FAITH AND SALVATION - PART 1
An
essay by John W. Hawkins
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What is faith?
The word "faith" is used in many ways and
contexts.
However, even a dictionary definition gives us a
platform
from which to launch this little essay:
Faith: 1. A
confident belief in the truth, value, or
trustworthiness of a person, idea or thing.
2.
Belief that does not rest on logical proof
or
material evidence: e.g. faith in miracles
3.
Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance.
4.
Belief and trust in God and in the doctrines
expressed in the Scriptures and other sacred
works; religious conviction.
5. A
system of religious beliefs.
-The American Heritage
Dictionary
Also
instructive is the definition of the adjective
"faithful" which pertains to those who have
faith or who
are "full" of faith:
Faithful: 1.
Adhering strictly to the person, cause,
or idea to which one is bound; dutiful
and loyal.
2.
Worthy of trust or credence; consistently
reliable: e.g. a faithful guide.
3.
The steadfast adherents of any faith or
cause.
4.
Synonyms: loyal, true, constant,
steadfast, staunch, resolute, devoted,
and trustworthy.
-
Ibid
As you can
see from the above definitions, the essence
of what we are dealing with here is that which is
true,
dependable, constant, trustworthy, and reliable - a
tall
order, in a world, which, especially in the last fifty
years or so, appears to be changing at an ever
increasing
rate.
Governments topple one after another.
Wars and
man's inhumanity toward man and his environment appear
to
be chronic and epidemic. Crime, drug use, and corruption
abound. Over
half of all marriages end in divorce, and
over half of those still married have reportedly
engaged
in one or more acts of infidelity. In what then, or in
whom, are we to place our trust?
Is it any
wonder that people are returning to religion
to find something solid in a world seemingly made of
shifting sand?
Is it not comforting (which originally
meant "strengthening", from the
Latin,"cum forte") to be
able to depend on someone with whom there "is no
variableness, neither shadow of turning" (James
on someone who "is the same yesterday and today
and
forever" (Hebrews 13:8)? The very word "religion"
(according to Dr. Henry Link in his "Return to
Religion")
means to relink or reconnect one with his source.
Similarly, in Hinduism the word "yoga" is a
Sanskrit word
meaning "union" - a joining of man with his
spiritual
center, which the Hindus call the "Atman"
and which St.
Paul describes as: "Christ within you, the hope
of glory"
(Colossians 1:27).
The current
search for meaning and stability is not
new - far from it.
Men from the dawn of civilization, and
perhaps for untold millennia prior to that, have
sought to
propitiate the gods in order to keep them safe from
the
vagaries of the elements, to maintain the fruitfulness
of
their harvests and the fertility of their
animals. In a
world where events seem to overwhelm the individual,
and
even society as a whole, man turns to that from which
"all
blessings flow" and to that which lies beyond his
own
power to accomplish or to prevent from happening. For
example, the Anglicans in their Litany service, even
today, still pray:
"From
lightning and tempest; from earthquake, fire and
flood; from plague, pestilence, and famine; from
battle
and murder and from sudden death, good Lord, deliver
us."
And: " That it may please thee to give and
preserve to our
use the kindly fruits of the earth, so that in due
time we
may enjoy them; we beseech thee to hear us, good
Lord."
The primary
difference between primeval and modern
man, then, lies not in his seeking the aid of the
unseen
powers in nature and the universe but in his rituals.
Instead of the animal and human sacrifices and burnt
offerings of our progenitors we Christians, for
example,
now symbolically celebrate in Holy Communion the one
time
offering of "the Lamb of God" upon the
cross, which
constitutes "a full, perfect, and sufficient
sacrifice,
oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole
world."
(Anglican "Book of Common Prayer") Some of us
still burn incense at the altar which is symbolic of
the
burnt offerings of the ancient Hebrews, which was
"a
pleasing odor, an offering by fire to the Lord."
(Exodus
29:18).
There are
several kinds of faith in addition to faith
in a supreme being.
You will recall in my previous essays
on the nature of reality the emphasis that was placed
on
the triune nature of all things. In man the primary
trinity is commonly defined in terms of his body,
mind
and spirit.
Belief or faith in God then relates to the
spiritual side of his nature, while principles
believed to
be true in the field of science relate to his material
nature and principles which relate to the mind and
abstract thought are largely the domains of psychology,
mathematics, and philosophy.
