Faith and reason are not easy to separate

One definition of faith given by the Mirriam-Webster dictionary is “firm belief in something for which there is no proof.” This is consistent with popular conceptions of faith that place it in conflict with reason and evidence. Richard Dawkins stated, 

“Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is the belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence… Faith is not allowed to justify itself by argument.”  

[The Magic of Reality, 1992]

This view is similar to Sigmund Freud’s vision that “reason will replace faith in God.” These views present a false dichotomy between faith and reason, and between faith and evidence. They also misrepresent what Christian faith is,  as I discuss below, and how science is practised.

The ideal of only believing things that we can be certain of, based on incontrovertible evidence, is appealing. It would be nice to eliminate subjectivity and the risk of believing things that may not be true. 

Faced with the challenge of deciding what to believe and how to act in any given situation, we can rationally explore different options. Nevertheless, at some point our exploration ends because we run out of time, lose interest, or get tired. Then we decide what is “reasonable.” However, often this means, possibly sub-consciously, trusting and accepting a particular authority, whether it is intuition based on our own experience or a specific tradition. This is also true even if we remain “undecided” and to “keep an open mind.” This trust is in some sense “faith” and involves personal commitment and risk. This is true whether we embrace Christianity, science, conservatism, Marxism, feminism, or atheism. We cannot escape traditions and their influence, for better or worse. 

I now consider what “faith” means in the Christian tradition.    The Greek word translated as faith in New Testament is pistis, which means trust or allegiance. A Christian is to trust Jesus to save them and to change them. They are to commit their allegiance to Jesus who was born, lived, taught, crucified, and rose from the dead. In the Gospel of John the verb pisteuō is translated as “believe” and is inextricably linked to love. Faith, hope, and love cannot be separated. Hence, Christian faith is not a leap in the dark, believing something without any evidence, or just intellectual agreement. It is not wishful thinking. Christian faith is not primarily about intellectual assent to specific theological, doctrinal, political, cultural, philosophical, or scientific positions. Christian faith requires humility. It acknowledges humans are finite and prone to error, including in thinking. 

The Bible leaves room for doubt. Authors of many Psalms wrestle with their doubt about whether God is actually present and acting in the world. Jesus did express his disappointment at the “lack of faith” of some of his disciples, but nevertheless accepted them. A father brought his sick son to Jesus, who then told him, “Everything is possible for one who believes.” Jesus responded positively to the man’s response, “I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief.” 

Augustine considered that reason and faith were inseparable. He stated that “I believe so that I may understand” and “I understand so that I may believe.” Christian faith is predominantly trust and commitment, not intellectual assent. It is not against reason but is a response to uncertainty and the limitations of reason. Faith versus reason is a false dichotomy.

A celebration of God's superabundant love

Too often theology, philosophy, academia, church, and the Bible can feel dry, boring, abstract, irrelevant, dour, and a chore.

But this should seem strange because the Bible is full of celebration: feasts, parties, songs, and poems. They are celebrations of love, thanksgiving, and wonder; celebrations of the superabundant generous gifts of God to humanity.

It is refreshing to encounter an academic book that addresses theology, philosophy, and the Bible in a manner that is a celebration.

I have read most of Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible's Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture by Christopher Watkin.

There are many elements to the celebration. Here is one beautiful passage that reflects on the gift of creation and of the Cross of Christ.

The cross lifts Christianity out of the iron logic of necessity, of unbreakable cause and effect, up into a logic of superabundance...

...philosophy... could not receive theology's gift of a superabundance in the midst of life. There is no ultimate explanation of God's love, no rational justification for it, no way to bring it under the logic of necessity and equivalence. The love of God expressed in creation and in the cross is a reality with which the two-speed gearbox of chance and necessity can never come to terms. Divine superabundance is the raging bull that storms through the staid china shop of demure philosophical concepts, shattering every symmetrical plate and dashing every systematic bowl to the ground in a way that leaves not a trail of destruction but a grander, richer, and more open imaginary than ever before.

        (pages 420-1)

Celebrating God's generous gifts to us: existence, meaning, and love

“This paradigm of the gift places us in the posture of recipients. We receive existence, we receive meaning, and we receive love. To be sure we are creative recipients,... and receiving the gift of the universe certainly does not make us passive. But the fact remains that we are recipients nonetheless. The one thing we should not do with a gift is pretend we bought or made it ourselves. The giver is usually thanked, so our fundamental orientation to existence in the paradigm of the figure of gratuity is one of praise and thanksgiving.”

