Christmas Reflections 2021 #2 Not just a baby…..

The world still spins on its axis and there are no obvious signs of it ending any time soon. Neither of these observations means that it won’t end any time soon. Mind you, given current conditions, the continuation of the world in its present state is not unalloyed good news. The virus continues to spread and kill, the planet warms, racism continues to exclude and oppress, poverty for many continues to grind, political tensions rise. None of this is good, even if the main impulse at this time of year is to direct our gaze away from these realities and coo contentedly as we imagine a well-fed infant, sleeping soundly albeit in a feeding trough wrapped in cloths (not clothes). But this infant will shortly become a refugee in another country to escape violence. He will grow up probably having the circumstances of His birth questioned (“his mother was unmarried when He was conceived, y’know”), and to be discriminated against because of the end of the country He apparently hailed from. And then a lot of other things will happen. There is a hard edge to the Biblical narrative that we think of as the first Christmas, and it gets harder as the story progresses. It is the history of a life very definitely lived in a world eerily familiar to us.

In reality, ours is a world of predicaments. Some are petty and trivial, and barely deserve the description. Some are excruciating and perplexing and admit to no obvious solution. Whether to wear or not wear a mask at an indoor gathering really should not be on the list. The fact that it is in many parts of the rich and educated world is one small sign of how ridiculous things are becoming. There are many reasons why some insist they will not wear a mask. Apparently for some it is a matter of demonstrating that they have an inalienable right to choose, and to demonstrate that they are possessors of such a right they choose to act nonsensically. It would be no denial of their right to choose to wear a mask, but apparently freedom is only demonstrated by wrong choices. Of course they feel free to choose because they don’t understand their predicament. The problem is dangerous, but it is invisible. The virus can’t be seen, smelt or touched. It is only revealed by one or more of a constellation of symptoms, and (in an admittedly small minority) an inability to breathe effectively even in an intensive care unit. As most of us don’t work in intensive care units, we don’t see the daily life and death struggle to breathe in such places. Numbers, rates, probabilities, statistics, just don’t communicate effectively enough the predicament. Not feeling in peril means things like mask wearing and vaccination come to feel like impositions rather than means of rescue. And this partly explains why what happened at Bethlehem is so easily misconstrued.

If you don’t feel the seriousness of a situation, you are unlikely to feel any particular necessity for rescue. If I tell you the baby born in Bethlehem was actually not just any old baby (not that there are such things) but one stage in a cosmic rescue mission, it’s unlikely to strike you as particularly relevant to you. So it is easy to accept the line that Christmas is a quaint cultural festival; a probable kernel of historical truth wrapped in multiple layers of myth, but nothing more. After all, a relevant rescue mission would suggest some level of peril, and you don’t feel in any way imperilled. And certainly not in a manner whereby a baby could possibly be of much help. But what if, as with the virus, you couldn’t see, hear, touch or even normally feel the threat that you face? Attempting persuasion with propositions probably just won’t cut it. Nevertheless, here goes.

The thing about the baby born in Bethlehem, in this world although admittedly some time ago, is that it provides a point of contact between two narratives. One is the narrative of the Living God, as He reveals it in the Bible; the other is a competing narrative that there is no such being and the Bible is a story book for children and the inadequate. But let’s stick with God’s narrative for the moment. Our world is spoiled and is not as it should be. This spoiling involves all of us as we are spoiled too (from His point of view). As He’s God, and we’re not, this rather matters. Because the problem – let’s call is S for short – is so fundamental, and because S is an outrage and an affront to God, the only real answer is to bring the current state of affairs to an end, and recreate things as they should be. Because He's God He can do this. But then what of you and me? That would mean an end of us (remember we’re part of the problem). But at some point, still in our future, that’s what is going to happen. And so that’s the predicament we face. Now we could rail against the injustice of it all, but that wouldn't solve the predicament. We could just ignore it and wish it away, it does all sound a bit remote and ridiculous. But if there were anything that could deliver us from our predicament, ignoring it wouldn't make sense.

For reasons fundamentally only known to Himself, and only partly revealed to us (but to do with His character as opposed to any external necessity), God has provided a means by which we can be rescued from this predicament. By fixing S in individuals, the process of being made fit for the world that will follow can be inaugurated. The baby born in Bethlehem is part of the mission that makes this possible. And this is where the two narratives collide. Because there really is a Bethlehem, and there really was a baby. To deal with S, there is a price, a cost that has to be paid. Being affected by S incurs an obligation that must be met before there can be any question of being part of the world that is to come. But self-help is not an option. After all, by nature we are all so caught up in the counter-narrative that there isn’t even a problem. Other than what is revealed in the Bible, God’s narrative, we would be unaware of our predicament, and therefore blissfully ignorant of our obligation. But the baby born in Bethlehem, grows to adulthood and takes that obligation on Himself as a substitute, and offers individuals freedom from the obligation, thereby fixing S. 

Thus, only to see a baby is to miss the bigger picture, to miss (and to miss out on) the rescue mission. Rescue offered to all, because all are in a predicament and facing disaster because of S. To substitute appropriate Bible words for S, Jesus becomes a Saviour to deal with Sin. More than a baby, a rescuer. All fine and good. Except you probably neither see it, or feel it. Even though the pandemic should have taught us all about our vulnerability, and the fragility of life as it is for all of us. All this talk of sin and rescue sounds much less compelling than sticking with stories of perpetual babies. Except that in due course Christmas will be followed by Easter. And that’s a whole different story.

Christmas Reflections 2021 #1 Grimness again……

Reflecting on last year’s reflections seemed like a good place to start this year. One of them centred on the grimness of the original events which eventually led to us celebrating Christmas (along with the advertising of the men from Coca Cola). You can obviously read that particular post again should you be so inclined. Here we are, our second Christmas in the pandemic, and things have taken a potentially ugly turn with the advent of the Omicron variant of COVID19. At least last year we had the effects of the vaccine campaign to look forward to. Then along came Delta, and now Omicron, complete with partial vaccine escape. Who knows how bad it will turn out to be? Apparently, at this stage, no-one. But once again we are facing restrictions - the Netherlands has just gone into “lockdown” again, with other European states perhaps about to follow. Some people are wondering what to do for the best in terms of how to celebrate Christmas with family and whether they can travel any distance or not. Meanwhile, protests are growing over restrictions (in Government and on the streets), and the antivaxxers are still making their voices heard. All of this is before we get to political instability and problems with integrity at the heart of UK politics, and stuff that really matters like Russian forces massing on the Ukrainian border and the growing climate crisis. In the face of all this, it is tempting to put one’s fingers in one’s ears and hum a happy tune before hunkering down with a stack of Christmas DVD’s, pigging out on mince pies and hoping that it will all turn out alright somehow. That would be naïve, and probably self-defeating. Eventually all the DVD’s would be watched, and a diet consisting of only mince pies is almost as unhealthy as a dose of COVID in a twenty-year-old. But funnily enough there is some Biblical warrant for an approach that, at least superficially, seems a bit like this (without the calorie count).

If you’ve been to many carol concerts, nativity plays or watchnight services, you will inevitably have encountered readings from Isaiah’s prophecy. Isaiah seemed to know an awful lot about both Jesus’ birth specifically, and His life and character more generally. This leads some to deny that the book of Isaiah could possibly been written when apparently it was written – hundreds of years before the events themselves. Of course if the Living God revealed things to Isaiah, things in his future which he may very well not have understood himself, that has big implications for how we understand the Bible and the events thus foretold. But puting that to one side, Isaiah Ch 11 vs 1-9 has been on my mind of late. Here, in what were probably grim circumstances, Isaiah invited his original audience to look up and look forward. While the bulk of Isaiah’s message was that things were going to get grimmer still for his nation of Judah, in 11:1 he writes about new life that will spring from what will look like a dead, inert tree stump.

It becomes clear in v2-5 that Isaiah is not referring to an event, nor to an institution, but to a person who is to come. He tells us that “the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him” (11:2). Aspects of this person’s inward character are described: He will have wisdom, understanding , counsel, might and knowledge; all qualities singularly lacking from leaders in Isaiah’s day. And He will be marked by the “fear of the Lord”, a phrase that is repeated for emphasis. What was an aspiration for others, would be a daily reality for Him. Who could this possibly be? After Jesus was baptized in the Jordan by John, Matthew records the Spirit descending and “coming to rest on Him” (Matt 3:16). Shortly after this, as Jesus began his public ministry, He attended a synagogue on the Sabbath and read from Isaiah 61: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me…”. And then He said “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). Jesus was observed to be, and claimed to be, the one who was promised in Isaiah 11:1 – the one on whom the Spirit of the Lord rested. He is the one who fulfilled the promise of Is 11 along with those other staples of carol services like Isaiah 7:14 “..the virgin shall conceive..” and 9:6ff “..for unto us a child is born..”. But then Isaiah goes a bit weird.

