FREE PUBLIC EVENT: CSCA & TWU’s Science, Faith, & Human Flourishing initiative present a lecture from Myron A. Penner (Professor of Philosophy, Trinity Western University).
Find more events in Vancouver, BC
The Bible, Science, and Human Flourishing: The Role of Scripture in Shaping a Christian View of the World
Conservative evangelicals are often put in positions of conflict due to their particular view of the Bible as a source of authority—conflict with others both inside and outside of the Christian tradition. Two common flashpoints for these conflicts are (a) differing perspectives on moral issues and (b) rejections of mainstream science. In both cases, conservative evangelicals feel that allegiance to the Bible’s superior authority requires adopting what is deemed to be a “biblical perspective,” regardless of whether this results in their opposing the wider consensus. In this lecture, I argue that the conservative attempt to place the Bible over other sources of authority (i.e. reason, experience, and tradition) is mistaken on philosophical, theological, and biblical grounds. I further argue that a better way to think of the different resources Christians have at their disposal in shaping a Christian view of the world is to think in terms of “domain specificity.” On this model, the resources of scripture, reason, experience, and tradition should each be viewed as having primary authority in a particular domain—the domain that corresponds to what that particular resource is uniquely able to illuminate.
Myron Penner began working at TWU in 2005. He completed his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Purdue University in 2007. Myron’s primary research areas are epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of religion but also has interests in philosophy of science and twentieth-century analytic philosophy.
Respondents:
Kent Clarke (Professor of New Testament, Trinity Western University)
Dennis Venema (Professor of Biology, Trinity Western University)