Does God control the weather, or is it due to natural causes?

The answer, of course, is both.

The BioLogos forum has a most interesting discussion of that question, which relates to origins. It’s well worth reading. This relates to the writings of Ian Barbour on possible relationships between Christianity and science.

Read the BioLogos Forum.

Can science and religion become integrated?

Can science and religion interact fruitfully with each other? I think so. I am not alone. Ian G. Barbour has been the leading voice, insisting that such cooperative interaction, or, as he puts it, Integration, is possible. He has categorized the possible interactions between science and religion as Conflict, Independence, Dialogue, and Integration, and argues that Integration is possible, and desirable. See here for scriptural reasons for Integration.

A recent issue of Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science (not readily available on the Internet) considers Barbour's ideas.

Taede A. Smedes, in "Beyond Barbour or Back to Basics? The Future of Science-and-Religion and the Quest for Unity," in the March, 2008 issue, pages 235-258, has some serious criticisms of Barbour. So does Sjoerd L. Bonting, in "Is There a Future for the Dialogue?" (pp. 227-234). Bonting defines science as the natural sciences, only, excluding most psychology from the natural sciences. He says that the different areas of the natural sciences ". . . develop theories from observations and experiments, frequently aided by mathematics." Religion, however, is harder to pin down, says Bonting. Religion is:
. . . a phenomenon with several facets, such as experience of the transcendent and the sacred, belief, spirituality, mysticism, prayer, worship, moral awareness, and theology. Because of its multifaceted nature I claim that religion is not a suitable partner for the dialogue with science. (p. 228)

Barbour is not quenched. "Taking Science Seriously Without Scientism: A Response to Taede Smedes," (pp. 259-269) is his response. He concludes his contribution by expressing his continued optimism for future constructive interaction between science and religion.

If God is the author of the objects that science studies, and has also revealed Himself through the Judaeo-Christian religion, then surely there is a place for positive accommodation between them, and Christians ought to work toward such positive accomodation.

Thanks for reading.

Science versus Christianity? I don't think so.

A commenter on a previous post said, in part:

The scientist Stephen J. Gould said the world can be divided into two "majesteria." One is the physical world of evidence and experimentation. This is where science goes. The other is the world of thoughts and conjecture and belief. This is the world of religion. . . .

The creationism/evolution debate is caused by people leaving their magesteria. Creationism and Intelligent design are unscientific, just as denial of a soul is atheistic. Thus, unless people want Darwinism to be taught in Church, they must stop trying to insert Creationism and ID into science class. One is supported by fact, one by millenia of scripture. They cannot and should not be mixed.

The reference is to Stephen Jay Gould, one of the great popularizers of biological science of the late twentieth century. In Rocks of Ages, one of his many books, Gould proposed that science and religion are Non-Overlapping Magisteria -- each is legitimate, but they don't have anything important to say to each other. On the face of it, that's an attractive view. Science can't answer a lot of "why?" questions, and religion doesn't produce valid equations for gravitational attraction. However, there are some problems with such a view.

This scheme results in the trivialization of religion. Science, after all, is based on facts, and religion is only a matter of opinion, it is often said. In a way, that's true, but there are opinions in "science" that masquerade as facts. For religious persons, the things that are believed are also facts, although they can't be demonstrated experimentally.

For the Christian, there is another problem. That problem is that God has revealed Himself to us in multiple ways, and it is shortsighted and dangerous to ignore any of these ways. (I am not attempting to cover the subject of all the ways God is revealed to us in this post.) Why do I say this? Because of the Biblical evidence. Psalm 19 and Romans 1 tell us, respectively, that
1 The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
2 Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
3 There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
4 Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.

and that "20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. . . ."

Not only that, but, as I was forcefully reminded in yesterday's sermon at the church I am presently attending:
Colossians 2:1 For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, 2 that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
(All quotes from the ESV)

If all treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in Christ, surely that includes knowledge about quarks and ecosystems, quartz and energy. How, then, can Christianity be isolated completely from science, or how can science be completely isolated from religion? I am not arguing that only Christians can do effective science, or that the New Testament is a primary text for courses in astrophysics or microbiology, but that Christ, the Bible, and scientific findings are all ways of knowing about God. Nor am I arguing that we correctly understand all scripture, or all scientific findings.

Ian Barbour has been a leader in what he calls integration of science and religion. I think that, rather than what Barbour calls "conflict" or "independence," is the proper relationship between these two important areas of human thought.

