God and Nature Summer 2024
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By Galen T. Pickett
I have found Paradise Mislaid (Oxford, 2007) by Jeffrey Burton Russell, an eminent historian at the University of California Santa Barbara who passed away last year, a profoundly astonishing work. Personally, I find it amazing that I can take seriously the idea of Heaven at all, and yet that is precisely where this work has led me. This is something of a miracle itself, and not just because my understanding of the world as an academic physicist is built upon a foundation of materialism and mechanism. Rather, my surprise comes from a deeply pessimistic part of me that barely dares imagine that Heaven is possible. Much of my childhood was governed by a depressing surety that I deserved no better than hell itself. It never seemed all that wise to get my hopes up. At least that is how it seems to me now in my late 50s trying to think back…
The real revelation for me in Prof. Burton’s work is his discussion of a technical distinction in the philosophy of knowing. The difference between a “wonder” and a “miracle” used to be common knowledge, especially in the more theistic eighteenth century, but this understanding is largely lost in our present day. A wonder is simply a one-off event without meaning, a rare occurrence that points to our fundamental ignorance of the underlying causes and mechanisms of a process. A miracle, on the other hand, is characterized by a good purpose. Blind chance generates wonders. God generates miracles.
I have found Paradise Mislaid (Oxford, 2007) by Jeffrey Burton Russell, an eminent historian at the University of California Santa Barbara who passed away last year, a profoundly astonishing work. Personally, I find it amazing that I can take seriously the idea of Heaven at all, and yet that is precisely where this work has led me. This is something of a miracle itself, and not just because my understanding of the world as an academic physicist is built upon a foundation of materialism and mechanism. Rather, my surprise comes from a deeply pessimistic part of me that barely dares imagine that Heaven is possible. Much of my childhood was governed by a depressing surety that I deserved no better than hell itself. It never seemed all that wise to get my hopes up. At least that is how it seems to me now in my late 50s trying to think back…
The real revelation for me in Prof. Burton’s work is his discussion of a technical distinction in the philosophy of knowing. The difference between a “wonder” and a “miracle” used to be common knowledge, especially in the more theistic eighteenth century, but this understanding is largely lost in our present day. A wonder is simply a one-off event without meaning, a rare occurrence that points to our fundamental ignorance of the underlying causes and mechanisms of a process. A miracle, on the other hand, is characterized by a good purpose. Blind chance generates wonders. God generates miracles.
And then, suddenly, there is no confusion. The connections are clear. |
This distinction between a “wonder” and a “miracle” was new for me. My presumption was that, no matter its ethical value, every rare, ill-understood event is simply a wonder. The rarity of the event itself does not invoke the presence of God; it simply underscores how little we yet truly understand.
When faced with a “wondrous” physical event, I am not moved to awe by a sense of mystery. I am moved to a supreme sense of curiosity. My ambition is to drain the event of its wondrous character by finding the hidden mechanisms and rules causing the “wonder.” This kind of “wonder” is the sort of event a biblical literalist relative of mine has been looking for their entire lives. Suppose I saw a man walking on water. To my relative’s mind, any questioning of the literal meaning of such a “miraculous” event is simply a perverse and prideful clinging to mechanistic ideology. And yet, had I witnessed such an event, as a theoretical physicist specializing in the properties of fluids, I would have a grant application submitted that day, chock-full of outlandish speculation. I am not able to “see” that sort of wondrous event as a miracle. It is my job to destroy this wonder by uncovering the unknown mechanisms. This irritates my relative no end, but I will have to look elsewhere for the miraculous.
And it seems that that “elsewhere” is in fact the entire substance of my chosen profession as a physical scientist. The reality is that the odds against us understanding anything in this world are so slim that when a small piece of understanding falls into place in the great scientific epic we physicists have made, it feels truly wondrous. And, indeed, miraculous. The “Eureka!” moment is one of the most fulfilling experiences in my work as a scientist, second only (and perhaps equal to) helping a student generate their own “Eureka!” moments.
In one instant I have no understanding. The phenomena are opaque. The model is sterile. And then, suddenly, there is no confusion. The connections are clear. The model begets other models and new questions. It does not at all feel like something that I did or am responsible for. It feels like a revelation. A gift outright. A wondrous revelation. Part of my job is to collect those revelations and submit them to the rigorous tests first that I and the scientific tradition and community require. It is a wondrous miracle that these disparate, rare, ill-understood events can be connected together into a compelling story. Understanding anything, even in a limited and faulty manner, is exactly a rare event suffused with the good intention required of a miracle. Witnessing the emergence of understanding is a truly awe-inspiring miracle. Creating or uncovering or discovering a hidden wholeness is the miraculous event I crave as a scientist.