In 11:6-9 the scene shifts. A different world is portrayed, different from the time when Jesus lived, and different to our world. Wolves dwelling with lambs, and leopards lying down with goats! Whether the wolves and lambs, leopards and goats of v6 are metaphorical or literal hardly matters. In either case, where previously one was predator and the other prey, in this new world things are different. Lions will apparently be no longer interested in eating fattened calves. Indeed, at a basic, even biological level, things will be transformed: lions will eat straw (v7). And a particular enmity that has been present from near the beginning of humanity’s existence will be absent from this future world. In v8, the ancient hostility between snakes and even young children (we might call them “offspring”) will in that day no longer exist. Older children, who you would expect to have learned a thing or two, won’t develop a healthy fear of poisonous snakes, nor will they be at risk from them (v9). In this imagery, there are quite deliberate echoes Genesis 3:15 but with a twist. Gen 3 is the account of the fall of man, and the entry of sin into a perfect created order. As a result a snake is cursed because of its role, and one element of this is enmity between the snake and the “offspring of the woman”. But in Is 11:8 a world is described in which that enmity has been removed. But how to get from where we are to this new world?

If you’ve ever gone walking in the English Lakes, or the mountains of Wales, or in the Scottish Highlands, you’ll have had the experience of looking at distant peaks. It is often difficult to get a sense of the distance between them, and you can see nothing of valleys between them. Here, Isaiah has the same problem as he looks down the corridors of time and sees two peaks. We know that the first part of this chapter (the first peak) refers to Jesus – because Jesus Himself tells us. That was in Isaiah’s future, but is obviously in our past. The first advent was a promise made, and we know it as a promised kept. Jesus was born, lived as the one portrayed in Isaiah 11 vs 2-5, and died as the suffering servant Isaiah also tells us about in Ch53 – “pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities” (53v5). But there is a second peak, far off in the distance from Isaiah’s perspective. This is a renewed world, a world without sin and the enmity it produces, full of the knowledge of the Lord (Is 11:9). This is a world yet to come, lying in our future. Our response to Jesus and His first advent determines whether we will gain entry into that perfect world that is yet to come. Christ came before, exactly as promised. He will come again (as promised) to “judge the world in righteousness” (Acts 17:31), transforming everything. The fulfilling of the first promise provides a rational basis for trusting the second.

When things are grim, the return of the celebration of Jesus’ first advent reminds us to look up and anticipate His second, and the world that it will inaugurate. Much better than DVD’s and mince pies.

Numbers game: Christianity in retreat…?

The end of December is an interesting time of year for all sorts of reasons, some more logical than others. It marks (although somewhat arbitrarily) the end of the year and so tends to be a time for reflection on the year gone by. Currently the memory-fest that is the BBC’s “Sports Personality of the Year” show is on the TV. And of course it is Christmas time, even although the Christmas movie channels went live in mid-October. But I shall try and suppress any further bah-humbuggery. One phenomenon that appears at this time of year is of course an upsurge in religious, specifically Christian, activity and imagery. And this apparently against a backdrop of a claimed precipitous decline in Christianity in the UK and the US – at least according to some headlines.

New figures from the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) prompted the Religious Affairs correspondent of The Times to headline an article “Losing our religion:Christians poised to become a minority”. Similar stories appeared in various US news outlets similarly prompted by a Pew Research Centre report. In the UK the 2011 census “found that 59.3 % of the English and Welsh population were Christian”, but in updated 2019 figures on a much smaller sample this had fallen to 51% - hence the story. In the Pew data there had been a 12% drop in those self-identifying as Christians between 2011 and 2021. Mind you that drop was from 75% to 63%. Do these numbers mean anything? Well, no and yes.

The notion that as I walk around south Liverpool every second person I encounter is a Christian is laughable. I don’t mean in any way that I live among particularly evil, nasty or even generally unlikable people. By and large Scousers are a friendly and helpful bunch up close and personal. But, friendliness, helpfulness and general likability are not the key criteria that determine whether one is or is not a Christian (although one hopes they are observable characteristics in Christians). This of course simply raises the criterion question, one that always dogs self-report surveys. And here there is a really big problem. In a YouGov survey conducted in 2020 in a large UK sample (N=2169), only 27% said they believed in “a god”, and 41% neither believed in “a god” nor in a “higher power”. Only 20% believed that Jesus was “the son of God". In fact, in that particular survey, 55% did not regard themselves as belonging to any particular religion. Cleary somewhat at odds with the ONS numbers.

The problem here is of course we have to distinguish between the meaning of the word “Christian” in the Biblical sense, and the other senses in which the word is used, such as the ethnic or cultural senses. For what it’s  worth, my view is that it’s the Biblical sense that matters, because rather a lot hangs on it (big stuff like one’s eternal destiny). We have the first recorded use of the word in the New Testament. at Antioch in the first century AD (Acts 11:26). It was probably initially used as an insult; a label given to followers of the “the Way”, disciples of Jesus Christ. And probably few in their “right mind” would want to be thus  labelled. The people to whom the it was originally applied share a number of characteristics with those to whom it appropriately applies today. They made certain claims on their own behalf, and behaved (or aspired to behave) in certain ways. Their central claim (and for that matter my central claim) was (and is) that they (and I) knew (know) Jesus. That should be understood to be different to the claim to know about Jesus. Anyone can (and everyone should) read the Bible, which goes into considerable detail about Jesus, detailing His birth (hence Christmas), His death and resurrection, and His ascension. Knowing about Him is not difficult. But knowing Him is a personal, subjective experience to which individual Christians give witness. And I really do mean know Him in the same way as I know others – whether my wife, children, other relatives or friends.

It is this personal relational aspect that many of those self-identifying as Christians in surveys are probably a bit hazy about. This "knowing" is a two-way phenomenon, and He will only be known on certain grounds. To deny that God is, and to deny that Jesus is God is tantamount to denying that you know Him. It denies who He is, denies His own claims about Himself and completely undermines His central purpose in being born, living and dying the way He did. In His own day, Jesus had various interactions with religious people who by definition were not Christians. These people certainly knew about Him, and many of them in a much more direct way than is possible today. They knew other members of His human family, they knew the town He came from, and other people who grew up with Him, and they heard for themselves from His own lips what He had to say. But even although they stood in front of Him, and conversed with Him, it turned out they didn’t know Him (see John 8:19). And He clearly warned that He would say of many who would claim to know Him, and even do things in His name, that He never knew them (Matt 7:21-23).

Now with all due respect to many who would self-identify in a survey as being a Christian, they are not (and would not claim to be) Christ followers in this sense of knowing Him. They are claiming a far looser association with Jesus, or perhaps no association with Him directly at all. The only link is perhaps with some (human) institution or an even looser association by virtue of an immersion in a culture that is broadly still Christian-like. And if fewer respondents think this is a sensible basis on which to tick the “Christian” box now than previously, this tells us precisely nothing about the state of Christianity properly defined. But that doesn’t mean that it tells us nothing.

As Tom Holland goes to great lengths to show in “Dominion” (not exactly reviewed here), the cultural effects of Christianity are pervasive in the West even still, although probably in decline. Many of course will not lament such a decline. But some, including some atheists, are beginning to murmur that this could throw up lots of thoroughly unwelcome outcomes for society as a whole. Meanwhile, don’t worry too much on behalf of us Christians. We won’t be going anywhere for a bit yet (probably).

Missed metaphor......

Here was me thinking I would just do a quick search on the subject of metaphor and its uses (mainly because I heard Noel Gallagher talking about metaphor in song writing on the radio this morning). I know we all enjoy a good metaphor. I know we all often employ metaphors, including the famous  “sick as a parrot” overused by football reporters. How little I knew. Metaphors, and the discussion of them, are a seething ocean…. See what I mean?

