Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Showing posts with label Science and Faith - Debates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Science and Faith - Debates. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Thomas Jay Oord - Strong Passibility, Trinity & Theocosmocentrism


Strong Passibility, Trinity, and Theocosmocentrism
http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/strong-passibility-trinity-theocosmocentrism

by Thomas Jay Oord
January 19, 2018

An increasing number of Christians believe God is relational. To be “relational” is, in the classical language, to be “passible.” It means that God is affected by others.

I’ve written an essay for a new book on im/passibility, and I defend what the editors call “strong passibility.” In my language, I call this God’s essential relations with others.

In this essay, I lay out two ways we might think relationality is essential to God. And I mention a third way, which is really a combination of the first two. I’ll also point to concerns with these ways, although I think at least some of these concerns can be overcome.

Strong Passibility/Essential Divine Relations

The strong divine passibility view I defend says being affected by others is a necessary attribute of God’s nature. God doesn’t voluntarily choose to be affected; God is necessarily affected. I have been using the phrase “essentially relational” to describe strong divine passibility.

I take the biblical phrase, “God is love,” to mean that love is an essential divine attribute. If God is essentially loving and love always involves relational giving and receiving relationships, God must be essentially relational. Strong divine passibility says God is necessarily and everlastingly passible.

God Essentially Relates in Trinity

There are two ways (and a third that combines them) to affirm strong divine passibility. The first says God essentially relates in Godself. This view is typically associated with a vision of God as a social Trinity. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (or other names we might use) have everlastingly related with one another. Some call this relating a perichoretic dance. This Trinitarian view affirms that God everlastingly and necessarily relates in Godself.

There are several downsides placing all one’s emphasis upon the Trinity to affirm strong passibility. One downside is that saying divine persons relate to one another sounds to many people like tritheism rather than monotheism. Real relations require real differences; real relations among persons require more than one person. Few Christians want to say three Gods exist.

Those who affirm the social Trinity also typically affirm the idea that God once existed alone and then created the universe out of nothing. They say God necessarily loves and relates in Trinity but contingently loves and relates with creation. The downside of this view, however, is that God’s love for creation is arbitrary, in the sense that there is no essential divine attribute for love of creaturely others. God by nature does not love nondivine others.

The view that God only loves necessarily within Trinity can sound like God is inherently selfish. After all, God necessarily loves Godself and contingently loves creatures. By contrast, many believe love promotes the well-being of those beyond the lover. And imitating God involves loving others not just ourselves.

Those who affirm God as essentially related in Trinity respond to these criticisms. The most common response says it’s a mystery how God can be both one and essentially self-related as three. Some regard this as the highest of holy mysteries. And we should simply believe God will always love creatures, despite there being no love-for-creation attribute essential to God’s nature.

God Essentially Relates with Creation

The second way to affirm that God essentially relates with others says God essentially relates with creatures. This way denies that God once existed alone and at some time decided to create the universe out of nothing. Instead, God always and necessarily relates with creatures, because God always creates others with whom God relates.

I call this view “theocosmocentrism,” but some forms of panentheism also affirm it. Theocosmocentrism says we make the best sense of reality if we refer both to God and creation. The strong passibility version of theocosmocentrism says God necessarily loves and relates to creation, but the particular ways God loves and relates with creation are contingent.

One disadvantage to the theocosmocentric way of affirming strong divine passibility is that many people cannot fathom how God everlastingly relates to creation. Most Christians accept that God had no beginning, although they cannot fathom that view. They also accept a big bang cosmology that says our universe had a beginning. So they cannot fathom how God everlastingly creates and relates to creation. Affirming both requires believing God was creating before the big bang. That’s difficult for many to conceive.

God Essentially Relates in Trinity and with Creation

Another downside to the idea that God always relates to creatures (at least in the minds of some) is that the idea isn’t explicitly Trinitarian. Some theologians want to keep the Trinity front and center. Saying God essentially relates to creatures doesn’t require belief in Trinity, at least not obviously so.

But this downside can be overcome. One can affirm that God essentially relates in Trinity and God essentially relates with creatures. Both types of necessary relations can be true simultaneously. We might even consider Jesus’ revelation of a relational God as evidence of this doubly essential divine relatedness.

A God of Strong Passibility Exists Necessarily

One can affirm any of these versions of strong divine passibility and think God exists necessarily. Strong passibility and divine aseity are compatible. God can necessarily exist and essentially relate to divine others or creaturely others or both. There is no logical contradiction.

With the Psalmist, we can affirm that the steadfast love of the Lord can literally endure forever. And that enduring can be within Trinity, with creation, or both (Ps. 118).

Conclusion

This argument is part of my much longer essay defending God’s relationality in general and essential relations in particular. Look for it in a 4 views book next fall.

In my next blog essay, I’ll offer reasons it’s better to affirm strong divine passibility/essential relations than weak passibility. My goal in this essay, however, is to lay out two ways to say God is essentially relational.


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Why We Should Believe God is Essentially Relational
http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/believe-god-essentially-relational

by Thomas Jay Oord
January 25, 2018

It seems that most Christians believe God is relational. I agree. Theologians call this “divine passibility.” But some Christians think God chooses to be relational, while others think God is relational by nature. Does it matter whether we believe God is relational by choice or by nature?

Five Reasons to Affirm God is Essentially Relational

In my previous post, I described two forms of strong passibility, or what I usually call God’s “essential relations.” One form says God essentially relates within Trinity. The second says God essentially relates with creation. A third combines them to say God essentially relates in Trinity and with creation.

So what? Does it matter that we affirm the strong version of divine passibility? After all, biblical writers don’t explicitly endorse one version of passibility instead of the other. I think it does matter, and there are good reasons to believe God is relational by nature and not by an arbitrary choice. Saying God is essentially relational makes better sense than saying God is contingently relational.

1. The God Revealed as Relational is So by Nature

I am among many who believe it wise to unite conceptually how God self-reveals with who God truly is. We should believe the God witnessed to in Jesus, the Bible, and in other forms of revelation is who God truly is by nature.

While this argument isn’t a proof, it makes sense to think that the God revealed as relational is who God is by nature.

2. God’s Essence is Love, and Love is Relational

Affirming strong passibility provides a consistent view of divine love. If love is an essential divine attribute and God essentially and everlastingly expresses love in relations with others, strong divine passibility makes sense.

Strong divine passibility does not force us to do apophatic gymnastics when speaking of God’s love. It doesn’t balk at speculating about God’s nature. Strong divine passibility provides a coherent framework for conceiving of God’s love.

To affirm that love is an essential attribute of God, we should affirm strong divine passibility.

3. Only an Essentially Relational God Can be Trusted to Love Us

If God’s love is essentially relational and God necessarily relates with creatures (theocosmocentrism), we have assurance that God always loves us. God loves us no matter what, because that’s the kind of being God is.

Weak divine passibility cannot affirm this, because it says God’s love for us is contingent. The weak view cannot say God necessarily loves creation. And those who deny divine passibility altogether cannot speak coherently about God being compassionate or expressing love in giving-and-receiving relations.

To affirm unambiguously God’s steadfast love for us, we should affirm strong divine passibility.

4. An Essentially Relational God is Best Conceived as Uncontrolling

I’ve argued in other publications that God’s love is uncontrolling. Strong divine passibility fits nicely with the view that God’s love is necessarily uncontrolling, because divine love necessarily gives and receives.

Believing God cannot control others solves the central issue in the problem of evil: the God who cannot control is not culpable for failing to prevent evil. I call this “essential kenosis.”[1] Although one could affirm weak divine passibility and the uncontrolling love of God, the strong divine passibility view fits uncontrolling love better.

To affirm clearly that God is not culpable for evil, we should affirm strong divine passibility.

5. An Essentially Relational God Will Never Leave nor Forsake Us

The theocosmocentric version of strong divine passibility provides grounds for believing it is necessarily true that God will “never leave you or forsake you” (Dt. 31:6; Heb. 13:5).

Other views cannot affirm that God necessarily relates to creatures. If those views are correct, God may choose to leave us and forsake us. There’s nothing to prevent God from giving up and abandoning us. Those views provide no confidence God will always be with us.

To be confident that God will never leave us or forsake us, we should affirm strong divine passibility.

Conclusion

To my way of thinking, these are powerful reasons to believe God is relational by nature and not merely by choice. But I know that some will disagree. In the final post of this series, I’ll show that even most who think God chooses to be relational actually think God is necessarily so.

- TJO

*See my arguments in The Uncontrolling Love of God: An Open and Relational Theory of Providence (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity Academic, 2015) and various essays in Uncontrolling Love: Essays Exploring the Uncontrolling Love of God with Introductions by Thomas Jay Oord, Chris Baker, Gloria Coffin, Craig Drurey, Graden Kirksey, Lisa Michaels, and Donna Ward, eds. (San Diego, Ca.: SacraSage, 2017).


Thomas Jay Oord - A Process View of God & Creation


Creatio Ex Nihilo and Creation Care
http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/creatio-ex-nihilo-and-creation-care

by Thomas Jay Oord
April 2, 2018

A growing number of Christians see the need to care for creation. But most of these Christians affirm the ancient idea that God created the universe out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo). Does care for creation fit well with creatio ex nihilo? I don’t think so…

I’ve been writing a book chapter for a new book on the influence — for good or ill — of Christianity’s creation doctrines on climate change, ecological degradation, and species extinction. In that essay, I address four creation theology issues, one of which is the creation from nothing view.

