Evolving Continents and Oceans

1. Evolving Continents and Oceans Session Two SU 2008

2. Major Issues at stake The four controverted areas of science and religion: 1. cosmology (origins/big bang) 2. quantum physics (micro-physics and necessity) 3. evolution (developmentalism) 4. human nature (environment and genetics) Ian Barbour

3. Sessions Overview: We will view Creation and Cosmos as 1. Story (Primal view) 2. Record (Literal view) 3. Chronicle (Allegorical view) 4. Account (Blended view) 5. Sketch (Minimalist view) 6. Epic (Emergent view)

6. Creation as RECORD

7. Assets of RECORD Model 1. Direct (yet crude), 2. Human scale (anthropomorphic), and 3. Teachable (to all ages).

8. Deficits of RECORD Model 1. Outdated (cosmology and biology), 2. Over-emphasis of wrong point (the “how” instead of the “what”), and 3. Confusion of genre (hermaneutics)

9. 4004 B.C. date Ussher's work is sometimes, and often mockingly, associated with Young Earth Creationism, which holds that the universe was created several millennia ago. But while calculating the date of the Creation may seem an eccentric activity today, given the knowledge produced by modern geology and palaeontology and the fact that the Earth is now being dated by the scientific community at about 4.6 billion years old -- with the universe nine billion years older than that — in Ussher's time such a calculation was still regarded as an important task... Wikipedia article

10. Bishop Ussher

11. Isaac Newton, a literalist Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night: God said, "Let Newton be!" and all was light. Alexander Pope.

12. St. Thomas Aquinas

13. The “Doctor” on Causes I answer that,As said above (44, 2), we must consider not only the emanation of a particular being from a particular agent, but also the emanation of all being from the universal cause, which is God; and this emanation we designate by the name of creation. Question 45, Article 1 Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas

14. Source for Young Earth Research The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) is a biblical research institute based in Dallas, Texas, that focuses on constructing and teaching Young Earth Creationist world-view. Espousing Biblical inerrancy, most of its teachings directly contradict commonly held beliefs by the modern scientific community. Website: www.instituteforcreationresearch.org

15. Young Earth claims: Spiral galaxies rotate much too quickly for an old universe. They would be twisted beyond recognition if they were really as old as secular astronomers claim…magnetic fields of planets and moons in our solar system are consistent with their age of a few thousand years, but are much too strong for an age of billions of years. The Bible can be trusted in every area it addresses, including its scientific and historical truth... It is God’s Book, Ron Samec, a professor of physics and astronomy at Bob Jones University, article in ANSWERS magazine.

16. A common view of naturalism: These [natural] laws may have originally been decreed by God, but it appears that he has since left the universe to evolve according to them and does not now intervene in it. Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

17. About Kelso Friday, December 07, 2007 Austin American-Statesman “I think I've figured out why some folks get their nighties in a gnarl over the theory of evolution, the one that says man evolved from critters. If your family tree has people living in it, you're more likely to think unkindly about evolution.” JOHN KELSO

18. Two “ism” Camps to avoid: Biblicism is a dogmatic view of the Bible that is literal and inerrant. It is supremely confident that God speaks directly and without interference through the “words” of the Bible. Scientism is a dogmatic view of science that is extremely reductive and maintains eventually all really big questions can be answered by its method.

19. DEGREES of Un-knowability STEPS—on the lower rung of Ladder of Knowledge— 1. missing technical information 2. gaps in system or theory 3. intentional or militant resistance to information See article: Knowledge Models

20. KINDS of Un-knowability Kinds—steps to higher levels of Knowledge 1. a wider class of the inter-theoretical 2. language and model fallacies 3. admitted meta-knowledge or “beyond which” impenetrabilities Website:http://www.epistemics.co.uk/Notes/90-0-0.htm

21. Scientific View of Cosmos Scientific View Currently origins are considered “hypothetical.” For now, we don’t have a more fundamental scientific theory (GUT or TOE) which determines these physical values. Remains an area of intense interest and ongoing research for theologians. Loren Haarsma Calvin College Website

22. Theological view of Creation Theological View of Creation: Fits well with biblical picture of God as the creator –unconstrained, powerful, purposeful. May lead believers to a response of awe and worship. But it is unwise to hang too much evangelistic weight on the argument, but it’s a great thought-provoker. Loren Haarsma Calvin College Website

