Monday, February 20, 2006
Science And Faith - A Question
By now you have probably encountered the story about how recent DNA studies seem to be "putting the lie" to some of the stories in the Book of Mormon. This set fellow SoCal blogger Laer Pearce, he of Cheat Seeking Missles fame, to thinking about matters of science and faith. He posits a hypothetical that I cannot resist
To me, the central question in the hypothetical is really, "Would Christ's perfected humanity be evident in His DNA?" That is to say, is our fallen nature evident not only in our spirit and character, but in our physicality? Some would argue that disease and defect are a result of our sinful state, thus you could argue that our DNA would be somehow faulty, but how?
Better question, would we even recognize Christ's DNA as "perfect?" Somehow I have a sneaking suspicion that this world would find whatever traits in the DNA were different than ours as defects as opposed to perfections. And there would come the debate. I expect they would claim Christ's DNA as "not sufficiently evolutionarily adaptive" and therefore problematic - thus they would claim to challenge our faith not on the basis of Christ's complete humanity, but what they would judge as His lack thereof.
In the end, Christianity is rational, but not provable. There are limits to what "science" can say about it.
Related Tags: science, faith, rationality, DNA, Christ, Mormons
What if Christ's blood were found on some relic in an ancient church, tested, and found to be 100% human?Gosh, I hope so! After all, our theology would demand it. You see orthodox Christianity holds that Christ is fully human and fully divine. That means that Christ's DNA would simply be perfectly human.
To me, the central question in the hypothetical is really, "Would Christ's perfected humanity be evident in His DNA?" That is to say, is our fallen nature evident not only in our spirit and character, but in our physicality? Some would argue that disease and defect are a result of our sinful state, thus you could argue that our DNA would be somehow faulty, but how?
Better question, would we even recognize Christ's DNA as "perfect?" Somehow I have a sneaking suspicion that this world would find whatever traits in the DNA were different than ours as defects as opposed to perfections. And there would come the debate. I expect they would claim Christ's DNA as "not sufficiently evolutionarily adaptive" and therefore problematic - thus they would claim to challenge our faith not on the basis of Christ's complete humanity, but what they would judge as His lack thereof.
In the end, Christianity is rational, but not provable. There are limits to what "science" can say about it.
Related Tags: science, faith, rationality, DNA, Christ, Mormons
