Theology

1
Theology ScienceAdversaries or Allies?

• The Two Books of Revelation
• M. James Sawyer, Ph.D.
• Kirk J. Bertsche, Ph.D.

2
Theology ScienceAdversaries or Allies?

• What if Science Scripture Disagree?

3

• What about Sola Scriptura?
• God and Truth
• The Interrelationship Between Science Theology
• The Question of Cause
• A Rational Universe
• The Mystery
• The Logos/Word of God and The Rational Universe

4
What about Sola Scriptura?
5
Scripture and Truth

• Sola Scriptura
• Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain
  reasonI do not accept the authority of popes and
  councils, for they have contradicted each
  othermy conscience is captive to the Word of
  God, I cannot and will not recant anything, for
  to go against conscience is neither right nor
  safe. God help me. Amen
• Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms

6
The Two Books of Revelation

• All Truth is Gods Truth
• Presuppositions
• God is the ultimate Truth
• God is the creator of the cosmos
• Therefore what can be discovered there must be
  understood as truth
• God inspired the Scriptures

7
All Truth is Gods Truth

• Presuppositions
• God created the Universe
• God inspired the Scriptures
• The purpose of inspiration is to make one wise
  unto salvation
• from infancy you have known the holy writings,
  which are able to give you wisdom for salvation
  through faith in Christ Jesus. Every scripture  
  is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for
  reproof, for correction, and for training in
  righteousness, that the person dedicated to God
  may be capable and equipped for every good work.

8
The Two Books of Revelation

• The Historic Christian Position
• Scripture
• Psalm 19
• Acts 17
• Rom 1
• The Nature Psalms
• Job

9
The Two Books of Revelation

• The heavens declare Gods glory
• the sky displays his handiwork.
• Day after day it speaks out
• night after night it reveals his greatness.
• There is no actual speech or word,
• nor is its voice literally heard.
• Yet its voice echoes throughout the earth
• Its words carry to the distant horizon.
• In the sky he has pitched a tent for the sun.
• Like a bridegroom it emerges from its chamber
• like a strong man it enjoys running its course.
• It emerges from the distant horizon,
• and goes from one end of the sky to the other
• nothing can escape its heat.
• The law of the Lord is perfect
• and preserves ones life.
• The rules set down by the Lord are reliable
• and impart wisdom to the untrained.
• The Lords precepts are fair

10
The Two Books of Revelation

• Ancient Church
• Articulated by Augustine (4th cent)
• Medieval Church
• Francis of Assisi (d. 1226)
• Bonaventure (d. 1274)
• Raymond Lull (d. 1316)
• Raymond Seabond (d. 1416)

11
The Two Books of Revelation

• The Historic Christian Position
• Reformation
• Ulrich Zwingli
• John Calvin (d. 1564)
• Belgic Confession
• Thomas Brown (d. 1682)
• The Scientific Revolution
• Johannes Kepler
• Francis Bacon
• Galileo
• Richard Baxter
• Isaac Newton

12
The Two Books of Revelation

• The Nineteenth Century
• Joseph Clark
• Charles Hodge
• Herbert W. Morris (not Henry!) (1871)
• Scripture and nature are verbal and pictorial
  representations of divine wisdom
• A.A. Hodge
• James McCosh
• William G.T. Shedd
• A.H. Strong
• B.B. Warfield

13
The Interrelationship between Science and Theology

• Pitting Theology and/or the Bible against
  science is fundamentally wrongheaded

14
The Interrelationship between Science and Theology
God
Author of
Author of
Contradiction Not Possible
Nature
Scripture
Human Interpretation of
Human Interpretation of
Biblical Interpretation
Science
Human Interpretation of
Human Interpretation of
Contradiction Possible
TheologyChurch TraditionWorldviewPolitics
WorldviewPolitics
15
The Question of Cause
16
The Question of Cause
17
The Question of Cause

• Aristotles Four Causes
• material cause, the matter out of which a thing
  is made
• the efficient cause,the source of motion,
  generation, or change
• the formal cause, which is the species, kind, or
  type
• the final cause, the goal, or full development,
  of an individual, or the intended function of a
  construction or invention

18
The Question of Cause

• Formal cause designer
• Material cause fabric wood
• Efficient cause craftsman
• Final cause a piece of furniture to sit on

19
The Two Books of Revelation

• General Revelation
• Character
• embedded in creation
• embedded in morality
• embedded in rationality
• embedded in the historical processes
• Made explicit through
• Wisdom
• Sciences
• Hard sciences
• Soft sciences
• Provides the context for Special Revelation

• Special Revelation
• Character
• Personal
• Revealing of that which could otherwise not be
  known
• Occurs in history
• Linguistic
• Incarnation
• Preserved in Scripture
• Goal is relational/salvific

20
Why is the Universe Rational?
21
Why is the Universe Rational?

• Rational comprehensibility of the Universe
• Describable by Mathematics

22
Why is the Universe Rational?

• The most incomprehensible thing about the
  universe is that it is comprehensible.
• Albert Einstein

23
Why is the Universe Rational?

• The enormous usefulness of mathematics in the
  natural sciences is something bordering on the
  mysterious, and there is no rational explanation
  for it it is an article of faith.
• Eugene Wigner, Nobel Laureate in Physics

