GratefulDisciple

@LeeWoofenden Yup, it's natural that a psychologist would read the Bible psychologically.

@LeeWoofenden He is not, but he is a sympathizer.

@LeeWoofenden I used him as a bad example, he's not a guy I listened to by choice, only because my dad referred to him a lot and because he appears in some videos I come across.

@Matthew ANE perspective will solve it. God is Spirit, yes? So while affirming that God create by His Word (which in the fuller revelation and fuller theology means by His Reason who is the Word which then implies order and purpose) the actual way God creates the material world is left unspecified because the Bible is not a science book.

Or another example: scientist A who says "The Bible is not trustworthy because the earth is 4 billion years old instead of 6,000 years" is different than scientist B who only says "according to my findings with the PARAMETERS limited in #7, the earth is 4 billion years old but I don't have competence to say whether the Bible is trustworthy"

@Matthew I'm rebuking scientists (let's pick a psychologist Jordan Peterson) that dabble in Bible interpretation as an "extra curricular" activity (Jordan Peterson's interpretation of Genesis is problematic even though it's not about the age of the earth).

@Matthew That's a fight you and I can have as rival Bible interpreters (#4) but let's leave the scientists out of it (#6). We can squabble as to their job description (#7) but the prevailing "contract" in the academia is the "methodological naturalism" that you don't like.

@Matthew As I said many times before in many different contexts, "materialist science" is just one part of the whole, which is Theology. It's about how the Theologian puts into use the results of various workers doing their own roles. When building a house, not everyone is a roofer. If my scientist starts dabbling in Bible interpretation (like Galileo did before he was chastised) then I rebuke him to stick to his job.

So differences in Bible interpretation doesn't amount to the level of faith in Jesus.

@Matthew I will not take the bait and do the same to you, only to say that reputable Christians hold my view as well (such as Gavin Ortlund who holds the literal "Regional flood"). The ones who "scoff at God's Word" are those who don't follow Jesus. The Word (properly speaking) is Jesus, who encompasses more than Scripture, as my question hopefully flags the difference.

(correction: Real scientists don't exclude the existence of miracles but they do exclude them from scientific investigations due to their commitment to their #7.)

I don't trust scientists to do #4 & #5 just in the same way that when I hire a roofer I don't care whether they are Christians; I just want them to do a good job to replace my roof. So I only trust scientists to do their job well if they can SHOW that that they do #6 well by the criteria provided in #7.

@Matthew Real scientists don't exclude miracles because their #7 simply exclude them from investigations and fortunately God didn't mess up the natural order by his impromptu miracles (He could if He wanted to). Calling Global Flood "literal history" (instead of "theological history") is a judgment of #4 and #5 which is out of scope of #6 and #7. I don't consult scientists to explain "history", they are NOT historians.

@Matthew I'm not going so far as what @LeeWoofenden is asserting here because my focus is for all parties to recognize what they are doing in terms of the 10 points. That way, we can agree to disagree peacefully while continuing our respective investigations. Peace out (got to go back to work).

So as a Christian, when I do science I trust that the Creator is not involved beyond the ordinary natural processes (unless he wants to cause miracles, exceptions that wouldn't affect the natural order). But as a day to day Christian, of course I would not be blind to "divine changes" occurring in my mind because otherwise how can God talk to me?

@Matthew That is because you're ignoring the possibility how God could have purposely limit His own spheres of action to introduce a kind of natural order. Otherwise we cannot have science in the first place.

@Matthew If one calls himself a geologist, one has to perform according to the job description. The job description doesn't include any training in Bible / Theology because it's not relevant. There are Christian geologists out there, then outside work they can do extra curricular activities for #4, #5, and #8.

@Matthew If the geologist doesn't distinguish human changes from natural processes I would not trust him as a competent scientist at all. Changes have to be distinguished according to the nature of the change and be assigned to the correct agent, whether it's water, wind, erosion, human carving, etc. As a Christian, the Bible is useful for my #5. If I'm a geologist, I stick with #6 and #7.

