I like this sentiment from the band “Warped 45s.”

“Let my headstone be my favourite jukebox loaded with the songs of my friends. . . .Push B24 and sway barefoot on my grave.” – “Radio Sky”

Would you be one of the ones who would come by and sway?

If I continue to quote from good books I may have to rename my blog, “What’s in Keith’s Book-bag?” At any given time I often have multiple books on the go and so it is not surprising that I want to introduce you to another fascinating book: The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods.

The book is a community development book and lays out a great plan for how we can get our cities and neighbourhoods back on track with community. Chapter one has some great ideas about safety and security.

As Jane Jacobs, author, activist, and icon of the importance of a vital neighborhood, wrote years ago, a safe street is produced by eyes on the street. It is produced by people walking around, sitting outside, knowing neighbors, and being part of a social fabric. No number of gates or professional security people on patrol can make us safe. They can increase arrests, but basically safety is in the hands of citizens. Citizens outside the house, interacting with others, being familiar with the comings and goings of the neighbors. . . .

This is an interesting paradox. We pay police to make us safe, and then they spend some of our money to send us police officers who tell us: that the strength of our own community ties is essential for our safety! There is a name for it: community policing. This police message is confirmed by all kinds of social science research. One of the best is a Chicago study by Robert Sampson and colleagues that found that two factors often predicted whether a neighborhood was crime prone:

Is there mutual trust and altruism among neighbors?
Are neighbors willing to intervene when children misbehave?

Of course, this trust and community responsibility can develop only when neighbors know and are committed to each other. So, the suburbanites whose local relationships are limited to a cheery hello to the neighbor, and the urbanites whose fear keeps them from even saying hello, are all increasing their chance to be a victim.

I passed these words on to my friends at my local Block Watch office. This is exactly what they have been telling us.

Lesslie Newbigin (1909 – 1998) was a missionary and theologian in India and England. He has written some brilliant books including The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (SPCK/Eerdmans/WCC, 1989) and the one I am now reading, Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship (Eerdmans, 1995). It is a short book, not difficult to read, and Newbigin has a gift for summarizing great stretches of history and philosophical thinking in a few sentences.

In chapter two he refers to René Descartes who is best known for his statement, “Cogito ergo sum.” Which translated to English means, “I think, therefore I am; or “I do think, therefore I do exist.” Newbigin shows the tremendous influence of Descartes and how his pursuit for certainty has led to the great crisis of the postmodern world.

It was Friederich Niettzche (1844-1900) who, at the end of the nineteenth century, drew with inescapable clarity the necessary conclusion of the method of Descartes. . . . Rational criticism rests on beliefs which are, for the moment, held acritically. But these beliefs are themselves liable to critical questioning. If the critical principle is exalted to the supreme place in the enterprise of knowing, then the possibility of knowing anything is destroyed. “True” and “false,” “right” and “wrong” – these are now words which have no objective reference. They are simply expressions of the will. The will to power is the real driving force of history. The “eternal truths of reason” so beloved during the Age of Reason are in fact nothing of the kind; they are the products of particular historic developments and of particular exercises of the will to power. The twentieth century has learned this lesson. Claims to speak meaningfully about right and wrong are discounted. Instead, one speaks of “values.” These “values” are a matter of personal choice. They express what the person who holds them wishes to see enacted. They are precisely expressions of the will (albeit in a less brutal form than that suggested by Nietzche).

. . . .

The modern age began with the daring program of Descartes, a program encouraged by a cardinal of the church and designed to banish skepticism once and for all by establishing the method by which indubitable certainty could be obtained. Neither faith nor probability would suffice. Certainty was possible, and we ought to be content with nothing less. It is deeply ironic that this method has led us directly into the profound skepticism of the postmodern world. The greatest product of the modern age is the work of science, a work which has transformed the human situation and continues to do so. Yet, there is now a profound skepticism about science itself. It is recognized as a unique avenue to power (and the greater part of scientific work is now directed towards the achievement of power – military, industrial, and commercial), but it is not perceived as a pathway to wisdom. Modern science has placed in human hands the power to do things that were previously unimaginable. Technology, the development of ever more sophisticated means for achieving any end we choose, dominates modern and modernized societies. But there is a growing perception that science and technology are no substitute for wisdom – for the power to discern what ends are in accordance with the truth and the power to judge rightly between alternative ends.

