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Podcast: Christianity and Science

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Episode 57: Andy and I speak about science and how the truths of 3, 2 and 1 give us the strongest possible foundation for scientific enquiry.

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For more on the issue of science:

Previous Podcast

Hasn't Science Disproved God?

Are You Sitting Comfortably? Then Let's Do Science!

Why The World Exists

We All Have Our Creation Stories

Faith Seeking Understanding

 

4 thoughts on “Podcast: Christianity and Science

  1. the Old Adam

    All that science can do (for all it's benefits) is to think God's thoughts, after Him.

    They can create nothing (whose pieces weren't already created).

    And they (most) are blind to what got everything going.

    But, in this age of reason, science seems to be king.

    We mustn't lose our nerve and speak into this mindset about another King, who died for their sins.

    Nobody said it was gonna be easy.

  2. Howard Nowlan

    Useful point about the origins of science, but the source of the antagonism to Christianity isn't rooted in science itself, but the rationalistic political movements of the 1700's (epitomized in the American & French revolutions) which brought republicanism, secularism, socialism and (in the case of the French revolution) a declaration of human rights independent of God. This would all be blended into scientific naturalism (via Huxley and others) in the 1870's.

  3. Howard Nowlan

    Let me re-phrase my last a tad... the roots of much contemporary antagonism to Christianity isn't rooted in the beginnings of modern science itself, but the rationalistic political movements of the 1700's. Our rejection of God, of course, is traced a great deal further back!

  4. Cal

    Here are some of my thoughts:

    The main issue is the place of discussing a "world-view" or "metaphysics". It wasn't the Enlightenment or even the Rationalists who changed the entire structure. It was Kant's divide that has been used as a sledgehammer to create what we have.

    First, I agree that 'Theology is the Queen of the Sciences' if, by this, we say that it has a centrally located importance. That is, if what we call god, as Augustine would have it, would be what we place ultimacy in, then it would make sense. Seeking to know the One, or lack thereof, colors all other data and understanding.

    Second, we, as Christians, need to confess for the sins of those who've used the name of Christ to create a tyranny over intellect. Institutional, State/Culture churches have squelched knowledge for many faulty reasons instead of letting the Truth of things stand. I'm not talking about Gallileo, which is a bad case.

    Today is no different, with a cliquishness and arrogance to some scientific academies, but Christians should have no part in locking up knowledge. If Christ is the Truth, then there is nothing that could threaten Him, and all truth is for Him.

    The reason I bring this up is because we can't be highhanded with those who make legitimate criticisms of church authority in the past. Of course, there are deeper problems in terms of ecclesiology and being faithful to Christ, but I digress.

    Third, we ought to be equally critical of other "supernatural" (for lack of a better term) metaphysics, along with rightly rejecting Naturalism. Many were convinced that the world/universe was eternal, vis. Aristotle and other Greeks, and tried to argue for it and twist the clear Biblical narrative, that the world had a beginning, to fit that. There was a time where Aristotle's view of the bee would be considered biblical, not ridiculous!

    That should be equally repugnant, even if it has a Christian bent. The same with Gnostico-Platonic conceptions of the worthlessness of matter. Irenaeus took them to task using the Scripture.

    We shouldn't create this false narrative of evil naturalism coming. Kant is just synthesiszing Epicurus, Stoicism, and Plato. He's an old-fashion pagan. The Epicurean Lucretius taught the same. And just because it's ascendant, again, Rome's Pluralistic, all-encompassing, theistic metaphysic laughed at Christians who said there was only one God, and that the dead would rise (giving history a purpose), let alone become Man (actually, not phantomly) and die as a criminal.

    The story is more complicated!! But I appreciate the core lesson, that science is not contrary to following Jesus and the infallible witness of Scripture.

    2 cents,
    Cal

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