Is there an essence to being human that transcends a scientific description?

There is a nice Biologos podcast about the wonderful novel Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi. In the format of a book club three women reflect on the book. Lynette Strickland recently finished a PhD in biology, Rachel Wahlberg is a neuroscience graduate student, and Christina Bieber Lake is a literature professor. Each begins by reading one of their favourite passages from the book. Their discussion increased my appreciation of the book, wanting me to read it again and I am now suggesting it be read in a couple of the book clubs that I am part of.

This podcast made me aware of where the title of the book first appears in the narrative, besides. Below the main character, Gifty, a neuroscience graduate student, reflects on her work in the lab.

“Though I had done this millions of times, it still awed me to see a brain. To know that if I could only understand this little organ inside this one tiny mouse, that understanding still wouldn't speak to the full intricacy of the comparable organ inside my own head. And yet I had to try to understand, to extrapolate from that limited understanding in order to apply it to those of us who made up the species Homo Sapiens, the most complex animal, the only animal who believed he had transcended his Kingdom, as one of my high school biology teachers used to say. That belief, that transcendence, was held within the organ itself. Infinite, unknowable, soulful, perhaps even magical. I had traded the Pentecostalism of my childhood for this new religion, this new quest, knowing that I would never fully know.”

Later Gifty reflects more about the mysteries of human consciousness and the struggle to use science to answer our deepest questions.

“a neuroscientist who has at times given herself over to equating the essence that psychologists call the mind, that Christians call the soul, with the workings of the brain. I have indeed given that organ a kind of supremacy, believing and hoping that all of the answers to all of the questions that I have can and must be contained therein. But the truth is I haven’t much changed. I still have so many of the same questions, like “Do we have control over our thoughts?,” but I am looking for a different way to answer them. I am looking for new names for old feelings. My soul is still my soul, even if I rarely call it that.”

Is the slope really that slippery?

I am skeptical about "slippery slope" arguments, whether in theology or politics.

``If we allow/believe X then we will end up with Y, something that is really bad.''

First, this an argument from fear, not from faith and love.
Second, this video makes a point I had not thought of before. Usually, these arguments are against some view/action that is considered "liberal". However, one should be just as concerned about being too "conservative". For example, in theology, trying to avoid liberalism can lead to legalism, division, or authoritarianism.
In politics it can lead to totalitarianism.

What did C.S. Lewis believe about evolution?

Everyone likes a good C.S. Lewis quote to bolster their argument.

On Biologos David Williams has a great series of blog posts Surprised by Jack about C.S. Lewis considering his views on Scripture, Genesis, the Fall, and Evolution. It challenges our views of Lewis [why are conservative evangelicals so infatuated with this Anglo-Catholic?] and examines what he actually believed rather than what we might wish he believed.

Here is an extract of the post about evolution, which first discusses how Lewis overall accepted the science of evolution.

What Lewis did believe to conflict with Christian faith was what he called the great “Myth” of “Evolutionism” or “Developmentalism.” But this is not the same as evolutionary theory per se. “[We] must sharply distinguish between Evolution as a biological theorem and popular Evolutionism or Developmentalism which is certainly a Myth,” he writes in his essay "The Funeral of a Great Myth.” 

Lewis believed that the great myth of “Evolutionism” conflicted not only with the Christian faith, but with Reason itself, undercutting the grounds for believing in human rationality and, therefore, in any human rationale that could be offered for believing in Evolutionism in the first place. According to Lewis, Evolutionism’s chief premise, namely, Naturalism, invalidates human reasoning itself, amounting to “an argument which proved that no argument was sound—a proof that there are no such things as proofs—which is nonsense.” “All possible knowledge…depends on reasoning,” he writes in chapter III of Miracles. “We infer Evolution from fossils: we infer the existence of our own brains from what we find inside the skulls of other creatures like ourselves in the dissecting room.” All sciences, including evolutionary science, depend upon the validity of human inference for their own validity. “Unless human reasoning is valid no science can be true.” Naturalism, however, with its grand Myth of Evolutionism explains all of reality, including human reason, in terms of non-rational natural causes and effects, reducing all human reasoning to being no more than the accidental byproducts of chance, matter and time, and thereby undercutting the validity of reasoning itself.

 This important distinction between evolutionary science and evolutionism [a philosophical perspective] has also been stressed by Tim Keller.

An annotated bibliography on natural science, evolution and creation

David Ussery is an Associate Professor of Systems Biology at the Danish Technical University. He is a Christian, with a fundamentalist church background, who eventually rejected the young earth creationism he was brought up with.

Between 1988 and 2001 he compiled an annotated bibliography of 386 books on Natural science, evolution, and creationism. By 2001 he had actually read 187 of the books, which is rather impressive.
He has written a fascinating journal describing his background, thoughts on reading some of the books, and debates with young earth creationists.

The books cover a wide range of topics, perspectives (Christian and non-Christian, liberal and conservative), publication dates, and theological and scientific sophistication.
The bibliography is worth at least scanning. Some of the terse comments are quite insightful. It makes one appreciate the incredibly diverse literature which is available and often overlooked.

Finally, on the Biologos Forum Ussery has a critical and helpful review of Michael Behe's book The Edge of Evolution.

Questions for reading Genesis

A home group at our church recently went through the Test of Faith video series. People found it helpful and stimulating.
To follow up this past week we looked at the first three chapters of Genesis.

First we watched an excellent video Science and Genesis from Biologos.
Then we read Genesis 1-3 and discussed the following questions:

How do these chapters describe God?

