Anarchy, order, science and (yes) Christianity…

I learned something today I would never have guessed: there's a thing called the “Informal Federation of Anarchists”. Who would have thought? Anarchists need organisation; apparently anarchy has its limits! They might rail against society, hierarchy, order, rules and the rest, but it turns out they’ve formed their own society (of sorts), and probably even have an implicit, if not an explicit, hierarchy. They have an order, and they consider some things to be acceptable, and some things not to be. They set boundaries, and have rules that you contravene at your peril. Indeed, I learned about the Informal Federation of Anarchists in a news story reporting that they had claimed to be behind the vadalisation of a car belonging to a person they accused of being a “snitch”. This is apparently behaviour beyond the pale, warranting action. A line had been crossed that they had drawn. Thus they have at least one rule (“snitching is bad”), and had taken action to enforce it. They don’t want no order, just not the kind of order they object to. Anarchism isn’t necessarily anarchy it would seem.

None of this is really such a great surprise, because the universe in which we find ourselves is ordered. Order is woven into its fabric, and into the fabric of every human being. It’s so much a part of us that we find it difficult to conceive of a different state of affairs. Mind you, the big advantage this brings is that because of this order, and because we are attuned to it, the universe and what it contains can be understood. It is knowable. And once we know enough we can manipulate and control it (at least in part) and make things more pleasant for ourselves. This is formalised in science, but it’s actually something we depend on every day. It allows us to make predictions and plans. It allows us to ignore whole swathes of regularity, and just concentrate on tricky and important decisions and alternatives. If we have to think carefully about everything we do, then we’d probably run out of processing capacity. As it is, we’ve got brain power to spare.

We take all this so much from granted that we rarely, if ever, think about it. Why are things like this, and not like something else? And what proof do we have that it really is like it is, has always been this way, and always will be? For a long time these were all non-questions. But some began to be troubled that we took so much on, well, faith. We just trusted that the sun would rise in the morning, we didn’t look for proof. Such rules as we did come up with to explain many of the regularities (like Newton’s laws) were descriptive. The processes which were used to establish such explanations seemed also to rest of foundations that were still implicitly about trust. Like trusting that things operated the same way everywhere (the principle of the uniformity of nature). They were not themselves provable.

It dawned on cosmologists and others that things have to be really finely tuned to allow life as we know it, including this kind of ordered life in an ordered universe. And it’s worth remembering that before that point it was rather assumed that life as we know it would exist in lots of places. All you needed was a planet rather than a star. Then it was noticed that said planet would have to be a certain distance from a certain kind of star. Then it turned out it would have to have a particular cosmological history and composition. And right down to the finest details of certain physical constants, things need to be tuned just so. It turned out that all of this had occurred; everything had been tuned up in one place, our little corner of the universe. But why?

Well it could all just be an entirely accidental series of coincidences. And that this is all so highly improbable that it has only happened in one place over one period time. So even if you could find some places where some things happed (like a planet with the right kind of orbit around the right kind of star), other things would not be right for life (either any form of life, or the kind of life we’re used to). Try as we might, life is so improbable, that it has only developed in one place (this is the sort of thing the eponymous Professor Dawkins has suggested). There is an alternative. Suppose that there is a God, who is a God of order, who brings into being a universe that reflects His character (this too is not a notion original to me). He continually acts to sustain that order both in the physical realm and beyond (eg in the social and moral realms). Such a God need not necessarily be knowable in and of Himself. But His activity would leave indelible fingerprints on the Universe. It would have that character of order and knowability. But precisely because it is knowable, He would therefore be knowable in at least some ways. At least we would know about Him. But it also strikes me as reasonable to expect that He might actually want to provide additional means such that He might not just be knowable in this passive and distant sense, but to be known. He might reveal something about Himself, so He could be known in the sense of relationship.

It turns out that order may be really significant. The Informal Federation of Anarchists tells us something pretty basic about me, you and the Universe we find ourselves in.

