TOKENS PODCAST: S4E9
The X-Club and the back-room invention of the supposed war between science and faith, with astro-physicist and theologian David Wilkinson of Durham University. Wilkinson exhibits the opposite tendency: pursuing scientific inquiry, including the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence, out of his own Christian faith. Plus commentary on the ways the “new atheists” are more like fundamentalists than like common scientific practitioners, and the ways they miss the most basic understanding of Christian theology.
ABOUT THE GUEST
David Wilkinson is Principal of St John’s College, Durham University, and a lecturer in the Department of Theology and Religion. He teaches preaching and apologetics and contributes to a range of other courses. He is also the Principal Investigator for the science-engaged theology project Equipping Christian Leadership in an Age of Science (ECLAS).
He holds PhDs in both theoretical astrophysics and systematic theology. His current work involves the relationship of the Christian faith to contemporary culture, from science to pop culture. He also has current interests in the media, preaching, missiology and Christian communication.
He is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day and travels widely to speak and broadcast on the relationship of science and faith.
ABOUT TOKENS SHOW & LEE C. CAMP
Tokens began in 2008. Our philosophical and theological variety shows and events hosted throughout the Nashville area imagine a world governed by hospitality, graciousness and joy; life marked by beauty, wonder and truthfulness; and social conditions ordered by justice, mercy and peace-making. We exhibit tokens of such a world in music-making, song-singing, and conversations about things that matter. We have fun, and we make fun: of religion, politics, and marketing. And ourselves. You might think of us as something like musicians without borders; or as poets, philosophers, theologians and humorists transgressing borders.
Lee is an Alabamian by birth, a Tennessean by choice, and has sojourned joyfully in Indiana, Texas, and Nairobi. He likes to think of himself as a radical conservative, or an orthodox liberal; loves teaching college and seminary students at Lipscomb University; delights in flying sailplanes; finds dark chocolate covered almonds with turbinado sea salt to be one of the finest confections of the human species; and gives great thanks for his lovely wife Laura, his three sons, and an abundance of family and friends, here in Music City and beyond. Besides teaching full-time, he hosts Nashville’s Tokens Show, and has authored three books. Lee has an Undergrad Degree in computer science (Lipscomb University, 1989); M.A. in theology and M.Div. (Abilene Christian University, 1993); M.A. and Ph.D. both in Christian Ethics (University of Notre Dame, 1999).
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TRANSCRIPT
Lee: This is Tokens. I'm Lee C. Camp.
You know we love breaking down false dichotomies. And we're back to one of our favorite dichotomies to debunk: the presupposition of an inherent conflict between science and Christian faith. And this week, our story-telling includes secretive conversations at a place called The X-Club.
David: And a number of eminent scientists of the day gathered together for a series of dinners and political discussions.
Lee: And it was in such a discussion that one of the great contributions to the supposed war between science and religion was, well, invented.
David: And the academic humanity in terms of the history of science and religion have been tearing their hair up for generations to say that that conflict model was actually created in the 19th century.
Lee: That's Dr. David Wilkinson, astrophysicist and Professor of Theology and Religion at Durham University. His life and career have long inhabited a space that, in the public eye, often involves great supposed tension: that is, he is both a practicing scientist and a practicing Christian.
David: And I found myself with this Christian faith and this increasing interest in science, and the two went together.
Lee: Much of David's work is geared towards opposing this supposed warfare between science and religion.
David: We hear about Galileo and we hear about Darwin and they trotted out as proof texts of conflict between science and religion. Now we know that that's not true.
We can't reduce history to this over simplistic conflict model, because it doesn't do justice to the granularity, the texture, the fascination, actually of history.
There is some conflict, but it reduces the wealth or the fruitful nature of a dialogue, by just focusing on the bits where in history or today there are tensions.
Lee: David Wilkinson, astrophysicist and theologian, coming right up.
INTERVIEW
Lee: David Wilkinson is the current Principal of St. John's College, Durham, and a Professor in the department of Theology and Religion at Durham University. He's the author of several books on the relationship between science and religion. He has a PhD in Astrophysics and is a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.
In addition, he's a Methodist minister, theologian and frequent speaker across multiple platforms on the relationship between science and religion, regular contributor on thought for the day on BBC radio four. Welcome Dr. Wilkinson.
David: Thank you, Lee. Good to be with you.
Lee: It's a pleasure to have you with us here. You're from England, a native from England?
David: I am. I grew up in the Northeast of England in Durham, which is about 240 miles North of London, and, I grew up there. I spent time in other cities around England, particularly Cambridge and then Liverpool. But it's nice to come back to the place of my birth in the Northeast of England in Durham.
