When “Star Stuff” Isn’t Good Enough

naturalism cannot solve Cornell’s troubled relationship with nature

This article is part of the Claritas spring 2023 issue, Love. Read the full print release here.

By: Jennalee Dunn

Cornell is world class at many things, including being frigid.

As soon as I got accepted into college, I went onto YouTube and watched as many Cornell vlogs as I could. Every vlogger warned of the Ithaca winters and featured Canada Goose jackets in their packing lists. 

But after growing up with Missouri’s mild winters, I thought the change in weather could be fun. When that first snow finally came in November; I romanticized it, posting pictures of the snowswept landscape to my Instagram story. The upperclassmen laughed at me, saying, “You won’t be smiling when the seasonal depression hits!”

The vloggers had warned me about seasonal depression. I guess it’s like nature’s hazing. Freshmen are reminded of weather-induced suffering every day when we cross the bridge connecting North to Central Campus. Looking into the gorge from the side of the bridge, you can see large black nets which students casually refer to as “suicide nets.” The nets are often a subject of dark humor. One of my friends yells, “gorges!” whenever something goes wrong as if they’re her Plan B. We laugh, casually forgetting those gorges have been a site of extreme suffering for others.   

But the gorges are also beautiful. Cornell is beautiful! In the fall, orange leaves flood the gorges’ sides with color. Trails lead to waterfalls hidden around campus. And there is nothing better than throwing a blanket on the slope to watch the sunset after a long day of classes. These things should fill us with joy, right? And yet we find so much darkness surrounding nature at Cornell. Why is Ithaca primarily known for its depressing winters and its beautiful gorges hung with reminders of death?

In my Modern Philosophy class, my professor opened my eyes to how the academic world treats nature and science. Academia commonly finds truth in something called “material monism.” Material monism is the belief that only material substance exists, rejecting the existence of immaterial substances like the soul. Naturalism––the theory that all beings and events in the universe are completely natural and completely knowable with scientific investigation––falls under this belief. [1] In this world, the mind is just a hunk of meat firing neurons. The famous Cornell astronomer Carl Sagan said, “we are made of star-stuff,” as part of his attempt to prove life can be meaningful without a God or moral direction. [2] If our purpose comes from our small role in a vast cosmological history, then we don’t need God to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. Our souls don’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but at least our origins from “star-stuff” should make us feel better. Naturalism is taught in many of our classrooms as a premise for knowledge—but it fundamentally excludes the existence of a God behind nature.  

One of my friends has experienced the influence of naturalism in STEM classes. Maddy Nason, who uses they/them pronouns, is a freshman studying environmental engineering here at Cornell. They’re passionate about environmental sustainability and they also love nature, having once spent the whole summer at a wilderness camp where they carved a hiking trail through the forest. At Cornell, Maddy studies the environment from the naturalist perspective. 

“We aren’t taught to study nature with immaterial substance or soul in mind because it is not useful in solving environmental problems,” Maddy told me, adding that while naturalism doesn’t have to be the answer for everyone, “for the purpose of engineering, science is the only relevant truth.”

The 20th-century Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga explained why naturalism conflicts with Christian belief by posing a question: How could the immaterial soul come to exist by evolutionary processes alone? Plantinga describes a soul as something upheld by God and maintained after death. [3] St Augustine believed the soul is a life-giving thing at the center of consciousness that inhabits an immaterial and nonspatial reality. [4] A Christian understanding of the soul presents such a large gulf between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom that scientists deem it anti-evolutionary. Natural selection and genetic variation surely could not have produced the immaterial soul that Christians say we have. [5] 

Physicist Stephen Barr explains the naturalist’s goal: “In restoring and preserving living nature, we [naturalists] will restore Eden and experience nature’s ‘deeply fulfilling beneficence’” through primal experience and scientific understanding. [6] 

Naturalism causes scientists to treat nature with godlike qualities. The “transhumanist” movement is one of the leading efforts to replace God with technology. Julian Huxley, a distinguished biologist (and the brother of Aldous Huxley), gave his definition: “the human species can transcend itself–not just sporadically…but in its entirety, as humanity…by realizing new possibilities of and for [its] human nature.” [7] These new possibilities will be achieved through “zestful but scientific exploration.” [7] The current goal of scientific investigation is to unlock the secrets of the mind and reality, becoming the godless key with which scientists will explain the meaning of life. 

But if scientific investigation is the key to Eden, why do we have suicide nets? Why is Cornell, whose natural sciences departments are some of the best in the nation, known for nature-induced depression? Naturalism says our studies should lead us to “nature’s fulfilling beneficence.” [6] But when I walk over the gorges, I’m reminded of the unfulfilled who found their end with nature. Where is Eden? If Barr was right, Cornell would be leading the world into natural utopia. But instead, we have suicide nets.  

