Review: THOMISTIC EVOLUTION

THOMISTIC EVOLUTION
A CATHOLIC APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING
EVOLUTION IN THE LIGHT OF FAITH

Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P.
James Brent, O.P.
Thomas Davenport, O.P.
John Baptist Ku, O.P.

This collection of 30 short essays by Dominican Friars of the Province of St. Joseph guide reflection on the topic of  the biological phenomenon known as evolution  in the light the Christian concept of creation.  Unlike the claims of atheists and fundamentalists the thesis of this treatment is that there is no contradiction between evolution and the Judaeo-Christian concept of creation.  The writings frequently reference how Thomas Aquinas foreshadowed the understanding the underlies evolution as he struggled with the issues of good and evil he saw in the natural world. 

While accepting the idea of evolution completely the authors are fully invested in debunking "Intelligent Design".  The authors take exception to biological assertions of the "Intelligent Design" argument that there are irreducible complex components in biological systems AND the develop the idea that God would not need to "shortcut" his way to the present (or future) day.  New to me was the assertion that God is allowing his creatures to create. 

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Quotes of Interest:

  "...at face value, faith and reason can appear to be opposed to each other. Thus, human beings had to actually learn how these two ways of contemplating truth could work together.  The integration of the two does not happen by nature but by nurture."
                                                                                                                                   pg 2
  "A (second) reason faith and reason are widely perceived to be in conflict today is sin... Sin tears apart things that would otherwise go together peacefully in our lives..."
                                                                                                                                   pg 4
  "A third reason (faith and reason are widely perceived to be in conflict) is historical...The sixteenth century was a time that placed an unusual number of perplexing social and intellectual challenges before the Church.  The invention of the printing press, the Protestant reformation, the discovery of "the New World", the rise of modern science, the growing awareness of the great diversity of world religions and the development of new philosophies"
                                                                                                                                   pg 5
  "A fourth reason is found in our contemporary culture.  Our contemporary culture has an extremely impoverished understanding of what faith is and of what reason is.  On one hand faith is equated to religion.  It is commonly thought to be nothing but feelings on certain matters....At other times, faith is understood to be a set of private convictions based on evidence.  A person's faith can not be said to be true or false....
     Reason, on the other hand, is equated with science.  It is understood to be thinking based on experiment, critical analysis, and evidence. The results of science, it is widely thought, are verified facts and widely accepted truths. "
                                                                                                                                   pg 6
  
  "This choice is often called rationalism or scientism.  Its motto could be "Forget Faith.  Reason alone is the guide to life....
   ...(an) alternative is often called religious fundamentalism.  Its motto could be "Don't think.  Just believe."
                                                                                                                                   pg 7 
  "In sum it takes time, teaching and effort to learn how to integrate faith and reason.  Our sins and our weaknesses make it difficult to learn to fly with both wings of the human spirit.  
...Our contemporary culture does not teach people how to fly with both wings, and it is populated by vocal minorities who confuse people about even the possibility of synthesizing faith and reason.  Is it any surprise that for nearly all people today it seems that faith and reason are opposed to each other?"
                                                                                                                                    pg 8

"We want to illustrate our claim that one does not have to choose between two stories of the world, the world according to the Bible and the world according to science.  Rather there is one world.  It is God's World.  And it is a good world.  Created in love and wisdom, fallen and redeemed, God and the world are knowable by faith and reason together."
                                                                                                                                   pg 9 

  "Many are convinced that there is no universal, true, rational, accessible, verifiable answer to what life is all about.  The reduction of reason to science has left multitudes of people without a moral or spiritual compass.  Their lies become subjective journeys where they alone determine where they are going. "
                                                                                                                                   pg 14
  "Science is a good way to know facts, but science is only one way of knowing among many. "
                                                                                                                                   pg 15
  "Birds, we observe, learn to fly gradually and by practice.  So too, human beings learn how to fly with faith and reason gradually and by practice."
                                                                                                                                   pg 28
  "Whatever happens in the world, whether radioactive decay, biological mutation, a decision to sin, or a decision to praise Him, does not catch God by surprise."
                                                                                                                                   pg 96 
   "It can be a surprising and happy discovery to find that we, as a society, are not so isolated and alone in our struggles, and that many of these difficulties are but appearances of age old questions."
                                                                                                                                   pg 96 
  "God's goodness ultimately triumphs over any particular evil, whether physical or moral, that we face....Many of these, like the evil of extinction may be understood when considered from proper perspective.  Ultimately though, the Church's final answer to these problems, whether understandable or incomprehensible, is that Christ has won the victory over sin and death and that God wills to invites His whole creation to participate in that victory."