Implicit in these issues are three questions: Does God’s love entail plans, desires, and purposes for creation? Does God have the power to control creation to accomplish those purposes? Do creaturely actions – for good or ill – ultimately matter to God’s purposes?

Ex Nihilo?

Since the third century, most Christians have said God initially created our universe from absolute nothingness.[2] The Bible doesn’t explicitly support this claim.[3] Instead, biblical writers speak of God creating out of or in relation to creation (water, invisible things, chaos [tehom], the deep, and more) rather than from nothing. Nevertheless, the doctrine of creation from nothing prevails among liberal and conservative Christians.

Historians argue about the origin of the creation from nothing view. Gerhard May’s widely influential thesis is that two Gnostic leaders introduced the idea. Gnosticism typically regards matter as inherently evil, so Gnostics would understandably be averse to the idea a holy God used unholy materials when creating. Most Christians reject the Gnostic belief that matter is inherently evil, but they retain the creation from nothing view.

In the second century, Irenaeus proved influential in establishing creatio ex nihilo among Christians. “[God] was influenced by no one but, rather, made all things by his own counsel and free will,” argues Irenaeus.[4]“God made those things that were made in order that all things might exist out of things that did not exist, just as he willed, making use of matter by his own will and power.”[5]

The sovereignty of God was especially important for Irenaeus’s claim that God created from nothing. “The will of God must rule and dominate in everything,” he argued, “everything else must give way to it, be subordinated to it, and be a servant to it.”[6]

Alternatives to Ex Nihilo

Christians propose alternatives to creatio ex nihilo. Some of yesteryear and some today suggest that God creates from Godself or ex Christi.[7] The idea that God creates out of Godself seems to lead to pantheism, however. Most Christians want to distinguish between the transcendent Creator and creation, believing God differs in important ways from creation and alone is worthy of worship. Consequently, creatio ex deo/christitheory has few adherents.

Other Christians argue that God creates out of chaos, possibilities, profundity, love, previously created things, eternal matter, and more.[8] The motivations they have for proposing these theories vary, but some appeal to their favorite theory for its fruitfulness for ecological concerns.

These theories also often provide a middle way between an entirely transcendent or entirely immanent God. Labels such as “panentheism,” “a sacramental universe,” “theocosmocentrism,” or “deep incarnation” describe this middle way.

Ex Nihilo Implies Creation is Insignificant

Those who offer alternative theories to creatio ex nihilo note two problems the traditional view presents for motivating Christians to care for creation. The first problem is that creation from nothing implies creation is ultimately insignificant. That which comes from nothing is finally superfluous.

Proponents of creatio ex nihilo typically regard creation’s lack of necessity as positive. Creatio ex nihilo tells us, they say, that creation is a free divine gift from a transcendent God. God could have decided not to create, and God could decide, at any moment, to send creation into nonexistence. Creation is a wholly divine gift bestowed and supported by God’s omnipotence.

Thinking God created the universe from nothing, however, easily leads to thinking creation does not ultimately matter. Michael Zbaraschuk puts it this way: “If the world is created out of the nothing in a free expression of the divine power, its radical contingency means that it is, at the end of the day, not very important. If God made it once unilaterally, so God can make it again.”[9]

It’s understandably difficult for some Christians to feel motivated to care for and protect what ultimately doesn’t matter. The lack of motivation becomes especially problematic when caring for and protecting creation requires considerable self-sacrifice.

Does the Bible Explicitly Teach Creation Care?

Some respond to this charge by arguing that earthly-oriented motivations ought to be secondary. Christians ought to be primarily concerned with what God commands, they say, not with whether creation is radically contingent. “Who cares how the universe was created or if it ultimately matters,” they say, “we must obey God and not worry about understanding our world.”

Making a biblical case that God commands care for creation, however, requires interpretive moves not obvious to many Christians.[10] While important scholarly work has been done, much of the biblical witness seems unconcerned with creation care. Anthropocentrism reigns.

Ecologically-oriented theology would find strong scriptural justification had Jesus said, “Love all creatures great and small, care for the earth and its ecosystems, and learn to live sustainably with creation!” While biblical writers say God cares for nonhuman creatures, explicit commands that humans love animals, ecosystems, and the planet are rare if present at all.

Ex Nihilo Implies God Could Singlehandedly Prevent Ecological Destruction

The traditional creation from nothing view implies a second problem: If God has the power to create something from nothing, it stands to reason God has the power to prevent ecological degradation singlehandedly. Such prevention might mean overpowering humans to stop them from harming creation, or it might mean creating from nothing obstacles to thwart such harm.

If God has creatio ex nihilo power and yet allows environmental degradation, one might even assume God wants that degradation. If God really cared about creation, the God with ex nihilo power could prevent ecological disaster singlehandedly.

This problem leads some Christians to adopt noninterventionist theologies, whereby God either can’t or won’t interrupt natural processes or creaturely free will. The “God won’t intervene” option doesn’t solve the problem, of course. After all, “won’t” retains the idea God could prevent ecological degradation unilaterally.

The “God can’t intervene” view is conceptually stronger, but it requires a more radical reformulation of divine power. I recommend that reformulation, however. In either case, however, theologians who believe God can’t or won’t prevent ecological degradation unilaterally should find alternatives theories to creatio ex nihiloattractive.

An Alternative to Ex Nihilo that Supports Creation Care

I suggest Christians set aside the view that God created the universe from absolute nothingness. Rather than follow the logic of Irenaeus, Christians should follow the logic of biblical passages, which consistently speak of God creating through, with, and alongside creation.

A more adequate creation theory might say God lovingly creates something new in each moment from that which God created previously, and God’s creating has always been occurring. Our universe began at the Big Bang, but it was preceded by previous universes and will be followed by more.

We might call this theory “creatio ex creatione sempieternaliter en amore,” if we thought the Latin mattered. The everlasting God who everlastingly creates is the ever Creator.

This view not only fits the dominant biblical views of God creating from creation, but it also supports the idea God creates through self-giving, others-empowering, and therefore uncontrolling love. And it says the God who creates from creation cannot prevent environmental evils singlehandedly. (Click for more on this alternative creation doctrine.)

- TJO

NOTES…

[2] For essays focusing on particular advocates of creatio ex nihilo in history, see chapters in David B. Burrell, Carlo Cogliati, Janet M. Soskice, and William R. Stoeger, Creation and the God of Abraham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010) and “Creation ‘Ex Nihilo’ and Modern Theology,” in Modern Theology 29:2 (April 2013).

[3] Among the many biblical scholars who say creatio ex nihilo is not explicitly found in the Bible, see Joseph Blenkinsopp, Creation, Un-Creation, Re-Creation: A Discursive Commentary on Genesis 1-11 (London: T & T Clark, 2011); William P. Brown, The Ethos of the Cosmos: The Genesis of Moral Imagination in the Bible (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999); Brevard S. Childs, Myth and Reality in the Old Testament, Studies in Biblical Theology, No. 27 (London: SCM, 1960); Terence E. Fretheim, God and World in the Old Testament: A Relational Theology of Creation (Nashville: Abingdon, 2005); Rolf P. Knierim, Task of Old Testament Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1995); Jon D. Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil: The Jewish Drama of Divine Omnipotence (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994; New York: Harper & Row, 1987); Keith Norman, “Ex Nihilo: The Development of the Doctrines of God and Creation in Early Christianity,” BYU Studies 17/3 (1977): 291-318; Shalom M. Paul, “Creation and Cosmogony: In the Bible,” Encyclopedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Keter, 1972), 5:1059-63; Mark S. Smith, The Priestly Vision of Genesis 1 (Philadelphia: Fortress, 2010); David Toshio Tsumura, The Earth and the Waters in Genesis 1 and 2: A Linguistic Investigation (Sheffield: JSOT, 1989); Bruce K. Waltke, Creation and Chaos (Portland, OR: Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, 1974); Claus Westermann, Genesis 1-11: A Commentary, John J. Scullion, S. J., trans. (London: SPCK, 1994); Frances Young, “Creatio Ex Nihilo: A Context for the Emergence of Christian Doctrine of Creation,” Scottish Journal of Theology 44 (1991): 139-51; John H. Walton , The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2009).

[4] Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Ancient Christian Writers Series, Book 2, Vol. 64 (New York: Newman, 2012), 1.1.

[5] Ibid., 10.2.

[6] Ibid., 34:4.

[7] For biblical support for creation out of Christ, see 1 Cor. 8:6, Col. 1:15-20, John 1:1-3, and Heb. 1:2.

[8] Find arguments for these vies in Theologies of Creation: Creation Ex Nihilo and its New Rivals, Thomas Jay Oord, ed. (New York: Routledge, 2015).

[9] Michael Zbaraschuk, “Creatio Ex Deo: Incarnation, Spirituality, Creation” in Theologies of Creation, 85.

[10] For examinations of the biblical claims about creation care, see Richard Bauckham, The Biel and Ecology: Rediscovering the Community of Creation (London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 2010), Norma Habel, ed., The Earth Story in Genesis (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic, 2000).


