Worldview Summary

-Science has the potential, in principle, to describe the physical world completely; quantum field theory already gives a complete description of the world of our everyday experience. The explanatory power of science is enormous.
-Modern science gives too complete a description of the physical world for the hypothesis of God to be scientifically well-motivated. Efforts to prove God from science have serious problems, eg.:
   -biology: intelligent design, evolutionary arguments for theism (Plantinga, C. S. Lewis)
   -physics/cosmology: first cause (eg. W. L. Craig), fine-tuning arguments
-But as humans we are moved by the beauty of mathematics, physics, music, nature, people, etc. We can perceive truth emotionally as well as rationally. Beauty points the way. We must ask the eternal questions: why do we exist, love, suffer, die?
-The beauty, morality, meaning, etc. that we perceive are better understood as being derived from “God,” than merely as biological phenomena, although they are that as well. By “God” I mean an ultimate Being as the source and foundation of reality (a flexible but meaningful definition).
-Mystery, wonder, awe: In mathematics and physics we perceive a deep and old beauty, coming from the roots of reality. In the stars, the trees, the sea, in stories, in music, we perceive a high beauty, from above.
-The world we know is full of light and darkness, beauty and suffering. It is broken, a beauty marred, but there is a deep purpose at work. Suffering must be healed, good must overcome evil in the end. Death is not the final word, for humanity or for the universe. Hope points us towards something greater. We hear the great Music, we feel the truth that our story ends in joy. No evil can quench this spirit.
-When we look for the realization of this intuitive hope in known events in our world, we find it in the Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus. In the story told by Christianity we find the same admission of a fallen world and fallen humanity, and the same hope for healing and redemption, that we know intuitively.
-The claim of Jesus’ resurrection is also historically credible (N. T. Wright), but that is secondary in importance to the beauty of the story.
-The Story, though sorrowful, is supremely beautiful; when we perceive this, we know that it is true and real. It bears witness to itself, having “the very taste of primary truth” (Tolkien).
-Creation is young. This world is a womb, a seed; we await its true birth and flowering in the new creation, and already in Christ’s resurrection we see the firstfruits. But we know only the first page of the Story of Reality. The seed planted through Christ’s death will bear fruit in new ways forever (C. S. Lewis, Perelandra).