Creation, Evolution, and faith

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How is asking multiple times for the reasoning in this theology ignoring it? Just lay out evidence, premises, and conclusions. Show how one leads to the next.

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Leaving aside this particularly example, Taq, would you admit that there is reasoning in the works of Aquinas? Personally I think it's clear that there is.However, as has been stated upthread, whether reasoning is useful or valid depends where you start from. So I think two things need to be separated more clearly in this discussion (this isn't aimed at you, Taq)- the existence of theological reasoning
- the validity of the conclusions of theological reasoning.There's no doubt in my mind, from my own reading expericence, that theological reasoning exists, using logic, understanding of the natural world, understanding of human nature , and scripture as input. It's tilting at windmills to claim this does not exist. Any theological book or treatise will demonstrate this.However, whether theological reasoning is valid or not is a different question. This is where the real issue is. If the starting assumptions are not valid, then the conclusions will not be.Both scientific and theological reasoning make fundamental assumptions that cannot be validated, as KBertsche has pointed out. Science assumes there is an objective world, that our studies give us genuine information about that objective world, and that it is legitimate to extrapolate behaviour from known examples to unknown examples, with appropriate care.However, there is a difference in the detailed data scientific reasoning and theological reasoning use. Scientific reasoning is based primarily on the desire to explain observations of the real world and to achieve the greatest breadth and internal consistency we can in our explanations. Theological reasoning is based primarily on the desire to understand more about God. The sources of information about God do include observations of the natural world but scripture and subjective experience are also part of the mix.This is where I think theological reasoning becomes unreliable. We have no objective way of validating scripture using real world observations. God does not appear definitively to do anything atall in the universe nowadays, at least not in a way that can be tested. So how do we know our scriptural start point is valid? We don't.The same thing with subjective experience of God - how do we know that we really are interacting with an external being rather than with part of ourselves? We don't.

What would those observations be? Can you point out one of these observations that do not have a natural explanation? The evidence for a god and faith is 100% subjective. Yes there is some subjectivity in science, but that is backed(in good science)with objective evidence. Objective evidence is missing in the god faith scenario completely.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

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What would those observations be? Can you point out one of these observations that do not have a natural explanation? The evidence for a god and faith is 100% subjective. Yes there is some subjectivity in science, but that is backed(in good science)with objective evidence. Objective evidence is missing in the god faith scenario completely.

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Let me clarify. What I should really have said is 'for those who believe in God, the sources of information about God do include observations of the natural world'. In other words, for those who believe in a creator God, the nature of the world reveals information about him.But only if you believe in him - I agree with you that the natural world doesn't provide evidence that he exists.

But you seem to think that scientific evidence is equal to theological reasoning. Is there any evidence that this is not an objective world? I find this argument curious. Why is an objective world something that can not be validated? Can I not trust any of my senses? Do you think math and mathematical models may be being manipulated by something? This seems like a very "out there", matrixy argument, with no basis in logic or evidence. In other words an argument using totally subjective ideas and no evidence.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

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There are presuppositions that underlie the scientific methodology, but theories are derived independently of these presuppositions.

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For example, we would look at radiometric dating. The uniformitarianist presuppositions of the scientific methodology allow us to use the ratio of isotopes in rocks to determine how old they are. However, the actual age of the rocks is not derived from the uniformitarianist presuppositions, it is derived from the actual ratio of isotopes in the rocks. It is not as if a rock is presupposed to be a specific age. That is, the age of rocks is not an axiom of the scientific methodology

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I mostly agree. The isotopic ratios and dates that we get in radiometric dating are independent of these presuppositions. But whether or not they reflect real history DO depend on presuppositions. If God made everything last Thursday with a consistent appearance of age, they would still measure old but this would not reflect real history.

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So list the evidence and the reasoning.

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I have referred to examples of theological reasoning multiple times in this thread.
You have failed to lay out the evidence, premises, and conclusions for these examples of theological reasonings.

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You continue to ignore the philosophical reasoning and evidence used in theology.
How is asking multiple times for the reasoning in this theology ignoring it? Just lay out evidence, premises, and conclusions. Show how one leads to the next.

