Based on a talk given in Hangzhou, China, on Easter Sunday,
2013. Fairly close to the original talk, but with added
material, particularly in the last section.
Today
we celebrate the miracle of Easter, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ,
an event that is ridiculed by the elite of the world who have life,
nature and the cosmos pretty well figured out, and are absolutely
confident that there is no room for God, Christ, resurrection, and
Christian religion.
The
belief that Christ was the Son of God, worked miracles, and returned
to life as the immortal and resurrected Lord is not just silly but a
shameful lapse of reason that holds society back from progress. The
consensus of science and of the really smart and beautiful people of
the world is clear: faith in God is unreasonable, a throwback to
Stone Age superstitions.
The
dogma that dominates today, in essence, is one of materialism. It has
many forms and related names such as naturalism, determinism,
physicalism, and reductionism, each with various subcategories and
nuanced schools of thought. But materialism in general is a united
front against some of the most basic things we believe. It generally
holds that we are nothing more than molecules, organized by entirely
random, natural processes through Darwinian means. There is nothing
more to us than a collection of randomly mutated, naturally selected
genes, and the purpose of those genes is merely to pass themselves
on.
For
those who have faith in Christ, the attack of science and worldly
reason upon faith can be a severe one. It is a true trial of our
faith that we must go through. Some believers are oblivious to the
assault of the world on faith, but it is very real and takes a
serious toll among Christians.
Regarding
the Resurrection and the trial of our faith in Christ, Peter offered
these words in First Peter 1. After mentioning our “lively hope
by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” in verse 3,
he then refers to the trials of faith we must endure:
7
That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold
that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto
praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:
8
Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not,
yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:
9
Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.
We
must endure fiery trials at times, including the trials that come
when the apparently wise ones of the world find nothing but stupidity
in our beliefs, and hold them up for ridicule. Our faith, we are
told, is utterly without reason, without evidence, and without basis,
with nothing more than blind belief to back it up.
A
Scientific Faith: By Study and By Faith
In
reality, God has not asked us to merely believe blindly. One thing I
love about the LDS religion, our particular form of Christianity, is
that we are taught to use our minds, to embrace and seek knowledge.
Our
testimonies begin with pondering, studying, and applying the word,
and observing the effects. Missionaries don’t just ask people
to believe them and be baptized, but to read and study the Book of
Mormon, to ponder it and think as part of the voyage toward
encountering the things of God and learning through the Spirit.
Doctrine
& Covenants 8:2-3 speaks of revelation through the Spirit acting
on our hearts and our minds, and in the next section (Section 9:7-9)
we learn that we must study things out in our minds before we can
expect to receive revelation as we make decisions. The application
of mental processes to learn and grow in faith follows a surprisingly
scientific method based upon experimentation, as we read in a famous
part of the Book of Mormon, Alma 32.
Alma
teaches his audience how to gain faith and knowledge regarding the
things of God. He calls upon them to “experiment upon [his]
words” (v. 27) and observe the effects of living some aspect of
the Gospel through experimentation. He likens Gospel principles to a
seed, and if it is a good seed, it will grow and bring forth fruit
that can provide evidence regarding the nature of the seed.
In
verse 28, he explains that by experimenting and applying true Gospel
principles, the investigator or seeker will see that the seed is
good, “for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it
enlighteneth my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be
delicious to me.” It’s not just fuzzy feelings: there is
enhanced understanding, an intellectual process. And this leads to
knowledge about that particular area.
The
quest for knowledge, not just blind faith and obedience, is one of
the hallmarks of Latter-day Saint religion. I am not just talking
about religious knowledge and scripture study. We are repeatedly
taught, even commanded, to gain knowledge in many areas. For example,
Doctrine & Covenants 88:78-80 speaks of the scope of things we
should be studying:
78
Teach ye diligently and my grace shall attend you, that you may be
instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in
the law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of
God, that are expedient for you to understand;
79
Of things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth;
things which have been, things which are, things which must shortly
come to pass; things which are at home, things which are abroad; the
wars and the perplexities of the nations, and the judgments which are
on the land; and a knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms—
80
That ye may be prepared in all things when I shall send you again to
magnify the calling whereunto I have called you, and the mission with
which I have commissioned you.