Easter Blog

A while ago I noted the propensity of scientists to comment outwith their area of expertise. We'll, I’m sticking very deliberately to an area within my expertise. I'm going to comment, as a professional scientist, on Easter - or at least one of the seminal events that gave rise to what we refer to as Easter. This might strike many as bit odd. After all Easter is a religious commemoration of certain alleged events that are claimed to have occurred sometime in the first century in the Middle East. History, with a bit of theology thrown in for good measure. But what can it have to do with science? And then there’s the central claim of Easter; the entirely implausible claim, that a dead man came back to life. Science proves that such things are impossible right?

Wrong. Science will always struggle to deal with unique events. The methods we usually apply, repeated observation, manipulation and measurement, are not appropriate. Aha the sceptic cries, what about the big bang? Clearly unique, yet also within the purvue of science. But the big bang is a hypothesis. It's currently the best explanation for current observations (for example the expanding universe around us cosmic background radiation). There might be parallels here between the resurrection of Jesus and currently observable events, but they're not quite the same.

That said, the need in science to collect and analyse data and to weigh evidence, can be applied to Easter, with the caveat that the tools employed will be those appropriate to the type of evidence available. So, given that much of the evidence is in the form of literature, the tools will be literary. If there's relevant archaeological evidence, the tools of archaeology will be used. Not surprisingly in the case of an event of central importance to saints and sceptics this kind of thing has been done extensively. Just do a Web search.

But surely someone rising from the dead is just not believable? But why not? Not believable and impossible (particularly scientifically impossible) are different types of claims. My view is that belief (and unbelief) in the resurrection of Jesus is not primarily about evidence, and it never has been. It's about will. There’s plenty of evidence. But any amount of evidence will only take anyone a certain distance.  Easter is not really about whether a given body is dead or alive, but whether a particular person is known or not. Apologetics is fine, and a worthy exercise. I indulge (am indulging?) in it myself. But it's a starting point not a destination. For the Christian (at least for this Christian) it's an obstacle clearing exercise so that the real discussion can begin. And the real discussion isn't about facts, truth, proof, argument and the rest; it's about a person whom I know. A person with whom I have a relationship just as surely as I have a relationship with my wife and weans. A person to whom I can introduce others. And here's where my other area of expertise comes into play.

I am a scientist, that's my profession. But as a person (and all scientists are also people) I have experience of relationships.  There are some people I know about and there are others I know. I know about Einstein. I know a bit more about Sherrington. But I never met either of these distinguished scientists, both of whom died before I was born. But I make this claim: I know Jesus. Of course, if like Einstein and Sherrington Jesus only died, then I am deluded. And indeed He did die in antiquity. But my claim and the testimony of my experience is that He's not dead now. I know Him.

To be clear I came to know Him long before I weighed up the evidence supporting the fact of His resurrection. And the sceptic would be right to point out that this means that there's likely to be a big risk of bias when I examine the evidence for the resurrection. But then the sceptic would have to accept the risk of bias in the opposite diction on their part. However, this does not mean that either of us is incapable of examining the evidence, and doing so fairly. It just means that we have to work at it. In my case, having considered the evidence carefully, apart from my experience of knowing the person who some claim is dead, buried and decayed, I have found the evidence entirely convincing. However, I can conceive of a situation where overwhelming evidence that counted against the resurrection might come to light and I would have to re-evaluate my position. This would be a big problem. I would have to conclude that for a long time I have been deluded. That I have been fooling myself and fundamentally misunderstanding (and misrepresenting) pertinent facts. But I accept that this is not impossible. Is the sceptic prepared to make the same commitment from their side?

But all this talk of evidence is again kind of missing the point about this being personal. I (the person who is also the scientist) know (rather than simply know about) Jesus. The same Jesus who, as we reflected on Good Friday, died on a cross, was alive a few days later, and is alive and knowable today. And I personally know Him. I don’t think I’m deluded (although I suppose that’s what a lot of deluded people say!). I think that my experience of Him is complemented by the objective evidence (ie by evidence separate from my experience), and by the experience of others both through history and now. Indeed, my experience now counts, along with the experience and witness of many others, as further evidence. Now it still might not be persuasive enough to counter the intuition and observation that normally dead people do not come back from the dead, do not walk, talk, cook breakfasts, eat fish and so on. But none of this has any logical traction on the fact that Jesus is alive, did all of these things, and is knowable today.

I know because I know Him.