Book review: The Grand Design
Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow have written a must-read -book for anyone interested in the philosophical questions of cosmogony, or the origins of the universe. By implication anyone interested in the theology of creation should take a good look at it.
This book is in many ways a sequel to Hawking’s classic The Brief History of Time. The most important difference is that The Grand Design is both less technical and more philosophical than The Brief History of Time. On the upside it makes it readily accessible to a wider audience, but on the flipside the focus has shifted from topics they truly master towards issues where their expertise is less than impressive. This is an unfortunate combination, as the work may end up in hands of people, who don’t have the necessary expertise to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their argument.
Famously Hawking claims he has made an argument against the existence of God. Incidentally he hasn’t. Yet to understand what Christians really say about God, it is useful to understand the argument he makes, and why that does not say anything about the existence of God.
Theoretical Foundation
I confess that I share some of the high hopes of the authors and most scientists. First and foremost that there is a (more or less) single, elegant theory that explains pretty much everything in the existence. Reading the book one might forget, that we are not even near. Let’s recap what we don’t have:
- A clean quantum level theory of electromagnetism. QED and by extension the electroweak theory are not clean. We can do the renormalization calculations, but we don’t know why. This is not entirely unlike the situation with the ether in 1905: Einstein’s major breakthrough in that area was not coming up with new euations, but giving an explanation why certain known equations already known to work, work.
- Quantum theory of gravitation. In fact, we hardly have a decent theory of gravitation. In recent years the General Relativity Theory has been patched with less than elegant ways and it is generally considered to be in a severe crisis.
- “Theory of everything”, which combines the two above with QCD, (an accepted theory we do have and actively work on).
- String theory. Despite the name, this is not yet a “theory” (or accepted scientific model), but only a hypothesis. It’s under heavy work and experimentation right now, and the odds are that it will be accepted as a model sooner or later.
- M-theory. This is more or less handwavium and based on speculation – at best speculating on the above theories.
Nevertheless, I share their optimism that we will find such theories. Especially the M-theory seems tempting. I admit I would like it – or some even more elegant theory to describe the uni(/multi)verse accurately. If only I knew that the M-theory was correct, it would rank fairly high on my ”Praise the LORD for…” -list. But as it is, I don’t dare to praise Him for what He might not have done.
Dilemma of Philosophy
As stated, unlike the Brief History of Time, this book is first and foremost philosophical. Ironically on the first page they write: “Traditionally these questions are dealt with philosophy, but philosophy is dead.” This statement is very telling of their own understanding of their very own subject matter. It also explains why the presented argument is at times weak. For example they pretty much take granted that the laws of physics really are immutable always and everywhere. They also dismiss the inexplicable fact that we are able to describe the universe in mathematical terms in the first place.
However they do have a point. They are just saying that many contemporary philosophers don’t know enough physics to talk about things related to it – like metaphysics. This is often true. However, when they claim that this stand has now been taken by scientists, they essentially fall into the same trap: scientists rarely know enough about metaphysics to say anything about it. The truth is of course that scientists and philosophers have often been the same people, Leibniz and Newton being great examples of this. But one should know both sides when talking about a matter that spans over the sides.
Ironically The Grand Design is a proof that some scientists understand too little philosophy to write about it. The authors are mostly writing philosophy backed by science, but aren’t clear when they move on pure speculation. Further their argument is at times blurred. The title of the book is The Grand Design, yet they seem to try to prove that there is no design, merely order- until in the acknowledgment they state that the universe has a design (but are quiet about its possible designer). They seem to be on some kind of odyssey to prove that God does not exist, but while surrounded with facts, the argument is rather rhetorical than actually based on those facts. For instance, they present a very naïve history of science with an agenda concerning its relationship with religion. Agenda that does not stand historical analysis. All in all, while they do good job in presenting their hard knowledge about scientific theories and their implications, they are blatantly ignorant about the questions of philosophy and religion and fail to compile an argument meaningful even to refute.
The Famous Argument
In simple terms, their argument against the existence of God goes as follows: M-theory allows a vast number of universes, each with different fine-tuning “laws”, to emerge without any external cause. One of them is ours, and obviously habitable. Ergo, God is not needed to create the universe.
