In Session 7, Dr. Johnny Lin argues that both scientific and religious knowing are partial yet actionable, especially in everyday decisions. He lays out working models for how different kinds of knowing—revelation, reason, intuition, and feeling—interact, showing that neither “science alone” nor “faith alone” suffices for complex practical judgments. Instead, Christians can practice epistemic humility while still deciding well: weigh evidence, honor Scripture and tradition, attend to moral intuitions, and recognize affect—each domain with its own strengths and pitfalls. The talk’s framing echoes 1 Corinthians 13’s “know in part,” urging wise integration rather than competition between science and theology.
Linda Eastwood responds by welcoming Lin’s integrative models and pressing them toward pastoral clarity: how can congregations actually use these tools in ordinary choices, and how do we guard against smuggling biases into “intuition” or “feeling”? She highlights the need for communal discernment practices that make the models accessible beyond specialists, while keeping Scripture’s authority central and scientific claims in appropriate scope. The session later appeared in print (with Eastwood’s response) in Ex Auditu 32, which lists Lin’s paper under the extended subtitle about deciding “whether to wear checks with stripes.”
Timestamps
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Opening & introductions 00:00
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Talk begins (Lin) 03:40
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Why “knowing in part”: humility without paralysis ~06:00
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Four contributors to knowing: revelation, reason, intuition, feeling ~12:00
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How the contributors interact (working models)
~18:00 -
Everyday decision case studies (e.g., “checks vs. stripes”) ~26:00
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Guardrails: bias, cherry-picking evidence, overconfidence ~34:00
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Pastoral takeaways: communal discernment & formation ~41:00
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Response (Linda Eastwood) ~48:00
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Audience Q&A ~56:00
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