Science/Angels and Religion/Demons and Vice Versa, Part 2

The first problem in interpreting the relationship between science and religion as a war is that it simply ignores the history. Most people are familiar with the most infamous instances of religious persecution of scientific thinkers: Copernicus did not publish his heliocentric theory until he was on his deathbed for fear of the backlash, Galileo was sentenced to house arrest for asserting that the earth moves, Scopes was banned from teaching evolution in Tennessee in 1925, and so on. What is often not told about these stories is that, for the most part, they are the exception rather than the rule. From the fall of the Roman Empire to the rise of humanist Renaissance Italy and the later Scientific Revolution, most scholars involved in anything resembling natural philosophy were also members of the clergy. This is to some degree logistical, as only clerics in the Middle Ages had anything remotely resembling an education to give them the ability to pursue these topics, but nevertheless, the sole harborers of learning in the West during this thousand year time period were religious. Some anti-religious thinkers, such as Richard Dawkins , have suggested that this is simply because they had no other choice in their day, but I think the argument works better in reverse: that because they were religious, and clerical, their choice was to pursue knowledge. The greatest polymaths of the Middle Ages were not just theologians, but also natural philosophers, the closest cognate to "scientist" that existed before the Scientific Revolution (indeed, many scientists were still called natural philosophers as late as the 19th century). A great many supposedly "modern" innovations were rooted in the era when religion allegedly suppressed free thought with an iron fist: the experimental method employing empiricism and rationalism, differential calculus, tools precursory to those still used in modern surgery, the creation of the modern university and peer editing systems, and numerous practical implementations of contemporary technology like the compass, gunpowder, astrolabe, and sextant. This is not to say that the Medieval and pre -Scientific Revolution era was just like ours; it was obviously very different. The Christian religion--in its institutional, cultural, political, and folk varieties--permeated every aspect of medieval life. But it is just as equally erroneous to imagine that religious authorities actively sought to impede scientific progress anymore than they are attempting, or should attempt, to do now. The relationship has been muddied and is more complicated now, but there is no massive religious conspiracy (at least not one with any real power) currently vying to destroy the institution of science.

Once one digs a bit deeper into the hallowed lore of the history of science, particularly the episodes of individual persecution, one finds figures who have been more often than not castigated for theological and political transgressions rather than scientific ones or ones related to freedom of thought. Numerous astrologers in the Middle Ages were punished not because their practices were deemed anti-Christian or as some form of black magic; usually, they were punished because they foretold a future that was unpleasing to the ears and sensibilities of the nobles, kings or popes upon whom they commented. Astrologers often found themselves in the precarious position of interpreting a certain stellar portent to mean that the king would die near the end of the year. Despite being certain of their observations and mathematics, they were often reticent about releasing such information, since, even if it were true (from the medieval point of view), the ruler would not wish this information be made public as it could foment a rebellion or announce to his enemies that the time to attack his kingdom was now. Similarly, alchemists were often persecuted, not because of some religious admonition, but because if the alchemist succeeded in transmuting lead into gold it would ruin his sovereign's gold standard and create rampant inflation or debasement of the currency. These were practical political and economic issues, rather than the fear that Christian leaders would lose their grip on moral authority.

This was not confined to the proto-sciences either. An early and famous instance of the so-called religious persecution of science, came in the 13th century with the imprisoning of Roger Bacon, an English Franciscan friar and natural philosopher famous for, among other things, his works on optics and the refraction of light, detailed astronomical observation, and the anticipation of uses for gunpowder, microscopes, telescopes, and other inventions centuries away. He is also considered as one of the first Europeans to assert the primacy of something resembling the experimental method of science, derived from the likes of Plato and Aristotle, and filtered through Avicenna and other Arab commentators. The history of the man, intertwined with his advocacy of this modern-seeming notion, often contributes to the misunderstanding that he was imprisoned for experimentation in an age when true knowledge was thought to come from contemplation and revelation. This is, essentially, incorrect. The details of his crime and imprisonment are extraordinarily hazy, even by medieval standards. It seems that he was imprisoned at least for a short time, but some sources claim that it may have been up to ten years (based on the fact that he was away from University for that amount of time). But many modern scholars do not even believe he was imprisoned at all: Lindbergh says of Bacon that "his imprisonment, if it occurred at all (which I doubt) probably resulted with his sympathies for the radical 'poverty' wing of the Franciscan (a wholly theological matter) rather than from any scientific novelties which he may have proposed." The point is that, whether he was imprisoned or not, this simply cannot be construed as evidence of religion combating science. Giordano Bruno offers us another striking example. Often considered by less discerning scholars as the "first martyr for free thought," Bruno was burned at the stake, not by religious officials, but by the secular Roman inquisition in 1600. Though he is often known for his early championing of the heliocentric theory as well as for the infinity of the cosmos (which he, it should be noted, arrived at through philosophical rather than scientific reasoning), perhaps his best contribution to science was his work on spatial geometry. But why was he burned at the stake? For the heliocentrism? The geometry? Biographer Luigi Firpo lists his legal infringements as such: holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith regarding the Trinity, Christ's divinity, the Incarnation, Transubstantiation, and Mass; believing in the plurality of worlds and the infinity and eternity of the universe; and believing in metempsychosis [reincarnation] and the transmigration of souls into other animals. Nowhere was the Copernican theory mentioned, and in fact, the Catholic Church had not even formed a coherent doctrinal opinion on the matter at the time of Bruno's trial. The plurality of worlds is the closest thing approximating a persecution of scientific ideas, but again, this was more a philosophical assertion than a scientific one, for both Bruno and his persecutors, in that a finite world with a definitive beginning (the Creation) and end (the Apocalypse) was doctrinal, and the eternity of the world (meaning universe) was considered erroneous. (This, by the way, had precedent, and was banned by the Bishop Ettiene Tempiers in the famous Aristotelian Prohibition of 1277, which forbade several teachings of Aristotle, including the eternity of the universe - for almost purely theological reasons.)


Most famous of course, was the trial of Galileo, the archetype, if ever there was one, for the story of the crushing hand of religion landing on an undeserving scientific mind. Most modern interpretations of the trial have cast a far more political light on the subject, and while even the most ardent supporter of the religious position cannot deny the humiliation foisted upon Galileo by the bearers of such trenchant dogma (Galileo really did have to recant on his knees and spent the remainder of his life under house arrest, unlike Bruno, for his Copernican weltanschauung), the political calculus inherent in the move is too indispensable in understanding the trial to leave out of the story. The fall of Galileo, according to historian Mario Biagioli , resembled "the fall of the favorite" in that his guilt was seen as a double indemnity of sorts, as Galileo had been among the greatest of his patron's thinkers. In seventeenth century politics, and especially in places without strong monarchs, like the principalities and city-states of Germany and Italy, artists, writers, and scientists, performed all of their work at the behest of a political patron whose financial support ensured the continued success of the lesser person. Galileo's general patron in his early years had been Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, later to become Pope Urban VII. It is possible that with a friend in high places, Galileo believed that he may have been able to escape retribution for publishing teachings contrary to the Catholic faith, which by the 1630s had developed an official opinion on Copernicus: it was OK to discuss his theory as a mathematical abstraction, but the notion that the earth physically revolved around the sun was a heresy. And it did not help matters that Galileo, in his groundbreaking opus majus Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, put the Aristotelian/Ptolemaic system, of which Pope Urban VII availed himself, in the mouth of a character named Simplicio. While modeled after a sixth century commentator on Aristotle, the unfortunate connotations of the name did not endear Galileo to his former patron. As Biagiolo put it, it was "patronage dynamics" more than anything that did in Galileo.


The second, and I think more important, problem in interpreting the religio-scientific relationship is the simple fact that there are no monolithic entities for which the blanket terms "science" and "religion" may be applied. Obviously, there are many different religions, each of which has not only widely varying degrees of acceptance and antipathy towards the scientific enterprise, but also widely varying internal differences (just think of Christianity, ranging from papal approval of evolution to political movements designed to remove its teaching from public schools). Science, too, is dynamic. Indeed, it thrives on discord and requires constant disagreement, argumentation, and competition among scientists to arrive at truth. Facts, of course, are purely objective, but entirely different hypotheses and theories may be arrived at by different thinkers. And there are certainly more sub-fields within natural science than there are religions in the world, united primarily (perhaps solely) by methodology. Because of the emergence of impartial, objective scientific knowledge, many of the world's religious believers have had little problem with interpreting their faith's teachings symbolically, and the great scholars of comparative religion Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Mircea Eliade, and others have offered up extensive research to show this as among the deepest and most spiritually satisfying ways to worship, as opposed to crude literalism. In short, reducing science and religion to caricatures simplifies their complex relationship.

