Let there be light!
Preacher: Prof. Stuart Monro, Acting Senior Lay Member, University Court.
Readings: Ecclesiastes 3:1-13; Matthew 24:36-44
It is indeed both a pleasure and a privilege to be addressing you today, in this University of which I’ve become increasingly fond in the eight years I have served on the University Court. So I hope you will indulge me as I reflect on the challenges facing a scientist attempting to reconcile scientific principles with a Christian belief. Not an inappropriate topic on this Advent Sunday when we think about light coming into the world. Science lighting up theology and vice versa! And what better place to shed light on these two aspects of belief and curiosity than in this university, named after Scotland’s patron saint, a university which is large enough to attract the best from around the world, yet small enough to encourage interaction between different disciplines. As a scientist, a geologist to be more precise I often pose questions to myself which I want to share with you today:
- Is science and theology in conflict or complimentary?
- Science strives to explain the nature of the world we live in and how it was formed but what does that mean in theological terms?
- We live in an amazing universe and a truly wonderful world, what does that tell me about the nature of God, the Creator?
- How can a university like St Andrews bridge those areas that still exist between science and theology?
There was a time when science and theology were very much in conflict, none more so that during the Scottish Enlightenment, a period when conversations over claret and oysters brought forth many new ideas. Time has held a fascination for all through the ages as exemplified in our reading from Ecclesiastes. One which then created a chasm between science and theology was on the question of the age of the Earth. Archbishop Usher of Armagh in 1650 sought to quantify this and went back to the Bible which he regarded as the best source of data and examined in detail the lifespan of all who were documented in that Jewish chronicle. He came up with the conclusion that the world was formed on the evening prior to the 23rd October in the year 4004BC. It is easy to ridicule Ussher, but I agree with Stephen Jay Gould, who “defended Ussher’s chronology as an honourable effort for its time … representing the best of scholarship.”
And Ussher’s chronology was to remain as a fundamental pillar of both theology and science for a very long time, at least until 1788 when James Hutton with his two friends, Sir James Hall and John Playfair, took boat from Dunglass on the Berwickshire coast and sailed south, alighting at Siccar Point where Hutton communicated just what the unconformity visible there; the shallow dipping red sandstones resting irregularly on the steeply dipping rocks beneath, meant in terms of geological time. Not a world created on the evening prior to the 23rd of October in 4004BC as Archbishop Ussher postulated but “deep time”, evidenced in that unconformity where sediments were deposited horizontally, squeezed into a vertical position creating mountains which had to be eroded away before new sediments could be deposited on top. Building mountains and eroding them away was something which required far longer than 6000 years! What a revelation! It is not surprising that Playfair recorded this event as “staring into the abyss of time”. And today the age of the Earth is reckoned to be 4.54 billion years.
An explanation of the nature of the world we live in has evolved over the centuries and is still evolving. Progress is made not by the efforts of one individual but in accord with the quotation attributed to Isaac Newton, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants”. If I look back on my own career as a geologist, in 1969 I was taught about eugeosynclines and miogeosynclines which are alien terms to today’s geologists, replaced by the concept of Plate Tectonics, a concept created by a succession of scientists. Theological concepts were also changing, embracing a more modern understanding of how the Earth works. A notable milestone was the Great Lisbon Earthquake, which occurred on Saturday, 1 November 1755, the holiday of All Saints’ Day, at around 09:40 local time. The earthquake was followed by a tsunami which added to the destruction in the city. The earthquake had struck on an important church holiday and destroyed almost every important church in the city. Was this a manifestation of divine judgement? Evidently not, as the Alfama, Lisbon’s red-light district, suffered only minor damage. But from that time on, these natural disasters were no longer regarded as a visitation on the evil doer but were thought of in a more rational scientific way as just how the Earth works!
