I’m about to start an inpatient call week at the hospital. Such weeks are always busy, so I likely won’t be able to write for the next 7-8 days.

When one thinks about process philosophy, it is best to think of reality as change itself. In other words, I may not concentrate on considering matter as a priority in reality as much as I may consider an emphasis on time or change. This perspective is hard to unsee once it is realized.

Alfred North Whitehead states this clearly in Process and Reality: “The world is thus faced by the paradox that, at least in its higher actualities, it craves for novelty and yet is haunted by terror at the loss of the past, with its familiarities and its loved ones. It seeks escape from time in its character of ‘perpetually perishing.'”

Thus, having spent part of last week training pediatric gastroenterology fellows from all over the United States, Mexico, and Canada (medical subspecialty trainees are called “fellows“), I came across two ideas showing the apparent eternal process of change. These two ideas are real-world in nature but do have metaphorical implications.

Gastroenterology is the major peer-reviewed journal in my field. Last month’s issue had a review titled “Evolutionary Medicine for Chronic Inflammatory Diseases of the Gut: More Than a Clinical Fantasy?” which is open access. Simply put, bacteria in the setting of gut inflammation (Crohn disease or ulcerative colitis) undergo evolutionary changes at the gene level that make them more virulent. This genetic change occurs within just a few generations of bacteria which encompasses only a quick period of time (hours, days). The genetic changes lead to phenotypic / structural changes of the bacteria, such as the ability to have enhanced motility. Understanding evolutionary change on a short time scale such as in the setting of the bacteria of the microbiome can allow for better therapies which control gut inflammation sooner rather than later. These findings demonstrate change. These findings emphasize time. If bacteria can evolve within quick generations, imagine the change that can occur over millions or billions of years.

image from “Computed tomographic analysis of the dental system of three Jurassic ceratopsians and implications for the evolution of tooth replacement pattern and diet in early-diverging ceratopsians”, eLife.

Change at the genetic level. Change at the organelle level. Change at the organ level. Change at the species level. All involve time. This change is beautiful but can be terrifying.

On a mega-fauna / societal level, I found my time last week with pediatric GI training fellows somewhat of a continuing metaphor of change in gastroenterology and in the overall field of medicine. Pediatric subspecialists are undergoing significant stress currently, especially in the U.S. Most pediatric gastroenterologists work in university hospitals or academic medical centers. Funding for academic medicine to do research is becoming less and less available. Medical education for physicians is potentially losing touch with the fundamentals of physiology and pathology. Grade inflation for medical students is still problematic.

NIH data of funding of PhDs versus MDs over time

After medical school, burnout continues to be an issue for U.S. physicians. Burnout is associated with anxiety, depression, job change, substance abuse, and medical errors. Burnout is also associated with suicide which is a significant problem with physicians. My field, pediatrics, is suffering from a lack of people wanting to enter the field, likely due to education debt and the relatively low salaries of pediatricians compared to most medical specialties. My subspecialty (pediatric gastroenterology) requires many more years of extra training but suffers from lower salaries long term despite taking care of more complex children.

Again, all of this data points to change. This change fundamentally involves time. It is terrifying, but I think there is potential for beauty.

While I was teaching the pediatric gastroenterology fellows last week, I was awed by these young people who had goals to fix these issues at the community, academic, and political level. The sick child comes first in all settings. However, addressing the need to care of children at the national and international level will take ingenuity from parents and pediatricians working together. It will involve emphasizing child health in our country. It will involve improving public health and public knowledge about childhood diseases. It will involve improving basic understaning of science at the public level.

I was most impressed that these pediatric GI fellows from across North America wanted me (as well as other faculty) to talk about burnout prevention and resilience. My specific talk was titled “Balancing Work and Life?” It seemed to go well.

me…talking

This change (similar to evolutionary changes in the microbiome) is undergoing evolutionary pressure from the societal level. Young trainees see the underlying issues affecting child health. My generation became caught in the beginning of these changes and got lost. This generation(s) behind me are seeing the end results and want to fix the problems!

The “inflammation” (whether in the gut / microbiome or in pediatric health / society) will lead to change. It may end up worse. It may end up better. The changes may be effectively neutral. However, there will be change. My experience of teaching young pediatric GI fellows last week is that we have a chance for good.

By the way, my talk did discuss TWO THINGS that prevent burnout in academic medicine: These two things have been described in the literature.

