Science and religion

[Benedict_Broere]

I’m very sorry, but I cannot think of anything that is more actual than this proposed by Greylorn: ”I am proposing, not promoting, ideas intended to integrate the concept of a Creator with the facts and principles of science.’ As this is brought in the centre of attention by the head of the Catholic Church in the person of Pope Benedict XIV, when he stated in his speech at Regensburg:

“And so I come to my conclusion. This attempt, painted with broad strokes, at a critique of modern reason from within has nothing to do with putting the clock back to the time before the Enlightenment and rejecting the insights of the modern age. The positive aspects of modernity are to be acknowledged unreservedly: We are all grateful for the marvelous possibilities that it has opened up for mankind and for the progress in humanity that has been granted to us. The scientific ethos, moreover, is the will to be obedient to the truth, and, as such, it embodies an attitude which reflects one of the basic tenets of Christianity.

The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application. While we rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these possibilities and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them.

We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons. In this sense theology rightly belongs in the university and within the wide-ranging dialogue of sciences, not merely as a historical discipline and one of the human sciences, but precisely as theology, as inquiry into the rationality of faith.”

There is a choice here to be made.

Greylorn: ”I am proposing, not promoting, ideas intended to integrate the concept of a Creator with the facts and principles of science.’

Are our traditional beliefs coherent with the facts of science?
How are believers to survive in a secular science-oriented environment with anything, else than an updated, convincing, hard-dieing, coherent, consistent, science-oriented, view on God and creation?
Any idea’s ???

 

[Liraco]

Are our traditional beliefs coherent with the facts of science?
How are believers to survive in a secular science-oriented environment with anything, else than an updated, convincing, hard-dieing, coherent, consistent, science-oriented, view on God and creation?

We know, in fact, that truth cannot contradict truth (cf. Leo XIII, encyclical Providentissimus Deus). - source

Are our beliefs coherent with science? Yes, though keep in mind that the Bible is not meant to be taken as a science book (because that’s not its purpose). So many people claim that the “6,000 year old earth” or creation of everything with no mention of dinosaurs (therefore no evolution) is proof enough that it’s false when in fact they prove NOTHING. They’re trying to take it all word for word with no understanding and no context.

So I don’t see the problem or reason to worry about anything. If your own faith is lacking then pray and read more to reinforce it through knowledge. It’s ignorance that you should fear and which draws many away from Truth.

How are we to survive? By doing what Christians have been doing for centuries: following the Church and her teachings to better serve God while living our lives as best we can.

I notice some sense of alarm in this post but see reason for none of it. Science is not an enemy, on the contrary, it’s an ally. Thanks to it we have such advanced medicine and technology like what we’re using here, right now to “speak” to one another. Just because some choose to use it for evil doesn’t mean it’s all evil.

So then what is your real worry?

 

[chewchoo]

biologos.org/

The BioLogos Foundation promotes the search for truth in both the natural and spiritual realms seeking harmony between these different perspectives.

 

[Drawmack]

I think you’re asking a question based on a flawed principle. Allow me to extrapolate.

What we are really talking about here is a story, a nonfiction story, but a story none the less. It is the story of the Universe and the story of how we got to where we are.

Any first year English major can tell you that any well written story answers six questions: who, what, where, when, why, and how. We already know the answers to two of these questions. When is eternity, always and forever, from time’s beginning unto its end. Where is everywhere, the Universe is everything (at least everything material), it is all encompassing which is why it has the prefix uni. So this leaves four other questions to answer: who, what, why, and how.

Science addresses two of these: what and how. Theology addresses two of these: who and why. So, not only are these compatible but if you deny either of them you are missing 1/3 of the story and 1/2 of the non-obvious components.

 

[Benedict_Broere]

I was a bit irritated by the sudden closing down of this thread:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=341289
Because I think Greylorn in this comes up with a serious point.

Anywhey, Biologos is a very good thing. I read them a lot.
Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme and Barbara Marx Hubbard also are inspiring.

Personally I regularly meet atheists that think religion is a kind of mental defect.
And I can give them a whole array of, at least I think, decisive arguments in favour of the existence of something really creative behind the universe. But they don’t even listen.
They know in advance that God is projection, opiate, disease to overcome.

And on the other side I often meet this naive Jesus-tralala knowing Absolute Truth.
And then I start to think my atheist-friends might be right after all.

So.
I am religious. But I don’t want to be religious in contradiction with science.
Therefore, for instance, Biologos, Swimme.
And I think the old man in Rome is on the same track, when he speaks of ‘an inquiry into the rationality of faith’.

 

[Liraco]

In light of not responding to our answers, how about you telling us what your question really is then?

Science and religion have no qualms. Knowledge is not an enemy of faith.

So then, what’s bothering you?

