Doesn't appear too many people use this forum, but we'll give it a go.

So this series of "Hard Questions" will be interesting because I can think of some really hard questions. But having sat through the first sermon of this topic I have a few problems with it.

I've been intensely studying the intersection between science and religion for more than two years now, and I can say unequivocally, that science is misrepresented in church. This one and every other one I've attended.

The first thing we have to do is understand what science is and what science is not.

Science is a way of understanding the natural world using natural explanations. There is a method to it that has been demonstrated to work. That method is generally described as 1)observe or characterize a phenomenon. 2) hypothesize an explanation. 3) empirically test the evidence against the hypotheses. 4) interpret the results.
see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
The results of the testing will either lend itself toward the hypothesis or it will lead you to abandon the hypothesis and require another. Science works by asking questions and following the evidence to the best fit answer. It does not start with the answer and search for appropriate questions.

Science is not a religion, an ideology, a political system, nor a world view.

So the first problem I had with the sermon, is that while some famous scientists were Christian (i.e. Galileo, Newton, etc.) and some modern scientists are Christian (Dr. Miller, Dr. Collins, etc) science itself does not stem from Judeo-Christian principles. This is a common misconception, but the fact is science has been around since the creation of the wheel, the first cooked meat, the first time anyone mapped the Moon, Sun, and stars. Science has been done by persons of every race, religion, and education level. When the Egyptians build the pyramids or the Chinese built the great wall, they were using science. Christianity does not have ownership of science.

When discussing the origins of the universe, common sense may dictate that there are only two options. 1) the universe had a beginning, or 2) it's eternal. Well the origin of the universe is an abstract idea and one cannot honestly understand the idea without spending adequate time studying what we know about the universe. Einstein's theory of relativity shows us that space and time are a continuum. That is you can't have space without out time and you can't have time without space. It also shows us that the universe is finite but without bounds. The easiest way to think of this is to consider the universe a spherical (or elliptical) domain unlike a box or rectangular domain. But again it's an abstract concept and one without studying this kind of thing will not inherently grasp these ideas.

When one talks about surveys or research, one should be very specific. There is one thing that separates scientific publications from all other publications. References! Any reputable scientific document will provide references for it's claims. People will always critique surveys and research for bias, inadequate methodology, small sample size, and inaccurate conclusions, so references and specifics are required to accurately translate the findings. Generalities have no place in science.

Now I'm to evidence. There are several kinds of evidence (anecdotal, corroborative, historical, and converging evidence; to name a few). And they are not all equal. One piece of pottery with a particular name on it is anecdotal evidence. Normally it takes multiple lines of evidence to accurately point to a conclusion. How old is that artifact with respect to when we think the story of David and Goliath occurred? What if that pot said "David" instead of "Goliath". Do you think there would be more than one David it could be referring to? What if there was more than one person named Goliath? There are many more questions that arise when considering this claim of evidence.

Other problems I have is that atheism was tied directly or indirectly to communism. This is anecdotal, not at all universal. But mostly it's irrelevant to the topic. The other concept that is misconstrued is the idea of "open mindedness". The phrase is often used to mean someone who doesn't agree with me is not open minded. That's not at all what being open minded means. It means that you will reserve judgment until the evidence is in and then you will go where the evidence points. It means you will not search for confirmation of your bias and you will not presuppose the answer before considering all the evidence.

There's more, but I've said enough at this point. I welcome further discussion if anyone is interested. I hope the rest of the series gets better, but I'm not sure it will. Having researched Lee Strobel a little and reviewed The Case for Faith I'm not expecting much better.

Greetings Marty… someone just yesterday told me about your posted comments about my sermon so I checked ‘em out.
Oh baby... I wish everybody would get so engaged in the messages! Reminds me a little of our discussion over lunch about a year ago.

So, what to do? If I don’t comment I guess the pastor looks like a wimp who spouts off on stuff he doesn’t understand. That might be OK if there weren’t people depending on me to know something about what I’m talking about at least most of the time (of course the pastors can be wrong & we always encourage people to think for themselves—you’re certainly doing that). If I do respond I could look defensive. But alas, this is an opportunity to dialog.

For clarity I’m gonna paste your comments in black and then my responses in blue. Hope this is fun for both (all) of us.

So this series of "Hard Questions" will be interesting because I can think of some really hard questions. But having sat through the first sermon of this topic I have a few problems with it.

I've been intensely studying the intersection between science and religion for more than two years now, and I can say unequivocally, that science is misrepresented in church. This one and every other one I've attended.

I can’t speak for other churches… you might want to withhold judgment on this one though… read on.


