Science & Faith, Friends or Foes

C.John Collins

p13 "I aim , then, to help you do some serious thinking: but so does Jesus, who wants his followers to be 'wise as to what is good' as well as 'innocent as to what is evil' (Rom 16:19, Matt 10:16). As C. S. L ewis said, Christ 'wants a child's heart, but a grown-up's head. He wants us to be simple, single-minded, affectionate, and teachable, as good children are; but he also wants every bit of intelligence we have to be alert at its job, and in first-class fighting trim.'"

Ch 2: Science, Faith and Rationality

Ch 3: Must Science and Faith Be at Odds?

p40 discussion of methodological naturalism and a quote from the NSTA about science and its exclusion of any supernatural causes.

p41 Good discussion of the incompleteness of methodlogical naturalism and further comment on the NSTA's functional atheism.

p54 set of diagnostic questions about science and faith.

Ch 4 This Is My Father's World

This is a good look at Genesis and other scripture, and I'm not doing it justice right now - should come back and look more closely.

p62 Outline of Genesis days and events, along with what Bontrager calles the days of forming and days of filling. He uses "Location" and "Inhabitants" to describe the two triplets.

Ch 5 What Kind of Days Were Those, Anyhow?

p78 A wonderful overview of the variety of views of the creation days.

p79 Another good description of how we got to the mix of views we have.

p79 Referring to those who do not consider the "days" to be of the ordinary kind "Besides, when we consider that some of the best and brightest - such as Augustine, Anselm, and possibly Aquinas - did not take the days as the ordinary kind, we realize that the key question is not, 'How many people read it this way?' but, 'What reasons did they have for their reading?'"

p90 Discussion of the fourth day

p91 Other possible interpretations of the days.

p93 More on the two triad structures of days

Ch 6 Other Biblical Passages About Creation

Ch 7 Is the Earth Young or Old?

Deals with the Bible passages which can imply things about the age of the Earth.

p110 "In fact, the interpretation of the days and the age of the earth play virtually no role elsewhere in the Bible - though of course what we think of these issues will matter a great deal to how we look at our world, to how we practice science, and to how we commend the Christian faith to others."

Ch 8 What a Piece of Work is Man!

p112 Reminds me that Genesis 2:7 that "the Lord God formed the man of dust of the ground and breathed .. the breath of life" is just like the other creatures. I tend to remember the dramatic line from God's Trombones "and man became a living soul" and think of that as the embuing of God's spirit. That "let us make man in our own image" is back in Gen 1:26 .

p113 Wonderful story from "The Long Winter" about man's free will and responsibility. About muskrat houses.

p114-120 nature of the soul. Lots of scripture references.

p123 C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity "Do not waste your time bothering whether you "love" your neighbour; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him."

p124 The image of God "The most common answer to this question in the history of Christian theology is that the image of God is some property of human beings that shows a resemblance to God - especially the fact that each human being has reason and will, that is, the ability to know the truth and to obey the truth."

Ch 9 The Glorious Ruin, Human Nature After the Fall

Chapters 8 and 9 are good general Bible studies on the relevant scripture passages. Very readable and would be a good resource for adult Sunday School classes on these topics.

p138 References Paul's words on the fall from Romans 5 and 8.

p142 Discusses the "death" in "you shall surely die" with spiritual death and quotes Prov 12:28, 23:13-14 along with again referencing Romans 5. So he is not in the "no death before Adam" camp.

p145 Quotes G. K. Chesterton on original sin.

p146 A reasonable discussion in response to claims that Christians can trust science done by non-Christians. Quotes Warfield in saying that Christians are "in no position to produce a science different in kind from that produced by sinful man.". This was answering a question I would not have asked, but it is interesting to me to see what kind of objections that Christian philosophers and theologians have to deal with.

Ch 10 How "Fallen" is Nature?

p147 Calvin attributed "fleas, caterpillars and other noxious insects" to the Fall. Others argue that all animals were vegetarians. Still others attribute natural disasters such as earthquakes to the fall. Some use Isaiah 11:6-9 about the ideal age "the lion shall eat straw like the ox" to suggest that all animals revert to their "pre-Fall" vegetarian diets. Also use Paul's lament in Romans 8:20-22.

p148 Argues that Gen 3:14-15 isn't about snakes at all but that the punishment is directed at Satan. Invokes a number of scriptures to support this view. The scriptures about man bruising the serpent's head is Messianic - not man in general but the Messiah.