Lee: Very good. You've been there how long?
David: I've been, nearly 20 years now in this phase of, life and ministry. And we feel very settled to you.
Lee: Yes. Yeah. You've probably never heard of my hometown Talladega, Alabama.
David: Well only in the sense of, connecting it, I think with the Will Ferrell movie…
Lee: Oh yes.
David: … of NASCAR driving, which I just think is fantastic. And I I've done a little bit of work, on the subject of intercessory prayer. And one of my illustrations is that scene from that movie where the
Lee: The sweet little baby, sweet little baby Jesus.
David: Little baby Jesus.
Lee: Yeah, yeah.
David: Where the family gather around the dinner table with the most brilliant, portrayal of not just American Christianity, if I may, but worldwide Christianity in terms of that blend of prayer and consumerism, and actually a key question, really?
Who is Jesus? So it's great. It's a great, piece of the movie.
Lee: Yeah. I think it's a brilliant piece of satire. It's pretty, pretty terribly insightful. Well, thanks so much for being with us today. I would imagine we might have a few people listening who do not know what an astrophysicist does.
David: I'm not the only one. So I've often wondered myself. Uh, it's the type of thing that when you say to that, people at parties, they go, oh really? And then move quickly to talk to the accountant at the other end of the room.
Lee: Yeah, it's kind of like telling people that you're a theologian and then they immediately want to change the subject.
David: Indeed, but astrophysics is very simple.
It's twinkle, twinkle little star. How I wonder what you are. That's basically what astrophysics is about. The only trouble is that astrophysicists reply: up above the world so high, a contracting ball of hot hydrogen gas undergo nuclear fusion. It doesn't quite rhyme in the same way, but for a number of years later, I worked on how stars form and die, how galaxies, which are collections of a hundred billion stars, how they evolve over time.
And where all of the matter, the hydrogen, the form, the stars and galaxies comes from, and what we think is a reasonably good model, which is the hot, big bang model, which describes the origin of the universe. Some 13.8 billion years ago. So that was the main area of my work. And have to say that I wasn't one of those scientists who spent lots of time looking through a telescope.
I was normally in front of a computer screen with equations and programs and trying to work out what my colleagues who were looking through telescopes were actually observing.
Lee: Yeah, fascinating. How did you discover a love of science?
David: It came later in life. I wasn't the type of child who built a telescope at the age of four or, anything of that sort. I was interested in some of the questions of science and I knew I was, reasonably good at mathematics. So when it came to go to university, I have to admit that one of the motives for me was could I do a subject where I wouldn't have to work too hard because I had this strange passion that the English have for the game of cricket.
And I thought I was not too bad at cricket, and I could play some cricket at university. And I knew that if I did something with mathematics, then I wouldn't have to write these very long essays that historians and other state. What happened at the age of 17, however, was that I became a Christian and, this, with hindsight pushed me towards a love of science in a very odd way.
And that was that as I began to study the creation from a perspective of seeing it as creation by the one who I was encountering in the lifetime and resurrection of Jesus. So what God had created became even more interesting. And then as one goes on inside, you find that actually it's, much more interesting anyway, because no longer are you left with experiments that people at school have done generations before you.
But you start to be able to see that science is open-ended, it's interested, it's asking questions. It doesn't always get the right answers. There are theories such as quantum theory and relativity, which just blow apart your conceptions of common sense. These are ways which expand the imagination. And I found myself with this Christian faith and this increasing interest in science and the two went together, sometimes posing difficult questions, but often increasing my excitement with both.
Lee: Given your early leaning into science at the same time, just coming to Christian faith, I would imagine your perspective on the perceived warfare between science and religion, so-called. You've had a different sort of seat to watch that unfold. So what have been kind of some of the major concerns or things that you've noticed from your particular perspective about that so-called warfare model of science and faith?
David: You're absolutely right, Lee. I came into this not aware of a warfare as such, because I was living a really interesting dialogue between science and faith within my own life. And although I saw that there were difficult questions often that faith was posing for science. And sometimes that science was posing for faith.
I'd had this sense when I became a Christian that if Jesus is Lord, he should be Lord over everything, not just what I did on a Sunday, but what I did, in the lecture room or the lab during the week. But then seeing some of this conflict played out, particularly in the media. And with certain celebrity scientists who took a very atheistic line. I found myself at times, quite frustrated, quite frustrated that actually this wasn't the experience of a whole load of scientists like myself who found faith and science to go together.
