Question?

Here is something I wrote, I updated it, so give it another look. Overall content and organization has not changed, just corrected a few errors.

Thanks,

--Alan

Meanwhile, the outsider looks on and is bemused, uncovinced of the reality of the debate and, more likely than not, confirmed in a belief about the irrelevance of Christianity in the scientific era.¹

Also Quotable:

. . . we need to explore the biblical tension between law and grace in terms of God's action in the world. God is a moment-by-moment sustainer of the physical laws, not a mere remote ruler. This means that science is simply describing his normal mode of working, a way of 'thinking God's thoughts after him', as Kepler put it. On this basis, order in the Universe is a reflection of God's faithfulness in creation. God has a consistent relationship with the Universe which allows us to do science, and more importantly, to learn in a reliable environment.²

1. Jeeves, Berry Science, Life and Christian Belief:A Survey of Contemporary Issues. (Grand Rapids, Baker Books: 1998)p. 119

2. IBID: p. 106

Yesterday, I came down pretty hard on dualism, specifically religiously sanctioned dualism. Today, I would like to take a step back and explain one kind of "dualism" that I think is actually important for the religious mind, seeing an action through different lenses.

This specifically addresses the interaction between science and religion. There are those who would say that if evolution, for instance, is true, than God doesn't exist. Interestingly, the same was said about the sun rotating around the earth at the time of Galileo. The biggest reason both then and now for this scientific/religious seeming dichotomy is a fundamentalist/literal reading of the Bible as a religious and scientific book. Now, due to years of incontrovertable scientific data, we no longer believe for instance that the sun literally rises and sets. But liguistically we still call the approximately 24 hour rotation of the earth, a day and we still refer to the "rising" and the "setting" of the sun, regardless of the actual scientific accuracy of the statements. We do have different lenses that we view the world through, in this case linguistically (metaphorically) and scientifically. And both are equally valid when properly understood. The same should be understood when discussing religious and scientific causes. (God sustains the universe/gravity sustains the universe . . .)

There are three reasons I bring up the specific example of Galileo and rotation: the first relates to the way that the Church treated Galileo at the time of his discovery. The trials that he went through used the same kinds of arguments as the current debate about evolution. But all they succeeded in doing was delineated a god who was not the creator of anything as majestic as our solar system, but rather a great illusionist. The second reason I bring up the example of Galileo is because today no one (well almost) would argue against his basic, simple premise about the vastness of creation beyond this earth. The third and final reason relates to a dualism of language. We can say that God created the world all we want, but if the only basis for our claim is the "fact" that evolution didn't happen, than we have created a small god who is slowly being "gapped" out. Each new discovery that shows more of biologically irreducibly complex systems to be reducible will be like one more part of creation God "didn't create."

So how does this dualistic language work out without simple, rational contradictions? The answer has filled many books from "Finding Darwins God" by the respected microbiologist and Catholic Kenneth Miller to a small library written byJohn F. Haught. I can't say anything about Haught's books, but here is a review that I gave on "Finding Darwin's God." Of course there are many other authors writing on this subject as well. (Credit should here go to Chad Is Not Enough, since his blog reminded me that I wished to post on this topic.)

God did create the earth, but just because we can explain physically how that happens does not diminish God's creation, rather the opposite could easily be argued.

Simply saying that because we can't explain . . . and thus God did it, ceases to be either a valid or helpful argument. We have taken science out or its realm and placed scientific limits on God. The god of the gaps may have worked for the greek gods, but it has no place when talking about the creator.