1. Teaching at any level: Faculty, fellow, resident, medical student, college student, high school, church / mosque / temple / synagogue, community group — they all prevent burnout in academic medicine.
2. Learning something OUTSIDE of medicine: Here is where my theology training has been really wonderful. Thinking and writing about theology helps prevent my potential for burnout

image created by Gemini Advanced

In the short time that I have had my DThM degree (Doctorate of Theology and Ministry), I have realized that writing about theology can be quite hard. You must know the theology, but you also must have some background in philosophy. Since I am interested in the intersection of science & faith, then I must be as accurate as possible when discussing science. I try to do my best here.

Thus, I came across this interesting article, “Opposing the Multiverse” (G. Ellis), which is a 2008 article published in Astronomy and Geophysics. Unfortunately, the article is behind a paywall, so perhaps you can read it through a local library or university.

Ellis is a mathematician at the University of Cape Town, and his essay criticizes the science behind the idea of the multiverse. Although he is a mathematician, he criticizes the multiverse from a scientific perspective as it is simply an untestable idea. In the multiverse, other universes would be beyond an observational boundary. How could inductive reasoning occur?

image from Smithsonian Magazine

As an example, if galaxies in our own universe are beyond visualization but still are present, then perhaps even more complex entities (other universes?) fit exactly the same criteria — beyond visualization but still present. As case in point, as our telescopes get better, we our finding more and more galaxies farther and farther away. “Beyond visualization but still present” would be defined as indirect evidence. Of note, JADES-GS-z14-0  is the farthest galaxy that we can see with its light reaching us after 13.4 billion years.

Per Ellis, “If each link in a chain of evidence is well understood and tenable, then indirect evidence such as this carries nearly as much weight as direct evidence.
But not all the links in the chain are tenable.”

If cosmic inflation is true (for which there seems to be much evidence) and if the inflation was anisotropic, then perhaps the non-uniformity of cosmic inflation caused a multiverse. Fascinating idea — if true.

cosmic microwave background

How does this relate to theology? I have absolutely no problem with ideas surrounding the multiverse, Everettian quantum mechanics, and string theory. I think such ideas advance human knowledge, are necessary, and require funding. However, I think that many of these ideas border on (and perhaps are) metaphysics. If you have read my blog, you know I think metaphysics is important.

My point is that I think metaphysics can work well in a day-to-day, perhaps utilitarian perspective when it has one foot in the imaginable and one foot in reality.

We should consider this idea in theology. We should have one foot in the metaphysical aspects of God and one foot in reality. Biological evolution is indeed true (with the complexity of environment change and other epigenetic phenomena present and involved in time). This is one foot in science. The other foot, if one considers theology, is placed in the ideas surrounding process theology. Specifically, God is present in real time, is experiencing change, and perhaps is desiring change. These two feet then consist of good metaphysics.

On a more personal level, if altruism is biologically true, and God has told us to love our neighbor (Matthew 22:39), then we have one foot in biology and one foot in the theology of love. This is good metaphysics.

Such an idea is not Cartesian dualism. Such an idea is not the God of Aristotle. This idea of God is both pleomorphic and actual, both primitive and present, both science and poetry if both are based in goodness. Metaphysics involving God then involves change and the priority of time.

Perhaps metaphysical ideas of the “two feet” can be used to help religious people who don’t have a scientific background begin to understand how science has the ability to get a further awareness of God.

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Graduates of my seminary (Northwind Theological Seminary) have been doing an on line book club for a while. It has had a few incarnations during its existence, and as we start revving it up again, we are reading journal articles instead of books.

This past week we reviewed “Is a Process Form of Ecstatic Naturalism Possible? A Reading of Donald Crosby.” It is a 2016 article in the American Journal of Theology and Philosophy. Here is the link. Unfortunately, it it behind a paywall so I hope you are able to get access to it. The author is Demian Wheeler who is a theologian at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. His article is about the writings of Donald Crosby who is both a theologian and philosopher at Colorado State University. I am aware of Dr. Crosby as I have read some of his writings. Also, one of my kiddos goes to CSU, and they have talked to me about Dr. Crosby.

My friend, Michael Brennan, is in my book club, and he has already written about this article. His writing is quite good. I would recommend reading his Substack.