That
encompasses geology, biology, astrophysics, history, languages, the
arts, and so many fields. Our religion embraces knowledge and
learning, and I love that. Later, in that same section, we read this
in verses 118 and 119:
118
And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another
words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom;
seek learning, even by study and also by faith.
119 Organize yourselves;
prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of
prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a
house of glory, a house of order, a house of God;
A
house of learning, not just blind faith. From the best books, we are
taught to seek learning, by study and by faith. Faith can fit in with
book learning. We learn in the LDS temple that all truth can be
integrated into one great whole. Faith will always be required in
this mortal journey, where we may not understand how the parts of
truth we have properly fit together, and which parts need some human
errors shaved off before they’ll properly fit.
But
in spite of our imperfect understanding and the conundrums we face in
a life of faith, the Gospel provides remarkable intellectual
satisfaction and enrichment; and, when properly applied, often helps
us make much better sense of life and the cosmos. The intellectual
vision provided by the LDS framework actually is exhilarating and, as
Alma said, delicious to us and richly enlightening.
In
spite of that exhilaration, we face serious challenges that require
humility and patience, for we do not have all the answers. Faith and
reason can sometimes seem in conflict, especially when the people who
claim to have all the reason specialize in mocking those who have the
most faith.
If,
because of unbelief or doubt, you find your faith wavering, remember
that even the ancient Apostles implored the Lord to “increase
our faith.” (Luke 17:5). Bearing in mind that faith and
reason are necessary companions, consider the following analogy:
faith and reason are like the two wings of an aircraft. Both are
essential to maintain flight.
If,
from your perspective, reason seems to contradict faith, pause and
remember that our perspective is extremely limited compared with the
Lord’s. Do not discard faith any more than you would detach a
wing from an aircraft in flight. Instead, nurture a particle of faith
and permit the hope it produces to be an anchor to your soul —
and to your reason.
That
is why we are commanded to “seek learning … by study and
also
by faith.” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:118; emphasis added.)
Remember, faith precedes and produces miracles for which we have no
immediate explanation within our experience, such as a Dutch oven
full of food from two small biscuits [a reference to a miracle
related by Ann
Jewell Rowley
during her ordeal in the Willie pioneer handcart company] or simply
enduring in faith against all odds.
The
attacks of the world can be painful, but there are often answers and
helps along the way, including evidences to strengthen our own faith.
Evidence
and Witnesses
There
are evidences and witnesses that can buttress our faith and help to
overcome objections and attacks. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ was
far more than a fable to those who touched his feet, felt his hands,
and saw Him descend and ascend from heaven.
Hundreds
in the New World and the Old were witnesses of this anciently. Joseph
Smith in our era was eyewitness of the reality of the Resurrected
Lord. No treatise from any human scholar, no matter how thoroughly
peer reviewed or highly rated at Amazon.com, could put a dent in the
knowledge that Joseph obtained, as did Stephen of old, when He saw
the Son at the right hand of God.
Yet
God has done more than just ask us to trust those witnesses. For we
Latter-day Saints, we have not only the treasure of accounts of
Christ in the New Testament, but also powerful evidence for the
reality of Christ in the Book of Mormon.
The
Book of Mormon itself, being a book brought forth by divine means in
these latter-days, is either an outrageous fraud by a conman or
direct evidence of the reality of Christ and the Restoration. It is a
book that we are told, even commanded, to read, ponder seriously,
explore, dig into, and find out for ourselves if it is true or not.
The
Book of Mormon is more than 500 pages of evidence, one way or the
other, related to the Restoration. There are many evidences
that point to its ancient roots and its authentic nature that I won’t
discuss here today, apart from saying that it is a book to be taken
seriously, with treasures for those who dig. It is part of the body
of evidence for the reality of God and Christ.
Evidence
and reason may not be the source and basis of faith, but can
strengthen our faith and understanding, and can be vital in
overcoming objections to faith.
As
I have mentioned, some of the most serious objections to faith come
from conflict with the dogmas proclaimed by modern science. Our faith
involves acceptance of concepts beyond the measurements of science.
We believe there is such a thing as spirit.
