Faith vs Science - A False Dichotomy?

[Kendel]

@Paulm12

For me, there’s a personal element and transformation in my own life…Of course that doesn’t necessarily “prove” that it is true but it does give evidential weight to the idea that it is true.

Thanks for clarifying this. It’s a hard thing to live a long time with the assumption that we have hard and fast proof, and to be told (from the inside) that subjective evidence is inadequate, not to be considered. As Christians I think it’s essential that we recognize and accept the challenge that “evidence of faith” for us is something quite different than what we are told we need to have. The standard evangelical belief is that evidence of faith is objective and akin to proof. I think it’s what Jesus was getting at in John 20:29 (Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."). Thomas and the Disciples had Jesus standing there with him, even though unimaginable things were going on. It would be a lot easier to believe in the resurrection, if the crucified one you had spent the last three years of your life with was suddenly standing there, talking with you and your friends all at once. We don’t have that kind of objective evidence. Faith for us requires something different.

So, what is meant by evidence in science is quite different from evidence in faith.

@Paulm12

One thing critics of Christianity often miss is that Christianity is more than a set of propositions about the world. I’d even argue it isn’t primarily a set of propositions about the world. Rather it is primarily a way of life/living (that consequently involves propositions).

Paul, Christians miss this, too. It’s so much easier to memorize statements than try living those out (and fail and try and fail and try).
At the end of this post I have put a long quote from the end of the Introduction of Myron B. Penner’s book, The End of Apologetics, that I think addresses what you’re talking about. He also talks a great deal about what a life of faith looks like, when one deals with the subjectivity of faith.

@Paulm12

The move from learning the theories themselves and claiming they are “true” is a (albeit justified) philosophical leap.

Sphinxlike, I return to questions:
Could you explain what you mean here, and particularly in light of the philosophical?

@Paulm12

Unlike most religions, I don’t know if it necessarily implies any propositions itself, though it is often accompanied by them.

I’m not sure what you mean here.

@Paulm12

I think on the surface the two look pretty different. Namely, we can verify and observe results associated with science, while assertions about God can’t be so easily verified or tested.

Yes. I agree they are pretty different.
When you say:

@Paulm12

while assertions about God can’t be so easily verified or tested.

what do you mean with the qualifier “so easily”? Can they be at all? If so, how?

@Paulm12

The history of modern science shows that it emerged as a branch of “natural philosophy.”

Does it emerge as a branch? Or did natural philosophy simply continue to develop into what we now call “science.” To start with, the study of the natural world was done in conjunction with philosophy, the only game in town. We would hardly recognize it as “science” now, but “natural philosophy” was what was happening at the time.

@Paulm12

But perhaps even more important to science are a “trust” or “faith” in reason itself (and by extension, perhaps mathematics).

I think I"m repeating myself, but am too lazy to dig for it, You do see thrust or faith in reason as something quite different from trust or reason in God? Yes?

Glad you got Noll’s book. I hope you find it satisfying.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
From The End of Apologetics

Rather than framing the issue in terms of an apologetic defense of Christian belief, I prefer to consider a postmodern apologetics in terms of the concept of witness-a prophetic witness, to be clear-for it orients us to the task differently and generates a completely different set of goals. Here edification-or building" up the self-replaces “,winning the argument” as the goal of Christian witness (apologetic discourse). This type of postmodern Christian witness is sensitive to the fragility of faith in our secular condition. It is not focused on a defense of the propositional truth of Christian doctrine, but performs an ironic poet­ ics of truth. What we discover is that theshift away from the (modern) epistemology of belief as the paradigm for Christian witness toward a hermeneutics of belief also opens up an ethics of belief that, in turn, deepens the critique of modern epistemology. How we believe-not just what we believe-is important to our belief being justified.

But what of this notion of a "poetics of truth’'? What sense can we give that? And how in postmodernity can there be any substantial talk of truth once we have adopted a hermeneutical perspective?

In chapter 4 (“Witness and Truth”) I further clarify the approach to truth involved in my Kierkegaardian account of Christian witness and relate it to propositional truth. I begin by noting that the goal of traditional apologetics is to justify the objective truth of the proposi­ tions of Christian doctrine. Christianity, the “essentially Christian,” is therefore assumed, implicitly or explicitly, to be captured in these propositions. The Christian truths defended by such modern apolo­ getics are taken to be ahistorical, unsituated, abstract, and universal. I then use Kierkegaard’s concept of truth as subjectivity to launch a critique on apologetic propositionalism and to provide an alternative way to think about Christian truth. To possess Christian truth is always to confess it to be true, to win its truth existentially for oneself. This is not a·disavowal of the cognitive content of Christian witness; it is a shifting of our perspective about a given truth claim so we think of it in terms of what Paul Ricoeur calls “attestation.” As I develop it, this account of truth and truth-telling is agonistic – it involves a struggle to stake our truth claims and make them true of us. Christian truth, then, often involves suffering on the part of the witness, and martyrdom-the act of laying down one’s life-is the ultimate form of testimony to the truths that edify us.

See also:

“The End of Apologetics: Christian Witness in a Postmodern Context” by Myron B. Penner

Last Edited: 09/28/2022 This was an experimental book discussion group that took place during the summer of 2022. We discussed Myron Penner’s book “The End of Apologetics: Christian Witness in a Postmodern Context.” See below for the blurb. We attempted to read and discuss on a schedule in order to stay on track and finish the book. We attempted to have read and then BEGUN discussion of each section by the date indicated. [The original schedule is no longer needed and has been removed in …