p150-151 Deals with "cursed is the ground" . Raises the problem of a fundamental "changing of the ground" and the implication that all of nature is changed at the fall. Some even suggest that this was the point that the increasing entropy associated with the 2nd Law entered at this point. But he invokes Deut 28:17-18 and following to argue that the change involved their unfaithfulness. Also uses fact that this ground is outside of Eden. He comes to the conclusion that "All this means that Genesis does not suggest that the properties of the ground or plants have changed as a result of man's fall, nor does it even hint that God created new creatures to trouble man; instead, God will use the properties he gave to the ground and plants and animals to discipline his sinful creatures."

p152 In "What Did Lions Eat Before the Fall" he quotes the Gen 1:29-30 veggie passage and the Isaiah 11:1-10 lion and lamb passage , and the Gen 2:17 threat of death which some use for "no death before the fall".

p153 Goes to Psalm 104 to argue that in the post-fall world God provides for the animals "These all look to you for their food in due season." Generally takes the position that the extremes described on pgs 150-151 come from poor interpretation.

p154 Argues strongly against "no death before the fall". "If we think that animal death would be a blot on the goodness of the creation, we're out of step with Psalm 104. But we have no reason to believe that the Bible teaches that no animal died before the fall."

p159 In these general chapters, he ends with a reflection on how it affects science. In this chapter he makes the points:

God made the world a good place, and it remains a good place.
Mankind has gone bad.
We experience pain and suffereing, not because the world is corrupt, but because we are.
We have no Biblical warrant for arguing that animal death is a result of man's fall.

p159 Proceeds to conclude that there is no theological problem with ancient fossils

p159 "animal death is not part of the problem of evil." Last paragraph excellent in my view. "That means that when people try to argue for a young earth by saying that an old earth involves evil (expecially animals dying), or when others argue against believing in God at all in view of "nature red in tooth and claw", they are making a theological mistake."

Ch 11 How Does God Rule the World?, The Biblical Doctrine of Providence

p165 Col 1:17 and Hebrews 1:3 Christ upholds the universe, Ps 104 Maintenance of life, Mt 10:29-30 the fall of a sparrow, a natural event but under God's control.

p168 His definition of Natural and Supernatural events.

p169 "God's purpose in making the world was to have a relationship with mankind. ... The great supernatural events of the Bible ... have to do with advancing this purpose." Lays out five qualifications dealing with "Natural" and "Supernatural".

p170 Occasionalism - no causal powers at all from created things - everything comes from the direct action of God

p171 Providentialism - everything that happens is a natural event, that is, everything that happens is ordinary providence. He classifies the British author Donald MacKay as a providentialist. He takes the position that the Bible doesn't support it.

p174 Open theism - the future is open and not even God knows what it will be. ..."God and man together craft the future with their free choices." God doesn't know the future because it doesn't exist yet. He thinks Ephesians 1:11 and Isaiah 45:20-21 wipes out this position by suggesting that God knows the future and controls it. Another difficulty is that God can't offer assurance to His people if He doesn't know the future.

p176 Deism -

p177 Providence and Science "world is reliable and knowable .."

p178 "Bible leads me to believe that the world is mostly made up of regularities I can study..." "God does what He does in order to pursue a relationship with mankind: in general the supernatural events in the Bible have to do with advancing that cause ... " lists examples.

p19 Paul Helm "The exact sense in which objects which are distinct from God are yet upheld by him is difficult to get clear ... It should be stressed that this upholding, being metaphysical or ontological in character, is physically undetectable."

Ch 12 God Reveals Himself in His World, Science, Faith and Apologetics

p181 "natural revelation" and "creational revelation" are his terms for the way in which the created world speaks to us of its Creator.

p184 Discussion of Psalm 19:1-6 as showing the believer God's greatness in His creation. Also Psalm 8. Calls it "Genesis 1 set to music."

p184 Also Psalm 29, 93, 104.

p186 Argues that OT mainly speaks to believers, so is not much into apologetics. Invokes Isaiah 44:9-20 to talk about the foolishness of idols as the closest thing to arguing against pagan beliefs.

p189 Acts 14:15-17 Paul speaking to pagans about God as creator and some about common grace. Appeals to natural revelation.

p196 section on Romans 1:18-21

p200 quotes Winnie the Pooh, C.S. Lewis and Jay Budziszewski, and eclectic discourse! Also alludes to Francis Schaeffer. About how the heart affects our interpretation.

p201 I kick in with his description on bottom of p201 about the questions that science might raise about the world that would encourage exploration of faith. "Why is there something rather than nothing? Why is it that we can understand the world, and describe it with something so rational as mathematics? ,,,, How great is the universe and could it have caused itself or does it require a cause? Why should the universe be so well-suited for our enjoyment?"

