The other day, I heard a couple of my colleagues discussing the similarities and differences in the major Abrahamic religions’ views of God. How similar and dissimilar is the Christian God from the Muslim God or the Jewish God? One of my colleagues, pushing the dissimilarity issue, said that he wondered whether Presbyterians worship the same God as the Baptists, or the Assemblies of God, or the Episcopalians. I mischievously chimed in at that point, questioning whether any of us actually worship the same God. Do any of us have the same view or an exact understanding of God?

Understanding Precedes Unity

As he and I pushed the issue to its extreme, I was reminded of a course I took several years ago. It was a survey course (Elements of Christian Thought) that looked at Christians through the ages and how each of their unique viewpoints and life experiences have contributed to the understanding of Christian faith through subsequent ages and in various cultures.

A diversity of voices filled our readings and class discussions, including Athanasius (ca. 297–373), Augustine (354–430), the Cappadocian Fathers (fourth century), Cyril of Alexandria (ca. 376–444), Anselm of Canterbury (ca. 1033–1109), Martin Luther (1483–1546), John Calvin (1509–1564), Karl Barth (1886–1968), Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976), Kallistos Ware (1934–), and Kathryn Tanner (1957–). Each claimed grounding, to some extent, in faith in Jesus Christ and the Christian Scriptures. And each expressed their Christian faith while seeking to understand how it fit within their experiences of reality and within their particular cultures.

Elements of Christian Thought not only challenged each student to understand how these historical figures had defined their faith but called for each of us to do the same. And it revealed the truth of our discussion: ultimately, we each have different views and experiences. So, how can we say we share a common Christian faith?

Unity in our faith is crucial. It is at the heart of Jesus’s high priestly prayer in John 17:20–23 (NLT):

The centrality and critical importance of unity based in love is further highlighted in Jesus’s words in Matthew 22:37–40 and John 13:34–35, where he says that loving God and loving each other are the two greatest commandments.

Love Is Central to Unity

Jesus knows that love is central to unity and to our witness to the world. No doubt that same thought is at the heart of the quote often misattributed to Augustine: “In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”

This theme dates back to the earliest church writings and is often repeated throughout the New Testament (e.g., “love covers over a multitude of sins,” “Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love,” or “owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another”). And in his letter to the Ephesians, Paul penned an especially powerful call to unity (Ephesians 4:3–6, NLT):

So Jesus puts unity in his prayer for those who would follow him, and Paul says we are to make every effort to keep united in the Spirit, rightly setting this endeavor in the context of humility, gentleness, and love. In light of these verses, how are we to respond to the disunity and acrimonious comments that are expressed between some Christians?

Love and Unity Require Effort and Humility

Some of the most conflict-ridden public dialogue among Christians transpires between those who hold various views of science and creation. The theistic evolution or evolutionary creationism camp is constantly in conflict with the young-earth creationists (YECs), who are, in turn, in conflict with them and the day-age/old-earth/progressive creationists (OECs). Theistic evolution proponents (TEs) believe that OECs don’t understand evolution, and TEs and OECs believe YECs don’t understand science or take it seriously enough. And then there are those who are less engaged in the sciences and prefer a more allegorical or framework approach to understanding scriptural references to the creation accounts. Each Christ-follower should ask, What does this conflict do for the witness of Christ in the world and to the call of Christians to seek truth, seek God, and make every effort to maintain unity? Such acerbic conflict is a major blemish on our Christian witness and one from which each of us should humbly seek to repent for our part.

Science is a quest for truth. Following Jesus is a commitment to seek and follow the Truth. God is the author of all creation and the arbiter of all that is true. He wants us to know him and be reconciled to him. For this, he has made great and costly provisions. He has chosen to reveal himself through creation (Romans 1:20), the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 2:10–16), and the Incarnation of Jesus (Colossians 1:15–23). As we seek truth in our world and our faith, we should do so with humility and with the hope that the God who wants to be known will harmonize the truths that we discover about his creation and his character. Whether we study nature via science or Scripture via reason and faith, we should all look to the author and perfecter of our faith and lay aside nonessential differences to maintain unity in our witness of Jesus Christ to a lost and broken world.

