Re: Signs of Scientism

As I understand the multi-page discussion in "Little Kittel," the related
terms involve belief in something, obedience to it, trust in it,
commitment to it. The faith my be the message, which is accepted. There
may also be the notion of faithfulness.
Dave

On Sun, 22 Jan 2006 20:49:45 -0700 "Jim Armstrong" <jarmstro@qwest.net>
writes:
...reflecting (as I understand it) the fuller meaning of the more
verblike underlying Greek "pistis", something more like "faithing" or at
least "faithful", involving the dimensions of life in addition to
assent.. JimA

Peter Cook wrote:

Rich,

It seems to me also that the faith in the person of Jesus Christ itself
is something more rich than what we may be speaking of when we commonly
speak of "faith", for it appears that a good content of what appears to
be Biblical faith is involved in obedience, something rather different
from intellectual assent to any proposition.

Pete Cook
----- Original Message -----
From: Rich Blinne
To: David Opderbeck
Cc: Dawsonzhu@aol.com ; gregoryarago@yahoo.ca ; kbmill@ksu.edu ;
asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Monday, January 16, 2006 1:01 PM
Subject: Re: Signs of Scientism

On 1/16/06, David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm pretty sure, though, that the phrase "origin of life" has a different
meaning as Ken is using it. Say, for example, that we could somehow
confirm that organic molecules developed throughout the universe through
"natural" processes and arrived on the proto-Earth through comet impacts.
 My guess is that would be the kind of solution to the origin of life
question Keith mentions (assuming that neo-Darwinism really accounts for
the development of life from those organic molecules). But that wouldn't
cause me to throw away my Bible (though it would cause me to once again
reexamine the first couple chapters of Genesis) because it wouldn't
address the question of ultimate causation.

Exactly. If we look at the case of Psalm 139, the following question
arises. If science has the ability to describe the descent of humans
(without modification) does it negate that God knit David in the womb? Of
course not. If that is not an issue, why would descent with modification
be one? And what if science disovered a natural mechanism for abiogenesis
whould that mean that God did not create life? Please note that God is
free to use first causes as in the case of the virgin birth, but He is
also free to use second causes and still be God and still be sovereign
over all creation and over all time (not just the time period described
in Genesis 1). Please note the asymmetry here. Discovering first causes
would show that God exists, but discovering second causes does not
disprove it. Thus, both Dr. Millers are correct in saying that science
that believes in descent with modification is not necessarily
incompatible with religion in general or the Bible in particular.

As for the faith question, saying theistic proofs negate faith is to
equivocate on the word faith. Believe in God's existence (or any other
Biblical doctrine) is not the complete sense of a Biblical faith. It is
merely the faith of demons (James 2:19), being necessary but nowhere near
sufficient. Our faith is in the person of Jesus Christ and not merely in
a set of propositions.
Received on Mon Jan 23 00:14:11 2006