Science vs Christianity

Religion and the History of Science
Source: Wikipedia
In this part Barbour provides an overview of how scientific discovery has had an impact on theology through out the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The major scientific discoveries made in the 17th century included those made by Galileo and Newton. The scientific discoveries made by Galileo and Newton began to describe and explain the natural and physical laws by which the earth operates. These discoveries drastically changed the way that man viewed the world and nature. This in turn caused shifts in theological thought. Natural theology emerged, where God was able to fill the scientific gaps and was responsible for the orderliness of nature. The idea of God as the "Divine Clockmaker"( the argument states that design implies a designer) and the beginning of Deism(in the philosophy of religion is the standpoint that reason and observation of the natural world, without the need for organized religion, can determine that a supreme being created the universe) can also be traced back to the 17th century.

During the 18th century the Age of Reason and Romanticism greatly shaped views on science and theology. Deism became very popular during this time among many Enlightenment scholars. Romanticism on the other hand lead to an appreciation of the underlying spirituality in nature and in man, and God's personal relationship with man and nature. This in turn lead to the concepts of moral and religious experience (is the argument from experiences of God to the existence of God), which focused on man's intuition and imagination in relation to their religious experience.

The theory of evolution was developed by Darwin in the 19th century. This essentially eliminated the "God of the gaps"(refers to a view of God as existing in the "gaps" or aspects of reality that are currently unexplained by scientific knowledge, or that otherwise lack a plausible natural explanation) that had come about in the 17th century. Liberal theologians accepted the theory of evolution, and held the opinion that God works continuously through the evolutionary process. On the other hand conservatives still insisted on Biblical literalism, and they rejected Darwin's theory. For the most part theologians began to focus more on the human experience for their basis of theology.

Definitions – from Cambridge Dictionary online (only for reference purpose)

Religion - the belief in and worship of a god or gods, or any such system of belief and worship
Christianity - a religion based on belief in God and the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, and on the Bible
Science - (knowledge from) the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical world, especially by watching, measuring and doing experiments, and the development of theories to describe the results of these activities.

Barbour’s Models relating science to faith
Source: Wikipedia
1. Conflict, stating the disciplines contradict and are incompatible with each other.
2. Independence treating each as quite separate realms of enquiry.
3. Dialogue suggesting that each field has things to say to each other about phenomena in which their interests overlap.
4. Integration aiming to unify both fields into a single discourse.

Doesn’t evolution disprove the Bible?
Source: Timothy Keller – The Reason for God
If ‘evolution’ is…elevated to the status of a world-view of the way things are then there is direct conflict with biblical faith. But of ‘evolution’ remains at the level of scientific biological hypothesis, it would seem that there is little reason for conflict between the implications of Christian belief in the Creator and the scientific explorations of the way which – at the level of biology – God has gone about his creating processes.

Since Christian believers occupy different positions on both the meaning of Genesis and on the nature of evolution, those who are considering Christianity as a whole should not allow themselves to be distracted by this intramural debate. The sceptical enquirer does not need to accept any one of these positions in order to embrace the Christian faith. Rather, he or she should concentrate on and weigh the central claims of Christianity. Only after drawing conclusions about the person of Christ, the resurrection, and the central tenets of the Christian message should one think through the various options with regard to creation and evolution

Bible verses
Genesis 1
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Acts 17
11 Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. 12 As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.

Hebrews 4
12 For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

Romans 1
20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse..

Romans 2
15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.

Hebrews 1
1 In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.

Hebrews 11
1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

2 Peter 1
20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Revelations
General Revelation
- Natural revelation (Romans 1:20)
- Conscience (Romans 2: 15)

Special Revelation
- Bible (2 Timothy 3: 16)
- Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:1-2)

My thoughts
Between Christianity and science, do I have to disregard one in order to embrace the other? Yes, I would have to do so if they are in absolute contradiction with one another. Then, both cannot exist together. Are they mutually exclusive? To me, they are not. However, I am not so sure about the relationship between them – integration or dialogue? One thing which I am convinced that: If God is the creator God, does not He the inventor of the laws of all the sciences?

