Tue 21 Aug 2007
I'm still slowly working my way through Dawkins' The God Delusion. I'm about halfway done with chapter four, "Why God Almost Certainly Doesn't Exist". Chapter three, in which Dawkins attempts to refute the positive case for God's existence, was unconvincing, for the reasons that have already been noted as well as others. I'm making copious notes as I read so that I'll be able to make a series of posts when I finish reading it, but because of this it's taking a long time to read.
One of the threads on the FORU.MS discussion board was deleted recently, and one of my old posts went along with it. (Not sure why the thread was removed.) A mod was kind enough to forward my post in the thread to me before it was removed, so here's my reply below to someone who posted some comments on science and faith, which I have edited & expanded a bit for this blog: (original poster's comments in italics; assume all spelling errors in his/her writing were in their original post)
Christians don't trust in Science because it clean's their clock. I mean Noah's ark? Camon.
There are several different theories regarding Noah's Ark. Many believe it was a local flood; ie, it covered the entire world that was known to people at that time. Others claim that it was indeed a worldwide flood, which is buttressed to some extent by the other flood stories that appear in other ancient documents. Still others take it metaphorically. Personally I think that may be stretching the account to interpret it that way. But, we can't really know for sure which is more likely the correct approach.
The bible is full of contradictions, I could name thousands. Do a google search.
Let's keep in mind what a contradiction is: "a logical incompatibility between two or more propositions. It occurs when the propositions, taken together, yield two conclusions which form the logical inversions of each other." What are usually cited as contradictions are actually purported errors, but nevertheless, if Google searches are your fancy, do a Google search on answers to the supposed contradictions and you'll find solid answers for most of them (for example, one of J P Holding's lists, or this refutation of a Muslim "101" list). There have been times when certain alleged errors or contradictions have been cleared up by further research or archaeological finds, so for the few questions that are as yet unknown, it doesn't really bother me that we may not understand every word of the Bible completely. There are of course good reasons to believe the New Testament is trustworthy and reliable.
Science and Christianity to not play nice together. Christians sometimes get angry and kill the bringers of science: "Galeao and his godless telescope for example"
This is unfortunately true. It's sad when Christians abandon the teachings of Jesus and immorally commit acts that deny His teachings. But this is not proof that Christianity is false. Thousands of Christians are martyred every year by secular governments; that does not prove that atheism is wrong any more than the bad things done by some Christians prove that Christianity is wrong. For more on this topic, see Skeptical Christian's "Evil Christianity" or my own (brief) post Christians do bad things. That said, as per Philip J. Sampson the story of Galileo has become a 'modern myth' and the real story is not quite so condemning once we acknowledge all the relevant details.
Science provides solid proof that Christians are ridiculous therefore Christians cannot allow science to invade their sacred space of Faith.
I'm sorry that you feel that way, but please keep in mind that many of the great scientists throughout history have been "religious", and a large number today believe that God exists. A recent study of college professors demonstrated that the majority believe God exists (source). For example, Dr Alister McGrath, who holds two PhDs from Oxford, one in molecular biophysics and the other in theology, is a proponent of what he refers to as scientific theology.
Is there a fundamental conflict between science and religion? I don't think so. Is there a fundamental conflict between science of the naturalism or scientism sort and religion? Naturally!
4 Responses to “Science and faith”
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September 14th, 2007 at 9:40 am
I'm hoping to stimulate debate on this issue here and elsewhere.
But, my naivety aside, I've learned over 7 years of posting on various forums that not a lot of people like to read a lot of text! Also, human nature being what it is, many are content with what they already understand or have been spoon fed to date, and this regardless of the context. Also, I strongly suspect that a fair number of those who like to debate have a somewhat lukewarm attitude to following Christ. This is partly observational on my part and not just weak opinion. If pushed on key issues of faith and daily commitment, what emerges? I hear lukewarm makes God sick! "Examine yourselves…" and that includes me! But anyway…
This particular essay – http://www.slashedcanvas.co.uk/essays/essays6.htm – is a developed theme over 3 pages. This careful development highlights the following crucial issues:
(1) The uniformity of The New Testament and how it clearly defines what a Christian actually is (in my opinion this is often unfairly undermined by atheists who cast their net much too widely when defining "a Christian" and criticise those who insist on defining the word in a New Testament context, which is the best context available!)
