What is your view on Christianity? Which of the 4 Strategies for Having Fruitful Conversations about Science and Origins stood out to you? Why? BTW I am a sophomore in High School.
Hi, Priscilla - and welcome to the forum!
You ask some big questions … “view on Christianity” is no small essay, I don’t suppose, but could still be interesting to see how many here address that for themselves! Thanks for asking it.
Regarding the 4 strategies, is that in reference to this Biologos Essay by that title from some time back? Just for convenience, I’ll summarize here what the four points were in that essay that you may be referring to.
- Start with shared values and experiences.
- Try to understand the other person’s perspective.
- Critique ideas, not individuals.
- Choose curiosity over certainty.
It occurs to me that these four strategies have a lot more application in our lives right now than just in science-faith discussions!
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Since nobody has jumped at this one yet, I’ll respond to your second (easier) question, as I don’t have time here at the moment to do justice to “what I think of Christianity” (I am a Christian).
Of the four strategies, - they all seem good ones to me - but the last one fascinates me the most. It seems to me that while curiosity is shown as the favored one, at least for the context of controversial discussions, that still we should be careful not to try to paint certainty as some sort of permanently lesser thing. Once we let go of the thought that there is no such thing as 100% certainty anyway - we are free then to consider afresh the more practical form of certainty - a real form that is close enough that we live by it. There surely are many times when we would be exasperated by a permanent “curiosity” attitude that refuses to acknowledge or at least pursue some useful level of certainty. We should rightly lose patience with any doctor who continues to express curiosity about our affliction and refuses to commit to any course of action because of their aversion to any dogmatism or certainty.
So all that said, I think the point still remains valid that curiosity serves interlocutors better when they are kicking around a controversial topic between them, as long as they are willing to consider evidence and real answers that may also begin to offer up at least some certainty there to be had.
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