More Multilingual (sort of)

Science. Evolution. Calculus. Physics. Quantum Mechanics.
God. Religion. Miracles, Theology. Philosophy.

The common opinion in our culture seems to be that these two lists are mutually exclusive, that they contradict each other, that you can't make a case for the one of the lists without denying the insight, wisdom, and potential of the other. Needless to say, I think that common opinion is off the mark.

In later editions of his classic book Creation Versus Chaos, renowned Biblical scholar Bernard Anderson talks about religious language and scientific language, and suggests that all our squabbles about incompatibility between the lists is that we try to make the two languages say the same thing about whatever issue is at hand. He says:

Religious language cannot be converted into scientific language any more than poetry can be reduced to prose. .. Scientific language...can hardly be equated with religious language that deals with who the Creator is and what the Creator's intent is. Nevertheless, these languages intersect at points of common cosmological interest. Therefore, when the scientist and the theologian meet, neither should claim to be "king of the mountain." They should be able to enter into dialogue as friends who stand humbly before the mysteries of creation.

In short, Anderson argues what Fermi Lab/University of Chicago physicist Leon Lederman and what the ancient mystics of every culture and religion and faith have long suggested, that the differences between the so-called "objective" stuff like our first list and the more "subjective" stuff like the second have to do more with language and metaphor than with the nature or goal of the pursuit. Theoretical physicists and mathematicians who convincingly postulate the origins of a still growing universe seek the same truth as the hospital chaplain who quietly listens as a family aches through the agony of waiting for someone they love to die. A "unified theory" eludes "objective" observers as cleverly as a decent proof for the existence of God has always eluded philosophers and theologians. The only real difference is vocabulary and symbol-sets.

Anderson suggests that we all are engaged in a quest to come to some understanding about three intertwined mysteries, the mystery of originations (where did it all come from?), the mystery of order (how does it all hold together and make sense?), and the mystery of the emergence of life (where did we come from? why are we here?). All of us search for a Great Unknown which we, at some level, think we already know a little bit.

The mathematicians and physicists and chemists and biologists and historians and sociologists and psychologists and philosophers and theologians exhaust the "toolboxes" of their disciplines and are still left with the nagging questions of creation and order and purpose. On better days these questions don't nag so much because we are somehow satisfied with our place in the order of things, and credit good luck, random chance, or the grace of God. On not-so-better days, they nag with persistence, and we're so unhappy with our place in the order of things, and we blame things like misfortune, wrong place at the wrong time, shallow gene pool, or the judgment of, or worse, abandonment by God (Psalm 22).

No matter the discipline, we discover that the homework load stays pretty substantial if we choose to keep on questioning. And there comes a time, as Thomas Aquinas suggested almost 800 years ago, when language, metaphor, commonly held knowledge is inadequate to describe an experience or phenomenon. Then and there we all find our ideas and theories and postulates coming up a bit short.