The ubiquity of metaphors in language leads neatly to the notion that metaphor is somehow basic to how we think. Indeed, in what is considered by some to be a classic, paradigm-shaping book published in 1980, “Metaphors we live by”, Lakoff and Johnson claimed exactly that. Metaphors are not just features of language, ways we seek to communicate with each other. They are rooted in basic biology and baked into the way we think, allowing us make sense of the world around us. Indeed, there is empirical evidence that they might do more than this. Thibodeau and Boroditsky (2011) showed that by exposing participants to particular metaphors, it was possible to influence how they thought about particular scenarios. So, comparing a “crime wave” to either a “wild animal preying on” or “a virus infecting” a community, altered their views about how to deal with crime. It’s a short step from this to the idea of using metaphors as “dog whistles” in political discourse (another metaphor). Usually this a charge made against political opponents. But the politicians have worked out that using metaphors in this particular way provides the kind of plausible deniability that they can deploy against their opponents while stirring up (there I go again) their political base. It turns out that this is all hotly contested stuff.

But back to the business of sensible communication. In part, metaphors are useful because they can helpfully illuminate (like good prose), while having a degree of flexibility (they lack the precision of propositions). They can also be used to encapsulate something complex in relatively few words (usually by alluding to an image) and are therefore an economical means of communication. And they can help us grapple with things that are so complex that we cannot understand everything about them, while highlighting what we can understand. And they necessarily engage the imagination in a way other types of language often do not. When you get to thinking about it, Christians (or perhaps even religious-minded people in general) should be at home with them.

The Bible is replete with metaphors, and the reason for at least some of them isn’t too hard to fathom. If the Bible is the primary means of revelation by which a transcendent God, who is a completely different form of being from you and me, makes Himself known to us, then it is hardly a surprise that metaphor is to the fore (as it were). In fact most of our language about God must be metaphorical. Some metaphors are in the form of straightforward anthropomorphisms – Scripture speaks of God’s hands and eyes even although as a being who is spirit He does not literally possess hands and eyes. Others find their meaning within Scripture itself.

In the Old Testament history of Israel, we find the basis of many significant New Testament metaphors. For example, in order to be safe from the punishment that was to fall on Egypt as the climax to a series of plagues, the enslaved Israelites had to take a lamb and sacrifice it. The blood of this lamb, when applied to the doorways of their houses would protect them from what was to happen. This deliverance formed the basis of the Passover feast which was to serve as a reminder of, and pointer to, this great event in their deliverance.

When Jesus appears near the Jordan thousands of years later, John points at Him and calls Him the Lamb of God (John 1:29). In a sense that’s all he has to say. A whole host of images and associations immediately come flooding to those familiar with such language. But they are not looking a young sheep of course. As they look to where John is pointing they find themselves looking at a man. The power of metaphor. And even although this is early in Jesus’ public ministry, there is perhaps an even earlier allusion that employs this same metaphor. It is one that I had entirely missed.

It’s nearly Christmas, and all this week at Bridge we’ve been presenting “the Christmas Journey” to school children – basically a presentation of the Christmas story. I know that it’s only the first week in December, but to be fair we’ve been enduring Christmas movie channels since September. It has always struck me as odd that an angel tells a bunch of shepherds that a baby wrapped in “swaddling cloths” is a sign (Luke 2:12). I suppose it could simply have been that this is how they would know the baby in question was “the” baby as opposed to “a” baby (although presumably the fact that said baby would also be in a  feeding trough would also be a bit of a giveaway). But someone pointed out to me this week that it has been suggested that the shepherds weren’t just any old shepherds; they were “Levitical” shepherds. And they were specifically tasked with raising lambs for sacrifice up at the temple in Jerusalem, lambs that had to be perfect. These were not strictly speaking Passover lambs for the most part, but that’s where the flexibility of a good metaphor is useful. To increase the shepherds' chances of producing quality lambs (i.e. without “spot of blemish) and decrease their losses, lambs would often be birthed in special shepherds' caves in the vicinity of Bethlehem, and then bound in cloths (swaddling cloths) to prevent cuts, bruises and other damage. This, in effect, identified them as sacrificial lambs. So, now the direction to go and look at a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths takes on a whole new significance. These particular shepherds looking at that particular baby, triggers all those metaphorical associations that John would highlight about thirty years later.

We don’t know if the shepherds made all of these connections. Nor do we know when Jesus first disciples managed to get their heads around what John said. But this particular metaphor is worth bearing in mind for the next few weeks.

Why does science matter?

Although it’s really my last post that prompted this one, I am admittedly returning to something I’ve blogged about before. It was a while ago, so I won’t take it personally if you can’t remember what those particular posts were about. I’ll try not to repeat any of the specifics here as you can obviously go back and read them (eg here and here). But having opined about why theology matters (about which I know relatively little), it seemed only fair to reflect on what I spent most of my adult life working in.

However, there are a couple of issues we have to deal with first. Although it’s common to talk about “science” as though it is a single institution, it really isn’t. There is no single body that polices a rule book, and the reality is that there is no single agreed definition or set of rules. There is also no single agreed scientific method. It used to be thought that a single recipe for doing good science might be either discoverable or definable, and that a single, coherent method could be established. And of course the philosophers got busy trying to cook one up. But with due respect to the likes of Francis Bacon, John Locke, William Whewell, Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn, none of them really produced anything that you could pull off a shelf, apply to a problem and obtain a “scientific answer”. Indeed the most many of them managed was an attempt at describing what scientists actually did. This is an interesting exercise in its own right. Mind you, it has always seemed to me that they were overly infatuated with physics, from which they drew many of their key examples. If of course science is just one thing, and there is a single method, then why not start with an area of science that seems to have delivered. Perhaps this explains why “big physics” is often reported in the media and is supported by such massive sums of public money (over the last decade the UK has invested an average of £152M per year in CERN alone). Biology has usually suffered in comparison. The philosophers didn’t seem to like biology that much, it was maybe too wet and messy.

It’s odd, but all this philosophical effort, individually and cumulatively, has had relatively little impact on the activities of scientists themselves. By and large they just got on doing “it”, and apparently quite successfully. It looked like there might be a common core of things that were a good idea, things like collecting evidence, forming tentative explanations, and then testing these rather than just blithely accepting and asserting them. But single, codified, rigorous method? Not really. Occasionally, individual scientists were influenced by reading about what they were supposed to be doing in the writings of one or more of the aforementioned philosophers or thinkers (many of whom were not themselves scientists). They might try to construe their activities in the sort of terms they had read about. But this all tended to be rather post-hoc. Suspiciously, such accounts tended to crop up in books written at the end of careers, as though they were a relatively recent discovery.

Now this all may be a good or a bad thing. But part of the problem is that relatively few pure science degrees (particularly in the Anglo-Saxon world) provide a rigorous introduction to the intellectual procedures involved in science. There are lots of lectures, lots of learning about great previous experiments, occasional attempt to repeat them and so on. Such degrees are certainly fact-packed (and very often great fun too – mine was!). But as to the principles of how your thinking was supposed to operate, one was rather expected to simply imbibe or intuit this. To be fair, this is a criticism that has so often made, that in many degree programmes today there may be an optional module in the philosophy of science. But it is rarely a key component of the education of a young scientist. And this has the disturbing consequence of a highly skilled but philosophically unsophisticated workforce.

None of this means that science (in its various forms) has been generally unsuccessful; clearly it hasn’t. But one unwelcome effect has been the unfortunate inability of many of us scientists (and I include myself in this) to helpfully articulate why science has been successful, what its product has enabled, and why this all matters. What we often end up with is hubristic, triumphalist babble that can sometimes seem  more like paternalistic propaganda. Scientists do all have skin in the game of course, because many of us earn our money from the scientific enterprise. And the source of that money is very often hard-pushed taxpayers, and in the case of the health and clinical sciences, patients. When we try to explain what we’re up to and why it matters, we can sometimes sound rather as though we’re saying that you should simply trust us (and keep paying us) because we know what’s best, and it would be far too complicated to explain to you.

Now there is a sense in which this is true. These days the technical details are often complicated, and a degree of trust is required. But the problem is that because we have not articulated well enough or often enough how science works (in its various forms), trust is now rather lacking. This is illustrated by the range of responses to the undoubted success of the vaccines developed to combat the COVID19 pandemic. The mRNA vaccines that have been so successful are the product of a completely new approach to vaccine development that emerged from years of patient and largely unheralded basic science, working out the details of what goes on in cells at a molecular level. The speed at which this led to highly effective vaccines coming into use and saving lives was unprecedented. And yet, all over the world there is significant resistance to their use and a marked reluctance to their uptake.  

Part of the problem is that science doesn’t exist within a bubble. The “modern” world that science both grew up in and helped to shape, has now morphed into a very different context. Intellectual authority is now a weakness and trust has been undermined. We now have facts, duly established by tried and tested procedures (technical and intellectual) duelling in the media with alt-facts (opinion, suspicion and assertion dressed up as facts). And the individualism that stemmed from the same revolution that gave rise to modern science, means everyone is an expert who has to understand the evidence, even when everyone really isn’t an expert and really can’t weigh the evidence in an appropriate way.

