Science and Orthodoxy: 4 Questions and 4 Your Answers

Alex8

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On my view, there are 4 basic issues on which science and Orthodoxy really differ.

They all relate to Gen. 1-11:

1) the duration of the existence of the universe (history of the universe);
2) the origin of the man and the duration of the existence of mankind (history of mankind);
3) global flood;
4) the origin of different languages and the peoples of the world.

How would you solve all these questions?
Thank you in advance!
 
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ArmyMatt

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I don't think solving the question is the right question. the question is who do you choose to follow and why? there are plenty of Orthodox Christians who fall on a whole slew of sides of those points.
 
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Alex8

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I don't think solving the question is the right question. the question is who do you choose to follow and why? there are plenty of Orthodox Christians who fall on a whole slew of sides of those points.
Because of faith recognizes science. Scientific guesses turn out to be correct very often. So faith is truth and science is (largely) truth. It's supposed science should confirm what faith claims. But it isn't happening
 
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ArmyMatt

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Because of faith recognizes science. Scientific guesses turn out to be correct very often. So faith is truth and science is (largely) truth. It's supposed science should confirm what faith claims. But it isn't happening

all four points though are supernatural claims, and therefore by definition are outside of science's scope.

you're free to believe the scientific consensus, as many do within the Church.
 
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gzt

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On my view, there are 4 basic issues on which science and Orthodoxy really differ.

They all relate to Gen. 1-11:

1) the duration of the existence of the universe;
2) the origin of the man and the duration of the existence of mankind;
3) global flood;
4) the origin of ethnic groups and languages

How would you solve all these questions?
Thank you in advance!
What? We can broadly agree with science on all four of these points:

1. About 13.8 billion years.
2. The broad evolutionary story.
3. Wasn't one.
4. Different populations in different areas will look a little different and speak differently.

Though one doesn't have to to be Orthodox.
 
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Alex8

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What? We can broadly agree with science on all four of these points:

1. About 13.8 billion years.
2. The broad evolutionary story.
3. Wasn't one.
4. Different populations in different areas will look a little different and speak differently.

Though one doesn't have to to be Orthodox.
1,2,3 - this is contrary to the literal interpretation that the Fathers have
4 - I didn't understand your answer
 
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gzt

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1,2,3 - this is contrary to the literal interpretation that the Fathers have
4 - I didn't understand your answer
Not required to be literalists. A lot aren't!
 
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Platina

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On my view, there are 4 basic issues on which science and Orthodoxy really differ.

They all relate to Gen. 1-11:

1) the duration of the existence of the universe;
2) the origin of the man and the duration of the existence of mankind;
3) global flood;
4) the origin of different languages and the peoples of the world.

How would you solve all these questions?
Thank you in advance!
The question is what is the authority for interpreting Scripture. For Orthodoxy, the authority is the God-bearing Fathers. St. Theophan the Recluse teaches that science moves fast, and let it do so, but wherever it diverges from the historical teaching of the Church, we know it's wrong.

True science is that which harmonizes with the true theology.
 
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Xenophon

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From 6th Ecumenical Council, Synodical Epistle of Patriarch St. Sophronius of Jerusalem.

Profession of Faith in Creation;

1. Concerning the coming into being of the visible world, its establishment at the beginning of time, and its consummation, which it may receive before long, I confess to you, honoured by God, that the one God framed everything, not only the visible but also the invisible – the one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that is, the nature which is external and without beginning – and brought from nonexistence into existence and created what previously was not, and wisely brought into being the myriad of varieties of them. The Father made everything through the only-begotten Son in the Holy Spirit, [everything] which he holds in being through wise foresight, presiding as God over his own works, and establishing a beginning in time for everything, he subjected the perceptible to an end in time, while to the intellectual and unseen he awarded greater honour than to these: they will not die at all or corrupt in the way that perceptible things flux and easily dissipate, not that they are immortal by nature or have changed into an incorruptible essence, but he has granted them this grace which keeps them from corruption and death. Thus the souls of human beings remain incorruptible, thus the angels continue immortal, not that they are truly incorruptible by in nature, as we have said, or in an essence which is properly immortal, but because they have been allotted a grace from God which bestows immortality and will grant them an incorrupt existence.

