DRAFT
OF A CHAPTER
Charles
P. Poole, Jr.
CONTENTS
1.
Introduction
2. Anthropic Principle
3.
Dimensionality
4. The
Incarnation
5.
Person, Nature and Trinity
6.
Prophesies and Inspiration
7.
Public Life of Jesus
8.
Miracles
9.
Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension
10. Apparitions
11.
Salvation History
12.
Concluding Remarks
1. INTRODUCTION
As a
Christian I believe that God made the world, and as a scientist I accept the
explanation that the universe began with an initial so-called Big Bang,
followed by expansion over billions of years, and the evolution of life on
planet Earth. I also believe that there
was a Providential (or Intelligent) Design motivating this cosmological
development and evolution, that somehow the hand of God guided the Israelites
through the centuries of the Old Covenant, that two thousand years ago the Son
of God, Jesus Christ, came to Earth as our Savior and Redeemer, that the Holy
Spirit has inspired His Church for the past two thousand years, and that He
continues to do so. Thus my overall
system of beliefs amounts to a world view or Weltanschauung which takes into
account the worlds of science and the worlds of Christianity, encompassing
current scientific explanations of the origin and development of the universe
as well as traditional Christian beliefs about the creation of the world and
the providence of God acting in the world.
This entails a harmonization of these two disparate elements, and the
present chapter attempts to provide a synthesis or harmonization of this type.
2. ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE
In
1986 the astronomer John T. Barrow and the mathematical physicist Frank J. Tipler wrote The Anthropic Cosmological Principle which examines the
question of man’s place in the Universe. The Anthropic
Principle chapter of the present work explains this Principle, and discusses
several versions and applications of it.
According to this principle the Universe was designed around laws of
physics and chemistry which led to the development of environments where carbon
based life appeared and thrived; these environments persisted long enough for
primates to evolve and for intelligent beings, namely members of the species
Homo sapiens, to make their appearance.
The fact that we are here as observers of the Universe means that this
Universe must possess characteristics which account for our presence here and
now. One can argue that it is not purely accidental that we exist as a people,
but that there was an inevitability to it. This inevitability was present during the
initial 5.4x10-44 second Planck time duration of the initial instant
Big Bang , and it required fourteen billion years to come
to fruition. As a result of this overall
evolutionary process, I am alive to write this paragraph, and you are present
to read it!
3. DIMENSIONALITY
Science
studies the physical universe, and religion testifies to the existence of a
spiritual universe or universes which include, for example, God, the abodes of souls after death,
and the abodes of angels. Many religions
testify to interactions that take place within and between these
universes. Internal interactions or
interactions within universes could include, for example, communication between
souls after death, and the Trinity chapter on the Theology page of this website
discusses the relationships within God between the three persons of the
Trinity. External interactions or
interactions between universes could include, for example, God hearing our
prayers, God sending us grace to resist temptation, Jesus Christ assuming a
human nature, and God infusing a human soul at conception or implantation.
Another
approach is to discuss a single overall universe as one with a variety of
dimensions. Thus we have four physical
dimensions, namely the three spatial and the one time dimension of physics,
plus spiritual dimensions involving the abodes of the dead, angels, etc. These spiritual dimensions probably have
special properties not shared by the space and time dimensions of the physical
universe. In Chap. xx we saw how the
dimension of time differs in significant ways from the three space dimensions,
and spiritual dimensions might exhibit even more dramatic differences. For example, motion and communication in a
spiritual dimension could be instantaneous, with no speed of light
limitation. Spiritual dimensions might
have the ability of overlapping with physical dimensions to provide a mechanism
for explaining apparitions, post-resurrection appearances of Christ, and the
Transfiguration. Of course all of this
is pure speculation, but it does provide a forum or formalism for discussing
spiritual realities.
There
is a variety of correct answers to the general question “Where is God”? Foremost of course is the answer: God is
everywhere. Other replies are: God is in
the world sustaining it in existence, God is guiding the Church, God’s word and
ideas are in the Scriptures,
God is with us while we pray,
God is acting in sacraments giving us grace, God is with us during liturgical services
such as the Mass, and Jesus the son of God exists in a special manner in the
Eucharist. God, therefore, is not
confined by dimensions, and hence the concept of dimensions is more applicable
to the abode of other spiritual beings such as souls in heaven, angels,
etc. Nevertheless, a particular
interaction of God in the world could be described in terms of the presence of
God in a particular spiritual dimension which intersects spatio-temporal
physical dimensions at a particular point or location in space-time.
