28 March 2008

In high praise of Howard Van Till

Howard Van Till is one of my heroes. It's been a month and a half since his address to the Grand Dialogue, and I still think about it, even though the ideas were all familiar to me. I think this is due partly to the fact that the excellent talk displayed Howard's disarming warmth and generosity, and partly to the fact that he was already one of my heroes. Here I'll discuss some of the main points of the talk, and in the process I hope you'll discover why I hold Howard Van Till in such high esteem.

Howard is professor emeritus of physics and astronomy at Calvin College, where I teach and work. The publication of his 1986 book The Fourth Day – and the ensuing controversy at the college and especially in the Christian Reformed Church (CRC) – had an enormous impact on both. Some commentators suggest that the disputes over evolution that were spawned by the book are largely responsible for the existence of an entire denomination, the United Reformed Church, which represents one of the major secessions from the CRC in the last two decades of the 20th century. The book actually did not tackle biological evolution so much as it described cosmic evolution, the ancient universe, and the tragedy of "scientific creationism." It contains immense wisdom on the nature of science, and many of my colleagues still give it pride of place on their bookshelves.

The controversy exacted a toll, though, and I know just enough of the story to know that it is a sordid and disgraceful tale. I suspect that Howard is hundreds of times more gracious than I would be. And some of his recent public remarks give me the impression that the scandalous (if not blasphemous) behavior of our community led Howard to move away from traditional Reformed Christianity. Howard's theological pilgrimage is not my subject here, but this aspect of Howard's journey is something of a backdrop for my own life as a Reformed Christian scientist, if only because I couldn't do what I do at Calvin if it weren't for Howard and his contemporaries.

Howard's talk was entitled "IS THE COSMOS ALL THERE IS? The quest for answers to big cosmological questions." There are plans to post video at the Grand Dialogue site, but in the meantime you can download the extensive outline that Howard provided from my personal website.

Here are Howard's main questions, with comments that don't already appear on the outline, and then some comments on the question & answer period that followed the lecture.

1. Why is there something rather than nothing?

Howard says this is a "hard question," and I guess we have to agree with him there. This was one of my favorite sections of the lecture, so here it is approximately verbatim, in quasi-dramatic form.

Religion. Because God made something.
Howard. Sorry, that's the answer to a different question. You still have to explain why there's a god vs. no god.
Religion. But it's impossible for God not to exist. He necessarily exists.
Howard. Sorry, that's just too easy. Not all assertions are true, even if offered by brilliant philosophers or theologians.
(Steve. Touché.)
P.W. Atkins & Co. It just happened. From nothing.
Howard. Sorry, that doesn't work either.
I'll just interject here that one reason I look up to Howard Van Till is that he seems to share my discomfort with being identified with a "side."
Howard. What about: "we don't actually know." What we have here is a profound mystery that should inspire profound awe and humility.
At that point, Howard referred to a folk singer named Iris DeMent, and quoted this lyric:
Everybody's wonderin' what and where they they all came from
everybody's worryin' 'bout where they're gonna go
when the whole thing's done
but no one knows for certain
and so it's all the same to me
I think I'll just let the mystery be
The song is "Let the Mystery Be" from the Infamous Angel album.

2. What is the universe like?

Howard identified this as an "easier" question, but he tackled one not-so-easy question when addressing the nature of the universe.

As you can read on the outline, Howard described the universe as "big and old, nearly empty and mostly cold," but emphasized the fact that the universe has "a formational history that is readable by natural sciences," including a formational history of life on earth. Then he outlined what he calls the "Right Stuff Universe Principle" (RSUP), which posits that the universe ("amazingly") has the Right Stuff (resources, potentialities, and capabilities) to actualize everything we see, naturally. (Call it "fine tuning" if you want; same thing as near as I can tell.)

As you might guess, 'naturally' means 'without the need for supernatural filling-in', and 'supernatural action' means specifically coercive divine action; I learned that this latter phrase is the language of process theology. Howard's summary: "The principle is a statement about the adequacy of natural causes to accomplish all the formational histories in question."