So, where does this leave us, as 21st century human being living in a world where both institutional religions and academic, practical, and technological science remain the most potent forces in our lives? I think that the one aspect of modern fundamentalist Creationism that truly baffles me is the falsification necessity of science. The historian and philosopher of science Karl Popper said science is only science when its hypotheses, experiments, and theories are falsifiable, that is, can be proved wrong rather than right. What fundamentalist Christian is willing to say with a straight-face that, should new evidence emerge disproving the existence of God, they would accept that science has disproved religion? No one. But this is precisely what a scientific hypothesis puts on the line when it is proposed: peer reviewing scientists devise experiments to test a hypotheses (prove it wrong) and if no one can, the hypothesis is formulated into a theory and tends to be accepted. I recall getting into an argument once with a friend less amenable to the truths of science about the validity of carbon dating, and one of his key arguments was "how can we accept something as fact when scientists simply take for granted that it's true?" which implies that scientists have never really tested whether carbon dating is fact. But of course, by using it in the field and getting consistent result, it's validity is not really in question. If it did not get consistent results, it would be tossed out in favor of a more accurate method. Biologist J.B.S. Haldane, accused of treating evolution as if it were a dogmatic truth, was asked what it would take for him to give up the theory, to which he famously replied, "Rabbit fossils in the Precambrian." This, in a nutshell, is how science works. The religious community does a great discredit to their own beliefs when they set them up for falsification. It is as if those who presume to speak on behalf of all religion are literally "testing their faith", and, if I were religious, I would think it cheapens my belief to subject it to the rigors of scientific testing. Isn't the point of faith that one doesn't know? And if one is not willing to admit the possibility that something is wrong, one cannot subject it to science.

One possible way to march forward has been proposed by evolutionary paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould in his book Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life, which posits a middle ground that he calls NOMA, or "non-overlapping magisteria." Essentially, Gould, an agnostic, describes the relationship he envisions for religion and science as one of mutual respect and admiration in which the ultimate arena of each should remain separate. Religion is the realm and moral and ethical truths, which no amount of scientific knowledge can comment upon, and science is the realm of factual and testable knowledge about the physical universe, against which literalistic interpretations of the Bible should not infringe. To be sure, I am not entirely sold on his position (and neither are many of his most vociferous critics from the scientific and religious spheres) since areas that centuries ago would have found themselves undoubtedly within the dominion of religion, are now considered objectively testable by science. But can we truly believe the most anti-religious thinkers such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennet when they say that, in a sense, God is testable and the verdict declaims that "God almost certainly does not exist"? I think that Dawkins, in his book The God Delusion, was most likely taking the the Creationist position to task and actually subjecting it to the scientific method as the Creationists so wish it be (with predictable results). But, as a true agnostic, I can't abide by a scientific test on something which, I feel by its very definition, is untestable, anymore than I can stand when fundamentalist Christians attempt to peddle their ideology as science. And, considering that I have in the past and in some ways am still somewhat acquiescent to some of the more outlandish claims of peripheral science, I feel that there can still be some limited communication between these two realms--especially when one considers the history and the more congenial relationship occasioned at times in the past. Both science and religion have their angels and demons. Let us hope in the future, that it is the angels of both that prevail.

Science/Angels and Religion/Demons and Vice Versa, Part 1

There are few topics that command my academic interest the way that the relationship between science and religion does. I grew up in a fairly conservative, God-fearing part of the country to non-practicing but generally faithful Christian parents. They specifically raised me in a quasi-secular and intellectually open fashion, in that I was given all the opportunities to learn about science unfiltered by the political and religious ideologies of the curriculum setters. I spent much of my childhood reading about dinosaurs and other fossils of the geological strata, about the formation of the the stars, galaxies and planets, and of the great biodiversity of our planet. And, while we didn't go to church regularly, they did send me to vacation Bible school every year, I suspect so they felt less guilty about not making weekly Sunday outings mandatory, but also to "give us the information," so to speak, that we might make our moral, social, and intellectual decisions based on a secular humanist as well as religious education. My dad has told me numerous times that he wanted us to "decide for ourselves." In general, I've developed into quite the agnostic, and although I disliked Bible school when I went, in retrospect, I'm rather glad that I was given this education for its literary, historical, and cultural merits. I think I would be overstepping my position to say that I could somehow speak for the middle ground in the current culture war that seems to be raging around the non-issue of science vs. religion, but my studies into the philosophies and history of both fields have given me at least some understanding of the complex interplay of the two most powerful institutions of the 21st century.

Most recently, I've been thinking about this issue because of the release of Ron Howard's Angels and Demons last month. I read the book about a week before seeing the movie and liked it alright, though it is heavy-handed and makes science and religion seem like two monolithic entities clubbing each other in their isolated, hermetically sealed, cookie-cutter worlds. The movie improves on some of this, and unlike The Da Vinci Code, does a slightly more even-handed and nuanced job of portraying the relationship between religion and science. It is about as good of a job as one could do turning Angels and Demons into a movie, but unfortunately, that doesn't really help matters. The problem I have with the book and the movie, is that it simply exploits the perceived conflict and paints both religion and science without the depth, complexity, and intricacies that define their intertwined histories. Of course, a third-rate thriller novel and a summer popcorn piece are hardly the places for subtlety and exploration of dynamism, but I am dismayed to see the rich tapestry of these two establishments reduced to a good guy/bad guy relationship.

Contrary to popular opinion, science and religion have not always been at odds in the way they seem to be today. For most of Western history, in fact, they have acted in concert with one another, with theological concepts motivating physical discovery and natural philosophy informing theology. Pioneering this historical theory of the interplay between these two seemingly disparate institutions are historians such as David C. Lindbergh and Ronald Numbers, as well as several scholars within the scientific and religious communities, such as Ian Barbour, Stephen J. Gould and John Polkinghorne, who, though their views differ wildly, nevertheless advocate a greater understanding between the two. Lindbergh and Numbers in particular are critical of what is known as the Conflict Thesis, or the Draper-White Thesis, which enjoyed almost universal currency in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Conflict Thesis, as its name implies, envisioned a relationship always at odds, in which religious institutions conservatively and authoritatively forbade any scientific teaching contrary to Biblical dogma, and science played the role of downtrodden bearer of light amidst the darkness. However, as is often the case, more can be gleaned about the society that proposed the theory than the society on which it comments. Most modern interpretations of the Conflict thesis contend that the discord envisioned was a contemporary outcropping of two currents of thought specific and novel to this era: the emergence of a coherent theory of evolution and the beginnings of fundamentalist Christian belief. And it was the latter, which, though commonly believed to hearken back to earlier, more "pure" Christian motives, was really a reactionary response to what was perceived to be an out-of-control progress towards a more secularly oriented society. As the great religious historian Karen Armstrong has noted, fundamentalism (not only Christian, but Islamic, Hindu, and Jewish) is a peculiarly modern institution, designed primarily to act as a traditionalist check against the march of progress, embodied particularly by the scientific enterprise and the liberal open societies of Western democracy. In the political sphere, social scientist from all political stripes have pointed to the commonalities between the ultimate goals of Muslim extremists in the Middle East and their fundamentalist Christian counterparts in the United States - the only difference being that the relative weakness and corruption of political institutions in the Islamic world compared to the West has given these radical extremists a modicum of real power in places such as Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. The centuries of Western history including such formational movements as the Reformation, Enlightenment, and Scientific Revolution, as well as the setbacks such as the Thirty Years War and World Wars, have given Western society an infrastructure in which Church and State are by and large separated. In other words, our own society guards against just such extremists coming to power. The Christian version of this vein of fundamentalist thinking is relegated to bloggers, radio personalities, and televangelists, who are no less extreme, at least in their rhetoric, than their Muslim counterparts:

When the Christian majority takes over this country, there will be no Satanic churches, no more free distribution of pornography, no more talk of rights for homosexuals. After the Christian majority takes control, pluralism will be seen as immoral and evil and the state will not permit anybody the right of practicing evil.
-Gary Potter, President of Catholics for Political Action

Hostility toward America is a religious duty, and we hope to be rewarded for it by God . . . . I am confident that Muslims will be able to end the legend of the so-called superpower that is America.
-Osama bin Laden

When I, or people like me, are running the country, you'd [abortion providers] better flee, because we will find you, we will try you, and we will execute you. I mean every word of it."
-Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue

There is no reform except through jihad. . . We have to realize the nature of this conflict: Our enemies do not agree with or approve of our rights.
-Ayman al-Zawahiri

I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good. . . Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism. Our goal must be simple. We must have a Christian nation built on God's law, on the Ten Commandments. No apologies.
-Randall Terry

If a woman wants to work away from her home and with men, then that is not allowed by our religion and our culture. If we force them to do this they may want to commit suicide.
-Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, Taliban Minister of Justice

We should invade their [Muslims'] countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.
-Ann Coulter

Sorry, Ann, but the Crusading Age has been over for about 700 years. But what does this have to do with science and religion? A lot actually. The point of the above quotes is not to disparage Christian belief but to demonstrate the true radicalism that these outliers represent. Just as we consider Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and other Muslim extremists a plague on civilized society, so too should we consider those preaching hatred in the name of Christianity in this country. And the people who are most responsible for the religious attack on science are these very authors, organizers, "thinkers" (if I may stretch this word to its barest of connotations) and extremists. This fringe element should be treated exactly as it is: fringe. True, these people have more power and influence in the United States than in most other industrialized nations, but they have no power, for example, to impede scientific research in evolutionary biology or particle physics, both of which are unlocking secrets about the universe once solely reserved for the domain of religion. Their power lies in opening a Creation Museum and electing politicians with sympathetic, albeit less extreme views. Some statistics are troubling, such as a recent poll showing that a mere 39% of Americans accept the theory of evolution (compared to 80 or 90% in most other industrialized nations). But overall, science and religion are not mortally opposed to one another the way our media, political structure, and entertainment industry seem to believe.

