Language of God

Katey Walter Anthony has done much of her research deep in the arctic, studying the methane bubbles that are released in thawed permafrost lakes. What she has learned helps us to better understand the complexity of earth’s climate and how it might change in the future. But alongside the exciting story of her scientific journey is a story about how she has come to understand God’s place in it all.

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Both science and the Christian faith share a commitment to humility. Each also provides us with a perspective of the world which we believe to be true. How then do we hold onto these things we believe to be true and be open to the fact that we can’t know everything? In this episode we explore that tension, looking into the deeper meaning of humility in the realms of both science and faith. 

Thanks to our guests in exploring these ideas: psychologist, Charlotte vanOyen-Witvliet; theologian and poet, Padraig Ó Tuama; biologist, Steve Roels; and evolutionary biologist, Sarah Bodbyl Roels. 

This episode originally aired on October 8, 2020.

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Charles Foster has spent a lot of time trying to deeply understand what it is like to be other than himself. It has led him to explore and emulate the life of badgers, foxes, and swifts as well as the lives of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers. In doing so he hopes to better understand all the people in his world and ultimately himself. He talks about his journey from a curious and wandering child to who he is today, including the place of religion and the place of science, both of which have the opportunity of enriching our view of the world and allowing to see into the other, but which also have the possibility of limiting our openness to inhabit otherness and therefore hinder our ability to better understand God.

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Andy Gosler is an ethno-ornithologist, studying the relationships between people and birds. We talk about what that means and the importance of knowing the names of the living creatures around us, as we walk through an ancient hay meadow on a gray day in Oxfordshire, UK.

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Kids ask a lot of questions. When those questions come to hard topics about science and faith it can be tempting to dismiss them or brush them off or to think they are too young to engage with the questions. But often this shows children that their questions are not welcome and that their curiosity is dangerous. Lizzie Henderson and Faith Stults both work on developing resources for children to engage in the science and faith conversation and they sit down to talk about ways to encourage questions and creativity so that children can grow up with the tools to explore hard concepts without fear and without the thought that they must choose between faith and science.

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We’re trying a new segment on the podcast where we walk with someone, letting the place inspire the conversation. Today we take a walk with historian Stan Rosenberg and talk about the history of science and faith, inspired by some of the buildings built in the 19th century at the University of Oxford that show the often blurry lines between the sacred and the secular. Then, the conversation moves back all the way to the 4th and 5th century with a discussion about science and faith in the mind and the times at Saint Augustine.

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There are many biological structures in our bodies, things like proteins, DNA and RNA, and they do amazing things. How these structures came to self-assemble is somewhat of a mystery, but Ard Louis has been studying just that question and his works has shown that qualities like symmetry and function tend to show up quite a lot, more than a purely random process might predict. Ard helps us understand what this means for science and then discusses what it might mean for theology, while being careful to realize that our value does not come from describing our origins but from our being made and loved by God. 

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For the past three years, the Faraday Institute and Theos have undergone a large-scale research project to find out how people in the UK understand and think about science and religion. They found that the conversation is much deeper and much more interesting than is often portrayed. Nick Spencer, one of the co-authors of the report and Bethany Sollereder, a theologian and one of the interviewees from the report discuss the findings and how to move into the deep end of the science and religion conversation. 

Read the Report here.
Learn more about Theos and The Faraday Institute.

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David grew up exploring the natural places where there were few people. But his love for nature led him back to people and to a deep desire to understand why we have the ideas that we have about the world. His training in both philosophy and biology has given him an ability to explore these questions from many different angles. In the episode, David tells of his circuitous journey, from childhood to his current career, and how his scientific view of the world and his spiritual view of the world were developed in a way that made them inseparable. Then Jim and David talk about cultural evolution and how the ideas interplay with the current landscape of faith and science in the United States.

This episode originally aired on 

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Deb Haarsma visits the studio to talk to Jim about the James Webb Space Telescope and some of the first images that it has sent back to earth. 

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