Interlude: Article in Word
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I want to point out a wonderful article in the latest issue of the Antiochian archdiocese’s Word magazine: “Education: The End of Faith?” by John Newell, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Pittsburgh. He does an excellent job of analyzing many uncritical presuppositions in modern thinking, specifically what he calls a “scientific world view.” I would quibble that science does not actually present a world view; such a world view would better be described as “scientistic,” meaning, “the belief that the investigative methods of the physical sciences are applicable or justifiable in all fields of inquiry.” But that is a minor quibble with what is an excellent article. Props to Raphael, who unfortunately prooftexts the discussion, when it is clear that the author accepts, on some level, a scientific accout of our origins when he says, “astrophysicists can now prove that the universe began by extrapolating the expansion of the universe back to the moment when everything was in one very small place.” His statement,
It is better to see the problem of the origin of the universe as one that lies outside of science, because science has restricted itself through the principle that nothing comes into existence from nothingness. In other words, it is “against the rules� of doing science to raise such an issue, and the consequence of breaking the rules is that one has to sift through the resulting nonsense (namely, that the universe had no beginning, and so forth), at the risk of one’s immortal soul.
must be interpreted in his preceding discussion of science as being restricted to what Aristotle called efficient causality. In other words, he is not saying that scientists should not study beginnings (which would be inconsistent with his earlier statement about astrophysicists and the beginning of the cosmos); he is saying that the creation of the cosmos by God is beyond the scope of science.
This article is very good evidence that Orthodox America needs a liberal arts college for Orthodox students, where they can learn to integrate faith and reason. Sort of like Asbury, except Orthodox. Sort of like Hellenic College, except not just for Greeks.
And really, Raphael. Keeping people with different views from posting comments on your site? Are your “traditionalist views” so weak as not to stand argument? [OK. The “problem” appears to have disappeared. Sorry for the “libel,” Raphael. 😀 ]