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A biologist theologian! Is that an oxymoron or a contradiction in terms?

You tell me!

atheist 8 May 2
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0

How does that hymn go?
We plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land,
But it is fed and watered by God's almighty hand.
.........
That might have made sense 200 years ago, before physics explained how rain really works and bio-chemistry explained soil nutrients.
However, even Darwin was initially a deeply religious Unitarian and agonised over publishing his theories.

1

I don't think so. A biologist can believe in a omnipotent god. The god is responsible for everything. Biology is just a good way to get a little better understanding of how god works. Works well into current day theology.

I remember reading that somewhere a while back

@atheist Sounds so, but I put my father somewhere in that spectrum.

2

Personality my dear "I don't give a damn" I usually answer to questions like thar.

Coldo Level 8 May 3, 2018
3

Neither! Only in America is it a problem because you guys have more than your fair share of science deniers and bible literalists, and even then there are whole fields of biology such as anatomy that don't come into conflict with bible literalism.

The Jesuits were more into maths and physics though they also lay claim to Robert Bacon who has been described as a forerunner of modern scientific method but here are a couple of examples from their ranks.
[en.wikipedia.org]
[en.wikipedia.org]

The second guy is a paleontologist who took part in the discovery of Peking Man and was a supporter of evolution as far back as 1920 and wrote a book called "The Phenomenon of Man" which attempted to reconcile evolution with his spiritual beliefs. The book was finished in the 1930s, but was published posthumously in 1955, and translated into English in 1959. The Roman Catholic Church initially prohibited the publication of some of Teilhard's writings on the grounds that they contradicted orthodoxy.

Islam also had its fair share of scientific scholars in all fields. Usually it is only the extremists in any religion that throw out the science in favor of orthodoxy (once they get over the initial shock) and then fudge a reconciliation of the two by saying that the religious teachings now disproved were simple allegories that hold a deeper truth and were never meant to be taken literally.

Kimba Level 7 May 3, 2018
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He would realize he is an atheist.......

1

Theodosius Dobzhansky? He's the theologin who said, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution."

2

My father was a science teacher and a Catholic. He didn't see a contradiction, and really, I don't either. I don't agree that "goddidit" but I can understand having the opinion that scientific discoveries are valid, but some god or other used evolution as a method of creation, for example.

3

Look up Gregor Mendel. One can succeed despite religion.

1

I think a trained biologist who is also a theologian could easily see that the scientific conclusions they have observed are not the product of some sort of divine intervention, rather the result of their own systematic work following the scientific method.

Imagine if they tried to have a paper published in a reputable scientific journal and claimed: "god did it".
It would be laughed at and run through the shredder.

2

Not at all an oxymoron or contradiction. Can one not study theology & biology at the same time? If not then I guess one can not study math and literature at the same time.

@atheist What incongruencies? Theology is such a vast subject, I wouldn’t know where to start guessing.

@irascible How does one demonstrate another person’s thoughts with a book?

@TheMiddleWay
Slam
Dunk

@atheist I don’t think theology is necessarily a faith hypothesis. The subject operates in separate realm than science, much like art or philosophy.

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