Universe from Nothing – a load of Krauss, part 3

25 05 2012

Professor Lawrence Krauss is presently a scientific materialist’s pin-up physicist. With Richard Dawkins’ lavish praise, Krauss has been thrust into the limelight, and he is determined to use his quantum theorizing to do away with the need for a Creator. His book A Universe from Nothing is a best seller, and his one hour technical youtube presentation has been watched a staggering 1.4 million times.

Across this three part post, I’ve considered the problematic philosophy of science underlying all previous quests for eternal and unified laws apart from a Creator (part 1), and offered arguably the central scientific defeater of Krauss’s crusade, deriving from the more certain laws of thermodynamics (part 2). What, then, is left to be said of such semantic equivocations?

Well, principally this: the mystery remains. Give it all the quantum spin you want, Krauss falls short of his claim to explain how our Universe popped into existence. As Professor Neil Ormerod notes, “Scientifically he may well be correct, but it clearly does not address the question of whether something can come from nothing, but tells us how some things can come from something else (empty space, which is not really empty at all).”[1]

Even if I grant that it is theoretically possible for quantum fields to change configuration and generate particles from no particles, this does not demonstrate that it is probable, let alone that it really happened. (Just as hundreds of intelligent scientists with billion dollar labs who may one day generate life from non-living organic chemicals does not demonstrate that this actually happened by chance in Earth’s distant history.)

Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, David Albert, concurs with Ormerod and offers his own stinging book review in the New York Times:

Relativistic-quantum-field-theoretical vacuum states—no less than giraffes or refrigerators or solar systems—are particular arrangements of elementary physical stuff. … The fact that some arrangements of fields happen to correspond to the existence of particles and some don’t is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that some of the possible arrangements of my fingers happen to correspond to the existence of a fist and some don’t. And the fact that particles can pop in and out of existence, over time, as those fields rearrange themselves, is not a whit more mysterious than the fact that fists can pop in and out of existence, over time, as my fingers rearrange themselves. And none of these poppings—if you look at them aright—amount to anything even remotely in the neighborhood of a creation from nothing.[2]

I thought that Darwin made it possible to be an “intellectually fulfilled atheist.”[3] Apparently not. We still have those pesky problems of generating life from non-life, complex and real arrangements of matter from simple and virtual particles, and once again—despite Krauss’s name functioning as a materialistic mantra—how we can defy the laws of thermodynamics to get something from literally nothing.

I champion the efforts of scientists to study the material world and find solutions to problems. This legacy derives in large part from the Biblical belief in a law giver and the mandate to cultivate the world.[4] Yet supposing ‘science’ will find the answer in this case is yet another instance of naturalistic faith, and it’s more than this sceptic can bear.

I may not get all the science, and Krauss certainly is a genius, but I recognise a shell game when I see one. Theologians and philosophers have consistently defined ‘nothing’ as no-thing: nil, nada, not anything, it’s what stones dream of at night. And semantically this is clearly not what the brilliant Professor is considering. To pretend otherwise is misleading.

And it’s a good thing, too, that Krauss is wrong. Fine, dismiss the divine foot in the door to protect science’s certainty through an ongoing chain of material cause and effect. A materialist’s game as it may be, at least be consistent. If Universes can literally pop into and out of existence, how can one control for any variable? What certainty can one have of any conclusion? In what sense is this better for science than positing a stable God who providentially upholds the “regularities of nature”? I wonder, alongside C. S. Lewis, “Has it come to that?  Does the whole vast structure of modern naturalism depend not on positive evidence but simply on an a priori metaphysical prejudice? Was it devised not to get in facts but to keep out God?”[5]

Creation is contingent, and as far as I can tell, a Universe from nothing is a total load of Krauss. But, if you’re willing to believe this, then visit the enterprising folks over at www.nothing.net and read the testimonials, and I’m sure they’d be happy for your business. As for me, my money is still on God.

Dave Benson

[1] http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2012/04/11/3474830.htm. Ormerod holds dual doctorates in pure mathematics and theology.

[2] “On the Origin of Everything”, 25 March 2012, BR20, available here.

[3] Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1986), 6.

[4] This has been the consensus ever since M. B. Foster wrote “The Christian Doctrine of Creation and the Rise of Modern Natural Science,” Mind 43 (1934): 447. That Christianity provided the soil in which science could truly and sustainably flourish has since been advanced by sociologists like Max Weber, and Rodney Stark, For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), and by numerous scientists and historians, which you can trace here and here.

[5] C.S. Lewis, “Is Theology Poetry”, pp. 116-140, in The Weight of Glory (New York: HarperCollins, 1949 [1980]), 136.


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Universe from Nothing – a load of Krauss, part 2

23 05 2012

In part 1 of this post, I reviewed the near hysteria in materialist circles surrounding Lawrence Krauss. If you want to explain how 13.72 billion years ago we got a Universe from Nothing, then Lawrence is your man. He is the latest in a long line of contenders pursuing an entirely naturalistic account of nature. And if Richard Dawkins’ Afterword has it right, Krauss is to cosmology what Darwin is to biology: “The title means exactly what it says. And what it says is devastating.”[1]

No question, this guy is brilliant: a PhD from MIT, a Professor at Yale and more recently at Arizona State University, Krauss in his spare time directs the Origins Project, dismantles Intelligent Design arguments in Ohio, discovers dark energy in outer space, and writes science editorials for the New York Times. Here we explore his latest endeavour: Krauss has apparently solved an age old metaphysical problem of the contingency of creation. Forget the Creator, for now we have particles emerging ex nihilo.

What, then, is his argument? How does something come from nothing?

In essence—and as best as I can understand—Krauss argues that the laws of quantum mechanics are eternal, and that these laws can generate particles from empty space. Before the Big Bang there were relativistic quantum fields, the arrangement of which made possible different numbers of particles in the Universe, whether none, few, many, or theoretically an infinite number. A ‘vacuum state’ is where the arrangement of quantum fields generates no particles, thus termed ‘empty space’. As the theory goes, nature abhors a vacuum state, so this unstable structure which may have existed was potentially prone (or in Dawkins’ words “is almost bound …”) to reconfigure in another field arrangement in which particles do exist. Hey presto! You now have a Universe from ‘nothing’. Again, in Dawkins’ more quotable account, “Particles and antiparticles wink in and out of existence like subatomic fireflies, annihilating each other, and then re-creating themselves by the reverse process, out of nothingness” (189).