The entirety of Wheeler’s article discusses ideas surrounding “ecstatic naturalism.” This term basically means a “wonder of nature without the requirement of the supernatural.” I consider myself someone steeped in the writings of process theology and open & relational theology (both ideas are very similar). Wheeler discusses the potential critical weaknesses surrounding process philosophy / process theology. Specifically, some critics state that there is no identifiable way for those who follow process ideas to accept wonder or awe without some need for an associated deity. For example, process thought is founded on the ideas of panentheism (all of nature is in God). This term is different from pantheism although there is some overlap. Simply put, pantheism states that the universe / nature is God. Panentheism states that the universe / nature is in God.

I would like to talk about one critique of process thought…the influence of time.

Per the article: “Crosby’s nature is, in a word, indeterminate, dynamic, and thoroughly processive. The future remains (to some degree) open, and ‘the tenacious gnawings of time ensure that all things come to an end.”

Does time end or does it continue eternally? Is time a voracious beast that eventually consumes all creativity or novelty? Based on the second law of thermodynamics, one would readily agree that time definitely seems to end all things. In an eternally expanding universe, all particles would lose their potential energy and would finally distribute evenly throughout all space. There would be essentially no creativity — divine or otherwise.

image from NASA

I have several thoughts here. As science evolves, and we learn more about nature then perhaps we may learn more about such laws. I am pretty doubtful that we will overturn the certainly of the second low of thermodynamics but who knows… Regardless, in the deep future and in the setting of infinite time and infinite space, there is the mathematical possibility for a quantum fluctuation (or a random change of energy at one point in space) to form structures. A metaphor for such a structure is a “Boltzmann brain” in which a background of innumerable particles in infinite space / time could briefly form extremely complex structures — even a brain. A good review article about Boltzmann brains is here. A good counterargument against Boltzmann brains is here.

Another idea arises from conformal cyclic cosmology in which the universe expands, collapses, then expands again eternally in time. This idea would go against the terror of time as creativity would simply occur in the new universes.

Finally, the ideas surrounding a multiverse would suggest eternal creativity in infinite time and infinite space. There could be an infinity of universes out there with different laws of physics and different life spans. Creativity would end in our universe but would simply carry on in others.

So, the ideas of Boltzmann brains, conformal cyclic cosmology, and the multiverse would suggest no end to creativity — divine or not — and regardless of time. Eternal creativity in itself would be a definition of something — whether God or an eternal primal law. It would be up to each human to decide on the need to worship this creativity or not.

By the way, it should be pointed out that the second law of thermodynamics has been shown to exist time and time again experimentally and by simple observation. Boltzmann brains, conformal cyclic cosmology, and the multiverse are, at this time, not provable (and I don’t think will ever be provable by our species).

I would choose to put God as the ground for natural creativity and for my ecstatic naturalism. Indeed, the weakness of my position is the influence of my cultural background, my interests, and familial influences. There is a way out of this weakness in the philosophical realm. In the setting of process philosophy, all prior events in time influence the present. I do believe that I could have and still can walk away from my belief in deity at any time point, but my past influences have run deep.

image from https://blog.uvm.edu/aivakhiv/2020/04/11/process-relational-ecologies-querying-some-terms/

In the setting of the inevitable progression of time and entropy, I have a hard time visualizing the heat death of the universe. I cannot think in such time scales in which even black holes could evaporate (greater than 10^100 years from now!). Perhaps all that is becomes dark and cold, and all information, including all human experience) eventually consists of random particles rarely interacting with each other.

black hole

On the other hand, theories such as Boltzmann brains, conformal cyclic cosmology, and the multiverse suggest that physicists are looking for objective ways to consider the continuation of creativity as time moves forward. At this time, such ideas are not provable.

The theological suggestion of the universe and all its creativity being contained in God (panentheism) also is not provable but matches with the scientific ideas discussed above. Here is a theological model (panentheism) with a subjective theory surrounding creativity. Boltzmann brains, conformal cyclic cosmology, and idea of the multiverse are objective theories (through mathematics, astronomy, and theoretical physics) with objective ideas surrounding creativity.

Here is where subjectivity and objectivity touch.

It seems to me that the eternal progression of time allows for creativity or novelty well beyond the human brain’s ability to fully conceptualize or imagine.

This continuous creativity means something. It may be an essence of God. It may be God. It may be an underlying priority of nature that does not require God but still is present in all of space and all of time. Creativity, whether divine or not, should make our species have awe or wonderment at the infinity of it all. Ecstatic naturalism can be associated with a belief in God just as much as it can be associated with no belief in God. It all evens out.

