wrestling with the Divine Idea
Fascinating article by Robert Winston - 'When science meets God.'
It brings out how human beings on their own can't come to any substantial knowledge of what God is like - beyond their agreement that there is some supernatural being and that he is powerful. This much and only this much a human can figure out from his/her own existence and the observed uncontrollable forces in the world around us.
To know anything other than this about God, we need him to reveal himself to us in other ways ... to know anything better than this, we depend on God to reveal himself in better ways. Otherwise we're left to our own ignorance and the inevitability of conflicts and clashes with other people who don't share our half-formed conceptions of the Unknown God.
It's then just a question of finding out whether he has in fact made any revelation about himself, and identifying where and how he did it. That's why the Westminster Confession (for one example) lays its foundations on the Holy Scriptures (chapter 1) and proceeds from that starting point to describe what we know about God, sin, and the Saviour. If we don't take God's word for it, then a forlorn 'wrestling with the Divine Idea' is the best we can aspire to (or rather the fate we're consigned to) - which is hardly ideal.
It brings out how human beings on their own can't come to any substantial knowledge of what God is like - beyond their agreement that there is some supernatural being and that he is powerful. This much and only this much a human can figure out from his/her own existence and the observed uncontrollable forces in the world around us.
To know anything other than this about God, we need him to reveal himself to us in other ways ... to know anything better than this, we depend on God to reveal himself in better ways. Otherwise we're left to our own ignorance and the inevitability of conflicts and clashes with other people who don't share our half-formed conceptions of the Unknown God.
It's then just a question of finding out whether he has in fact made any revelation about himself, and identifying where and how he did it. That's why the Westminster Confession (for one example) lays its foundations on the Holy Scriptures (chapter 1) and proceeds from that starting point to describe what we know about God, sin, and the Saviour. If we don't take God's word for it, then a forlorn 'wrestling with the Divine Idea' is the best we can aspire to (or rather the fate we're consigned to) - which is hardly ideal.
posted by cath at
12:55 pm
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