Science in Christian Perspective
2 Figures absent
Communication: The Leaven that Holds the Church and the Scientific
Community Together
W. Jim Neidhardt
Physics Department
New Jersey Institute of Technology
323 High
Street Newark, New Jersey 07102
From: JASA 32
(June1980): 126-128
The theme of communication has always been a central tenet of
Christian theology.
The communication of love between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit existed in the
Christian Trinity before the universe was formed. The properly
functioning church,
as Figure I portrays, is held together by communication linkages. As
you harmoniously
communicate with God and He communicates His purposes to you, you are able to
harmoniously communicate with your Family and other church members
thereby establishing
a working fellowship and a unity of purpose. Note that for a true
unity and fellowship
to develop in the church, all must maintain an ongoing dialogue with
our creator-God.
Remember also that even when we are not making the effort to communicate with
God, God in His love, is always seeking us out for His loving
purposes, even though
we may not be aware of His communicating acts. Lastly, each person thinks and
communicates through his or bet own matrix of personal commitments concerning
the nature of reality; all communication between individuals and God
is filtered
through these matrices. These individual faith matrices are in turn embedded in
the matrix of presuppositions of the general culture (The Metasystem
of culture).
This model of the church and its relationship to God is seen to be strikingly
analogous to the scientific community in its exploratory relationship
to physical
reality, as Figure 2 indicates. Figure 2 views scientific exploration
as continual
communication of scientists between themselves and reality. Michael Polanyi1 sees
science as a model of a free society engaged in a collective
exploration. Communication
between scientists is essential so that each may know what progress others have
made and accordingly may build upon and extend the work of others. Scientific
understanding thereby expands due to such collective, freely
communicating efforts.
Each scientist chooses what particular research path to follow but by constant
communication they all are aware of each other's work; thus
communication between
them has enabled each to utilize the insights of others and avoid unnecessary
duplication. Furthermore constant communication with physical reality
is the only
means by which insight can be gained as to its true law-structure as contrasted
to a priori speculations concerning it. To describe such behavior Polanyi uses
the analogy of a group of people attempting to solve a jigsaw puzzle in a free,
collective effort. Each participant is aware of what the others have
done in fitting
pieces together and he or she moves accordingly. Note that there is a
key presupposition
that all the participants tacitly hold: The jigsaw pieces really fit together
so form a coherent picture. From this model Polanyi draws an
important implication.
Attempts to extensively
Figure1. The Church in Ongoing Communication with Triune God.
plan scientific activity will hinder rather than help scientific progress.
As Polanyi has shown, this communication model of the scientific enterprise can
be extended to answer a key question often asked of the scientific
community:
"How can we confidently speak of science as a systematic body of knowledge
and assume that the degree of reliability and intrinsic interest of each of its
branches can be judged by the same standards of scientific merit? Can
we possibly
be assured that the new contributions will be accepted in all
areas by the same standards of plausibility and be rewarded by the
same standards
of accuracy and originality and interest'?"2
Figure 2. Scientific Exploration as Continual Communication of Scientists
between
Themselves and Reality.
The fact that contributions in science can be evaluated by the
scientific community
as a whole. even comparing the values of topics of marginal interest
in such diverse
fields as astronomy or biology, is due to a principle of mutual
control in which
fields of scientific specialties form chains of overlapping neighborhoods. By
the principle of mutual control one means that scientists keep watch
on each other's
work.
"Each scientist is both subject to criticism by all other scientists and
encouraged by their appreciation of him. This is how the scientific opinion is
formed which enforces scientific standards and regulates the
distribution of professional
opportunities. It is clear that only fellow scientists working in
closely related
fields are competent to exercise direct authority over one another; but their
personal fields will form chains of overlapping neighborhoods
extending over the
entire range of science. It is enough, of course, that the standards
of plausibility
and worthwhileness be equal at every single point at which the sciences overlap
to keep them equal over all. Even those in the most widely separated branches
of science will then rely on one another's results and support one
another against
any laymen seriously challenging their authority. Such mutual control produces
a mediated consensus among scientists even when they cannot
understand more than
a vague outline of one another's subjects."3
Figure 3 depicts the spectrum of scientific disciplines envisioned by Polanyi.
The chains of overlapping neighborhoods are formed by communication
linkages between
scientists in the different disciplines as the diagram indicates. All
such communication
linkages work through the faith-matrices of the respective individual
scientists
in the differing disciplines. These faith-matrices in turn are
embedded in a wider
matrix of general presuppositions of the metasystem of general culture. Indeed
the whole structure of scientific authority as we have envisioned it
would collapse
if separated from such basic societial trusts as:
(a) Truth can be obtained by free discussion and free inquiry.
"This manner
of settling disputes and establishing consensus is a heritage common
to our general
democratic institutions."4
(b) Human beings have the capacity to discover truth; we can
recognize and share
a rational and universal standard.
A striking analogy exists between the structure of the church with
its relationship
to its object of study and worship the Triune God, and the structure
of the scientific
community with its relationship to its object of study all physical
reality. Indeed
both community structures reflect that which is at the very heart of the nature
of the Triune God, for communicative acts are central to the
relationship between
the three Persons of the one Godhead. At the core of the structure of
both communities
is the concept of communication, both to and from the respective
realities under
investigation or worship and communication between members of the
respective communities.
