Freeman Dyson

Freeman Dyson is a theoretical physicist (like me) and mathematician, and a Christian (like me). His services to physics and maths you may not find so interesting, but you can believe me that they were substantial, if not a little too esoteric for most to appreciate. In particular there are some things in what we call "Many-Particle Physics" which we couldn't have done without. So perhaps with Dyson I wouldn't have a job.


Anyway, he also won the Templeton Prize for services to sprituality (or some such wording).


I got some nice quotes of his from Wikipedia. First:

Science and religion are two windows that people look through, trying to understand the big universe outside, trying to understand why we are here. The two windows give different views, but they look out at the same universe. Both views are one-sided, neither is complete. Both leave out essential features of the real world. And both are worthy of respect

Trouble arises when either science or religion claims universal jurisdiction, when either religious or scientific dogma claims to be infallible. Religious creationists and scientific materialists are equally dogmatic and insensitive. By their arrogance they bring both science and religion into disrepute. The media exaggerate their numbers and importance. The media rarely mention the fact that the great majority of religious people belong to moderate denominations that treat science with respect, or the fact that the great majority of scientists treat religion with respect so long as religion does not claim jurisdiction over scientific questions.

This is important for us Christians to remember. Of course science doesn't answer the world's religious questions. But similarly, we've got to stop using religious knowledge to dictate what science we "believe" 

Second:

Dyson disagrees with the famous remark by his fellow physicist Steven Weinberg that "Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things—that takes religion."

Weinberg's statement is true as far as it goes, but it is not the whole truth. To make it the whole truth, we must add an additional clause: "And for bad people to do good things—that [also] takes religion." The main point of Christianity is that it is a religion for sinners. Jesus made that very clear. When the Pharisees asked his disciples, "Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?" he said, "I come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance." Only a small fraction of sinners repent and do good things but only a small fraction of good people are led by their religion to do bad things.

Are we too Christocentric?

Do you ever wonder this?

At my old church in Wollongong, the slogan was 'to know Christ and make Him known'. I was always a little worried that the Father was not mentioned at all.

You can argue your way out of course: Christ is our access to God: our mediator. Jesus said that if you know him you know the Father. Of those who thought they were Christians but didn't 'get in' he says 'Truthfully, I never knew you' etc.

But surely the whole trajectory of the metanarrative of this universe is to know God. Isn't it?

Think of the parable of the travelling owner (or whatever the Bible editors call it). The owner of a place is away and so he lets it out. He sends his people to check on the place every so often, but the tenants beat them up and send them back. Eventually he sends his Son, and they kill him. When the owner returns he's furious, and his wrath is poured out on these evil tenants.

The whole point is the status of the tenants' relationship with the owner right?

And think of the Old Covenant. Jesus was completely absent (you know what I mean!). It was all about the peoples' relationship with God the Father. The original sin was committed against God.

The more I think, the more examples I can come up with. There's no argument to be had on this point. The entire point of everything is about our relationship with God.

So are we too focussed on the mediator?

Do we neglect God the father?

A new ethical concept (for me)

Firstly, once again, I must explain that I have moved house and it's been an ordeal, and so not many posts have come out of the last few weeks (did you know that German apartments don't have kitchens, curtain rails, or light fittings?)

A question occurred to me in the shower: Is it wrong to pursue something in any other way than the reasonable expectation of the actions performed within the end product? (that was a confusing question, I know). I'm not talking about utilitarianism, and I'm not talking about arguments from nature, though it does sound a little like both of these. In my reading on ethics I don't recall coming across this particular concept, but my reading in ethics is very limited.

An example: (as a Christian) the trajectory of dating is marriage. Whether someone will be a good marriage partner (however you want to define that, I don't want to get into it, but I will say that I believe physical attraction counts for something) is obviously the main criterion for 'dateability'.

But is it wrong to foster notions of romance that can not be reasonably expected within marriage? Is the world's view of romance wrong not only because of the extra-marital sex, and the 'follow your heart' at the expense of everything else mentality (etc), but also because some of the world's notions of dating and dateability and romance are unreasonable notions within marriage?

