us,

            while in the flesh.

And so we celebrate the God of Creation,

            who breathed life into the world,

            and set a light in the heavens,

But we also celebrate a God of Redemption,

            who makes all things new,

            and invited us into a greater life

than the one we knew before.

 

 

Many, both Roman Catholics and Protestants,

            have tried to separate life from Life,

            breath from breath, God from God.

They say that by the Fall, Adam lost whatever was good within us.

And they are quick to divide the quick from the dead,

            the inspired from the uninspired,

            the saved from the condemned.

Anglicans have always been suspicious of this divide.

            We refuse to believe that humans even have the power

                        to so permanently corrupt what God created good.

            We insist that God continues

                        to endow us with memory, reason, and skill,

                        whether we are baptized or not.

            We see ourselves as cultivating the good seeds already planted,

                        welcoming the God already present within us.

We respect the dignity of every human being,

            because our bare existence,

            is seen as a gift from God,

            before and after anything we might have done.

And so we focus more on the incarnation than the atonement.

 

 

The blessing of this theology is that it allows us to appreciate and sanctify

every corner of human knowledge.

It makes us the ideal faith for college campuses,

            because we respect human reason and tradition,

            both inside and outside the church,

            not only as tools, but as gifts of God.

It means we are perfectly suited (believe it or not)

            to an age when everything is being reconsidered

            in the light of science and multicultural communication.

We have been trained by centuries of dealing with this very question:

            Who am I in light of God and reason, faith and science?

We belong to the tradition of Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, and Richard Hooker.

Our faith produced thinkers like Darwin and Hume,

            though they may have been ambivalent about it

            during their lives.

We’ve got this one.

 

 

And yet, our theology is also something of a curse,

            because we appreciate the spark of divinity in each and all,

            we have a harder time convincing people to stoke the fire.

We are sometimes confused about evangelism,

            because we look so closely for the presence of God,

            already there, wherever we go.

And yet, this too can be a strength,

            if only we can be confident in our own ability

            to know the face of God,

            to recognize in the world around us the glory and the grace,

which we may also know by looking within.

We can call upon the Spirit,

            fan the flames,

            uncover the light.

All of these things and more.

 

 

I love you all.

And I love you because I have seen the light of Christ within you.

            As you have helped me see the light of Christ within myself.

And each of you burns a slightly different color.

The wind blows through each of you in a unique and powerful way.

 

But that doesn’t mean we can’t do better.

That doesn’t mean we can’t bring out the light that is within each of us.

There is work to be done.

 

This for me is the work of campus ministry,

            to reach out to the university,

            to find the many and varied, even riotous, different colors of faith,

            and tend each one.

Paul said “I have become all things to all people

so that by all means I might save some.” (I Corinthians 9)

And I feel so strongly about this,

            that the work of the chaplain,

            indeed, the work of any evangelist,

            is to go into the world and find where God is active

                        and encourage what flames may be encouraged.

With those who value knowledge, I encouraged knowledge,

            as evidence of God at work in creation.

With those who value reason, I encouraged good reasoning,

            as the light of Christ and the unknown God.

With those who value community, I encouraged healthy community,

            as the concrete and disciplined love of neighbor.

With those who value love, I encouraged love,

            as the very heart of God and God’s revelation to us.

 

 

I say these things, not out of pride but to share with you

            the very ministry I have shared with you.

I could do these things because you did them with me.

They were my gifts, but they became real

because they were your gifts as well.

They were us, together, doing God’s work in the world.

 

I’m thinking of Miriam Huber, Stephanie Adamson, Tom Lindell,

            and Katie McAllister, each of whom have the important,

            if often under-appreciated gift of administration,

            of making the pieces fit together with harmony and compassion.

I’m thinking Joey Freund and David Christy, who have the gift of reaching

            out to people in new ways and building friendships.

I’m thinking of Barby Goldschmit, Kay Wilson, Megan Underwood,

            and so many others, who have the gift of hospitality, the ability

            to make other realize the grace of God, in whose house we all live.

I’m thinking of Catherine Vassaux and John Hsieh, whose quiet,

            confident faith has been a source of strength.

John Wauters, Holden, Spencer, Sam,

and so many others who created a community out of the CCC

and the ECM.

 

 

We each of us have this power, and we all of us have this power,

            and we’re called to practice it every day.

I’d encourage you, whether you’re staying here

and discovering what the chaplaincy becomes,

            or moving on,

finding and creating

            new church wherever you go;

remember that there is always something you can do,

            to breathe more deeply of the Holy Spirit,

            to burn more brightly,

            to live more fully that eternal life,

                        that you have had from birth.

And, as always

“Glory to God, whose power working in us

            can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.