This argument is philosophically motivated. The universe seems to be fine-tuned in many ways to allow us to be here in the first place. One might be tempted to use this fine-tuning as an argument that it had to be done by God, therefore God does exist. To such people the book says: No, you don’t need God to do the fine-tuning. So their argument doesn’t actually refute the existence of God, but a fundamentally flawed attempt to prove the existence of God. Which I, as a Christian theist, am thankful of.
To me, creating just a universe big enough to support human life seems a little is not that awesome. After all, He has created the infinity as well. Surely He could do more, something great and elegant. To have just one universe fine-tuned just for us? That’s not too elegant. Why not have it fine-tuned for us as an obvious and incidental by-product of something great and elegant? Wait… the M-theory would be a great candidate just for that…
On a more serious note, the Grand Design argument against God fails on two sides. One one hand, it does not state what kind of “god” are they talking about. It’s not mentioned even in the glossary. Based on their treatment of the topic, it is however clear that they are not talking about the I-AM the Judeo-Christian tradition is aware of. And since God with a capital G is a word commonly used to address Him, I can only conclude that out of their ignorance of facts they have simply misspelled the word.
On the other hand they do make an honest attempt to give a final kick against the “god of gaps”, a supernatural element added to explain things the science still has to figure out. Many have likened GOG and God, though they have nothing – and everything – to do with each other. The problem with GOG is that as science advances, it and pushes him further. The Grand Design pushes GOG out of yet another gap – fine-tuning – and the authors seem to believe that this is the last one. But in reality the GOG just falls into the next gap: Why is there the M-theory rather than something else? (Won’t these gaps never end?)
A Word about God
Just like the authors never really defined what kind of deity they were actually after, I should state here briefly what is God like and why His existence remains unchallenged by The Grand Design.
To begin with, His name is I-AM. He does not need proof or even evidence to exist, that He can do without any help. Further, he created everything – and assuming M-theory exists, that is part of His creation. Claim that universe came out spontaneously, makes sense – that is a way He may have done it. But He Himself did not come about in any way. Universe may have borrowed its existence from unstability, but I-AM exists with no need for such provisions. When we talk about God, it is this self-existing transcendent creator we are talking about.
But there’s more. I said that He has everything to do with god of gaps. While GOG is our naive idea “god did it”, God actually did do it. He not only made the laws of nature, but he actively upholds them. Should He stop, the laws would not break down, but the Creation would seem to exist. We are here only because He, who is, wants it that way.
So it is clear that God is not just some deistic creator who kicked the universe into motion and went for coffee, but actively involved with the creation. Since He is the active Creator of everything, He is free to deviate from the laws He has made whenever He wishes for. This would be a definition of a miracle. But He has done more than mere Creation and miracles: He entered into the creation Himself.
This is a thing that sets Christianity clearly apart from other religions. Creator, who belongs to another ontological category than everything else we know, became one of us, into same ontological level as we are. It’s not just about intervening the laws of nature, it is about intervening the nature itself. The rest, as they say, is the history of salvation.
His primary concern is not if people believe He exists or not. He wants our intimacy with Him. When He gets that from someone, that person will of course positively know He exists. On the other hand, if someone does not have Spirit of God living in him, it makes little difference if that person believes He exists.
Therefore we should not waste time trying to prove God exists. He is fully capable of doing that Himself. In fact, if we do that we might end up thinking about God the way He is not, and thus our intimacy would suffer. The proper order is to seek first God, and let Him prove Himself.
There’s no reason to assume, that study of nature would prove the existence of God. Actually, one can argue the opposite. While we can expect that the nature will not disprove His existence – so far so good – we should also expect that it will not lead us to God. He does not want science to be a way to Him. He wants to be Himself the way to Him. That is intimacy.
Conclusion
Read the book. It’s well written and you’ll have fun – one way or another. If you are interested in physics, read the Brief History of Time first. This adds to that. If you are not into physics, just read the Grand Design. If you don’t believe in God, don’t expect to get a silver bullet to prove your point. If you do believe in God, it might relief you from some of the wrong reasons to believe in His existence though, which is a good thing.
