Readers Respond to ‘God’s Rays’

Abstract

Bryce DeWitt’s delightful essay “God’s Rays” is a highly personal account of one caring scientist’s lifelong struggle to reconcile the beliefs espoused by those he deeply loved with the understandings compelled by the science he also loved (see January 2005, page 32). Contributions of this type are what make Physics Today a truly outstanding publication.Dewitt’s understanding of cosmology seems to have led him to agree with Steven Weinberg’s remark that “the more the universe is comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.” 1 1. S. Weinberg, The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe, Basic Books, New York (1977). Not satisfied with Weinberg’s suggestion that pursuit of understanding through science is one of the few ways to raise human existence above the level of farce, DeWitt offers, through the example of the historical emergence of early Christianity, love as a complement to scientific understanding. However, DeWitt’s implied scientistic perspective can also be applied to love itself. Evolutionary biology seeks to explain love and altruism as evolutionary results that confer advantages on groups of organisms that have this trait. 2 2. S. G. Post et al. , eds., Altruism and Altruistic Love: Science, Philosophy and Religion in Dialogue, Oxford U. Press, New York (2002) https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195143584.001.0001. Love, then, would be an aleatoric product of the natural world.Many scientists wonder why the public does not embrace science more fully in matters of human affairs. Perhaps the answer lies in scientists’ characterization of the cosmos as hostile, pointless, and farcical and the view that love is an evolutionary accident.I am no scholar of Christian history, but I suspect that the power of early Christianity to attract a dedicated following did not derive entirely from its generic focus on love.Letters and opinions are encouraged and should be sent to Letters, Physics Today, American Center for Physics, One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740-3842 or by e-mail to [email protected] (using your surname as “Subject”). Please include your affiliation, mailing address, and daytime phone number. We reserve the right to edit submissions.Its predecessor, Judaism, also focuses on love. What Christianity offers is hope. 3 3. J. Polkinghorne, The God of Hope and the End of the World, Yale U. Press, New Haven, CT (2003). With so much suffering in the world and with the quest to find meaning in existence proving elusive even in a wealthy, materialistic society like ours in the US, it is the glimmer of hope of eternal salvation through faith in a loving God that sustains Christians.DeWitt argues that we scientists must be absolutely honest. Perhaps—but the use of such language as “hostile, pointless, and farcical” to describe existence not only surpasses the findings of science, it places science in opposition to hope. Technologies developed through advances in science have offered hope for many, but science, by its nature, cannot replace the hope offered by religion for a meaningful existence. Each of us, including DeWitt, is free to come to our own understanding of the world and to express it. However, if this understanding conflicts with sources of hope that address basic human longings, we should not be surprised if the message is not received enthusiastically and if battle lines are drawn between science and religion, as has happened to some extent in the debate about science education (see, for example, December 2003, page 36).REFERENCESSection:ChooseTop of pageREFERENCES <<1. S. Weinberg, The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe, Basic Books, New York (1977). Google Scholar2. S. G. Post et al. , eds., Altruism and Altruistic Love: Science, Philosophy and Religion in Dialogue, Oxford U. Press, New York (2002) https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195143584.001.0001. Google ScholarCrossref3. J. Polkinghorne, The God of Hope and the End of the World, Yale U. Press, New Haven, CT (2003). Google Scholar© 2005 American Institute of Physics.