@user40432 While waiting for your feedback, here's a book I read while in college about the nature of Philosophy, useful to me to distinguish the various meanings people assign to the word: The Four Dimensions of Philosophy: metaphysical, moral, objective, categorical. The Prologue's title is "Everybody's Business". He wrote for the general audience, so it's an easy read.

@Matthew What I say is that scientific explanation of Mount Rushmore is incomplete because they self-exclude the metaphysical factor.

@Matthew Of course we disagree. Meth. N. is not as pernicious as you think. But who would judge between us? We need to pick someone that we both agree. I think Alister McGrath is on my side but I doubt you will pick him.

@Matthew You need to come up with different abbreviations for methodological vs. metaphysical.

Yes, I can say with you "God Created Earth", but the difference is #4. We agree on #5 too (despite differences in #4). We agree with #6 and #7 but I'm happy to leave them doing as they are. We are obviously different in #8. As for #9 we have different apologetics by agree that "random evolution" is false. For #10 I DO want to include disclaimers in high school textbooks when introducing the concept of evolution, but probably wouldn't introduce creationism.

@Matthew So about Mount Rushmore, most Christians (including myself) would definitely assert #1 and #2 and we even agree that the President faces are human-made. Where we differ are the rest of the 10 points.

8) "doing cosmology" by connecting #7 with #5 and #4: DI connects it one way, Catholics do it another way by using different options, and Atheists doing it another way; 9) apologetics: Christians of all stripes advocating why "random evolution" is false, AiG by insisting on 6 day, BioLogos saying TE is okay, etc.; 10) politics: advocating creationism in school curriculum.

4) how the Bible narrates the creation story (can be literalistic, ANE style, etc.), 5) theology: take #4 and cook doctrines of creation (what "image of God" mean, ex nihilo, Jesus is second Adam, etc.); 6) "practicing science" (with the mainstream methods based on methodological naturalism which is blatantly empirical and materialistic); 7) "doing philosophy of science": why ID should be seen as legitimate science, why we should stick with methodological naturalism, etc;

@Matthew I'm rewriting & adding more distinctions to prevent one from being conflated with another: 1) a simple assertion of the existence of First Cause that is not part of space-time / multiverse; 2) a simple assertion of the existence of Intelligence Designer guiding how creation unfolds through time regardless of the theories (building on #1); 3) theories to explain how creation happened in time: YEC, OEC, TE, random evolution, Big Bang, etc. (building on #1 and #2);

@TwineeeTheZeldaWizard Who is "he"? Matthew? Anyway, how's your summer?

@user40432 How am I doing so far? I hope you can see how the proper definition makes a huge difference. I'd like to stop here to hear your feedback before drilling deeper and going forward with how philosophy is used in the era between OT and NT, and in the era after Christ.

As with all ideas, it's good to give it a label. So let's call Ecclesiastes "Israel's philosophy of life" where the key teaching is the conclusion: Eccl 12:1-14 beginning with "So remember your Creator in the days of your youth". Job is a theodicy, so it is a "philosophy of suffering in light of omnibenevolent and omnipotent God". Proverbs is "moral philosophy" because it gives moral advice.

The Hebrews in the OT period ask those same questions too, and their answers can be read in the wisdom literature. Since they are religious, then their philosophy includes their beliefs in YHWH and how as the God of the Hebrews has picked Israel as His chosen nation, their "meaning of life" is bound up in the fate of the nation as well.

Let's now approach philosophy from the kinds of questions it answers. If you ask: "what is the meaning of life"? That's a value question. If you ask: "what is love", "what is truth", "what is justice", then it is a descriptive question. If you ask: "how does modern science work compared to how the Greeks were doing science", then it is a method question. The most important to notice is this: it's a discipline for thinking can be used for religious or non-religious alike.

