Transcendence and physicalism

This is a post about science and religion. As someone who believes in Jesus Christ and a scientist, I am concerned about the physicalist tendencies of the modern scientific world. Physicalism, the belief that the physical world we can measure and understand through science is the only reality, is the dominant worldview of academics, especially in the hard sciences. Physicalism explicitly denies any spiritual reality that transcends the material world. 

Religious experience is extremely common. By one measure, about half the US population claims to have had a religious or mystical experience. Academically minded people generally ignore or dismiss this extremely common phenomenon, presumably because it doesn’t fit their scientific worldview. But how scientific is it, really, to dismiss a whole aspect of human experience, a whole field of data points, just because you don’t like the data? A more reasonable approach would treat religious experiences as data from which we can learn - yes, with skepticism where warranted, but taking religious phenomena as seriously as should be demanded by the extent of supporting evidence. An empirical approach is consistent with both science and scripture. See, for example, John 7:17, Alma 32:27-28, and Matthew 7:15-20.

I. William James

Empiricist William James¹ creative approach to the question of science and religion was to kickstart a science of religion to better understand the nature of these phenomena. In his The Varieties of Religious Experience, James catalogues many different accounts of religious experiences, defining religion as broadly as he could. He looked for instances where individuals underwent a clear change in the physical world due to, for example, a religious conversion, or where religious mysticism invoked ecstatic or altered states of consciousness. He even includes a "mind-cure" experience of his own, and his experimentation with nitrous oxide. Though James didn’t come to accept any specific religion or dogma, and didn’t consider the science “settled” by any means, his personal observations and empirical studies caused him to reject a purely physicalist worldview. James sorts through the experiential and empirical data and arrives at 5 hypotheses - beliefs that characterize “the religious life”:

1. That the visible world is part of a more spiritual universe from which it draws its chief significance;  
2. That union or harmonious relation with that higher universe is our true end; 
3. That prayer or inner communion with the spirit thereof— be that spirit "God" or "law"—is a process wherein work is really done, and spiritual energy flows in and produces effects, psychological or material, within the phenomenal world. Religion includes also the following psychological characteristics:— 
4. A new zest which adds itself like a gift to life, and takes the form either of lyrical enchantment or of appeal to earnestness and heroism. 
5. An assurance of safety and a temper of peace, and, in relation to others, a preponderance of loving affections.

William James’ empiricism doesn’t get much traction among Christians, probably because these statements are weak and vague relative to the specificity and vibrancy of the core of revealed Christian beliefs. However, I prefer to celebrate this small sprouting of faith amid the rocky ground of academia (poor soil even in 1902!), especially given his defense of faith in the face of opposition.² What I most enjoy is William James process, which accepts religious experiences as relevant data from which he can apply the scientific method and formulate and test hypotheses like those above. James hoped others would carry forward the work to create a new discipline. Speaking of the lectures that make up The varieties of Religious Experience, James writes:

We have the beginnings of a "Science of Religions," so-called; and if these lectures could ever be accounted a crumb-like contribution to such a science, I should be made very happy.

But of course we know how the story ends. In the postscript to The Varieties, published in 1902, he is already pessimistic about the treatment of religion by academia:

The current of thought in academic circles runs against me, and I feel like a man who must set his back against an open door quickly if he does not wish to see it closed and locked. In spite of its being so shocking to the reigning intellectual tastes, I believe that a candid consideration of piecemeal supernaturalism and a complete discussion of all its metaphysical bearings will show it to be the hypothesis by which the largest number of legitimate requirements are met.

By “piecemeal supernaturalism” James refers to a worldview in which there is a Higher Power who interacts with humanity individually - a worldview that admits the miraculous. James argues that this is the worldview that best fits the empirical data of lived experiences. 

Unfortunately, these days “science of religion” means evolutionary psychology narratives of how religion evolved from group selection in primitive societies, and physicalist attempts to explain away religious experience as subconscious quirks of meaningless neuronal activity. (See, for example, this Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry for “Scientific study of religion.”) What kind of science is it that rejects the overwhelming empirical data and instead relies on unfalsifiable narratives³ like evolutionary psychology that better match the scientist’s biases?