Let me skip over the assumption that these complex, necessary and beautifully symmetrical field laws existed without cause for all eternity and mysteriously conspire to make life—which may reflect the ‘mind’ of a Creator—and press into this ‘vacuum state’ and definitions of ‘nothing’.

Krauss tries to be clear: “By nothing I do not mean no-thing, but rather nothing—in this case, the nothingness we normally call empty space” (58).[2] (Has your hermeneutic of suspicion switched on yet?)

Space is assumed and space is ‘real’. And this space is jam-packed with virtual particles which can ‘pop’ into and out of existence as quantum fields shift (70, 146, 153f. 163f.). Granted, a century ago scientists would have referred to space without matter as ‘nothing’. Since that time, however, we’ve discovered that space itself is a ‘something’, as are the laws that dictate its dance. This ‘vacuum state’ possesses significant background energy even when the space is apparently ‘empty’. And from what I can gather, all of this quantum action still submits to the first and second laws of thermodynamics.[3] (Remember back to those happy high school science classes?) That’s right, “Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed” (Law I), and “In all energy exchanges in a closed system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state” (Law II).

Perhaps this didn’t strike you with sufficient force. My apologies. Let me try again. Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington said that “if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.” Similarly, Einstein said of classical thermodynamics that it is “the only physical theory of universal content which I am convinced will never be overthrown … .” More recently, Seth Lloyd quipped in Nature “Nothing in life is certain except death, taxes and the second law of thermodynamics.”[4]  Let’s put the pieces together.

  1. Krauss’ conjectured quantum field theory is governed by the far more certain laws of thermodynamics.
  2. Our Universe conserves the total amount of energy, even as this system winds down with entropy.
  3. Prior to the Big Bang, Krauss’ initial postulated ‘empty space’ or ‘vacuum state’—call it what you will, and irrespective of the number of ‘real’ particles and field configuration—must therefore have possessed the same energy as our Universe today.
  4. Thus, this “empty space” is not NOTHING, but SOMETHING! And this something, constantly winding down, must have at one point been entirely wound up. Before this point we still find that science necessitates a definite beginning where something truly did come into being from absolutely nothing.

Some years ago I watched a documentary on quantum physics and spirituality entitled “What the bleep do we know anyway?” It seems to me they took about ten wrong turns in the mystical direction, but the title has stuck with me nevertheless. As the Universe looks weirder at every juncture, what the bleep do we know anyway? I’m entirely open to being corrected on all of this. Perhaps I’ve joined data points best left as outliers in a jumbled connect-the-dots, drawing pictures detached from reality? But as far as I can tell, it is wise to reason from the more certain to the more abstract.

It’s something we also do in theology: apocalyptic speculation is circumscribed by clear teaching from the words of Christ, and it all must fit the overall trajectory of the canonical story. My point: any quantum speculation is still bounded by the near-canonical laws of thermodynamics. One day this may change, if enough warrants accrue. But presently, the conservation and entropy of energy is arguably a central defeater to Krauss’s theorizing.[5] In his quest for a naturalistic explanation of everything, he’s taken at least one wrong turn in the reductionist direction. All that remains now, in part 3 of this post, is to consider the word-game Krauss is playing, and why in spite of it all, God is still a physicist’s friend.

Dave Benson

[1] Dawkins, “Afterword” in Lawrence Krauss, A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing (New York: Free Press, 2012), 191. Any following in-text page numbers come from Krauss’s book.

[2] Also see pp. xiv and 143.

[4] “Concept Going into Reverse”, Nature 430, 971 (26 August 2004), doi:10.1038/430971a.

[5] Again, I may be mistaken, but I’m yet to be convinced. My more informed friend Bruce Blackshaw suggested that “most cosmologists would say the total net energy of the universe is zero, where gravitation is negative energy. So energy is always conserved” (personal email, 14 May 2012). To say gravitational energy is negative, however, sounds like a fudge—much like placing ‘virtual particles’ in a category of their own, knowing they obey the same laws as ‘real particles’. Krauss makes this ‘zero-energy’ assertion on youtube, citing Alexei V. Filippenko and Jay M. Pasachoff who ground the argument here. (See also here.) Still, even they admit that “all one needs is just a tiny bit of energy to get the whole thing started. … What produced the energy before inflation? This is perhaps the ultimate question.” From here they follow the same problematic definitions of ‘nothing’ as Krauss. Thus, at least as far as I can tell, their theory still runs into the laws of thermodynamics, that the total energy of the system remains constant. A “miniscule” violation of energy conservation is still a violation of the most certain laws we have, which seems to me like a case of special pleading.


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Universe from Nothing – a load of Krauss, part 1

21 05 2012

If I hear one more person cite Lawrence Krauss without meaningful explanation, I’m going to explode. It began with a bombshell. Dawkins was recently debating Australian cardinal George Pell on the television program Q&A, during which he was asked point blank, “How it is that something as enormous as the Universe came from nothing?” Dawkins acknowledged this as deeply mysterious. But then he then cited Arizona State University’s esteemed physicist, Lawrence Krauss, to the effect that this dilemma has dissolved:

When you have matter and antimatter and you put them together, they cancel each other out and give rise to nothing. … Krauss is now suggesting that if you start with nothing the process can go into reverse and produce matter and antimatter.

And there you have it. Millennia of philosophical and theological speculation on why there is something rather than nothing, solved in twenty seconds with the invocation of Krauss! Since that time, Krauss has become commonplace: top-billing at the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne, media interviews on international airwaves, and constant citation on campuses as secular students deflect talk of God with the chant of their guru’s name: Krauss, Krauss, Krauss.

