Christian University?Christian Science?

Is there a wall between?

1.Discussion of worldviews on the relation of Christ and culture in general. (10 mins)

2. Intermission – discussion (5 mins)

3.Examples and application of worldviews relating faith and science. (15 mins)

4.Additional conversation if you choose…

1919-1962

The answer my friend….depends on your Christian worldview

1.Against/conflict

2.Paradox (dualist)

3.Transformation/conversionist

Christ against Culture

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. 1 Co. 3:19

Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world –

therefore the world hates you. Jn 15:19

My kingdom is not of this world. Jn 18:36

Do not love the world or anything in the world. The love of the Father is not in those

who love the world. 1 Jn 2:15

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own insights. Pr 3:5

Against leads to isolation

or separation…

Spiritual World

Dualist

Quality education in a Christian setting

Christ and Culture in paradox

You are the salt of the earth…

You are the light of the world. Mt. 5:13,14

…go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them…Mt. 28: 19

Work in the world so that our tithe may support the missionaries.

Must do excellent work so that our colleagues will respect us when we offer our Christian witness.

Your work place is your mission field.

Even the most tedious, lousy job, can have opportunity to witness during coffee breaks, etc.

Take it to the limit…..If all the world were reached

with the Christian message would there be value to work?

If Adam hadn’t sinned, would we work, study engineering, economics, science, and have careers in these fields?

Then, would you work…

At these limits we have the dualists catastrophe.

The model doesn’t work.

R.G. LeTourneau says…Now I ask you, what’s the use of having a religion that won’t work? If I had a religion that limped along during the week, and maybe worked only on Sunday, or while you’re in church, I don’t think I’d be very sold on it. I think I’d turn it in on a new model that worked seven days a week, that would work when I was at church, at my home, or out at the plant.

R.G. LeTourneau: Mover of Men and Mountains, p. 203

Spiritual

World

Educational Philosophy (LeTourneau University College Catalog)

… all truth is regarded as God‑given and is considered sacred.  It should be pursued with diligence and received with humility.

http://www.letu.edu/academics/catalog/tu2003/perspective/philosophy.html

Christ transforms CultureFor by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on

earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him. Col 1:16

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through Him. John 3: 16-17

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. John 1:1-3

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities-His eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. Romans 1: 20

R.G. agrees….

When He created the world and everything in it, He didn’t mean for us to stop there and say, “God, You’ve done it all. There’s nothing left for us to build.” He wanted us to take off from there and really build for His greater glory..

R.G. LeTourneau: Mover of Men and Mountains, p. 1

Intermission

• Comments?

• Discussion?

Our worldviews influence our science.

Our science influences our world views.

Ptolemaic Solar System:

Worldview:

Earth was at the center of the universe.

Planets went around the earth in perfect circles.

Stars were motionless.

A sun centered solar system defied the worldview of an earth centered system.

But still held to a worldview of perfect circles.

Copernican Solar System

A sun centered solar system defied the worldview of an earth centered system.

Elliptical orbital defied the worldview of perfect circles.

Keplerian Solar System

So what?

Well, this new model of the solar system implies that the earth was not the center of everything. That the earth was insignificant compared to the sun, and the sun just one insignificant star among billions and billions of stars.

How could we be important to God, if God saw us as such an insignificant layer of slime on an insignificant hunk of rock going about an insignificant star?

Gaseous Pillars in

M 16 Hubble Space Telescope

When I consider the heavens,

the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars

that you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him?- David, King of Israel, Psalm 8:3

The size of the universe does not diminish our significance to God, but adds wonder to the knowledge that God is mindful of us.

Not only are we insignificant in space, we are also insignificant in time.

How do we react?

Science – long process of creation through natural processes

Religion – revealed creation by God

In life, Sue must have cast an imposing figure. She stood some 13 feet high at the hip, and measured 42 feet from head to tail. Her five-foot-long skull contained 58 vicious teeth. There were some features, however, which suggest she was as much prey as predator, for Sue bore wicked battle scars. During some past encounter, Sue had broken several ribs. In time they had healed over, leaving visible abnormalities. But a subsequent encounter had broken them a second time.

But according to a straight-forward reading of Scripture there was no death in the beginning, no carnivorous activity, no burial, no fossilization. There was no pain, no suffering. No animal attacks, no infectious diseases, no broken bones.

So that's the question. Did Sue live and kill and suffer and die in a world deemed "very good" by the gracious, loving God of Scripture? Or, did these gruesome aspects and activities follow the ruination of the "very good" creation by Adam's sin and the resultant curse?

Which type of world could God call "very good"?

Surely some things just can't be. (emphasis added)

by John D. Morris, Ph.D.Institute for Creation Research

Conflict

•Conflict

•Independence

‘Science gets the ages of rocks, religion the rock of ages.Science studies how the heavens go, religion determines how to go to heaven.’

•Dialogue

‘When I consider…’Psalm 8

•Integration

For he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.

As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.

But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him

Psalm 103:14-17 Dialogue

With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

2 Peter 3:8

dot

line

top

side

unrolledrectangle

inflated

3-D cube seen instantaneously

in time

3-D cube seen in all time

The Illusion of Time

What we see as a choice in time from our perspective might be seen by God as having been. Maybe the Armenians and the Calvinists were both right?

Does God allow persons choice?Might you have gone to a different college?

Might your parents have never met?

What if we choose something bad?

Might there be multiple paths that a person may take in life?

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to His purpose.

Romans 8:28

What of the universe?Is ours the only universe that might have been?Does God allow us and the universe different choices?Might the universe have chosen a different path leading to different planets and different solar systems?

Born Interpretation,((x))2 gives the probabilityof finding the particle at any location, x.

If the (x) collapses to a single value, then we know 100% the position, but nothing of the momentum, as the wave is lost.

Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

What of life forms?

Is ours the only soulful life form that might have been?Would it matter if we had six fingers on each hand?Are the natural process involved in the evolution of stars, planets, and galaxies paralleled in natural processes involving the evolution of life forms?

Is the universe expressing itself through natural processes that God enabled?

LeTourneau Students!

Tear down this Wall!

If we tear down this wall, we will lower the activation energy and increase the kinetics of our reaction.

We will remove the barriers that prevent God’s love from embracing all that we do.

Bibliography

1. H.R. Niebuhr, Christ and Culture2. R.G. LeTourneau, Mover of Men and

Mountains3. R. Dewitt, Worldviews, An introduction to the

History and Philosophy of Science4. S. Weinberg, The First Three Minutes, A

modern view of the Origin of the Universe5. I.G. Barbour, When Science Meets Religion6. Pink Floyd, Another Brick in the Wall7. Bob Dylan, Blowin’ in the Wind