                                                                                                                                   pg 108 

  "Thomas (Aquinas) clarifies, all the senses of scripture must be based on the literal sense, and all theological arguments can only be drawn from the literal sense.  Aquinas identitifes four possible divisions of literal sense as: the historical, the etiological, the analogical and the parabolical (also known as metaphorical)"
  "In the historical sense, something is simply reported as having happened...."
  "The etiological sense 'assigns the cause said' in the Bible such as when Jesus gave the reason why Moses allowed wives to be divorced..."
  "In the analogical sense, "the truth of the one Scripture is shown not to contradict the truth of another..."
  "The parabolical sense refers to the authors use of symbols.  That is the literal sense includes the symbolic and metaphorical usage of words...."

                                                                                                                                  pg 123-5 

  "Conflicting assertions between the first and second creation stories in Genesis with respect to the order of events manifests that the literal sense of those details cannot be scientific reportage-if the Scriptures are the inerrant word of God."
                                                                                                                                  pg 137 

  "Augustine presciently adds that we only damage Scriptures credibility-especially in the minds of unbelievers who are educated in science-if we draw wrong conclusions about science from the Bible"

                                                                                                                                  pg 146 

  "Since divine revelation and scientific discovery are both gifts that come from God and that can guide us back to God, they can not contradict each other."
                                                                                                                                   pg 168 
  "...the theory of evolution is justified by a web of evidence that together support the claim that all lif on our planet has evolved from a common ancestor."
                                                                                                                                   pg 175 
  "The theory of evolution is the best explanation we have for the characteristics and the timing of the fossils found in the rocks of our planet."
                                                                                                                                  pg 177
  "God not only causes, but also creates creatures who are in themselves true causes."
                                                                                                                                  pg 191 

  "I [Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austrico, O.P. is a priest scientist that supervises NIH funded research investigating molecular regulation of cell death] propose that it was fitting for God to have created via evolution rather than via special creation because in doing so, he was able to give his creation-the material universe and individual creatures within it- a share in his causality to create."

                                                                                                                                  pg 192 

  "To sum up, why did God choose to create via an evolutionary process rather than via special creation?  Because it better reveals his glory and his power.  Because it reveals better that he is God."
                                                                                                                                  pg 197 
  "'Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God, published in 2004 [by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI], the commission acknowledges that the scientific evidence points to a polygenic origin for our species...This suggests that both monogenism and polygenism remain viable theological opinions for Catholic Theologians seeking to be faithful to the doctrinal tradition."
                                                                                                                                  pg 217-8 
  "...human beings by their very nature are prone to interior disarray because what we are inclined to know, what we are inclined to choose, and what we are inclined to desire often do not coincide."
                                                                                                                                  pg 223 
  "...human beings by our very nature are inherently limited in knowledge because we know things through contingent realities and we learn about them in gradual fashion"
                                                                                                                                  pg 223 

  "Finally why is this transformation from anatomically modern to behaviorally modern humans so important for our discussion of the historicity of Adam and Eve?  It is critically important because, philosophically, this transformation can be understood to be archaeological evidence for the appearance of the rational soul in human evolution.  Theologically, this transformation would be a sign of the arrival on the stage of world history of the imago Dei, the creature made in the image and likeness of God with intellect and will."

                                                                                                                                  pg 235

  

Review: PARTICLES OF FAITH

by Stacy A. Trasancos

A scientist is drawn to the Catholic faith as a result of the deepening of scientific insight? This book details the faith journey of a modern scientist involved in the latest nano technology research. Her deepening scientific insights derived during research lead her to a deeper faith. Such a story, similar to Augustine of Hippo 17 centuries ago, is happening even among scientists today. It is a story not often told in our popular modern media. This books tells the story of a scientist seeking truth being led to a deep and genuine faith. Then she adds to that story to persuade us that faith and science are culturally linked, mutually beneficial and interconnected approaches to truth that together raise the dignity and value of human life.

Any person, trained in science or untrained in science, can read this book and be brought to the realization that the often repeated mantra (in popular media) that science is in opposition to faith is patently untrue.   There are real scientists (like the author of this book) who come to see that Christian faith and science as truly complimentary pursuits of the truth.  The often assumed popular media assumption that scientists are always led away from religious faith as their expertise in science increases is debunked.