If you've read Howard on "robust formational economy" then much of the preceding should sound pretty familiar. But then Howard addressed this question, which I find tiresomely familiar: how did science come to adopt the assumption of the "adequacy of natural causes to accomplish all the formational histories in question"? Quoting Howard:
Some religious critics object to science unfairly excluding supernatural causation. Sorry…that’s a serious and mischievous misrepresentation of the history of science’s consideration of assumptions. [...] The “hybrid” approaches were discontinued because they were inadequate to explain formational histories. The “right stuff” principle was adopted because it worked.
The ellipses indicate parts I didn't write down, but I think it's clear what Howard is getting at. And I think he's completely right. Can you see why this man is one of my role models? The RSUP, in Howard's eyes, is more than just "fine tuning," more than just "getting a bunch of numbers right." It is a truly astounding fact of the natural world. And it raises an obvious and difficult question.

3. How can something as remarkable as the RSUP be true?

Howard proposed several possible answers, found on the outline, including three religious answers worth expanding here (roughly quoting Howard in all cases):

  • In the spirit of St. Augustine, assert that the cosmos is a creation, a manifestation of the Creator's creativity and generosity. God was both able and willing to give it that rich a being. Howard: this is the solution I used to recommend, and still recommend to those embracing “traditional Christian theism.”
  • In the spirit of process theology, postulate that the very natures of God, the world and the God/world relationship are such that supernatural intervention is excluded and so the RSUP has to be true.
  • In the spirit of the ID movement, cancel the question. Deny that the universe has the Right Stuff.
I'm waiting for someone to explain process theology to me. I did buy a brand new book at the conference, which contains lots of process theology (or so I'm told). I'm interested, but my commitment to "traditional Christian theism" is non-negotiable, so I guess I'll just browse.

Howard dismissed the "Cosmic Casino Hypothesis" (the RSUP is the result of dumb luck) as "not very helpful" and he seemed cool to the multiverse. I suspect he favors this last option, quoting as best I can:
And then there's agnosticism, or humility. We'll just say that we don’t really know. Let the mystery be.

4. Does the universe need a creator, and if so what does a creator do?


In this part of the talk, the main idea I found notable was the question of whether there has always been a universe. If I got Howard right here, he said:
I was taught that the answer is clearly “no.” But I’m inclined to disagree now.
I'm not sure what he meant on that one.

5. How would anyone know what a creator is like?

Howard introduced this final section by noting that this question was likely to be the most "disturbing and thought-provoking" of the lecture, stating with disarming good humor but unapologetic bluntness that "I want you to go home with new questions." His focus was on scientific explanations for religious belief, and the outline provides significant detail.

And it was interesting, and it was thought-provoking, but it was hardly disturbing to me, probably because I don't understand why explaining something – whether it's religious belief or photosynthesis or genetic recombination or zits – reduces its religious significance, its majesty, or even its mystery. I've heard about Pascal Boyer's work, and Justin Barrett's, and it's cool stuff, and I just don't get all freaked out about it. Explanation is no alternative to belief.

Howard emphasized the idea (after Justin Barrett) that belief in the supernatural could have emerged through the action of our so-called hyperactive agency detection device (HADD), which is basically the high-sensitivity aspect of our consciousness that jumps at the sound of a twig snapping in the forest. After exploring these interesting ideas, Howard concluded that "having religious beliefs is as natural as natural can be." Then he closed with comments that I jotted down as follows:
But then…how can this brain be trusted to give us true answers [to the big questions above]? One suggestion that is worth testing: perhaps we should deal with these intuitive beliefs the same way we would deal with a ‘snap’ sound in the jungle. We should begin with our intuition, but then turn the question over to our slower, more rational evaluation and see if it holds up. (I place a very high value on rational, as many are quick to point out...) Run the belief through some basic tests, and dare to honor the score. Don’t believe something because it's “emotionally reassuring” or because “tribal orthodoxy” holds it to be true.
"Dare to honor the score." That's a dramatic challenge, and I think Christians should be unafraid to accept it. We have nothing to fear from a sober examination of God's world.

