the pleasant confines of upstate New York that I love LA. My friends and family who live there are
indispensable parts of me, so I regard LA as an important part of my life.
If faith and reason are both gifts from God, they should play complementary, not conflicting, roles in our
struggle to understand the world around us.... As a scientist and as a Christian, that is exactly what I
believe. True knowledge comes only from a combination of faith and reason.
Kenneth R. Miller, cell biologist (1999)
I wouldn't say you are necessarily mistaken about the nature of reality. But I believe this: There is only
one reality (though people's personal responses to it will differ). The best way to understand it is through
naturalism. Theology gives us little explanation of this reality, at least little explanation that anyone can
believe if they know anything about how the world works.
I agree with you that "naturalistic investigation" can be "complementary to theology," but I can't say the
reverse is true-that theology is complementary to naturalistic investigation. It is more important to know
naturalism than to know theology if you want to understand how human beings and nature work.
I also agree that "there's room for two smart guys to work" with the ideas we've been discussing, but
before that can happen we need to know what God is.
Sincerely,
Greg
Dear Greg:
Take care of yourself. I hope you're feeling better soon. I know you must get tired of hearing nice things
from fans, but I've been listening to BR's The Gray Race lately, and I had forgotten what an incredible
album it is. "Them and Us" is excellent!
For all its objectivity science, by definition, is a human construct, and offers no promise of final
answers. We should, however, remind ourselves that we live in a Universe that seems strangely well
suited for us.... More mysterious ... is the attempt to explain the origins of sentience, such that the
product of ultimately inanimate processes can come to understand both itself, its world, and ... its
(and thus our) strange sense of purpose.Simon Conway Morris, paleontologist (2003)I'm reading an article in U.S. News and World Report about the view of Simon Conway Morris
(Cambridge) that "the emergence of humans was inevitable." His new book is Life's Solution: Inevitable
Humans in a Lonely Universe. You may know about this already just thought I'd pass it along.
Get well. Enjoy the rest.