The kind of books we need right now

I receive a number of wall posts on facebook with recommendations or queries about whether I’ve read a certain book relating Christianity to science. Some are theologically conservative, some liberal; some are Scripture-based, some science-based, and some philosophy-based; some address the higher education setting, and some grade school; some take the tactic of setting up a conversation between “science” and “religion,” while others take a very hostile stand behind their well-drawn lines.



I’ll admit: I haven’t read most of these books. But I do think they all have something important in common: They’re not what we need right now.


Take, for example, a recent recommendation: Tipler’s The Physics of Christianity. The book description on amazon reads:

A highly respected physicist demonstrates that the essential beliefs of Christianity are wholly consistent with the laws of physics.


Frank Tipler takes an exciting new approach to the age-old dispute about the relationship between science and religion in The Physics of Christianity. In reviewing centuries of writings and discussions, Tipler realized that in all the debate about science versus religion, there was no serious scientific research into central Christian claims and beliefs. So Tipler embarked on just such a scientific inquiry. The Physics of Christianity presents the fascinating results of his pioneering study.

Tipler begins by outlining the basic concepts of physics for the lay reader and brings to light the underlying connections between physics and theology. In a compelling example, he illustrates how the God depicted by Jews and Christians, the Uncaused First Cause, is completely consistent with the Cosmological Singularity, an entity whose existence is required by physical law. His discussion of the scientific possibility of miracles provides an impressive, credible scientific foundation for many of Christianity’s most astonishing claims, including the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, and the Incarnation. He even includes specific outlines for practical experiments that can help prove the validity of the “miracles” at the heart of Christianity.


Tipler’s thoroughly rational approach and fully accessible style sets The Physics of Christianity apart from other books dealing with conflicts between science and religion. It will appeal not only to Christian readers, but also to anyone interested in an issue that triggers heated and divisive intellectual and cultural debates.

Aside from the Babel fish argument, here's my issue with works like this: "he illustrates how the God depicted by Jews and Christians, the Uncaused First Cause, is completely consistent with the Cosmological Singularity, an entity whose existence is required by physical law." Physical law "requires" the existence of just about (and probably absolutely) nothing. I'm no cosmologist, but a quick literature search for "cosmological singularity" (whatever it is; again, I'm no cosmologist) shows that its necessity is far from certain in the physics community, but this author thinks it sounds like Christianity, so he latches onto it with unwarranted certainty. (Granted, Tipler has published about the cosmological singularity, so his subscription to it as a true idea is understandable to some degree.)

(By the way, Reasons to Believe does the exact same thing with Scripture: Whatever verses sound like physical law, they say, must have definitive physical significance, while neighboring verses that almost seem to contradict physical law must be metaphorical.)


What I think we really need at this point is an agreed-upon framework of Christian scholarship that can direct our investigations and undergird our discussions. Is it Christ-like, for example, to co-opt an uncertain and unproven physical theory (in this case, the cosmological singularity) to give the Christian masses an artificial sense of certainty? What happens, then, when that physical theory is definitively disproven? Didn't the church do the same thing when it latched onto Aristotelian astronomy that placed the earth at the center of the universe and the planets and sun in perfectly circular orbits? That certainly didn't end well.


I'm not saying a study like Tipler's isn't worthwhile, and I'm not saying you shouldn't buy his book. I applaud what I think are his genuine intentions to encourage Christians and heal some of the damage between Christianity and science. But I think that a healthy framework of Christian scholarship is a prerequisite to studies such as this one. The damage is not just a conceptual discord between a few tenants of Christianity and a few scientific principles; there is also a vast intellectual, emotional, and cultural rift between the university and the church (which are both rifted from the main culture) that requires some serious structural undergirding if it's ever going to be bridged. I think that framework can be developed (if Christian scholars will put their minds and hearts and publications to it) and I think that rift can be bridged with that framework as a foundation.
 
What needs to go in that framework? What kinds of foundational questions about Christian scholarship do we need to address to make works like Tipler's timely? Well... what do you think?