It Is All Relative


On the application of scientific theory to theological constructs.



I encourage reading the post I am reblogging (https://wp.me/p13zfD-1zB) if you like science and faith, or just thinking generally. I firmly believe that science and faith are not only reconcilable, they are intricately synergistic. One informs the other. Whether we study the special revelation of the Word of God or the natural revelation of the creation of God, we learn something of our Creator in the process.

I have often played (only played) with the thought that we misunderstand God and sin and judgment when we see them primarily through a moral filter. It’s not necessarily that the type of filter is the problem so much as our perception of that filter, perhaps. In western thought, we tend to view moral absolutes as ideals that exist in and of themselves. Thank you Plato.

We view moral absolutes as stand alone ideals, independent of God and, therefore, applicable to God. We get caught in the undertow of the Euthyphro dilemma because of this misconception. (Are morally good acts willed by God because they are morally good, or are they morally good because they are willed by God? (See God’s Love is Not Platonic)) There is no way out of the construct, but the construct, itself, is wrong.

Rather, God is God and everything flows from Him. Goodness is good because it is God’s nature and character. Good is only determined relative to God. The article that I am reblogging quickly reviews the book, Faith Across the Multiverse, by Andy Walsh. Walsh applies scientific theory to theological principals with some interesting illumination. Among those scientific theories is the theory of relativity and what it might illuminate about faith. If you like thinking about these things as much as I do, you will like the article and may want to buy the book.

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