SSFT Dudt Midterm good one

The promise of science and technology

science has limits in finding meaning

science provides a sense of _____

-completeness (a modern superstition)

(Christian mind is never complete)

Personal vs.

Impersonal (Science) approaches to Nature

Personal: engagement, regard, value

Impersonal: disengagement, disregard, devalue

We are smarter but dumber

ironic results of our scientific/technological progress

(we know meaningful things but are our priorities right?)

The "technological society"

-doesn't just mean we have a lot of technology -(problems of ethical parameters for scientific inquiry)

-search for "one best means"

-Technological replacement "without loss"

-Obsession with means, flattening of ends

(technology becomes dictator instead of one being dictated)

Disengagement

impersonal approach to nature, neutral rather than valuable

The device paradigm

the way "technological devices" are perceived and consumed in modern society, according to Albert Borgmann. He introduced the term to help in understanding the nature of modern technology.

Nature is now seen as ______

Neutral and meaningless, instead of valuable

"raw material"

the basic material from which a product is made.

Blessings of keeping the covenant

1)continuing fellowship with God

2)Harmony w/ humans in Creation

3)Life in Paradise

4)Realizing obstacles?

The Mandate defined:

Dominion and Stewardship jointly

Consequences of the fall:

1. the curse: God's response to and a natural consequence of human rebellion

2. man responds after the fall to essentially unchanged mandate

Mandate is ______ after the fall

re-instituted

Fulfilling the mandate after the fall, possible problems:

1)May go too far in doing something good

2)May take wrong action hoping to do good

3)Fails to respond

Mandate at its best

-human purpose and position (Gen. 1:28; Gen. 9: 1,7; Psalm 8: 3-9; Gen. 2:8,15)

-unfallen mind and care of Creation

Why the assignment to humans?

-conflict of good and evil

-humans filling earth in opposition of Satan's expansion

Stewardship at its best

-love for creation

-responsibility to God

The Fall and its Consequences Without Loss of the Divine Charge or Status of the Image Bearer

1. the fall caused distortions in pre-fall ideals of stewardship and dominion

2. curse functions as constant reminder to humanity of: their need for God and human's loss of self control

Obstacles of the Fall and Curse

-humanity's spiritual condition is cause of the effects of the fall

- fall's effect is beyond the spiritual dimension, on the physical too (death, disease, and injury)

-the world is knowable and can be investigated by anyone

____ and ____ help overcome some of the obstacles from the fall

Science and technology

science can help overcome the obstacles with:

human discovery and application of information about natural world

science and technology as a means to regain lost dominion

some advantages of the Fall

community

value of everyday

Who can read the book of Nature

Psalms 19: 1-5

Romans 1:20

Biblically defined pre-fall vision

1)Derived from God's authority

2)Assignment to humans (conflict of good and evil, filling earth in opp. of Satan expansion, be fruitful and multiply)

3)Humanity's love and appreciation for ROC

General Revelation (term)

knowledge of God and knowledge of nature gained through reflection on and study of natural phenomenon

General revelation (function)

information gathered on natural world causes humans to reflect on the existence of God

General Revelation (Arguments for God's existence)

-cosmological argument (everything depends on something)

-teleological (purpose, design towards a goal)

Design argument

-intelligent design movement (old argument resonates truth)

-fine tuning

-irreducible complexity (CSI vs CUI)

John Polkinghorn said:

world could have been:

- chaotic and unknowable

-rational but inscrutable

-or what we have- ordered/rational and understandable to the human mind (implication)

Paul Dirac

pure mathematics:

structure of pure math reveals deep congruence between rationality of human mind and orderliness of the universe

beauty in nature:

appeal to God's existence, beauty is similar to the appeal of absolute truth

Limits of general revelation

-finding God in nature without the appeal to special revelation

-knowledge of God thru nature can only be general

-knowledge and "proofs for God" are inherently inadequate to convince the unbeliever

-two ways to know God:

1)nature/evidence

2)scripture by faith

deductive arguments:

process of reasoning from one or more statements [premises] to reach a logically certain [conclusion]

reasoning behind deductive arguments:

1) things come into existence

2)whatever is comes is brought into existence by another

3) cant go on to infinity

premise of deductive reasoning:

the premise appeal to something we see in nature and argues that there must be something outside nature to explain it

Greek notion of a "science" and study of nature, inquiry into the natural world

Natural philosophy

the pre-socratics were

Plato and Aristotle

beyond materialists, beyond superstition

Ionian philosopher

Thales

Thales was

the first of the 7 wisest Greeks

held that water is the fundamental substance

predicted eclipse of Sun

Moon shines by reflected sunlight

Plato's view of nature

physical objects are imperfect representations of their ideal nature ("form")