(2) The preoccupation with intellectual propositions (apologetics) over the simple (and powerful) spiritual essentials detailed in The New Testament
(3) The futility of the combative atheist's arguments against religion (not always because they're wrong in every detail, by the way!)
(4) The pervasive weaknesses in local churches that demonstrably interfere with the effectiveness of Bible doctrines and tarnish the Christian witness in society.
Personal bias can blind a person to necessities. I've been into Christian Apologetics too, but if the New Testament is true it (Apologetics) should be ditched in favour of a formula built around The Word of God (as defined by The New Testament) that is guaranteed to work regardless of the individual's bias and conditioning. It will work because God will always honour it and draw those He chooses.
I find Bible-based excuses for apologetics too weak to be sustainable. If Christians operated with a spiritual emphasis in the power and wisdom of God, according to The New Testament it would upend and bypass futile human reasoning and intellectualism. I'm certainly not against intellect or reason – I'm just pointing out it can't be a solid foundation for communicating the spiritual reality of God.
Essentially, it doesn't matter.
September 15th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Sam, thanks for your comments! I do agree with you on many things actually. I do for example find the whole creationism/evolution debate tiring and pointless. Even more so is the inter-Christian debate on the proper interpretation of the creation narrative in Genesis 1-2 … young Earth? Old Earth? Narrative framework? Who cares?
I haven't had time to read your entire essay yet, hopefully in the next week I will be able to. My opinion of the value of apologetics has been reduced quite a bit since I first accepted Christ, and I can understand why many find apologetics a "waste of time". Joe Boot, Canadian director of Ravi Zacharias ministries, describes in his book how he became frustrated that his attempts to "reason" with people when legitimately good arguments most often ended up failing. Boot eventually abandoned traditional apologetics … though now he practices presuppositional apologetics instead! (You may want to investigate that style if you find the classical approach unappealing or ineffective … though personally I find presuppositional apologetics "a waste of time" though I don't doubt that God could work through this method and it may be effective in reaching some people.)
With the limits of what reason and arguments can accomplish acknowledged, what about a person who says "I really would like to believe in Jesus, but how can I do that if I don't believe the Bible is a reliable historical document?" Gary Habermas explains the objection this way: "You want me to believe the Man? The Man is in the Book. I don't believe the Book. So I can't believe the Man." I have a bit of a personal stake in this question because that's essentially the question I asked before I came to faith. Lee Strobel's "Case for Christ" was an instrumental part in me coming to faith in God. (Would I have been saved without reading such apologetic works? It's of course possible, but we can't know one way or the other, ie argument from a counterfactual.)
An example comes to mind. I met a young man recently who was out evangelizing for the LDS church. (Mormons) "Elder" Jones (he was approx 18 years old if my estimate is correct) claimed that he knew Mormonism is true because he had a personal experience of God and felt the typical "burning in the bosom". How can we effectively evangelize to such a person who believes he or she already has a personal experience of God? It's just my experience against theirs, and generally a person will believe their own perceived experience before anyone else's.
But what if this young Mormon man was willing to read my essay on the Mormon "Book of Abraham" and was convicted that this supposed holy book was really nothing of the sort? This of course would not cause him to embrace Christ (only God, as you've noted, can lead people to Himself) but surely this sort of knowledge can play a part, can "put a rock in a person's shoe" as Greg Koukl might put it, to help someone to see the bankruptcy of their worldview?
I dunno just some thoughts that came to mind. I may reply again once I read your entire essay.
September 16th, 2007 at 6:26 am
Thanks Darren.