Dr. Trasancos begins with a chronicle of her personal experience.  First she moves away from the Christianity as she was raised with as she reaches young adulthood, then her abandonment of her faith by the start of her doctoral studies and then her religious awakening as a research chemist.   She comes to recognize Catholicism is fully compatible with science.  Her awe and logic reminds one of similar arguments posed by Augustine of Hippo 18 centuries earlier.  She comes to recognize that her God is pleased with the scientist's pursuit of truth.  She also shares at the end of the book how science can be wrongly used (in the absence of faith) to demean human life.Following the personal experience the book goes on to describe a variety of science principles along the way.  She reviews the basics of chemistry.  Dr. Trasancos reconciles the scientific origin of man with the Judaeo-Christian biblical account of Adam and Eve.  She addresses the always difficult issue (for some) of human evolution.  She ponders quantum mechanics and free will.  She reasons about Big Bang as proof of a God.  Finally she also addresses the controversial question of when does human life begin and how science is needs a fuller understanding to answer that question.

This is a fabulous reference with chapters that neatly segmented, details in an organized way how scientific pursuits can lead to genuine faith and how faith can deepen the understanding of our purpose and why both faith and science lead us to a fuller understanding of truth.
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Quotes of Interest:

"What I have to say i snot profound, it is rather simple.  It is a plea to fellow Catholics to return to the child like awe and wonder with an unwavering confidence in Christ and his Church when we approach the subject of modern science."
                                                                                                                                   pg 3
     Einstein wrote "in this materialistic age of ours the serious scientific workers are the only profoundly religious people."
                                                                                                                                   pg 12
     "...what so much of the discourse about faith and science omits is that conducting scientific research does not instill in a person the broad knowledge traditionally associated with intellectuals.  The work is more like grunt work at times.  The intellectual aspect is brief and takes a budding scientist from broadly absorbing scientific literature in a specific area of research into narrower and narrower, exceedingly specialized scientific method cycles to hypothesize and test exceedingly specialized scientific method cycles. "
                                                                                                                                   pg 23
      "Scientism  is the belief that only knowledge obtained from scientific  research is valid, and beliefs deriving from religion should be discounted.  It is an extreme or escessive faith in science or scientists."
                                                                                                                                   pg 36
     "The idea hat faith is separated from, or subject to, reason has arisen relatively recently, due mostly to the fast advance of science and to the exaggerated rationalism of certain thinkers."
                                                                                                                                   pg 41
     "But for Christians science is a way of knowing God better through the study of his handiwork.  Our faith can light the entire discussion.  I have seen both sides, and this is may main message in this book.  We have to tell people what science is in the bigger system of reality."
                                                                                                                                   pg 42
     "We need faith and reason equally, but when it comes to science, we must view the universe through a confident lens of faith in the Creator."
                                                                                                                                   pg 43
     "A believer views creation as the handiwork of God, all of it in consistently interacting, as an act of faith."
                                                                                                                                   pg 73
 "Models are used in science to probe the unknown, and mental pictures fill in the rest of the realms we cannot see directly.  The models and mental pictures continually need to be updated with the acquisition of new data.  Models are like scaffolding that go up before walls, rooms and decor are built around them, necessary frameworks for gaining new knowledge. "
                                                                                                                                   pg 93
 "Catholics are both-and people.  We can hold that God created an ordered universe down to the smallest particle, and we can also hold that He created rational creatures with free will."
                                                                                                                                   pg 100
 "if students are not prepared to understand science in the light of faith, they will be left in confusion.....if we leave the question of our existence at materialism's door, we shut out any deeper meaning or purpose."
                                                                                                                                    pg 1o7
  "In the light of faith, I can look into the chasm and not fear it.  I can see that it is too vast fro me or for any other human to ever discover all its mysteries, but I can appreciate that discovering a little more truth is better than not even trying."
                                                                                                                                   pg 118
  "We place ourselves, as any good scientist ought to, as observers seeking to understand (literally 'to stand under') the truth that life exists one it exists.  We are observers, not dictators commanding fantasies.  The proclamation that life begins at conception is a tautological statement.  That truth belongs to anyone who will accept it.  As Mother Mary taught us, life is a fiat."
                                                                                                                                   pg 162
  "When we say life begins at conception, we uphold the simplest unity of faith and science."
                                                                                                                                   pg 166