III. My personal "Varieties of Religious Experience"

This is a very small sampling from my life to add some color. As with The Varieties, I will share some of the stronger of my experiences that more clearly demonstrate the nature of the divine reality. I don't want to suggest that my life experiences are particularly interesting - I think transcendent experiences are very common, and that is really the point I'm trying to make. It's not unusual that I would have had such experiences. I was nervous about putting these out there publicly, in part because much of the inner significance is lost in reducing the experience to mere words, and partly because I am a very private person when it comes to personal things in public, but I think it is worth a try anyway.

Story 1. When I was 12 or 13 I was trying to overcome a sin in my life, and I had worked to move past it but still felt a burden of guilt. I remember kneeling to pray and asking with my whole heart for God to forgive me for my weakness. I received for an answer a tremendous feeling of forgiveness that went through my whole body in a way I hadn’t experienced before and brought me to tears. I felt forgiven and clean and whole again. 

Story 2. When I was 14 or 15 (circa 1998) I was feeling kind of down. I was a very introverted kid, uncomfortable in social situations, and I didn’t know how any girl would ever like me. I worried that I wouldn’t ever get a girlfriend, much less ever get married or be able to have a family. I know this is trivial stuff compared to people being bombed in the Ukraine or whatever, but in the moment it’s very real. If I remember right, it was at night when I was saying a nighttime prayer, and I suddenly felt a message from outside of me that filled me with peace and warmth, and let me know that it would be ok. I think the words are mine, but part of the experiences was a very specific and clear message that there would be a girl that would like me as much I would like her, and that I wouldn’t have to try to be anyone but myself, and that even though I am introverted and awkward we would hit it off and all would be well and beautiful in spite of my weaknesses. That was exactly what I needed and after that I never did worry about that specific issue ever again. In part, that’s because not too long after that, when I was 16, I started dating a beautiful girl from church who to my surprise liked me as much as I liked her, and I didn’t have to try to be anything but myself and we hit it off and everything was beautiful in spite of my weaknesses. The future really was just like I was told it would be, and we are still very happily married. I know that not every teenager gets this kind of story, and it wouldn’t be right for everyone, and I don’t know why I am so lucky.

Story 3. This was a couple years after the first experience. Meliah and I were in high school and dating. One day I was just lying in bed listening to some pop music on my knock-off discman, when out of the blue I was hit by an overwhelming impression that Meliah was facing some danger and that I needed to pray for her. The feeling was overwhelming and the message again was unmistakable though I think the words I am using are my own. After I said a prayer to Heavenly Father for her safety I felt peace again, and I went to sleep no longer worrying about it. The next day after our early-morning seminary class (at my home because my mother was teaching it at the time), as Meliah was about to walk out the door, I felt prompted to stop her and suggest she wear a seatbelt. She didn’t regularly wear a seatbelt at the time, but that is the only time I ever mentioned it to her. A few minutes later the car she was driving was T-boned at the intersection next to her high school by a student who was in a hurry because he was late for detention. The car jumped sideways upon impact and took severe damage. Meliah saw a chiropractor after but came away relatively unscathed, when the situation might well have been worse. There are lots of questions here that I won’t get into [Why did I need to be warned of danger the night before? Why me and not her? Why not more specificity as to the type of danger? Why did I need to pray for her safety (didn’t God already know the situation)? Why was I promoted to tell her to wear a seatbelt (versus “Hey maybe don’t drive today!”], beyond giving my conclusion that the whole episode was meant as a message to me from a Higher Power who cares about me, and about her, and about us.