4. THE INCARNATION
Central
to our religious beliefs as Christians is the birth, public life, passion, death,
resurrection and ascension of the Son of God Jesus Christ. The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the
Son, assumed a human nature in addition to His divine nature, and thereby
became man. The act of conception was a
miracle. Since Mary had an immaculate
conception her ovum that became Jesus was fittingly be
that of a mother without original sin. A
Y male chromosome would, of course, have been added to the genome which
originally contained only X.
We
know very little about the relationship of the human soul to the human brain
during the prenatal, infancy and adolescent developmental stages. We do know that there is a slow but
continuous growth in awareness and intelligence throughout the maturation process. Jesus, having a human nature and hence having
a human soul, would have passed through these growth stages. We suspect that, by also being divine, Jesus
could have had a total awareness of everything during infancy, but not have
displayed this. Although He was and is
divine, He chose as much as possible to be totally human. Concerning Jesus’ maturation we read in the
gospel of Luke (
To
accomplish his mission in life it was necessary for Jesus to live through his
private life of about thirty years duration without serious mishap. By this I mean without suffering a
debilitating accident, without catching an incapacitating disease, etc. Somehow the providence of God had to be
watching over him. We saw this shortly
after his birth when the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph and told him to
take Jesus and Mary and flee to
5. PERSON, NATURE,
There
is a separate chapter on the Trinity, so here we will just say a few words
about the incarnation it to put it in perspective. By definition God has a divine nature, and
man has a human nature. There are three
persons in God, all, of course, with a divine nature. There are many billions of human beings,
human persons, some living now, some who lived in the past,
and more who will be born in the future.
They all have a human nature.
There is one special case, the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus
Christ, who possesses two natures, being both divine and human.
How
this can happen is a great mystery.
Jesus acquired his human nature in our spatio-temporal
domain when the angel Gabriel made the announcement to Mary at the Annunciation
that she would conceive a son Jesus, and she accepted this with the words “Let
it be done (fiat in Latin) to me
according to your word.” Presumably the
conception occurred at her fiat.
6. PROPHESIES
The two
important prophets from the northern kingdom
The
scriptures in general were written under the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit. In the Glossary the Catechism
defines inspiration as “The gift of the Holy Spirit which assisted a human
author to write a biblical book so that it has God as its author and teaches
faithfully, without error, the saving truth that God has willed to be consigned
to us.” Presumably the inerrancy of scripture is ascribed to the books in their
final, often redacted, form as accepted into the official canon. Inspiration involves interactions between
the Holy Spirit and the author, and how this takes place may depend on the
circumstances and the personality of the author.
7. PUBLIC
It is
clear from the gospels that during his public life the divinity of Jesus
manifested itself from time to time. One
obvious way in which this happened is when Jesus worked miracles, and this will
be discussed in the next section. There
are a number of other occasions when his divinity became evident, and we will
cite several of them. At the beginning
of his public life Jesus underwent three temptations by the devil. At the baptism by John a voice came from the
heavens saying “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” At the Transfiguration Moses and Elias appeared
to Jesus, Peter, James and John, and conversed with them. There was the occasion of Jesus walking on
the water toward the disciples’ boat.
The two events that most pointedly demonstrate the divinity of Jesus
are, of course, the Resurrection and the Ascension.
8. MIRACLES
Jesus
worked many miracles, and there is an extensive literature discussing
them. Many contemporary theologians of
various Christian denominations regard the miracles described in the gospels as
exaggerations or myths, events that never actually took place. They base this on their acceptance of the laws
of physics, chemistry and biology as sacrosanct, admitting of no
exceptions. This is not a satisfactory
explanation to a believing Christian. It
does not take into account the possibility that an interaction from a spiritual
dimension intersecting our spatio-temporal domain
could override or supersede laws of science in particular instances, and Jesus
as a God-man could bring this about. As
an analogy, in our generation there are a number of diseases which were debilitating
in former generations such as epilepsy, diabetes, and an enlarged prostate,
which are controlled by advances in modern medicine, and those afflicted can
live normal lives by regularly taking prescribed medications. We might say that the interaction of such a
diseased person with modern medical practice keeps the disease under
control.
