God-Talk Underneath the Firmament

I don’t doubt that the ancients believed in a firmament, a solid dome that covered a flat earth.. 

To the ancients, the stars were either attached to this firmament or were holes in which the light of heaven could poke through.  The Genesis flood was the result of the temporary but determined removal of the firmament – a withdrawal of this solid fixture that separated the primordial waters of chaos and made space for the brooding spirit of God to create.

And on and on.

Again, the ancients clearly believed in a firmament.  I don’t think that people who now say that the ancients believed that there was a firmament above are slandering them.  They aren’t making it up.  They aren’t taking something literally that was intended by the ancients to be taken as metaphor.

The firmament is referenced in the Bible and elsewhere.  It is assumed.  Ancient God-talk assumes it.  

Here’s the thing. 

There is no firmament.  It doesn’t exist.

But the Bible says it does.  The ancients believed that.  I'm not making that up.

There used to be a part of me that really thought that modern scholarship was being sort of presumptive.  Like, we really don’t know what they believed.  Our modern scientific categories didn’t really exist then.  We’re separated by time and culture, and we can’t say for sure what was happening in the brains of the ancients.  Perhaps it was all meant to be poetic.

But no, I don’t think that anymore.  They believed in a firmament.  

And there isn’t one.

If I had come across that fact 10 or even 5 years go, it might have really shaken me.  The term is new for me, but my default religious upbringing was concordist.  That is, the Bible could be read in such a way that it was scientifically accurate.  It had to be or else it would all crumble.  Not in a revisionist sense, but in a historical critical sense in which the original writers (whoever they were) couldn’t have believed in a firmament.  In that view, the Bible can’t really reference a firmament.  Not really.

But they did.  Clearly.  And they were absolutely 100% wrong about that.

A few years ago this would been hugely problematic to me.  This would have been something to either ignore or explain away.  It could only destroy faith.  But now, I find this refreshing and liberating.  It plays a positive role in the life of faith.  God-talk can only take place in the context of language.  And language is cultural.  We must use the language that we have, and our words can only be used in reference to reality as we perceive it.  But we don’t perceive rightly. 

We don’t perceive rightly.

But we can still speak of God, and I don’t think God is mad about that.  

The Love of God And The Law of Gravity?

Science Mike just put out a special episode of his Ask Science Mike podcast specifically about the recently confirmed existence of gravity waves. 

Listen to it here.

Being that this may be the closest thing to “Gravity Waves for Dummies” that I'm going to find, it's a bit disheartening that the majority of it is still well beyond my comprehension.  But maybe that's as it should be.  

Beyond any confusion and wonder at the weird, freaky, science-fictionish nature of our cosmos, there's one particular string of thoughts from Science Mike that stuck with me in terms of theological parallel:

"Gravity is very weak when compared to other forces in physics.  Now I know that sounds strange.  Here on Earth where you feel the intense pull of gravity every time you climb a flight of stairs, for example.  You clim enough stairs and you become very aware of Earth's gravity well.  But just think about how small a magnet is needed to pull a nail off a table.  And when you do that, that magnet is attracting that nail, is pulling that nail more powerfully than an entire planets gravity.  Gravity is weak compared to other forces in physics, and because of that, gravity waves are very, very small."

But at the same time, we have this:

"Why doesn't the moon crash into the earth?  Because the moon is traveling fast enough to be in free fall that's equal to the curvature of spacetime.  So the moon is constantly falling around the earth.  And the earth is constantly falling around the sun.  And the sun is constantly falling around the center of the Milky Way galaxy."

On the one hand gravity is weak.  While the laws of physics say that a nail will be inexorably pulled towards the mass of the earth, all it takes is a tiny, tiny magnet to pull it away.  The gravitational force of an entire planet submits to this tiny magnet.

On the other hand, gravity is the force that keeps planets and stars of unfathomable size from crashing into one another.  It allows the cosmos to dance.  And, scientifically speaking, the cosmos are indeed always dancing - spinning, twirling, falling.

Weak, yet unimaginably strong.  Dynamic, not static. It's "perfection" creating ceaseless relational movement.  In what seems to us as infinite nothingness and outer darkness, gravity is working to pull things together, to put each created object dance it it's rightful place.  Constant.  Invisible.  Light, dark, warm, cold - doesn't matter.  Nothing is beyond it's reach.  Though we drift, we drift within it.  Inescapable.  

