Four notes:

1) Your wife is right: the modern thinking (including you “in my mind, science wins)” puts more emphasis on sola scientia and than sola scriptura. She does make a mistake when she says that she's going with faith instead of science but that's because you've already set up a structure in the discussion as if “faith” is anti-thetical to science (and therefore what is intellectual). I think 1 Corinthians 1 in light of Paul's scholarship is important.

2) Science is a matter of methodology; faith is the decisions one makes with the methodology: and that can be theistic or atheistic (solely naturalistic) but you eventually say as much.

3) Interestingly enough, Christ's predictions don't fall into the realm of ethical or moral or faith or practice–they are future-history predictions that can be confirmatory at a later date but it does play against the sphere you're limiting Scripture to (only ethics though you later broaden that to the Gospel which I still think is fundamentally flawed). The question you have to ask is if the Gospel is based on specific historical events outside of the ethical realm then how can you limit the areas that don't make sola scientia comfortable.

4) You should probably add Dr Wile (Nuclear Chemist) and Dr. Lennox (Mathematics) to your watch list. http://blog.drwile.com/ and http://johnlennox.org/

Hey Rey!

1) Modern thinking (including my own) does tend to do that. So far as I know though the doctrine of Sola Scriptura doesn't have anything to do with how we should or shouldn't look at the natural world. It has to do with our source of Christian doctrine. I don't think that believing in a non-literal 6 day creation suns contrary to SS. And I wasn't saying that faith is antithetical to science/reason, but in my opinion they deal with different things. Faith “is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” whereas reason in my mind deals more with naturalistic, observable phenomena. Maybe you can elaborate on your reference to 1 Corinthians?

2) Interesting view on faith there.

3) My comment on Christ's predictions was that there are those that date the Gospels based on those predictions. They say that since Christ couldn't have predicted the fall, that the Gospels were therefore written post AD 70. And that's because they have a completely naturalistic worldview. My attempt wasn't, in that case, wasn't to limit scripture to matters of ethics. I don't think that the Bible only matters in cases of ethics at all. I think that the Gospels are based on historic events. I'm not so sure about all of the OT though.

4) Subscribed to the first, will check out the second.

1. The doctrine of Sola Scriptura is that the buck stops with Scriptura; that's it. That doesn't address how you view the outside world but it does address how you should interpret what you view. A being comes along and tells you that Christ was an alien from Rigel IV, Sola Scriptura speaks to that. Anselm's preliminary response to Guenilon is important here: your eyes are the eyes of a Christian, use them Christianly. That's not an objective feat (as if such a thing were possible for The Finite) but it is seeing from the right angle as it were. That doesn't mean that one must believe in a 6 24 hour day creation, but it does mean that one shouldn't work bass ackwards with this stuff. Too often nowadays the 24 hour day account is written off because of the (supposed) evolutionary proofs. Augustine didn't have a problem with a single moment creation but it wasn't because then-recent discoveries were changing his beliefs of Scripture. True he says that it is absurd to put forward an idea which is contrary to all scientific evidence but then has no problem saying that the Christ resurrected from the dead. Ontologically speaking, science and faith don't deal with different things at all. It's God's Science just as much as it's God's self disclosure. Faith has its reasons else Paul wouldn't have spent so much time with historical nuances (like Abraham receiving promises before circumcision) and else the writer of Hebrews wouldn't have spent the following 39 verses of the chapter and the verses of the next two chapters giving historical precedence. Lennox does a good job with this in his book God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God. William Lane Craig does a superb job of it as well. Sign up to his site reasonablefaith.org based on, of course, Peter's evidence invoking verse.

3. The comment was in regards to making the historical data secondary. Think it through Christologically. If Christ came as an Asian towards Jerusalem and said “I am the Messiah, the Son of David” would it have meant anything? One thing for sure: all of that history was a divine psych out. Sola Scriptura or Sola Scientia comes to the fore again: on what basis is X OT book relegated to fiction? Am I making a Scriptural decision or am I deciding because it no longer fits with our mode of thinking. If the latter, then….

I've had this thread going here to try to clear up some understandings of Sola Scriptura: http://theologica.ning.com/forum/topics/sola-is

Hello Scott and Leigh! I'm glad you're back with this podcast.

There's a particular point of Leigh's that I strongly agree with. It bothers me when some people attempt to use science to explain away miracles described in the Bible. What's odd is I've seen this done by 'both sides'. I've seen atheists try this to show that true miracles don't really happen and religious scientists do this to reconcile their religious and scientific worldviews. I find it bad science, bad theology, and just plain bad argument all around.

Well, Scott, you knew I was going to pick on you for something within this episode since the philosophy of science is a favorite topic of mine. So here it is: the scientific method does not “start with the premise that there is no god.” It merely seeks to discover if a naturalistic explanation is possible. It sometimes appears atheistic because it sometimes discovers natural explanations where only religious ones existed before. It could be that the particular religious explanation was incorrect. There could very well still be a god but religion X got It completely wrong. Perhaps it's that the science doesn't start with the premise that your religion is true is what really bother you?

