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Saturday, April 21, 2007
Loved Before Time
Ephesians 1:3-12
In time for the seasons of Holy Week and Passover, Newsweek featured a friendly argument between Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Community Church and Sam Harris, a best-selling author of atheistic essays. "Is God Real?" read the cover headline. Neither man persuaded the other to change his answer, but each laid out a lot of food for honest thought.
And while all that was going on, I prepared a message of my own on why in the world we exist in the first place. It's all about God.
Listen to the GODcast!
_______________
AWESOME EVIDENCE
My friend Cedric has spent some thirty years in research on one particular birth defect, looking for the right genetic equation to eliminate or at least minimize the disorder's effects.
Over lunch several weeks ago, he explained for me in plain English what his scientific quest was all about. At one point he surprised me, and maybe himself, by exclaiming about an awesome mystery in the phenomena of his research. (What follows is the gist of what he said, complete with my liberal-arts brain's mixed up and mis-remembered details.)
After millions and millions of years since mice and humans had any genetic connection, one external marker of the disease's presence shows up in every lab animal used in his research. Any doctor or nurse familiar with the syndrome will spot it immediately on a newborn human baby's feet.
For some reason, a web of skin forms in utero between the second and third toes. Not the first and second, or third and fourth. Only in this one location. Every time.
And, for some reason, the absolute predictability of this one genetic flaw -- in humans and in mice -- inspires in my friend's scientific mind (and heart) a feeling of overwhelming awe.
Cedric does not practice Christianity. Nor any other religious tradition. But that agnostic doctor and this minister of the gospel might as well have sung Psalm 139:14 in unison that day in that classy cafe...
"I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made! Wonderful are your works!"
The same week that Newsweek featured Rick Warren and Sam Harris discussing the question "Is God Real?" I received a timely e-mail from Cedric. In it he flagged me to a link with NPR's program "Fresh Air" hosted by Terry Gross. On two consecutive days, she interviewed two outstanding scientists who come to opposite conclusions on the God question.
Her first interview was with the British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, the atheist author of The God Delusion. The next day she spoke with the American genetic scientist Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project, who is an evangelical Christian. Each one spoke with a quiet eloquence about his respective faith position. Each laid out a rich menu of food for serious thought.
I was fascinated that my scientist friend made sure I got to hear those contrary interviews on science and faith, God and the material world. As if he wanted to resume our own conversation about marvels and mysteries and where they might lead our hearts and minds to.
I think now of another man of science who made a famous bet on matters of the spirit.
Blaise Pascal was a brilliant mathematician in 17th-century Paris. One night he had a mystical experience in which the presence of Christ in his room was palpable. He jotted ecstatic notes on a scrap of paper to memorialize the event, and he sewed it into his coat lining so it would always be with him. Pascal saw no contradiction between his faith and his science, even though he could not logically diagram their conherence. Instead, he proposed a wager.
A believer bets on God's reality, and lives accordingly, preparing to give account to God when this life ends. An unbeliever bets that God does not exist, and lives accordingly, as if this life is the only one that's real. There can be only two outcomes...
If God does not exist, a believer loses nothing by living the kind of life God would call for.
If God does exist, an unbeliever has lost everything by not taking into account what God requires.
Sam Harris. Rick Warren. Richard Dawkins. Francis Collins. My friend Cedric. You and I -- every last one of us faces the same fundamental decision.
Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets.
posted by Jack Buckley at
1:50 PM
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