Nothing is more dangerous than one good idea. For this reason it’s often more useful to read books by people who disagree with you. Hawking and Mlodinow have several ideas worth getting to know, some of which are good. Read the book. Who knows, you might learn something, or at least get something to think about …and that is a good thing for any man.
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So I have finally began….
I added a new page today: Table of contents.
This is the book I have been wanting to write for 15 years now. I’m finally starting to suspect that I might actually have some idea on what I’m talking about… Well, basically it’s a description of so called “Christian” faith. Though I’ve come to the conclusion that the Church has widely adopted some ideas and practices that are seen as “Christian” while actually being quite radical from the point of view I’m surveying. For instance the idea that salvation is based on our believing in the existence of a “good” God and has mainly to do with the afterlife is borderline apostate, to say the least. There are others as well.
So far there’s just a short sketch on texts I’m planning to write. I have some dozens of pages of notes in a notebook and few texts I wrote few years back, but it turned out I wasn’t quite ready yet then. Better luck this time 
One problem with those old texts was that I started re-rewriting texts I was already rewriting, which resulted in awful gibberish, as I was saying the same thing over and over again is slightly different ways. The problem with inspiration This time I’m trying to get over it in several methods:
- Allow multiple versions. I’m planning to paste new texts here as articles and change the pages as I’m writing the text. That way I can both save the cake and eat it too: If I want something back, I can rip it from the blog post
- Plan ahead. I’ve learnds. Having a pretty good idea what will be included and where helps discipline the text.
- Keep writing. If you are reading this, let me know. That would encourage me
Keynote and Diktuon logo
I just attended the Scandinavian Starfish Unconference. Pretty basic Kingdom stuff, nothing new there. I also gave a 25 minute UCKeyNote2 about Project Diktuon, or more specifically the more tangible part of it, Diktuon.net. It wasn’t really discussed, but we passed instead on coffee break 15 minutes in advance, since people were bored and thought the presentation was half an hour too long.
I made alogo for the keynote.mentioned something about a logo? I made one for the keynote, and also put up couple live demo sites of the social networking platform, in case someone would be interested. Well, maybe it’s better that no-one was.
Diktuon logo. version 1.
I like the basic design of three fishes intetwined like a net and circled. It reminds of two very common Christian symbols, but differs quite a lot as well. I’m not quite happy with the colors yet. Maybe full red circle (blood of Christ) and gold-green-blue fishes (for sun, plants and sea)?
During the break I some people expressed their interest though. As I was afraid, some had not quite grasped the point of Project Dikuon being integrally a Kindom -oriented endeavour, and suggestef that e.g. wow -networks would be similar, giving wowedmonton.com as a specific example. They have a similar idea of establishing regional (e.g. city) networks and grouping them with basic services and making a business of it.
I couldn’t tell it right away, but as I checked it, I remembered having evalueted it earlier and dismissed as unrelated, since a) It apparently has nothing to do with the Kingdom b) They apparently use their own CMS (or at least I didn’t spot references to any of the major OS brands). It seems that the only thing they could share with this is business-model to generate some income. But as it happens, that I’m lacking even the drive to push this forward – let alone to make any money out of this – I really dismissed that outright. It seems we just don’t have anything to share with each other.
That being said, there were also some very encourageing comments, showing that some people had not only understood, but been fascinated about it
And to to put the balance for the conference steadfast on the positive side, I was able to be there with my beloved and Little-One Kenobi. I really don’t think I would have wanted to be there otherwise. Too many tears fell to be there all by myself.
Also, it became quite evident, that Finland is a bit small place for us. Or at least for the vision. Most of the people seemed to interested mainly in for their immedieate surroundings or cities, and visions for Finland were considered big. I kinda felt I was not quite in their league.
Anyway, I’m quite fed up with it. Sometimes I think that the only reason I keep working on it is that I would feel by a couple of orders of magnitude more miserable otherwise. Anyway, a year ago I decided, that I jwill give it a year. Well, the time is up June 3rd. We’ll see then, if there’s any point to keep going.
We’ll see. God is great.
