Well, I think it’s about time I just
come on out and own up. Some of you folks may have figured this out by now
anyway. I’m a science geek. Actually, it’s worse than that. I’m a science geek wannabe. I’m too lazy to achieve full geekness. I am hopelessly enthralled with the world of
physics whether it be quantum physics, which is the study of the very small or
astrophysics, which is the study of the universe. If I had life to do over and knew what I know
now and could ignore the call to ministry, I’d be a physicist who likes
theology rather than the other way around.
When you’re messed up in physics to
this extent one of the questions you realize to be important is “how do we know
what we know especially when we can’t see it”.
Well, there are two ways of approaching this question – the theoretical
or the experimental. The theoretical approach works with what’s the math,
what’s the relatedness behind everything.
It’s the E=MC2 kind of stuff. The experimental approach is
the more hands on, prove it by experiment way of doing things.
In the high and lofty world of
physics theorists and experimentalists can often be at odds. It’s like the difference between hippies and
horse people. But sometimes they come
together and it’s just simply fantastic.
This happened with the discovery of the Higgs Boson back in 2012. These are small sub-atomic, elementary
particles that give mass to other kinds of particles that will interact with
them. It’s been dubbed the God Particle (though
Richard Feynman originally called it the God-damned Particle) because it was so
frustratingly elusive but necessary for our theories
about physical reality to work and for stuff to be stuff.
The search for the Higgs Boson began
back in the 60’s with questions about why some particles have mass and others
don’t. The theorists, one of them Peter
Higgs for whom the particle is named, quite conclusively demonstrated
mathematically that this particle had to be there, but for the experimentalists
the technology to demonstrate it by experiment just wasn’t there until
2012. July 4, 2012 CERN in France powered
its particle collider up enough to produce one.
This past December they did another experiment and found something that
might prove the existence of another theoretical particle associated with
gravity, the graviton. That’ll be way
too cool if they have.
There are a few things we can learn about how to understand our reality that we learn
from physics and its theoretical and experimental pursuits. One is that we can know
things about this physical world even without being able to see them. In this universe things are knowable.
Secondly, in this universe there is a
rational order to what we know. It is
one thing to know that there is such a thing as a Higgs Boson, but entirely
another to know and understand how it relates and works with other elementary
particles to give stuff mass. There is
rational order, relatedness in this universe.
A third thing that we learn from
physics but we don’t really hear much about due mostly to media bias is the
number of physicists who stand in awe of this universe with the realization
that it is contingent upon something or someone beyond itself for its
existence. Someone or something made it
and gave it a rational order that is knowable. Even Einstein spoke of God.
Fourthly, physics is the pursuit of
understanding this creation by questioning it and letting it reveal itself to
us in predictable and also unpredictable ways.
In order to know things and the rational order behind them we must keep
an open mind to possibilities beyond which we can see or even imagine. We must be willing to be surprised by things
that are new and unique. And when the
new and unique happens we are out of line if we dismiss them outright as
irrational because they don’t fit our paradigms of what’s possible.
To the true physicist, when something
new happens, such as Jesus’ resurrection, it is bad science to poo-poo it away
as being irrational or illogical spiritual hoodoo. That is not proper to science. What you do is accept it for what it is and
begin to ask questions of it and let it reveal itself to you until you can
start to understand it and its place in the rational order of things.
Looking at 1 Corinthians, Paul found
himself up against this closed minded, improper science in his day. People were saying that Jesus was not raised
from the dead. That it was
irrational. God doesn't become human and the dead stay dead. That’s the way things are. But Paul says "no" to their irrational
close-mindedness and boldly states, “But in fact Christ has been raised from
the dead.” “In fact” – nyni de in Greek – “certainly”, “indeed”,
“for sure” Paul says, "Christ has been raised from the dead." It's a fact. It happened. Paul has been confronted by this new reality. This act of new creation has apprehended Paul
– grabbed him by the hair and gotten his full attention. Instead of poo-pooing
it as impossible Paul draws a profound conclusion based in known reality. He says: “for
in Adam all die, so in like manner in Christ all will be made to live.
You know, one of the most
historically documented events of the first century AD is the resurrection of
Jesus Christ. There is as much credible historical record both in primary and secondary sources biblical and otherwise for the existence of
Jesus of Nazareth, that he lived, died a treasoner’s death at the hands of the
Romans, and was raised from the dead as there is for the existence, life, and
deeds, and death of Alexander the Great.
That Jesus lived, died, and was bodily raised is a historical fact. Yet, It is something new to our universe that we
must apprehend. How should we do this? Well, the route of proper science is an acceptable and fruitful approach.
First, start asking questions in hopes that resurrection will reveal itself to us. Yet, there is one question we cannot ask
about the resurrection, “how?”. We are
incompetent to do so. We don’t know what
life is nor what death is. Biological
life is not a machine for us to figure out how it works so as to take it apart
like a car engine and put it back together.
Those who approach medicine this way or evolution in such a mechanistic and cause-and-effect means are way off base
here. We don’t know what consciousness
is or how it is we humans can experience meaning. We are incompetent to ask how Jesus was
raised and we are out of order if we say Jesus was not raised because we cannot
say how. That’s what atheism does and it
is poor scientific method that leads them to that conclusion. In fact, it’s not even scientific.
The question we can ask since Jesus
was a man is “who?” Who is this that was
raised from the dead? We have a “theoretical”
basis or record to go by here – the prophets of the Old Testament through whom God spoke
and said he would come and do the things that Jesus has done and who also spoke
of new creation. Scripture tells us
everything we need to know about who Jesus is as God the Son become the man
Jesus. Scripture and centuries of theology
can help us to understand that as Jesus of Nazareth God has done something new,
reality changing new, in fact physical reality changing new. The empirical or experimental basis of Jesus’
resurrection can be proven in Christian community, but ultimately it waits for
the day of resurrection when in Christ all will be made to live.
To close, we have several weeks of
Easter to talk about the meaning of Easter, but on this day, Easter Sunday, in
this day and time the one thing that we must boldly proclaim is that Jesus
Christ, the incarnate Son of God, was in fact bodily raised from the dead. Proper science does not and should not have a
problem with this. In fact, proper scientific
method is a good way to apprehend this new thing that God has done. This is what we call theology. To apprehend Jesus and his resurrection we
must be open to what he himself, Scripture, and Christian witness has to say
about him. We need to ask and explore
the questions that arise, particularly the who question. We need to be open to the one who created
this universe and gave it a knowable rational order and welcome the fact that
as Jesus he has entered into it and is healing it. Amen.
