Here is the third (of four) selection of quotations and sayings that I have collected over the years and have found inspiring, intriguing or helpful.
Certitude is the child of custom - not reason.
[Balfour]
Wisdom alone is a science of other sciences and of itself.
[Plato]
With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another.
[Lichtenberg]
A very popular error - having the courage of one’s convictions: rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack on one’s convictions.
[Neitzshe]
What is a miracle? The natural law of a unique event.
[Rosenstock - Huessy]
Heredity is nothing but stored environment.
[Burbank]
Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.
[Nietzshe]
A clash of doctrines is not a disaster - it is an opportunity.
[Whitehead]
Violent antipathies are always suspicious, and betray a secret affinity.
[Hazlitt]
The highest wisdom has but one science - the science of the whole - the science of explaining the whole creation and man’s place in it.
[Tolstoy]
Man, like the rest of creation, is simply God become concrete.
[Jung]
The decisive question for man is: is he related to something infinite or not.
[Jung]
Meaning makes a great many things endurable - perhaps everything.
[Jung]
What I am remains to be proved by the good that I do.
[Mary Baker Eddy]
Repetition is the only form of permanence that nature can achieve.
[George Santayana]
The forceps of our minds are clumsy things and crack the truth a little in the course of taking hold of it.
[H G Wells]
The chain of being that connects the atom with man is continuous.
[Heisenberg]
God: the set of all superior possibilities.
[Jung]
The modern scientist has discovered that what he is studying is not the world of phenomena, but the webs spun by the mind to hold these phenomena together.
[Gudder]
The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God.
[Euclid]
How can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought independent of experience is so admirably adapted to the objects of reality?
[Einstein]
An elementary particle is not an independently existing unanalyzable entity. It is, in essence, a set of relationships that reach outward to other things.
[H P Stapp]
The material object becomes...something different from what we now see, not a separate object on the background or in the environment of the rest of nature but an indivisible part and even is a subtle way an expression of the unity of all that we see.
[Aurobindo]
Be it clearly understood that space is nothing but a mode of particularisation and that it has no real existence of its own...Space exists only in relation to our particularising consciousness.
[Ashvaghosha]
Things derive their being and nature by mutual dependence and are nothing in themselves.
[Nagarjuna]
It is man’s lack of knowledge of himself and his motives that calls up disaster.
[CG Jung]
Monday, 26 May 2014
Thursday, 22 May 2014
Why we are here
Human beings are the means by which nature ceases to be indifferent. It does not matter whether or not you take the view that we have been ‘put here’ to do this, we take this noble responsibility upon ourselves anyway - and gladly. It is so important that we act in ways that fulfil this role for in my view there is no finer reason for or purpose to our existence.
Bleak observations of how nature, if left to its own devices, is indifferent to the fate of living creatures led Eugene Marais to conclude: “If nature possesses a universal psyche, it is one far above the common and most impelling feelings of the human psyche. She has certainly never wept in sympathy, nor stretched a hand protectively over even the most beautiful of her creatures.”
But, as I suggest, this assumes that we creatures are outwith ‘nature’ whereas we are very much an integral part of it We are made from elements forged in its stellar furnaces and have become able to influence its course. Nature, the Universe or, as I prefer to call it, the Cosmos, defined by Carl Sagan as “All that is, all that was and all that ever will be” includes ourselves – yourself, myself and all of humanity as well as other sentient beings here and elsewhere now and at all times.
This inclusive view leads us away from what I will call the ‘exclusivist’ perception that: “The universe is not hostile, nor yet is it friendly. It is simply indifferent.” [Holmes]. Rather, the ‘inclusivist’ standpoint leads us towards Tolstoy’s view that: “The highest wisdom has but one science - the science of the whole - the science of explaining the whole creation and man’s place in it.” Rational methods of enquiry generate knowledge but do not often supply the meaning needed by many people. The widespread desire for meaning is a revealing condition. As Jung pointed out, meaning makes a great many things endurable - perhaps everything.
It is true that in the absence of human intervention, the remainder of nature has no regard for individual entities be they people, civilisations, worlds, solar systems, or huge chunks of galaxies. This is not a cause for dismay, resentment or pessimism but it is simply the way it is and necessary for the arising of entities such as ourselves.
The sufferings of innocents, the destruction of planets (including ultimately the earth and the inner solar system), the destruction of entire systems in colossal radiation outbursts and supernovae that take any nearby ancient civilisations and their cultures with them are unavoidable consequences of the way that the elements necessary for the structures for habitable environments and the elements necessary for living systems are formed – we are made of ‘star stuff’. This is the grandeur of it all and these are the inescapable costs of progressive evolution – and the price of freedom.
The same natural indifference applies to people here on earth. Death is an inescapable part of evolution – humanity would not be here were it not for the travails, sufferings and demise of countless individual creatures - innocent and harmless, former species and humanoids that were ‘deselected’ by evolution or random events such as massive meteor strikes or climatic changes.
Nature has imbued human beings with the capacity to be aware and set our own purposes. Nature need not have a ‘reason’ for producing this ability, this most graceful gift, but it is there nonetheless and we are responsible to ourselves, to those who have gone before and to all future generations for how it is used.
So it is that we can choose to find cures for disease, disseminate mercy and compassion, work for justice and the relief of suffering in the face of what can on the grandest scale, sans us, be an otherwise arbitrary nature or on a more humdrum level, a ruthless and indifferent economic system operated for the benefit of those with power but without vision.
The consciousness of human beings, the fruit of hard and unsparing evolution, is the means by which the cosmos becomes aware of itself and gains some ability to shape its own, humanitarian, destiny. What a noble purpose: we humans are the means by which nature ceases to be indifferent to the welfare of its creatures.
We can choose the acquisition of knowledge and, on this secure foundation, the gaining of wisdom. We can choose harmony and the progression of the common good. We can respect and care for each individual and their welfare and freedom. Each one is unique and so may be uniquely placed to gain insight. We can all be ‘star throwers’ in our everyday lives and through these good actions we can ensure current happiness and security for ourselves and positive expectations of the future for our children.
So, after Santayana, we can, after all, take the view that the truth is cruel, but it can be loved - even evolution, which brought us consciousness, the ability to seek and to find, and, putting an end to indifference, the ability to love. You can love your family, the green and pleasant land in which we dwell and the creatures of the world. You can even love yourself, warts and all. The road to freedom is indeed hard, but thus are we made free. Would we want it to be otherwise?
Bleak observations of how nature, if left to its own devices, is indifferent to the fate of living creatures led Eugene Marais to conclude: “If nature possesses a universal psyche, it is one far above the common and most impelling feelings of the human psyche. She has certainly never wept in sympathy, nor stretched a hand protectively over even the most beautiful of her creatures.”
But, as I suggest, this assumes that we creatures are outwith ‘nature’ whereas we are very much an integral part of it We are made from elements forged in its stellar furnaces and have become able to influence its course. Nature, the Universe or, as I prefer to call it, the Cosmos, defined by Carl Sagan as “All that is, all that was and all that ever will be” includes ourselves – yourself, myself and all of humanity as well as other sentient beings here and elsewhere now and at all times.
