1. Evangelical Christians do better than mainline Protestants.
2. Church attendance makes almost no difference.
3. Jews and atheists do better than Christians of any variety.
4. Mainline Protestants know little about the Old Testament or religions other than Christianity.
5. Christians know little about the history of their own faith. Few can identify central figures of the Reformation or the Great Awakening.

91:1 You who live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,

91:2 will say to the LORD, “My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust.”

91:3 For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence;

91:4 he will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.

91:5 You will not fear the terror of the night, or the arrow that flies by day,

91:6 or the pestilence that stalks in darkness, or the destruction that wastes at noonday.

91:14 Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name.

91:15 When they call to me, I will answer them; I will be with them in trouble, I will rescue them and honor them.

91:16 With long life I will satisfy them, and show them my salvation.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I Make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place.
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Heading said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four –
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

*   *   *   *   *

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man –
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began –
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire –

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Psalm 79:1-9
79:1 O God, the nations have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple; they have laid Jerusalem in ruins.
79:2 They have given the bodies of your servants to the birds of the air for food, the flesh of your faithful to the wild animals of the earth.
79:3 They have poured out their blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them.
79:4 We have become a taunt to our neighbors, mocked and derided by those around us.
79:5 How long, O LORD? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealous wrath burn like fire?
79:6 Pour out your anger on the nations that do not know you, and on the kingdoms that do not call on your name.
79:7 For they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his habitation.
79:8 Do not remember against us the iniquities of our ancestors; let your compassion come speedily to meet us, for we are brought very low.
79:9 Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and forgive our sins, for your name’s sake.

1 Timothy 1:12-17

1:12 I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service,

1:13 even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief,

1:14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

1:15 The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners–of whom I am the foremost.

1:16 But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life.

1:17 To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

This parable from Luke is related, for it speaks of God’s delight in saving sinners.

Luke 15:1-10

15:1 Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him.

15:2 And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

15:3 So he told them this parable:

15:4 “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?

15:5 When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.

15:6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’

15:7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

15:8 “Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?

15:9 When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’

15:10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

We spoke recently of entertaining angels unawares. The thought of angels rejoicing at our repentance should also inspire us. “The measure of man is man,” said Protogoras. No, affirms Jesus. The measure of man is God, whose angels delight or weep at the measurement.

September 11, 2001

I recall the poems I read to my children at bedtime nine years ago:

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

—William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming (1921)

Though much is taken, much abides; and though

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

—Alfred Lord Tennyson, from Ulysses (1833)

The emergence of the complex structures capable of supporting intelligent observers seems to be very fragile. The laws of nature form a system that is extremely fine-tuned. What can we make of these coincidences? Luck in the precise form and nature of fundamental physical law is a different kind of luck from the luck we find in environmental factors. It raises the natural question of why it is that way.

Many people would like us to use these coincidences as evidence of the work of God. The idea that the universe was designed to accommodate mankind appears in theologies and mythologies dating from thousands of years ago. In Western culture the Old Testament contains the idea of providential design, but the traditional Christian viewpoint was also greatly influenced by Aristotle, who believed “in an intelligent natural world that functions according to some deliberate design.”

That is not the answer of modern science. As recent advances in cosmology suggest, the laws of gravity and quantum theory allow universes to appear spontaneously from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.

There’s much that could be said about this argument. I’ll confine myself to a few quick observations.

First, Hawking and Mlodinow reason,

The laws of gravity and quantum theory allow universes to appear spontaneously from nothing.

[Therefore?] Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.

That plainly does not follow. The laws of gravity and quantum theory allow universes in which I win the lottery. It doesn’t follow that I won or will win the lottery. More precisely, there are models of the laws of gravitational and quantum theory in which a universe appears spontaneously. But that is just to say that, according to current theories, it is physically possible for a universe to appear spontaneously. It doesn’t mean that a universe, or particularly this universe, has actually done so. The fallacy here is essentially the move from possibly to actually.

Second, Hawking and Mlodinow reason,

It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.

[Therefore (?), God did not create the universe.]

This commits the same fallacy. It’s physically possible that God did not create the universe; therefore God did not create the universe. That doesn’t follow at all.

