epistemology, science, kinds of knowledge, methodology
“Faith” is usually contrasted to “works” as if there were an antithesis, which is said to come from the second chapter of the Epistle of James. Someone works for something they don’t have but hope to gain. To work for something one cannot gain would be foolish. It would also be foolish to work for […]
Creeds began as a way for the Church to exclude heretics. A council of Bishops would meet and come to agreement on a creed. A creed affirmed propositions that a heretic would not affirm. A creed might also deny propositions that a heretic would affirm. But a creed was not a theology. It did not
Literalism means adherence to the explicit sense of a given text or doctrine. It is practiced by some Christians, who are called biblical literalists. But as Conrad Hyers (professor of comparative religion at Gustavus Adolphus College) noted, “one often finds a literalist understanding of Bible and faith being assumed by those who have no religious
Ben Jeffares wrote a useful article “Testing times: regularities in the historical sciences” (http://www.ege.fcen.uba.ar/ecodes/Integrantes/Javier/cursos/PDFs/(02)%20Jeffares%202008.pdf): Abstract The historical sciences, such as geology, evolutionary biology, and archaeology, appear to have no means to test hypotheses. However, on closer examination, reasoning in the historical sciences relies upon regularities, regularities that can be tested. I outline the role of regularities
I would define a first-order science as an ancient and limited form of each science that is valid within its limits and simplifications. Each first-order science is a limiting case of a higher-order science known today (the correspondence principles). These are sciences of unaided observation and common sense. In particular: First-order physics is the science of
The “new atheists” have caused a stir but have also shown their ignorance when they step outside their domain of scientific expertise and talk about metaphysics while denigrating philosophy. One result is that philosophers are now taking them on — and they have come out slugging. I’m seeing a new generation of philosophers, mostly Christians, who
First, for those who want an introduction to apologetics, I suggest this video by Dr. R.C. Sproul on Defending Your Faith, lecture 1: http://www.ligonier.org/learn/series/defending-your-faith/introduction-2/. Note in the second part he addresses Greek philosophy. One way to compare different approaches is to look at what they consider believers and unbelievers have in common and how to
At least from the time of Constantine to the Middle Ages, the Church was involved in the world – i.e., public affairs and endeavors such as philosophy. The Reformation was partly a reaction against this, refocusing the church on spiritual matters and leaving worldly matters to others, that is, to Christians outside the church’s official
Since the downfall of Ptolemaic astronomy, the Bible’s geocentric language has been an embarrassment to believers. Unbelievers spin the Galileo affair into a grand struggle between science and religion while believers hesitantly defend the Bible as speaking in prescientific terms. But when understood correctly, geocentrism is a valid position and one which we all use. The key is to
Elliott Sober is a professor of philosophy who has written in support of evolutionary biology. I’m going through his book “Evidence and Evolution.” Sober argues for the superiority of the likelihood approach. The “law if likelihood” states that evidence E favors hypothesis H1 over H2 if and only if the probability of E given H1
