The Seven Deadly Spins--Physicalism

 Christianity has an interesting history with the study of the physical world. The Scientific Revolution took place in Western Civilization in part because of significant Christian presuppositions, such as: 1) the physical world is real and not merely an illusion, so it’s worth our time to study it; 2) it was created by God, the supreme intelligence, so it must have an orderliness to it that can be discovered; 3) the physical world was created by God but is not itself divine, thus it would not be improper to run experiments on it; and 4) God entrusted the physical world to the care of humans, so we have a mandate to gain a better understanding of it.

 But with the rise of evolutionary theory, a number of people have come to view Christianity as an impediment to our understanding of the physical world. Christianity insists that non-physical things play an important role in the world—beings like God, angels, and demons and entities like human souls. Yet the sciences have seemingly enriched our lives with or without reference to any of these things. We seem to be able to heal the human body through physical remedies like medicine and surgery with or without the use of prayer; we seem to be ever-increasing our material comforts with or without considering the will of God. To some people, then, Christianity looks like an idea that might have given people the illusion of understanding in the past but is now no longer necessary for understanding all there is to the world.

 The viewpoint I’m describing has been called physicalism. It’s the idea that the physical world is really all that exists; thus, all we would need to understand it would be the physical sciences. But physicalism leaves us with a very impoverished understanding of our own lives and the world in which we live. In fact, physicalism can’t even explain everything you’re experiencing right now as you read this newspaper! Just consider the question, “Why are these markings on the page the way they are?” Physical details certainly provide part of the explanation—the properties of the ink and paper make the markings appear a certain way and not some other way. But why are these markings arranged the way they are? Why are they arranged into patterns you recognize as letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs? And why are they arranged into these particular paragraphs and not different paragraphs? It’s because they are conveying a particular idea from my mind to yours. But an idea is not a physical thing. It has no weight (does your head get heavier when you think of a bowling ball rather than a cotton ball?). It has no taste (what does the idea behind this sentence taste like?). You can’t see an idea with your eyeballs or hear it with your eardrums, yet ideas are clearly real.

 If we believe that the physical world is really all that exists, we thus lose the ability to explain huge swaths of life. We lose the ability to explain human behavior because we have to leave human souls out of it; thus, we can’t discuss the influence of beliefs, goals, or intentions on behavior (not to mention the influence of moral realities like sin and righteousness). Nor can we fully explain the physical world on this viewpoint. Many of our questions about physical things would have to end with the answer, “There is no reason for it—it just is the way it is.”

 Christianity gives us the resources to have a much richer and more complete understanding of the world and ourselves. It reminds us that there are physical and non-physical components to our lives and the world around us, so we should seek to understand both and how they interact. Doing so will help us understand our lives, the problems we encounter, and how they can potentially be resolved.