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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: ACT Registrar <registrar@actministry.org>
Date: Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 1:56 PM
Subject: ACT Events in Mar 2009
To: dopderbeck@gmail.com
*ACT Events in March 2009
* *
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Dear Friends of ACT,
ACT Seminars in March 2009 are drawn from the Philosophy & Science series.
These seminars will be held at Hunter College, West Building, Room 508 in
New York from 12.10pm - 1.00pm. Please join us and let your friends
know. Registration
is free of charge, hosted by Redeemer Presbyterian Church.
*Quick Links* Event Detail for
PS1<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102478397401&e=001yIfJQ6l-ZCWTrIAdHXgom8cgwWjA9IX3aMTQQrmZY5QZeW2giV2p1NkMUEksySYkouciqR8S3OIkvm6SzSLJgeRGjow1zTeRoCBJhwSlPKVlZUX8YzA-OjYWhv5QKWhXFnIT0YRAgxZyBuJ3Nlkxrz3S6YhHbfxi>
Event Detail for
PS2<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102478397401&e=001yIfJQ6l-ZCW7E0bY8DIQ3RZqWIzh62XjvGzTUq8rlrSJM5oSj7LiF84zswrop8JE5Lsz8nPRAY0xWi6JQ458wWK94mY0f01k1JtGuDYWP1R8j-eh4atF7AZtkk3g-ka5DvvxfntlhM1EfRYGFNrB3papWFbWFyen>
Event Detail for
PS3<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102478397401&e=001yIfJQ6l-ZCWJols2lJYAw4erDhfZ-FxBQarR8xeRf3QhJBGC0u3AxVm4pNDTR03y9vvBT4W-97fQV3_43bLD2WxDPNNW-O9vBSDHLPBl_I3Cl6P8emB-KJmpJjp8rPTyMlUmzgWie9iSXY0KZB59_TDfYy-A-GXq>
Event Detail for
PS4<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102478397401&e=001yIfJQ6l-ZCXyw_dVcgirelK3_VK8p8l5ytvz3vEM731KWHqPOt8lOc0gZHRAhpe0SB8kxPzGtS5Z4mgeZnUjs-tAo6Htaj_2GC6kZngooWjJNQZGAtb8CNSD9FEHe-i-sdup9AEcI9ohp9Ae_SMv54u8cDO02l_g>
1. Mar 08 (Sun): PS1 Christianity & Philosophy in Plain
Language<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102478397401&e=001yIfJQ6l-ZCUc6Bht9zJ0k2WIK_YUlT1j7b6K2F9m35u5HWa8OICLb_gxFArHJQDIQjS2CIKiXH5AH_ytTJPly38t4zUguEnEEosvoyJk1D1t6KvYXMiwWX8_fRYDbtuCGNrHazIkOIdyU3vSsvhlFLnz4L80J6jA>
We are what we believe. For the Christian, this is especially important
because we seek to persuade others that our beliefs are reliably true. Our
beliefs were handed to us principally by testimonial witnesses of those who
came before us. We 'witness' in proclamation to the beliefs of the Christian
faith and we testify that 'we belong to an unbroken line of witnesses' to
what we claim others ought to believe. The Christian witness is hence a
witness of doctrine.
Most of us learn of Christian doctrines with terms such as the Trinity, the
Incarnation, original sin, atonement, justification, sanctification, etc.,
but are unaware of the origins of such important teachings of the faith.
This seminar seeks to explain some of the important doctrines (teachings) of
the Christian church handed down the ages to us.
The Old Testament 'books' were written in Hebrew and Aramaic, and collected
between the 6th century and 2nd centuries BC. The New Testament was written
during the 1st century AD. Although most of the first Christians were Jews,
they lived in a province of the Latin-speaking Roman Empire that borrowed
heavily from Greek philosophy. Thus the Semitic people of Jewish ancestry
wrote in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek in a land conquered by the Mesopotamian,
Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Medean, Greek and Roman civilizations.
