Thoughts on Faith and Rationality

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This being Good Friday, it seems like a good time to set down some of my thoughts about faith. (I’ve already spoken about faith and writing in a general sort of way, in an essay on my web site, Faith and the Difficulty of Writing. But that didn’t focus specifically on faith in God so much as on faith in the Muse, faith in one’s own abilities—with a kind of pointer toward a deeper underlying faith. It’s that deeper faith that I’m thinking of now.)

I once received an email from a reader, who said he’d been stopped cold by a scene in my science fiction novel Eternity’s End, in which a character who happens to be both an alien and a doctor speaks of her Christian faith. It’s just a small point in the book, a bit of characterization, and a low-key way of saying that neither Christ nor religious faith have gone away in the future. Beyond that, the novel says nothing explicitly about Christianity (though the beliefs of the author are probably detectable in other ways). My reader was an avowed atheist, and he couldn’t believe that anyone who took a scientific view of the world could also believe in anything so stupid.

How (the reader asked) could I just dismiss the scientific method, and the evidence for the Big Bang, for evolution, for…well, I forget what else, but you get the idea.*

After picking my jaw up off the floor, I wrote back: Where did you get the idea that any of that was true?

Some considerable exchange followed, but I don’t think he ever got the point that, yes, you can believe in science and in God.

Data points: I believe the scientific method is the best tool we have for understanding how the universe works. It relies on evidence, on cross-checking, on testing hypotheses to see if they stand up, on rational and critical thinking. Sometimes evidence that appears to support one explanation turns out to support a different explanation just as well, or better. I believe in the Big Bang, at least until a better theory comes along. I believe in evolution, same deal. I believe in God, a personal God who created the universe and each of us, and in his son Jesus.

Whoops. That last sentence may be in the wrong paragraph. That’s not about science, that’s about faith. And faith is different from science. But wait—they’re both about ways of knowing, and of forming belief. So I guess they both belong in that paragraph about my beliefs, after all.

It’s all about different ways of knowing:

  • I believe in the findings of science because when I read about the research (I’m an avid armchair scientist), I know that people are checking each others’ work and testing for reproducible results. Sometimes scientists lie and fake data, but they’re always caught in the end. Sometimes they’re wrong; sometimes results seem really cool—cold fusion, for example—but then don’t pan out so well in the cross-checking. It’s a continuing, changing story.
  • I believe in God, and Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, because of my personal experience of them. Is my belief rational? In part, yes. I was not able to believe, as an adult, until I convinced myself that God was a plausible hypothesis. I arrived at that point through studying the Bible and other books, and through many discussions with people who had knowledge and insights that I didn’t. Only after I could accept the rational possibility was I able to be open to the real presence of God in my life, and to feel that presence. Does it happen that way for everyone? No, but why should it?

The point is, I see no contradiction between my faith and science. Why did God use the Big Bang to create the universe? I don’t know, can you think of a better way? Why did God use evolution to create humans (and dogs, and dolphins and whales, and cats, and rhinos, and dinosaurs)? Maybe it appealed to his sense of artistry. Why did Jackson Pollock make paintings by throwing and dripping paint onto a canvas? I’m pretty sure God has a terrific sense of humor; anyone who’s lived with a cat or a dog (especially a boxer!) knows that.

And so…I’m not sure where I was headed with this, but I wanted to share some thoughts that I’ve been meaning to write up into an essay, but never got around to. Good Friday just seemed like a really good time to start.

Maybe next I’ll write about faith in God and writing.

*Note: my reader didn’t ask if I was a Christian, he just assumed I was because a character in my book was. Guess what! Authors and their characters are not the same people! In this case, the character was a Christian, and so am I; the character was offended by profanity, but I am not; the character was an amphibious Narseil, but I am not. Or I wasn’t, the last time I checked.

Methane Lakes! Four-Pod Lives!

According to the Boston Globe, Titan researchers have concluded that there is methane rain on Titan, and probably are or have been methane lakes. What a wonderful science fictional world that really exists!