Review: EINSTEIN'S DREAMS

Dr. Alan Lightman

    The author Alan Lightman is a professor at MIT and has taught both Physics and Writing.  This book provides a window into the possible thoughts and ruminations of Einstein in just prior to his first publication on relativity.  The work examines the intellectual ground that may have prepared the intellect for a revolutionary change in the way scientists (and all of us) now view time.  It is a brief book with short chapters and highly packed with images and brief events that reveal thoughts relating to how our awareness of time  and time itself impacts the life we lead.
      The book presents Albert Einstein as a young scientist who is troubled by dreams as he works on his theory of relativity. Each of the thirty chapters imagines a dream Einstein may have has during this period.  Einstein's fellow Physicist and close friend, Michele Besso, appears and reflects the types of conversations that Einstein himself thought were important to his development of relativity and the time dilation that is proposed in that theory.  Depictions of scenarios involve exaggerations of events, imagined phenomenon  and fantasies related to how we think about time and how time impacts our lives.  The book demonstrates the relationship each human being has to time, and thus spiritually affirms Einstein's theory of relativity.

      This short book is packed with plenty of thoughts and images that are sure to raise an awareness of the greatest gift all of us share with everyone:  Time.  

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Interesting Quotes of Interest:

      "A world in which time is absolute is a world of consolation. For while the movements of people are unpredictable, the movement of time is predictable.  While people can be doubted, time can not be doubted.  While people brood, time skips ahead without looking back."
                                                                                                                                   pg 37
     "If a person holds no ambitions in this world, he suffers unknowingly.  If a person holds ambitions he suffers knowingly, but very slowly."
                                                                                                                                   pg 47
     "Indeed, what sense is there in continuing the present when one has seen the future?"
                                                                                                                                   pg 87
     "Those who have seen the future do not need to take risks, and those who have not yet seen the future wait for their vision without taking risks."
                                                                                                                                   pg 88
     "Why the fixation on speed?  Because in this world time passes more slowly for people in motion.  Thus everyone travels at high velocity, to gain time."
                                                                                                                                   pg 91
     "Frustrated and despondent, some people have stopped looking out windows.  With the shades drawn, they never know how fast they are moving.  how fast their neighbors are moving,  They rise in the morning, take baths, eat plaited bread and ham, work at their desks, listen to music, talk to their children, lead lives of satisfaction.
      Some argue that only the giant clock tower in the Kramgases keeps true time, that it alone is at rest.  Others point out that the giant clock is in motion when viewed from the river Aare, or from a cloud."
                                                                                                                                   pg 94
     "...one woman sitting on the banks of the Aare sees the boats pass by at great speed, as if moving on skates across ice.  To another, the baots appear sluggish, barely rounding the bend in the whole afternoon.  A man standing on the Aarstese looks at the river to discover that the boats travel first forwards, then backwards."
                                                                                                                                   pg 114
     "Such is the cost of immortality.  No person is whole.  No person is free.  Over time some have determined that the only way to live is to die.  In death, a man or a woman is free of the weight of the past,  These few souls, with their dear relatives looking on, dive into Lake Constance or hurl themselves from Monte Lema, ending their infinite lives.  In this way the finite has conquered the infinite."
                                                                                                                                   pg 122
     "Some people fear traveling far from a comfortable moment.  They remain close to one temporal location, barely crawling past a familiar occasion.  Others gallop recklessly into the future, without preparation for the rapid sequence of passing events."
                                                                                                                                   pg 134
     "Forty years ago in school, one afternoon in March, he urinated in class.  He could not hold it in.  Afterwards, he tried to stay in his chair, but other boys saw his puddle and made him walk around the room, round and round.  They pointed at the wet spot on his pants and howled...They hooted and called him 'bladder baby, bladder baby, bladder baby'.
      That memory has become his life.  When he wakes up in the morning he is the boy who urinated in his pants.  When he passes people on the street, he knows they see the wet spot on his pants.  He glances at his pants and looks away.  When his children visit, he stays within his room and talks to them through the door. He is the boy who could not hold it in.
       But what is the past?  Could it be, the firmness of the past is just an illusion?  Could the past be a kaleidoscope, a pattern of images that shift with each disturbance of a sudden breeze, a laugh, a thought?  And if the shift is everywhere what would we know?"
                                                                                                                                   pg 168-170
     "In a world of shifting past, these memories are wheat in wind, fleeting dreams, shapes in clouds.  Events, once happened lose reality, alter with a glance, a storm, a night.  In time, the past never happened.  But who could know?  Who could know that the past is not as solid as this instant."
                                                                                                                                   pg 171