 

[Benedict_Broere]

Oh well, in the thread I pointed at I presented this for instance:

“Some years ago I had a very long discussion with atheists and materialists, scientists and philosophers from christian origin. And lots of different arguments passed by, but in the end they came up with their real almost gutfeeling-like arguments. Of which one was the occurrence of a disease with which a child can be born and that is not curable, what means this child will die in horrible agony. And this made them impossible to believe in any God, while if God, especially a perfect God, it must be a criminal. And well, it didn’t give me a complete mindshift, but it certainly made me think.”

And it still puzzles me.

 

[chewchoo]

meghansmiracles.com/
this child is going on 6 years old. she was born healthy, and then at a few months old her health deteriorated. no diagnosis has ever been made for her. she can’t talk or walk and she can’t breathe on her own, but she is bringing many people to God. God has his reasons for the meghans of the world. God’s ways aren’t man’s ways.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Benedict

*And it still puzzles me. *

The problem of evil is not going to be solved by questioning whether God is the source of evil. If God allows evil, why does He even more so allow good?

Perhaps God allows nature to go awry from time to time, producing human catastrophes along the way, for reasons that we are not allowed to understand. Human misery sometimes seems to us a complete waste, whereas for those who are suffering it may be the avenue to something wonderful. For one thing, it may be purgatory on earth. For another, it may be the reason for confronting God for the first time. For still another it may be the reason for seeing God as merciful redeemer. And finally it may be the consequence of wrong actions freely chosen … as in the case of many who die from alcoholism, drug abuse, or AIDS.

We are allowed to know some of God’s purposes, but not all of them, or we would be God. Nor do we know how God compensates those who become innocent victims of crime or natural disasters. The calculus of pain and pleasure, reward and punishment, is for God to figure out, not us.

The notion that God should behave according to our desires or our sense of fair play is, on our part, presumptuous to say the least. It is enough to know that our God never asks from us more suffering than He willingly endured for us on a cross of His own making.

In no other religion is there so merciful a God. :bible1:

 

[Liraco]

I agree, you won’t get very far questioning the existence of God by what is wrong in the world.

I recommend you begin by reading paragraph 309 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for some help on the matter.

The question of why there is evil in the world and why God allows it is a valid one but you can’t expect an atheist to accept our reasons for it in a simple manner because they only think in terms of man and themselves.

 

[Benedict_Broere]

Probably this is pure blasfemy, but I was thinking of a limited God, in the sense that He brought this universe into being, but only later on realised what this would mean for us humans appearing only in the latter pages of the creation, us delicate beings, fragile beings, very much capable of suffering. And that this also is the reason why He appeared among us in the person of Jesus Christ, as a statement of solidarity.

You see, in fact we don’t know that much about God, but when I meet atheists and agnostics, and when they shoot at me with words like ‘Holocaust’ and ‘horrible diseases’ and ‘evolution’, I want to tell a reasonable story. Especially when I’m referring to a religion that in the person of its main leader is stating that it takes science very seriously.

Religion in the modern world all the time is faced with the kind of questions I propose. Its an ongoing process. And I see religion melting awy by that. Or becoming fundamentalist. Or becoming eclectic. New Age. Whatever.

Modern science-oriented but also religious people tend to ask questions, despite of tradition, despite of authority. Its the difficult path you are almost forced to go, in the face of what science tells us about this ongoing creation, and in the face of critique you meet all the time.

 

[Liraco]

Probably this is pure blasfemy, but I was thinking of a limited God, in the sense that He brought this universe into being, but only later on realised what this would mean for us humans appearing only in the latter pages of the creation, us delicate beings, fragile beings, very much capable of suffering. And that this also is the reason why He appeared among us in the person of Jesus Christ, as a statement of solidarity.

What I highlighted above says volumes on why you find a hard time giving a reasonable answer to things like The Holocaust or Evolution (the latter being extremely easy to dismiss for Catholics).

A limited “god” is by definition not truly God. I urge you to really go into learning what the Church truly teaches. Listening to Catholic Answers Live would be a good start and there’s a lot of other sources as well! I can understand your fears of science vs. religion but are unfounded once you delve deeper. Confusion only arises from lack of knowing.

You see, in fact we don’t know that much about God, but when I meet atheists and agnostics, and when they shoot at me with words like ‘Holocaust’ and ‘horrible diseases’ and ‘evolution’, I want to tell a reasonable story.

We will never know Him fully or else we’d be God, but we CAN understand a lot because He chose to reveal it.

Religion in the modern world all the time is faced with the kind of questions I propose. Its an ongoing process. And I see religion melting awy by that. Or becoming fundamentalist. Or becoming eclectic. New Age. Whatever.

Only things established by MAN like the New Age movement and everything that’s risen throughout the ages has PASSED. The Catholic Church has stood its ground despite all that’s been thrown at it (including bad men within it) because it’s not man but God who keeps it going as He promised.