This inclusive view leads us away from what I will call the ‘exclusivist’ perception that: “The universe is not hostile, nor yet is it friendly. It is simply indifferent.” [Holmes]. Rather, the ‘inclusivist’ standpoint leads us towards Tolstoy’s view that: “The highest wisdom has but one science - the science of the whole - the science of explaining the whole creation and man’s place in it.” Rational methods of enquiry generate knowledge but do not often supply the meaning needed by many people. The widespread desire for meaning is a revealing condition. As Jung pointed out, meaning makes a great many things endurable - perhaps everything.
It is true that in the absence of human intervention, the remainder of nature has no regard for individual entities be they people, civilisations, worlds, solar systems, or huge chunks of galaxies. This is not a cause for dismay, resentment or pessimism but it is simply the way it is and necessary for the arising of entities such as ourselves.
The sufferings of innocents, the destruction of planets (including ultimately the earth and the inner solar system), the destruction of entire systems in colossal radiation outbursts and supernovae that take any nearby ancient civilisations and their cultures with them are unavoidable consequences of the way that the elements necessary for the structures for habitable environments and the elements necessary for living systems are formed – we are made of ‘star stuff’. This is the grandeur of it all and these are the inescapable costs of progressive evolution – and the price of freedom.
The same natural indifference applies to people here on earth. Death is an inescapable part of evolution – humanity would not be here were it not for the travails, sufferings and demise of countless individual creatures - innocent and harmless, former species and humanoids that were ‘deselected’ by evolution or random events such as massive meteor strikes or climatic changes.
Nature has imbued human beings with the capacity to be aware and set our own purposes. Nature need not have a ‘reason’ for producing this ability, this most graceful gift, but it is there nonetheless and we are responsible to ourselves, to those who have gone before and to all future generations for how it is used.
So it is that we can choose to find cures for disease, disseminate mercy and compassion, work for justice and the relief of suffering in the face of what can on the grandest scale, sans us, be an otherwise arbitrary nature or on a more humdrum level, a ruthless and indifferent economic system operated for the benefit of those with power but without vision.
The consciousness of human beings, the fruit of hard and unsparing evolution, is the means by which the cosmos becomes aware of itself and gains some ability to shape its own, humanitarian, destiny. What a noble purpose: we humans are the means by which nature ceases to be indifferent to the welfare of its creatures.
We can choose the acquisition of knowledge and, on this secure foundation, the gaining of wisdom. We can choose harmony and the progression of the common good. We can respect and care for each individual and their welfare and freedom. Each one is unique and so may be uniquely placed to gain insight. We can all be ‘star throwers’ in our everyday lives and through these good actions we can ensure current happiness and security for ourselves and positive expectations of the future for our children.
So, after Santayana, we can, after all, take the view that the truth is cruel, but it can be loved - even evolution, which brought us consciousness, the ability to seek and to find, and, putting an end to indifference, the ability to love. You can love your family, the green and pleasant land in which we dwell and the creatures of the world. You can even love yourself, warts and all. The road to freedom is indeed hard, but thus are we made free. Would we want it to be otherwise?
Sunday, 11 May 2014
The Star Thrower
A young person is walking along a beach and sees an old man who is throwing back into the sea starfish that have been left stranded after the tide went out. “There are so many of them,” says the youngster. “What possible difference can you make?” The old man looks at the starfish in his hand and throws it to safety into the sea, saying, “It makes a difference to that one.”
This is a modern parable that I have used in my own endeavours and have told on numerous civic occasions over the years, particularly when addressing audiences with a predominance of young people. For elaborations on this theme see Loren Eiseley’s book ‘The Star Thrower’. But the principle has great value to people of any age – hence the central role of the old man in this inspiring little story. We hear it said so frequently these days (and not just by youngsters) that: “I want to be a success and do something that will change the world forever”. Nothing less than that, apparently, will be good enough!
I suppose it is true that the world does change forever even if all you do is change the position of a single molecule – but I don’t think that is what is meant! But what may seem to be small service is true service nonetheless, and is of the kind that is most often possible for ordinary people, and it certainly does make a difference as the star thrower explained. This is so even without the ‘butterfly effect’ (where, in complex systems, a very small change, such as the legendary butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon, can have enormous unforeseen ramifications - such as a subsequent tropical storm in the Atlantic).
The late President Kennedy once said that everyone can make a difference and should try to do so. And he did mean everyone - young or old, rich or poor, male or female and from all communities and all parts of the world. And the scientist Jane Goodall said – at an occasion here in Birmingham as it happens – “Every individual can make a difference every day by recognising personal responsibility and the ability to affect beneficial change through our conduct as consumers, through lifestyle change, through being active and engaged.” I wholeheartedly agree with this. There is a tendency to underestimate the importance of what we do in our everyday lives. Making a difference isn’t just for big picture situations or the big shots in this life.
In fact what matters most in solving many of the problems that we are facing in our society today is what individual people do in their personal and work relationships and in their own communities. This means putting service, however small it may seem, before self, at least some of the time, and remembering the metaphor that a candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.
You may think that what you do as one person would only amount to a drop of rain in a vast ocean. Even if this was so, remember that there are over seven billion other people in the world – the effect of individual contributions will be cumulative and I believe that it is multiplicative. Taken together they are more important than ‘big deal’ projects and promises, often not delivered, and the individual works are helping to make the world a better place. And on this theme of scale and significance we should also remember that if it were not for the drops there would be no ocean.
And getting back to ‘being a success’, a far better concept of ‘success’ is that this is achieved in doing not what others in an audience or peer group consider to be great, but what you consider to be right. And, very importantly, don’t let what you think you cannot do interfere with what you know you can do.
There can’t be many people who have never made the slightest difference to anyone else’s life. In fact we can all make a difference for the better. Change one person’s life a little by a kind word, a helping hand, an understanding ear or a tolerant act and you could change the course of a life and can help, in this small way, to change for the better, the part of the world in which you live.
While it is probable that the person you influence in this way is someone much like yourself, they may perhaps be a future Beethoven or Marie Curie. And it’s also worth remembering what the industrialist Henry Ford is reported to have said: ‘Whether you think you can or you can’t - you are right’.
We hear much talk of the need for leadership these days – a great deal too much in my view – usually coming from those who see themselves as the sort of people entitled to take such a role. But it is not always remembered that leadership assumes its authority from the people who have consented, or not, to be led and the worst leadership, often surrounded by a cabal, forgets this altogether.
In my opinion stewardship is a much more important function. And this is something that each one of us can do every day, just as President Kennedy and Jane Goodall said. Stewardship can mean hanging on to the values that we were brought up with: ‘Remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set’ looking out for each other, taking care of our local environment and being mindful of global issues, helping at a food bank or safeguarding charitable and cultural institutions.
And we should be, as far as possible, the masters of our own fates. Upbringing is not destiny and we are not slaves to fortune. So we can all give a personal meaning to another quote from the Old Testament: ‘Better is the end of things than the beginning’ and we can all be star throwers in our own lives and in our own ways if we choose to be so.
This is a modern parable that I have used in my own endeavours and have told on numerous civic occasions over the years, particularly when addressing audiences with a predominance of young people. For elaborations on this theme see Loren Eiseley’s book ‘The Star Thrower’. But the principle has great value to people of any age – hence the central role of the old man in this inspiring little story. We hear it said so frequently these days (and not just by youngsters) that: “I want to be a success and do something that will change the world forever”. Nothing less than that, apparently, will be good enough!