        (page 60)

Engagement with the world, in all its limitations, can still be a celebration

To live in God’s city here and now is to enjoy God’s limitless peace, love, and creativity; it is also to live a subversive, revolutionary life in this world as we repeatedly scratch the surface of the earthly city to reveal God’s goodness, truth, and beauty under its makeshift palimpsest.

Celebrating the gift of human language

Watkin writes as a gifted wordsmith, delighting in turns of phrase; not just his own, but also that of masters including C.S. Lewis, David Bentley Hart, G.K. Chesterton, and of course, the Biblical authors.

How does the Bible engage the big ideas in the university

At their best universities engage with big questions. What does it mean to be human? How do we know what is true? What is real? How should we live?

I really like the new book, Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible's Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture by Christopher Watkin.

To get the flavour of the book you can download the first few chapters for free or listen to a podcast where John Dickson interviews the author.

The book is a monumental achievement. I admire it for its scope, balance, tone, and accessibility. Its breadth and depth cover the whole Biblical narrative and significant ideas from modern Western philosophy, politics, humanities, and social sciences. This means engaging with many academic authors, concepts, and perspectives. This provides a balanced perspective that surpasses common sectarian or partisan slants, whether about theology or politics. The tone is gracious; people and ideas are critiqued with respect and without caricature. Finally, for an academic book, I find it relatively easy to read and engaging. I enjoy reading it because I learn so much. I am gaining a better understanding of the ideas and thinkers behind modernity and post-modernity while being challenged to contrast and compare them to the big theological ideas (such as creation-fall-redemption-recreation) that flow from the narrative of the Bible. Watkin's prose is winsome and occasionally light-hearted.

A central idea of the book is that most modern social theories and philosophies present false dichotomies. They are imbalanced and so do not capture all  dimensions of reality. Watkin argues that the Biblical narrative presents a balanced, more imaginative picture that affirms both polarities. He uses the term diagonalisation to describe this. It is not a matter of either-or but both-and. In different words, the Bible presents a dialectical view of reality. Diagonalisation is best illustrated by one of the many helpful diagrams in the book.

This dichotomy pits traditional societies against modern societies and communal identity against individual identity. This is then presented as a stark choice between crushing individual freedom or undermining community.

The doctrine of the Trinity removes these polarities as it affirms both individuality and community. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three distinct persons but are also in a harmonious relationship. 

The many diagrams in the book represent that Watkin is steeped in the use of models: models for theology, models for modern thought, and diagonalisation is a model for relating theological concepts to modern thought. This is good provided that we remember the maxim, "all models are wrong, but some are useful".

The ambivalence of Christians towards the social sciences

Since I am a physicist and Christian, over the years I have thought, read, and written a lot about the relationship between the physical sciences and Christianity. I have come to the view that, contrary to the claims of some, there is a positive relationship between Christian theology and the physical sciences. This is seen in many ways: the historical origins of modern science, awe and wonder inspired by scientific discoveries, the order in the universe found to be encoded in laws of nature, fine-tuning, the beginning of the universe, ....
But, what about the social sciences (psychology, sociology, anthropology, ...)?
They are sometimes used to argue for atheism and against Christian belief. Many beginning undergraduates encounter this in university classrooms. Indeed, one study in the USA found that studying the social sciences led to a decline in "religiosity", whereas studying the physical sciences did not.

Examples of common claims are:
Religious belief is a neurosis reflecting personal insecurity (psychology).
Religious belief and morality result from social pressures to conform (sociology).
The unique claims of Christianity are not valid because there is a multitude of different religions in a multitude of different cultures (anthropology).

According to the Wikipedia entry on Psychology of Religion

When Freud spoke of religion as an illusion, he maintained that it "is a fantasy structure from which a man must be set free if he is to grow to maturity."
Freud views the idea of God as being a version of the father image, and religious belief as at bottom infantile and neurotic. Authoritarian religion, Freud believed, is dysfunctional and alienates man from himself.