Frustrated a little bit by certain voices in the media who felt that in order to entertain, you had to bring people into conflict. So you had to set up big debates between, people at different ends of the spectrum and the voices of those in the middle weren't represented. And then I think I was a little frustrated at some of my Christian friends.
Christian brothers and sisters who fell into this conflict approach, as much as the new atheist fell in. It, it was just the new atheists were saying science and no theology. And some of my Christian friends were saying theology and no science.
It was the same conflict model, but it was being used at different ends of the theological spectrum.
But I think sometimes science is difficult and faith is difficult. There is some conflict, but it reduces the wealth or the fruitful nature of a dialogue, by just focusing on the bits where in history or today there are tensions.
Lee: So, talk to us a bit more about the new atheists, the sort of militant atheist. I think that I've often had the experience through the last couple of decades when I read some of the militant or so-called new atheists. I'll read their description of theology or I'll read their description of, what, or who they're calling God. And I'll often come away from that thinking, well, I do not believe in the God they do not believe in either. And it seems to me that oftentimes, they seem to be characterized by a sort of maybe secular fundamentalism that I also just is not very convincing to me, but I don't know, what's your take on that?
David: No. I agree with that completely, so that, their understanding of Christian theology. For instance, the central tenant of Christian theology is that God reveals himself to us. We don't work at God by logical arguments. We don't get to God through our minds, but God and his love shows us himself, particularly in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
And often people haven't grasped that as they attack Christianity. But I think there are two other areas which I feel frustrated about the militant atheist about the first is I don't recognize often their understanding of science. This is often a reductionist view of science, which says that everything can be explained by science.
And we know that actually science is successful because it only explained certain things, but not everything. To use a well-worn illustration. What is a kiss? Well, the kiss is the approach of two pairs of lips, the reciprocal transmission of carbon dioxide and microbes, and the juxtaposition of two orbicular muscles in a state of contraction.
That's a case in scientific terms. But if I go to my wife this evening, and I say to Alison, let me get together with you for a mutual transmission of carbon dioxide and microbes, she would say, get lost. You see in that context of a kiss. You don't talk about the carbon dioxide in microbes, which are true.
There are other concepts such as purpose, meaning low value, which are also true. So I don't recognize a view of science, which says that science explains everything.
Lee: Which I guess is self. If I may, I guess that's, that's a sort of, faith stance itself, isn't it?
I guess some ways, philosophically, what logical positivism you think, everything can be reduced to this sort of way of knowing which is itself, not something revealed through the scientific method.
Is that fair enough to say?
David: Absolutely right. Logical positivism, which was very popular in the mid part of the 20th century really is not recognized by most practicing scientists.
Quick intrusion here: "logical positivism" is a philosophical claim that the only meaningful statements are one's which can be verified either through logic or empirically verified: that is, the only thing that counts as knowledge is something that can be verified through analytical thought, or through observation through the senses or in scientific experiments. Any claims that fall outside these parameters are thought then to be meaningless, or nonsense. I'm suggesting here that this sort of view of science, which is anti-theological at its heart, is itself a sort of faith-statement.
This is sometimes where philosophies of science don't encompass the field of science, for example, falsification, famously part of that whole movement.
I mean, as a practicing scientist, you don't go out to falsify your own paper.
Lee: Yeah.
David: You don’t want to do that.
Lee: Right. Yes.
David: What you actually do is build a picture based on evidence and what is the best model. And you know, that that has, a complexity to it, which is about working as part of a community. And some of these philosophies of science are far too simplistic in representing the day-to-day life and the day-to-day work of scientists. And I think that's also true, if I may, Lee, about another affair, which worries me about the really strong atheists and that is an oversimplification of the history. And so alongside the simplification of theology and the simplification of science, I think they bought into that all, history about science and religion is conflict.
And then we hear about Galileo and we hear about Darwin and they trotted out as proof texts of conflict between science and religion. Now we know that that's not true. And the academic community in terms of the history of science and religion have been tearing their hair up for generations to say that that conflict model was actually created in the 19th century.
And some of this history was rewritten, for political purposes. In fact, the Galileo affair is fascinating because it invokes authority of church and, science. It involves philosophy, particularly Aristotelian philosophy. It's not just about Galileo against the Bible. And when we get to Darwin, we know that there were a whole number of Christians who responded in a whole number of different ways to Darwin at the end of the 19th century. Some very positive about Darwin, some negative.
We can't reduce history to this over simplistic conflict model, because it doesn't do justice to the granularity, the texture, the fascination, actually of history.
Lee: Would you speak more about the political purposes behind the warfare model developing in the 19th century?