I suppose it is true that the world does change forever even if all you do is change the position of a single molecule – but I don’t think that is what is meant! But what may seem to be small service is true service nonetheless, and is of the kind that is most often possible for ordinary people, and it certainly does make a difference as the star thrower explained. This is so even without the ‘butterfly effect’ (where, in complex systems, a very small change, such as the legendary butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon, can have enormous unforeseen ramifications - such as a subsequent tropical storm in the Atlantic).
The late President Kennedy once said that everyone can make a difference and should try to do so. And he did mean everyone - young or old, rich or poor, male or female and from all communities and all parts of the world. And the scientist Jane Goodall said – at an occasion here in Birmingham as it happens – “Every individual can make a difference every day by recognising personal responsibility and the ability to affect beneficial change through our conduct as consumers, through lifestyle change, through being active and engaged.” I wholeheartedly agree with this. There is a tendency to underestimate the importance of what we do in our everyday lives. Making a difference isn’t just for big picture situations or the big shots in this life.
In fact what matters most in solving many of the problems that we are facing in our society today is what individual people do in their personal and work relationships and in their own communities. This means putting service, however small it may seem, before self, at least some of the time, and remembering the metaphor that a candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.
You may think that what you do as one person would only amount to a drop of rain in a vast ocean. Even if this was so, remember that there are over seven billion other people in the world – the effect of individual contributions will be cumulative and I believe that it is multiplicative. Taken together they are more important than ‘big deal’ projects and promises, often not delivered, and the individual works are helping to make the world a better place. And on this theme of scale and significance we should also remember that if it were not for the drops there would be no ocean.
And getting back to ‘being a success’, a far better concept of ‘success’ is that this is achieved in doing not what others in an audience or peer group consider to be great, but what you consider to be right. And, very importantly, don’t let what you think you cannot do interfere with what you know you can do.
There can’t be many people who have never made the slightest difference to anyone else’s life. In fact we can all make a difference for the better. Change one person’s life a little by a kind word, a helping hand, an understanding ear or a tolerant act and you could change the course of a life and can help, in this small way, to change for the better, the part of the world in which you live.
While it is probable that the person you influence in this way is someone much like yourself, they may perhaps be a future Beethoven or Marie Curie. And it’s also worth remembering what the industrialist Henry Ford is reported to have said: ‘Whether you think you can or you can’t - you are right’.
We hear much talk of the need for leadership these days – a great deal too much in my view – usually coming from those who see themselves as the sort of people entitled to take such a role. But it is not always remembered that leadership assumes its authority from the people who have consented, or not, to be led and the worst leadership, often surrounded by a cabal, forgets this altogether.
In my opinion stewardship is a much more important function. And this is something that each one of us can do every day, just as President Kennedy and Jane Goodall said. Stewardship can mean hanging on to the values that we were brought up with: ‘Remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set’ looking out for each other, taking care of our local environment and being mindful of global issues, helping at a food bank or safeguarding charitable and cultural institutions.
And we should be, as far as possible, the masters of our own fates. Upbringing is not destiny and we are not slaves to fortune. So we can all give a personal meaning to another quote from the Old Testament: ‘Better is the end of things than the beginning’ and we can all be star throwers in our own lives and in our own ways if we choose to be so.
Monday, 5 May 2014
Quotes & Sayings 2
Here is the second selection of quotations and sayings that I have collected over the years and found inspiring, intriguing or useful.
La route est dure, mais je suis forte.
(The road is hard, but I am strong)
(Words to theme of the TV adaptation of Sartre’s ‘Roads to Freedom’)
All perfection in this life is accompanied by a measure of imperfection, and all our knowledge contains an element of obscurity.
[Thomas a Kempis]
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
[Francis Bacon]
He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.
[J S Mill]
All discord is harmony not understood.
[Pope]
One never possesses a metaphysical belief but is possessed by it.
[Jung]
They are ill discoverers who think there is no land when they can see nothing but sea.
[Francis Bacon]
Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
[Samuel Butler]
The universe is not hostile, nor yet is it friendly. It is simply indifferent.
[Holmes]
In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments - there are consequences.
[Ingersoll]
In nature’s infinite book of secrecy, a little can I read.
[Shakespeare]
Natural science does not simply describe and explain nature; it is part of the interplay between nature and ourselves.
[Heisenberg]
Naught may endure but mutability.
[Shelley]
Man positively needs general ideas and convictions that will give a meaning to his life and enable him to find a place for himself in the Universe.
[Jung]
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.
[Tennyson]
No one key can open every lock.
[K Ward]
Men have become the tools of their tools.
[Henry Thoreau]
There is nothing noble in being superior to some other person. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self.
[Indian Proverb]
God is subtle, but not malicious.
[Einstein]
He who understands my music is saved.
(Beethoven)
La route est dure, mais je suis forte.
(The road is hard, but I am strong)
(Words to theme of the TV adaptation of Sartre’s ‘Roads to Freedom’)
All perfection in this life is accompanied by a measure of imperfection, and all our knowledge contains an element of obscurity.
[Thomas a Kempis]
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
[Francis Bacon]
He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.
[J S Mill]
All discord is harmony not understood.
[Pope]
One never possesses a metaphysical belief but is possessed by it.
[Jung]
They are ill discoverers who think there is no land when they can see nothing but sea.
[Francis Bacon]
Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
[Samuel Butler]
The universe is not hostile, nor yet is it friendly. It is simply indifferent.
[Holmes]
In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments - there are consequences.
[Ingersoll]
In nature’s infinite book of secrecy, a little can I read.
[Shakespeare]
Natural science does not simply describe and explain nature; it is part of the interplay between nature and ourselves.
[Heisenberg]
Naught may endure but mutability.
[Shelley]
Man positively needs general ideas and convictions that will give a meaning to his life and enable him to find a place for himself in the Universe.
[Jung]
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.
[Tennyson]
No one key can open every lock.
[K Ward]
Men have become the tools of their tools.
[Henry Thoreau]
There is nothing noble in being superior to some other person. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self.
[Indian Proverb]
God is subtle, but not malicious.
[Einstein]
He who understands my music is saved.
(Beethoven)
Saturday, 3 May 2014
Some parallels between Science and Faith and prospects for accord
The relationships between the proponents of science and faith as the preferred means of ascertaining fundamental truths have often been unquiet. This is not surprising given the diverse starting points of the two camps, but perceptions have not always been cast in terms of polar opposites. The debate has gone on for centuries, but with particular intensity since the days of Darwin and has been amplified by certain personality types. But within this rather testing relationship considerable opportunities exist to identify, if not always common ground, then common uncertainties and possibilities for mutual enrichment and depth of insight.
Here I shall attempt to draw some parallels between scientific and faith based approaches on important issues and bring out some essential, but possibly overlooked, similarities in as yet unresolved or problematic areas. In describing a particular tension, ambiguity or dilemma in the realm of either science or faith, I am not attempting to deduce a conclusion or necessary consequence for the other, but rather am looking for corresponding circumstances.
In modern times every new generation needs to reconsider this important relationship and find out how they may live thoughtfully and with meaning. And in seeking to do this with open minds, they should not disregard the wisdom of foregoing generations that has sustained western society for centuries.