Glory to God from generation to generation in the Church,

            and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever.” (Ephesians 3:20)

“pardon me, but I want you to know that you’re beautiful”

 

A friend asked me today:

“As someone who has had (and continues to) have some trouble feeling ‘comfortable’ in my skin, how do you suggest going about increasing both ones own comfort, and the comfort of others? Going up to someone and saying “pardon me, but I want you to know that you’re beautiful” rarely seems to be the right thing to do – not least because of the unavoidable subtext.”

 

There’s two questions here.  How can I be more comfortable in my own skin?  Much has been written on that topic, but in brief:

 

1)    Have faith.  Really, join a church (or temple or sangha).  Here’s the trick.  It has to be full of people who actually love and support you.  Otherwise, it will have the opposite effect.

2)    Take up martial arts.  Same caveats apply.  It has to be a supportive place where people are constantly learning, including the instructors.  It has to have healthy, happy people who want you to be healthy and happy as well.  Otherwise it will have the opposite effect.

3)   Don’t compare.  We do this to ourselves and to others.  True beauty is something intrinsic, really.  It’s not relative to anything else.  I’m not saying it’s mental, emotional, or abstract.  I’m saying that every truly beautiful thing is a beautiful example of what it is, not trying to be something else.  Judge yourself on your merits.  Find out how you are beautiful as you.

4)    Treat others well.  All things worth having in this arena can only be had in relationship to others.  Treating others better will lead to them treating you better.  It’s the best type of positive feedback loop.

 

Second question, closely related to number 3:  How can I help others be more comfortable in their skin?  I think this is an important skill and one I’d like to be better at.  Here are my first thoughts, but I’d love to hear from you.

 

1)   Give people your full attention.  We multi-task so much, we rarely do this.  Put down the phone and give people your 100% attention – even if you can only do this briefly.

2)    Make appropriate eye contact.  This is a tough one as appropriate is different in different circumstances.  The key is to make the person know you see them, actually see their self – not their social location, cultural role, or body.  In my experience, this usually takes a full second of direct eye contact.  Warning: Prolonged eye contact can be seen as threatening, or romantic interest.  It’s an art form, people; it takes observation and practice.

3)   Listen to what they have to say without preparing to say something yourself or focusing on something else.

4)   Compliment them.  There is always something to compliment.  It may be physical, intellectual, emotional…  We don’t compliment people enough.  Now, here’s the trick.  Compliment them on something over which they have control.  Unlike flirting, where you’re giving a whole suite of complicated cues, simple compassion calls for compliments of things the other person has actually done.  Haircut and clothes are easy answers.  Notice details.  Notice what they have put effort into.

5)   Use encouraging body language (when you want to be encouraging).  Crossed arms and inwardly curved spine indicate that you are inwardly focused.  An easy smile (not a forced smile or a grimace) send the message that you are open to another person.  One challenging aspect of this is that it works best if you are comfortable in your own skin.  You need to be calm and confident to help another person be calm and confident.  Once they’re feeling safe with you, they are a step closer to feeling safe all the time.

6)   Be confident, relaxed, and positive.  Note, this does not mean happy, though that’s even better.  These dispositions (not emotions) are contagious.  And yes, being this way make you better which helps others be better as well.

 

To wrap up, I posted this here because I find it a profoundly spiritual issue.  It has everything to do with how we see our selves and others in relation to the world – and in relation to God, if God is part of your vocabulary.  More than this, I really think we should take responsibility for the effect our attitudes affect the attitudes of others.  We make a difference to one another in very concrete and observable ways.  If I’m going to change the world, I’d like to do it in a positive way.

 

“I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.”  Psalm 139:13

“Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are.  When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” Tao Te Ching 44

During Lent, I conducted an Episcopal 101 class that introduces students to the peculiarities of Anglican faith.  In the section on theology, I gave them a handout that presents a cartoon version (the merest sketch) of how we think about God, creation, church, etc.  I’ve reprinted some of it here.

 

The Creed

Anglicans usually start with scripture, the Lord’s prayer, the Nicene and Apostles Creeds.  Because we value prayed theology over academic theology, we meet these in worship.

 

Catholic v. Anglican v. Protestant Beliefs

|                                     Protestant              Anglican                  Catholic

Salvation is                   Personal                     Both                            Communal

Church is                       Creedal                       Pragmatic                   Universal

Sacraments no.                 2                                  2 (+5)                         7

Sacraments are             Divine                        Useful                          Effective

|                                    Commands               Rites                            Signs

Prime Authority            Biblical                      Scripture thru           Apostolic

|                                    (scripture)                Tradition thru          (tradition)

|                                                                  Reason

Leaders                           Pastor (job)               varies                         Priest (identity)

|    highest level              Elder                           Bishop                       Pope

Commitment to             no mediator              local church          communion of saints

|                                                                 (diocese)               (Roman Catholic Church)

 

Specifically Anglican Commitments

Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi – What we pray is what we believe

Via Media – “The middle way” – giving attention to all authorities, but weighing each according to its merits

Praxis over Doctrine – We define ourselves as the people who worship, work for, and think about God in the same way, rather than the people who belong to a particular group, do a particular act, or adhere to a particular doctrine.