2. But it is not because the souls of human beings, by the grace of God, have thrust off the corruption lurking naturally in all created things that we shall suppose therefore [that they existed] before bodies, or that we shall think that they existed in some eternal life before creation and the compacting of the visible world. Nor would we allege that they had a heavenly way of life, living a fleshless and incorporeal life eternally in a heaven which once did not exist, as the frenzied Origen would have it, and his confederates who are of like mind with him, Didymus and Evagrius and the rest of their crowd that pays heed to fables. In their error they do not only hold this belief, mixing it up with pagan teachings and sullying the noble race of Christians, but they also mindlessly do away with the resurrection of these bodies with which they are now invested, stammering myriads of terrible things worthy of their impious, fabulous invention. To confound them what was said by Paul to the Corinthians is sufficient: ‘If the dead are not raised, nor has Christ been raised’. And finally, when in this way they have loitered vainly in their reasoning, he added: ‘And indeed your faith in vain’. Or is it, you people, that have no part in our sacred confession and the resurrection of the flesh in it? – for indeed the confession of the ‘resurrection of the flesh’ is required of us as we approach saving baptism. This is why, as it appeared to one of the sages, the entire resplendent and conspicuous dispensation of the only-begotten was put into effect so splendidly, ‘so that he might save the image and make the flesh immortal’.

3. But it is not only on this point that the deranged err and go astray from the straight road ( such impiety would be tolerable in comparison with [their other] evils), but they also make myriads of other statements contrary to the tradition of the apostles and our Fathers. They throw out the planting of paradise, they do not want Adam fashioned in the flesh, they object to the moulding of Eve from him, they reject the utterance of the snake, they forbid the ranks of heavenly armies as they were created to be in the beginning with God, imagining that they resulted from a primordial condemnation and deviation. They dream up, both godlessly and mythically, that all rational things were produced in a henad of minds, and they abuse the creation of the waters above heaven, and want an end to punishment, and they introduce besides total corruptibility of all perceptible things, while alleging the restoration of all rational creatures, angels, human beings, and demons, and again confounding their differences into one mythical unity, when Christ will be different from us in no respect, whom they preach in foolish manner, not with one foul perversion only but giving their neighbor myriads of draughts to drink, and, wretches that they are, deigned to die and poured out the ransom that was his divine blood and laid down his own life as a most divine gift exceeding all worth.

4. But we, because we have been given to drink the rational and guileless milk of right and blameless and well-disciplined faith, have tasted the good word of God, thrust away all their shadowy teachings. Being free of all their lawless babblings and walking in the footsteps of our Fathers, we both speak of the consummation of the present world and believe that that that life which is to come after the present life will last forever, and we hold to unending punishment; the former will gladden unceasingly those who have performed excellent deeds, but the latter will bring pain without respite, and also indeed punishment, on those who became lovers of what was vile in this life and refused to repent before the end of their course and departure hence. For ‘their worm will not die’, says Christ the judge, who is the truth, ‘and their fire will not be extinguished.’ These things received them from proclamation which is from apostles and evangelist, from prophets and the Law, from Fathers and Teachers, and we have made them manifest to You, all-wise One, and have hidden nothing from You.
 
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Alex8

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The question is what is the authority for interpreting Scripture. For Orthodoxy, the authority is the God-bearing Fathers. St. Theophan the Recluse teaches that science moves fast, and let it do so, but wherever it diverges from the historical teaching of the Church, we know it's wrong.

True science is that which harmonizes with the true theology.
I agree with this principle. But scientists don't try to specifically hide the truth.
And that doesn't seem like they were just mistakes. Scientific facts have been collected to support these theories for more than one hundred years. Why, then, does scientific methods help make mobile phones but make mistakes regarding, for instance, cosmology and anthropogenesis?
 
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archer75

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I agree with this principle. But scientists don't try to specifically hide the truth.
And that doesn't seem like they were just mistakes. Scientific facts have been collected to support these theories for more than one hundred years. Why, then, does scientific methods help make mobile phones but make mistakes regarding, for instance, cosmology and anthropogenesis?
Look into "alterism" in an Orthodox context.
 
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Xenophon

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I agree with this principle. But scientists don't try to specifically hide the truth.
And that doesn't seem like they were just mistakes. Scientific facts have been collected to support these theories for more than one hundred years. Why then does scientific methods help make mobile phones but make mistakes regarding, for instance, cosmology and anthropogenesis?

Different levels or kinds of epistemic access. Knowledge requires a theory of knowledge. There is no single theory of knowledge which guides the sciences. Further, most scientists do not understand what knowledge or a theory of knowledge is, so while there work my be very accurate to physical phenomena, the wider context of their findings can be subject to a wide range of distortions.

For example, Stephen Hawking, in The Grand Design, begins by celebrating the Copernican Principle's victory over (what is sometimes called) the Anthropic principle, but then he proceeds to try to create a new 'scientific philosophy' he calls 'perspective modal realism' which is simply a rehash of the Anthropic principle. Yet, Hawking, despite his great intelligence is simply not educated enough about the wider context of his field to understand that this is what he's done.

However, Hawking goes on to claim that all models are equally valid. Flat earth is equal to geocentrism is equal to heliocentrism. Why? Because humans are bound by their perceptions, Hawking claims that humans have no epistemic access - they can't know truth and thus science, in Hawking's mind, can never discover truth about the universe.

