The helplessness of discovery

This week I spent several days in California at one of the nation's largest laboratories, home to many of the nation's finest scientists. Among them is Marty, who, despite his youth, is well known in the field as co-author and keeper of a hydrodynamics code which defines the state of the art. While having lunch together the conversation moved to avocations, and I mentioned my love of Bible study. It turns out Marty is a believer (a Catholic), and we had a pleasant chat about the reactions many have to believing scientists.

As Marty put it, he sees his work and his faith as orthogonal--working in different dimensions--so there isn't really a question of one contradicting the other. By this, I think he means in part that the question of his faith doesn't impact his work directly, nor does his scientific work either undermine or support his belief in the God of the Bible.

Variants of this point of view go back as far as Francis Bacon, who lived around the time of Newton and is credited as the father of the philosophy of science. His was the "two-book" theory in which we seek revelation from "both the book of nature" (science) and the "book of God" (the Bible and revelation).

At this, throngs of reasonable intelligent thinkers have nodded sagely. Compromise! What could be better? Sadly, down this road is a trap: During the Enlightenment the two-book view evolved into what has come to be called pejoratively the God of the Gaps--that we look to the book of God only to explain that which the book of nature can't. This has the unfortunate effect of relegating God to living on our islands of ignorance. To this Bonhoeffer responded,

We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know; God wants us to realize his presence, not in unsolved problems but in those that are solved.

Rather than being content by science and nature in the same room, not talking, let's consider their commonalities. While there are many differences, there is much to be learned by seeing both as ways to learn about the universe, using different data and different tools. This naturally brings us to epistemology, the study of how we come to learn and know things.

Two of the greatest minds of physics, Newton and Einstein, had much to say about epistemology science. Newton envisioned the scientist as impassively observing the world, gathering data with a blank slate, and from these data objectively deducing natural laws. But even as he put forth this paradigm, Newton was aware that it left out the role of the scientist. Newton may have deduced the laws of motion, but to do so he brought the concepts of space and time. (However, due to the success of his physical theories, no one noticed his reservations about his own epistemology of science.) Kant developed this objection further, arguing strongly that scientific theory can't be separated from the influence of the observer.

Now jump forward to Einstein. He realized, and articulated, that in a real sense, the scientist does not merely deduce physical theory from data. He or she may like to think of it like that, but the practice is very different: When tackling a problem of any substance, a scientist will study the data, and then wait for inspiration to strike. As E. M. Colyer put it, quoting Einstein,

While actively engaged in the process of inquiry, the knower in another sense is, in Einstein’s own words, ‘helpless… until principles he can make the basis of deductive reasoning have revealed themselves to him’ [1]

This is precisely what I have observed in the laboratory where I do research. Imagine a brainstorming session of half a dozen scientists trying to make sense of some data. They toss around ideas, turning them over and examining them, describing them to one another. At some point, all fall silent. Each is mulling, concentrating, hoping and trying to be the one who has the flash of insight which makes sense of the data. If all goes well, one of them does have a problem-solving insight, and the work is done.

Fascinatingly, the person who has the insight typically behaves as if it were the result of hard work, sweat of the brow and so forth--when in fact, just as Einstein observed, the hard work was all in preparing the soil; the actual moment of inspiration was a moment not of deduction but of helpless waiting. And Einstein, who spent years waiting for crucial insights never new to the mind of mankind, knew better than most what that helplessness was like.

Scientific learning--really, all learning--is much better characterized by inspiration than deduction. As Einstein also observed, it is usually after the inspiration that we work backwards to construct a deductive chain supporting our insight, covering our epistemological tracks, so to speak. Psychologists have spent a great deal of time examining this process. They refer to the waiting for inspiration as the "incubation" period, and it's experienced not just by Newtons and Einsteins, but by all people, scientist and non-scientist alike.

There is much more to be said here; these are deep waters. To the scientist it cautions humility. We may fail to realize it, but we are dependent on inspiration rather than brute-force reasoning for the insights we crave.

For the believing non-scientist, there are also lessons. Though we typically recognize the role of inspiration in spirituality, we often short-change the period of immersing ourselves in our subjects. In praying for someone, think long and hard about that person first--and then see what inspiration comes. When studying the Bible, avoid the verse-a-day-for-inspiration method like the plague; incubation follows most reliably when we live in the context and world of the passage. Reformed theologian T. F. Torrance, who developed what he called scientific theology, took this a step further and emphasized reading Scripture within the sweep of the narrative of salvation history. To read the Bible atomistically would be like formulating a scientific theory while only considering some of the facts.

This way of reading Scripture finds itself most at home with Jesus' favorite method of teaching: the parable. Parables step aside from deduction and invite immersion in the story, however long or short. It is in this immersion that we open ourselves most fully to the work of the Holy Spirit.

[1] How to Read T. F. Torrance (IVP: Downers Grove), 2001.
[The cartoon is Copyright 2006 by Sidney Harris.]