{"id":25995,"date":"2020-02-21T01:38:23","date_gmt":"2020-02-21T09:38:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=25995"},"modified":"2020-02-21T01:38:23","modified_gmt":"2020-02-21T09:38:23","slug":"faith-is-my-bias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/faith-is-my-bias\/","title":{"rendered":"Faith is my Bias"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week our living room gained a Nutritower. This 5\u20195 innovation will allow my family to grow our own food year round, using 95% less water and will save 1 million food miles.<\/a>[1] The added benefit is that my children will learn how to grow and pollinate their own food. It is one minuscule way that we can reduce our contribution to climate change. It is also one way my husband is helping to address my irrational apocalyptic anxieties. When my stress is high, all climate change news triggers anxiety attacks that lead to a struggle to engage in everyday life (which is full of climate change contributing behaviours\u2026let\u2019s just start with heating the house). So the Nutritower\u2019s mood enhancing lights, slow trickle of water and oxygen producing plants will hopefully help to return me to a place of reasoning. Fresh produce is almost the bonus rather than the goal.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Given my high concern with the state of the world, Steven Pinker\u2019s Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress<\/em> was a welcome read. Pinker is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist who teaches in Harvard\u2019s psychology department. In his book, Pinker offers an optimistic view of the world which comes from looking at years of data that indicate that humanity has been able to persistently improve the overall quality of life. He clarifies that \u201can optimistic civilization is open and not afraid to innovate, and is based on traditions of criticism. Its institutions keep improving, and the most important knowledge that they embody is knowledge of how to detect and eliminate errors.\u201d<\/a>[2] He contends that Enlightenment principles are the key to moving forward and finding the necessary solutions to the problems humanity currently faces. \u201c[W]e can see that a concern with the environment, nuclear war, American foreign-policy blunders, and racial and gender equality could not be put off forever. Even if they make us more anxious, we are better for being aware of them.\u201d<\/a>[3] Pinker suggests that much of the apocalyptic anxiety people are experiencing (he cites that 25% of Australian children and 15% of people worldwide believe the world will end before they get older<\/a>[4]) is due to a lack of understanding of the progress that humanity has made. This is certainly true in part, however he also points out that \u201c[a]s people become better educated and increasingly skeptical of received authority, they may become unsatisfied with traditional religious verities and feel unmoored in a morally indifferent cosmos.\u201d<\/a>[5] This removal from a larger meta-narrative can lead to further anxiety that cannot be overcome by mere reason. In fact Alison Gopnik contends that \u201c[t]he Enlightenment emphasis on the autonomous, rational individual can also lead to alienation and isolation, which make tribalism mythology all the more appealing.\u201d<\/a>[6]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jordan Peterson validates the rational world, but does not see religious myths (foundational stories) in opposition to reason.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The world can be validly construed as a forum for action, as well as a place of things. We<\/p>\n

describe the world as a place of things, using the formal methods of science. The techniques of narrative, however-myth, literature and drama-portray the world as a forum for action. The two forms of representation have been unnecessarily set at odds, because we have not yet formed a clear picture of their respective domains. The domain of the former is the objective world-what is, from the perspective of intersubjective perception. The domain of the latter is the world of value-what is and what should be, from the perspective of emotion and action.\u201d<\/a>[7]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tribal faith narratives are passed on through retelling within communities. Such community rituals reduce anxiety by breaking down the isolation nurtured by Enlightenment\u2019s emphasis on the individual. Further, these narratives pass on values<\/em> that can direct what unknown territory ought to be explored for the benefit of humanity. While research and progress might be beneficial products of science and technology, our beliefs and values will create boundaries that offer security of a different kind. What we believe will, determine how we act, because it shapes both how we understand the present and the ideal future.<\/a>[8] For example in his work The Evolution of the West: How Christianity Shaped our Values, <\/em>Nick Spencer traces the development of the concept of personhood through to the establishment of democracy showing how Christian values shaped our current political systems<\/a>[9] which Pinker confirms is \u201ca major contributor to human flourishing<\/a>[10].<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Can science and reason be a complement to faith rather than its competition? I believe the answer is yes. If we genuinely believe our prayer that we long for God\u2019s will to be done \u201con earth as it is in heaven\u201d then we will look to Biblical images of heaven to shape our actions now. If the \u2018New Jerusalem\u2019 is an invitation toward the future, than we can be sure that innovation and progress are part of God\u2019s plan. Otherwise heaven would look like Eden\u2014undeveloped and with nature intact. James Hunter invites such integrated work by reflecting that \u201c[e]very person is made in God\u2019s image and every person is offered his grace and, in turn, the opportunity to labor together with God in the creation and recreation of the world. It is of a fabric with the ethic of care central to Christian faith, an ethic that enjoins all Christians to serve the needs of the poor, the widowed, the orphaned, the weak, and the dispossessed.\u201d<\/a>[11]The value<\/em> that the Christian narrative brings to progress is that it will never be enough for the majority of humanity to thrive, producing an overall increase in flourishing, but that the most vulnerable are raised up. It is part of the Christian narrative to be motivated to care for the vulnerable. Just as Spencer traces the influence of Christian values on democracy, I wonder how many scientific breakthroughs are answers to desperate prayers for healing\u2014of smallpox, of polio, of infections. I have prayed over many researchers and their projects that their work would lead to greater healing of the oceans, of our agricultural systems, of our relationships with our indigenous peoples.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Out of the Christian narrative we are invited to consider that \u201cfaith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.\u201d<\/a>[12] It is an invitation to envision an unreasonably beautiful future and act accordingly. So I will sit next to my Nutritower and absorb it\u2019s mood enhancing light, thankful for the research that has gone into it, hopeful that it is part of an environmentally sustainable future and I will pray \u2018thy Kingdom come\u2019, because faith is my bias.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[1] \u201cBest Indoor Gardening Vertical Hydroponics System,\u201d Nutritower, accessed February 20, 2020, https:\/\/nutritower.com\/<\/a>)<\/p>\n

<\/a>[2] Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress. <\/em>( USA :Penguin Books, 2018) p.7.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[3] Pinker, p.286<\/p>\n

<\/a>[4] Pinker, p.292<\/p>\n

<\/a>[5] Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress. <\/em>( USA :Penguin Books, 2018) p.284.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[6]Alison Gopnik, \u201cWhen Truth and Reason Are No Longer Enough.\u201d The Atlantic. <\/em>April 2018. Accessed February 20, 2020. Https:\/\/www.google.ca\/amp\/s\/amp.theatlantic.com\/amp\/article\/554054<\/p>\n

<\/a>[7] Jordan B. Peterson, Maps of Meaning: the Architecture of Belief<\/em> (London: Routledge, 1999), p. xxi.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[8] Jordon B. Peterson, \u201c2016 Lecture 01 Maps of Meaning: Introduction and Overview.\u201d YouTube<\/em> video, 1:40.54. 2016. \u00a0https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=bjnvtRgpg6g&feature=share<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>[9] Nick Spencer, The Evolution of the West: How Christianity has Shaped our Values.<\/em> (Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018) .<\/p>\n

<\/a>[10] Pinker, 199.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[11] Hunter, p.93.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[12] NIV Hebrews 11:1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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