Month: August 2006

Pretty much everything I know about quantum theory I learned from reading Stephenen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, and I’ve always been wary of people who attempt to draw broad philosophical implications from it. To Keith Ward’s credit, though, he is pretty circumspect in his treatment of the topic.

Unlike earlier major scientific revolutions which seemed to threaten a religious view of the world, quantum theory, Ward says, actually calls into question the dogmatic materialism that gained ground in the 19th and early 20th centuries. If it tells us anything about the fundamental makeup of the universe, it’s that the old materialistic model of atoms bumping and shoving each other is not an accurate description of the constituents of the physical world. Quantum theory gives us a rather mysterious world of probability waves and particles that don’t even have a precise position and velocity until someone measures them. At its fundamental level, physical reality is literally unimaginable by us, and can only be precisely described in the language of mathematics.

While there’s no agreement on what metaphysical consequences (if any) should be drawn from this, at the very least it suggests a world in which consciousness plays a greater role in constructing the physcial world as it appears to us. Whether this takes the form of a radical Berkeleyan idealism or a more moderate Kantian idealism, it seems that there is a gap between the physical world as it appears to us and the physical world as it exists in itself.

An analogy is with perceived colour. Objects have no colour when they are not being observed, for colour arises when wave-lengths of light reflected from objects impinge on the eye and coded information is transmitted to the brain. Objects have properties that give rise to sensations of colour when observed, but colour is not an intrinsic property of objects. So in the unmeasured quantum world there are no particles with precise dynamic attributes, such as position and momentum. But on this interpretation of quantum theory, probability waves, whatever exactly they are, generate such particles when they are observed in a specific way, or when they are fixed in time by an experimental apparatus that will give a precise position or momentum when observed. (p. 86)

Some physicists, Ward says, go as far as to posit an intelligible world of mathematical “forms” as the ultimate basis of physical reality, a theory highly reminiscient of Plato. Of course, it’s difficult to see how such forms could give rise to the physical world since they aren’t really agents. Ward speculates that we might see these forms as existing in the mind of God who actualizes certain possibilities.

Such ‘perfect’ intelligible Forms, perhaps the basis of the ‘hidden’ world of quantum physics, might themselves be realities that exist in some form of consciousness. The reason for thinking this is that the intelligible world is a fundamentally mathematical or conceptual world. If we hold, with most mathematicians, that mathematics is in some sense a construct of minds, and if mathematical truths are objective, if they exist apart from any human mind, then the natural conclusion is that they are constructs of a non-human, objective mind, the mind of God. (pp. 87-88)

Ward recognizes that there are several interpretations of quantum physics and that God is by no means the only way for accounting for it. But, he contends, quantum physics does indicate that “old-style atomist materialism is dead” and “quantum physics opens up the possibility of understanding mind and consciousness as much more integrally involved in the basic structure of physical reality than anyone might previously have suspected” (p. 88).

This stuff is all way too slippery for me to feel much confidence in the argument. Perhaps the best that can be said of it is the same that can be said of any version of the cosmological argument: However we conceive the basis of physical reality, its contingency at least raises the question of whether there is a God who brings it into being. As Diogenes Allen argues in his book Christian Belief in a Postmodern World, questions like “Why does the universe (or the collection of finite beings) exist at all?” and “Why does nature have this order rather than some other possible order?” are meaningful questions which point to the possibility of God, even if they don’t admit of definitive answers.

Ward takes the theory of evolution as established, at least in its main outlines, but he does question some of the interpretations often given of evolution, especially by “evangelical atheists” like Richard Dawkins. While it’s possible to see evolution as simply an interplay of randomness and the pressures of survivial, it’s also possible, he thinks, to discern some kind of tendency toward greater complexity, toward consciousness and intelligence. For one thing, it’s now believed that if the values of ceratin fundamental constituents of the universe, such as the strong and weak nuclear forces, were even slightly different the emergence of life as we know it, much less intelligent life, would’ve probably been impossible. The universe starts to look like it was “fine-tuned” to allow for the emergence of beings very much like ourselves.

So likewise in the case of the evolution of life on Earth. Ward suggests that there are reasons for thinking that consciousness and intelligence describe an evolutionary “niche” that tendencies inherent in the structure of the universe will seek to fill. That is, “given suitable sorts of progressive genetic change, there will be some organisms that climb to fill the ecological space available for intelligent agents” (p. 65). If this is right, then it wouldn’t be such a vast leap of speculation to think that a supremely intelligent creator might intend the evolutionary process to create finite personal beings who can appreciate the intelligibility and beauty of the universe, and, perhaps, enter into relationships with the creator.