Faith in Nature
Nature pertains to all that is perceived by the
senses,
the everyday world that we live in. The systematic study
of nature, its structure, laws and development is the
domain of science.
That field of science that deals with
what we know and how we know what we know, its
validity
and limits, is known as "epistemology". Although
scientists must contend with the fact that all of
their
data are inevitably linked to perceptions and
observations
by human beings, who sometimes have distorted, faulty
or
partial sensory impressions, they try in so far as
possible to concentrate their efforts on the objective
side of reality and minimize the distortions
encountered
by subjective perceptions.
It is not at
all surprising then that most sciences
begin by describing, defining and classifying objects,
things, facts and data belonging to their particular
area
of interest - things that are tangible, or at least
verifiable, as opposed to merely subjective
impressions,
feelings or opinions.
Then the search for patterns
begins: repetitions of similar events, recurring
cycles,
and events which appear to be linked causally in time
and
space. Next a
hypothesis is formulated which seems to
explain the phenomena under study. Then the hypothesis is
tested by observation of additional data that were not
part of the original set used to frame the
hypothesis. If
an experiment was performed which had a certain
outcome by
a group of scientists, other scientists attempt to
repeat
the experiment to see if they also get the same or
similar
outcomes. In
other words, the hypothesis is tested for
validity to see if any new facts contradict it. If so, a
new hypothesis is formulated, retested, refined, etc.
etc.
Eventually,
a theory begins to emerge which best
explains the observed facts. Often , but not always, the
theory may relate its elements mathematically. Then after
long and successful use in predicting future events or
invariable sequences of events (e.g. If "A"
happens, "B"
always follows) a theory becomes a scientific law -
something that for all practical purposes is
"true" and
can be depended on to give reliable results. For example,
the elaborate calculations which are made today by
computers that allow us to put satellites into exact
orbits or send space probes to intercept planets after
a
journey of many years are all based on the theories
(now
laws) of gravity and motion formulated by Isaac Newton
three hundred years ago. While it is true that Einstein's
theories of relativity have now modified and enlarged
our
knowledge of the nature of the universe,
still obtain as long as the relative motion between
observers does not approach the speed of light (i.e.
186,000 miles per second) and as long as there is not
a
massive gravitational field nearby (e.g. that which
surrounds stars such as our sun).
Another
example of scientific induction is the now
infamous "theory of evolution", which was
first propounded
by the French naturalist, Lamarck, in 1801 but is more
commonly associated with Charles Darwin and his
publishing
of "The Origin of Species" in 1859. By observation and
correlation of data over many years by many scientists
from the fields of geology, paleontology, archaeology,
biology and anthropology we now know beyond any shadow
of
doubt that all life (in so far as it has left its
fossilized remains or imprints) originated in the
ocean.
Also, we
know that the complex and diverse forms of
life on earth today, including the body of man, had
their
beginnings in relatively simple organisms like
plankton,
both plant and animal, which still populate the oceans
today. As
reptiles, amphibians, and mammals begin to
appear on land, they carried the ocean and much of its
chemistry with them so that today about two thirds of
their weight is water and the salinity of their blood
is
much like the salt content of the oceans many million
of
years ago when their ancestors first climbed out onto
the
land.
By analyzing
data from the fields of comparative
anatomy and embryology we further know that during the
process of gestation an embryo retraces its ancestral
history so that in its earliest stages it is
practically
impossible to tell from the shape of the embryo
whether it
is a fish, a frog, a man, a cow or one of the other
Mammalia. At an
early stage of the human embryo gill
slits can be seen, and later even a rudimentary tail
appears. In
scientific parlance these and similar
findings can be succinctly stated by saying:
"Ontogeny
recapitulates phylogeny."
based on three great facts and two deductions drawn
from
them. The first
fact is that all living things vary. The
second is that all living groups tend to increase in
geometric ratio.
The third is that the numbers of a
species tend nevertheless to remain fairly
constant.
[These last two observations were also the principles
underlying Thomas Robert Malthus' 'Essay on
Population'
published in 1798.]
From these facts
crucial deductions: (1) there is a struggle for
existence,
and (2) in that struggle the fittest survive."
(See
"Evolution", Time-Life Books, N.Y., 1964,
p.42)
That evolution
is a firmly established scientific fact
or "truth" is no longer subject to
scientific controversy,
so called Creationists to the contrary
notwithstanding.