In my next post on the topic, I will explore the historical relationship between science and religion and why they have not always been and need not currently be at odds, the fact that even the terms "science" and "religion" simplify the problem too much as it assumes that these blanket terms cover all facets of these two dynamic institutions, and finally, examine what appropriate relations between the two should be in the twenty-first century.

On Moving from Michigan back to Indiana

So, I've officially moved back to Southern Indiana after two years in East Lansing, Michigan, and although this is just a stop over until Kirsten and I move to South Carolina in August, I thought this might be a fun time to talk briefly about living in the Mitten State, some things I liked and didn't like about it, and some differences between living there and living in Indiana.

The College Towns

The only truly apt comparison between living in East Lansing and living in Indiana I can comment on is living in Bloomington. Having grown up in very rural southern Indiana where half an hour trips to Louisville, Kentucky, occurred at most two or three times a month, making the move to Bloomington, Indiana, as an eighteen-year-old college freshman felt a lot like moving to the big city. Of course, once you've been to a few of them, you begin to see that college towns have a particular feel to them that isn't quite small town, isn't quite big city, and isn't quite anything in between. So, the only real basis of comparison I have between Michigan and Indiana can be found in the comparison between East Lansing and Bloomington. In general, to be short, I liked Bloomington better. East Lasing is immediately adjacent to Lansing, which is about as industrial as cities get and the oppressive feel of the factories was ever present in a way not found in the generally quaint and idyllic Bloomington. Age probably had a lot to do with it, and I imagine that if I had moved to East Lansing at eighteen I might be singing a different tune. This is not to say that East Lansing had no endearing charm to it, and as a college that has a particular emphasis on agriculture, plant, and soil sciences, Michigan State's campus was actually rather lovely, and somewhat comparable to Indiana University's: while Indiana's was more aesthetic and focused more on landscaping, Michigan State's was more about variety and utility, and the great diversity of trees and flowering plants was refreshing. However, while East Lansing is certainly as large and diverse as Bloomington, I felt like Kirsten and I exhausted all there was to do there (that we cared to do) in relatively short amount of time. There are, to be sure, some ways in which East Lansing more than met my expectations. While Louisville and Bloomington generally have better cuisine and edible fare to be found, East Lansing blew the two previous towns out of the water in the sushi department, which I certainly developed a taste for while in East Lansing. Though the lack of good Mexican and Irish kind of depressed me. Michigan is also something of a Mecca of microbrews; I think it may be among the largest concentrations of them outside Oregon and New England, which was wonderful, but it turned out to be actually rather difficult to find many of them in bars. Liquor stores (excuse me, "party stores") carried most of them (Bell's, Dark Horse, and Arcadia being the best), but the breweries themselves were spread out and there were no particularly good ones in East Lansing (Harper's was nearly laughable), so it often left me feeling rather like the Twilight Zone man in the library with broken glasses.

Sports was also another interesting topic. I must confess that I can't be particularly objective when it comes to sports, since I am a lifelong Hoosiers fan and was instilled with this type of fandom in a nearly religious childhood indoctrination. Looking at it as objectively as possible, I'll say that the basketball fan comparison between East Lansing and Bloomington is a bit of a draw, both marshaling equally rabid support among the student body (though I must say, in Indiana, you can drive hours away from Bloomington in any direction and still see a multitude of IU paraphernalia, whereas a trip very far into the countryside surrounding East Lansing and the MSU gear much more rapidly disappears). And, I've been impressed (or weirded out) on more than one occasion by large crowds of MSU students randomly erupting into the school fight song in bars. However, football is very different. IU has very little football tradition and the state of Indiana in general has stricter alcohol laws than Michigan, so the tailgating culture at MSU was nothing like I had experienced at IU. My only memory, in fact, of Bloomington's tailgating scene, is that it was confined to a few roped-in parking lots just outside the stadium, generally there were nearly as many fans of the opposing team, and alcohol was strictly regulated and confined to designated areas. Not so, East Lansing. To put it mildly, the entire campus of MSU (which is, by area, even larger than IU) turns into one enormous outdoor party. When Kirsten and I went to our first tailgating, the amount of cars and trucks and blankets overflowing with lounging students, parents or just rabid fans, grills and coolers completely amazed us. And apparently, alcohol on essentially any part of campus was permitted. We saw some students walking down the streets of East Lansing, beers in hand, waiting for the moment they crossed onto university property so they could pop the tab. It certainly made Kirsten and I wonder how IU was ever voted "biggest party school" in 2000 when this was the typical Saturday morning on MSU's campus.

The States

I had a love/hate relationship with the state of Michigan. When I left Indiana in the fall of 2007, the state was among the reddest in the nation. Kerry was defeated three-to-two in 2004, and Indiana had yet to turn blue (albeit by the slimmest of margins). Michigan is a much bluer state than Indiana, though this democratic leaning is much more labor-oriented than anything else. Michigan in fact has one of the highest NRA membership rates of any state in the union and there is a certain libertarian streak to the populace, as there is with many of the other Scandinavian influenced Great Lakes States (I was told multiple times that if I found Michigan liberal, I should visit Wisconsin and Minnesota to see an even stronger version of the Michigan progressive). One of the greatest ironies of our move to Michigan, was the political weight of my vote. We moved to Michigan just as the democratic primaries were getting into full swing, and because of Michigan's moving of the primary to an earlier date, the results of our voting were deemed null and void, not to mentions that the only names on the ballot were Dennis Kucinich and Hilary Clinton. Strike one against democracy. The next blow came when Kirsten and I decided to register in Michigan rather than Indiana, because, at the time, Michigan was looking to be a battleground state in 2008 while Indiana looked to remain solidly red as it had been since 1964. Of course, history proved me wrong, since my adoptive state went for Obama big time while my home state, which I had written off, became one of the biggest battlegrounds. All I can say is that I wish I'd been able to be a part of Indiana's historic move into the blue column.

And now, after nearly six months of having a blog, I think it's finally time that I use it for what it was intended: bitching. For a state that revolutionized the automobile industry, one would really think that Michigan would be a great state to drive in. No, no. Michigan in fact has some of the weirdest traffic, driving, and parking laws I have ever seen. I will never understand the logic of the "Michigan U-Turn" (a u-turn put in place down the road in lieu of a left turn at busy intersections) nor will I understand how incessant, asinine, and absurdly arbitrary parking laws designed to catch illegal parkers and raise revenue for the city can possibly be an efficient system. I lived in Bloomington for four years and never once received a parking ticket. I received two in my first week in East Lansing - once for parking facing the wrong way down the street and once for parking in a very poorly and confusingly marked "no parking" zone. It is as absurd as it sounds. Michigan driver's ed also seems to emphasize things that are relatively downplayed in Indiana. Kirsten and I wondered for months why Michigan drivers seemed to stop so far back at stop signs and lights. It's because they're taught to be able to see the white line before the intersection. This is probably a good thing, but it could be extraordinarily annoying when trying to turn right on red.

The Weather

Finally, it's difficult to talk about Michigan without talking about the weather. Now, understandably, the climatic difference between mid-Michigan and southern Indiana is not the same as, say, the difference between North Dakota and South Carolina (one a former potential graduate school location and one the current choice), but my place of birth is several degrees of latitude south of where I lived in Michigan, not to mention the fact that mid-Michigan lies between two very large bodies of fresh water, whereas southern Indiana lies in a very low-lying river valley. Their temperatures vary depending on so many factors, but I generally found the highs to be, on average about 15 to 20 degrees cooler in mid-Michigan than southern Indiana. Case in point occurred just a few days ago, after our first few days home, when the highs soared into the mid-80s here in the Ohio Valley (with humidity around 60%) and the weather report for East Lansing was 63 degrees, sunny, and negligible humidity. But, they have a saying in Michigan (and several other northern Midwestern states): "If you can't stand the winters, you don't deserve the summers." I would agree. Upon moving to Michigan, I was expecting and preparing for the worst. And after the first winter, I felt like I had experienced a "normal" Michigan winter, but I was told by locals that it was one of the worst winters they'd experienced in years. As someone who, for the most part, dislikes snow and winter, I was pleased by my overreaching assumption of just how bad winter would be (We received nearly 100 inches of snow that winter, and the temperature dipped below zero consistently throughout January and February). There is a certain idiosyncrasy to these winters that also surprises non-natives, me among them at first. Living in southern Indiana, the winter never gets consistently cold enough to freeze a large lake over with ice, yet Kirsten and I observed on multiple occasion people who would walk a half mile across a lake to visit a friend's house on the other side and talked about how they looked forward to the winter every year so they could walk to their friend's houses who seemed so far away during the rest of the year. People also do more than ice skate and ice fish on these lakes. Our first experience at one of these lakes entailed cautiously walking a few yards onto the ice while the accustomed Michiganders drove their four-wheeler ATVs at reckless speeds across the frozen pond. How regional fun can be. And this is all relative of course. We were constantly being reminded by the Yoopers (the U.P.ers, or the people who come from the Upper Peninsula), who, by the way, like to call those from the Lower Peninsula "trolls" since we all live "under the [Mackinac] bridge") how warm our winters are or how little snow we get by comparison. I'll never forget when we received one of the last snowfalls of the year, the ones that occur just as spring is starting, and Kirsten and I saw a man in running shorts and a tank top jogging down the road as we were receiving around 8 inches of snow. He seemed entirely unfazed.

