Discussions in Science and Religion - Week 2: "A Tale of Two Cities"

"Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics."

- Stephen Hawking, The Grand Design, pg 5

"The universe itself has no single history, nor even an independent existence."

- Stephen Hawking, The Grand Design, pg 6

INTRODUCTION

The title of Charles Dicken's "Tale of Two Cities" comes to mind when examining the philosophical and theological foundations behind the symmetry of science and religion - for a symmetry they most assuredly make each-to-the-other as unlikely companions giving necessary shape to each other's form and function. Begging the question which must lead-out first? Does Science? Does Religion? At first, many think religion had led out which either invigorated scientific discovery, or held it back. And then science willingly replied either to add to religious understanding, or to question all that religion held dear. Hence, the cathartic Ying-and-Yang pull of each discipline's tug upon the other has held a mystical attraction that is unlikely to abate, if ever, until the end of days.

Consequently, one finds it necessary to be as careful in developmental research and adjudicated thinking respective to either discipline's present understanding and conjectures. To not underplay, nor overplay, one's theories and philosophical insights to the detriment of the other, but to purposely try to allow each to temperately exist in an uneasy alliance between the other. Allowing each one as full a voice as the other while all-the-while attempting the high-wire act of balancing one's views - and knowledge of the other - in some primordial mix of positive critique, helpful questioning, perhaps homage, or complete indeference.

A good philosopher/theologian does not wish to be unawares of scientific research no less than a good scientist wishes to be unawares of the undercurrents in philosophy and theology. However, it would be naïve of either discipline to think that time does not create change to the behavior or impact of one upon the other. And since our focus at Relevancy22 is on the many contemporary topics of theology, it would be absurd to think that the Christian faith is held in some kind of a sealed time capsule irrespective to the ideas of science and society. To behave in a way that would not admit progression of theological perspective with the frenetic insights and topsy-turvy discoveries of postmodern research forcing the classical worlds of Greek logic and Medieval theology beyond yesteryear's inroads of enlightened modernism.

But to react to change by fighting it is not what is helpful to today's churched congregations. Nor should we be fearful of technology's rapid rate of flux and influx. But to be sensible in discerning its influences in a way that might be helpful to believers wishing to follow Jesus, who are themselves unsure just how to do this in today's 21st century techno-scientific revolution. One way to do this is to explore science's discoveries and our responses to its understandings perhaps by enlarging the boundary sets we live within that once gave us comfort and relief but now have become blown-to-bits if held beyond their normal life's expiration date (speaking philosophically, that is).

Thus the pastor turns to the philosopher/poet, or the scientist/theologian, or to the media's darlings who drive both good-and-bad ideas forward that s/he might explore with them the ramifications of their arguments, insights, and ideas. Philip Clayton is such a one who has spent a lifetime becoming conversant with both sides of the science-and-religion debate, working towards resolutions that might offer sanity in the face of seeming insanity. Comfort and counsel where there has been none. To this end, Philip has worked equally as hard at understanding science as he has religion... to be generous, reflective, constructive, and helpful. So that in week two's discussion of Cosmology and Quantum Physics we come to a place that must stop and reflect upon our universe's origins from both a biblical understanding as well as a scientific one.

ENTER THE QUANTUM PHYSICISTS

Accordingly, with such purposeful reflection has come my glad contentment for taking the time these past several years to explore these same subjects of theism and science on my own before coming to Philip's, or another's, aggregative counsel (and perhaps even aggravating! counsel, lol). While other fellow Christians were blasting the renown physicist Stephen Hawking for his atheistic reconstruction of the quantum universe I read with a vengeance all that he had to say on the subject trying to discern his understanding of quantum physics. So that by having read his thoughts I have found for myself a curious spiritual synthesis based upon the same equations-and-formulas Stephen felt well-advised to accept for himself in quite a different, more-materialistic direction.

So that when coming to Philip Clayton's quotations of John Wheeler about humans "changing the course of world history by mere observation" I could sense the misdirection of that phrase as to how it should more properly be used (sic, according to Hawking, our observation doesn't change the course of history of a particle, but views one instance of its infinite singular histories). That is not to say that Philip (or Wheeler) understate their exploration of quantum principles based upon the Feynmann Sum of Histories, only that they have selectively written of it within a context that presages their own understanding of cosmological science, rather than to run away from it as theologians. Even so, I'll let the ramifications of their conjectures be told by themselves as I have more probably misunderstood their observations already! (cf., pg 78 in Science and Religion).

Which is one of the reasons I have been reading Philip's book on Science and Religion, and listening to his lectures, not that I might gainsay him, but rather glean from his many years of exploration, knowing that we each come from differing backgrounds, theistic needs, and perceptions. Like himself, I have become one who wishes to err on the side of science - and not on the side of past classical (philosopohic or theological) arguments. Nor fall prey to Hawking's ascetic observation that "philosophy (and faith) have not kept up with science." But to make a concerted effort to update my Christian faith in as intelligent a way as possible without voiding its historical past. Yet, perhaps, enhancing its ancient past with today's newer scientific discoveries formed in the symbiotic relationships of theoretical balance and mutual partnership.

As such, for literary reasons, Philip encapsulates the Age of Scientific Materialism into three empirical categories - idealism, indeterminacy, and interconnectivity. For purposes of this discussion he has found these categories helpful for his listeners even as I found them more restrictive, perhaps even prejudicing towards a certain philosophical outcome based upon assumed parameters and logical elocution. Still, Philip has simplified a difficult subject by utilizing a practical methodology which necessitates my abbreviated review as to its merits of reflection, and not to mine own literary hesitancies or theoretic perambulations.

First, Newton and Einstein, according to Philip, were determinists disbelieving that "God plays dice with creation." They wanted order and natural explanation right down to the very last gravitational pull-and-push of (atomic) energy. Shortly, quantum physics came into being, and with it the death of scientific absolutism, crouched within a mathematics that would make absurd all previous scientific statements when beheld in the light of quantum indeterminacy, Planck's constant, and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Shortly, philosophers derived the (weak) Anthropic Principle stating that the universe 'must be compatible with the conscious life observing it" (Hawking prefers the term "Selection Principle" instead). Quickly it was modified under multiverse theory (sic, many universes each unlike the other holding different natural laws, dimensions, etc, that are impossible for our type of quantum existence) to a biophilic theory that was friendly to the emergence of life and not just human life. Subsumed under that came Hawking's M-Theory which basically states that "we are what we are because we are" which is really a form of the Strong Anthropic Principle that predisposes even the very atomic structure of the universe towards human life (sic, its atomic bonds, molecular covalences, electronic spins, quantum phases, amplitudes, vibrational strings, and etcetera). Thus "our universe and its physical laws appear to have a design that is both tailor-made to support us and, if we are to exist, leaves little room for alteration. That is not easily explained, and raises the natural question of why it is that way (Hawking, The Grand Design, pg 162).