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Okay, here is a simple example of theological evidence and reasoning from a current thread on EvC Forum, Is Jesus God? , where evidence for the deity of Christ is being debated. (If anyone wishes to get into the details of the debate, please do it in the other thread instead of sidetracking this one.)I explained that Titus 2:13 claims the deity of Christ, based on a rule of Koine Greek grammar known as the "Granville Sharp rule". This was elucidated in the 18th century by Granville Sharp, who noticed and studied patterns in the use of the Greek definite article. His rule essentially says that in a phrase like "the God and father" the two nouns form a compound; this could be illustrated as "the (God and father)" For Titus 2:13, this would imply "the great (God and savior) of us, Jesus Christ"Below is the GS rule in my own words. To see it in the words of Sharp and Wallace, see Message 287:
1) Two nouns (these can also be substantival adjectives or substantival participles, which act as nouns)
2) The nouns must both be personal (referring to persons), in the same case, and singular. They must not be proper nouns (which would be inherently definite).
3) The first noun must have the definite article. The second noun must have no article.
4) The nouns must be connected with the copulative "kai" ("and").
If these requirements are met, the two nouns are in a compound construction as shown above, and refer to the same person.The rule has been disputed, but this is due to misapplication. Daniel Wallace, a present-day Koine Greek scholar, has done a thorough analysis of the validity of the rule which can be seen here: Sharp Redivivus? - A Reexamination of the Granville Sharp Rule | Bible.orgEvidence and reasoning was involved in the development of this grammatical rule. The rule started as essentially a grammatical "theory" by Sharp. He tested it against against all clear cases in the Greek New Testament and showed it to be valid, rising to the level of a grammatical "rule". This analysis has been repeated by Wallace.Evidence and reasoning are involved in applying this rule to passages such as Titus 2:13 and concluding that Paul was viewing "God" and "savior" to be the same person, i.e. Jesus Christ; hence, Paul viewed Jesus as God.The evidence and reasoning used here is grammatical and theological, not scientific. For this example, the firmness of the rule and the conclusion is not so strong as most things in science. The grammatical rule applies to Koine Greek, which has a limited amount of material available; one cannot do more testing of this rule until more Koine Greek material is found. Even if the rule were very firm, one could perhaps build a "special pleading" case that Paul was not following it in Titus 2. So I would not claim that this argument "proves" that Jesus is God. But it does provide strong evidence that Paul viewed Jesus as God.

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Is there any evidence that this is not an objective world? I find this argument curious. Why is an objective world something that can not be validated?

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The assumption is when we observe something, there really is something there. If that were not true, how could we ever detect it?

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Can I not trust any of my senses?

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In terms of trusting your senses, - you have to be careful in deciding when you can. The more we find out about how the brain processes our sensory information, the more it becomes clear that our picture of the world is 'made up' by the brain and that we are easily fooled by our own brains.If you mean 'Is something or someone is creating or manipulating our sensory information to create a false impression of the world?' then of course the answer is no, it's not likely. But it is still an assumption because we might not be able to detect this happening

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Do you think math and mathematical models may be being manipulated by something?

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No, I don't think that. I'm not even sure what it means.

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This seems like a very "out there", matrixy argument, with no basis in logic or evidence. In other words an argument using totally subjective ideas and no evidence.

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No, these are very reasonable assumptions but we CANNOT prove them because we cannot step out of our senses and brains. We have no direct perception of 'reality'. Does this worry you? It doesn't worry me. I'm happy to assume they are true. These are common philosophical assumptions of 'realists' .I don't think, btw, that these assumptions weaken the case for science. Nor are they anything like theological assumptions that God exists or that the the bible is (to a greater or lesser extent) true.

What evidence and reasoning was used to reach this conclusion? This does nothing more than define what is being claimed. What I am interested in is the evidence and reasoning that leads to the claim. This seems like a repeat of Acts 17, a lot of assertions about God but no evidence or reasoning. I thought we were talking about religion, not linguistics.