Creation Oriented Spirituality – The good of creation is greater than the evil of any sin and, though we struggle, God always wins through creation, not over it.

All May, Some Should, None Must – Private confession and many other practices are done because they help some (but not all) achieve a closer relationship with God.  They are not enforced or prohibited, but encouraged.

“The Beauty of Holiness” (Ps 96:9) – Worship should engage all the senses and include the fullness of our reason, art, and science.  Thus, we are in favor of vestments, icons, candles, incense, stained glass and all manner of aids to worship – but only when they turn our attention to God.

Unity with Autonomy – National churches should be free to pursue their faith and polity free from outside coercion, but they should also strive for common understanding and connection.

Yesterday, I had the joy and privilege of worshiping with the Episcopalian college students of Province VIII (the Western US portion of the Episcopal Church) and with the people of St. Stephen’s, San Luis Obispo, CA.  It was the second Sunday in Easter or Doubting Thomas Sunday.  Here is the sermon I shared.

Collect:  Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Readings:

Acts 5:27-32 (“We must obey God rather than any human authority.”)

Psalm 118:14-29 (“The same stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.”)

Revelation 1:4-8 (“I am the Alpha and the Omega”)

John 20:19-31 (Doubting Thomas)

Hymns:

#212 – Awake, arise, lift up your voice

#209 – We walk by faith and not by sight

#204 – Now the green blade riseth

#307 – Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendor

Sermon:

Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believe.

I fear more damage has been done by this one Bible verse, than just about any other,

and yet I also think it holds one of the fullest, deepest truths of Christianity.

It has something very important to do with what we think,

and what we know, and yes what we believe.

It has to do with how we come to understand the world around us,

both the physical and the spiritual.

Many of you are old friends,

but many others I am meeting for the first time,

so I think introductions are in order.

My name is Lucas Mix and I am the chaplain at the University of Arizona

In addition to being a priest and chaplain,

I am an adjunct professor in the biology department,

specializing in evolutionary theory and the search for life in space.

Needless to say, this brings up all sorts of questions.

I, like you, am deeply interested in this question of how we relate faith and reason.

We live in an age of skepticism,

when people don’t know whom to trust.

We live in a time when it seems people are more interested

in imposing their idea of truth on you

than they are in discovering it for themselves.

Those of us that live and work at the university are, I hope,

shielded from the worst of this,

but even there, we find that ideology and partisanship affect us daily.

And sadly, Christians have become associated with the worst abuses of truth.

Very visibly on campuses and in the media,

people promoting Christianity are also promoting ignorance,

in a very literal sense.

They cite this passage about Thomas and explain it thus:

“Blessed are those who have seen contrary evidence

and refuse to let it change them.

Blessed are those who hold so firmly to what they believe

that they can never be shaken.”

They want us to ignore some aspect of science or politics or history,

so that we can better focus on one particular aspect of the truth,

on Jesus Christ.

And the tough part is that I agree with the goal,

but, as today’s reading from Revelation reminds us,

Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

To ignore anyone, even to ignore anything,

is to ignore some aspect of God’s revelation to us.

God does not ask us to ignore, but to keep our eyes open,

to change what needs changing

and to hold fast to what is true.

And so we come to Thomas.

Jesus does not condemn Thomas or even directly criticize him.

Jesus invites the apostle to see for himself.

If the Ignorers are to believed,

if faith really must be had in place of experience, in place of testing,

I think Jesus would have said to Thomas,

“No.  You did not believe when you did not see,

so you’re no longer one of mine.

You lost your chance.”

For that matter,

if we are to believe the Ignorers,

all of the disciples should have lost out on salvation

because they did not continue to believe Jesus would live

in spite of seeing Jesus laid in the tomb.

No, there is a time for doubt and a time for certainty.

There is a time for darkness and a time for light.

There is a time when we, like the planted see,

must strive on, though deep underground,

but we must never pretend the darkness is really light,

nor bury ourselves again, having broken the surface.

There is a place for doubt and uncertainty.

What we really want to know is when, and how much?

What we need to know is when do we trust our revelation,

and when do we trust our experience?

How do we weigh the wisdom of scientists,

when it conflicts with the wisdom of Bible scholars?

For the true via media of Anglicanism is not a straight shot down the middle,

but a careful weighing of all the factors.

So we have a question of balance.

I’d like to propose four things to think about

when thinking about knowledge –

all kinds of knowledge, but today especially,

I’m thinking of faith, reason, and experience.

Number One: Humility.

Earlier in John’s gospel, Jesus says:

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth”

There is more truth.

There is always more truth.

There is always more growth.

I refuse to believe that God made seven billion people,

countless galaxies, stars, and planets,

in some massive attempt at compulsive redundancy.

The world is vast, and God is working in every single inch.

Every act, every sparrow, every lily, every grain of sand,

presents an opportunity to learn something.