A Return?

Overall, my two years in Michigan surprised me in a lot of ways. I disliked it at first, primarily because it was so difficult to find work and, after a short while, somewhat difficult to find things to do. But like many places, you find yourself liking it in odd ways and missing it when it's gone. It's easy to make friends when you're is in high school or college, and you're surrounded by peers and people going through the exact same things as you, and I count nearly all of my best friends in the world among those I met in high school and college. It was more difficult in East Lansing, where I worked mostly with people much older than me in the school systems and with people much younger than me at the coffee shop I worked at part time. There were very few late-20-somethings who had moved six hours from their homes while their significant others went to school. But, as it turns out, I've missed some of the people I met in Michigan terribly in just the week and half I've been gone. Michigan, much like New York, which I visited earlier this year, is a place I'd say I wouldn't mind living in, but which I wouldn't want to make a life in. And one never knows. While I imagine I'll be primarily looking in the Northeast and West Coast for graduate schools following my two years at Clemson, I wouldn't rule out altogether (after, I'm sure, a lengthy conversation with Kirsten) a return. University of Michigan does have a great history program. . .

On Discontinuing My Tenure as a Substitute Teacher

Michigan is a tough job market. I knew this when I moved up here with Kirsten in August 2007. After spending two years as a research editor in Louisville, a job that wasn't particularly fulfilling but at least made me feel like I was making use of what before seemed to be a useless English degree, I was hoping for something similar in the Lansing/East Lansing job market. I quickly found that this wouldn't be possible, since most of the employers up here were auto workers, insurance companies, the state government, and the university, none of which either particularly appealed to me or had jobs for me. This is not to mention that, although the economic crisis hadn't yet made its full presence known, Michigan had already been reeling from a declining auto market for years. After three months of fruitlessly searching (the closest I came to a "real" job in mid-Michigan was a legislative clerk in the State Capitol, but they went with someone with more experience and better typing skills), Kirsten casually suggested that I look into substitute teaching. I did, and found the local districts up here to be in dire need of them, so I thought I might give it a shot. After all, at that point I was still considering, albeit half-heartedly, the possibility of teaching secondary education, and I thought this might be a decent test run so to speak. I began substitute teaching middle and high school language arts and social sciences in November 2007 and wound up my tenure just last week in May 2009. Here is what I learned:

Teaching is a lot more than having a specific knowledge set and being able to convey that knowledge in a coherent way to twenty-some-odd students at a time. As a student in public schools, of course, one observes only one sliver of the total work teachers do. Teachers spend an endless amount of time planning, gathering materials, grading, contacting parents, dealing with administrative duties, tutoring, coaching, doing IEPs, etc. (OK, teachers are supposed to do all of these thing - not all of them do, as I have found out). And of course, as a sub, I don't have to do much of any of this. In the worst of circumstances, in fact, most substitute teachers are like jailers, making sure the kids are doing all the work the teacher has left for them, keeping them in the classroom, keeping them from killing one another, and assuring that the teacher's room looks reasonably similar to the one they left. As a random sub, i.e. subbing for a teacher I've never met with kids I've never taught before, I usually didn't do any real teaching, I simply followed a prearranged lesson plan: usually popping in a movie, handing out a worksheet assignment, taking kids to the library or computer lab to do work on their own, etc. It's very hands off and apart from answering basic questions and telling kids not to throw things or yell, the interaction is minimal. This is especially true at the high school level, where subs are often not expected to have the knowledge necessary to conduct class (God help me if I ever had to provide instruction for a Calculus class). The middle school level is a bit different, and I often did find myself providing instruction, but even this was few and far between.

The most interesting days were the days when the teacher did in fact leave teaching plans. There was a seventh grade English teacher for whom I became the primary sub, and every time I subbed for her, I was required to read to the students, discuss plot points, reading comprehension, themes, etc., grade their homework and tests, and talk them through all of their assignments. It was daunting at first and was made no easier by the fact that it was among the most rambunctious and ornery group of students I've ever taught. For example, I once had to send a student to the office for not only possessing a Hustler magazine, but opening it and reading it in class. I also sent one to the office for bursting out into an obscene rap song in the middle of a spelling test, and who, when I politely asked him to stop, jumped on his desk and began singing more loudly. In fact, it may have been the same kid. . . If I learned anything from this class, and others like it, its that some students want to get a rise of subs so badly, they're more than willing to go to detention for it. At first, I think I played right into their hands, getting angry and yelling at them, but since this is exactly what they want, it only makes things worse. By the end of my tenure as that teacher's primary sub, I simply did my best Ben Stein impression and quietly told him in a monotone to sit out in the hallway.

I am a short man who is not in particularly good shape, so I usually did not command a great deal of respect from the start. Subbing is one of the most thankless jobs one can have, and most of the students know that you have no real power, short of taking their names down so the teacher can grill them when they return. And, I have had my fair share of at best ridiculous and at worse dangerous encounters with students. I once had a book thrown at my head in the middle of class - and not a paperback, a good thousand page, three or four pound Biology text. Fortunately, I was never punched or otherwise assaulted by a student, but I got the feeling by the look in some of their eyes that they did wish to inflict physical harm on me. I guess that means I was doing my job. Most of my most difficult moments involved losing control of the classroom or having students totally call me out on my bluffs. I once subbed for an eighth grade choir class that had nearly sixty students. It was all but impossible to keep them quiet while we watched the movie the teacher left for them. There was one group of seven or eight prissy little girls (you know the kind) who would not stop talking and disrupting class so I finally told them if they weren't going to be quiet I would send every one of them to time out. Ten minutes or so passed, and I had all but forgotten about what I thought was an empty threat, but one of them was misbehaving so badly that I had little choice but to send her to time out. After that, every other girl came forward and, referencing my earlier threat, said I had to send all of them down. So I did. I wrote out seven passes for time out. Feeling that I had "won", the class proceeded in a relatively calm manner - until I get a call from the time out teacher telling me in a rather annoyed voice that I've sent too many kids down, after which she returned all seven to the class, without further punishment. This was, to be honest, the only time as a sub that I did not get almost full support from the regular teaching staff. I've had a few friends who have subbed, and some have mentioned to me how poorly they were treated by the staff, that they were looked down on and treated as second class citizens. Fortunately, I experienced almost none of this and I have to hand it to the Lansing and East Lansing school districts: their teachers were very kind, professional, and helpful. By far the coolest thing I ever did discipline-wise was completely by accident. I was at the marker board writing down instructions with my back to the class. Without eyes on them, I could tell the class was getting antsy and were probably on the verge of becoming truly disruptive. As I turned around to tell them to be quiet, a paper wad came whizzing towards me. I caught it quite accidentally with one hand without flinching, moving, or changing my expression. It was practically robotic. The class gasped audibly and were then dead silent. I played it cool as if it had been completely purposeful. "Who threw that?" I asked nonchalantly. All eyes in the room slowly pointed at one individual. "Could you please take your things and sit out in the hallway," I said coolly with a slight grin. He complied and the rest of the hour was rather civil. Sometimes the completely random is all you need.

Perhaps the only thing more disheartening than misbehaving students is the lack of intellectual curiosity I've observed by many of them. I'm not necessarily talking about ignorant students; ignorance can be rectified. I'm talking about those who willfully do not wish to learn. This is a very alien concept to me, as I have built essentially my entire life around intellectual curiosity. I subbed for a ninth grade history class on December 7 last year and asked the students if any of them knew what happened on this day in 1941. No one raised their hands. I told them this was the day that the empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor drawing the U.S. into World War II. Many of them looked confused. Not only did they not know what this day was, they seemed not to even know that it existed! I once had a history professor who never had us remember dates, because he said continuity and sequence was more import than fixed time, yet he told us "If there's one date in U.S. history I want you to remember, it's this one." I told the students the same thing. One student raised his hand and told me that he didn't care what happened in the past because they were all dead, what they did didn't matter, and we should all just move on. It was the only time I was rendered completely speechless in front of a classroom.

Some moments of ignorance were more innocent and more hilarious than this. I once overheard a student ask "Who is that old guy with the weird mustache that host American Gladiators?" to which five students simultaneously replied "That's Brooke Hogan's dad." Or the student who, thirty minute into watching Back to the Future, asks "Is that the old guy with Parkinson's disease?" Wait to make me feel about a million years old kids! Sometimes the lack of understanding of the continuity of past events is amazing to me too. It's understandable that people who aren't specialists in history wouldn't necessarily know that the Treaty of Westphalia occurred after the Thirty Years War or some other arcane factoid. But I had high school junior ask me if computers were around in the '30s, so I said something like "Well, not what we think of as computers today. The microprocessor hadn't been invented yet, but they did have vacuum tubes, which were rudimentary elements in some of the earliest computers. . ." The blank stare told me this was not the answer she was looking for. So she said, "So they had different computers in the 1830s?" (sigh. . .)

