Where the relationship between science and religion is concerned, I have found it helpful to envision two overlapping circles, one representing objects of interest that are susceptible to the tools of the Enlightenment or Science, if you will. Those tools or means of knowledge include both the rationalist (esp. Descartes) and empiricist (e.g., Newton) epistemological streams. The other circle represents objects of knowledge appropriate to Christian faith and enjoyment of life in the family of God. Included in this circle are matters as different as the substitutionary atonement and the existence of the city of Ai mentioned in the Old Testament.
The circles overlap because some objects of knowledge belonging to the full enjoyment of a Christian believer are investigatable and so potentially knowable or at least rendered plausible through Enlightenment epistemological tools by believers and unbelievers alike. This image recognizes a certain irreducible historical dimension of Christian confession from which we must never hide. We dig together with unbelieving archaeologists and submit to a common epistemological standard, fully recognizing the historical vulnerability of our confession. The image also reflects recognition of epistemological turf in which the believer and the church submits to the expertise of the scientist, the physician or the physicist. When the eye surgeon offers his diagnoses, I have no interest in whipping out a copy of the Proverbs to dispute the advice given. But the scientist is encouraged to admit ignorance and perhaps keep silent where his own epistemological tools prove insufficient, say regarding the Trinity, the two natures of Christ or the substitutionary atonement.
6 responses so far ↓
samlcarr // Jan 23, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Interlocking worldviews that significantly overlap! The question always is which is dominant. A sibling rivalry that we will have to endure…
Mike // Jan 23, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Site improvements are great brother, and this post is vey helpful to us po’ lay folks. God Bless.
Charles Churchill // Jan 23, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Professor DeVine,
I read your comments on Jesus Creed and thought I would respond to you here if that’s ok.
I take issue with the idea that there is a sphere of knowledge to which the Bible cannot/doesn’t speak. There is an aspect of your post that seems to say that Proverbs 1:7 is not true, or that the knowledge it speaks of is limited in scope. In my mind, the sphere of knowledge that the Word of God addresses is infinite.
In your example above, I would hope that the only reason that we accept the fact that the ophthalmologist’s science is sound is because it is based on principles that are consistent with God’s word. The moment we see scientists departing from those principles, we have every reason to remove our faith in their conclusions.
Does this make sense? Or maybe I’m misreading your comments.
mdevine // Jan 23, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Charles
I appreciate your comments very much. Here are some things that I can say. I do believe that all truth is God’s truth. I believe that no so-called truth, no meaning can be known and appreciated in its fullness apart from the light of the revelation of God, including the specialized knowledge of the ophthalmologist.
My recognition of spheres of epistemological turf or inquiry are not meant to exclude God from those spheres. I only mean to recognize what all of us do when we take our children to unbelieving physicians. They know something truly that we value and that knowledge is not found in the Bible. The practicing Christian Scientists who eschew medical physicians may have a claim to purity here but if they operate automobiles or consume produce aided by fertilizer, they do enjoy the benefits of the Enlightenment. When from the standpoint of faith we insist that nothing is know in its perfection apart from the revelation of God in Jesus Christ we need not imply that nothing at all can be by unbelievers or for that matter by believers too who yet have much to learn from our God.
Henry Michael Imler // Jan 23, 2007 at 10:41 pm
These are wise words indeed. However, I wonder about the space where the Venn diagrams overlap. Issues such as the progression view in the fossil record and the development of the cosmos.
Here is it much harder to listen to the scientist with their naturalistic assumptions and with some of our traditional theological assumptions at stake.
Charles Churchill // Jan 24, 2007 at 9:17 am
Professor DeVine,
.
Thanks for the clarification. I definitely believe that non-Christian can know truth. My issue with terms such as the Enlightenment, is that in many ways it a period of darkening. Just as the Dark Ages, was really the spreading of Christianity throughout the world as Christians scattered from the crumbling Roman Empire. This is not to say that atheists in the “Enlightenment” didn’t stumble across truth, but their practices didn’t match their stated beliefs. While saying from one corner of their mouth that there are no universal absolutes, they practiced science as if there were. They will state with a straight face that the world is nothing but material and then use the immaterial “laws” of logic to call someone who believes in God as irrational. I’ve given up on asking them to point me toward a molecule of logic. Anyway, I really didn’t mean to launch into this spiel. Thanks for your gracious reply. I like your blog and wish you would update it, oh, several times a day at least
Take care,
Charles
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