What massive arrogance it would take to close one’s mind,

to ward off experience and knowledge.

For me, both science and faith must come with a fundamental humility,

that says we can know only provisionally.

“We see now as through a mirror darkly, but then we will see face to face.”

It’s not that I doubt everything,

but that I am always open to a new and better truth.

We must always be prepared to be wrong about something,

indeed to be wrong about everything,

except that we love God in Christ and one another.

We must always be open to chasing the Truth,

who is a person to be followed,

and not a fact to be possessed or a doctrine to be obeyed.

At the beginning of John’s gospel, Jesus meets Nathanael,

who challenges him – just as Thomas challenges him

after the resurrection.

Do you remember what Jesus says?

He tells him he saw him under the fig tree

and this causes Nathan to believe,

but more importantly, Jesus follows up with this statement:

“Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?

You will see greater things than these.”

It’s not a rebuke, but an invitation.

“Come and see.”

We must start with a willingness not only to be wrong,

but to be less wrong tomorrow than today.

Number Two:  Curiosity

I have come to think of curiosity as a virtue.

It means active hope.

Not only are we certain of things unseen,

but we are certain that there is more to see.

We have faith that what is coming,

can be better than what has come before.

The bible is full of active hope.

“Come and see.”

“Knock and the door will be opened.”

“Seek and you will find.”

And better still,

“Glory to God, whose power, working in us,

can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.”

We are asked to do more than passively accept a changing worldview,

we are asked to be part of the process.

It’s not just God working within us, but God working through us,

seeking, persuading, even demanding to know more

about the world God has made.

We treasure what we do know,

precisely because through it, we may come to know more.

We say that Jesus is the light of the world,

because by that light we know all other things.

Who wants a flashlight so that they can stare at the beam?

A light shining in the darkness serves a purpose

by illuminating the world.

And so we love one another as we love God,

seeing our neighbor in the light of Christ.

God acts through Christ,

and we act with Christ in opening our eyes to the world.

And we turn our heart, mind, soul, and strength to this purpose.

We strive to break out of the darkness.

We use every power at our disposal to know fully,

to understand, to process, and appreciate

the beauty of creation.

Number Three: Paradox.

We must be open to seeing the world in strange,

different, even paradoxical ways.

This doesn’t mean embracing unreasonable or illogical beliefs,

and it doesn’t mean being blind to contradictions.

What it does mean is that we can be open to the possibility

that the truth is bigger than we can imagine.

The Lord revealed in Trinity,

who could be three persons and yet one God,

who could be fully human and fully divine,

who could be described as the Way, the Truth, and the Light

all at once;

this Lord should not be shy of ambiguity.

We must start, as Christian theologians have always started,

with an understanding that we are piecing together

our understanding of God and the universe

one little fragment at a time.

And all the pieces probably will not fit with each other,

until we complete the puzzle.

So we can affirm that God is both personal and infinite,

that humans are in some way determined by our environment

and also free to choose,

that we are both animals in a very real sense,

and profoundly spiritual creatures.

We must always ask what we want to accomplish

with our knowledge, instead of what we wish to exclude.

We say that God is personal, because we talk with God.

We say that God is infinite, because God caused all things to come into being.

Each statement has something important to offer,

and we need to look at them individually,

before we can look at them together.

Likewise, I think biology and theology both have interesting,

and not unrelated truths to offer

about what it means to be human.

But we need to appreciate each on it’s own merits.

Always ask, why is this knowledge useful?

What does it do for me and for creation?

Finally, Number Four: Love.

Knowledge does something important.

It allows us to interact with the world.

It allows us to predict how the world will affect us,

and how we will effect it.

It gives us power and comfort and context.

All of those can be wonderful things,

but they can also be abused.

Good knowledge is knowledge for the sake of love,

for the sake of relationship and compassion.

Good knowledge brings us closer to the thing we know,

and seeks that knowledge for the sake of both

the one who seeks and the one who is found.

Good knowledge always asks:

“what do you want?”

“Where are you going?”

“Who are you?” and

“What are we to one another?”

Good knowledge recognizes that,

in a very profound way,

to know is to be known.

To define and to understand,

is to align yourself with something else,

and it will change you both.

To name a thing is to name it in relationship with you,

just as you name yourself in relationship to it.

To call God Lord, is to name yourself vassal;

to call God friend is, likewise, to name yourself a friend of God.

When you are confronted with questions of reason and faith,

competing worldviews or just competing people,

I hope you will give some thought to these four things:

Humility, Curiosity, Paradox, Love.

They are for me part and parcel with the Good News of Christ.

They are the message of John’s gospel,

our Christian heritage,

and our Easter hope.

Today is Good Friday.  I had the privilege of worshiping with people of St. Philip’s in the Hills Episcopal Church, Tucson.  They have a 3 hour service with 7 homilies on the 7 last words (comments) of Jesus.  I preached on the 6th word:

It is finished. (John 19:30)

Collect: O God, whose Son has shown the way of the cross to be the way of life: transform and renew our minds that we may not be conformed to this world but may offer ourselves wholly to you as a living sacrifice through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.