Having discussed with friends, conflicts are existing between two (age of the universe was 13 million years old, dinosaurs existed before men, impossible to have water during the formation of the world due to intense heat, water is essential for the formation of life, scientists are looking backward using extrapolations). A conclusion by ML, we should not forget about the core of Christianity which is about Jesus Christ although we have these conflicts. Ultimately, people are saved not by believing of disbelieving evolution but having faith in Christ.

Bible’s Buried Secrets

I am troubled after watching the BBC TV programme – Bible’s Buried Secrets. This programme has 3 episodes and presented by Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou who is not a believer of Christianity herself. So far two of the episodes have been released and can be watched from BBC iPlayer.

Episode 1. Did King David's Empire Exist?
To me, the way she presented the evidences in this episode seems to be taking a very objective view. Why I think she was objective? This is because I think she let the evidence leads her to the conclusion(s). Also, she appeared to be very close to the Mainstream / Middle scholarship.

Therefore it sounds quite convincing to me that the Kingdom of David was not such a great one. Anyway this did not disturb me so much because it is not directly related to my fundamental faith/belief.

The objective view of her and the interest in the topics led me to continue watching the second episode.

Episode 2. Did God Have a Wife?
In this episode she put forward 3 claims:
1) Abraham was serving a pagan god -El
2) Israelites was not embracing Monotheism but Polytheism
3) Asherah as the goddess/wife of god

In this episode, she sounded more like a Sceptical scholar. One reason I think she is sceptical is because the evidences did not seem to be very convincing to me for her to make the claims/conclusions. Some of the ways she interpreted the Old Testament also seems to me very unreasonable and unacceptable. Lastly, a very disturbing statement to me appeared towards the end of the episode- “A pure monotheism is impossible” . This episode has a much more intense influence on me because it does relate to my fundamental belief of God.

My thoughts
As she was a PHD theology scholar of Oxford University, I just simple cannot leave the matter behind as if nothing has happened. I think she has a very creditable education background in particularly her expertise in the study of the Old Testament. Perhaps her education training also helps her to examine the evidences from a very scientific ways of taking the Archaeological and Historical point of views.

This is why I write to you to hear about your opinions. I hope you would allow me to ask two questions:
1) Are these questions/problems have already been existed in the academia for quite some time already (only recently being raised up by Dr Francesca)?
2) Was she taking an objective view or just being very sceptical?

Episode 3. The Real Garden of Eden
Just finished watching the last episode by Dr Francesca. Although I am not very convincing about the speculation of the real geographical/physical location of the Garden of Eden, but there are still some issues that trouble me. It is quite convincing to me that the Book of Genesis was written between 10th to 5th century BC instead of 1600BC by Moses. It happened that the Book of Genesis appears as the first book in the Bible. The implications are Adam and Eve were not the first man and woman, it is about the falling of a king/Adam instead of the fall of humanity. It troubles me in two ways:
1) Original sin
2) Creation of the world and human
The Book of Genesis provides the foundation for the two points above simply cannot stand if the descriptions are not about “the beginning”.

Blind men and an elephant

70-73
Is there anything out there?
Imagine that a group of people was born in one locked room and lived all their lives within it. These people have frequent discussions about the world outside. One day the argument gets more heated than usual.

Anthony
Anthony starts it all off. He tells the group that he has been studying the room for years and is at last ready to publish his findings. Careful investigation of the contents has revealed an intricate design. Could that washing machine, for example, with its five different cycles, really have come into existence by change? Does it not rather point to someone, or something, outside the room who made it and put it there? But, he has to acknowledge, no one has ever seen anything excepts what exists inside – so it is possible that there is nothing else. We just cannot know.

Bernard
By this stage Bernard is very frustrated and cannot hold it any longer. ‘There you go – nailing your colours to the fence again. Stop being so woolly! The trouble is that you are blind to reality. We can be absolutely certain that there is something out there. My mother brought me up to believe that the world outside is inhabited by big giants and little pygmies, and I have never had any reason to doubt it. The truth is that the giants put our ancestors in here years ago and have kept us locked up ever since, but the pygmies are determined to release us, and one day they will.’