David: In the 19th century, Thomas Henry Huxley was known as Darwin's bulldog. That's why sometimes Richard Dawkins is known as Darwin's Rottweiler. Uh, Huxley was fascinating scientist of his own, but he was also a great proponent of Darwin, but also thought very carefully about the political status of science within The United Kingdom in the 19th century, and he founded a small dining club. This was called The X-Club. And a number of eminent scientists of the day gathered together for a series of dinners and political discussions, and Huxley had a problem. And his problem was the Church of England. The Church of England in the 19th century controlled a great deal of science.
For example, in my own university, Durham University, in order to be the first professor of astronomy appointed in 1842, you have to be an ordained Anglican clergyman in order to be the professor of astronomy. Often bishops were presidents of the British association of science. The church funded a number of university appointments in science.
And Huxley, and I've got some sympathy with this, wanted to move science out of the control of the church, as it emerged as its own, activity with its own leaders. But in order to do that, he felt he needed to make that separation between church and science, by providing a model. And that warfare model, that conflict model was, brilliantly simple.
It could be sold in the media very well. And a number of books of the history of science religion by White and by Draper in the 19th century, with titles like the warfare of science and faith, or the conflict of science and faith were written around that time. And they took that lens of the warfare model and saw Galileo or Copernicus or Darwin through that lens.
It's a brilliant model. It became very, very popular. And of course it moved through history into new atheism and into popular culture. So you see the warfare model popping up its head in series like The Big Bang Theory or in some standup comedians that we have here in the UK, such as Ricky Gervais or Eddie Izzard or Stephen Fry.
And so the warfare model is deeply embedded within culture, not just within the science theology discourse as such.
Lee: That is fascinating. And to think of the political machinations behind that is just remarkable. So, let me imagine, somebody listening and wanting to push back a bit, let's go back to Galileo for just a moment. There, wasn't a sort of formal finding of, as I recollect.
A formal finding of heresy in the first Spanish inquisition, I guess it was 16, 16, maybe, where, I think the line was something like, because his theories contradict the plain teachings of scripture. I think that's a fairly close quote. Um, so talk to us a bit more about how you would see that episode.
David: Yeah. We've got to fill in the story a little bit because you're right. But you've got to remember that reading that has to be read against the historical background at the time. Now, one of the things that had happened was that the great theologian of the Roman Catholic Church, Thomas Aquinas, centuries before, had baptized Aristotle by which, I mean he’d taken Aristotelian philosophy and he built it within his theological picture.
And Aristotle had the earth at the center of the universe and the planets on lovely crystalline spheres around it. Now at that point, a couple of things stem from that. The first is that Aristotle and his view is not just about the earth at the center of the universe, but also how you do science and philosophy. And the Greeks to a large extent, put the emphasis on that, which is geometrically or logically beautiful as a way of working out the universe. That's why you have the sphere is the most beautiful geometric shape of the way the universe is constructed. Now, Galileo comes along and he does a fundamental thing. And most people don't recognize this, just how radicalist Galileo points his telescope at the heavens.
Now he did that because of his Christian faith. And he did that because his view was that if this God, who I see in the scriptures, is free to create however God wants, not bound by human logic or our understanding of geometry. The only way that I can fully understand what God has done is to observe the universe, to look at it.
And so you've got a clash here as Galileo comes along and says, I think Aristotle was wrong, which is not just about, the summit, the center of the solar system. It's also fundamental way of doing science by looking at the sky, rather than the tradition of the church. Now, the tradition of the church and the scriptures had become entwined into this Aristotelian philosophy. We do know that there were one or two people who use scripture to attack not just Copernicus, but also Galileo, but often using the proof texts such as from the Psalms, the earth is firmly established. It shall not be moved. But for a lot of, people following John Calvin and others, the scriptures were not a big deal in the sense that there was an understanding that God accommodates us by speaking in the scriptures in a way that we understand. So it doesn't have to be put there side by side with science. So philosophy as the way of doing science. And then as we've seen often, there were those who exercise their authority by appealing to scripture, even if scripture itself wasn't terribly clear on this. And we've seen that over lots of different contexts over the years. Now I do think that the church did get it wrong with Galileo. So let me be very clear about this. They didn't react well, but it wasn't simply a clash between scripture and the science or the science that was leading Galileo to certain statements. It was much more about the underlying philosophical understanding of how do you know what God has done.
Lee: Yeah, again, that's fascinating. I'm trying to think of a way I might summarize what I've just heard you say. And I'm experimenting with maybe, rather than seeing Galileo as an example of science versus faith as has been done, according to the warfare model, actually the Galileo affair is an example of two competing ways of thinking about the faith and how those two competing ways of thinking about the faith relate to the discipline of science.