For Hawking this means that we, and our universe, are part of a larger, indeterminate process. But for the theist, it means that God is its Maker and Sustainer of all - however He arranges this universe that we live in. Moreover, it should be of note that Hawking, as a theoretical physicist, was exploring the idea of String Theory to that of the universe's origins. A theory that might lead to his Theory of Everything while accounting for the supersymmetries found between bosons (energy) and fermions (matter). It was an ambitious undertaking that few theoreticists are able to take - and those that can continue to vigorously research it (cf., Higgs-Boson research, amongst other efforts such as string theory). Accordingly, M-theory is the unified theory Einstein was hoping to find, and later in life revised his previous formulas to include the then unknown substances of dark matter (26.8%) and dark energy (69.3%) to balance off his equations of ordinary matter (which makes up 4.9% of the composition of the known universe). Making of him a dice thrower after all (even as we should be today).

CONCLUSION

The essence of Philip's arguments is one of finding the line between science and philosophy, and for him, as for myself, we each tend to erase that line as much as we can so that they both might bleed a little bit - if not a lotta bit - into the other. The other main argument Philip wishes to convey is that each discipline is housed within their own metaphysical arguments - certainly science, whether it is one of agnosticism or atheism, as much as theism, with its pushbacks and classicisms. As such, we must be aware that "today's lines can become tomorrow's laws" meaning that theoretical predictions, given time and observation, can become axiomatic and no longer postulates. As such, our theological certainties must always be tempered with epistemic humility... to be as skeptical of our own theological foundations as scientists have evidenced towards their own postulates and theorems.

What might we conclude then? That if we hold an eschatology that is orientated towards admission into a "New Heavens and New Earth" than more-than-likely we may show an evangelic carelessness towards ecological care and nurturing (even as the Reagan administrative did in its budgeting). Moreover, if we look to find God's integrity within creation's keeping than we will be disposed towards a quasi-science that misunderstands the physics of quantum indeterminacies - thinking we can change history merely by observing it. Not realizing that we are simply looking at one possible path of history over a sum of histories with infinite probabilities that is irrespective of the observer as timelines collapsed towards a state of singular infinities. (Which is why it was such fun to watch the TV show LOST as the Island timelines intersected, overlapped, bisected, and interfered with each character's timeline... better known as "quantum entanglement.") Of course the ramifications for the doctrines of sovereignty and evil can go far askew when held within a general misunderstanding of scientific principles. Even as Open Theism (cf. this site's sidebar under Theism) has thrived within this uncertain environment of humanity and creation (sic, the future is relational to both God and creation making it indeterminative in correspondent structure).

Of course, beyond Philip's ideas of idealism and indeterminacy is the idea of interconnectivity. That we inhabit a universe of localized energy-and-matter that influences other localized energy fields as they correspond to our Galaxy, our Solar System, our interactions with this world, and even with each other and ourselves. That everything is interconnected thus making everything relational.... Which is an idea that I like a lot as a Relational-Process theist (cf. the sidebar Theism). Overall we must accept the dictum that "truth may be informed by the past but must not become necessarily led by it" as both time-and-circumstances, events-and-society, evolve with each passing era. That we are responsible to form reasonable, open-minded opinions realizing that God is a God who is much bigger than we can think or imagine. That our metaphysical arguments cannot dictate to Him his essence and being much less His activity upon, within, through, for, by, around, or on behalf of, His creation. That we are part of God's amazing creation even as we have been made co-creators with Him in remaking, renewing, redeeming, rebirthing, and resurrecting, this old world into one verily in His image.

How? By the Spirit's empowerment of submission, humility, grace, mercy, peace, and forgiveness. These latter spiritual practices of course speak to a Weak Theology that is necessarily deconstructive to classic theism's insistence upon God meticulous control of all things in a mechanistic, pre-determined world as once thought by Newton et al. Thus my preferencing of Arminianism here at this blogsite, led by Dr. Roger Olson. And no, Arminianism is not a virus, its the practical side of Christian faith living: cup of water, helping hands, free will sort of thing that doesn't believe in God's meticulous sovereignty, but in a non-coercive, indeterminant creation that willfully partners with God even as God partners with His creation by its active allowance and submission. Thus we bear a Christian faith that allows worldly wills to become submissive to God's holy rule-and-reign even as our own wills are becoming formed now in the Spirit's apocalyptic event.

I have used these examples above to show how science can be relevant to theology. That theology can, and does, change at the behest of societal movement, whether we think it does or not.... And thus, it is my hope that these past recent discussions on Science and Religion might move the church past its own metaphysical localities onto faith's broader epistemological planes of reflected, Spirit-filled movement. Perhaps then, it should be so... even so, like any good Battle Star Galactic fan would say, "So Say We All."

R.E. Slater

September 18, 2013

Addendum

*What is the Difference between Weak v. Strong Anthropic Principles? (sic Wikipedia)

From Ken G's internet posting on this issue: "Actually, those are the weak/strong versions of Tipler and company-- the more standard original distinction by Carter (I got most of this from Wiki) is simply that the weak AP says that 'given the fundamental parameters we observe, we have to live in a place and time that is conducive to life.' Thus the WAP is only relevant to resolving "fine tuning" problems in regard to why we are here now, as opposed to somewhere else later. Given the cosmological principle that all places are more or less the same, the 'fine tuning' that is resolved is purely temporal-- why we are here after 13.7 billion years and not 1 year or 1 decillion years.

The strong AP goes on to look at the fundamental physical parameters themselves, and asserts that they also have to be fine tuned such that we could come along at some point in space and time. So it talks about why if you monkey even just a little with the dimensionless ratios of the universe, you seem to dramatically alter the resulting likelihood for generating life.

The reason the SAP is more speculative is that it is not clear what you are comparing-- you can compare life as it might develop in different places and times, and might scientifically find evidence for such life, but life in other hypothetical universes would seem to be a nonscientific issue. So the SAP is not really considered testable science, it's more philosophy, whereas the WAP is on a more solid footing in regard to the general requirements of a scientific explanation.

Personally, I don't think the SAP gives us any understanding of why the parameters are what they are, beyond the obvious point that given the laws we have found, the parameters would have to be within certain ranges or we couldn't be here. That doesn't qualify as "understanding" in my book. The idea that this does not require "fine tuning" on the grounds that there can be many other universes with other parameters that are not fine tuned, but we had to show up here, seems a fruitless and untestable claim. For example, how would one attribute a "probability" to a "universe"? Should we allow the laws to be anything in these hypothetical universes, or assert the laws have to be the same only with different parameters? What are we doing?"