Review: THE ESSENTIAL GALILEO

THE ESSENTIAL GALILEO

Edited and Translated by
Maurice A Finocchiaro

       This book is a collection of some of the most important writings of Galileo.  The decision of "what was most important" was made based on consultation with scholars familiar with Galileo from around the world (and listed in the introduction of the book).  An excellent introduction is followed by a "Chronology of Galileo's Career and Aftermath" which is a listing of dates important to the life and story of Galileo.
       Any person who is interested in the science that Galileo came to understand should read this as a synopsis of his most perceptive writings in this book.  This book can also help anyone who wishes to understand the famous court proceedings through the words of Galileo himself.   One will find that Galileo understood much more science than most of his peers but also misunderstood natural events (such as tides) as well.  In addition, as John Paul II recognized, Galileo was also ahead of his time in understanding how to read sacred scripture.  Galileo also appears to have differentiated the methods used in scientific analysis from theological analysis.
       The Introduction  (pg 1-16) is a a fabulous summary of the life of Galileo.  It frames the activities and context of his life precisely.  In addition to the chronology the index of the book allows for quick access to the many topics and thoughts that Galileo investigated and pondered.   I found this chronology useful (referred to it often during reading).  The Chapters each provide translations of key Galileo writings in temporal order including his excerpts from his published works and private communications.
       Reading his words reveals that Galileo was certainly a scientist with amazing insight and confidence but also a skilled, even great writer.
       Galileo's writings speak for themselves well in this collection.

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Interesting Quotes of General Interest:

Introduction

     "His [Galileo's] contributions to scientific knowledge were so radical that he constantly had to discuss with his opponents (scientific as well as ecclesiastic) not only what the facts were and what their best theoretical interpretation was, but also what the proper rules for establishing the facts and for interpreting them were."
                                                                                                                                   pg 2

     "His [Galileo's] orientation was critical of Aristotelian physics and was fundamentally Archimedean; that is he followed Archimedes' mathematical approach, accepted his physical principles of statics, and tried to build upon them for the analysis of how bodies move.  In his study of falling bodies, Galileo became and ingenious, skillful and indefatigable experimenter who pioneered experimentation as a procedure involving the combination of empirical observation with both mathematization and conceptual theorizing." 

                                                                                                                                     pg 4
Summary of Arguments against Copernican System that Galileo was "acutely aware" of:
      "The earth's motion seemed epistemologically absurd because it contradicted direct sense experience.  It seemed astronomically false becasue it had consequences that could not be observed, such as similarity between terrestrial and heavenly bodies, Venus phases, and annual stellar parallax.  It seemed mechanically impossible because the available laws of motion implied that bodies on a rotating earth would, for example, follow a slanted rather than vertical free fall, and would be thrown off by centrifugal force.  And it seemed theologically heretical because it contradicted the literal meaning and the traditional interpretation of the passages in the Bible.  Until 1609 Galileo apparently judged that the anti-Copernican arguments far outweighed the pro-Copernican ones.  Thus we find him teaching geostatic astronomy in his courses and reacting in a lukewarm and evasive manner when an enthusiastic Copernican life Johannes Kepler tried to engage him."
                                                                                                                                     pg 4-5
From "History and Demonstrations Concerning Sunspots" (1613)
Knowing properties vs. Knowing Essenses
     "I am opposing Aristotles's doctrine much less than those who would want to claim it inalterable.  For I am sure that he never regarded the conclusion of inalterability as certain as the principle that plane sense experience must have priority over any human theory.  Thus, one will philosophize better by giving assent to conclusions dependent on clear observations than by persisting in opinions that are repugnant to the senses and are confirmed only with probable or apparent reasons."
                                                                                                                                     pg 100
     "These [knowledge of sunspots] enable us to philosophize better about other more controversial questions regarding natural substances.  Finally lifting us to the final purpose of our efforts, namely the love of the Divine Architect, they can sustain our hope of learning all other truths from Him, source of light and truth."
                                                                                                                                   pg 102

Letter to Castelli (1613)

     “I should believe that it would be prudent not to allow anyone to oblige [284] scriptural passages to have to maintain the truth of any physical conclusions whose contrary could EVER be shown to us by the senses and demonstrative and necessary reasons. Who wants to fix a limit to the human mind? Who wants to assert that everything which is knowable in the world is already known?"

