Shuan Rose wrote:
> Hey, George:
> LStart the party. How do you take a Christ-centered approach to the
> science-religion problem?
Terry has provided a link to JASA/PSCF articles, most of which deal with
some aspects of this approach. Here I'll note very briefly the way in which a
few issues can be trated with such an approach.
1. Natural theology: God is known first through God's self-revelation in
the history of Israel which culminates in the cross-resurrection event.
Scientific knowledge of the world is able to tell us something about
God & God's
relationship with the world only in light of this revelation. But in
this light
God is to be discerned in the universe as the crucified and risen one.
2. Divine action (providence): God's hiddenness in his self-revelation in
the cross suggests that we should not expect to observe God's activity by
scientific means. This requirement can be satisfied by a model of
divine action
in which God acts through natural process and voluntarily limits action to what
can be achieved through lawful natural processes.
3. Cosmology: As much as possible we will try to understand the
origin and
development of the universe theologically in terms of providence, as
in 2. Thus
we will be open to the possibility that matter/energy and space-time have come
in a way that can be described by a correct theory of quantum gravity or some
other scientific theory.
4. Biological evolution: This too will be understood as an application of
providence. The Incarnation means that God becomes a participant in the
evolutionary process and in its suffering and death. This provides a way of
dealing with questions of theodicy raised by natural selection. The fact that
in the Incarnation the Word of God takes on our evolutionary relationships
provides one way of understanding how "all things" can be reconciled to God
"through the blood of his cross" (Col.1:20).
5) Environmental issues: The human commission to be God's representative
in caring for creation is fulfilled first of all in Christ. Human "dominion"
over creation is thus to be patterned after the servant lordship of Christ.
6) Bioethics: There are too many individual issues to summarize briefly
here. But the both cross (which suggests that suffering and death
are not to be
avoided at all costs) and resurrection (which suggests that our hope is not
simply for holding on to life) provide some general guidelines.
7) History and the Future: The human _par excellence_ is not
Adam & Eve or
the first reflectively conscious hominids but Jesus Christ. Creation was
therefore not begun in a state of static perfection but in God's intention was
to develop toward the plan hinted at in Eph.1:10. In the resurrection of the
crucified we have a preview of God's ultimate future for the world, and the
church as the Body of Christ is the next stage of evolution toward that goal.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
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