Related Stephen Hawking articles -

Index to past articles on "Particle Physics, Quantum Science, and the Universe"

Lenticular Clouds at Sunset, Tioga Pass, Yosemite, California

Index to past discussions -
Index to past articles on "Science & Religion"

What To Do About Bad Theology

Lately I've been mentioning an existential form of interpretive theology placed by us, the Bible's readers, upon the biblical passages of Scripture - whether rightly or wrongly. For most of us, our theology from Scriptures more probably is gained by our own enculturated views of God, His Word, His mission, and outreach, presuming that our pre-shaped social views and ideas are the more correct form of biblical interpretation of God and biblical doctrine. Not realizing that we have invaded the process of interpreting Scripture based solely upon our own views of its "rightness" and "wrongness," its sense of "holiness" and "judgment." Existentially, this works out to make us the Word's sole interpreters based upon our own view of the world around us.

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

                                                                                              - Jim Forest

And yet, though our resulting theology may range from being bad and incorrect, to harmful and destructive, still God allows us the freedom to interpret His Word based upon our own understanding of it to the world around us. We become, in essence, God's holy narrators... if not false teachers and shepherds... when misunderstanding His Words for our own words of gospel.

To drive this point home, not long ago I knew a person who, when coming to faith in Christ as a new Christian, began to immediately proclaim God's gospel message as one filled with the prejudicial assumptions of their former life's societal views. Now, in their case, this made sense and was helpful to their spiritual growth in a curious sort of way, though not commendable as a post-redemptive practice. Still, they felt strongly that in order to gain Christ, and to leave their worldly practices, the prejudices of their newly acquired church setting must necessarily be correct and required voicing, even if they did not understand why those errant sentiments were both unnecessary for their faith, and generally speaking, unreflective of Jesus' life and ministry, message and death.

This mostly typical response thus makes it necessary for the shepherds of God's church to pay better attention to what they are saying in the pulpit, and how it is being perceived through their ministerial emphases within their churches and amongst their responding congregant's assenting views and sentiments of yeah and nay. As God's servants we are to rightly divide His Word of truth and love - and where we are conflicted, to step back, and pray over, its division whilst seeking the guidance of God's holy church where possible. Listening not only to the tandem voices of sycophants in mutual assent with our own, but to those less-golden voices we normally would tune out thinking their insight and passion to be misdirected to God's holy Word. We might call them "liberals," or "progressives," or "fundamentalists," or even "evangelics," but we each form a portion of God's holy church, that together, might lend a more concerted voice of epistemic humility and harmonious spirit.

Overall, for the follower of Jesus, and the servant of the Lord, though we would seek to preach God's truth, it is better, as the Apostle Paul would say, to preach God's love lest we become like tinkling brass bells clanging away on subjects we little understand, or worst - might exasperate to greater societal harm and division within our congregant's hearts and ministries. So that when we do speak, let us err on the side of grace and mercy, forgiveness and wisdom, if at all possible. To not callously banish those whom we disagree with to the fires of hell. Nor heap unkind words of misunderstanding upon the lives of broken seekers of God's way. For these are not the marks of God's servant. But marks of a false prophet and false shepherd come to scatter and divide, devour and harm, God's holy calling in the lives of men and women. We pray then, dear Jesus, to forgive us our trespasses, even as we would learn to forgive those who have trespassed against us, so that your Kingdom beauty might become a light within our lost and desolate lives so lit, however meagerly, amongst men such as ourselves. Amen.

R.E. Slater

September 18, 2013

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What to Do About Bad Theology

http://theupsidedownworld.com/2013/09/17/what-to-do-about-bad-theology/

by Rebecca Trotter

September 17, 2013

A few years ago, I had the chance to spend some time with an African American couple who pastored a small church in an urban area. They were good, kind hearted people with a real passion for God. And they knew the bible better than anyone I’ve ever met. One night we sat down and opened the bible and spent about 3 hours doing the best, most interesting bible study I think I’ve ever been a part of. The really odd thing about it was that they held some of the worst theology I’ve ever encountered.

The worst of it was that they taught that people of African descent bore the mark of Cain and were uniquely cursed among all the people of the earth. Africans had been cursed due to their worship of demonic spirits, their abhorant tribal practices and the division of tribalism which lead to violence and dehumanization of other Africans. Evidence of the unique depravity of African people was their willingness to sell each other into slavery. (Just so we’re crystal clear – this isn’t what I think. This was the teaching of this couple, who were themselves African American.)

Not quite as bad, but still erroneous was their teaching that in order to overcome the curse put on them by God, people of African descent needed to walk the same path by which God redeemed Israel. Emancipation from slavery was their escape from slavery. Next they must receive and keep the law which would lead to them being grafted onto the house of Israel so they could inheret the work of Jesus. Essentially they lived and practiced their faith much like Messianic Jews.

The “best” part of their theology was rejecting all patterns of thought which were part of the mentality of those who were cursed. They identified the mentality which kept them tied to the curse mainly with tribalism which among African Americans was typified by gangs (ie quick to anger and be offended, us vs them outlook, a willingness to resort to violence, rituals by which members gained access to the group, a will to power). They also rejected the sort of legalism which took away their God-given right to do things like drink wine, play cards, dance, go to the movies, etc. Instead, they encouraged, kindness, humility, tolerance, ready forgivess, patience and other Christian virtues. And they threw in some prosperity gospel style “believe and think right, reap the benefits” thinking for good measure.

All in all, I think I can safely say they had some bad theology going. If I had met them a few years earlier, I probably would have been so repulsed by it that it would have kept me from enjoying their company, much less engaging in scripture study with them. I probably would have tried to argue with them; convince them to see the error of their ways. I would have been angry that there were people spreading the sort of theology which defames God like that. Instead, I went to their church picnic, drank wine and covered my head with a scarf to pray with them.

Now, you may not ever have the chance to meet Christians with such wild theology, but odds are good that there are theological beliefs which drive you to the point of wanting to commit violence. It could be neo-reformed theology, partriarchal teachings, pro or anti-gay marriage theology, legalism, liberalism, or some other ism that drives you nuts. We Christians have a very bad track record of being able to tolerate differences in theological opinion. Yet unity among believers is a common teaching of the New Testament. It was one of the things which Jesus prayed for us, in fact.

What I have come to understand is that since our ability to grasp truth fully is limited, God’s concern is less that we believe the right things and more that what we believe is drawing us closer to him. And the truth is that we hold so many theologies not simply because we’re evil or unthinking sheep or don’t care about truth. Rather, we hold so many different theologies because there are so many different ways of being wounded, confused and needy. Different theologies can meet different needs.