Of course, evolution presents its own set of problems. One is that the process of evolution, with its competitive, frequently bloody, struggle for survival is incompatible with the purposes of a benevolent or loving God. The other is that a slow evolutionary development of life and humankind in particular seems to contradict the Christian doctrine of the fall from a paradisical state. According to evolutionary doctrine, death and suffering long preceded the existence of humans and, in fact, are an inextricable part of the very process by which living things came to be. This doesn’t necessarily rule out a historical fall of human beings into sin, but it does seem to rule out the idea that death and suffering as such are consequences of humankind’s fall (barring backwards causation!).

Ward’s solution is to invoke a kind of Leibnizian account of the creation of the word. The basic idea here is that there is a multiplicity (perhaps an infinity) of “possible worlds” which exists in the divine mind. God chooses which world (or worlds) to actualize. But each world comes as a package deal, so to speak. For God to choose to create a world that contains creatures like us, for instance, would seem to entail choosing to create a world that contained the processes necessary to bring us into being, namely the evolutionary process in all its messiness. We may think we can imagine a world that contained creatures like us which didn’t contain a process that allowed for suffering and death, but Ward cautions that we should be skeptical about this. The various parts of the universe, as we’ve seen, are interconnected at a very fundamental level, and it’s far from clear that you can have one part without its concommitants. If God wants to create a universe which is relatively self-organizing and which gives rise to intelligent life from its own internal resources, then God may have no choice but to create a world with a ceratin amount of suffering. “[I]f God opts for a law-like universe, it is impossible for God to determine everything for the best” (p. 67).

But, it may be objected, is God not omnipotent? Can God not do absolutely anything God wants? I think that is far too antrhopomorphic a view of God. We imagine a being that can do absolutely anything – like creating a universe of conscious physical beings evolving by natural selection without any pain at all – and presume that such a being could really exist. But how could we know this? We have no idea what a supremely intelligent mind would be like and what constraints there might be on what it could do.

We can say that God is omnipotent, if we mean that there is no possible power greater than that of God, and all power derives from the being of God. Such a being would be the most powerful being there could ever be, and there could be no power that could oppose it or destroy it. What more could we want? Yet such omnipotence might not be able to change absolutely anything. It could not, for example, change its own essential nature, and in that nature are rooted all the interconnected possibilities of being that are necessarily what they are. (p. 73)

In other words, if God chooses to actualize a particular kind of world, then there may be certain attendant evils which are inextricable parts of that world. I think there are a few premises that it might help to identify in order to get a better look at Ward’s argument here:

(1) All possible worlds are necessarily what they are.

(2) At least some of the evils contained in some possible worlds are necessarily connected with certain goods contained in those worlds.

(3) God cannot, without constant miraculous intervention, actualize the goods of a possible world without actualizing its attendant evils.

(4) God has sufficient reasons for actualizing a world (or worlds) which generally follows law-like patterns without intervening constantly to counteract or prevent the evils it contains.

So, God would be justified in actualizing a world containing certain evils in order to actualize certain goods for which those evils are necessary preconditions.

(1) seems true, indeed necessarily so. (2) is plausible given what we know about evolution and the conditions which were necessary to give rise to creatures like us. (3) seems to follow given (1) and (2); if certain evils are necessary preconditions for the existence of certain goods, then the only way to acheive those goods in that particular world would be by miraculous intervention. (4) is more difficult to assess. I take it that a world which unfolded according to certain law-like patterns and contained its own immanent principles that allowed life to develop is a good thing, but it’s hard to know if it is such a great good that it outweighs the evils which could presumably have been prevented by miraculous intervention. Of course, this is a problem for any thestic view, not just an evolutionary one. All theists are faced with the question of why God doesn’t miraculously intervene to prevent evil. Of course, Christians believe God has done something to decisively deal with evil, but that this act doesn’t have the shape or character we would expect.

However, that doesn’t justify the existence of evil in the first place unless we allow that the good of a law-like, relatively autonomous universe which gives rise to intelligent conscious beings outweighs the evils associated with the process of evolution. The traditional Christian view had a ready response to this: the world as God originally created it was without suffering or death, but sin, either committed by humans or by fallen angelic beings, disrupted the harmony of the universe, causing suffering and death to enter into the world. Thus, evil isn’t God’s fault, but the fault of intelligent beings misuse of their freedom (See here for a related discussion).

Needless to say, this seems implausible to many people in light of what we think we know about the evolutionary process, as I mentioned. Physical evil certainly predates the existence of human beings, and unless we’re willing to posit angelic sin as the cause of suffering and death in the physical world, it seems like we’re forced to conclude that they are constituent parts of a universe that gives rise to beings like us. But this leaves unanswered the question why God would prefer a universe that acted according to law-like regularities which produced suffering and death instead of intervening.