Therefore, though we each have different views and experiences, let us love one another and pursue truth, peace, and unity. Will you join me in praying for the unity of Christ’s followers, especially among those who work in the overlapping areas of science and faith?

Note: I wrote this blog before attending the Dabar Conference Creation Project at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. The conference’s focus this year was “Reading Genesis in the Age of Science.” Following that meeting and the ASA annual meeting earlier this week, I am even more convinced of the deep need for and value of gracious dialogue among a diversity of Christian theologians, biblical scholars, and scientists seeking unity for the sake of the gospel to a watching world.

Resources

• For more on unity and disunity in the church, read my colleague Kenneth Samples’s five-part article “Examining Christian Disunity” (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5).

A crucial component of the big bang creation model that the Bible uniquely predicted thousands of years ago¹ is the existence of a lot of cold dark matter. Cold dark matter refers to the matter in the universe that is comprised of massive particles that either interact very weakly with light—that is, photons—or not at all. These particles contrast with baryonic matter, which is made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons that possess the property of strongly interacting with light.

Because of how strongly protons, neutrons, and electrons interact with light, any large concentration of these particles that is not collapsed into a black hole will continuously emit light. Stars, gaseous nebulae, and brown dwarfs are well-known examples. For cold dark matter particles, on the other hand, it does not matter how large a concentration one has, they will not continuously emit light.

In big bang cosmology, for the universe to possibly sustain physical life it must contain about 5–6 times as much cold dark matter as it does baryonic matter. However, because astronomers have not been able to “see” cold dark matter, some atheist scholars and nearly all young-earth creationists have claimed that the big bang creation model is in trouble,²albeit for very different theological motivations. As we will see in a few paragraphs, a breakthrough discovery promises to deliver evidence that should settle such questions for fair-minded people.

Gravitational Detections of Cold Dark Matter
Although astronomers have yet to see any light being emitted from cosmic cold dark matter, they have no doubt about its existence. They detect cold dark matter through its gravitational influences. For example, general relativity, which now ranks as the most exhaustively tested and best-proven principle or theory in all of physics,³ predicts that clumps of mass, whether it be baryonic or cold dark matter, will bend light. The larger the concentration of mass, the greater the degree of light bending.

Figure 1 below shows an image of a gravitational lens where the mass of a foreground giant red galaxy bent light from a much more distant blue galaxy almost directly behind the giant red galaxy in the same manner that an optical lens bends light. The measured degree of light bending falls far short from what would be generated by the measured amount of baryonic matter in the cluster of galaxies. The remainder of the bending, therefore, must come from matter in the cluster that does not interact at all, or hardly at all, with light.

Figure 1: The Gravitational Lens LRG 3-757. Image credit: ESA/Hubble/NASA

Another way astronomers can detect the gravitational influence of cold dark matter is by observing the gravitational interactions of galaxies with one another inside a large cluster of galaxies. The observed gravitational interactions again fall far short of what would be expected if only baryonic matter existed. Figure 2 below shows a map of the distribution of cold dark matter in the galaxy cluster ACT-CL J0102-4915 that was determined from careful measurements of the dynamics (movements) of galaxies in the cluster with respect to each other.

Figure 2: Distribution of Cold Dark Matter in the Giant Galaxy Cluster ACT-CL J0102-4915 (El Gordo). The blue-colored overlay shows where the concentrations of cold dark matter exist in the galaxy cluster. Image credit: NASA/ESA/UC Riverside (J. Jee)

The method that produces the most accurate determination of the quantity of cold dark matter in the universe comes from maps of the radiation left over from the cosmic creation event coupled with multiple independent observational tools for measuring the spatial curvature (geometry) of the universe. The dynamics of galaxies and galaxy clusters, surveys of the structure of galaxies and galaxy clusters, and maps of the cosmic microwave background radiation (the radiation left over from the cosmic creation event) establish that the geometry of the universe is flat to within 0.05%⁴ and that the universe is comprised of 4.7% baryonic matter, 24.6% cold dark matter, and 70.7% dark energy.⁵

Signals from Cold Dark Matter Particles
Astronomers possess several other methods for detecting and measuring the quantities of cold dark matter that yield results consistent with the three described above. While the extent and the consistency of these measurements remove any reasonable doubt about the existence of cold dark matter and the degree to which it dominates baryonic matter, astronomers have yet to detect the signals that physicists expect would arise from the fundamental particles that comprise cold dark matter. However, thanks to results reported in a recent paper published in Physical Review D, astronomers may have made or may be on the verge of making such a discovery.

