Recently in Theology Category

For those who don't know this, this post is written by our friend "RJS," a professor in the sciences at a leading American university. She regularly posts here about issues intersecting science and faith.

Last week in A Fine Tuned Universe 3 I posted on Augustine and his view of creation. Augustine's conviction that science and reason cannot conflict in any foundational way with the faith is expressed in his work The Literal Meaning of Genesis:

When they are able, from reliable evidence, to prove some fact of physical science, we shall show that it is not contrary to our Scripture. But when they produce from any of their books a theory contrary to Scripture, and therefore contrary to the catholic faith, either we shall have some ability to demonstrate that it is absolutely false, or at least we ourselves will hold it so without any shadow of a doubt. (Vol. 1 CH. 21:41)

But some things are outside the pale of orthodox Christian belief. None of us really deny this. One of the comments on the last post noted that Augustine's view of  the doctrine of original sin, causes the most significant conflict for many of us today.  This came up again in an e-mail I received dealing with the doctrines of Adam, Eve, and Original Sin. The letter writer sent the following (and I quote excerpts with permission):

I went through considerable emotional turmoil when a Presbyterian pastor I respect responded to my statement that I am not sure that the human race descended from a single pair and that I believed descent from more than one pair is not necessarily in conflict with biblical teaching. This pastor declared that my views are "outside the pale" of Christianity, not just Reformed Christianity, but all Christianity (including Roman Catholic doctrine), and that if I were to attend his church, he would consider me like the Oneness Pentecostals who deny the Trinity. I am not a Christian, even if I am a nice guy. He qualified by saying that he cannot judge my state before God, but doctrinally I am not a Christian.

The letter writer went on to note that this "pastor is generally a model of charity and would not say what he said if he did not feel conscience-bound to do so." This letter poses the question I would like to consider today.

Is any position other than monogenesis of the human race with Adam and Eve as unique historical individuals outside the pale of orthodox Christianity?

Chapter eight of Alister McGrath's new book A Fine-Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology deals with the views of Augustine of Hippo on creation.  Augustine and the relationship of Augustinian thought to evolution and Darwinian natural selection was also the subject of a recent Christianity Today article by McGrath: Augustine's Origin of Species. In fact the CT article is adapted from chapter 8 of A Fine-Tuned Universe.

Augustine reflected at length on Genesis, creation, and time. These reflections fill the second half of Confessions (Penguin Classics) and crop up in other works. Augustine also wrote several commentaries on Genesis, some readily available today including 41. St. Augustine, Vol. 1: The Literal Meaning of Genesis (Ancient Christian Writers) and a collection of several texts in Saint Augustine on Genesis: Two Books on Genesis Against the Manichees and on the Literal Interpretation of Genesis : An Unfinished Book (The Fathers of the Church, 84). His writings contradict at times and reflect an ongoing wrestling with science, reason, and the text of scripture.

One of Augustine's oft quoted passages is found in On the Literal Meaning of Genesis where he reflects on the search for truth and the interpretation of scripture:

In matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision, even in such as we may find treated in Holy Scripture, different interpretations are sometimes possible without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such a case, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it. That would be to battle not for the teaching of Holy Scripture but for our own, wishing its teaching to conform to ours, whereas we ought to wish ours to conform to that of Sacred Scripture. (Vol. 1, CH. 18:37)

The possibility of multiple interpretations requires Christians to hold the interpretation with an open hand - able to modify if progress in the search of truth, guides one way or another. Augustine's conviction that science and reason cannot conflict in any foundational way with the faith is expressed even more strongly in a later section of the same book.

When they are able, from reliable evidence, to prove some fact of physical science, we shall show that it is not contrary to our Scripture. But when they produce from any of their books a theory contrary to Scripture, and therefore contrary to the catholic faith, either we shall have some ability to demonstrate that it is absolutely false, or at least we ourselves will hold it so without any shadow of a doubt. (Vol. 1 CH. 21:41)

Augustine is convinced first, that the sacred scripture is written to nourish our souls; and second, that truth is consistent. The difficulty is to discern the literal (as opposed to allegorical) meaning of the text and to determine the truths that are taught. Because many passages are capable of varied interpretation we can have a spiral  where scripture feeds reason and reason helps to interpret scripture. Augustine does take a firm stand however - that truth cannot be contrary to the faith - and this guides us to the key question.

What kind of theory is contrary to Scripture and therefore to the catholic faith? How do we know?

The first section of Alister McGrath's new book A Fine-Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology deals with his vision of a Trinitarian natural theology. As is typical in almost anything by McGrath the section rambles and repeats and makes a number of excellent points in the process.

As McGrath develops his vision for natural theology he notes several criticisms leveled against the notion of a natural theology. These criticisms are focused on the use of natural theology as an apologetic for God,  on the tendency to search out gaps and insert God,  and on the emphasis in many expressions of natural theology on epistemology (how we know and basis for knowledge) rather than ontology (the nature of the world we see). When natural theology is viewed, as was common in the 18th to 20th century, as a way to know God on the basis of human reason alone, without recourse to God's self-revelation in Christ, Church, Scripture, through the power of the Spirit, it will fall short. It may point to a God - it will not point to the God.

The power of natural theology is not in its ability to provide a foundation for knowledge of God but in its ability to provide a synthesis of information and a Christian vision of reality.

[Christian natural theology] offers an alternative way of viewing nature, which may at times challenge exaggerated versions of the scientific method, yet welcomes and sees itself as part of the human quest for truth, whether scientific or religious. It expects to find, and does in fact find, a significant explanatory resonance with what is known of nature from other sources, while at the same time insisting on its right to depict and describe nature in its own special way - as God's creation. (p. 29-30)

Christian natural theology is a tool - a powerful tool - for making sense of the world we see. It provides a lens for engagement with observation and empirical data.  McGrath, taking his cue from Paul in Romans 12:2 notes that faith, Christian faith,  transforms the human understanding of the world and revolutionizes the way we inhabit the world.

The human mind is not replaced or displaced; rather it is illuminated and energized through faith. ... Faith is about the transformation of the human mind to see things in a certain manner, involving the acquisition of certain habits of thinking and perception. (p. 39)

A renewed vision of natural theology asks two questions in iteration:

How does a Christian faith, a Christian view of the world, inform our understanding of nature?

How does our increasing knowledge of nature inform our understanding of the nature of God and his creation?

[Christ] was not, like a philosopher, interested in the 'universally valid,' but rather in that which is of help to the real and concrete human being. What worried Him was not, like Kant, whether 'the maxim of an action can become a principle of general legislation,' but whether my action is at this moment helping my neighbor to become a man before God. He continued: What can and must be said is not what is good once for all, but the way in which Christ takes form among us here and now. The attempt to define that which is good once for all has, in the nature of the case, always ended up in failure.