Facing the consequences

Both individually and collective we all would like to ignore the fact that actions (both good and bad) have consequences. Sometimes these consequences last for generations...

This morning I read the depressing and chilling story of how David's Kingship of Israel starts to unravel following his adultery with Bathsheba and murder of Uriah. Nathan prophesies:

Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.¹⁰Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.' ¹¹Thus says the LORD, 'Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun.

2 Samuel 12

It begins with David's son Amnon raping his sister Tamar, then there is Absalom's murder of his brother Amnon, Absalom's conspiracy, David's fleeing from Jerusalem, Absalom's death, .....

What we model to our children matters!

Yet in spite of all this sin and judgement, the LORD is incredibly gracious, does not abandon his people and works to ultimately redeem them from a Son of David, Jesus.

The painting is The Banquet of Absalom attributed to Bernardo Cavallino.

Best world cup movies

Our house is fully immersed in the World Cup (in spite of Australia's trashing by Germany). But, even if you are not interested in football, there are a few really good movies worth watching.

I particularly recommend Sixty-Six and The Miracle of Bern.

Both explore family relational themes with the World Cup as a backdrop.

Not pushing things too far

In some recent posts I have begun to explore some possible implications of Karl Barth's treatment of the Doctrine of Creation for a dialogue between science and theology.

Caution is in order because the main point and implications of Barth's theology of creation is not its possible implications for the relationship between science and theology. Indeed, the focus and emphasis of Barth's doctrine of creation is not the material world of quarks, galaxies, genes, and cells but on our human creatureliness. The material world and its character is almost subsidiary. But it is not irrelevant. It is like the set for a theatre production. Nevertheless, the same Creator made the human creatures who investigate the non-human creation. These creatures puzzle (or arrogantly assert!) how what they discover about the material world (or think they know) tells them about a possible creator.

That Barth's emphasis is on the human creature can be seen from the following succinct summary in Dogmatics in Outline, at the beginning of chapter 8, God the Creator. [Each chapter of the book is an exposition of a phrase from the Apostle's Creed].

In that God became man, it has also become manifest and worthy of belief that He does not wish to exist for Himself only and therefore to be alone. He does not grudge the world, distinct from Himself, its own reality, nature, and freedom. His word is the power of its being as creation. He creates, sustains, and rules it as the theatre of His glory - and in its midst, man also, as the witness of His glory.

The existence of the world is a contestable hypothesis

Whether science does or even can establish the existence of an objective reality is a debate that has raged for centuries. It has been particularly contentious and strident in the twentieth century with both the success of science and the rise of postmodernism, leading to the conflict of "the Science wars."

Different philosophical positions on what science really does tell us range from a naive realism, to critical realism, to instrumentalism, to anti-realism.

There are some rather subtle philosophical issues here which are sometimes dismissed

too easily by practising scientists. I contend that science does involves faith, e

specially in an objective reality.

This issue is actually addressed by Karl Barth, but in an indirect manner, and not at all motivated by questions in the philosophy of science. Furthermore, as is often the case with Barth, his starting point is completely different.

Barth asserts that confession of faith in the Tri-une Creator involves

faith that there is an objective reality.

It cannot be shown that God must have created the world, .... Nor can it be shown in relation to the world that because God has created it, because it necessarily exists and has its being from Him, it is not an illusion, a dream, a mere figment of the imagination, but concept and reality.

The positive counter-assertion that God exists alone, that this divine being is the only one to the exclusion of all others, and the negative counter-assertion that the world and we ourselves do not exist at all, that we do not have a being distinct from that of God, but that everything else apart from God is only supposition, are, of course, as contestable and as little demonstrable as the assertion. But they cannot be refuted by the assertion.

On the contrary, they are refuted only if two conditions are fulfilled-and it is here that we see the real point of the [doctrine of Creation].

The first is that it should be established on the basis of the divine self-witness-....-that God has in fact created the world; that it is, therefore, a reality by God's free will and contingent act.