In the paper, a team of five astronomers led by Joseph Conlon announced the detection of a 3.5 kiloelectron-volt feature in the soft x-ray spectra of the Perseus Galaxy Cluster (featured image). This energy spike (emission line) is consistent with a dark matter origin. Conlon’s team detected the feature in the Perseus Galaxy Cluster in all three of the x-ray telescopes they used: Hitomi, XMM-Newton, and Chandra. They were able to achieve consistency among the measurements from all three telescopes with a model in which cold dark matter absorbs and then reemits the 3.5 kiloelectron-volt photons that were first emitted from the central active galactic nuclei by the largest galaxies in the Perseus Galaxy Cluster.

Before the Nobel Prize in physics can be awarded to Conlon and his team, they will need to confirm their discovery with measurements on other galaxy clusters and preferably individual galaxies. It also would be helpful if they could obtain detailed enough measurements that they could identify the cold dark matter particles responsible for absorption and reemission. Nonetheless, they have made a landmark discovery that should remove any residual doubts about the reality of cold dark matter and its theological implications that a Creator beyond space and time brought our universe into existence and exquisitely fashioned it to provide a home for physical life and human beings in particular. Thanks to powerful telescopes, the heavens are shouting the glory of God more loudly than ever before.

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of interacting with apologists from the RZIM (Ravi Zacharias International Ministries) Connect online community in a forum called “Ask RZIM.” The questions I encountered there are similar to ones I often think about and am asked when I’m out and about. I thought I’d share some of the questions and my responses here on Theorems & Theology.

Ted posted the following thoughts and questions:

Darwinism seems to me to be a ridiculous theory right from the get-go. How is it that Christians who are obviously very smart with PhDs in biology are at all sympathetic? I’ve read Behe, Meyer, Axe, Dawkins, Dembski, and Francis Collins, so that’s kind of my background knowledge. I’ve tried for years to understand what is so compelling, but I just can’t. What do people in the academy see that I don’t? Why does unguided evolution have such a stranglehold?

A Preface of Sorts

Hi, Ted. Thanks for this question. Here’s a preface to my answer: Part of my response below comes from a place of deep passion and sorrow related to topics that touch on the debates that rage over Darwinism in all its forms and the Christian faith. These debates kept me from joining any apologetic conversations or pursuits for decades. They kept me from joining the dialogue until I saw the humble, winsome approach employed by RZIM apologists, mirrored by RTB scholars, to address the questioner behind the question.

On to My Response

First things first. I think John Bloom, a physics professor at Biola, may have the best concise answer I’ve ever heard to this question. Bloom quotes Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin in Bloom’s book entitled, The Natural Sciences: A Student’s Guide:

“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, . . . in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated.”¹

I think that’s spot on!

Lewontin is incredibly astute in pointing out the underlying philosophical commitment driving the paradigm. However, many who adopt and defend Darwinian and Neo-Darwinian evolution, and variations on naturalistic explanations (modern synthesis, extended evolutionary synthesis, neutral theory and common descent, etc.) for all of life’s diversity, complexity, and history may do so rather inconsistently and with very little philosophical self-awareness.

It is quite possible to hold one’s approach to science and one’s spirituality—or (rational) belief or (rational) faith or religion—independently. Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould referred to this as non-overlapping magisteria of science and religion—a view where each holds authority over different aspects of life and the kinds of questions we ask about life and reality.