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My Alternative Theory of Creation
http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/alternative-theory-initial-creation

by Thomas Jay Oord
April 3, 2017

In three previous blogs, I explored 9 reasons many Christians affirm the theory that God initially created our universe from absolutely nothing. Although some of the reasons have validity, I found none of them to be ultimately convincing.

In this blog, I want to offer my alternative to creation from nothing.

The Basic Idea: creatio ex creatione sempiternaliter en amore

My new theory of creation says God, in love, always creates out of what God previously created. As the ever Creator, God has everlastingly been creating.

That’s it in a nutshell. But there’s a lot packed into those phrases. So let me explain a bit more…

My theory says God never creates out of absolute nothingness. Each moment of creation history begins with God creating something in relation to what God previously created. God always creates something new from something old and never ex nihilo.

This theory says God has always been creating. God’s work to create in relation to what God previously created has always been going on. To put it another way, God’s creating is everlasting. That’s why I call God the “ever Creator.” God’s creating activity had no absolute beginning and is new every moment of a history without beginning or end.

This implies that God has never existed absolutely alone. God has always related to creatures, whether those creatures be complex or simple, whether creation be ordered or disordered. In fact, I believe God essentially relates to creation. God does not just relate within Trinity but also with the creaturely entities God creates. God’s relationality derives necessarily from God’s essence.

My theory says God must create. Creating is a necessary activity for God, because creating is an essential attribute of God’s nature. God has always existed and always creates, because creating is indispensable to the necessarily creative God.

Perhaps most importantly, my theory says love is God’s motive for and means of creating. And love is God’s creative goal. God’s nature is first and foremost love, which means God always loves, and this love is creative, self-giving, and others-empowering. To the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” my theory says, “because God always loves, and this love always motivates God’s creating.” From my perspective, love is the key to understanding reality.

One could describe my alternative theory with the Latin phrase creatio ex creatione sempiternaliter en amore. This phrase means “creating out of creation everlastingly in love.” To put it differently: God always and lovingly creates out of that which God previously created, and this creating has always been occurring.

What My Theory Does Not Mean

My creation theory that God always and lovingly creates out of what God previously created needs further explanation. Like all theories – especially new ones – it is prone to misunderstanding.

In my next blog, I’ll address four misunderstandings. As a teaser for that blog, I’ll conclude by mentioning the four misunderstandings I suspect many will have when first encountering my alternative theory of initial creation:

  • My theory does not say or imply that our universe is eternal.
  • My theory does not mean God is without freedom.
  • My theory does not mean creation pre-exists God.
  • My theory says that for God to exist, God does not need creation.


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Overcoming Misunderstandings of
My Creation Theory
http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/overcoming-misunderstandings-of-my-creation-theory

by Thomas Jay Oord
April 19, 2017

My new theory of initial creation denies that God creates out of nothing. It says God always and lovingly creates out of that which God previously created. God is ever Creator. But I recognize that my alternative view is open to misunderstandings. So I want to address the most common.

Upon first hearing my view (here’s a link), some people will jump to wrong conclusions about what it means. That’s understandable. We typically make sense of new ideas in relation to old ones. We naturally make assumptions – right or wrong – about what new ideas imply.

Below I list four common misunderstandings people have when first hearing of my view…

My theory does not say or imply that the universe is eternal.

My view that God always creates out of what God previously created implies that God never exists alone. God always creates and relates with creaturely others, whether complex or simple. This could sound to some like our universe is eternal.

My theory does not, however, require one to think our universe or any other universe exists eternally. In fact, I don’t believe any universe exists eternally. Instead, my theory simply says that whatever new God creates is done in relation to the old God previously created. Creatures and universes come and go. They are temporary.

In my view, only God exists everlastingly. Neither our universe nor any other is co-eternal with God. A succession of entities, creatures, and universes has always been, but no particular entity, creature, or universe has always been.

On this point, it’s important to remember that all created things have beginnings. I affirm this. Most if not all of them come to an end. Remembering this can help us avoid the misunderstanding that my theory requires an eternal universe.

While God always creates and relates to creatures, no universe exists eternally.

My theory affirms that God is free.

My alternative theory of initial creation says God must create, because creating is a necessary aspect of God’s nature. God would not be God if not Creator. Just as God does not voluntarily choose to exist but simply does so, God does not voluntarily choose whether to create. God cannot choose not to create, to use the double negative. God is not free, in this sense.

But my theory says God is free in choosing how to create, given creaturely conditions and God’s love. God chooses in relation to an open and not predetermined future. God freely creates in relation to creation and a host of possibilities. God is free when creating, in this important sense.

Let me illustrate what I mean.

We are each human, and we are not free to be something else. We cannot breathe exactly like fish, for instance, nor can we fly exactly like eagles. But we are free as humans to act in various humanly ways. Our human freedom is real. Because of our humanness and the conditions of our world, however, our freedom is limited. We are not free to be nonhuman. We must be human.

Similarly, God is not free to be something else. God must be God, which includes having particular attributes and eternal character. The Bible tells us that God cannot lie, for instance. The apostle Paul says God “cannot deny himself.” In fact, the Bible lists several things God is not free to do. In short, God is not free to be nondivine, because God must be divine.

God is free, however, to create in relation to creatures and creation. God’s freedom is real in determining how God chooses to create. God’s freedom is limited by God’s own self-giving, others-empowering love, which creates while giving and then respecting the freedom and integrity of creation. But this leaves open a wide range of options for God freely to create in love.

My theory does not imply that creation pre-exists God.

When God began creating our universe at the big bang, God created in relation to or “out of” what God created previously. What God created before the big bang must have been incredibly diffuse and chaotic. This realm of “stuff” must have been highly disorganized and simple, the chaotic elements of a dying universe that had come before.

The very simple elements out of which God created our universe were also created by God. In other words, God created something new at the big bang from that which God created before the big bang.

God always creates in each moment out of that which God created in previous moments. Consequently, no universe, world, creature, or thing pre-exists or pre-dates God, because God acts first in each moment when creating each creature.

My theory agrees with the common Christian concern that an adequate theory of creation not say God creates from stuff “laying around” that God didn’t first create. In my view, God didn’t “stumble upon” some stuff that God had not first created. In each moment – the present moment, at the Big Bang, and before – God acts first to create in relation to what God previously created. Nothing pre-exists God.

My theory says that for God to exist, God does not need creation.

Some Christians embrace creation from nothing as a way to say God exists essentially independent of creatures. My theory affirms that God is independent of creation in several respects. But it also says God depends upon creation in other respects.

Like most believers, I think God exists necessarily. God does not need or depend upon creation in order for God to exist. Ancient people use the word “aseity” to describe the idea that God exists “in Godself.” This means that to exist, God does not require anything beyond the divine being. I affirm this understanding of aseity.

Unfortunately, some ancient people and Christians today think aseity means God must be independent of creatures in all ways. God’s self-existence, they say, implies that God is independent from others in all respects.

But aseity does not require this belief. It can simply mean God necessarily exists: God relies upon Godself to exist, and nothing could prevent God from existing. I accept this positive respect of divine independence and aseity.

My view says God does depend upon creation in other respects, however. The most important of the ways God depends upon creatures pertains to love. While I think God loves necessarily, I also believe love is inherently relational. Relational love takes at least two, because love is never solitary.

As I see it, God’s nature of love includes always loving creaturely others. In fact, God essentially loves and relates with all God creates. Consequently, God depends upon creation to exist as the recipients of relational love. And because my theory says God necessarily creates out of that which God previously created, it overcomes any doubt that creatures will exist whom God will relate with and love.

Because God’s love has both receptive and creative dimensions, God also depends upon creatures in the creating process. This dependence is not about whether God will create. God’s creative motivation comes from within; it derives from God’s nature of love. But God does depend upon creatures in choosing how to create.

The “materials” God uses when creating come from outside God. God does not create from Godself. God depends upon creatures to exist and join in, to whatever extent possible, the creative process. Creatures are created co-creators. Consequently, God is always motived internally to create out of creaturely others who are external and whom God created previously.

Conclusion

I suspect there other misunderstandings emerge in those who first encounter my theory. It takes time to think through the view that God always and lovingly creates out of what God previously created.

In the book I’m currently writing I plan to address other misunderstandings. And I’ll argue in greater depth for the cogency of a view that says love comes first in God, including in God’s creating.

If for some reason this is the first of my essays you’ve read on an alternative to creation from nothing, I invited you to read through previous posts on the issue in the Science and Theology tab of my webpage.


Sunday, November 27, 2016

Science Mike + Mars Hill - The Psalms + The Stars



I recently met and spoke with Mick McHargue not long ago and would recommend his podcasts and science critiques of sharing God's "evolutionary creationism" and the searching questions he asks in the context of the bible. Like myself, Mike went through a period of spiritual crisis in his life where God turned his world upside down before propelling him forward into the teaching of his Word.

Now evolutionary creationism is not the pseudo-science-7-day-creationism-stuff but the real, hard-core, Darwinian evolutionary schemata placed into a post-evangelical theological context as we have discussed here at Relevancy22 in hundreds of past articles. My church, Mars Hill, recently began its science series in the late fall of 2016 starting with Science Mike whose vimeo link is listed first with an introduction by our newest pastor AJ Sherrill. The remaining three vimeo links are from AJ himself, but the deep stuff, the scientific stuff, can be found on Science Mike's website that I've linked directly below.