Body, Kingdom and Church
The diktuon.info -site has lots of material about the Kingdom of God, but the Kingdom itself is left quite vague. I had thought that it would be somewhat clear to the people interested, but apparently there us some confusion about the topic. Therefore I’m at the moment writing a page about the issue, and I wanted to share for comments some thoughts that I’m planning to include on the page.
There are three closely related idioms we should understand in this context: the Body of Christ, the Kingdom of God and the Church. The key idea is that these three are essentially three angles to the same thing: they all refer to the same people, but take different approaches. In the following I try to clarify how I understand these concepts and their relationship.
Body of Christ
The (mystical) Body of Christ is about being. First, there is the precondition to be in the Body in the first place. Per definition we could say that whoever is connected in Christ by being in Christ and by Christ being in him belongs to His Body. Even though this in itself is deeply connected with baptism, it has very little to do with water or churches as such. Rather the baptism we are talking about here is the act of Holy Spirit where He immerses us into the death and resurrection of Christ. From this it does not necessarily follow that the person in question would be part of any church, neither nominally nor in practise.
But this is just the beginning. We need to abide in Christ, by letting His word abide in us. From this it follows that we carry His kind of fruit, not by our own efforts, but by staying attached to Him and letting Him do His work in us. But more about this in the Kingdom -part.
Another aspect about the Body is that in it we are united with the Son of God, becoming His children ourselves.
A very important part of the Body of Christ is that bible equates the man’s body and his wife. Eve was made out of Adam’s body when Adam was in deep sleep, and similarly every relationship between man and wife reflects the relationship between Christ and His body, which was created in His death and resurrection, and to which we are joined in our baptism.
Kingdom of God
Some othe possible translations to the word kingdom are “kingship”, “reign” and “queen”. Especially Matthew makes a connection between kingdom and queen. If we think of that word in the light of what was said about the body of Christ, we see the strong connection between these two. Like the body of Christ, the Kingdom is essentially corporate body of people spanning over all places and times.
On the other hand kingdom of God is the domain of His reign. Whoever obeys Him belongs to the Kingdom to the extent of his obedience. It is important to understand that He does not expect us to obey Him in all His will at once. He often gives us just one thing at the time, and if we are obedient in that then we have been completely obedient. And He may give us something new.
The precondition for obeying his will is that Christ lives in us. For we in ourselves are incapable of doing anything but sinning – even when we try to follow His will our attempts rise from our sinful nature. The only way we can act obediently is by Christ – who is obedient – acting through us. Therefore true obedience is surrendering, letting the Holy Spirit work in us and through us.
When the Holy Spirit works in us, He actually makes more space for Christ to live in us, and room for Christ to act through us. All we need and can do to it is to not step on the way. When Christ gains room in our hearts and minds, we become a more integral part of His body and He truly becomes our king. As He gets to govern us, He will cause His fruit to grow in and from our lives. And this is how the will of God is obeyed.
The Kingdom of God is a very dynamic concept. It is not just about entering it, but living in it. Both of these have to do with metanoia, change of mind. Kingdom is about God changing us into the likeness of His Son, by letting His Son have more room in our lives.
Church
With the word “Church” we can refer to one of three possible things: the universal church, the local church or the administrative church. The universal church is simply the corporate body of all members
of the Body of Christ anywhere and at anytime. The local church is group of people who consider themselves a gathering of Christians and a local church. A very important aspect of this type of church is that it is a community where people participate and know each other. The administrative church is a collection of people considered by someone to form a church.
The Greek word for Church is ekklesia, an assembly of people. In the Body idiom the focus is completely in Christ, and Kingdom is very centered the the ruler, in this idiom the focus is in the people. This means that it is the most tang
ible of these three concepts. On the other hand it means also, that it is at least theoretically possible that the people gather together even without their King.
It is also possible that in this assembly there are people who are not really subjects to the King, and therefore do not really belong to the Body of Christ. This leads to the problem that the Churc can be defined in two ways: the internal understanding states that only those people who both belong to the body of Christ and are obediant to their King belong to that assembly, and the rest are just bystanders. External underdstanding states that everyone who can be seen as a member of the same crowd belongs to the assembly. In practise it is humanly impossible to differentiate between these two, simply because we have so few reliable measures as of who belongs to the Body or is obedient to the King.