Questioning the Paradigm

I honestly think most people just accept that evolution is a fact, and they have no good reason to question it. Very few have any motivation to step back and ask, is this really true? And does it matter if it is or isn’t? Very few of us seek coherence and correspondence within our worldview. We are muddles of cognitive dissonance and unexamined lives (and beliefs). Much of the resistance faced by people of faith in science dialogue is due to poor, hurried, dogmatic communication, assumptions about others’ worldview, and a failure to take scientific findings and biblical revelation seriously—let alone search for harmony between the two.

If we really believe God is the Author of Scripture and the Author or Creator of nature and that both (according to Scripture) reveal enough truth about God to serve as the basis of judgment of our response/rejection of God’s clear and ubiquitous revelation, then why do we choose one side or other in the conflict? Why do so many choose to ridicule science or faith as misguided or irrational?

Our approach, especially as Christ-followers, should be to humbly admit that we are seeking coherence and integration of God’s revelation in nature (through scientific discoveries and inquiries) and Scripture. We must offer a path away from conflict and derision of others and their views to invite open inquiry. When we adopt a demeanor of humility, of confidence in God’s desire to be known and choice of revelation, and of respect for others who are all made in the image of God, I believe true dialogue can happen. Then we can begin to openly and respectfully question the scientific data for various kinds of evolution and uncover where interpretation of the data is driven by philosophical commitments, and then dialogue about philosophical differences.

I hope my tone isn’t coming across as harsh in any way; it is not meant to be, and is not directed toward you or the question you’ve asked. My comments are a reflection of how passionately and sorrowfully I grieve over our inability to invite others to join us in humble pursuit of truth. I am weary and sorrowful over people who just talk past each other without caring for one another or about what may really be true. We need to be committed to lovingly, humbly pursuing truth while resting in the confidence that God will reveal truth—his truth—to all who seek it in such a way. But humility is an absolute necessity as we realize we may need to come to differing levels of belief revision.

I think the Darwinian paradigm lacks scientific rigor and is driven primarily by a philosophical commitment to naturalism. But I am willing to say that the scientific data may one day become more rigorous for various aspects of naturalistic explanations of life’s history, complexity, and diversity. Maybe one day, the data will convince me that evolutionary creationism is the place of deepest integration of scientific truth and biblical truth. Maybe. It won’t shatter my world. It won’t even upset me. And it will in no way diminish my utter awe of the power and majesty and brilliance and love of the Creator God revealed in Scripture.

Resources

I’ve written a few blogs that touch on some of these topics. Please explore further if you’re interested.

• “Failures to Philosophize” by Anjeanette Roberts (article)
• “Mutations—How They Work and Which Worldview They Favor” by Anjeanette Roberts (article)
• “Christ Calls All Christians to Unity” by Anjeanette Roberts (article)

As I sit down at my computer to compose this post, the new Justice League movie has just hit the theaters. Even though it has received mixed reviews, I can’t wait to see this latest superhero flick. With several superheroes fighting side-by-side, it begs the question: “Who is the most powerful superhero in the DC universe?”

I’m not sure how you would respond, but in my opinion, it’s not Superman or Wonder Woman. Instead, it’s a superhero that didn’t appear in the Justice League movie (but he is a longtime member of the Justice League in the comic books): the Martian Manhunter.

Originally from Mars, J’onn J’onzz possesses superhuman strength and endurance, just like Superman. He can fly and shoot energy beams out of his eyes. But, he also has shapeshifting abilities and is a powerful telepath. It would be fun to see Superman and the Martian Manhunter tangle. My money would be on J’onn J’onzz because of his powerful telepathic abilities. As a telepath, he can read minds, control people’s thoughts and memories, create realistic illusions, and link minds together.

Image credit: Fazale Rana

Even though it is fun (and somewhat silly) to daydream about superhuman strength and telepathic abilities, recent work by Spanish neuroscientists from the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain, and Language indicates that mere mortals do indeed have an unusual ability that seems a bit like telepathy. When we engage in conversations with one another—even with strangers—the electrical activities of our brains synchronize.¹ In part, this newfound ability may provide the neurological basis for the theory of mind and our capacity to form complex, hierarchical social relationships, properties uniquely displayed by human beings. In other words, this discovery provides more reasons to think that human beings are exceptional in a way that aligns with the biblical concept of the image of God.