In these days of challenge, confrontation and the pursuit of self interest and gratification, when people have often become the servants of their theories and the tools of their tools, the decisive question remains: "In what way is humankind related to the cosmos?" For human beings cannot escape mortality, nor can we avoid the ineffable in a life unaware of that which is beyond.
There has rightly been condemnation of the needless aggression that has now become common in the broadcast media and in articles and debates. Many public statements seem to be on what issues divide science and faith - or what is seen to be divisive - rather than on what could be useful and potentially revealing interactions between them and what may indeed be mutually supportive contributions - as if a common purpose was undesirable.
In science as a whole, when there is an apparent conflict in the currently understood laws of physics – such as that which presently exists between quantum mechanics in the realm of the extremely small and general relativity in the realm of the very large – this is taken to mean the failure to grasp a deeper truth.
This may also be the case when the tenets of faith and the propositions of science appear, at a point in time, to be irreconcilable. Sometimes, as theories are superseded or received texts are understood in a modern context, the tension will be lessened. All is far from being settled: "Judge not the play before the play be done" (Davies). And reconciliation can also be a matter of perspective as well as time.
Take as an extreme example the question of miracles. If a miracle is claimed, is this to be considered as an affront to science (as presently understood) or should it be seen as a possible instance of science yet to come or even, as Rosenstock-Huessy expressed it, could we interpret a demonstrated miracle, if such can be found, as being the natural law of a unique event? With a sufficiently broad view of what we understand by ‘the cosmos’ nothing that occurs, by whatever means, is outside of the natural law.
And as another testing example, consider the mental picture that is held of a supreme entity. If it is more comfortable to the mathematical mind, could not God be thought of as the set of all superior possibilities as Jung proposed?
Profound truth lies awaiting, to which each manner of approach, science or faith, discovery or revelation (which, it is important to note, is not static as to interpretation) has by its nature only partial access. Each should not disregard the other albeit that their relationship is at times particularly awkward.
The tension can, however, be productive and opportunities can come forward as a result. In fact, to modify a metaphor from Rose, the relationship between faith and science is a dance, "...an interplay between the given and the found, the subjective and the objective, the mind directing and the directed mind."
The cosmos, aka creation, holds a great truth towards which faith as well as scientific enquiry represents a pathway and gives motivation. Each may benefit from the insights of the other. For example, it has recently been suggested that humanity may be nearing the limits of the knowledge that can be acquired through scientific means. This would, no doubt, be due to the exquisite complexity of the universe and our capacity to understand it. To this might be added the amount of knowledge, perhaps not finite, that there is to be understood.
There are other aspects to this too. For example it was suggested that the Higgs Boson, sensationally described by the media as the 'God Particle' and found by scientists using the accelerator at CERN, could be able to 'avoid' being found. An academic paper argued to this effect, due to the nature of time at quantum levels. This suggestion at the time it was offered, was shown at least to be consistent with quantum theory as currently understood.
All this may be an unduly cautious assessment, but the modesty is welcome and the accelerating advance of fundamental, rather than applied scientific knowledge should, to employ an older phrase, not be taken as ‘God-given’.
And theories about the universe and its origins, however attractive to some minds, may forever remain just that - theories. For instance the current M theory which seeks unification of quantum and relativistic physics while apparently testable in principle, would, it has been said, require equipment ‘the size of a galaxy’ in order to conduct the tests. If this is so, theories such as this therefore have something in common with revelation - it is simply that the source of illumination is via a different, or at least a less direct process.
Revelations are varied in character and can develop significantly in their interpretation and implications, but it can be argued that the major faith traditions themselves do not, at the deepest level, conflict with each other. This is paralleled by Chomsky’s argument that, surprisingly so when considered at the surface, the deep structure of all human languages is essentially the same. The principal faiths share common ground, particularly in terms of morality, and contain essential values that society abandons at its peril.
Fundamentalists aside, there is no religious thinker of standing today who would totally disregard objective evidence. To set alongside this, scientific analysis does not exist in a vacuum of belief. After Tocqueville it can be said that "there is no philosopher in the world so great that he believes a million things on the faith of other people and accepts a great many more truths than he demonstrates".
The pity of the present attitudes is that so often, as Schopenhauer expressed it: "Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world." A greater degree of modesty would be becoming too in certain quarters. For, in Shakespeare's words: "In nature’s infinite book of secrecy, a little can I read."
As expressed by Gudder, the modern scientist has discovered that what he is studying is not the world of phenomena, but the webs that are spun by the mind to hold these phenomena together. And according to Heisenberg, natural science does not simply describe and explain nature; it is part of the interplay between nature and ourselves. And human beings of course possess a sensitive as well as a cogitative component to our nature to which faith may sometimes have the more ready access.
The faiths see themselves as being responsible for the moral, pastoral and spiritual welfare of those to whom they minister. These are humanising functions in a world where aggressive atheism has come to supplant the benign and tolerant secularity that was predominant for so long and which, in representative government, secures the place of both major and minor faiths and allows them, as well as science, to flourish. We also live in a world that has been experiencing the spread of fashionable superstitions that, along with fundamentalism, represent misdirections of religious feeling.
For their part, people of faith should be more aware of the achievements of modern science beyond the medicine from which they benefit and the consumer technology with which they are deluged and in parallel, today's scientists should be sure that they know more of what religion understands in its modern forms.
This is because broadly based knowledge and understanding are very important to achieving productive joint perspectives. Indeed those who know only their own side of the case will know insufficient of that and will be confined by very limited vision. As Francis Bacon expressed it: "They are ill discoverers who think there is no land when they can see nothing but sea."
Without this breadth of vision, when we hear the strident assertions of aggressive atheism, what can be discerned? Logic, usually present at least in some degree, worrying away at a selection of evidence and as Wells expressed it ‘Using the clumsy forceps of the mind and so cracking the truth.’ Wisdom and understanding are much broader entities and encompass emotional intelligence giving weight to feelings and intuition for things that may transpire to be formally unknowable.
The result of lack of breadth is a sterile rationality - a wilderness wrought by naked reason and a landscape of desolate dissatisfaction. It is not just meaningfulness and a sense of purpose that are absent in such a desert, but also a sense of goodness and an awareness of worth. As Tennyson put it "Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers."
More is required than this. Following Tolstoy: ‘The highest wisdom has but one science - the science of the whole - the science of explaining the whole creation and mankind’s place in it.’ And as Carl Jung expressed it "Man positively needs general ideas and convictions that will give a meaning to his life and enable him to find a place for himself in the Universe."
We should be aware that in this noble quest, absolute clarity should not be expected today in contrast to the certainties that were expressed in ages past. Nor should we expect the production of perfectly formed theories of everything. As Thomas a Kempis said "All perfection in this life is accompanied by a measure of imperfection, and all our knowledge contains an element of obscurity."
But faith, in its own interest, must take account of the methods and the findings of science - provisional though these may be at any given time. In its turn, some of the qualities of faith can benefit to the scientific mind. For example modesty, reverence for nature and devoutness of temper are assets, as is an encompassing frame of reference that extends beyond the immediate.
Indeed, even the process of prayer can be valuable to people with little or no conventional faith. This is so since, at the very least, the process of preparing to pray represents a helpful gathering of the self, and in providing a release from the urgencies of the moment, allows greater depth of focus on a point beyond the self.
