The View From Here

By Volodymyr Kish

When I was younger and still grappling with the fundamental questions of the meaning of life and the origins of the Universe, the Christmas Season inevitably created a certain sense of angst as I struggled to reconcile the religious beliefs and traditions of my youth with the doubts inspired by my post-university intellectual scepticism.

Twentieth century scientific and political developments wrecked havoc on most religious beliefs and resulted in a huge decline in the number of people willing to accept the conventional theological nostrums that had held sway in the Western world for the better part of two millennia. Science and religion seemed to be philosophical antipodes clashing for the soul of man.  For many decades I was caught in the middle of that crossfire between scientific and religious thought – not able to literally accept the prevailing traditional Judeo-Christian dogmas, and yet at the same time, unwilling to discard the spiritual value system that came with them.

Interestingly, it was not until I spent some time living and working in Ukraine that I was able to come to terms with my spiritual struggles, and the catalyst to achieving this, as some of you will undoubtedly guess, was my cousin Hryts from Pidkamin, whose unconventional wisdom has been a veritable beacon of light illuminating the darker recesses of my personal universe.

I remember sitting under the pear tree in his backyard one fine summer evening and discussing the dialectic between faith and the scientific method, suitably catalyzed by some of his excellent homemade hooch.

“Hrytsiu,” I intoned, “I know that you are a spiritual person.  Are you not troubled by modern science challenging the cornerstones of your faith?”

He looked at me momentarily perplexed, and then retorted – “My young turnip, I have no idea what you are babbling about.  I find no contradictions between modern science and my essential Orthodox beliefs.”

“But surely,” I replied somewhat taken aback, “What about the current debate between the Creationists and the Big Bang Theory?”

“The two theories are identical!” he pronounced with emphasis. “Look…what does Genesis say about the creation of the Universe?”

“Well,” I stammered, “essentially, in the beginning there was nothing, a darkness, a void, and then God created light and the known Universe.”

“And what does the Big Bang Theory say?” he continued.

“Uh…it basically says that originally there was nothing, no matter, no space, no time, and then there was a singularity, the so called Big Bang, and from nothing there sprang out all the matter that formed our known Universe.”

It suddenly dawned on me what Hryts was getting at.

“See,” he said smugly, “there is no essential difference; it’s just a matter of language or semantics.  If you don’t fall into the trap of taking the language of the Bible literally, you have no issues.”

“But, hold on!” I continued, “There is an important and significant difference between religious beliefs based strictly on faith versus scientific beliefs based on demonstrable facts!”

“I think you’ve been overindulging in too much of my homemade horseradish, and it has impaired your mental functions.  The fact is that scientific beliefs are as much based on faith as religious ones.”

“Now you have me completely confounded.” I exclaimed. “How can that be?”

“Look,” he started to explain patiently. “My neighbour Yurko’s boy Slavko has been studying physics at the polytechnic in Kyiv, and he explained to me this summer the latest developments in particle and quantum physics when he was home for the holidays. I presume you are familiar the basic concepts?”

“Yeah… more or less.” I replied tentatively.

“Well then you must know that when you get to the sub-atomic level, it becomes virtually impossible to be certain of anything.  Everything reduces down to a statistical probability, right?”

“I suppose so.” I stammered, trying to recall the details of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and the essentials of quantum mechanics.

“Further, when you get to the most irreducible components of matter at the level of quarks and leptons, you are getting into things that can only be understood as conceptual constructs – you will never be able to see or measure them.  For instance, according to Slavko, the latest theory states that all these fundamental particles are but, as he put it, ‘different vibrational states of underlying super-symmetrical strings that exist in ten-dimensional space time’.  Considering that our limited human faculties only allow us to see and experience things in four dimensions, we have to take the rest on faith, no?”

“Uuhhh…,” I stammered, speechless as usual at the end of any discussion with Hryts.

Nonetheless, it was the start of a new journey of discovery, one that was to lead me to a much deeper understanding of both faith and science.