                                                                                                                                    pg 105

Letter to the Grand Dutchess Christina (1615)
     "...I think that in the course of examining Scripture one may find more appropriate passages whereby we would be entitled, if not to prove something for certain, at least to believe something on this topic based on the words of sacred authority....[citing St. Augustine].."Now then, always practicing a pious and serious moderation, we ought not to believe anything lightly about an obscure subject, lest we reject (out of love for our error) something which may be truly shown not to be in any way contrary to the holy books of either the Old or New Testament."
                                                                                                                                       pg 110                 
     "It is most pious to say and most prudent to take for granted that Holy Scripture can never lie, as long as its true meaning has been grasped; but I do think on can deny that this is frequently recondite and very different from what appears to be the literal meaning of the words.
                                                                                                                                   pg 115

     "Therefore, I think that in disputes about natural phenomena one must begin not with authority of scriptural passages, but with sense experiences and necessary demonstrations.  For the Holy Scripture and nature derive equally from the Godhead, the former as the dictation of the Holy Spirit and the latter as the most obedient executrix of God's orders....."

     "God reveals Himself no less exceptionally in the effects of nature than in the sacred words of Scripture"

                                                                                                                                    pg 116           

Galileo's Consideration on the Copernican Opinion (1615)
     "Moreover, we admit that a physical proposition which has been proved true by physical and mathematical demonstrations can never contradict scripture, but that in such a case it is the weakness of our mind which prevents us from grasping its [Scriptures] true meaning."
                                                                                                                                     pg 161
From Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems (1632)
     "I applaud his (Aristotle) being examined and diligently studied and only blame submitting him in such a way that one blindly subscribes to all his assertions and accepts them as unquestionable dictates, without searching for (other) the reasons for them."
                                                                                                                                     pg 201

Review: Confessions of Augustine

   I enjoyed reading "Confessions" by St., Augustine (Augustine of Hippo).  In reading this work again I was struck first by how his writing established that there is an absolute truth and a person of genuine faith does not fear that truth.  The work also clarifies that a growing faith and relationship with God is an intensely personal one in which you struggle with the truth about yourself.  More than ever I see the birth of scientific reasoning in the work as never before.

   I was particularly struck by Book IV in this reading. Augustine depicts his embrace of the Christain faith because it allows him the freedom to pursue truth.  The emergence of scientific reasoning was made possible by the amazing ability of humankind to imagine and generate explanations (such as "Categories" by Aristotle).  Augustine went a step further and suggested that the truth of an explanation is indicated by the ability of that explanation to predict events.  Critical to science was generating explanations that could then be modified, improved or discarded.  Augustine provided the intellectual humility and the emotional detachment needed to establish an explanation that was open to modification or even rejection, 
    Augustine recognized that sometimes our reasoning can be wrong or in error.  This intellectual humility was an important first step to recognizing the need for improvements, refinements or replacement of previous explanations.  Such changes, he recognized, had nothing to do with the "Christian God" but rather with our misunderstanding of natural events.  Sometimes explanations might be wrong or influenced by irrational ideas that we cling to for emotional reasons,  Augustine said:

   “the mind's motive force, which gives impetus for action, is corrupt and asserts itself in an insolent and disturbed way, and as viscous acts occur if obsession has captured the minds affective part which is at the root of the impulse to carnal pleasure, so also errors and false opinions contaminate life if the reasoning mind is itself also flawed. That was my condition at that time.  For I did not know that the soul needs to be enlightened by by light from outside itself, so that it can participate in truth, because it is not itself the nature of truth.” 
                                                       (Confessions Book IV, 25)

     In the passage (above) Augustine recognized the need for detachment from emotion and bias in order to know the truth.  This meant an openness “to error” and recognizing the possibility of “misunderstanding” that would require an “external light”.  Augustine also wrote:

    “Already I had learnt from you that nothing is true because it is eloquently said, nor false because the signs coming from the lips make sounds deficient in sense of style.  Again, a statement is not true because it is enunciated in an unpolished idiom, nor false because the words are splendid. “
                                                      (Confessions Book V, 10)

     In the quote above Augustine recognizes that truth is the product of some external reality and not dependent on the authority or eloquence of the speaker.  It is very similar to the reason, even today, that people choose to become Physicists (like Sava Demopolous a famous particle physicist depicted in the movie “Particle Fever”). 