But I shouldn't discuss the bad only. In general, I have to say that I am a bit fearful for this next generation, with a likely smaller and more competitive job market, and the possibility of a lower standard of living. If "the children are our future" I'm not sure the future is a place I want to spend too much time. However, in two years, there were many bright spots and students who gave me hope. I once subbed at an otherwise troubled high school that had an obvious issue with drugs and violence but witnessed the truly amazing conduction of a Taekwondo class with more discipline than I have ever seen from such a large group of teenagers. I also taught a sixth grade social studies class where I gave a lecture on Christopher Columbus' voyages and I had one precocious little student who not only could have given the lecture himself, but actually taught me a few things. He knew the size and shapes of the vessels, what types of sails they used, even how they compared to contemporary Chinese vessels. I was more than impressed and told him so. There was another student in a high school I subbed for who engaged me in one of the most intelligent conversations I've ever had about libertarian politics and the failure of imagining a political spectrum as linear. And, I had the privilege of becoming the designated sub for a special education English teacher, not something I would normally sub, but her students turned out to be some of the best I ever had. And since I subbed for them regularly for a full year, I was able to observe how much better nearly all of them became at understanding what they were reading, writing legibly and coherently, and generally becoming better students. It was humbling. Frankly, it was these exchanges that helped keep me coming back.

All in all, I had a mixed experience as a substitute. The days when classroom management was at the fore of my duties were not good days They were stressful and contributed a great deal to the multitude of gray hairs I now possess and the lack of hair creeping across the top of my head. However, on days that I did get to do some real teaching turned out to be extraordinarily rewarding. There are few things I've found more exhilarating than holding the undivided attention of a classroom that seems to be genuinely interested in what you have to say. In another sense, it also helped me to decide, conclusively, that teaching in secondary education is not for me. The job market and financial prospects for higher education may be worse, but I feel that the intellectual rewards and academic freedom will be well worth it. It has also given me a new found respect for the teachers themselves. Not that I haven't always respected them, but to see what it is that they have to deal with every single day is quite another thing. It takes a certain type of person to be a teacher and I am fairly certain that I am not that type. So, farewell students, teachers, and schools of the Lansing metro areas. I will miss you in spirit, but not in profession.

"Choice, Chance, and the Actions of Others": A Religio-Scientific Interpretation of Free Will

First, imagine the conceivable dimensions of space geometrically: a line connecting two points is the first dimension - it has length but no width or depth. If we add a line branching from this original line, we have created the second dimension - on a plane, these two lines taken as a whole have length and width but no depth. Visualizing the third dimension is the easiest since we live in this dimension, but if we think of this dimension not as a third line on another plane, but as a fold connecting the two original lines, it will help us to imagine dimensions higher than the fourth. So, imagine that we cannot simply draw another line along another plane to give it depth. Now, imagine the third dimension, instead, as a fold of one of the original lines to meet the other line (like a two dimensional ant on the surface of a two dimensional newspaper, or Mario in one of the wrap around screens) being able to seemingly blink from one section to another if we were to fold those two points together. Still, with me? If we imagine the fourth dimension, time or duration, as another geometric line, then the fifth dimension is a line branching from our fourth dimensional line of time. There are infinitely many branches, all of which exist and represent all of the possible future available to us in this universe, but they are inaccessible to us, since we are bound by three dimensions. Getting to any of these branches requires only "choice , chance, and the actions of others", although we can only travel down one of these branches at any given moment. This is another way of saying that free will is our access point to the fifth dimension. We'll return to this notion at the end to demonstrate the conceptual possibility of viewing free will outside the realm of our own three dimensional universe. The implications of these amorphous suppositions have roots in both scientific and religious disciplines, and I wish to explore these in their totality.

I was prompted into deeper thinking about these topics recently because of four things: firstly, the recent posting of my graduate writing sample discusses the concept of free will in the historical context of astrology, witchcraft, the thought of Patristic writers and other pre-modern Christian theologians, and the writings of Shakespeare; secondly, a recent post by my friend Jason on the "implications of omnipotence" and the incompatibility of free will and an omnipotent God; thirdly, my recent, and almost unintentionally relevant, reading of two books on the topic: Science and Creation: A Search for Understanding by theoretical physicist turned Anglican priest John Polkinghorne and Freedom of Choice Affirmed by agnostic humanist philosopher Corliss Lamont; and fourthly, the previous video, linked here and above, which, quite frankly, was mind-boggling to me the first time I watched it, but which illustrates how to visualize dimensions higher than the fourth. This has profound implications for what we may call free will or the freedom of choice. Since I've already posted 15,000 words or so on the first section, we'll jump right into the blog post, books, and end by reconceptualizing the contents of the video within the context of free will.

In the discourse of the modern day discussion of free will vs. determinism, one must begin with the Church Fathers and Christian theologians of the Middle Ages. And, if we begin with the most influential of them all, Augustine, we immediately run into contradictory interpretations of the phenomenon. On the one hand, Augustine seems to deny free will, giving all power over the past, present, and future to God. He states that the number of saved souls is fixed, has been since the beginning of time, and that all are predestined to go either to heaven or hell. But Augustine, perhaps counterintuitively from a contemporary perspective, differentiates between determinism and predestination. The former is an absolute fixity in the future of the universe, which he denies, whereas the second only refers to the ultimate fate of individual souls, whose choices, freely made, determine their final location. The Catholic Church, which holds the existence of free will to be compatible with its doctrine, regards the writings of Augustine as affirming free will, in that he asserts that "any can be saved if they wish." Indeed, the Calvinist view of hard determinism would be diametrically opposed to the Catholic doctrine of free will beginning in the 16th century. The difference is merely in the perspective - our lack of knowledge as to our ultimate fate renders free will a reality, while from God's perspective, it is already known and decided. While contradictory, this nevertheless represents Augustine's and the Church's position, as Augustine constantly refers to free will as the ability of any person to accept Christ and thus be saved through grace. He says as much in his theological treatise "On Free Choice of the Will". The pre-determinism found in his writings is usually contextualized with the contemporary heresy of Pelagianism that Augustine was combating - Pelagius taught that humans could be saved of their own accord and did not need the saving grace of Christ, which Augustine rejected.

If free will is equivalent to freedom of choice, then perhaps the question lies in cause and effect. Here, however, the verdict, both philosophical and scientific, is still out. One of the earliest and most influential conceptions of cause and effect, is Aristotle's "Unmoved Mover," an imagined originator of the universe, defined as the original cause through which all existence may be termed an effect. Though the idea may seem similar to the concept of "God", it must be noted that Aristotle's "Unmoved Mover" was not anthropomorphic and did not play an active role in creation as the Judeo-Christian God did. Thus, it was originally considered incompatible with the creator God until the the great Scholastic Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas did Aristotle one better, or five better as it were. Aristotle had contended that the universe was eternal and had proposed the idea of a hypothetical "Unmoved Mover" as a necessary attribute of any universe that did have a temporal beginning. Aquinas, who as a Christian believed in a finite universe with a definite temporal beginning, took the "Unmoved Mover" concept as a given and as his starting point for his Quinquae Viae, or the Five Ways. The Five Ways, originally conceived as a rational approach to proving the existence of God, also contains major implications for the conflict between free will and determinism. Polkinghorne simplifies them thusly: "1) The existence of change...conclude[s] that there must be a first originator of change; 2) the existence of causation...conclude[s] that there must be a first cause; 3) the existence of coming to be and ceasing to be...conclude[s] that the world's actual continuance requires an unchanging ground of its existence; 4) the existence of gradations and qualities...conclude[s] that there must be one whose perfection is the ground for all partial qualities; 5) the existence of purpose in this world...conclude[s] the necessity of an intelligence directing it." (I plan on posting more on this later). A "first cause" equivalent to God implies a certain top-down control in the matter if we accept Aquinas' version of a "first cause" rather than Aristotle's, though I think Polkinghorne is right when he points out that Aquinas was more concerned with a "logical hierarchy" than a "temporal priority." This continues to muddy the argument and even though the official Catholic position is one of free will, the greatest writings on the matter do not shed any particularly coherent light on the issue.

Science, however, is no clearer. Traditional Newtonian physics is fairly cut and dried. It is classically mechanistic: 1) a body at rest or in uniform motion stays in that state unless acted upon by an external force, 2) force equals mass times the acceleration of a given object (F=ma), and 3) for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. These are Newton's three laws of motion simplified, and these, in some ways, also seem to imply determinism. The late 18th century French physicist and astronomer Pierre-Simon Laplace used these physical laws to create his own thought experiment, oftentimes called "Laplace's demon", which posits that if a demon with unlimited calculating power were given the location and momentum of every atom in the universe, he could predict the entire future of that universe. Carried further, this suggests that, of course, no human (Hari Seldon aside) could ever have this knowledge considering our own intellectual limitations, but an infinitely superior being with such power could in fact have such knowledge. Laplace called this being a demon, but what is to stop us in our conceptual language from granting this ability to God? Again, is this not exactly the God described by the Calvinists? This is where the conflict between knowing the future and controlling the future comes into play, which Augustine and other Christians have explained simply as a difference in perception. But, we must push this idea even further. As it turns out, Newtonian physics only describes the universe in general macroscopic terms, and at very small sizes and very fast velocities, it does not describe reality accurately. The determinism of Laplace's demon is overturned by Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, which states that if one knows the location of a subatomic particle, one cannot know its precise momentum, and if one knows the momentum of a subatomic particle, its precise location is indeterminate. So much for a demon with a calculator knowing our future - he can never input both variables into his equation. Einstein famously mused, in regards to quantum mechanics, that "God does not play dice." By playing dice, though, quantum physics, at least in this respect, affirms a universe of free choice.