This is an ethical concept no-one has ever raised with me. It's like reverse-utilitarianism. Instead of saying that the ends justify means, I'm asking whether the means must match up with, or complement, the end.

As I say in the title, this is only new to me. I'm sure it was thought about a long time ago by someone much more intelligent. Any thoughts?

Psalm 9

Here is a sermon I preached at Nowra Baptist Church on Psalm 9 if you are interested.

Psalm 9 - Sing Because God is Just

All sin is equal

Ever heard that one? I have; in Bible Study, Church, Sunday School (many many times), and in conversation. It's quite a pervading precept of my-kind-of Christianity. But where does it come from? Nobody knows.

Now of course, in some sense, like most prevalent false statements, it has some truth to it. All sin leads to death. All sin deserves death. All sin separates us from God. Jesus blood is for all sin. And I'm sure you can come up with many others.

So if someone is using it to demonstrate that all sin needs to be dealt with, for instance in evangelism, then perhaps it's helpful.

But there is one enormously important sense in which it is categorically untrue, unbiblical, and, frankly, stupid. And that is in thinking that God has the same feelings toward all sin.

Passages abound. Almost every page of the Bible seems to have this concept. In fact, when does God ever, in the Bible, not distinguish between sins? God waits for the sins of the Amalekites to reach it's full measure. God punishes the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Ninevah, and Babylon who he called against his own people but later punished them for it. Is it that these people did 1000 sins, but other nations only did 500? Because if all sin is the same in God's eyes, then that's the only conclusion you can come to - and it's a silly one. Of course it's not about quantity! It's about quality! The sin of Sodom was really bad sin. The sin of sacrificing one's child is a particularly bad sin.

Now my Sunday School teachers assured me that 'there is no such thing as a white lie'*. I appreciate what they were getting at. Lying is bad, and claiming that nobody really got hurt does not exonerate you. But this doesn't mean there aren't really black lies does it? For the sake of not treating some sins lightly, we seem to have simultaneously rejected the notion of treating some sins heavily.  

I think this is really dangerous.

*This is a topic for another blog post. Spoiler alert: I think there is such a thing as a white lie.

(I've ranted about this before, and it may have been on this blog. I had a quick flick through and couldn't find it though, so I think I ranted about it elsewhere)

The Absurd II

A while back I talked about a book by Albert Camus, The Outsider or The Stranger, in which the main character lives and dies by the arbitrariness (?) of the universe.

This morning I was reading about the book Bear is now asleep, which is written by the father of the girl who died when she was hit by a goal-post. Remember that? Bear is now asleep is the final line of the song she was singing just before she died.

It's a terribly sad story. I really feel for this couple.

I haven't read this book. It may well be insightful and touching and worth reading. What struck me about it was (at least the editor's idea of) the point of the book.

The first section is about the random-ness of life and death. If only she'd been walking on her mum's left side, if only they'd been a couple of seconds later, or earlier etc. The final point seems to be something like life and death are random and unpredictable, but love lives forever.

This is such a sad annihilationist view of the world. It's not his little girl's love that lives on, but their memory of her. It's her legacy. It gets her nowhere, but is some sort of solace for the parents.

I just can't buy into this sort of perspective. It's one thing to think "remember how lovely she was and how much we loved her", which is great. It's another to attach some sort of existential or even meaningful weight to this. It has none.

Maybe I'm too concerned with the girl, and too little concerned with the parents, because I can't help but think you can't take love with you. Just as people say about money or clothes or other possessions, you can't take these feelings with you, and so essentially, at the end of the day (your life), feelings, like money, are meaningless (on their own).

It's sad that when someone dies one must try to attach meaning to the waste and the sadness. But there is none. Within an annihilationistic (?) worldview, the world is random and unfeeling, and I have to agree with Camus, not this poor guy.

Really sad stuff...