A Meandering Walk at Gordon College with Bob, My Imaginary Friend

(This continues my Dialogues on the Soul series...)

GSC: Hey, here we are now at Gordon College. It’s amazing how we get around!

Bob (My Imaginary Friend): Greg, what brings you here?

GSC: I’m at the annual meeting of the American Scientific Affiliation (or ASA).

Bob: Isn’t Gordon beautiful?

GSC: Yes! Gordan College is incredibly well maintained. It definitely has that feel of a northeastern liberal arts campus. You know—beautiful brick buildings and well-maintained lawns. A large coy pond surrounded by forests and walking paths and a host of other small lakes. I might even take a run and a swim. But I digress…

Bob: What are you finding at the conference?

GSC: My overall impression of the ASA meeting is that people are both very committed to science and to their Christian faith. Almost everyone I’ve met are scientists, and their scientific credentials and insights strike me as well-nigh impeccable. If anything's lack, it's a deep integration with theology and biblical studies.

Bob: Anything else?

GSC: I've been inspired by some great talks on the influence of technology. Like Nigel M. de S. Cameron of Trinity Evangelical Divinity. He posed what is for me one of the BIG question for the 21^stcentury: 

Can the individual flourish while technology expands?

And for me, it's got some specific payoff. I’m teaching a western civilization course this fall at Chico State, and it made me wonder: What will teaching humanities mean as we move to trans- or post-humanism?

Bob: Man, tech is a crazy critical topic!

GSC: No doubt. The talk by Timothy Opperman, who did his theological work at Regent College, addressed the seemingly insane idea of a “digital soul” with artificial intelligence (or AI). Here's my burning question: if an AI robots have soul and thus volition, will they have to pay taxes. Forget about Alan Turing, that’s my test for humanness.

Bob: Has anything surprised you?

Greg: Many here are much more amenable to (though not fully embracing of) Intelligent Design theory (ID). Some ID peeps were in fact at the conference, sprinkled among crowd. When former ASA Executive Director Randy Isaac gave a talk critiquing the ID book, Theistic Evolution (which argues against TE), one of the editors was there in the audience. Oddly enough, this occurred while watching Expelled while I got dressed (etc.) in my room in which Ben Stein makes a satirical case for how "intelligent design"... without, I would note, really noting the particulars of ID theory as a paradigm. Stein argues those who seek intelligent design (really God) are being excluded, or “expelled,” from universities and the wider culture.

Bob: I’ve been thinking a good deal of time working on the question of the historical Adam and Eve and the implications of science. Did you touch on that topic?

GSC: In fact, I did! How did you know? I was on a panel for a workshop put together by Washington University professor of computational biology Joshua Swamidass. The historical Adam and Even is a huge topic for the evangelical world. Bottom line of the workshop? Science certainly doesn’t per se lead to an historical Adam and Eve—that’s what we get from the Bible and theology—but science, doesn’t disprove its possibility either.

Bob: The highlight of the whole event?

GSC: That’s gotta be the experience of hearing Francis Collins and the work

he’s doing with biotechnology. I felt as if I was hearing Louis Pasteur or Francis Salk. He showed a video of two year old’s cure form spinal muscular atrophy (like ALS for infants) using biotechnology. 

Bob: Why did it have an impact on you?

GSC: Collins wound this science together with a thoughtful presentation of Christian faith… almost like the double strand of DNA. In fact, after the talk, he headed to a room where we could all sing together and led us in a variety of spiritual and folk classics (and there was a DNA strand graphic on his guitar's neck).

Author Andy Walsh

At any rate, after his talk, I stood and simply took in what I heard. I found myself typing this into my iPhone Notes: 

“Profound. God is doing something through this man.” 

When I think about science and faith—hey, when I just think about life and thought generally—that’s about as good as it gets.

Bob: Hey, there's Andy Walsh, who wrote Faith Across the Multiverse, let's go talk with him...

GSC: Let's do that in the next edition of our dialogues.