These Scriptures are selections of documents representing earlier oral
traditions passed down through the generations. They reflect the cultural,
intellectual and linguistic influences that shaped the expressions of the
writers. It was the Greek cultural fascination with precision, rationality
and love of philosophical questioning which led the Hellenistic Jewish
writers to write the New Testament as they did, paving the way for the
development of doctrinal teachings.
The theological doctrines derived from the Bible, shaped into confessions
and creeds to form summaries of beliefs, began life in the cauldron of Greek
philosophy.
2. Mar 15 (Sun) PS2 Christianity & Science in Plain
Language<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102478397401&e=001yIfJQ6l-ZCU-z2FACz0YLScDTElAYEXRWH_SF2yJOCV4BU3R20kRpwZdIz5EoRo_AU6_QWp_vefg-hP8N81edpxWzOIlPktFh7KRey3zNNujfl6pbVK4MYFY8GMFHZ-gyimaBUKqTWWBh1JR98LfOjFbS0GTBTPv>
Christian theology through the Church ought to welcome responsible
articulations of scientific knowledge as natural scientists within and
without the Church discover (investigate) divine disclosure (revelation). If
science is discovery and theology is confessional, knowledge can only assume
the status of wisdom when it becomes understanding. Knowledge shaped by
wisdom provides true understanding.
Science alone explains the composition of the human material self so that we
can maintain our lives, but cannot tell us the meaning of life. The Natural
Sciences in the West grew out of natural philosophy. The term scientist
first emerged in 1844 and most of the great breakthroughs were accomplished
by gentlemen naturalists, such as Charles Darwin. Today, scientific
investigation is a field of human inquiry dedicated to the explanation and
prediction of natural phenomena. Its method is empirical and its conclusions
are necessarily pragmatic, tentative and provisional. It operates within the
boundaries of naturalism and is incompetent to assess metaphysical truth
claims.
Theology alone teaches us that we were made from created dust for fellowship
with God, we cannot maintain our existence for very long without scientific
knowledge (if for example, we do not learn to avoid poisons or tend to our
wounds). Christian Theology developed from the caste of clergy who reflected
upon the received scriptures to systematize the knowledge passed on through
the ages. Theological reflection is a field of human inquiry into the divine
revelation of the scriptures to understand the nature and message of God.
The universal claim of the Christian scriptures meant that theology could
not be limited to metaphysical interests but expects to be informed by the
provisional conclusions from all human fields of inquiry in its quest for
wisdom through understanding knowledge.
Knowledge from science coupled with the wisdom of the scriptural theology
helps us understand why we - carbon-based auto-poietic reproducing pods of
chemicals which cognize - exist as we do at all? How then can we reconcile
the knowledge acquired from scientific inferences with theological
reflection? The Christian commitment to its convictional confession (CCC)
lies at the center of any discovery of divine disclosure (DDD), which
includes both the natural sciences and the non-natural sciences. From such
an integration of knowledge ("what, why and how" questions) springs forth
the resources for wisdom ("why" questions) to announce the Good News that
Christ has come, Christ has risen, Christ is Lord indeed.
3. Mar 22 (Sun) PS3 Christianity & Charles Darwin in Plain
Language<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102478397401&e=001yIfJQ6l-ZCUTgYBAeIRsoZk-3f-NQwlFv-sdVECNGHSOgYtAGPWJwWW6dxgaeX_YpeG_rg80vhrAHRR3xqXClUmAwF-0sgjQYUGSKI2hMlgDRebo-xoX5Er_3nT-AnKQvkzvd2uhe0ufhaSTN1-GDddsVx8FyjLc>
In this seminar, we shall introduce the relationship between science and
Christianity in 19th century Europe as well as learn about Charles Darwin,
his amazing voyage around the world and how his observations shaped his
methodology. We will examine his view about God and how this was shaped by
his love for his wife, Emma. The voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle resulted in his
astounding theory of the evolutionary origin of species by natural selection
and the implications for his Christian faith.