For example, the universal church above is per definitio understood internally, while the administrative church is understood externally. The local churches may or may not be subgroups of the universal church and may or may not be administrative churches.
An important aspect of the humancentricity in this idiom is that the local churches are autonomous. They are free to arganize their administration independent of others. There are, however, some things God wants to be present in this organisation. Traditionally this autonomy has meant hierarchial organisation into various denominations. While this method has its advantages, it has also its disadvantages, one of which is that the very thing that was meant to create unity has become a source of division.
Second coming
All these three idioms have a very important thing in common: they are all incomplete now, but will become complete at the second coming of Christ.
As for the Body, we have already been born to it and thus belong to it already. But despite the fact that we are already dead in Christ, we still need to face the end of our physical lives. There are still branches in the tree that need to be cut down because the bear no fruit, but when He returns, there will be no barren brances. We are alredy God’s children, but not yet His children in Glory.
Since we still live in the flesh, there’s still sin living in us and we cannot be completely obedient. But when He comes, He will fill us completely and there will be no more temptations, but we only want to be obedient.
In the church there are still people, who are not obedient, but when He comes, one will be taken and one will be left. He will clean and purify His bride for the wedding, cleaning all sin away from her.
When he comes, all things will change. What we refer to as heaven, is in other words the Kingdom of God completed. And through our choises to be obedient today, He will purify His bride and we are preparing the way for Him to return.
Final thoughts
So why have I chosen the Kingdom to be the carrying element of this project? If these three are essentially about the same thing, it would seem more natural to talk about the very essence of the thing, the Body, or about the most tangible aspect, the Church. However, Body of Christ is a somewhat abstact concept, and quite static – as opposed to dynamic. It is the vital core of the paradigm, and the base of everything that happens. However, it in itself, but it does not call us into the action. And while the Body of Christ describes well the nature of our relationship with God, it says very little of what this means in practise. Here’s where the idioms about the Kingdom and the Church come into play. The concept of Church has similar problem of stagnation. In addition it carries the danger of confusing the term understoon externally and internally and has much other potential sources of confusion.
Ultimately I chose Kingdom for this project because it calls us into change, metanoia. It says that something needs to happen – and often change – both in our individual lives as our Christian communities. But this is just the nature of Kingdom. Ultimately the purpose of Kingdom is to reflect the active component of the same corporate body of people, and therefore building the Kingdom is building the Body of Christ and both the universal and local churches.
Of course all this means that I’ll need to do dome refining in the other material on the site, to make it reflect this organisation even more clearly. In particular, I intend to create a strong parallelism between
- Body of Christ and authenticity (the essence of sancitifcation)
- Church and unity (the visible community)
- Kingdom and obedience (the action of sanctification)
Any thoughts about this?
Further social media integration
After my experimentation with Twitter the other day, I thought of looking at the other social media frameworks as well. In addition to the retweets, there are now some buttons at the bottom of each post for various different sites, like Facebook and StumbleUpon. I happen to like them myself
I also did similar changes to the diktuon.info -side as well.
Now that I was at it, I also made a Facebook page for Project Diktuon, and added a badge on this blog and something similar (though more functional) on the diktuon.info side. Feel free to become a fan
I’m still wondering, if I should put on this blog just my own personal badge. The reason I left it out for now was, that Facebook provided it as an image, and a too narrow image to fit this layout for that matter.
There’s a link to my facebook profile in the badge though.
I really should figure out an easy way to make screenshots. These entries look rather boring. Speaking about boring, Project Diktuon needs some graphics. Maybe a net with some fish in it or something? Volunteers?-)
Some Twitter work
Today I spent most of the day in Twitter. Until now I had a very vague idea about what it is, and I cannot say I would have grogged it now. But I managed to do some twitter tweaks on the site.
- In this blog you can see the tweet/retweet button.
- Twitter should automatically announce this post as it’s published
- This post contains my personal twitter log.
1 and 2 I have also applied to diktuon.info.
