(urth) Information, etc

[James Wynn]

On 4/12/06, Chris <rasputin_ at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>There is a general problem with saying that the Christian *faith* is "based
>>on" miracles. Basically if you know, by whatever means, that the event is
>>possible, then it doesn't require faith at all. In its ideal form, faith
>>would admit that the event was rationally impossible, and believe in it
>>anyway.


On 4/12/06, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com >
>I think this is more-or-less true; the loophole in it is, "with God all
>things are possible." 

I wasn't going interject on this thread and now that it is 6 days later
I shouldn't. But I haven't been able to get this back and forth off my
mind. It so perfectly encapsulates the divide between modern seculars'
view of Faith as opposed to that of modern observants and virtually all
pre-Enlightenment Westerners. It is always amazing that the two world-
views are so often seemingly unaware of each other. This IS actually
applicable to Wolfe in that it is still not clear to me where Wolfe stands
in this bifurcation.

For modern seculars Faith is practically antonymous to Reason.
In Faith, we place all those things that Reason denies, but which we
require as humans. Reason says we are the product of natural forces
within a closed system. But most can't live like that so they take a
"leap of faith", a jump into darkness, that there is a divine Creator
who made us in his image, (temporarily, if they are enlightened)
suspending their knowledge of what Reason tells them. Reason says
that Love and Altruism are a natural phenomenon of evolution,
a trick of sorts by our brains and glands, that gave the genes of our
ancestors the upper hand over those of competitors. But when we
look in the face of our beloved we cannot as human beings accept
thinking of them that way: we would not give up our lives for our
genes. So we take the leap again and declare that Love is transcendent.

On the other hand, the modern observants (lets use seven-day
Creationist Christians as our guinea pigs here) see materialist
seculars as merely followers of an alternate (idolatrist) religion.
They believe Genesis, and seculars believe what some science
journalist they've never met wrote in Discover Magazine or said
on Nova on PBS. The faith of observants is founded on their
observed experience: they trust the integrity of the Person that
has so influenced their lives, and therefore believe what they
think he has told them. ("Faith is the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" Hebrews 11:1)

This division was mapped (literally) by Evangelical apologist
Frances Schaeffer in "The God Who Is There" and "Escape
>From Reason". Quoting Alfred North Whitehead's assertion that
*modern* science
could not have arisen without the world-view established by
Judeo-Christian theology, he predicted that science as-we-know-it
will end when we all follow this tact to its logical conclusion
that Reason itself (founded on the premise that human
observation is valid) is itself unreasonable.

J