Professor Krauss has even made a brief appearance on this blog! Hélder Favarin wondered out loud, If God does not exist, how could everything come from “absolutely nothing”? Thankfully  SciAwakening set him straight in response. The solution: yet another citation of the mysterious Krauss and his magnum opus A Universe from Nothing.[1]

Okay, I like a good hand-waving exercise as much as the next person: “hocus po-krauss – look, a Universe!” But what exactly is his explanation? My undergrad in applied science is stretched to the limit in grappling with these matters, so let me try and put it in simple though hopefully not simplistic terms. In part one of this post, I’ll trace some preliminary history to put Krauss in context. In part two, which arrives this Wednesday, I’ll briefly outline his proposal and suggest what I consider to be the central scientific defeater. Finally, in part three on Friday I’ll consider the semantics of ‘nothing’ and suggest why, despite Krauss’s best efforts, creation is contingent and we still need God.

First, then, some history. Once upon a time, most scientists believed—contrary to Biblical revelation—that the material Universe was eternal. Then came the discovery of cosmic background radiation in 1964, confirming suspicions that our Universe expanded out from (what was later termed) a ‘singularity’. 13.72 billion years is a long time ago, but such an event still counts as a start requiring an explanation. As Greg Koukl quips, “a big bang requires a big banger.”[2] Fred Hoyle’s Steady State theory was no match, and ‘God’ was potentially a physicist’s friend. (Do you know any other immaterial, eternal, powerful, uncaused and intelligent candidates for bringing something out of nothing?)

In a Universe where there is supposedly no free lunch, how can one get something from nothing without invoking the supernatural? Scientific materialists, as Richard Lewontin confessed, “cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door … [because] at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured [and] miracles may happen.”[3] Material phenomena require empirically verifiable and falsifiable material explanations.[4]

Thus began the race for a methodologically atheistic account of something coming from nothing—or, at the very least, downplaying an absolute beginning and undermining the anthropic fine-tuning written across the cosmological constants. Such proposals include Richard Tolman’s oscillating Universe, Alan Guth’s inflationary expansion, Paul Davies’ cosmic jackpot to solve The Goldilocks Enigma, Stephen Hawking’s “no-boundary proposal” (drawing on “imaginary time” and “imaginary numbers”, √-1 kind of stuff which seems ab-surd to me), or any one of cosmologist Max Tegmark’s multiverse hypotheses.

String theory, a recent contender, illustrates the problem. In our search for a TOE (Theory of Everything), the Universe seems increasingly bizarre, the proposals are either presently unverified or entirely unverifiable, and the scientific camps continue to fragment in dissent. (Krauss, for instance, dismisses string theory as untestable,[5] but seems fine with causally disconnected multiverses to explain equations beyond Einstein essential for life. Karl Popper would have kittens over these shenanigans, and Thomas Kuhn would say it’s time for a paradigm shift.) All of this should give us pause before enthroning any scientific explanation as “just the way it is.” Even our best models aren’t reality itself—they are powerful metaphors to help us understand the material Universe.[6] Science advances through dissension, so this I respect. Such naïveté concerning the philosophy of science is, however, reprehensible.[7] Humility and wonder, not bluster and arrogance, is an appropriate response of limited and biased humans before the mystery of it all.

As you can see, Krauss joins a long and brilliant procession of crusaders in search of physics’ Holy Grail: the quest for eternal and unified laws.  What, then, is his proposal? For that, read on to part 2 of “Universe from Nothing – a load of Krauss.”

Dave Benson

[1] Read the book OR join 1.4 million other groupies and watch youtube for the one hour low-down on Krauss’s theorizing.

[2] See here for Koukl, or for the underlying philosophical argument, see here for a brief video of William Lane Craig’s “Kalam Cosmological Argument”, and here for a 2012 debate between Krauss and Craig, later debriefed here.

[3] “Billions and billions of demons,” The New York Review, 9 January 1997, p31.

[4] Ever since Einstein birthed the atomic age with E=mc2, it’s been hard to know what ‘material’ materialists count as ‘real’.

[5] Universe from Nothing, pp. 130ff.

[6] Interestingly, this is not so different from theology, albeit starting with a different source for our hypotheses—revelation rather than nature—from which we reason abductively, seeking inference to the best explanation. See Nicholas Wolterstorff, Reason Within the Bounds of Religion, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), and Alister McGrath, “Religious and Scientific Faith: The Case of Charles Darwin’s ‘Origin of the Species’ (The 24th Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lecture, King’s College London, Oxford, 2009), http://www.westminster-abbey.org/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/22494/ESA-lecture-2009-i.pdf. Also helpful is Alister McGrath, Science and Religion: A New Introduction, 2d ed. (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), chapter 7 (pp. 51-58), “Science, Religion, and the Explanation of Things.”

[7] See Alan Chalmers, What Is This Thing Called Science? 3d ed. (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2007). Each chapter traces one stage in the historical development of the philosophy of science, beginning with older and less adequate conceptions of science, progressing toward more nuanced models such as proposed by Kuhn, Popper, Lakatos, Feyerband and others, dealing with realist–non-realist debates. The kind of “naïve realism” exhibited by Dawkins and his ilk is dispatched within the first three chapters, a relic of enlightenment beliefs that science was simply objective reason playing upon the natural world.


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Why Church Control must be Crucified

25 04 2012

The Church is about controlling people. The overbearing Pastor dominates the congregation, playing lead role and telling the others what to do. Some people avoid the Church like the plague, hoping they’ll be safer outside. Yet even there the Church interferes. One blogger commented on the decline of the Church in Australia. His solution was that the Church “stop sticking their noses into everyone else’s business: politics, child raising, court systems, sexual preference etc. etc.” With all our lobbying for political control, we’re known more for what we stand against than what we stand for. Our grab for authority and casting of judgment has obscured God’s grace and the call to life. … At least that’s how it’s perceived.[1]

Okay, is this what it should be? The Church isn’t an organisation; it’s an organism. It’s a bunch of people who when put together should look like Jesus. So how did Jesus wear his authority? Was he about control?

