6th Grade Education

Recently I sat, captive in a room filled with elementary age kids, and heard an incredibly illogical position described as logical and a logical position as illogical. The positions were respectively, the creation of the world by the Divine and the creation of the world by the Big Bang.  The former bolstered by the first creation account in Genesis and the later mischaracterized as just a theory.  

I need to be clear. I was in the room because I believe in many of the same things as the speaker; The inerrancy of the Bible, the existence of God, the divinity of Jesus Christ, the freedom from sin He offers us all if we will only believe and accept it, and the importance of teaching our kids those same truths.

I also need to be clear that as I sat in that room my blood boiled, I bit my tongue and feared for every impressionable young mind that sat in the room with me.

Faith, by definition, is at least in part, illogical. Science, by definition, is logical.

It is possible to effectively convince a group of kids that the illogical is logical and the logical is illogical. You can condition your audiences response with your tone and phrasing  "... can you believe some people think the world began with a bang?... Like a firecracker…?" and mischaracterizations "…this is what is called a theory…which is just an idea…"

However this type of indoctrination falls apart in the face of actual facts and logic.

When these same kids are in high school or college, faced with a mountain of logic and evidence in favor of scientific explanations of the natural world, their world will seem to be presenting a choice. And what choice are they more likely to make?

They may think it through like this.

When I was 10 years old my Bible teacher said I shouldn't believe in science, instead I should believe in God. But now my science professors have shown me, and I've even seen for myself, that science ideas are not just ideas, but ideas built on evidence and reason. These ideas have been held to the highest levels of scrutiny and have stood up.

 The science makes sense.

But my Bible teacher said I should be skeptical of science…

But science says even science should be skeptical of itself…and only hold as true what holds up to the best evidence.

Who should I believe? Who is in a more believable position?

If my Bible teacher was wrong about science…maybe she was wrong about God too…

This might sound extreme but I know it can happen because it happened to me. I'm fortunate to have seen this crisis of indoctrination, logic and faith all play out in my adult life. Being a late comer to faith I was fortunate to have the maturity to consider and think and be patient and pray and read and learn and grow and pray and find peace. Peace with science, peace with my faith and peace with the knowledge that we have been made by a Creator God who doesn't ask us to reject logic, but emboldens us to pursue truth, because if it is true it is from Him.

The Parable of Cell Division and Differentiation

Let’s face it we are physical people. We have bodies, we need food, we live in a physical world. It is no wonder then that our first and greatest faith is placed in our physicalness and the physical context we exist in. If you find it uneasy to accept this truth I’ll provide two examples: The first for recognition and the second for comfort.

Recognition:

 Recognize that you are sitting in a pew.  How do you know that the pew would not dissolve from under you when you sat on it? The answer is… Faith!

“Oh wait” you might object, “That’s not faith. I know I won’t fall through the pew because I’ve never fallen through the pew and I’ve sat in this seat for the last 2, 5, 10, 50 years and I’ve never fallen through. And besides that I sit in chairs all the time and I never fall though, unless of course the chair is broken or poorly made.”

So you’re saying you have a reason for your faith. You are prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope you have…that you won’t fall through the chair.

Yes. We have faith in the physical.

Faith is a simple response but as we’ve seen it is also a very full answer.  Our faith in the physical is our first and strongest faith because we observe it, we test it we correlate our findings and our faith becomes so strong that we don’t even recognize it as faith but call it by a different name. Truth.

Comfort:

This idea of faith in the physical may still be unsettling or even in some way seem wrong, especially as we gather together here in this Christian setting.   We can take comfort in knowing that God put his faith, his first and strongest faith, the faith that was with him in the beginning, in the physical.

For God so loved the world that he sent his son. God sent his son, Jesus, to a physical world, to be a physical man to bring his people back to him. We can take comfort knowing that God recognized our affinity for faith in the physical long before we did and sent his son to teach us heavenly things, in large part, through the physical world we live in. 