Bridget
Bridget protests immediately. ‘You’ve got it all wrong’, she says. ‘You speak about “the truth”; let me tell you what it is. There are no pygmies, just giants – loads of them. And they are not our enemies – they don’t even know we are here. But they will do when the great earthquake happens and opens a hole in the wall so that we can be free.’

Beatrice
Beatrice laughs loudly. She cannot disguise her contempt for such primitive faith. ‘Grow up, your two’, she says. ‘Why can’t you face reality and recognise that there is nothing out there – there never has been and never will be.’ That is when the dispute really gets going.

Maurice
Maurice listens for a while and then loses patience. ‘Calm down! There’s truth in what you are all saying. I have to say I prefer to think of it rather differently. I like to think there is something out there. In fact, only yesterday I shut my eyes and tried to picture what it might be and a very clear image came into my mind. I say green people with white spots on their foreheads. The way I see it, they aren’t giants – I don’t like the thought of them at all – far too intimidating. No, they are our size, of not a little smaller; and very friendly – that’s what I like to believe. But if you want to see things differently, that’s fine – lets all be tolerant of one another and stop this awful bigotry.’

What are we to make of those different points of view? How can Bernard and Bridget be certain that their belief correspond to reality? And how can Beatrice know that there is nothing outside? They are all making dogmatic statements about something of which they cannot be sure. Maurice may be eccentric, but at least she is more humble. He acknowledges that his is not the only way of looking at the question. But only Anthony is being entirely reasonable. He sticks with the facts and refuses to go further. For those who have spent all their lives in a single room, any statement about the outside cannot be more than guesswork.

Anthony – Agnostic
Bernard – (believer)
Bridget – (believer)
Beatrice – Atheist (believer)
Maurice - Mystic

74
Those who are trapped inside a single room all their lives cannot by themselves discover the truth about what lies outside, if there is anything at all. But what if someone from outside came to visit them? Then they would have ‘certain knowledge’ – they would know the truth. This is the great claim of Christianity.

118
He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.

Source: Distinctives – Vaughan Roberts (2000)

There's A Place For Us - Carrie Underwood

There's a place out there for us
More than just a prayer or anything we ever dreamed of.
So if you feel like giving up
Cause you don't fit in down here
Fear is crashing in close your eyes and take my hand.

We can be the kings and queens of anything if we believe.
It's written in the stars that shine above
A world where you and I belong
Where faith and love will keep us strong
Exactly who we are is just enough
Yes there's a place for us there's a place for us.

When the water meets the sky
Where your heart is free and hope comes back to life
Where these broken hands are whole again
We will find what we've been waiting for
We were made for so much more

We can be the kings and queens of anything if we believe.
It's written in the stars that shine above
A world where you and I belong
Where faith and love will keep us strong
Exactly who we are is just enough
Yes there's a place for us
Now there's a place for us

So hold on now hold on
There's a place for us

We can be the kings and queens of anything if we believe.
It's written in the stars that shine above
A world where you and I belong
Where faith and love will keep us strong
Exactly who we are is just enough
Exactly who we are is just enough
There's a place for us

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPdSw2kGnOQ

The chicken or the egg?

20
It’s the egg. All chickens hatch from eggs, because the beginning of this life cycle for a chicken starts with its egg. From what we know of evolutionary science the explanation is as below. A bird that was closely related to the chicken in evolutionary terms laid the egg. Let us call this close ancestor to the chicken a “bicken” so as to save confusion. So the bicken laid an egg that contained a very sight mutation of itself, and by mere chance the animal inside that egg was the very first chicken. The first chicken hatched out into a brave new world where its particular DNA would flourish.

As the chicken has be a subspecies of the bicken, due to the fact a bicken gave birth to it, they must be able to interbreed. So the chicken would go on to breed with other bickens and many of their offspring would inherit the distinctive DNA that made them chickens. After a period of time due to natural selection the chickens would come to replace the bickens, thus removing the evidence of where the first egg came from. It was not so much flash of light and a chicken appeared, but the rise of the chicken was created by intricate workings of nature.

Source: Adrian Chapman (October 2010). The Meaning of Life: A Dangerous Mix of God and Science