What is not so firmly established, however, are the
factors or mechanisms by which new species arise from
older and more primitive ones.
of the jungle" philosophy believed that the
weaker members
of the species died off leaving only those best able
to
cope with their environment to perpetuate the species
- in
short: a theory based on the survival of the fittest
by
natural selection.
Over time, as environmental factors
changed, new species emerged which supplanted those
less
adaptable. A
second school of thought, first propounded
by Jean-Baptiste Lamark, believed that as a man or
another
species encountered changes in its environment and
strove
to overcome them, it was able in some manner to impart
those adaptations to future generations through
changes in
its own hereditary germ cells. Subsequent discoveries
would throw cold water on this theory, however.
A rather
obscure monk, Gregor Johann Mendel, who by
his own admission was "addicted to the study of
Nature",
was the first to investigate systematically the
mechanism
of heredity in determining the variation of traits in
successive generations. His subject was the lowly garden
pea. Although
he published his results in 1864, they were
not widely publicized until a Dutch botanist, Hugo de
Vries, republicized his findings before the German
Botanical Society in 1900. Soon afterward came the
discovery of threadlike structures in the nucleus of
cells
called "chromosomes". It was suggested that these might
indeed be the mechanism by which traits are
transmitted
from one generation to another. Further research showed
that inherited characteristics could be traced to
specific
locations on chromosomes. The determining units at these
locations were given the name of
"genes". It was not
until quite recently (the 1950's), however, that the
structure of the DNA molecules was discovered by Crick
and
Watson which enabled scientists to determine the exact
mechanism responsible for passing on these hereditary
traits to future generations.
At this
point you may be wondering whether this is an
essay on "Faith and Salvation" or on
"Science and
Evolution".
I dwell on the history of the "theory" of
evolution for two reasons: (1) It is an excellent
illustration of the manner in which what is known
about
the natural world develops and evolves, and (2) It
sets
the stage for discussing the principle of evolution in
the
next two segments of the essay concerning Man and God.
That which
characterizes the "truths" of science is
the ability for men and women similarly trained in a
scientific discipline to duplicate or replicate
experiments made by their predecessors and to use
logical
or mathematical models of the phenomena under study to
predict future events satisfactorily. When new facts
don't fit the existing models or theories, new
theories
have to be constructed which include all of the old as
well as the new observations. As Francis Bacon, the
father of modern scientific method, expressed it in
the
sixteenth century:
"The
universe is not to be narrowed down to the limits
of the understanding, which has been man's practice up
to
now; but the understanding must be stretched and
enlarged
to take in the image of the universe as it is
discovered."
Thus new
facts often make for new theories.
Scientists, therefore, never know the true causes of
events in the world of phenomena. They have recorded
events, however, such as the movements of the sun,
moon,
and the visible planets for hundreds of years and have
been continually refining their models and theories so
that today they not only can predict when and where
these
bodies will appear in the heavens but also can send
space
probes from earth which will intersect their locations
many years after their launchings.
That in
which Science places its faith and beliefs,
therefore, is the orderliness and predictability of
nature. It
often causes great consternation in the
scientific community, therefore, when new facts fail
to
fit into the tried and true theories and models of how
the
world works. In
the twentieth century the physical
sciences, which are the bedrock for the methodology of
all
the others, have been shaken to their core. Like Humpty
Dumpty who fell off the wall, "All the king's
horses and
all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together
again."
What has happened in the twentieth century is not
merely
an extension and refinement of the theories formulated
by
Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo,
geniuses. It is
rather a sea change in our perception of
the nature of reality, an elevation of the collective
consciousness of mankind, a new paradigm, the dawning
of a
new age perhaps as dramatic as that of the Renaissance
bursting forth in the 14th century to mark the end of
the
"Middle Ages".
The famous
experiment by Albert Michelson and Edward
Morley in 1887 set the stage for the new
paradigm. It was
designed to measure the difference in the velocity of
light sun in the direction of the earth's rotation and
its
velocity when measured at right angles to that
direction.
Just as the velocity between two trains moving on
parallel tracks will be greater when they are moving
in
opposite directions than when they are moving in the
same
direction, so it was believed since the time of
Galileo
and
less depending on the relative velocity between the
source
of a light and an observer moving relative to that
source
through what was believed to be a "calm sea of
aether"
which permeated all space. In other words all motion was
relative to the ether sea by which light waves were
propagated. Not
only was space believed to be the same
for all observers but also the concept of time. Both were
viewed as absolute in nature and entirely independent
one
from the other.
