Christian University? Christian Science? Breakin’ down the wall Worldviews of faith and education (10 mins) Your thoughts (5 mins) Application of worldviews in the science classroom. (15 mins) Leave you alone…or Hear more of your thoughts
How big is the wall? Depends on your Christian worldview. 1. Against/conflict 2. Paradox (dualist) 1919 -1962 3. Transformation/ conversionist
Christ against Culture For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. 1 Co. 3: 19 Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world – therefore the world hates you. Jn 15: 19 My kingdom is not of this world. Jn 18: 36 Do not love the world or anything in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world. 1 Jn 2: 15 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own insights. Pr 3: 5
Against leads to isolation
or separation…
Quality education in a Christian setting Spiritual Dualist World
Christ and Culture in paradox You are the salt of the earth… You are the light of the world. Mt. 5: 13, 14 …go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them…Mt. 28: 19
Work in the world so that our tithe may support the missionaries. Must do excellent work so that our colleagues will respect us when we offer our Christian witness. Your work place is your mission field. Even the most tedious, lousy job, can have opportunity to witness during coffee breaks, etc.
Take it to the limit…. . If all the world were reached with the Christian message? Then would there be value to work? If Adam hadn’t sinned? Then would we work, study engineering, economics, science, and have careers in these fields? Else, would we be sitting around singing hymns and swinging in our hammock? At these limits we have the dualists catastrophe. The model doesn’t work.
R. G. Le. Tourneau says… Now I ask you, what’s the use of having a religion that won’t work? If I had a religion that limped along during the week, and maybe worked only on Sunday, or while you’re in church, I don’t think I’d be very sold on it. I think I’d turn it in on a new model that worked seven days a week, that would work when I was at church, at my home, or out at the plant. R. G. Le. Tourneau: Mover of Men and Mountains, p. 203
Spiritual World Educational Philosophy (Le. Tourneau University College Catalog) … all truth is regarded as God‑given and is considered sacred. It should be pursued with diligence and received with humility. http: //www. letu. edu/academics/catalog/tu 2003/perspective/philosophy. html
Christ transforms Culture For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him. Col 1: 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through Him. John 3: 16 -17 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. John 1: 1 -3 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities-His eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. Romans 1: 20
R. G. agrees…. When He created the world and everything in it, He didn’t mean for us to stop there and say, “God, You’ve done it all. There’s nothing left for us to build. ” He wanted us to take off from there and really build for His greater glory. R. G. Le. Tourneau: Mover of Men and Mountains, p. 1
Intermission • Comments? • Discussion?
Our worldviews influence our science. Our science influences our world views.
Ptolemaic Solar System: Worldview: Earth was at the center of the universe. Planets went around the earth in perfect circles. Stars were motionless.
Copernican Solar System A sun centered solar system defied the worldview of an earth centered system. But still held to a worldview of perfect circles.
Keplerian Solar System A sun centered solar system defied the worldview of an earth centered system. Elliptical orbital defied the worldview of perfect circles.
Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter, across Green street Pluto, more than a kilometer away
The nearest solar system? Alpha Centauri, 4400 miles away, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean
So what? This model of the solar system implies that the earth is not the center of everything. The earth is insignificant compared to the sun, and the sun is one insignificant star among billions and billions of stars. How could we be important to God, if God saw us as such an insignificant layer of slime on an insignificant hunk of rock going about an insignificant star?
Not only are we insignificant in space, we are also insignificant in time.
Contrasting Elements of Worldviews Science support by reason consistent physical laws process of creation The Wall Christian accept by faith divinely inspired instantly mature creation by an imminent God with a purpose and destiny for our lives of a materialistic universe without a purposeful destiny
In life, Sue must have cast an imposing figure. She stood some 13 feet high at the hip, and measured 42 feet from head to tail. Her five-foot-long skull contained 58 vicious teeth. There were some features, however, which suggest she was as much prey as predator, for Sue bore wicked battle scars. During some past encounter, Sue had broken several ribs. In time they had healed over, leaving visible abnormalities. But a subsequent encounter had broken them a second time. But according to a straight-forward reading of Scripture there was no death in the beginning, no carnivorous activity, no burial, no fossilization. There was no pain, no suffering. No animal attacks, no infectious diseases, no broken bones. So that's the question. Did Sue live and kill and suffer and die in a world deemed "very good" by the gracious, loving God of Scripture? Or, did these gruesome aspects and activities follow the ruination of the "very good" creation by Adam's sin and the resultant curse? Which type of world could God call "very good"? Conflict Surely some things just can't be. (emphasis added) by John D. Morris, Ph. D. Institute for Creation Research
• Conflict • Independence ‘Science gets the ages of rocks, religion the rock of ages. Science studies how the heavens go, religion determines how to go to heaven. ’ • Dialogue • Integration
When I consider the heavens, Gaseous the work of your fingers, Pillars in the moon and the stars that you have set in place, M 16 what is man that you are mindful of him? Hubble Space Telescope - David, King of Israel, Psalm 8: 3 The size of the universe does not diminish our significance to God, but adds wonder to the knowledge that God is mindful of us.
