Our First Contest

(I ought to have done this yesterday, for Fr. Jaki's birthday; I apologise.)

Announcing the first contest of the Duhem Society!

The Genesis One Contest

As we all know, the first chapter of Genesis is the summary or "Great Creation" story - as compared to that in Genesis 2 which talks mostly about Adam and Eve and the garden. We also know that this is one of the major bones of contention when it comes to any sort of discussion about science (writ either large or small) and faith (also writ either large or small). It's sad, since (as GKC might say) it's stingless for the most orthodox. Ah well. Perhaps you already have a copy of SLJ's Genesis One Through the Ages, which gives a great deal of interesting information about the topic; as with most such topics, it comes up in many of SLJ's books. You also ought to have read (or at least seen our posting) about the very critical comments by St. Augustine from his own work on the topic - see here for the reference.

Anyway, the contest is a rather tongue-in-cheek affair, though one which ought to be attempted by every serious Historian of Science, just as a corrective against assuming too much - or too little. It is a writing exercise, and yet it should be fun, and very interesting and instructive.

Here it is:

The Genesis One Contest

Write a comprehensive statement of Creation which includes all things, and indicates not only the entire system of physical things, but also stresses their origin. (Who, and How - you decide how to proportion it all, as long as What is "everything" = "all things visible and invisible".)

You may use whatever style you wish, but you are restricted to under 759 words - which is (at least by one estimate) the number of words in Genesis One. You need not work out a division into verses, unless of course you use a poetic form.

In order to enter, you may submit it to me by e-mail (see my "profile" for the e-address), or you may post it on your own blogg, then send me a link to it. If you use e-mail, let me know whether you will permit your entry to be posted on our Society blogg.

Note that this exercise is not to prove anything (except perhaps to you, the entrant). We will not impose historico-critical analysis, or doctrinal verity, or any of those formalisms to your submission; you must be the final arbiter: when you are done you will have to find yourself satisfied - and be able to say as God did, that it is indeed VERY good. (If you're not, wait a year, revise it, and try again!)

Due by September 23 - that is, Before the Fall. (hee hee)

An aside: if you think that this seems to suggest that there might be more to Genesis One than a rather liturgical "emphasis on the seven-day week and the holiness of the Sabbath" - well, I think that's plain, especially once one reads the relevant chapter. But then SLJ does say a lot more than that; it's always a matter of emphasis. And let's not forget what St. Augustine says about it!) Maybe it's because I'm an architect of systems, and that last line about how God saw the System of All Things as very good... well, you write enough fiction (or software), and you'll begin to understand that such writing is a lot different than purely academic commentary. I am sure it will be a shock to some, but there is such a thing as Reality. Ahem. But that's just an aside.

I hope this will be an annual activity. Please enter early and often. I make no guarantees about any sort of prizes, but I am sure the fun you have writing it, and the fun we'll have reading it will be worth more. Perhaps someday when we have our journal, we'll also be able to have real (tangible) prizes.

How dare you!

What! A computer scientist is trying to write about the Scientific Method - and examine it with respect to history and to both theory and practice? Is he crazy?

Oh, yes, I can hear the whines - they're not loud, but they're there:

"You're not a philosopher - and you're certainly not a historian of science, even if you read Jaki and Duhem. You're barely a scientist at all, even if you do have a doctorate in computer science. You're just a programmer."

Ahem. That's sad, but it won't work. You see, I am a Catholic, with all that implies: specifically, that I am interested in everything. Chesterton puts it quite boldly:

You cannot evade the issue of God; whether you talk about pigs or the binomial theory, you are still talking about Him. Now if Christianity be a fragment of metaphysical nonsense invented by a few people, then, of course, defending it will simply mean talking that metaphysical nonsense over and over again. But if Christianity should happen to be true - that is to say, if its God is the real God of the universe - then defending it may mean talking about anything or everything. Things can be irrelevant to the proposition that Christianity is false, but nothing can be irrelevant to the proposition that Christianity is true. Zulus, gardening, butchers’ shops, lunatics asylums, housemaids and the French Revolution - all these things not only may have something to do with the Christian God, but must have something to do with Him if He really lives and reigns.
[GKC Daily News Dec. 12, 1903 quoted in Maycock, The Man Who Was Orthodox]

