Stewardship
Scientism
Both camps of Sacred Scientism
feel the tension between
scientific data and interpretation and Revealed data and interpretation. Stewardship Scientism
is heir to the Aristotelian tradition within Christianity
which held that “faith seeks understanding.” This
phrase implies that the task of understanding is a faithful act.
Where The Sixth
Dayers worry
about the Devil using scientific data to corrupt humans,
the
Stewards see scientific data as another way God has given humans
to see the
splendor and beauty of His creation.
Historically, Stewardship Scientism
traces its approach to the tradition of Natural
Theology. This has evolved into a
Creation Spirituality (not "Creationism")
which affirms, as The Sixth Dayers do, that Creation is excellent,
but who
hold that what is discovered by science is a tool for spiritual
insight and growth. They hold that “as below, so above” which means
that what is discovered on Earth reflects what exists above, in heaven.
Pierre Teilhard de
Chardin, S. J., is one representative of this group. He was so enraptured
by modern scientific advances
that
even
within the horrific
destruction
caused by dropping the Atomic Bomb he espied the glory of Creation
revealed. He wrote an essay with a quite exceptional and, admittedly,
peculiar title, “Some
Reflections on
the Spiritual Repercussions of the Atom Bomb.” Two
quotes are:
"To fly, to beget, to kill for the
first time—these, as we know, suffice to transform a life. By
the liberation of atomic energy on a massive
scale, and for the first time, man has not only changed the face of
the earth; he has by the very act set in motion at the heart of his
being
a long chain of reactions which, in the brief flash of an explosion
of matter, has made of him, virtually at least, a new being hitherto
unknown
to himself." (Italics added)
and
Continue—Stewardship
