Where my faith and my work as as scientist meet
It’s difficult to study the phylogenetic tree and still feel lonely.
By Emily Boring
Emily Boring is an MDiv student at Berkeley Divinity School at Yale and a marine biologist. And she’s definitely not boring!
Thank you for pointing out this person! Always looking for new science & faith voices.
You are welcome. I know of another accomplished science and faith person and I’ll put a post up soon.
"another thing to taste and touch this union, through the crumbs in your mouth and the held hands of others, while also glimpsing the entire chain of matter and energy and evolution that led to this moment and the cascade of bonds and interactions that will continue on.
It’s science that gives me this sweeping perspective—at once wide, microscopic, unifying, particular, and deep. It’s faith that moves me to call this experience God." from the article
From communion to evolution! Oops, what happened to natural evil and survival of the fittest? Does this make her a science denier?
I meant to type Marine Biologist (not Ecologist)
There is nothing in this article to suggest that she denies science.
I believe the relationship between science and religion is much more nuanced, and that the two realms overlap constantly.
I would say they overlap intrinsically, but she says essentially that in the balance of the article.
How can the two realms overlap if it is true that that the physical and the spiritual are separate?
Just that she denies the Dawkins view of science, that is evolution.
Well, God is omnipresent. How’s that for overlap? 
Just that she denies Dawkins’ materialism, maybe?
Are you suggesting pantheism? f everything is spiritual, then there is no overlap, just God.
She is a believer and the Dawks is an atheist. So, yes their beliefs would differ.
Is that what omnipresent denotes to you?! 
Hardly. The point is, you cannot go anywhere that God is not. You should be able to ‘see’ God in everything, though, and be thankful. God’s spiritual presence suffuses physical.
That is very nice, but we are talking philosophical worldviews here. Do you have something specific to contribute?
Thank you for that.
You might have read this before?
Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?
Psalm 139:7
Pantheism in a nutshell, right?
Some might think so. I asked you, what do you thin?
I need to be thinner.
But as to what I think I have already said regarding the philosophical worldview. I need to make it plainer?
I know I intended it as irony.
Maybe I am slow, or may be I missed something, but please clarify your world view for me. I do not see it on this topic or others. I am interested because it is important.
Thank you.
I have been trained and active in science (biology and chemistry, plus some knowledge of physics and astronomy) throughout my career. I had to face up to the so called “faith and science” divide from my teens. The main source of that so called divide was and remains the two extremes of atheism and literalist fundamentalism. The former wanting to exclude any idea of God and the immaterial and the latter wanting to hold onto a view of scripture that will not accept new knowledge we gain from the world.
In my studies of Franciscan theology I found that both Duns Scotus and Bonaventure thought we can discern things about God from the natural world. Part of God’s own image and intent is to be found in the world we come to know through our senses but supplemented by God’s own special revelation found in the scriptures. We need to recognise that God revealed things through the available knowledge of every age. We recognise that people like Galileo challenged what appeared to be a literal earth, sea and firmament view of the world. New knowledge means we may always need to readjust how we see the world in its actual existence but within the scope of revealed will and intent for it.
@cosmicscotus, thank you for your testimony…
I am in agreement with what you say, except for one every point. The cultural world in which we live is based on Western dualism, physics and metaphysics. This dualism is the ultimate source of the faith vs science divide, so it cannot be resolved until the dualism is resolved reconciled.
We live in a world that is both black and white, but it is a third color, gray, which is a combination of black and white that we really see. A more accurate model would be the “color” white which composed of red, yellow, and blue. All that we see is based on a combination of three colors, not two.
In the same way humans are composed of a physical body, a rational mind, and a relational spirit. These three aspects work together to create one whole. Even so the universe has the same three aspects which need to be examined together, if we are understood properly. This is why both creationism and Darwinism are both true and false in their own ways.
Is the “world” only physical? Definitely not. Is the “world” dualist both spiritual and physical? I don’t think so, because that is too narrow. Is it physical, rational, and spiritual? That works out much better from all points of view, even if it does not agree with Catholic philosophy/theology.
Roger I agree. There is pre-supposed a sort of dualism that is not right. The Spirit interacts with the world as it has always done for those ready to receive it.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
This is a place for gracious dialogue about science and faith. Please read our FAQ/Guidelines before posting.