Pastor Joynt's Devotionals

Questions Week 16, Day 4

PSALM 33:1-9

You can explain what I’m doing at this moment using the categories of physics, describing the way water boils and flavors infuse, or you can describe it in terms of agency: “David is making a cup of tea.” These are different kinds of compatible explanations which focus on  equally real and significant aspects of a single phenomena. The laws of physics and chemistry are not suspended or contravened by a personal description in any way. Theology offers a description of the origins and purpose of life in terms of the personal agency of God.

Does this insight help you understand the way science and theology connect?

FAMILY TIME—

Talk about different levels of understanding as you brew a cup of coffee or make tea!

Questions Week 16, Day 3

PSALM 14:1

Scientific hostility to Christian faith is based on faulty reason, willful prejudice, or misunderstanding. Christian hostility to science arises from the same sources, plus bad theological thinking. The faulty reasoning assumes that science requires a background belief called “naturalism,” which insist that the only realities in the universe are physical ones. But naturalism is actually not a scientific belief at all—it is a philosophical position and not a very defensible one at all.

Science, as an endeavor, is officially agnostic about the God question, because it proceeds precisely by excluding causes and actors outside the observable network of cause and effect. In order to find a particular kind of order, science proceeds in a limited and definite way, leaving out of its processes questions of meaning, purpose, and what previous generations called theology. In pursuing how various physical systems work, science deliberately ignores a key set of questions which theology addresses.  

What did you learn about scientific method at school or university?

FAMILY TIME—

Look at the stars tonight and read Psalm 8.