When first I was involved in writing the scientific story for the Dynamic Earth exhibition, I recall talking to the cosmologists who showed me images taken from the Hubble Space Telescope of objects that were more than 10 thousand million light years away. I was impressed, but even more so when they got me to think about what this meant. I was looking at something that happened 10 thousand million years ago! And now that boundary has been pushed back even further. Today we can all go onto the internet and look at images from the James Webb Space Telescope of far-off galaxies and even the afterglow of the Big Bang itself! For me the truly immense scale of the Universe in which we live is awe inspiring. It leaves me with the fundamental question about the nature of the Creator.
We have volcanic eruptions today which are tourist attractions as in Iceland or ones which have a global impact like Krakatoa that erupted in 1883 and caused even the far-off Norwegian skies to turn red as seen in the painting “Scream”. There have been wildfires in Australia and California, we have lived through yet another pandemic caused by the Coronavirus and the Sword of Damocles of microbial resistance is still waiting in the wings not to mention devastating flooding in some areas and drought and famine in others caused by climate change, and who knows when we will next be hit by a meteorite!
I fear you may leave this place with the idea that, as John Laurie would say, “We’re doomed, we’re a’ doomed”. Let me reassure you… The stories that are told in the rocks indicate that life has a remarkable propensity to survive through the most extreme environments. Life survives but life also changes! “It may be life, Jim but not as we know it!” The tiny photosynthesising bacteria from which we are all derived gave way to a myriad of thoroughly exotic species in the Cambrian explosion 530 million years ago. The fish of the Devonian period 400 million years ago crawled on to land from which the dinosaurs emerged 200 million years ago. With their extinction emerged the mammals and, eventually a funny sort of bipedal called homo sapiens, us! The evolution story in just a few seconds! What does the future hold for homo sapiens?
But returning to my theological question, what does this tell me about the nature of God, the creator of all this! As I look around the images in the windows of this ancient chapel and listen to the words of familiar hymns all of which are trying to help me understand the nature of God, I see a God exemplified in some very different ways but always in a likeness of ourselves, an anthropomorphic view of God. Sometimes it is in the likeness of a great king with absolute power, but the coming of Christ into the world portrayed a different God, one caring for others, the friend of the poor and the downtrodden. Effectively the anthropomorphic view of God, created to help a better understanding of our relationship with God has been different through the ages. But after seeing the glories of the universe and the wonders of the diversity of life and environments on our own planet does this image sit comfortably with our traditional anthropomorphic view?
I do recognise the truth of the Donald Rumsfeld quotation:
“There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don’t know.”
The latter two remain as mysteries to all of us some in the realm of theology which, I’m glad to say remain as mysteries – the nature of God being the biggest. But many of the known knowns have been exemplified to us through the teaching of Christ, the relationship between God and humanity should mirror our relationship to each other, summed up in that simple phrase, “love thy neighbour”. Here the anthropomorphic view perhaps works. But the nature of our world and our universe challenges that model it doesn’t in any way illustrate the hand of the Creator.
Yes, the anthropomorphic model still gives me some difficulties, but the simple concept of Father and Son is something I suppose I can relate to though these days the gender identity therein gives me great difficulties. At this Advent time the arrival of a baby in an occupied state contrasts markedly with the kingly images around us. However perhaps I should be asking myself to explore further the third concept in the Trinity, encapsulated in those simple words, “Holy Spirit”! In Judaism, the Holy Spirit, is the divine force, quality, and influence of God over the Universe or over His creatures. In Nicene Christianity, the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. In Islam, the Holy Spirit acts as an agent of divine action or communication. In the grand scheme of things, the continual process that we call Creation, what is the role of the species we call homo sapiens, made supposedly “in the image of God”. Let us set aside the “image of God” idea is a whole other address but reflect on the responsibilities of humanity as an instrument of Creation.