Well, first things first, there’s a big difference between legitimate, and illegitimate authority. I can’t walk into your workplace and start telling people what to do. Why? Well, I’m not the boss. But let’s say I was ….. So let’s try a thought experiment. If Jesus really is the Son of God, as he claimed to be, that changes everything. If it’s true, doesn’t he have legitimate authority? And can’t he extend this authority to whoever he wishes? Then the real question is, How did Jesus choose to use this authority? The bottom line is this: Jesus was no authoritarian dictator; he wielded his ultimate authority with absolute humility.

Have you ever seen that TV show “Undercover Boss”? The idea’s simple: the boss of a massive company dons the worker’s uniform and enters into their company as one of the team … scrubbing dishes, delivering mail, answering phones. The boss gets to know their staff on the ground, as an equal; and at the end of the week, everyone’s shocked as his or her true identity is revealed. Same with Jesus, the ultimate undercover boss. Take two incidents.

First, Easter. Everyone has abandoned Jesus. Peter backstabbed him three times. They feel like dirt, guilty as hell, as now that Jesus has been crucified, they’ve run in fear back to their old lives. Peter and the crew are out in the boat. But while they’re out fishing and serving themselves, who should be on the beach cooking them an awesome meal of fish over the fire, but the leader himself, Jesus. He beat death. He is the boss. Peter’s probably thinking, “I’m in deep trouble.” Now, there is stuff to talk through, and a relationship to mend. But there’s no lecture and no punishment. Just forgiveness and love. “For God didn’t send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to savethe world through Him” (John 3:17).

Second incident, John 8.[2] Know the story? A woman is caught in the act of having sex with someone else’s husband. Under the religious laws, she should be killed, stoned to death. They throw her in the dirt in front of Jesus. “Your call, Jesus.” But he turns the tables: “Whoever is without sin, you cast the first stone.” One by one they drop the rocks, and leave. But notice what Jesus says. “Woman, where are your accusers? Now, go and sin no more.” … “Sin no more.” He’s not there to judge. But nor is he saying to this lady and her male friend (who has conveniently escaped, “Guys, do what you want: keep wrecking families and doing damage.”

The Church is meant to look like Jesus. Our role is not to judge, or grasp for control.  But nor is it to ignore when stuff’s not right. If we truly love someone, we won’t watch silently on while they hurt themselves, or others. As a parent, if your four-year-old went to stick a fork into a live power socket, would you say something? To not is negligent. Worse, it’s unloving.

Jesus did call out sin, but it was out of love. And Jesus gave the Church, as his body, that same authority. It’s not to condemn. It’s so people will turn from death, from sin, and choose what leads to life and freedom.

Jesus was no control freak. When the disciples fought over who would be first, he donned a slave’s towel and washed their feet. “Whoever wants to be first must be last. Are you greater than your master? I came not to be served, but to serve, and to give my life as a ransom.” Jesus wore his authority with humility. He leveraged his power on behalf of the least. And as his body, the Church should too.

Jesus wasn’t about being the star of the show—he’s the undercover boss. And he gives equal authority to every Christian, not to one mega-leader to manipulate the rest.  It’s only when we’re all together, serving each other, that the Church looks like Jesus. The authority we have isn’t to control. Instead, our authority is to serve each other, and give up our life to help a hurting world. That’s why Church control must be crucified.

Harsh judgmentalism and control issues are often identified with the culture wars, especially in America. So before you go back to your everyday existence, to a society that prizes power, take a look at the cruciform Church’s authority expressed in an edgy city like San Francisco. Every week, dozens of followers of Jesus from different denominations gather together as one body, the Church, to serve the least of these under the Golden Gate Bridge.[3]

Dave Benson

[1] See, for instance, www.unchristian.com, the Australian Communities Report, Dan Kimball’s book They Like Jesus but Not the Church.

[2] Whilst this story’s location (John 7:53-8:11) jumps around John’s Gospel in the earliest manuscripts—it was clearly a later interpolation, though perhaps by John or another early editor—there are still solid arguments for its authenticity, and it resonates with both Jesus’ teaching and example. See here.

[3] From Dan Merchant’s DVD, “Lord, Save Us From Your Followers,” lordsaveusthemovie.com. Also, to further explore the question “Is the Church relevant,” see www.kbc.org.au/media/message-logos-is-the-church-relevant/  for a response to the perceived control, exclusivity and hypocrisy of the contemporary church.


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Why I stopped going to Church

21 03 2012

Ah, what power there is in a word. A skilled communicator agonizes over choosing precisely the right word for the occasion—that exact nuance in a verb, a noun, or an adjective, to guide the reader’s eye and the listener’s ear to the intended message. Miscommunication is always a danger. And it’s a danger that grows with passing days, for over time language becomes loose. With use, words morph to take on reduced and alternate meanings. Awesome. Gay. Sick. Wicked. You get the picture.

So, here’s a key word from a Christian’s vocabulary: “Church.” Imagine I’m an outsider to the whole Christianity thing. Let’s see if I can define “Church” by the way most Christians speak. …

“Do you want to go to Church with me, this weekend?” “The wedding will be held at the big Church, corner of Smith and Straight Street.” “I know you’re not really into Church, but why not give it a go?” “Wasn’t worship at Church great this last Sunday?”

Okay, let’s put it together. Church is an event, a building, a hobby, and a religious club?

Now, before you accuse me of nit-picking—“It’s all semantics, Dave.  Ease up!”—realize the power of words. Christians believe it was with words that God spoke the universe into being; words are the means by which we acknowledge or deny Jesus; words convey the Gospel of life to those who haven’t heard; and words reveal the way we feel and think about our world. Maybe we need to dust off the word “Church” and get back to where it began. Until we do, our words may erect an unscalable barrier that blocks engagement with a Church-weary world.

Church: ἐκκλησία, ek-kle-siae, ecclesia. Nearly 500 years before Jesus, the ecclesia was the key assembly for ancient Athens’ democracy. Same with Rome. The ecclesia was the administrative body for the Kingdom. There were multiple Kingdom outposts, helping administer Rome’s Empire in the local regions. The ecclesia were there, like ambassadors for Rome, to make sure the everyday citizen experienced the flavour of the Kingdom. The ecclesia was not so much a place, or a program, but a people called out to represent the Kingdom in word and deed, spreading Greece’s or Rome’s influence wherever they went. The aim wasn’t to get outsiders into the ecclesia. The aim of the ecclesia was to get out and serve the citizens so they might freely align with the Kingdom.