Readings:

John 19:17-30

1 Corinthians 1: 18

“The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

Philippians 2:5-11

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.  Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

 

Sermon

As I was grappling with this passage this week,

I kept coming back to a single thought:

“Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” John 13:1

Jesus loved us up until the end,

up until the very last moment

Jesus was loving and serving.

On Maundy Thursday, we remembered Jesus serving the disciples

by washing their feet and by blessing their food.

Even Judas, who was to betray him,

Jesus washed Judas’ feet.

Jesus prays for the daughters of Jerusalem,

and asks God to forgive the people tormenting him.

 

So when I hear Jesus say, “It is finished”

I hear him saying that he has spent the last of himself

in the love of God and neighbor.

This was the fullness of Jesus’ love,

not that he could accomplish more than any other –

though I believe he could –

but that he gave the fullness of himself until he was empty.

 

We speak so often of God giving us the strength to do more,

and I believe God does.

I believe God refills us when we give ourselves away.

And yet there is a moment,

there is always a moment,

when we let go.

Having given all we can,

knowing that we do not know how things will turn out,

we let go and allow God to work through others

and through the world.

We give up ownership of the outcome.

And this is what it means to love unto death,

to love fully, not anticipating the end,

but being open to being without, open to an end, even the end.

 

 

Christians have been accused of embracing death,

and I think that is wrong.

We do not seek death,

but we seek to empty ourselves,

to give all that we have and all that we are

to God and neighbor.

We know what it means to live fully,

up to the very moment of our passing.

We give willingly, even joyfully if we can,

because for us true life lies not in holding onto

grace, power, love, knowledge

but letting them flow through us,

making connections,

feeding,

giving growth.

Jesus emptied himself,

but not for the sake of being empty.

Every action in his lifetime,

every word that passed from his lips,

feeds us, strengthens us, builds us up.

 

And that is my aspiration,

to give up control of the outcome,

but only so that I can give my full attention to the moment,

to give up knowing about tomorrow,

but only so that I can empty myself today.

I must believe that Jesus is an example to us at all times and in all places,

that his passion and crucifixion may teach us,

not just to wait for the resurrection,

but to give of ourselves to the very end,

to love in the midst of hatred,

to hope in the midst of despair,

to have faith in the midst of isolation.

I must believe that the crucifixion was not some hideous means to an end

that God set up to satisfy an obscure law.

I must believe that it means true atonement,

God giving us God’s very self, that we might be one with him,

through Jesus Christ.

 

 

It is finished, then and now.

It is finished because God suffered our company,

suffered our will, our attempts at law,

suffered our doubt and fear, anger and violence,

and met them with perfect love,

God gave love for hate, even to the very end.

And beyond.

 

In three days, we will recall that God’s love overcame our hate.

In three days, we will see that this kind of openness and vulnerability

was even more powerful than any grasping for power,

than any violence.

Even death will be conquered.

 

But for now, we live in the moment.

We accept that Jesus spent himself.

 

And, now

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,

but emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form, he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.”

 

This morning, I had the pleasure of worshiping with the people of St. Michael and All Angels’ Episcopal Church, Tucson.  Here is the sermon I preached.

Collect

Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Readings

Exodus 3:1-15 (God comes to Moses in a burning bush)

Psalm 63:1-8 (“O, God, you are my God…”)

I Corinthians 10:1-13 (All are nourished, but not all please God)

Luke 13:1-9 (The parable of the fig tree, “unless you repent, you will all perish”)

Sermon

People have a growing season, did you know that?

One of the greatest (and hardest) lessons I’ve learned growing up is this:

that there is a time and a place for growing

and a time and a place for giving fruit,

and sometimes you have to be ever so patient

and sometimes you have to push with everything you’ve got

and it can be very hard to figure out which is which.

It’s an art and not a science.

“To every thing there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven.”

 

So what is the growing season for people,

the harvest of souls, if you will?

 

The more seasons I pass through

the more I appreciate the church year.

I’m not saying it works for everyone this way, but it works for me.

Advent is a time of introspection,

we ask ourselves what we want out of life,

what we want out of God and a messiah,

what we want to be saved from – if anything?

We ask ourselves what kind of gifts we want to receive.

We plant a seed.

Christmas is a time of birth,

it is a time for celebration and joy,

a time to recognize the miracle of the seed

which becomes new life.

But, no, you say – surely that is Easter?

“Now the green blade riseth”

“First fruits of the dead”

and all that.

Yes and no.

Bear with me for a moment.

 

Let me suggest that we get impatient in our lives,

we want the process of new life to be a quick one,

but it is not always so.

“To every thing there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven.”

Let me suggest that the fruition of Easter

took a whole season to develop,

not just Lent but much more.