Aftermath and concluding comments

After the lecture, there were responses from two local physicists, including my friend and colleague Deb Haarsma, then there were questions from the audience.

Watching Howard handle questions was, for me, impressive and humbling, and it was this experience that caused me to conclude that Howard was not just a hero but a true role model. Somehow, he's able to combine generous openness with blunt (even fierce) criticism. Some examples:
  • In his response to a rambling comment from an audience member, Howard concluded: "I don't know as much as I used to." The audience answered with its biggest applause of the day.
  • His response in full to a sickeningly self-indulgent sermon riddled with Christianese platitudes and proof texts: "You've given your testimony and we should just leave it at that."
  • One perceptive questioner wondered whether the evolutionary explanation of belief (HADD) would cast the same doubt on scientific understanding as it would on religious belief. Howard identified this as "a classic question and a good one," and agreed that both science and religion "deserve equal criticism." But then this: "When I look at how traditional beliefs are handled in religion vs. science, I think science is doing a superior job with respect to examining its 'traditional beliefs'."
That last comment is the kind of fearless confession that makes me admire Howard so much. It's just not fashionable, especially among Christians, to say that science is better at self-criticism and error correction than is Christianity. But it's true, and maybe someday I'll learn, from Howard, how to be brutally frank without being brutal.

One last thing. I don't know whether Howard Van Till self-identifies as a Christian. And I don't intend to walk away from my faith (or, more specifically, from what I believe to be revelation) under the influence of scientific explanation. But when the subject is science and explanation, I agree with Howard a lot more often that I do with most of the Christians I know, and he has a passion for truthtelling that would completely transform the so-called faith-science dialogue, if even a few more people followed his lead.

14 comments:

Karen James said...

Howard dismissed the "Cosmic Casino Hypothesis" (the RSUP is the result of dumb luck) as "not very helpful" Care to elaborate? It occurs to me that any millions of possible universes might have been possible, and that we just happen to be in this one is a result of chance. I'm not so sure that that can just be brushed off as "not helpful".

Stephen Matheson said...

Karen, by "dumb luck" I think Howard might mean here that we were just ridiculously lucky, and therefore we are here to ponder it. I don't think he means that the "Cosmic Casino" is the multiverse, since he mentioned that separately. I agree with you that if there is an effectively infinite number of universes, then one of them would be expected to look just like this one.

Steve Martin said...

Thanks Stephen. That was helpful. Although I certainly wouldn’t describe Howard as one of my own heroes, I’ve always appreciated his approach – particularly his fearless honesty. “There but for the grace of God go I” is appropriate here … actually, better is “There but for the grace of God I would still go”.

Anonymous said...

is howard van til related to the van til that is sort of infamous for foundationalism, something that I was just reading about last night in Sparks' new book. Somewhere I think I read about the 'shameful treatment' of VanTil but I am not sure which Van Til this is.

Anonymous said...

'And I don't intend to walk away from my faith (or, more specifically, from what I believe to be revelation) under the influence of scientific explanation.'

And this one thing alone speaks to the dishonesty inherent in your position.

Mike Beidler said...

Thanks, Steve, for your succinct reporting. I, too, hold up Van Till as one of my heroes, and I find his honesty and willingness to question his faith refreshing.

Anonymous wrote: And this one thing alone speaks to the dishonesty inherent in your position.

I don't think Steve is being dishonest at all. I believe Steve has some non-negotiables that he's not willing to give up, no matter the "score," as Van Till put it. That's honest, IMHO. You may disagree with Steve's methodology, but I wouldn't think to call him out as a liar.

As for me, I'm willing to put my faith on the line in my pursuit of truth. (Somewhere, in the back of my mind, Pilate speaks from the grave ...) If what I perceive to be the truth leads me from my faith into agnosticism (or, God forbid, atheism), so be it.