David: Yes, exactly, Lee. I think that's right. As well as adding onto what you've just said. A really important thing, which of course, this is the time of the Reformation. This is the time about who has authority to interpret, who has authority to speak.
Lee: Right.
David: So whether the church has authority or whether science has authority, that becomes enmeshed in this discussion.
Lee: Right. Yep. Fascinating. So going back to the 19th century and the warfare model, and another thing you said earlier that one of your frustrations has been not only with the militant atheist, but also with some of your Christian brothers and sisters who have, I suppose picked up on this or presumed this warfare model.
What do you make of those Christian brothers and sisters who have picked up on that warfare model?
David: Well, I, I want to say first of all, and to emphasize that they are Christian brothers and sisters and that I think all of us don't have fine lapses to all of these questions. Now, particularly I take a different view from those sisters and brothers in Christ who take a six-day creationist view, who believed that the universe was created some 6,000 years ago, rather than 13.8 billion years ago.
I think I'm, what's called an evangelical Christian. By which in the UK setting, that means I look to the Bible as supreme authority. So this is about a distinction about the authority of the Bible. This is a distinction about how we interpret the Bible, and in the last hundred years or so, those who've taken the Bible seriously have interpreted it in different ways.
I think, first of all, that should caution all of us that our particular way may not be the final way. But my difference with those who have six day creationists is not really about the science. It's not really about the scientific arguments. It's about how you interpret the Bible's teaching on creation correctly. And for me, the first chapter of Genesis is not a scientific textbook. I think there are elements of poetry in it. I think the there are elements of polemic by which, I mean, there were attacks upon other creation myths of the ancient near East. But for me, ultimately, the first chapter of Genesis is not about when God created the universe.
It's all about who God is. It's a theological text. And indeed I'd have to say, I think to push that, I think the first chapter of Genesis is best understood as liturgy, a song of worship. So Lee, if you had the writer of Genesis one and you were interviewing them, which would be far more interesting than me, um, and you asked the question, how old is the universe?
I suspect the writer would say, to be honest, I'm not really interested in that question. What I'm interested in is just how great God is. And I want you to join me in a song of praise and wonder to the creator, God. So I think frustration, it's not just about falling into the conflict model, but it's also whether we've interpreted the early chapters of Genesis correctly, in terms of whether we've interpreted them as the writer meant us to interpret them. And it's very easy to overlay our understanding of history onto an ancient text and take from it from that filter. But I think the writer is doing something far more profound, far more interesting than just a scientific account of the universe. This is about a theological account. That God is the source of all things that God has no competitor in religion in other gods. And that we can trust in this creator, God, that he's not leaving the universe simply to develop by itself.
Lee: Yes, I, I think as well, the, you mentioned comparing it, for example, to the Babylonian creation myths. And I think when I first started, cause I grew up in a context in which, young earth creationism was rather assumed and preached rather dogmatically by some of the leaders in that community.
There there's a long, you know, like most folks who challenged those sorts of things in time, it's a long story and a long tail. But I think when I was fairly far into the process of looking at it differently, and then I began to realize the fascinating contrasts between the Babylonian creation myths and the Genesis story.
All of a sudden the Genesis story was much more fascinating and incredibly beautiful in light of that contrast. And so I, I appreciate greatly that point there.
David: And I think that's, again, spot on, quite right, because there are some biblical scholars who compared the Genesis story to some of these Babylonian stories and say, well, they’re just the same.
Lee: No, they're very, they're so different.
David: They’re so different. And so for instance, you get a number of things within the Genesis text.
Why, for example, does the writer refer to the greater light and the lesser light rather than use the names, sun and moon? That's an obvious thing to ask of the text in Genesis one. And I think part of the reason for that is the writer is having a little poke, a little dig at those cultures that believed in the sun God and the moon God.
And the writer is saying don't be silly, the sun and the moon are simply the greater light and the lesser light created by the one true creator. And then I think, one of my favorites is where the word create which is better, is used three times in Genesis one in verse one, which is, God created the heavens and the earth.
And then later on in the chapter, God created human beings. But the third time it's used is in this bizarre little phrase, which has God created the great sea monsters. Why would this special word for creation be used? Of heavens and earth, I can understand, humankind, I can understand. Why the great sea monsters? I mean, does God have a particular interest in the Free Willy trilogy of movies or is his favorite theme park SeaWorld? I mean, why? And of course, uh, as you know, and some of the Babylonian. God has to triumph over the great sea monsters before God creates. And again, the right is just having a little dig and saying, don't be so silly. Even if these great sea monsters exist, they're all created by God. It's those things that the Genesis text itself is doing, which make it far more interesting than just if we read it as young earth creationism.
