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Mikaele
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Is there an irreconcilable difference between science and theology? Why/why not?
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phoooiee
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No, because theology answers the “why” and science answers the “how”.
The two work together.
The two work together.
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Katholish
Guest
There is a difference between the physical sciences and theology, but they are not in conflict. Truth is truth. Both claim to describe reality as it truly is, and the law of non-contradiction rules out the possibility that two conflicting statements could be simultaneously true.
I think the Medievals actually had a clearer sense of this insofar as the term science for them simply referred to an organized body of knowledge with its own object and methods. Thus, Physics was a science, but so was Philosophy. Chemistry was a science, but so was Theology.
Chemistry cannot be irreconcilable with Physics just as Philosophy cannot be irreconcilable with Theology or any other body of knowledge.
I think the Medievals actually had a clearer sense of this insofar as the term science for them simply referred to an organized body of knowledge with its own object and methods. Thus, Physics was a science, but so was Philosophy. Chemistry was a science, but so was Theology.
Chemistry cannot be irreconcilable with Physics just as Philosophy cannot be irreconcilable with Theology or any other body of knowledge.
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greylorn
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Yes. The First Law of Thermodynamics says that energy cannot be created or destroyed. Therefore God cannot have created it.
This is contrary to the belief that God created all things.
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danserr
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The first law is a physical law, it only applies once the universe exists. It does nothing to show that God couldn’t have created it and then the law takes effect.
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danserr
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That’s like asking if there is a contradiction between science and history, or history and literature. They are two separate fields. Science is the study of the physical universe, Theology is the study of God. At most science could say that there are no scientific reasons to believe in God (which there are, such as the second law of thermodynamics), but we could still justify believing in God on the basis of some other argument for theism.
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edwest2
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The two areas overlap at some points. The “how,” “why” argument is not always applicable.
The point is, either God actually intervened in history or He did not. Secularists insist that everything happened by itself. In the final analysis, all Christians cannot ignore the fact of Jesus Christ and His gospel. The mission of the Catholic Church is to spread the gospel to the whole world.
Whenever any scientist uses scientific claims to call the Bible mythical, he violates truth and he confuses the public.
Peace,
Ed
The point is, either God actually intervened in history or He did not. Secularists insist that everything happened by itself. In the final analysis, all Christians cannot ignore the fact of Jesus Christ and His gospel. The mission of the Catholic Church is to spread the gospel to the whole world.
Whenever any scientist uses scientific claims to call the Bible mythical, he violates truth and he confuses the public.
Peace,
Ed
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puzzleannie
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no, that would be like saying there are ID’s between the disciplines of history and mathematics, there are ways of studying and explaining two different things.
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greylorn
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Nonsense. Your statement applies to all laws of physics which include time as a parameter. However, the First Law is time independent.
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PJM
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No… there is room and in an absolute sense; a need for Both! Both have essential roles to fulfill; and by necessity each MUST recogonize the others merits. There is the real issue
God Bless,
Pat
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excubitor
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In the last century there has been an increasingly pervasive blurring of the demarcation between Science and Philosophy. In classical Science it was understood that science dealt with natural things which could be tested and verified. Philosophy handled origins and metaphysical aspects of the universe which could be theorised about but which could not be proven because it was impossible to test and verify using the scientific method.
In these modern days a great deal of what passes for science. eg. Heliocentrism, gravitation, cosmology and evolution are well and truly in the realm of philosophy and are in fact pseudo-sciences.
Therefore it is true that there can be no contradiction between faith and science, however there can be a contradiction between faith and philosophy. Many philosophies are vain philosophies of this world which are set against God, the church and the scriptures.
Pope JP2 remarked on this tendancy of Science to dabble in the fields which are outside its proper purview. In his Galileo speech he stated
"What is important in a scientific or philosophic theory is above all that it should be true or, at least, seriously and solidly grounded. And the purpose of your Academy is precisely to discern and to make known, in the present state of science and within its proper limits, what can be regarded as an acquired truth or at least as enjoying such a degree of probability that it would be imprudent and unreasonable to reject it. In this way unnecessary conflicts can be avoided. "
Notice how he includes a reference to philosophic theory in addressing a body of scientists. He also infers that many theories of science lack a degree of probability and as such are causing unnecessary conflict. He also infers that science is exceeding its proper limits by encroaching in philosophical theories which are inadequately grounded.
Therefore it is clear that science which is inadequately grounded, engaged outside its proper limits and which lacks a degree of probability is certainly in conflict with faith.
In these modern days a great deal of what passes for science. eg. Heliocentrism, gravitation, cosmology and evolution are well and truly in the realm of philosophy and are in fact pseudo-sciences.
Therefore it is true that there can be no contradiction between faith and science, however there can be a contradiction between faith and philosophy. Many philosophies are vain philosophies of this world which are set against God, the church and the scriptures.