In
additional to our physical mortal bodies, we each have a spirit that
can receive influence and revelation from the Spirit of God. Spirit,
whatever that is, is described by Joseph Smith as a form of matter
that is finer than the matter we see and touch, but is still matter.
This was a prescient statement in Joseph’s day, when the
religious world taught an immaterial God and immaterial spirit.
Today
we know there are types of matter that are much different than the
stuff of electrons, protons, and neutrons, and vast amounts of money
are being spent to detect and understand some of these forms of
matter such as neutrinos, for example.
We
have no idea if whatever Spirit is has any relation to the things
modern physicists are seeking for and the tools they are developing,
but the concept of Spirit as a finer type of matter is much more
reasonable today than in Joseph’s day. However, the world of
science will have none of that and insists that there is no such
thing as spirit and no such thing as God.
A
Dismal Perspective
In
the dogma of the world, the findings of science have been
extrapolated to incredible lengths, requiring almost superhuman
omniscience to go from a handful of observations from the perspective
of this little planet in this tiny corner of the cosmos, to sweeping
declarations about the nature of the cosmos, declarations like,
“There is no God. No need for God. No heaven. No life after
death. No spirit. No purpose to life. No free will. No immortality.
Just atoms and genes and chance. End of story.”
And
what a dismal and delusional story it is. Don’t let its hollow
claims and arrogant proclamations erode your faith.
Francis
Crick is one of the two men who shared a Nobel Prize for their
remarkable work that helped unlock one of the great mysteries of the
Creation and gave us new insights into one of the most marvelous
inventions in the universe. They discovered DNA, or rather, helped
reveal the double helix structure of DNA.
One
might wonder what profound perspectives about the miracle of life and
the wonders of the Creation Dr. Crick might have after prying into
the mysteries of DNA so deeply. Listen to his opening words from his
book, The Astonishing Hypothesis:
“You,”
your joys and sorrows, your memories and ambitions, your sense of
personal identity and free will are, in fact, no more than the
behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells. As Lewis Carroll's Alice
might have phrased it: “You're nothing but a pack of neurons.”
There
you have it. You are just a pack of neurons and the associated
molecules. All sense of self, identify, love, joy, and sorrow, all
sense of purpose, is just an illusion created by random events and
randomly mutated molecules.
This
is the kind of foolishness that takes years of study and advanced
degrees to achieve. But this is the argument from a reigning form of
science, a most dismal science, one that extrapolates a touch of
knowledge about matter and molecules into vast assertions about the
purpose and meaning of life, creating a new religion that leaves no
room for God, for morality, and for all that really matters in life.
It
tells us that we are vastly less than what we perceive ourselves and
others to be, that life is vastly less significant than it seems, and
that the very reason and logic that we must use to create or consider
such arguments is just an illusion as well. Just a pack of neurons,
which are just a pack of molecules, with no other influences than the
tangible forces of nature.
That
dogma in various forms is entrenched in this world. It is taught or
implied in the teachings of the schools, of the books and movies the
world chooses to celebrate, and in the circles of the elite who shape
opinions in the media and other institutions. It is the official
doctrine of some globally significant political systems. To be warmly
accepted in the world, one may need to embrace it, and to oppose it
vocally will often invite trouble or at least ridicule.
This
is why it’s so interesting and even amusing when one of the
atheistic elite breaks ranks and falls into apostasy by daring to ask
some embarrassing questions. I refer to a man who some have described
as the most famous and celebrated philosopher in the United States,
Dr. Thomas Nagel, who sits on a lofty academic throne, or rather, an
endowed chair at New York University as a University Professor.
He
is a devout atheist, one who sincerely does not want there to
be a God and considers religion to be quite backward if not insane.
And yet he has created shock waves in the academic world with a book
he published in 2012, a book that The Guardian recognized as
the most despised book of the year.
This
book has the intriguing title: Mind and Cosmos: Why the
Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly
False. I just finished this book, and it is fascinating, and
while Nagel makes some reasonably good arguments, I think if he were
more of a scientist and less of philosopher he could have made some
interesting arguments from science itself about the incompleteness of
materialism as an explanation for the us and the cosmos we are in.
Nagel’s
apostasy lies in pointing out what that the reigning paradigm of
materialism fails the common sense test. It fails to account for who
we are and what we perceive. It fails to explain the wonders of the
mind, the power of our sense of right and wrong, the ability for
humans to reason and ponder and strive for truth.
