ScienceChristian wrote:
On the science thing - ... But can we please just realize that faith and science are different fields that deal with different things and neither is superior to other? To put science down because it hasn't been the province of Orthodoxy seems somewhat arrogant to me. I've read all the argument, up, down, and sideways. John Haught, Steven Gould, Ken Miller, George Washington Carver, and a host of others on all sides of the debate. Personally, I find evolution to hold more water than creationism on a SCIENTIFIC level. But that's my personal choice. If someone else were to choose creationism instead, very well. I just ask those who do to realize that it's not science, it's religion.
I'm not, and have not at any point \"attacked\" Christianity. I've been trying to point out how the church may be more dynamic, adapt, and improve.
You are asking questions and pondering matters that are not uncommon to youth (and I do not mean that in a derogartory manner). I don\'t know many persons who are given to contemplation of things that do not approach these issues at some point in their lives. Of course, we must also realize and respect those individuals who don\'t share our tendency to ask questions, they just go about their daily lives \\"doing\\". God made all of us.
We must, as Orthodox, be careful to protect ourselves from influence by the wiles of the Evil One. And this includes romancing us into the thinking that the world around us can, and should be, compartmentalized. In other words, we don\'t have \\"science\\", \\"religion\\", \\"medicine\\", \\"art\\", etc., each with their own code of ethics and acceptable practices. We have God\'s creation, and how we are to act in it--according to our life in Christ.
God will call some of us to be doctors, some research scientists, some ministers of the Gospel, some laborers...you get my drift; but all are called to faith in Christ and that carries with it inherent responsibilities to live at all time and in every way in a manner consistent with that faith. What that means for us in the long run is not filtering our faith by our experience, but the opposite, filtering our experiences through our faith; so that we start our science with the premise of God\'s creative work and keep in mind that there are mysteries we may never be able to solve.
And that is the seduction of “science”; as you said “Personally, I find evolution to hold more water than creationism on a SCIENTIFIC level.” “To hold more water”? In my reading, you are saying you see then more “believability” or “logic” in an evolutionary view—whatever that may mean to you, than in the idea of God’s creative force…But I would say, if you are an Orthodox Christian, then the belief that God DID create everything that is, has been, and ever will be is imperative—or you’ve just denied the basis of our faith. (If God is not the God of Creation, as He has claimed to be, then His word would be a lie and we could not trust Him for the rest.) So if a point of evolutionary argument leads you to any belief other than God’s creative force, then it is sin.
That is not to say, however, that the mechanics of evolutionary theory and creationism do not have overlap. Who is to say how God worked it all out? He did not leave us a textbook to explain it all, but rather a historical record of his Act. If anything in any field is “true” then it is, by default, God’s truth.
The “how” of God’s creation is honestly less important to the Orthodox Christian, than it is to the evolutionist. The evolutionist who does not understand faith, is often seeking meaning to this world, and looks backward to try to define his present reality. (Of course there are those who are just driven to “know” more) The Orthodox Christian, and some other Creationists, already have the context of their lives in hand. As the Holy Apostle Paul wrote to the Colossians, “In Him we live and move and have our being”.
It also is often easier for the person of faith to live with the idea of not having to know everything—we understand by the Spirit of God the nature of God’s mystery—there are those things for which we will never have answers because we are not God himself. We are in comfortable surroundings living by faith as opposed to sight.
It goes without saying that there are those Creationists who are caught up in the battle; some by God’s calling to defend the faith, and others simply because that is the way by which the Evil One pulls them away from their personal accountability. Those who are not called to the battle are usually just getting in the way. It does, perhaps, behoove some of us to be at least of a passing familiarity with the arguments, but we must remember the counsel “knowledge puffeth up”—it feeds into our pride and that is a dangerous thing.
We are called as Orthodox faithful to live in this world as the process by which we work out our salvation. We also believe that God’s redemptive force is at work in this present reality. But, we equally must acknowledge the fact that the Evil One and his demons are at work as well—restrained though they are. So we have a “distrust” of all things in it, lest we be deceived by the baubles cast before us and begin to worship the creation as opposed to the Creator.
In Truth, the life of the Orthodox Christian is a simple one. It is also a constant battle which calls us to vigilance.
Just my poor thoughts…please forgive me if I have been offensive to any.