But somehow I doubt that will happen, considering events in my life that I can't explain without appealing to the concept of a personal God who has a vested interest in how my life plays out. And then there's that nagging issue about the disciples' fear-cum-boldness in the face of a crucified, but risen, Christ. To date, I've never heard an adequate psychological explanation as to why they were willing to die for a lie they created.

Anonymous said...

Never mind, I see this is a different Van Till, even the name is not spelled the same. The other one is Cornelius VanTil.

Anonymous said...

"I don't know whether Howard Van Till self-identifies as a Christian."

I don't know either. But this is interesting. Wondering if you've run across this. You probably have.

http://www.freethoughtassociation.org/images/uploads/pdf/ODoRs.pdf

Stephen Matheson said...

Martin--
Yes I've seen that, as have some of Christendom's most scurrilous bottom-feeders: see Jonathan Sarfati's comments here for an example.
Martin L.--
You're welcome! Thanks for reading.

Claire said...

Hey, thanks for this blog. I've just read the Counterpoint book, "Three views on Creation and Evolution" and was enormously helped by Howard's contribution. I feel pretty sad that he's not as convinced by Christianity as he once was. Like you, I admire his graciousness to tough questions. In the aforementioned book, I felt his frustration with the respondents to his proposal. I wonder if his current agnosticism on issues is in any way due to the failures of the evangelical community to face up to evolution.

Emiliano M said...

Wow! I just found this blog!! GREAT STUFF!!! I know this post i just read is pretty old, but I'm sure to follow new stuff from now on!

Paz de Cristo

Lamar Boll said...

Mr. Matheson,

You said you aren't sure what he meant by his statement that he used to think the answer to the question "Has the universe always existed?" was clearly "no", but now he's not so sure. To me, it seems clear Howard is moving toward an 'eternal universe' option. I think that's what he meant.

While I don't agree w/ that, I do understand why he's going that way. Beneath all the verbaiage and formulations, the basic philosophic options are very few. As Howard himself said, either something came from absolutely nothing (which he, I think correctly, rejects), or something always has existed. If something has always existed, we can say the something is 'God' (however we define God) and that God brought about all else (How is a different and lesser question), or the universe (or at least some form of matter, or a quantum fluctuation, or whatever) has always existed. Or we could say that 'God' and the universe are 'co-eternal' entities.

It seems to me, if I understood him correctly, Howard has moved from an eternally-existing God toward an eternally-existing universe. The former is rejected as 'too easy' b/c it's not scientific and "God necessarily is" is presumably no answer (with an unwarranted dismissal of philosophers and theologians in the phrase "Just saying something is doesn't make it true even if said by philosophers and theologians") But the 'eternal universe' option is certainly no better! If 'God eternally exists, and necessarily so' is an unacceptable answer, what makes 'The universe eternally exists, and necessarily so' acceptable? Surely not science!That's certainly no more a scientific statement than the other. And if the universe exists eternally, but not necessarily, then we're back to the questions: How and why did it come to be? 'It just is' is no better answer than 'God just is'. So why does he dismiss theologians and philosophers from the discussion so quickly.

It seems to me these questions are in their nature philosophic or metaphysical, not scientific, even though information from the sciences is valuable and may certainly inform, and be relevant to, the metaphysical position one takes. Ultimately, however, 'faith' is required to answer these questions. The final questions will be 1.) What is the nature and ground of faith, and 2.) How well supported is it? (You and I would both agree, I'm sure, that not all forms of faith of created equal!)

I reject the 'eternal universe' option as against the best current scientific knowledge (Doesn't the standard formulation of the Big Bang Theory--I'm aware of others--imply that the universe had a beginning in time, thus is not eternal?) and philosophically problematic. The Steady State Theory is no longer in vogue, Hawking's 'no boundary' proposal did not work without the use of imaginary numbers in the equations, and other proposals also rely on unproved philosophic assumptions.