The Wikipedia entry on Sociology of Religion, describes the views of Emile Durkheim, one of the founders of sociology

Religion, for Durkheim, is not "imaginary", although he does deprive it of what many believers find essential.^[8] Religion is very real; it is an expression of society itself, and indeed, there is no society that does not have religion. We perceive as individuals a force greater than ourselves, which is our social life, and give that perception a supernatural face. We then express ourselves religiously in groups, which for Durkheim makes the symbolic power greater. Religion is an expression of our collective consciousness, which is the fusion of all of our individual consciousnesses, which then creates a reality of its own. 

The Wikipedia entry on Anthropology of Religion states

Anthropology circa 1940 assumed that religion is in complete continuity with magical thinking,^{[a][3][dubious – discuss]} and that it is a cultural product.^[b][4] The complete continuity between magic and religion has been a postulate of modern anthropology at least since early 1930s.^[c][6] The perspective of modern anthropology towards religion is the projection idea, a methodological approach which assumes that every religion is created by the human community that worships it, that "creative activity ascribed to God is projected from man."^[7] In 1841, Ludwig Feuerbach was the first to employ this concept as the basis for a systematic critique of religion.^[8]

Thus, it is understandable that Christians may be critical, skeptical, or scared of the social sciences.
However, for several reasons I want to argue for a balanced, critical, and constructive engagement. This follows the perspective of John Stott about "double listening": listening to the world and to the Word.

I give my reasons in no particular order.

First, I find the social science arguments against Christian belief unconvincing.
Sometimes these arguments fail to distinguish causality and correlation or involve the is-ought problem or naturalistic fallacy. For example, the observation that there are many different religions and that they have certain common features does not necessarily imply that they are all equally true (false), equally valid, or of equal social value.

A major claim of sociology was the secularisation thesis: with time as science progresses, societies become more modern and rational, and the influence of religion, particularly in politics and culture, decreases. By the 1960s almost all sociologists agreed that this was true, but now it is contested. While this is true in Western Europe, there are many parts of the world where actually the opposite is true. In a similar vein, the Harvard psychologist Stephen Pinker claims that ``scientific data'' proves how the Enlightenment (as defined by him) has been good for society. However, Peter Harrison has given a robust critique of Pinker's arguments.

Second, in some social sciences, Christians have played an influential role. Examples include Peter Berger and Jacques Ellul in sociology, Malcolm Jeeves in psychology, Alan Tippett in Anthropology, and Kenneth Pike in linguistics.

Third, the social sciences are particularly relevant to Christian ministry and mission. One might consider this as in the vein of Augustine's idea of plundering truth from non-Christians as the Israelites plundered treasure from the Egyptians (Ex 3:22). (See Augustine, Confessions 7.9.15 and On Christian Teaching 2.40.60–2.42.63.)
Important insights can be gained from their concepts, discoveries, and techniques. Examples include mental health, cross-cultural communication, and social justice.
Mental illness is complex and has biochemical, psychological, and spiritual dimensions. Psychology can provide significant insights into the causes of mental illness, prevention, and strategies for healing.
Christian mission involves introducing the Gospel to new cultures. This is now far beyond the old stereotype of a white Westerner going to an obscure African tribe. Most urban societies and universities are now complex, pluralistic, and multi-cultural. Anthropology can provide important insights into how to understand different cultures and how to communicate with them. Furthermore, anthropology can help us discern what is cultural and what is Christian.
Another important dimension to Christian mission and God's Kingdom is that of social justice. Economics and sociology can provide insights into how entrenched systems oppress certain people and promote inequality. A concrete example is the work of Cameron Townsend among indigenous people in Mexico.

Two books I am looking forward to reading are Psychology through the eyes of faith and Sociology through the eyes of faith.

Learning from Historical Theology

A few years ago I took a short course on Early Church History.
I am now re-engaging with this topic because in the theology reading group we are reading through Historical Theology by Alister McGrath.

McGrath emphasises the distinction between church history and historical theology.
The latter is concerned solely with ideas and intellectual issues.
Theology is basically the study of God. How does one understand God and talk about
God?
In contrast, church history has a broader concern with events, personalities, and institutions. It considers how the ideas were influenced by these and visa versa.

Why do church history and historical theology matter?

