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.
