sixtyone

THOUGHTFULLY DRIVING THE PORCELAIN BUS

A Column by John S Schroeder

April 12, 2003

Was away last weekend and could not get to a computer….

I have shared before that I am tutoring a high school student in Chemistry this year. She is very bright. Recently she asked me to explain how the equation for freezing point depression was derived. I had to explain to her that it was not derived, that it was simply fitted to experimental observation. She was very disappointed that the equation simply described something, but rendered no deeper understanding of it.

That is true of a lot of scientific theory; it accurately describes the behavior of a system, even to the point of predicting the behavior of the system in currently unobserved circumstances. But it often does not answer the question of "why" the system behaves that way. In freezing point depression, I can tell you what the freezing point of water will be if it contains X amount of salt, but I cannot tell you why, or really even how, dissolving salt in water depresses that freezing point. Well, quantum theory hazards some guesses, but no one has yet derived the freezing point depression equation from quantum theory.

I congratulated my student on asking the most fundamental question a scientist can ask – WHY? She was hitting right at the heart of science. An engineer is satisfied with simply knowing how much the freezing point will change because that tells him how much salt to put on the road. The scientist on the other hand is too busy in his/her lab to even notice that the roads are icy, because the scientist has not answered the why question.

As I thought about this, I gained some insight into my frustrations with Christian institutions. People who run such things are analogous to engineers. For them in is enough to make the institutions work. But I am constantly asking the why question. Icy roads are unimportant if you have nowhere to go. Church is unimportant if it leads to nothing.

As a scientist I have had a life long frustration with engineers that don’t want to know why. Many an engineer has feigned discomfort to escape me when I start telling them about electron holes and amorphous solid state structure when they have just told me about their new circuit design. I think this engineer/science frustration is analogous to my frustration with the church.

However, when it comes to the church, I think that frustration is more consequential. Scientists and engineers make a great team. As scientists figure out "why’s" engineers put that to good use. But I cannot shake the conviction that it is different in Christianity. I don’t think it is acceptable for there to be those in Christianity that are asking why, those that are applying the knowledge, and those that simply use it. Yes, we are all differently gifted, but that is not what I am talking about.

The point of being a Christian is a relationship with God. My sister and I are very differently gifted and able, but we both have relationships with our parents that are loving and deep. It is not like my sister really knows our parents and I just let her tell me about it. I would be a pretty crappy son then. All Christians are supposed to get to know God very well.

As I said my frustration with the church is analogous to my frustration with engineers, but the solution is not to learn to work with Christian professionals like I work with engineers. You see that reinforces a broken system. Different giftedness in Christianity does not mean a system analogous to scientists and engineers and consumers; it means a system of children, some lawyers, some doctors, some executives….

I will be much happier when Christian professionals cease trying to build a better church and start being my siblings with more time to read scripture.

I hope I have not mixed my metaphors too confusingly.

With Love,