In Christmas we recognize that the seed has sprouted,

but it is still underground.

We marvel at the wonders of God with us.

We celebrate the gifts we have been given,

the nourishment we have received,

but we have not yet given fruit.

Christmas is a season of adoration,

when we give thanks for God’s gifts

and God’s gift of Jesus to the world.

This transitions naturally into Epiphany,

the revelation or unwrapping, if you will of the gift.

Still in secret the plant unfolds under the ground,

still internal, we wonder at the new knowledge and new life

God has given us.

Epiphany is a season for wonder and curiosity and puzzlement,

because the gift we have been given is not

the gift we expected.

It never is.

It’s always, in some strange way, better.

In Lent, we turn to introspection again,

because God’s gifts change us,

they transform us,

they work wonders within our inmost selves,

and we find that the seeds planted in Advent

have grown into something,

still invisible, but pushing for the surface.

 

In Lent we ask who is this person

whom God has called?

Who is this “me” that was worthy of a gift?

What am I in relation to God?

A rather challenging question really.

Our first answer, the scary answer,

is the answer of Ash Wednesday.

I am dust and to dust I shall return.

And yet that dust has had life blown into it.

God breathed on the dust

and it became a living breathing thing.

Psalm 139 says

“I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

marvelous are your works, and my soul

[the very living core of me] knows it right well.”

“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.

It is so high I cannot attain it.”

 

By Holy Week we will have such a high opinion of ourselves

that can recognize God and sing Halelujahs,

but also judge and condemn.

And yet, even then, we do not say

that the seed has broken the surface.

Not until the last sacrifice has been made,

not until the ground is watered with the blood of Christ,

the ancient Christians say,

can we speak of Easter.

The world is made anew at Easter.

The plant appears above ground for the first time,

but it is still not what it could be.

We say that the church is born at Pentecost,

only 50 days later,

when the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus followers

and speaks through them.

The church is born from those who survived,

and followed Christ in faith,

after the crucifixion and the resurrection.

 

It would be a mistake, I think,

to speak of our birth without that fateful moment,

without the pain and agony of Jesus betrayal and death.

I do not say it couldn’t have happened in any other way.

What I do say is that it did happen that way.

This is our story.

This is our childbirth as the body of Christ, the church.

 

We remember it every year,

and we do the hard work of repeating it every year,

we work within ourselves,

and God works within ourselves,

that same miracle of 2,000 years ago,

every year.

We ask whether we are fertile soil, in which the gospel can grow.

We ask whether we are a tree that bears fruit.

 

We live somewhere between that awful statement

“you are dust and dust you shall return”

and that strange empowerment

that God came to us, not once, but twice –

in the incarnation and the resurrection.

 

Lent is a time to discover what grows within us,

as we grow into the church.

 

Paul says “I do not want you to be unaware,

brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were ALL under the cloud,

and ALL passed through the sea,

and ALL were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,

and ALL ate the same spiritual food,

and ALL drank the same spiritual drink.

For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them,

and the rock was Christ.

Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them,

and they were struck down in the wilderness.”

 

In every one a seed has been planted,

but will all of those seeds come to fruition?

Will every tree bear fruit?

It’s a fearful question.

 

I’ve been reading much theology this week,

trying to figure out what I think

about our ability to choose to be good:

Pelagianism, and Semi-Pelagianism, and Arminianism, and Predestination,

and Augustine, and Calvin, and Luther, and Wesley.

Is it up to us whether or not we bear fruit?

I have to say I don’t know.

 

I can say this:

I believe we are both the gardener and the fig tree.

I believe that there is a time for us to bear fruit,

and that time comes when the time comes.

There is a time and a place for growing

and a time and a place for giving fruit,

and sometimes you have to be ever so patient

and sometimes you have to push with everything you’ve got

and it can be very hard to figure out which is which.

We have been asked to seed and water and tend,

not only our own souls,

but those of our neighbors as well.

And it is a wonderful and strange task,

Beyond our understanding.

 

But we do know what the fruit is.

It’s not a terribly difficult metaphor,

though we have tried to make it complicated.

Fruit is that which feeds.

Jesus says it is love for one another.

Paul says it is patient and kind,

bears all things, believes all things,

hopes all things, endures all things.

The seed planted in us is the good news,

and the fulfillment of that,

the fulfillment of our very selves,

is to bear love.

 

I can’t tell you whether I control the process,

or can even start or stop it.

I can only say that this is what I want to be,

this is who I want to be,

this is what I think my purpose in life is,

to bear good fruit,

to be loved and loving,

to foster true compassion, community, and grace

in the world.

I want to be the fig tree in season,

and the bush that is on fire with God,

but not consumed.

And with whatever power I have,

I will seek that.

 

 

God asked Moses to go to Pharaoh and deliver the Israelites from bondage.

Moses asked God who God was to do this thing.

And God said I am.

I am the holy ground.