Parable:

Jesus teaches us about heavenly things by pointing out the truths of the physical, the same physical truths we easily recognize and accept without thinking about them because they are the realities we live with from the moment we come into this world.

Jesus points to the physical in parables and if we have eyes to see and ears to hear we can correlate the familiar with the unfamiliar, the physical with the spiritual. Jesus uses our first and greatest faith in the physical to illustrate THE first and greatest faith in him.

So what can we learn from a mustard seed? Let’s find out!

Mt. 13:31

He told them another parable: The kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so the birds of the air come and perch in its branches”

Jesus said he tells us the truth so let’s review just what those truths are.

In Mt 13:31 we read -

Truth 1: The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.

Truth 2: Mustard seeds are small.

Truth 3: Mustard plants grow really big.

Later in Matthew 13:35 Jesus tells the disciples:

“I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter the things hidden since the creation of the world.”

On this side of faith, when we have eyes to see and ears to hear, the truths of the mustard seed illustrate powerful spiritual concepts.

 Faith is powerful.  Small, seemingly insignificant things can have a big impact.

Awesome! That’s true, God’s Truth. Thank you mustard seed. Thank you Jesus.

Yet are you left with any other questions? I am, and I think others might be too.

We want to know how. We want to know why. Pastor Kerry mentioned that kids ask questions like this. How? Why? We’ve heard about how Jesus appreciated the faith of a child and a child’s faith is simple and pure but it is not immune from questions?

For example a child might ask: how does it get so big? What happens between small seed and giant plant? What happens between humble beginnings and the kingdom of God?

A few weeks ago we had a stink bug lay a bunch of eggs on the glass of our backdoor and a week later they hatched.  Upon observing the change from egg to nymph stink bug my youngest son, Kellen, asked, “How did they get so big?”

To this I said, “Well Kellen, It’s like the Kingdom of God.” No I’m just kidding. That just wouldn’t have made sense. Instead, naturally I answered, “Cell Division and Differentiation.”

Ok so maybe I’m not as good a teacher as Jesus, but we’re also not comparing apples to apples.  I gave a physical answer to a physical question. And even if I had been trying to explain a spiritual truth at least I was on the right track. 

Start with the physical. That is where we live, that is what we know. Then use the truth of the physical to illuminate the truth of the spiritual.

You know, like Jesus would, with a parable.

Kellen’s question about the stink bugs is really the same one I asked about the mustard seed, and the Kingdom of God. How does it get so big? And you know what? In true parable form, an exploration of the physical explanation can illuminate the spiritual truth of the expansion of the kingdom of God.

So let’s try it out with the parable of… Cell Division and Differentiation

In order for the parable to work we first need to know the physical context that it draws from so let’s start with cell division.  Be warned I’m going to jump organisms a bit but that is possible because the principles are pretty universal across organisms.

This is Xenopus. Xenopus is not a mustard, or a stink bug, it is a frog. And also the subjects of many developmental biologists gaze and therefore there are some pretty neat pictures!  It starts as a single cell and then as you can see from the video the single cell divides into 2 then 2 to 4, 4 to 8, 16, 32 and on and on until there are hundreds of cells packed together.  This is cell division, and while this example comes from a frog it happens similarly in all animals, this is how we all got our start. The cells are in community, they have shared experiences and a shared lineage.

So that was cell division in early development. We could also talk about how established cells of the body continually divide and create replacements for themselves before they ultimately die, leaving everything they have accumulated over their lives to the body they have been a part of. But we’re not talking about that and besides Amy covered that in her tithing and financial planning sermon a few weeks ago.

So if this is going to work as a parable it should also be pretty simple so I created this little cartoon of the blastula (or big hunk of cells) that we saw forming earlier. What we couldn’t see from the last video was what was happening inside of the mass.  After the initial phases of division, cells start to become differentiated. The cells in green represent embryonic stem cells which have the potential to become any type of cell in the body.  Some of these will become the heart, some will be cartilage then bone while others will form kidneys, liver, brain, blood guts and on and on. It is this differentiation that moves us toward functionality. One body many parts.