Comparing Explanations to Observations
   Augustine of Hippo had been a follower of the “Manichees” which was a faith popular in the Roman Empire at the time.  Augustine was able to question a leading teacher of the Manichees directly about errors and false statements concerning astronomy.  Augustine recalls in his writings:

   “When he was caught out making false statements about the heaven and the stars and the movements of the Sun an Moon, even though these things are not integral part of religious doctrine, yet it was clear enough the his bold speculations were sacrilegious.  He not only wrote on matters of which he was ignorant, but also uttered his falsehoods with so mad a vanity and pride that he attempted to attribute them to himself as though he were a divine person.”
                                                (Confessions Book V, 8)

     The knowledge and mathematical skills Augustine had acquired through his practice as an astrologer allowed him to precisely predict celestial events including eclipses and planetary alignments.  Knowing that celestial events could be predicted Augustine questioned the assertion that the Sun and Moon were objects animated by divine beings as claimed in the Manichean interpretation of the physical world.  The accurate and predictable behaviors of the Sun and the Moon led Augustine to think that these heavenly bodies were themselves subservient to some natural principles that allowed the calculations to make accurate precise predictions of celestial events (such as eclipses).  Augustine suspected that that celestial events were not manipulated by beings but he thought were actually inanimate objects controlled by unknown mechanisms.  Augustine of Hippo was over a thousand years ahead of his time! 
     The inability of his Manichean teacher to recognize the lack of truth in his predictions about the astronomical events was evidence to Augustine that the reasoning thought to guide religious and moral questions would also be errant.  More alarming was how the Manichean teacher boldly made wrong astronomical predictions based on divine claims of knowledge without physical evidence.  Augustine realized that the Manichean faith required he abandon his understanding of the mathematical patterns he recognized as truthful and accurate.  Augustine could not bring himself to reject the accurate models predicting astronomical events in order to fully embrace the Manichean faith.
     Augustine recognized that the Christian faith gave him the freedom to accept mathematical reasoning and apply it to natural events without constraint by his Christian faith.  Natural events and the comprehension of our physical universe could change but these were unrelated to the faith that guided the hearts of men and women.  The Christian faith was about man's “view of his heart” and not about man's “view of physical events”. 

     “For the controlled modesty of a mind that admits limitations is more beautiful that the things I was anxious to know about.”
                                                (Confessions Book V, 12)

     The recognition that nature could be analyzed and predicted, un-tethered to a supernatural explanation, with numerical models and quantitative reasoning was laid out by Augustine of Hippo sixteen centuries ago.  His intellectual humility meant that the mathematical models and prediction of astronomical events could be refined as he came to learn more of the world without challenge to his Christian faith.  Recognition of our limited understanding, or inadequate models, would drive a desire to refine and improve the models.  Changing a physical understanding could now be done without anxiety or hesitation.  His Christianity allowed him to investigate with wonder and awe! Physicists still seek knowledge for the sake of knowing how our universe works.
    
      The fact that truth was not "personally defined" but rather "externally verifiable" was in clear contradiction to a popular culture that saw truth as defined by personal experience and power.  This idea about truth was most clearly expressed by a civil judge who knowingly condemned an innocent man, washed his hands and then stated "What is truth?"
       Augustine was therefore converted to Christianity because Christianity allowed for a search of  "absolute truth" that was external and verifiable.  This truth did not depend on personal interpretation or civil authority.  Your struggle with God was personal but truth existed if you were able to recognize it, or not.  I now recognize that this was the birth of science in the western culture.

My Child Remembers....

     The picture above is actually one of four beautiful waterfalls in the nation of Havasupai (located west of the Grand Canyon National Park).  That water fall is called Havasu Falls.  The essay below was written (to complete a school assignment) by my daughter as her memory of one of the most dangerous and spectacular of hikes!  I provide photos I took of that particular hike after descending and catching up with her (my wife and younger child stayed at the top).

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What Goes Up Comes Down

Part A

     The Arizona sun beamed on us as my cousin and I hiked down the Havasupai Mooney Falls Trail. Being in a different country considered to be apart from the United States, Havasupai was a world foreign to me and my family. I was eight years old. At twenty, my cousin Adam was strong and independent; he was larger than life to me. I knew this hike would be worth the unprepared day.  Our clacking hiking boots echoed as we passed through some cool tunnels, and I breathed a contented sigh.  Thinking of the hike to Havasupai Indian Reservation, my pride made me a sincere conclusion that nothing dangerous could be ahead, or could it?

      Hiking Mooney Falls would be a breeze in the park compared to hiking to the Reservation. So far, so good, I thought. Maybe this isn't so treacherous after all. The end of the last tunnel, however, there was a shocking reality. 
     Before us stood the steepest hiking trail I ever saw; chains and rocks looming ahead as our guides. “I don't think I can do it,” my voice pleadingly spoke. “Come on,” Adam said, “I got you; you got this. His words did not give me ease. Looking down the cliff, I knew better than to give into something I was pressed to do by my influencing cousin, but it seemed to me I had no other choice, What could go wrong if he thought everything would be fine? I quickly gave in. Pulling myself forward gradually, my hand was consistently reaching for the next secure stone.  My heart beat faster, my body was shaking, and I felt like I would melt into the Canyon wall.  The one natural element that gave me consolation was the cold mist traveling upwards from Mooney Falls.  I could taste the fresh, crisp water from the blue and crystal Havasupai waters.  The sound of the falling water grew more powerful.