This splendid idea ought to be posted in every lab and office and classroom. Of course it is expressed in what some call GKC's "verbal fireworks" - but it is really an idea nearly two millennia older, since St. Paul said the same thing to the Colossians:

That their hearts may be comforted, being instructed in charity and unto all riches of fulness of understanding, unto the knowledge of the mystery of God the Father and of Christ Jesus: in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
[Col 2:2-3, emphasis added]

Moreover: there was a movie some years back which seemed to portray a certain supposedly well-rounded person - a man of widely (and wildly) diverse interests - as a "Renaissance Man". That's interesting - but after some thought, and some recent reading, I prefer the term Medieval Man. That's why I told my friends at work,when they wanted to know how I managed to solve such curious computing problems like spot transport for a cable TV company by using encyclicals by Leo XIII and John Paul II. Oh yes - I quoted Chesterton to them:

I revert to the doctrinal methods of the thirteenth century, inspired by the general hope of getting something done.
[GKC Heretics CW1:46]

Note: this says doctrinal methods - not the merely the physical aspects of that era. So that does not mean writing my computer programs on parchment from my own goats, using a quill I plucked from my geese and ink I made from the soot in my chimney! (hee hee)

It means finding out WHAT IS GOING ON, and WHY - it is answering the ancient question Dic cur hic = "tell why you are here" - as Father Jaki liked to say, inquiring as to the Purpose of It All. Otherwise, I am not even a programmer: I am wandering blind in a forest at night, looking for a haystack to probe for lost needles, and I might not even be on the same planet as the desired haystack!

Now. (Ahem!) If all this means trying to learn more about this "scientific method" by examining all its various detailed antecedents when it is applied, so be it. Some of those details are not easy to see, you know, and it is no insult to other great students of these matters to hint that they may have missed something. We all miss something; we are not the mythical thousand-eyed Argus.

Or are we?

Well... that's part of the mystery that is being overlooked. (no pun intended!)

In fact, that's at the root of the point I made last week about Tradition and Appeal To Authority - but we must not rush up that steep slope. We have more to say before we get to it. But at least I've dropped the hint.

Now, about this term "Catholic". Remember that it is from the Greek, and means "universal". People love to talk about "multicultural" and "being tolerant" - such terms do make me chuckle, for of course despite their narrow bias they give a glaringly brilliant bow to Ancient Rome and the power of her Latin. The Catholic vision is far larger. It envisions ALL things: it is universal, all-inclusive, but not simply as a multitude of varieties, nor in the semi-pagan "Vulcan" philosophical views. Truth is one, but since there is One Truth, there is also error, and it is not a matter of tolerance or universality to suggest including errors as part of Truth.

That does not mean we ignore error - but at the same time we do not confound error with truth, just as a physician does not confound illness with health. There are entire branches of the various disciplines devoted to the study - not of error-as-such, but in the sense of How Things Go Wrong. Theology makes lists of heresies, Medicine has pathology and teratology and such related studies; Engineering tracks famous and infamous disasters - and so forth. Obviously, when something goes wrong, one needs to first identify what is wrong, in order to know what remedy to apply, etc...

But let us not drift too far. Yes, this begins to smack of epistemology, that is, the study of Knowledge. Of course: you see, to a Medieval Man, the great Edifice of Knowledge is one building, and each of its halls come into contact with many others.

Perhaps I ought to suggest another image - we shall use both as we proceed - the image of the Diamond. Its brilliance comes from the multitude of its many facets, and in our Diamond, every facet is one of the disciplines, and it touches or receives light from many others. This is a wonderful thing, and while it may be exceedingly hard (10 on the Moh scale of hardness) - indeed, unconquerable (the meaning of the Greek word) - it is lovely, and desirable, and rare, and stands for indeed mystical things.

There is one other analogy to offer - that is the analogy called "The Tree of Virtues". This is an organizational method going right back into the Middle Ages: an intellectual device (we computer scientists call it a "data structure") for managing the huge variety of virtues, that is, or the good and positive powers of the human person. You can find it in books like The Didascalicon of Hugh of St. Victor from the 1120s, or in the commentaries on Boethius of St. Thomas Aquinas (mid 1200s) or the writing of Henry of Langenstein (died 1397). You can also find it in something called Cursus Theologicus from Salamanca, one edition of which has an immense diagram that looks much like a modern-day "org chart" or perhaps a system diagram - or like the "Chart of the Metabolic Processes":


(Image courtesy of A. Poole at Loome Books.)

