Vitalism would be one of the earliest branches of science. And it may just be the last one standing in the end. Generally, these days it is held in low esteem. And rightly so in many cases. Vitalists tend to conclude that there is some final unknown force out there in creation driving everything else, which is apart from what can be scientifically explained, . Secular science would call that unscientific. Are these men "cranks" (quacks)? Mainstream science would try and have it seem so. Vitalists are however yet some of the most brilliant men in the halls of scientific reasoning. Some are godless, others are god seeking, and others even God lead? So are they merely seeing God in nature, or not? What is going on there?
Since there is this so-called "unknown" involved in the explanations contained in the scientific doctrine of "vitalism", it opens itself up to many a form of scientific quackery and conjecture - things that sound good to some men but still cannot be explained rationally or convincingly. These conjectures one can quickly wade through and get out of the way. Yet, that same "unknown" still exists. It is there, for both the Christian believer and the unbeliever...waiting to be reckoned with. It is there, this unknown vital force.
It is there. Every man can see it. It is that power that we find as we get farther and farther toward the end of the hierarchy of particles we know as forming "matter". The very end of this chain of matter - is not the end. The sequence of things getting smaller and smaller, and smaller, far beyond something that which even our imaginations can keep up with.
Those electron fields which we now know make up the atom and determine matter (matter as we know it) are unimaginably more complicated than the known universe. How these tiny particles rearrange themselves to form all of creation, we don't even begin to understand - we just know that they do. They are but the tip of a vast iceberg of yet smaller and smaller particles. The mindless interplay of atoms (or so scientific limitation concedes) tells us almost nothing meaningful about the make-up of creation which lies beneath them. If anything, it exposes to us more of what we do not know. And inevitably, it is that very "correct" scientific reasoning which we use day in and day out that both takes us beyond those electron fields, and into the unknown, and to our chagrin, also leaves us there. "Where is it?", "What is it?", "Where did it come from?". It's there! There to the Vitalist's conclusion, that "the processes of life are not explicable by the laws of physics and chemistry alone and that life is in some part self-determining" - the Creator His self? The Creator's version of life! It is, and by the very God who told us that His name is, "I Am" (I simply Am), it is. All agree that it is there. This vital force that determines. It is no mystery, and it is beautiful.
(Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 1, verse 9)
And He has not left us here alone.
"I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever ; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans ; I will come to you. After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.(As spoken by Jesus regarding He and his Father, the Godhead, the Creator Himself, in John chapter 14)
Nor has He left us here as orphans. And as we can see, He has some very long-term plans for us (a "vital" interest), our Father does, the Father of the universe, unencumbered by science.
Just a few quick thoughts this morning.
