Citing Chalmers, Facts are required through observation anf laws ans and theories fomulated. Deductions should lead to predictions and explanations. This is only the basic model and it has been critised. A.F. Chalmers, "What is this thing called Science", makes a good lay read.

I guess, as was the proposition, " 'The 'Second Coming' will occur after the end of the millenium " is prediction, acceptable to science. Only it has been dispoved. Same goes for Marx extrapolating Hegel

I've been sent to Coventry, Sells? I was taught Philosophy and Psychology at its University. One semester only offshore in Singapore.

Thomas L. Hankins has written an good little reader on the Enlightenment, "Science and the Enlightment (Cambridge University Press).

Sells,
Thank you for the kind words. I have no access (yet) to the paper in First Things but if the author, and Rosenzweig, mean that Christianity and Judaism have more in common than any of them with Islam, then I certainly agree. Christianity sees itself as a derivative of Judaism, but I have just recently learned that Islam sees itself not as a derivative of anything but as the original Revelation that somehow precedes even Judaism.

I understand that the term “face of God” to account for different religions can be theologically misleading. Sometimes I use the term “Christian model of God”, different from the Jewish model, more different from the Muslim model and even more different from Buddhist or Taoistic models.

Here I was inspired by the scientific terms of physical/mathematical models of (some feature of) physical reality: for instance, there are models of gravitation due to Newton or Einstein, superstring theory etc. It is always the same phenomenon, gravity, that these models try to explain. The truth value of these theories is a different matter.

I believe there is a God whose nature is beyond human comprehension, modelled by various religions. It follows directly from the Scriptures accepted by both Jews and Christians, that they speak of the same God, it is not that direct with Muslims and other religions. However, I am convinced that in all these cases it is the same God that the “finger of science" (and philosophy) points to, although some “fools” can see only the finger. The truth value of these various religions is again a different matter, much more complicated than in the case of physical models/theories, also because personal, cultural, emotional etc. factors are involved that in the former case play no role (or should not play, notwithstanding some social constructivists).

So also my faith comes on two levels: a philosophical belief in a God who cannot be explained or modelled by science, and a faith in the Christian model that sees this God as the revealed God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, incarnate in Jesus.

George

Without doubt religions, cultures and even individuals have their own models. Your thesis, I assume, is based on the notion that all theistic models are related in some way by the unity of the thing being modelled. This 'system' follows a highly commendable trajectory into a form of universalism commonly expressed in the 'many paths to the one truth' principle. Its a lovely idea and world peace would be just around the corner. . . if only everyone thought this way.
I think, however, that there are weaknesses in the proposal which only become obvious when you subject the different religious models to close scrutiny. It quickly becomes clear that the models are themselves human constructs serving cultural and political purposes. Far from being unifying they are, in fact, 'identifying'.
Have you read Sallie McFague's 'Metaphorical Theology'? It has a lengthy discussion of models in science and theology.
Theological models are clusters of symbols and metaphors around one organising, defining symbol. The relationships between metaphors within a model can be concordant or discordant. The theological model is not meant to be a systematic construction based on the rules of logic. It is an exploration of being as experienced with all its inconsistencies and struggles, all its joy, disappointment, anxiety and hope.
Scientific models are used for descibing closed (though complex) systems.
Theological models work when they open up and expose the infinitude of human possibility through the organising idea of the 'divine being'. They do not 'model' God as an object of investigation.

Erratum: "I've been sent to Coventry, Sells? I ONCE taught Philosophy and Psychology at its University. One semester only offshore in Singapore."

waterboy,

I think we are at least 100 years away from most of the peoples in the worl appreciating we don't need a god to be moral or to have created us.

waterboy,
thank you for your interesting comment. I never subscribed to the quasi-relativistic claim of 'many paths to the one truth', I spoke of many constructs (if you do not like the term model) of the same God. Of course, even within Christianity there is a variety of such constructs as your example of Sallie McFague shows, and they do not have to be all compatible. I only said the truth value of these constructs is much more complicated - in particular, to what extent they are purely human, culture-conditioned, and to what extent there is more to them, called Revelation by Christians - than in case of scientific theories, but I did not want to elaborate on that.

No, I have not read the book, and all I know of Sallie McFague can be found in

http://people.bu.edu/wwildman/WeirdWildWeb/courses/mwt/dictionary/mwt_themes_907_ruethermcfague.htm.

She obviously tackles the problem of God and the sacred from the culture opposite to mine (in the sense of C.P. Snow), but except for her feminist bias she seems to be saying the same thing, although her “models of God” are more restrictive and are a part of her personal Christian theology, whereas I wanted to describe a more general state of affairs. Namely, that as in science, one thing is the object of our concern and another our human constructs (via analogies, metaphors, models, etc.) of it, but unlike in science neither are these constructs purely rational (thus I agree that we cannot “investigate God”) nor do we have the means of sensual/experimental verification of our constructs. There is only faith, rationalised by theology that indeed goes beyond a systematic cataloguing of symbols and includes an “exploration of being as experienced with all its inconsistencies and struggles, all its joy, disappointment, anxiety and hope.”

Thus I think I can agree with you about the internal structure of theological constructs within Christianity, including the restricted use of the term model.