Pope JP2 remarked on this tendancy of Science to dabble in the fields which are outside its proper purview. In his Galileo speech he stated
"What is important in a scientific or philosophic theory is above all that it should be true or, at least, seriously and solidly grounded. And the purpose of your Academy is precisely to discern and to make known, in the present state of science and within its proper limits, what can be regarded as an acquired truth or at least as enjoying such a degree of probability that it would be imprudent and unreasonable to reject it. In this way unnecessary conflicts can be avoided. "
Notice how he includes a reference to philosophic theory in addressing a body of scientists. He also infers that many theories of science lack a degree of probability and as such are causing unnecessary conflict. He also infers that science is exceeding its proper limits by encroaching in philosophical theories which are inadequately grounded.
Therefore it is clear that science which is inadequately grounded, engaged outside its proper limits and which lacks a degree of probability is certainly in conflict with faith.
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djwright4341
Guest
It is also a physical law that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, but the universe expanded faster than the speed of light in the first seconds after the big bang. There are different Hebrew verbs used for “created” in the Genesis creation story. One is “bara” that implies something being created from nothing and only ever has God as its grammatical subject. One place where it is used is when God created the heavens and the earth. The other Hebrew verb “yastar” implies fashioning something from something else and is used enough during the creation story that it almost supports the Theory of Evolution.
God also created man, who created the First Law of Thermodynamics, so I think He could choose to ignore it.
Science does a good job of allowing us to understand the world in which we live. Religion is for understanding the world in which our world lives.
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danserr
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- The first law governs everything in space-time, but not he origin of spacetime itself.
- Most cosmologists believe precisely this when they hold to the Big Bang Cosmology
- regularity theory- laws are not laws, but only descriptions of how things happen.
- nomic necessity theory- natural laws are not only descriptions, but tell what can and can’t happen.
- causal dispositions theory- things in the world have different natures or essences that include their causal dispositions to affect other things in certain ways.
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greylorn
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As I recall, the brief increase in lightspeed was an idea inserted into a model of post BigBang mechanics by a pair of very bright mathematicians about 10 years ago, in an attempt to improve upon the inflation model of post-Bang mechanics. I thought that it was a terrible kludge, and failed to account for the myriad of spacetime-related constants which depend upon lightspeed.
To refer to a mathematical hypothesis inserted into a twine and chicken-wire model of post BigBang mechanics as if it was a scientific fact is unworthy of someone with a good mind. Or was that a test?
Conversations with a casual friend who studies ancient Hebrew confirms your implication that translations from it can get sloppy, especially when the target language lacks comparable nuances available in the original. So I request that you expand upon your knowledge. Which Chapter and Verse was “bara” used in? Was “yastar” used in all other translations of “create,” or are other, more nuanced words part of the Hebrew text?
For a long time I’d regarded Genesis with little interest, given that archaeological evidence says that the Hebrews did not develop a written language until a few millennia after the time of the creation story, plus the scientific evidence indicating that the Genesis tales had little to do with how things actually got done.
But I recently learned from a Catholic priest’s seminar that the two distinct creation stories in Genesis were written by two Jews living in North and South Babylon during the captivity, who cribbed their stories from the Babylonians, who in turn had gotten them from the Greeks. Much more interesting and plausible, given the penchant of ancient Greeks to study odd ideas, develop some science and mathematics.
I wonder how much you know of those aspects of language and history, and are willing to share?
We don’t actually create the laws of physics. We discover those which already exist.
Just like mathematics. You’ll notice that the only thing all people and all cultures agree upon are mathematics and the basic laws of physics. That’s because these cannot be invented— only discovered.
I propose that this is true of mathematics and the Three Laws of Thermodynamics with respect to God. The other, secondary laws of physics are His work.
A lot of physicists are into computer modeling, in which hypothetical laws of physics and various parameters are fed into a supercomputer as initial conditions for a problem, to see what happens by way of solution. So far the process has managed to yield considerable dollars from the documentary channels, not much real science that I know of. Don’t confuse that garbage with science.
I don’t know what that means. Second derivative of world, but with respect to what? Poetic, but a bit too abstruse for me. I figure that you’re trying to say something cool about the relationship between religion and science, or practicing “impress a chick” lines.
I’d just like to see science and religion working together to help people figure out how best to get about their lives, what values to choose, what courses of action to take, how to answer legitimate questions about human purpose and general meaning. Chicks don’t give a hoot about such things, trust me on that.
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greylorn
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Danseer–
Well said. Meaning, I think that I understand what you are saying. My comments:
I disagree. I would not say that it “governs” the origin of spacetime, a process managed by the Creator. Nonetheless, He was constrained by the First Law in the development of spacetime dependent energy geometries.
Well, yeah— and that’s one of many reasons why I hold cosmological theories in about the same high regard as Darwinism and dead squirrels.
These nits have concluded that the precursor to the BigBang was a physical singularity. No such thing can exist. Until they figure this out I’m not taking them too seriously. They are grossly overpaid.
