Opus 2016-148: Basic to Inquiry

I am reading a book I picked up called The Ten Commandments by Dr. Laura Schlessinger and Rabbi Stewart Vogel.  They are writing from the point of view of serious believers and although their insights come from a Jewish framework I find a lot of solid teaching.  I am also listening to podcasts by Dr. William Lane Craig who is a Christian philosopher.  He travels the world to debate well known critics of a theistic view of the world.  Sometimes he really gets my attention.  Other times he is so ethereal that I just listen with one ear.  There are times when philosophers are too smart for their own good.  Us normal people wonder what is so important to them.

One of the consistent truths that I hear or deduce is that even the hard sciences start from a position of faith.  They don’t call it that and don’t see it but it is still a position of faith.  There is a place where they are forced to say, “We don’t know”.  One of the memes that I am hearing in these discussions and the science fiction I read is that physics is coming to a place where we may not be able to learn much more.

This brings me to what Schlessinger and Vogel had to say.

“Our ears can only hear certain sound frequencies.  Our eyes can only discern certain-size objects and certain wavelengths of light.  We are limited, mortal creatures.  To believe that only that which we can see, hear, or touch is the extent of what is possible is a product of our arrogance and our tendency to worship our own egos.  God is greater than form and beyond our sensory abilities.  That we finite beings cannot fathom either the divine or infinity does not give evidence against God’s existence, only evidence that there is more beyond ourselves.” p. 26

Believers in science make a big issue of mocking Christians because we believe in a God that is bigger than we are.  They claim that belief in God is just a defense mechanism for people who are too dumb to think and too weak to stand on their own two feet.  To be honest it is kind of like assuming that you see the same colors as a dog just because you don’t know any better.  It is like ignoring that a cat can run around the house in the dark.  It is basing the universe on your own limitations. 

As they say, such a view of reality is a “product of our arrogance”.  And ignorance too.

Schlessinger, Dr. Laura and Vogel, Rabbi Stewart.  The Ten Commandments.
       New York:  Cliff Street Books, 1998.

homo unius libri