About Me

My Photo
I am a senior at Southeastern University majoring in Theology, minoring in Youth and Bible (and possibly Greek). I am dating a most wonderful woman named Lisa Youngerman and she helps me on my journey in life and my journey of faith in my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Is God and Science incompatible?

This is an often argued point between both atheists and Christians. Atheists deny God by saying they uphold science, and many Christians (not all) denying science to uphold Christianity. Unfortunately many Christians deny science to uphold their view, many cling to science seeing God's handiwork through the means of science. John Lennox, who holds an MA and Ph.D. in Mathematics, M.A. in bioethics, and D.Phil (a doctorate in Philosophy), is an example of many, many people who uphold both, belief in God and science as a compatible force, rather than competing agents.

A quick lesson in philosophy:: there are laws of logic and to break one of these laws is called a "fallacy." There are many fallacies such as:: ad hominem which means you are attacking the person rather than attacking the argument presented, there are contradictions which breaks the law of non-contradiction which states that A cannot be "not A" at the same time and in the same way for the same reason. For example, I cannot be a woman and a man right now. Maybe in the span of my life I can get a sex-change (which I assure you, will never happen haha) but it could then be possible that I be both a man and a woman, but for this instant I cannot be both. The reason I am giving this lesson is to present to you another fallacy, it is called a categorical fallacy.What this means is, to borrow from Thoughts of Francis Turretin blog when commenting on the Sam Harris and the William Lane Craig debate, "Mr. Harris argued that the worst possible world would be one in which all sentient beings suffered a maximum amount for a maximum duration. He argued that this "worst case" provides an objective reference point from which morality can be judged. However, that is not a maximally immoral universe, just a maximally unpleasant (for sentient beings) universe." You see, Harris was playing with semantics on "good" and in one sense saying it as "moral" and in another saying "unpleasant." Though, in the debate he used them interchangeably, Dr. Craig found this out and pointed it out to the audience and Mr. Harris. This is what a categorical fallacy is, to use two different terms interchangeably when they are not, or to use am in a category that it is not.

Now, with all that out of the way, I can get to my conclusion. It is an error of category to say that God and Science is incompatible. It is also a false dichotomy (another fallacy which puts 2 points against each other when they are not, or there is another horn to the argument that was not presented). God and science are 2 different things. Science explains WHAT something is, God is the Creator of the WHAT. Dr. Lennox uses an example
You need both...Here is a Ford Galaxy motor car. You have 2 possible explanations for it: 1) the laws of physics and internal combustion, 2) Henry Ford.
 Now, you can see that in the obvious case is, we need both. It is Henry Ford using the Laws of Physics and internal combustion to created the Ford Galaxy. Both are in effect. In the same way, it is God, using science to create things. We must study science as a Christian, so that we can see not a contradiction of what God has done, but how He has done it!

No comments:

Post a Comment