A university chaplain/pastor leads a mathematician, a philosopher, - TopicsExpress

A university chaplain/pastor leads a mathematician, a philosopher, and a scientist in an introductory forum on Christianity and evidence. The three guest participants came to faith in Christ through evidence uncovered in each of their respective fields. This evidence and this faith drew them more deeply into their fields and not away from them. That being said, if we read carefully between the lines we see commonalities, not all of which are stated. Perhaps, the most important central theme is that all of these guests believe in the essential nature of evidence. Do away with this notion that faith, somehow or other, stands apart from evidence. (Yes, that is a dogmatic statement.) We disagree with the idea that as evidence and knowledge increase that ignorance of the unknown decreases: this is a basic difference in philosophical approaches. All of mathematics, philosophy, and science are, at their core, faith based. All begin with assumptions and postulates which can neither be defined or proved. That being said, mathematics, philosophy, and science, as well as religion, are more than so many blind shots in the dark. In each field, a lifetime of working with the materials, leaves each observer with a profound sense of discovery (evidence based discovery), and firm convictions about the truth of the discovery. Faith is not a blind shot in the dark. Faith is the strong development of these experience (evidence) based convictions (evidence formed convictions). Unstated is the common thread of non-contradiction, the law of non-contradiction, sometimes called the law of contradiction. All of these guests believe that their adversaries are worthy adversaries and that arguments, especially arguments involving contradiction must be treated with respect and not trivialized. Hinted at, yet not explicit, is the idea of probabilities ranging from 0 to 1, with 0 indicating absolute ignorance and 1 indicating absolute knowledge. The evidence may in fact be absolute. However, the understanding and interpretation of that evidence can never be absolute among human beings. There is always some element of doubt: something more than 0 and less than 1. This is equally true of mathematics, philosophy, and science. We disagree with the idea expressed that there is never a place for dogma: as probabilities approach 1, we believe that dogma is reasonable. It is reasonable to believe in gravity dogmatically: the probability is at least 0.999999999999. Pivotal in this exploration is the idea of agency which is introduced toward the end. What is at stake here? Argument too often proceeds on the basis of lemmas alone, without regard for the persons making the lemmas. Is argument fundamentally lemma based or is it fundamentally relationship based. For example, is the problem of sin fundamentally a lemma that needs to be precisely stated, or is the problem of sin fundamentally an offense that arises between two persons (God and man). We would call this difference in approaches to logic the difference between relational logic and didactic logic. The guests call this agency. The mask is ripped from this difference with an illustration about roast chicken. One last caveat. Although such reason must be appreciated in each person, it is somewhat different in each person. While that evidence started each person searching for God, it could not have completed that quest. The evidences of mathematics, philosophy, and science may have led the respective guests to God; it is impossible that they should ever have led them to the God of the Bible. This leads us to a completely different kind of evidence. Evidence where mathematics, philosophy, and science together are incapable of providing all the answers: mathematics, philosophy, and science may each make valuable contributions, yet there is a point at which all of them together are too minuscule to deal with this new kind of evidence. We refer to the evidence of the roast chicken: evidence from art, beauty, ethics, morality, history, music, and the like. Above all, this refers to the evidence of theology, which is not merely a new kind of evidence like art, history, and music. Unlike art, history, and music; all of which exist in thee dimensions and time; theology enters a new space of unlimited dimensions, and where time ceases to have its ordinary meaning. A fresh approach to reason is required to address an infinity of dimensions. The question now becomes, how does humanity know anything at all? Whence comes knowledge? https://youtube/watch?v=Pd_ftbDwFkI