Vibrant Dance: Nurturing Techie Christians

Wednesday afternoon finished up with a sermon from Rob Norris (pastor, 4^th Presbyterian, Bethesda, MD) comparing our modern technological society to that which built the Tower of Babel. His title was “The Nurture and Spiritual Formation of Technically Oriented Christ-followers.”

The passage, Genesis 11:1-9 :

¹ Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. ² As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

 ³ They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. ⁴ Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

 ⁵ But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. ⁶ The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. ⁷ Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

 ⁸ So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. ⁹ That is why it was called Babel—because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

Norris reminded us from the passage that God does not approve of unrestrained human powers used for imagined desires—He frowns on us trying to be gods ourselves. The people of Babel made a revolutionary technological advance—that of making building materials from scratch. Babel was in the middle of a plain, and too far from mountains and the ready building material of stone. This is the first recorded time bricks are made—they CREATED the very materials for building, by warming and transforming portions of the earth.

I had never realized the significance of verses 2 and 3. I always paid attention to verse 1 and saw 2 and 3 as just details of the story. But, as they say, the devil is in the details, possibly literally in this case! ;) The Bible is so incredibly efficient in the way it communicates important info, it is easy to overlook vital implications.

Norris wasn’t finished yet. He said the concept of the city is a thoroughly human invention designed to affirm humanity’s efforts to be self-sufficient, to allow us to master and control our environment. While there can be some healthy discussion about this assertion, it is a valid point as far as it goes, and I will revisit it in a later post.

God’s judgment on the folks of Babel was tribalism—they were condemned to small groups based on common language, which created the variety of cultures we have today. {As I study God’s judgments throughout Scripture, I see that there is nearly always something positive and Creative that results. God rarely does things for just one reason and has an amazing knack for wringing the most benefit out of everything. This can be great comfort in our tribulations.} He then allows the tribal cultures to be swallowed by the darkness their rebellion invited. He then uses Abraham to create a personal nation, from which He begins to sculpt the redemption of all cultures.

At this point, I was thinking that where we are technologically today puts Babel to shame—why does God allow that if he didn’t allow that? It was as if Norris was reading my mind. He maintains that we have only changed in magnitude of technology advancement, not in kind. (i.e.-the wheel, fire, building bricks, etc.)

Norris’ final point in the comparison was that scientism is the very spirit of Babel. “The term scientism is used to describe the view that natural science has authority over all other interpretations of life, such as philosophical, religious, mythical, spiritual, or humanistic explanations, and over other fields of inquiry, such as the social sciences. ...” Dictionary.com has both more and less charitable definitions for those interested, but the one I’ve given above matches best Norris’ usage. By asserting the completeness of naturalistic methods and philosophy to describe, explain and ultimately manipulate existence, scientism is the very philosophy of replacing God with human understanding and ability.

{It is interesting to me that aside from the fact that this frees the will from God’s moral authority, the only kind of God that scientism truly replaces is a God-of-the-gaps—our ignorance needs god to make sense of the universe and as we beat back ignorance, god gets smaller until he is irrelevant before the power of human comprehension. That is why I’m so rabid about anything that smells of a gaps argument.}

So far, Norris has done a rather thorough job of describing the problem. Next he turned to guidance, giving us five principles on means by which we will progress in Christ in the midst of our technological advances.

1)            We need to develop/maintain a reverence for God—the “Babelonians” {my term} lost a sense of reverence, replacing it with an arrogance we understand all too well.

2)            There needs to be an engendering of humility, the antidote for that arrogance, where we recognize our own fallibility, and that we can learn from those with whom we disagree.

3)            We must remember our own mortality—the Babelonians wanted to build a name for themselves as opposed to glorify God or even building a name for their offspring. Even Cain named the city he built after his son, rather than himself.