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This is our interview with Dr. David Wilkinson, astrophysicist, methodist minister, and commentator on the relationship between science and religion. Coming up, we'll hear more from David about the history of the relationship between science and religion, and the ways in which the unanswered questions of both fields may be seen as opportunities for humility and wonder.
Part two in just a moment.
HALFWAY POINT
Lee: You're listening to Tokens and our interview with Dr. David Wilkinson.
You mentioned characterizing yourself as a British evangelical. And it certainly seems to me, I think I mentioned this in the interview we did a few months ago with Alister McGrath, but it all, it was always remarkable to me the first time I was in Westminster Cathedral and saw a statue of Charles Darwin. And I just thought, a lot of American Christians wouldn't have the slightest idea of what to do with, with a statue of Charles Darwin in the church. How do you think it is that British evangelicals have not had the same hang ups or the same historically contingent shape of thinking through science and faith as American evangelicals?
David: That's a fascinating question and stop me when I get boring on this, because it's really interesting. I think first of all, of course, the relationship between church and state within England is very different from other cultures. And so that sense of recognizing the role of the church in celebrating achievements of the state is much more integrated than you'd have it at the U.S. but I think the response to Darwin, had a number of factors in the UK, which weren't present in the U.S. I think the first was that there was already quite an engaged work going on.
Which had come out of the earlier part of the 19th century when British geologists had been showing the age of the earth was far longer than the 6,000 years. So Darwin didn't come as any surprise in terms of the age of the earth.
Lee: Right.
David: Or how you interpret scripture. The second thing is that, I think something happened crucially in the popular arena in the early part of the 20th century.
And I have to pay attribute here to one of my research students, who's called John Reynolds who achieved as PhD just a few years ago. And Reynolds looked at a number of celebrity scientists between the first World War and the second World War in the UK in particular. Sir Arthur Eddington, a great physicist and astronomer, popularizer of Einstein's theory of relativity.
And Sir James Jeans, who was a secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society. Both wrote widely and were read widely in popular science. They were the Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, Neil deGrasse Tyson of their day. Their books sold in extraordinary numbers. But both happened to be Christians. Both spoke quietly, thankfully, about their own Christian faith. Occasionally they've dropped the odd reference to it within their works. I think within the popular reader, you have role models of people who were saying I'm quite relaxed about both being a scientist and a Christian in some of this.
And then in that early part of the 20th century, when young earth creationism, particularly in the U.S. was beginning to be fueled by culture wars and by a number of other things. What was happening in the UK was a little bit more reserved because of the presence of some of these Christians who incarnated their Christian faith within their sites.
Now there's much more to sound that, but that just gives you a little sense of one or two things that might be different here in the UK.
Lee: Right. Yeah, that's very helpful. It reminds me of a transition I think I made at some point in the last decade, in my own teaching around some of these things. I don't teach on this stuff very much, but, when I'm kind of doing overarching narratives of scripture kind of lectures, and I'll be talking about Genesis.
Maybe, I don't know, 18 years ago, I decided I was going to stop taking a defensive tone vis-à-vis people who view Genesis in a more literal way. And simply before my students simply say, this is the way a lot of people read this text and try to exhibit, like we were talking a moment ago, exhibit the beauty of reading it in this alternative way.
Vis-a-vis the babbling and creation, myths and so forth. And it's been remarkable to watch the way students can respond so much more easily to that when we simply take the posture of, as you said, incarnating, a different way of talking about these things, all of a sudden it can be much more compelling.
And that relates to another thing that I've heard, that I think I've heard you talk about in some of your public lectures about thinking about the discipline of apologetics differently. That it need not be a sort of defensive or even an effort to prove something, but talk to us in about how you would see apologetics as a different sort of discipline.
David: I think that's something that's been very important for me, particularly within a UK environment, which is largely now post-Christian, where we do not have the large numbers of people coming to church. And many people find Christian faith, not something to be attacked, but something that's irrelevant, something that doesn't connect to their lives.
And I'm deeply grateful for the work of Professor McGrath in this area where he talks about apologetics as creating the intellectual and imaginative climate, conducive to the birth and nurture of faith. I think that's really important that it's not just about intellectual argument. It's also about imagination.