That couple I met with their terrible theology? They and the members of their church came from violent, gang infested neighborhoods where the disciplines of the middle class didn’t exist. They had inherited a history of unspeakable cruelty and oppression towards their people. And their theology, mistaken as it was in many ways, was helping them make sense of and overcome all of that. The narrative of God’s curse on Africans helped them understand their history and find a way beyond it. The discipline of keeping the law helped them learn the sort of disciplines which middle class people often take for granted – planning, budgeting, keeping a schedule. Framing the dysfunction around them as tribal remnants or oppressive, slave mentality made it easier for them to recognize and reject the water of dysfunction they were swimming in. It was terrible theology, but it served a real purpose for these particular people in this particular time.

Again, their’s is a rather extreme example. But the truth is that those theologies which make you want to wretch may well be just what someone else needs. And it could well be that the theology which brings you life would do nothing for them. We all need different things on our way to a greater truth.

Of course, bad theology isn’t always so benign for those who hold it. It can, in fact, destroy people. It can engender abuse. It can make people’s hearts hard or shatter them. It’s not always without consequence. And it’s for this reason that a lot of people expend a lot of time and emotional energy speaking against bad theology. Which to a certain extent is fine. I guess. But more and more I wonder if this urge to argue and divide doesn’t really stem from our own immaturity and lack of faith.

First of all, God doesn’t need us to defend him. As Crystal St. Marie Lewis says, “When a god begins to require the custodial protection of those who worship him, he is no longer a god. He becomes an idol.” Without realizing it, many of us think that God can not handle those who defame him without our assistance. That if we don’t step in to mount a good defense, bad theology will win and God will lose. The truth is that God will make himself known in his own way and his own time with or without our assistance.

The second issue is that we have actually underestimated the scope of the problem; there’s a lot of evil theology out there. Much more than you think, in fact. Any theology which isn’t completely true is evil. God is light and in him there is no darkness. If it’s not God, it’s dark and evil. So there’s evil in your theology and in mine. But, whether it’s evil in our theology or in the theology of others, the answer isn’t to search it out, cast it out and rise up against it. Rather it’s to allow God to do that work. The bible says, “what the enemy meant for evil, God uses for good.”

Our part isn’t to fight, but to obey. Jesus said not to resist the evil man. Paul instructs us to keep our eyes on what is good, true, pure, praiseworthy. Evil is overcome by goodness. Do good to those who oppose you.

I know, I know, “all it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.” And yes, Jesus spoke out against the bad theologians of his day. But consider that doing good isn’t being passive. Often, doing good is an assertive challenge. Especially when working from a position of less power than the one promoting evil. Greg Boyd recently wrote a book in which he argued that God has choosen to do battle through the “weak power of love” instead of by taking hold of the strong power of aggression which we humans prefer to do battle with.

And those bad theologians Jesus told off? They provoked confrontations with him. He wasn’t sitting to the side when these people taught, pointing out all their errors and condemning them. With few exceptions, Jesus followed the edict to promote what you love rather than bash what you hate. We should do likewise.

I know that this seems like really bad advice. God’s instructions usually make for bad advice. Which, I suppose is why we so rarely follow them. But ultimately, we need to put our faith in the power of God and not our own. We need to look at these things with spiritual eyes rather than measure them with human methods. Do you trust in God and the work of the Holy Spirit to lead the bride out of all the bad theology? Do you trust that if you seek first the Kingdom – not go to battle for it, not defend it, not defeat its enemies – that God can handle the rest? If so, then may I suggest that the next time you run into some really bad theology, you simply recognize a brother or sister in Christ and love them the best you can?

American Idol 7 (IGB) - Shout to the Lord HQ

  

American Idol 7 (IGB) - Shout to the Lord HQ

New Book: "Letters to My Grandson," by Bruce Epperly

 

Letters to My Grandson:

Gaining Wisdom from a Fresh Perspective

by Bruce Epperly

Amazon link

 

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Energion Publications (September 17, 2013)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1938434757
• ISBN-13: 978-1938434754

Letters to My Grandson is a love story describing the relationship between a grandfather and his grandson. It celebrates the love of a family, including events of great joy and even grief. The author shares his revelation that the love of a grandson can grow into love for every child of this earth, a lesson taught by a child.

 

This is also a book of many adventures, common to us all but often overlooked in the frenetic pace of our everyday lives. Dr. Epperly, a self-professed “aging baby boomer” is finding renewal on his hands and knees as he crawls alongside his grandson, sings remembered childhood songs and looks at the world through those infant eyes.

 

Love grows wings and enables our hearts to soar in so many ways every day. Jewish wisdom says that there is an angel whispering “grow, grow” over every blade of grass. I am sure that an angel is whispering to my grandson Jack, “grow, grow.” Creative wisdom, moving well beneath his consciousness and mine, lures him forward moment by moment on this amazing adventure of becoming a child of God on this good Earth.

 

 

 

 

Thinking About the Quantum Mysteries of Life

From time-to-time I love to go "off-subject" and just "think aloud" about the inner workings of our universe. I love science. And especially anything that has to do with mathematics, chemistry and physics. And specifically anything that has to do with the universe, its evolution and inner-workings of the invisible quantum mechanisms at work energizing our daily routines and lives without are merest notice or appreciation. When I think about science I cannot help to then think about the broader implications of it all - of theology and philosophy, biological evolution and societal social dynamics, human vitality, and of the earth's vitality itself. It's all entangled. Primeval. Spiritual. And very human in an earthy-sort-of-way.

Like any potential theorist, we each like to conject and project, speculate and theorize, of possibilities and realities, of beginnings and endings, of things-to-come and things-yet-to-come, towards a future that is here, now, in all of its raw potentiality. And it may be here, within Michio Kaku's hour-long video discussion below, that we might re-discover life's rudimentary physics at work within our own inner worlds and inner workings. Between ourselves with that of other searching selves. And even within our very human imaginations and cathartic needs to amplify God's vibrancy singing through our vibrating lives. It may even cause our thoughts to soar towards all things pertaining to life and being, mystery and paradox, holiness and goodness. Towards all the many good possibilities that this life holds - and even promises to become - that is so lightly held within the grasp of our dying mortal hands and careless souls.

That at the last, by this most exquisite of all explorations we might better approach ourselves, each other, and even our Creator-Redeemer God of the universe with a raw, new, vitality gained from the very exploration itself. Which search might lay within us a more circumspect humbleness - perhaps even a closeness - to the vastness of the empty space that lives between ourselves and hoary time's grand privileging of life's resonating - and oft times, deeply disturbing - images of our poverty and thanklessness. That within this discovery we might perhaps discover the need to seek a more infinite, a more eternal life, wishing to be filled beyond our merest mundane aspirations, livelihoods, and moiling, restive governments. Which might conjoin our more primitive thoughts of mystery-and-possibility to the vaster seas of endless meanings-and-opportunities meant to recover the beginnings-and-endings of this divine life in which we live so thoughtlessly on our bravest days.