Dialectically, we need science, philosophy, and theology to consider what CREATIVITY means.

Odds and Ends:

1. Match Day in the U.S. just ended. On “match day”, all graduating medical students find out where they are going for residency. Unfortunately, primary care is suffering here as students want to enter specialties with higher incomes (also, they have tons of debt).
2. My friend Tim Miller also has a great Substack account. Here is a smart person. I highly recommend you follow him.
3. The “Not Even Wrong” blog notes an interesting ArXiv article on consensus of physicists on the big ideas in their field.

image generated by Gemini

I recently read the article, “On Questioning the Design of Evolution” by E. V. R. Kojonen in the latest issue of Theology and Science. Unfortunately, it is not an open access article, but perhaps you can find it somewhere for your reading. In many ways, the article is excellent.

The article discusses the weaknesses of the arguments promoting “Intelligent Design” (ID) which claims to be science but which is just theology. In my opinion, ID consists in a space where creationists can say “and God is here” when looking at biological structures, especially in the setting of evolution. ID points to such issues as “irreducible complexity”, possible evolutionary directionality, and direct design by God which they state proves God is present in nature. This idea of “prove” is fraught with so many issues. First of all, ID is not provable. From a Popperian perspective, it also is not disprovable. One cannot come up with a scientific, objective model to prove or to disprove ID. If a hypothesis isn’t provable or disprovable, it falls into the realm of subjective thought which includes the fine arts, some liberal arts, and theology.

Theology can be an objective study. How many people believe in a religious system, the growth or decline of a religious group, the amount of property owned by a religious group — these are objective areas of study. However, the majority of theology is subjective. Being subjective is certainly fine as long as the subjectivity is not harmful. Having theology convince others to harm minority groups is bad theology. Having subjective theology be anti-science is bad theology.

Here is where ID is problematic. I actually think it is harmful simply for the reasons that many of its proponents believe it should be 1) considered to be a part of science or 2) considered it to BE a scientific field. Just dreadful.

ID IS NOT SCIENCE. IT IS THEOLOGY.

Let’s take the evolution of the eye. ID proponents in general would state that the evolution of the eye directly has required God. They would especially state this idea in the setting of organisms with no eyes changing over time to organisms with eyes. The ID argument typically has been that the eye is too complex (irreducibly complex) for an eye to evolve over millions or years. The presence of an eye would be an example of “and God is here.”

Trilobite

It is as if they believe that no genetic or paleontology evidence exists for primitive eye development. This idea is patently false as seen here, here, here, and many other scientific sources. I also don’t know how ID propents describe “and God is here” in the setting of species losing eye structure over time.

Blind cave fish

Here is what ID would propose:

A biological structure exists at Time 0. It is complex. The only other way to get to a changed structure at Time 1 is through the direct interaction of God.

Fine. However, this idea is strictly theological and not scientific. I would argue that this idea is bad theology. If God interferes here, then why does God not interfere to help good things and to prevent bad things in nature?

In the setting of process theology, this idea is improved.

In ideas surrounding process theology, God is in the change of the REAL world in REAL time. Some process theologians state that God desires novelty and is in the flow of change. Some process theologians state that God lures for the best outcome although nature can ignore any divine lure. In many ways, this latter idea is modeled by Open and Relational Theology.

Nature can be studied scientifically, and theology should not insert itself saying “and God is here.” Here is a helpful reference. Unlike ID, process theology and open & relational theology do not insert God’s self directly affecting nature. Instead, God is in, around, and through nature and in time itself to observe change (including evolutionary change) while desiring and celebrating change. Of course, evolutionary change in the setting of process theology still could be directional which may have some scientific basis when one considers the ideas of Simon Conway Morris.

Good theology incorporates science. It should not attempt to BE science.

Our world is not static. Our theology should not be static either.

Image generated by Gemini

In light of the recent measles outbreak in this country, I once again am so glad that vaccines exist. I am a pediatrician, specifically a pediatric gastroenterologist, and I deal with many terrible illnesses, including many preventable illnesses. Vaccines are a medical miracle. Not much more can be said.

I do get occassional comments on my blog. By the way, my blog here is also on Medium and Substack. I recently received the typical “feedback” that vaccines are poison and that I am not Christian. Interestingly, from the inverse perspective, I do get some atheists who complain that my posts demonstrate that I believe in a “sky god.” These comments are not helpful. I just block and ignore. Perhaps they come from junior high kids trying to get me mad. Perhaps they come from someone with profound anxiety or some other type of mental illness. Perhaps they come from someone who is uninformed. I have no clue.