It's about music, drama, poetry, fiction. These are apologetic tools rather than just the set piece debate, which tries to prove the existence of God. I think then secondly, but I think we've often gone down a blind alley for apologetics. If we try and prove God through the classic arguments, that design argument, oh, the universe seems to be designed, therefore there's a designer, because my logical argument, what was the first cause?
These are arguments that we know actually don't work because they fundamentally don't answer the question what is God like? They might try and produce a God who, sets off the explosion or a God who, is a very good designer, but actually.
Is this a God of love? Is this a God of justice? Is this a God of holiness? And the reason is that they don't work because they don't take into account that God gives himself to us in revelation. It's a gift that we know God. But the third point, which you rightly made is that too often, apologetics has been defensive.
It's been waiting for people to attack the faith. And then when there's been an attack on the faith, we've often gone into a little classroom and a theological seminary, try to work out our best defense to the attack that's coming along so that then we can emerge from the theological seminary on a kind of little raid into secular culture and maybe convince one or two people and drag them back into the safety of the church. Now that's not the God that I believe in, who in Jesus Christ is the one who's sitting down with tax collectors and prostitutes, who's engaging in conversation with the Pharisees and those who were attacking them.
The God who is always going ahead of us and is present everywhere. And that for me is about finding ways, as McGrath again would say, to build bridges, to see where God is at work within the culture that the Holy Spirit is not confined just to the church, but the Holy Spirit is at work in science and art and comedy and fiction and music.
How do we find those bridges between where we are and where we see God at work in a way that allows the conversation for us to say, as Paul would say in Athens as I walked around, saw that you are a very religious people, but let me just say that, you're worshiping an unknown God? Now, can I tell you with generosity and with humility the God that I've experienced, see what you think?
And I think that's a different way of doing apologetics. And I actually find that in my own life and my own discipleship, that's a much more effective way of doing apologetics than by trying to argue someone into the kingdom.
Lee: You mentioned earlier that you certainly have occasions where the challenges posed by science are experienced as true challenges to faith and. Would you share with us a bit about what are to use some of the challenges for you personally to your faith by science, by cosmology, or even by the new atheists?
What are some of those…
David: Yeah, thank you.
Lee: … that you might challenge us with the most?
David: I think there are certain areas which I thought were challenges, which I think I've worked through reasonably well. So we've talked already about the first chapter of Genesis. And I grew up and thought long and hard about how to interpret the first chapter of Genesis alongside my astrophysics, talking about a universe of 13.8 billion years old.
I'm quite relaxed about that now because I've understood, I think, the nature of Genesis. There are other questions, however, which live with me and I don't have easy answers to. And the one which is true for many Christians, including myself, is the existence and the nature of evil within the universe. And I can understand some of that by bad human choices, that God gives us free will, and that leads to a certain amount of evil in the universe. But I think that the one thing which I'm still working through is the nature of what we might call natural evil. And also some of the extent of people. Now one of the things, so I used to work on as an astrophysicist was the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Why 65 million years or so ago the dinosaurs were a terrestrial mass extinction of it. And we know that not only the dinosaurs, but a number of other mass extinction events have gone on in the earth’s history. Evolution is a pretty brutal process. Earthquakes. And indeed as we're experiencing it at the moment, the development of viruses, which cause such suffering. The question there is why did God allow that? Why is the scientific description of the world leading to a view that, we can understand the universe, but also that at times it's quite fragile?
It can be disrupted either by human bad choices when we mess up the environment or just by the fragility of vulnerability of, the natural world in itself as viruses develop. Now, I don't have an easy answer to that, Lee. I certainly haven't got a 32nd soundbite to it and there are certain times where I simply have to say, I don't know.
As a scientist, that doesn't worry me because with any scientific model, there are certain things about a model that I know, and there are certain things that I don't know. I have to balance the evidence for with the evidence against. And when it comes to, do I believe that there's a God of love behind this universe?
Well, I'm confronted by some of the natural evil in the world, which might lead me in one direction to say there is no God of love, but the God that I see in Jesus of Nazareth is such strong evidence that this is a God of justice and love. That I'm able to say on naturally, well I don't know. I'm gonna work at it.
I'm going to still think about it. I'm going to think about models of how God might work in the world and how God may not work in the world, but ultimately I don't have an easy philosophical fix for this. And I hope that that shows a little bit of humility and integrity as a Christian because I don't believe that we need answers to every question. The universe is just at times too complicated for that. And the tendency for Christians to try and give answers to questions, can often lead us into very bad theology. So we try and give an answer to where evil comes from. But actually in doing that, we find that we're negating either God's power or God's love or God's justice, or the complexity of the world in itself.