Much of what Christians believe today has been shaped by this early period.
The canon of scripture was defined and the Apostle’s and Nicene creeds were formulated then. This shaped ideas about the divinity of Christ, sin, the Trinity, grace, methods of interpretation of scripture, church structure, sacraments …

McGrath quotes Karl Barth

"With regard to theology, we cannot be in the church without taking responsibility as much for the theology of the past as for the theology of the present day. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Luther, Schleiermacher and all the others are not dead but living. They still speak and demand a hearing as living voices, as surely as we know that they and we belong together in the church." 

We can learn much from the past. Some of the early theologians were brilliant minds and some lived exemplary lives. Augustine has had a significant influence on philosophy as well as theology.

Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them.
This is a painful and tragic truth that happens in the church, politics, science, and personal life again and again.

Theology always occurs in a context: social, cultural, political, economic, intellectual, .. We cannot deny that the context has an influence on the issues discussed, controversies,
emphasis and neglect, language, method, …
However, that does not mean that the context is determinative or that the ideas or statements produced are or are not relevant in other contexts.
Somehow we have to discern what is and what is not relevant in our own contexts.
Christianity is global and historical. Consider these very different contexts:
1. the persecuted church in the third century of the Greco-Roman world
2. upper middle-class Australia today
3. slum dwellers in Latin America in the 1970s under military dictatorships
4. Dalit Christians in India today.

Finally, at least for some of us, the topic is fascinating and stimulating.

Last week we covered the Patristic period (approx. 100-451 AD). Here is the chapter and a short introduction to the corresponding chapter in another McGrath text.



Later I will review some of what struck me from the reading and from the Early Church history course.

4 talks about the positive interaction of science and theology

Next week I am giving four talks at the annual summer school for clergy from the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane. Here is the current draft version of the slides. I welcome any feedback.

Awe and wonder: Science and worship

Augustine on Faith and Reason

The Biblical origins of modern science

Creation: from the Big Bang to the multiverse

Overall my goal is to illustrate the positive interaction of science and theology, particularly in history.

On books clubs, politicians, and money

For the past few years I was in a really nice theological "book club" that read and discussed a wide range of meaty works by authors such as Miroslav Volf, Stanley Hauerwas, Albert Wolters, Karl Barth, Augustine, ...
I wrote many posts stimulated by these readings. Unfortunately, the group wound down last year due to declining interest and because our fearsome leader Luke Glanville left Brisbane to take up a new academic position at ANU.

I was delighted last year when I learnt there was another group in Brisbane with similar interests, led by Charles Ringma, and they allowed me to join. This group reads a slightly greater pace, often covering one book per month.

Our first book is Globalisation, Spirituality, and Justice by Daniel Groody. Hopefully, I will write some posts about it. On the lighter side I was amused to read in the first chapter how some have proposed that  politicians in the USA should wear uniforms like NASCAR drivers that clearly display their corporate sponsors.

Augustine on creation, angels, and numerology

At today's Volfians discussion group we will look at Book XI of Augustine's City of God. I was keen to do this because he discusses Genesis 1, creation, and time.
The broad trajectory is to develop the idea of the two-fold division, the City of men and the City of God, of evil and good.

Parts of this Book impressed me. Others did not.

I was impressed by the Section headings:

5. We are not to think about infinite time before the world, any more than about infinite space outside it. As there was no time before it, so there is no space outside it. 

6. The beginning of the world and the beginning of time are the same.

Over history many philosophers and scientists have had a different view. However, Augustine's view, inspired by Genesis, is actually consistent with a modern scientific view: both time and space began at the "big bang". Scientists only came to this consensus after a long struggle and finding the observational data was only consistent with one of many possible theories [Einstein's theory of general relativity with a "singularity" in the past].

Augustine considers the following puzzling issue raised by Genesis 1.

7. On the nature of the days where there was "morning and evening" before the creation of the sun. 

... these are questions beyond the scope of our sensible experience. We cannot understand what happened as it is presented to us; and yet we must believe it without hesitation...

Here he begins a debatable identification of "light and darkness" in Genesis with good and bad angels, respectively. He is often concerned with angels. It is interesting that issues about them are not at the forefront of discussions about Genesis and creation today.

God's rest on the seventh day of creation "means the rest of those who find their rest in him, just as "the joy of a house" means the joy of those who rejoice in that house."