Enjoy!

R.E. Slater
Thanksgiving 2016


More on Science Mike - http://mikemchargue.com/





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The Series: "The Psalms + The Stars," by AJ Sherrill

I.
The Psalms + The Stars: Psalm 147
Posted on October 30, 2016 | Pastor: AJ SherrillScience Mike



II.
The Psalms + The Stars: Psalm 8
Posted on November 6, 2016 | Pastor: AJ Sherrill



III.
The Psalms + The Stars: Psalm 13
Posted on November 13, 2016 | Pastor: AJ Sherrill



IV.
The Psalms + The Stars: Psalm 133
Posted on November 20, 2016 | Pastor: AJ Sherrill

11/20/16 - AJ Sherrill - The Psalms + The Stars: Psalm 133


"Don't you just love it when coming to God's Creation
to discover that He SINGS all the time, and especially
when creating both the worlds and our own souls!?"
- R.E. Slater



Thursday, May 28, 2015

Foundations for a Radical Christianity, Part 6 - Theology, Philosophy, & Science



Even as we explore postmodern science and philosophy here at Relevancy22 we must be reminded that science and philosophy has its place within theology even as theology must learn to converse with the same. That is to say, science and philosophy are useful as external critiques to the Christian lexicon of understanding biblical truth. That without this societal context theology is imperiled by its own version of revelation creating an incubus that would isolate its traditions and dogmas from introspection.

However, this does not mean that theology becomes subservient to science and philosophy but that it learns to relate as equals in unparalleled relationship with postmodern science and philosophy to that of an orthodox system inhabiting special revelation as its basis of truth. And yet, this theistic foundation is not a protection from the fallibility of imperfect human interpretation. That the Christian reading of the Bible cannot be immune to what the world discovers and continues to discover about ourselves and God's creation. But that Christian theology must utilize outside commentaries, ideas, and discoveries to continually improve its reading of the Bible so that its continually reflects the Redeeming God who is at all times at work within humanity and His creation.

To be aware that our own cocoons of "wisdom and thought" may mislead when designed to protect its faithful. And to know that "looking without to look within" is at all times more helpful than sealing the doors, throwing up ecclesiastical boundaries, and forestaying the "wolf outside" our communal structures. These actions are not helpful but harmful to the church's study of God's Word. Did not Jesus come to teach and disturb His people? And if the church does not do the same is it not doing a disservice to its peoples?

Even as theology is about God so science and philosophy are about how we perceive ourselves with one another and are connected to our world. These latter do not necessarily deny God so much as to rigorously study the world of objects that can be tested and verified through experiments and studies. Even as the Platonist believes he knows all by knowing the One, so the Aristotelian pupil believes nothing can be known without first studying the particular in order to create a more holistic philosophy. Each system is in antagonism to the another but only if the philosopher allows them to be. And yet, in another light, each system can be a help to the other with wisdom and discernment.

So too with Christianity. We come as theists to any human discipline. But this does not mean that we may throw out those academics that dispute our beliefs. It would be to our peril and poorer understanding of God's universe and even ourselves within His greater plan. A Radical Christianity would willingly converse with the world while at all times inspecting itself within the light of that conversation. In some points there will be agreement. In others not at all. And in many a correlation can be found that may be enlightening to a Christian culture at an impasse with its understanding of God's Word.

So we have found in the science of evolution that has shown quite plainly that the popular Christian reading of the Genesis 1-11 is in serious conflict with what we know both scientifically and from historical-source criticism. Hence, somewhere within this reading we must adapt our biblical interpretations (or hermeneutics) to allow for these truths without losing sight of the theology behind the ancient symbolic or historical mythological texts of Genesis 1-11. As example, God is our Creator, sin is a present reality that has somehow entered the world (this author claims through the sublime act of God granting freedom to His creation), and redemption must now ensue.

We also better understand postmodernism's rejection of modernity's secularism that has been embraced by the (evangelical / denominational) 19th-20th century church. That it's formalistic or syllogistic reduction of theology into its separate systematic theologies does not better explain God to us except from a Greek (Hellenistic) and Medieval / Enlightened mindset. That those theologies must now learn how to absorb the newer philosophies out there lest the Christian church no longer  be progressive in its witness but regressive, sectarian, if not possibly cultic (as can be readily seen in the various pockets of the church's culture).

For example, the church does no longer crusade against other nations even as medieval churches once did. But what about our nation's one-time policies of colonialism affected by the church, or now, in its national policies in a post-colonial world? Or, as another example, should the church associate Jesus' love and openness with militaristic images of sword and shield as some Americans would think of their church's patriotism? It would be in err to think of the Gospel of Jesus as a "truth-and-justice" weapon to the world.

As such, God is not in need of being defended. But He is in need of our willingness to see new truths where we believed none existed. To grow beyond our "enslavement" ages of the church, and its "discriminatory" phases now being bashed about as "Christian" when it is neither Jesus-ordained nor rightful on the human plane of civil equalities and rights. In all instances God has not changed in His love to mankind but His fallible church does harm to the gospel of Jesus when bantering cultural prerogatives about in the name of Christ.

If this is not the Christianity we wish we must admit that it is not the Christianity of the God of the Bible whom we so highly elevate and value. In truth, it is we ourselves who must change along with the charters of our fearful churches confusing pride for penance. Sin is still sin but its form is in how we relate to one another, what we do towards one another, and what we deny to one another. Sin is not dismissed. Nor is it absent from the church itself. The Kingdom of God demands another ethic. A heavenly one. And not a human morality that would make us feel comfortable, assured, or at peace with ourselves while refusing the rights of other human beings these same affects and conditions.

The Kingdom of God is not of man but of God. It is of a God who rules and not us. And of His choice to rule through Jesus by the tools and tradecraft of love and peace. And if it were to be one of condemnation than let it be directed to His own people. And especially to those templed priests and theologians then, as now, who deny God by their words, and doctrines, and dogmas, and harden beliefs. For these so-called "believers" who claim they know God hell awaits. But for the penitent man and woman heaven's bounties are opened wide and deep both in this life by witness and life blood to the gospel of Jesus. So be it with the church in this world this day. Let us rethink what we think we know. Let us relearn what we must. And at all times let us serve others the gospel of love and peace by our hands and feet and tongues.

Peace,

[Below are two articles and how they each are dealing with the subjects of Christian theology in juxtaposition with philosophy and science. I deem each as useful as you will soon see.]

R.E. Slater
May 28, 2015









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Resisting De-Personalizing the Biblical God
into the Philosophical Category of "Being Itself"


Is God “A Being” Or “Being Itself?”

by Roger Olson
May 16, 2015

Introduction

I grew up thinking of God, the God of the Bible, the “Christian God,” as “a being”–at the top of a great chain of beings but with a clear gulf fixed between him and everything else down the chain. The gulf was crossable only from God’s side and had to do with the fact that only God is eternal and uncreated. Everything else in the chain was below God and created by God. The gulf was widened by the fall of angels and humans.

This picture of God and everything seemed self-evident in Scripture. I never thought to question it until I got well into my theological studies when I encountered Origen, Augustine, Dionysius (the Pseudo-Areopagite), Anselm, Thomas Aquinas and (skipping far ahead) Paul Tillich. Then I learned that, as a thinking Christian wishing to avoid idolatry, I was supposed to think of God not as “a being” but as Being Itself–not as one, even the supreme and self-existent one, among many but as the Power of Being, the One OF the many.  [RES - (sic, NOT "One of many" = polytheism NOR demiurges of God, that is, greater or lesser instances of God re Christian gnostic belief as versus the Trinity of God, one Being in three essences or Persons as established the Councils of Calcedon).]

If God is really God, so the argument goes, and not like us, limited, finite, conditioned, he must be Absolute. Anything less than “the Absolute,” the Unconditioned, cannot really be God. If the God of the Bible is a being and not Being Itself, the Absolute, the Unconditioned, the One behind the many, then, so the argument goes, then he does not really deserve to be thought of as God because, to borrow Anselm’s term, the mind can think of a great being than him.

Well, that’s obviously a whirlwind explanation that doesn’t come close to doing justice to the argument for God as Being Itself.

I have often felt pressured to rise above my “simple Biblicism” and primitive picture of God as a personal being, even if the greatest of all beings, transcendently surpassing in greatness and glory all creatures, and confess God as Being Itself–not the Supreme Being at the top of a great chain of being but something entirely different–perhaps more like the infrastructure of a city that makes it “work.” (All analogies become problematic, of course, when attempting to depict Being Itself.) I have even been told that my childhood picture of God borders on idolatry.

The assumption underlying much of that thinking (of God as Being Itself) was expressed by Alfred North Whitehead who said that while Buddhism is a metaphysic in search of a religion, Christianity is a religion in search of a metaphysic. That is, the underlying assumption is that the biblical narrative does not give us an adequate, or any, metaphysical world picture, account of reality-itself, but expresses especially transcendent reality in myths, symbols and images which must be interpreted through the lens of some ontology borrowed from outside the Bible. One obvious candidate in early church history was Middle or Neo-Platonism (see also Neo-Platonism, and Neo-Platonism and Christianity). Another, especially in the Middle Ages, was Aristotelianism. (cf. also Aristotle's teachings) Whitehead’s, of course, was his own organic philosophy of process (or, process thought).