Thirdly, it is a discipline that spells out method, like in "philosophy of mathematics", "philosophy of science", "philosophy of biology", even "philosophy history" (3).

@user40432 This is a descriptive task, not a persuasion task. Let's begin. "Philosophy" can mean many things. It can mean a worldview, yes, so it has the value dimension (1). But it is also the discipline that investigate the world (all that exists) using the human mind, in that it is now a descriptive task (2).

@user40432 Once I define the term (as it is usually used, so it's NOT my private subjective definition), I hope it will be obvious.

@user40432 Let's start by defining the term "philosophy" if you could give me room for a few messages. Then at least we're not doing cross talk.

@user40432 Oh, I miss that message. Yes, if you already got bored with Philosophy for Dummies, it's more likely you're not interested. But then, I got started with a textbook full of cartoons.

@user40432 By "stick with that", should I start describing what philosophy IS? I can share in terms of my journey so it's not becoming just a lecture. But if you're not interested, it's fine too.

@user40432 Philosophy is NOT counter to the gospel. To make that statement is to misunderstand the nature of philosophy, the nature of the gospel, or both. I'm glad you got the proof you need. What I'm trying to do here is to recover philosophy's good name.

@user40432 I don't know whether to smile (with a hint of condescension) or to pull my hairs in despair. I think it's about time we learn philosophy IS (as well as the historical context), if you allow me to describe the whole discipline, before going more into mischaracterizations that enable one to commit the strawman fallacy. My first point: OT wisdom literature IS philosophy too.

But when touting the relevance, importance, and value of philosophy, I'm talking about the Platonic & Aristotelian tradition that value objective morality and provides PLENTY of room for theology to plug into. That's the tradition I'm talking about, and certainly NOT the "tradition" that Paul was talking about in Col 2:8.

@user40432 Don't get me wrong. A LOT of 20th century philosophies are misguided / esoteric to the point of not being useful to Christians. 20th century is deluged by specializations (as part of the problem).

@user40432 That's fine to me. It's just unfortunate that you would exclude so much of what our God-created mind have come up with, especially with respect to answering existential questions. Many philosophers are "true" Christians too, like the rising star Protestant apologist Gavin Ortlund who majored in philosophy in his undergraduate. Don't forget that early church fathers used a lot of philosophy to make Christianity more intelligible to the pagans!

@user40432 I just happen to be very interested in anything involving a human person, so that's why I became interested in cognitive science, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, theological anthropology, existential questions, general & developmental psychology, effect of medicine / drugs / food on the brain, language development, artificial intelligence, etc.

@Matthew Geologists can distinguish between human factor and natural processes. What they are excluding is the "god factor".

@user40432 I didn't read you as criticizing, only that you preferred to pursue natural sciences, which is understandable. I was the same way with respect to biology. But we are now decades older, so we have more room to investigate new disciplines.

@Matthew That's NOT what they are saying at all! Their axiom is: "only empirical processes can be part of our theories". That's very different than saying "there is nothing but the material". Cf my example above from psychology. It would be a VERY foolish psychology scientist who says "all questions of meaning are illusory".

Atheistic psychotherapists who treat patients are a different story though, they would use Freudian methods which are certainly not what Christian therapists are using.

@Matthew Good psychology scientists (with their methodological naturalism) wouldn't even come to a conclusion that describe the WHOLE person; their results are limited in the spheres where they can show empirical verification. As we all know, humans ask existential questions. Psychologists know this, and know that those questions of meaning are super powerful motivator. But those are part of Philosophy / Religion, so in their investigation they leave room for it.

@user40432 About "Ancient Near East", it's not a philosophy, but about how people in those times write religious texts as a genre. Therefore, to interpret Genesis properly, we need to know how the original audience would have understood it in light of the whole revelation history that comes later. Included in ANE is a study of their wisdom literature, their worship and covenantal practices with their gods, their morality, their use of myths for their national origin stories, etc.