responds to physical stimuli, such as light, chemical composition, and air, through mechanisms that are precise, observable, and well-understood. The environmental stimulus excites the neuron which passes the energy electrochemically to other neurons in a chain reaction that is very fast, automatic, and leaves little room for conscious interjection. This neuronal sequence explains our senses, including vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, but what about Paul’s mysteries? Would any withstand modern scrutiny?
Perhaps beauty, noble deeds, and justice are epiphenomena which are not reducible to physical mechanisms even if they have a scientific basis? For example, beauty may be a physiognomic configuration detected through an unconscious mathematical process based on faces one was exposed to previously. Justice might be agreement between our internal emotions and what we believe should happen to the perpetrators of crime. Noble deeds may be brave altruism with long-term effects that increase the evolutionary fitness of a distinct group. If these explanations are correct, have we accomplished what Paul set out for us to do?
I think Paul would realize that despite considerable scientific progress, comprehensive answers to some of the same questions that motivated religion still elude us. What is truth? What does the future hold for us? Does what I do matter to the circumstances I find myself in? Is there providence? Am I significant to the universe? Does anyone love me? These mysteries are alive and well.
Paul’s invitation to ponder the irreducibility of truth, noble deeds, justice, purity, beauty, virtue, praiseworthiness, and good reputation welcomes cogitation. People find their own answers using available guides like personal experience, religion, philosophy, science, interpersonal instruction, wisdom, psychology, culture, and ethics among others. Time will tell whether scientific explanations for epiphenomena like Paul's mysteries will satisfy Christians.
Share your opinion of whether science has solved Paul’s mysteries with scott@theorism.org.
Paul’s Mysteries
What would the Authors of The Holy Bible say today in light of all the knowledge that science has revealed to humanity? In the eighth verse of the fourth chapter of Philippians (New King James Version), Paul writes, “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.”
In that passage, Paul challenges us to ponder the mysteries of the irreducibility of the mind and of several aspects of human life (noble deeds, justice, purity, beauty, virtue, praiseworthiness, and good reputation). If we want to understand the mind, we must look at the brain. Modern science knows that the neurological system