Story 4&5. The next experience I want to highlight happened in early 2017. I had been serving as a counselor in the bishopric in our ward for a few years. One day as I was driving to work I felt an overwhelming feeling come over me that immediately brought me to tears. It lasted probably a minute or two - a small part of my 15 minute commute, but left me very thoughtful. This experience also brought a message, that I would be needed soon to serve as the bishop of our ward, which would be a huge increase in responsibility on my shoulders and demand for my time. I had the impression that despite my personal weaknesses the Lord needed me to be prepared to step up and serve. This time the experience left me a little bit shaken so that I found it hard to focus at work, where I had a research trial on a pilot tissue machine. I spoke to the machine operator about my experience and my concerns, and he said “why don’t you just say no?” I told him that wouldn’t be the right thing to do if God really is telling me that I should say yes. A couple weeks later, this time on the road driving home I had a similar experience of a very strong spiritual and emotional feeling that left me in tears and again gave me the message that I was going to be needed as the next bishop in our ward. I spoke to my wife about the experiences and the message. We definitely appreciated the week or two that we were given to process the idea and think and pray about it before we were asked by the stake president if we could accept the call for me to serve as bishop in our ward.

Story 6. In the first couple months after being called as bishop I felt very much a bumbler, absent-minded and unprepared for leadership. I had a tendency to berate myself after the fact and make myself feel bad whenever I had an embarrassing moment or forgot procedures, or said something stupid in public, which is all too common for me. One Sunday as I was driving home from church meetings and thinking about this, I suddenly had an overwhelming feeling come over me that brought me to tears, with the message that I am forgiven in advance for all the bumbling and embarrassing things that I would ever do while in His service, and that because He has forgiven me and made it ok, I didn’t need to kick myself over and over any more. The feeling lasted only 30 seconds or so, but from that moment on I was able to loosen up and know that it is ok for me to be me and to just go do my best and that He would take care of the rest. I have learned and grown a lot in the last 5 years, but I am still the same old absent minded bumbler, but I now have the confidence to just laugh it off and go about the work with my head held high because I know God has my back. 

Story 7. Here I am taking a liberty because the story isn’t really mine. A few years ago I got a call from a woman in Utah, whose stepfather was in a bad auto accident the day before and was in the hospital near me. She said her stepfather would like a priesthood blessing. I invited the missionaries to come with me. He was a simple man, a manual laborer in a small Wisconsin town, not well educated and not particularly religious. As we spoke with this man and his wife in the hospital, they shared with us that he had just barely made it the night before. He had seizures and his heart rate had flatlined. During that period he had a near death experience. His experience was unremarkable in that it was very much like many other documented near death experiences - while he was mostly dead he saw a light, and was then welcomed by deceased family members who eventually told him it wasn’t his time yet, so he went back and woke up again with more life to live. To understand how he was interpreting this, I asked him if he believed in God. His response was, “I do now!” We gave him a blessing, and when I came back to check on him the next day he had already been checked out of the hospital and was home.

These stories and others are part of my own personal "Varieties of Religious Experience," and I hope everyone will have their own. These brief narratives may seem trivial or banal on paper. I can only tell you that they were powerful for me. I can only share the words that symbolize the experience, and the ideas that I take away from it, but I can't share the experience itself. For that reason, I don't think William James' dream of a science of religion could ever really succeed. On the other hand, a physicalist science that disregards abundant evidence of the transcendent could never really succeed in understanding the nature of the universe. Our best chance for understanding happens when our science has humility enough to be open to religion, and when our religion has humility enough to be open to science.

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1 I first came across William James when we were considering names for my son who just turned seven years old. We liked William for a first name, and had settled on James for a middle name. I googled “William James” to make sure there weren't disreputable connections to the name and found the Wikipedia article for William James. He seemed ok enough so we went ahead with the name. Later on, after I started reading more on these topics I came to really like William James, and I am happy to have a son named after him, even if just by accident.^↩ 

2 Including his excellent lecture The Will to Believe  ^↩ 

3 Evolutionary psychology is becoming the all-explaining pseudoscience. I have no explanation for how it is being taken so seriously by scientists other than the fact that it provides a non-religious explanation for the world and society that better conforms to the physicalist worldview.  ^↩