How Science and Faith Can Be Besties: Part 3

How Science and Faith Can Be Besties: Part 3

1. Reminder : Interpretive Pluralism Details for Tonight : What we’ll cover Reminder : Interpretive pluralism Interpretation : Methods/definitions Biblicism : Biblical literalism Definitions I : Terms and questions Kalam/Hawking : What was the cause?! Fine Tuning : Definition and implications Multiverse : Hypothesis/theory TODAY’S AGENDA – 2.19.25 How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES

2. 200+ Protestant Denominations in the U.S. alone How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES

3. Dictation/Download Method The Bible, down to the details, consists of/is identical w/God’s very own words written inerrantly in human language METHODS OF INTERPRETATION How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES

4. Dictation/Download Method The Bible, down to the details, consists of/is identical w/God’s very own words written inerrantly in human language Bearing Witness Method T he text bears witness to a unique story and moment/act of revelation: Jesus revealed in the Gospels as Israel’s long-awaited Messiah and answer to YHWH’s covenant promises METHODS OF INTERPRETATION How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES

5. Adhering to the literal sense/meaning involved; not allowing for figurative/metaphorical reading. Sees the smaller Protestant Bible as not just inspired by God but as representing the Word of God without possibility of error/contradiction. Biblical literalism first became an issue in the 18th century, post-scientific revolution. BIBLICAL LITERALISM (BIBLICISM) How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES

6. THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES 1500s to 1700s, following the renaissance

7. How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES FRANCIS BACON BLAISE PASCAL ISAAC NEWTON Scientific method Gravity Math/ Physics OTHER EARLY CHRISTIANS/SCIENTISTS

8. THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES 1500s to 1700s, following the renaissance Testing, experimenting to prove ideas, not simply accepting past stories/theories Study of natural philosophy Study of astronomy Newtonian physics post printing press Rise of empiricism Archaeological discoveries re: ANE world Challenging church authority/place in society

9. IMPORTANT DEFINITIONS How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES Cosmology The study of the origin, structure, and evolution of the universe

10. IMPORTANT DEFINITIONS How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES Cosmology The study of the origin, structure, and evolution of the universe The Big Bang Model for the evolution of the universe that states the universe has expanded from a very high-density state, beginning about 13.8 billion years ago

11. KALAM COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT Premise #1 Whatever begins to exist has a cause How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali; 1058- 1111

12. KALAM COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT Premise #1 Whatever begins to exist has a cause Premise #2 The universe began to exist How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES

13. KALAM COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT Premise #1 Whatever begins to exist has a cause Premise #2 The universe began to exist Conclusion The universe must have had a cause How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES

14. Hawking claims “if we were to travel back in time to the beginning, we would find that time folds back on itself and further travel in the same direction would begin taking us forward in time again,” pushing the focus to Premise 1 of the kalām argument. STEPHEN HAWKING’s RESPONSE How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES

15. Sure, the universe has a beginning, there’s just no time boundary to that event, so … it becomes meaningless to speak of a cause that precedes the beginning.” STEPHEN HAWKING’s RESPONSE How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES

16. FINE TUNING Recognition that many of the features of the universe appear to have been specifically designed for life How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES

17. “The remarkable fact is that the (mathematical) values of (the physical constants) seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life.” STEPHEN HAWKING’s RESPONSE How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES

18. LICENSE PLATE EXAMPLE If license plate numbers are randomly generated, the odds of getting any specific combination of 7 numbers on a plate are 1/10,000,000. If someone ended up receiving a license plate w/the exact same digits as their phone number, a reasonable assumption could be made that such an event could not have been truly, completely random, but someone must have fiddled with (fine-tuned) the process… How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES

19. How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES FINE TUNED PHYSICAL CONSTANTS

20. “Gravity has a very specific, measurable, universal force (6.674 10-11 N*m 2 /kg 2 .) Gravity made it possible after the Big Bang for matter to coalesce into stars, galaxies, planets, and ultimately us. But what would happen if the value of that gravitational force was just a little different?” FRANCIS COLLINS How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES

21. “…if it was just one part in 10 14 (that’s 1 with 14 zeroes) stronger or weaker, there would be no stars, galaxies, planets – and hence no possibility of life. ” FRANCIS COLLINS How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES

22. How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES Mercury Venus Mars

23. MULTIVERSE/HYPOTHESIS THEORY Supposition that our universe is only one among a huge number of universes, each of which could have different physical laws and constants. We just happen to live in this one, where life is supported this way… How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES

24. MULTIVERSE/HYPOTHESIS THEORY This just pushes the fine-tuning problem back another level. T he question of origins, and how things go the way they are, will always be there, which brings faith of some type into the picture either way… How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES

25. “The first gulp of the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.” WARNER HEISENBERG How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES 1901-1976; Nobel Prize in physics, 1932

26. “If God wanted to communicate with us ‘inerrantly’ (God) would have used the language of mathematics, which is the only truly precise language we have. But of course, you can’t say ‘I love you’ in algebra.” EUGENE PETERSON How SCIENCE and FATH Can Be BESTIES 1932 - 2018