The truth of the matter remains murky, and even more recent scientific discoveries swing the pendulum back in the direction of determinism: certain electrons seem to be able to "communicate" with each other no matter the distance and in certain experiments involving these electrons, effects are quite capable of appearing before causes (according to some). Recent studies by neurobiologists and cognitive scientists in the realm of simple voluntary movement have shown that the brain is aware of the movements we are about to make before our conscious minds are. Chance is another conundrum. What we call chance, may not really be chance at all (though I don't suspect a coin flip in our universe will come up heads ninety-two times in a row) but "infinitely complex order." When odds are calculated in a coin flip, for example, one would say that the odds of a coin coming up heads is 1 in 2, all things being equal. In reality, all things are never equal, and variations in the weight of the coin, the strength and direction of the toss, which side it is on to begin with, how many times it bounces, etc. will have an effect on the outcome. Only the hypothetical continuation of the flip for all eternity will give a statistical average of 1 in 2. Chance is simply infinitely complex order, indistinguishable from what we may call chaos but which is not chaos. In other words, order and disorder are not mutually exclusive, but "disorder" is simply order so complex as to be unpredictable and thus equivalent to what we would call chance. Perhaps free will is this very form of "unpredictability", so complex at a universal scale, that only God Himself is capable of discerning the order from the disorder. The acausal connecting principle synchronicity, by this definition, could be defined as more than chance - it could be a pattern found in the apparent disorder of the universe, a glimpse at the infinite complexity of reality. In short, science is no clearer than religion is on this matter.

Justice is an entirely separate concern. If we ask the question "Do humans have free will?" and the answer is no, does this necessarily imply that the universe is unjust? Some critics point out, I believe with a fair amount of justification, the incompatibility of an omniscient and omnipotent God who nevertheless has endowed us with free will. If an all-knowing and all-powerful God, both established conditions for Christian belief, truly does exist, then His knowledge about the universe, the criticism goes, implies that your choice is really His choice (an effect that can trace itself all the way back to Aquinas' "First Cause" of Aristotle's "Unmoved Mover"), and this lack of control on our part is unjust. The traditional Christian rebuttal would be something to the effect of "God exists outside of time and space and thus His knowledge does not affect your will. All of eternity is a continual unified 'present' from God's perspective, whereas we are forced to perceive the universe temporally and spatially." Implicit in this argument is the fact that, as God exists outside of any conceptual framework we could ever attempt to comprehend, so too is His justice and judgment beyond our comprehension.

In closing, let us return to the thought experiment we began with. Beyond our perceivable three spatial dimensions and the fourth of time, superstring theory posits the existence of 10 dimensions (or 11 if time is included as a dimension rather than a "direction"). The fifth dimension, according to the geometric concept laid out in the opening paragraph, consists of branches extending out from the "line" of time. In the totality of the universe, the point from which we start "contains" all of three dimensional space starting with the big bang and the point where the line ends is the temporal and spatial end of the universe. But, since time is not fixed (at least from our three dimensional perspective), there are an infinite number of "branches" from this line that creates the fifth dimension (heat death, big crunch, etc.). A "folding" of this fifth dimensional line to meet another fifth dimensional line takes us into the sixth dimension, and this would be the equivalent of a warp or wormhole leading to another timeline within our own universe. Then, taking all these branches as a new geometric point (just as we did to the first three dimensions), we could term this "infinity", since every timeline that could possibly exist within our universe exists within this point. We can then draw a line from this infinity to entirely different infinities. How is this possible? Because the first "infinity point" contains only all possible timelines in our current universe and does not contain timelines from other universes (the "multiverse"), where the initial conditions following the big bang are different and create different physical laws (for example, another universe may have a light speed faster than ours or a boiling point of water higher than 100 Celsius or where gravity is stronger than the electro-magnetic force, etc.) Following the original premise, branches and folds produce the eighth and ninth dimensions, which, when collapsed into a point, creates the tenth dimension. No more lines can be drawn from here, since we have already exahausted "all possible timelines for all possible universes". Does this make sense? No, not really. . . just watch the video. It will be easier to understand it conceptually as opposed to reading an imperfect verbal description. So what's the point in describing all these dimensions? Because, according to this conceptualization of supersting theory's "higher dimensions," everything that exists beyond the fifth dimension is dependent upon "choice, chance, and the action of others" in order to exist. All of the possible future timelines (the fifth dimensional branches from our fourth dimensional "line" of time) require our active choice to occur. Or, put another way, the indeterminate nature of the future is simply another way of envisioning the necessity of choice. If we could picture an entity or being that exists in or beyond the 10th dimension, who would necessarily have access to the lower dimensions (as we have access to the second and first), does their knowledge of time, our future, all possible futures, and all possible other universes abrogate our own free will? At least in this respect, I'm not sure that knowledge equals control, even if creation is implied.

I find it telling that Corliss Lamont titled his book Freedom of Choice Affrimed rather than Confirmed. Confirmation presupposes objective knowledge about the subject, and this may prove impossible. This essay was not meant to prove free will valid or invalid, but to shed some light on a new way of thinking about the issue. However, I am certain I feel more confused after exploring this topic over the past week, than less. But when we open new doors we often find ourselves in rooms with completely new mental furniture. And this is never a bad thing.

Tout comprendre, c'est tout accepter. . .

These "Damnable Superstitions": Legal Double Standards and Cultural Reflections of Witchcraft and Judicial Astrology, ca. 1200-ca. 1600: Conclusion

Conclusions: Sapiens Homo Dominabitur Astris

Despite their separate historical origins, the philosophical underpinnings of both astrology and witchcraft most likely stem from the unique human affinity for desiring control when the most uncontrollable forces of nature exert their influences on human affairs. Witchcraft, following the publication of the Malleus Maleficarum and the inauguration of the witch hunts, became a specific legal category: it began with heresy, developed into a crime specific to female implementation of maleficent magic, and came to encapsulate a homogeneous legal classification. The importance for the persecutors was less in the act and more in the perpetrators of the act. This was a battle that women could not win. Astrology had at least a tenuously established position in the history of Western science, and its removal from the discourse of medieval and early modern thought was not something anyone could do by simply passing a law. Astrology was part and parcel of much broader and more heterogeneous classifications—along with astronomy, astrologia encompassed the entirety of the study of the stars and it could not be dismantled piecemeal without damage being done to the whole. The important dichotomies were too difficult to disentangle and, in fact, were not disentangled until well into the early modern era. Certainly, astrology was denounced by patristic writers often appealing to weighty evidence from scripture, but it was always denounced for its contravening of free will rather than anything specific about the practice. One medieval dictum, attributed to Ptolemy, sums up the qualified acceptance of astrology by medieval Christian scholars: “Sapiens homo dominabitur astris: The wise man will be master of the stars.”[1] However, witchcraft was the particular persecution of one segment of society, and women were far easier to track and harass than those practicing forms of astrology. Astrology, in general, survived only so long as it was taken to be a science, and after new advances in physics and astronomy disproved most of its premises, it quietly faded from the Western consciousness as a serious academic discourse. Religious authorities, on the other hand, attempted to forcibly remove witchcraft. One could argue appealing to rational discourse that the manifestations of God and astrological processes worked in concert with each other, whereas witches were interpreted as working in concert with demons. Despite the fact that judicial astrology and witchcraft possessed striking practical similarities, the ultimate nature of their practices and the medieval and early modern visions of the cosmos saved the former and condemned the latter.

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[1] Tester, A History of Western Astrology, p. 177. Though it can be found no where in Ptolemy's writings, this was quoted by dozens of medieval writers and Tester gives several specific examples that can be found in the works of Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Gerard of Cremona, and Robert Recorde to name but a few.

So, there's the paper. I hope those of you who stuck around for the whole thing enjoyed it. As I mentioned, I've been working on it off and on for literally four years and for the most part it has been a labor of love. This is a pretty good barometer of my intellectual and academic interests, and I hope to explore this topic further and much more in depth while in graduate school. I may try to post more on the topic in the future as well.

