God, science, and Fr. Thomas Hopko

Thanks to a friend, Father Orthoduck is going to give you a link rather than trying to continue the subject of Christianity and science. Why so? Because the link is to a series of podcasts on Darwin and Christianity by Father Thomas Hopko. Now Fr. Hopko is one of the leading Orthodox theologians in the world. Besides, he is up to 15 podcasts on this subject alone, and he has many many more on various... [Read more]

The god of the gaps

A person who commented on yesterday’s post had some things to say with which I agree, even though s/he meant them as a criticism. Nevertheless, it does allow me to make a couple of points. Speaking of religious scientists s/he said: There’s only a problem when they invoke god, also known as magic, to solve scientific problems. That’s not doing science. It’s called preaching. Competent... [Read more]

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Current cosmology and the Church

As I commented yesterday, the Church has often had a hard time knowing how to respond to advances in cosmology. There has been a tendency to go to one of two extremes. One extreme is that most often cited by the news media, the Galileo trial and the Scopes trial, one by the Roman Catholic Church and one by fundamentalist Protestants. In each case, the church people involved claimed to be defending... [Read more]

Current cosmology and God

Today, atoms make up about 5% of the universe; dark matter makes up about 23%; and what is very strange is that 72% is made up of this dark energy. — David Spurgo, Ph.D. In the last century we have come up from thinking that the entire universe was within our own Milky Way to knowing that there are actually billions of other galaxies like the Milky Way, but separate from us. We now even... [Read more]

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Limitations of science

On a recent post about science, one of the persons commenting brought up some reasonable points about science. But demonstrating bias highlights other problems in modern American discourse – i.e., the false conclusiveness we give to science, and the false distinction we ascribe to it. Science demands repeatable observation to correct bias, but it can’t correct these problems beyond itself. While... [Read more]

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Os Guiness on science, faith, and the culture war

Thanks to another blog, I saw the short video above by Os Guiness speaking for the Biologos Foundation. What is the Biologos Foundations? Well, their webpage says: The BioLogos Foundation explores, promotes and celebrates the integration of science and Christian faith. It not only has well known philosophers such as Os Guiness, but also world-class conservative theologians such as N.T. Wright. I... [Read more]

Scientific research and Alice in Wonderland

When I was young, one of the favorite arguments against Christians was to argue that Christianity was simply a psychological crutch to help one deal with life. Of course, there was an obvious counter-answer. One simply responds to the critic that he/she rejects Jesus because they have psychological hang-ups that prevent them from being able to trust an authority figure. Can you see the circular nature... [Read more]

But the bias of scientists is a known factor

Let’s keep going a bit with the scientific method. Scientists have a strong tendency to extrapolate from the known to the unknown. Actually, we all have a tendency to do that, which is why in theology there is a branch called speculative theology. The known is based on repeatable experiments or observations, while the unknown is an extrapolation of the theories that explain the known observations.... [Read more]

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Scientists are biased

It may surprise you that I would post a title as provocative as “Scientists are biased,” except that it is the standard belief of people who work in scientific research. Oh no, they would never word it that way, because in today’s parlance it means that the person (or study) being accused of bias is not reliable and not to be trusted. Nevertheless, the whole scientific method and... [Read more]

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What does it mean to think Christianly? — part 01

Those of you who read this blog know that some of my favorite modern authors are G.K. Chesterton, J.R.R. Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis. There is a reason why they are some of my favorites. All three of them majored in the concept of thinking Christianly. Now, that is not a term that is in the dictionary. For me it means that there are equal parts to the idea of thinking like a Christian: thinking theologically,... [Read more]

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