Oh dear, brother in Christ, it seems that here you are strongly suggesting that I am acting in bad faith. But if that's so, then why do you want to talk to me in the first place?
You wrote:
I always strive to use the evidence of His handiwork to magnify our conception of God and "open our eyes" to His majesty as our Creator. [I added the bolds]I don't see anything wrong with that : You want to use "science" the way proto-Renaissance people used cathedrals....
You wrote:
It would appear that, sans the mediating presence of A-G, any effort on my part to prepare and share insights based on "direct observations" is a priori abjured by you.Good grief! You're imputing even more so-much "stuff" against me. On what grounds? What "scars" have I ever caused you???
You mentioned Alamo-Girl, my dearest sister in Christ. As you know, she is on extended sabbatical. I don't know when (or if) she will be coming back. I miss her terribly.
As you also know, she and I go back a long 'ways. We collaborated on two major book projects. The first one -- Timothy -- took two+ years to complete. A-G and I co-wrote this one. At bottom, it was dedicated to the proposition that faith and reason, theology and science, are not mutually opposed and/or mutually exclusive entities. Rather, they are everlastingly dynamic complementarities. In Neil Bohr's sense of that word. [Which boils down to: You cannot see the "particle" aspect AND the "wave" aspect of a given entity at the same time. But you need BOTH descriptions if you want to describe the overarching system of which they are both constituents. Consider that a kind of analogy....]
The two of us were perfect for this job. We were of such different backgrounds -- she, science and mathematics; me, philosophy and the humanities. She, a self-described American Baptist; me, an unchurched Christian of orthodox leaning. We co-wrote this book in a back-and-forth dialogue captured in Word over many months. Some of the ideas that made the book were field-tested at FR over an extended period of time. In one or two cases, we even directly quoted a Freeper. (But these Freepers remain anonymous to this day, because we put their "speeches" into the mouth of "Froggie," a character in the book. I don't remember the screen names, now.)
In all this time, there was never any instance of dispute between Alamo-Girl and me, over any aspect of the book. It was an effortless collaboration. We were always working together, towards the same goal, for the same reasons. We were blessed....
Just a little remembrance of a very dear one.
I'm looking forward to hearing from you again, dear brother in Christ!
Truly, I commend you, betty boop, to all my brothers and sisters in Christ as you have consistently shown me, over the years, that your highest priority is God Himself. In many debates on the forum, private correspondence and in our book writing collaborations, your priorities have never changed. No one has cause to question your motives, nor should you be offended if that ever happens.
Concerning the root of the present exchange, how much direct observation (e.g. science) can illuminate our understanding of Scripture - I am confident of several things.
First, that we Christians see the glory of God in His creation as He said we would:
That does not mean that we cannot grow in understanding Who God IS, what He has done, what He wants and so on.
Truly, God the Father has revealed Himself to us in several ways: in the Person of His only begotten Son Jesus Christ, in the Person of the indwelling Holy Spirit, in His own words - Scriptures, and in His creation, both physical and spiritual.
Indeed, we not only should look and see, we must. For if we love God - and as Christians, we do - then we hunger to learn more about Him, we hang on His words, cherish His fellowship, His presence, His leading.
After all, doubting Thomas was an apostle, too.
Indeed, the apostles were each quite different from one another - having different learning curves, some requiring the school of hard knocks while others bent seemingly effortlessly to Jesus' words.
This passage is quite telling:
Likewise here, xzins was blessed with the eyes of a theologian; betty boop, the eyes of a philosopher and TXnMA, the eyes of a scientist. Each of you magnify the revelations of God through the lens God Himself gave you.
And please never be discouraged from doing this, even if you do not get a reply - or if the reply is "huh?" - or even disdain. We are only responsible for the seeds He gave us, individually.