4)            We must set {keep?} a moral compass. In Babel’s self creation there was no external source of right and wrong—power and technique are morally neutral. Norris then asserted that you cannot deduce anything moral from the natural world/cosmology! {I’m not enough of a theologian/philosopher to address this with expertise, but I wonder if Paul in Romans 1 would take issue with this statement. Readers—great opportunity for comment!!}

5)            We need to build in the church—it is the only thing that will last! I believe the interpretation of this final point is in the context of the third point. Our achievements ought to be for the glory of God, the edification of the church and the furthering of the Gospel, rather than a name for ourselves or even our posterity. Let God worry about who’s name gets built.

I thoroughly enjoyed this sermon—it just doesn’t get better than to hear Scripture expounded by a rich Scot baritone like Norris’.

SDG

Vibrant Dance: War Report!

The last Wednesday morning session was by Jack Collins of Covenant Seminary on how best to read Genesis 1-11. Unfortunately, I had to miss this one due to work obligations. Teaching still pays better than blogging! >sigh<

Walter Bradley from Baylor kicked off the afternoon session with, “A History of the Alleged "War" Between Science and Christianity.” Bradley is a very good speaker whom I’ve known personally for right around 20 years, and has achieved some renown for his talk on “Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God,” where he is very careful to distinguish between ‘evidence for’ and ‘proof of.’

Bradley started with a question along these lines, “Can one scientifically disprove that God exists?” His answer—“No. Science explores secondary causes, not primary causes.” In other words, a law in the field of epistemology (study of how we know things) is “every effect has a cause.” This implies there are possibly causes that have nothing that caused them—‘an uncaused cause.’ Science, Bradley argued, cannot study these, only caused causes. Thus, there is an inherent limit in science’s explanatory ability.

Science is a way of knowing, but so are history, religious practice, religious experience, and revelation. A lot of effort has been spent in studying how these epistemological sources of knowledge interrelate. Bradley went through four views on the relationship between science and religion, and the bulk of his talk is explaining and distinguishing each of them.

1)      Science and Religion are Independent—NOMA (Non-Overlapping MAgisteria), developed and promoted by atheist biologist Stephen Jay Gould-

a.       Magisterium of science: empirical realm

                                                               i.      What is the universe made of (fact)

                                                             ii.      Why does it work this way (theory)

b.      Magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value

c.       Science and religion do not glower at each other but interdigitate in patterns of complex thinking. (paraphrase from "Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms", Stephen J. Gould, p. 274)

d.      Scientists like many others are touched with awe at the order and complexity of nature (Steering Committee on Science and Creationism (1999). "Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences". NAS Press. Retrieved 2007-11-16.)

e.      Critique by Dawkins-a universe with supernatural and natural presences would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without…Religions make existence claims and this means scientific claims. (Dawkins, Richard (2006). "Why There Almost Certainly Is No God". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2010-03-20.)

f.        Francis Schaeffer maintained that between science and faith there is no upper story /lower story dichotomy. In other words, when asking the ‘why’ questions of Purpose (higher purpose) versus purpose (mechanistic purpose), Schaeffer apparently says that one is not truly higher than the other. (This is disputed as we’ll see later.)

2)      Science and Religion are in Conflict-view held by Richard Dawkins, Andrew White

a.       Began during Enlightenment

b.      Paints picture of men of the Renaissance “finally throwing off the shackles of church domination so that rational enquiry can at last begin” James Hannam

c.       Andrew Dickson White (atheist), 1896, A History of Warfare of Science with Theology

d.      White’s hypothesis-“I saw that it was the conflict between two epochs in the evolution of human thought—the theological and  the scientific”

e.      White distorted much in history to try to make his case. (many examples given in the book by Lindberg and Numbers, 1987 and others) {I think the link is to the right book, though the dates don’t match.}

f.        “Galileo Goes to Jail and other myths about science and religion” 25 essays

                                                               i.      Bruno first martyr of science-myth

                                                             ii.      Galileo was imprisoned and tortured-myth

g.       Warfare hypothesis has been exposed as rubbish by studies of highly rational scholastic thought of the Middle Ages by Grant and Murray

h.      In its traditional forms the conflict thesis has been largely discredited

i.         Yet, despite a developing consensus among scholars that they have not been at war the notion of conflict has refused to die.