The first thing we have to do is understand what science is and what science is not.
Science is a way of understanding the natural world using natural explanations. There is a method to it that has been demonstrated to work. That method is generally described as 1)observe or characterize a phenomenon. 2) hypothesize an explanation. 3) empirically test the evidence against the hypotheses. 4) interpret the results. 
see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
The results of the testing will either lend itself toward the hypothesis or it will lead you to abandon the hypothesis and require another. Science works by asking questions and following the evidence to the best fit answer. It does not start with the answer and search for appropriate questions.

This is fine but pretty irrelevant to the comments from the sermon. No one is in any way challenging or diminishing the scientific enterprise. But please keep your definition of science in mind as I “comment on your next comment”.


Science is not a religion, an ideology, a political system, nor a world view. 

So the first problem I had with the sermon, is that while some famous scientists were Christian (i.e. Galileo, Newton, etc.) and some modern scientists are Christian (Dr. Miller, Dr. Collins, etc) science itself does not stem from Judeo-Christian principles. This is a common misconception, but the fact is science has been around since the creation of the wheel, the first cooked meat, the first time anyone mapped the Moon, Sun, and stars. Science has been done by persons of every race, religion, and education level. When the Egyptians build the pyramids or the Chinese built the great wall, they were using science. Christianity does not have ownership of science.

From the literature I’ve read, the concept of the modern scientific enterprise includes the process of systematically sharing and accumulating accrued information/knowledge from preceding experimentation. All technology does not seem to fall under the concept of modern science. Certainly mapping the Moon & stars does not…. no hypothesis or “empirical testing of evidence” there.

The sermon did not say that “Christianity has ownership of science.” I did say, however, that scholars are acknowledging that modern science, as we know and think of it today, did indeed grow out of the Judaeo Christian worldview. I’ll share an extended excerpt from a book by Rodney Stark, longtime professor of sociology & comparative religion at University of Washington. He’ll quote Alfred North Whitehead so hang on.

“As noted, science consists of an organized (that is, sustained and systematic) empirically oriented effort to explain natural phenomena—a cumulative process of theory construction and theory testing. This enterprise arose only once. As the historian Edward Grant explained, ‘it is indisputable that modern science emerged in the seventeenth century in Western Europe and nowhere else.’ Other leading historians and sociologists of science may date the rise of science somewhat earlier, all of them agree that it was a development unique to Europe. [emphasis mine] The crucial question is: Why?

My answer to this question is as brief as it is unoriginal: Christianity depicted God as a rational, responsive, dependable, and omnipotent being and the universe as his personal creation, thus having a rational, lawful, stable structure, awaiting human comprehension…. In contrast with the dominant religious and philosophical doctrines in the non-Christian world, Christians developed science because they believed it could be done, and should be done.”

Stark then refers to Alfred North Whitehead, the renown mathematician whom I’m sure you’re aware of--

“As Whitehead put it during one of his Lowell Lectures at Harvard in 1925, ‘Science arose in Europe because of the widespread “faith in the possibility of science… derivative from medieval theology’. Whitehead’s pronouncement shocked not only his distinguished audience but Western intellectuals in general once his lectures had been published. How could this great philosopher and mathematician, coauthor with Bertrand Russell of the landmark Principia Mathematica, make such an outlandish claim? Did he not know that religion is the mortal enemy of scientific inquiry? Whithead knew better. He had grasped that Christian theology was essential for the rise of science in the West, just as surely as non-Christian theologies had stifled the scientific quest everywhere else. As he explained:

[the following red text is Whitehead’s comments as quoted by Stark]
‘I do not think, however, that I have even yet brought out the greatest contribution of medievalism to the formation of the scientific movement. I mean the inexpugnable belief that every detailed occurrence can be correlated with its antecedents in a perfectly definite manner, exemplifying general principles. Without this belief the incredible labors of scientists would be without hope. It is this instinctive conviction, vividly poised before the imagination, which is the motive power of research—that there is a secret, a secret which can be unveiled. How has this conviction been so vividly implanted in the European mind? When we compare this tone of thought in Europe with the attitude of other civilizations when left to themselves, there seems but one source of its origin. It must come from the medieval insistence on the rationality of God, conceived as the personal energy of Jehovah and with the rationality of a Greek philosopher [emphasis mine]. Every detail was supervised and ordered: the search into nature could only result in vindication of the faith in rationality. Remember that I am not talking of the explicit beliefs of a few individuals. What I mean is the impress on the European mind arising from the unquestioned faith of centuries. By this I mean the instinctive tone of thought and not a mere creed of words.’

