I suppose I am more of a systems engineer than scientist, in terms of what I spent most of my working time doing. As an engineer, I took whatever ideas I could find, from any source, and checked whether the ideas would help me solve the relevant problem of the day. In any case, we need to have a common (or at least a significantly overlapping) understanding of what we mean by “tell us about the world.” Objective measurements say something about the world, but to be practical, the measurements need to be interpreted in the context of a “model” of the world, and then serious examination of how any interpretation might be validated, and how to extend the interpretation of observation about previous events to predict how this particular idea might be applied.
Another aspect of causation: Correlation does not prove causation. I think that causation assumptions are a form of belief, as the term is being used in this discussion, noting that, in an engineering and scientific environment, the presumed causation is potentially subject to falsification. As engineers, we would work very hard to establish the degree of confidence that we were right about causation and do a lot of testing to determine limits on what we knew, and what we didn’t know.
As a practical matter, events that just happen, or are caused by something that doesn’t happen, do not provide any basis for engineering solutions to anything, aside from (perhaps) being used to identify risks. I am not at all familiar with the philosophy of an unmoved mover.
As for proving God: It seems to me that there is no way to prove the lack of existence of something (or someone) who exists outside of the created universe. And as for proving that God does not exist, there is no way of proving that something (or someone) whose primary place of existence is, by rational necessity, outside the universe She presumably created does not exist.
It’s a curious dilemma though. And made more compelling by how things inevitably happen and sometimes in a wildly unexpected manner. Sometimes in an organized way and sometimes chaotic.
This is not the question. We do not need to comprehend God to communicate with God, and that is the question. On the other hand if we were finite and God is infinite, then God and we could have nothing in common and would be unable to communicate. As itis we can understand how God create the “singularity” out of nothing, which is why God can be called infinite and eternal.
However, for humanity God created space and time and that required that God forego God’s absolute power over time and space, and in effect become finite, although based on God’s Will and Love, rather than any limitation God has.
I am well aware that an infinite number of points and lines and occupy the same space because points and lines have only two dimensions. We are not dealing with quantity or quality here, so we cannot say that this type of infinity measurable.
God has infinite power because God is the Source of the universe. This is about quality and quantity. The first does not produce the second.
Do scientists/mathematicians believe that there can be more than one right answer to a problem?
Exactly! Good means well suited for… or most appropriate for … Thus, even something that is “good for nothing” is “good” when it is used for nothing.
What knowledge do we need to love God other than God love me and others? What other knowledge do they need and how is it different from ours?
No bones about it, the letter was composed on soft tissue, or paper, at least. 
The point is not what is the minimum necessary. That seems to be a real problem with some thinking. I love God; I want to know more about Her (God is not male or female). The two major sources of information about God are, in my mind, the real subject of this conversation. We can read what we have been told was revealed to someone by God, or we can examine the universe that we believe God created to try to understand Him better.
There are unproveable beliefs entailed in either case. In both cases the unprovableness begins with the fact that there is no unambiguous, inarguable, objective proof of God’s existence. Proof of this claim is by demonstration: If there were unambiguous, inarguable, objective proof of God’s existence, then no rational, intelligent person could be an atheist. Yet many are. I am very concerned with the possibility that a significant part of this fact is that too many of us Christians are so insecure in our faith that we must insist on having irrefutable proof, for sure of God’s existence, and then of all the rest of the details of our beliefs. I believe, not because of objective proof, but because of subjective experience. And it does help me to look at both how God’s world works, how the laws of physics are constructed, and also what He has revealed in scripture.
So what can I count on, how much can I trust what I think I am learning about God from the study of nature? I can count on this as being something definitely started from God, with the clear observation that a significant aspect of how God designed the world to operate leaves me with the capability to choose how I act, and that whatever choices I make (good, bad, or indifferent) will have consequences in this world, both for me and for those with whom I interact. And this leaves a lot open to interpretation about how involved God is in the everyday activities in my life. On the other hand, when someone tells me that a particular writing is a revelation directly from God (for us Christians, the Bible), then I must evaluate several layers of authentication. How accurately does the source reflect exactly what the original author wrote? Next, how correctly does what I am reading in a different language reflect what the original author intended? Next, what was the message the original author intended for his original audience? And the final concern, what does it mean for me today?
As for others, I do not know what knowledge about God they have received, and have no way of verifying whether their knowledge came from God, or somewhere else. I do believe that my God is infinite in love. This means that God can reveal some aspects of Her love to me, and other aspects of His love to others. It may be that there is a significant overlap, or there may be substantial differences. Here my point is that different understandings of God’s love may both be totally true, both be partially true, or one or the other might not be correct. The fact is that just because I believe something, that doesn’t make it true. And the fact that someone else believes something different from what I believe doesn’t make what I believe false.
I believe that God has permitted many different understandings (i.e., religions) to exist, and, in spite of significant differences, this world is functioning in such a manner that Her purposes for each and every one of His beloved creatures is being accomplished.
Somewhat related to the question of whether the cause of the universe is aware of its action, is the question of how a rational intelligent person can say that conscious decisions are an illusion.
That’s an important topic in science. In my own field of molecular biology there are immense data sets, and there is always the danger of false correlations. This is especially true for genome wide association studies and gene expression data sets. In fact, false associations are expected in these data sets, especially as the p value increases.
If there is something akin to “faith” in this sense it is what we often call the “one hit wonders”. These are single studies looking at a single data set with a single method that tries to claim a significant correlation (e.g. a change in gene expression in certain conditions). It is understood that a single experiment is fine for proposing potential targets for further study, but in order to draw strong conclusions you need to approach the problem from different angles, such as gene knockouts, gene reporter systems, and multiple methods for determining the resulting phenotype. It is the consilience of independent data that gives us confidence in our conclusions.
