I am not attempting to falsify science only to suggest that it has no use in this case. Science is a tool of truth not an end in itself. It obtains only certain kinds of truth and some things e.g. origins are inaccessible to it
However, the timing of the big bang, the age of the solar system and the first appearance of life and of humanity on earth are not among those things that are inaccessible to science.
Disagreement with scientific conclusions on such matters requires falsification of the science.
The kinds of truth that are inaccessible to science fall outside the purview of science altogether. I agree such types of truth exist, but they neither affirm nor deny scientific truth. Nor does scientific truth affirm or deny other kinds of truth.
This separation between science and theology is an artificial one and not one warranted by a scriptural approach. The scriptures are revealed in a concrete historical setting and the account of creation is written in this same historical style.
It is not warranted by a scriptural approach because all of scripture is written from a pre-scientific perspective and none of it relies on scientific method or observation.
Neither creation account is written in a historical style. The first is poetic and highly theological--a polemic against false gods actually, as well as a panegyric of the Creator God of Israel. The second is a classic myth, mythology being the pre-scientific analogue of science in that its purpose was to explain, in terms of image and narrative, why the present is as it is.
There is a overlap and many things are undiscoverable by its methods e.g. an account of the unseen world, of God , of love and of origins. Theology is in the driving seat in the relationship with science or the relationship is an unreal one.
There is rather a common area of interest. And while theological considerations may be of greater interest, theology still cannot dictate to science its data, method or conclusions. In respect of science, theology is theoretical. And in science fact always trumps theory. Fact incompatible with theory always requires a change in the theory, never the reverse. So if a theology comes into conflict with facts observed and explained by science, the theology must be reconsidered.
Theology has a proper place in coming to grips with the implications of scientific conclusions, but it cannot prescribe scientific conclusions. By the same token, science cannot prescribe theological conclusions. It can neither affirm nor deny the existence of God, for example, from the data or theories of science.
I think our disagreement is about where we set the line - I exclude far more things from sciences remit than you do.
But on the basis of wishful thinking rather than understanding.
Read the Bible is the positive answer but I realise not the one you are looking for here. No I am not qualified to suggest what science can do and say regarding the question of origins nor what a positive vision of our origins (that is framed in a scientific manner) would look like.
Therefore you are also not qualified to say that the scientific description of the processes which brought the universe as we know it into being are incorrect.
However, deeper than the question of scientific competence is the nature which God gave to humanity. Does that nature include sense perception? If so, for what purpose if not to perceive creation? Does human nature include capacity to reason? If so, for what purpose if not to understand--not only creation, but also all communication from God.
Were these functions of human nature removed by the fall? I think not. How could we relate to creation, even imperfectly, with no capacity to rely on our senses at all? How could we grasp the truths revealed to the prophets with no capacity to reason at all?
Sense and reason are the basic tools by which we know the world around us. Even when we know in part, if we know that part with any accuracy it is because these faculties function as they were created to function.
Why then, should we come to the conclusion that the physical world is not as it seems to be when we have used our best methods to observe it and test those observations for accuracy?
For me it starts with scripture. YEC sounds right cause it attempts to wrestle with the scriptural references to origins. Atheistic evolution sounds absurd because it describes a godless universe.
Are those the only two options you have considered? What about other options? Or did you think there were no others?
Thats a very good question but it is also contains a very big assumption. Things appear to act according to the same reason right now - so you say that therefore they do - and then ask why is that? You dataset is limited and timeframe also.
The size of the dataset and timeframe matters much less than the accuracy of the observations made of them. If these observations are accurate, then we can draw accurate provisional conclusions from them. When we have additional data, we can see if those conclusions still stand or need to be revised.
I would also add that since you are not versed in science, you are probably underestimating significantly the size of the dataset we have. I spent most of my life indifferent to science. I am much more at home in the realm of theology. But once I began to consider the role of science, I was blown away by how much scientists actually know. Doubt about their conclusions is more often based on ignorance and incredulity than on actual weaknesses in the science.
The other thing that impressed me is that scientists are also pretty clear and straight-forward about what they do not know. There is no claim that science has fully described the physical world. Or that current theories are anything more than provisional given current data. But within those limitations it is possible to state what is known and the degree of accuracy with which it is known.
But not about macrolevel questions e.g. the origins of the whole universe. I trust the Bible because of the one who speaks through it.
Yet you do not trust the same one to communicate through his work. Remember that creation is a work of the Word of God. Why place it under a shadow of suspicion since it has the same source as the scripture you trust?
Partial knowledge of the Bible is still partial knowledge of the truth. Partial knowledge in a scientific case may be just a perspective when it comes down to it and paticularly when the subject matter is so far removed from the experience of any human being living today.
Again you are applying a double standard. One can distinguish in relation to scripture as well a difference between partial knowledge (which is still partial knowledge of truth) and a perspective which is just a perspective i.e. a fallible human interpretation of the meaning of the text.