What do all those attempts to bring Athens to Jerusalem have in common?

All assume that the biblical portrait of God cannot be taken seriously; it must be supplement if not replaced by a philosophical picture of God which is then interpreted as “what the Bible really means.” Practically speaking, then, all biblical references to God as personal are relegated to the realm of anthropomorphisms–figures of speech that depict God in human terms whereas God is not really much like humans at all.

Over the years I’ve kept an eye open for (non-fundamentalist) theologians who pushed back speaking of God as Being Itself (as opposed to a personal being among others even if the “others” are created). I encountered especially, of course, Karl Barth and Emil Brunner, but even they seemed to me inconsistent at times–wanting to affirm God’s “holy otherness” in ways that seemed to make God float off into inaccessible transcendence. I know that was not their intentions, but I came to believe they, like most serious, academic, “world class” theologians, were still infected with the idea that God’s transcendence must mean he is somehow absolute, unconditioned, etc. Brunner, in my opinion, came closest to taking the biblical portrayal of God seriously, resisting ontological ideas of God as Being Itself. Brunner sometimes spoke of God in brutally personal terms–pushing back against the whole Christian theological tradition of negative (apophatic) theology (e.g., attempts to explain what God is not as versus what God is.)

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[r.e. slater (RES) - This line of thought is sometimes associated with mysticism and the desire of the personal to transcend to the spiritual beyond ordinary perception - Wikipedia. It has also been used somewhat helpfully in postmodern attempts to deconstruct religion of its anthropomorphic-centeredness. In sum, "While negative theology is used in Christianity as a means of dispelling misconceptions about God, and of approaching Him beyond the limits of human reasoning, most commonly Christian doctrine is taken to involve positive claims: "that God exists and has certain positive attributes, even if those attributes are only partially comprehensible to us." )]

---

Every once in a while throughout my theological career (and even as a student of theology) I have run across a theologian that really appealed to me but is not widely known, read or discussed. Recently I’ve been reading articles published in the 1950s in theological journals by an American Protestant theologian named Edmond La B. Cherbonnier (b. 1918). Cherbonnier, who taught at Trinity College in Hartford, CT, pushed back very hard against ontological ideas of God as Being Itself and insisted that there is a “biblical metaphysic” in which God is “a being,” neither unconditioned nor absolute (as in “The Absolute,” the Being Greater Than Which None Can Be Conceived drawing on Greek philosophical ideas of “greatness” as metaphysical perfection).

Cherbonnier attempted to work out what he called “the biblical metaphysic” as a “third way”–alternative to Platonism and Aristotelianism (and certainly also alternative to Whitehead’s ontology). According to Cherbonnier, this biblical metaphysic differs from others than have been imposed on Scripture, or through which Scripture has been interpreted, because it is embedded in, implied by, Scripture itself. According to him, the biblical narrative contains an implied metaphysic and all attempts to interpret Scripture through the “lens” of extra-biblical, philosophical metaphysics or ontologies end up failing to do justice to the biblical revelation of God and reality.

For those interested, I recommend these two articles by Cherbonnier (whose death year I cannot find so I’m hoping he’s still alive so I can correspond with him): “Biblical Metaphysic and Christian Philosophy” (Theology Today 9:3 [October, 1952]: 360-375) and “Is There A Biblical Metaphysic?” (Theology Today 15:4 [January, 1959]: 454-469).

One reason I resist thinking of God as Being Itself as opposed to a personal being is that it tends to undermine prayer except as meditation. It lends itself easily to the idea that “Prayer doesn’t change things; it [only can] change me.” That is, it undermines petitionary prayer which Schleiermacher, understandably [noted] because of his philosophical influences, called “immature prayer.” If God is Being Itself, the Absolute, the Unconditioned, then it would seem prayer cannot affect God. In fact, it would seem God cannot be affected by anything outside himself. My early Christian faith, which I have not entirely discarded (!), focused much on a “personal relationship with God.” God is someone, a being, who is other than I, and we stand vis-a-vis one another in what Buber and Brunner called an “I-Thou relationship.” Regarding God as Being Itself tends to lead away from relating to God as “Thou” with whom one can have a real, personal relationship.

Cherbonnier was on the right track, I believe; we need to retrieve from the biblical narrative its own metaphysic and not borrow ontology from elsewhere and interpret Scripture through that as a lens overlaying it. This would be an exercise in “the Bible absorbing the world” (Hans Frei) and therefore might be called a “narrative metaphysic”–an oxymoron to many philosophical theologians.

Postliberal Protestant theology has been mostly resistant to metaphysics, but if Cherbonnier is right, that could be because most Protestant theologians tend to think of “metaphysics” as synonymous with extra-biblical, rational ontologies that function as natural theologies. But if Cherbonnier is right, there is a biblical metaphysic that is embedded in biblical revelation itself. That is, the Bible itself strongly implies a reality picture that is deeper than doctrines but equally, if not more, important - it is an alternative to philosophical ontologies that usually conflict with God as person or as omnipotent power (as in process thought).

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[RES - thus, some of my conflict with process thought even as other parts of it are embraced as capturing important salient images of God and the Bible. So too with Radical Theology's usage of postmodern philosophy to uncover what today's evangelical Christianity blatantly discards, discourages, or outright misses beginning with its (Reformed) hermeneutical interpretations which are self-fulfilling and circular in argument (the latest being its 1980's emphasis upon "the inerrancy of Scripture" disallowing for external criticism). These radical disciplines are meant to recover modernal Christianity back to its orthodox charters and teachings and not to dismiss Christianity out of hand by irrelevancy to humanity. By using epistemological frameworks outside of the evangelical frameworks we've become unquestioningly comfortable with it is possible to "negate" popular (but unbiblical) folklores and arguments by re-instating God's presence through Jesus within a postmodern framework making relevant revelation's truth and handiwork to the souls of men. It should also be noted here that throughout the body of Relevancy22 there as been a strong resistance to "disembodying God" as "mere Presence" and always a strong identity of God as a Redemptive Being in relationship to His creation.]

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I have never been able to become comfortable with calling God “Being Itself” or thinking of God as “absolute” or “unconditioned.” These ideas of God seem to me unbiblical. In this case, as Pascal famously said, “The God of the philosophers is not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” But there is a philosophy of God revealed through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Isaiah, Jesus, and Paul. It’s just not what most people think of as “philosophy.” To hint at it: It does reveal reality as a “great chain of beings” (plural) with God at its top as creator and governor of all below him with a fixed gulf between him and the rest marked by the difference between being uncreated, self-existent, and being created and dependent (to say nothing of fallen).


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This is Why We Need Christians Engaged in Science!
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2015/05/28/why-we-need-christians-engaged-in-science-rjs/

by RJS
May 28, 2015

Ed Stetzer had an interesting post on his blog last week -  3 reasons for Christians to Engage in Science. This post is a reprint of an essay he wrote for a small booklet recently released by the National Association of Evangelicals: When God and Science Meet and available for free download. The booklet includes essays by John Ortberg, Mark Noll, Christopher Wright and more.

Stetzer’s three reasons (read his essay on his blog or in the booklet for his elaboration of these points, bold added):

First, creation speaks to a creator. Because we know there is a creator, we should be the ones most concerned about his creation.…

In Romans 1; Paul points out that attributes of God are made clear in creation. We can know his eternal power and divine nature, because they have been clearly seen since the creation of the world.
If Scripture says creation, and therefore the sciences that explore it, point to God, why would we run away from that? We, above all others, should love, study, explore, examine and care for the creation that provides evidence of God and his character.

Second, dismissing science undermines our witness. But many evangelicals are backing away from science. In a society driven by scientific achievement, it is unwise and counterproductive to our mission for Christians to embrace an anti-science label.

Third, science can better society. … The fact is, as we find better ways to farm, powerful new medicines to heal and more effective ways to power our society, the poor benefit, societies are transformed for the better and the world looks and is more of what God intended it to be.

Christians are to champion the good of their city and society as a whole. Leveraging scientific study and achievement for the betterment of people is an entirely Christian thing to do.

All three of these are great reasons for Christians to engage in science. The pursuit of science brings a sense of wonder, beauty, and awe to many scientists, religious or not. For a Christian in the sciences there is an added wonder and beauty. When we, as scientists, study the “natural” phenomena of the universe, whether in physics, chemistry, paleontology, geology, biology or some other science, we are studying the nature of God’s creation. This can make the pursuit of scientific understanding a form of worship as Dorothy Chappell, Dean of Natural and Social Sciences at Wheaton College, says in her essay:

Scientists can discover, study and contemplate the complexities of the created order while apprehending God’s glory, which remains resplendent throughout the creation; in other words, they can worship and interact with God as they do their own professional work. This represents a profound discipline: doing good science and practicing vibrant faith. A natural outcome that results when scientists explore the mysteries of creation from a biblical worldview is a greater capacity for wonder, awe and humility. These, after all, are the traits of effective scientists and devout Christians. (p. 36, When God and Science Meet)

Stetzer’s third reason is also highlighted in a number of the essays in When God and Science Meet. The pursuit of science is transforming the world for the better. This isn’t to embrace the myth of human moral progress where human effort will produce a perfect society or bring the Kingdom of God. It is simply to state a fact – vaccinations, sanitation, clean water, efficient transportation, medicines, instrumentation for imaging and diagnosis, all of these and many more developments, have made life for many longer, healthier, and safer. “Leveraging scientific study and achievement for the betterment of people is an entirely Christian thing to do.”