“Whitehead ended with the remark that the images of Gods found in other religions, especially in Asia, are too impersonal or too irrational to have sustained science. Any particular ‘occurrence might be due to the fiat of an irrational despot” God, or might be produced by “some impersonal, inscrutable rationality of a personal being.’
Indeed, most non-Christian religions do not posit a creation at all: the universe is eternal and , while it may pursue cycles, it is without beginning or purpose, and, most important of all, having never been created, it has no Creator. Consequently, the universe is thought to be a supreme mystery, inconsistent, unpredictable, and arbitrary. For those holding these religious premises, the path to wisdom is through meditation and mystical insights, and there is no occasion to celebrate reason.” (from For the Glory of God… How Monotheism led to Reformations, Science, Witch-hunts, and the End of Slavery… by Rodney Stark, p. 146-148) I would highly recommend this book to you, particularly chapter 2 “God’s Handiwork: The Religious Origins of Science”.

Also I recommend Stark’s “The Victory of Reason”, and “The Scientific Enterprise & Christian Faith”, by Malcolm A. Jeeves which summarizes some of the major themes coming out of a week long conference of thirty-six scientists at Oxford. One more: “The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages… Their Religious, Institutional, and Intellectual Contexts”, by Edward Grant.

Some of the quotes I shared in the message from Galileo, Newton, Kepler, Von Braun certainly back up Whitehead’s assertion. Those few quotes & points weren’t even the tip of the iceberg in showing how many, even most, of the great founders of modern science or specific disciplines were motivated by their faith and conception of the divinely created world.


When discussing the origins of the universe, common sense may dictate that there are only two options. 1) the universe had a beginning, or 2) it's eternal. Well the origin of the universe is an abstract idea and one cannot honestly understand the idea without spending adequate time studying what we know about the universe. Einstein's theory of relativity shows us that space and time are a continuum. That is you can't have space without out time and you can't have time without space. It also shows us that the universe is finite but without bounds. The easiest way to think of this is to consider the universe a spherical (or elliptical) domain unlike a box or rectangular domain. But again it's an abstract concept and one without studying this kind of thing will not inherently grasp these ideas.

When one talks about surveys or research, one should be very specific. There is one thing that separates scientific publications from all other publications. References! Any reputable scientific document will provide references for it's claims. People will always critique surveys and research for bias, inadequate methodology, small sample size, and inaccurate conclusions, so references and specifics are required to accurately translate the findings. Generalities have no place in science.

Marty, as to the thing about space & time & elliptical instead of a box, you got me on that one. I don’t get it.
As to the thing about surveys and such, I guess I don’t get that either. Did I refer to a survey?


Now I'm to evidence. There are several kinds of evidence (anecdotal, corroborative, historical, and converging evidence; to name a few). And they are not all equal. One piece of pottery with a particular name on it is anecdotal evidence. Normally it takes multiple lines of evidence to accurately point to a conclusion. How old is that artifact with respect to when we think the story of David and Goliath occurred? What if that pot said "David" instead of "Goliath". Do you think there would be more than one David it could be referring to? What if there was more than one person named Goliath? There are many more questions that arise when considering this claim of evidence.

The Goliath pottery shard dates (950 B.C.) to within 70 years from the time in which the story of David and Goliath is placed. I believe I mentioned that it could be a family or tribal name and not necessarily the individual name of the exact figure in the biblical story (I know I mentioned this in at least one of the services). The significance, like in much of archaeology is that it establishes a very accurate setting and environment to the biblical accounts. The excavation director, Dr Aren Maeir of Bar-Ill University in Israel said, “It shows us that David and Goliath’s story reflects the cultural reality of the time.” In the case of David & Goliath this is very significant because “minimalist” scholars like to claim the biblical stories were simply late folklore, written down many centuries after the purported events. A discovery of the name “Goliath” dated to within the precise era of David, found in situ within the archaeological site of the exact Philistine home town of Goliath (Gad) according to the Bible, seems significant as to accuracy of detail. It was indeed mentioned as an anecdote and not a comprehensive review of relevant archaeological findings.
Since you compared it to a hypothetical discovery of the name David, are you aware that there’s a very significant 9th century B.C. inscription “house of David” found in situ. Many scholars from various persuasions accept this as an early “proof” (evidence actually… proof can be subjective) of the early dynasty of King David? Like in the sermon, I can’t go into all the details and minutiae of debate and implications. Another nice anecdote, though.