What can I say? I am a born-again Christian. I have been baptized twice because denominations often believe other church baptisms are “wrong” — I swear we Christians are our own worst enemies. I believe in original sin but more from an evolutionary perspective. I believe evolutionary pressure has made us a very violent species, and our individual goal should be to avoid that anger and violence. I believe in Jesus and the Resurrection. I do believe that God is exponentially smarter than us, so I think God understands salvation far better than I ever will. In other words, I’m not into conversion, and I think modern understandings of Christian conversion can be wrought with American nationalism. I stand by Luke 23: 39-43.

People who are against vaccinations are not inherently evil people. I have to repeat this statment to myself often because I really, really, really, really want to judge them. They are the product of poor science education in school. By the way, we are all responsible, as Americans, for causing poor science education in both pubic and private schools. They are the product of ill-informed religious leaders (not just Christian) demanding that they align with non-scientific ideas regarding material matters — no different than telling them to believe in Bigfoot, UFOs, or the Loch Ness Monster. The history of this movement is over 200 years old and is essentially unchanged in its arguments. A lack of change is always worrisome.

There is more here to consider. I think fear of vaccines, fear of monsters, and fear of the “other” is simply an evolutionary leftover in our genes and, subsequently, in our brains.

Think about fish and reptiles. They have relatively primitive brains compared to mammals. If they are about to be attacked or eaten, they will have brain circuitry that pushes for them to escape at all costs. Such escaping involves an increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, heightened senses, and increased muscle activity. Mammals appear to have a greater capacity to learn from the experiences of others. If a gazelle sees a member of the herd attacked by a lion, the gazelle will always be on the look out for a lion on the serengeti. The gazelle will be in a state of increased alertness similar to anxiety. A good review article is HERE.

Of course, then we come to humans. When we lived in small hunter-gatherer communities, any outside sound or sight would cause of to be wary, to stay in the group, and to not leave. Those that went to explore the sound or sight risked being eaten and their genetic material destroyed.

People complain so much about the current situation of the world. It is human tradition, apparently, to think that we live in the worst part of human history. We should have concerns — climate change, fascism, and nuclear war come to mind. However, we are living longer. We are healthier. We have more food. We are getting more educated. That old human brain of ours has not kept up with the fact that we are not getting eaten by cheetahs, bears, lions, or tigers. Our old anxieties of being eaten are being replaced by worries that typically do not exist — as seen in the anxiety surrounding many conspiracy theories. As long as we have that unseen “other” potentially existing outside “our cave”, we can take comfort that we are avoiding some will-o’-the-wisp fantasy that comprises nothing but simple outbursts of our ancient anxiety. Even the ancient Greeks and Romans saw these effects and described them.

Religion has done good things and bad things in the history of the world. From a “good” perspective, reilgion forms community. When does well, it supports those in need in the community. When done exceptionally well, it supports those in need outside of the community. One of the best ways to consider such aspects is to think about the founders of various faith streams. When I consider the Gospels, I think Christ is quite clear about how we should treat each other.

Matthew 5: 43-46: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.  If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?”

In other words, love others — no exceptions.

Matthew 22: 36-40: “Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

In other words, if you love God, you must love your neighbor. This connection of love between God / neighbor is more powerful than the strong force in physics.

Matthew 25: 37-40: “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?  When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”

In other words, if you are anti-science in areas where lack of science leads to death (i.e., messing up public health), then you are really doing life wrong.

Luke 5: 31-32: “Jesus answered them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.'”

In other words, if you are anti-science, you need to think about what you are doing to others now and in the long term.

When I say, “anti-science”, I am not saying I am against peer review, grant review, meta analyses, or debating scientific findings objectively. Ethics should absolutely be involved in scientific discovery. I AM saying that I am against pseudo-science. Proponents of pseudo-science hurt others, often unintentionally.

God is in time and in nature at all moments. God calls on us to love others, especially those in need. We have complete freedom to respond to this call. Our evolutionary history is filled with innumerable events in which our species and the environment around us have given choices as to how we should proceed — violently or non-violently. As humans developed cultures and societies, we developed epigenetic pressure to love or to conquer, to help or to destroy, to advance or to retreat in knowledge.