Much to the
consternation of the scientific community,
however, the Michelson-Morely experiment (performed
not
only by them but subsequently by others) showed that
the
velocity of light was the same regardless of whether
you
were moving toward, away from, or at rest with the
source
of the light.
In short, the speed of light was a
universal constant traveling through the vacuum of
space
at 300,000 kilometers (or about 186,000 miles) per
second.
The man who
conceived the new world view which would
fit the incontrovertible fact of the constancy of the
speed of light was Albert Einstein. His
"Theory of
Relativity", written in 1905 at the age of 26,
not only
shattered the concepts of absolute space and absolute
time, but also demonstrated that they were, in fact,
inseparable - that they formed a "space-time
continuum".
The nature of reality had just made a quantum jump
from
three to four dimensions.
In fact in
his "lifetime Einstein joined light to
time, and time to space; energy to matter, matter to
space, and space to gravitation. . . At the end of his
life [in 1955] he was still working to seek a unity
between gravitation and the forces of electricity and
magnetism." (J. Bronowski's "The Ascent of
Man", p. 256)
Physicists today are still bent on making the grand
unification of the four known fundamental forces:
(1) electro-magnetism; (2) gravity; (3) the strong
nuclear
force; and (4) the weak nuclear force. Their latest
theory of a "super-symmetrical" universe
requires not only
the four dimensions of space-time but also another six
-
making ten dimensions in all. (Could Pythagoras with
his
tetractys of ten points have been 2500 years ahead of
his
time? See my
essay: "Symbolism of Numbers", p. 7.)
Not only did
the concepts of absolute space, absolute
time and the aether sea collapse with the gradual
acceptance of Einstein's theory of relativity, but
also
the fundamental concepts of matter and force and with
them
the collapse of the entire philosophy of a
materialistic,
mechanistic, and deterministic cosmos. "Throughout two
hundred years of scientific research force and matter
were
the underlying concepts in all endeavors to understand
nature. It is
impossible to imagine one without the other
because matter demonstrates its existence as a source
of
force by its action on other matter." (Einstein
and
Infeld, "The Evolution of Physics", p.56).
Because of
the success of these earlier concepts
applied by Galileo,
it would eventually be "possible to describe all
natural
phenomena in terms of simple forces between
unalterable
objects.
Throughout the two centuries following Galileo's
time such an endeavor. . . is apparent in nearly all
scientific creation.
This was clearly formulated by
Helmholtz about the middle of the nineteenth century:
'Finally,
therefore, we discover the problem of
physical science to be to refer natural phenomena back
to
unchangeable attractive and repulsive forces [between
particles of matter] whose intensity depends wholly
upon
distance. The
solubility of the problem is the condition
of the complete comprehensibility of nature.'"
(ibid p.58)
Thus, you
can see what an impact the dethroning of
matter and force had on the very foundations of the
science of physics in particular and on all sciences
in
general. In all
fairness it was not Einstein's theory
alone but also "the results of the work of
Faraday,
Maxwell, and Hertz [which] led to the development of
modern physics, to the creation of new concepts,
forming a
new picture of reality." (ibid, p.129) The successors to
the concepts of force and matter were those of the
"field"
and "quanta". Of course we still make great use of the
concepts of force and matter, but they are now seen in
a
larger context as "true" under a special set
of
circumstances which are included and subsumed under
the
newer and more generalized concepts.
Paradoxically, the more we find out about the natural
world, whether perceptible to our human senses or by
devices and instruments which let us study the
otherwise
invisible universe and the incredibly small world of
molecules, atoms and even subatomic particles, the
less
becomes that portion which is known to that which is
unknown. As
Albert Einstein put it: "Science is not and
never will be a closed book. Every important advance
brings new questions. Every development reveals, in
the
long run, new and deeper difficulties." (ibid,
p.308). In
other words, the more we know, the more we don't
know.
Other great minds have also grasped this paradox:
(1) Socrates,
when told by his students that he had the
reputation of being the wisest man in all of
replied: "Since the only thing I know for certain
is that
I know nothing, perhaps you are right. I may be the
wisest man in all of
(2) Isaac
Newton, reflecting on his own considerable
knowledge of nature and her laws, said: "I do not
know
what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem
to
have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and
diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother
pebble
or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great
ocean
of truth lay all undiscovered before me." (as found in J.
Bronowski, op. cit., p.236).