There
are some instances in the Bible in which a miracle is not a strictly impossible
event, but rather one which is highly unlikely.
Consider, for example, the
burning bush seen by Moses in Exodus 3:2.
Special conditions such as intensity and focusing of solar radiation,
lack of wind, surrounding temperature, and physiological condition of the plant
could, in principle, bring about the appearance observed by Moses. As another such example consider the crossing
of the
Fifty
years ago Immanuel Velikovsky, who wrote the No. 1
Best Seller Worlds in Collision in
1950, tried to explain miraculous Old Testament occurrences in terms of
catastrophic events that took place in the solar system. For example, he claimed that in historical
times the planet Venus was ejected by the planet Jupiter and had close
encounters with Earth before finally settling into its present orbit around the
Sun, and proto-Saturn ejected much of its mass into space as it passed through
a nova state. He used such postulated
catastrophic solar system events to explain Noah’s flood, the Tower of Babel
dispersal, the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, the plagues of
frogs and of locusts in Egypt, the parting of the waters of the Sea of Reeds at
the Exodus, and the Sun standing still
for Joshua. His theories were rejected
by the scientific community, and were never given any credence by biblical
scholars.
Some
of the miracles of Jesus could be explained in terms of healing psychological
states of mind, such as the occasional casting out of demons, and some others
could also be argued away in terms of natural phenomena. However their number is so great, and their
variety so diverse, that faithfulness to the reliability of scripture requires
us to accept many, probably the majority, as true miracles conforming to the
definition in the Glossary of the Catechism: “A sign or wonder, such as a
healing or the control of nature, which can only be attributed to divine
power.” Also miracles were not confined
to the gospel accounts, and the Acts of the Apostles (5:15) mention “Thus they
even carried the sick out into the streets and they laid them on cots and mats
so that when Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on one or another of
them.”
It
seems to me a reasonable supposition that Jesus might have made use of Ockham’s Razor
(see Background for Big Bang chapter with link on sidebar) when He worked
miracles. In other words, He may have
performed miracles with a minimal suspension, overriding, or manipulation of
the laws of nature. For example, the
curing of blindness could have been brought about by the reattachment of
retinas in the eyes, and the restoration of hearing could have been brought
about by repairing the juncture of the malleus
(hammer) bone to the incus (anvil) bone in the middle
ear, or by making sure that the cochlear (auditory) nerve successfully transmits
the sound wave to the auditory center of the brain. The remainder of the
anatomical features of the eyes and the ears could have been intact. The important point to accept is that Jesus,
as divine, had the power to override or supersede the laws of physics,
chemistry and or biology. Many modern
theologians of various persuasions are unwilling to accept this as a
probability, or even as a possibility.
9. PASSION, DEATH,
RESURRECTION,
A
good summary of our basic beliefs is in the speech of Peter that is recounted
in Chap. 10 of the Acts of the Apostles:
“God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit
and power. He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God
was with him. We are witnesses of all
that he did both in the country of the Jews and in
This speech mentions several of our fundamental
beliefs, namely that Jesus, the anointed one of God, was crucified, he rose
from the dead, he appeared to the apostles after the Resurrection, he
commissioned the apostles to preach that he is the messiah, the judge of the
living and the dead. The prophets bore
witness to him, and all who believe in him will receive forgiveness of their
sins through his name. It does not mention that Jesus is true God and true man,
another of our fundamental beliefs. The
institution of the Eucharist and other events that preceded the Crucifixion,
and the Ascension that followed the Resurrection are also not alluded to, but
his fulfilling of the predictions of the prophets is mentioned. The Creeds contain more systematic summaries
of our beliefs. We need faith to believe
these things, and this is discussed at length in the Faith and Belief chapter
on the Theology web page of the present work.
Perhaps
something should be said about the appearances of Jesus between the
Resurrection and the Ascension. Jesus
had a glorified body which could appear, could pass through walls, and could
disappear. It still had the imprint of
the wounds. Perhaps Jesus with his
glorified body was now residing in a spiritual dimension which could intersect
our physical or spatio-temporal ones while making his
appearances. On several occasions Jesus
failed to be recognized at the beginning of an encounter, but was subsequently
readily identified. Perhaps this was
because he now had a glorified body which appeared somewhat different compared
to before the crucifixion.
