Re: [asa] Where does TE differ from NOMA? (was: Re: Schools and NOMA)

Ted wrote:

"What NOMA and complementarity have in common is the point Galileo was
making when he quoted his late friend Cesare, Cardinal Baronio: "That the
intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how
heaven goes." That pithy little statement, which is very often seen by ID
proponents as a poster child for all that is wrong (in their eyes) with TE,
is IMO the single most important sentence in Galileo's "Letter to
Christina." I agree with it 101%. (Perhaps this is another reason why I'm
not an ID proponent?) I realize that it can be enlisted by adherents of a
wide variety of viewpoints and agendas, but that doesn't negate the
fundamental truth (as I see it) that Galileo was getting at when he also
borrowed it from someone else. The Bible is not about how the heavens go --
or how the flagellum was assembled. If it were, then it's wrong; and if
it's wrong about something so central to its purpose, then it must be wrong
about a lot of other things as well!"

Just for the record, I agree entirely with Ted's comment above and the
thrust of his full post.

I also reject NOMA, as commonly expressed, because it implies that science
and religion (and other ways of knowing) are somehow in hermetically sealed
compartments. They are not. Science impacts our understanding of reality
as gained from non-science sources, and similarly, our understanding of
reality derived from outside of science impacts how we understand and
interpret our scientific conclusions. At the same time, there are very
important distinctions in the purpose of scientific and theological inquiry
(and in the types of questions that can be asked of nature and of
scripture).

Keith

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Received on Thu Oct 22 14:23:28 2009