I'll also take you to task for claiming that science is somehow inherently arrogant. Some (many?) scientists certainly are, but science is not. First of all, as Leigh pointed out earlier on in the podcast, science is never 100% certain. It get's pretty darn close on some subjects, so close that it's reasonable to accept the theory as fact, but it never claims absolute certainty. Compare that to certainty that religious people have that their favorite holy book is the word of their favorite god(s). Also note that science doesn't claim to be a moral authority on anything at all whereas you believe that all moral truths can be known from the Bible (correct me if I'm wrong in thinking that). Furthermore, once again pointed out in this episode, that science adjusts its theories in light of new evidence.

To summarize, science is
– not absolutely certain
– claims no moral authority
– changes theories when contradicted evidence

whereas religion/faith is
– absolutely certain about some topics
– claims moral authority
– resistant to change when contradicted by evidence

Which is list is more indicative of arrogance? Note that I'm writing about the subjects themselves and not those that practice them. I mean, seriously, Judaism and it's derivative religions all not only claim to know with certainty that God exists, but also they claim to know the mind of God. That seems to me the height of hubris.

You agree with Leigh about something? Wow! FWIW I actually agree with you both. I don't attempt to say that science explains away the miracle of creation but what I do try to do with that particular story is to say that a literal interpretation isn't the only valid option.

I would say that re: science, you're right and you're wrong. Pure science is not atheistic and I don't think I said it was. What I hope I said was that science as it is often practiced is. I would say that scientists most often go into whatever they're studying with God at the bare minimum on the outside. They assume that a naturalistic explanation is likely the only plausible one for whatever phenomenon they are addressing. So it doesn't start with the premise that any religion is true. And I don't think it should.

I don't think that I said that science is inherently arrogant. I said that there is a lot of “arrogance in the scientific community”.And I said at about the halfway point that “I'm not saying that all scientists are arrogant” and that “I'm not saying that the purpose of science is arrogant”. I said that it's a trap that scientists (and religious people) can fall into.

I tell you what, can you harken back to us listening to Dawkins and tell me if he would agree with your summary of science? He seemed absolutely certain and was making moral judgments. Now I know he doesn't represent all scientists any more than say Fallwell represents all religious people, but he is somewhat representative isn't he. And even if he isn't the way many people defend science from your end of the bloc seem to do so with a zealotry that would make Jerry proud.

You're absolutely right when you say what you do about religion. It can lead to arrogance. Hopefully it would lead us to humility and it often can and does. I would even goso far as to say it should. Most major religions have humility at their core. In the face of the Divine that should be our posture. Is my saying that arrogant? Oddly enough, maybe so.

As far as knowing the mind of God is concerned, the Abrahamic faiths don't inherently claim to know anything like the mind of God in toto, but they do make the claim that God has revealed certain things and people take that where they will. Again I'd say it can lead to hubris, but that doesn't have to be the end result.

Thanks for the reply.

“[Scientists] assume that a naturalistic explanation is likely the only plausible one for whatever phenomenon they are addressing.”

The scientific method / scientists distinction is an important one. You are right, scientists do more often then not side with a naturalistic explanation when choosing between two or more competing hypothesis. The reason is straight-forward, though; a natural explanation is the only kind that the scientific method is capable of verifying.

Re arrogance: Okay, so you see that many scientists and many religious people are arrogant. It seems, then, to be a human thing. If it tends to be so universal, it can't be used as a critique against intellectuals. They are not arrogant because of their intellectualism, but because they're human.

“I tell you what, can you harken back to us listening to Dawkins and tell me if he would agree with your summary of science? He seemed absolutely certain and was making moral judgments.”

A couple of things. First, the practitioner/discipline distinction needs to be made again. Practitioners of science can fail on all three points I have listed above. I'm talking about the discipline of science. A fundamental tool is skepticism – the opposite of certainty. Don't take what this old book has to say about events as true; doubt it. Check it against other documents and historical artifacts.

While I can see how science can be used to inform a moral debate (a fetus' brain is capable of x and y after z months) , I really fail to see how the scientific method can be used in any way to decide a moral dilemma (whether or not it's right to abort a pregnancy after z months). I'll try:

Step 1: form a hypothesis.
“Aborting a pregnancy after 15 weeks is immoral.”

Step 2: gather evidence.
“Um…” – dead end.

The trouble is that the rightness or wrongness of an action is not a measurable thing.

Second, Dawkins often talks about the level of certainty in science. He says that the scientific method cannot produce certainty, but it can progressively bring us closer to certainty with successive confirmation. The certainty you hear/read from Dawkins is a relative one when it comes to his area of expertise. Also, he certainly does make moral judgments – as do we all. But those are not his scientific conclusions. I don't think that being a scientist exempts one from making moral judgments.

“Most major religions have humility at their core.”

Yet they claim to have exclusive knowledge about very important things that is impossible to verify. This juxtaposition makes no sense to me. Religions are saying “I am the ultimate wordy authority on the creator of the universe, human nature, morality, and the afterlife! All other claims of knowledge in these areas that contradict me are wrong! There is no reason to seek independent verification for these claims for I teach the Truth. Oh, and I teach humility too.”

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