So, to claim that these questions belong exclusively or even primarily to the sciences, is not the whole story (I'm not saying you're claiming that). I do agree with you that religious believers often are lacking in critical scrutiny of their faith, but I do not think that is because science possesses an inherently superior methodology to religion or is free of faith commitments in its own method.

It does seem to me, however, that in the end we will be forced to posit an eternal something--whether God, the universe, or both (an option that has other philosophic problems); that this supposition is basically philosophic rather than scientific; and that it will have to be held by faith, though not irrational faith.

Lamar Boll said...

Claire,

Van Till is certainly a likeable person, and I've always found his ideas to be gracefully presented and written, carefully nuanced, and stimulating. I've read portions of Van Till's 1988 book "Science Held Hostage" and all of his later essay "Partnership: Science and Christian Theology as Partners in Theorizing" (in the volume "Science and Christianity: Four Views, IVP, 2000). Having compiled 20 pp. of careful notes and analysis on the latter essay, however, I concluded for various reasons that, although I agree with his basic belief that science and Christianity can and should be "partners in theorizing" (not enemies), I could not agree w/ him on the "how" of the partnership. Further, I found his support of evolution to be intellectually weak, and I'm not surprised that he finds himself compelled to move his position from a sophistocated form of "theistic evolution" toward a suggestion of an eternal universe, a position that does not fit comfortably with traditional Christian theology. His movement away from Christianity is sad and it may well be impacted (as Matheson suggested) by mistreatment from fellow Reformed brothers, which, if true, is even sadder. However, if it is (in his mind) b/c of "the failures of the evangelical community to face up to evolution," then he is mistaken about this. Have you read any works critical of (mscro) evolutionary theory? Like Michael Denton's "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis" (1985)? Denton was an agnostic at the time. Not sure if he still is. Or Douglas Dewar's older book "Difficulties of the Evolution Theory"? Or G. A. Kerkeut's "Implications of Evolution"? (Kerkut was an evolutionist, but was candid about some of the unproved assumptions of evolution) Or have you heard of Sir Julian Huxley, now deceased, but formerly one of the world's leading evolutionists. In the 1950's, when asked in a TV interview why Darwin's "Origin of Species" became such a success, Huxley stated "I suppose that the reason we leapt at 'The Origin' is that the idea of God interfered with our sexual mores." Or the works of Phillip Johnson and others in the ID movement? Before you assume that macro-evolutionary theory is a scientific fact, please re-examine the issue. It's not only the Scientific Creationists saying that evolution is not as well-supported as we've been led to believe.

It's unfortunate, but his agnosticism may have more to do with his belief in evolution, and seeing the implications of that, than with a failure of the evangelical community to endorse large-scale evolution. His question about how one can trust a brain that has evolved to lead us to the truth is reminiscent of a famous scientist of another era who also became essentially agnostic by the end of his life and had grave doubts about the theory of evolution. His name: Charles Darwin.

If you're interested, I'd be happy to send the notes I referred to earlier on Van Till's essay "Partnership" to you via email if I had an address.

Lamar Boll said...

Mr. Matheson,

As you'll be able to tell from my posts, I do not agree with much of Howard Van Till's conclusions for intellectual reasons (there are broad areas of agreement with his earlier "Partnership" Model), though I think he is a likeable man, and definitely have benefitted from his writings. He has put much thought into his position and has done us the favor of raising many of what I regard as the most important questions in religion-science dialogue. And I do agree that if Howard was mistreated by fellow Christians, that is deplorable. If that is in part responsible for his drift away from Calvinism, that's even more serious. You are right in saying that Christians ought not to treat anyone (and particularly fellow Christians) disrespectfully. It is against the law of Christ and, furthermore, does nothing to enhance intellectual dialogue and the search for truth. Why, then, do you refer to a fellow believer whose views you disagree with as one of "Christendom's most scurrilous bottom-feeders"? Is this not an ad hominem attack? By the way, I did use the link and read Sarfati's comment about Howard, and I agree with you some of his language was insensitive and unnecessary.