Science really is the best way we have to generate certain types of reliable information of critical importance. It cannot answer any and all questions, but it has and can answer some really important ones. At the edges of course, there is scope for debate as to what is and what is not an appropriate question that can be answered scientifically. Over-claiming, often by prominent scientists, or putting down other approaches in non-scientific domains (like theology among others) has done science no favours. But make no mistake – science has mattered in the past, is making a big impact now, and will be needed in the future. It will continue to matter - bigtime.

Why does theology matter?

It struck me the other day that this was a question I really should have an answer to, even if it is only an answer to the related question of why theology matters to me. After all I’ve now shelled out hard cash to actually do a master’s degree in theology – begs the question as to why. The answer could be as simple as I’ve decided to study something that for a complex of reasons is of interest to me. I could be studying trees or trains, but it just happens to be theology. So it matters in the sense and to the extent that any other hobby might matter But I’m a lazy hobbyist. While I could have just read a pile of books on my own over the next couple of years, I need the externally imposed discipline of an academic structure to make me actually do it. The last bit is true as it happens. I probably do need a bit of imposed discipline because of my innate indolence. And if I actually got round to hobby theology reading, it would in all likelihood be easy and familiar stuff. There’s certainly lots of fluffy pop theology out there to be read. But it has to matter more than this I think. I’m not at a stage in this life where I have the time to bumble around wandering off into stuff.

But before answering why it matters, it might be worth working out what “it” is. Normally these days in polite society, the word theology is qualified. While linguistically it is simply a word which means the “ology” of God (or the study of “theos”), that simply begs further questions. Some maintain that on that basis theology is the study of nothing. But for most of history this has been a minority view; the idea of studying God is not, at least at first blush, ridiculous.

In my corner of the world, for a long time (or at least a couple of thousand years), the God in view was well recognized, if inevitably only dimly understood. He was the God revealed in the Bible, and to a lesser extent in all the stuff the Bible claimed He was responsible for. This was and is a lot of stuff, because it is literally everything that exists. So everyone was clear that this God was the subject matter of the discipline of theology. Indeed for some time those centres of “higher” learning we call universities were places where people beavered away in just one discipline – theology. But things have changed. Not only is there no consensus as to whether there is a God, but even among those who agree that there is, there is no consensus as to who He is, or in which ways He (or she/it/them) may be known and studied. Hence the need to qualify theology with other words like Christian, Biblical, Islamic etc. And because theology is usually conceived of as an academic discipline, and in the modern academy one has to specialize, the word is usually further qualified by terms like historical, pastoral, systematic etc.

That all said, for me it’s quite easy to cut through a lot of this apparent and largely unhelpful complexity. As any reader of this blog will be able to work out quite quickly (particularly if you read my profile) I’m a Christian. So already the question as to whether there is a God or not is answered. Not only is there a God, but He has revealed Himself ultimately in the person of Jesus and throughout history in the Bible. I know this because I know Him. That’s kind of the point. So it’s this God whose words and ways I want to spend the next couple of years studying in more depth and detail than I’ve been able to up to this point. While I see no need to qualify the word theology, to be helpful and for the sake of clarity, I mean Christian and Biblical Theology. This still leaves open lots of different avenues to explore. God’s revealing of Himself in history has been dynamic not static, and it has been primarily relational not propositional (although appropriate propositions are important). So how ideas about Him have developed in the history covered by the Bible, as He has progressively revealed Himself (He didn’t just dump all the information we could cope with in one dollop), is an important thing to study, as is how thinking about that revelation has itself developed is important. This God and claims and ideas about Him have greatly affected individuals and communities in history and continue to do so today; this is important for understanding today’s world. How people have responded to this God, thus revealed, and how we should respond, is also something worth contemplating. For these reasons and many more besides, spending time in theological study does indeed matter. And it’s not all about observing effects on other people.

Who God is, and what He says, is not just worth studying in terms of their effects on others. All of this is not external to me such that I am able to be a detached observer. I already know from science that there is no such thing as completely independent and objective experimentation in which I as observer merely observe. This is even more the case in theology. After all I am called to love this God whom I am seeking to study with all of my heart, soul and mind (Matthew 22:37). As I do that I’m to be “transformed” by the “renewing of my mind” (Rom 12:2). At the very least this implies change for me as I study. It is true that all learning implies change, although only in some cases will this be externally observable (changes in observable attitudes and behaviours). But that cannot be the case here. And in the case of theology, such change should not just be for my personal benefit, but for the benefit of others, in the particular faith community that I identify with (usually called a “church”).

So, doing theology will (should) bring about change. It would be odd to embark on a course of action that one expects to bring about bad change, so you won’t be surprised to learn that I think this will be good change. And if it is good, and it is big (whatever big means in this context), then it will matter at least to me. If it is good and big and in some way brings benefits to others, then it will matter even more.  

Logically, the atheists could be right, in which case I’m simply delusional. If I am, then at least I am in a large and distinguished company. But I don’t think I am (delusional that is). We shall see.

Life goes on - or doesn’t

Strange times. One of the features of the pandemic has been the truly heroic efforts of healthcare workers to reach those in need, and provide them with the care necessary to see them through their crisis to recovery. At the height of the first lockdown, many of us stood on our doorsteps and clapped each week for a number of weeks to recognize and support these efforts. We locked down and stayed at home to prevent sickness and avoid deaths. We put the education of the young into deep-freeze to protect mainly the elderly and those vulnerable for reasons other than their age. But that was then, and this is now. Time has moved on and it’s interesting that it is in this context a very different attitude has been asserting itself.

There is now, and has been for some time, a vocal lobby in the UK advocating for a change in the law to allow the taking of life. The name of what is being advocated changes. It has been called all of euthanasia, assisted suicide, mercy killing, assisted dying, and other things beside. Somewhere I have no doubt PR specialists have been working to establish which term causes the least public anxiety and is likely to garner most public support. But the campaign is definitely up and running. Robert Shrimley’s column in the FT caught my eye back in August (“The time is ripe for citizens’ voices on assisted dying”, FT, 25/8/21; it’s behind the FT’s paywall unfortunately). A number of medical professional organisations have been changing their stance on “assisted dying” from opposition to “neutrality”. Then there was the proposal of Orkney MSP Liam McArthur for a bill to go through the Scottish parliament, which is currently out to public consultation. Most recently we had the debate on Baroness Meacher’s “assisted suicide” bill in the House of Lords.

This is not the first time there have been such debates of course, and the arguments made in the Lords were familiar enough. It is not likely to be the last time they are heard. The proponents are quick to claim they are promoting human dignity and autonomy – individual dignity and autonomy that is. It should be a matter of choice. We have choice in every other area of life, on what basis should it be denied in this one area? In this area though, talking about individual choice is misleading, One person’s right to choose to die, at least on the basis of most current proposals, is the imposition of an obligation to kill (or to assist in a killing) on someone else (usually a medical practitioner). And death, any death, like birth, does not just affect a single individual even in our particularly individualised culture. If someone wishes to die, there are a number of courses of action individuals can, and tragically do, take. That is not what this debate appears to be about. It is about state-sponsored, legislated and organized killing. This is why (as Lord Winston pointed out in the Lords debate), terminology matters; an "assisted" death, inevitably draws others in.  

Opponents of the current proposals rehearsed their (equally familiar) arguments too. Practicalities were prominent, as was the “slippery slope” argument. This raises an interesting question. If, in a modern, liberal, democracy, assisted suicide/euthanasia is legalized, what happens? This, at least in theory, is now an answerable question as there are a number of such jurisdictions – the state of Oregon in the US, Quebec in Canada and Belgium and the Netherlands in Europe are examples. However, it turns out that how you interpret the data depends on which side of the argument you start. Proponents argue that in none of these places have things progressed to mass killing. Opponents point out that numbers have risen inexorably  (Belgium: 2002, 24 cases – 2016/17, 4337; Netherlands: 2006, 1923 – 2017, 6585), and laws have been extended (eg in both Belgium and the Netherlands from only adults to children). Practice in terms of adhering to laws is variable and difficult to monitor and there could be even more slippage “under the radar”. The riposte is that these are practical matters that will have practical solutions. But such solutions are going to fall on an already overworked and overstretched healthcare system. Are resources and safeguards really going to be allocated to deathcare as opposed to other aspects of healthcare? Currently in the UK even our hospices, where high standards of palliative and end-of-life care are available, are not within the state healthcare system. They are largely supported by public donations and sponsorship. Surely the provision of proper end-of-life care should have priority over ending life “care”?