In the 2009-2010 school year, six Cornell students took their lives. [8] They jumped off the well-known bridge that connects North Campus to Central Campus. The six students might have walked across it every day, peeking over the rails to gaze at the majestic gorge as I do. But instead of beauty, they saw their means of escape. After the deaths, Cornell installed fifteen-foot wide suicide nets on five university bridges. [8] I don’t mean to say that Christianity cures depression, or that seeing beauty in the gorges would have stopped the students from jumping. But the suicide nets offer a metaphor for the deficit of fulfillment that naturalists promise. Here’s the place where we’re supposed to see Eden, but instead we’re using it to end our lives.

There is a brokenness at Cornell that naturalism has failed to solve. No matter how much scientific investigation we do, seasonal depression will remain. Humanity requires a stronger purpose than star-stuff. 

Christianity offers a different way to treat the natural world, with God as the ultimate and power and truth instead of nature. Nature is cold and unforgiving, but God has everlasting love. Nature is simply a part of His creative order, just like humans. The Psalms remind us that God is always taking care of nature: “[He makes] springs gush forth in the valleys … [and gives] drink to every beast of the field.” [9] “[The Lord] knows all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the fields is [His].” [10] Every stream, creature, and tree are loved and cared for by the Lord. Instead of finding our hope in nature, we can find solidarity with it. Christianity offers the security that our lives are hidden and protected in Christ, like the rest of creation.

The material monism we are taught at Cornell rejects God’s presence and leads us to a tainted relationship with nature. But this relationship does not have to be bleak if we learn to see God’s love in it. The Heidelberg Catechism, a Christian confessional document from the 16th century, describes God’s providence as His “almighty and present power whereby… He still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures and so governs them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruit and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed all things come to us not by chance but by his fatherly hand.” [11]

God upholds nature. This is the true fulfilling power that naturalists will forever be trying to find. It pushes away the darkness that students feel in the winter by allowing them to see God’s design in the snowflakes.

At least once a week I head to Bus Stop Bagels and order the Route 81; the bacon, egg, and cheese classic. Then I walk down Tower Road and turn off into the bushes. I scamper up a hill to my favorite bench beneath a sheltered encampment of trees in the A.D. White Garden as if I’m running from the rest of campus. I often feel lonely at Cornell, but when I enter the garden, Route 81 in hand, I don’t feel so alone anymore. The garden feels secret because no one ever comes here. I put my phone in my bag because I have a sacred rule: no technology in the garden.  

Once while I was sitting on this bench, my parents called to cancel a Europe trip that had slowly become a large part of my identity. I cried and cried until class rolled around and to stop my tears, I danced laps around the garden to Regina Spektor. I fled once again to this garden after losing a dear friend from home. I set up my hammock between two trees and hid from the world until it started to rain. I layed in the forest for hours, weeping and praying the psalms.

Now I chomp on my sandwich and look around. The red pines reach up to the sky like cathedral spires and the birds sing on their branches. I watch the squirrels chase each other through the woods that surround me. God feeds the squirrels and waters the trees. In turn, the birds sing their songs to glorify Him. I am fed and nourished by God and in turn I work diligently for Him. He is there for every assignment I turn in, every late night spent in the library, and every moment when I love another person. So in my darkest times I know what to do. I flee to my garden and watch the Lord guide the birds to the worms and see the flowers turn their petals to Heaven. God provides a love and safety that naturalism cannot.

Abraham Kuyper wrote, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: 'Mine!'” [12]

My experience as a Christian is having the God of the universe cry “mine” over me. That’s why I feel His never-ending, providential love when I am in the garden. For I am part of nature, but I belong to God. 

This article appeared in Claritas’ spring 2023 Love Issue

Sources

[1] Naturalism. Encyclopædia Britannica. Accessed April 29, 2023. https://www.britannica.com/topic/naturalism-philosophy

[2] Sagan, Carl. The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective, 1973

[3] Plantinga, Alvin. Can A Person be a Soul? Youtube. June 18, 2020. Accessed April 29, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdB3PJoA43o

[4] Tornau, Christian. Saint Augustine. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2020 Edition), Accessed April 29, 2023. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/augustine/.

[5] Plantinga, Alvin. Where the Conflict Really Lies. 2011

[6] Barr, Steven. The Idol of Science. October 6 2006. Accessed April 29, 2023. https://www.firstthings.com/article/2006/10/the-idol-of-science

[7] Huxley, Julian. New Bottles for New Wine. 1950. https://ia800306.us.archive.org/19/items/NewBottlesForNewWine/New-Bottles-For-New-Wine.pdf

[8] Cornell Gorge Suicides. Wikipedia. March 18, 2022. Date Accessed April 29 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_gorge_suicides#cite_note-Huffington2-3

[9] Psalm 104:10-11 (ESV)

[10] Psalm 50:11 (ESV) 

[11] Lord’s Day 10. Heidelberg Catechism. Accessed April 29, 2023. http://www.heidelberg-catechism.com/en/lords-days/10.html

[12] Bratt, James D. Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader. 1998