I am, almost to a fault, a truth teller. If I think something is rubbish I'll probably end up saying it even if such a declaration is very sugar coated. Through a quite circuitous process I have ended up an atheist studying religious ethics at a (very) Catholic university. When exams come around it's somewhat difficult because I am occasionally posed questions such as 'It has been argued that the relationship between theology and science is first and foremost a theological question and that science finds its legitimate autonomy from within its constitutive relationship to theology. This resulted in something of a paradox. On the one hand, this meant that 'creation', understood as the world's relation to God, should be visible in the creature and from within the sciences, according to their mode of considering the world. And yet on the other hand, this relation must be visible in such a way so as not to eliminate the difference between theology and science or compromise the latter's integrity. Drawing on Aquinas, Balthasar and whatever other readings are necessary or useful to address the question, explain how the doctrine of creation adequately understood allows theology to 'speak' to 'judge', or even 'save' the sciences without abandoning its own integrity or compromising that of the sciences.'
I have a dispensation, as it were, from my professor allowing me to argue against the thrust(s) of the course which is a minor victory but I still essentially need to answer the question and say why it's a load of bollix in the footnotes and I can't say it's bollix in certain ways that my professor finds particularly wrong (read: incompatible with his Christian world view), for example positivism or affirming Dawkins' 'cartoon God'. Dawkins defines god as ‘a super-human, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us.’ Perhaps my disbelief is showing but that seems pretty fair to me, and I said so in my final. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.
Friday, May 9, 2008
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