Watch this blog for more insights from Proper Confidence.

Although I have thought about the subject for years, I learned a new term today: “exotheology.” It is defined as the examination of theological issues related to extraterrestrial intelligence. Now lest you think I have completely lost my mind, let me point out that many gifted and creative writers have written on this topic. C.S. Lewis wrote a trilogy^ of books that grappled with the questions of what it might look like if humans travelled to other planets and found intelligent life. Mary Doriah Russell wrote The Sparrow and Children of God as a means of wrestling with complex questions of evil and suffering in the world. In these two books intelligent life is discovered on a distant planet and Jesuit priests organize a scientific expedition to investigate.

In addition to such fictional references, the Catholic Church has theologians dedicated to thinking about the implications of life on other planets. José Gabriel Funes, head of the Vatican Observatory, has said that “Just as there is a multiplicity of creatures on earth, there can be other beings, even intelligent, created by God. This is not in contrast with our faith because we can’t put limits on God’s creative freedom.”*

One of the first places I came upon the concept of exotheology was in the lyrics of a song written by Larry Norman and released on his In Another Land album in 1976. In the song “UFO” he writes,

And if there’s life on other planets, then I’m sure that He must know. And He’s been there once already, and has died to save their souls.

Norman’s approach to exotheology is one valid perspective but is not the only perspective. Lewis, in the Cosmic Trilogy suggests that life on other planets may have taken a different path. He writes about other worlds where intelligent life had not yet fallen from grace with God; rather, they continued to walk in harmony with their Creator. Mary Doriah Russell is much more interested in the theme of how we reconcile a benevolent God with suffering in the world but her books allow exploration of other ways God might work with persons on other planets.

Of course, we do not know if there is such a thing as intelligent extraterrestrial life and we do not know if we will ever discover such if indeed it exists. Yet, the thought experiments related to such speculation are helpful as we think through our “endotheology” (my own word for the opposite of exotheology) and how we understand our own relationship with a Creator God. As is often the case, C.S. Lewis has some appropriate final words on the topic.

I look forward with horror to contact with the other inhabited planets, if there are such. We would only transport to them all of our sin and our acquisitiveness, and establish a new colonialism. I can’t bear to think of it. But if we on Earth were to get right with God, of course, all would be changed. Once we find ourselves spiritually awakened, we can go to outer space and take the good things with us. That is quite a different matter.#

^The trilogy of books sometimes called the Cosmic Trilogy consists of Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength.

*”Vatican scientist says belief in God and aliens is OK,” Reuters, May 14, 2008, and “Pope’s astronomer insists alien life ‘would be part of God’s creation,’” The Independent, 15th May 2008.

#A 1963 interview with C.S. Lewis http://www.cbn.com/special/Narnia/articles/ans_LewisLastInterviewB.aspx.

“There is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognize him or not to recognize him, but all the more fascinatingly because of that, all the more compellingly and hauntingly…” In Listening to Your Life: Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner.