We live in culture where the beginning of life is just as contested. Individual rights and autonomy have been exalted, and the individual and societal cost has been high. In England and Wales 210,860 abortions were reported in 2020, the highest so far recorded (that averages out at over 20 per hour, every hour, over the year). The 1967 Act was introduced with all sorts of safeguards, but sent a signal that had a range of unintended consequences. I am not, as it happens, an absolutist on the abortion issue; an absolute ban would be unworkable and undesirable. And things like aggressive protesting outside centres providing abortions (let alone the violence that has occasionally erupted) cannot be condoned. But perhaps it can be agreed that the situation we currently have is not the sign of a healthy society. And, critically for the current debate, promises made during the original debate, and safeguards introduced to prevent "mission creep", both turned out to be rather hollow. 

Legislating in such complex areas is tragically difficult and should never be undertaken with the breezy confidence exhibited by some of the supporters of Baroness Meacher’s bill. The law has to define, and by definition, it codifies. But some areas of life (and death) defy easy definition and codification. Leaving it to judgement and conscience may be messy, but it is a lot better than the alternatives.

Life in the pandemic XXXI Gamekeeper turned poacher…..

Did I mention I was once a student? In case you missed it, the answer is “yes” and I wrote about it recently! It was a long time ago, and the world was different in a number of ways. And of course I was different. Apart from anything else I was a callow youth, just turned seventeen, when I started. And it would be fair to say that I had led a fairly sheltered existence to that point. Sheltered that is from lots of things that might have done me harm. Life is experience, but avoiding certain experiences does not inevitably lead to an impoverished life. There are definitely some things it is better to read about in books than experience in reality. We all lead sheltered lives in one form or another. First time around as a student I had a lot of growing up to do, as well as a lot of stuff to learn. And I did my growing and learning as part of a particular community.

In the days when only a relatively small proportion of UK teenagers enjoyed the privilege of a University education (about 10% in the late 70’s), University could be a bit of hothouse affair because the population was small and fairly homogeneous. And to some extent while it was possible to branch out and embrace new things, the range of novelty was in some ways quite restricted. While it could be a hothouse, University was not the hotbed of radicalism that it was sometimes portrayed as being. Clubs and societies were a big part of student life, and for me that meant a lot of time spent with fellow students in the Christian Union. Numerically, the Labour Club at Glasgow University probably claimed the largest membership on campus. But every week there were 100 or more of us at the main CU meeting, and there were lots of faculty and other groups meeting weekly too. For some radicals on the left, the Labour Club was a bit on the tame side; they joined the Socialist Workers Student Society (known to all as “Swiz”). Swiz once organised a meeting on “Jesus: the first socialist” to which a number of us CU types decided to go. Our 7 or 8 (it may have been more) somewhat outnumbered the 3 or 4 Swiz members who turned up. They didn’t appear to know too much about either Jesus or socialism in its various forms; and we, it turned out, were probably suggesting more radical answers than they were. But they weren’t that impressed.

It was in the CU as much as in the University where many life-long friendships (and not a few marriages) were formed. Because we were all growing up together, it did make for a fairly intense atmosphere. Sometimes the business of getting a degree seemed like a secondary activity. Even if universities hadn’t changed in the intervening forty-something years (and they have), this could only be a once in a lifetime experience. Time marches on, experience is accumulated, and accompanied by change. Certainly a change in perspective. As a member of staff in a number of universities over the years, it was my turn to experience the frustration of students not paying attention when I thought they should and not bringing the focus to their studies that I thought they demanded. After all, University is only a few short years; why can’t they forswear the “distractions” and just concentrate on studying. We put all that effort into crafting the pearls to be laid out before them. Some would say my experience was justice; the universe is getting me back for my lack of respect for my lecturers and lab demonstrators. In general though, students seem to be a much more serious bunch these days than I think we were. I’ve met more than a few labouring under various pressures that seemed to take a lot of the enjoyment out of their time at University. Such pressures were probably always there, but in recent times they have intensified. Certainly the financial pressures on many students today are more intense – we were paid to go to University.

Now I’m reverting and after several decades I have decided to throw off the privileges and responsibilities of being an academic and member of staff, and returning to being a student. I will shortly begin studying in the Master of Theology (MTh) programme at Union School of Theology. For some of the reasons alluded to above of course it will not be the same as first time round. I’m older, and while there’s always room for personal development, I’m also “all growed up”. I approach the task in a different way as a different person compared to my approach when I was seventeen. Hopefully I have learned a thing or two about learning since then.

The subject of study will be different – not Physiology and Neurobiology but Theology. A new and different discipline; new tools to master as well as different subject matter. Some aspects of study are the same across disciplines, but I expect differences too. It would hubris of the highest order to think that a training in science has provided all I need to embark on studies in theology. This time there is also more of a vocational motivation rather than it being just an “academic” exercise. Calvin wrote in the Institutes “...however fitting it may be for a man seriously to turn his eyes to contemplate God's works .... it is fitting that he prick up his ears to the Word, the better to profit." There will be an aspect of personal challenge and change because of the ultimate subject matter that was absent previously.

In some corners of the Church, theological study is viewed with suspicion, occasionally being seen as inimical to a lively faith. But the  greatest commandment includes that aspect of loving God with all of the mind. While this doesn’t mean everyone needs to embark on a theology degree, it certainly means that this is a wholly legitimate exercise for some of us (provided it is undertaken in the right spirit). The setting will be different too from my first time around.  Union is a relatively small college/seminary as opposed large city university. I’m sure there will be friendships and interaction, maybe even the occasional bit of creative intellectual tension. But for all the reasons above (and more) it won’t be the same, nor should it be.

The poacher/gamekeeper analogy probably isn’t that helpful. But there is a grain of truth in it. I confess that there will be part of me viewing the process with a professional academic eye and wondering if the programme specification is being followed to the letter. But another part of me will be glad that such things are really no longer my concern. I can just get back to learning, “the better to profit”.  

Life in the pandemic XXX Life in transition…

Life is change, so it is said. Change is certainly a big part of life. Over a period of seven to ten years, every cell in our bodies is changed. So the “me” of today, is probably completely biologically different to the “me” of ten years ago, never mind the “me” that was born 59 years ago. If I thought about this for long enough, I might find it quite disturbing! But this kind of change is just a given, so of course I don’t normally think about it at all. Other change is expected, like progressing through life, from school to University, to a job (or jobs) to retirement. Ah yes, retirement. Which brings me to the subject of this post.

I’ve been very fortunate to enjoy a long(ish) career in science. I started as a student in 1979, arriving in October that year at the University of Glasgow, to begin a degree in biological sciences. In those day you were given “faculty” entry which meant that over the four years of an honours degree you gradually specialised. So your final degree subject might not be clear until well through the four years. I arrived with no grand plan, and gradually wandered my way to a degree in Physiology. It was a very different time. There were nine students in final honours Physiology class of 1982/83, and we had some excellent teachers at the top of their game, including a Regius Professor no less.

I still had no grand plan when considering what to do next. But I enjoyed being around the University, and had plenty of biological curiosity. Doing a PhD seemed to be an easier option than actually looking for a job, and there were a number of studentships on offer around the Faculty. I eventually plumped for one that held out the promise of spending some time at a marine biological lab in France. It was France that was the main attraction though, not the lab. So I embarked on my PhD which involved investigating the nervous system and behaviour of the Norway lobster, better known as scampi (as in scampi and chips). Somewhere in cyberspace you can probably find a copy of my thesis which duly appeared just over three years later: Statocyst, input, multimodal interactions, and their effects on motor outputs in the Norway lobster, Nephrops norvegicus (L.). It was never likely to be a blockbuster. Along the way I had the privilege of attending the 1986 Gifford Lectures given by Donald McKay. I had encountered his apologetics and heard him speak previously. But as the resident Zoology Department “religious nut”, I was invited to go to lunch with him, along with one of the Zoology staff. I think this was because it was thought I would be able to engage in “God talk” with him. I can’t remember what we actually discussed. But I do remember clearly the grace with which he would deal with some of the questions after his lectures, even the bizarre ones from a particular befurred and hatted lady from Hyndland who was at every one of the lectures in the series.