The prayers of believers and the equivalent meditations of non-believers alike will be as beneficial to the individual as they are sincere. And there are common states of mind that are not widely realised and of which we should also take note. As the philosopher and psychologist William James declared over a hundred years ago "A scientist has no creed, but his temper is devout."
People oriented to faith, those of a predominantly scientific disposition (these are not mutually exclusive groups) and indeed the majority of people tend to take a world view that appeals to their inner sense of ‘the fitness of things'. Deductive reason clearly has a major role here, but so also does faith and we should note that fitness and purpose are kindred conceptions.
And we should be clear that faith is not to be found in the suspension of reason but can represent a deeper aspect thereof. Worldly events frequently bring rationalisation rather than reason and such reason as is there deployed can be abused. There can also be a sterility to raw logic and its premises - and danger too, if used in isolation and taken to what appears to be an inevitable conclusion. And danger in both mental and physical forms also applies to religious fundamentalism.
Rather than supposedly inhabiting gaps left by the discoveries and the theoretical constructions of science, faith today should seek to encompass modernity but without being subservient or shackled to it. In this, while tradition should have a vote but not a veto, the philosophy of faiths can provide an overarching framework and a context of meaning valuable to individual people.
The subtle challenge for faith is how to be part of modernity without losing all that is worthwhile in cultural heritage. And there is nothing wrong with science seeking to 'know the mind of God' (which is described by Einstein as ‘subtle but not malicious’) as Professor Hawking put it in an earlier work.
When you listen to people of faith there is clearly abundant goodness, vision and practical involvement in society too. But in narrowing the gap with science the question needs to be addressed as to what is the evidential foundation of faith? What form does such objective support take and what are the various bases that people adopt for belief? To what extent can faith be said to be the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient evidence?
But is not a reconciliation of science with religion, and one faith with another, being sought rather late in the day? Because of their very nature desirable harmonisation of such major and apparently diverging standpoints will tend to be somewhat tardy. As the Chinese proverb has expressed it, the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.
The potential rewards are great, for science reveals, the arts, so important for holistic perceptions of the world, illuminate and faith can transcend. These pathways trodden by the devout-tempered scientist, the rational believer and the insightful poet should ideally converge towards an all-encompassing understanding.
What are the requirements for harmony? They could be described as warm decisions by the intellect, and the most rational decisions that the heart can take. Heart should indeed speak unto heart, mind unto mind and, perhaps most important of all, also heart unto mind.
The outcome should not be expected to be the finality of certainty, for uncertainty is present within the faiths in the form of mysteries and is inherent in nature and mathematics as quantum mechanics has ‘revealed’ – so to speak. As Einstein said "As far as the propositions of Mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
This concept of uncertainty extends to the realm of human society, as clearly expressed by Balfour that "Certitude is the child of custom, not reason." And we may also follow Emerson's view that: "Every mind has the choice between truth and repose. Take which you please; you can never have both."
The mathematician Kurt Godel also showed, in a proof of shattering import, that in any consistent logical system there exist formal propositions for which their truth or falsity cannot be established. In fact there are an infinite number of such propositions. And as if this were not enough, in the absence of a proof or a counter example, it can be shown that there is no test that can be applied to decide whether a particular proposition is decidable or not.
Although it is not a mathematical statement of the kind considered by Godel, we might speculate that the statement: "God exists” may be an undecidable proposition in either the positive or the negative within the realms of science and philosophy, so that the truth could arise only from revelation.
And what of apparently conflicting views arising from different faiths? There is, so to say, a quantum of solace to be found here too. You are free to believe that you are right, and in being right you can believe also that others may not be wrong.
How is it that these thoughts be held simultaneously? Consider a metaphor. We are seekers of enlightenment. The world itself is suffused in light, a light that is needed to secure illumination which should be, as said by the Quakers, 'from whatever quarter it may come' and to discern truth through all means of enquiry.
But what is the nature of light? Enter the world of quantum physics (and observe in this the sublime genius of the universe). We would be quite right in describing light as a particle - that is correct. And we would also be right to describe light as a wave - for that too is a correct description. Although they appear to conflict, neither of these descriptions is wrong, because light is, at the same time and dependent upon how it is observed, both a particle and a wave.
In our search for ultimate truth we observe the ineffable through the prisms of our beliefs as well as through the instruments and methods of our science and we perceive only 'through a glass darkly' with the imperfect minds of the unperfected beings that we are.
Indeed it may well be that full knowledge of the nature of reality will remain forever beyond the ability of human beings to ascertain for ourselves (although perhaps not beyond our ability to grasp if explained by sentient others). And such depth of comprehension may not be confined within the constraints of what we understand as scientific analysis. There may be a permanent and essential place for revelation and also, perhaps, for faith.
It is sometimes claimed by the more strident atheist commentators that human life has no purpose. But how dare this be presumed simply because, at present, necessary purposes cannot, in the opinion of some, clearly be discerned through scientific enquiry alone? Furthermore, nature has imbued human beings with the capacity to set our own purposes and it is important that we make use of this important capacity and the ability through its use to impart meaning. The cosmos need not be seen to have a ‘reason’ for producing this ability, this most graceful gift, but it is there nonetheless.
So it is that human beings can choose to eliminate poverty and disease, disseminate mercy and compassion, preserve the world, decide to work for justice and the relief of suffering in the face of what can be an otherwise arbitrary nature or ruthless economic and social frameworks determined by others. We can choose the acquisition of knowledge and, founded upon this, the gaining of wisdom. We can also choose harmony, the progression of the common good, the virtuous economy and the good society and through these desirable things, the resulting positive expectations of the future.
The tools of science generate knowledge but do not often supply the meaning needed by many people. Nor do they always produce convincing general conclusions. The widespread desire for meaning is itself a revealing condition. As Jung pointed out, meaning makes a great many things endurable - perhaps everything.
For greater insight and understanding we must expand our horizons beyond the indisputable towards the ineffable, to the far larger realm where intuition and the enlightenments of faith as well as science can draw down meaning, purpose and value.
By no means all scientists are atheists of course and in the West, where aggressive atheism, though small in the number of its adherents, is most common, the proponents of this desolate creed will nevertheless have absorbed and internalised the values embedded in the traditions of their societies for many centuries. Secure thereby in themselves, but what of those who come after?
The spiritual archaeology of this deep virtuous inheritance is to be found within us all and can be accessed. It is impossible to have grown up in this country, for example, without being steeped in moral values, values that did not incidentally - to employ a notable current conjecture - 'arise spontaneously out of nothing' and which were received and transmitted throughout the ages.
Many people grow up within the received and imperfectly transmitted faith of their forebears. But with the rebelliousness of youth, as with the confident exuberance of enquiring minds (and for some the seductive promises of earthly gratification) out rushes the water. Those who escape the swirl themselves tend never to quite escape the feeling that something of value went out with the dogmatic bathwater. So it may also be in the relationship between science and faith (and it is not simply people of faith who are capable of being dogmatic).
Science does not exist independently of those who conduct it and changes in outlook will occur over time and follow from changes at the individual level. But how may we proceed to retrieve that which was lost and how can harmony be restored? This will require, to employ a rather over-used word, a journey.