Old and New
Ok, so Finland got badly beaten by USA in the first round of today’s match. Personally, I was luckier
Here you can see my old (left below) and new monitors (right above). Can you see any difference?-)(Hint: on the new screen is Little-One Kenobi.)
Iimmediately got inspiration to do some work So I updated diktuon.net’s plugin batteries (still have some check-ups to do) and installed some new ones. Of note are the Search Engine Optimization, Sitemap tools and Google Analytics framework for the public areas. Given that it’s almost 3 am, I guess I should go to bed.
Oh joy, what a day
Back to life…
Ok, I feel better now For the past few weeks I’ve been most of the time too tired to get moving. Now I’ve figured out two things:
- I shouldn’t go to bed too early. My natural rhythm is from aroud 1am to 9 or 10am. If I go to bed earlier, I simply will not fall asleep and if I get out of the bed earlier, I will not be rested. (BTW. I have a remarkable wife.)
- Strong ice tea rocks. We figured out, that in order to get going in the morning I need something cold and caffeinated (like light cola). Experiments with ice tea have been wonderful. (My beloved again. It’s handy to have a lark around.)
As a result I’ve finally been able to touch the Diktuon document again. Touch would be a proper word. I’ve got some feedback, but just reading it has been somewhat overwhelming. Feedback has been difficult to read too. Not because there would be something negative of overly critical, but simply because simply reading the text seems to knock me out. As if there was some power of the Holy Spirit in it
Anyway, I have actually been able to read some of it again and look at the feedback. More input is welcome anytime. The texts can be read at the Diktuon.info -site.
PS, I expect to get a monitor today
One Minute Training for Empowering Any Christian to be a Worldshaker
- God loves you from all His heart.
- Receive the Holy Spirit.
- Bible is word of God. Use it.
- Trust and obey.
- God is real. You be real too.
- God has given you new life in Jesus’s resurrection. Live accordingly.
- Have fun and rest in His peace.
Disappointing God
This is somewhat advanced theology. On the other hand, what isn’t?
After my previous post I started thinking that it is actually possible to cause God a disappointment. Let’s take a look at an interesting account in the 1. Samuel 15 (ESV, emphasis mine):
10-11: The word of the LORD came to Samuel: “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.”
28-29: “The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you. And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret.”
35: And the LORD regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.
Let it be noted, that in Hebrew all these instances use the same word. Samuels reply is a reference to Numbers 23:19, where Balaam told to the king of Moabites that he could only bless Israel, not curse, because LORD would not change His mind.
So which way is it? Does God regret or not? The answer is of course yes – to both questions. Here’s how I figure it out:
God is by nature transcendent, beyond time and space. As such He knew what Saul would – and would not – do. And Saul did not disappoint Him. Nevertheless Saul was not the kind of King God wanted the king of Israel to be. He wanted to be the king of Israel Himself. He gave them Saul because people begged a king. (1 Sam 8).
Yet I would not say that Saul was doomed to fail in His task. Outside time God at sees everything what happens, whenever that happens. No-one really does anything, because action takes time, but everything just is, like is a still picture. And of course there is no free will visible. In this frame of reference it is impossible to fail Him. And whatever He decides in this frame of reference cannot change, for change needs time, but there is no time.
However, we do not live in that frame of reference. When we encounter God, it happens where we live, in this time and space of ours. Because we are inside time, we perceive ourselves as having a free will. Therefore it’s fair to say that within this frame of reference free will actually makes a difference, whereas in the transcendent frame of reference it is trivialized. But since we do have a free will – from our own point of view – we are capable of disappointing God.
This is the sense in which God regretted that He had made Saul king. Time after time Saul had failed to be obedient. He feared the men and did not ask advice from the LORD. He even cursed himself with the wrath of God. (14:44). Having chosen Him within time, it was within time that He regretted it. Of course transcendentally He knew He would do so.
The really interesting part is when Saul confesses his sins and begs for forgivness. He is not given back the kingship. We could say that he pushed his luck a straw too long.
The lesson for us is that we must not rely on mercy of God and go sinning. That would be failing Him. Not failing Him is staying put and saying:
Here I am, right now. You do what you want.