Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Follow the Bouncing Biblical/Xtian Presuppositions that made for Science....
[my emphasis] I do not believe that the successful pursuit of scientific discovery is an activity that is feasible in every conceivable world, but it is a fact of our experience in this particular world. By that I mean...that the explanation of the success of science in exploring the intelligible universe is ultimately theological rather than philosophical, believing as I do that it derives from the fact that this specific universe is a [1] creation endowed with a [1] rational order that is [3] accessible to creatures who are [4] made in the image of the Creator, rather than deriving from general human rational powers that could be exercised equally in any kind of world.
Polkinghorne, John. Science and the Trinity : The Christian Encounter with Reality. p 180.

In my exploration of science and Torah issues, I can recall few instances of a Jewish Kiruv author writing or lecturer actually articulate this relationship of Bible to science from early modern Torah sources about these fundamentally-Biblical presuppositions that made for science, until R. Slifkin (I think R. Hirsch, but I don't have his Chumash handy). Most seem either incapable of deriving this insight about science on their own (most all being Charedim), or are I'm afraid to say, given their knowledge of Tanakh and Rabbinic Judaism, they have difficulty admitting that though Judaism harbored and sustained and engaged these ideas for millenia on millenia - it was Christianity in "particular" that proved the most fertile soil.

More on science and Torah later, but I'd like to note often it's repeated that Jews are disproportionally numbered among Nobel Prize winners - but no one bothers to ask how it matters - are these Nobel Prize winners religious Jews (Agnon and Aumann, possible Yalow and Kandel?), let alone committed Jews - or mostly assimilated Jews? Bergson, Pasternak, Haber, de Hevesy, Cori (nee Radnitz, first woman to win a Nobel Prize), Born, Wigner, Bethe, Harsany, Herbert Simon were even Christians!

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home

<< List
Jewish Bloggers
Join >>