Thanks for reading.

Authors that try to integrate science & faith

I responded to a tag from Bonnie, indicating books that had meant a lot to me. One such category was books that try to integrate science and faith. John C. Polkinghorne has written several of these. Stephen M. Barr's Modern Physics and Ancient Faith is another good one. So is Ian Barbour's When Science Meets Religion: Enemies, Strangers, or Partners? Bonnie e-mailed me, saying that she had some interest in this type of book. I decided to publish my response to her, more or less, saying more about these books.

Barr is the deepest of the three, for the non-scientist, I think. This is from his first page:

The fact of the matter is that there is a bitter intellectual battle going on, and it is about real issues. However, the conflict is not between religion and science, it is between religion and materialism. Materialism is a philosophical opinion that is closely connected with science. It grew up alongside of science, and many people have a hard time distinguishing it from science. But it is not science. It is merely a philosophical opinion. And not all scientists share it by any means. In fact, there seem to be more scientists who are religious than who are materialists. Nevertheless, there are many, including very many scientists, who think that materialism is the scientific philosophy. The basic tenet of “scientific materialism” is that nothing exists except matter, and that everything in the world must therefore be the result of the strict mathematical laws of physics and blind chance. (p. 1) Stephen M. Barr, Modern Physics and Ancient Faith. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003.

A lot of it gets more scientific after that, but it's all relevant to integrating science and faith. Barr is a scientist by training, I believe.

Here's a sample of Polkinghorne, who has written quite a few books, generally not very long ones. Most any would do for an introduction to his thoughts on integrating science and faith:

Scientists, and theologians of a realist cast of mind, have one important commitment in common: they both believe that there is a truth to be found or, more realistically, to be approximated to. This belief does not entail a naive objectivity, either in subatomic physics or even less in theology. What we know of entities must conform to their nature and there is a necessarily veiled character to our encounter both with the quantum world and with God. Yet that encounter is a real meeting with something other than human thought, an exploration of what is and not just of what we choose to say. . . . The concepts we are considering cannot do the work that is needed to be done unless they have that ontological reference. A God who is just an internalized symbol of our commitment to the highest values may provide a focus for living but such a God is not the ground of hope in the face of death and beyond death. Unless there really is a God who really was "in Christ reconciling the world to himself" (2 Cor. 5:19), then the cross is no answer to the bitter problem of suffering in the world. John C. Polkinghorne, Belief in God in an Age of Science. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998. p. 45.

Polkinghorne's books are accessible to the intelligent reader.

Polkinghorne was trained as a scientist. My first introduction to him was when I was reading up on physics, after not having taught it for several years. I had no idea that I was reading anything other than an introduction to quantum mechanics, when, on the last couple of pages, I was astounded to discover that Polkinghorne was a believer. He eventually stopped practicing physics, and took theological training.

Ian Barbour is not an evangelical, as I read him, but I believe that he has something important to say. He argues (When Science Meets Religion: Enemies, Strangers, or Partners?) that Christianity and science should not be in conflict, or independent of each other, or merely in dialogue, but should be integrated. I believe that he is right, and that the Bible teaches that. The book is relatively short, and readable. It has chapters on different branches of science, which can be read independently of each other.

Here's a quote from Barbour:

. . . both scientific materialists and biblical literalists have failed to recognize significant distinctions between scientific and religious assertions. The scientific materialists have promoted a particular philosophical commitment as if it were a scientific conclusion, and the biblical literalists have promoted a prescientific cosmology as if it were an essential part of religious faith. Ian G. Barbour, When Science Meets Religion: Enemies, Strangers, or Partners? San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 2002, p. 36.

* * * * *

On February 19, 2009, I added links to the authors above, or to their books. I also changed the title, because I am adding a fourth author, one that I should have included in post in 2005, when I first posted this.

That author is Holmes Rolston, III. Rolston has written several books, especially Science and Religion: A Critical Survey. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987) Rolston's book was re-published in 2006. A firm believer in the efficacy of science, but not in all the side effects found in a scientific society, Rolston describes evolution in terms of suffering, but borne up by God in Christ, as the supporting redeemer. He argues for a Divine plan:
Life is not an accident, whatever place dice-throwing pays in its appearance and maturation. It is something arranged for in the nature of things. The dice are loaded. (p. 113.)

Rolston clearly writes as a believer, and he covers all of the major issues at the interface between science and religion.