Of course to study the nature of God requires communication methods and types
of questioning very different from those used in the study of
physical reality.
When we study inert nature we pose our questions in such a way as to manipulate
and deform physical reality so that hidden features are revealed and
new phenomena
observed. When we study the objects of attention in the human sciences we are
faced with a much more open dialogue where we often find our own
motives are probed
by their questions and it is only when openness prevails on both sides of the
encounter that real understanding
through communication results. And when we as church members encounter God, it
is He that always initiates a true dialogue probing the very core of
our rebellious
nature as He sweeps away any attempt on our part to manipulate Him, also by His
very nature as love refusing to manipulate us in any way but always seeking an
open and truthful dialogue from which we may understand the clarity
of His ultimate
love toward all His creation that He continually sustains in being.
To best communicate
with God, we should open our hearts and minds and first listen to His revealing
Word rather than attempting to question manipulatively as when
dealing with inert
nature.
Lastly note that communication with physical reality or the Triune
God presupposes
that she reality we encounter is ultimately rational in its nature
and, secondly,
that we as humans possess means of communication (either experimental
and theoretical
techniques of questioning or intelligible human languages) that are
also rational
in their nature.
The second main idea of the analogy is that for understanding of the Triune God
or physical reality to take place communication is essential between members of
the respective communities. With respect to the church, the Christian
community,
Jesus and Paul both pointed out many times that only when a person is in loving
communication with his or her fellow believers will God accept a
person's worship
and petitions and reveal Himself to that particular person. To put it
in another
way, if a person cannot experience loving communications with his or
her neighbors
he or she is not capable of experiencing communication with God whose
very nature
is love. Communication experiences with imperfect human love prepare a person
to experience communication with perfect divine love. Similarly with respect to
the scientific community, if a scientist isolates himself from the rest of the
scientific community he has become isolated from many creative
sources of rational
understanding; even if the particular scientist is a genius, this
isolation will
eventually deprive him of the insights and techniques necessary to successfully
probe a physical reality that it ultimately rational in structure but
whose rationality
is at an inner level not immediately perceived from the phenomena observed in
direct experience. Thus, both in theology and the other sciences communication
as open dialogue among the respective communities members is essential to even
the most gifted person if he or she is to gain true understanding.
It is instructive to carry this analogy further by comparing the
manner in which
the spectrum of scientific disciplines explore all facets of a
many-sided reality
to the manner in which the spectrum of denominations of the church attempt to
achieve greater understanding of the nature of God and His redemptive
acts toward
His creation. The scientific community makes progress and upholds
universal standards
by maintaining constant communication with physical reality and
between scientists
of the spectrum of neighboring disciplines. As physical reality is manyfaceted
it requires the insights and techniques of many differing points of view (the
different scientific disciplines) to gain understanding of reality as a whole.
In this there is a fundamental unity to all science though it is
composed of many
different subdivisions, Such principles as conservation of energy and
the inevitable
increase of disorder in isolated systems play a vital role in many
different scientific
specialties. The scientific subdivisions maintain progress toward
greater understanding
by preserving open communications between themselves; often a new development
or technique in one field is found to be very useful to workers in other fields
(sometimes quite different). Only by maintaining communication linkages between
fields is this type of useful information flow established.
With respect to the denominations that compose one true Church: a diversity of
viewpoints that are continually exploring and worshipping the many
different aspects
of God can be quite helpful in acquiring greater true understanding. Differing
denominations have grasped differing aspects of the nature of the one God; the
resulting theologies can ideally complement one another in attempting
to describe
the inexhaustible depths of God's nature. But a core of truth can be maintained
and one-sided distorted theologies avoided only if the denominations actively
attempt to understand, test, and utilize the insights of the other
denominations.
Accordingly communication linkages must be actively maintained between members
of the spectrum of neighboring denominations for theological progress
to be made.
(This is analogous to what is done by the scientific community in communicating
across the spectrum of scientific disciplines.) In my opinion, the church as a
whole lags far behind the scientific community in maintaining
communication ties
between neighboring communities (denominations), thereby hindering the growth
of theological understanding. By better establishing and maintaining
such communication
ties greater understanding and true unity of fundamental issues could
be obtained
in the one true Church. Note that in establishing such communication linkages
the individual denominations are in no way committed to yielding
their own distinctive
understandings or agreeing with every thing that another denomination believes;
rather the denominations together will seek to find and preserve the
central core
of Christian belief as C. S. Lewis so forcefully accomplished in his
own work.
References
1Michael Polanyi, The Logic of Liberty, The University of Chicago
Press, Chicago,
1951, pp. 3438.
2Michael Polanyi and Harry Prosch, Meaning, University of Chicago
Press, Chicago,
1975, p. 191.
3M. Polanyi and H. Prosch, ibid., pp. 191-192.
4Richard Gelwick, The Way of Discovery, Oxford University Press, New
York, 1977,
pp. 4546.
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