Modern science-oriented but also religious people tend to ask questions, despite of tradition, despite of authority. Its the difficult path you are almost forced to go, in the face of what science tells us about this ongoing creation, and in the face of critique you meet all the time.

Questions are a GOOD thing, and you SHOULD be asking them because it’s ignorance which makes us doubt, which makes us weak, which makes us easily swayed by anything. So again, I urge you to take these questions and apply the effort to learn more on the subject because it feels like you’ve a lot of doubt and no solid footing to stand on. Build your house on rock, not sand.

I’ll pray for you that you may continue growing in understanding of this faith (as I too am doing)

 

[Benedict_Broere]

I don’t know wether all this will satisfy the modern mind.
catholicity.com/encyclopedia/e/evil.html

You could say: this childs horrible disease is a very unfortunate event that happens because there are plants and animals and mankind, as earthquakes and tornadoes happen because there are planets, as supernovae happen because there are stars, as anything horrible happens because there is something, there is this creation.

But I know this modern inquisitive, skeptic and at revelation laughing mind will ask: well, but He dit it, didn’t He? When all this powerfull and allknowing, He choose the whole thing to be, this creation, including this child, this in horrible agony dying child. He is a criminal. Or He just is not, and was never. While some people just die in such horror, because that’s in the nature of this stupid accidental universe we just accidentally happen to be in.

Or: is there God, but one we can look up to, well knowing of kids dying in horror, and well knowing of Gods innocence in this, and of His solidarity with us ???

 

[Liraco]

To quote C. S. Lewis, “Is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us? Well, take your choice. The tortures occur. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are [good]. For no even moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren’t” (A Grief Observed).

(“good” substituting “necessary” in the original quote)

“For those who love God, all things work together for the good,” Paul of Tarsus wrote (Rom. 8:28). Suffering, rejection, sickness, even death had meaning for them, since all of these connected them with the suffering and victory of Christ crucified. Because of this, Christians did not live in a chaotic, hopeless universe but in a world that reflected God’s love for them and his ultimate victory over sin and death.

Vicarious atonement, the innocent suffering for the guilty, “my life for yours”: This great mystery lies at the very heart, at the very crux, of Christianity—and of reality, if Christianity is true.

I highly recommend you read this article on suffering: catholic.com/thisrock/2002/0203fea1.asp

 

[warpspeedpetey]

I’m very sorry, but I cannot think of anything that is more actual than this proposed by Greylorn: ”I am proposing, not promoting, ideas intended to integrate the concept of a Creator with the facts and principles of science.’ As this is brought in the centre of attention by the head of the Catholic Church in the person of Pope Benedict XIV, when he stated in his speech at Regensburg:

“And so I come to my conclusion. This attempt, painted with broad strokes, at a critique of modern reason from within has nothing to do with putting the clock back to the time before the Enlightenment and rejecting the insights of the modern age. The positive aspects of modernity are to be acknowledged unreservedly: We are all grateful for the marvelous possibilities that it has opened up for mankind and for the progress in humanity that has been granted to us. The scientific ethos, moreover, is the will to be obedient to the truth, and, as such, it embodies an attitude which reflects one of the basic tenets of Christianity.

The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application. While we rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these possibilities and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them.

We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons. In this sense theology rightly belongs in the university and within the wide-ranging dialogue of sciences, not merely as a historical discipline and one of the human sciences, but precisely as theology, as inquiry into the rationality of faith.”

There is a choice here to be made.

Greylorn: ”I am proposing, not promoting, ideas intended to integrate the concept of a Creator with the facts and principles of science.’

Are our traditional beliefs coherent with the facts of science?
How are believers to survive in a secular science-oriented environment with anything, else than an updated, convincing, hard-dieing, coherent, consistent, science-oriented, view on God and creation?
Any idea’s ???

i think that the theistic position is the only logical one, as the arguement in the OP of the thread “science is worthless” points out.

as no scientific, natural explanation is possible, and Christain theism is entirely compatible with causality, and the observable conditions of the universe.

i see no reason any longer to accept atheism as a serious position, not to say that it isnt held ernestly and sincerely by some, but rather that it has no logically possible natural alternatives.

if there is no possible natural explanation, than what rational, objective, motivation can one have to be an atheist?

it seems atheism isnt so much dead, as it never really was alive.

 

[geometer]

Greylorn: ”I am proposing, not promoting, ideas intended to integrate the concept of a Creator with the facts and principles of science.’

Are our traditional beliefs coherent with the facts of science?
How are believers to survive in a secular science-oriented environment with anything, else than an updated, convincing, hard-dieing, coherent, consistent, science-oriented, view on God and creation?
Any idea’s ???

See my website…

www.theosopher.com