Another time we'll talk more about this tree - for today I merely want to point out that this "Tree of Virtues", like the diamond, or the Edifice of Knowledge, is a tool - like the org chart - to help us see the Complete Picture of the system. Science does not only have branches: it also has supporting trunks and roots. It is well that we do not miss the forest, or even the tree, while we stand in fascination at our one single favourite chloroplast...

* * * * *

Postscript. I must say one more thing, even if it is personal, and even if it means revealing one of my professional secrets. Yes, I am a programmer - but in order to be a programmer, I must also be all the things for all the disciplines which request my services. I do not lose my identity; I take on the tasks and abilities of the user who needs my help, and then unite that need to the incredibly severe limits of this odd little machine, and then produce the series of instructions, just as a cook writes a recipe. Yes, it can be written at a desk, but it demands the existence of a kitchen... This is another topic for another time, oh yes indeed. But do not think that a programmer doesn't have to be aware of the other fields! Indeed, since computer science is really just a branch of mathematics, the queen and handmaid of Science, it must deal with many other matters. These are truly catholic (note the lower-case) fields, but then as a Medieval Man, I agree with Chesterton:

I never can really feel that there is such a thing as a different subject. There is no such thing as an irrelevant thing in the universe; for all things in the universe are at least relevant to the universe.
[GKC ILN Feb 17 1906 CW27:126]

No matter what your own discipline, you will find more to enjoy, and more to think about, and more assistance for your own topics, once you begin to be catholic in that way - when you revert to the doctrinal methods of the thirteenth century.

(In case you are wondering: yes, that cable TV system got something done by taking advantage of Subsidiarity. In the 5.5 years it ran, about 200,000 commercials were sent out (when needed) to over 170 inserters, going to six of these on the average. Further details when my book comes out.)

Another note. Upon re-reading this, I am not sure that I've used the right capitalizations each time the word "Catholic" appears. However, that's part of the point. To what extent the two are coupled is a topic for another series of postings, but let no reader fear. There must be professional respect, and courtesy - and even more, there must be love of neighbor. The related issues - forms of worship, dogmatic teachings, organizational structures - are topics to be discussed, but ought not impede us from our work. (Yes, I am well aware of their treatment in Fr. Jaki's writing; that is also another topic for a future date.) For me, they provide a unity which enables a vaster view and a more enthusiastic labor...

Just a quick example. The very common concept of "hierarchy" - which may suggest the elegant system of layman-priest-bishop-Pope - is quite demonstrably Jewish in origin. It is a powerful and elegant and effective scheme of organization, and it was suggested to Moses by Jethro his father-in-law! See Exodus 18:21-22; this is indeed the basis of Subsidiarity and of all such related organizational methods.

About the Scientific Method

This year we note the 45th anniversary of the publication of Jaki's first book, The Relevance of Physics. In it he quotes a fundamental epigram from one of the greatest physicists, a statement which we ought to learn by heart, and post in our labs and offices and classrooms:

One of the severest tests of a scientific mind is to discern the limits of the legitimate application of scientific methods.
[SLJ TROP 382 quoting J. C. Maxwell, "Paradoxical Philosophy" (1878), reprinted in The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell, edited by W. D. Niven, II (Cambridge, 1890), p. 759.]

And, we might add, one of the severest tests of a member of the Duhem Society is to explain just what these "scientific methods" are, as well as those limitations. Otherwise, we are either (1) doing magic, since there is no causal relation underlying our work, or (2) working mechanically, and all our work is just as natural as a ticking clock.

I think the problem arises from the very popular but quite mistaken notion that there is something "scientific" - that is, akin to a mathematical proof-system - underlying the idea of "scientific method", and that this formal hidden substructure gives an unarguable truth to all matters resulting from or derived from these methods.

Wow, and people talk about believing things without any reason?

The simple fact is that science is just as much a matter of faith as every other thing we do - our Master, G. K. Chesterton, put it in one of his great epigrams which belongs up there with Maxwell's:

It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.
[GKC Orthodoxy CW1:236]

Now, this is very irritating to some, but then they are making what the philosophers call "a fallacy of equivocation". They think that because I and GKC and SLJ and PD and a large number of others state that "reason is itself a matter of faith", this means reason (and hence science) is therefore chained or enslaved to a particular religious system, probably Roman Catholicism.

