The Fabric of the Universe

Family North Carolina Magazine—Jul/Aug 2008

By R. Matthew Lytle

I’ve always been a fan of science. In high school and college, I took as many different science courses as I could, from botany to physics. At the time, I never thought about why I liked scientific subjects. Looking back, I realized that my interest in science was an indication of a deeper interest in order.

The modern scientific method, which most attribute to Francis Bacon, rises or falls on the concept of order. Indeed, all of science as we know it owes its existence to order.

Put simply, science measures and predicts. That is, scientists measure phenomena in the world around us and devise theories as to how things exist the way that they do. Take Isaac Newton, for example. While the proverbial apple most likely didn’t fall on his head, Newton’s formulation of the laws of gravity and inertia imply an order to the universe.

How do Newton’s laws–or any scientific laws, for that matter–imply order? The most direct answer is that repeated experiments using the same conditions yield the same results. In chemistry, I learned that phenolphthalein always turns purple in the presence of a basic chemical. It still does. I can therefore safely predict that any basic material will turn phenolphthalein purple. This repeatability points to a deeper order to the universe–a universe where gravity and inertia are taken as laws.

Imagine a world where natural laws didn’t apply. Nothing could be predicted. Everything would be chaos and anarchy.

Fortunately, this is not the case. Fundamental concepts such as cause and effect are woven, as it were, into the very fabric of the universe. Of course, even the concept of cause and effect has had its own critics. David Hume, an eighteenth century Scottish philosopher, argued it is impossible to verify that any action can be attributed to a specific cause. He would argue that if my hand is burning, and coincidentally is also in a fire, I can’t say for certain that the fire is the cause of my burning hand, even though burning appendages and fire nearly always occur in close proximity to one another.

Hume’s theory was a watershed event in Western philosophy and paved the way for skepticism about just about everything during the Enlightenment. While this was so, science kept progressing on the assumption that certain causes always have certain effects. For science, this is the way that the universe works. Without cause and effect, there is no technology, since the very existence of technology assumes that causes have verifiable and repeatable effects. Automobiles are built around the fact that gasoline will always ignite when sparked.

Hume’s separation of cause from effect also had serious consequences for how people understood right from wrong. In ethics, this is known as the “is/ought” problem. Just because something is (or always has been) a certain way, doesn’t mean that it ought to be that way. The result was moral skepticism. Even though certain actions have always been associated with dangerous effects, Hume’s line of thinking says that we can’t say that these actions ought to be avoided.

Just as technological advances continued to progress by assuming the cause/effect relation that Hume denied, so everyday life continues by assuming moral principles that ought to be followed. Just because someone may want to believe there is no objective right or wrong doesn’t mean that he or she can actually live that way. The same people who argue that there is no objective morality are the same people who will call the police when their car is stolen. Their stated belief that there is no true morality applicable to everyone does not line up with their actual belief as demonstrated by their actions; they end up living by the very moral norms they deny. Why is this?

Just like the laws of physics, objective moral principles have been woven into the very fabric of the universe. Just as an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force, so some actions are always right and others are always wrong. The universe has been ordered that way.

This natural order is why we at the North Carolina Family Policy Council continue to defend things like the definition of marriage as the union between one man and one woman at one time, and it is why we oppose any definition that seeks to pervert marriage.

Ethics and morality have been woven into the fabric of the universe and are therefore universal. They apply to everyone, everywhere.

R. Matthew Lytle is director of research for the North Carolina Family Policy Council.

Returning to the question of what Rome has to do with Jerusalem, I think a better way to ask the question would be: “What has Jerusalem to do with Rome?” What relationship do Christians have with the government, and what relationship should they have?

The answer might surprise some. The fact is, Jerusalem and Rome have quite a bit to do with each other.

With this in mind, we hope that this issue of Family North Carolina causes you to reflect on the role of Christians and government–of the relationship between Jerusalem and Rome. More than that, we hope that this issue will cause you to ponder your own role as a citizen in the public square.

R. Matthew Lytle is director of research for the North Carolina Family Policy Council.