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(This is the text of a chapel
talk I gave several years ago at my alma mater, Luther College, a Lutheran
college in Decorah, IA. My undergraduate and graduate work were in the
sciences, and I taught Biology at Luther for a year before coming to Michigan
to teach at Hope College. Even though my interests have moved more into
understanding the cultural context of the Bible, I just thought I'd share
this here.)
Good morning. Welcome back from
spring break! As I was preparing this chapel talk, I wanted to talk to
you today about how my faith in God has been affected by my scientific
outlook on life. But I also wanted my chapel to be seasonal, and appropriate
for lent. So today I wanted to think about a major theme in lent, the
idea that human beings are dust. In science, and especially biology, we
deal with the fact that we are dust all the time, or rather that we are
big bags of biochemicals.
My question for the day is, are we just dust? Consider the point of view
of the scientific naturalist, who believes that the only things that are
real are those we can measure in a chemical reaction. He would say that
human beings are the random result of biochemical processes and natural
selection. Our reason for being is simply to propagate our genes. I brought
some biochemicals with me here today to remind us of that fact. (Hold
up water, sucrose, salt, amino acids, and DNA.)
The idea that human beings are simply and totally the sum of some very
complex chemical reactions is common among scientists. And some scientists
would sneer at the superstitious idea that human beings have a soul or
some spiritual component. They would say that that idea comes from a primitive,
unscientific world view where processes that you don’t understand
must be due to ghosts or spirits or God. They would say that science will
someday finally and completely describe the chemical reactions that make
up human beings, and any idea of a soul will be left out.
I would like to spend a little while considering the full implications
of the naturalistic world veiw that says that all we are is biochemicals.
One is that an idea of "meaning" in life must be an illusion.
What we call "great ideas" (like the Constitution of the United
States) and "great works of art" (like the Mona Lisa) are really
just the result of bunch of neuropeptides being released by the synapses
in the white matter compartment of one of these bags of biochemicals.
One other conclusion that we are forced to make is that "morality"
is an illusion. I could take some of these biochemicals, mix them up and
cause a reaction to occur, perhaps photosynthesis. After I got done watching
it for a while, I could pour it down the drain and that would be the end
of it. And my question is, what is the difference between stopping the
biochemical reaction in this beaker and the biochemical reaction sitting
over there? Why should I care any more for the person than I do about
the beaker? Was the holocaust really a tragedy of monstrous proportions,
or just the ending of a lot of biochemical reactions all at one time?
And what meaning does suffering have? What we call "pain" is
really simply an adaptation that increases our possibilities for propagating
our gene pool by causing us to avoid damaging stimuli. By having neurochemicals
released that cause a response in our brains which we label "unpleasant",
we avoid the situation that produces them.
If this is what pain is, why should I spend my time and energy trying
to prevent this release of neurochemicals in other human beings? Naturalists
would answer that by helping others I increase my own chance for survival,
which I really doubt is true. But why do I feel compelled to help others
when I know it won’t benefit me? What do I care about the hunger
of the people in Africa?
If science has finally shown that all we are is bags of biochemicals,
then I think that we are forced to conclude that the human race has been
laboring under a delusion that life has meaning and purpose for thousands
of years. I don’t understand why we don’t toss off all the superstitions
we have of meaning and higher purpose in life if we have to conclude that
there really is none. Just as people stopped fearing that comets and eclipses
were omens of evil when they knew what they really were, why don’t
we live out the ideas that naturalism forces us to conclude? That our
efforts toward altruism at our own expense are simply stupid and misguided.
I would like to point out that scientific naturalism leads to conclusions
that I doubt that anyone is comfortable with if they really think about
them. I think there are naturalists who say that they realize that these
are the conclusions that you must come to, but they still live their lives
as if there was meaning and purpose to it all. Why is that? I think that
deep down in our heart of hearts, people all instinctively know that human
suffering really is a tragedy, not just a biochemical response. We know
that there must be a meaning and purpose for our existence, and that human
lives are precious in a way that science cannot define.
I’d like to look at the Christian response to this idea, and bring
in my text for the day. I discovered this text after singing in the Messiah,
and there is something about it that really amazes me. Listen closely,
and see if you can’t figure out who wrote the text, and who it’s
about.
"He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men
hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he
took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him
stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for
our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment
that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own
way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed
and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb
to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he
did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land
of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. He
was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet
it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and
though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring
and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light [of life] and
be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities." (Isaiah 53: 3-11)
I think its obvious to anyone who listens to it that the text is talking
about the death and resurrection of Jesus. This is the source of several
songs in the Messiah, including my favorite, "Surely He Hath Borne
our Griefs". The thing that really astounded me about the text is
that even though it is obviously talking about Jesus, it is actually from
the Old Testament, and actually was written about 700 years before his
birth!
I don’t know if it will have the same effect on you as it had on
me, but to me it answered my question in two ways:
- For one, I had a found it remarkable that an ancient Hebrew writer
could have such a remarkable and complete grasp on an event that would
happen centuries into the future if he was not somehow inspired by a
Being that did know the future.
- The other way it answered my question is more theological. It says
that human beings may be made of dust, but they are far more than that
in the eyes of God. Human beings are precious in the eyes of God, so
much so that God was willing to take on the form of one of these little
beings to try to communicate with them and show them himself. And human
suffering is tragic and the evil that humans do is real, so much so
that God was willing to suffer with them to show he cares, and to die
a humiliating death in order to bring them back to himself.
Lois Tverberg
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©2002
Lois A. Tverberg, Ph.D., OurRabbiJesus.com. All rights reserved. This article is copyrighted and may not be redistributed without the express written consent of the author. To request permission for use, contact Tverberg@OurRabbiJesus.com.
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