I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

I am the one who calls, the one who sends, and the one who sets free.

“Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’…

This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations.”

 

 

The story of the fig tree is very much a story of Lent.

It asks us to ask ourselves what grows within us.

Who are we and who do we want to be in light of God’s revelation?

Are we willing to let this new thing come to life in ourselves

and in the church?

Are we burning with passion for this life

which is coming into the world?

 

We are the tree and the church is the tree and the world is the tree.

 

With all the world, we soak up God’s grace.

The very life we live, we live because God breathed life into us.

 

 

Jesus asks us to consider:

When do we give up and when does God give up on us?

What is the balance between faith and observation –

between hoping to grow and actually growing?

How do you know?

 

Jesus speaks of the persecuted Galileans

and those who died when the tower collapsed.

It might make more sense, be more meaningfully emotional,

to speak of those who died in the twin towers bombing,

and those who died in hurricane Katrina.

Some die because of sin and some die because of fate or natural disaster.

But we die,

and this opportunity to love one another comes to an end.

 

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”

 

I do not know whether another opportunity will arise after my death.

I do not know if this is the only season in which I may bear fruit,

but while I’m here, that’s what I would like to do.

 

I may get in trouble with my liberal colleagues

when I say there may be a limit.

There may come a time

when it’s too late to give, to late to love, to late to change.

Yes, there may come a time when it is too late to repent.

But,

But that’s not the point.  The point is and always has been

To give now,

to love now,

to change now.

 

The point is to bear the fruits of faith, hope, and charity,

and to burn with the desire to do so.

 

 

 

This post continues with a theme I began in “Beyond Science?.”  In brief, I suggested that science requires boundary conditions.  In other words, we need to have an idea of what is and is not science – what science can and cannot do – for the term to be at all useful.  I suggested three possibilities.

A) Science uses a specific methodology.

B) Science includes explanations of a specified class of phenomena.

C) Science produces a specified kind of result.

In the last post I ruled out C, at leas as the primary definition of science.  In this post, I discuss B.

B) Science includes explanations of a specified class of phenomena.

This has been another popular tactic in defining science, usually some idea that science deals with explanations of the natural world or the physical world.  For example, many state school boards have this phrase when describing science:  “Science investigates the natural world through the use of observation, experimentation, and logical argument.” Note that there’s a subject matter restriction (B), but also a methodological restriction (A).  Kansas, on the other hand, switched a few year back to this: “Science seeks natural explanations through the use of observation, experimentation, and logical argument.”  There the restriction is only on the type of explanation (A) not the type of the subject matter (B).

Let us assume for a moment that science deals with material entities.

We have to ask ourselves if material explanations of immaterial entities would qualify as science.  For instance, what about controlled studies looking for ESP or life after death.  Both of these have been attempted and there is some debate about whether they should be counted as science.  Are they looking for something that cannot be found?  Is it possible to search intelligently for something that you may never find?

On the other hand, consider immaterial explanations for material phenomena – angels pushing planets or intelligent design.  Here the methodology has changed radically, but the subject matter has stayed the same.  Are they making illicit scientific moves or just trying to expand the range of science?

For me, materialism (of some stripe) is a core element of science, so I ask myself whether I apply that as a restriction on subject matter or methodology.  These examples convince me that it’s methodology.  You may have different ideas about science, but I think you can approach the question in the same way, no matter what the requirement is.  Ask, “am I limiting what I talk about, or how I’m able to talk about it?”  My experience has been that most of the time, I want to limit the way we talk about things – the methodology (A) of science.

I suppose this means that I think God can be approached scientifically (he said, surprising himself).  It does not mean I think this avenue will be productive, but I’m open to trying.  This will become a matter of methodology and specific context.  It turns out economics can be tremendously useful in studying the social behavior of insects.  On the other hand, I’ve seen people try to apply quantum mechanics and evolution (by natural selection) to just about everything.  They almost never succeed.

St. Paul might say all things are permissible, but not all things are desirable.  Just because it’s valid science, doesn’t mean it’s fruitful science.  Nor do previous failures dictate future failures.  I’m glad we kept trying to isolate bacteria.  I’m glad we tried physical explanations of planets and physical explanations of disease.  Science continues to find new things, so I’d be terribly uncomfortable mapping out knowledge and saying – “here lie dragons” – science cannot know this.

At the same time, our methodology may limit what we see, not because we are unwilling to look, but because our focus is off.  One might consider the question of smells on television.  Television provides useful information, but it has not been designed to transmit smell.  Or we could use the popular metaphor of fishing with a net.  The net has 10in gaps between the ropes.  Just because you don’t catch any 9in fish does not mean they don’t exist.  It doesn’t even mean that nets cannot catch small fish.  It just means that this particular net cannot tell you anything about small fish.

So, the question becomes, when we speak of science not knowing something, is it because it cannot be known by science because we have declared it off limits (B) or because we have set up science in such a way that it doesn’t do that kind of work?  And, more importantly, how much would we have to adjust our methodology to make it work?