There was still no grand plan when I managed to land my first post-doc job in the University of Hull, nor when I moved back to Scotland when the lab I had joined moved. We formed part of the fledgling Laboratory for Neuroscience in the University of Edinburgh. By then my interests had moved from lobsters to vertebrates, although still to do with the balance system. Edinburgh is a beautiful city (I write this through gritted fingers as a Glaswegian), and its University was and is a stimulating intellectual environment. I had dining rights in the Pharmacology staff common room where almost everything and anything might be debated. A highlight of these discussions was almost any interjection by Bernard Ginsborg, former head of Department, and polymath. Bernard started out in Physics, swapped to Physiology and then made seminal contributions in Pharmacology. He had a breadth of knowledge and interests that these days is all too rare. If he had any influence on me it was to encourage resistance to the tiresome hyper specialisation that is a feature of modern academic life. This might enable faster and further ascent up the academic greasy pole, but it makes for really boring conversation. The other thing that was noteworthy, is that you never had the feeling that you were being talked down to by Bernard. And it must have been a bit of a temptation with some of us relative youngsters. It was also at Edinburgh, that I was able to attend another series of Gifford Lectures, Mary Midgley’s 1990 series, later published as “Science and Salvation”.

It was in this stimulating environment that I was encouraged to apply for, and managed to obtain, a Wellcome Trust Vision Research Fellowship. This allowed me to develop my own little niche (while trying to avoid tiresome specialisation!). My project involved investigating the interactions between visual signals from the retina and feedback proprioceptive signals from the muscles which move the eyes (a development of the work we had been doing on the vestibular system). This was at the time, and remains, pretty obscure stuff. And the details needn’t detain us (in any case they can be found in the papers we published). But it was at this time I really began to focus on eye movements, an interest that I developed and transferred from various animal species to humans. By this stage it was becoming clear that I had to shift from doing animal experiments. Measuring eye movement turned out to be quite a good way of probing what was going on inside heads without opening them up and sticking an electrode in. This precipitated a move from Edinburgh to the Optometry department in Glasgow Caledonian University. GCU is one of Scotland’s “new” universities (some of my Edinburgh colleagues were quite sniffy about it), but its Optometrists knew lots about human eyes, and they had their own clinic which provided the interface with people that I needed.

By now I was interested almost exclusively in human eye movement, doing behavioural experiments in which we made careful measurements of the timing of eye  movements. This included work on both healthy people and patients. There was even a series of experiments we did on patients with Schizophrenia. This involved moving the lab to a psychiatric facility which had been newly opened in the east end of the city of Glasgow, near Glasgow Celtic’s famous Parkhead football ground. Whisper it ever so gently, but this is probably an excellent location for such a facility. In the event I was only at GCU for two years or so. A job advert appeared which specifically mentioned the study of eye movements as being something the Division of Orthoptics in the University of Liverpool was interested in. Not knowing what Orthoptics even was (I confess to my shame) I didn’t understand why they were interested in eye movements. Although the post was advertised at Senior Lectureship level, I decided to apply. To my surprise I was invited for interview, and to my greater surprise I was offered the job. And so for the last twenty-two years, Liverpool is where I have ploughed my furrow.

For a number of reasons, my time in the University of Liverpool has now drawn to a close. There have been some scientific highlights. Again, the details needn’t detain us; they’re documented in the papers we’ve published over the years (many of which can be accessed here). I’m taking early retirement because the time has come to do something else. That something else (and this might come as a surprise) is theology, in which I will be undertaking a Masters. Given the old trope about the necessary incompatibility between science and faith, it’s worth saying why. Throughout my scientific career, I have practiced science as a Christian. I have neither ceased being a Christian at my lab door, nor have ceased being a thinking person at the church door.  I am using Christian in its Biblical sense of course – I am a follower of Jesus Christ. And of the worst sort too! I am firmly convinced of necessity, reality and transforming power of His death on a cross approximately two thousand years ago, and of the historical  reality and evidential value of his bodily resurrection. I know about these things because I also believe that the Bible, including the relevant New Testament documents, provide not just a reliable record of certain key events, but are God’s Word – that is, God is their source and preserver, so that today the Bible remains authoritative in everything therein taught. I think this is ample reason why the Bible’s contents and their implications are worthy of rigorous academic study. The type of study that I’m now itching to embark on.

Now it is clearly logically possible that I either was always potty, insanely gullible or both, or that I have recently developed such traits. But I don’t think so. It must be also logically possible that I am correct in my conclusions, perspective and beliefs. But the Bible I read, doesn’t just make claims on me. It makes them on us all. If it’s true, then it’s not just “true for me” – it’s true for us all. 

In any case, here comes an interesting retirement. I’m sure I’ll post more about it here.

Life in the pandemic XXIX Keswick in the transition…

Once again, for the second time in the pandemic, we have made our way to England’s beautiful Lake District, to the market town of Keswick. The scenery is undoubtedly spectacular, the weather tropical (this year at least), and the town itself charming. These would all be good reasons to spend a week’s holiday here. But that is not primarily why we’ve come. As regular readers (and you know who you are) of this blog will know, we are here for the Keswick Convention. For the last few years this has become part of our summer routine. I noted before that it might strike some as an odd way to spend a summer week in the 21^st Century. It is “old fashioned” in the sense that it has been running for over one hundred years, and some of the first attendees would be able to recognise what is going on. It would also strike some as old fashioned in that the subject matter has remained constant over that period. Yes, there have been changes in style, and some in format. But at its core, the key activity is the straightforward explanation of chunks of a very “old fashioned” book – the Bible. And there remains that same conviction – that the reason this is worth doing is that we are listening to God, whose Word this is (again, a very “old fashioned” notion).

There is of course one big difference this year. We are still in the midst of a global pandemic. Not that this is Keswick’s first pandemic, having survived the 1918 Spanish Flu. Last year, while we still came to Keswick (to walk and read), there were no meetings, although there was an online offering. But this year, once again, several thousand gather twice a day, for the morning “Bible Reading” and the evening “Celebration”. There are the now familiar markers of the pandemic – testing and masking. But transition, as well as virus, is in the air. On the first Monday of the first week, the legal restrictions introduced in England (mandatory mask wearing and restrictions on the numbers able to meet either indoors or outdoors) were removed. One of the most onerous restrictions on Christians meeting together was also removed. For fifteen months or more, we haven’t been able to sing together. So last night we sang for all we were worth. But this is transition, so we sang behind our masks. It was still worth it.

We’ve only reached the transition of course, and the pandemic is still with us. But it is perhaps time to reflect on what it might have taught us about ourselves. There have been, and will continue to be, dark days. Lives have been lost, families have been bereaved. Many others have been scarred by the experience of days or weeks (or in some cases months) of hospital treatment, gasping for breath. And not just scarred in their memories. We’ve yet to see the full impact of long Covid, a condition that will afflict hundreds of thousands in the UK alone. But we go on, because we have to. However, for the Christian this is (or should be) about much more than biology, medicine and politics. When the media talks about lessons to be learned, what is usually meant is how governments and health systems have coped with a pandemic; what was done well, what was done badly. An examination of these issues is clearly worthwhile And in the same vein all of us can perhaps reflect on how we responded, following guidelines or otherwise, wearing masks, getting vaccinated and the like. But this is thinking at  a particular level. And if it’s the only thinking that’s going on, we’re likely to draw only partial conclusions and learn partial lessons.

It has always seemed folly to me to draw direct lines between awful events, even big ones, and the judgment of God (discussed previously here). I don’t have the insight of an Amos or Jeremiah. But the pandemic is an event of global scale. It might, and probably will, be explained eventually by things like human skulduggery, incompetence, and individual and collective stupidity. But the ability of a virus that, while not benign is certainly not the most dangerous, to bring complete global dislocation must at a minimum say something about the basic fragility of modern life. Indeed, the pandemic has surely alerted us that to the fact that some of the most welcome aspects of modern life have amplified the dangers posed by the virus itself. International air travel, a boon to education, commerce and leisure in recent years, has facilitated rapid, global spread of the virus and its variants. The internet and social media, which have so improved communication and information transmission, have been used to transmit conspiracy theories and vaccine scepticism, depressing take-up in some quarters, with the attendant increased risk to health and life. Yes, science and technology have provided remarkably effective vaccines in a record short time, and this has saved lives. But the basic point stands – modern life is fragile, more fragile than we realised, and perhaps in some ways more fragile than in the past.

