By Dr. Karl I. Payne
I was rereading a famous quote written by Dr. Robert Jastrow in his book, “God and the Astronomers.”
“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”
Somehow, thinking about this and aspects of liberation theology activists sent my mind spinning in two directions that I think end up supporting similar principles.
Einstein’s theory of General Relativity proves that the universe had a beginning. Time, space and matter are interdependent, which means you cannot have one without the others. They came into existence simultaneously, not independently or separately. If the universe had a beginning, the Law of Causality demands it must have had a beginner. Ultimately, this beginner must have either been the universe itself or something outside the universe.
Since the universe had a beginning, it is not eternal and could therefore not be the beginner. In addition, the Second Law of Thermodynamics clearly proves that the amount of energy available for useful work is constantly decreasing – again effectively demonstrating that the universe could not be eternal and therefore must have had a beginning. Since the universe is not eternal, that beginner must be someone or something outside the universe. Many theists refer to this someone or something as God.
Jastrow, a self-proclaimed agnostic, is both a joy and frustration, depending upon who is reading his materials. He’s a joy to theists, who appreciate his honesty and willingness to challenge the notions that scientific evidence has proven empirically that the universe is eternal or that nothing is an adequate cause for everything. He is a frustration to many of his agnostic, atheistic or ideologically driven colleagues, who continue to insist that materialism, empiricism and neo-Darwinian gradualism provide adequate explanations for the origin of the universe without invoking some form of theoretical metaphysics or scientific voodoo. Fortunately for theists, or unfortunately for atheists, again depending upon one’s perspective, Dr. Jastrow is too respected through academic achievement and reputation to simply dismiss as ignorant or his ideas as irrelevant.
Once metaphysics, wishful thinking or unexplainable, non-testable, counter intuitive, one-time events are assumed or invoked into play, I think Jastrow’s point is that thoughtful theologians have just as much right to theologize as scientists have to speculate about the subject of origins. Neither was present to observe or record the event, and it has not been repeated. The naturalists’ current censoring and ridicule of theists’ makes naturalists not only look hypocritical, it makes them look insecure, arrogant and bigoted. When it is all said and done, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” still represents an explanation for origins that is just as reasonable, to a reasonable person, as the notion that science can empirically demonstrate that nothing is the ultimate cause for everything.
What does this have to do with aspects of liberation theology?
I was taught the Hegelian Dialectic in college many decades ago as a supporting proof for materialistic naturalism and philosophical progressivism. Everything evolves by natural law from simple to complex physiologically and philosophically. When a thesis and antithesis collide, the result is a synthesis, producing a new thesis that one day will become a key component for the ongoing cyclical evolution and expansion of this ongoing process.
Marx incorporated this dialectic as support for his economic and class warfare theory, which he believed predicted and proved that the state would evolve, by natural law, through inevitable stages from feudalism to capitalism to socialism. As an atheist looking for explanations to questions about life, death, values, origins, the nature of man, heaven, hell, economics, social justice and injustice, and the existence of God, he wanted and needed answers to these questions looking outside of the Bible and theism. I understand an atheist looking for an explanation outside of biblical theism. It was clear to him that he existed, and he rejected the existence or intrusion of God. It all had to happen somehow, so here is an alternative explanation.
But what I do not understand is why some professing Christians feel so compelled to wed basic tenants of Marxism or some form of socialism and a theoretical materialistic dialectic with Christianity. Marx’s atheistic assault on capitalism would have never gained the momentum it has outside or independent of Darwin’s corresponding assault on theism. This was a wedding made in hell.
The irony is that Darwin’s evolutionary theory and Hegel’s dialectical theory, both of which Marx assumed to be true, are just that, theory. Neither has been proven empirically, and both represent agnostic or atheistic alternatives to theism in general and Christianity specifically. What a tragedy that we find professing Christians bowing down to the shrine of both, thinking they are part of a godly, revolution promoting God, tolerance and justice. The actual results of Marxist theory are written in murder, mayhem and the shedding of innocent blood, which pale any other secular or religious ideology as an ocean swallows a lake. And Christians still want to incorporate and emulate this philosophy, attempting to improve the human cause, by wedding this failed nonsense to the Lord Jesus Christ. Why?
I am wondering if at some point in the not so distant future, after all of the deconstructing, contriving, contorting and distorting of Scripture, many of these young religious revolutionary activists are going to look back with regret and dismay – useful idiots, naively manipulated by atheistic architects, in support of a Christ less cause and culture.
Will they too, one day find themselves wishing they had taken their stand on the rock of God rather than the sand of man? “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” still sounds reasonable to me.
Dr. Karl I. Payne is a pastor, teacher, discipleship trainer, apologist and author of “Spiritual Warfare,” a guidebook on the subject of spiritual warfare that is clear, biblical and transferable.