Finally his second reason, which is undervalued or misinterpreted by many:  Dismissing science, or worse yet distorting and misrepresenting science, undermines our witness as Christians in profound ways.  The church needs Christians engaged in science to hold fellow Christians to a high standard and to provide the needed expertise and review. John Ortberg notes in his essay:

I have seen too many young people in too many churches exposed to bad science in the misguided idea that someone was defending the Bible; then they go off to college and find out they were misinformed and they think they have to choose between the Bible and truth. (p. 28)

Bad science does no one any good.  Not Christians adults or youth, and certainly not non-Christians who find bad science a reason to dismiss any need to dig deeper and understand Christian faith. We need to pursue the truth.

Christian faith and the study of science are not mutually exclusive pursuits. Taking the Bible seriously does not mean holding to positions clearly contradicted by modern science. The Bible is not a science book.  Taking the Bible seriously does call us to stand against the metaphysical conclusions that some draw from science, just as it calls us to stand against the “wisdom of the world” driven by the pursuit of money, sex, and power.

The pursuit of scientific understanding has unearthed a wealth of new information. Information that our predecessors had no knowledge of and did not need to wrestle with … the vastness of the universe, the age of the earth, evolution. The church today does need to wrestle with this data.  In order to do this we need people who are conversant in science, who will take the time to explain the data and explore the relationship between the new insights from science and Christian theology. One of the reasons we need Christians to engage in science is to lead the church faithfully into the future.

Lucas Cranach Man and Woman and this leads to Adam. If that seems like a sharp left turn, changing the subject, it shouldn’t. Every discussion of science and Christian faith these days seems to return to the question of Adam, human evolution, and common descent. This is an overstatement, but not by much. Many of my posts over the last several years have turned around the discussion of Adam. In general I’ve focused on the biblical and theological issues because, quite frankly, I am convinced by the evidence of common descent. As a result I am deeply interested in the ramifications this has on our understanding of life from a Christian perspective.

Many readers, however, remain unconvinced that a unique couple is disproved by the scientific data. We need Christian scientists with the expertise and patience to explain the scientific data and consensus on a level accessible to non-scientists and to point out both the strengths and the weaknesses of the data and interpretation. I haven’t the patience (or the ready expertise in genetics) to offer a coherent and accessible explanation on common descent and human genetics. Fortunately Dennis Venema, professor of biology at Trinity Western University in Langley, British Columbia, has the patience, expertise and ability. Dennis is in the middle of a long series of excellent posts at Biologos exploring Adam, Eve, and human population genetics.

The last few installments of Adam, Eve, and human population genetics have looked at the arguments Dr. Vern Poythress advanced in his recent short book Did Adam Exist?. Dr. Poythress’s scientific argument leaves much to be desired. He misinterprets the scientific papers he uses to defend his position that common descent is unsupported by the genetic data and that science cannot rule out a bottleneck consisting of one unique human couple as progenitor of the entire human race.  Dennis does an nice job of pointing out the problems with Dr. Poythress’s scientific argument.  Bad scientific arguments are far too common and do devastating damage to the faith of far too many. (See John Ortberg’s quote again.)

We need Christians like Dennis, engaged in science and with a heart for the church.


Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Has Science Made Philosophy and Theology Obsolete?



Has Science Made Philosophy and Theology Obsolete?

For those readers interested in the Christian side of this discussion I might suggest substituting the word "theologian or theology" for the word "philosopher or philosophy." Generally it is the observation of how to fit the academic discipline of science in-and-around the contrary disciplines of philosophy and theology.

For myself, I believe both disciplines need the other and that neither has a hold of the truth in themselves alone. Without science, philosophy and theology cannot think new thoughts beyond their own reasonings. And without philosophy and theology, science cannot examine what it has uncovered as fully as it might. Moreover, to argue for a "philosophy of metaphysics" alone as cosmologists generally do cannot inform humanity as to the philosophical or theological question of ethics, aesthetics, politics, or epistemology. It is a disservice to think that either can do an adequate job without the other.

And so, both disciplines require the other - however technical either discipline can be in their own realms of understanding. It behooves both scientists and philosopher / theologians to be fully invested in each other's knowledge-realms. To work with one another and to challenge one another when either side becomes too complacent or intellectually lazy to do the hard work of examination. I have especially observed this among Christians who argue over the evolution of man in Genesis: its meaning for Adam's "historicity" and the theological idea of "original sin" and whether a symbolic or mythological narrative may carry any currency in Christian theology? The simple answer is that it can.

As such, the reader will find a "bible vs. science" debate written by Peter Enns at the end of this article to focus the Christian reader on the foolishness of thinking that "special revelation is alone to itself in the world of knowledge of the theologian." Certainly this cannot be true. Science will demand from the Christian theologian a re-examination of his or her's understanding of the interpretative tradition of Scripture they cling to. That its challenge neither lessens God's claim to the world nor removes it but may re-arrange one's older interpretations of God's relationship to His creation for newer interpretations that are more congruent with scientific discovery. To pretend otherwise is to persevere in hermeneutical traditions that can no longer be true for more conversant readers familiar with scientific inquiry and discovery.

R.E. Slater
May 26, 2015

*ps - for more on Stephen Hawking's ideas on metaphysics please refer to the "Index to past articles on Particle Physics, Quantum Science, and the Universe" section in Relevancy22 where those ideas have been discussed in a positive manner.



The ongoing feud between physicists and philosophers cuts to the
heart  of what science can tell us about the nature of reality.

Physicists Are Philosophers, Too

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/physicists-are-philosophers-too/?WT.mc_id=SA_Facebook
In his final essay the late physicist Victor Stenger argues for the validity of philosophy in the context of modern theoretical physics
Editor’s Note: Shortly before his death last August at the age of 79, the noted physicist and public intellectual Victor Stenger worked with two co-authors to pen an article for Scientific American. In it Stenger and co-authors address the latest eruption of a long-standing historic feud, an argument between physicists and philosophers about the nature of their disciplines and the limits of science. Can instruments and experiments (or pure reason and theoretical models) ever reveal the ultimate nature of reality? Does the modern triumph of physics make philosophy obsolete? What philosophy, if any, could modern theoretical physicists be said to possess? Stenger and his co-authors introduce and address all these profound questions in this thoughtful essay and seek to mend the growing schism between these two great schools of thought. When physicists make claims about the universe, Stenger writes, they are also engaging in a grand philosophical tradition that dates back thousands of years. Inescapably, physicists are philosophers, too. This article, Stenger’s last, appears in full below.
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In April 2012 theoretical physicist, cosmologist and best-selling author Lawrence Krauss was pressed hard in an interview with Ross Andersen for The Atlantic titled “Has Physics Made Philosophy and Religion Obsolete?” Krauss's response to this question dismayed philosophers because he remarked, “philosophy used to be a field that had content,” to which he later added,
“Philosophy is a field that, unfortunately, reminds me of that old Woody Allen joke, “those that can't do, teach, and those that can't teach, teach gym.” And the worst part of philosophy is the philosophy of science; the only people, as far as I can tell, that read [essays]/works/[treatises] by philosophers of science are other philosophers of science. It has no impact on physics whatsoever, and I doubt that other philosophers read it because it's fairly technical. And so it's really hard to understand what justifies it. And so I'd say that this tension occurs because people in philosophy feel threatened—and they have every right to feel threatened, because science progresses and philosophy doesn't.
Later that year Krauss had a friendly discussion with philosopher Julian Baggini in The Observer, an online magazine from The Guardian. Although showing great respect for science and agreeing with Krauss and most other physicists and cosmologists that there isn’t “more stuff in the universe than the stuff of physical science,” Baggini complained that Krauss seems to share “some of science’s imperialist ambitions.” Baggini voices the common opinion that “there are some issues of human existence that just aren’t scientific. I cannot see how mere facts could ever settle the issue of what is morally right or wrong, for example.”

Lawrence Krauss, author of "A Universe From Nothing:
Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing"
Krauss does not see it quite that way. Rather he distinguishes between “questions that are answerable and those that are not,” and the answerable ones mostly fall into the “domain of empirical knowledge, aka science.” As for moral questions, Krauss claims that they only be answered by “reason...based on empirical evidence.” Baggini cannot see how any “factual discovery could ever settle a question of right and wrong.”
Nevertheless, Krauss expresses sympathy with Baggini’s position, saying, “I do think philosophical discussion can inform decision-making in many important ways—by allowing reflections on facts, but that ultimately the only source of facts is via empirical exploration.”
Noted philosophers were upset with The Atlantic interview, including Daniel Dennett of Tufts University who wrote to Krauss. As a result, Krauss penned a more careful explication of his position that was published in Scientific American in 2014 under the title “The Consolation of Philosophy.” There he was more generous to philosophy's contribution to the enrichment of his own thinking, although he conceded little of his basic position:
“As a practicing physicist...I, and most of the colleagues with whom I have discussed this matter, have found that philosophical speculations about physics and the nature of science are not particularly useful, and have had little or no impact upon progress in my field. Even in several areas associated with what one can rightfully call the philosophy of science I have found the reflections of physicists to be more useful.”