Charles Darwin was an amateur naturalist who studied divinity, BA (Cantab)
and before he accepted a position as a country parish minister, embarked on
a five year circumnavigation of the world aboard theBeagle. This gentle,
gifted observer of nature shaped the way we understand the world by
articulating a worldview which denied the necessity for God. He grew up in a
Christian household and believed in the literal interpretation of the
Scriptures. Emma was a devout Anglican her entire life. Charles' serious
doubts about the existence of God after his voyage caused them both anguish.
His major contribution to science was not a theory of evolution but rather
offering evidence for the hypothesis that evolution operated by the process
of natural selection in which there is no mindful nor intentional selection.
It dispensed with a need for God. To his supporters, he liberated science
from enslavement by the Church. To his opponents, he overreached what
science can conclude about the nature of reality and introduced heresy by
the prostitution of the scientific method. Reality is far more complex than
either view.
The success of Darwinism as a theory is essential a battle of the sciences
and a philosophical argument for shifting the burden of proof. Can a
geological and biological theory be made in the absence of chemical and
physical evidence to come?
Darwinism exposes Christianity's weakness in keeping up with the growing
scientific knowledge. We use the fruits of scientific technology and
blissfully ignore its implications for a contemporary and comprehensive
biblical worldview.
4. Mar 29 (Sun) PS4 Evolution & Evolutionism in Plain
Language<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102478397401&e=001yIfJQ6l-ZCUTgYBAeIRsoZk-3f-NQwlFv-sdVECNGHSOgYtAGPWJwWW6dxgaeX_YpeG_rg80vhrAHRR3xqXClUmAwF-0sgjQYUGSKI2hMlgDRebo-xoX5Er_3nT-AnKQvkzvd2uhe0ufhaSTN1-GDddsVx8FyjLc>
In this seminar, we will take a closer look at the facts and fallacies of
Darwinism and trace the evolution of this view over the past 150 years.
Next, we shall consider the current challenges for Christianity and how we
ought to understand the uniqueness of humanity in this light. We shall
summarize how various people have commented on this view of reality. Next,
the validity and significance of a stepson of biological evolution,
evolutionary psychology deserves comment. The seminar will close with a call
for the community of faith to develop a theology of science in order to
account for the role of empirical investigation with a comprehensive
worldview.
We shall limit all meanings of evolution to biological evolution. We do not
refer to all manner of evolutionary ideas now adopted by many fields of
inquiry.
Biological evolution is a fact. Darwinian natural selection is a theory to
explain the fact. The science and Christian argument is not over the fact of
evolution but over Darwin's theory of natural selection.
We ought to distinguish between a fact and a theory as well as between the
meaning of a fact and the implications that theories can suggest. By using
natural selection in his theory, Darwin extended the meaning of evolution
(life changes over time and species expand by modification with descent) to
include a theological implication of the theory of natural selection (since
God appears unnecessary, God does not exist).
Charles Darwin lived and wrote at a time before modern Mendelian genetics
and molecular biology became understood and incorporated into the many
theories of evolution. After Darwin, several modern evolutionary theories
emerged to account for observable nature. Today, modern
Neo-Darwinismincorporates genetics into Darwin's original theory.
Post-Darwinian evolution consists of both Darwinian and Non-Darwinian
theories which incorporate the latest scientific findings discovered after
Charles Darwin's death. Darwinian theories of evolution generally point to
an accidental beginning with no need for a creator God and a bleak future
after biological corruption, or death. Non-Darwinian theories of evolution
posit a theory by which it is possible to reconcile evolution with a
biblical explanation of creation along with an optimistic hope for a future
when biological limitations on our brains will no longer constrain what our
minds can achieve.
Thank you
The Academy for Christian Thought
Box 3230
New York, NY 10008
www.actministry.org
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Received on Thu Feb 26 15:27:28 2009
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