Rational Scientific Theories from Theism

What is Theistic Science?

Theistic Science, a branch of each theoretical science, derives general theoretical principles from the laws transmitted through scientific revelations from God.

 

 

What it Theism?

Theism is the belief that God not only created the universe of mind and nature, but also continually sustains its operation.

In contrast to: atheism (no God); pantheism (God equals the universe); panentheism (the universe is a 'small' part of God); and deism (God created an independent universe).

 

 

Who is God?

We take as the starting point the Theism of the main western religions, that: God is One; God is Infinite; God created and sustains the universe; God is the Source and the object of all Love and Wisdom. 

I work in a 'Universal Christian' framework, in which Jesus Christ is identified as the Human form of the Divine, and is therefore God for the whole universe. You may work differently :-) . We may compare our views eventually!

What Scientific Revelations are there?

Many religions, mystics and philosophers have described operations of the spirit, mind and nature, but the most accurate and comprehensive descriptions I have found come through Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). These will be used as a starting point.

 

 

Do we have Laws from revelations?

Revelations involve changed personal states of consciousness and perceptions of new states of being. 

We are interested in those revelations which provide the general principles governing spirit, mind and nature. We especially need revelations which deal with the detailed causal relations between these.

Such revelations are rare, but fortunately exist, for example with Swedenborg. If you know of any other revelations, I would like to hear.

 

 

Is this Science?

Science wants to know 'how things work'! It wants its causal explanations and theories to be grounded in empirical evidence, in manners confirmable by anyone with sufficient training. Nevertheless, science uses logic, mathematics, and other theories that are not themselves given empirically.

 

Science is therefore open to new sources of theories. It will examine them for coherence, completeness and simplicity. It will determine whether or not they are supported by the evidence. New theories may suggest new experiments and observations.

 

Theistic Science will propose theories of mind and nature, and will initiate a process which (we hope) will ground these theories empirically. It will, however, use theories about God which are more readily grounded from revelation than from experiment. From the empirical-scientific point of view, the Theistic part of theistic science is a 'theoretical superstructure', to be accepted to a greater or lesser extent. 

 

 

Is this Religion? 

Religion tells us 'how to live'.

 

Therefore, religion needs to know, among other things: what is true, how things work, and what has happened in the past. Religion is therefore distinct from science, but needs to use the results of science. Religion does use statements about the way the world is, and therefore needs to be related to science.

 

Theistic science deals with 'what is' and 'how things work', but not 'how to live'. It will of course make predictions of the consequences of different actions, but will leave you free to choose.

 

There will therefore be a separation of 'church and state', between the injunctive content of religion, and the factual content of theistic science.

 

Of course, some will see any statement of Theism as blurring this separation. But, in general, you are free to act as you wish in the face of God.

 

Does Science not assume materialism?

 

We need to distinguish 'methodological materialism', which we might pragmatically hold for a while, as long at it is revisable.

There will have to be 'methodological pluralism', whereby both materialist and theist explanations are explored in parallel. We cannot afford to wait into eg materialism fails before we begin to even consider alternatives.

 

For further discussion, see Jitse van der Meer's paper The Struggle Between Christian Theism, Metaphysical Naturalism and Relativism: How To Proceed in Science? (local copy).

 

 

Do we need revelations? 

If revelations purport to be received, then we should at least consider them because:

1. If actually from God, they will (if properly understood) contain true statements,
2. They might contain ideas (especially about ends and causes) which cannot otherwise be discovered,
3. They might help us solve problems that are otherwise apparently insoluble, such as the "Hard Problem" concerning how minds could be related to brains, or the nature of purported "miracles", or the validity of "near-death experiences",
4. They might help us understand previous revelations that turned out to be not properly understood, 
5. They might link together hitherto-disparate systems of beliefs, and finally
6. If someone is talking to you, there is some moral obligation to listen.

Are you feeling quite happy with all this?

Or: are you feeling a strange gnawing in your stomach, or feeling the ground falling away from under your feet, since these ideas appear to be 'the end of science as we know it', and now we might have to admit all sorts of strange and distasteful beliefs? 

 

In response, I say: "Don't Panic!" I know how you feel: once I was that way myself! 

 

So: we will proceed carefully, considering rational foundations, so we will always have somewhere to stand. And we will consider consequences carefully, to avoid swallowing more than we can digest. 

You might feel skeptical, but read The Myths of Skepticism. by Michael Sofka (or local copy). Or see the explanation about Pseudo-Skeptical Criticism.

 

 

What are the principles of Theistic Science? 
 

 

The Three Fundamental Premises of Theistic Science
 

1. The universe was created and is run by God through spiritual laws of order.
 

2. These laws cannot be discovered but are transmitted through scientific revelations.
 

3. Scientific revelations are rational in structure and serve as the guiding theory for all scientific research.
 

(from Leon James' article "Theistic Science") 

 

 

What is this website, theisticscience.org, about?

The aim of this site is to present introductions, expositions and consequences of a set of scientific theories that start with the three premises above, and connect (where rational) to current scientific theories and practices. The main connections will be with physics, psychology and philosophy, but much more remains to be done to connect, for example, with biology and physiology.