Other problems I have is that atheism was tied directly or indirectly to communism. This is anecdotal, not at all universal. But mostly it's irrelevant to the topic. The other concept that is misconstrued is the idea of "open mindedness". The phrase is often used to mean someone who doesn't agree with me is not open minded. That's not at all what being open minded means. It means that you will reserve judgment until the evidence is in and then you will go where the evidence points. It means you will not search for confirmation of your bias and you will not presuppose the answer before considering all the evidence.

On the Communist/atheist thing it might be the other way around from what you could be thinking. I said that Communism has at it’s root a conviction that there is no God… no soul, spirit or spirit world… the only thing that exists is matter (philosophical materialism). I did not say that atheists are Communists but that Communists are atheists. Big difference. Karl Marx said “Communism begins from the outset with atheism but atheism is at first far from being Communism.” That’s exactly what I meant to say. But I agree with you that “mostly it’s irrelevant to the topic” so, let’s not argue.

I agree with your comments about “open mindedness” and can’t imagine myself saying anything like you said “the phrase is often used to mean”.


There's more, but I've said enough at this point.
Reminds me of a song “I think I’ve said too much… haven’t said enough… that’s me in the corner…”

I welcome further discussion if anyone is interested. I hope the rest of the series gets better, but I'm not sure it will. Having researched Lee Strobel a little and reviewed The Case for Faith I'm not expecting much better.

Sadly, this might be a comment I agree with. If you took such exception so far, well, I just don’t know. But I think it’s awesome you’re coming out… awesome you’re thinking (though I’m not sure about this forum) and inquiring and challenging. Sharpens me… hope it sharpens you. Only thing is I know where this’ll lead. Endless stream of comments and counter comments and debate and yada yada. So I’m not promising to stay in the mix (not that you asked me) because I’ve got a lot a pastor stuff to do. Maybe other’s will jump in.

Post edited by: boblevin, at: 2010/03/13 14:57

Pastor Levin, first let me apologize if I sounded snarky or at all rude. That is not my intent. It's likely a little frustration shows through at times and I'm certainly don't claim to be a great communicator. It's something I work on.

Secondly, I never intended to get into an infinite argument, but this is a forum and a place for discussion. If it's not meant for such, then I don't understand the purpose of this resource on the church's site. I'd like to think it could be used as an online small group or community group, one everyone can attend at any time. Maybe it doesn't work as such.

So, I won't go into a lot of the things you stated, but I do want to reply with a couples things.

It appears we've gotten into philosophy. I haven't read much about philosophy, nor from many philosophers such as Alfred North Whitehead, so I'm not going to argue in that arena. But I bet philosophy is as varied as politics. I'm not going to go out and quote-mine any other philosopher, but I know if you wanted to look you can find some with differing opinions about where science comes from. Current philosopher Daniel Dennett comes to mind. In any case, this is an argument from Authority, which is a fallacy of defective induction. What's special about science (the act of doing science) is it doesn't appeal to authority. Think of any famous scientist and you'll find his work is still being examined to find out if it stands up to the scrutiny and rigors of testing. Take gravity. It was explained most famously by Newton, but Einstein came along and said, yeah it works for most cases, but the basic mechanics fall apart when an object approaches the speed of light. He modified Newton's theory and developed the Theory of Relativity. Today Einstein's theories are still being tested. The Large Haldron Collider is a famous and recent example of this kind of experimentation. My point is, science is a available to anyone who is interested and the act of scientific inquiry and testing does not depend on authority, race, religion, ethnicity, or otherwise, of those who practice and has never depended on such things.

And finally, if mapping of the stars is not science, then maybe somebody aughta tell NASA.
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2004/07/
The only difference I see between now and several millennium past is that we have fancier tools that allow us to see deeper into space, and we get better tools as a result of looking.

Thanks for you attention.

Greetings Marty… first, no apology needed.

You're clearly right about the modern mapping of stars as part of the scientific method. I may have mispoke but what I was thinking of was the ancients simply observing without any experimental process involved.

I’ll comment on the issue of referencing authority. The point in appealing to authority was in reference to your comment about I/NCCC misrepresenting science. The quote of Whitehead (eminent mathematician and philosopher of science) showed that it is his understanding (along with others) that I was leaning on in my sermon statements. I don’t come up with such observations from nowhere. The best most of us can do is to be students of those who’ve dedicated their lives to these issues. Of course in most issues of life there will be differing opinions/interpretations. As to “the act of scientific inquiry and testing not depending on authority, race, religion”… I would hope that’s pretty obvious and has never been in question. The point had to do with the mindset/worldview out of which modern science developed.


Post edited by: bob levin, at: 2010/03/22 14:32

Post edited by: bob levin, at: 2010/03/22 14:50

Wow!!!!!!!!!! really good