Krauss is not alone among physicists in his disdain for philosophy. In September 2010 physicists Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow published a shot heard round the world—and not just the academic world. On the first page of their book, The Grand Design, they wrote: “Philosophy is dead” because “philosophers have not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.”
The questions that philosophy is no longer capable of handling (if it ever was) include: How does the universe behave? What is the nature of reality? Where did all this come from? Did the universe need a creator? According to Hawking and Mlodinow, only scientists—not philosophers—can provide the answers.

Famous astrophysicist and science popularizer Neil deGrasse Tyson has joined the debate. In an interview on the Nerdist podcast in May 2014 Tyson remarked, “My concern here is that the philosophers believe they are actually asking deep questions about nature. And to the scientist it's, ‘What are you doing? Why are you concerning yourself with the meaning of meaning?’” His overall message was clear: science moves on; philosophy stays mired, useless and effectively dead.
Needless to say, Tyson also has been heavily criticized for his views. His position can be greatly clarified by viewing the video of his appearance in a forum at Howard University in 2010, where he was on the stage with biologist Richard Dawkins. Tyson's argument is straightforward and is the same as expressed by Krauss: Philosophers from the time of Plato and Aristotle have claimed that knowledge about the world can be obtained by pure thought alone. As Tyson explained, such knowledge cannot be obtained by someone sitting back in an armchair. It can only be gained by observation and experiment. Richard Feynman had once expressed a similar opinion about “armchair philosophers.” Dawkins agreed with Tyson, pointing out that natural selection was discovered by two naturalists, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, who worked in the field gathering data.
What we are seeing here is not a recent phenomenon. In his 1992 book Dreams of a Final Theory, Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg has a whole chapter entitled “Against Philosophy.” Referring to the famous observation of Nobel laureate physicist Eugene Wigner about “the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics,” Weinberg puzzles about “the unreasonable ineffectiveness of philosophy.”
Weinberg does not dismiss all of philosophy, just the philosophy of science, noting that its arcane discussions interest few scientists. He points out the problems with the philosophy of positivism, although he agrees that it played a role in the early development of both relativity and quantum mechanics. He argues that positivism did more harm than good, however, writing, “The positivist concentration on observables like particle positions and momenta has stood in the way of a ‘realist’ interpretation of quantum mechanics, in which the wave function is the representative of physical reality.”
Perhaps the most influential positivist was late 19th-century philosopher and physicist Ernst Mach, who refused to accept the atomic model of matter because he could not see atoms. Today we can see atoms with a scanning tunneling microscope but our models still contain unseen objects such as quarks. Philosophers as well as physicists no longer take positivism seriously, and so it has no remaining influence on physics, good or bad.
Nevertheless, most physicists would agree with Krauss and Tyson that observation is the only reliable source of knowledge about the natural world. Some, but not all, incline toward instrumentalism, in which theories are merely conceptual tools for classifying, systematizing and predicting observational statements. Those conceptual tools may include non-observable objects such as quarks.
Until very recently in history no distinction was made between physics and natural philosophy. Thales of Miletus (circa 624–546 B.C.) is generally regarded as the first physicist as well as the first philosopher of the Western tradition. He sought natural explanations for phenomena that made no reference to mythology. For example, he explained earthquakes to be the result of Earth resting on water and being rocked by waves. He reasoned this from observation, not pure thought: Land is surrounded by water and boats on water are seen to rock. Although Thales’ explanation for earthquakes was not correct, it was still an improvement over the mythology that they are caused by the god Poseidon striking the ground with his trident.
Thales is famous for predicting an eclipse of the sun that modern astronomers calculate occurred over Asia Minor on May 28, 585 B.C. Most historians today, however, doubt the truth of this tale. Thales’ most significant contribution was to propose that all material substances are composed of a single elementary constituent—namely, water. Whereas he was (not unreasonably) wrong about water being elementary, Thales’ proposal represents the first recorded attempt, at least in the West, to explain the nature of matter without the invocation of invisible spirits.
Thales and other Ionian philosophers who followed espoused a view of reality now called material monism in which everything is matter and nothing else. Today this remains the prevailing view of physicists, who find no need to introduce supernatural elements into their models, which successfully describe all their observations to date.
The rift to which Tyson was referring formed when physics and natural philosophy began to diverge into separate disciplines in the 17th century after Galileo and Newton introduced the principles that describe the motion of bodies. Newton was able to derive from first principles the laws of planetary motion that had been discovered earlier by Kepler. The successful prediction of the return of Halley’s Comet in 1759 demonstrated the great power of the new science for all to see.
The success of Newtonian physics opened up the prospect for a philosophical stance that became known as the clockwork universe, or alternatively, the Newtonian world machine. According to this scheme, the laws of mechanics determine everything that happens in the material world. In particular, there is no place for a god who plays an active role in the universe. As shown by the French mathematician, astronomer and physicist Pierre-Simon Laplace, Newton's laws were in themselves sufficient to explain the movement of the planets throughout previous history. This led him to propose a radical notion that Newton had rejected: "Nothing besides physics is needed to understand the physical universe."
Whereas the clockwork universe has been invalidated by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics, quantum mechanics remains devilishly hard to interpret philosophically. Rather than say physics “understands” the universe, it is more accurate to say that the models of physics remain sufficient to describe the material world as we observe it to be with our eyes and instruments.
In the early part of the 20th century almost all the famous physicists of the era—Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, Max Born, among others—considered the philosophical ramifications of their revolutionary discoveries in relativity and quantum mechanics. After World War II, however, the new generation of prominent figures in physics—Richard Feynman, Murray Gell-Mann, Steven Weinberg, Sheldon Glashow and others—found such musings unproductive, and most physicists (there were exceptions in both eras) followed their lead. But the new generation still went ahead and adopted philosophical doctrines, or at least spoke in philosophical terms, without admitting it to themselves.
For example, when Weinberg promotes a “realist” interpretation of quantum mechanics, in which “the wave function is the representative of physical reality,” he is implying that the artifacts theorists include in their models, such as quantum fields, are the ultimate ingredients of reality. In a 2012 Scientific American article theoretical physicist David Tong goes even further than Weinberg in arguing that the particles we actually observe in experiments are illusions and those physicists who say they are fundamental are disingenuous:
“Physicists routinely teach that the building blocks of nature are discrete particles such as the electron or quark. That is a lie. The building blocks of our theories are not particles but fields: continuous, fluidlike objects spread throughout space.”
This view is explicitly philosophical, and accepting it uncritically makes for bad philosophical thinking. Weinberg and Tong, in fact, are expressing a platonic view of reality commonly held by many theoretical physicists and mathematicians. They are taking their equations and model as existing on one-to-one correspondence with the ultimate nature of reality.
In the reputable online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Mark Balaguer defines platonism as follows:
“Platonism is the view that there exist [in ultimate reality] such things as abstract objects—where an abstract object is an object that does not exist in space or time and which is therefore entirely nonphysical and nonmental. Platonism in this sense is a contemporary view. It is obviously related to the views of Plato in important ways but it is not entirely clear that Plato endorsed this view as it is defined here. In order to remain neutral on this question, the term ‘platonism’ is spelled with a lower-case ‘p.’”
We will use platonism with a lower-case “p” here to refer to the belief that the objects within the models of theoretical physics constitute elements of reality, but these models are not based on pure thought, which is Platonism with a capital “P,” but fashioned to describe and predict observations.
Many physicists have uncritically adopted platonic realism as their personal interpretation of the meaning of physics. This not inconsequential because it associates a reality that lies beyond the senses with the cognitive tools humans use to describe observations.
In order to test their models all physicists assume that the elements of these models correspond in some way to reality. But those models are compared with the data that flow from particle detectors on the floors of accelerator labs or at the foci of telescopes (photons are particles, too). It is data—not theory—that decides if a particular model corresponds in some way to reality. If the model fails to fit the data, then it certainly has no connection with reality. If it fits the data, then it likely has some connection. But what is that connection? Models are squiggles on the whiteboards in the theory section of the physics building. Those squiggles are easily erased; the data can’t be.
In his Scientific American article Krauss reveals traces of platonic thinking in his personal philosophy of physics, writing:
“There is a class of philosophers, some theologically inspired, who object to the very fact that scientists might presume to address any version of this fundamental ontological issue. Recently one review of my book [A Universe from Nothing] by such a philosopher.... This author claimed with apparent authority (surprising because the author apparently has some background in physics) something that is simply wrong: that the laws of physics can never dynamically determine which particles and fields exist and whether space itself exists or more generally what the nature of existence might be. But that is precisely what is possible in the context of modern quantum field theory in curved spacetime.”
The direct, platonic, correspondence of physical theories to the nature of reality, as Weinberg, Tong and possibly Krauss have done, is fraught with problems: First, theories are notoriously temporary. We can never know if quantum field theory will not someday be replaced with another more powerful model that makes no mention of fields (or particles, for that matter). Second, as with all physical theories, quantum field theory is a model—a human contrivance. We test our models to find out if they work; but we can never be sure, even for highly predictive models like quantum electrodynamics, to what degree they correspond to “reality.” To claim they do is metaphysics. If there were an empirical way to determine ultimate reality, it would be physics, not metaphysics; but it seems there isn't.
In the instrumentalist view we have no way of knowing what constitutes the elements of ultimate reality. In that view reality just constrains what we observe; it need not exist in one-to-one correspondence with the mathematical models theorists invent to describe those observations. Furthermore, it doesn’t matter. All these models have to do is describe observations, and they don’t need metaphysics to do that. The explanatory salience of our models may be the core of the romance of science but it plays second chair to its descriptive and predictive capacity. Quantum mechanics is a prime example of this because of its unambiguous usefulness despite lacking an agreed-on philosophical interpretation.
Thus, those who hold to a platonic view of reality are being disingenuous when they disparage philosophy. They are adopting the doctrine of one of the most influential philosophers of all time. That makes them philosophers, too.
Now, not all physicists who criticize philosophers are full-fledged platonists, although many skirt close to it when they talk about the mathematical elements of their models and the laws they invent as if they are built into the structure of the universe. Indeed, the objections of Weinberg, Hawking, Mlodinow, Krauss, and Tyson are better addressed to metaphysics and fail to show sufficient appreciation, in our view, for the vital contributions to human thought that persist in fields like ethics, aesthetics, politics and, perhaps most important, epistemology. Krauss pays these important topics some lip service, but not very enthusiastically.
Of course, Hawking and Mlodinow write mostly with cosmological concerns in mind—and where metaphysical attempts to grapple with the question of ultimate origins trespass on them, they are absolutely correct. Metaphysics and its proto-cosmological speculations, construed as philosophy, were in medieval times considered the handmaiden of theology. Hawking and Mlodinow are saying that metaphysicians who want to deal with cosmological issues are not scientifically savvy enough to contribute usefully. For cosmological purposes, armchair metaphysics is dead, supplanted by the more informed philosophy of physics, and few but theologians would disagree.
Krauss leveled his most scathing criticisms at the philosophy of science, and we suggest that it would have been more constructive had he targeted certain aspects of metaphysics. Andersen, for The Atlantic, interviewed him on whether physics has made philosophy and religion obsolete. And although it hasn't done so for philosophy, it has for cosmological metaphysics (and the religious claims that depend on it, such as the defunct Kalām cosmological argument begging the necessity of a creator). Surely Krauss had metaphysical attempts to speculate about the universe at least partially in mind, given that the interview addressed his book on cosmology.
Whatever may be the branches of philosophy that deserve the esteem of academics and the public, metaphysics is not among them. The problem is straightforward. Metaphysics professes to be able to hook itself to reality—to legitimately describe reality—but there's no way to know if it does.
So, although the prominent physicists we have mentioned, and the others who inhabit the same camp, are right to disparage cosmological metaphysics, we feel they are dead wrong if they think they have completely divorced themselves from philosophy. First, as already emphasized, those who promote the reality of the mathematical objects of their models are dabbling in platonic metaphysics whether they know it or not. Second, those who have not adopted platonism outright still apply epistemological thinking in their pronouncements when they assert that observation is our only source of knowledge.
Hawking and Mlodinow clearly reject platonism when they say, “There is no picture- or theory-independent concept of reality.” Instead, they endorse a philosophical doctrine they call model-dependent realism, which is “the idea that a physical theory or world picture is a model (generally of a mathematical nature) and a set of rules that connect the elements of the model to observations.” But they make it clear that “it is pointless to ask whether a model is real, only whether it agrees with observations.”
We are not sure how model-dependent realism differs from instrumentalism. In both cases physicists concern themselves only with observations and, although they do not deny that they are the consequence of some ultimate reality, they do not insist that the models describing those observations correspond exactly to that reality. In any case, Hawking and Mlodinow are acting as philosophers—epistemologists at the minimum—by discussing what we can know about ultimate reality, even if their answer is “nothing.”
All of the prominent critics of philosophy whose views we have discussed think very deeply about the source of human knowledge. That is, they are all epistemologists. The best they can say is they know more about science than (most) professional philosophers and rely on observation and experiment rather than pure thought—not that they aren’t philosophizing. Certainly, then, philosophy is not dead. That designation is more aptly applied to pure-thought variants like those that comprise cosmological metaphysics.
Thanks to Don McGee, Brent Meeker, Chris Savage, Jim Wyman and Bob Zannelli for their helpful comments.
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Victor J. Stenger (1935–2014) was emeritus professor of physics at the University of Hawaii and adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado. He is author of The New York Times bestseller, God:The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist. His latest book is God and the Multiverse: Humanity’s Expanding View of the Cosmos.
James A. Lindsay has a PhD in mathematics and is author of God Doesn't; We Do: Only Humans Can Solve Human Challenges and Dot, Dot, Dot: Infinity Plus God Equals Folly.
Peter Boghossian is an assistant professor of philosophy at Portland State University and an affiliate faculty member at Oregon Health & Science University in the Division of General Internal Medicine. He is author of the bestseller, A Manual for Creating Atheists.