Augustine rebuts ideas of Origen that the purpose of creation was to put souls into bodies. Rather, "there is only one cause for the creation of the world - the purpose of God's goodness in the creation of good."

....there are three questions to be asked in respect of any created being: ‘Who made it’, ‘How?’ and ‘Why?’. I put forward the answers: ‘God’, ‘Through his word’, ‘Because it is good’.

It is sometimes said, "Genesis tells us the the "who" and the "why", science tells us the "how" and the "when"". I don't think Augustine's view necessarily conflicts with this. Rather he might be answering "how does the scientific description and natural mechanism work?"

But, after this nice quote he begins an apparent tendency to want to invoke numerology and the Trinity, seeing a three-fold division of much of reality and philosophy. He wonders about whether the THREE questions above are related to the Trinity. Philosophy is divided into three parts: physics, logic, and ethics. "There are also three things that are looked for in any artist: natural ability, training, and the use to which he puts them." He moves on to the "perfection of the number six" and seven, too!

Who invented the secular?

Was it modern atheists?

Well where did the concept of sacred and secular come from?
Perhaps from Jesus who said

“So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

The idea of the secular was arguably also developed and promoted by more by Luther with his notion of "two kingdoms" and by Augustine in The City of God.

These thoughts and observations were prompted by attending some of a seminar series last year at the Centre for History of European Discourses at UQ. I wished I had got around to blogging about those I attended.

I am looking forward to the next series, Narratives of Secularisation which begins tomorrow with Peter Harrison speaking on "Science and Secularisation."

Blame the Christians!

The "Volfian" reading group is re-convening today to discuss more of Augustine's City of God. We just read Book III. Augustine provides a model and robust critique of the surrounding culture and of his contemporaries' criticism of Christianity. They were blaming Christianity for the fall of Rome and its current suffering. If only the Romans had kept worshipping their own gods. They would have protected them.

Augustine cleverly uses secular authors to show the flaws in these arguments. Rome "suffered" much before Christ. Furthermore, Roman gods were diligently worshipped then and yet Roman citizens experienced considerable natural disasters and atrocities in war. Much of this suffering arose from civil wars and from man's own lust for power and violence. In Augustine's words:

How can our opponents have the effrontery, the audacity, the impudence, the imbecility (or rather the insanity) to refuse to blame their gods for those catastrophes, while they hold Christ responsible for the disasters of modern times?
The brutal civil wars, more bitter, in the admission of their own authors, than any wars against foreign enemies - those civil wars which, in the general judgement, brought on the the republic not merely calamity but utter destruction - broke out long before the coming of Christ.

Book III, Chapter 30,  pages 131 (Penguin edition)

Augustine on science

Given that he lived, more than a millenium before the rise of modern science I would have thought that Augustine would not have not had much to say about science or the relationship of science and Christianity.
However, I recently learnt this was not the case and that he had some important, perhaps timeless, insights. Even in his time there were some who conflated their theology with some scientific "theory".
Here is one quote, brought to my attention by Luke Glanville.

Whenever I hear a brother Christian talk in such a way as to show that he is ignorant of these scientific matters and confuses one thing with another, I listen with patience to his theories and think it no harm to him provided that he holds no beliefs unworthy of you, O Lord, who are the Creator of them all. The danger lies in thinking that such knowledge is part and parcel of what he must believe to save his soul and in presuming to make obstinate declarations about things of which he knows nothing. 

Augustine, Confessions, Book V, page 96.

The context is nicely discussed in a post on Eureka Street by Andrew Hamilton. Prior to becoming a Christian Augustine was engrossed in Manichaeism but became intellectually  dissatisfied with the elaborate and unjustified astrology associated with it. 

Does this sound like a modern political speech?

so long as it [the country] enjoys material prosperity, and the glory of victorious war, or, better, the security of peace, why should we worry?   What concerns us is that we should get richer all the time, to have enough for extravagant spending every day, enough to keep our inferiors in their place.  It is all right if the poor serve the rich, so as to get enough to eat and to enjoy a lazy life under their patronage; while the rich make use of the poor to ensure a crowd of hangers-on to minister to their pride; if the people applaud those who supply them with pleasures rather than those who offer them salutary advice; if no one imposes disagreeable duties, or forbids perverted delights; if kings are interested not in the morality but in the docility of their subjects; if provinces are under rulers who are regarded not as directors of conduct but as controllers of material things and providers of material satisfactions, and are treated with servile fear instead of sincere respect. 

