Episode 10, continuing with our general categories on Christianity, this next category is a very important one in science and religion. The concept of the two divine books refers to the belief that God communicates, that is, he reveals to humanity through two books, the Bible and nature. This is a traditional way of relating science and religion. As we saw in our introductory episodes, Sir Francis Bacon depicts perfectly this view of divine revelation. Please turn to page 2 in your handouts and let's look at this two books approach in more detail. The Book of God's Words is the Bible. In particular, this is a verbal revelation. The Latin word verbum means word. In this way, the Bible uses actual words and offers specific information. The Book of God's Words are the inspired writings of the Bible. It reveals information such as the attributes of God. For example, he is holy and he is love. As well, God is just and merciful. And of course, the book of the scripture is studied by theology. The Book of God's Works is nature. It offers a nonverbal revelation in that it does not use actual words. In this way, it offers only general information. For example, this revelation is like music. A symphony does not use words, but certainly communicates. Under this category, we have the notion of intelligent design, whereby the beauty, complexity, and functionality seen in nature gives most people the inkling that there is some sort of intelligent designer or creator. This revelation offers general attributes of God. For example, the physical world points to a creator who is glorious, has eternal power, and a divine nature. Finally, the Book of God's Works is studied by science. Now that we've presented categories of divine revelation and the two divine books, we can identify some similarities. First, biblical revelation aligns with the Book of God's Words. And second, natural revelation aligns with the Book of God's Works. Therefore, the two books of science and religion are deeply rooted in the belief that God reveals, both verbally in the Bible and nonverbally in nature. Our next general Christian category is the Bible. We could spend the rest of our life trying to understand scripture, but for our purposes in this course all I would like you to do is to think about the Bible in this way. It's like an anthology. It was written by roughly 50 authors over roughly 1,500 years. As a result, the Bible has many different types of literature. In other words, it has different literary genres. Therefore, in order to understand scripture, we must identify what the author was intending to communicate. For example, was he writing figurative poetry or facts of history? Please turn to page 3 in your handouts. For those of you who are not familiar with the Christian Bible, it's made up of two parts. The Old Testament is the Jewish Bible, and it's written mostly in the Hebrew language. The New Testament is composed of Christian writings about Jesus and the language it uses is Greek. Overall, the Bible gives the impression of being a record of actual events in the past, as outlined in the diagram with the dates of some events, people, and nations. And some of the events align with scientific evidence in archaeology. For example, we know that the nation of Judah was deported to Babylon in the 6th century BCE or BC. Since the Bible does have statements that align with real events in the past, this leads to a central debate in science and religion dialogue. What is the literary genre of the accounts of creation in Genesis 1 to 3? Is it science, is it allegory, or simply a fairy tale? For example, what are we to make of Genesis 1 and the creation of the world in six days? Did that really happen? Is Genesis 1 a scientific record describing real events in the origin of the universe and living organisms? We'll try to answer these important questions as we proceed through this course. Our next category is divine action. This is another very important category in science and religion. Simply defined, divine action is the belief that God acts in the world. There are two basic concepts associated with divine action. The first deals with the context of divine action. Personal divine action involves divine acts with people. Cosmological divine action are divine acts in nature, either in the origins of the world or in its regular operations every day. The Greek term cosmos means cosmos and refers to the entire universe. The second basic concept associated with divine action is the mode of divine action. Interventionism deals with dramatic divine acts. In this case, God breaks into the regular routines of people or nature. Providentialism involves subtle divine acts. With this mode of divine action, God works through the regular routines of people or nature. Please turn to page 3 in the handouts. Now that we've identified the two basic concepts associated with divine action, we can propose six basic categories of divine action. Let's begin with God acting with people. Personal providentialism is when God acts dramatically with men and women. An example would be God raising a dead person to life. Personal providentialism involves God working subtly with people through so-called nudges or coincidences. Many people say they experience this type of divine action. Let's now change the context of divine action to nature. Cosmological interventionism in origins refers to God acting dramatically in the origin of the universe and life. An example would be God creating in six literal days the entire world. Cosmological interventionism in operations involves God entering the natural world and acting dramatically in its operations. An example of this type of divine action would be God moving planets off course. I don't think many people believe this occurs, but we need to list it as a possibility. Cosmological providentialism in origins involves God acting subtly by using natural processes to create the world. An example is God creating through evolution to make the universe and life. In this way, God ordained the natural process of evolution. That is, he ordered and planned evolution, and he also sustained evolution in that he upheld this natural process over billions of years. Our final divine action category is cosmological providentialism in operations. An example of this is God subtly upholding the solar system and all the gravitational forces that allow the planets to move around the sun. According to this belief, God ordained the astronomical laws of nature and he continues to sustain them today. End of episode.
