The Language of God, Chapter 10
By B.J. Marshall
In this chapter, Collins tackles the claim that BioLogos damages both science and religion. Collins disagrees in a way that fails so epically that it almost makes the previous sections of this book seem prescient.
For the atheist scientist, BioLogos seems to be another “God of the gaps” theory imposing the presence of the divine where none is needed or desired. This argument is not apt. BioLogos doesn’t try to wedge God into gaps in our understanding of the natural world; it proposes God as the answer to questions science was never intended to address, such as “How did the universe get here?” “What is the meaning of life?” “What happens to us after we die?” Unlike Intelligent Design, BioLogos is not intended as a scientific theory. Its truth can be tested only by the spiritual logic of the heart, the mind, and the soul” (p.204).
I can see how BioLogos isn’t wedging God between gaps in our understanding of the natural world, but only because BioLogos seems to set God outside of the scope of our inquiry. There’s simply no place for God in our understanding of the natural world. After all, even if science can one day explain everything naturally, there could still be some questions to which someone could point to God. However, to the extent that those unanswered questions don’t concern our understanding of the natural world (that is, well, everything we can know), the entire concept of God seems to be a red herring. Pretty much ends the conversation, doesn’t it?
But apparently BioLogos isn’t completely outside of our inquiry. We just have to ask god-questions with our hearts. Yes, the spiritual logic of the heart, mind, and soul; which is, of course, unfalsifiable.
I once asked a group of friends in a philosophy club if my idea of truth made sense. I said something like “truth is the extent to which the ideas in our mind correlate to objective reality,” and they thought that made sense. And here’s the problematic part. If we have to weigh the ideas in our minds against objective reality, then regardless of how logical our arguments might be, they can stand only with the support of evidence. The logic shows us that our thinking is internally consistent and sound, but we can’t see how that thinking correlates to objective reality without the evidence. For example, it’s completely logical and consistent for me to posit that all rocks fall to Earth at 3.0 m/s. But, given the facts shown through experiments, I’d be wrong.
So without any evidence to check whatever this “spiritual logic” is, how can one see how strongly those spiritually logically derived thoughts correlate to objective reality? I don’t think we can, which I think highlights the fact that scientific inquiry tends to converge on one answer (maybe not all at once, as it’s a sloppy process), while spiritual inquiry diverges into thousands of different sects and cults. In hindsight, I probably fell into some undocumented offshoot of Roman Catholicism, stemming from my decisions (which changed over time) to pick and choose certain parts of the official canon to believe.
Other posts in this series: