Truth in a post-modern world

A recent talk at church was the second on faith contexts; this one was on faith in a post-modern age. The main thrust of the talk was about the ‘relativity’ of truth in a post-modern world, as opposed to the ‘absolute’ truth that Christians hold to.

I wonder what ‘absolute’ truth is? Is it objective truth, that is independent of the subject, or could it be stated as something being true in all relationships at all times? So, in a way, true, independently of relationships. This could get a bit tricky, because truth is only apprehended in a relation, for example between an observer and a phenomenon in the external world.
But more is said better by Moreland in his address to the ETS in 2004.

One of the lines of development that underpins the post-modern approach to truth is, I think Berger and Luckmann’s book “The Social Construction of Knowledge” (1966). Where the case is made, with some merit, I think, that we jointly construct ‘reality’ in social contexts. However, this construction is limited and falls below the line of ‘truth’ in typical cases, and remains an operational matter, being about how relations are conceived and operated in complex social settings where a large set of shared assumptions about interactions and their meaning(s) apply. But, no matter how a group ‘constructs’ its world, they will leave rooms by doors and not walls. What is ‘constructed’ is the psycho-social meaning attached to leaving a room in the immediate context, I would think.

Towards the end of the talk, people were invited to join a prayer in turning to God; ironically, the invitation was made using the phrase “if it’s right for you” or words to that effect; which agrees with the post-modern project and tended to undo the argument being put forward in the talk (so if a Buddhist heard the talk, would they feel it was not ‘right for them’ and so not consider the prayer?). The irony of it!

The Bible, on the other hand, calls for repentance absolutely; there is no ‘right for you’ option. I’m not wanting to be critical here, as I’ve used this phrase myself, and it is probably a kind way of inviting people to consider their relationship with Christ…but, it also shows how popular thinking intrudes on our language (the way we socially construct reality) almost unnoticed.

In this context its interesting to consider a quote from Plantinga from his essay Naturalism Defeated

“But if naturalism is true, there is no God, and hence no God (or anyone else) overseeing our development and orchestrating the course of our evolution. And this leads directly to the question whether it is at all likely that our cognitive faculties, given naturalism and given their evolutionary origin, would have developed in such a way as to be reliable, to furnish us with mostly true beliefs. Darwin himself expressed this doubt: "With me," he said, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind? The same thought is put more explicitly by Patricia Churchland. She insists that the most important thing about the human brain is that it has evolved; this means, she says, that its principal function is to enable the organism to move appropriately: Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four F's: feeding, fleeing, fighting and reproducing. The principle chore of nervous systems is to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive. . . . . Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary advantage: a fancier style of representing is advantageous so long as it is geared to the organism's way of life and enhances the organism's chances of survival [Churchland's emphasis]. Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost.”

Aside from the puzzle of Platinga's have-cake-and-eat-it belief (he seems to accept evolution, which is derived from naturalism, but criticises its naturalism in interesting contrast to Flew’s latter day rejection of naturalism), he throws up an interesting take on the concept, and indeed, the operation of truth in a naturalistic world, where minds only need to be sufficient for survival, and while Churchland’s view might not be held by all naturalists, it does suggest a weakness in naturalism’s conceptualisation of why things are as they are. If it’s not about survival, in some way (and that net may be quite large), then the connection with truth may be unsure.

Of course, at base, the post-modern explanation is self-defeating: if ‘truth’ is what you make it, then the truth of that view is itself subject to what one makes of it: here the post-modern project follows in the steps of its naturalist cousin and, in the great tradition of logical positivism, cannot provide the basis for its progam in terms of the program, and collapses on itself. On these grounds, the Christian is at liberty to reject it, while inviting post-moderns to leave by the wall, and not the door.

As an aside, during the talk I referred to above, a comment was made about moral positions that are held in all societies. Unfortunately, the examples given were not held in all societies. For instance, child abuse, asserted as being universally rejected, was in fact institutionalised in the ancient world over many centuries; in his book Sick Societies, Robert Edgerton documents many societies where practices that we would be appalled by are or were commonplace and applauded. Don Richardson in his book Peace Child takes us on a similar tour of depravity.

Eusebius of Caesarea

It is interesting to consider how, centuries before the modern take on the origin of “life, the universe and everything”, the issues in discussion were pretty much the same as they are today.

That the teachers of the early church maintained the biblical line against pagan ideas then, and felt no need to morph the Bible into a text compatible with those ideas, suggests that the same approach would be appropriate today.

Here are a few snippets from Eusebius of Caesarea (263-339): Praeparatio Evangelica (Preparation for the Gospel). Tr. E.H. Gifford (1903) -- Books 1 & 7 where he provides a catalogue of the views held outside the church.

[the sub headings and bold are mine]

…

Well then, in recording the ancient theology of the Egyptians from the beginning, Diodorus, the Sicilian, leads the way, a man thoroughly known to the most learned of the Greeks as having collected the whole Library of History into one treatise. From him I will set forth first what he has clearly stated in the beginning of his work concerning the origin of the whole world, while recording the opinion of the ancients in the manner following.

CHAPTER VII

[DIODORUS] The full account of the ideas entertained concerning the gods by those who first taught men to honour the deity, and of the fabulous stories concerning each of the immortals, I shall endeavour to arrange in a separate work, because this subject requires a long discussion: but all that we may deem to be suitable to our present historical inquiries we shall set forth in a brief summary, that nothing worth hearing may be missed.

But concerning the descent of the whole human race, and the transactions which have occurred in the known parts of the world, we shall give as accurate an account as may be possible about matters so ancient, and shall begin from the earliest times. 'With regard then to the first origin of mankind two explanations have been held among the most accepted physiologists and historians. For some of them, on the supposition that the universe is uncreated and imperishable, declared that the human race also has existed from eternity, their procreation of children having never had a beginning; while others, who thought the world to be created and perishable, said that, like it, mankind were first created within definite periods of time…

'This was at first hardened from the fire round the sun shining upon it, and afterwards, when the surface was thrown into fermentation through the warmth, some of the liquid particles swelled up in many places, and tumours were formed about them surrounded by thin membranes, a thing which may still be seen going on in stagnant pools and marshy places, when upon the cooling of the ground the air becomes suddenly fiery, because the change does not take place in it gradually.

'The moist parts then being quickened into life by the warmth in the way mentioned, during the nights they received their nourishment direct from the mist which falls from the surrounding atmosphere, and during the days became hardened by the heat; and at last, when the pregnant cells attained their full growth, and the membranes were thoroughly heated and burst asunder, all various types of living things sprang up.

…

'It seems that even Euripides, who was a disciple of the physicist Anaxagoras, does not dissent from what has been now said concerning the nature of the universe; for he thus writes in the Melanippe:

"So heaven and earth at first had all one form; But when in place dissevered each from other, They gave to all things birth, and brought to light Trees, birds, and beasts, and all the salt sea's brood, And race of mortal men." 5

'Such are the traditions which we have received concerning the first beginnings of the universe. And they say that the primitive generations of mankind, living in a disorderly and savage state, used to go wandering out over the pastures, and procure for food the tenderest herbage, and the fruits of trees that grew wild: and that when warred on by the wild beasts they were taught by their own interest to help one another, and from gathering together through fear they gradually recognized each other's forms.

…

Thus much writes the aforesaid historian, without having mentioned God even so much as by name in his cosmogony, but having presented the arrangement of the universe as something accidental and spontaneous.

CHAPTER VIII

[PLUTARCH] 'Thales, it is said, was the first of all who supposed that water was the original element of the universe, for that all things spring from it and return to it.

'After him Anaximander, who had been a companion of Thales, said that the Infinite contained the whole cause of both the generation and decay of all things, and out of it he says that the heavens, and, generally, all the worlds, which are infinite in number, have been brought into distinct form…Further, he says that man at first was generated from animals of other kinds…

'Democritus of Abdera supposed that the All is infinite, because there was none who could possibly have framed it: he further says that it is unchangeable; and generally, everything being such as it is, he expressly asserts that the causes of the processes now going on have no beginning, but all things absolutely, past, present, and to come, are wholly fixed beforehand by necessity from infinite time.'

CHAPTER X

'The first principle of the universe he supposes to have been air dark with cloud and wind, or rather a blast of cloudy air, and a turbid chaos dark as Erebus; and these were boundless and for long ages had no limit…From its connexion Mot was produced, which some say is mud, and others a putrescence of watery compound; and out of this came every germ of creation, and the generation of the universe. So there were certain animals which had no sensation, and out of them grew intelligent animals, and were called "Zophasemin," that is "observers of heaven"; and they were formed like the shape of an egg. Also Mot burst forth into light, and sun, and moon, and stars, and the great constellations.'

Such was their cosmogony, introducing downright atheism. But let us see next how he states the generation of animals to have arisen. He says, then:

'And when the air burst into light, both the sea and the land became heated, and thence arose winds and clouds, and very great downpours and floods of the waters of heaven. So after they were separated, and removed from their proper place because of the sun's heat, and all met together again in the air dashing together one against another, thunderings and lightnings were produced, and at the rattle of the thunder the intelligent animals already described woke up, and were scared at the sound, and began to move both on land and sea, male and female.'
BOOK VII

For of all mankind these [Hebrews] were the first and sole people who from the very first foundation of social life devoted their thought to rational speculation; and having set themselves to study reverently the physical laws of the universe, first as to elements of bodies, earth, water, air, fire, of which they perceived that this universe consisted, the sun also, and moon, and stars, they considered them to be not gods, but works of God; for they perceived that the nature of bodily substance is not only irrational but also lifeless, inasmuch as it is ever in flux and liable to perish. They further argued that it is not possible that the order of the whole cosmos, so well and wisely composed, and full as it is of living beings both rational and irrational, should have a spontaneous cause ascribed to it, nor possible to suppose the creative principle of the living to be lifeless, nor the formative principle of the rational to be itself irrational.

But since a building could never be spontaneously composed of timber and stones, nor yet a garment be completed without a weaver, nor cities and states without laws and an order of government, nor a ship without a pilot, nor the smallest instrument of art exist except through an artificer, nor a ship ever gain a sheltering harbour without a good pilot, therefore neither can the nature of the universal elements, lifeless and irrational as it is, ever by its own law apart from the supreme wisdom of God attain to reason and life. With these thoughts then and such as these the fathers of the Hebrew religion, with purified mind and clear-sighted eyes of the soul, learned from the grandeur and beauty of His creatures to worship God the Creator of all.

CHAPTER IX

Let us then begin with God, after having in the first place invoked His aid through our Saviour.

CHAPTER XI

THEIR system then sets forth the first principle of theology by beginning from the power which made and organized the universe, not by syllogistic reasoning or plausible arguments, but in a more dogmatic and didactic manner of divination by aid of the Holy Ghost, under whose inspiration Moses commenced his doctrine of God in the following manner: 'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.'

Then he says: 'God said, Let there be light, and there was light.' And again: 'God said, Let there be a firmament: and it was so.' And again: 'God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, yielding seed after his kind and in his likeness, and every fruit-tree yielding fruit, whose seed is in itself, after his kind, upon the earth: and it was so.' And again: 'God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years: and it was so.' And again: 'God said, Let the waters bring forth moving creatures of living souls after their kind, and all the fowls of the heaven after their kind: and it was so.' And again: 'Let the earth bring forth four-footed beasts and creeping things and wild beasts of the earth after their kind: and it was so.'

The Scripture then by saying in these places 'God said' represents the divine command, and that God willed all things to be thus made, not, however, that we need suppose Him to speak with a voice and words. But summing up the whole statement, it says: 'This is the book of the generation of heaven, and earth, in the day that God made the heaven and the earth, and all things that are therein.'

Such is the theology of the Hebrews, instructing us that all things subsist by the creative Word of God: and afterwards it teaches that the whole world was not left thus

CHAPTER XVII

HERE again the Phoenician and Egyptian account of the origin of animal life introduced spontaneous generation of all living beings upon the earth including even man, and described one and the same nature as springing forth in the like fortuitous manner from the earth, supposing that there is no difference at all between the irrational and the rational soul and being.

HERMIAS THE PHILOSOPHER: DERISION OF GENTILE PHILOSOPHERS

Interesting to see what was hot back in the 2nd century (or thereabouts)

[Translated by J.A.Giles, 1857]

1. PAUL the blessed apostle, my beloved brethren, writing to the Corinthians who inhabit Laconian Greece, spake saying, "The wisdom of this world is folly in the sight of God" [1 Cor. iii, 19], and he said not amiss. For it seems to me to have taken its beginning from the rebellion of the angels 1; for which cause the philosophers put forth their doctrines, saying things that neither sound the same, nor mean the same as one another. For some of them say that the soul is fire, like Democritus; air, like the Stoics; some say it is the mind; and some say it is motion, as Heraclitus 2; some say it is exhalation; some an influence flowing from the stars; some say it is number in motion, as Pythagoras; some say it is generative water, as Hippo; some say an element from elements; some say it is harmony, as Dinarchus; some say the blood, as Critias; some the breath; some say unity, as Pythagoras; and so the ancients say contrary things. How many statements are there about these things ! how many attempts ! how many also of sophists who carry on a strife rather than seek the truth!

2. Be it so then: they differ about the soul, but have |194 pronounced other things about it in unison: and of others, one man calls pleasure its good, another its evil, and again a third man, its middle state between good and evil. But its nature some call immortal, some mortal, and others say that it remains for a time, but others that it becomes brutalised, others divide it into atoms, others embody it three times, others assign to it periods of three thousand years. For though they do not live even an hundred years, they talk of three thousand years 3 about to come. What then must we term these things? They seem to me, to be a prodigy, or folly, or madness, or rebellion, or all these together. If they have found out anything true, let them agree together about it, or let them join together, and I then will gladly listen to them. But, if they distract the soul, and draw it, one into a different nature, another into a different being, changing one kind of matter for another; I confess I am harassed by the ebbing and flowing of the subject. At one time I am immortal and rejoice; at another time again I become mortal and weep. Anew I am dissolved into atoms: I become water, and I become air: I become fire, and then after a little, neither air, nor fire: he makes me a beast, he makes me a fish 4. Again then I have dolphins for my brothers; but when I look on myself, I am frightened at my body, and I know not how I shall call it, man, or dog, or wolf, or bull, or bird, or snake, or serpent, or chimaera; for I am changed by the philosophers into all the beasts, of the land, of the sea, having wings, of many forms, wild or tame, dumb or vocal, brute or reasoning: I swim, I fly, I rise aloft, I crawl, I run, I sit. But here is Empedocles, and he makes me a stump of a tree.

3. Since then it is not possible for the philosophers by agreeing together to find out the soul of man, they can scarcely be able to declare the truth about the gods or the universe. For they have this audacity, that I may not call it infatuation. For those who are not able to discover their own soul, seek into the nature of the gods themselves; and those who do not know their own body, busy themselves |195 about the nature of the world. In truth they wholly oppose one another about the principles of nature. When Anaxa-goras catches me, he teaches me thus : The beginning of all things is mind, and this is the cause and regulator of all things, and gives arrangement to things unarranged, and motion to things unmoved, and distinction to things mixed, and order to things disordered. Anaxagoras, who says these words, is my friend, and I bow to his doctrine. But against him rise up Melissus and Parmenides. Parmenides indeed, in his poetical works, proclaims that being is one, and everlasting, and endless, and immoveable, and in every way alike. Again then, I know not why I change to this doctrine : Parmenides has driven Anaxagoras out of my mind. But when I am on the point of thinking that I have now a firm doctrine, Anaximenes, catching hold of me, cries out, "But I tell you, everything is air, and this air, thickening and settling, becomes water and air; rarefying and spreading, it becomes aether and fire: but returning into its own nature, it becomes thin air: but if also it becomes condensed, (says he) it is changed." And thus again I pass over to this opinion of his, and cherish Anaximenes.

4. But Empedocles stands opposite chafing, and crying aloud from Aetna 5. The principles of all things are enmity and friendship, the one drawing together, the other separating; and their strife makes all things. But I define these to be, like and unlike, boundless and having bounds, things eternal, and things made. Well done, Empedocles; I follow you now even up to the craters of fire. But on the other hand stands Protagoras, and draws me aside, saying, Man is the term and arbitrement of things, and those are things that fall under sensation: but those which do not so fall are not in the forms of being. Enticed by Protagoras with this description, I am pleased, because every thing or at least the greatest part is left to man. But on the other hand Thales nods the truth to me, defining water to be the principle of all, and that all things are formed out of the moist, and are |196 resolved into the moist,, and the earth rides over the water. Why then should I not listen to Thales the elder 6 of the Ionians? But his countryman Anaximander himself says that eternal motion is an older principle than moisture, and that by it some things are generated, and some things perish. And so let Anaximander be our guide.

5. And is not Archelaus of good repute, who declares that the principles of the whole are heat and cold ? But again in this also the grandiloquous Plato does not agree; saying that the principles are God, and matter, and example. Now then I am persuaded. For how shall I not trust a philosopher who made the chariot of Jupiter ? But behind stands his disciple Aristotle, envying his master for his coach-making. He lays down other principles, to do, and to suffer; and that the active principle is the aether, which is acted on by nothing, but the passive has four qualities, drought, moisture, heat, and cold: for by the change of these into one another all things are produced and perish. We were now tired, changing up and down with the doctrines, but I will rest on the opinion of Aristotle, and let no doctrine henceforth trouble me.

6. But what can I do ? For old men more ancient than these hamstring my soul: Pherecydes saying that the principles are Jupiter, and Tellus 7, and Saturn—Jupiter the aether, Tellus the Earth, and Saturn Time. The aether is the agent, but the earth is passive, and Time in which all created things are comprised. These old men have contentions with one another. For Leucippus, deeming all these things madness, says that the principles are boundless, motionless, and infinitesimal ; and that the lighter parts going up, become fire and air, whilst the heavier parts, subsiding, become water and earth. How long am I taught such things, learning nothing true? Unless else Democritus will set me free from error, declaring that the principles are Existence and Non-existence, and that Existence is full, but Non-existence is empty 8; but the full affects all things by change or by order in the empty. Perhaps I might listen to good Democritus, and should like |197 to laugh with him, did not Heraclitus persuade me otherwise, at the same time weeping and saying, Fire is the principle of all things: it has two states of being, thinness and thickness: the one active, the other passive, the one blending, the other separating. This is enough for me, and I should already be drunk with so many principles: but Epicurus 9 calls me away from thence also, by no means to revile his good doctrine, of atoms and of emptiness. For by the varied and manifold interweaving of these, all things are born and perish.

7. I do not contradict you, my best of men, Epicurus. But Cleanthes 10, raising his head from the well, laughs at your doctrine. And myself also derive from him the true principles, God and matter; and that earth changes into water, and water into air; that the air floats, and that the fire comes to the parts near the earth, that the soul extends through all the world, of which we also, sharing a portion, have the breath of life. Which things then being thus many, another multitude throngs me out of Libya, Carneades, and Clitomachus, and all their followers, treading down all the doctrines of the others, and themselves declaring plainly, that all things are incomprehensible, and that a false imagination always hangs about the truth. What then will become of me, after having toiled so long a time? How can I deliver forth so many doctrines from my mind? For if nothing be comprehensible, truth is gone from men, and vaunted philosophy throws a shade rather than conveys a knowledge of the things that be.

8. But lo, from the old school, Pythagoras and his fellows, grave and silent men, deliver to me other doctrines, as mysteries, and among them this great and ineffable one, HE HATH SAID. The principle of all things is unity, but from its forms and numbers are produced the elements, and the number and form and measure of each of these is thus somehow declared. Fire is completed out of four-and-twenty right-angled triangles, being contained by four equilateral ones. Each equilateral one is composed of six triangles, whence also they liken it to a pyramid. But air is completed by forty-eight triangles, |198 being contained by eight equilateral ones. But it is likened to an octahedron, which is contained by eight equilateral triangles, each of which is divided into six right-angled ones, so that they are forty-eight in all. But water being contained by an hundred and twenty, is likened also to a figure having twenty sides, which indeed consists of twenty-six equal and equilateral triangles .... and ... 11. But the aether is completed of twelve equilateral pentagons, and is similar to a figure having twelve sides, Earth is completed of forty-eight triangles, and is also contained by six equilateral triangles, and is like a cube. For the cube is contained by six squares, each of which extends to four triangles; so that all together are twenty-four.

