Reflecting upon yesterday's post, about science and theology, I thought this might be a good opportunity to open up another strand of this blog: cosmology. This is a massive subject and in this first post on the subject I will sketch in outline a theme I will develop in more detail over several (non-consecutive) blogs.
My basic point is simple; the Christian faith has known several cosmologies throughout its history and geography. There is no a priori reason why a given cosmology might be incompatible with the faith, although there may be better or worse fits. A cosmology is the people's understanding of how the universe works. If a faith is incompatible with the prevailing worldview it will make heavy weather and its adherents will be marginalised to a greater or lesser extent.
Medieval European cosmology was quite different from first century Palestine's cosmology. The latter was the basic 'upturned pudding basin on a plate' model whilst Medieval cosmology had the sun circling the earth and the 3 levels of heaven, earth and hell. I've never read anything about how this change of worldview happened but I suspect the Medieval worldview grew out of theologians' reading of scripture, as memory of the older worldview faded. At any event, there seems to have been little problem reconciling scripture with this worldview.
The problems started with the worldview that grew out of Galileo's and Copernicus' observations, and in time became known as the Newtonian worldview. This was much more than a new understanding of the shape and movements of planets and stars. It is a mechanical view of the universe and today is probably still the most current 'gut' understanding of the universe.
This worldview differed from previous ones because it was based on empirical observations of reality rather than conjecture based upon ancient writings. This should not invalidate it in the eyes of Christians but it has not been easy to reconcile it with scripture. The best known responses have been to attempt to force science and scripture into a particular reading of scripture (fundamentalism) or to abandon scripture altogether (liberalism). One of the problems is that in a mechanical universe, all categories are absolute, so God either exists or does not exist - no other possibility is conceivable. The theological tools exist to deal with this but they are not widely known or understood.
Let me be clear about this - the Newtonian worldview is the current universal worldview. Even fundamentalists believe in it. For example, intelligent design is their latest attempt to force science to fit a scriptural mould (or scripture to fit a scientific mould). Scientists have known about the deficiencies of Darwin's original theory for decades. It simply isn't true that intelligent design (or the account in Genesis) is the only alternative. Not only is this bad science it is also bad theology.
The New Physics, the world of quantum mechanics and complexity theory in particular, is the new cosmology. In my view this is a much more accommodating worldview for the Christian faith. At this stage I simply flag this up and express the wish that theologians would take it seriously. In the terms of classical logic, if the Medieval worldview is the thesis (many hanker after it but it is beyond their grasp; they know too much) and the Newtonian worldview is the antithesis, then the new worldview is the synthesis. It does not take us back to an ancient mindset but leads us to a new way of seeing things which will make sense of many things that have not made sense for a long time. The problem is that when we approach it with a Newtonian mindset, it does not appear to make any sense at all.
Ecumenism? If we want to see full visible unity, my contention is the traditions need to change their worldview; a Newtonian approach can never succeed.
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