Christianity: Science and Belief

1
Christianity Science and Belief

• Revision things you may not have picked up on

2
Revelation and Scientific Method

• Make sure you know the similarities and
  differences between the methods of both
  revelation and science (both use observation,
  draw conclusions from evidence, have an element
  of bias, require interpretation, etc BUT one is
  extremely personal and religious experiences
  cannot be re-enacted to confirm they were real,
  experiments can)

3
Viewpoints

• Creationists These are extremely fundamental
  Christians who take the Bible literally (young
  earth theory, rejection of modern science, God
  would not lie).
• Progressive Creationists These are fundamental
  Christians who are making an attempt to reconcile
  the facts in the Bible with modern science.
  They may accept some fossils as evidence of
  Fixity of Species (not evolution), and may
  believe the 6 days are 6 time periods, but they
  still believe the Bible is fact and God wouldnt
  lie.
• Liberal Christians Those who are regular
  Christians in Britain today who use the Bible to
  give meaning and purpose to life, but would
  accept scientific evidence as showing the way God
  got things done
• Scientific Materialists Hard line scientists
  who give no room at all to belief. Truth is in
  the proof.
• Other scientists not all scientists are
  scientific materialists. You get open minded
  scientists who are not religious, but may believe
  there are limits to what science can find out.
  You also get religious scientists (in the past
  many major scientific breakthroughs have been by
  scientists motivated by wanting to find out how
  their God did things, or to understand the world
  God had given them)

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Bible

• Take note of the differences between Genesis 1
  2 2 different stories from different times,
  cultures, and naturally with different emphases.
• Used for origin of universe, origin of life, and
  purpose of life arguments creationists believe
  it is literally true, liberal Christians take it
  in context of the history and draw meaning from
  it.
• Remember the Bible is a collection of books (not
  one book by one person, more of a complex library)

5
First Cause Argument (Aquinas)

• To be used for Origin of Universe essays
• If asked KU on Cosmological / FC A then try and
  explain it using the Three Ways from Summa
  Theologica (Motion, Causality, and Potentiality,
  all drawing conclusion of God as First Cause /
  Unmoved Mover)
• Remember objections and possible replies.

6
Big Bang Theory

• It was NOT an explosion in space there was no
  space to explode in!
• The explosion contains all space and time we
  dont even know if there is an outside or what
  it would be like, just that it is not space and
  time as we experience it.
• Remember words like singularity, expansion and
  cooling, 12-15 BILLION years, etc

7
Design Argument - Paley

• Fits with Origins of Life essays
• Remember for KU on Teleological / D A to give
  in-depth step-by-step account
• Paley used human eye as evidence of design
• Know criticisms and replies

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Evolution

• No need to discuss development in detail (e.g.
  bacteria in sea, oxygenation etc)
• Explain life developed from simple single celled
  organisms to more and more complex ones
• The ones best adapted to environments survive
• Also competition for resources gives a regime of
  survival of the fittest
• The ones that are best adapted and survive the
  best have differences that make them better
  these differences happen at a genetic level in
  DNA.
• Random genetic mutations give an organism an
  advantage or disadvantage that can be passed on
  to offspring.
• Over thousands of years these changes take hold
  and species can change and survive, or change and
  die out.
• Not all members of a species will change, so
  evolution happens with branches and is not
  linear (so we have not descended directly from
  primates!)

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More on Creationists

• Bible 100 true as comes from God and God would
  not lie (response is the contents of Bible
  interpreted by fallible humans)
• Reject BBT it says billions of years, young
  earth theory says 10,000 ish (response evidence
  in light etc)
• Reject Evolution God created a Fixity of
  Species, not changing ones (Response explain
  new strands of viruses etc)
• Reject Evolution says we came from animals and
  are not special, Bible says we are special, image
  of God, soul so cannot be (is there evidence of a
  soul, or some other explanation?)