These "Damnable Superstitions": Legal Double Standards and Cultural Reflections of Witchcraft and Judicial Astrology, ca. 1200-ca. 1600: Part 7

Cultural Reflections of Witchcraft and Judicial Astrology
in Elizabethan England

The demarcation between astrology and witchcraft not only in early modern intellectual circles but also in the culture as a whole poses a more difficult problem. The key to this answer may lie in these divergent definitions of astrology and their aforementioned subdivisions. In sixteenth century England, for example, natural astrology would distance itself from the judicial branch and come to be known as astronomy. While natural astrology was certainly accepted by most Elizabethans, the judicial branch lost momentum, in many ways because of Elizabeth’s fragile claim to the throne early in her reign and the uncertainty of England’s future following her death. Elizabeth I never married and produced no natural heir, and the act of monarchical succession was an uneasy topic among the noblemen who could bear the brunt of any future wars involving a struggle among potential successors. Divination had been proclaimed illegal in 1541, but King Edward VI, whose court included an astrologer, repealed this law shortly thereafter. This law was again implemented verbatim in 1550 under Mary, Queen of Scots, and reinforced in 1563, five years into Elizabeth’s reign.[1] Even in the first version, witchcraft is clearly paired with astrological prophecy because both could have serious repercussions for the ultimate future of the monarch if they were to proclaim a certain negative future:

Where dyvers and sundry persones, making theyre foundacon by Prophecies,…have dyvised desecated and practiced to make folke thinke that by theyre untrew gessys it might be knowne what good or evyll things shulde come happen or be done, by or to such persones as have and had noble personages of whome suche fals Prophesies hathe or shulde herafter be set fourthe, wherby in tymes paste many noble men have suffered,…That if any persone prynte or wryte, or ells speake sing or declare to any other persone of the King or of any other persone, after the firste daye of Julie next coomyng, any such false Prophecies…thene everye such offence shalbe deamed Felonye,…[2]

It is necessary to note that neither astrology nor witchcraft is mentioned directly. Prophecy is proclaimed illegal, which, given the circumstance of the practice, could encompass either. The word “Felonye” in sixteenth century English did not necessarily constitute a crime carrying the death penalty. Therefore, it is highly possible that offenses against this law were penalized differently depending on whether they were considered astrology or witchcraft or whether men or women committed them.

John Chamber, who thought so lowly of astrology that he put it in the same category with witchcraft as a “damnable superstition,” nevertheless preserved their traditional distinctions. While astrology was merely a form of false prophecy, it made no use of demons or devils and was thus not as abominable. Just as the opening of Elizabeth’s reign heralded laws against prophecy, so the last year of her reign renewed the discussion. In his A Defence of Iudicial Astrologie (1603), Sir Christopher Heydon observed

Astrologie, being an arte…hath no more fellowship with the deuill, then heauen with hell. But that witches cannot be imitated in their deuillish profession, without all these former impieties…and as many inquisitors, as haue written of them, doe al testify with one consent, out of their confessions. And therefore the word of God it selfe, Exod. 22, doeth absolutely decree, That a witch shall not be suffered to liue.[3]

Heydon managed to distance astrological prophecy from witchcraft and equate God’s functioning in the world, as had generations of defenders before him, with “the free moderation both of the course and power of the Starres vnto God.”[4] Chamber and Heydon may be seen as representatives of two sides of a very divided argument defined as realist versus occultist or science versus superstition. From the modern perspective, the irony is that astrology, an institution with a history as a science, was regarded as a “damnable superstition,” while witchcraft was considered a very valid and very dangerous reality. The great change occurring in sixteenth and early seventeenth century England was the swiftly shifting perception of judicial astrology. Just as natural astrology came to be closer to astronomy, judicial astrology came to be regarded as at best sheer nonsense and at worst comparable to witchcraft. This comparability had always been in the spirit of philosophical discourse rather than legality, but as judicial and natural astrology disconnected from one another and the blanket term astrologia, new niches of study, and thus legality, emerged.

Of course, it must be noted that Elizabeth’s court included an astrologer, and a successful and famous one at that. John Dee was not only a court astrologer for Elizabeth I but a polymath in general, whose library was the envy of many European scholars. To be sure, even with the growing skepticism of judicial astrology, the practice was relatively safe in England, provided that one was in the favor of the authorities. Dee most certainly was, having spent time in captivity at Hampton Court with Elizabeth, where he was known to have cast her horoscope positively. After her ascension to the throne, Dee even astrologically determined the most auspicious moment for her coronation to ensure a long and successful reign.[5] For obvious reasons, astrologers who cast horoscopes favorably tended to hold more sway and avoid illicit controversy.

Elizabeth’s successor James I, was less forgiving. In his own work, Daemonologie, he discerns between the two concepts of natural and judicial astrology making many explicit references to the Bible. Here, he defines the natural branch as “knowing thereby the powers of simples, and sickenesses, the course of the seasons and the weather, being ruled by their influence; which part depending vpon the former [Astronomie], although it be not of it selfe a parte of Mathematicques [astrology]: yet it is not vnlawful, being moderatlie vsed,”[6] but his treatment of judicial astrology is overtly unforgiving:

The second part is to truste so much to their influences, as thereby to fore-tell what common-weales shall florish or decay: what, persones shall be fortunate or vnfortunate: what side shall winne in anie battell: What man shall obteine victorie at singular combate: What way, and of what age shall men die: What horse shall winne at matche-running…This parte now is vtterlie vnlawful to be trusted in, or practized amongst christians, as leaning to no ground of natural reason: & it is this part which I called before the deuils schole…in the Prophet Ieremie it is plainelie forbidden, to beleeue or hearken vnto them that Prophecies & fore-speakes by the course of the Planets & Starres.[7]

James I insisted that because the Bible forbade it, its practice should be unlawful. He wrote this when he was the King of Scotland but reaffirmed it as King of England, passing laws prohibiting it. In only the second week of his reign in 1604, for example, the English Parliament made witchcraft a more harshly punishable offense—where it once carried the death penalty only in cases of murder, it was now punishable as a capital offense only if there was intent to harm or if the use of “evil spirits” was suspected.[8] This again was an extension of the crimen exeptum and did not bode well for English women of this period. Because of this double standard, the differentiation between the legality of astrology and the illegality of witchcraft was essentially arbitrary in terms of their intrinsic qualities, and even though certain forms of astrology were censured by various Western European medieval and early modern governments, the act of studying the influence of the stars on human affairs was generally tolerated for astrologers and denied for those accused of witchcraft.[9]

Despite astrology’s many denunciations from the Church Fathers and national secular authorities, the terminology and unconscious discourse of astrological belief persisted well into early modern times. One outstanding example of its perseverance within popular culture and the unstated but razor thin line between it and the unacceptable offense of witchcraft is demonstrated by the ubiquity of both in the plays of William Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s use of astrological rhetoric in his plays in many ways seems to subconsciously reflect its popularity at the time, but his own faith in it cannot be construed simply by its conspicuousness in his plays. Most uses, in fact, are particular to and exemplary of his characters although, as the Shakespearean scholar Johnstone Parr has cited, there are over two hundred astrological allusions in his plays and all are eventually fulfilled.[10] There are many cases in which characters resign themselves to astrological fatalism or use the stars as an excuse for their extraordinary woe, but in all circumstances their belief in astrology as a science is taken for granted by the audience and never questioned. Witchcraft, however, as seen most explicitly in the play Macbeth, remains a plot point unalterably prejudged as evil by an early modern audience familiar with it only as a crime against nature, society, and God.

Much of the common public awareness of witchcraft is evident in the depiction of witches in plays such as Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The witches in Macbeth are cast as hideous and villainous, in many ways as inhuman and unearthly as evil spirits, such as when Banquo comments that they are “So withered and so wild in their attire, / That [they] look not like th’inhabitants o’ th’earth / And yet are on’t” (1.3.40-42). Macbeth’s witches are surrounded by an aura of darkness and have an otherworldly quality to them. They describe themselves as “Weird sisters” (1.3.32), or women fused with fate and prone to sacrilegious acts or connected with the black arts, such as when Macbeth greets them “How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags” (4.1.48)? For dramatic purposes the witches are almost inaccessible as actual human beings, seen more as material instruments of gloom, agents of demons, or a means of forecasting one’s demise. Macbeth’s is predicted just so, and it may be that this serves as a lesson to those who endeavor to “tempt fate,” as it were, rather than leave the functioning of the world in God’s hands.

The leader of Macbeth’s witches is Hecate. She is based on the Greek mythological figure representing both witchcraft and the crossroads, or the potential direction of the future. Mythologically speaking, the relationship between witchcraft and the course of the future, an area obviously engaged by astrological horoscopy, was embodied in the same goddess. This tenuous link between astrological predetermination and the goddess of witchcraft is obvious in her own predilection to assert her power during the full moon. Those accused of being engaged in demonology and witchcraft commonly made reference to the moon as a source of power. Hecate’s association with the moon—in Aristotelian cosmology, the dividing line between the corruptible, changeable world and the immutable perfection of the heavens—links her both to the heavens, the realm of astrological phenomena, and the earth, where sinfulness and corruption prevail. She later chastises the witches in Macbeth for not consulting her before they interfered with his fate. Replying to the First Witch’s observation of her “angerly” disposition, Hecate states,

Have I not reason, bedlams as you are?
Saucy and overbold, how did you dare
To trade and traffic with Macbeth
In riddles and affairs of death,
And I, the mistress of your charms,
The close contriver of all harms,
Was never called to bear my part
Or show the glory of our art? (3.5.2-9)

Hecate specifically criticizes their foretelling of Macbeth’s doom, but this punition can hardly be taken seriously when it comes from the goddess of witchcraft and divination herself. In terms of witchcraft, the act of divination is described here as an “art,” and without the mythological figure behind it, it is without merit. The act of looking to another supernatural force, such as this pagan goddess, would have been deemed heretical by an early modern Christian audience were it not recognized as depicting the witches as the wholly evil antagonists within the story arc. The metaphysical and meta-dramatic wall that this fiction provided removed all external judgment from the equation among Shakespearean audiences. While witchcraft focused on baseness and materiality, the practice of astrology made use of the exteriority of the heavenly spheres of God, even within the dominion of performance art.