That’s a bit fancy and formal for me. I’ve never heard of these formalizations. But in the course of solving various physics and engineering problems, and thinking about such things, I’d have to say that all physical laws come into one of these philosophically descriptive categories.
This is because use of the word “law” to describe a regular physical phenomenon was really stupid. Laws as used in governance are totally arbitrary. Not so with the “laws” of physics and other aspects of natural phenomenon.
Some are absolute laws, such as the fundamental Thermodynamic principles. God Himself cannot change these, and is naturally constrained by them in the process of creation—
Code:
which includes the implementation of various energy dependent geometries, including the basic principles of physics (any equation with an E to the left of the equal sign).So, by my understanding, we have
*]Absolute laws (God cannot change them),
*]Secondary laws (God devised them but can’t change them without screwing up the entire universe),
*]Engineering applications of basic principles (the kind of ugly equations oft scribbled on student forearms before finals),
*]Models— “what if” thought or supercomputer experiments, or good working approximations of laws and applications which, when applied to our version of how the world is, have no analytic mathematical solutions.
*]Working principles, which are soul-level understandings of how these various laws and applications interconnect to make things, or the universe itself, work. (No one has figured out that last one.)
*]There’s another arcane kind of law/principle/whatever, but it’s too late at night for me to think of it.
That’s the same old argument I keep getting from religionists, but much more elegantly phrased. Still, a pig in designer jeans and halter top, wearing shades and lipstick, is still a pig when the trappings come off.
You are proposing two levels of possibility— physical and supernatural. Religions have been doing that for millennia to the same effect. Your “physical” possibilities are those which we can trust because they work in the real world. They are the possibilities that you count on when you board an aircraft or drive a car.
Your “supernatural” possibilities are anything you want them to be, things invented by man to support a belief system invented by primitive goat herders who thought that the earth was flat.
I cannot deny that such possibilities exist, but since different religions have their own subsets of these notions, I don’t trust them.
Moreover, they are totally unnecessary, and they interfere with any legitimate, logical, fact based description of how God might have accomplished Creation.
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PJM
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Me a dummy
If God didn’t create [or cause it to be]… Who, What, where and Why?
God bless,
Pat
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Glennonite
Guest
This law is a good axiom for the universe AFTER it started. Anything BEFORE the Big Bang can only be conjecture. At that “time”, God, (being the prime mover) was therefore independent of any laws (which He set up).
Now, if one says that there is no God, OK. Then whatever was prior to the Big Bang did not necessarily follow any of the physical laws that currently operate in the universe now.
In either case, I see no conflict with God and science, only conflicts in Man’s temporary understanding of scientific theories (which of course is the nature of the scientic-method). Science is the self-correcting pursuit of natural laws which God created.
Glennonite
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greylorn
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You’re not a dummy— yet. The opportunity to be one will arise.Me a dummy
If God didn’t create [or cause it to be]… Who, What, where and Why?
God bless,
Pat
The answer to your question is contained within the law itself. If energy cannot be created or destroyed, the remaining alternative is that it has always existed.
Imagine pre-creation energy in an unformed, homogeneously distributed state— a kind of super silly-putty waiting for God to make some toys with it.
I know that this notion is contrary to common monotheistic belief systems. Remember that the God-created-everything-from-nothing belief was invented by people whose limited understanding of how the universe was structured was at the Aristotelian fire, water, earth, and air stage.
Were the God concept invented today, from scratch, I think that it would include the best of our current understandings of physics. Might you agree on that?
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greylorn
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You seem to have adopted an absurd belief of cosmological pseudo-science and imagine that it can be integrated with your belief in God. The Big Bang never happened. To begin with, it requires a physical singularity, which cannot exist. Then it hypothesizes that this magical “singularity” exploded without cause. That pair of dumb ideas is contrary to every known principle of physics.
Functionally, Big Bang theory is identical to the belief in an omnipotent God.
Your comment about “prior to the big bang…” implies a time dependent relationship between God and energy. However this is not possible, since the laws of thermodynamics are time-independent.
You might consider the possibility that physics can inform our concept of the Creator and bring that old theory, invented by tent-dwelling goat-herders, lovely, pious people who invaded the lands of others in the name of their God and murdered their previous owners, into the 21st century.
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Glennonite
Guest
Dang…you seem kind harsh, Greylorn. I’m a big-boy but I gotta say, using such words as: **absurd, dumb, nits, and nonsense **when addressing people of good-will who are discussing a topic of interest…dang, man. You could be kinder and still get your point across.
re: the time-independence of thermoldynamics.; I think that is debatable. Within our universe’s spacetime, sure, definately. Prior to the beginning of the universe, (Big Bang or otherwise) it’s anybody’s guess. BTW, I think Big Bang can be a plausable theory with or without God; similar, but not sine quo non.
Whether God is the prime-mover or something else, I think “before” the universe,
matter and energy, time and space must not have existed, and therefore, neither did any laws which would govern them.
Lastly, I quote Kevin Kline in A Fish Called Wanda, “Don’t call me stupid.”
Glennonite
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