10. APPARITIONS
The Scriptures
are replete with stories of God, angels and devils having conversations with
human beings, and some of these stories are recounted in the first five books
of the Bible. In the second chapter of
Genesis we read how the serpent tempted Eve, and how the Lord God questioned
Adam and Eve about eating the forbidden fruit.
In the fourth chapter the Lord spoke to Cain,
and in chapters 6 through 9 to Noah. The
Lord had a number of conversations with Abraham, then his son Isaac, and his
grandson Jacob, starting in Chap. 12.
The remaining four books of the Pentateuch recount many discussions of
the Lord with Moses, and Old Testament historical books mention many
conversations of God with leaders of the Israelites. Many of these events
involved God giving advice or admonitions concerning actions to be taken. This will be discussed further in the next
section. Sometimes angels are mentioned
as bringing messages from the Lord.
Usually
the conversations are introduced by a simple phrase of the type “The Lord said
to Moses”, or perhaps “Moses again had recourse to the Lord” (Exodus
Apparitions
to various individuals, privately and sometimes at shrines, have been reported
from time to time throughout the history of Christianity, and these will be
discussed elsewhere in this work.
11. SALVATION HISTORY
Perhaps
more difficult to understand than the miracles and the individual conversations
mentioned above is the approximately 1650 years of interaction of the Lord with
the tribe of Israel guiding their historical development from the time of
Abraham c. 1800 BC to the date 124 BC alluded to in the Second Book of Maccabees. The Lord
appeared to Abram, later renamed Abraham, several times, and Abraham always did
what the Lord asked him to do. The Lord also appeared to Abraham’s son Isaac,
and to Abraham’s grandson Jacob, renamed
This
1800 year history is one of God guiding the Israelites as His special people. It began with the covenant with Abraham in which God agreed to give Abraham land, many descendants, and
a continuing special relationship with them: “I will be your God, and you will
be my people” (Lev. 26:12). Five and a
half centuries later came the Sinai covenant, in which God gave the Ten
Commandments to Moses for observance by the Israelites. Two and a half centuries later in the
covenant with David, God promised to build a house for David,
that is to give him descendants, eventually culminating with the
Messiah. Finally we have the New
Covenant with the Church: “They shall be his people, and He shall be their God”
(Rev. 21:3). The Old Testament is the
story of 1,800 years of God implementing his three covenants by directing the
Chosen People along their path through history in preparation for the coming of
the Messiah Jesus Christ. Since the
Resurrection we have lived through almost twenty centuries of God preserving
the integrity of his Church.
These
covenants indicate that from time to time God was in communication with and
guiding his special people. The
scriptures are very clear in saying that God spoke to the three Old Testament
individuals with whom He made covenants, and that in addition he spoke to
prophets, and to others. This seems to
be mainly done while the person is conscious, although sometimes messages are
delivered to people in dreams. We might
say that God made His presence known in the spatio-temporal
dimensions of the physical world to carry out these communications. In some cases foreknowledge might have been a
factor in the process. For example, when
Joseph was told to take Jesus and Mary to Egypt, God had a foreknowledge that
within a year or two Herod would die, and the holy family could then return to
the Holy and. To say more about the
possible mechanism for these encounters with God would be, in all likelihood,
unwarranted speculation.
12. CONCLUDING REMARKS
The
present chapter has attempted to provide a Christian/scientific Weltanschauung,
which Cassell’s German Dictionary defines as a world
outlook (the literal meaning), a philosophy of life, a creed, or an
ideology. It is clear that this Weltanschauung involves more than simply accepting the facts
of science, the scriptures as the inspired word of God, and the declarations in
the Creeds. It also involves accepting
as factual the interactions between God and the prophets of the Old Testament,
the events described in the New Testament, the efficacy of the Passion, Death
and Resurrection of Jesus to bring about our salvation, and the continuing
guidance of the Church by the Holy Spirit.
From my personal viewpoint, it further involves accepting as high in
probability the existence of spiritual dimensions which can intersect with and
impact on spatio-temporal dimensions, as well as the
Providential Design of the universe. Our
religious beliefs do not exist in vacuo, but rather in our personas which have been
fashioned by our past experiences, and conditioned by our knowledge of
science. On a more practical level I
accept the Catechism of the Catholic Church as the guidepost for my formal
beliefs.