7.2 - Things secret and revealed (Deuteronomy 29:29)
Bowlby compared his current analytical approach to a kind of subjective art form that
couldn’t be validated. He wanted psychology to be applied as a natural science, with
real life studies of children in their environment. Methodical scientific approaches could
study observable and measurable data that can be verified or disproven. Instead of
Freud’s metapsychology that depended on such intangible and unmeasurable ideas as
psychic energy and drive (p. 60), Bowlby built his theories on biology (p. 62). For
Bowlby, our biological need for protection is a more “sophisticated” reason for
attachments than our psychological need for protection, a more observable and
measurable basis for human relationships (p. 64)
There are things in the world we can see and measure and study. There are also facets
of life that are invisible and elude our grasp. Science is the study of what our senses
can perceive, measure and organize. We organize and understand by identifying
patterns of association, what relates to what and how. What science cannot explain is
the silent question behind all questions: why? Why is life, life? Why is order, order?
Why is existence? The ultimate question of why life is, can’t be answered in the arena
science explores. When we ask why life is, we are seeking its source and purpose. We
are looking in the direction of an unknowable mystery, where God is (Heschel p.
108-111). Existence can not determine and define for itself its own origin and purpose
Function is one way science explains the nature of existence but function does not
explain the origin or meaning of existence. Evolutionary biology concludes that things
are as they are because evolution has evolved in its way, given its laws of variation and
natural selection for survival. It explains its data by describing it, but it cannot explain its
why. It cannot explain why life is, or the purpose of its existence
The theory of evolution is an impersonal explanation of life that can’t answer the
personal questions of origin and meaning. It doesn’t address or reconcile the role of
relationships with its impersonal evolutionary force. How does evolution’s single
impetus for survival explain the vital relational nature of the human race and of the
whole cosmos? How can the impersonal create the personal? Which of its laws
explain the great divide between a mother’s mirroring gaze and another’s fatal neglect?
Evolution’s singular concern is survival. It does not compute the personal, relational
forces that drive so much of our day to day living
Is it enough for a parent to answer her child’s why with: because I say so? If the parent
knows and loves her child, such a response is enough and can explain something very
important. Relationships depend on much more than what we know and understand.
Such an answer from a parent and -- much more so -- from God, responds to the
question that most needs to be addressed because it directs us to God who is infinitely
beyond our knowing and understanding. When we know God is with us, there is
comfort in this pattern God chose in relating to us: “The secret things belong to the Lord
our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may
observe all the words of this law” (Deuteronomy 29:29)