There is a school of thought that says physics is the ultimate reality; that everything reduces to subatomic particles mindlessly subject to natural law.
The story is told—I don’t remember where I heard it—of two young women sitting in the front row of a concert hall, holding the score for the music the orchestra was about to play. The conductor saw them and stepped off the podium. He leaned over and whispered to them, “You will not find it in there.”
I was a professional musician earlier in my career, and in the course of my studies I learned enough music theory to be able to describe music mathematically. I’ve studied some acoustics, and I understand how to describe music in terms of pressure oscillations in the air. But there is something to music—the “it” of which that conductor was speaking—that is not to be found in vibrations, in mathematics, or even in the score.
Listen to Chopin. Listen to Coltrane. Listen to Crosby, Stills & Nash. In it you will hear reductionism’s rebuttal.
January 13th, 2012 | 11:07 am | #1
On a similar theme, here’s John Polkinghorne: “[S]cience [like theology] has its self-chosen parochialities. Its great success is purchased through the modesty of its ambition, restricting the phenomena it is prepared to discuss to those of an impersonal, and largely repeatable, character … [confining] itself to the primary quantitative questions…. [B]ut that narrow view would be a poor metaphysical strategy, condemning one to a narrow reductions concept of reality. Those discarded secondary qualities of human perception may in fact prove to be primary clues to the construction of an ampler view of the way the world is. Music is more than vibrations in the air.”
January 13th, 2012 | 3:24 pm | #2
One of the darlings of the BioLogos Forum (http://biologos.org/blog/an-afternoon-with-john-polkinghorne), Polkinghorne is correct in saying that science and religion are friends, not enemies, yet one wonders what is actually meant by that statement? Does he mean to say that in the vein of Kepler, Steno, Huygens, Newton, Maxwell, & Joule, that science is the practice of thinking God’s thoughts after Him as recorded in Scripture, or Hutton, Playfair, Hall, Lyell, & Darwin who sought to distance themselves autonomously from notions that Scripture and the revelation of God has anything to do with it?
January 14th, 2012 | 10:47 am | #3
Steve:
It’s the latter, of course.
January 15th, 2012 | 8:52 pm | #4
It’s the former. (Actually you’ve set up an erroneous dichotomy.)
January 15th, 2012 | 8:57 pm | #5
But regardless of that: Steve, your question was contentious baiting that had nothing to do with the topic of the post, and nothing to do with what CF wrote, either.
Based on this and prior conversations, I cannot help but wonder: why is it that every topic for you has to turn to Darwin, evolution, and the age of the earth? Why could you not take a moment to think about music, for example, without making this instead an opportunity virtually to label Polkinghorne an old-earth heretic? Why could you not think for a moment about whether what he said in CF’s quote was true, or whether there was some goodness or value in it? Do writers have to pass YEC muster with you to have anything worthwhile to say?
January 15th, 2012 | 9:01 pm | #6
Thank you for that excellent quote, CF.
For the record, I have a few points of disagreement with Polkinghorne, as I do with many or most Christian thinkers, including those I respect the most. Those disagreements are utterly irrelevant to the current conversation.
January 16th, 2012 | 10:07 am | #7
@Tom#5,
Anything and everything I say these days seems to raise your ire, doesn’t it? Your biases against me and my position, are showing Tom. Clearly discriminatory. I said nothing about an old-earth, or YEC, yet you read into my comments my biases (and I certainly do have them), trying to marginalize me in contradistinction to any other commenter on this blog. Imagine if you were to attack the person and the biases of any other commenter here on as a consistent basis that you do me? Pretty soon you wouldn’t have anyone left to comment.
January 16th, 2012 | 10:31 am | #8
Steve,
I stand by what I said. I am unmoved your charge of “clearly discriminatory,” because discrimination on relevant grounds is a good thing, not a bad thing. (And I know for certain that you agree with me on that.) My attempt to “marginalize” you was in fact an attempt to halt your move toward hijacking this thread onto unrelated topics. As a blog author, I really don’t appreciate that being done to topics I write about. You have done this in 3 out of your last 4 participations on my Thinking Christian blog, and twice in a row now for blog posts of mine that you’ve commented on here.
If you thought my comment was an attack, please re-read it. Yes, it was definitely a criticism of your changing the subject on this thread for no discernible reason, other than your acknowledged YEC bias. (I agree you did not directly mention YEC. But because it is a constant undercurrent to virtually everything you post on the blogs I take part in, and because of the names you brought up, I continue to believe you were doing what I previously thought you were doing.)
But it wasn’t merely criticism. I think it’s really quite sad that you could not participate in the discussion that was underway, and that you felt the need to wrench it onto another topic altogether. Why could you not take a moment to think about music in relation to materialism, which was the topic of the thread? Why could you not take a moment to consider whether Polkinghorne’s statement quoted here had some value? And if for some reason those things were really hard for you to do (or hard to do online, at least), why did you have to change the subject to interrupt others in that conversation? Ask yourself these questions, Steve, please. Why?
If another commenter were as consistent in trying to wrest discussion off track as you are, I would ask them similar questions, in hopes that they would some serious thought to what I was asking. If they left the blog rather than thinking the questions through, I would be sad for them.
January 16th, 2012 | 10:37 am | #9
I realize the last sentence of my prior comment sets up a false dichotomy. A commenter could think the questions through and yet disagree with me about what they mean; and they could either stay on the blog or leave after that. Steve, if you really think my questions through and disagree with me about what they mean, I think you have my email address. I’d just as soon we let this discussion return to its original topic now.
January 16th, 2012 | 4:28 pm | #10
Tom,
On the advice of good counsel, I am being encouraged to ‘let it go’ and not respond to your comments above. There’s a lot I could say but won’t.
January 17th, 2012 | 9:38 pm | #11
Thanks for being on point and on traget!
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