In honor of that, and sort of in honor of the 3 hours I spent shoveling snow after the blizzard today (one of the top 10 in Boston weather history, they say), I think I’ll post a little excerpt here of my one fictional venture onto Titan. This is from my novel The Infinity Link, published in 1984 by Bluejay Books, and also by the SF Book Club, and by Tor Books. This is from the prelude to Chapter 18. Meet Four-Pod:

The sound was starting again–the long, low moan that echoed in the back of the consciousness, that evoked memories of a methane glacier during a thaw, shivering and buckling and fragmenting. This was not the time of the thaw, however. And Four-Pod was nowhere near the glaciers.

What, then, was the source of this moan-that-was-like-a-song? It did not sound like the voices of Those-Who-Thought, but who else could make a sound ring inside the consciousness, with nothing to be heard on the outside except the wind and the rain?

Four-Pod could not delay for the truth to be revealed. His destiny lay at the edge of the Snow Plain, where the Philosophers awaited his riddle-offering from the hills. If the offering suited them, he would be made welcome there, and perhaps he could speak with them of this troubling thing. If not, he would be forced to flee, and he would have only the sleet and wind for counsel.

And, perhaps . . . the voice.

Perhaps it would travel with him across the plain, offering companionship and thoughts of warmth.

And perhaps he was wasting time thinking and listening when he should be on the move. He had many lengths yet to cross.

With a forward lurch, Four-Pod shuffled through the billowing snow. Once his claws found traction in the firm methane ice, beneath the snow, he settled into an efficient pattern of movement: grip . . . heave . . . grip . . . heave . . . grip. . . . Occasionally his nails slipped on the ice, and he sailed snout-first into a bank of snow. Each time, he picked himself up patiently, blew the snow out of all six nostrils, and continued as though nothing had happened.

The songs came and went from his thoughts. He shifted his focus to other senses: the fine grains of snow sliding across his silken hide, the rasp of his claws on the ice, the looming and sudden gusting away of shadow-like forms against the ochre sky. Thoughts of hunger tormented him; but he knew from the texture of the ice that he was at least a storm-day’s walk from edible slush. To distract himself from his hunger, he summoned memories and legends.

There were stories that told of times when the world was a sounder and clearer place–when snow lay hard upon the ice, and the sky on occasion grew deep and transparent, revealing miracles. Legends spoke of the round, banded body of Heaven–and of a many-layered arch that vaulted to Heaven and (some said) looped around it to enter Heaven’s back gate. Songs spoke of Heaven’s necklace, and there were those who said that it was in reality the same as the road to Heaven, that the image of a necklace was only an illusion. Others claimed the opposite, that the road was the illusion, that it circled round and round, toying endlessly with the weary, hopeful pilgrim.

It was a fine legend. But legends could ward off hunger for only so long. Four-Pod knew that he must soon find sustenance or starve. As the snow grew grittier and more bitter in his nostrils, he pushed harder, and clawed deeper.

When the song returned this time, it reached somehow deep into his heart and boosted his flagging spirit. He peered and sniffed, tossed his snout and brayed, and plunged forward. Was the song a legend come to life–a call from Heaven? He thought of the great arching road that existed somewhere above the shrouded sky, and he grew dizzy with fear and joy. Could this be a signal? The music of the Heaven Road?

Press on.

Much later the ice changed. He was desperately weak, step following on step. With groggy surprise he recognized the softening of the ice under his claws, a delicious wetness soaking the bottoms of his pods.

The slush pool opened before him, layered and rich. He dropped his snout and drank deeply, filling himself. Afterward he contracted his pods and settled into the snow. The music continued to dance in his thoughts, and lovingly intertwined with his dreams as at last, at long last, he slept.

(Copyright © 1984 Jeffrey A. Carver)

Yo, Titan! The Stuff of Reality and Science Fiction

The landing of the Huygens probe on Titan is one of the cooler things to happen in planetary science in recent years. (See Space.com and Astronomy Picture of the Day.)

I suppose that’s true both literally and figuratively — the temperature on the surface of Titan was measured at -179 degrees Celsius (-290 degrees Fahrenheit). And I’ve been shivering here in Boston at a measly 3 degrees Fahrenheit!

I wonder if they’ll find a Lake Carver there. (I was quite flattered when the late Hal Clement created a feature by that name in his hard SF novel, Half Life.) For that matter, I wonder if they’ll find anyone like Four Pod, a mild-mannered Titan creature who appeared briefly in my own novel, The Infinity Link, back in the 1980’s!

I do hope they find some methane lakes. It’s just too exotic an image not to be true.

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