Thus, in regard to origins, for Hawking, Evolution cannot scientifically be determined to be any more true than Protestant Fundamentalist Creation Science. Just in the same way heliocentrism cannot be determined to be more true than flat earth. For him, it's literally, "whatever works for you." And in this way, he's just being really silly - but not in the jesting kind of silly.
 
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Alex8

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Different levels or kinds of epistemic access. Knowledge requires a theory of knowledge. There is no single theory of knowledge which guides the sciences. Further, most scientists do not understand what knowledge or a theory of knowledge is, so while there work my be very accurate to physical phenomena, the wider context of their findings can be subject to a wide range of distortions.

For example, Stephen Hawking, in The Grand Design, begins by celebrating the Copernican Principle's victory over (what is sometimes called) the Anthropic principle, but then he proceeds to try to create a new 'scientific philosophy' he calls 'perspective modal realism' which is simply a rehash of the Anthropic principle. Yet, Hawking, despite his great intelligence is simply not educated enough about the wider context of his field to understand that this is what he's done.

However, Hawking goes on to claim that all models are equally valid. Flat earth is equal to geocentrism is equal to heliocentrism. Why? Because humans are bound by their perceptions, Hawking claims that humans have no epistemic access - they can't know truth and thus science, in Hawking's mind, can never discover truth about the universe.

Thus, in regard to origins, for Hawking, Evolution cannot scientifically be determined to be any more true than Protestant Fundamentalist Creation Science. Just in the same way heliocentrism cannot be determined to be more true than flat earth. For him, it's literally, "whatever works for you." And in this way, he's just being really silly - but not in the jesting kind of silly.
I imagine it's a great view but this is rather difficult to understand :(
Please, could you put the same message but in simpler words?
 
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gzt

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It seems to me this concept is contrary to the literal interpretation of Gen. 1-11 and the words of St. Sophronius of Jerusalem, stated above
Yes, there certainly are people whose views are not reconcilable with the scientific consensus. There are others whose are. There is not a consensus on the whole in Orthodoxy.
 
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archer75

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It seems to me this concept is contrary to the literal interpretation of Gen. 1-11 and the words of St. Sophronius of Jerusalem, stated above
Okay, well, my understanding is that it is NOT contrary to those chapters, rather that it affirms them...and affirms, in agreement with various Fathers, the understanding that sin so wrecked the cosmos that nothing we can observe is as it was before sin (and therefore the pre-sin creation is simply not accessible to science, because it cannot be observed).
 
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Xenophon

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I imagine it's a great view but this is rather difficult to understand :(
Please, could you put the same message but in simpler words?

Ah, I'm sorry. I'll think about how to better state my words. In the meantime, I might end up posting more sayings of the Church Fathers on the topic.
 
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Xenophon

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St. Athanasius the Great:

Knowing the free will of man could incline to either side, in anticipation He [God] made secure the grace given them, by means of a law and a place. For, bringing them into His own Paradise (Garden), He gave them a law, so that, if they guarded the grace and remained good, they might possess the life in Paradise which is free of sorrow, pain or care, besides having the promise of incorruption in heaven.

A Canon approved at the Council of Carthage in 419 and ratified at the Quinisext Council (692) and the Seventh Ecumenical Council (787):

Whoever says that Adam, the first man, was created mortal, so that whether he had sinned or not, he would have died in body that is, he would have gone forth from the body, not because his sin merited this, but by natural necessity – let him be anathema.

St. John Chrysostom:

Up until that time [of the fall] they we reliving like angels in Paradise and so they were not burning with desire, not assaulted by other passions, not subject to the needs of nature, but on the contrary were created incorruptible and immortal, and on that account at any rate they had no need to ware clothes…

Consider, I ask you, the transcendence of their blessed condition, how they were superior to all bodily concerns, how they lived on earth as if they were in heaven, and though in fact possessing a body they did not feel the limitations of their bodies. After all, they had no need of shelter or habitation, clothing or anything of that kind…

Everything, you see, He [God] made and arranged so that this rational being [man] created by Him had the good fortune to be of the greatest importance, and far from being inferior to the life of the angels, enjoyed in the body their immunity from suffering.

Elsewhere St. John Chrysostom write that, before the fall, Adam and Eve…

… lived in Paradise as in heaven and enjoyed God’s company. Desire for sexual intercourse, conception, labor, childbirth and every form of corruption had been banished from their souls… At that time there were no cities, crafts, or houses…. Nevertheless, nothing either thwarted or hindered that happy life, which was far better than this.
 
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Alex8

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To me, science is just the revealing of God’s creation. Those who claim “science” contradicts God’s existence are wrong.
Yes, science doesn't contradict God's existence in principle because He's invisible. But some generally accepted scientific theories may conflict with some aspects of the Church's teaching
 
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