    Time was ticking and the pressure was mounting. A line of tourists formed behind me, and I was embarrassed at my lack of speed in the endeavor. My eight year old mind remembered what I had said earlier that day, Maybe we should go.  I had looked longingly at Adam for approval, but now it was too late. 

     My cousin tried to encourage me; I knew he was loving the hike, but my eyes kept being drawn down to the edge of the cliff that seemed so impossible to scale down. The despair of being abandoned to this danger made me wish I could disappear in the moment. "Look behind you!" Adam exclaimed in his most motivating tone. Turning my head, to my great relief, I saw my dad. From then on, the load that I carried within got lighter. Leading to the ending point, my steps were steady on the downward, slippery wooden ladder. At last, my feet touched the pink, rocky shore. Am I really at Mooney Falls? My eyes gazed in wonder. The scene of the waterfall was breathtaking and the same cool mist coated my hot sunburned skin. 

      I turned around to look up at the trail. The memory of having to go back clouded my mind, but a woman from the line of hikers saw my fear.   "Don't worry, she said smiling, it's much easier going up than down!" Those words encouraged me to continue the unfinished journey.  My dad smiled at me, "How did you do it?" he said in his inquisitive teacher voice, reminding me of the times he asked his physics students how they got first place in his competitions. "I just did" I answered and he laughed at my bland response. "I met a Native Havasupai man while you were hiking with Adam" my dad said.  "I asked him about Mooney Falls and wanted to know if someone your age could go down".  The native responded ˜We only allow our sons twelve and older to hike that trail".   A miner named Mooney who fell off the trail in 1882 made the Havasupai cautious in the descent. I darted to catch up to you, but then I saw a little figure climbing down the trail and I knew it was you!"

Part B

     The words of the woman who told me, "It's easier going up than down!" lifted my spirits and made me realize hiking Mooney Falls was worth the challenge. During the exhaustion of trying to accomplish it, I did not realize the purpose of what I was working to accomplish. I am seeing now that this is also true in real life situations that are complex and maybe hard for people to understand the meaning of. Even if the purpose is not seen but true wisdom is gained from the experience, the event has meaning for life. The person has not only simply followed the "plot" of a story, so called, but hopefully the mistaken event has transformed them.  In the hiking process, I was mentally exhausted, physically drained, and felt like the heat might make me collapse any minute. The only thing I had on my mind was to get it over with and stop having people breathing over me to get me going. I knew that I could not have done it alone hiking to Mooney, but I also knew that if I had not decide d to persevere myself, I would not have finished the hike.

     

     I realized that the journey to Mooney Falls was just as harmful as what I had assumed in the beginning, but now that it was over, I found myself enjoying the dream of reality. I was happy to have accomplished the hike despite the difficulty, and I was satisfied to have my dad present with me.  My feelings during the hike made it seem like no one would be there to help me through besides Adam.  When my cousin told me something was behind me, I was expecting another impatient tourist wanting to pass me up because I was taking up too much time and room. My dad surprised me when he came. It felt good not to be treated as just another slow tourist hiker. His hands were those of a father. He wanted me to take time and he wanted me to be safe. He did not abandon me, even if in the back of my mind I thought he did. Enjoying Mooney Falls, it was a significant knowledge for me as a child to see my dad smile at me as a proud father. I was very shy as an eight year old, and though I pretended my dad's admiration did not really make a difference, I was happy inside because it did.

     One point, however, did weigh hard on me during the hike: I thought it was going to be easy.  Such an assumption was not primary but it was still there. I didn't want to think about the physical manifestations of danger in front of me, it made it easier to dwell on what was easiest for me. As a Christian, the decisions I made helped me see God being actively part of what I experienced. I thought of the scripture in which Simon Peter speaks to Jesus of Nazareth. Peter does not want to think about his leader or himself falling into what seems to be the failure of having to suffer. "God forbid, Lord!" he said "No such thing shall ever happen to you!" In my thoughts I was saying almost the exact words  Peter said: No such thing shall ever happen to me. Jesus replies rebuking Peter, and saying,  "You are thinking not as God does but as human beings do."  I realized that wanting to rid myself of the hardship made the journey less significant than if at the pressing moment I gave myself up to the adventure of trusting.

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