In the Wisconsin Synod, where I grew up, the bible was used to prevent women from being voting members of the church. I do not believe that this is a mischaracterization of the bible. I am 100% certain that this, and all other mysogynist claims, are misinterpretations of the bible. I bring this up, in support of Kendel’s comments, as an example of the fact that disagreements between what people interpret as what God is saying in His revealed word, and from what religious people infer from facts that scientists are able to discover by observing (whether directly, or with exteremely complicated tools) are invariably this: Differences of interpretations, not differences of facts. So, back to the question on this entire discussion, Yes, faith and science are fully compatible, iff (second f intentional) one does not violate fundamental truths.
In my church women are prevented from being elders, this doesn’t mean we view them as inferior.
Does your church use the same rebuke from Paul to justify excluding women from positions of influence as my old one did? A rebuke in the form of a conditional statement (if…,then), where the “if” clause does not apply to women today?
I am not talking about a minimum necessary. I am talking about a relationship. God is not a thing or a natural process. God is a Person. We are persons and since God created us in God’s own Image, God must be a person. If there was a question about this, it should have been resolved by Jesus the Messiah and Son of God Who is perfectly God and perfectly human, and perfectly personal.
That is not what the Bible is. The OT is a collection of books about the OT covenant of the Jews with YHWH and the NT is about Jesus Christ and the NT covenant with God. As I said before, God did not send God’s Book. God sent God’s Messiah.
Christians grow in faith by doing and not by study. That means we must be prepared to admit our mistakes so we can learn from them.
You underestimate the rationality of humans. The God decision is not about facts. It is about how I want to live my live. Therefore, it must be a “subjective” decision that only I can make. However, if our experience is not real,
God’s love fpr all people is not ambiguous through Jesus Christ.
As long as there is war and injustice in this world it is not functioning as it should.
Blessings
Do you believe that the human part of Jesus is equivalent to the God part? When I realized that Jesus, the Son of God, saves me because of His infinite Godness, and the finite human part is there to give me a glimpse of how much He loves me, then I finally got it through my thick skull that I don’t get to tell Jesus how He can relate to other people. He doesn’t have to come to others the same way He does to me. I think one of your later comments about belief being a personal thing is at least partially similar to this belief that I have. And it definitely is not true that I, as a finite being, cannot have a relationship with my infinite God, and His infinite Son, Jesus.
True, from our human viewpoint. But God’s purposes for us in this world are being fulfilled. Jesus’ comment to His disciples when they asked Him who had sinned, the man blind from birth ot his parents, is directly to this point. It’s not my job to fix the whole world. It’s my job to do what I can to help those near me. And I tend to partially agree with your other comment above that Christians grow in faith by doing, not by study. The “partially” is because study can help us focus on the right things (such as putting more emphasis on doing; as James said, faith without works is dead). The “agree” is that putting faith into action is critical to real growth.
And to bring this seeming offshoot back to the point of this thread, it takes both my faith in God and my understanding of science to provide me with guidance on how to identify needs, and what to do to try to help, when I observe a particular potential need for my assistance.
Peace and Blessings
Absolutely! That really depends on what the problem is. And the other piece of my answer is that a large, difficult problem is almost always addressed more effectively by decomposition, leading to partial solutions. And many of the partial solutions that come out of this decomposition end up having very practical value.
Can you be more specific?
I was thinking of I Corinthians 14: 34, but I think I was remembering some things my professors included in background information that doesn’t seem to be in the text. Sorry.
The point remains: Men who insist that women are not to be permitted to be considered as equal to men in ability to reason, understand, and communicate are operating in an ancient paternalistic society’s interpretation of the roles of men and women.
However, the fact also remains that things that God said, explicitly recorded in the bible, as being absolutely true instruction to His people at one time and place, do not automatically apply in exactly the same way to others of His people, in a different time and place. Peter’s vision is a direct counter-example to the claim I heard in my religious education through the first two years of pre-ministerial.
It helps to understand that hierarchy does not depend on inequality, and submission does not depend on a disagreement of will.
Grudem’s updated Systematic Theology has a helpful section about this. Does anyone know of any good responses? While he corrected his view on the eternal generation of the Son, he did a decent job of defending his view on eternal functional subordination.
And also, it’s helpful to appreciate how women can have a position of greater authority in the new creation over their former husbands.
Yes , makes sense. I am a scientist or at least I was years ago. I never ran an experiment that I did not hope it would turn out like I hoped it would. That is why I ran the experiment in the first place but I still had faith it would turn out the way I had envisioned. I guess that is faith in a way.
For me the result of an experiment is just how the Creator would have intended it to go. God created everything so he created the chemistry, physics, etc. that shows how things work or how he created something. However, my experimental results turn out I have seen how God’s elegant science worked. Make Sense?
Nicely said. Good to see glimpses of Christianity actually making people better. Another actual point for your team.
One of my physics professors quoted someone earlier in science who said what a wonderful happenstance it was that mathematics should bear some resemblance to reality.
He also had some words to say about theorists who seemed to operate on the principle that reality should bend to their mathematics.
Historically the emergence of YECism in the church can be traced to the adoption by society of the framework of scientific materialism, which is the source of the idea that in order to be true something has to be 100% scientifically and historically correct. YECists don’t recognize that what they are actually doing is insisting that this de facto atheistic assumption has to apply to the Bible in the face of the fact that the Bible never makes such a claim about truth.