Which might instill a grander patience with each other. A more pervasive peace. And perhaps, a better relent of mankind's paucity, charged with protecting and enhancing all-these-many-worlds that we have been given. To nurture these worlds within the provise of our habitation whose darkened wildernesses is ours to remake-and-create by our faithful God's great wisdom and most willing provide. To reach beyond that single equation that would explain all of physic's grandest quantum searches to that single-most spiritual equation expressing all of life itself. To discover that that quantum spiritual equation is Jesus Himself who redeems, reimagines, and would renew all. Even ourselves. And even this old world we live so meanly within its vagaries, poverties, and destitutions. To know that Jesus is that Redeemer God who comes to re-create, heal, and make all things new. That it is in this kind of Resurrecting God who is the grandest equation to the quantum mysteries of this remarkable life we have been given to use or misuse, to complete or make incomplete, to refuse or bow before. Whether we understand it or not. Whether we would try or not. And there find a reclaimed peace that never before existed in our broken hearts until this very moment's grandest eclipse at the burst of that bright-and-morning-star of our existence. That star of David which was broken and bowed before our own brokenness wept until the everlast of days filled upon the risen dawns of new birth like a star burst upon my heart.

R.E. Slater

September 15, 2013

The Same Love
by Paul Baloche



You choose the humble and raise them high

You choose the weak and make them strong
You heal our brokenness inside
And give us life

The same love that set the captives free
The same love that opened eyes to see
Is calling us all by name
You are calling us all by name
The same God that spread the heavens wide
The same God that was crucified
Is calling us all by name
You are calling us all by name

You take the faithless one aside
And speak the words "You are mine"
You call the cynic and the proud
Come to me now

The same love that set the captives free
The same love that opened eyes to see
Is calling us all by name
You are calling us all by name
The same God that spread the heavens wide
The same God that was crucified
Is calling us all by name
You are calling us all by name

Oh oh...

You're calling You're calling
You're calling us to the cross
(Repeat 4x)

The same love that set the captives free
The same love that opened eyes to see
Is calling us all by name
You are calling us all by name
The same God that spread the heavens wide
The same God that was crucified
Is calling us all by name
You are calling us all by name

You're calling You're calling
You're calling us to the cross
You're calling You're calling
You're calling us to the cross

Here Is Our King - David Crowder Band

(Chorus 2x)

Here is our King
Here is our Love
Here is our God who's come to bring us back to him
He is the one,
He is Jesus

(verse 1)
From wherever spring arrives to heal the ground
From where ever searching comes to look itself
A trace of what we're looking for
so be quiet now, and wait

(Pre-Chorus)
The ocean is growing
The tide is coming in
Here it is:

(Chorus 2x)
Here is our King
Here is our Love
Here is our God who's come to bring us back to him
He is the one,
He is Jesus

(verse 2)
And what was said to the rose to make it unfold
Was said to me, here in my chest
So be quiet now, and rest.

(Pre-Chorus)(Chorus 2x)

(Bridge 2x)
Majesty!
Finally!

(chorus 3x)(bridge 1x)

Michio Kaku: The Universe in a Nutshell

Published on Aug 15, 2012

       

The Universe in a Nutshell: The Physics of Everything
Michio Kaku, Henry Semat Professor of Theoretical Physics at CUNY

What if we could find one single equation that explains every force in the universe? Dr. Michio Kaku explores how physicists may shrink the science of the Big Bang into an equation as small as Einstein's "e=mc^2." Thanks to advances in string theory, physics may allow us to escape the heat death of the universe, explore the multiverse, and unlock the secrets of existence. While firing up our imaginations about the future, Kaku also presents a succinct history of physics and makes a compelling case for why physics is the key to pretty much everything.

The Floating University
Originally released September, 2011.
Directed / Produced by Jonathan Fowler, Kathleen Russell, and Elizabeth Rodd

Index to past discussions -

Index to past articles on "Science & Religion"

continue to -

Index to past articles on "Particle Physics, Quantum Science, and the Universe"

Is Doubt a Sign of Spiritual Weakness or Not?

Is Doubt a Sign of Spiritual Weakness or What?
(Two New Books about the Role of Doubt in Christian Living)

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/09/is-doubt-a-sign-of-spiritual-weakness-or-what-two-new-books-about-the-role-of-doubt-in-christian-living/

 

by Roger Olson

September 12, 2013

Comments

 

When I was a kid growing up in church (how’s that for a stereotypical opening of a paragraph?) a favorite saying of pastors and evangelists was “Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs!” As if doubt (and here “doubt” will always be about God and the truth of revelation) is something you overcome by sheer will power. And as if doubt is necessarily something negative to be shunned rather than embraced or at least lived with.

 

In that form of Christian life that encouraged a kind of super-spirituality (I found Francis Schaeffer’s little book on that subject liberating as an early twenty-something Christian in that spiritual environment) “doubt” was an enemy and having doubts meant a lack of faith which meant sin in life. So the solution to doubt was twofold: will power to overcome sin and waiting on the Holy Spirit for a new “infilling.” So, indirectly, at least, shame was heaped on anyone who struggled with doubt.

 

One of the reasons I couldn’t remain in that form of Christian life was that I couldn’t help having doubts; there was simply no “cure” for doubt—at least not that I could find. And I felt that doubt, not chronic, disabling doubt but simple human lack of absolute certainty, was not necessarily a sign of spiritual weakness but a normal part of being finite rather than infinite (or deified).

 

Now let me be clear, for those who easily misunderstand, that by doubt here I do not mean chronic skepticism let alone cynicism about the truth of revelation and about God. I mean simply that lack of absolute certainty, that awareness that one could be wrong, that nagging little feeling that what you believe falls short of absolute certainty and therefore could, at least theoretically, be false.

 

Because of the way I was raised, with even the slightest hint of doubt being interpreted as a sign of spiritual weakness if not at attack of Satan (!), I was afraid to admit it to any of my spiritual mentors or peers. I covered it up, hid it and pretended that I had absolute certainty about everything I was supposed to believe.

 

Eventually I was delivered from that bondage partly through a book by a wise colleague named Daniel Taylor. The book is entitled The Myth of Certainty: The Reflective Christian and the Risk of Commitment. I found it liberating, not because it made me comfortable with doubt but because it gave me permission to be human and put the emphasis where it belongs—not on arrival at absolute certainty but on commitment in spite of doubts. (Taylor relied heavily on Kierkegaard.)

 

Around the same time I discovered an older book by British Methodist pastor Leslie Weatherhead—a prolific Christian writer of the mid-20^th century. It is entitled The Christian Agnostic. But, again, the theme is not chronic skepticism but learning to live with fallibility and therefore with doubt.