Oh my. We could talk THAT - I mean, about the connections between Science (writ large) and Roman Catholicism for quite a while, considering that is a good deal of what Duhem and Jaki (and Chesterton) wrote about. But that is an interesting sidetrack we'll reserve for some future conference. For today, I will just say NO THAT IS NOT WHAT I MEAN AT ALL! [See note at end]

I will use the argumentational device the medievals called distinguo = "I distinguish". I distinguish "faith" as here meaning "an assertion of the intellect about the truth of something without either (1) direct sensory experience or (2) proof by mathematical rules". (As opposed to "faith" standing as a sort of pronoun or variable or place-holder for "a particular system of worship or religious practices".)

It is obvious on the face of it that we cannot "experience" reason even as we do it - it's there, like time, and we accept it as binding matters together from our experience or from our memory - but we neither "experience" it as a sense-impression, nor do we "prove" it by theorems and axioms.

This issue is tied to the idea of "tradition" especially as it touches faith in the other sense, meaning a system of religious practices, or even to topics like politics. It touches - or rather, rests firmly upon a very strong foundation, which some will find even more objectionable - the idea of the Appeal To Authority - since again they will leap to the conclusion that I am talking about the Pope. Not just now! Very simply, we take Authority as a given just as much as we take "Proof" or even "Sense-Experience".

Why? Because we have to. We always have to.

For very good reasons, too. Without Tradition and Authority, we would be completely mute. Language itself is neither sensory nor proveable. We do not "sense" language, nor do we "prove" language. We take it Upon Authority. We were taught it by authorities, and its usefulness is borne out in countless ways as we proceed with our lives - it is not a debatable matter.

We could go on and on about this, but I have no time today. Indeed, this is a clue to the next step in our discussion. You might want to think about that, but I'll give you a hint.

Just consider this very interesting bit of Chesterton, and we'll see whether I can continue this discussion at some future time...

When your father told you, walking about the garden, that bees stung or that roses smelt sweet, you did not talk of taking the best out of his philosophy. When the bees stung you, you did not call it an entertaining coincidence. When the rose smelt sweet you did not say "My father is a rude, barbaric symbol, enshrining (perhaps unconsciously) the deep delicate truths that flowers smell." No: you believed your father, because you had found him to be a living fountain of facts, a thing that really knew more than you; a thing that would tell you truth to-morrow, as well as to-day. And if this was true of your father, it was even truer of your mother; at least it was true of mine...
Exactly because when my mother said that ants bit they did bite, and because snow did come in winter (as she said); therefore the whole world was to me a fairyland of wonderful fulfilments, and it was like living in some Hebraic age, when prophecy after prophecy came true. I went out as a child into the garden, and it was a terrible place to me, precisely because I had a clue to it: if I had held no clue it would not have been terrible, but tame. A mere unmeaning wilderness is not even impressive. But the garden of childhood was fascinating, exactly because everything had a fixed meaning which could be found out in its turn.
[GKC Orthodoxy CW1:360-1]

And in the same way, we take ideas like "the scientific method" and "reason" upon Authority. This is excellent; we therefore have powerful tools, indeed tools of almost unimaginable capability to use in our work, and we are thereby enabled to advance in knowledge. And recall that knowledge in Latin is scientia. Our Science (writ large) is nothing more than knowledge about Reality, and since we cannot expect to live long enough to do Every Conceivable Experiment - nor even to invent our own language (like Tolkien) so as to truly express ourselves in our own way - it is quite fitting that we base our work upon Tradition (as in language) and Authority (as in texts and reference works).

Let me suggest a fun piece of homework to consider. If one was to deny all this, what could be suggested as a replacement? (Be careful; it's a trick question.)

* * *

Note at End: One does not "stop" doing mathematics when one does physics or chemistry, as if these things were kept in two different rooms. One might not be working directly on a theorem (call it "performing active mathematics") when one is in the lab with equipment - but one is still aware of the theorem, acting in some way as a strong support in one's mind... it is in some sense the same for the Scientist who is a practicing Believer. One might not be praying (call it "performing active religion") in the lab with equipment, but... well, think about this. The idea is that we may have a reminder of why we work with us, and this serves to strengthen us as we work. One cannot stop being human in order to be a scientist. (You WILL get hungry, and tired.) There's more to this topic, and perhaps we shall consider it another time.

The Plans of His Heart...