But this will be a journey for which there is no universally accepted map - or at least none that is sufficiently clear to all travellers. The individual's view of the way may shift, and do so more than once, but also many may find that there is yet that which is constant within themselves and which acts as a compass.
It is true that there are guides to be found en route, often presenting themselves as one, true and exclusive but like heroes, they can have a thousand faces. And in choosing one, if we so decide, we need not reject the wisdom of the others. As we have maintained, there are converging pathways.
The particularities of faith and the detailed outward observances - and of specialist theoretical views - should be seen as personal or the social practices of communities. It is a case of setting out - although the full route and what may await at the destination, should such be identifiable, may not be known.
And while the practice of conscious deliberation preceding serious action is to be commended most of the time, when approaching the ineffable infinite, as is known to certain faiths, there is something to be said for acting oneself into a new way of thinking. Of course this itself would be a conscious decision.
Reconciliation of faith with science or of faith with faith involves getting beneath literal surfaces to the heart of the matter. That is where an accord of faith and science and of self and that-which-is-beyond-self begins. Particularities in religious observance can be divisive but they are surface rather than depth; it is the wisdom within that is transcendent. All this is a foundation of sorts for faith just as the ineffable quanta make a foundation for the physical world.
A (return) journey of this nature may take unexpected directions but, in the words of the traditional folk song, as you "Rove out one morning right early" you may have an inspired encounter along the way - with one you may yet recognise.
Jung took the view that mankind, like the rest of creation, is God become concrete, hence perhaps Eddington's mystical metaphor: 'We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. We have devised profound theories, one after another, to account for its origin. At last we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint. And lo! It is our own."
And so it may transpire in increasingly needed and long overdue harmonious and fruitful re-encounters - science with faith, faith with faith, heart with heart. The joint goal of faith and science is the notion of unbroken wholeness.
Those engaging upon each means of enquiry and understanding should endeavour to retain genuine openness to discerning how the relationship between science and faith will develop. Above all, this relationship, as between the faiths themselves, should be one of magnanimity: greatness of heart and mind.
And this magnanimity should be sustained and at the forefront of our minds for this great journey may not be one that it is possible for human beings to complete - nature's book may indeed be of unimaginable complexity. And so, both for science and faith, in a wonderful poetic imagining by Alejandra Pizarnuk: "If the soul were to ask, ‘Is it still far?’ you must answer: ‘On the other side of the river, not this one, the one just beyond.’"
Here I shall attempt to draw some parallels between scientific and faith based approaches on important issues and bring out some essential, but possibly overlooked, similarities in as yet unresolved or problematic areas. In describing a particular tension, ambiguity or dilemma in the realm of either science or faith, I am not attempting to deduce a conclusion or necessary consequence for the other, but rather am looking for corresponding circumstances.
In modern times every new generation needs to reconsider this important relationship and find out how they may live thoughtfully and with meaning. And in seeking to do this with open minds, they should not disregard the wisdom of foregoing generations that has sustained western society for centuries.
In these days of challenge, confrontation and the pursuit of self interest and gratification, when people have often become the servants of their theories and the tools of their tools, the decisive question remains: "In what way is humankind related to the cosmos?" For human beings cannot escape mortality, nor can we avoid the ineffable in a life unaware of that which is beyond.
There has rightly been condemnation of the needless aggression that has now become common in the broadcast media and in articles and debates. Many public statements seem to be on what issues divide science and faith - or what is seen to be divisive - rather than on what could be useful and potentially revealing interactions between them and what may indeed be mutually supportive contributions - as if a common purpose was undesirable.
In science as a whole, when there is an apparent conflict in the currently understood laws of physics – such as that which presently exists between quantum mechanics in the realm of the extremely small and general relativity in the realm of the very large – this is taken to mean the failure to grasp a deeper truth.
This may also be the case when the tenets of faith and the propositions of science appear, at a point in time, to be irreconcilable. Sometimes, as theories are superseded or received texts are understood in a modern context, the tension will be lessened. All is far from being settled: "Judge not the play before the play be done" (Davies). And reconciliation can also be a matter of perspective as well as time.
Take as an extreme example the question of miracles. If a miracle is claimed, is this to be considered as an affront to science (as presently understood) or should it be seen as a possible instance of science yet to come or even, as Rosenstock-Huessy expressed it, could we interpret a demonstrated miracle, if such can be found, as being the natural law of a unique event? With a sufficiently broad view of what we understand by ‘the cosmos’ nothing that occurs, by whatever means, is outside of the natural law.
And as another testing example, consider the mental picture that is held of a supreme entity. If it is more comfortable to the mathematical mind, could not God be thought of as the set of all superior possibilities as Jung proposed?
Profound truth lies awaiting, to which each manner of approach, science or faith, discovery or revelation (which, it is important to note, is not static as to interpretation) has by its nature only partial access. Each should not disregard the other albeit that their relationship is at times particularly awkward.
The tension can, however, be productive and opportunities can come forward as a result. In fact, to modify a metaphor from Rose, the relationship between faith and science is a dance, "...an interplay between the given and the found, the subjective and the objective, the mind directing and the directed mind."
The cosmos, aka creation, holds a great truth towards which faith as well as scientific enquiry represents a pathway and gives motivation. Each may benefit from the insights of the other. For example, it has recently been suggested that humanity may be nearing the limits of the knowledge that can be acquired through scientific means. This would, no doubt, be due to the exquisite complexity of the universe and our capacity to understand it. To this might be added the amount of knowledge, perhaps not finite, that there is to be understood.
There are other aspects to this too. For example it was suggested that the Higgs Boson, sensationally described by the media as the 'God Particle' and found by scientists using the accelerator at CERN, could be able to 'avoid' being found. An academic paper argued to this effect, due to the nature of time at quantum levels. This suggestion at the time it was offered, was shown at least to be consistent with quantum theory as currently understood.
All this may be an unduly cautious assessment, but the modesty is welcome and the accelerating advance of fundamental, rather than applied scientific knowledge should, to employ an older phrase, not be taken as ‘God-given’.
And theories about the universe and its origins, however attractive to some minds, may forever remain just that - theories. For instance the current M theory which seeks unification of quantum and relativistic physics while apparently testable in principle, would, it has been said, require equipment ‘the size of a galaxy’ in order to conduct the tests. If this is so, theories such as this therefore have something in common with revelation - it is simply that the source of illumination is via a different, or at least a less direct process.
Revelations are varied in character and can develop significantly in their interpretation and implications, but it can be argued that the major faith traditions themselves do not, at the deepest level, conflict with each other. This is paralleled by Chomsky’s argument that, surprisingly so when considered at the surface, the deep structure of all human languages is essentially the same. The principal faiths share common ground, particularly in terms of morality, and contain essential values that society abandons at its peril.
Fundamentalists aside, there is no religious thinker of standing today who would totally disregard objective evidence. To set alongside this, scientific analysis does not exist in a vacuum of belief. After Tocqueville it can be said that "there is no philosopher in the world so great that he believes a million things on the faith of other people and accepts a great many more truths than he demonstrates".
The pity of the present attitudes is that so often, as Schopenhauer expressed it: "Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world." A greater degree of modesty would be becoming too in certain quarters. For, in Shakespeare's words: "In nature’s infinite book of secrecy, a little can I read."