As Radiohead sings "Gravity always wins".

Gravity is a symbol of the weakness of God, the weakness that is yet stronger than the strength of men.  It causes the cosmos to dance.  Love.  The gentle yet providential love of God that pervades the cosmos, down to the tiniest subatomic substance.

Do I dare believe this?  Or is this poetic nonsense?  A delusional assignment of meaning to a cold universe of arbitrary power or chance?

Who is this God, this God who speaks through the consent yet inevitability and inescapability of gravity?

I won't take the metaphor too far.  Gravity, after all, also causes the heaviness of cement walls that crash upon children in Haitian earthquakes.  Rather than lift them, it pulls floundering refugee mothers clinging desperately to capsized boats down to the depths.

Such is the nature of our existence.

"The Big Story" by Biologos

This is quickly turning into science week.

Biologos has released a video entitled "The Big Story".  They call it "a poetic re-telling of the history of the universe".  A visual presentation of the "epic, sweeping, and continuing story of God that stretches from creation to new creation."

Watch the video here.

Some brief thoughts:

1. It's well done and very basic.  Production value is high.
2. It's aptly titled.  It very much focuses on the "big story" rather than any one aspect of the narrative.
3. Being that the video is presented as a story, it doesn't aim to be technical.  It isn't an exercise in apologetics or a tool to teach any technical intricacies (Biologos does have those types of videos as well).  It seems to be intentionally open ended in many regards, not wanting any technical particulars to distract from the simple hearing of this story.
4. It avoids making claims on the theological issues that often divides Christians.  For example, being that the narrator has a reformed background, I assume (perhaps unfairly) that there are certain beliefs ungirding his "big story" about atonement, predestination, scripture, etc.  It seems to me that an intentional attempt is made to keep these sorts of things at arms length.  Out of necessity, whatever is there is a bit fuzzy.
5. "The fall" seems to be characterized as a gradual thing.  
6. There is no mention of death, suffering, or predation within the context of "The Big Story". 

In particular, I wish there'd been some discussion of #6 - the essential role that death plays in this "big story".  It's a thorny issue that demands careful thought and theology.  A short video may not be a suitable medium for such an exercise, but I don't think that one can or should ignore it completely.  Practically any story can appear grand and epic if one leaves out anything that might make it seem otherwise.

In any case, I think the video is well done.  It strikes a balance between being broad enough to effectively cover a lot of ground, while also permitting the narrative to highlight some of the core components behind Biologos' mission in a way that they can (and should) lead to further investigation for those who desire to do so.

I'm very interested in the intersection of science and faith, and the ways in which they don't overlap in that they speak to different things.  It's important.  Most importantly, it will be important to my daughter (now 2.5 years old) who I expect will one day begin asking questions for herself.  You had better be ready for that, church.

A few quotes from Albert Einstein

As a follow up to my brief post on black holes on Saturday, I thought I'd post some quotes from Einstein.

Scientist, philosopher, mystic, sage, curious and wondering child....Einstein is a difficult man to pin down.


The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.

Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind before you reach eighteen.

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

As a human being, one has been endowed with just enough intelligence to be able to see clearly how utterly inadequate that intelligence is when confronted with what exists.

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

I very rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express in words afterwards.

What Happens When Black Holes Collide?

Perhaps you've heard that scientists have recorded the sound of two black holes colliding.  This sent gravitational waves (or ripples in the very fabric of spacetime) hurdling towards the earth, confirming a prediction of their existence made by Einstein over a century ago via the Theory of Relativity.

Forget about "how they know this".  That itself is a black hole to me as are a great many other things.  My cosmological ignorance goes on full display when I hear of black holes and spacetime and my mind immediately travels to Interstellar or A Wrinkle In Time.

I don't understand it.  I've tried to find the equivalent of "Black Hole Collisions and Space Time for Dummies" but to no avail.  There's simply too much underlying terminology and conceptual framework needed, and a person can't simply skip over all of that.

But this stuff absolutely fascinates me, this idea that space and time are dynamic and interactive.

A few articles on the story are here (NPR), here (New York Times) and here (Vice.com).

Also, check out this video on "What Happens When Two Black Holes Collide".

I suppose the NPR article linked above tells most of us all that we need to know about this and a great many other cosmological mysteries:

"The universe is stranger than any kind of fiction we could imagine.  I mean, it's preposterous."