I wish I had the time to write the posting - well, the book - that deserves to be written about today's feast, the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It would give many reference to Father Jaki, but would also contain material from books which it appears he (like so many priests and bishops) never examined - books on developmental anatomy. These texts ought to be sources for truly deep and powerful meditations upon the mystery of the God-Man, Jesus - and, naturally, upon the mystery of Man the species, to which we belong.

Jesus was still an embryo of perhaps a month old - probably Mary had been with Elizabeth for three weeks by now - when His Heart began to beat. This needs to be considered at length... Unfortunately, I don't have time to go into it at any length today, so if you have a library at hand, please go hunt for a book on developmental anatomy (the one I have is by Arey) and check it out.

But perhaps you are wondering about that title. Well, that's from the Psalms, rather from the Divine Office, also called the Liturgy of the Hours. That version (whatever translation it may be) gives it as Psalm 33:

He frustrates the designs of the nations,
He defeats the plans of the peoples.
His own designs shall stand for ever,
The plans of His heart from age to age.
[from Ps 33 Morning Prayer, Tuesday of Week I]

Why is that relevant to us, to scientists? Because those plans include matters of science, not only theology or philosophy. This is not a mere truism about the formation of the cardiac structures and hemopoiesis (that is the Making of Blood). It was told us by St. Paul:

That their hearts may be comforted, being instructed in charity and unto all riches of fulness of understanding, unto the knowledge of the mystery of God the Father and of Christ Jesus: In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. [Col 2:2-3]

In Jaki's wonderful little volume on the LItany of the Sacred heart, you will find a good starting point - no, it won't have lots of footnotes to medieval or modern scientific works, but it has something even more important. It reveals some very interesting matters about the devotion to the Sacred Heart, matters which deserve a fuller treatment by our Society, since they concern thinking men of faith and reason, for anyone who is interested in the foundations of Science Writ Large - and also who may be concerned with the state of our sad and fallen world. This devotion to the Incarnate Love of God offers much hope, which we need very badly, and gives us many seeds for growing new gardens, no, new orchards of fruitful produce, not only in the direction of spirituality, but also in more confident science and more robust and effective engineering...

Hardly more than a hundred years old as approved for public use, the Litany of the Sacred Heart has, of course, a much older history. In the Introduction that history is traced out as it developed from a Litany of seventeen invocations to one with twenty-seven, and finally to our Litany with thirty-three invocations. While this development is not without importance of its own, attention is best focused on the spiritual factors and efforts that lie behind it. Especially noteworthy should seem the connection of the approval of the Litany for public use with events that prompted Pope Leo XIII to decide on the consecration of the entire world to the Sacred Heart, which took place on June 10,1899. This act Leo XIII called "the greatest act of his pontificate."
[SLJ The Litany of the Sacred Heart introduction]

Indeed. the greatest of more than 25 years of serious, difficult work! (Another day we shall examine the parallels between Leo XIII and John Paul II - they are striking.)

God will not be frustrated. He is worth our trust, or we could not reason about anything, be it ontology or automata, stars or quarks or turtles or halogens...

Let us remember, and add this line to our Great Epigrams:

the Plans of His Heart shall stand forever...

My Atrocious Neglect

I apologise - I have neglected to post on the 150th anniversary of the birth of Pierre Duhem. All I can do is post something on this great solemnity, the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, which was one of his very own feast days.

Hence, in partial reparation, I will quote one of Jaki's less-well-known encomiums of our great Master. (Remember, "encomium" means a formal or literary sort of compliment; it's one of SLJ's favourite words.) The excerpt is significant, and makes me long to meet an enthusiastic scholar who is willing to translate the Duhem works into English. (I would also like to meet someone who will finance the re-publication, both a French and an English edition... someday perhaps, God willing.)

Modern culture seems to be in the throes of an unbridled quantification, in which individuals are on the road to becoming mere numbers, if not mere holes in punch cards.[note 1] As in any crisis, the extremist remedies are here very much in evidence. Side by side with those who decry science as a perversion of "naturalness" are those who want everybody and everything to be ruled by science. To strike a middle course, as sanity demands, between the extremes of romantic primitiveness (if not illusory anarchism) and of dehumanizing scientism, one must be fully aware of the limitations of scientific method.[note 2] This is not an easy task. To cope with it there are several avenues, of which one, that of historical studies, should have special appeal. History is a great equalizer. Sooner or later it cuts all things and all men down to their true size. Science looms up as a savior only for those whose familiarity with it is restricted to what Duhem so aptly called "the gossip of the moment." Those who are brave enough to look past the popular but ephemeral truths of the day will find in history a most instructive teacher. The history of physical science can indeed forcefully show its student that myths are present in science no less than in other areas that owe so much to science for the reduction of their myths.