The laws should punish offences against another's property, not offences against a man's own personal character.  No one should be brought to trial except for an offence, or threat of offence,  against another's property, house or person; but anyone should be free to do as he likes about his own, or with his own, or with others, if they consent.  There should be a plentiful supply of public prostitutes, for the benefit of all those who prefer them, and especially those who cannot keep private mistresses.  It is a good thing to have imposing houses luxuriously furnished, where lavish banquets can be held, where people can, if they like, spend night and day in debauchery, and eat and drink until they are sick; to have the din of dancing everywhere, and theatres full of fevered shouts of degenerate pleasure and of every kind of cruel and degraded indulgence. 

Anyone who disapproves of this kind of happiness should rank as a public enemy: anyone who attempts to change it or get rid of it should be hustled out of hearing by the freedom-loving majority:  he should be kicked out, and removed from the land of the living.

This "tongue in cheek" parody could be of many politicians in the Western world, both conservative or liberal, as they pander to our pagan whims and aspirations. 

However, this was was actually written 1600 hundred years ago by Saint Augustine as a parody of the pagan vision of Rome.

It is in City of God, Book II, Chapter 20.

 Roman orgy in the time of the caesars, by Henryk Siemeradzki

Reading Augustine's City of God II

I enjoyed last weekends reading and discussion of Book II of Augustine's City of God. A few overiding impressions I was left with.
Paganism has little to offer.
You cannot build a society and community without justice.
Here are a few section headings which give the flavour of Augustine's argument.

Calamities befell the Romans when they worshipped the pagan gods before Christianity displaced them

Pagan gods had no moral teaching for their worshippers; in fact pagan rites were full of obscenities 

The conclusions of philosophers are ineffective as they lack divine authority. 

The Romans ought to have realised that gods who demanded obscene shows in their worship deserved no divine honours

Cicero and Scipio are invoked to press the point that one cannot have a commonwealth [=weal of the community] without justice. A community is

``not any and every association of the population, but "an association united by a common sense of right and a community of interest" (De Rep)''

The vicissitudes of history depend not on the favour or opposition of demons, but on the judgement of the true God. 

The evil spirits encourage crime by giving it the authority of their supposedly divine example.

Barth's non-scientific reading of Genesis

In discussing the first few chapters of Genesis Karl Barth suggests a balance must be found. One has to be wary of "historical", non-historical, and scientific readings. The texts need to be allowed to speak for themselves and kept in the larger context of the Old Testament.

The exegesis of these passages has ... to be on its guard against two errors to which easy access is far too often conceded. 

First, it must not overlook or explain away the fact that these texts deal with genuine events and not with timeless, metaphysical, or physical explanations of the world. It is true, of course, that God is the only actively operative Subject of these events, and that they include the beginning of time in which they also take place. This clearly distinguishes them from the later biblical histories. They are very definitely pre-historical. But this does not alter the fact that here too we have narratives, that no timeless truth is presented or proclaimed, but that accounts are given of once-for-all words and acts. 

If we will not accept this fact, then in respect of these passages we may well become entangled in the dilemma in which Augustine obviously found himself towards the end of his Confessions (XI, 3; XII, 18, 23, 31), so that he finally had to assume that these passages have many different senses, one of which may well be identical with that which according to his Neo-Platonic metaphysics he regarded as a true description of the timeless relationship of God to His creature. And if we take the same view, but like Basil and Ambrose (in their Hexaemera), and many modern apologists we are more interested in physics than metaphysics, we shall think it necessary to help the narratives by clothing what we think are the far too naive and scanty words of the Bible by the fulness of our own natural science with which we seek to harmonise them, as is also the case in qu. 65-74 of the Summa theologica I of Thomas Aquinas. But either way the biblical history of creation, which claims to be concrete history, is quite unable to say what it wants to say and thus to mediate any profitable perception. 

The other mistake which has to be avoided is that of a lack of attention to the connexion between the biblical histories of creation and what follows in the Pentateuch and the rest of the Old Testament.