So the model is nice for looking at but it also helps to see the real thing in action so let’s continue on with our friend the frog.

This video picks up where we left off in the first and we can see some real structures forming. The first part is called gastrulation and then neuralation. By the end of this video we can almost see the beginnings of a head. What we can’t see from this view is the further differentiation of cells further fated to become and beginning to form the spinal cord, heart, respiratory organs, connective tissue etc etc etc. Everything that is needed for the body to function comes from differentiation. What is even more difficult to see but essential to the process is the environmental physiochemical encouragement each cell gets to be different, to follow its purpose. To be a hand, a heart, a brain.

An important step later in development is the refinement of the parts. Here we are jumping organisms to a human, but again the process is the same for all animals.  In order for the foot to take on it’s full function some of the parts that were built up have to die. There is a programmed cell death, that carves away the old flesh revealing the refined organism ready to truly live.

 So, now with the physical to light the way does the parable hold up in revealing a spiritual truth? Does it help us answer how the kingdom gets big how we build the body of Christ? Maybe if we have eyes to see and ears to hear.
Closing:

If you didn’t realize it already we talked about science today. We’ve seen that science, and the investigation of the physical world around us can be lifted up as worship. Science can point us to the mind of God. Not in his prescription for how to build this world or breathe life into that body, rather we are pointed to his power, orderliness, his promotion of the truth and his unlimited grace to meet us where we are.

But the methodology of the parable is not limited to science, but is universal across all areas of our experience. 

Faith is like a chair, it will always hold you up when you rest on it, unless it has fallen into disrepair.

Faith is like hitting a softball, wait wait wait wait wait wait wait, but don’t forget to keep your eye on the ball.

We can see God through the parables of our lives whether examining the super small or the grandeur of the universe, as long as we have eyes to see and ears to hear.

Budding Biologists

The 8 year old performed a dissection in class today.  He recounted the procedures and the parts examined.  The subject was a grasshopper and prior to this morning he didn’t know what a dissection was.

The 12 year old is examining cell and tissue sample and is looking forward to a pig dissection later this month. But he still gets a kick out of seeing a pig on a leash as a pet. 

The 10 year old (tomorrow) spent some time online today learning about slope intersect equations and hours on the couch devouring books. Yet still for his birthday he wants a wood baseball bat “Just my size.”

Further Evidence against the Domestication of Cats

Why do the bad guys in movies so often sit in high back chairs and stroke white cats? It could very well be that cats are naturally inclined to evil and that the bad guys are soothed by the animal that is most like them. 

I know that this may be a controversial opinion but the implications extend beyond my own preferences so I think I have to press forward.  Of particular concern is the impact on impressionable young people. I am constantly faced with the conundrum of sharing the insights I have acquired about cats and letting people discover truths in their own time.

What adds additional complication is when young people have already established their own affinity for cats.  In these situations I need to remember that it is not my place to transfer my view (even though I think it is correct) but I also don’t want to let opportunities for conversation and mutual understanding pass by.

As I said earlier, it is a conundrum.

The Essentials: Let’s Do This Thing

The topic of science can invoke fear in the hearts of the young and old because it has a reputation for being hard to understand, boring or both.  Evolution can raise trepidation and dread in the hearts of many, especially some Christians because it has a reputation for being a threat to God and the Bible and is perceived to question our relationship with both. This alarm has many sources and one is a misunderstanding of what evolution is and what the theory claims to be.

Many have been tempted to say that evolution is “just a theory” and therefore something that can be easily dismissed.  At best saying evolution is “just a theory” reveals that the person making the claim simply doesn’t understand what a scientific theory is or at worst shows that the person is being sneaky to advance their point of view. 

It is easy to see why there is some confusion about the term theory.  Often when someone says they have a theory they don’t have a lot of evidence to back it up. For example we were having problems with a wireless device at work. Someone had a theory that the sensors for the automatic lights were interfering with the wireless signal.  This was a pretty good explanation so we created a little test to see if the theory was true. 

