From Galileo and Newton to Einstein and Stephen Hawking, the reigning scientific
models of the cosmos have provided the larger culture with powerful analogies
and metaphors that shape its epistemology, its poetry, its politics, and its
religion…many of the leading postmodernist ideas borrow much of the their
imagery, and not a little of their social prestige, from scientific notions of
relativity, uncertainty, and incommensurability.
The thought that struck me was this: How might our reading of Scripture be different were we not living in and under an Einsteinian cosmology? How quick are we to allegorize and metaphorize passages of Scripture simply because we 'know better'? We know that the heavens have no vocal chords, they have no personhood, so how can they declare the glory of God (Ps 19) in any way other than a metaphorical one? How can they “day to day pour forth speech”? We know that space is simply a vast and immense void spotted with spheres of flaming gas and frozen rock? Right? Since we know that to be the case, Ps 19 must be speaking in a less than realistic mode. Right?
Here is my contention. It is not to argue specifically for a certain reading of Ps 19. It is much broader than that. It is to argue for the reigning paradigm that will necessarily shape our “epistemology, [our] poetry, [our] politics, and [our] religion.” From what paradigm does our epistemology come? Who determines the basic, most foundational, even subconscious, mode of our understanding? What well do we draw from to make our every day determinations as to what is real, what is symbol, what is metaphor, and what is hard, cold fact? What paradigm determines even our vocabulary for such discussions to inhabit?
Was the medieval church wrong to think of the cosmos in terms of reigning personalities? Was the Psalmist wrong to think of the heavens, day to day, pouring forth speech, “their voice [going] out through all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world”? How do we understand the Psalmist? From what altar do we sit and judge?
More questions. Does Scripture ever speak in terms of facts? Did Paul ever speak in terms of discovery (as opposed to revelation – the distinction is important)? Did Abraham look up at the stars and see flaming balls of gas? Even if he knew that’s what they were made of (like we do), is that what he would have seen? Did David see a tree as simply a whole made of up of distinct parts (root, trunk, stem, branch, leaf)? Did John ever speak of 'inanimate objects'?
Is there room in our current cosmology for seriously thinking of the sun as a “bridegroom”, let alone as a “bridegroom leaving his chamber…running his course with joy”? Does our epistemology have a category for heavens which declare the glory of God with speech and words whose voice is heard? Does our understanding of planetary motion and heliocentricity leave room for concepts of planetary obedience, response and submission?
How would our worldview be different if we supposed these things to be true? How might we think of creation differently, were we to see the Creator/Creature dialogue occur even with ‘inanimate objects’? Do we really believe Jesus when He says even the stones would cry out in praise to their Maker?
The purpose of these questions is not so much to answer them, as it is to provoke thought. We necessarily sit on an altar and judge all that comes before our eyes. The question is what altar do we sit upon? An altar on which all is sacrificed to the Most High God, even our cosmology and epistemology? Or do we sit on an altar dedicated to the gods of science, realism, relativity, and cold, hard facts? We must sit somewhere. We must serve one or the Other.