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III.1: The Doctrine of Creation, page 64

Reading Augustine's City of God

I have posted before about the theology reading group I am in. We meet every second saturday morning for about 90 minutes and discuss a chapter from a book we are reading. We have just started City of God by Augustine.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo

It is a robust defense of the Christian faith in the context of pagan and political hostility and instability. It presents a model for engagement with both the Bible and the surrounding cultural context. 
Today we discussed Book I. Augustine counters the claim that Christianity undermined the Roman empire leading to the fall of Rome in 410 at the hand of the barbarians.

He points out how non-Christians were spared from atrocities because they found shelter in Christian buildings. Given this what grounds do the opponents of Christ have to criticise what actually saved them. Furthermore, the same household gods failed to save the Greeks so why would they save the Romans.

Augustine critiques several historical Roman figures [e.g. Lucretia, Regulus, Cato] who were held as models of virtue.

There is a detailed discussion of the morality of suicide. It cannot be justified, even as a way to avoid terrible suffering and violence.

Suffering should challenge a Christian to humility, reflection, and repentance. Sometimes God uses suffering to expose sin and to rebuke. In contrast, the Romans have learnt little from their downfall, being ever so eager to return to their sinful lifestyle, particularly embodied in the theatre.

Augustine emphasizes the eternal perspective of the Christian. Nothing that happens in this life, including atrocities against the body, can damage the eternal soul and resurrected body of the Christian.

It may have been written 1600 years ago but it still resonates with issues of today.

God's two books is a helpful metaphor

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was arguably the founder of modern science because he introduced and systematised the rationale for the use of experiment and induction. He was also a Christian and introduced the notion of God's Two Books as a metaphor/model for understanding the relationship between science and the Bible.

In his book Advancement of Learning Bacon said:

God has, in fact, written two books, not just one.  Of course, we are all familiar with the first book he wrote, namely Scripture.  But he has written a second book called creation. 

One book is the Bible: The Book of God's Words.
The other book is Nature: The Book of God's Works.

Although old and imperfect (like all metaphors) I think this is still a helpful starting point for thinking about the relationship of science and Christianity. Why?

It highlights that both books have the same perfect Author.
A book is a representation of a reality, not the reality itself.
Different books can have different genres, purposes, and messages.
Reading and understanding books can be hard work.
Different people can read the same book and interpret it differently.
Fallible readers can misinterpret what the author is trying to say.
If two books by the same perfect author appear to be inconsistent with one another, the problem may be with the interpreter not the author.

A few more things:

In the Preface [or the fly-leaf?] to The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin quoted Bacon:

To conclude therefore, let no man upon a weak conceit of sobriety or an ill-applied moderation think or maintain that a man can search too far, or be too well studied in the book of God's word, or the book of God's works, divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endevour an endless progress or proficience in both.

Michael Poole's wonderful introductory book User's guide to science and Belief devotes the first chapter to the metaphor. He points out that the two Books metaphor was popular with Galileo and Faraday.

George Murphy has a helpful article Reading God's Two Books that discusses some limitations of and reservations about the metaphor.

John Stott gave a short sermon The Subjects of Our Study and Our Witness which begins with the metaphor.

Update (19 October, 2014): I have been listening to the wonderful lectures on Science and Religion by Lawrence Principe. He says Augustine introduced the idea of God's two books.

Plundering the Egyptians?

For the next meeting of the fortnightly theology reading group ("the Volfians") we are reading an article "Christian Poetics, Past and Present" by Donald T. Williams. It is reprinted in a volume, The Christian Imagination: The Practice of Faith in Literature and Learning.

I am still reading and digesting the article, but I found interesting the quote below from Augustine, who seems to have had ambivalent views towards literature.

 Any statements made by those who are called philosophers, especially the Platonists, which happen to be true and consistent with our faith should not cause alarm, but be claimed for our own use, as it were from owners who have no right to them. Like the treasures of the ancient Egyptians, who possessed not only idols and heavy burdens. . .but also vessels and ornaments of silver and gold, and clothes, which on leaving Egypt the people of Israel, in order to make better use of them, surreptitiously claim for themselves (they did this not on their own authority but at God’s command).... - similarly the branches of pagan learning contain not only false and superstitious fantasies... but also studies for liberated minds which are more appropriated for the service of the truth, and some very useful moral instruction... The treasures.. which were wickedly and harmfully in the service of demons must be removed by Christians... and applied to their true function, that of preaching the gospel.

Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana