Belief and Inference
Created | Updated Jan 31, 2003
Belief and Inference
Assumptions and Inference.
Science is based on certain assumptions which are held to be true but which can’t be “proven.” Among these assumptions is that the universe is knowable. Something is really “out there” and our internal subjective awareness--somehow and to some degree--corresponds to that which is external to ourselves. The universe is remarkably intelligible. The more we explore it, the more we realize that its motions are not only ascertainable but predictable as well. Quantum physics, chaos theory, Planck’s Constant, etc. are highly abstract extrapolations from observable reality but we “know” they are “true.” This connection between the universe and the mind has fascinated every generation since Plato and the ancient Greeks. The fact that the connection between inner awareness and outer reality can be expressed mathematically is itself remarkable. Even more astonishing: we can now construct mathematical models and theories only to find that external reality indeed corresponds to these intellectual constructs. The amazing intelligibility of the universe and its correspondence to the human mind demands explanation.
We can infer that if cosmic reality is intelligible to our minds, which are themselves the evolutionary product of the cosmos itself (we are all some kind of star dust), then somehow the cosmos itself is rooted in intelligence. Intelligibility without foundational intelligence makes no sense. Chance, time and evolution have brought about human intelligence and the capacity for subjective awareness, of course, but we who ask “why questions” want some kind of explanation for this. Such an explanation would lie beyond the realm of any particular science, but we are not limited in our thinking by specific scientific modalities. Wider philosophical thinking is required in which roots of existent reality can be explored through inference.
The Anthropic Principle.
We now know that the universe in its origins was characterized by constants so remarkably balanced that carbon-based life and human subjectivity were able to evolve. The universe from the first nano-second of its existence contained, among an infinite variety of other possibilities, precisely the fundamental constants necessary for our existence. This remarkable fact has been called by many scientists the “anthropic principle.” The universe generates from within itself by its own inherent processes a being which is able to interrogate the very cosmos which gave it existence. Moreover this improbable and puny creature, from the depths of its own subjectivity seeks and discovers truth, searches for and creates meaning, discovers and articulates values.
Cosmic evolution occurs therefore within an ordered framework circumscribed by what we know as laws or principles. Random events occur within this framework so it appears that evolution is a product of the interplay between a kind of law and chance. The immense duration of the universe allows for evolution to pursue a rich and enormous variety of options, notable most strikingly in the extravagant profusion of biological diversity.
The statistical probabilities of quantum mechanics which encompasses the entire universe and the innovation wrought by chance at the molecular level of DNA show the interplay of necessity and chance. The natural selection of biological evolution operates within a context which is both random and ordered. The biotic system through innovation and creativity produces a species that is able to grasp the principles operative throughout the entire universe. This species is also profoundly aware of its own subjectivity
The human mind seeks ultimate answers and fundamental meanings, but does so completely within the brain’s physical/biological/chemical system. The search for answers and meaning cannot be completely requited within this system, however. Through the human act of understanding both external and inner reality the cosmos points beyond itself. A simple analogy has been used to explain this. Take a pencil and scribble a meaningless scrawl on it, then begin to write a coherent sentence. There is a continuity between the scrawl and the sentence which a physical/chemical analysis would demonstrate. But there is a radical discontinuity when the sentence begins. Our attention is transposed into a different key. Something very different is at stake both in writing and in analyzing the sentence at the level of meaning. A chemical analysis which showed the continuity and the similarity would be accurate but it would be unable to discern the truly innovative and creative activity of writing a coherent thought. Physical continuity remains but the formation of comprehensible words requires a different kind of analysis.
The analogy points to the fact that something is taking place within the universe which is not completely subject to a closed materialistic interpretation. It is at least highly probable that human subjectivity in all its facets, including comprehending and describing the cosmos points to an overarching subjectivity in which the universe itself is embedded.
Reductionism Insufficient.
Reality is multi-dimensional and cannot be reduced entirely to the physical processes that are present in all the transactions of nature. The reason is that reality is demonstrably more comprehensive than these processes alone. There is also the fact that there are different levels within the exchanges of nature which are not reducible to each other.
Someone with a “bias” toward physics could make the argument that all processes in the cosmos are no more than wave/particle flow. In this view even biology and chemistry do not have their own realities because all is reducible to the quantum flux. The biologist and chemist would quite legitimately object to this as an absurdity, but such a stance is implicit within the logic of brute materialist reductionism.
Moving in the other direction but using the same logic, the biologist or the chemist could deny reality to the behaviors observed by the psychologist or sociologist. The truth is that the physical, biological and chemical components of nature are interrelated and interconnected but not reducible to each other.