As expressed by Gudder, the modern scientist has discovered that what he is studying is not the world of phenomena, but the webs that are spun by the mind to hold these phenomena together. And according to Heisenberg, natural science does not simply describe and explain nature; it is part of the interplay between nature and ourselves. And human beings of course possess a sensitive as well as a cogitative component to our nature to which faith may sometimes have the more ready access.
The faiths see themselves as being responsible for the moral, pastoral and spiritual welfare of those to whom they minister. These are humanising functions in a world where aggressive atheism has come to supplant the benign and tolerant secularity that was predominant for so long and which, in representative government, secures the place of both major and minor faiths and allows them, as well as science, to flourish. We also live in a world that has been experiencing the spread of fashionable superstitions that, along with fundamentalism, represent misdirections of religious feeling.
For their part, people of faith should be more aware of the achievements of modern science beyond the medicine from which they benefit and the consumer technology with which they are deluged and in parallel, today's scientists should be sure that they know more of what religion understands in its modern forms.
This is because broadly based knowledge and understanding are very important to achieving productive joint perspectives. Indeed those who know only their own side of the case will know insufficient of that and will be confined by very limited vision. As Francis Bacon expressed it: "They are ill discoverers who think there is no land when they can see nothing but sea."
Without this breadth of vision, when we hear the strident assertions of aggressive atheism, what can be discerned? Logic, usually present at least in some degree, worrying away at a selection of evidence and as Wells expressed it ‘Using the clumsy forceps of the mind and so cracking the truth.’ Wisdom and understanding are much broader entities and encompass emotional intelligence giving weight to feelings and intuition for things that may transpire to be formally unknowable.
The result of lack of breadth is a sterile rationality - a wilderness wrought by naked reason and a landscape of desolate dissatisfaction. It is not just meaningfulness and a sense of purpose that are absent in such a desert, but also a sense of goodness and an awareness of worth. As Tennyson put it "Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers."
More is required than this. Following Tolstoy: ‘The highest wisdom has but one science - the science of the whole - the science of explaining the whole creation and mankind’s place in it.’ And as Carl Jung expressed it "Man positively needs general ideas and convictions that will give a meaning to his life and enable him to find a place for himself in the Universe."
We should be aware that in this noble quest, absolute clarity should not be expected today in contrast to the certainties that were expressed in ages past. Nor should we expect the production of perfectly formed theories of everything. As Thomas a Kempis said "All perfection in this life is accompanied by a measure of imperfection, and all our knowledge contains an element of obscurity."
But faith, in its own interest, must take account of the methods and the findings of science - provisional though these may be at any given time. In its turn, some of the qualities of faith can benefit to the scientific mind. For example modesty, reverence for nature and devoutness of temper are assets, as is an encompassing frame of reference that extends beyond the immediate.
Indeed, even the process of prayer can be valuable to people with little or no conventional faith. This is so since, at the very least, the process of preparing to pray represents a helpful gathering of the self, and in providing a release from the urgencies of the moment, allows greater depth of focus on a point beyond the self.
The prayers of believers and the equivalent meditations of non-believers alike will be as beneficial to the individual as they are sincere. And there are common states of mind that are not widely realised and of which we should also take note. As the philosopher and psychologist William James declared over a hundred years ago "A scientist has no creed, but his temper is devout."
People oriented to faith, those of a predominantly scientific disposition (these are not mutually exclusive groups) and indeed the majority of people tend to take a world view that appeals to their inner sense of ‘the fitness of things'. Deductive reason clearly has a major role here, but so also does faith and we should note that fitness and purpose are kindred conceptions.
And we should be clear that faith is not to be found in the suspension of reason but can represent a deeper aspect thereof. Worldly events frequently bring rationalisation rather than reason and such reason as is there deployed can be abused. There can also be a sterility to raw logic and its premises - and danger too, if used in isolation and taken to what appears to be an inevitable conclusion. And danger in both mental and physical forms also applies to religious fundamentalism.
Rather than supposedly inhabiting gaps left by the discoveries and the theoretical constructions of science, faith today should seek to encompass modernity but without being subservient or shackled to it. In this, while tradition should have a vote but not a veto, the philosophy of faiths can provide an overarching framework and a context of meaning valuable to individual people.
The subtle challenge for faith is how to be part of modernity without losing all that is worthwhile in cultural heritage. And there is nothing wrong with science seeking to 'know the mind of God' (which is described by Einstein as ‘subtle but not malicious’) as Professor Hawking put it in an earlier work.
When you listen to people of faith there is clearly abundant goodness, vision and practical involvement in society too. But in narrowing the gap with science the question needs to be addressed as to what is the evidential foundation of faith? What form does such objective support take and what are the various bases that people adopt for belief? To what extent can faith be said to be the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient evidence?
But is not a reconciliation of science with religion, and one faith with another, being sought rather late in the day? Because of their very nature desirable harmonisation of such major and apparently diverging standpoints will tend to be somewhat tardy. As the Chinese proverb has expressed it, the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.
The potential rewards are great, for science reveals, the arts, so important for holistic perceptions of the world, illuminate and faith can transcend. These pathways trodden by the devout-tempered scientist, the rational believer and the insightful poet should ideally converge towards an all-encompassing understanding.
What are the requirements for harmony? They could be described as warm decisions by the intellect, and the most rational decisions that the heart can take. Heart should indeed speak unto heart, mind unto mind and, perhaps most important of all, also heart unto mind.
The outcome should not be expected to be the finality of certainty, for uncertainty is present within the faiths in the form of mysteries and is inherent in nature and mathematics as quantum mechanics has ‘revealed’ – so to speak. As Einstein said "As far as the propositions of Mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
This concept of uncertainty extends to the realm of human society, as clearly expressed by Balfour that "Certitude is the child of custom, not reason." And we may also follow Emerson's view that: "Every mind has the choice between truth and repose. Take which you please; you can never have both."
The mathematician Kurt Godel also showed, in a proof of shattering import, that in any consistent logical system there exist formal propositions for which their truth or falsity cannot be established. In fact there are an infinite number of such propositions. And as if this were not enough, in the absence of a proof or a counter example, it can be shown that there is no test that can be applied to decide whether a particular proposition is decidable or not.
Although it is not a mathematical statement of the kind considered by Godel, we might speculate that the statement: "God exists” may be an undecidable proposition in either the positive or the negative within the realms of science and philosophy, so that the truth could arise only from revelation.
And what of apparently conflicting views arising from different faiths? There is, so to say, a quantum of solace to be found here too. You are free to believe that you are right, and in being right you can believe also that others may not be wrong.
How is it that these thoughts be held simultaneously? Consider a metaphor. We are seekers of enlightenment. The world itself is suffused in light, a light that is needed to secure illumination which should be, as said by the Quakers, 'from whatever quarter it may come' and to discern truth through all means of enquiry.
But what is the nature of light? Enter the world of quantum physics (and observe in this the sublime genius of the universe). We would be quite right in describing light as a particle - that is correct. And we would also be right to describe light as a wave - for that too is a correct description. Although they appear to conflict, neither of these descriptions is wrong, because light is, at the same time and dependent upon how it is observed, both a particle and a wave.
In our search for ultimate truth we observe the ineffable through the prisms of our beliefs as well as through the instruments and methods of our science and we perceive only 'through a glass darkly' with the imperfect minds of the unperfected beings that we are.