To test the theory we covered up the light sensors then tried out the wireless device.  It turned out that we experienced the same problem with the device even when the light sensors were covered.  The theory was a reasonable explanation but it was also easy to dismiss once we checked it out.  These guesses and checks go on all of the time and are actually an important part of science but not a theory in a scientific sense.  In science we would call the guess a hypothesis and the check an experiment. 

There are other words that can be understood differently depending on how they are used.  If I said, “I used to be a hockey player” you would probably know what I mean.  If I said, “Wayne Gretzky used to be a hockey player” you would also know what I mean, but you wouldn’t assume that I meant the same thing.  Wayne Gretzky has a 20 year career in the NHL with a mountain of records as evidence for what kind of hockey player he was.  I have a bag of equipment in the rafters of my garage as evidence for what kind of hockey player I was.  A scientific theory is like the Wayne Gretzky of explanations. 

Observations from the First 23% of The Evolution of Adam

One of the great things about science and technology is the elegance of the solutions that emerge out of innovation.   I’m reading The Evolution of Adam by Peter Enns on a Kindle. Like other e-readers the Kindle allows for font and text size changes which makes page numbering problematic. As the texture of the text changes so does the number of pages in the book. Yet the total length of the book never changes, just the number of swipes required to read to full resolution.  So what magical methods do the makers of tech texts devise? Fractions! Well specifically percentages.  

Maybe I’m goofy for liking stuff like this but I do.  I’m also enjoying The Evolution of Adam and today I’ll share a few observations from the first 23%.

I was fortunate to participate in a call with Peter Enns last month in which he discussed some of the central issues in his latest book. In a previous post I shared some notes from that call.  My notes covered two main areas; the purpose and place of the Genesis text and Paul’s treatment of and relationship with Adam. The first 23% of The Evolution of Adam deals with the perceived conflict between Genesis and the science of Evolution and also begins to shed light on Genesis in terms of authorship, genre and its role in defining Israel’s national identity.

The first thing I was impressed by, at the time of the original phone conversation and in the introduction of the book, is Dr. Enns’ respect for Christian tradition and especially opposing points of view.  He makes it clear that the Bible is the inspired Word of God but also that as long as it has been read it has been discussed and has incited questions and disagreement.  I’m grateful for the example provided for confidently expressing convictions while still respecting opposing points of view.

It is made clear within the first 5% however that not all Biblical interpretation is equal. The limitations of these views are described in the following quote.

These other views, rooted in a precommitment to read the Bible literally at virtually every point despite evidence to the contrary, avoid engaging science by reinterpreting it to conform to that conviction. To the contrary, it is clear that, from a scientific point of view, the Bible does not always describe physical reality accurately; it simply speaks in an ancient idiom, as one might expect ancient people to do. It is God’s Word, but it has an ancient view of the natural world, not a modern one.

Much of the first 23% describes Genesis and the rest of the Pentateuch as a declaration by ancient Israel of their National Identity and their role in the world as God’s chosen people.  In this description the authorship of the Pentateuch is fleshed out as a compilation of several authors over centuries of time. As Enns points out, this is not a new conclusion but is as old as the Old Testament itself.

The discussion around the Bible’s beginnings is described as self generating as there are internal conflicts within the text itself.  When I read this section the questions and conflicts resonated so deeply with my own experience with the Scriptures that I’m confident I would have audibly expressed my agreement if not for being on the train and surrounded by strangers. 

Enns remarks that questions and discussions around Genesis should be expected because Genesis generates its own questions. Why are there two completely different creation accounts? Where did Adam’s offspring’s wives come from? Why does God need to ask where Adam and Eve are in the Garden? Why is Genesis so repetitive?  The presence of these conflicts, repetitions, parallelisms and stylistic deviations are evidence that Enns and centuries of Biblical scholarship point to when claiming multiple authors and the nationalistic purpose of the texts.