9. Thus Pythagoras measures the world. But I again, becoming inspired, despise my home, and my country, and my wife, and my children, and I no longer care for them, but mount up into the aether itself, and taking the cubit from Pythagoras, begin to measure the fire. For Jupiter's measuring it is not enough for me. Unless also the great animal, the great body, the great soul, MYSELF, mount into heaven, and measure the aether, the rule of Jupiter is gone. But when I have measured it, and Jupiter has learnt from me, how many angles fire has, I again go down from heaven, and eating olives, and figs and cabbage, I make the best of my way to the water, and with cubit, and digit and half-digit, measure the watery being, and calculate its depth, that I may also teach Neptune, how much sea he rules over. I pass over all the earth in one day, collecting its number and its measure and its forms. For I am persuaded that, such and so great a person as I am, of all things in the world, I shall not make a mistake of a single span. But I know both the number of the stars, and of the fishes, and of the wild beasts, and placing the world in a balance, I can easily learn its weight. About these things then my soul has been earnest until now, to have rule over all things.

10. But Epicurus, stooping towards me, says, "You have |199 measured one world, my friend; there are many and endless worlds 12." I am compelled then again to speak of many heavens, other aethers, and many of them. Come then, without more delay, having victualled yourself for a few days' travel into the worlds of Epicurus. I easily pass its bounds, Tethys and Oceanus. But when I have entered into a new world, and as it were into a new city, I measure the whole in a few days. And from thence I cross back into the world again, then into a fourth, and a fifth, and a tenth, and an hundredth, and a thousandth, and where will it end ? For all things already are the darkness of ignorance to me, and black error, and endless wandering, and unprofitable fancy, and ignorance not to be comprehended: unless else I intend to number the very atoms also, out of which such great worlds have arisen, that I may leave nothing unexamined, especially of things so necessary and useful, from which both houses and cities prosper. These things have I gone through, wishing to point out the opposition which is in their doctrines, and how their examination of things will go on to infinity and no limit, for their end is inexplicable and useless, being confirmed neither by one manifest fact, nor by one sound argument.

Rogue Executives and Darwin

From "The Rise of the Rogue Executive"
Leonard Sayles and Cynthia Smith

"...Contemporary American acquisitive culture has been undercutting the very premises of capitalism: honest reporting and executives who believe they should serve shareholders' interests--not their own investment accounts, a half dozen homes connected by Gulfstream jets and enormous yachts, and their children and grandchildren's comforts. Many conservatives take pride in a social Darwinian culture, survival of the fittest. Losers are less fit and deserve less. But when "survival" is the result of gross deception and self-dealing, a "winner take all' philosophy, evolutionary platitudes are grossly deceptive. Winners may rapaciously suck up too much. Some will find it is easier to win by cheating than by the fierce competition that capitalist theory assumes. This is social Darwinism at its insidious worst."

p. 177

Irrational faith

Quote on leadership from Pfeffer and Sutton "Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths and Total Nonsense":

...the belief that leaders have massive influence over performance turns out to be a half-truth. As leadership researcher James Meindel put it, our culture romanticises leaders, anointing them with 'esteem, prestige, charisma, and heroism' that outstrips the weight of the evidence. Why does this irrational faith in the power of potent individualis persist?

Now, at least this puts the notion of 'leadership' into perspective. I only wish those in Christian ministry uniformily understood that the notion is worldy, and has little if anything to do with the supreme value of service in the New Testament.

It's also worth remembering Mintzberg on 'communityship' in this context.

Faith in a Scientific Age: discussion questions

My answers to questions discussed at our home group, based on the week's sermon (see my discussion of that):

1. What did you take away from the sermon on Sunday?

A: Puzzled that Heb 11:1 was not mentioned, or the basis for Israel's call to faith being God's action in history.