Recognition of this may be a humbling experience in a scientific age such as ours; yet it is indispensable if science is to become man's servant rather than his tyrant. Those who pondered much on the proper range of scientific theory and enriched their analysis of it with a wealth of historical illustration have rendered a most valuable service to the cause of culture. Indeed, if the liberating message about the limitations of scientific method is gaining a firm foothold today, a large share of the credit should go to Duhem. His philosophical analysis of the aim and structure of physical theory and (especially) his pioneering studies in the history of science display an increasing timeliness, or rather an enduring humanistic freshness. No wonder. Duhem for all his devotion to scholarly and scientific investigations was visibly animated by a dedication to his fellow men, whom he wanted to assist in their groping toward a more robust, more balanced, and more satisfying formulation of truth.
[SLJ Introduction to Duhem's To Save the Phenomena7 translated by Edmund Doland and Chaninah Maschler, xxv-xxvi]

Note 1: this was written for the 1969 edition, when computers were still primarily worked by "punch-cards." Today's reader can substitute something like:

"...a collection of redundant entries misfiled in an overly designed relational database..."

or

"...a collection of mostly unrelated and probably inaccurate files distributed among the INTERNET 'cloud'..."

Note 2: One of the Major Quotes, given to us by no less than Maxwell, found in several of SLJ's books, and which we ought to memorize:

The most difficult test for a scientific mind is to recognize the limitations of the scientific method.
[from JCM's review, in Nature (1879), of Paradoxical Philosophy, reprinted in his Scientific Papers, vol. 1, p. 759]

Science and the Ascension

I had a debate as to whether to post this on my own blogg or here. It is cases like this when we can thank God for George Boole, and so we can say "YES" to such "or" types of questions. Hee hee. (That's the famous trick we computer scientist use when asked if we want ice cream or cake. We reply, "Yes".)

Anyway, this is just a short excerpt but it is intense as usual. So read it and think about it, and get busy.

Now the whole of the rationalistic doubt about the Palestinian legends, from its rise in the early eighteenth century out of the last movements of the Renascence, was founded on the fixity of facts. Miracles were monstrosities because they were against natural law, which was necessarily immutable law. The prodigies of the Old Testament or the mighty works of the New were extravagances because they were exceptions; and they were exceptions because there was a rule, and that an immutable rule. In short, there was no rose-tree growing out of the carpet of a trim and tidy bedroom; because rose-trees do not grow out of carpets in trim and tidy bedrooms. So far it seemed reasonable enough. But it left out one possibility; that a man can dream about a room as well as a rose; and that a man can doubt about a rule as well as an exception.

As soon as the men of science began to doubt the rules of the game, the game was up. They could no longer rule out all the old marvels as impossible, in face of the new marvels which they had to admit as possible. They were themselves dealing now with a number of unknown quantities; what is the power of mind over matter; when is matter an illusion of mind; what is identity, what is individuality, is there a limit to logic in the last extremes of mathematics? They knew by a hundred hints that their non-miraculous world was no longer water-tight; that floods were coming in from somewhere in which they were already out of their depth, and down among very fantastical deep-sea fishes. They could hardly feel certain even about the fish that swallowed Jonah, when they had no test except the very true one that there are more fish in the sea than ever came out of it. Logically they would find it quite as hard to draw the line at the miraculous draught of fishes. I do not mean that they, or even I, need here depend on those particular stories; I mean that the difficulty now is to draw a line, and a new line, after the obliteration of an old and much more obvious line. Any one can draw it for himself, as a matter of mere taste in probability; but we have not made a philosophy until we can draw it for others. And the modern men of science cannot draw it for others. Men could easily mark the contrast between the force of gravity and the fable of the Ascension. They cannot all be made to see any such contrast between the levitation that is now discussed as a possibility and the ascension which is still derided as a miracle. I do not even say that there is not a great difference between them; I say that science is now plunged too deep in new doubts and possibilities to have authority to define the difference. I say the more it knows of what seems to have happened, or what is said to have happened, in many modern drawing-rooms, the less it knows what did or did not happen on that lofty and legendary hill, where a spire rises over Jerusalem and can be seen beyond Jordan.
[GKC The New Jerusalem CW20:315-6]

AND please remember: tomorrow begins the Great Novena, the one made at the express direction of Jesus Himself... please join us in prayer, as there are many problems and difficulties which so desperately need the aid which only the Holy Spirit can give!