 

Around the same time (my mid-twenties) I read Paul Tillich’s The Dynamics of Faith. There Tillich describes doubt as a necessary element of faith. In other words, the two are not in tension but depend on each other. Without doubt, Tillich argues, faith would not be faith but sight.

 

All of these authors taught me that absolute certainty is eschatological. They taught me to be real about life here and now, “between the times”—not to embrace doubt as something to be proud of but to live with it as a real sign of finitude and even as something that, if accepted in the right way, can help faith, as commitment, become stronger.

 

I have to admit, however, that all of this remained somewhat abstract and intellectual. I read more books that bolstered this different view of faith and doubt. Books by Fredrick Buechner (“Doubt is the ants in the pants of faith; it keeps it moving”) and Lesslie Newbigin (Proper Confidence). I settled into it somewhat uncomfortably with the nagging feeling that, even though I felt it to be true intellectually, I still might be unspiritual for accepting doubt as normal and not striving harder to overcome it once and for all. I still worried that my spiritual mentors, the people who “brought me up in the faith,” would shame me for having doubts and learning to live with them.

 

Part of that uneasiness came from attending a church that reminded me of my superspiritual childhood and youth. It was a Baptist church, but the pastor’s sermons and Bible studies and much of the ethos of the church communicated to me (maybe not to others) that true faith, once really acquired, banishes all doubt. There, as in my later adolescent years, I suffered the cognitive dissonance of two conflicting feelings. On the one hand, Sunday after Sunday I was being told, indirectly if not directly, that faith overcomes doubt, so anyone who struggles with doubt must not yet have acquired true faith—which in that church was a matter of sheer will power. On the other hand, I sensed that many of the people of the church were pretending, living lives of unreality, putting on a mask when they came to church. It did not feel like a safe place to admit doubts and spiritual struggles.

 

Eventually we left that church and prayed that God would lead us to one where we could be real people. Where we would not have to put on masks and pretend to “have it all together” without flaws. That’s exactly what happened. The very first church we visited, after leaving the one we had been attending for eight years (and that I had been wanting to leave for four of those years!), was what we were looking for. That very first Sunday the pastor preached on doubt and gave the congregation permission to be human, including admitting that their Christian lives were not - and never would be - free of risk and commitment in spite of very real doubts. I believe finding that church at that time, so easily and quickly, was a “God thing.”

 

Also around that time I began watching and listening to gospel music videos (now DVDs) produced by Bill Gaither. (No, this is not an advertisement!) I will never forget the impact one of them made in me. It brought into my “inner man” (to borrow a concept from Pietist founder Philipp Jakob Spener) what I had appropriated from books and sermons into my theology. I don’t remember the title of the video, but it was filmed with a group of “old time gospel singers”—most of them not great musicians professionally but sincere and singing the music of my childhood—uplifting and inspiring music of my generation. Right in the middle of that session several of them began to share “testimonies” of their struggles with doubt—not before they became Christians or before they “received the Holy Spirit”—but recently, then and there, as “mature Christian believers” and “full time gospel evangelists.” It was shocking to me to hear their stories—not because they dismayed me but because they spoke powerfully into my life about what I had learned intellectually from books.

 

Then Gaither, who many consider a giant of Christian faith (author of numerous Christian songs sung in churches and recorded by Christian recording artists) sat at the piano and, unrehearsed, and in a very unpolished way, sang a song he wrote that never “caught on,” so to speak. “I believe; help Thou my unbelief. I take the finite risk of trusting like a child. I believe; help Thou my unbelief.  I walk into the unknown trusting like a child.” (Google it for all the lyrics. The specific performance that so touched me inwardly isn’t on youtube so far as I can find, but later performances of the song by Gaither and his “Vocal Band” are.)

 

It’s strange how something you’ve learned from books and accepted intellectually can still need to penetrate into your heart. That is what my new church and that song, sung in that particular way at that time, did for me. (Yes, I’m an unapologetic pietist! Partly, at least, because of experiences such as these.)

 

Recently two friends have published books about doubt and Christian faith and I recommend both highly. Both are filled with personal stories of life experiences by these Christian leaders, men looked up to by thousands because of their teaching and writing. These are not your typical conservative Christian “testimony books” like so many that crowd the shelves of Christian “bookstores.” (I put that in scare quotes because most of them sell very few books and the ones they do sell tend to be fluff.)

 

If you are someone who struggles with struggling with doubt, I recommend these two wonderful new books - and that you find a home church where you can be real, and not a Sunday “mask wearer” - someone who has to pretend to  have no spiritual struggles or doubts.

 

The books are: Gregory A. Boyd, Benefit of the Doubt: Breaking the Idol of Certainty (Baker, 2013) and Daniel Taylor, The Skeptical Believer: Telling Stories to Your Inner Atheist (Bog Walk Press, 2013). Neither one encourages skepticism or wallowing in doubt that avoids risk and commitment; both reveal how the authors and others came to real faith in spite of and perhaps even partly through uncertainty.

 

Unfortunately, so much American Christianity, perhaps especially conservative evangelical Christianity, is mired in inauthenticity. Authenticity is what Boyd and Taylor are talking about. Being authentic means being real; embracing the real and not pretending to be something we’re not and aren’t meant to be. Absolute certainty that banishes all doubt is unreal, inauthentic, a chimera, an illusion. And yet, so much conservative Christianity not only promotes it - but expects it - and shames people who dare to admit they haven’t arrived at that time and place when we will see face to face and know as we are known. There remains, for now, only faith, hope and love and these are enough.

 

 

 

Discussions in Science and Religion - Week 1: "Faith and Trust"

 

 

Week One's introduction didn't do much for me mostly because I'm pro-science and pro-Christianity and have written quite a bit about how science and the Christian faith have bisected my life and brought a fullness to it that without either would make each the poorer. However, within Philip Clayton's own context, he has encountered a lot of vitriol from Christians and their church denominations to his scientific paradigms for a Christian interpretation of the Scriptures... which means that he has received a lot of sarcasm from Christians, and gotten a lot of professional disregard by the atheistic elements of his science profession (what he calls the new atheism). This is regrettable because as week one's discussion has shown, Philip has taken pains to professionally bridge the gap between the two antithetical cultures, as his books and lectures have repeatedly shown these past many years by attestation.

 

For myself, I determined immediately from the onset of writing Relevancy22 that my philosophic direction would be one of integrating the science that I was trained in (through university) with the religion that I had learned and was also trained in. Most admittedly I had allowed the two to live in separate rooms (if not separate houses) of my mind and heart, disavowing any restriction by the one to the other. As such, I lived with a dualism of scholastic cultures that neither upset me nor conflicted me. I pretended there was no conflicted and lived happily within each purview giving to each one their fullest due.