Social reality is completely rooted in the above elements—nothing happens in society or in human relationships apart from these processes, but the totality is far more comprehensive than these mechanisms alone. Nothing in the cosmos happens apart from wave/particle flow or lies beyond the reach of gravity and quantum conditions. On our planet—and presumably elsewhere as well—much of what takes place involves chemistry and biology. Physics is thus a necessary but insufficient cause of organic reality—necessary because nothing can take place apart from it, but insufficient because something new is involved in living things. Though all living beings have evolved from stardust, the big bang and its cosmic residue have become something new through the evolutionary process. Evolution moves in the direction of novelty, innovation, profusion and surprise. Reductionism is inadequate to describe what really takes place.
Atoms are contained within molecules, cells within organisms, organisms within ecosystems. There seems to be an “overall ordering of entities –atoms, molecules, cells, genes, etc. into intelligible forms or arrangements…something more is going on in nature and its evolution than simply brute exchanges along the matter-energy continuum.
Nature is a closed matter-energy continuum circumscribed by familiar processes and laws and yet it reconfigures itself in ways that escape the capacity of purely materialistic, mechanistic causality. This organizing principle resides in nature and is verifiable, but it is not completely reducible to a mechanistic explanation. There is more to evolution than reductionistic language can explain. . The ancient Greeks, while they did not possess the science of evolution, had a notion of “teleology” or “final causality” as an organizing principle in nature. This is not a “mystical” or “supernatural” concept, but something like it is required to do justice to the comprehensive reality that is the evolutionary cosmos as we understand it today.
When we enter the sphere of the human and the social, its poverty of explanation becomes readily apparent. A coherent and probable explanation for this is the existence of God.
Belief in God: The Best Inference.
Thus faith in God rooted intellectually in a thorough and inclusive analysis of reality. It is a the most comprehensive intellectual position–one that many people, myself included think is the best inference that can be derived from nature itself.
In this context contemporary science: biological evolution, the operation of randomness, natural selection, quantum mechanics, relativity and chaos theory have all converged to provided a contemporary philosophical basis to rediscover the dynamic and creative aspects of biblical faith which has for too long been articulated in the static categories of western philosophy. In a very real sense contemporary science has enabled a renewal of the future-oriented biblical theology which has always been there, but has been submerged in recent centuries.
Suggested Reading
Haught, John F. God After Darwin.Westview Press. Boulder, 2000.
Jaki, Stanley L. God and the Cosmologists. Scottish Academic Press. 1989
Peacocke, Arthur. Paths from Science Towards God. Oneworld Publications..Oxford, 2001
Peacocke, Arthur. Theology for a Scientific Age.SCM Press, London, 1990
Polkinghorne. The Faith of a Physicist. Fortress. Minneapolis, 1996
Ward, Keith. God, Chance and Necessity.Oxford. 1996
Assumptions and Inference.
Science is based on certain assumptions which are held to be true but which can’t be “proven.” Among these assumptions is that the universe is knowable. Something is really “out there” and our internal subjective awareness--somehow and to some degree--corresponds to that which is external to ourselves. The universe is remarkably intelligible. The more we explore it, the more we realize that its motions are not only ascertainable but predictable as well. Quantum physics, chaos theory, Planck’s Constant, etc. are highly abstract extrapolations from observable reality but we “know” they are “true.” This connection between the universe and the mind has fascinated every generation since Plato and the ancient Greeks. The fact that the connection between inner awareness and outer reality can be expressed mathematically is itself remarkable. Even more astonishing: we can now construct mathematical models and theories only to find that external reality indeed corresponds to these intellectual constructs. The amazing intelligibility of the universe and its correspondence to the human mind demands explanation.
We can infer that if cosmic reality is intelligible to our minds, which are themselves the evolutionary product of the cosmos itself (we are all some kind of star dust), then somehow the cosmos itself is rooted in intelligence. Intelligibility without foundational intelligence makes no sense. Chance, time and evolution have brought about human intelligence and the capacity for subjective awareness, of course, but we who ask “why questions” want some kind of explanation for this. Such an explanation would lie beyond the realm of any particular science, but we are not limited in our thinking by specific scientific modalities. Wider philosophical thinking is required in which roots of existent reality can be explored through inference.
The Anthropic Principle.
We now know that the universe in its origins was characterized by constants so remarkably balanced that carbon-based life and human subjectivity were able to evolve. The universe from the first nano-second of its existence contained, among an infinite variety of other possibilities, precisely the fundamental constants necessary for our existence. This remarkable fact has been called by many scientists the “anthropic principle.” The universe generates from within itself by its own inherent processes a being which is able to interrogate the very cosmos which gave it existence. Moreover this improbable and puny creature, from the depths of its own subjectivity seeks and discovers truth, searches for and creates meaning, discovers and articulates values.
Cosmic evolution occurs therefore within an ordered framework circumscribed by what we know as laws or principles. Random events occur within this framework so it appears that evolution is a product of the interplay between a kind of law and chance. The immense duration of the universe allows for evolution to pursue a rich and enormous variety of options, notable most strikingly in the extravagant profusion of biological diversity.
