Scientia, Ethics, and Praxis

Cal Dewitt wrote, when he was asked to summarize his spiritual beliefs:

        In my life and work, I operate within a paraphrase of Chicago’s Professor Emeritus Wayne C. Booth's definition of religion, as "the passion to live rightly and spread right living — all in accord with the way the world works."  In doing this, I hold together, in full integration, a triad of questions:
        1) How does the world work (science and scientia)?
        2) What ought to be (ethics)?  and
        3) What then must we do (praxis)?

        My principal source material for the science and scientia corner of this triad is the natural world, sometimes called “the Book of Nature” or “the Book of God's World”;
        my principal source for the ethics corner is the Bible, sometimes called “the Book of God's Word.”
        The praxis corner completes the triad, to bring the answers to the first two questions to bear on responsible and effective environmental stewardship and conservation.

        My spiritual belief is that the pursuit of right living should emerge from reading the Book of God’s World and the Book of God’s Word coherently — coherently within each book and coherently between both books.  I believe that I must live my life passionately, must do my best to gain a coherent understanding of the two books, and must then put this to useful and practical work.  My faith is that right makes might, and that in that faith I must dare to do my duty (to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln and make reference to Matthew 5:5 and 6:33).
 


This was one question (of four) in a written interview submitted to William Ted Johnson for The Spiritual Lives of Great Environmentalists: John Muir, Calvin DeWitt.

 
These ideas, and others, are developed with more depth — when Cal DeWitt
"considers the structure and controls of complex systems, and from this develops a consideration of the necessity of holding together — in one integrated system [in the life of a whole person or a group of people] — scientia, ethics, and praxis" — in The Professor and the Pupil: Addressing Secularization and Disciplinary Fragmentation in Academia.  (published by the American Scientific Affiliation in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, June 2007) 
 


ABOVE, a link is page-adding, opening a new page in a new window.
Below, a LINK is page-replacing, opening a new page in this window.

 
Stewardship of Life as a Christian Worldview