Our world is in a process of change

As I reflect on my life, I have concluded that I am a part of a long process in which change is the only constant. It is not just the aging process. It is the process of intellectual understanding. It is the process of my understanding of life. It is the process by which everything about me is always moving and changing. Process is an essential ingredient of life.

We human beings are not comfortable with change dominating our lives. We desperately want security, and we have a difficult time finding security in a life that is constantly changing.

I have concluded that security should not be a primary goal for life. I have abandoned predictability as a test for the life truths that I pursue. I cannot make security a primary value and be a fully functional human being.

American society has sold its soul for security. In the commitment to security, we have lost life as an adventure that is new every day. We want to have life that is secure and predictable. I fear that the secure, predictable life is a mess of pottage for which we have sold our souls.

How did we fall into this trap? How have we gone astray in our search for meaning? How can we get back to life as adventure?

The trail that goes back to Galileo and Newton is long. From them we developed the scientific method that tells us that for something to be true it must be repeatable and verifiable. The scientific method leads us to unending analysis that reduces everything down to the very smallest component part.

Society has been led to believe that, if life can be correctly analyzed, we can understand life. It has not worked. In real life, analysis has not lead to understanding but to despair. The more life is analyzed, the more meaningless it becomes.

In the 20th century the analytic approach to life has been supreme in the Western world and in the United States in particular. While admittedly a subjective evaluation, I recently read that 50 of the world’s 60 greatest universities are in the United States. Great professors want to teach in the United States, and top-notch students want to study in the United States. The brightest minds of the world are constantly knocking on the doors of our great universities.

I suspect our universities are the single greatest American tool in influencing life in the emerging flat world.

The troubling part of the story is that most of our great universities, especially our great state universities, are dominated by the analytic/reductionist philosophy and methodology that is rooted in Galileo and Newton.

I remember the cover of the April 8, 1968, edition of Time magazine. The cover screamed IS GOD DEAD? The assumption has been in reductionist circles that critical thinking would take us to a post-God era of life.

It seems that God and God-type thinking are not ready to die. Forty years after the Time headline, there are concerted intellectual challenges to the reductionist majority opinion.

Today in America there is a flood of young intellectuals who are challenging reductionism. They are producing high-quality new writings that are challenging reductionist thinking. There are apparently two areas of challenge. First, reductionist thinking and methods have not produced the predictability that they promised. It seems that there is a randomness and an element of unpredictability in life for which the reductionists have no explanation. More dynamic understandings are emerging.

Second, reductionist thinking and methods have left a thirst for meaning that will not leave the human species. Human beings continue to ask “Why are we here?” and “What are we supposed to be doing?”

The rebirth of Evangelical Christian faith in the last half of the 20th century has produced a different kind of generation. It is a generation that is not despairing, but claiming hope for our world. A new generation of intellectuals has emerged that is effectively infiltrating and challenging the university systems of our country and the reductionist scholarship that has led too many people to despair.

In the next few years look for this generation of reformers. They will reform our politics. They will reform our social services. They will reform the way we interpret and use science. They will reform our professions. They will reform what is written and what is read. They will return us to caring communities. They will challenge our motives.

If security is your goal, stay away from this new generation of movers and shakers. Their presence excites me, and I am eager for the new adventures.

The Rev. Howard Bess is pastor emeritus of Church of the Covenant, and American Baptist church in Palmer. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.