About Benson's The Dawn of All

Today the Duhem Society celebrates the 137th birthday of one of our Masters, the paradoxical Gilbert Keith Chesterton. He was not a scientist, not a philosopher, not a historian. he called himself a journalist, and in some ways he was more of an artist than anything else - though his most fertile medium was words, not paint or marble.

You know I have a certain bias about GKC - though it is not an unreasonable one. Indeed, it seems fitting that GKC be one of our Masters, not only because of Father Jaki's work which demonstrates GKC's power in grasping the truths of Science-Writ-Large - but also because of his humility and reverence for Reality - that is, the truthful way of seeing God, and His Creation. This is the fundamental power required for every scientist, every philosopher, every historian - everyone who applies pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard.

Now, one of the frustrations I find when studying Jaki - I am here speaking as a Chestertonian - is that he wrote no fiction. Nor did Duhem, as far as I am able to discern from SLJ's texts about him. This is sad - and as you may know, I am attempting to remedy that lack by writing my own Saga. But I have recently finished an amazing book which I heartily wish Father Jaki had commented on. The book is called The Dawn of All by Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, an English writer of roughly the same era as Chesterton. Benson wrote several interesting volumes of Catholic fiction - that is stories where the persons really exhibit their faith, often in quite challenging situations - see (for example) Come Rack! Come Rope!. This volume, The Dawn of All, came out 100 years ago, and is his second "end of the world" story - the first is The Lord of the World. I prefer not to speak about these in detail, except to highly recommend them, in particular because they contain certain interesting sorts of predictions regarding science and technology and so belong to the very rare category of "Catholic Science Fiction" - though that is not all they predict.

I cannot say they feel like Duhem; clearly they do not feel like Jaki - but they certainly feel Chestertonian, and Newmanian to an extreme. I must not speak too much here about the Newman dimension, lest I give too much away about this particular story, but it is impressive. Since Benson was an Anglican convert, perhaps this is quite understandable, and I am merely showing my ignorance. I do not mind confessing how little I know. Sometimes I feel I know very little, but then I find myself enjoying my reading more - and even my re-reading. Why shouldn't I enjoy Jaki or Duhem or Newman as I enjoy the mystery stories of Chesterton or Sayers? All these reveal truth, as does the Bible, which contains the ultimate mystery story of all time in which the Detective solves His own murder. (See Luke 24:13 et seq especially 25-27, where Christ sounds like Holmes addressing Watson.)

As far as I am able to tell with AMBER, Jaki never mentioned Benson, and Chesterton only twice. (See GKC's The Thing CW3:327 and The Resurrection of Rome CW21:378) If our Society were set up in the usual manner of a scholarly system, we would perhaps commission a monograph - or perhaps provide a grant to subsidize a graduate student - to study these two Benson volumes and give some insights into their place in our intellectual library. I cannot do this, not having the resources; nor do I have the time to do the work. All I can do is offer the idea.

But I can do something more. I can recommend them, and especially this one, as it seems to be in such concord with our purposes. I shall give you a short excerpt, in the hope that you will want to find a copy and read it for yourself.

[Our hero] had seen here for himself a relation between Science and Faith - a co-operation between them, with the exigencies of each duly weighed and observed by them both - which set Nature and Supernature before him in a completely new light. ... the two seemed to have met at last, each working from different quarters, on a platform on which they could work side by side. The facts were no longer denied by either party. Science allowed for the mysteries of Faith; Faith recognized the achievements of Science. Each granted that the other possessed a perfectly legitimate sphere of action in which the methods proper to that sphere were imperative and final. The scientist accepted the fact that Religion had a right to speak in matters that lay beyond scientific data; the theologian no longer denounced as fraudulent or disingenuous the claims of the scientist to exercise powers that were at last found to be natural. Neither needed to establish his own position by attacking that of his partner, and the two accordingly, without prejudice or passion, worked together to define yet further that ever-narrowing range of ground between the two worlds which up to the present remained unmapped. Suggestion, for example, acting upon the mutual relations of body and mind, was recognized by the theologian as a force sufficient to produce phenomena which in earlier days he had claimed as evidently supernatural. And, on the other side, the scientist no longer made wild acts of faith in nature, in attributing to her achievements which he could not for an instant parallel by any deliberate experiment. In a word, the scientist repeated, "I believe in God "; and the theologian, "I recognize Nature."
[Robert Hugh Benson, The Dawn of All Part I Chapter 8]

