From The Imaginative Conservative
By John Horvat II
There is an order of the universe. How refreshing are these words! They cause a certain joy, especially in our days of chaos. If an order exists, then God exists who is its Creator and source. We might then exclaim with the Psalmist how all creation gives glory to God and elevates our souls towards Him.
These were my reflections while reading a
new book that broaches this theme. In our troubled postmodern world, we
thirst for order, and so I drank deeply from this book as if from a
crystalline spring. I was intrigued that the author was not some past
saint or theologian. He is not even a religious or cleric. He is a
modern author—and a professor of behavioral genetics at a small
Midwestern university.
A Work of Surprising Depth and Insight
The book, Vestige of Eden, Image of Eternity: Common Experience, the Hierarchy of Being, and Modern Science
by Dr. Daniel Toma was just published by Steubenville’s Franciscan
University Press. The work surprises you by its depth and insights. It
is scientific yet theological, academic yet accessible, full of Faith
yet reasonable. You follow the author on his childhood journey in rural
Indiana to his studies in modern secular academia to his eventual
ponderings on the order of God’s universe. When reading, we can find
ourselves making a similar journey.
This is not an anti-science screed
written by a disgruntled academic mugged by some spiritual reawakening.
The author seeks a perspective that is “fully capable of incorporating
the data of modern science and scholarship untouched and unaltered.”
However, the author adopts a worldview that is broader in scope and more
powerful. He traces its deep roots in ancient Greek and medieval
thinkers. He claims that this view “has never been successfully
challenged, only dismissed as irrelevant.”
Indeed, it is a scientific work written
by a scientist who demonstrates how modern science does not contradict
but supports an ordered universe with a hierarchy of beings. Dr. Toma
believes that the age-old fight between science and religion is much
more an ideological prejudice than an empirical conclusion. Such a
refreshing affirmation contrasts with postmodern uncertainty.
A Consistent Creation that Makes Sense
Not only is this Catholic framework
demonstrable, but it can also be traced with wonderful consistency
throughout the whole history of the Church, as recorded by the Church
Fathers, Doctors, and thinkers. Such thought has long been suppressed by
anti-religious Enlightenment obscurity. It is ironic that as classic
liberalism breaks down, better-enlightened scholars like Dr. Toma bring
back the Church’s light.
This perspective is marvelously
accessible to readers in search of light. It is not found in scientific
laboratories but in our common contact with reality, which is “the key
to unlocking a much vaster universe than simply that indicated by our
senses.”
The universe only makes sense if seen
through this premise of a higher order created by God. That is why the
author can later venture into the realm of speculative theology by
describing the world as a liturgical framework which he calls the
“blueprint of all creation.”
Beyond Materialism
Two main points stand out in this work.
The first is his refutation of
scientism, which is derived from materialism. The stifling idea that
only material things exist is rationally refuted. We are reassured by
the true understanding of our nature that was made to comprehend the
material world through the prisms of first principles, the
transcendentals, and causality.[1] We feel explained by the existence of
an immaterial soul without which we might observe creation but fail to
understand it.
As a result, this book is written for
those in the postmodern wasteland. Everywhere we look, we find chaos in
minds. Modernity gave us lost generations of young and old that wander
about aimlessly. They have been told there is no law save that of their
gratification. The materialistic worldview makes it impossible to “say
why human beings exist. It is impossible to say why there is a universe
at all, or why there is something other than nothing.”
It is no wonder that people feel crushed
by our materialistic and secular culture that suppresses any
opposition. We naturally tend to look for “something more.”
Something More—Meaning and Purpose
The second point is that “something
more” that Dr. Toma calls a worldview “replete with meaning and
saturated with purpose.” If there is one thing our society and the
present generation need, it is a sense of purpose. Indeed, the book is
filled with natural beauty, often taken from memories of his rural
Indiana childhood that echo this purpose. He cites medieval authors,
saints, and especially Saint Thomas Aquinas who saw the visible world as
a means to unite with God, the Creator.[2]
Within the modern scientific framework
of his training, the author can talk of cosmology with angels,
intellects, and God. He describes the human intellect as capable of
seeing “a cosmos with meaning, purpose, ends, and ascending structure.”
He does not fabricate a vision of man but merely extends our natural
vision beyond the narrow Enlightenment confines that have so restricted
us from seeing the full picture.
Our Final End and Purpose
There are other highlights of the book
that merit mention. The author carefully prepares a rational foundation
that explains this Catholic worldview before entering into other fields.
The internal logic of the order of the universe cannot fail to reflect
God’s inner workings. He explores our final end and purpose found in
union with God.
Thus, the reader is invited to enter the
sacred mysteries. Creation can also reflect Trinitarian, sacramental,
and liturgical elements found in Church teaching. It would be only
consistent that the Church would worship God in a manner reflected in
nature. Supernatural reality hovers above our natural world yet not in
contradiction to it.
The author’s exuberance for these topics
transmits a desire to find definitive answers and analogies to matters
that need more deliberation. Thus, one shortcoming is that one senses
that such considerations require much more development and theological
speculation.
A Denunciation of a Travesty
Vestige of Eden is a
denunciation of a grand omission. It is a much-needed challenge to a
cynical world that has turned its back on God. Dr. Toma states that “If
the greatest gift of nature is to prepare us to accept revelation, then
the greatest travesty of modern thought is the misuse of nature to
sunder us from assenting to the revelation of our Creator.”
He criticizes this great “intellectual
hoax of the modern age” above all by displaying the beauty and order of
the universe that we have missed. He stands in awe before a God that so
loves us that He united Himself to our humanity so that we might
participate in His nature and be happy with Him for all eternity. You
will stand with him.
Notes:
[1] Guernsey, Daniel. “Educating to Truth, Beauty and Goodness.” The Cardinal Newman Society, October 17, 2016.
[2] Kennedy, Daniel. The Catholic Encyclopedia, 14th ed., s.v. “St. Thomas Aquinas.” New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912.
Editor’s Note: The featured image is “Flowers” (c. 1780) by Jan van Os (1744-1808), courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
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