by girlfreddy » February 1st, 2007, 5:00 am
That "lack" of defining line between science and religion is something I noticed in reading some of the classics a few years ago. Blaise Pascal is a great example. He uses his mind and theories to expand knowledge and understanding in the field of mathematics and equations, and yet writes a timeless script almost comparable to Proverbs. I have read "Penses" and it must have been a most difficult endeavor to undertake, but he did. And his belief in God did not detract from his understanding of the natural world and the elements within. In fact, you might be able to say that it enhanced it with the strong anchor; in the end, the answers to questions would be found.
In another vein, Emily and Charlotte Bronte blew my mind when I read them. Their seemingly "basic" knowledge of Biblical principles far surpasses most of todays "Christians". In fact, IMO, were they to live in today's world, I would suspect that people would see them as theologians or Biblical scholars. It would seem that years ago, God infused people through society, His Word, His Spirit; now, that is not the case (and I am not saying that God is not working still. He is). But I do not read His Word daily as I should; I didn't grow up in a two parent household that believed in Him and showed His love. Nor did I grow up in a neighborhood that practiced the old adage of, "It takes a village to raise a child". Therefore God's Word and His Spirit are not completely "in" me, living and breathing and alive. Because of this "lack" in me, my intellect, creativity, emotions, and physical being are not as one with God. When reading many of the older writers, whether they be authors of novels, or poetry, or physics, I sense something there that I do not have. Or maybe better to say it this way. I have a dividing line in me and those who went before didn't. And I see this as such a failure and loss, sometimes almost too much to bear.
Pascal described it beautifully when he said, "...in a soul that will live forever, there is an infinite void that nothing can fill, but an infinite unchangeable being." This is the "God-shaped hole", and in this day and age, it seems to be more the norm than ever that this hole is not filled with God, but with anything else we can try to fill it with.
This is another quote from Penses.
The sciences have two extremes which touch one another; the first is that simple native ignorance in which all men are found at their birth; the other is that to which great minds attain, who having traversed every part of human knowledge, discover that they know nothing, and find themselves placed in that very ignorance from which they set out. But this is a wise ignorance which knows itself. Persons between these two classes who have escaped from their native ignorance, but have not yet reached the other, possess some tincture of satisfactory knowledge, and form the class of men of talent. They disturb the world, and judge worse of everything than others. The common people, and men of talent, compose, in general, the busy actors of the scene; the rest despise the world, and are despised by it.
And maybe this explains the linear distinction in some and not others. Some quit before finding the answers, being satisfied with only a little taste rather than stopping at nothing to get to the whole.
How would telling people to be nice to one another get a man crucified? What government would execute Mister Rogers or Captain Kangaroo?
Philip Yancey
http://girlfreddy.wordpress.com/