Ch 13 Caring for God's World, The Biblical View of the Environment

p203 This is a brief reflection on key Christian teachings about the environment.

p205 "Psalm 8 is based on the story of Genesis 1, and sees man's dominion still in effect."

p206 "Psalm 104 celebrates how the world keeps on working, including to serve man."

p206 "The world is a delightful and fascinating place, expressing God's creativity in so many ways; and thes expressions are delightful, even if we never get to use them or even see them." Proverbs 30.

Ch 14: Science, Providence and Miracle

p215 Sharp criticism for Rudolph Bultmann and for the Jesus Seminar for their disrespect for the Biblical record, including the supernatural.

p216 Reiterates definitions of Natural and Supernatural and discusses the role of science in describing for us the normal operations of the world -- as long as there is no interference.

p219 Cites Hume as discouraging the belief in any supernatural, and to counter Hume Geivett and Habermas' "In Defense of Miracles", C.S. Lewis "Miracles" and his own "God of Miracles".

p220 Two types of determinism - one embodied in "God makes sure that everything that happens serves his purposes. ... God's plan determines what happens, and nothing takes him by surprise."

p220 A physical determinism would suggest that "nature is a closed system that follows its own inexorable laws."

p221 Discusses quantum theory and the uncertainty principle.

p222 A bit on the Copenhagen interpretation and the many worlds hypothesis.

p223 quotes Polkinhorne on correspondence principle.

p223 comments on chaos theory

p225 Uncertainty, miracles and human freedom. Discourages Christians from trying to find room for freedom in quantum uncertainty.

p225 He does tackle the real problem of human freedom of will and thought. "Your thoughts are your brain patterns. But then physical determinism means there's no reason to think that your thoughts are true, as we saw earlier. But physical indeterminance doesn't help us either. To say that a thought is true is not to say that nothing determines it; rather it is to say that something beyond the physical determines it. I reason that two marbles plus two marbles in the cup makes four marbles in the cup because Reason, not brain chemistry, govern my thought. But that's nothing like saying the chemistry is uncertain; it's instead saying that something else uses the chemistry to express the thought."

"Actually, as I already observed, appeals to quantum uncertainty wouldn't help us anyhow, since the uncertainty applies to a scale that is too small to have an effect on my brain chemistry."

"I don't believe anything will explain our ability to think true thoughts and to grasp moral truths except our soul; nor do I think anyone needs to explain everything that happens only in terms of physical causes."

p226 "The Christian doctrine of providence says that God's purpose has the final say in whatever happens, and that this purpose is holy, wise and good."

p226 "The two most dangerous arguments against Christianity have always been the claim that we can explain everything without referring to God (what I call 'the problem of the redundant deity'), and the claim that the existence of evil in the world means that God's will is not supreme - either God is not all-powerful, or else he is not all good and wise, and therefore God in the traditional sense does not exist ('the problem of evil'). Christian apologists have dealt with these arguments for ages: the famous 'five ways' of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) - five kinds of arguing for God's existence - speak to the first objection, for example."

p226 Ways in which the sciences seem to present us with the problem of evil:

The vastness of space seems to suggest that the universe is indifferent to us.
The vastness of space says that it is unbearably arrogant to think that any heavenly being should care about our lives.
The history of life on earth - the strange and fascinating creatures that have lived here but are now extinct, such as dinosaurs - shows that the universe is wasteful.
The ways that some animals are parasites on others - such as wasps that lay eggs inside caterpillars, which then hatch into parasites to the caterpillars - shows that the universe is cruel.

The last half of this chapter is to me the most outstanding material that I have read so far in the book.

p227-228 I would like to just quote in entirety - quotes from C.S. Lewis and J. I. Packer as well as his own observations are outstanding.

Ch 15 How Old is the Earth? - Cosmology and Geology.

p230 Cosmology and the Big Bang

p231 Quotes the standard science numbers 14 Gy to big bang, 4.5 Gy age of Earth, and 3.5 Gy beginning of life.

p231 Invokes Polkinghorne and quotes his paragraph on the beginning of lfe on Earth.

p232 Interesting bio material on Lemaitre. "Then in 1927 Georges Lemaitre, a Belgian Jesuit who had studied astrophysics at Cambridge, published a paper that solved Einstein's mathematical equations with an expanding universe. But this had consequences: an expanding universe would then have a beginning!" From North, "Norton History of Astronomy and Cosmology": "Lemaitre had been ordained abbe in 1923. His science had strong theological relevance for him. An initial singularity was not something to be avoided, but a positive merit, a token of God's creation of the world."

Audio/Video Reference

R Nave