The virus is one evolving global tragedy, but it come at the time of of another - climate change. The UK Met office issued its first “extreme heat warning” this week. This follows record hot temperatures in North America, and freak summer floods in continental Europe. These events have either cost lives or are projected too. This is on the back of other disturbing evidence of the climate change scientists have been warning about for decades. The human cause of climate change is much less disputable than the proximate cause of the pandemic. Over decades rather than years, we face the severe consequences of what we have been doing to the planet. The scale of the action required to mitigate the effects of these action has begun to foment protests. But there is no sign of most of us really getting our heads round what is required to avoid what is coming. Much of this can be understood in (far from simple) naturalistic terms. Models can be built. Projections made. But are there deeper lessons?

For what its worth, here is my tentative thinking so far. The Bible closes with the book of Revelation, in which, among other things, a series of disasters is described. I had always thought of these as occurring over short periods of time, with a purpose that was quite obvious to those experiencing them. As a reader of Revelation I know that they serve to demonstrate to the whole of humanity that ignoring God, rebelling against Him, and living without reference to Him is self-defeating and ultimately only leads to unescapable judgment. Unfortunately, this isn’t the lesson that is learned from those suffering them. However, Revelation is highly symbolic and there is nothing in the text that demands that what is outlined occurs over short periods. So could infolding disasters like the pandemic and climate change, be two such calls to reassess where we stand in relation to the God who created the world that we are despoiling?

We appear to be in a transition out of the pandemic at least. The practical, political and medical lessons should all be learned. We’ll see if they are. But the clamour and rush for a return to “normality” should not drown out deeper lessons that could be, and perhaps need to be learned.

Life in the pandemic XXVIII More atheist wobbling…..

I’ve got a lot of respect for honest atheists. They have a long and interesting heritage. Many are thoughtful about why they think as they do, and the problems it creates for them. They have concluded that there is no God, some because they find the evidence wanting, others because they reject the implications of there being a God. Some are of course thoroughly religious; many Buddhists are, as a matter of definition, atheists. Others have a problem as much with religion as with the idea of God. I don’t think atheism has gone away, nor do I think it will. But it I do think it is having a bit of a hard time.

I’m not going to discuss here the particular brand of atheism called “new atheism”, because I’ve touched on it before. It is/was fairly ignorant of its antecedents and forebears, and equally ignorant of many of the things it sought to criticise. As I’ve noted its death has been announced. Even other atheists have pointed out that “it contains little that is novel or interesting”¹. It would be tasteless to pick on it in its weakened state. Indeed it would be to indulge in what some of its adherents were prone to do: pick on the worst and most ludicrous examples of theism, claim that they were representative or typical, illustrate their folly, ridicule them thoroughly with a mixture of argument and brilliant wordplay, and then claim to have destroyed the intellectual respectability of all theism. Straw manism at it glorious worst.

But on this occasion something different caught my eye. An article by Jonathon Van Maren recently appeared entitled “Grave MenFacing a Grave Faith”, and was picked up by a number publications and blogs. It deserves a wide reading. It begins with interview excerpts from historian Niall Ferguson, but goes on to discuss the views of other atheists and agnostics such as Douglas Murray and Tom Holland (he of the recently published Dominion, discussed here). Among other things, Ferguson is quoted as having concluded that “atheism, particularly in its militant forms, is really a very dangerous metaphysical framework for a society.” He thinks that in the church (although not necessarily in faith it would seem) we have a good framework for an ethical system that can support those values he holds most dear, essentially those that he was brought up with. Certainly what theism, particularly Christian theism provides, is something more than what has so far emerged from a Godless and purposeless evolutionary process.

For Murray a major worry is how to support key ideas such as human equality and the sanctity of life. These and other Judeo-Christian concepts find their foundations in the Bible. But the Bible is only of passing literary interest if it is not, or does not contain, the word of God. If God, and His Bible, are repudiated (as of course they both widely are) can these values (and along with them the “liberal, democratic West”) survive? According to Murray, Ferguson and others, atheism and secularism seem to be having a hard time providing secure foundations for ideas which they claim are foundational to the kind of society they want to live in. I’ve no doubt that this is something that might very well be disputed by others. They might point out that on one hand human misery and suffering continued apparently unabated all through a period when “Christian” values had been in the ascendant. And on the other hand there are lots of non-Biblical, non-God (or god) dependant ethical systems to choose from. Both of these contentions are true. But many of these alternatives seem to allow things that Ferguson et al are uncomfortable with, and don’t provide sufficient support for the sort of society they have been living in, and want to live in. Then there are some systems which are clearly based on non-Christian and even atheistic ethics that do appear to making progress in the world today. Returning to Ferguson, he sees totalitarianism as “gaining ground not only in China but in subtle ways in our own society”. He sees totalitarianism as a danger and as a source of disasters; this he says is one of the major lessons of the 20^th century. It is a lesson that we appear to be forgetting in the 21^st. And with the demise of Christianity, he is making the case that we are losing an important bulwark against such systems and the unacceptable ethics that flow from them.

All well and good. But it’s not clear to me that what Ferguson, Murray and the rest miss is really Christianity. They seem to hark back to aspects of a bygone culture in which they felt comfortable (if only in retrospect). Ferguson’s parents left the Church of Scotland to bring him up “in a Calvinist ethical framework but with no God”; Murray doesn’t like the Church of England giving up “the King James Bible and The Book of Common Prayer”. What they really appear to miss is good old-fashioned 18^th century Deism, not Christianity. Deism was precisely an attempt to remove supernaturalism in general and the revealed God in particular from Christianity, in the hope of leaving a philosophical and ethical edifice that would still have some coherence and benefit. No cross, no blood, no God – but no good. The last three hundred years have shown that this is unsustainable. Deism degenerated into atheism, and what we appear to be hearing from at least some atheists are stirrings of discontent as chickens come home to roost and pennies drop.

Christianity is much more than an ethical code. At its centre is a transforming and sustaining personal relationship with Jesus, crucified, risen, ascended and returning. Take Him out of the equation and you might have an ethical system that is coherent (and many would argue that you do not), but you do not have one that is convincing, satisfying or sustainable in the long term, for individuals or for societies.

1. John Gray “Seven types of atheism”, p7

Life in the pandemic XXVII Explaining stuff is hard…..

You might think that there are oh so many things that need explaining. We still don’t really know where the virus came from. There are lots of folk who think they can explain this, or at least want us to think they can. It’s all down to the malevolence of the Chinese Communist Party we are told. Even if the CCP did not release the virus deliberately, they were up to no good in a lab in Wuhan, got sloppy, and it escaped. The rest is history. Now this might be the correct explanation for what transpired. But it is fair to say that outside of the CCP no-one really knows, and of course it would naïve to expect the CCP to be particularly forthcoming. For their part they’ve been keen to push a counter-explanation suggesting that it is all a CIA plot to tarnish China. Closer to home with over 50% of the UK fully vaccinated (ie over 30M people have now had two doses of vaccine), there are still those who pop up on the news saying they will not be vaccinated because no one has explained to their satisfaction how the vaccines work, and how they can be sure that they are safe. And notwithstanding the success of the vaccination campaign in the UK, no one has yet explained to Dominic Cummings satisfaction how Matt Hancock managed to keep his job for so long. So many people, in search of so many explanations, for so many different things. Someone is going to be disappointed. And all of this is before you get to explaining really tricky stuff like why are we here? Why is there a “here” in the first place? Did God really do it or was there nothing to “do”? I’ve been giving some thought to explanations.

The first odd thing about them is that they are not always required. In fact, in contrast to where I began, they are only really required on the odd occasion. There are lots of things that all of us don’t need, and don’t expect, explanations for. Despite the heroic mathematical efforts of Newton and his successors, I don’t really need someone to explain gravity to me. The basics I get. If I step off of a tall building, nothing good will come of it. It’s not so much that I would be happy with absolutely any explanation for why I would plummet to the ground (what philosophers call “folk” explanations), it’s more that I don’t feel in need of any explanation at all. In fact, I’m so not interested in gravity, it’s only when it is somehow thwarted that my interest is peaked and I’m likely to go in search of an explanation. This is particularly the case when on the basis of that explanation I might consider taking some risk or other. So while I’m not particularly interested in gravity, I am interested in what keeps aeroplanes in the sky.

However, it is worth pointing out that even in this case my interest only goes so far. I suppose if I was really that bothered I would have done a degree in aeronautical engineering (I actually did a degree in Physiology and then a PhD in Neurobiology). So as I’ve pointed out before, what I actually do is put my trust (or to use another word my faith) in the people who did do their degrees in aeronautical engineering, and have designed safe aeroplanes. Of course I do this in the full knowledge that because designing and building aeroplanes is a human activity it will be flawed, along with other activities like fuelling, operating and maintaining aircraft. But in the absence of evidence that aeroplanes fall out of the sky every day (which they don’t), I’m prepared to fly and so defy gravity, if only in a well explained and therefore well understood way (at least in principle if not actually in personal fact).

