Given the variances of presuppositions, there will always be conflicting but legitimate intellectual and experiential contexts appearing in personal and social life. The tension created in the reality of differences can be made friendly, if the various contenders understand and respect each other in consideration of contending ideas, ideas that are important to serious searchers for truth and the good life. (Few persons of any orientation are opposed to the discovery of truth and the good life.) The statement sounds simple and idealistic. It is hard to come by in reality. It would not be generally difficult if it were not for the recalcitrance of mankind. Many human beings are fired up so find even fair competition that might be pursued in peace to be cause for battle. That battle may become intense so as to lead to cover-up, withholding evidence, attack on the motives of persons, disregard for freedom, tendency to distortion, and the like. It sometimes leads to physical assault, even death. The seeking for truth becomes conflict for truth which is to detour from truth by introducing physical conflict for thoughtful preferences, causing difficulty in finding our way back to the main highway where persons going north follow their lanes and persons going south follow theirs without collision but obviously negotiating different directions.
Respect and humility related to the contending parties are proffered in the belief that we are travelling, and have not reached the presumed destination. The direction of much discussion seems to suggest that the contending parties have been to the destination, and have returned to fight out theory and practice. In fact, neither side has yet visited the distant city of resolution. The situation gains additional complexity in that there may be more than two sides in the fray. Crashes on the freeway take a greater toll and are more dramatic in presentation than side roads will provide. The side roads offer opportunity for persons going in the same direction to fall to violence. (At this writing one group representation of Islam is fighting another in an ugly war to determine which of them will take over territories in dispute in Iraq and Iran. The peace and needs of the people ought to be addressed by negotiation, not by warfare and killing.) We will use one illustration for our purpose in the presentation of this Page. In general, persons of earth, both Christian and non-Christian, work with the theory that creation began with the Big Bang. The argument for Christians has taken several starting points: 1- Yes, the world may have begun with a Big Bang, but if so, God caused it and remains involved in the consequences; 2) – No, God created the universe in another model and provided the order we experience throughout history. (There are variances in this view related to fiat creation by God related to seven days, all the way to God using evolutionary creation of variant species to the emergence of homo-sapiens with further refinements following, perhaps continuing.)
Current secular theory is that the Big Bang occurred in some way on its own, and the direction was set, in the early seconds of the event so to provide what we have today in the universe. There is no god, although some permit an agnostic god, who began things and went off to other experience, leaving the results of the Big Bang to play out as it may be doing. The agnostic god will not really hold in the argument or the door is left open that in the Big Bang, he may also have incorporated an order that would work just as well in his absence and with his presence. The system would have been built in by Intelligence (God). Many Christians and secular persons miss the point. They don’t know whether it occurred this way or that way. They believe they do, but they haven’t, at this writing, enough information to prove their points. So much is theoretical, but most persons in the debates have no first-hand knowledge how the conclusions are made. Without that information we can’t be a force in opposing it, nor an effective advocate for it. We have faith in our assertions, but those should be accompanied by the humility of adherence to something beyond our ken. I have great confidence in what I believe, based on the presuppositions that God is, and that he communicates – so involves himself with his creation. Without those presuppositions others can’t accept my most valued beliefs. My duty is to proclaim my faith, and live it. Some proofs differ for persons of faith in that life relating to God, nature and society in personal life contexts. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020