Jesus borrowed this particular word, ekklesiai, from the political language of the day, to make sure his followers understood their call to be a new humanity, rather than forming another clique to replace the Pharisees, Sadduccees, Essenes, and Zealots. Rome was merely a cheap version of the true Kingdom, the Kingdom of God. And Christ called out and commissioned his disciples as a Kingdom outpost, to announce God’s reign and give this world a taste of how things run when God is in control (Mark 1:14-15; Luke 4:18-19). The Church isn’t a place you go. The Church is God’s pilgrim people, a body of believers selected and sent by God to administer the Kingdom and make Christ the King known by word and deed. Each region had its own ecclesia (the Church in Jerusalem, the Church in Corinth, etc.), but these various branch offices of the Kingdom were joined as one “catholic Church” as the Apostle’s Creed describes, united in Kingdom business. (Sounds ecumenical, no? Hmm.)

So, back to the present. We use “Church” with almost the exact opposite of Jesus’ intent. Instead of going to the world, we expect people to come to us. We think that getting our “lost” friends into a building to hear a religious service is the end-game for our witness. And we’ve offered the world the Church now and Heaven later, instead of the Kingdom of God which starts now and only grows in influence until the day Christ the King returns and sets everything right.

My local church knows how to celebrate when we get together on Sunday. But don’t be confused. The gathering of the ecclesia for corporate worship may attract some outsiders to align with Christ’s Kingdom. But the most powerful witness by far is when we serve up for our neighbours a taste of the Kingdom, whether by the way we love, the way we listen, or even the way we cook. 

Yes, words are powerful. The average ‘unchurched’ person has no interest in joining a religious club and tying up their sunny Sunday inside a building. But when the Church is truly the ecclesia of Christ, there is nothing more attractive and no more powerful witness. It’s our love for each other, and radical acts of loving service for those outside our community, that best points people to Jesus. And this will only happen when we stop heaping our salt in a pile, and hiding our light under a building. I mean a bushel.

So, what is the Spirit of God saying to His Church today? In short, “Get Out!” Follow Christ outside the Church building and into the midst of our post-Christendom culture. And let’s stop going to Church, and start being the Church Christ gave His life to establish—the kind of Church against which even the gates of Hell will never prevail.

Dave Benson


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The Frustrated Photographer

22 02 2012

I have a love–hate relationship with photography. Ever since I was a kid, my recollection of events and places is tied to particular images either mum or I captured. My earliest memory is as a two year old, on a family holiday to New Zealand: we’re dressed in bright yellow plastic ponchos and I’m clinging to dad’s leg as this little tour boat cruises into the spray of a majestic waterfall. Flicking through mum’s extensive photo collection as a teen, I discovered this precise photo, detail for detail. Which came first: the experience or the image? I still don’t know.

Colloquially, my condition is known as ‘snap happy’. Once I possessed my first camera around ten, the world was mine. Any experience could be reproduced with an image. And there was no better experience to capture than a hike. Atop gusty Mt. Kinabalu in Malaysia; besides the still reflections of the Rockies on Lake Moraine; traversing craggy peaks at Cradle Mountain in Tasmania—wherever it may be, my trusty camera is by my side, ready to re-present the glories of God’s creation in a negative. So when we returned to New Zealand this last holiday—a haven for happy snappers—it was no surprise (or joy) to my wife Nikki that my camera came too.

On my good days, I love photography. The image is a marker stone celebrating where we’ve been. It reminds me of this impalpable beauty, this sense of wonder standing like a toddler before a world too big to fathom. Take the photo below. The day after a dump of fresh snow, Nik and I are tramping up to 1800 metres at Mueller Hut. We’re opposite New Zealand’s most famous peak, Aoraki, the cloud piercer—better known as Mt. Cook. I didn’t want to forget this! Simply stunning. I wielded my camera like a priest swinging his thurible as smoke fills the temple: click, click, click—my spirit sang something too deep for words as pixel met pixel in a panorama of praise. It didn’t seem to matter how many shots I snapped, I could never do this justice.


But herein lies my ‘hate’ relationship with photography, for I am a frustrated photographer. How much the flat image leaves out! Looking at this image, you just don’t get it! You can’t see the peaks past the white-space of the photo’s border. You aren’t chewing on fresh snow as it revives your energy following the tiring climb. You can’t sense the sun beating on your shoulders, or hear the song of the Kia as it swoops from God-knows where to steal your lunch! And that’s not even to mention the groan of the glacier and the thunderous crack of the occasional avalanche, all in the company of my beautiful and athletic wife! You see an image; I recall an experience. Two dimensions cannot do Mueller Hut justice! How irreducible is the grandeur of a mountain!

And yet, I do try. I persist in taking image after image, reducing the wonder to a digital reproduction viewable on my 5cm2 preview screen. But why? My frustration rises, though it’s no longer about the view. It’s about me.

It’s so subtle. The shift from praise to power is subconscious. Unlike my wife, content to swim in the ineffable experience—a small part of the whole, taking beauty into herself—I desire to ‘capture’ the moment. What is bigger than me must be reduced, made manageable—it’s to be controlled and brought out to impress friends. “Wow, you take great photos; where was that?” Yes, forget the scenery and notice my grandeur. My camera has become a mirror, celebrating my skill and reflecting my ego. One photo is never enough: I squat in the snow seeking just the right angle, and for good measure take another photo of my wife’s back—the frustrated photographer’s wife—as she treks on to greater vistas.

I and It, or I and Thou … how do we engage the world? Perhaps you’re familiar with this classic distinction made by Martin Buber way back in 1923. On that magnificent hike, seeing everything as through a lens, I managed to reduce creation, the Creator, and even my wife to an It. It is merely an object detached from myself, waiting to be managed, captured and controlled for my own purposes—a flat image to induce excitement over past experiences or adulation from impressed onlookers. Like a scientist staring only through a microscope, I was killing the specimen to keep it still. When the world reduced to an It, wonder gave way to frustration.