(3) Thomas
Edison, the genius who in our own century
invented the electric light, the phonograph, the
motion
picture, etc. once said: "I know less than one
thousandth
of one percent about anything."
(4) One of my
professors at M.I.T., Erwin H. Schell, was
fond of saying: "There are two types of
people. One is a
specialist and the other a generalist. The specialist
learns more and more about less and less until he
knows
everything about nothing while the generalist learns
less
and less about more and more until he knows nothing
about
everything."
As
scientific knowledge advances on all fronts, a
number of problems arise when scientists try to
communicate their findings to others: (1) Concepts and
terms required to explain theories become more and
more
abstract; (2) The wider the set of facts a given
theory
tries to explain, the more complicated and esoteric
the
mathematics becomes; and (3) The more abstract and
abstruse that scientific concepts and theories become,
the
closer they approach the realm of metaphysical and
religious concepts and beliefs.
Nuclear
physicists have now identified over one
hundred subatomic particles grouped under such exotic
names as leptons, hadrons, baryons, and mesons. Neutrons
and protons are now believed to be "made of three
quarks,
one of each color [red, green or blue]. A proton contains
two up quarks and one down quark; a neutron contains
two
down and one up." (Stephen Hawking, "A Brief
History of
Time", p.65).
In astronomy scientists have discovered
"quasi-stellar objects" named
"quasars", invisible "dark
matter" (which may make up 90 to 95 per cent of
the entire
universe), pulsating stars called "pulsars",
super nova,
black holes, etc.
Just pick up any scientific journal
today and you will usually encounter arcane and
unfamiliar
terms and concepts which can only be understood by
many
years of study in that field.
The problem
of formulating theories and applying
mathematics to include an ever increasing set of facts
is
dramatically illustrated by the complexities
encountered
in Einstein's formulation of his theory of general
relativity in 1915 to include all possible coordinate
systems and not just an "inertial"
coordinate system that
was the basis for his theory of special relativity
formulated in 1905.
In his own words:
"New
difficulties arising in the development of
science force our theory to become more and more
abstract.
. . [However] our final aim is always a better
understanding of reality. Links are added to the chain of
logic connecting theory and observation. To clear the way
leading from theory to experiment of unnecessary and
artificial assumptions, to embrace and ever-wider
region
of facts, we must make the chain longer and
longer. The
simpler and more fundamental our assumptions become,
the
more intricate is our mathematical tool of reasoning;
the
way from theory to observation becomes longer, more
subtle, and more complicated. Although it sounds
paradoxical, we could say: Modern physics is simpler
than
the old physics and seems, therefore, more difficult
and
intricate. The
simpler our picture of the external world
and the more facts it embraces, the stronger it
reflects
in our minds the harmony of the universe." (ibid,
p. 226)
Even years
after publishing his general theory of
relativity there were very few people who pretended to
understand it.
One of those men was the British
astronomer, Sir Arthur Eddington. "According to some
accounts, a journalist told Eddington in the early
1920's
that he had heard there were only three people in the
world who understood general relativity. Eddington
paused, then replied, 'I am trying to think who the
third
person is.'" (Stephen Hawking, op. cit., p.83)
Many, if not
most, scientists today maintain a
skeptical or even negative attitude on the need to
postulate a divine law giver to account for the
"laws" of
nature that have been discovered to date. Stephen Hawking
typifies this viewpoint when he states: "The
whole history
of science has been the gradual realization that
events do
not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they
reflect a
certain underlying order, which may or may not be
divinely
inspired." (Op. cit., p.122)
However, there are an increasing number of
scientists
who today believe that Science, as the concept of
ultimate
particles becomes less and less certain, is moving
closer
and closer to a perception of reality similar to that
held
by religious teachers and philosophers for several
thousand years.
For example, Edward R. Harrison in his
"The Masks of the Universe" (Macmillan, NY,
1985, p. 134)
says: "We have reached the point of postulating
fundamental particles that in principle cannot be
observed
directly as isolated entities existing in their own
right.
They are beyond the reach of direct verification. This is
something new in science, tantamount to postulating
the
mythical gods of long ago."
In the same
vein Professor Louis J. Halle has written:
"To a greater degree than we readily recognize .
