Defanging The Atheist Tiger - Volume Seven

Audio Lectures by Father Thomas Hopko - The Autonomous Orthodox Metropolia

Written Observation by Fr Symeon Elias  - The Autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the U.S.A.

 "Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite." President Dwight Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the Nation, Jan. 17, 1961.

Apr 06, 2010

Darwin and Christianity - Part 6 In his continuing series on Charles Darwin, Fr. Thomas reflects on the Darwinian revolution and Christian theology having to do with the Bible. How do the Scriptures relate to the scientific world in which we live especially following the 19th century?

57:30

Excellent! Excellent! Excellent!  I wish that every Biblical Literalist, and Christian Fundamentalist could listen to and understand this particular lecture. Father Tom's romp through the history of the scriptural literature is simply awesome. He claims to be recounting from memory an honest article in the "Village Voice" (the Greenwich Village newspaper during in the hippy-era, about the Bible.) I would guess that Father Tom's romp was far better than the original article. He skims across a survey of the grasp of several disciplines of biblical research with honesty.  What the Biblical Literalist (Read Fundamentalist) could learn in this is the strength that the Judeo/Christian Scriptures hold that is completely absent in the "cults" including the cults of Islam and Mormonism. When the great history of the gradual revelation of God, through the lived experience of God's people, God's imperfect people IN HISTORY is removed from the Bible, which is what happens with Biblical Literalism and Christian Fundamentalism, the Christianity produced holds more kinship to Islam than it does to Ancient Christianity, to the Christianity of the Apostles and Apostolic Tradition. They then read the scriptures through a false filter that makes its deepest truth, weak, unable to stand the scrutiny of the Agnostic, the Atheist, the radical materialist. 

The Solascriptura confusion leaves the proponent disarmed in the face of modern science, and weakens the public perception of the validity of Christianity in general. It leaves the fundamentalist with all the credibility of an Imam prattling verses and ignorance.  Conversely, the secular-theologists who have been at the forefront of biblical investigation, also chop away at the public perceptions of Christianity since they do not grasp that their findings do not harm "the faith once and for all delivered to the saints." There is no true finding of any Biblical, textual, hermetical research, an explosion of which has occurred in the last 200 years, and especially in the last 50 years, that does ANY harm to "The faith once and for all delivered to the saints."  However,  when they assert that their findings confirm the "common mythologies" of religion, they harm the perception of Christianity. Of course their work destroys the stance of the Solascripturist, the Biblical Literalist and the Christian Fundamentalist and so those people of "first path spirituality" hate the Biblical researchers and believe them to be completely evil.  But as difficult as it is to believe, and it would take participation in the Ancient Christian faith to grasp the truth of it, modern biblical research has continually confirmed "The Faith once and for all delivered to the saints" that is the Apostolic Tradition, the true and real Gospel of God in Christ Jesus.   

So then the secular-Christian movement, which is really Unitarian and not christian, feels free to dismiss the whole of Christianity as merely "one of the religions." Or maybe I should say, feels comfortable participating in a religion that is really just one of the "religions."  So for these people they are stuck with a "spiritual leap of faith" since all "knowledge" contridicts, in their minds, foundational Christian teaching. 

The fundamentalists on the other hand recoil from Biblical research. However, true Christianity's case is always enhanced by the discovery of TRUTH and any Christian religion frightened of the discovery of historical truth does not grasp the profound and rich nature of the books of sacred scripture (the writings) that together make up the content of The Bible, that clearly shows man's developing ability to comprehend the nature of the world around him and the nature of God. The increasing comprehension in the history of mankind is factual and demonstrable.

I do take exception to Father Tom's use of the phrase, "Judeo-Christian-Islamic view of the nature of reality." And I know he was speaking in a very off-handed general fashion.  However, even on the grandest scale, there is no such category. The Unitarians and the ecumenists would love it if there was, but there is NO such category.  

Father Tom also points out the distinction between Orthodox Christianity and "eastern religions and philosophies" mentioning Buddhism as basically a philosophy. The gap isn't as wide as some presume, since Lao Tae Tsu's grasp of the nature of being is far closer to that of Saint John the Theologian (and our view) than is the grasp of the nature of being by Christian Fundamentalists and Biblical Literalists. There is nothing in quantum physics for instance that challenges the grasp of reality of either Lao Tae Tsu or Saint John the Theologian. The underlying energies of BEING are part of OUR story, and we need to claim them.

