Glad to help. Often, examples show more than eloquence ever could <G!>
>I'm glad to hear that you see science and the Bible on the same level.
>There are many christians that don't believe that. I see a basic problem
>with most christians, and that is that they start with the Bible. They
That's not the problem. That's what makes us Christians. If you have
understood me to say that I look at science as being on the same level
as the scripture, then you have misunderstood me. Just as I will make
use of such tools as Vine's Expository Dictionary, or noun to pronoun
agreement (i.e. basic rules of context, grammar and etc.) to assist me
to interpret scripture, I can use the facts of science to help me to
do the same thing. They are helps, but the Bible is my primary source
for my entire worldview. It is the context from which I try to make
all my evaluations of pedagogy, politics, personal ethics and my own
definitions of truth. While our faith in the scripture can be shown
(through using outside verifications, i.e. "apologetics"), I don't
accept the scripture on that basis. I accept the scriptures as the
basic matter of faith. Our relationship to God and Christ is based
on faith; anything else would be unacceptable (and I know this to be
true because of what the scriptures say.)
>are either raised in a christian home to believe that the Bible is true
>or decide to believe that for other reasons. I think, very rarely do
>people look at the evidence for the accuracy for the Bible and then
>conclude "hey, this is pretty reliable".
>
>I think christians and everybody in general needs to go through their
>epistemology. What do we accept as truth in general, not science, not the
>Bible, but in general. I mean, you have to accept something else as being
>true before you accept sciene or the Bible, right? You have to believe
>that your senses are giving you an accurate picture of the outside
>world. After that you have to draw certain conclusions and inferences.
>Like who and what do I trust and why. We belive that language works.
>That it acutally relays information that we can trust. Many christians
>don't accept this kind of fundamental idea of truth that comes prior to
>the Bible. It's like "No, only the Bible is true". It seems very absurd
>to me.
Actually, it's not absurd. It's a matter of what we look at as being
absolutely true, or as a friend of mine says, what do we "absolutize?"
As Christians, IMHO, we can allow ourselves to absolutize nothing but
the Bible.
>I think if we think through our epistemology philosophically we will come
>to the conlcusion that science and experience must be trusted just as
>much as the Bible. Maybe even more in circumstances because we have
Again, I would disagree. Ultimately, one thing has to govern all your
thinking. For a Christian, that has to be the revealed Word of God. I
have to be honest. My INTERPRETATION of scripture, is fallible. I can
make use of science to help me to refine/correct that. However, my 1st
aim must be to "know HIM" and to help others to know Him as well. All
that I have and do must be secondary to that. All other sources of my
knowledge are secondary to the Bible. I accept science on the basis of
my (and others') observations. The Bible is accepted on the basis of
faith -- simple, childlike faith. The faith may be built and matured
as the years go by and as I observe the world around me, but it is still
faith, just the same. One last point, faith itself is a gift from God.
Blessings,
jbt
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* John B. Tant http://wwwp.exis.net/~jtant jtant@exis.net *
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