Postscript. Why do I seem so hesitant in writing details about a book? Is it not contrary to Science? Not really. It is not so much a matter of Science as it is a matter of pedagogy. There are certain demonstrations - indeed, even in physics and other "hard" sciences which good teacher will not describe in detail, preferring that the student make his own observation. The idea is FORMALLY an experiment - that is, for the student to EXPERIENCE the truth directly, not to hear it stated. It is so in certain aspects of "book-learning". Father Jaki often told people to "read my books". (He told me many times!) And clearly, if we want to study writing (as itself) we need to be able to discuss the book (in itself). But it is a larger matter - a matter of human nature - that there are certain things which are better taken directly, and one of the chief of these is mystery stories. Chesterton said it this way:

[The book] is at least great in this sense - that it contains an important intellectual principle. Nothing would induce me to tell the reader anything about the solution of the riddle. The man who tells the truth about a detective story is simply a wicked man, as wicked as the man who deliberately breaks a child's soap-bubble - and he is
more wicked than Nero. To give away a secret when it should be kept is the worst of human crimes; and Dante was never more right than when he made the lowest circle in Hell the Circle of the Traitors. It is to destroy one human pleasure so that it can never be recovered...
[GKC ILN Nov 7 1908 CW28:210]

I am not saying that we must therefore treat every book as if it were mystery fiction, and refuse to discuss it until all have read it. But there is something true - something very Christmas-like - in the idea that a gift ought to be kept wrapped until the time when it is to be unveiled:

There are three broad classes of the special things in which human wisdom does permit privacy. The first is the case I have mentioned - that of hide-and-seek, or the police novel, in which it permits privacy only in order to explode and smash privacy. The author makes first a fastidious secret of how the Bishop was murdered, only in order that he may at last declare, as from a high tower, to the whole democracy the great glad news that he was murdered by the governess. In that case, ignorance is only valued because being ignorant is the best and purest preparation for receiving the horrible revelations of high life. Somewhat in the same way being an agnostic is the best and purest preparation for receiving the happy revelations of St. John. ... its whole ultimate object is not to keep the secret, but to tell it.
[GKC ILN Aug 10 1907 CW27:524]

And if you have read it, and wish to discuss it, or (even better) have the wherewithal to write such a study or analysis - or even just to write up your own comments - please proceed.

And if you doubt the relevance to our Society, consider:

(1) Jaki considered Chesterton's fiction; also the fiction of Sigrid Undset and also of Dickens. Did you know that Dickens reviewed Darwin's famous book? I learned that from SLJ.
(2) Duhem liked Dickens and gave his own daughter a nickname from one of his novels. SLJ states this but (surprisingly enough) does not cite a reference, though he does indicate that Duhem "used to read [Dickens] aloud at home in evenings when Hélène was a child." [SLJ Reluctant Heroine 58]

Very curious, Dr. Thursday (one might say): do you mean that, if one wants to be a Scientist, one must be agnostic?

Not quite! I am not speaking of one's spirtual commitment; you must already have faith, for "Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all." [GKC Orthodoxy CW1:236]

No; I mean one must preserve a certain sort of agnosticism about natural truths - until they are revealed. For example, if you confess to a belief in phlogiston, you cannot discover the truth of oxygen, for you will ignore the evidence! The earth looks flat and unmoving, but then a television image looks solid and moving, and we know by its construction it is discrete points which do not move at all!

We must approach nature as a child approaches the wrapped gift, or as the voracious mystery-reader approaches the as-yet unread volume. For Nature is the greatest of Unread Volumes - because of Gödel (as SLJ indicates in several places) we know there will always be more to learn: there will always be another sequel, and yet another adventure - until the Author's work is completed.

And then will come that "happy Revelation of St. John"... and the good wine in the Inn at the End of the World, where we shall meet Duhem and Jaki and Chesterton and Newman - and Benson. It will indeed be the Dawn of All.