(ctd)
>>science should also eventually be able to gain access to human imagination and demonstrate that fact conclusively as well.<<

If I understand you properly, this touches upon an adequate description of consciousness (and free will) through science that, you are right, we don’t have yet. I am not sure what it should "demonstrate conclusively", however, some think that we might be about to embark on a completely new understanding of consciousness. Not so much of its nature but its relation to reality observed by the “conscious” observer.

How is this related to divine action? As I suggested in the article, I suspect that a suitable interpretation of scientific facts and theories, that could satisfy a scientist who believes in divine acts, could somehow be related to a satisfactory (to all scientists, not just believers), scientific theory of consciousness and free will. Quantum physics with its perplexities is perhaps the leading candidate for this.

Until Einstein, time was a priori given, independent of the observer; after Einstein there is still no better understanding of the “nature” of time, however its independent-of-the-observer status had to be given up. Perhaps something similar is going to happen with consciousness, more precisely the independence of observed reality from it, through a better understanding of what at present we still see as quantum physics’ enigmas. Well, this is now indeed a pure speculation (on the Copenhagen interpretation)

HI George

Sorry, I’m re-joining the conversation rather late. I don’t think Peter Sellick is a deist, but he seems to me strongly influenced by Barth’s theology that insists God is known only through revelation and not through material evidence – hence one cannot infer the creator from creation. I may be misrepresenting him here so I’d be happy for him to correct me if he’s watching this conversation.

I did some study of creation theology a while back and was particularly impressed by Polkinghorne’s insights into creation and theodicity. A world free to make itself includes not just the possibility but perhaps the inevitability of evil. Polkinhorne speaks of the fall as a fall “upwards”. Genesis 2-3 provides a profound allegory of human origins and nature. Eating from “the tree that was desired to make one wise” (Genesis 3:5) represents human curiosity and capabilities for abstract and analytical thought. Freedom, self-awareness (Genesis 2.25, 3.7, 3.11), moral consciousness (Genesis 2.17, 3.5, 3.22), and awareness of mortality (Genesis 2.17, 3.3, 3.19, 3.22-24) lead not only to increased human potential for good but also, necessarily, to the potential for (and probability of) evil. So in his theological model, creation, the existence of evil and theodicity are inextricably intertwined.

(Reason and Reality, pp.99-100)

Is being a scientist compatible with being a Buddhist who doesn't believe in God? Is being a scientist compatible with believing in astrolgy? Is being a scientist compatible with being subject to any form of compulsive behaviour?

Scientists are human. I believe no humans are completely rational. Therefore if my belief is a valid one no scientists are completely rational.

Dear David,

<<Therefore if my belief is a valid one no scientists are completely rational.>>

Yes and further: ask any scientist why they chose to do science and you are bound to receive an irrational answer.

quote..<A person, especially a scientist, who wonders how God can act within physical reality without being detected by science as a source of this action, will suspect that there is some intrinsic relation between the three enigmas of conscience, free will and divine action.>>

wonder isnt a condition..of gods actions within the 3 primary realms
indeed god is in the common/mundane..as the reason and cause.

eg life force..life 'lives'..and life is a sign..of god
where life is..is god sustaining its living..[science has not..will not cannot MAKE*,..life..but by trickery..[ie putting dead dna into a living bacterium cell*]..

the life condition..pre egsisted
the so called life 'created'..by science method

a simple guide being all good is of god..as life is a pre conditional..to 'judging good from vile'..life judges not god

ditto logic,..where god is..logic is
base law is..[now called by 'science;..*natural* laws'...

[eg..action/reaction..
eg gravity physics..changes of state/heat rising..osmosis..laws of decay/balancing ..the middle way etc.

Hi Rhian,

I am sure you are right about Karl Bath’s influence on Sellick. I was just wondering about some of his assertions that sounded deist to me and seemed to resonate with what you wrote. I could not see his unequivocal rejection of the God of philosophers as following from Barth, but I admit I was wrong.

What I know of Barth comes from Jon Macquarie’s “20th Century Religious thought” (SCM Press, 1963), where e.g. on p. 322 one finds “Like Feuerbach, he regards man’s ideas of God as projections of man’s own wishes - though of course Barth makes an exception in favour of of the Christian revelation “. This certainly sounds like Selick and not like deism.

I think you gave a good summary of Polkinghorne’s position. I knew of him as one of the physicists who stood at the cradle of quarks before I knew anything about his religion, and apparently before he became a theologian. He is one of my favourite theologians mainly because I can understand him better than most others.