Brain Synchronization

Most brain activity studies focus on individual subjects and their responses to single stimuli. For example, single-person studies have shown that oscillations in electrical activity in the brain couple with speech rhythms when the test subject is either listening or speaking. The Spanish neuroscientists wanted to go one step further. They wanted to learn what happens to brain activities when two people engage one another in a conversation.

To find out, they assembled 15 dyads (14 men and 16 women) consisting of strangers who were 20–30 years in age. They asked the members of each dyad to exchange opinions on sports, movies, music, and travel. While the strangers conversed, the researchers monitored electrical activities in the brains using EEG technology. As expected, they detected coupling of brain electrical activities with the speech rhythms in both speakers and listeners. But, to their surprise, they also detected pure brain entrainment in the electrical activities of the test subject, independent of the physical properties of the sound waves associated with speaking and listening. To put it another way, the brain activities of the two people in the conversation became synchronized, establishing a deep connection between their minds.

Brain Synchronization and the Image of God

The notion that human beings differ in degree, not kind, from other creatures has been a mainstay concept in anthropology and primatology for over 150 years. And it has been the primary reason why so many people have abandoned the belief that human beings bear God’s image. Yet, this stalwart view in anthropology is losing its mooring, with the concept of human exceptionalism taking its place. A growing minority of anthropologists and primatologists now believe that human beings really are exceptional. They contend that human beings do, indeed, differ in kind, not merely degree, from other creatures, including Neanderthals. Ironically, the scientists who argue for this updated perspective have developed evidence for human exceptionalism in their attempts to understand how the human mind evolved. But, instead of buttressing human evolution, these new insights marshal support for the biblical conception of humanity.

Anthropologists identify at least four interrelated qualities that make us exceptional: (1) symbolism, (2) open-ended generative capacity, (3) theory of mind, and (4) our capacity to form complex social networks.

As human beings, we effortlessly represent the world with discrete symbols. We denote abstract concepts with symbols. And our ability to represent the world symbolically has interesting consequences when coupled with our abilities to combine and recombine those symbols in a countless number of ways to create alternate possibilities. Our capacity for symbolism manifests in the form of language, art, music, and even body ornamentation. And we desire to communicate the scenarios we construct in our minds with other human beings.

But there is more to our interactions with other human beings than a desire to communicate. We want to link our minds together. And we can do this because we possess a theory of mind. In other words, we recognize that other people have minds just like ours, allowing us to understand what others are thinking and feeling. We also have the brain capacity to organize people we meet and know into hierarchical categories, allowing us to form and engage in complex social networks.

In effect, these qualities could be viewed as scientific descriptors of the image of God.

It is noteworthy that all four of these qualities are on full display in the Spanish neuroscientists’ study. The capacity to offer opinions on a wide range of topics and to communicate our ideas with language reflects our symbolism and our open-ended generative capacity. I find it intriguing that the oscillations of our brain’s electrical activity couples with the rhythmic patterns created by speech—suggesting our brains are hard-wired to support our desire to communicate with one another symbolically. I also find it intriguing that our brains become coupled at an even deeper level when we converse, consistent with our theory of mind and our capacity to enter into complex social relationships.

Even though many people in the scientific community promote a view of humanity that denigrates the image of God, common-day experience continually supports the notion that we are unique and exceptional as human beings. But, for me, I find it even more gratifying to learn that scientific investigations into our cognitive and behavioral capacities continue to affirm human exceptionalism and, with it, the image of God. Indeed, we are the crown of creation.

Resources to Dig Deeper

• Who Was Adam? A Creation Model Approach to the Origin of Humanity by Fazale Rana with Hugh Ross (book)
• “Neanderthal Brains Make Them Unlikely Social Networkers” by Fazale Rana (article)
• “Were Neanderthals People, Too? A Response to Jon Mooallem” by Fazale Rana (article)