The same temptation presents in all manner of fields: the frustrated teacher, frustrated theologian, frustrated husband, frustrated son, the frustrated human. In trying to ‘capture’ something—whether a panorama or a potentate—we inevitably reduce it to something less than it is in order to bring it under our control. But creation and the Creator defies reduction. At the heart of our existence is relationship with an unbounded other, Thou. Approach with wonder; engage with delight—my best attempts to understand the other and re-present the experience are but a humble invitation to live beyond myself: my power, and my control.

The frustrated photographer in me is still learning to let go. I can’t capture a mountain; how much less can I capture the eternal Thou in whom we all live, move and have our being. Without meaning to sound cliché, I am so thankful to God who has already offered us the perfect image in His Son.[1] I don’t yet perceive or relate as I ought, but by His humble self disclosure and ineffable light, I’m beginning to see everything else clearly.

Dave Benson

[1] John 14:9; Colossians 1:15-20; Hebrews 1:3.


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The Epic Story, Part II

3 02 2012

WhichStory.jpg In my previous post, I suggested that in order to make sense of our little and everyday stories, we need a view from above. Like a cosmic director, God has revealed the broad contours of an ongoing script, and invites us to make sense of our lives from His perspective.[1] Scenes one and two are past: God designed us for good, but we’ve each rebelled and sought a script we prefer, and in the process have been damaged by evil. Now we turn to scene three for a paradoxical twist as God sorts out the mess we’ve made. …

Scene #3: Restored for Better. The Director could have fired the cast for a do-over. But instead, He entered the story through His Son. When? The Roman Empire, Israel, when BC became AD. How? Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus uniquely claimed to be God in the flesh, the long awaited and predicted Saviour (Messiah/Christ) of the world. He gave us a model of how life was meant to be lived, under his Father’s rule in a KingRestoredforBetter.jpg dom of peace and love. He called us to switch scripts, and align with God’s form to be forgiven and free. As the perfect character, Jesus stood in for our failures. He took the blame, and absorbed evil in love, crucified to cover our sin. He took the worst the world could throw at him, but after it all, rose from the dead—a real historical event worth checking out. This demonstrated that death was defeated, and the story would go on. …

Scene #4: Sent Together to Heal. The heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart. When we admit our fSenttoHeal.jpg ailure to God, turning from our way to trust the Director’s solution in Jesus, then a new act begins. God starts the process of healing us from the inside out—revealing the part only I can play—so we can go together in the power of His Spirit to help heal a hurting world. We partner with God to restore relationships and a broken planet. No waiting until the story’s happy ending, we have a mission right now to give the world a preview of the play’s final scene. Until we exit the stage, our role is to follow Jesus by absorbing evil in love, and reconnecting everyone with a good God who designed us to be free.

Scene #5: God Sets Everything Right. For all our best efforts, we’re still broken. By ourselves, the world will never fully heal. The Director is patient, and wants everyone to freely choose the role for which we were made. But, the day is comiSetEverythingRight.jpg ng when Jesus will return, judge the world, and set everything right. We’ve all fallen short, so we need God’s mercy. As the curtain closes, every actor is brought back to give account for their actions. If you’ve accepted God’s forgiveness, your real story is just starting: a restored earth with no hate, pollution, poverty, or war. God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—will be the centre of it all, and we’ll be free in this love. But what should God do with those of us who reject Him? Everything good, true, and beautiful comes from God, so apart from Him, all that’s left is Hell. Hell is when we exclude ourselves from the Director’s plans for a do-over.

You, in short, are an actor in an epic story. But the Director has given you unprecedented freedom to choose your own adventure. All our stories, however, hinge on the lead role. So how will you respond to Jesus? If you see your story in this script, and God has grabbed your heart, then tell Him. Life can begin again right now …

“God, you designed me for good, but I’m made my own way. I’ve rejected you, hurt others, and damaged your world. I’m sorry. Thanks for entering the story in Jesus, to restore me for better. Forgive me for my sins, and fill me with your Spirit. I want to follow you now, bringing healing where there’s hurt. Help me love like you do, as a preview of how the whole world will be when you set everything right. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”


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The Epic Story, Part I

1 02 2012

At Wondering Fair, we love the little story. We understand a universal God through the gritty particulars of animal instincts and awaiting adoptions, of breastfeeding babies and ‘Black Friday’ blues. Through the prism of our everyday experiences, we sense thin places where the eternal breaks into the everyday. The Divine Score resonates through the humility of crotchets and quavers, and we pause long enough to hear the music. Perhaps we may even recognise the Creator playing in the least expected places.

EpicStory.jpg But not necessarily. Like a sonata, we may add note upon note of immanent experiences, and never understand the transcendent song. Our apprehensions from below may be beautiful, but we require revelation from above to take ethereal sounds from the unknown God and return them heavenward in a reverent cantata of praise. To switch metaphors and put it simply, our little stories only make sense in light of the Big Story. So as this new year is taking form, and that we may not miss the forest for the trees, I thought it timely to tell the old, old story once again. But let’s begin with you: what kind of story are you in?[1]

Ever feel like an actor without a script? From the day you entered the world with a cry, you sensed that you’re part of something bigger: an epic story of sorts. But what kind of story are you in? A comedy or a tragedy? A meandering Indie flick? Or a sweeping drama like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, with a battle to fight, and where love wins? How to tell? Stories abound: I’m a cosmic accident; I’m just an animal; I’m a reincarnated lost soul; I’m the experiment of a disinterested deity. Which, if any, is the true story?

What if there is a story that just fit? A story that embraces your own story, and everyday experience? A bigger story that makes sense of how we got here, of life’s meaning, the heart of our problem, and the solution to it all? What if there is a Director who isn’t silent, who has told us stuff we could never work out for ourselves, even about what happens when you shut your eyes for the last time?

