How Science is Doing Prophecy

This bonsai tree has little to do with this post but I know this image is not copyrighted.

Prophecy has gotten a bad rap lately and it could be a number of reasons why this is the case. First the people who tell us that the world is going to end on some date and then the world does not end on that date gives us reason to question anyone who "prophesies" about the future. Another reason is that we live as products of the scientific revolution and we are convinced that looking into crystal balls is a gimmick and a scam. 

The unfortunate thing is that we have all misunderstood prophecy and relegated it to the realms of reading tea leaves, Ouija boards, and hucksters.

At the core prophecy is about truth telling. Go back and read the Bible and those who are prophesying. They are talking about their current realities and if those current realities do not change what the obvious conclusion will be. Prophets also are ones who speak the truth that there is always hope, regardless of the situation. There is always a dawn coming, even in the darkest places. Prophets are truth tellers and the thing that science prides' itself on is truth telling. 

Science is doing prophecy. 

Science told the truth about smoking increases lung cancer.

Science told the truth about germs causing disease and not curses.

Science told the truth about the world being round and the sun at the center of our orbit.

I could go on and on, but you get the point. The great irony is that for all the scientists who do not "believe" in prophecy, they are actually the ones who are doing a darn good job at being prophetic.

And just like there are people today who debate how the prophecies in the Bible should be interpreted, so to there are people today who debate how the prophecies of science should be interpreted:

Is "fracking" safe? Where do subatomic particles go when they disappear? Is there another "human-like" animal "out there"? How did the dinosaurs die out?

When we are truth telling we are in the realm of prophecy. The next post will address why all this prophecy is a problem. 

Why don't we hear God like people did in the OT?

Every now and again I am asked why don't we hear God the way people heard God in the Bible? No more burning bushes, no voices from the sky, no walking in a garden chatting about the days activities. I am not going to get into the discussion about if these events were historically accurate or if they are metaphor or myth or some hallucination resulting in Moses eating some odd desert flower. What I am interested in discussing is an underlying assumption in the question: what does God sound like. 

St. John of the Cross said that the first language of God is silence. And if we are made in the image of God then the first language of humans might also be silence. If that is the case, then why do we seek out to "hear" God the way we would hear other noises? Do you and I know how to listen to the silence? It does not seem like we as a people embrace silence. In many ways it seems like we are like the children of later generations who no longer speak the "old language" of our ancestors. Third generation German Americans or Mexican Americans may not know how to speak or hear their grandparent's native tongue. So too we have become so removed from our native tongue that we cannot even hear silence the way we used to. 

As they say with all languages, you use it or you lose it. Perhaps we are losing the language of silence? 

Finally, if God's first language is silence and our first language is noise, should it be so shocking that even if we hear God there would be translation and interpretation problems? 

Read the Bible as Fiction. Please.

I have always wondered why when I ask people to tell me what the most important or formative books they have read in their lives, nine times out of ten a person says it was a fictional story. For instance, when Goodreads users what are the most influential books they have read, fiction is all over the place.

The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human is a fantastic book and it is the first source that I have encountered that addresses why fiction is more influential on people than non-fiction. 

Here is a short summary of one of the arguments to the power of fiction:

"Green and Brock’s research shows that the more absorbed readers are in a story, the more the story changes them. Fiction readers who reported a high level of absorption tended to have their beliefs changed in a more “story-consistent” way than those who were less absorbed. Highly absorbed readers also detected significantly fewer “false notes” in stories—inaccuracies, infelicities—than less transported readers. Importantly, it is not just that highly absorbed readers detected the false notes and didn’t care about them (as when we watch a pleasurably idiotic action film); these readers were unable to detect the false notes in the first place."

The author goes on to say:

"And in this there is an important lesson about the molding power of story. When we read non fiction, we read with our shields up. We are critical and skeptical. But when we are absorbed in a story, we drop our intellectual guard. We are moved emotionally, and this seems to leave us defenseless."

The Church teaches that the Bible is Truth that you can shape your life around. Which gives the impression that the Bible should be read as first and foremost a historical document that is trying to convince the reader. 

The Bible, on the whole, is a collection of writings that are not trying to convince people's minds but trying to shape people's hearts. And the more we read the Bible like it is all non fiction the more we read "with our shields" up to the point that we are cynical and discount the Bible in what it is really trying to do. 

No one reads Frankenstein with their cynical shields up. Rather, we read and it shapes our hearts to consider the ethical dilemmas Shelley is trying to raise.

The Bible is a great collection of books. Many of these books are fiction and others are "based on a true story" sort of non fiction. But either way, can we get back to a point where the Church teaches Christians to read the Bible as non fiction and not be threatened by the Bible losing credibility or authority? 

Put it another way, can the Church get away from trying to convince people's minds and get back to Jesus' desire to shape our hearts*?

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*Ever wonder why Jesus used fictitious parables rather than non fiction tales? 

Airtight arguments kill us

He was a PhD student in philosophy and he was invited to share about why he is an atheist in the Sunday school class, I'll call him Casey. Casey is one of those "smartest guy in the room" sort of people. He came with one of the philosophy proofs on a large whiteboard. It was clear by his posture that he was not critical of religion, but confident in what he understood to be true. At the end of the logic proof he opened the floor for questions.

A few hands went up and he addressed them with a speed that I can only assume came from the fact he answered these questions before or that he had superpowers. At the end of the session it was clear, Casey no one would be able to convince him to move from his views. 

Airtight?

I have met many Caseys in my life. Some are atheist and others are theists. Regardless of their positions, they all seem to share one characteristic. As far as they are concerned the arguments are. They are right and everyone else is wrong. Even if you have an objection, they already have a response and an answer. They are clear that what is most important are the facts and their sources of authority (philosophy, the Bible, the Constitution, FOXNews, Jon Stewart, biology, physics, etc.) are more authoritative than others. 

I have also learned that it is difficult to be friends with someone who is airtight. I have learned that when I am airtight with my views, position or arguments, it really turns people off. Others do not feel heard, valued, appreciated or even accepted as having anything to contribute. When I am airtight I have fewer connections with people.

Perhaps the element overlooked when we strive to have airtight arguments is being airtight can suffocate us.