23. Mutuality of two Views: A biblical view of God not only motivates us to do science, but also provides us a philosophical foundation for expecting to find regular patterns of cause and effect in nature. A scientific understanding in terms of natural laws does not exclude God; rather, it teaches us about God’s governance of creation. Scientific knowledge is placed in a context of faithfully living for God. Loren Haarsma

24. American-Statesman Dec/23 Editorial Is Texas destined to become the next Kansas, where bitter evolution politics produced three changes in the science curriculum standards in six years? At one point, religious conservatives forced the study of evolution out of Kansas public schools. Outrage, ridicule and state school board elections got evolution back into the curriculum… Texas can ill afford that kind of high-profile battle over established science. Texas is now ground zero... American-Statesman editorial 12/23/07

25. Sacred Text In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light;" and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

26. Event Sequence The order of creation in Genesis 1 is: heaven and earth, light, vault of heaven (i.e., separation of earthly and heavenly waters), seas and dry land, plants, sun and stars, fish and birds, land animals, and last humans. The actual order of appearance of life forms -- sea-dwelling life, land plants, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals -- is different from the order in either Genesis account. Seed-bearing plants were not the first plants on land, but both Genesis accounts refer to trees and fruits in the initial creation of plants.

27. Second Creation Story (Earliest) • Genesis 2: 7-8: "Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Thus the man became a living creature." Gen. 2: 15-18: "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to till it and take care of it. He told the man 'You may eat from every tree in the garden, but not from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.'" Gen. 2: 21-22: "And so the Lord God put the man into a trance, and while he slept, he took one of his ribs and, which he had taken out of the man, into a woman,"closed the flesh over the place.

28. More Sacred Texts • Still another biblical creation story is found in Psalm 74:

29. Science, Evolution and Creationism “Science and religion are different ways of understanding. Needlessly placing them in opposition reduces the potential of both to contribute to a better future.” From a just released National Academy of Science Institute of Medicine document

30. Fuzzy Thinking Because there is fuzzy theology (as well as geology), the civil courts are charged to sort out these messes. A recent ruling by a judge John E. Jones Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District in Pennsylvania declared: Intelligent Design is creationism re-packaged—not science. The judgment had “nothing to do with politics but evidence and precedents…”

31. A peer review question: While specific scientific claims (or philosophical claims motivated by science) might conflict with specific religious claims, there is no general conflict between science and religion. Loren Haarsma Calvin College Website

32. Two Domains/NOMA thesis Argument # 1—Science and Religion are distinct equal magisteria Argument # 2—Science and Religion are inseparable polar magisteria Any mixing of the two leads to bitter and unnecessary conflict. Source: Rocks of Ages Jay Stephen Gould

33. Alistar McGraths’ comments Noting surveys that showed that half of all scientists are religious, Gould commented amusingly that "Either half my colleagues are enormously stupid, or else the science of Darwinism is fully compatible with conventional religious beliefs--and equally compatible with atheism."

34. McGraths’ scholarly critique McGraths: Gould was correct to think that both conventional religious belief and atheism are compatible with natural science, in part because "there are many questions that by their very nature must be recognized to lie beyond the legitimate scope of the scientific method.”

35. So what IS truth? Gödel's Theorem, the limitative theorems of mathematics and the theory of computation, suggests that once the ability to represent your own structure has reached a certain critical point, that is the kiss of death, you can never represent yourself totally.

36. Checkers versus Chess

37. Perennial Philosophy/Huston Smith Dr. Smith says that the Primordial Tradition is both timeless and spaceless as well, “because it was not only always, but everywhere”–echoing Vincent of Lerins. The universe, he says, “fits into the primordial tradition but does not exhaust it. There are reaches beyond the physical.” He says that science is doing a fine job of learning about “the physical reaches of reality,” but that we are in danger of losing sight of the “other regions of reality which continue to exist whether we attend to them or not”–in other words, the “something bigger.” From summary of Interview

38. Forrest Gump said: “And that's all I have to say about that.”

39. Summary and Q&A To sum up: today we looked at the first of several biblical models/language of the meta-narratives—Record. The fossil record contradicts a literal reading (Young Earth) of the Bible record. Comments and discussion:

40. Creation as CHRONICLE Review: Story and Record (The Record) CHRONICLE, next week’s word, refers to “Old Earth” as a poetic or figurative language II Peter 3:8 “…a thousand years is but a day…” bible itself suggesting non-literal language