The statistical probabilities of quantum mechanics which encompasses the entire universe and the innovation wrought by chance at the molecular level of DNA show the interplay of necessity and chance. The natural selection of biological evolution operates within a context which is both random and ordered. The biotic system through innovation and creativity produces a species that is able to grasp the principles operative throughout the entire universe. This species is also profoundly aware of its own subjectivity
The human mind seeks ultimate answers and fundamental meanings, but does so completely within the brain’s physical/biological/chemical system. The search for answers and meaning cannot be completely requited within this system, however. Through the human act of understanding both external and inner reality the cosmos points beyond itself. A simple analogy has been used to explain this. Take a pencil and scribble a meaningless scrawl on it, then begin to write a coherent sentence. There is a continuity between the scrawl and the sentence which a physical/chemical analysis would demonstrate. But there is a radical discontinuity when the sentence begins. Our attention is transposed into a different key. Something very different is at stake both in writing and in analyzing the sentence at the level of meaning. A chemical analysis which showed the continuity and the similarity would be accurate but it would be unable to discern the truly innovative and creative activity of writing a coherent thought. Physical continuity remains but the formation of comprehensible words requires a different kind of analysis.
The analogy points to the fact that something is taking place within the universe which is not completely subject to a closed materialistic interpretation. It is at least highly probable that human subjectivity in all its facets, including comprehending and describing the cosmos points to an overarching subjectivity in which the universe itself is embedded.
Reductionism Insufficient.
Reality is multi-dimensional and cannot be reduced entirely to the physical processes that are present in all the transactions of nature. The reason is that reality is demonstrably more comprehensive than these processes alone. There is also the fact that there are different levels within the exchanges of nature which are not reducible to each other.
Someone with a “bias” toward physics could make the argument that all processes in the cosmos are no more than wave/particle flow. In this view even biology and chemistry do not have their own realities because all is reducible to the quantum flux. The biologist and chemist would quite legitimately object to this as an absurdity, but such a stance is implicit within the logic of brute materialist reductionism.
Moving in the other direction but using the same logic, the biologist or the chemist could deny reality to the behaviors observed by the psychologist or sociologist. The truth is that the physical, biological and chemical components of nature are interrelated and interconnected but not reducible to each other.
Social reality is completely rooted in the above elements—nothing happens in society or in human relationships apart from these processes, but the totality is far more comprehensive than these mechanisms alone. Nothing in the cosmos happens apart from wave/particle flow or lies beyond the reach of gravity and quantum conditions. On our planet—and presumably elsewhere as well—much of what takes place involves chemistry and biology. Physics is thus a necessary but insufficient cause of organic reality—necessary because nothing can take place apart from it, but insufficient because something new is involved in living things. Though all living beings have evolved from stardust, the big bang and its cosmic residue have become something new through the evolutionary process. Evolution moves in the direction of novelty, innovation, profusion and surprise. Reductionism is inadequate to describe what really takes place.
Atoms are contained within molecules, cells within organisms, organisms within ecosystems. There seems to be an “overall ordering of entities –atoms, molecules, cells, genes, etc. into intelligible forms or arrangements…something more is going on in nature and its evolution than simply brute exchanges along the matter-energy continuum.
Nature is a closed matter-energy continuum circumscribed by familiar processes and laws and yet it reconfigures itself in ways that escape the capacity of purely materialistic, mechanistic causality. This organizing principle resides in nature and is verifiable, but it is not completely reducible to a mechanistic explanation. There is more to evolution than reductionistic language can explain. . The ancient Greeks, while they did not possess the science of evolution, had a notion of “teleology” or “final causality” as an organizing principle in nature. This is not a “mystical” or “supernatural” concept, but something like it is required to do justice to the comprehensive reality that is the evolutionary cosmos as we understand it today.
When we enter the sphere of the human and the social, its poverty of explanation becomes readily apparent. A coherent and probable explanation for this is the existence of God.
Belief in God: The Best Inference.
Thus faith in God rooted intellectually in a thorough and inclusive analysis of reality. It is a the most comprehensive intellectual position–one that many people, myself included think is the best inference that can be derived from nature itself.
In this context contemporary science: biological evolution, the operation of randomness, natural selection, quantum mechanics, relativity and chaos theory have all converged to provided a contemporary philosophical basis to rediscover the dynamic and creative aspects of biblical faith which has for too long been articulated in the static categories of western philosophy. In a very real sense contemporary science has enabled a renewal of the future-oriented biblical theology which has always been there, but has been submerged in recent centuries.
Suggested Reading
Haught, John F. God After Darwin.Westview Press. Boulder, 2000.
Jaki, Stanley L. God and the Cosmologists. Scottish Academic Press. 1989
Peacocke, Arthur. Paths from Science Towards God. Oneworld Publications..Oxford, 2001
Peacocke, Arthur. Theology for a Scientific Age.SCM Press, London, 1990
Polkinghorne. The Faith of a Physicist. Fortress. Minneapolis, 1996
Ward, Keith. God, Chance and Necessity.Oxford. 1996