2. How do you think your friends view the relationship between faith and science?

A: Faith is a discretionary entertainment, science is the path to truth about the world, life and relationships between creatures.

3. “Faith is the great cop out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, perhaps because of, the lack of evidence…Faith, being belief that isn’t based on evidence, is the principal vice of any religion” Richard Dawkins. What is your response to this? What is the place of evidence and thinking when it comes to your Christian faith?

A: Dawkins confuses faith and 'wishful thinking', as do many people, because, in my view, the church has failed in many cases to tell people what faith is. See above on q. 1, and below on q. 7.

4. Gary said that science is never fixed or absolute; it is open to new evidence and then will reassess the current conclusions. Science is simply our current understanding based on the evidence we have today. What are some of the implications of the limits of science?

A: The limits are overstated. Science has a fabulous track record of achievement. The distinction is that science is about the mechanics, and that is all. In a way, its a more clever enterprise, than, but not essentially different from bicycle repair (referring to Bicycle Repair Man of Monty Python fame). This remark also neglects that science is not done in a vacuum, and science-discourse is never value free; it is (and in this connection particularly) captured by a religico-philosophical framing which more than edges science to a non-scientific place. Admiting this significance is what gives rise to the (fake) conflict between 'science' and Christian faith.

5. “Faith and science should not be seen as enemies but as friends, they are complimentary. One focuses on the question of how and the other on the question of why”. Is that how you see things?

A: No. Without Christian faith the world is improperly conceived and science does not prosper. The elephant in the room is always the question of origins and here science is stretched beyond its bounds to deal with an inaccessible singularity. Also, as I discussed in my previous post on this matter, the Jaki-Duhem thesis presents a case for modern science's dependence on Christianity. See also Jordan on Jaki's view of Genesis 1. When seen as coupled but with different takes on reality, I suspect that some ontological ground is being given to 'science' which stands as the front door of the materialist world view, in this context.

6. Francis Collins in the introduction to his book, The Language of God said “for me sequencing the human genome, and uncovering this most remarkable of all texts, was both a stunning scientific achievement and an occasion for worship”. How might science lead us to a deeper worship of God?

A: Clearly by seeing the impossibility of the creation being self-existent (see Romans 1:20).

7. Faith should never be blind or a leap into the dark. There are reasons for our faith. It provides an explanation for the world in which we live. History and archaeology also can be examined to test the biblical revelation. Further, the bible writers themselves provide us with reasons for our faith. Read Luke 1.1-4 together. Luke, a man of science [a doctor] speaks about his work in writing the gospel of Luke. From these verses what gives you confidence in the basis of your faith?

A: The church has not, to my mind, adequately dealt with the legacy of Kierkegaard and the direction Barth points in detaching faith discourse from the real world. Until it does and connects the Christian response to God with his revelation in the Bible with the world God created, we are hamstrung, and risk being seen as not having anything to say that's worth listening to.

8. Jesus made many incredible claims about who he was [eg. God in the flesh] and why he came [eg. to deal with our sins]. Read Mark 2.1-12 together. He makes an incredible claim here and provides proof that he has authority to forgive this man’s sins. What is the significance to you of the miracles of Jesus?

A: The creator intervening in his creation; but his creation as a unified domain of wisdom, love, material and moral purpose.

Reasons for Faith: in an age of science

Our sermon at church this morning was on this topic. Today and next week the minister is discussing "reasons for faith", today (2 May 10) he addressed 'faith in a scientific age".

You can hear the talk at www.stmattsweb.org.au

The talk sketched some of the salient biblical issues, although the quoting of Frances Collins and Henry Schaefer suggests a view of the biblical text that detaches it at some point from history: which is what both Collins and Schaefer do, in my opinion; although I probably don't think it is part of an intentional program on their part (I've heard Schaefer speak and read some of Collins' work, see also a review of Collins book "The Language of God").

Leaving that problem aside, the quotes made of these two men did encourage an approach to the Scriptures as determinative of at least our approach to God.