As with C, I think we must say the B – defining science by it’s subject matter – will not do, at least not alone.  I think we must return to methodology, no matter how provisional and contextual it is.  The effects and subject matter may fall out as a result of our methods – often they do – but I’m unwilling to draw those lines before we try.  Nor do I think that any of the definitions I’ve mentioned so far match up with the common conception of scientists.

 

This post continues with a theme I began in my last post.  In brief, I suggested that science requires boundary conditions.  In other words, we need to have an idea of what is and is not science – what science can and cannot do – for the term to be at all useful.  I suggested three possibilities.

A) Science uses a specific methodology.

B) Science includes explanations of a specified class of phenomena.

C) Science produces a specified kind of result.

In this post, I discuss C.

Let us try on the idea that science is defined by it’s ends.  A number of ends present themselves, but I think common opinions can be summed up in two categories.

C1) Science is that which produces truth.

C2) Science is that which produces results (predictions, power over the natural world, skill to create).

The first is probably the most common, but also the most easily refuted, so let’s start there.

C1) Science is that which produces truth.

This definition fits well with the ancient definition of scientia (Latin “knowledge”).  It also fits well with the incredible, growing, and seemingly endless benefits of scientific inquiry.  Unfortunately it is logically equivalent to defining truth as that which is produced by science – and nothing else.  Some will be happy with that definition, but let’s unpack it.

What do we do with people reason poorly but, through random means, come to know the truth?  If I throw the dice and interpret the results to mean that Beijing is the capital of China, I have come to truth, but not in good way.  I’m not willing to call that science; nor, I think, would any of my readers.  A magic 8 ball would be just as scientific as the Large Hadron Collider.  That won’t do.

Someone conditioned by Enlightenment thinking, would adjust the definition a little.

C1a) Science is that which produces knowledge, where knowledge is justified true belief.

In this case, we think of science as any type of reason that not only gets you the right outcome – the correct representation of reality – but also gives you cause to be confident it is the right outcome.  Better, no?

Alas, it still presents us with serious difficulties, notably having to do with what does and what does not exist.  Not everyone has the same standards of evidence.  Even within the natural sciences we find differences.  Physicists have a much lower opinion of the ability to reason from correlation to causation than do biologists.  This is a common line of thought among evolutionary biologists who want to “know” things about past events in family tree of organisms.  It is, however, prone to certain types of error.  So how justified does this justification need to be for our definition?

Even worse, we see the problem on the other side.  What if we thought we were justified – we reasoned very carefully using the information available – but decided later that our belief was not true.  Physicists once thought that there was no such thing as a vacuum and space must be filled with particles of ether.  This notion held out in some form or another until special relativity gave us a way to think of light waves that did not require a medium for them to travel in.

Worse still, this definition opens the door for anyone to declare their thoughts true and their reasoning sufficient to give us confidence.  Without some methodological distinction, we will be powerless to stop these people from claiming that they are fully scientific in their reasoning (See my post from 2011 called Knowledge).  I cannot support any definition of science as the pursuit of truth or knowledge.  I’m too invested in the question of what those things are in the first place.  If I want science to help me define knowledge, I cannot define knowledge in terms of science without circularity.  If I want a broader view of knowledge, I will never be happy equating science with it’s pursuit.

C2) Science is that which produces results (predictions, power over the natural world, skill to create).

I think this possibility has much more promise.  Francis Bacon, the father of empiricism (the core philosophy of “modern science”) felt that power was key.  God, he said, gave us science to restore our proper relationship of dominion over creation (see Bacon’s Novum Organon, or commentary in Phil Dowe’s book, Galileo, Darwin, and Hawking).

Power may be the strongest rallying cry of modern pro-science activists.  It works.  It gives us stuff, from indoor plumbing to modern medicine, from iPods to spacecraft.  Personally, I think power is the gold standard in science.  As much as predictions and abstract knowledge are valued, I think any theory that allows you to manipulate the world will be favored (by scientists) over an equivalent one that does not.

This is a good boundary condition for science, but I don’t think anyone will be willing to buy it, at least by itself, at the end of the day.  It suffers many of the same problems as the idea of science as the pursuit of truth.

It’s too inclusive.  Dale Carnegie’s book, How to Win Friends and Influence People has been tremendously useful to me.  I think it gives me and others power to influence our relationships with people around us.  It’s useful.  And yet, I would never call it science.

It’s not inclusive enough.  String theory and cosmology both produce highly limited power within the field of physics, but most people consider them to be sciences.  Similarly, I spent many years looking at questions of evolution in the early development of photosynthesis billions of years ago.  It would be funny if theoretical and “pure” science failed to make the cut.

No, I think we will be forced to say that science has to do with knowledge and power, but that the boundaries, the essential character of science will need to include some other constraints, either having to do with the methodology or the subject matter.