Father Tom also in his introduction makes another naive statement saying that the preponderance of evidence says that the "findings of science are true."  Again, if science was not political, and if the world were not inhabited by those having substituted faith in God with faith in the Sceintistic Paradigm, I could be less skeptical. However, every excess of tribal religionists is displayed on their part, where real empirical science is covered in layers of mythology and false claims. So, I have to state what I know to be true, that at any particular moment in the unfolding of the story of modern science that it has possessed nothing more than flawed and contextual truths along with some glaring lies. The lies have not been random but agenda driven and for any interested in the Truth, this is a major caution every time the scientific establishment issues a finding purporting to be "absolute." The ultimate meaning of Humility is "destroying walls."  Every psychologist can tell you that the process of healing is a matter of the patient gaining the willingness (humility) to examine and destroy walls in their psyche. Natural Science would be a much less fearful thing, maybe even "blessed" thing if it were capable of tearing down the walls of prejudice, and ideology that cause it to: (1) Claim more than it knows and (2) attack what does not fit its ideology. How, blessed scientific inquiry would be if it only moved where "truth" took it!

Jonas Edward Salk (October 28, 1914 – June 23, 1995) was an American medical researcher and virologist, best known for his discovery and development of the first safe and effective polio vaccine.

In the middle of the massive AIDS epidemic I heard Dr Jonas Salk give a lecture on immunology to the top scientists working at that time on a vaccine for AIDS.  He was the most famous immunologist living upon the planet addressing the top immunologist in the world in that decade. I'll tell you the truth, I was hyped at the opportunity to hear him speak and my greatest hope was that he would speak in a manner that a "layman" could comprehend.  In my secular work I had watched the sad deaths of at least twenty men at that point in time to the A.I.D.S. epidemic, and the talk of a vaccine for AIDS was at least hopeful.  I came away from that speech in shock, and realizing that if AIDS were ever cured that it would be the curing of cancer and a host of other genetic mutations and that at that time we were not even close, to put it mildly. (Some "alternative doctors" at the time were already curing A.I.D.S. They had learned to control the H.I.V. virus with proper nutrition, and other means to increase the body's ability to cope.)   

Dr Salk accepted his introduction with grace and the truth is he and Father Thomas Hopko sound similar and have a similar sense of humor. He laughed nervously and said, "I didn't choose the title for this lecture, How Immunizations Work. Had I chose it I certainly would not have chosen THAT title. You see, we really don't know how immunizations work, but thank God something did work."  He went on to paint a totally chilling story of simply stabbing in the dark, because of the desperation of the times, vis a vis polio (1950s) simply trying things, and more things, and more things, until something seemed to work. And without knowing how it worked, or what the possible long term effects might be, unleashing it upon the entire population.  I was flabbergasted!  I thought, THIS IS SCIENCE? I thought this was empirical science, from a "knowledge" base. No, by his own testimony he graphically laid-out the romp in the dark that by the mercy of God produced an apparent end to the polio epidemic, by means of which they were "clueless"!   And trust me when I tell you, he used these very words, "By the mercy and grace of God." 

As it turns out, the curing of polio is not quite the case. The massive muscle and joint problem epidemic of the last half of the 20th century and who knows but what the massive epidemic of Alzheimer's  is related to immunizations. Osteo-Polio and a host of rheumatoid ailments, I think tell a story, but it is a story for another time. Yes, we have to "know science" and never let science over come our reason, never take it on Faith, but use it for the good even when we don't fully understand it. Fact is that is the way still that we use electricity. To this date physicists do not fully understand the "source" of the energy flowing through wires, the actual means by which the charges are passed down the wire. It operates upon a "theory" that works. We must always be cautions that science's testimony of itself is "political" and rarely TRUE. Can you imagine the millions of people, who had they known the truth would have never swallowed that little sugar polio cube!

And one more thought:  I don't know but what proposing a dialogue between the "theories" of the Ancient Church, and the "theories" of Evolution and Science is not doomed from the start.  I know in my gut that the next ten parts of this series will be as astounding as this part six was and probably more astonishing vis a vis the explication of the Faith and Scripture. Father Tom is a very, very talented teacher, and has that ability not just to open and offer facts but to paint pictures that become permanent memory. There is no doubt that his talent is anointed of the Holy Spirit and LIFE. Part six was simply extraordinary and a light for anyone looking for the Truth ( an introduction to the Truth) of how the Bible is interpreted, and where the foundational Ancient, Apostolic Christianity may be found. 


Yet, what may be spoken of "The Way," in this context is but theory. I hear Saint Symeon the New Theologian's words ringing in my ear, "How could those who never had the slightest experience of its effects - reform, renewal, transformation, re-creation and new birth - succeed in understanding such mysteries? How can those who have not yet been baptized in the Holy Spirit understand the metamorphosis of the ones who were baptized in Him? How will those who have not been born from above see the glory of the ones who, in the words of the Lord were born 'from above,' of those who are born of God and have become the children of God? Those who did not desire this state but lost it through their negligence, for they certainly received the power to acquire it - tell me, what knowledge will enable them to understand or in any way imagine what the others have become?"

It is true that Father Tom is bringing the debate into a closest approximation for the exposition of truth. But without experience of LIFE, what meaning can the theory of its reality have, unless others who argue on the other side have experienced it as well? Such enlightened Scientists might be of great service.

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