 

But when I began blogging it became immediately apparent that I had to admit that my Christian faith was the more naïve for this outlook, and that my scientific outlook was built upon the beggarly foundations of an agnostic or a-theistic system. Each had much to recommend to the other but if left to separate dwellings it would be to my greatest folly and ignorance. Hence, as of this date, there are approximately 150 articles written, edited, or published in the area of science and the Christian faith. And it is left up to you, the reader, to discover each one as they might provide help or assist in this Area 51 between the Christian faith and today's scientific system.

 

 

Thus, it is from within this effort that I have tried to bridge the gap between the two areas of life that should never have been left so completely separate. My first admission was to the factual findings of biology, genetics, geology, and cosmology, and to finally agree that my understanding of it with the records of Genesis 1-3 were in great need of revisal. That if I were to admit to evolution than I must also admit that my hermeneutic (interpretation) of Genesis was not allowing me to see God's authorship in its design. Nor was my view of God's immediacy of creation realistically allowing me to see the paradoxical naivete of my limitation of God's greatness and wisdom by disallowing another kind of mediated (evolving) creation by this God that I professed. That He was bigger than the religious box I held Him within, and greater than the boundaries that I had philosophically restricted Him to. That at the last, it was myself that needed changing, and not my Bible, nor my faith, nor some purported fabrication of science.

 

As such, I have not only written about an evolutionary understanding of creation (sic, Evolutionary Creationism) but have also found that to make this effort likewise required of me to write of an expanded hermeneutic and theistic understanding of the God I once thought I knew, but in actuality knew very little of.... The strident voices of my fundamentalist (and lately, evangelic) upbringing required attention to the matters of the heresies it claimed... and when I did, it didn't do much for my personal or religious life amongst friends and family. For many, they lost trust in my Christian witness - which was unfortunate for I had endured much in life because of it. And they lost trust in my leadership to teach God's truth - which was equally unfortunate because I have become the richer for my belated explorations. Finding an amazing God beyond what I could have ever imagined!

But, like the prophets of the Old Testament, we each bear our burdens, and mine has been one of updating Christianity's secular modernism and anti-intellectualism into the 21st century's requisite embracement of post-structuralism, post-foundationalism, and post-modernism. Fancy words that basically say that by entering into this kind of Christian faith you must expect all your faith structures and foundations to be torn down and replaced with a surer foundation. One built on rocks instead of sand. And a foundation that both I, and Philip Clayton, will each aver is worth the cost, the mental pain, and the faith challenges. Thus Relevancy 22. And thus this journal of my experiences in lending a way out of the unenlightening wilderness which today's present Christianity has become lost within for too long.

 

Consequently, though I appreciated Philip's introductory session, my postmodernist, existentialist, Christian faith has moved beyond the dualistic kind of oppositional A-versus-B type of thinking found within my previously secularized, modernistic faith. Not that I don't utilize these pedantic structures, because for people like myself who are being led of God beyond the God of their imagination, I must provide some conceptual linkages to the past that might be helpful to those on similar journeys as mine own.

 

But I must also write to this generation's present Millennials who are not as conflicted as mine own generation of the 60s and 70s by science's more profound discoveries (Richard Leakey for one, in his discoveries of million(s)-year-old humanoid skeletal parts). Mostly, science now reigns supreme, and has become the philosophic anvil upon which all other religious faiths must fall, becoming either broken or sharpened. But to remain neutral to science is impossible. And lest the ancient faith of Yahweh become yet another religious shard upon the pile of mythological ruins it must be updated into the cultural times that we live.

 

And so, "Yes," science has become as disruptive, as dangerous, as anti-Christian (seemingly so) in our day-and-age as it was back in Copernicus and Galileo's day when the Catholic Church fought against it. But for the followers of Christ we must not run headlong into the age-old arguments of a Richard Dawkins who so easily dismisses Christianity, its God, and its Bible. We listen to these professing agnostics and atheists to try to understand how we have so admittedly failed in our understanding of God's Word, and to learn how we might re-work our paradigms, Christian culture, and attitudes, so that we might re-discover the God-of love behind the God-of-the Bible whom we thought we knew, and don't.

 

Sure, its fun to bash the "unbelievers" amongst our religious groups... those of us with Facebook accounts see this behavior daily, accusing one-another of a questionable faith, of a faith that is divisive, or even a faith that too easily gives in to the world around itself. But this does not drive the discussion forward. It simply uproots the "old man" within us to gleefully rejoice in another's perceived faults and imperfections without realizing the "plank" in our own eye, and the "needle-like" entrance we have laid for ourselves as we bow before the foreshortened walls of our own Mecca-like Jerusalem.

 

 

Pulpits have become strident instead of informative. Christian media lobs pejorative labels upon everything outside of its own fundamentalist, non-progressive structures. The newspapers, friends and family, stir up old ills by causing Christian believers to fight between one another. Our faith is judged primitive. Our spirituality judged religious. Our churches a vacillation between medieval barbarism and insignificance. Christianity has lost its epistemic humility, its sense of discernment, and its broader insight into the ways-and-workings of God our Savior. Rather than becoming spiritual creatives we have become spiritual viruses living off of 4th century creedal debates, a labyrinth of quixotic Christian traditions, and sincerely misled faith cultures. We make false assumptions about a scientific discipline we don't understand, or put our heads in the sand that would ignore the claims of vast discoveries that changes everything we thought we knew as good Bible students of God's Word.

 

Has the Christian faith become so absurd or, can we find within it a reasonableness to today's scientific certainties, without losing the God-of-our-faith behind those verities? Can we let go of the epistemological structures of certainty that we grew up with to allow in some paradox and mystery that has long fled our knowledge of God? Can we as the church of the 21st century find a place to reconstruct theology and to carry it forward beyond the mockery that it has become to the world at large? To understand that since the days of Paul, the church's best thinkers have  joined in the highest of this world's debates and philosophic discussions in attempts to rediscover a God endlessly challenged to His viability and interior claims of truth within our lives? That each Christian era has entertained its own challenges: from Judaism to Greek  Hellenism and sectarian gnosticism in Paul's day; from Aristotle and Plato to Medieval scholasticism; from the Enlightenment to today's era of Secularism; and so on and so on.

And so where does this leave Science and Religion today? Christian scientists are discounted, their views resisted by both sides of the discussion, and our faith made a mockery from Hollywood to the Halls of Academia. Trust has been lost by today's non-Christian cultures, and with it we have witnessed Christianity's rapid devolution into the world's claims to its religious mythology. Rightfully so have philosophers such as Kierkegaard, Tillich, Bultmann, Barth, and Caputo, leapt in to recover this most ancient faith refusing that "all the facts belong to science, and all the emotions, beauty, and poetry belong to religion." Nay, they wished to speak a more constructive theology in their day even as we do today. Refusing antithetically opposed statements that "Science has disproved God even as Faith distrusts Science." To not rest within oppositional elements but to show a synergy of admission to each that would allow both viewpoints a marriage out of agreement and not by necessity.