“Everything is a subject on which there is not much to be said.” C.S. Lewis

Shakespeare’s often quoted line suggests “that which we call a rose; by any other name would smell as sweet.” The bigger question is how does it smell as sweet? Olfaction, the sense of smell, is still not well understood. There are multiple theories regarding how we actually are able to detect smells. One leading theory is that of a lock and key system. This theory suggests that if airborne molecules of a certain chemical can fit into the specialized sensory cells of the nasal cavity the nerve cell will respond and send a signal to the brain which is interpreted as a particular aroma. Another theory proposes that olfactory receptors respond not to the shape of the molecules but to their vibrations. This theory maintains that odours exist as a spectrum much as colour is detected as a spectrum of light by the sensors of the visual system. There is also a secondary system of olfactory receptors which may detect aromas without the brain being consciously aware of the smell. Some scientists suggest that this secondary system is highly tuned to pheromes and may be a basis for why we feel attracted to or warned away from certain situations. (Note added April 20th: Recent scholarly papers have concluded that this vomeronasal organ, although extremely active in most non-human animals, is non-functional in humans.# This is probably a good thing. The perfume and cosmetic industry would seek to exploit this function with irresistable sexual phermone fragrances. I can imagine the military creating phermone weapons which would cause the enemy to experience a sense of fear.)

As biological entities, we are always giving off fragments of ourselves and leaving a trail that can be detected by others. Think of a tracking dog that is able to follow the scent of one particular human based only on the specks of biology and their corresponding smells left behind as that individual walks through a forest containing thousands of other smells.

Dogs have a much greater capability of detecting odours than do humans. Some studies have found that dogs have as much as seventeen times more olfactory epithelium than humans and as much as one hundred times more nerves in that olfactory epithelium making it plausible that their sense of smell may be seventeen hundred times more sensitive than ours.* What a strange world this must be for a dog. To the dog, the air is alive with many more smells. Every human and animal in its environment is continually raining down a stream of biological bits with interesting aromas that the dog’s discerning nose can codify and quantify to learn helpful information about its environment. What a different perception of this world we would have if our sense of smell were as sensitive. Imagine the smell of that hockey locker room!

One day we may have a more complete understanding of olfaction. For now we revel in the mystery of smell.

*Bear, Connors and Paradiso, Mark, Barry and Michael (2007). Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain. USA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. pp. 265-275.
#Wysocki CJ, Preti G (November 2004). “Facts, fallacies, fears, and frustrations with human pheromones”. The Anatomical Record. Part a, Discoveries in Molecular, Cellular, and Evolutionary Biology 281 (1): 1201–11.
#Wyatt, Tristram D. (2003). Pheromones and Animal Behaviour: Communication by Smell and Taste. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

This blog entry was inspired by The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher by Lewis Thomas.

Yesterday I was given a book to read for a retreat that I will take in next month. The book is The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher by Lewis Thomas. It arrived by courier in the afternoon and I have already devoured the first six chapters. How did I not discover this book earlier? It is a series of poetic essays on the wonder of biology. The only other book I have read that is quite like it is Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Thomas may be a little more technical and scientific in his writing but both authors share a sense of holy awe at the biology of our planet. They remind us of the mystery that is at the heart of biology. Some would explain all of biology as an extension of physics. Lewis reminds us that biology is also an extension of the divine, the holy, and the other.

Readers of this blog who share my interest in the relationships between science and faith will surely enjoy The Lives of a Cell. I will end with a sample of the first chapter of the book so that you can assess for yourself whether or not you might want to read this inspiring book. For those who may not find it to be quite their cup of tea, I recommend that you start instead with Annie Dillard.