One possible solution might be to say something like this: If God chose to actualize a particular world but then intervened miraculously to counteract every instance of evil contained in that world, then God wouldn’t, in fact, be choosing to actualize that world. God would be choosing to actualize some very different world. And if the causal powers of the beings in that world were routinely interfered with and not allowed to produce their natural consequences, they wouldn’t have existence in the fullest sense, but some kind of phantom existence. In choosing to create a world, God allows something to come into existence that has a relative autonomy, so maybe it would go against the nature of that act of creation to be constantly intervening to counteract its natural consequences.

Still, Christians may be uneasy with accepting natural evil as a fundamental aspect of created reality. Even if we don’t read the opening chapters of Genesis as a literal historical account of the creation of the world, many Christians want to affirm that creation as originally made was characterized by a primordial peace and that death and suffering are accidental, not essential, features of creation. To accept Ward’s account would require reinterpreting the creation account as, perhaps, indicating God’s intentions for what creation will be after a period of development and/or in its consummated state in the eschatological age, rather than a picture of what creation was once upon a time.

In Part One, “The Formation of the Scientific Worldview,” Ward examines four major advancements in scientific thinking whose impact extended well beyond the fields in which they originated. These are the heliocentric theory of the solar system, associated with Copernicus and Galileo, Newton’s laws of motion, Darwin’s theory of evolution, and the advent of quantum theory. Each of these theories have seemed, to both proponents and detractors, to upend a traditional religious understanding of the universe and have been high points in the familiar story of the conflict between “science” and “religion.”

Of course, as Ward points out, it was never this simple. Galileo and Newton were devoutly religious, and Darwin was probably a theist of some sort, even if he came to doubt the deity’s benevolence. But none thought that their theories entailed atheism. What they did, Ward argues, is prompt a rethinking of traditional notions of God and God’s relation to the cosmos.

In the case of the shift from a geocentric to a heliocentric solar system, the result was to deemphasize an anthropocentric view of the physical universe that placed human beings, literally, at the center. It became difficult to see humankind as that for the sake of which the physical universe existed. Instead, Ward argues, it teaches us to think of the universe as something which God delights in for its own sake and for which God may have purposes not directly related to human beings. The “cosmos is a product of the divine mind, so its creation can be compared to the work of a supreme artist, enjoyable and worthwhile for its own sake, without reference to possible finite persons at all” (p. 16)

The beauty and elegance of the universe were futher affirmed by Newton, who identifed mathematical laws governing the motion of bodies. To Newton this reflected a supremely rational God who created and sustains a universe which is intelligible and beautiful. Ward points out that Newton certainly didn’t think that physical laws provided an exhaustive account of reality; he saw the intelligibility and elegance of the physical world as manifestations of a supremely good and intelligent spiritual reality. “Newton believed that, for those who have eyes to see, that hidden reality even makes itself known in the mysterious operation of gravity and the movements and dispositions of the planets” (p. 33)

All of these discoveries were more or less compatible with a fully traditional religious worldview, even if they required a bit of tweaking. Christian tradition had always affirmed that creation was good independent of its usefulness to human beings, and that there were levels and aspects or reality far beyond those that we were directly acquainted with. What they highlighted was the idea of a universe that was rational and intelligible. But this wasn’t something entirely new either; certainly at least since the Scholastics the rationality of God and, by implication, God’s universe was a key belief.

However, Newton’s theory in particular gave rise to the metaphor of the universe as a machine which ran according to deterministic laws. Later philosophers and scientists ran with this metaphor and, perhaps inevitably, the role of God was minimized. But logically, Ward argues, there’s no reason this should be the case. “Perhaps the existence of laws of nature depends, after all, on the existence of God. If that is so, it is hardly possible to exclude just by definition God’s action in the universe, miraculous or not” (p. 31). A deterministic and physcialistic reductionism is not a logical consequence of Newtonian physics, however irresistible it may have seemed to some.

But Darwin’s theory of evolution has presented a challenge that, in some people’s minds, still hasn’t been adequately met, which brings us to the subject of the next post…

A while back I posted some thoughts on Keith Ward’s What the Bible Really Teaches, which was a rejoinder of sorts to Christian fundamentalism. His newest book, Pascal’s Fire, might be seen as a rejoinder to scientific fundamentalism. Ward’s goal in this brief book is to rebut the notion that the advance of science has made belief in God obsolete.

The book is divided into three parts. Part one canvasses the major scientific revolutions of the last five hundred years or so and examines how they impact belief in God. Part two discusses the limitations of science’s ability to give an exhaustive account of reality. And part three attempts to bridge the gap between the concept of God suggested by scientific understanding and philosophical reflection and the personal God of religion, or between the “God of the philosophers” and the “God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” as Pascal would’ve put it.

For our purposes I’m going to break things up by dedicating one or more posts to each part of the book.