The problem though, if any move is made to sever the Bible from the world it sets itself in, as reading my previous post would suggest, is that it overturns the Bible's resistance to such compartmentalisation of the real world into differentiable 'magisteriums', to adopt Stephen Gould's phrase, and the approach that is reflected by Collins and Schaefer, as I understand them.

And, for that reason, the title of the sermon itself: faith in an age of science, suggests at the outset a bifucated real world, where there seem to be two domains coming from the one creator (or is an independent creation implied...I can never tell; and I'll bet that you can't either). This just cannot work in the Bible's creation theology: the world is a unitary creation; which is to say, that the creator created it comprehensively, and there are no other principles operating.

The talk our minister gave took the approach that science describes 'how' but faith tells why. Trouble is, the Bible purports to tell how as well, for that elephant that is always in the room when it comes to 'science' and 'faith' or 'religion': the question of origins. Now, when it comes to this topic, science is hamstrung: origins is not observable, and any discussion of it in terms of 'science' is inevitably influenced by religious-type considerations. That is, the view that long ages and random process together are a sufficient (and necessary) explanation of the world that we experience. This is a view soaked in a particular 'religious' view and entails specific assumptions about the operation of the real world, assumptions that cannot be tested because a singularity such as creation is inaccessible to direct observation. For a Christian, it should be that the history in the Bible takes us to where observation cannot.

A couple of topics that the sermon did not probe, but that are germane, in my view are:

1. the dependence of science on a prior world view; which is established both logically and empirically (see for instance these books by Stanley Jaki, Peter Harrison and James Hannam and the corollary need for a specific philosophical framework for successful science as we know it,

and

2. the specific direction the Bible takes us in addressing the 'real' and the demand of the text of Genesis 1 to be taken as a direct account of actions within time and space that originated the world.

Topically, Richard Dawkins was quoted on faith; ironic, because he's not that much of a spokesman for evolution (see his interview here). Dawkins' quote was about faith being held in the absence of facts. It would have been interesting to expose this to the biblical definition of faith, read against the biblical background running from Genesis to Jesus, with faith being held against God's consistent delivery of his promises. It would also have been interesting to consider the inescapable faith position of all materialists, including Dawkins. As I see it, 'faith', or rather belief is the 'first existential movement', or the epistemic opening of the mind. Without an initial belief in the mind, and the congruence of its thoughts with the or an external world, and thus the validity of these thoughts, materialism, let alone anything else, gets nowhere.

Finally, I was reading Francis Schaeffer recently, where he said:

"But whatever is not of faith is sin" (Rms 14:23b). The sin here is in not raising the empty hands of faith. Anything that is not brought forth from faith is sin. When I am not allowing this fruit, which has been purchased at such a price, to flow fourth through me I am unfaithful, in the deep sense of not believing God."

Considering this in the light of 2 Corinthans 10:5, noting that setting aside the words of God ends up giving glory to the creation, not the creator (Roms 1:23) (not to say Col 2:8), and I think we too easily restrict the operation of faith to the 'religious' realm (due to poor theology of creation, naturally), and forget that as creator, God is over all, and all comes from his hand (Heb 11:3, just to close the circle).

Addendum 1

In the talk I heard Schaefer give, he made the comment that he didn't mind if the universe was either 15 or 20 billion years old (or whatever the two contending fashions were at the time of his talk, some many years ago); trouble is; God does care, because he sets his creation in accessible history by showing its link with our history frame: the very point of the chrono-genealogies, and his very specific timing of creation see here. That is to say, the creation and related text does not take us off this world, or out of its frame of reference, as myth does quite intentionally, but embeds its set of events into the world the events we experience today are in.

Addendum 2

The minister related that when people ask him his job, and he tells them, at once asking if they have any thoughts about ‘religion’ (and what a nice way of opening up a conversation), that some people say that they are not a person of faith, but of science.

Well, after reading Jaki, what a great opening to an extended conversation: that science (modern science) rides on the back of its Christian heritage and the Christian world view that grew through the middle ages.

This would be likely to surprise many people, and lead to a great discussion on why people have the views that they do.