We all live according to the story we think we’re in. So take a chancDescribetheWorld.jpg e and step into the following epic: a story with five scenes.[2] It’s a basic summary of another story, The Bible, which Christians believe is the Director’s take on how all our stories hang together. Let’s start in the present though.

Look around. Describe the world. What do you see? Good stuff? Like friends, footy, flowers, mountains, concerns, travel, Thai food, and so on. (Is there another planet where you’d rather be?!) But is that all? Flick on the news. What about the not so good stuff? Like addiction, depression, divorce, death, rape, corruption, war, global warming, poverty, pollution, and on it goes. Do you ever get the sense that something’s gone wrong? That this is not the way it’s supposed to be?

Why is that? We’re thirsty for a perfect world, but what can satisfy? Maybe it was good, or will be good, but right now it’s messed up. Let’s enter the Director’s Epic Story, right at the beginning, and it’ll start to make sense. …

DesignedforGood.jpg Scene #1: Designed for Good. The epic starts with God. Drop the images of a distant deity wilding lightning bolts. This story’s Director is passionate and relational, an artist who paints an Oasis and plants us there. And in the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth. Why? Well, He made us to love God, love each other, and cultivate the world as good gardeners should. (Imagine connection with your Creator, society in harmony without selfishness, and work which you enjoy that helps the world thrive.) This is the form in which we find freedom. But just as love is only real when it isn’t forced, the Director gives us all a choice. And clearly we’re not in Eden anymore.

DamagedbyEvil.jpg Scene #2: Damaged by Evil. “Who’s God to tell me what to do?” So we, the actors, rebelled against the Director and tried writing our own script in a form we preferred. We’ve eaten the forbidden fruit, and tried to play God. Meaning? We’ve ignored and despised God, abused each other, and vandalized the planet. That’s sin—missing the mark for which we were made. We’ve turned inward, and act like the universe revolves around us. And we’ve built our lives around good stuff that can never satisfy like God: relationships, sex, status, sport … our symptoms differ, but the syndrome’s the same. The result? The world’s damaged, our relationships are divided, and our identity (our heart) is a mess. We’re broken, and we break. Worse, we’re to blame. God is loving and just, so what’s a passionate Director to do?

For that, you’ll have to tune in on Friday The Epic Story Part II.

Dave Benson

[1] See http://issuu.com/nikanddaveabroad/docs/epic_story, http://thebigstory.org.au/ and http://issuu.com/nikanddaveabroad/docs/big_story for a graphical take on The Epic Story.

[2] Adapted, with permission, from James Choung, True Story: A Christianity Worth Believing In (IVP, 2008).


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Hide and Seek

4 01 2012

What is it with hide-and-seek? Spanning thirteen years, three nephews and six nieces, there must be something addictive about this game. Just this weekend my five and seven year old nieces came down to stay.  As my wife likes to say, Lizzie and Abbey are as cute as a bug’s eye!  So when they ask Uncle Dave if he wants to play, I can’t resist.  And the first game of choice, without fail, is hide-and-seek.

Regardless of culture, I’m sure you’ve played it.  The concept is simple.  One person (usually the most mature) is deemed ‘it’, and the others run and hide.  Then you find them.  Got the idea?!  But don’t be fooled, there are more mysterious elements at play.  For instance, I’m expected to count out loud.  They want to know I’m coming.  Granted, they always look for a dark, obscure place to hide—behind the door, or under the blankets.  But if I take too long, they’ll always supply hints: a knock on the wall, a little voice ironically crying out “We’re not in here!”  Abbey in particular has a mischievous sense of humour.  Her favourite version is when I describe my plans in advance, saying which room I’ll explore next: “I know, Abbey’s hiding … in … HERE!” At which point I’ll lunge into the laundry, all the while knowing she’s two doors down in the guestroom.  By the time I go to where I always knew she was, she’s bursting at the seams with a big smile, waiting to be grabbed almost unawares.  Much tickling and laughter ensues.  Even as I’m ‘it’, there’s reciprocity: it’s less about hiding than being found.  My nieces need to know they’re wanted, desirable, and worth seeking.  The anticipation only adds to the excitement.

When did you last play hide-and-seek?  At some point it stops.  Usually when it shifts from play to competition.  Like Monty Python’s skit in The Flying Circus.  We find two forty-year old men engaged in the Olympic Championship of hide-and-seek.  The time to beat was set by Don Roberts from Hinckley in Leicestershire: 11 years, 2 months, 26 days, 9 hours, 3 minutes, 27.4 seconds, found in a sweetshop in Kilmarnock.  In the second leg, Francisco Huron the Paraguayan is the seeker.  Standing together in Trafalgar Square, Francisco covers his eyes: “Uno, dos, tres, quattro.”  Meanwhile, Don grabs a cab, hops a flight, hires a bike, and hides behind a pillar in a castle deep in the heart of Sardinia!  Cut back to Francisco: “Neuvecian no nuevetay ocho, nuevecientas nuevente ye nueve, mil [998,999,1000] …. Ready or not, here I come!”  Six years later and Francisco is highly agitated and hunting in Madagascar, officially described as ‘cold’.  Cut to the last day of the final, 11 years on and sporting an impressive beard.  The commentator analyses the action: “The sands of time are running out for this delving dago, this saviour of seek, perspicacious Paraguayan. … It’s beginning to look like another gold for Britain.”

You get the picture.  Hide-and-seek only works if you want to be found.

There’s something deeply human, and deeply Biblical, in all this.  Jesus “the saviour of seek” loved to tell stories of lost-and-found.  And the technique differs depending on the hider.  Take Luke 15 with three parables of seeking.  The sheep is hiding by accident; it went astray.  So the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine in safety and risks his neck to recover the one.  His familiar voice echoed across the hills, “Ready or not, here I come.”  And as dumb as the sheep was, I’m sure it didn’t mind being slung over his shoulders and carried back to safety.  Same goes with the silver coin.  Nine coins in safe-keeping, but one is missing.  It’s hiding, in the dark.  So the owner lights a lamp, scours the whole house, and in the very last place you’d expect, there it is.  She picks up the coin, and calls a party!  Laughter ensues.