. [the
physical universe] approaches the status of a
metaphysical
entity in the conception we entertain of it. For, as we
strive toward an ultimate comprehension of the whole,
or
toward a fuller comprehension of either space-time or
quanta, we sustain an increasing impression of being
close
to the borderline between physics and
metaphysics." ("Out
of Chaos", Houghton Mifflin,
Some even
are approaching a view of the universe in
general and the earth in particular that is close
to
pantheistic concepts held by Eastern religions such as
Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism and even paganism. For
instance, Rupert Sheldrake in his "The Rebirth of
Nature"
commenting on the discovery that most of the universe
is
"dark matter" whose nature is unknown says:
"It is as if
physics has discovered the unconscious. Just as the mind
floats, as it were, on the surface of the sea of
unconscious mental processes, so the known physical
world
floats on a cosmic ocean of dark matter."
The same
author goes even further to say: "The modern
conception of nature gives an even stronger sense of
her
spontaneous life and creativity than the stable,
repetitive world of Greek, medieval,and Renaissance
philosophy .
All nature is evolutionary. The
cosmos is
like a great developing organism, and evolutionary
creativity is inherent in nature herself."
(ibid,p.95-6)
This conception is no doubt influenced by philosophers
like Henri Bergson, who has expounded similar ideas in
his
treatise on "Creative Evolution", but it
also is not much
different from traditional Christian thinking as
stated by
its great theologian Thomas Aquinas in his "Summa
Theologica":
"There
is a certain Eternal Law, to wit, Reason,
existing in the mind of God and governing the whole
universe."
Nor is this
conception much different from Alexander
Pope's (who was poet laureate in
"All
are parts of one stupendous whole
Whose body Nature is and God the
soul."
This new
view of the cosmos even takes on an aura of
mysticism. As
scientists strive to communicate the truths
at which they have arrived in the theory of relativity
and
in quantum mechanics, they find ordinary language
inadequate to convey their discoveries. "The problem of
language encountered by the Eastern mystic is exactly
the
same as the problem the modern physicist faces. . .
Both
the physicist and the mystic want to communicate their
knowledge, and when they do so with words their
statements
are paradoxical and full of logical
contradictions. These
paradoxes are characteristic of all mysticism, from
Heraclitus to Don Juan [the Yaquis Indian in the books
by
Carlos Castenada], and since the beginning of this
century
they are also characteristic of physics."
(Fritjof Capra,
"The Tao of Physics", p.33)
The concept
of "field", which, as was noted above,
replaced the earlier concept of "force" as a
fundamental
principle of science, is an invisible matrix (whose
etymology is the Latin word "mater" meaning
"mother") out
of which arises the visible universe. Therefore, this
concept of the "field" is not unlike that
postulated by
mystics as the nature of the "Second Logos"
or "the Only
Begotten Son of God" described in the first
chapter of the
gospel according to John by whom the world comes into
being. ("In the beginning was the Word" etc.
where "Word"
is translated from the Greek word, "Logos",
who is
identified by John with Jesus, the Only Begotten Son
of
the Father.)
Physicists
even now talk about a "primal unified
field, from which the known fields [i.e. four
fundamental
forces] of physics arose, and of which they are
aspects."
(Sheldrake, op. cit., p.158). The Greeks originally
postulated four basic elements (fire, air, water and
earth) from which all other matter is derived. To account
for the various phenomena of nature they postulated a
number of gods, of whom the chief was Zeus, (whose
Roman
name was Jupiter, a contraction of "Jovis
Pater", or
Father Jove.)
As a ruler over lesser gods and over the
four fundamental elements, his dwelling place in the
heavens was surrounded by a fifth element called
"Aether"
which was the primal element from which the other four
derived. (Zeus was therefore also known as
"Father Aether"
by the Greeks and by the Roman poet Virgil as
"Pater
omnipotens Aether", Father of the great
Aether.) Our
English word, "quintessence", meaning the highest or
fifth essence is etymologically related to the
"aether"
from which the other four "essences"
devolve. Thus,
except for their belief in a hierarchy of gods who
they
believed influenced the lives of men, the ancient
Greeks'
conception of four fundamental elements with a higher
and
unifying principle is quite similar to the modern
scientific concept of four fundamental fields or
forces
with a higher, primal one which is the substrate of
the
other four.
Although the
universe is inconceivably large (even
infinite in size for all we know), modern cosmologists
have reason to believe that it is finite since space
itself is thought to have a positive curvature. However,
it appears to be expanding at a rate that increases in
proportion to the distance of the galaxies from each
other.
"An
obvious question to be asked about the expanding