Hawking and Mlodinow evidently think of religious faith as resting on the strong anthropic argument, which in turn is an updating of the cosmological argument, arguing to God as prime mover (Aristotle), first cause (Aquinas), necessary cause (Avicenna), or ultimate explanation (Leibniz) of the universe. They think that if they’ve defeated the cosmological argument, they’ve shown God’s nonexistence. But knocking down one argument for a conclusion doesn’t knock down that conclusion. And Protestants have all along tended to think that there are not arguments that force the conclusion that God exists. Yes, it’s possible that there is no God, most Protestants have said, but we affirm faith that God is real. Nothing Hawking and Mlodinow say challenge that.

Someone might object that, on traditional views, God’s existence is necessary if God exists at all. So, showing that it is possible that God doesn’t exist would amount to showing that God’s existence isn’t necessary, which would then imply that God doesn’t exist. But the necessity of God’s existence, on that view, is metaphysical; it doesn’t come from physical law. That God’s existence isn’t physically necessary proves nothing.

Leibniz’s version of the cosmological argument, incidentally, seems to survive Hawking and Mlodinow’s assault. Leibniz argues on the basis of the principle of sufficient reason that every fact has an explanation; there is always a reason why things are so and not otherwise. We can ask, about the entire chain of events we call the universe or the multiverse, why it exists in the way that it does. Perhaps we find it explicable in terms of natural law or M-theory, as Hawking and Mlodinow say. But then we can ask why the physical laws or the laws of M-theory are what they are. There are models of those laws in which the universe generates spontaneously. Fine. What explains the laws themselves? What explains M-theory? Ultimately, Leibniz maintains, we are driven to postulate an ultimate explanation, something for which there is no other explanation, but also something that, unlike physical law, explains itself. Only one thing is self-sufficient in that sense: God. Leibniz would not be phased at all by Hawking and Mlodinow’s discovery.

UPDATE: Other reactions:

Stephen Hawking still can’t explain how something came from nothing

Science, philosophy and humility – Hawking rejects all three

Chief rabbi challenges Stephen Hawking in row over origins of universe

Hawking’s “Grand Design:” Designer not required

Review of Hawking and Mlodinow

To sum up all in one word— what the soul is in the body, that are Christians in the world. The soul is dispersed through all the members of the body, and Christians are scattered through all the cities of the world. The soul dwells in the body, yet is not of the body; and Christians dwell in the world, yet are not of the world. The invisible soul is guarded by the visible body, and Christians are known indeed to be in the world, but their godliness remains invisible. The flesh hates the soul, and wars against it, though itself suffering no injury, because it is prevented from enjoying pleasures; the world also hates the Christians, though in nowise injured, because they abjure pleasures. The soul loves the flesh that hates it, and [loves also] the members; Christians likewise love those that hate them. The soul is imprisoned in the body, yet preserves that very body; and Christians are confined in the world as in a prison, and yet they are the preservers of the world. The immortal soul dwells in a mortal tabernacle; and Christians dwell as sojourners in corruptible [bodies], looking for an incorruptible dwelling in the heavens. The soul, when but ill-provided with food and drink, becomes better; in like manner, the Christians, though subjected day by day to punishment, increase the more in number. God has assigned them this illustrious position, which it were unlawful for them to forsake.

The Psalm is entirely appropriate directed toward God. But I detect in it a note of temptation. It’s all too easy for us to think a similar thought: “If only people would listen to me! Then everything would be fine. Instead, they keep their own counsel, and go their own ways, doing things I’d tell them not to do, and failing to do what I’d tell them to do. That’s going to get them into trouble!” Sometimes, that line of thought turns out to be right. But you and I are not infallible. It often turns out to be wrong. Other people may fail to keep your counsel for a reason. So, it’s important, in reading Psalm 81, to keep God in God’s place, and not allow ourselves, even subconsciously, to place ourselves in God’s position. We’re the ones failing to follow God; we’re not the ones that other people are failing to follow!

81:1 Sing aloud to God our strength; shout for joy to the God of Jacob.

81:10 I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it.

81:11 “But my people did not listen to my voice; Israel would not submit to me.

81:12 So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels.

81:13 O that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways!

81:14 Then I would quickly subdue their enemies, and turn my hand against their foes.

81:15 Those who hate the LORD would cringe before him, and their doom would last forever.

81:16 I would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”