We may not be able to control the shifting of the tectonic plates that cause volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunami but we do know where they are likely to occur and should put in place contingency measures to mitigate their effects. Living on this Dynamic Earth is a risky business, and no one can take its rumblings for granted but as scientists and citizens we have a fundamental responsibility to gain a better understanding of how the Earth works and to use that knowledge for the benefit of all. We need to better understand the plumbing of an individual volcano and monitor earthquakes and volcanoes alike, looking for tell-tale signs that something different might be about to happen, and we need to have a plan of what to do when the Earth does decide to have a little hiccup to itself!
Much still remains in our hands. Global warming will require us in the future, or even now, to alter the life-style we have become used to. Already we are seeing a drive away from petrol and diesel vehicles towards electric cars. We now frown upon the amount of plastic packaging used in our supermarkets. We can look to find better ways to bring food and water to parts of our planet where it is in limited supply. We can combat famine, but that may mean using the techniques of genetic modification. A controversial subject but if it allows an Ethiopian farmer to grow crops successfully in a drought ridden country, is it worth it? We need to control and reduce our emissions of CO2 to ensure the continued sustainability of life on the planet. Life has endured mass extinctions in the past, but do we want to risk the future of our own species?
No one can fail to be impressed with the amazing diversity of life and the environments that are brought into our living rooms by that communicator par excellence, David Attenborough. He has taken us over the years to every part of the planet and given us the privilege of seeing the tremendous diversity of life, of all sorts, with whom we share this planet. As a result of his work, I suspect that we all have a greater feel for the wonder of what is around us, the wonder of creation and kindled the curiosity that is in all of us about the world around us.
I recall the first time my kids cracked open a rock to discover some fossil that had lay hidden for hundreds of millions of years and they were the first human beings to set eyes on it. In my latter years, walking in the Himalayas at around 4000m above sea level, I remember cracking open an ironstone nodule to reveal, an ammonite, a marine creature that at one time would have been swimming around in an ocean – now found over 4000m above sea level. How on Earth can the processes of nature turn an ocean into a mountain chain? Perhaps our first responsibility as an instrument of Creation is to understand the way the Earth works – the continuity of Creation. Is it the curiosity of the human species, nurtured in a university like St Andrews that will be the mechanism by which the future of the planet is determined. Dare I say, “the hand of God at work?”
Yet here is this ancient chapel, in a university where scientists and theologians can rub shoulders with one another, I must make a plea. A plea for mutual respect and an even greater degree of common understanding. Science moves enormously fast, especially these days and if the Kirk is to retain its credibility with the young and yes, with me too, its theological thinking must move faster than on geological timescales. There must be a convergence of what is taught in the science classes in our schools with the ideas youngsters encounter on a Sunday. Likewise, I as a scientist, and perhaps other scientists too, want an ethical framework in which to work, a philosophy that is more than just seeking out the unknown, the answer perhaps to the question why, rather than just how? What better place for this to happen than in this university.
What unites us is the fact that we all want to understand the nature of our environment better and through that perhaps understand a little of the nature of God. Universities open windows on science to many for whom they have been previously closed. Public engagement with science is now seen as important. Is there not also a need for public engagement with theology – I contend there is a need for a couple of highly accessible MOOCs perhaps, Massive Open Online Courses, one on “Science for Theologians” and another on “Theology for Scientists”. There are many “known unknowns” and even more “unknown unknows” but as I look at the wonders of the world around me, I can perceive something of the hand of God in that ever-changing tapestry in which we play a small but significant part.
For me the wonder of our world and our understanding of it gives a glimpse into the still very mysterious vision of God. The words of the Louis Armstrong song recited recently by David Attenborough over some wonderful shots of the planet we inhabit help… Words and images I can still get quite emotional about…
I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom, for me and you
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
I see skies of blue, and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, dark sacred night
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
The colours of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces, of people going by
I see friends shaking hands, saying, “How do you do?”
They’re really saying, “I love you”
I hear babies cry, I watch them grow
They’ll learn much more, than I’ll ever know
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world, Just wonderful!