* * * * * * * * * * *

What I think about NOMA
(not the ex-Red Sox shortstop but the evolution thing)
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2015/04/what-i-think-about-noma-not-the-ex-red-sox-shortstop-but-the-evolution-thing/

by Peter Enns
April 13, 2015

So, I’ve been thinking of NOMA this past week. Probably because the Yankees have been hitting like a high school team (until last night, let’s hope it lasts) and I need to take my mind somewhere else.

And so my mind wound up at NOMA.

NOMA is part of the lingo of the science/religion discussion (argument, debate, controversy, smack talk, etc.), a term coined by famous evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould and it stands for “non-overlapping magisteria.”

And that means that science and religion are separate “domains” of knowledge where each operates by different rules of inquiry. These “magisteria” do not “overlap” and so the rules of one cannot determine the findings of the other.

In other words, religion can’t tell science what to do and vice-versa. The idea is debated when you get to details. I have also know Christians to bristle when they see the term, in part, perhaps because Gould was a avowed atheist.

Still, in the Christianity/evolution discussion, Christians are generally happy with half of NOMA: science can’t tell us what to believe. But they are less happy about the other half: the Bible can’t tell science where it is wrong.

From where I sit at the present moment, I think both halves of NOMA are right. I never use the term in The Evolution of Adam, but in retrospect the idea sits pretty comfortably in the background of the whole book.

The various branches of modern science have made tremendous advances in our understanding of cosmic, geological, and biological evolution. We know a lot. Far from everything, as any good scientist will readily admit, but a lot.

But when scientists conclude from their work that a higher power does not exist, or that this or that religious tradition is not “true,” they have overstepped their bounds, because spiritual reality is not subject to the rules of scientific inquiry.

Faith is a different kind of “knowing.” People are free to reject faith, of course, but to do so on the basis of the lack of scientific corroboration for God is precisely the problem NOMA speaks against.

And zeroing in on the Bible and saying that science has “disproven” Genesis displays ignorance of nature of biblical literature, assuming that it can and should be evaluated by the rules of scientific inquiry.

Christians mirroring these missteps when they dismiss evolution on the basis of its alleged incompatibility with “biblical teaching.”

By pitting the Bible against science, they are–ironically–making the same mistaken assumption of pitting science against the Bible. They assume that the two are alternate means of describing origins (they are) and therefore both are subject to the same rules of evaluation (they aren’t).

Pitting one against the other like this is what I call COMA, “completely overlapping magisteria.” Both sides insist that these two alternate “narratives” of origins can be evaluated by the rules that operate for their own field–scientists imposing scientific expectations onto the Bible and biblicistic Christians imposing the Bible onto science.

But Christians have understood, since at least the days of Augustine (354-430 CE), that the Bible simply isn’t set up to address scientific matters, and to think that it does betrays an unfortunate ignorance about the nature of the Bible:

"It is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these [cosmological] topics, and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn." (Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, 1:42-43).

That “disgraceful” treatment of Genesis is even less excusable today than in Augustine’s day. The Bible and science have grown further apart.

We don’t know everything, but we certainly know a lot more about (1) how the universe works, and (2) how ancient stories of origins work, and none of those we read outside of the Bible are in any way “historical” by any commonly accepted sense of the term.

To think that the Bible is somehow immune from its ancient cultural influence is more a blind assertion that a reasoned argument, and it contributes directly to the persistent mess which is the unfortunate, ongoing debate over evolution among more literally minded Christian readers of the Bible.

Back to NOMA. It makes sense to me. For me to think differently, I would need to see either (1) where the Bible has contributed to a scientific knowledge of origins, or (2) where scientific inquiry has been able to bring to light evidence for or against the numinous.

And I think, by definition, neither of those things can happen. Biblical literature doesn’t contribute to scientific knowledge; scientific inquiry cannot evaluate spiritual experience. They don’t overlap.

If you think differently, please feel free to chime in. But be nice about it. This issue tends to generate a lot of heat. Mean, abrasive, combative comments will be blocked.