Believe me I can appreciate where you're coming from. Braking down barriers seems a logical and reasonable thing to do at times and can be helpful. But it is EVER the better approach? I don't think so…
I'd have to measure that helpfulness against The New Testament's emphasis on witnessing in the power of God when you'd expect God to draw people to Himself. Will metal barriers remain standing when God spiritually reveals His reality? As I've said: "An unbeliever may ask, 'Why am I accepting the reality of God when my head tells me He's a fairy story?'"
I remember about 20 years ago writing a long carefully researched essay on the many errors and irrelevancies of Mormonism – and it is many when compared to the simple completeness of New Testament doctrine and guidance.
A friend passed on my paper to two Mormons that lived in the flat above him (they had been 'visiting' him).
He told me some time later that they rejected the content of the essay claiming it just couldn't be right! And that was that!
This is a case in point where factual evidence proved worthless. But if instead I'd sat down with these Mormons lads myself and shared the Word of Truth in the power of God would there have been a happier outcome? Would God have revealed the veracity of "The Truth" in a place where intellect was powerless to object?
Anyway, take care,
:o)
September 22nd, 2007 at 5:00 am
Hello again Darren
I wanted to share the following with you here. I posted it elsewhere too before I move on to other more important things!
Thanks for your interest and input!
:o)
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One thing that has struck me is a basic folly built into human nature that we're all subject to too easily at times: Christian Apologists may well see an Apologetic pattern in The New Testament because they're looking for it!
Balance can take a lot of discipline and self-denial.
I recently read a couple of essays on the necessity of water baptism for salvation. Written to a high standard these essays inadvertently toppled the clear balance of Scripture in an effort to defend the views of a particular church the authors subscribed to. Yes, unlike Apologetics, this is a minority view, but the principle and reasoning processes are depressingly similar. The authors have combed through The New Testament, and as they do they compile too few verses that, with a push, may be construed to support their particular view.
Texts out of context can be pretexts for all manner of interpretations.
On several occasions I've seen the Book of Acts being used by Christian Apologists where we find followers of Christ standing their ground before religious folk and unbelievers in general. Then there are other crucial Bible bits tied to the general theory, like 1st Peter and Isaiah ("reason together").
Being afforded the opportunity to stand well back and take in the bigger picture, I see that too much is being made of much too little in an effort to justify and support what individual Christians have already bought into.
Not only that, many like to read, study, write and generally express themselves publicly simply because it's part if their personal makeup. They have a natural propensity for it – me too! But it's so worrying that we can lose sight of ourselves to the point where, in our enthusiasm and intellectualism, we allow self to flourish over balance and temperance.
We do this even to the point of praying amiss that God would use us to His glory as we counteract the cults and the unacceptable atheistic manipulation of the sciences (even when this isn't actually the case!).
There is no inherent God-given power and infallibility in Apologetics. Yet, if we consider Scriptures true and inspired, the preaching of God's simple Truth according to His will and in the power of His Spirit passes all responsibility over to Him so He can work flawlessly. Human error and essentially biased interpretations, along with the endless wrangles of debates that follow Apologetics wherever it goes, are an irrelevancy in the dominating Context that flows from almost every page of The New Testament – unlike a context constructed into a formula from a piecemeal approach to Bible study.
I'm not meaninglessly involved in apologetic stratagems in an effort to deny the legitimacy of Apologetics! Far from it. I'm attempting to show that according to The New Testament God has provided a perfect non-intellectual way of interacting with those who don't yet believe. It will not have human flaws built into it before it even gets off the ground. It doesn't expose Christians to the sort of ridicule (some of it well-founded!) that clings to Christian Apologetics.
Also, at a personal level, if I may, this is just one part of how I'm expressing myself before I move on to so something else.
Responses from several Christian Apologists I've contacted strongly suggest to me they honestly consider Christian Apologetics to be God's work. So they are heavily into it, yet I wonder again if their focus and drive has merely consolidated a rolling, powerful ethos that effectively suffocates objectivity.
It certainly seems that way to me.
Sam