God gives us the freedom to live in fear or to learn about nature and to love others. So many conspiracy theories are based on old cultural-religious narratives. God desires us to move beyond old falsehood. We should not be burning witches. We should not be persecuring minorities in times of economic stress. We should not be calling each other anti-Christ over provable scientific theories.

What we should be doing is to accept God’s lure for the good in order to improve humanity’s lot in the world. God gives us an infinite chances in real time to make our species better and our world better. What we can improve culturally through good use of science and technology will improve our epigenetics. What epigenetics can do to improve genetics in the setting of having our species continue to exist has the potential to make our species more loving and caring, especially for the other.

image produced by Gemini Advanced

An interesting article was recently published in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith (December 2024 edition). It is titled “Models in Christianity and Chemistry: Truth or Utility” written by William Wood PhD.

Articles in PSCF typically become open access through the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA) website one year after they are published. So, you will need to wait a bit before you see the article in its entirety (unless you are an ASA member like me).

Wood states that a good model is “both useful and true.” There are caveats of course. Objective models in science can become outdated as new data emerges. Bohr’s model of the atom is an example of a model that is outdated.

Wood also states that when theology attempts modeling in a manner similar to science, there are two main criticisms:

1) God is indescribable so the “God data” is never accurate.

2) Theology models risk not being representative of every individual’s relationship with God.

He also states that people who attempt theological modeling through the realm of science are often accused of scientism. Wood is making a good point here. This idea is ridiculous as the last thing those who are scientism-friendly want is theology’s input. I think it is quite obvious that the New Atheist movement and the U.S. Evangelical movement both refuse to accept contributions of religion or science, respectively. I can’t imagine why these two extremes in metaphysics would want to throw out additional ways to observe the world — yet they do.

We already have models in Christianity: the Trinity, the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, the Bridge-to-Life model, Sola Gratia, Sola Scriptura — these are all models. Models exist in other religious traditions as well.

Where do we go from here? I propose two ideas that need further study:

First, the objectivity of nature can provide a subjective bridge to our relationship with God. As an example, the proton is made up of 3 quarks. They are connected by the incredibly powerful strong nuclear force. How is this finding in nature not a metaphor for the Trinity? As another example, Simon Conway Morris (an internationally known evolutionary biologist) has proposed that evolutionary change has limits in creativity. How is this idea not a potential metaphor for purpose in our universe?

Proton made up of 2 up and 1 down quarks

Second, science necessarily advances. If science advances, this means that our objective and subjective ideas about the world must necessarily advance. As observations about the world necessarily advance, theology MUST change as humans gain more objective knowledge. Psalm 8 makes this point when it states, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” The writer of this Psalm is making an observation (looking at the stars of the Milky Way) and then proposes a theory (God still cares for inconsequential humans). This idea is inductive reasoning. Yes, it is a religious statement, but it is still inductive reasoning often used in science.

The Pleiades

There is an opportuity in which we can use natural observation and human subjective thought to make a real difference in the lives of many people of the Christian faith. We can use this same “real difference” to care for the poor, the sick, and even our enemies.

For example, we can combine such ideas when considering better ideas for the theological concept of atonement theory. Many Christians consider that Jesus’s death on the cross occurred only as a result of “penal substitutionary atonement.” In other words, God took God’s vengeance for all of humanity’s sins out on Jesus Christ. This description of God sounds maleficent. This description of God sounds like God eternally will never comprehend why humans even exist which gets complicated if God desired our species to exist in the first place.

“Night at Golgotha” by Vasili Vasilievich Vereshchagin (1869)

However, as we obtain more scientific data about nature and can propose hypotheses about nature in light of known science. We can think about how God’s relationship to our species exists for God “that you are mindful of them.” Perhaps God is always luring for the good. Perhaps Christ died for our sins not because of God’s vengeance but because humans are inherently a violent species. We would kill our God in Christ simply because that is what we do. Perhaps God, even in the crucifixion, still loved us, cared for us, and still lured for the good without forcing us to be good. This divine love is infinite in time and eternal in setting.

Perhaps our observations through science will give us a better understanding of how God loves every entity in the universe.

Odds and Ends:

Please read this editorial titled, “Will They Come for PubMed Next?” I worry greatly about the future of medical science in our country. This article exacerbates my fears.

Also, my book (“A Theology of the Microbiome“) now has an audio version! This is exciting!

image created by Gemini Advanced