This is an important point because it takes Genesis and the Pentateuch out of the realm of pure historical account (and therefore out of conflict with modern science) and into a complex assemblage for the shaping of Israel’s relationship with God and the world.  

The book returns often to the impact of reading Genesis well on our view of science and as I move toward the 24^th% and beyond a discussion of genre and calibration with similar ancient texts is taking shape.  I’ll continue to process the book and report more as the fraction of the total book read approaches 1/1.

The Essentials - Beginnings

A few years ago I started a book project with my friend and pastor Kerry Bender.  He brought the idea to me because of a shared interest in the evolving impact a scientific world view has had, together and individually, on our personal faith.  We both had come to a realization that there was a real need to communicate a perspective on Christianity that respected both the word of God and the realities of the world around us.  While we had been encouraged by several books that beautifully articulated the mutual truths of faith and science we saw a gap in what was available for young people.

We set out those few years ago to create a book that would serve a younger audience by telling our personal experiences with faith and science, while teaching about how science works and how the Bible works.  In general, the book’s goal is the development of appropriate scientific and hermeneutical approaches. In specifically, the book is designed to address issues of origins both from scientific and Biblical perspectives. Origins are central to the book because we have both observed the obstacles it can present for the acceptance of a life of faith and for the acceptance of a life with science.

 Over the last few years we have had periods of productivity and spells of passivity toward the project.  Now in this season, where writing is regular for me, I plan to leverage my keyboard time to perform double duty for the purposes of blogging and making progress on the book.

My part for the book is primarily to articulate science.  One of the biggest challenges for me has been to formulate a balance between the essentials of the science and the essence of the story that is science.  I hope to use this blog, and this series “The Essentials” to sort through what is important, what is interesting and what should be left on the cutting room floor.

Again I look forward to feedback on these areas including what you think is essential to the faith/science discussion. Please use the comment section to get the conversation going.

F=ma, the Inverse-Square Law, and Other Sound Principles that Don’t Seem to Hold Up (Part 1)

Think of the biggest thing you can think of. Is it a giant skyscraper? A mountain? Maybe planet Earth itself? Sure there are bigger things but these are pretty big. Now think about what it would take to build one of these things.  The sky scraper gets hauled into place by a nearly continuous stream of trucks then assembled by skilled trades people into an enormously ordered heap of concrete metal and glass.  The mountain took even more time and even more relentless work to build it up.  Either by volcanic eruptions transporting countless tons of molten rock high above the surface or crashing continental plates buckling and heaving already hardened crust miles and miles into the sky, the mountain is huge and way out of place from an energy perspective. Finally, Earth. 4.5 billion years of cosmic coalescence culminating in core, crust, crustaceans, and the Creole people (among a few other things). This brings us to the first Principle that doesn’t seem to hold up.

F=ma is the mathematical expression of Newton’s Second Law of Motion which shows the relationship between force (F), mass (m) and acceleration (a). Through the 2^nd law Newton basically explained that if you want to move something big you have to push harder than if it was small, or if you want something to speed up fast you have to push it harder than if you want it to speed up slow, or if you want to hit something hard a big stick will work better but it will be harder to get it going, or any combination or alternate application of these obvious but important realizations.

Newton was a genius (From a previous post you’ll know that I don’t use the term lightly) but his 2^nd law doesn’t seem to hold up to Matthew 17:20. Jesus told his disciples that they could move mountains with even a fractional portion of faith. Faith, not force, to move the mass of a mountain. Newton was a genius but not God. Why can’t Newton stand up to scripture? Or it could be asked why can’t scripture stand up to Newton? Are faith in the Word of God and faith in Newton’s Laws mutually exclusive?

This is a simple example from a big category of apparent incongruities between Scripture and Science. We could ask these questions for days but are they the right questions to ask?  Over the last decade I’ve asked myself how I can be confident in science and scripture and I feel now like I’m in a good place. However, again I’m faced with a communication problem. How can I tell a story that I’m living but don’t fully understand myself. A good starting place was accepting that I not only don’t understand, I won’t understand.