The Eternal Now: Science and Theology

Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. 
I Corinthians 15:51

Science and theology are not natural enemies.

They work with the same subject matter. Both begin with the observation of the world around us. 

And each is focused on big ideas.

One focuses on how the world works and the other focuses on what it means. But those distinctions are not as clearly delineated as one might suppose. There is natural overlap and there is also intentional overlap. And some conflict is probably inevitable.

But lately the conflict has been fairly acrimonious. We tend to forget that although there have been many famous conflicts across the centuries, science and theology have also been understood at many points as complementary disciplines. And they ought to be complementary disciplines.

The blame for our current state is broadly shared. The present conflict began a little over a century ago when the Fundamentalists began to push back against the theory of evolution and assert that the creation story in Genesis was a scientific document. It was both bad science and bad theology, but it provided the foundation for biblical literalism and a simplistic view of the world which has been surprisingly popular. It is so popular that more people believe in creationism today than fifty years ago.

The pushback against Fundamentalism and biblical literalism has found its voice in what we call the “New Atheism” of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and others. It is hard to blame anyone for pushing back against the anti-scientific (and anti-intellectual) views of the biblical literalists, but the New Atheists have been as ignorant about theology as the biblical literalists have been about science.

Given this background, I was pleased to receive an article from one of my atheist friends, written by physicists Bob Berman and Robert Lanza and titled, “There Is No Death, Only a Series of Eternal ‘Nows’.”

Berman and Lanza want to tell us what will happen when we die. 

And the good news is that we don’t. We don’t really die. 

They begin with what they call the “scientific view of death,” which they summarize as “essentially, you drop dead and that’s the end of everything. This is the view favored by intellectuals who pride themselves on being stoic and realistic enough to avoid cowardly refuge in Karl Marx’s spiritual ‘opium’ – the belief in an afterlife.”

“This modern view,” they observe dryly, “is not a cheerful one.”

But they have an alternative: “our theory of the universe, called biocentrism, in which life and consciousness create the reality around them, has no space for death at all.”

Death has no reality because time is an illusion. What is real is now. And, as the title of the article suggests, we live in a series of eternal nows.

Their argument goes deep into the realm of theoretical physics, but is written in a style that is accessible to the non-scientist.

I was fascinated first by the title. Paul Tillich wrote a famous sermon called, “The Eternal Now,” which is included in a book by the same title. And the idea is central to Tillich’s theology.

As I read the article, I was reminded of the Process Theology of Charles Hartshorne and John Cobb. 

In Hartshorne’s book, “The Logic of Perfection,” he wrote about his understanding of death in a way that complements the view of Berman and Lanza. “It is a truism,” writes Hartshone, “though one often forgotten, that whatever death may mean it cannot mean that a person is first something real and then something unreal.”

Berman and Lanza conclude by recounting what Albert Einstein wrote when his lifelong friend Michele Besso died in 1955: “Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

It is unlikely that the conflict between science and theology will be resolved any time soon (although I could argue that for me it is already resolved in this eternal now). But I cannot help hoping. 

And I have this image, always a favorite, from that iconic scene at the end “Casablanca.” The cynical American, Rick Blaine, links arms with the corrupt French police sergeant Renault. And as they walk off into the fog to begin their unlikely partnership fighting against the Nazis, Rick says,  "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."   

Ray Lewis and Bad Theology

“He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” 
Matthew 5:45 

“Love your enemies, do good, lend expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great and you will be called children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.”
Luke 6:35-36

Thirteen years ago outside a Super Bowl party in Atlanta, Richard Lollar and Jacinth Baker were stabbed to death by someone (or more than one person) in a group that included Baltimore linebacker and future hall of famer Ray Lewis. We know there was an altercation. We know that at least some of them sped away from the scene in Lewis’s limousine. We know that he told everyone not to say anything. We know that the white suit he was wearing was blood stained and has never been found. And we know that eventually he was given a deal by prosecutors and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in return for his testimony against others in his group who were eventually acquitted.

Since then, Ray Lewis has turned his life around. He is in many ways a model citizen. His teammates see him as a role model. And he is often described as “a committed Christian.”

In a taped interview that aired during the Super Bowl, CBS sports analyst and former teammate Shannon Sharpe observed that the families of the victims have said that they find it painful to watch Lewis “being celebrated by millions.” Sharpe asked, “What would you say to the families?”

Lewis responded with an answer that was also a statement of his faith: "It’s simple. God has never made a mistake. That’s just who He is, you see.... To the family, if you knew, if you really knew the way God works, He don’t use people who commits anything like that for His glory. No way. It’s the total opposite."

In other words, if Lewis were not a good person then he would not have been successful. His success proves that he is not guilty. In other words, people get what they deserve.

And just so that we are clear, Ray knows, really knows, the way God works.

The Super Bowl is often an occasion for bad theology. There are always more than a few players (and fans) who thank God for favoring their team, or blessing their effort, or in some other way choosing them for this special reward. But this goes way beyond the usual.

It’s not just bad theology; it’s evil theology.

If we believe Ray Lewis then we have to believe that Jesus was mistaken when he said that God is kind to those who are wicked and ungrateful, or that God makes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. And if we believe Ray Lewis then we will have to reject the Sermon on the Mount and most of the Gospels . . . just for starters.

Theological narcissism is bad enough, but the real evil comes when we look at the implications for the victims of that double murder thirteen years ago. If God chose to glorify Ray Lewis, did God also choose death for Richard Lollar and Jacinth Baker? If we believe that God controls reward and punishments and “never makes a mistake” then they must have gotten what they deserved.

The rich deserve to be rich and the poor deserve to be poor. Because God rewards goodness and punishes evil.

It is natural for those who have been successful to claim divine favor, so that success becomes evidence of moral and religious superiority. Ray Lewis’s faith in his own goodness has a strange parallel in the objections raised two hundred and fifty years ago by the Duchess of Buckingham after hearing the followers of John Wesley preach about God’s grace. “Their doctrines are most repulsive,” she wrote to a friend, “and strongly tinctured with impertinence and disrespect towards their superiors, in perpetu­ally endeavoring to level all ranks, and do away with all distinctions. It is monstrous to be told that you have a heart as sinful as the com­mon wretches that crawl on the earth.”