While this use of witches as dreadful characters is expected, the power of astrological predetermination is used in a more neutral way, suggesting neither misdeeds nor illegality. Several plays contain references to the power of the stars, perhaps most famously in Romeo and Juliet where the title couple receives the epigraph “star-crossed lovers.” A lesser-known quotation comes from The Winter’s Tale, when, upon the proclamation of her prison sentence, Hermione exclaims: “There’s some ill planet reigns: / I must be patient until the heavens look / With an aspect more favorable” (2.1.105-107). Here, the planets not only have influence over human affairs but are actually “reigning” over them. This is language we have seen more often used in the context of God’s power over history and individual events in a human life. King Lear offers one of the most unfavorable depictions of astrology in the entire Shakespearean canon. During his unraveling near the end of the play, after exhausting himself in allocation of fault for the sorry state of his former kingdom, Lear howls out bewailing his fate as if in submission to the universe: “It is the stars / The stars above us govern our conditions; / Else oneself mate and make could not beget/ Such different issues” (4.3.34-37). More subtly, but within the same stratum of reflection, Edmund rebukes astrology as a means of blaming one’s unfortunate state upon something other than oneself:

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that…
we make guilty of our disasters the sun,
the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains
on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves,
and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards,
liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of
planetary influence; and all that we are evil in by a
divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion of
whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the
charge of a star. My father compounded with my
mother under the dragon’s tail and my nativity was
under Ursa Major, so that it follows that I am rough and
lecherous. Fut! I should have been that I am had the
maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my
bastardizing. (1.2.118-127)

Edmund clearly disregards his own supposed fate by actively seeking to change it. This act of free will was crucial to Protestants in general, and despite the seemingly fatalistic attitude of many Shakespearean characters, the influence of the stars was generally viewed not necessarily as a fixed act, but as an influence to be overcome—just as historical Christian thinkers from Augustine to Albertus had said. As Cassius declares in Julius Caesar, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings” (1.2.140-141). England itself, by the time of the Stuart monarchy, was engaged in a tacit ideological battle—that of the Anglicans, for whom free will was of the utmost importance, and that of the emerging Puritans who, influenced by Calvinism, deferred to the power of God rather than free will. To accentuate the importance of this vital dialogue in pre-modern England, some scholars have suggested that Gloucester and his son Edmund represent the Elizabethan dichotomy of realist and occultist, like their real life counterparts John Chamber and Sir Christopher Heydon.[11] Gloucester symbolizes the pessimistic resignation inherent in those who take the predictions of astrology as the final word, and Edmund embodies the more brash and youthful exuberance of the succeeding generation, which feels that the world is its for the taking. It is no coincidence that Shakespeare constructs these characters as a father-son duo in which the father is incapable of “passing the torch” because Edmund is an illegitimate bastard son and because there exists no common ideological ground between them. A realist to the end, Edmund’s downfall can be construed as a reluctance to accept that which he cannot change, as is evident in his refusal to accept astrology, the absolute edifice of fixed unchangeability according to it critics.

Free will, and its link to astrology, is also addressed in Macbeth, where the concept of the witches’ foretelling of Macbeth’s future is related to prevailing over one’s own fate. The witches prophesy that Macbeth will become king of Scotland, and Macbeth does not question the veracity of the witches’ prophecies but instead ponders his own role in them and whether or not he must be active for these premonitions to come true:

[Aside] This supernatural soliciting
Cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of success
Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor.
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature? (1.3.128-138)

Is direct action necessary to bring these prophecies to fruition, or are they somehow sewn into the fabric of time, unalterable, and thus as predictable as the rising and setting of the sun? The witches provide the ominous human link between the will of the universe and the path of Macbeth’s individual future. In Macbeth’s first encounter with the witches, no prediction is advanced at all, simply the statement “All hail Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter” (1.3.50). We may ask whether this is a testimonial of fact or if it is meant to fuel the fire of Macbeth’s ambition. If it is fact, then the question of free will becomes moot because Macbeth’s fate is written in stone, but if Macbeth must take action to fulfill these prophecies, then in retrospect we can never truly know if the witches’ forecast came true or if Macbeth took his future entirely into his own hands. This is the paradox always present in studying the effects of prophecy in the context of both witchcraft and astrology.

Perhaps the most famous lines typifying astrological notions in early modernity are those of Ulysses in Troilus and Cressida, a play set amidst the backdrop of the Trojan War. Less related to the practicing of astrology or witchcraft than they are to the metaphysical concept of an interrelated cosmos where man and the universe are reflections of each other, these lines help to elucidate the special relationship between the microcosm and macrocosm:

The heavens themselves, the planets, and this center,
Observe degree, priority and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office, and custom, all in line of order;
And therefore is the glorious planet Sol
In noble eminence, enthron’d and spher’d
Amidst the other, whose med’cinable eye
Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,
And posts, like the commandments of a king,
Sans check, to good and bad. But when the planets
In evil mixture to discord wander,
What plagues and what portents, what mutiny,
What raging of the sea, shaking of the earth,
Commotion in the winds! Frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate,
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from this fixture! O, when degree is shak’d,
Which is the ladder to all high designs,
The enterprise is sick! How could communities,
Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenity and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, scepters, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And hark what discord follows. (1.3.85-110)[12]

In the worldview of the Elizabethans, as well as Western society in general before the Scientific Revolution, everything from plants and animals, elements and humors, body parts and professions, had their particular place within the hierarchy of created things. A change in the status quo or the social stability of the Western world would cause uncontrollable havoc, Ulysses seems to say, and when applied to medieval and early modern views on witchcraft, we can see how the European patriarchy maintained their positions by continuing to denigrate women through a false mythology of devil worship and unnatural occult activities. It is as though even astrology, with its unstable claim to legitimacy, could be applied to the disparagement of women. The intimate relationship between man and the cosmos was a direct product of the fusing of ancient astrological notions and the Christian theological perspective, influenced by Platonism and Aristotelianism. While this standpoint could accommodate the practice of astrology, under certain circumstances, witchcraft had no such “natural place” in the hierarchy of being. This belief linked most astrological claims to the functioning of God in the material universe, and thus astrological rhetoric was employed in an uncontroversial way. Witchcraft never had such a luxury. Shakespeare’s utilization of astrology as a dramatic device employed both as an object of characters’ blame and praise could pass through the early modern audience without fear of backlash whereas his description of witches had to remain entirely wicked to be well received.

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[1] Allen, Don Cameron, The Star-Crossed Renaissance: The Quarrel about Astrology and Its Influence in England, New York: Octagon Books, 1941, p. 102.

[2] Smith, Warren D, “The Elizabethan Rejection of Judicial Astrology and Shakespeare’s Practice,” Shakespeare Quarterly 9.2 (Spring, 1958), p. 162-163.

[3] Op. cit. A4r

[4] Ibid. A2v

[5] Bobrick, The Fated Sky: Astrology in History, p. 145.

[6] Op. cit. p. 14.

[7] Ibid. p. 14-15. In this passage, King James I makes reference to the prophet Jeremiah, which probably refers to Jeremiah 23:9-22, in which Jeremiah is troubled over the moral reproach of the current priests and prophets of Israel. Verses 10 and 11 state, “Their course is evil and their might is not right. Both prophet and priest are ungodly; even in my house I have found their wickedness, says the Lord.” Verse 16: “Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes; they speak visions of their own minds [probably in reference to dream interpretation], not from the mouth of the Lord.’” Verse 21: “I did not send the prophets yet they ran; I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied.” It may also refer to Jeremiah 10:2-3, which states: “Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them, for the customs of the peoples are false.” In any case, King James I rejected astrology on Biblical grounds because he viewed astrology as a form of false prophesy, or those who trusted their own faculties of reason over faith in revealed scripture which, as we have seen, could be utilized to denounce astrology.

[8] Barstow, Witchcraze, p. 39

[9] Smith, “The Elizabethan Rejection of Judicial Astrology and Shakespeare’s Practice,” p. 159.

[10] Bobrick, The Fated Sky: Astrology in History, p. 182.

[11] Allen, The Star Crossed Renaissance, p. 167 and 178.

[12] For clarification on this concept, insofar as it has modern psychological implications, see Gustav Jahoda’s work The Psychology of Superstition, Baltimore: Pelican Books, 1969, p. 120-125. He gives a wonderful explanation of the psychology of superstitious behavior in modern times and its ancestor in occult sciences and archetypal representations in the arts and sciences from the Middle Ages and pre-Scientific Revolution times, as well as a succinct Jungian analysis of the Elizabethan worldview.