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Note #8403 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

God is sovereign
GA04109
July 2, 2004

God is sovereign

Humans are not the center of the cosmos, professor points out

by Shane Whisler

RICHMOND, July 2 - God, not humans, is at the center of the cosmos, Douglas
F. Ottati said during Thursday's Faith and Science Luncheon, an annual
General Assembly event sponsored by the Presbyterian Association on Science,
Technology and the Christian Faith.

Ottatti, an author and professor of theology at Union Theological Seminary
and Presbyterian School of Christian Education (Union-PSCE), said: "Keeping
an eye on the relationship between religion and science is the single most
important thing you can be about in theology."

In his address, Which Way Is Up?: An Experiment in Christian Theology and
Modern Cosmology, Ottatti described a vast cosmos at the center of which only
God is to be found, while humanity and Earth are peripheral.

The only way for a human to be at the center, he said, is to stand up and
turn in a circle and be satisfied to be the center of a very circumscribed,
visible world.

"God is sovereign," he said in a variety of ways.

"Our theological pictures or visions of God, the world and ourselves,
sometimes change and adjust in order to take into account scientific
findings, ideas and beliefs," he said.

Not allowing the integration of science and faith may mean doing theology
under the influence of the outmoded construct that places humanity at the
center of a three-tiered cosmos with a physical heaven above and a physical
hell below.

Ottati's address harmonized with a purpose statement of the association - to
"challenge and assist the Presbyterian Church (USA) ... to study, understand,
discuss, and act on the implications of science and technology as they affect
the theology, worship, practice, and moral actions of the church."

In other business, the association awarded its Daniel W. Martin Award to
Robert E. Hall, a branch chief of the Environmental Protection Agency from
North Carolina; William F. Junkin III, dean for learning and technology of
Erskine College and Seminary in South Carolina; and Frank Hensley, an
associate professor at Grand Canyon University. The award honors
professionals in science and technology who demonstrate in their lives that
scientific endeavor, science teaching, and technological development are all
part of God's calling.

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found at http://www.pcusa.org/ga216/.

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