Exploring Ecumenism

Ecumenism and Science 5: Faith and Belief

Fundamentalism is vulnerable to criticism from a Newtonian worldview.  It shares that worldview absolutely with atheists and the two ideologies therefore feed off each other.  They fight over an impoverished 'God of the Gaps', narrowly conceived as a puppet to anyone's ideological agenda.

Ecumenism and Science 4: Compassion

We are not permitted to forget our religious wars, particularly those associated with the Protestant Reformation.  Mostly, these conflicts are behind us, with a few exceptions such as Northern Ireland, although of course we have the memories of past atrocities such as the wars between Christians and Muslims.

Ecumenism and Science 3: Returning Love to a Lifeless Universe

Newtonian cosmology has dis-enchanted the universe.  Perhaps some of this is positive, where old illusions have fallen away.  But where it views the cosmos as without life or consciousness, to be exploited for the good of humanity, the consequences can be negative.

Ecumenism and Science 2: Telling Stories in a New Cosmos

Newtonian Cosmology underlies modernism and also modern theology.  This context for ecumenism may account for the drift since the 1910 Edinburgh Mission Conference (which linked mission and ecumenism) to a strong emphasis on structural unity, culminating in the 1982 failure of the English Covenant.  The Newtonian view sees ecumenism as a problem to be solved rather than as a way of life.

Ecumenism and Science 1: Interpreting Science Together

In 1959 C P Snow published a lecture entitled The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution.  The two cultures were science and literary humanities.  Over the years the barrier between them has to some degree been broken down.  To what extent is it true today that a scientist who didn't know Shakespeare's plays would be seen as ignorant, whereas a professor of humanities who didn't know the second law of thermodynamics would not?

The Relevance of Cosmology to Ecumenism

It is time to take stock and attempt to bring what might be seen as a long diversion into science and cosmology, back to my main theme.  What relevance has cosmology to ecumenism? 

An earlier post in this sequence developed some of my thoughts and in the next few posts I will develop the following in more detail:

1. The need for a new Christian cosmology.
2. Cosmology as context: The move away from structural unity
3. The re-enchantment of the material world.
4. Compassion and ecumenism

5. Faith and Belief

On God's Relationship with Matter

We know very little about consciousness although, according to Martin in Does It Matter?, it should be possible to study it using scientific methods.  This would be through collection and comparison of accounts of experiences.  Wesley, according to Runyon's The New Creation(page 72f), understood experience to be important in spiritual matters.  He did not rule out an empirical approach to spiritual matters because accounts of experiences can be studied.

Made in God's Image

In the first creation story in Genesis, men and women are created in God's image.  What does it mean to be made in God's image?

Purpose not Design

I have already argued God is no designer.  In a fascinating sequence starting on page 197, Martin shows how Dawkins smuggles a purposeful intelligence into the evolutionary process.  In The Blind Watchmaker Dawkins calculates the chances of producing haemoglobin by the random processes of evolution are 1 in 10¹⁵⁰.  But he takes a 'neat side-step' around this problem.

The Case Against Creationism

One of the entertaining dimensions of the atheist onslaught against Christianity is that it is an unwinnable argument.  Either they address people like me who believe in evolution (and depart from the atheist position on other points that don't seem to be debated) ... (apparently I'm unintentionally being fooled by fundamentalists because they are the true representatives of Christianity - so much for solidarity amongst radicals!) ... or else they address fundamentalists who will never be persuaded by science on principle.