If, for example, Notre Dame were to terminate a faculty member for denying the Apostle\u2019s Creed, you would hear claims that the faculty member\u2019s academic freedom had been violated. Yet, if the university had terminated a chemistry professor because he denied the periodic table, nobody would object. That means that theology in some circles is not thought to be knowledge. Can one legitimately claim that one\u2019s theological tradition is knowledge? Not only Catholic but evangelical institutions, can one legitimately claim that certain issues are settled? That\u2019s really the issue. What are we to think of theology? Is it something we can know? I think it is.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Unfortunately, Beckwith does not elaborate on that proposition. But this is one of the most frequent objections I raise with conservative Christians on the DMN Religion Blog. You can\u2019t know spiritual matters, you can only have faith that they\u2019re true. There is evidence, and some things are convincing \u2013 at least to those who are predisposed to believe in them anyway. But we can\u2019t know the Apostle\u2019s Creed (or the Charge of the Goddess) is true in the same way we know the Periodic Table of the Elements is true.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve had some people counter that you can\u2019t truly know anything, and from a theoretical, philosophical point of view, I suppose that\u2019s true \u2013 we could all be living in The Matrix. But some things are demonstrable and repeatable \u2013 we can\u2019t be 100% sure they\u2019re true, but for all practical purposes, we can assume that they are.<\/p>\n
Can you tell I\u2019m an engineer and not a physicist?<\/p>\n
The same doesn\u2019t hold true for religion and theology. I believe in life after death, but I can\u2019t provide anywhere close to conclusive evidence for it. I believe in the Goddess and God \u2013 that the Divine is both male and female, but I can\u2019t prove it. For all the proof (as opposed to evidence) we have, the atheists may be right, or the Christians, or the Muslims may be right and we\u2019re ALL going to hell.<\/p>\n
But I don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n
Some things we can know. Others we will never know, at least not on this side of death. That\u2019s why we have faith.<\/p>\n
I think that makes this world a far better place, even if it\u2019s not as black and white as some people would like it to be.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Notre Dame University has invited President Barack Obama to be its commencement speaker at this Spring\u2019s graduation. As Obama\u2019s pro-choice, pro-stem cell research policies are at odds with Catholic teaching, this is generating some conflict in Catholic circles. Christianity Today has an interview with Francis Beckwith, a philosophy professor at Baylor University who resigned as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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