Plato and change

explained as movement away from or toward the ideal

teleological concept of reality

each thing has a proper function determined by ideal nature

functions fit together to form the ordered kosmos

organism metaphor

Aristotle on change

developed Platonic notion

potentiality to actuality

Aristotle on form

explains what a thing is and its function- by its nature

Aristotle's four causes:

1)formal-form received by the thing (fundamental)

2)Material- matter underlying the form

3)efficient- agency bringing about the change

4)final- purpose served by the change (teleology=function and structure)

Aristotle and Biology

observationally grounded

notions of form, function and flourishing are central

gets dinged for looking for purpose

hard to eradicate these notions from biology

explains purpose through form

Aristotle on motion

requires explanation

1)natural motion

2)forced motion (projectile)

How do Plato and Aristotle help?

they avoid a sharp separation of fact from value

good sense of diversity and unity of knowledge

resist flattening tendencies that we see today

acknowledge a transcendent truth and resist making absolute any partial human perspective

Archimedes

greatest (and first) mathematical physicist of ancient world

chief engineer for King Heiron of Syracuse

What happened to Greek science?

lack of institutions

other problems with Greek culture (work ethic, dualistic tendencies)

Fall of Rome

Unheaval, preservation, re-organization

Augustine wrote

charter for Christian culture (City of God)

Augustine claimed that all nature is

a "sign" if rightly used and rightly understood (two books)

Augustine and pagan learning

all truth is God's truth

Gold from the Egyptians

Augustine

took the gold from the egyptians in order to make the arc of the covenant (used for good and bad purposes)

Handmaiden Idea

Augustine

theology is the queen and philosophy is its handmaiden

Augustine's critical and constructive approach

Question Method

big faith and reason issues raised with Augustine

willingness to engage in pagan learning

unity of faith

priorities of theology and philosophy

independence of philosophical reasoning

Compilers and popularizers

continue Roman tradition

Boethius, Venerable Bede

Renaissances

12th century, Charlemagne and Holy Roman Empire

Universities

intellectual vision

institutional basis for science and inquiry (stadium generale- unified curriculum)

church W/ univ.

Budding naturalism

possible dangers

learning what we can about anture apart from special revelation

independent reason

Age of translation (1000-1200)

islamic translations of Aristotle

Averroes

Importance of Aristotle

Averroes

most important islamic figure

Specific problems from Aristotle

eternality of the world

dependence of the soul on the body

closed system

forms constrain God

Grand Synthesis

Thomas Aquinas (Dumb Ox)

rejected or modified Aristotelian philosophy of Nature with Biblical Christianit

Aquinas' achievement

showed that the Christian worldview could get the most coherent framework for the best natural philosophy/scientific arguments at that point

Other Aristotelians

Grosseteste (empirical method to study lenses)

Roger Bacon (early proponent of empirical method, visible spectrum in a glass of water)

Albert the Great (teacher of Aquinas)

Condemnation of 1277

Bishop Tempier in Paris

pre-eminence of theology

condemned 219 propositions related to Aristotelian philosophy

(two-truths doctrine, eternality of the world, dependence of the soul on the body, intrusion into nature)

Rise of Voluntarism

emphasized God's freedom* to create the world and relate to it how he pleases

[de-emphasizes how God's character is reflected in what and how he creates and acts

Advantages of voluntarism

[empirical spirit]

unity of truth

priority of theology/limits of reason

encourages empirical investigation

Challenges of voluntarism

[consequences- could lead us to viewing nature as arbitrary and inscrutable]

back at square one in relating science and theology

Scientist(s) that held powerful arguments for movement rotation of earth:

Oresme and Buridan

Impetus theory

Buridan

recall Aristotle on projectiles, air in front does not ush one forward but resists

Francis Bacon

major prophet of Scientific Revolution

studied at Cambridge

expert in English Constitutional Law

critical of scholastic tradition that abused deduction (favored induction)

deduction

jumping from a few particular observations to generalized principles

induction

progression moving from observations to specific principles to generalized principles

Bacon's empirical method

observations--> hypothesis --> theory-->law --> paradigm

Bacon built on

Two Books Tradition and safeguarded against Enlightenment take

Guidelines for harmonizing special and general revelation

when the Bible refers to God creating it often describes His verbal action

Polythress

The Bible as linguistic speech is not fallible

Science is fallible

_____ claims the beauty and structure of mathematics was given by God, formulas are not invented they are discoveries of God's antecedent creations

Roger Penrose

4 Key figures in Scientific Revolution

Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton

Copernicus proposes _____

heliocentrism (simpler theory than Ptolemaic)

Newton

problem of gravitation

problem of dynamics (theory of inertia)