 

How? To begin with, by stating that "my faith isn't absurd, but neither can it prove all things." To rest in the knowledge that we don't know. That we don't have the answers. To not demand of our faith that it must prove all things for it to be believed and followed. For myself, it began by admitting that the ancient author(s) of Genesis utilized the science of their day - that of the predominant Babylonian belief in their cosmological constructs of heaven-and-earth as a refractory beginning to describing their own Creator God of the Hebrews. Or, by jettisoning the arguments of creatio ex nihilo (creation out of nothing) for perhaps Wolfhart Pannenberg's creatio continua (creation from something that always was). To think through what it means for humanity to have a soul as distinguished from the animal kingdom that seemingly did not inherit its own consciousness in evolutionary development. Or, how homo sapien man might be unique from the evolutionary hominids before him. Or, how one might describe a biblical miracle in today's scientific understanding (cf. synchronicity, miracles, virgin birth herein). Or, the ethics of our ecology and environment. Or even, the implications of how our faith might be practiced differently with this knowledge.

It is at this point that we must admit that this is a journey of reconciliation that must be made, even as it is one that cannot not be made. To know that all must change within us if we are to begin such a journey. That like Abraham of old, living amongst the Chaldean's of Ur, we must trust God to leave our faith's homelands for the more challenging homelands of faith beyond. That we will stumble, fail, and even run into our own disbelief, but throughout this journey of separation God is our God and will be with us guiding, protecting, blessing. It can be so. We must only allow it to be so.

 

R.E. Slater

September 13, 2013

 

 

Index to past discussions -

Index to past articles on "Science & Religion"






 

Discussions in Science and Religion - Week 1: Recap - "Unequal Playing Fields"

 

http://homebrewedchristianity.com/2013/09/11/highgravity-religion-and-science-wk-1-questionsdiscussion-forum/

by Jonnie Russell
September 11, 2013
Comments

Our six-week live online has begun and the week one lecture/discussion video is up for free on HBC as well as mission soulutions.  If you haven’t watched and are in the high gravity group (or the in-the-flesh Claremont group), do it! If you haven’t signed up and want a free taster with this first week, by all means give it a try, see the goods and where we’re going and join in here.

 

As I said in my prep post last week, this is intended to be your time: a forum for you to get my brief recap of the week's happenings and give the beginnings of what might be some conversation starters. What has perked my interest may very well be completely different from what interested or puzzled you, so by all means, feel completely unbound to responding to me and my thoughts. Your reactions (this will be up both here and the high gravity group site) will be studiously followed by Tripp and myself, so as to cull the reactions into a list and throw them back at Philip to make him answer, assuage, unravel, or puzzle along with us. We might not get to all of them each week, but we will definitely be able to cover a good smattering of the issues that arise. So…weigh in! My format will be simple: Recap and React.

 

Recap:

 

This week kicked off with Philip giving us a broad picture of the past and present situation between religion and science. He began by asking “what’s at stake?”  In the context of the New Atheists, the best-selling militant posse of public (pseudo?) intellectuals who claim that God is beyond passé (and more a vicious poison), is there a conversation to be had that does not collapse into a snarling fundamentalism? It is precisely this road that Philip wants to walk. Accordingly, what is at stake in this conversation in our age is the very intellectual credibility of  Christianity (a good question for yourself: is it for you? do you feel that way?)

 

Past and present entries into the religion and science discussion have varied widely. Some looked for a spot to slide God into the science, a continued attempt to save a seat by offering various “God filling the gaps” answers. Others have argued that they inhabit different spaces or different orders (Gould’s magisteriums), a way to insulate each with their own purview, a tactic that often leaves the religious with the heart and heaven. Still others, reject the conversation or validity of the other wholesale, a polarized fundamentalism. None of these will work. We must face the conversation more frontally, oppose the binary with a more gracious and open-handed approach.

 

Why? Because important concerns arise. Culturally, science fear (perhaps a deep envy of its cultural authority) pervades many of the religious. Strident defensiveness of one’s purview is just ugly. Demographically, huge shifts in recent generations to spiritually indie (…but not religious, etc.) show the end/death of Christian ownership of western culture. No longer is it the default outlet for the religious impulse.  No longer is it the default merchant we run to. Constantinianism and its mercantilism are waning, if not dead.  Existentially, it’s good to grapple [as Christians with scientific discoveries and understanding]. [A] constructive theological project (our project in these weeks) necessitates that we [then] grapple well.  As Philip showed, this has always been happening with people of faith. A[n] [ancient] scientific model informed the [ancient] biblical authors. Hubble’s findings in the 1920′s effected a change in thinking about the universe’s beginning and cosmology, etc. “Not to grapple [with science] is to make a mockery of our heritage.” Well said Dr. Clayton!

 

In the last bit before the discussion time, Philip ended by detailing nine themes to be covered in coming weeks.  The attentive will notice that about four of those correlated almost exactly with some of my own outline of key themes that I’ve found in my own work. [Questions] of the soul, human uniqueness, divine action, and environmental/ethical issues will be discussed, plus more!

 

React:

 

-This is going to be really fun!

 

-Perhaps it’s my upbringing rearing its formative head, but even after years of interest in science and religion discussions, and a decided willingness to let scientific finding and research effect my theological and philosophical reflection, I still struggle, or worry, that the playing field is unequal–that to ‘let the best knowledge of our day’ have its way with my thinking will inevitably end up one-sidedly submitting theology to (i.e. under) the scientific.  Is this merely because I’ve only seen poor examples or is it something more fundamental–something related to science being more rigorously norming, more fundamental?

 

-Philip, you mentioned how entering into this exciting journey of open-handedly exploring science and religion has been a wild ride, one that (so far) has “cost” you a form of divine action among other things. I take you to mean some form of interventionist divine action. Are there examples of things your religious experience, beliefs, knowledge, commitments have caused you to give up (or,costed you) scientifically?  In other words, is the dynamic of costing asymmetric or reciprocal? Does it go both ways? Are there any examples from your own [professional, or personal,] development?

 

*What are you (fellow participants and general readers) feeling or thinking after the first week? Any questions, excitements, worries, or housekeeping questions?

 

*[Does] the broad brushed history - and current context of the engagement between Religion and Science - make sense?

 

*Did Tripp or Philip say anything exceedingly heady that we should pester them to flesh out more or clarify?

 

Next week we dive into the quantum and the cosmic!
 

 

Index to past discussions -

 

Index to past articles on "Science & Religion"