In
saying this, Nagel has offended the priests of intelligentsia. And
they are not good sports. They are angry. He has been branded an
idiot, called a once great philosopher who now has fallen into
stupidity and error (for an overview of the negative reaction, see
Andrew Ferguson, “The
Heretic: Who is Thomas Nagel and Why Are So Many of His Fellow
Academics Condemning Him?,”
The
Weekly Standard,
March 25, 2013, Vol. 18, No. 27).
And
his publisher, the respected Oxford University Press, has been
criticized for allowing such trash to be published. The fear, of
course, is that his arguments will be used to prop up religious
faith, though that is far from Nagel’s purpose.
Nagel’s
primary objective seems to be to point out the glaring gaps in the
reigning model so that a more reasonable new model, still free of God
and intelligent design, might account for the amazing properties of
the universe we live in, where not only life can arise, but
intelligent life with reason and concepts like truth and justice.
New
Mysteries in Matter and Energy
The
questions raised by Thomas Nagel are thoughtful and powerful, and I
hope the efforts to silence and punish such freethinking dissent will
not succeed. These are questions that need thought and discussion.
I
do not have all the answers, and have added some new questions to my
own personal quest as a result of reading Nagel. But I believe we can
affirm that materialism certainly does not have all the answers
either. Indeed, as Nagel concludes, it is almost certainly false as
an explanation for the remarkable kind of universe we are in.
Philosophers
per se
are not needed to expose the glaring defects in materialism. Let me
point to the findings of science itself. We have been taught that all
we are and all there is can be contained in the realm of neurons,
molecules, atoms, and the matter and energy that scientists study,
with no room for God and the mysteries of spirit. If that is so, why
is it that astrophysicists, in their observations of the motion of
galaxies, have found overwhelming evidence for gravitational forces
tugging and pulling those masses of stars and matter in ways that
could not be explained by the amount of matter that is actually
visible?
To
explain the apparent gravitational influences acting on galaxies, scientists were compelled to postulate a mysterious so-far unseen form of matter scattered across the galaxies that they call
“dark
matter”.
And as far as they can tell, there is a lot more dark matter,
whatever that is, than the matter that we can see and measure here.
It appears to make up 84.5% of the matter of the universe. (Note: Dark matter doesn't fit the standard model for matter that scientists have developed. It's not just neutrinos or some particle that is somewhat understood, but is genuinely mysterious, and as NPR told us recently, it just got more mysterious based on further strange aspects of its behavior.)
Granted,
materialists can adapt and say that this mystery matter is still
a form of matter and still part of their explanation for everything, but
remember that just a few decades ago when materialists were
telling us that matter explains everything, they were talking about
the tangible, easily measurable matter that we now know misses 84.5%
of the stuff that is out there, whatever it is. Can we be confident
that they still know what they are talking about now?
From an LDS perspective, to say that dark matter is now within the scope of materialism doesn't necessarily save face for the materialists because spirit, after all, is a form of matter, too, though it seems immaterial since we can't observe it directly in our present mortal state. But it's there with a real influence that is definitely outside the scope of secular materialism, which is ultimately based on eliminating the need for things like spirit and the Father of spirits in accounting for the majesty of our existence.
For
those who think they’ve got the cosmos figured out on the
strength of materialism, the findings of astrophysics now get even
more mysterious. A new level of mystery was added in the 1990s,
when teams of astronomers collaborated to answer one of the basic
questions they face: how fast is the universe collapsing upon itself
under the steady pull of gravity? Is it collapsing slowly, or
quickly?
It
was a fundamental question, and required a great deal of data based
on observing some of the most distant objects in the universe and
performing many calculations. As the data came in and the answers
were computed, the scientists were dumbfounded. They checked their
results again and again, at first sure that some crazy error must
have occurred.
But
the results have been consistent and clear: their assumptions and
beliefs were entirely wrong. Gravity was not causing the universe to
pull together at all. Rather, the universe was moving apart,
accelerating away from itself, with some still utterly mysterious
force overcoming the steady strength of gravity.
This
force involves energy of some kind, and scientists, with no better
alternative, have dubbed it “dark
energy.”