So there are a whole number of things I'm still working on.
Lee: Yeah. Again, thanks for that. I, I think at some point as well, that's certainly for me is one of those that's continues to be held loosely and in process. And I think that it helped me some years ago to realize that scripture itself carries on this long debate about that question itself.
And so you've got, for example, the wisdom literature that seems to have an overly simplistic vision of the meaning of suffering of, well you do good, you get good, you do bad, you get bad. And then you have these sharp pointed critiques of that, for example, in the book of Job. And, I'm appreciative of the fact that scripture itself has been arguing about this question with a sense of lack of resolution to it for many centuries. And even I think in the crucifixion of Christ, there's a sort of, maybe even a, an exclamation point in a parentheses, maybe? In which it's being said you don't get an answer to that question, but you get a response to the question.
The response being God is suffering with us in place of us for us because of us. Which again, doesn't give us any, an easy answer as you say, but it is a response, right?
David: I think that's very well put. I think it's a response which shows us something about God, but also is a response which forms a model for our own action, because in a sense suffering is not simply an intellectual question. Suffering, goes to the heart about humanity and how we respond, in dealing with suffering either in ourselves or within our neighbor is a very important model that we get in the life and death of Jesus.
Before we get to resurrection, the trouble with a lot of Christians is that they move to quickly, uh, from, from Friday to Sunday, and even sometimes they don't even include Friday. They go from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, uh, from King to resurrection and not really pay attention to God is saying something very profound.
And it's not just about, offering us forgiveness, which I believe with all of my heart happened on the cross, but it's also about a model for how life should be lived in the midst of this fragile and often confusing world. What we see in Jesus is God's response and what can be our response in the midst of a, a broken and at times a brutal world.
Lee: So from the start, you you've shared with us, the ways in which your pursuit of the discipline of science has come alongside your Christian faith. And I'm particularly appreciative of the ways in which that holding those two disciplines, commitments, practices together, has pointed toward really big questions about what it means to be human, really big questions about what's the meaning of life, you know?
And so that makes me wonder, I've not gotten to read your work on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, but I'm I'm beginning to make up that surely that has to be something about your interest in the big questions about what it means to be human. Is that fair speculation?
David: Absolutely. I think on a whole number of levels, so my interest in extraterrestrial intelligence is a scientific interest, but it's also a theological interest. And the other part of that is what does it mean to be human? The scientists that I talk to within the SETI community are fascinated by that question.
Whether by discovering life elsewhere in the universe, it might tell us something about ourselves, by contrast, or even by relationship, because we know that we find out more about ourselves through relationship. I can tell you that by, my knowledge since being married, I mean, that's told me a whole number of things about myself that I never realized before.
But also I think theologically, it can free us from a sense that we are not the only thing that God's concerned about. God's concerned about human beings. He loved us so much that he gave his only son. That's wonderful, but God's not simply created a universe as a green screen backdrop to our lives. Actually God’s a creative God in lots of different ways.
Now, I don't know whether those little green women and little green men are out there, uh, I think the scientific jury is still open, but I think the thinking about these things allows us to aspect questions back to science and back to theology. So for instance, if there is other life elsewhere in the universe, is that part of God's purposes?
NGS, I would say. But how does, for instance, the Jesus' event, Jesus' death on the cross, how might that apply to other intelligent life forms if they are out there? And what then can theology actually contribute to science? So for instance, as we start mining the surface of the moon or colonizing Mars, what are the ethical principles that can help science to do that well?
What might we discover about ourselves in doing that? Theology is an important part to play in all of that.
Lee: We’ve been talking to Dr. David Wilkinson, theologian astrophysicist, a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. Also the author of numerous books, including God, Stephen Hawking and the Multiverse and Science, Religion, and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Thank you so much, Dr. Wilkinson for your time today.
David: Thank you, Lee. I've enjoyed it.
Lee Camp: You've been listening to Tokens: public theology, human flourishing, the good life, and our interview with astrophysicist and theologian Dr. David Wilkinson.
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Our thanks to all the stellar team that makes this podcast possible. Executive producer and manager, Christie Bragg of Bragg Management. Co-producer Jacob Lewis of Great Feeling Studios. Associate producers Ashley Bayne, Leslie Thompson, Tom Anderson, and Brad Perry. Engineer Cariad Harmon. Music beds by Zach and Maggie White and Blue Dot Sessions. And our live event production team at Stonebrook Media led by Phil Barnett.
Thanks for listening, and peace be unto thee.
Tokens podcast is a production of Tokens Media, LLC and Great Feeling Studios.
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