On Advent Hope: Insights from Scripture, Science, and Jazz
Hope in a Hopeless Time
We need hope grounded in God. I’m willing to call it theological hope. It’s the conviction that God is active when we don’t see it. It’s the promise that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose
Easter: An Epistemological Rearrangement of Hope
Hope is like magic, in that it rearranges our epistemological perception of what is real and what is possible. It makes the impossible appear possible. But Dr. Nagib posits that hope is more than magic. Hope is the inner voice that whispers (or shouts) that anything is possible, even in the face of a seemingly hopeless situation.
How God Works
I get a little annoyed each time a science and faith conversation gets railroaded by the question of origins, climate change, or some other contentious issue. Sure, these are issues that our churches must wrestle with, but by putting all our attention on areas of felt conflict, we might entirely miss the ways science reveals how God works.
Hope and Optimism
Hope and optimism are often lumped together (as we have done here), but they are not precise synonyms. In church, most of our attention is on hope, a central aspect of the Gospel message. For scientists, the attention is reversed as optimism is an easier concept to define and study experimentally. So what are scientists discovering?