My Bible reading today was Genesis 15. There God gives Abram three promises, a place, a people, and a heritage. He had lots of success and possessions, as seen in chapter 14. At the time, Abram would have been on the Forbs 500 List of successful business leaders. Yet, Abram had an unmet longing God put in him, a place to call home, a people to call family, and a heritage to leave behind. Every person of every generation needs these three. I understand them to be a part of the “Image” of God in which all humanity was created. The problem comes as we use our extraordinary God-given reasoning powers intended to “subdue” the earth to subdue each other to meet these desires.
One of our contemporary phrases is “follow the science.” From global warming to COVID 19, we are admonished to “follow the science.” Unfortunately, it appears that we are actually being told to follow the scientist who tells us what their science is telling them. I take that to mean that only what is measurable can be trusted. Is it true that only what we can explain or manipulate is worthy of our trust?
Closely following this line of reasoning is the confidence that only what I feel is real. The unseen trap is that infatuation and lust can be rebranded as love. In addition, the anger generated by injustice is often degraded into justifiable vengeance. Just to mention two contemporary issues.
Let’s go back to the word “science.” Merriam-Webster is my “go-to” place to understand words. Digesting what I found there makes me think that the word’s origin involves gaining knowledge of something by cutting it open. That makes sense to me. In fact, it is, at least in part, the command God gave to humans at the beginning in the Garden; cultivate and subdue, study and apply. So study corn and learn how to grow it better, and discover what you can do with it. That’s the purpose of science.
But science has its limitations. Science is not much of a foundation for humanity to derive its social identity. When dealing with people, slicing them open to see what makes them work may be suitable for health care providers, but it is devastating to get to know human interactions.
There is something in the physical body of a human that science just cannot measure or manipulate. We all know that, yet we devote most of our energy to do just that, measure and manipulate the dynamics of interhuman relationships. We try to use our scientific evaluations of our life setting to enhance our pleasure and diminish our pain, with little to no regard for our neighbor who is doing the same.
In natural science, every scientist will come to the same conclusions no matter what planet they live on or where they live on this planet. But, that is not true of humans. Humans study themselves and cannot understand why others don’t come to the same conclusions. A part of my reasoning is baffled as to why anyone would reject Christianity (the Biblical version, not the cultural.) On a global scale, we cannot understand why the Middle-east folks don’t see the superiority of the European mindset. Or why Democrats and Republicans never can get anything accomplished. Or why family units explode and decompose into emotional dust in the combustion chamber that was once their home.
This pondering on science leads me to another word, “intuition.” But I have used too much of your time in this post. The post following this one will ponder the alternative to using the scientific method to navigate daily life.
If I sound foolish in this line of thought, it is because I think I probably am. Most of my life has been driven by searching to understand why I feel and act like I do. My goal was to be more pleasing to God and more valuable to His cause. But, unfortunately, I never really felt like I had made any progress in those goals.
I am now noticing that slowly I have been led to spending my energy in pursuit of understanding God, not me. As a result, interestingly, I am arriving at a better understanding of myself and the world I live in.
From the viewpoint of world history, my journey has become counterintuitive to the world’s scientific way of thinking about the meaning of life. Yet, my journey has become more Divinely intuitive at the same time. I believe this change comes from allowing the “born again” mind to replace my natural mind.
We will dive into that idea if you join me in the next post.
P.S. I would benefit from your insights as you have pursued this line of though. My email address is gfredbaldwin@hotmail.com. Thank you.
Photo – January 2010 was a seriously cold month. Collin and Cate enjoyed the frozen pond behind our home. The snow predicted for this weekend reminded me of it.
Baldwin Heirlooms 