We are told that the trouble with Modern Man is that he has been trying to detach himself from nature. He sits in the topmost tiers of polymer, glass, and steel, dangling his pulsing legs, surveying at a distance the writhing life of the planet. In this scenario, Man comes on as a stupendous lethal force, and the earth is pictured as something delicate, like rising bubbles at the surface of a country pond, or flights of fragile birds.
But it is illusion to think that there is anything fragile about the life of the earth; surely this is the toughest membrane imaginable in the universe, opaque to probability, impermeable to death. We are the delicate part, transient and vulnerable as cilia. Nor is it a new thing for man to invent an existence that he imagines to be above the rest of life; this has been his most consistent intellectual exertion down the millennia. As illusion, it has never worked out to his satisfaction in the past, any more than it does today. Man is embedded in nature. The biologic science of recent years has been making this a more urgent fact of life. The new, hard problem will be to cope with the dawning, intensifying realization of just how interlocked we are. The old, clung-to notions most of us have held about our special lordship are being deeply undermined.
Item. A good case can be made for our nonexistence as entities. We are not made up, as we had always supposed, of successively enriched packets of our own parts. We are shared, rented, occupied. At the interior of our cells, driving them, providing the oxidative energy that sends us out for the improvement of each shining day, are the mitochondria, and in a strict sense they are not ours. They turn out to be little separate creatures, the colonial posterity of migrant prokaryocytes, probably primitive bacteria that swam into ancestral precursors of our eukaryotic cells and stayed there. Ever since, they have maintained themselves and their ways, replicating in their own fashion, privately, with their own DNA and RNA quite different from ours. They are as much symbionts as the rhizobial bacteria in the roots of beans. Without them, we would not move a muscle, drum a finger, think a thought.
Mitochondria are stable and responsible lodgers, and I choose to trust them. But what of the other little animals, similarly established in my cells, sorting and balancing me, clustering me together? My centrioles, basal bodies, and probably a good many other more obscure tiny beings at work inside my cells, each with its own special genome, are as foreign, and as essential, as aphids in anthills. My cells are no longer the pure line entities I was raised with; they are ecosystems more complex than Jamaica Bay.

I would like to express my appreciation to the Pastoral Science program at Regent College for introducing me to the writing of Lewis Thomas. You can see more about the important work of this group at the Cosmos website.

A few days ago I quoted Bradley Artson Shavit from a debate with Christopher Hitchens. In that same debate Rabbi Shavit noted that religion, like science, must be self-reflective. I would add that followers of a religion must constantly assess whether their understanding of God and faith fit with their experience of life. If we find a truth in the world we must reflect on how that truth fits into our understanding of the Bible. All truth – is God’s truth. Alister McGrath makes a similar point in his book, Dawkins’ God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life.

For an orthodox Christian theologian, the doctrine of the Trinity is the inevitable outcome of intellectual engagement with the Christian experience of God; for the physicist, equally abstract and bewildering concepts emerge from wrestling with the world of quantum phenomena. But both are committed to sustained intellectual engagement with this phenomena, in order to derive and develop theories or doctrines which can be said to do justice to them, preserving rather than reducing them. Both the sciences and religion may therefore be described as offering interpretations of experience.*

We must not fear an understanding of faith which includes an understanding of science. Our understanding of life must include a thorough reading of the Bible and a thorough reading of God’s other revelation: the universe.

*Alister McGrath, Dawkins’ God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 1998) , 88.

Recently, atheists Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris debated two Jewish Rabbis, David Wolpe and Bradley Artson Shavit. One of the most cogent points made by Rabbi Shavit regarded “choice.”

At the very core of traditional Judaism is the concept of bechira or choice. No miracle is so unambigious that it can’t be explained away as secular. No miracle is so overwhelming that you have to accept it.

Christian theologian, C.S. Lewis made a similar point in the book The Screwtape Letters when he spoke of why it is that God does not make it clearer that He exists and is involved with our lives.

You must have often wondered why [God] does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to over-ride a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo.

Christopher Hitchens will always have an easy time debating Jews or Christians since all he has to do is demand that his opponents prove that God exists. Yet, God has chosen to keep Himself veiled so as always to allow humans to choose whether or not to believe. Thus, Hitchens’ fellow-debaters cannot prove the existence of God.

As the King James version of the bible puts it, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). If we could prove God, it would not be faith. It would not require faith to believe in God and would be purely a matter of logic. Those who debate Hitchens know that God will not over-ride our choice by proving His presence. Christopher Hitchens can go on demanding that God show Himself in a material manner, but God will not ravage Mr. Hitchens (or any of us) with His felt presence. Instead He woos us with the sense that, in the midst of all of the credible scientific explanations of the universe, credible scientific explanations of consciousness, and credible scientific explanations of life, there must be something more.