It seems that I am prepared to accept as a good explanation one that provides either me, or people I trust, with some suitable level of understanding. And the level of understanding required is likely to vary depending on the extent to which I might be risking something if the explanation turns out to be wrong. Any explanation that is likely to satisfy me is likely to satisfy you provided that we are prepared to run the same risks, have the same priorities and are prepared to trust the same people. But this is where the trouble starts. The levels of risk we are prepared to take may be different for perfectly understandable reasons. The levels of trust we are prepared to place in different individuals, groups, bodies or authorities is also likely to vary. So while I might be prepared to accept a given explanation, you might not. And in all of this, I haven’t yet mentioned what we would both likely think is the most important criterion that should be applied to any explanation – the extent to which it actually is the true explanation for whatever it is we want to explain. That of course is assuming that true explanations are ever possible at all.

Given this it should come as no surprise that intelligent people disagree even about when something needs and explanation. In a famous BBC radio debate in 1948 on the existence of God between Frederick Copleston and Bertrand Russell, they couldn’t agree on whether an explanation was required for the existence of the universe. Copleston thought that the existence of the universe, that there is something rather than nothing, just cried out for an explanation. But Russell replied "The Universe is just there, and that's all there is". All other things being equal, there probably is no objective way to choose between these alternatives. But in this case all other things are not exactly equal. For most of human history, and in most of the world today, most human beings appear to have felt and appear to feel that there needs to be an explanation for the existence of something rather than nothing, and that the explanation is to be found in outside the material and the natural. Now even although this observation is data of a sort, it doesn’t mean that this feeling is an accurate guide as to how things really are. It all may be an illusion, perhaps a psychological by-product of our so-called “big brains”.

However, there is a Biblical explanation for this intuition that there is something more going on than the stuff we can see, hear, touch, smell and feel.  According to Ecclesiastes 3:11, “He has put eternity into man’s heart” – it’s designed in, by a God who is there. Add to that inner intuition the external self-revelation of God through the created order of things (the “sort” of universe we find ourselves in), the specific revelation of God in the Bible, and the (admittedly fallible) experience of many thousand if not millions of believers over centuries. This points me to not just the existence of an explanation for who we are, why we’re here, and where we’re headed, but to what that explanation is. It seems to me that while explaining even hard stuff is hard, it is not impossible.

Life in the pandemic XXVI Words and the “death” of postmodernism

I have led a fairly sheltered intellectual and academic existence, just one of many advantages working on the science side of a modern University campus. Modern universities don’t really operate as universities of course. Ideally a university should be a community of scholars with cross-fertilization of ideas across a wide range of disciplines and outlooks. The idea is that even very different disciplines can enlighten and stimulate each other. I can’t be the only scientist to whom good ideas have come while sitting in a seminar whose topic is light years away from some current piece of gristle I’ve been chewing on. However, someone once quipped that academia is the business of getting to know more and more about less and less. On this logic, professors know everything about nothing. Would it be remiss of me to point out that I’m a mere Reader? But it is a fact that we tend to hunker down in ever tighter intellectual cliques and tribes as time and careers progress. Eventually the cell and molecular biologists rarely see those who work on the behaviour of whole organisms, never encounter those (still within the scientific family) who reside in the departments of the physical (as opposed to biological) sciences, and are barely aware of those mythical creatures across the road (actually usually across several roads) who deal in words or thought, sound or pictures. That said, such isolation does have its advantages.

Most of us in the scientific world are probably best described as “modern” in the way we go about our task. This doesn’t sound too bad until you understand that since the 1960s or thereabouts, “modernism” has been seen as dangerous tomfoolery by many of our more arty colleagues who generally consider themselves post-modernists. Modernism is that post-enlightenment mode of thinking that elevates human reason as the key tool for obtaining objective knowledge about the world around us, providing a sure way for humanity to progress. It has been both powered and validated by the apparent success of science and technology. However, it has always had its critics. Romanticism in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries was an early harbinger of trouble ahead. While the power and success of science seemed hard to deny, the materialism that usually accompanied modernity (and it was sometimes a radical materialism) seemed to leave something important out of the account. And the kind of progress science and technology generated wasn’t always perceived as an unalloyed good. The same industrialisation that provided economic progress for many, spawned dark satanic mills for some. Diseases may have been conquered, but poverty killed thousands. And even scientific endeavour had some ugly pseudoscientific offspring in the form of movements like social Darwinism and eugenics.

Bubbling away under the surface were the intellectual forces that eventually led to the “postmodernism” that emerged in the 1960s, sweeping all before it. Or at least it appeared to. Defining postmodernism is a bit like trying to eat soup with a fork; it’s an enterprise doomed to failure. But definitions abound. Britannica defines it as “a late 20th-century movement characterized by broad scepticism, subjectivism, or relativism; a general suspicion of reason; and an acute sensitivity to the role of ideology in asserting and maintaining political and economic power.” Postmodernism came to be seen as a broad attack on the kind of reason and reasoning that we thought we depended upon in science, and even on the idea that words carry meaning and allow sensible discourse about a world “out there”. There was a specifically scientific manifestation of postmodernism in the form of Kuhn’s famous book “The structure of scientific revolutions” (discussed briefly here). This sought to reduce progress in science, in which a new theory or approach displaces and old one, to a type of “conversion” experience; scientific “progress” (so Kuhn’s critics claimed) was being reduced to a series of almost irrational leaps. Not that most of us scientists were that bothered you understand. Much of this “revolution” passed us by in our isolation from such intellectual fashions.

Perhaps it was because in principle we have to deal with reality as it is (or at least as we perceive it to be). All scientist are in some sense “realists” – there is a real external world, independent of my ideas and feelings about it, that can be prodded and poked. The methods that had stood us in good stead for a couple of centuries, seemed still, indeed seem still, to serve us well. So we left our colleagues in the humanities and social sciences to argue the toss over who was oppressing whom by this or that word or sentence, continued to prod and poke, wrote up and published our results, refined and refuted, and generally just got on with things. Admittedly, neither we nor our students thought as hard as we should have done about the thinking we were actually doing (something I lamented here). But, as the pandemic has demonstrated, it’s probably just as well that we did "just get on with it". Some of the most powerful tools that have led to effective vaccines being delivered in record time stem from just quietly beavering away. And perhaps that’s why, particularly in the pandemic, postmodernism appears to be in big trouble. At least in its more extreme forms it has been unmasked as is a diversion, an entertainment and an indulgence that can’t cope with hard realities. The science that is now saving lives has turned out to be more important than academic word games.

Personally, while not a complete fan of modernism (reason has always had its limits), some of postmodernism’s contentions always seemed ridiculous to me. There is a whole strand that prizes obscure language and then seeks to claim that reason must always be subverted by slippery communication with mixed motives. Words cannot be trusted to accurately convey meaning, they are inevitably ambiguous. The problem is that the proponents of these views apparently thought this only applied to other people’s words; their words were to be taken at face value. But this has to be a sort of self-refuting proposition. But it gets worse. It was the postmoderns’ deliberately obscure and convoluted language that turned out to be easily subverted and exploited by parody.

Famously, the physicist Alan Sokal composed a nonsense paper and submitted it to a prominent academic journal (Social Text). The paper went through the normal (rigorous?) review processes of the journal, and was accepted for publication in a revised form. It was, in Sokal’s words “brimming with absurdities and blatant non sequiturs” but was actually published in a special edition of the journal. The aftermath of the hoax, and the debate which followed, are detailed by Sokal and Bricmont in their book “Intellectual Impostures”. This was not a one off. In 2018 essentially the same thing was done on a much larger scale. Twenty fake papers were submitted to a number of prominent academic journals, bastions of postmodern thought in various forms. Of the 20 papers, seven were accepted for publication, and most of the others might well have been had not the perpetrators called time on their hoax. Only six of the twenty were thrown out. This was a field in trouble.

It turns out the trouble may be have been terminal. Having almost missed the “death”of new atheism, I may actually have missed the death of postmodernism. Before some of us had even begun to grapple with it at our end of the campus, Alan Kirby was writing in “Philosophy Now” that we all really should be post-postmodernists. That was back in 2006. It seems that words do convey meaning, and reason is reasonable again.  Some of us never thought anything different.