(See Joseph Gyekis, “Probing Questions: What Is Dark Energy and
How Do We Know It Exists?,” ResearchPennState,
March 23, 2005, http://www.rps.psu.edu/probing/darkenergy.html.)
Dark energy dominates the energies of the universe.
Now
we know from Einstein’s e = mc2,
that mass and energy are related. If we consider the relative
contributions to the apparent mass-energy of the universe, it turns
out that dark energy and dark matter, the invisible and mysterious
stuff of the cosmos, account for 95% of what is there. (As Wikipedia
tallies it, the universe contains 4.9% ordinary matter, 26.8% dark
matter and 68.3% dark energy.)
The
remaining tiny piece of the universal pie, just 5% of cosmic reality
based on what astrophysicists can infer, is the stuff we can see and
detect, the original stuff of materialism (though now they can update
their theories and say all the new mystery stuff somehow hits as
well).
Before
these recent discoveries from astronomy, perhaps it made sense to
feel that atoms, molecules, and neurons could account for everything.
But when it comes to explaining some of the most basic facts about
the universe, the tangible stuff of materialism is missing at least
95% of the puzzle. And that’s not based on Bible verses, but
observations from scientists that have shocked and dumfounded them
with evidence of mysterious forces and substances beyond anything
they have seen in their laboratories.
Is
it not more logical and more scientific at this point to humbly admit
that there might be or must be something beyond mere atoms and
neurons? And if the discrepancy between the expectations of science
and the realities of the universe could be so large (5% vs. 100%),
can we continue to put our trust in the man-made religions of those
who insist that what they see and touch and measure is all there is
and all there can be, and that we and our lives cannot possibly be
more than a pack of neurons and a mass of randomly mutated molecules?
I
am not saying that the fine matter of spirit, as Joseph Smith taught,
has any relationship to dark matter or dark energy. It is possible
that there are vast amounts of whatever spirit is with properties
that do not yet show up in observations of galactic motion and
universal expansion.
My
point is simply that materialistic theories based on the primacy of
matter that may have seemed plausible a few years ago were then and
still are incomplete. Can we really base our faith, or lack of faith,
on the extreme extrapolations of scientists based on a few
observations on tiny pieces of the material universe, that 5% sliver
of reality, conducted in this tiny corner on planet Earth? Where do
they obtain such omniscience from their work?
I
think it is entirely fair to question the world’s blind faith
in matter alone and realize that there can indeed be more to the
picture. Vastly more, including life with purpose, beings with reason
and moral agency, genuine and everlasting truths, and a loving God
who is also a brilliant and masterful designer as well as the Father
of our spirits.
There
is more, and the knowledge we obtain through study and faith as
members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints helps us
see and become more than materialism alone would ever permit. It
helps us recognize and prize the evidence for the Resurrection of
Jesus Christ and the reality of His Atonement.
Miraculous,
yes, beyond our full comprehension, but not beyond the pale of
reason, not groundless and ridiculous, and not, as Thomas Nagel said
of the materialist explanation for life and the cosmos, almost
certainly false.
In
fact, as we experiment upon the word and pursue the Gospel of Christ,
we can come to understand and even know that the Resurrection of
Jesus Christ is real and, indeed, certainly true.
Jeff Lindsay has been defending the Church on the Internet since 1994, when he launched his
LDSFAQ website under JeffLindsay.com. He has also long been blogging about LDS matters on
the blog Mormanity (mormanity.blogspot.com). Jeff is a longtime resident of Appleton,
Wisconsin, who recently moved to Shanghai, China, with his wife, Kendra.
He works for an Asian corporation as head of intellectual property. Jeff and Kendra are the parents of 4 boys, 3 married and the the youngest on a mission.
He is a former innovation and IP consultant, a former professor, and former Corporate Patent
Strategist and Senior Research Fellow for a multinational corporation.
Jeff Lindsay, Cheryl Perkins and Mukund Karanjikar are authors of the book Conquering
Innovation Fatigue (John Wiley & Sons, 2009).
Jeff has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Brigham Young University and is a registered US
patent agent. He has more than 100 granted US patents and is author of numerous publications.
Jeff's hobbies include photography, amateur magic, writing, and Mandarin Chinese.