Indeed it may well be that full knowledge of the nature of reality will remain forever beyond the ability of human beings to ascertain for ourselves (although perhaps not beyond our ability to grasp if explained by sentient others). And such depth of comprehension may not be confined within the constraints of what we understand as scientific analysis. There may be a permanent and essential place for revelation and also, perhaps, for faith.
It is sometimes claimed by the more strident atheist commentators that human life has no purpose. But how dare this be presumed simply because, at present, necessary purposes cannot, in the opinion of some, clearly be discerned through scientific enquiry alone? Furthermore, nature has imbued human beings with the capacity to set our own purposes and it is important that we make use of this important capacity and the ability through its use to impart meaning. The cosmos need not be seen to have a ‘reason’ for producing this ability, this most graceful gift, but it is there nonetheless.
So it is that human beings can choose to eliminate poverty and disease, disseminate mercy and compassion, preserve the world, decide to work for justice and the relief of suffering in the face of what can be an otherwise arbitrary nature or ruthless economic and social frameworks determined by others. We can choose the acquisition of knowledge and, founded upon this, the gaining of wisdom. We can also choose harmony, the progression of the common good, the virtuous economy and the good society and through these desirable things, the resulting positive expectations of the future.
The tools of science generate knowledge but do not often supply the meaning needed by many people. Nor do they always produce convincing general conclusions. The widespread desire for meaning is itself a revealing condition. As Jung pointed out, meaning makes a great many things endurable - perhaps everything.
For greater insight and understanding we must expand our horizons beyond the indisputable towards the ineffable, to the far larger realm where intuition and the enlightenments of faith as well as science can draw down meaning, purpose and value.
By no means all scientists are atheists of course and in the West, where aggressive atheism, though small in the number of its adherents, is most common, the proponents of this desolate creed will nevertheless have absorbed and internalised the values embedded in the traditions of their societies for many centuries. Secure thereby in themselves, but what of those who come after?
The spiritual archaeology of this deep virtuous inheritance is to be found within us all and can be accessed. It is impossible to have grown up in this country, for example, without being steeped in moral values, values that did not incidentally - to employ a notable current conjecture - 'arise spontaneously out of nothing' and which were received and transmitted throughout the ages.
Many people grow up within the received and imperfectly transmitted faith of their forebears. But with the rebelliousness of youth, as with the confident exuberance of enquiring minds (and for some the seductive promises of earthly gratification) out rushes the water. Those who escape the swirl themselves tend never to quite escape the feeling that something of value went out with the dogmatic bathwater. So it may also be in the relationship between science and faith (and it is not simply people of faith who are capable of being dogmatic).
Science does not exist independently of those who conduct it and changes in outlook will occur over time and follow from changes at the individual level. But how may we proceed to retrieve that which was lost and how can harmony be restored? This will require, to employ a rather over-used word, a journey.
But this will be a journey for which there is no universally accepted map - or at least none that is sufficiently clear to all travellers. The individual's view of the way may shift, and do so more than once, but also many may find that there is yet that which is constant within themselves and which acts as a compass.
It is true that there are guides to be found en route, often presenting themselves as one, true and exclusive but like heroes, they can have a thousand faces. And in choosing one, if we so decide, we need not reject the wisdom of the others. As we have maintained, there are converging pathways.
The particularities of faith and the detailed outward observances - and of specialist theoretical views - should be seen as personal or the social practices of communities. It is a case of setting out - although the full route and what may await at the destination, should such be identifiable, may not be known.
And while the practice of conscious deliberation preceding serious action is to be commended most of the time, when approaching the ineffable infinite, as is known to certain faiths, there is something to be said for acting oneself into a new way of thinking. Of course this itself would be a conscious decision.
Reconciliation of faith with science or of faith with faith involves getting beneath literal surfaces to the heart of the matter. That is where an accord of faith and science and of self and that-which-is-beyond-self begins. Particularities in religious observance can be divisive but they are surface rather than depth; it is the wisdom within that is transcendent. All this is a foundation of sorts for faith just as the ineffable quanta make a foundation for the physical world.
A (return) journey of this nature may take unexpected directions but, in the words of the traditional folk song, as you "Rove out one morning right early" you may have an inspired encounter along the way - with one you may yet recognise.
Jung took the view that mankind, like the rest of creation, is God become concrete, hence perhaps Eddington's mystical metaphor: 'We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. We have devised profound theories, one after another, to account for its origin. At last we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint. And lo! It is our own."
And so it may transpire in increasingly needed and long overdue harmonious and fruitful re-encounters - science with faith, faith with faith, heart with heart. The joint goal of faith and science is the notion of unbroken wholeness.
Those engaging upon each means of enquiry and understanding should endeavour to retain genuine openness to discerning how the relationship between science and faith will develop. Above all, this relationship, as between the faiths themselves, should be one of magnanimity: greatness of heart and mind.
And this magnanimity should be sustained and at the forefront of our minds for this great journey may not be one that it is possible for human beings to complete - nature's book may indeed be of unimaginable complexity. And so, both for science and faith, in a wonderful poetic imagining by Alejandra Pizarnuk: "If the soul were to ask, ‘Is it still far?’ you must answer: ‘On the other side of the river, not this one, the one just beyond.’"
Thursday, 1 May 2014
Quotes & Sayings 1
Over the years I have collected what seemed to me to be thoughtful and perceptive quotes and sayings most of which are related to the human condition, the nature of society and the place of humanity in the cosmos. I thought that I would share a selection of them with readers of this blog. As they have done for me, some of the quotes may give a degree of additional insight or an enhanced perspective, other sayings may even prove personally helpful. In any event, here is the first selection.
The truth is cruel, but it can be loved and it makes free those who have loved it.
[Santayana]
We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. We have devised profound theories, one after another, to account for its origin. At last we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint. And lo! It is our own.
[Eddington]
As far as the propositions of Mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
[Einstein]
In order to seek truth it is necessary once in the course of our life to doubt as far as possible all things.
[Descartes]
Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything.
[Poincare]
I will act as if what I do makes a difference.
[William James]
If nature possesses a universal psyche, it is one far above the common and most impelling feelings of the human psyche. She has certainly never wept in sympathy, nor stretched a hand protectively over even the most beautiful of her creatures.
[E Marais]
The Cosmos is a system in the process of computing its own destiny.
[via J Gleick]
We have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.
[Epitaph of two amateur astronomers]
God offers to every mind the choice between truth and repose. Take which you please; you can never have both.
[Emerson]
The truth is cruel, but it can be loved and it makes free those who have loved it.
[Santayana]
We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. We have devised profound theories, one after another, to account for its origin. At last we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint. And lo! It is our own.
[Eddington]
As far as the propositions of Mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
[Einstein]
In order to seek truth it is necessary once in the course of our life to doubt as far as possible all things.
[Descartes]
Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything.
[Poincare]
I will act as if what I do makes a difference.
[William James]
If nature possesses a universal psyche, it is one far above the common and most impelling feelings of the human psyche. She has certainly never wept in sympathy, nor stretched a hand protectively over even the most beautiful of her creatures.
[E Marais]
The Cosmos is a system in the process of computing its own destiny.
[via J Gleick]
We have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.
[Epitaph of two amateur astronomers]
God offers to every mind the choice between truth and repose. Take which you please; you can never have both.
[Emerson]
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