How do they describe the natural world?

How do they describe humanity?

How do they describe the relationship of God with humanity?

How do these chapters fit into the rest of Genesis?

How do these chapters relate to the rest of the Old Testament?

How do these chapters relate to the New Testament?

What literary genres are present here?
Poetry, history, parable, myth, law, science, journalism, polemic?

What do I learn about thinking and acting in a manner that is pleasing to God?

These questions are adapted from the book of Tremper Longman III, How to read Genesis (IVP, 2005)

Reading Genesis historically and literally

I really liked this video.
What does it mean to read Genesis "literally" and in its historical context?
I think that N.T. Wright in the last few minutes is absolutely brilliant about how some "modern" readings miss the whole point and impoverish the text. But, it is a bit like what Barth says....

I
I thank Matt Cardier for bringing the video to my attention.
It is produced by the Biologos Foundation and appears to be a nice condensation of several longer videos they have produced.

Would you side with Newton or Leibniz?

Ard Louis has a nice article How Does the BioLogos Model Need to Address Concerns Christians Have About the Implications of its Science?

It has a fascinating beginning discussing the contrasting views of Newton and Leibniz about the sufficiency of natural processes to explain the observed order in the world. Does invoking God's interventions to make up for what science cannot explain reflect well or not on the character of God?

Ard also highlights how the origin of many Christian's discomfort with evolution as a scientific description of the biological world arises from a discomfort with some of the associated language and metaphors such as "random", "survival of the fittest", "chance", and "purposeless". He associates the underlying presuppositions with the metaphor of 90 per cent of the iceberg below the surface.

Science and faith in dialogue

Biologos Foundation recently held a conference for scientists and church leaders which issued a summary statement on science and faith. I encourage reading of the full statement. It shows there is a broad community of leading scientists and evangelical church leaders who see no real conflict between science and historical Christian faith.

Molecular biophysicist and Christian

When I was in Oxford two weeks ago I was delighted that I was able to meet Cees Dekker and  Ard Louis. Both are leading scientists who also speak and write about science and their Christian faith. I previously posted about a book that Cees edited which has the stories of 22 leading Dutch scientists who are Christians.

Ard's research if often concerned with the self assembly of biomolecular systems and so is well qualified to respond to claims that such processes are "impossible", as he does in this video. There is also a nice video on youtube where he discusses the Genesis text. Both were produced by the Biologos Foundation.

Two scholars asks hard questions

RJS (a Chemistry professor) has a thoughtful post A Mind for Truth? concerning a recent controversy about an interview of the distinguished Old Testament scholar, Bruce Waltke, that was posted on the Biologos website. The Biologos review of the history of the controversy is here.

A new job for Francis Collins

The New York Times reports President Obama has nominated Francis Collins to be the next director of the National Institutes for Health. Collins was formerly the director of the Human Genome Project and recently founded the Biologos Foundation.

The NIH distributes $30-billion a year in federal money, making it the single largest source of funding for scientific research in the USA.

Is atheism reason-able?

Philip Ball is arguably one of most gifted and prolific science writers today. On his blog, he has posted the pre-edited version of a column, The ‘war’ between science and religion is stuck in a rut. Can we change the record now? that just appeared in Nature News. It is a wide ranging piece mentioning C.P. Snow, Richard Dawkins, Francis Collins, Obama, Bush, ....
Although there are points where my perspective is significantly different, I think it is quite balanced and perceptive. Here are a few quotes:

The[Reason] project [recently launched by Sam Harris] aims ‘to spread scientific knowledge and secular values in society’ and ‘to encourage critical thinking and erode the influence of dogmatism, superstition, and bigotry in our world.’ It is not hard, given the list of backers, to see what that means: doing battle with religion....

Important though such issues are, the Reason Project’s supporters would probably agree that they pale in comparison with the use (or generally, abuse) of religious dogma to justify suppression of human rights, maltreatment and murder. To the extent that those are in the project’s sights, it should be applauded. But with Dawkins (The God Delusion) and Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great) on board, one can’t help suspecting that the Almighty Himself is the prime target.

What the Reason Project has in its favour is philosophical rigour. That may also be its failing, because it looks unlikely to venture beyond those walls. Like most utopian ideas, atheistic absolutism works so long as it ignores what people are like and remains in a cultural and historical vacuum. Logical neatness and self-consistency is, unfortunately, not enough.

Sadly, when that is pointed out – as for example when the Royal Society’s former director of education Michael Reiss suggested that it was best to understand religiously motivated delusions such as creationism as world views rather than as mere ignorance that the right information would set right – scientists tend to react badly. Reiss, a biologist and an ordained Christian clergyman, was forced to resign, I suspect because some scientists found a whiff of relativism in his remarks.

Leading scientist launches new faith and science initiative

Francis Collins was director of the Human Genome Project and author of a wonderful book, The Language of God: A Scientist presents evidence for belief. I heartily recommend it. The mere existence of the book demolishes two myths: you can't be a Christian and a leading scientist, and people are only Christians because they were brought up that way. Collins was an atheist as an adult but became a Christian following reading C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity. In 2006, Time magazine had a cover story, featuring a debate between Collins and Richard Dawkins.

Collins has just launched a new web-based project, the BioLogos Foundation, with the mission:
Faith and science both lead us to truth about God and creation. The web site is worth checking out. It includes a blog, Science and the Sacred. There is an interview with Collins about this project on the Christianity Today website.