j.        Most early scientists were Christians—Boyle, Pascal, Newton, Kepler, Galileo, Copernicus, Maxwell, Faraday, Kelvin

k.       It was not a matter of Christianity waging war on science, as all of the participants called themselves Christians and all acknowledged biblical authority. (Lindberg and Numbers)

l.         The fundamentalist papers in 1910’s established the modern Christian fundamentalist movement, and one additional paper was commissioned to argue for a recent creation as a principal or test of orthodoxy ~1920 {Possibly this book?}

m.    These papers were motivated by

                                                               i.      Concern with the idea that God would use a process like evolution to create

                                                             ii.      A preference that no death occurred before Fall because of the question of theodicy (death is evil, and no evil before the Fall, therefore death can’t occur before the Fall, therefore the universe must be young)

                                                            iii.      Recent earth was ‘slam dunk’ argument against evolution

n.      Conflict exacerbated by provocations by Christians based on hermeneutical arguments on Genesis 1-11

                                                               i.      6^th fundamentalist paper in 1920

                                                             ii.      Resurgences of YEC ~1930

                                                            iii.      Genesis Flood, Creation Research Society

                                                           iv.      Answers in Genesis

o.      There was also some provocation by scientism (purposeless, directionless, purely accidental outcomes) {Where is the scientific evidence of this view????}

p.      Intelligent Design movement arose to suggest/highlight evidence for a Creator

q.      Most theists essentially agree with some sort of design argument

r.        However, there is considerable debate over what is valid evidence for design

s.       Militant atheism is one of the major contemporary antagonists—often under the guise of science, but is in fact scientism

t.        New questions have arisen recently {largely from genetics} about the possibility of a historical Adam and Eve

3)      Science and Religion have “Constructive Integration”—primarily advocated by Hugh Ross

a.       Rejects NOMA assumption explicitly

b.      Sees Bible as making statements about the physical world and therefore having scientific significance

c.       The integrative task is to harmonize the Biblical statement that gives data about the physical universe with scientific data

d.      Two books—Book of Scripture and Book of Nature {coined by Galileo}

e.      Why do the conflicts focus on Genesis 1-11?

                                                               i.      It presents a story that intersects with earth history in a significant way. Is constructive integration possible here?

                                                             ii.      The challenge is to interpret both properly

f.        Some points of controversy

                                                               i.      Was the universe, earth, all plant and animal life created 6000 years ago in 6 days?

                                                             ii.      Was there a flood since beginning of human race that covered the entire world?

                                                            iii.      Are all fossils result of flood?

g.       General Principles of understanding Gen 1-11

                                                               i.      There exists a relationship between God and nature

1.       Christians and Jews are theists not deists

2.       Newton believed that gravitational attraction (and other natural laws) were descriptions of Gods’ customary way of caring for his creatures Col1:17

3.       This view stimulated experimental approach to science, departing from Greek rationalism (using logic alone to derive truth about natural world)

4.       What then are miracles?

                                                             ii.      Use of phenomenological language

                                                            iii.      Use of metaphorical language

                                                           iv.      Use of literary genres

                                                             v.      Accommodation of audience—exegetical tool, proposed by Calvin—the Bible accommodates the original readers of Scripture

                                                           vi.      Keep God’s primary purposes in scriptural context in mind

                                                          vii.      International Council on Biblical Inerrancy indicated that the goal of Biblical hermeneutics is to interpret the passage as the original author intended it (like the conservative Supreme Court jurists who say that we interpret the Constitution  as the authors meant it)

4)      Science and Religion are Complementary—advocated by Richard Bube, Donald MacKay

a.       Bible and science are dealing with different  questions

                                                               i.      Science deals with how or proximate causes

                                                             ii.      Bible and faith deal with why and ultimate causes

b.      Why is the water boiling on the stove? (upper and lower story) (mechanistic purpose vs higher purpose)

5)      In summary:

a.       There is no final conflict

b.      Bible clearly speaks to meaning and purpose- why water is boiling?

c.       Bible may provide insights about the physical world, but this is not its primary purpose

d.      We need to be careful not to read into the Bible details about the physical world that are not intended and conflict with Gods revelation in the created world

e.      Bible paints with broad strokes on creation; we should be careful not to read too much into the streaks in this broad paint job

f.        Andy Crouch-review of “Science vs  Religion:  What Scientists Really Think” by Elaine Ecklund—October 19, 2010

This excellent talk was so long and information dense, my fingers were flying across the keyboard trying to keep my notes apace with Bradley’s information. The outline format I used in my notes seemed like a good way to present the material visually in a blog format, so I beg your indulgence.

SDG

Vibrant Dance: Science Supports Christianity

There were three panel discussions at the conference, this one on Wednesday morning, and two on Thursday morning. I was generally able to summarize each statement made by each speaker, and so will present these as summarizing transcripts. Each speaker will be identified by their initials, listed after their name below. The listing below comes as presented in the symposium program. My comments will be bracketed.

This panel was entitled, “The Vibrant Dance of Faith & Science:  Science Supports Christianity – Revealing the Congruence, Illuminating the Tensions,” and was moderated by Walter Bradley (WB) (Baylor). Panelists were Andy Crouch (AC), Ross Hastings (RH), Dan Heinze (DH), Hugh Ross (HR), Fazale Rana (FR), Darrel Falk (DF), Stephen Meyer (SM), and Deborah Haarsma  (DBH).

Start transcript summary.

WB—Design is synonymous with purpose, therefore, is Design scientifically detectable?

DF--“Entire process is God’s process and… has his fingerprint all over it” but in answer to the question, not yet, but maybe someday

FR—In principle, is it possible through objective methods

DF—If folks want to use science and go looking for evidence for design, go for it, but he’s skeptical, theologically if there is a way to do so—{sounds like he’s a fan of NOMA (non-overlapping magisterial—the idea that science and faith both answer questions about existence but they do not overlap in any way.}

HR—Should be possible-Scripture indicates that scientists should be able to, but we as scientists look for the wrong purpose, so miss God’s design.

WB—Unlikely to be able to prove God scientifically

AC—Disagrees with HR on point 1, we as human beings sense/intuit God from Creation, but detecting Him or Design through science methods/instrumentation, not likely.

DH— Atheistic physicists/cosmologists admit that the data runs against their favored viewpoint {i.e.- they detect design in the data}

SM—Which scientists are not convinced of it?-i.e. some have and are advocating for it. Why are some not convinced? Their methodological naturalism gets in the way

DBH- {missed due to phone call}

RH—Topic is subject to epistemology-what can we actually know? What is our level of uncertainty? What is the motivation behind one’s teleology? ‘Proofs’ are not sufficient due to people suppressing the truth

HR—Agrees with RH on proof, and asks, as we go forward and learn more, does God appear more likely or not?

WB—ID vs id (there is a difference between the Intelligent Design movement and the idea of intelligent design)—laws of nature not independent of God. He noted that folks are more comfortable with cosmological evidence for God and less with biological evidence for Him.

DF—We all believe in design and therefore in intelligent design, or id. As for the ID movement, it has helped focus the discussion, yet how helpful has what they have produced been in contributing to the science or has it discouraged the science community from buying into ID ideas.

SM—Consensus in the scientific community leads to diffidence.  We should be asking, what is the best model for the data? The shocking effect of Watson/Crick discovering that DNA was a digital code, that the cell uses same methods in coding info that programmers do— displayed a logic and elegance far beyond what we are able to do. Yet Francis Collins is still trying to hold on to naturalistic mechanism. {veiled dig at all theistic evolutionists?}

FR—In cosmology, the data confounded the naturalist philosophy; the same is occurring in origin of life research; The godfather {not sure who this is} of OoL (Origin of Life sciences) said it would be a miracle for RNA to form spontaneously in early Earth. They even acknowledge their research is inserting “id” into their work.

SM—We should use their work and celebrate it

HR—Agreed

FR—The data isn’t taking us in the direction of non-design

DF—All of us believe God is origin of life; the question is whether or not this is a gap or truly new doors; we should allow for natural mechanisms to be fully explored

WB—Shapiro {not sure who this is} believed that a naturalistic explanation would be found eventually; and was once asked how he can be a scientist and a Christian, and he said he is fine with it because he knows who did it and is now studying how. God works through process.

SM—Gaps arise from ignorance; however if it looks like design, then it isn’t a gap. ID is making provisional conclusions based on what we know, not what we don’t know.

WB—Even in the cosmological realm, we need to be tentative

SM—No distinction between cosmology and OoL in terms of issues, but it is matter of detectability

RH—What is/are the method(s) of design? The issue seems to be one of intervention and how it happens, not that God is involved. How do you detect natural or supernatural intervention? {see my posts Is it Nature or Magic?, Harry Who-dini?, or, The Problem of Expectation, "It's a Miracle!", and A Matter of Time}

SM—There are two types of power—‘ordinary’ power and ‘sovereign’ power; a difference between order and information, law and info; therefore God seems to favor a discreet intervention. {I believe he is saying that when a ‘miracle’ occurs, God is exerting His sovereign power over and above the ‘ordinary’ power of the natural functioning of His Creation. The main context of this discussion is the Cambrian explosion of vast amounts and very different types of lifeforms in a very short period of time geologically.}

AC—There is a difference between discontinuous intervention versus continuous intervention; we should be wary of attributing discontinuity to divine action; our instinct and sensibility about the world around us are as important as data; {In short, he renames SM’s dichotomy, and cautions against thinking that all discontinuities in the world are due to explicit divine action.}

SM—I’m not arguing from lack of data, but from sudden influxes of information.

HR—Discontinuities are opportunities for research to see which way {naturalism or design} is getting stronger

DH—There are no objective scientists; {that why we try for falsifiability} hence, the lack of interest in theistic implications; we as Christians and scientists should let naturalistic investigations go forward because they just give us more evidence that will ultimately lean against naturalism.

WB—Therefore scientists have lots of job security. Now let’s change topics and look at the Bible and science. Quoted Francis Schaeffer (that there is no final conflict)—we as scientific Christians have two non-negotiables:  that God created and there was a historical Adam & Eve; 

RH—Wish we had an OT theologian to address this; we tend to ask questions of Genesis it wasn’t designed to answer, so it becomes question of hermeneutics. There is no explicit biblical position on the age of earth. Genesis 1 and 2 are not about cosmology, but theology. There was a coronation moment at which God put His image into a fully evolved human.

FR—Paul refers to a real Adam, so if he’s confused about that, is he confused about Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection, if he is using it as a tie between the first and last Adam? {I Corinthians 15:45-46}

RH—I DO believe in a real Adam, but not a literalistic one.

AC—These are separate issues—the representative Adam versus a genetic Adam

DF—Collins would agree with RH

DBH—Clarify, please? About the separation? {Thanks! I sort of got it, but not really clearly.}

RH—It is confusing, but there seems to be a community of early humans known as Adam {known by whom?—i.e. is this a name backwards bestowed by modern scholars or what they called themselves or were known by this name to their contemporaries or…?}

WB—There may have been 1000 people on the early earth, but God picked out an Adam and Eve out to begin the relationship

DF—The Biologos perspective is that we’d be comfortable with that idea, but not limited to that idea.

DH—There is tension for me in any theological or scientific position. It also appears to be a possibility that a large supernova occurred ~50,000 years ago near Earth that could have changed our conclusions about early human life. {WHOA!? Elaborate please!}

HR—The book of Hebrews seems clear that GOD actively created Adam and Eve. The Bible indicates lots of offspring from them, so could have filled Earth if sin hadn’t entered.

AC—We must take the audience into account—we may take it literally, but how would an early middle east reader take it?

HR—But God wrote the Bible for all people, so it should have meaning for all

DBH—I agree with AC, chronology not important to many early folks, and the context we bring into it is important. The idea of God putting in hidden things that are only apparent to us is not consistent with Him. {Not sure I agree with this—much of the prophecy in the Bible doesn’t appear to be prophecy until after the fulfillment, yet the Bible declares it to be so. So, why not scientific info?}

RH—Hermeneutics says we should start by understanding how early readers read it first in order to inform our interpretation; to them the point was God reigns over chaos and brings order to it.

SM—Just as theological evidence is open to different interpretations, so also is the genetic evidence. Junk DNA is species specific, so it is evidence against common ancestry, so the science isn’t settled.

FR—ALU  sequences are shown to play a role in stress response-when species stress, ALU levels spike and appear to be functional after all. {See Vibrant Dance: “God’s Creativity and Providence” }

DF—Appeals to the scientific consensus of interpretation as a justification of his position and above developments do not stop those consensual interpretations.

WB—A pinball machine is an analogy—the ball can take many paths but ends up at bottom of table always, so can we say there is a similar idea in evolution—no matter what the path, there is the same end result? (A deeper design that directs final result like the gravity in a pinball machine) Can this reconcile some of the confusion?

FR—Discussed convergence in his book, The Cell’s Design, and it has theistic implications.

SM—Likes the general idea of convergence, but has questions about the implications of front loading information into the Creation to prefer a final outcome.

RH—God and Creation both act and interact.

End Transcript summary.

SDG

Vibrant Dance: Fuz Rana’s Testimony

Each of the primary speakers had a scheduled time in which to share their testimony of coming to faith. In some ways, taking notes on these could be difficult as it is harder to summarize a story than an academic talk on a specific subject where a series of logical arguments are presented. However, in the case of Fuz Rana from Reasons to Believe, there were some key elements that made an impression on me.

Rana’s father was a Muslim from India, and his mother was Catholic, and they agreed to disagree on religion. I guess this stuck out to me because a couple that are good friends of my parents are similar—he’s Egyptian, and she’s small town Roman Catholic. They agreed to raise their son Muslim. In Rana’s case, he and his brother were brought up without a lot of spiritual direction. As his dad was a Ph.D. nuclear physicist and his mom a science teacher, spirituality had an even lower place in the family priorities.

As Rana moved through college, studying biochemistry from a secular viewpoint, he was personally overwhelmed by the complexity he found within the cellular processes. Over time, this lead him to the conclusion that there must be a Creator, and eventually he gave his life to Christ.

Even so, for years, he fought with compartmentalization—there was his scientific world and his spiritual world and they were separate for him. Eventually, he began to see that they were connected and even intertwined. This led to him reading Hugh Ross’ books, which finally resulted in him joining Reasons as a staff biochemistry scholar.

What is your story? How has your field influenced your faith and vice versa? Are your scholarly pursuits and your walk with Christ non-overlapping magisteria? There are a growing number of books by scholars/academics who describe their spiritual journeys, and these may be inspirational devotions for you. As examples of what is out there, I recommend Finding God at Harvard and Finding God Beyond Harvard by Kelly Monroe Kullberg, Hope for the Thinking Christian by Stephen Reese, Witness to Grace by John Goodenough (might get a better deal on this one from the author directly!), Professors Who Believe:  The Spiritual Journeys of Christian Faculty by Paul M. Anderson (ed.),  Believing Scholars:  Ten Catholic Intellectuals by James L. Heft (ed.), and others. Here at UT, a similar project to the Harvard books is being put together.  Would your campus benefit from the Christian community sharing their stories of faith on campus? Students find it a tremendous encouragement to know that some of their professors profess the same faith. Consider writing your story and putting a link to it on your website. Also, there are other sites that serve as a collection point for faculty of faith. They are links to them on the right hand side of this page.

As an academic, much of your life is spent on campus, so that is your primary area of influence. Take advantage of it.

SDG