In fact, it is noteworthy that in theology we have multiple competing perspectives on scripture from people who are all quite knowledgeable about it. But in science, once the accuracy of the knowledge has been established, competing perspectives fall away as falsified.
None of the subject matter of science is far removed from human experience, since all of science is based on evidence which is current.
Again the absolute separation of the two disciplines. The british did not go with the church state split that governs american insitutions although arguably they are far more secular than americans today.
Actually, I am Canadian, and we don't have the rigid separation of church and state either, falling somewhere in between the British and American practice. We do not have an established church for example, but we did have tax-funded religious schools until very recently. In fact, in my province we still do and the question of extending support to additional faiths for their own schools became an election issue.
However, the separation of institutions is a different matter than the separation of disciplines. I would agree that to some extent all such divisions are a matter of convenience. Reality does not so neatly divide.
The two spheres have an overlap and this overlap is the only reason that feel qualified to speak on matters of science.
If by that you mean that you can comment on the correctness of science, that is not a sufficient qualification. As a theologian your task is not to tell scientists their business, but to reflect theologically on the meaning of scientific knowledge in the light of scripture and the witness of the Holy Spirit. For example, does the scientific information on the formation of the earth as a planet in a solar system in a galaxy which coalesced from the matter distributed in space according to the initial conditions of the big bang mean that it was not created? No more so than the scientific information about conception and gestation means you are not one of God's beloved creations. On such questions, science and theology run, as it were, on parallel tracks. The description of physical process provides understanding of the natural causal forces. The theology tells of the one who generated those forces in the first place to accomplish his creative purpose. The one does not negate the other--in either direction.
What modern scientists are saying about origins is unreal to me first and foremost from a theological perspective.
That may be, but I think it is also very much a matter of not knowing or understanding the science as well. I would strongly suggest reading the work of scientifically knowledgeable theologians on the topic. And of believing scientists. There are a good many works of this sort being published today. My favorite author in this group is John Polkinghorne, a trained theoretical physicist who after a 25-year career as a scientist became a priest and theologian. Denis Lamoureux, a Canadian, also has PhDs in both science and theology and takes a more evangelical perspective. John F. Haught is another who has written extensively on the interface of science and religion from a Catholic perspective.
Creation is in bondge to decay and cursed and the story you say it tells about events so far removed from theological realities and human experience cannot be true.
Bondage to decay is one thing. Undoing creation is something different and not contemplated in scripture. Whether the decay named in this passage of scripture means ordinary physical decay is a question in itself. But for the sake of argument, let us assume it is. Decay is a natural biological or physical process which can be described scientifically.
This fact means that nature, even when subject to decay, still has many of the qualities imparted in creation. Decay, itself, follows natural laws established by the Creator. The decay of organic material by biological, chemical and physicial processes, means such processes exist, can be studied, and operate in a scientifically reliable fashion.
In fact, decay even enters into keeping track of time. Consider sherren's example of the dead man in the alley. He noted we didn't need to establish the time of death to come to a conclusion about whether he was shot or stabbed. True.
But the body would also give information about the time of death. The extent to which rigor mortis had set in, the extent to which his last meal had been digested and other clues would establish whether he had been dead for a few hours or a day or so. Beyond a day or so there would be obvious evidence of further decay. And if the victim was not found for some years, we might have only a skeleton. So the time of death can be estimated by the condition of the body. Decay measures time.
The same can be said for the process of fossilization. It takes time for flesh and bone to mineralize. Mechanical operations such as erosion and sedimentation and the formation of ice over many seasons also give us estimates of time. And radioactive decay gives us one of the most accurate measures of the age of rocks.
So even the bondage to decay imposed on creation gives us solid information about creation---not flights of fanciful speculation.
There is continuity and discontinuity between our present existence and our future hope.
I was very glad to see this sentence in one of your other posts. I agree wholeheartedly.
I would note that there is also continuity as well as discontinuity between the pre-fall world and our present existence. It is not true that the past becomes at some particular point opaque and murky to the extent that we cannot study it. It is not true that the fall so changed creation that it operates on fundamentally different natural laws.
Indeed, something laypersons often do not realize, is that if something as fundamental as the laws of physics were dismantled, it would effectively uncreate creation. While the bible speaks of various consequences of the fall, it does not present such a catastrophic effect as that. Just as it does not present a complete effacing of the image of God in humanity or a complete incapacity to know creation through sense and reason.
When I speak of God communicating through the work of creation, and taking that work seriously as a witness to what God has done, it is that thread of continuity I rely on.
It is that constancy and reliability in nature that is so often referenced in scripture, beginning with the promise to Noah that day and night, heat and cold, seedtime and harvest would never cease, but keep their course. The constancy and consistency of nature is a model of the fidelity of God, and is the basis of scientific exploration of creation.
Grrrr