24
Why is the Universe Rational?

• Science does not explain the mathematical
  intelligibility of the physical world, for it is
  part of sciences founding faith that this is so.
• John Polkinghorn,Ph.D., FRS
• Physicist Anglican priest

25
Why is the Universe Rational?

• science is faith-like in resting upon
  creedal presuppositions, and inasmuch as they
  relate to the order and intelligibility of the
  universe they also resemble the content of a
  theistic conception of the universe as an ordered
  creation.
• J.J. Haldane

26
Why is the Universe Rational?

• We can voice our ultimate convictions only from
  within our convictions-from within a whole system
  of acceptances that are logically prior to any
  particular assertion of our own
• Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge

27
The Logos and The Rationality of the Universe

• In the beginning was the Word (logos), and the
  Word (logos) was with God, and the Word (logos)
  was fully God. The Word (logos) was with God in
  the beginning. All things were created by him,
  and apart from him not one thing was created that
  has been created.
• John 11-3

28
The Logos and The Rationality of the Universe

• . . . The logos through whom God created the
  world became incarnate in Christ. The same logos
  which in embedded in creation is embodied in
  Christ. The rationality reflected in the
  ordering of the world is thus incarnate in the
  redeemer, establishing a link between the divine
  acts of creation and redemption.
• Alister McGrath

29
The Logos and The Rationality of the Universe

• The Christian assertion of the elemental goodness
  of creation established the reality of the
  empirical, contingent world, and thus destroyed
  the age-old Hellenistic and Oriental assumption
  that the real is reached only by transcending the
  contingent
• Thomas F. Torrance

30
The Logos and The Rationality of the Universe

• Gods creation of the world structured the
  natural order in such a way that it could be
  comprehended by the human mind, by giving an
  inherent rationality to that created order which
  was derived from and reflected the rationality of
  the mind of God.
• Origen of Alexandria (3rd cent)

31
The Logos and The Rationality of the Universe

• The Christian doctrine of creation declares
• That the creation is contingent not necessary.
• Gods relationship to the universe is free, not
  necessary
• Nothing hindered God from imprinting a
  distinctive rational character in creation.
• The divine imprint is found in the logos.
• Creation bears the divine imprint, not the image
  or likeness of any other divinity or force.

32
The Logos and The Rationality of the Universe

• If the deep-seated congruence of the rationality
  present in our minds with the rationality present
  in the world is to find a true explanation, it
  must lie in some more profound reason, which is
  the ground of both. Such a reason would be
  provided by the rationality of the Creator.
• John Polkinghorne

33
The Logos and The Rationality of the Universe

• In Renaissance Europe justification for what we
  today call the scientific approach to inquiry was
  the belief in a rational God whos created order
  could be discerned from a careful study of
  nature.
• Paul Davies

34
Progress in Science

• Incrementalism

Growth in Knowledge
time
35
Progress in Science

• Paradigm Shift

Thomas Kuhn
36
Progress in Science
Pre-Sciencepagan gods control universe
Paradigm 1 Ptolemaic Universe
Anomalies
Crisis 1
Anomalies
Paradigm 2 Newtonian Clockwork Universe
Crisis 2
Paradigm 3 Einsteinian Relativistic Universe
37
Progress in Science

• Ptolemaic Worldviewgeocentric
• Newtonian Worldviewheliocentric
• Einsteinian Worldviewrelativity
• Quantum Physics and sub-atomic reality

38
Progress in Theology

• What is Theology?
• Is Theology Truth?

39
What is Theology?

• qeovV - theos- God
• logovV- logos- word, study, discourse, line of
  argument, reason
• God-talk, Statements about God

40
What is Theology?

• Doctrine- a straightforward summary of biblical
  truth.
• Theology- secondary reflection on doctrine.

41
Systematic TheologyCapstone of the Theological
Disciplines
Systematic Theology
Biblical Theology
Historical Theology
EXEGESIS
Biblical Languages Backgrounds
Archaeology
42
Systematic Theology

• Systematic Theology
• The branch of theological study which follows a
  humanly devised scheme or order of doctrinal
  development/presentation and which attempts to
  incorporate into its system all the truth about
  God and his universe from any and every source.

43
The Comprehensive Nature of Systematic Theology
History
Exegesis
Systematic Theology
Philosophy
Sciences
The Mysticismof the Holy Spirit
44
Theology as Truth How True is Our Truth?

• TRUTHGod alone is absolute TRUTH.
• TruthScripture is simple Truth, historically
  conditioned/concretized
• truth Theology is truth in that it
  re-expresses the historically concrete Truth of
  Scripture (all other relevant truth) in
  categories understood by contemporary hearers.

45

• It is difficult to discuss the beginning of the
  universe without mentioning the concept of God.
  My work on the origin of the universe is on the
  borderline between science and religion, I try to
  stay on the scientific side of the border. It is
  quite possible that God acts in ways that cannot
  be described by scientific laws.
• Stephen Hawking, Ph.D. Professor of Mathematics
  Cambridge University
• .

46

• Our universe is simply one of those things that
  happen from time to time.
• E. Tryton

47

• The usual approach of science of constructing a
  mathematical model cannot answer the questions of
  why there should be a universe for the model to
  describe. Why does the universe go to all the
  bother of existing? Is the unified theory so
  compelling that it brings about its own
  existence? Or does it need a creator, and, if
  so, does he have any other effect on the
  universe?
• Stephen Hawking