Throughout all of recorded history, man has pondered the
question of a god, or gods. We have
sought
the supernatural and looked to it for answers to many of life’s
mysteries. The advance of science has
progressively removed the credit that has historically been attributed to the
supernatural and placed it in the realm of natural, explainable phenomena.
So where does that leave us as followers of Jesus? Our foundational doctrines demand that we
believe that the supernatural exists. Some
reject science in favor of faith. Some
just don’t deal with the questions that arise.
I intend to argue, from
science, that the supernatural does exist.
I think the right way to start would be to first understand
what is meant by the words “nature” and “supernatural”.
Nature:
I did a little research and found many different definitions
of “nature” ranging from: “the material world, especially as surrounding
humankind and existing independently of human activities” on one end of the
range, to: “the entire universe with all its phenomena” on the other end.
Supernatural:
This one is a little easier once we agree on what “nature”
is. Webster defines it:
1: of or relating to an order of existence beyond the
visible observable universe; especially: of or relating to God or
a god, demigod, spirit, or devil
2 a : departing from what is usual or normal
especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature
b :
attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit)
I suspect those definitions added nothing to your
understanding of those words, however it is important to have a frame of
reference as we go forward. It is also important
to understand that words are a way to describe the things that exist so that we
can communicate and think about them. But
the things themselves are not bound by the words we use to describe them. There are physical things that exist that cannot
be visualized or graphically comprehended (as I will explain below), but we
know through other means that they exist.
In the same way, there are aspects of nature and the supernatural that go
beyond the words we use to describe them.
I intend to blur the line between these two words.
Blurring the line:
Lets look at some natural things. We’ll start with something simple like a rock. A rock is very obviously something we would
consider natural. A geologist or
paleontologist can give you all sorts of information about how it was formed,
what minerals and other matter it contains, it’s history, etc.
Lets take a quantum leap forward and look at something much
more complex, like a tree. We need to
employ much more science to understand what happens with a tree. We can talk about it from biology, chemistry,
physics, etc. A tree is considered to be
alive, so maybe even some philosophy is required. Even still, we know quite a bit about trees
and they still fall comfortably into our definition of nature.
Lets take another giant leap forward and look at gravity. Is gravity natural? General Relativity, which is all about
gravity, is called the “the most tested theory in physics” (proven to beyond 15
decimal places). We know a lot about
gravity, yet it begins to take us into a somewhat metaphysical realm. We know about gravity from its effects, but
we can’t really touch or hold gravity itself.
One more giant leap, this one takes us to realms that we
cannot observe. How do we know they exist if we cannot observe them? This may stretch your brain a little, but
read on and I’ll explain. It’ll be
fun. An example of something that must
exist, but cannot be directly observed, would be the extra dimensions predicted
by string theory. I’m not a physicist,
but in my limited understanding I would explain it like this: Scientists have
tried to unify the theories of general relativity and quantum mechanics and
were not able to. They began to add
spatial dimensions and things began to come together mathematically. It is now clear that there are at least 6
more spatial dimensions in addition to the 3 that our universe functions
in. In other words, it appeared that
either general relativity was wrong, or quantum mechanics was wrong. Since we know they are both necessary for our
universe to exist as it does, they had to find out what was missing. The extra dimensions were the answer, and they
have now demonstrated those extra dimensions through other experiments,
although there is still much to learn.
But we know they exist, and cannot visualize them. Do you want to try? Okay, you asked for it. It may make your head hurt. If you add only one dimension to the three we
function in, you could turn a basketball inside out without puncturing it. Can you visualize that? Me neither.
Are these extra dimensions part of nature? If we say, “yes” because they are testable and
provable, then that implies that our ability to test something is the litmus
test for what nature is, and that doesn’t seem to work because our ability to
test is constantly increasing, and that would infer that nature is increasing
with it. According to our range of
definitions above for “nature”, we would definitely have to say that they are
not part of nature according to the first definition. It seems they may fit into the second
definition, however it is so broad that it seems to loose its meaning. Essentially that definition means “everything”. So, we will stick with the definitions more
like the first one. In that case, at
least, I have successfully blurred the line separating nature from super-nature. And it is possible (and more reasonable I
think) that the answer is “no”, these extra dimensions are not part of
nature. They sure seem to fit the
definition above for “supernatural”. If
that is the case, then I have sufficiently shown that there are things that
exist that are supernatural.
In my next blog I will expand this train of thought and
show, once again through science, that it is most reasonable to believe in not
only the supernatural, but in a god of some sort.