Peepul, excellent post here. I would disagree on some very small things but you laid out your argument in plain clear language that anyone can understand. This is pretty much the point I was trying to get at in the op. I think science can obviously explain better after we reach letter A then what theology can do as I've admitted there is more faith involved in creation then in science. I still believe that before letter A (I'm thinking of an alphabet analogy here, as in the starting point that is known) science can't explain what came before A. Science can hypothesize, theorize and guess what might have happened but please correct me if I'm wrong, it hasn't proven what came before A. Pretty true statement here except I also think reason can lead one to Christ (God). It has before if someone like Josh McDowell (one of the leading apolgists) can set out to prove atheism yet convert to Christianity, primarily, based on his writings and sermons, based on reason and logic. At this point, I'm not arguing if he was right or wrong, I'm just saying, logic and reason (along with the working of the Holy Spirit) lead him from atheism. The Bible, if you believe, has verses that back this reasoning up:Romans 1: 19-20: For what can be "known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, "have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.These verses are primarily talking about divine revelation and how it is expressed in the design of creation. The invisible God is revealed in the visible medium of creation. Paul also stresses here that mankind not only has the opportunity to know God through general revelation, but that the revelation yields real knowledge.So, I agree with others that posted, I don't see "blind faith" in religion...there is reason for the faith. Obviously many discard those reasons as nonsense.Anyhow, very nice post Peepul.

Another way of looking at it is that it *does* increase the tentativity we must attach to scientific theory, a viewpoint creationists might find attractive, but it affects all scientific theory equally, which creationists might not like so much. They can't decide that science's tentativity applies to whether there's evolution but not to whether there's gravity.--Percy

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Another way of looking at it is that it *does* increase the tentativity we must attach to scientific theory, a viewpoint creationists might find attractive, but it affects all scientific theory equally, which creationists might not like so much. They can't decide that science's tentativity applies to whether there's evolution but not to whether there's gravity.

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Yes, that's true. And these assumptions underpin theological or creationist reasoning as much as they do science. After all, most theologians and creationists are realists.

Hi kbertsche,Here is the only relevant or meaningful part of your message; Now you can make whatever linguistic arguments you like, but ultimately, you are only making an appeal to the authority of the Bible. Your whole argument amounts to nothing more than a convoluted version of the words "Titus claims". This is not equivalent to scientific practise in any way.If you want to demonstrate that Christianity is not based on a simple appeal to scriptural authority, you need to show us the underlying basis for believing in, say, Christ's divinity. Saying "Titus claims" is no use unless Titus has something to back it up, something external to scripture, something tangible, something objective. If you can't provide that, you are merely blowing smoke.When scientists cite the works of other scientists, there is always a chain of references, a link to the original observation. You need to show us that link for the divinity of Christ, or admit that science and religion are not equivalent.Mutate and Survive

What was this logic and reasoning? How is divine revelation either logical or reasonable? Actually, we are having serious problems trying to get theists to explain these reasons.

Logic and reason are tools.They can be applied to all manner of data.If the data is good, then you should get good results.If the data is unsubstantiated (divine revelation, scripture, etc.) then you can't expect to get good results. In that case you are doing religious apologetics, not science.Edited by Coyote, : No reason given.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

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Pretty true statement here except I also think reason can lead one to Christ (God). It has before if someone like Josh McDowell (one of the leading apolgists) can set out to prove atheism yet convert to Christianity, primarily, based on his writings and sermons, based on reason and logic. At this point, I'm not arguing if he was right or wrong, I'm just saying, logic and reason (along with the working of the Holy Spirit) lead him from atheism.

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I'll agree that McDowell is famous, however his status is not due to the quality of his arguments. Like Strobel his claims to have been an atheist convinced by reason seem to be nothing more than a much-loved myth.

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The Bible, if you believe, has verses that back this reasoning up:

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Romans 1: 19-20: For what can be "known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, "have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

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And your saying so is a demonstration of blind faith. Of course it isn't true, and it is obviously not true. Yet you think that you should believe it simply because it is in the Bible.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.