For he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him. Psalm 103: 14 -17
With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. box 2 Peter 3: 8 dot top inflated side unrolled line rectangle
The Illusion of Time 3 -D cube seen instantaneously in time 3 -D cube seen in all time What we see as a choice in time from our perspective might be seen by God as having been. Maybe the Arminians and the Calvinists were both right?
Does God allow choice and randomness? Would you have been blessed if you had gone to a different college? Can bad things happen to good people? Might there be multiple paths that a person may take in life and still have God’s destiny before him? He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Matt 5: 45 Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life John 9: 3 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to His purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son. Romans 8: 28 -29
What of life forms? Is ours the only soulful life form that might have been? Would it matter if we had six fingers on each hand? Are the natural process involved in the evolution of stars, planets, and galaxies paralleled in natural processes involving the evolution of life forms? Is the universe expressing itself through natural processes that God enabled?
What of the universe? Is ours the only universe that might have been? Does God allow us and the universe different choices? Might the universe have chosen a different path leading to different planets and different solar systems?
(Y(x))2 gives the probability of finding the particle at any location, x. If the Y(x) collapses to a single value, then we know 100% the position, but nothing of the momentum, as the wave is lost. Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
Process of making and filling 1. Day and night 2. Sky above, waters below 3. Land sea 4. Sun, moon, and stars 5. Birds and sea creatures 6. Land animals and man Notice the inclusion of all time, space, and things contained within
The Problem of Pain C. S. Lewis From the doctrine that God is good we may confidently deduce that the appearance of reckless Divine cruelty in the animal kingdom is an illusion. . p. 133 The origin of animal suffering could be traced by earlier But, what of pain and suffering before the fall? generations, to the Fall of man-the whole world was infected by Could pain and suffering be part of the process? the uncreating rebellion of Adam. This is now impossible, for we have good reason to believe that animals existed long before men. p. 137 It seems to me therefore a reasonable supposition, that some mighty created power had already been at work for ill on the material universe, or the solar system, or at least the planet Earth, before ever man came on the scene. p. 138 At least one respected Christian apologist allows for the presence of pain and suffering before the fall.
A world containing significantly free persons making choices between moral good and evil and choosing a significant amount of moral good is superior to a world lacking Maybe these ideas fit well with Christian Theology? significantly free persons and moral good and evil. Al Plantinga, The Free Will Defense If the free will defense works in explaining why God might permit the existence of moral evil, then it also provides an explanation of why God might bring about the existence of much natural evil. A universe in which we could entertain a free-process defense, would be one in which there could be people to whom the free-will defense could be applied. Reichenbach and Polkinghorne, The Free-Process Defense Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you will find that you will have excluded life itself. C. S. The Problem of Pain
Contrasting Elements of Worldviews The Wall Christian accept by faith divinely inspired instantantly mature creation by an imminent God with a purpose and destiny for our lives Science support by reason consistent physical laws process of creation materialistic universe without a purposeful destiny
Christian Science accept by faith and support by reason, a divinely inspired process of creation, consistent with physical laws, by an imminent God with a purpose and destiny for our lives Spiritual World
Christian University? Is this what R. G. had in mind? Thousands of students will go out to witness to the fact that every vocation is sacred when Christ lives in the life of the worker. (or scientist) -parenthetic added Nels E. Stjernstrom R. G. Le. Tourneau: Mover of Men and Mountains, In Memorium, p. 285
Le. Tourneau Students! Tear down this Wall! Remove barriers that prevent God’s love from embracing all of us in all that we do. Find a calling in any activity of this God-given life. Read the writings of God’s special and cultural revelations. Revelations that point to a need for God’s redeeming love in all of our created world by breakin’ down the wall. .
Bibliography Holy Bible, NIV H. R. Niebuhr, Christ and Culture R. G. Le. Tourneau, Mover of Men and Mountains R. De. Witt, Worldviews, An introduction to the History and Philosophy of Science S. Weinberg, The First Three Minutes, A modern view of the Origin of the Universe Simon Singh, Big Bang, The Origin of the Universe I. G. Barbour, When Science Meets Religion C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain Al Plantinga, God, Freedom and Evil Pink Floyd, Another Brick in the Wall Tears for Fear, Shout Led Zeppelin, Stairway to Heaven Jim Croce, Time in a Bottle Bach, Tocatta and Fugue in D minor
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