And the second is that we should have no less factual knowledge of this factual being of the world. Thus if we dare to take the not unimportant step of ascribing its own reality to that which is distinct from God, i.e., heaven and earth and ourselves; if we are Of the bold opinion that we ourselves, and with us the so-called world, are and are not not, we have to realise that this is always an undemonstrable and contestable hypothesis,

It need only be added that the assertion of creation is a statement of faith, i.e., a statement which can never be more than a hypothesis apart from its foundation in God's self-witness, not only on the side which maintains that God is the Creator of the world, and which therefore asserts the reality of God, but also on that which asserts that God is the Creator of the world, and which therefore asserts the distinctive reality of the world. It is only too easy to suggest that, while the reality of God as the Creator is uncertain, and therefore needs proof or revelation, the reality of the creature is all the more certain, so that the one is to be treated as a factor which is not given but has still to be sought, whereas the other may be presupposed ....

the whole history of theology [might be viewed] as a continuous fighting retreat in face of the irresistible advance of a rational and empirical science which on the very different grounds of a triumphant human self-conceit is quite sure of its subject. In preoccupation with only one side of the question, there has been a dangerous failure to realise that the question of creation is not less but even more concerned with the reality of the creature than that of the Creator. Presupposing the certain knowledge of God in His Word, it is actually the case that the existence and being of the world are rendered far more problematical by the existence and being of God than vice versa.

If the world is not created by God, it is not. If we do not recognise that it has been created by God, we do not recognise that it is. But we know that it has been created by God only on the ground of God's self-witness and therefore in faith. Therefore we know only in faith that the world is. The pressure exerted by science on theology could have been resisted if theology had been more energetically and effectively concerned with its own .... divine science; if it had realised that it is primarily the creature and not the Creator of whom we are not certain, and that in order to be certain of him we need proof or revelation.

The Doctrine of Creation, Church Dogmatics 3.1, page 5

Much of this argument is succinctly summarised in the Translator's preface as, "the supreme problem of theology is not the existence of God, as natural theology supposes, but the independent existence of creaturely reality."

So perhaps, Christians should not expect non-Christians to believe in objective reality.

My favourite TV show

I do not own a TV. I grew up without one. For only 4 years of my life have I personally owned one. It was a wedding present, which I wished we did not get. Although, I think the technology is morally neutral I think most TV programs are trash and the world would be a lot better place without TV.

Now that I have got that off my chest ....

I confess that I have become addicted to watching on DVD

(n.b., no commercials)

The West Wing.

It is so good, it shows just how bad other shows are!

Things I like about it include:

• many of the characters are quirky and endearing (Toby is my favourite)
• it deals with substantial political, moral, and social issues
• although it clearly presents a liberal Democratic perspective it does not simply present a one-dimensional ideological perspective
• it is educational
• it makes me laugh
• it is intellectually stimulating
• it is fun shared activity with my wife, Robin

The existence of God is a contestable hypothesis

Natural theology attempts to start with a study of the material world and deduce the existence of God and something about God's character. In his Doctrine of Creation, Karl Barth takes a distinctly different approach.

Our first emphasis is …. that the doctrine of the creation no less than the whole remaining content of Christian confession is an article of faith, i.e., the rendering of a knowledge which no man has procured for himself or ever will; which is neither native to him nor accessible by way of observation and logical thinking; for which he has no organ and no ability; which he can in fact achieve only in faith; but which is actually consummated in faith, i.e., in the reception of and response to the divine witness…. It is a faith and doctrine of this kind which is expressed when …. we confess that God is the Creator of heaven and earth.

Church Dogmatics 3.1, page 5.

To support this emphasis Barth points out how the great chapter on faith in the Epistle to the Hebrews. It begins with (11:3)

By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

He then goes on to discuss how "the supreme problem of theology is not the existence of God, as natural theology supposes, but the independent existence of creaturely reality." (Editors preface)

More on that later...

The picture is part of Michelangelo's paintings on the roof on the Sistine Chapel.

Barth's book on Boundaries

What is the relevance of science to the doctrine of creation?

What is the relevance of the doctrine of creation to science?

Can we define a boundary between science and theology?

In his Preface to The Doctrine of Creation (Church Dogmatics 3.1), Karl Barth states

The theological principle which I accept without a rival has made it almost compulsory that I should first present the doctrine of the work of the Creator as such in the old-fashioned form of a radical exposition of the contents of the first two chapters of the Bible.

..... It will perhaps be asked in criticism why I have not tackled the obvious scientific question posed in this context. It was my original belief that this would be necessary, but I later saw that there can be no scientific problems, objections or aids in relation to what Holy Scripture and the Christian Church understand by the divine work of creation.

..... There is free scope for natural science beyond what theology describes as the work of the Creator. And theology can and must move freely where science which really is science, and not secretly a pagan Gnosis or religion, has its appointed limit. I am of the opinion, however, that future workers in the field of the Christian doctrine of creation will find many problems worth pondering in defining the point and manner of this twofold boundary.