Time for a book and music update. I haven’t found a ton of interesting music in the last few months or so. But here’s a few:
The Bird and the Bee, Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future.
Audioslave, Revelations.
Lo-pro, Self-titled.
I’ve mostly been reading for my Sunday school class, specifically in the area of science and faith. This has been a huge challenge for me intellectually and spiritually. I grew up in a conservative home that forcefully stood up for the belief in a literal Genesis and saw science and faith as contradictory. Now, I know there’s a lot more to the Genesis account than the literalness one finds in a car manual. I also know that the measurable half-lives of uranium, potassium, and stronium put the date of the earth at 4.5 billion years. I believe science and faith can be affirming of each other - though I’m not sure of all the details. I’ll let you know how all of that turns out after I’m done. Anyway, along with frequent cyber-visits to the Faraday Institute, here’s my list I’ve been reading – it’s an enormous hodge-podge of various positions. I don’t plan to immediately adopt one over the others after I finish them all (I’m about halfway through), but I do have a responsiblity to relay each position accurately to the congregation I serve. Ordered by topic:
Intelligent Design:
Gonzalez and Richards, The Privileged Planet
Owen Gingerich, God’s Universe
Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box
Michael Behe, The Edge of Evolution
Fazale Rana, The Cell’s Design
Dembski and Ruse, eds., Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA
Creationism:
Grady McMurtry, Creation: Our Worldview
John Whitcomb, The World that Perished
Theistic Evolution:
Francis Collins, The Language of God
John Polkinghorne, Quantum Physics and Theology
John Polkinghorne, Exploring Reality: The Intertwining of Science and Religion
David Snoke, The Biblical Case for an Old Earth
Secular Evolution:
Johnjoe McFadden, Quantum Evolution
Brent Dalrymple, The Age of the Earth
Other:
John Haught, God and the New Atheism
Brian Appleyard, Understanding the Present: an Alternative History of Science
Anthony Flew, There Is a God
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the relationship between faith and science as I prepare to teach my class. Are science and faith enemies or friends?
Hello Sam, this is my first time making a comment around here. You have a nice blog!
About the topic, I recommend you a book named Beyond the Firmament by Gordon J. Glover. It’s clear and friendly and defends Theistic Evolution.
I made myself that question months ago and my answer is that they can be friends. Of course, this has to do with how do you interpret the Bible in those place where it seems to be in conflict with science. The context is fundamental and realizing that science, like we know it today, wasn’t available to the authors of the Bible when they wrote it.
This world is all we have and science studies it’s properties. If God says it’s good, then I have no reason to limit myself to know it.
Inspiration and Incarnation by Peter Enns can be useful, even when you don’t agree with all he says.
(Sorry if my English is strange, I don’t really speak or write a lot in it.)
Blessings!
Hi Edgardo –
I’m glad you like the blog. Thanks for commenting. I’ll check out Glover’s book.
I agree with your comments about biblical interpretation and science. It’s difficult to hold ancient writers to the standard of modern science and personally, I have no problem with that conclusion. The Bible holds significant value without having to submit to Western models of empiricism.
All the paradigms listed above have merit as well. I deal with people who believe every one of them. I love the passion of creationists – they love God’s Word. I love ID proponents and their willingness to stand against scientists becoming amateur philosophers of scientific naturalism. I love the theistic evolutionist’s willingness to balance a healthy understanding of science and faith. And I certainly value scientific contributions of those outside my own faith. As I ‘ve said before, science is not religious, but people often are. Learning to bridge that gap responsibly is my goal.
Thanks for the input and book recommedation.
Blessings,
Sam
Hey Sam,
This has been a question that has changed my life. I’m not sure there is a day that goes by where this question doesn’t present itself to me. Sometimes I think I ponder it too much for my own good. Another preface, I tend to think of rationality (deductive/inductive reasoning) to fit within the science end of the spectrum as well. (I’m not saying all theism is irrational, but that often, people see faith as a form of irrationality)
I firmly believe that an indifferent/unbiased starting point is where all searches for valid truths should begin. Otherwise, our own desires can get in our way. Using your conclusion as a premise (presupposition), whether trying to prove theism or non-theism, is an insincere method.
I believe that is what the “debate” comes down to. Does one accept faith and/or revelation as a means to truths? Or, alternatively does one revere the scientific method and rational argument so much that they believe truth can be obtained only through those approaches?
I think that if you are theistic, science and reason *have* to coincide with your belief. I’m not sure a world where there is a god is one where rationality could point the other way. Especially if that world is one where thought, intelligence and cognition (see the title of my blog
) is a defining and distinguishing attribute of those whom that god created.
As a believer, that was how I viewed things. I believed that, given my faith, science and reason had to give us the answers, and those answers would point to god. But eventually, my reasoning and all that I experienced kept point away from that being the case. Finally, it was too much and I could not be intellectually honest with myself and continue my belief.
That is me. That is where my experience has led me. It is not necessarily any more right than another’s, but it is what I believe.
Hi Chris –
Those are good thoughts – you obviously spend a great deal of time thinking about things beyond “Hey, what’s for dinner tonight?” – personally one of the most important questions anyone can ever ask in their lifetime…
“I firmly believe that an indifferent/unbiased starting point is where all searches for valid truths should begin. Otherwise, our own desires can get in our way. Using your conclusion as a premise (presupposition), whether trying to prove theism or non-theism, is an insincere method.”
You and I are going to disagree on some of this, simply because I don’t believe unbiased starting points exists. All academic disciplines like to beleive in objective observation, but honestly we are only capable of analyzing from our personal experience. People decided that subjective context was irrational about three centuries ago. But people don’t do anything in a vaccuum. Anthropic perspectives of science see this subjectivity as a strength not a weakness to discovery. Theism is the same as well. We only know what we have experienced in a subjective manner.
“Does one accept faith and/or revelation as a means to truths? Or, alternatively does one revere the scientific method and rational argument so much that they believe truth can be obtained only through those approaches?”
For me personally, I think it can be both. We are trained to accept “either/or” but there are multivalent explanations for everything. For example, music. I can understand the notes to a piece, but that does nothing to explain the emotion I felt the first time I heard Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings.” Both sets of data explain facets of the same thing.
Same thing with religion. Intelligence and cognition can point us to God, but God is ascertained through other ways outside the categories our linear mindset creates. Science can explain some things in this life, but it can’t explain everything. For me, science and reason do not have to coincide at every spiritual turn. To do so is to limit the various ways God can indentify himself to his created order. It’s important to be able to say, “I prove, I observe, I conclude…” But it’s also important to say, “I feel, I commune, I affirm…” with something beyond my intellect.
Sam
Sam,
You are exactly right. Perhaps I should have chosen my words more carefully. I agree 100% that we are unable to get outside ourselves. Part of being finite does entail a limited perspective. Thanks for the correction though.
Right after I changed my beliefs, I thought all of those who believed were ignorant, or avoiding reality (because that was how I viewed myself, that only when I truly questioned things, then did I shed my faith). But that was just naive. There are many many people who challenge themselves daily and continue in their faith.
More closely to what I was shooting for, I believe we should start out on our quests with the ability/courage to accept, or at least entertain, an outcome we thought previously not so, or not possible. So in short, don’t be dogmatic.
As far as your latter point, not that I’m disagreeing, but how do you respond to approaching the bible through a type of logic? I mean there are obviously things within the bible that do not add up when we examine them (virtually every aspect of Jesus’ life defies our laws of nature). Do we say there is a logic to it? or that this is a case for faith to take the reins?
Thanks for your responses!
Chris
Chris –
Sorry if I misrepresented you – the last thing I want to do is make you feel like I’m correcting or talking down at you. I know very little about this topic and am wading into it carefully. Chances are good I didn’t read your comments well – I often skim too fast out of habit. You’re right – we tend to disdain previous views once we’ve moved past them. I have a tendency to do this as well.
“I believe we should start out on our quests with the ability/courage to accept, or at least entertain, an outcome we thought previously not so, or not possible. So in short, don’t be dogmatic.”
I completely agree. Any time we endeavor to discover something, we must be willing to face the possibility that it differs from our original paradigm. I can’t remember one time I’ve come to the end of theological study (or anything for that matter) and thought, “Gee, see there – I had it right all along!” It just doesn’t happen. Taking on quests like that takes a level of humility as well.
“As far as your latter point, not that I’m disagreeing, but how do you respond to approaching the bible through a type of logic? I mean there are obviously things within the bible that do not add up when we examine them (virtually every aspect of Jesus’ life defies our laws of nature). Do we say there is a logic to it? or that this is a case for faith to take the reins?”
There is logic involved in studying the Bible. Biblicists will hold the Bible up as a logical, perfect treatise as if it were beamed down from heaven in bonded leather. But part of the beauty of the Bible is the human fingerprints all over it. The way I understand it, God chose to relay his intentions to humanity through people who often got his message wrong in some way. So, logically, not everything in the Bible is condoned by God (an easy fallacy to fall into). For example, God doesn’t think it’s a good idea to run a tent peg through someone’s head like we see in the book of Judges.
Faith is also needed (once again it’s the “and/both” not the “either/or”). Religion is based on faith and the ability to “lean into” the reality of something seemingly deviod of empirical evidence. Humans by design are creatures that need to believe in something outside of themselves. Cosmic projection, discarded evelutionary gene, or divine intent can be our explanation for our desire for spiritual experience. Either way, faith is a part of our composition – it partially defines what it means to be human.
Gott run. I’ll come back to the Jesus question later, if that’s okay.
Sam
Sam,
You didn’t misrepresent me, I misrepresented myself in that first post haha!
Your points on the logic of the bible and its study are noted, and I look forward to the specific focus on those things as they relate to Jesus.
Peace,
Chris
Chris –
“I mean there are obviously things within the bible that do not add up when we examine them (virtually every aspect of Jesus’ life defies our laws of nature). Do we say there is a logic to it? or that this is a case for faith to take the reins?”
Okay, on to Jesus. Jesus’s miraculous interaction with the created order is obviously something I can’t fully cover in this comment. By our standards, he did “supernatural” things – actions that defied the “logic” of the natural order. But until Cartesian dualism, intellectual pursuits in theology never included separating natural laws from laws outside naturalism’s scope (hence “supernatural”). That would have been a mindset completely lost on the gospel writers.
So, though we now define Jesus activity as something outside the bounds of “logical” appropriations of nature, it wasn’t done that way before the Enlightenment. It’s an artificial separation infused into our popular Western culture from a philosophical paradigm presently fading from existence. Jesus’s activity wasn’t consider illogical until a few folks said that God advancing his will in a miraculous way broke the laws of nature. They concluded that since God set the laws of nature in motion, it’s illogical for him to break them since he would be contradicting himself. Therefore, Jesus’s miraculous deeds were untenable and should be swept under the rug of modernism.
In other words, this is our problem, not God’s. Due to our limited understanding of how we think God should “run the show”, we place unneccessary stipulations on his interaction with humanity. To me, it’s just as logical to believe that since we require empirical evidence in our limited humanness, God would empower Jesus to express his intentions for us in a tangible, miraculous way. Of course, we quickly move into the realm of faith now, since Jesus is no longer humanly present to perform similar miraculous like the ones we see in gospels. But I’m sure to the people who watched it, it seemed fairly logical to them.
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Hey Sam -
I recently bought The Lost Word of Genesis One by John Walton. I must say that it’s so refreshing. That would be a good book for you to read related to this topic. It combines exegesis, ANE literature analysis, and is easy to read. It’s really convincing, specially because he interacts with the original language.
Have fun! Blessings…
Thanks Edgardo – I’ll check it out.
Sam
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