Yet the tone changes for the lost child.  (Or is it a recalcitrant young adult?)  This one doesn’t want to be found.  He tells dad to get lost, hiring a cab and hopping a plane to hide where he’ll never be uncovered: living wild in a distant country.  The dad counts out loud, standing on the balcony, ever watchful.  He’s already humbled himself by absorbing the son’s rejection in love.  And he seems aware of his boy’s movements—perhaps he sent messengers in advance to describe his plans of reconciliation.  He passionately pursues, calling his name.  But without reciprocity, the play is dead.

As Robert Farrar Capon notes, the strategy of right-handed direct power at this point won’t do.  It’s effective to pick up a sheep or a coin, but may only harden his boy’s heart.  Instead, the Father extends with the left-handed subtle power of love.[1]  He shines a light and calls his name, scouring the whole world all the while totally aware of where the rebel is hiding.  And when the time is right—stomach grumbling and loneliness overwhelming—his child knocks on the wall and ironically cries “I’m not in here.”  The Father runs to his son and embraces him, almost unawares.  Laughter is loud, and the party runs long.

More deceptively resourceful than Don Roberts from Hinckley, we are each prone to hide.  The Bible tells this story of a God who seeks.  And when we grow too old to play and don’t want to be found, he shifts technique to a “rhapsody of indirection”—left-handed power condescending in love.  At Christmas we remembered how light came into the world, even as we hid in darkness for fear of exposure.  But if we desire to “live by the truth” then we’ll reciprocate: we’ll come into the light (John 3:19-21).  Only, of course, if we want to be found.

So, when’s the last time you played hide-and-seek?

Dave Benson

[1] Kingdom, Grace, and Judgment (Eerdmans, 2002), 15-25.


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Last Words Approaching the Afterlife

14 12 2011

“What do you think happens when you die?”

“That’s a strange question!” your average university student might reply. “When you die, you die. The plug’s pulled out, and the lights go out, that’s it: the eternal void. If there was something more, we would have discovered it by now. There would be proof, right?”[1]

Discussion over. And with that she heads back to party. But of course! For if death really is the end, then as the apostle Paul said, “Let’s eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!”

Well, what of the afterlife? The future looks fuzzy at best—extinction, reincarnation, Valhalla, harp concerts in the sky … who knows? But in a world where death is more certain than taxes, do we have the courage to face up to ‘strange questions’ that define human life?

As I see it, most people respond in one of three ways to the afterlife: we ignore it, we deplore it, or we explore it. Which are you?

Maybe you ignore the afterlife. Your theme song is “Forever young”. Like Edward from the Twilight saga, you’re blessed with immortality. Or is it ‘amortality’? As sociologist Catherine Mayer dubs them, ‘Amortals’ “seek to arrive at the best time of their lives, and then linger there indefinitely, with the help of vitamins, plastic surgery, Botox, gym workouts, and of course Viagra.[2] (Think Australian cricketing legend Shane Warne, sporting Liz Hurley as his latest trophy. He’s tight like a tiger, but the clock is ticking.)

Even for Amortals, death is hard to ignore. Every second roughly two people around the world die—that’s 150,000 per day, 55 million per year. And contrary to popular opinion, they don’t disappear, pass away, fall asleep, or retire. They die. It’s not someone else’s problem. I will die. You will die. We could party hard and desperately grasp onto what life is left, but our last words may be tragic like whiskey merchant Jack Daniels. As he died from a blood infection, all he could say was “One last drink, please.”

Well, maybe you deplore the afterlife. Who knows what lies beyond? Heaven is a distraction, so make the most of now. Death is as natural as birth, so just accept it. As the Epicureans had engraved on their tombstones, N.F.F.N.S.N.C. (non fui, fui, non sum, non curo): “I wasn’t, I was, I am not, I don’t care.”[3]

Like Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple. Jobs battled with cancer even back at his Stanford University Commencement address of 2005. Equivalent to an epitaph, he remarked:

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Almost everything just falls away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”

When he died this October at the age of 56, everyone spoke of his success and legacy. His accomplishments were admirable.

But let’s get real. Apple will continue on with or without his vision. Jobs won’t be there to appreciate it, and within a couple of generations his name will be a footnote in a design textbook. I have to agree with Woody Allen, who quipped, “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don’t want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen. I would rather live on in my apartment.”

When death knocks on our door, all our ‘immortality projects’ are meaningless. As the writer of Ecclesiastes said, “All our strivings under the sun are but chasing the wind—utter vanity.”

Okay, I recognize this is depressing, especially during the festive season! But it is a virtue to number our days aright—to face life as it really is. So you can ignore the afterlife, or deplore the afterlife. But can I suggest a third option. Will you explore the afterlife?

What if? What if there is an afterlife? It falls short of mathematical proof, but there are rumours of transcendence that have defined entire cultures across history, from the ancient Egyptians embalming the dead to African Americans singing gospel tunes around an open casket. They could be right or wrong, but the question of the afterlife is anything but irrelevant.

Philosophers and luminaries across history have spoken about hope in the face of death. But only one pointed to himself as the source of this hope. Jesus of Nazareth claimed “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even though they die” (John 11:25). His last words came with confidence from a crucifix: “It is finished.”

What is finished? Apparently death as we know it. This wasn’t resigned acceptance. Jesus saw his death as mission accomplished.

Well, do we believe this? Should we believe this? It’s hard to know what ‘proof’ would satisfy a sceptic.[4] As I mused with one such university student, we’d only discover what lay beyond our last words if someone were to truly die and come back to tell the tale.

“True” she laughed, “if only, hey!”

If only.

Dave Benson

[1] Dialogue adapted from director Clint Eastwood’s movie, “Hereafter” (2010).

[2] Simon Smart, “Living like tomorrow never ends”, 15 October 2011, Sydney Morning Herald.

[3] N.T. Wright, “Jesus’ Resurrection and Christian Origins,” http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Jesus_Resurrection.htm.

[4] To further explore this topic of “Afterlife: Christian hope in the face of death”, see here or watch the full length talk here.


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