Someone may be working on a machine-learning algorithm or generative AI system that will make creative scientific work redundant. And maybe there will be a physical explanation for how the revelatory process works. Maybe my subjective feeling of gratitude and wonder at witnessing the connections being made can be traced back to some biochemical and physical process in my body. Yet, witnessing wholeness emerge is a profoundly religious experience for me. And the wholeness we each experience as our “selves” (even if it can be traced to the properties of individual interacting molecules, cells, and tissues) is likewise miraculous precisely because of its ubiquity. It feels to me that there is some good purpose being served by my being able to understand anything. And when I understand something, it is my duty to proclaim that small piece of good news, which reminds me of a fragment of the prayer of St. Francis: Grant that I may not so much seek to be understood as to understand. It is my privilege to read fragments from this Gospel of creation written some fourteen billion years ago in the fiat lux event we call the Big Bang.
The range of experience here is not just in creating science as a practitioner, but in every aspect of my life. Being granted an insight into what my spouse is feeling, or what one of my children or siblings or students is feeling, has this same character of miraculous revelation. The physical world as seen through the tools and techniques of physical science seems to be steeped in the immanent presence of God and of God’s lovingkindness.
Galen T. Pickett has been a member of the physics faculty at Cal State Long Beach since 1999. He lives in the greater LA area with his spouse, four grown children, and several canines. His writing is inspired by the grandeur of the physical world and the absurdity of the academic world, in nearly equal measure.
When faced with a “wondrous” physical event, I am not moved to awe by a sense of mystery. I am moved to a supreme sense of curiosity. My ambition is to drain the event of its wondrous character by finding the hidden mechanisms and rules causing the “wonder.” This kind of “wonder” is the sort of event a biblical literalist relative of mine has been looking for their entire lives. Suppose I saw a man walking on water. To my relative’s mind, any questioning of the literal meaning of such a “miraculous” event is simply a perverse and prideful clinging to mechanistic ideology. And yet, had I witnessed such an event, as a theoretical physicist specializing in the properties of fluids, I would have a grant application submitted that day, chock-full of outlandish speculation. I am not able to “see” that sort of wondrous event as a miracle. It is my job to destroy this wonder by uncovering the unknown mechanisms. This irritates my relative no end, but I will have to look elsewhere for the miraculous.
And it seems that that “elsewhere” is in fact the entire substance of my chosen profession as a physical scientist. The reality is that the odds against us understanding anything in this world are so slim that when a small piece of understanding falls into place in the great scientific epic we physicists have made, it feels truly wondrous. And, indeed, miraculous. The “Eureka!” moment is one of the most fulfilling experiences in my work as a scientist, second only (and perhaps equal to) helping a student generate their own “Eureka!” moments.
In one instant I have no understanding. The phenomena are opaque. The model is sterile. And then, suddenly, there is no confusion. The connections are clear. The model begets other models and new questions. It does not at all feel like something that I did or am responsible for. It feels like a revelation. A gift outright. A wondrous revelation. Part of my job is to collect those revelations and submit them to the rigorous tests first that I and the scientific tradition and community require. It is a wondrous miracle that these disparate, rare, ill-understood events can be connected together into a compelling story. Understanding anything, even in a limited and faulty manner, is exactly a rare event suffused with the good intention required of a miracle. Witnessing the emergence of understanding is a truly awe-inspiring miracle. Creating or uncovering or discovering a hidden wholeness is the miraculous event I crave as a scientist.
Someone may be working on a machine-learning algorithm or generative AI system that will make creative scientific work redundant. And maybe there will be a physical explanation for how the revelatory process works. Maybe my subjective feeling of gratitude and wonder at witnessing the connections being made can be traced back to some biochemical and physical process in my body. Yet, witnessing wholeness emerge is a profoundly religious experience for me. And the wholeness we each experience as our “selves” (even if it can be traced to the properties of individual interacting molecules, cells, and tissues) is likewise miraculous precisely because of its ubiquity. It feels to me that there is some good purpose being served by my being able to understand anything. And when I understand something, it is my duty to proclaim that small piece of good news, which reminds me of a fragment of the prayer of St. Francis: Grant that I may not so much seek to be understood as to understand. It is my privilege to read fragments from this Gospel of creation written some fourteen billion years ago in the fiat lux event we call the Big Bang.
The range of experience here is not just in creating science as a practitioner, but in every aspect of my life. Being granted an insight into what my spouse is feeling, or what one of my children or siblings or students is feeling, has this same character of miraculous revelation. The physical world as seen through the tools and techniques of physical science seems to be steeped in the immanent presence of God and of God’s lovingkindness.
Galen T. Pickett has been a member of the physics faculty at Cal State Long Beach since 1999. He lives in the greater LA area with his spouse, four grown children, and several canines. His writing is inspired by the grandeur of the physical world and the absurdity of the academic world, in nearly equal measure.