CPHL709: Religion, Science

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CPHL709 Religion, Science Philosophy

• Ways of Relating Religion and Science

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• Ian Barbour, Ways of Relating Religion and
  Science
• Barbours Four Models of the Relation Between
  Religion and Science
• I. Conflict
• II. Independence
• III. Dialogue
• IV. Integration

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• Ian Barbour, Religion and Science
• I. Conflict
• According to the conflict model, science and
  religion embody incompatible methods and answers
  for the same areas of inquiry. Thus they cannot
  both be correct. The claims of religion and
  science together form a logically inconsistent
  set.
• Barbour illustrates the conflict model through
  two prominent contemporary adherents of it
• (i) scientific materialism and
• (ii) Biblical literalism

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• Ian Barbour, Religion and Science
• (i) Scientific Materialism
• Scientific Materialism goes beyond mere
  acceptance of the findings of science into a
  broad philosophical view of existence which,
  according to Barbour, espouses the following
  tenets
• The scientific method is the only reliable path
  to knowledge
• Matter (or matter and energy) is the fundamental
  reality in the universe
• We can explain anything in terms of its material
  parts processes (a view called physical
  reductionism)
• Religion is in large part a primitive attempt to
  answer the same questions that science addresses,
  so that the claims of religion are largely
  incompatible with the claims of modern science

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• Ian Barbour, Religion and Science
• (ii) Biblical Literalism
• Largely a relatively new (20th c. phenomenon),
  according to Barbour
• BL assumes that the claims in the Bible are
  literally true, and that they thus conflict with
  the claims of modern science (e.g. passages in
  Genesis which contradict the theory of evolution)
• Critics of BL claim that it ignores the
  historical context of the writing and compiling
  of the Bible, and underestimates the metaphorical
  content of religious language

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• Ian Barbour, Religion and Science
• II. Independence
• No conflict because science and religion rule
  separate domains
• We can understand their independence in terms of
• (i) their separate methods of inquiry and
• (ii) their separate linguistic functions

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• Ian Barbour, Religion and
  Science
• (i) separate methods of inquiry
• A couple prominent theological traditions that
  emphasize this approach
• a. Neo-orthodoxy (associated with Karl Barth)
• religion is essentially about our relation with a
  transcendent God, self-revealed to us through
  faith
• Gods realm of activity is primarily the personal
  and historical, not the natural thus scientific
  investigation of nature cant essentially
  conflict with religion
• The Bible is a fallible record witnessing to
  revelatory events. Its opening chapters express
  our creatureliness and the goodness of the
  natural order these pure religious meanings can
  be separated from the ancient cosmological
  speculations.

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• Ian Barbour, Religion and Science
• b. Existentialism (Buber, Bultmann, Gilkey)
• Emphasizes a contrast between the realm of
  personal subjectivity and impersonal objects.
  The meaning of human existence is found in the
  immediacy of individual experience, in personal
  commitment and decisive action, not in the
  objective, rational detachment of scientific
  analysis.
• Martin Buber God is encountered in the personal
  orientation of the I Thou relationship, not
  in the detached, I-It manipulation of objects
  that characterizes science.

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• Ian Barbour, Religion and Science
• Rudolf Bultmann Though the Bible often seems to
  make objective claims about Gods actions within
  nature and history, we must take them largely as
  metaphors for the experiential, inner
  transformation of religious life, for the
  personal re-orientation from fear to hope, and
  ignorance to self-understanding.
• Langdon Gilkey Science asks objective How
  questions seeking to explain the natural order,
  and answers them through acquisition and analysis
  of public, repeatable data religion asks
  personal Why questions about the meaning and
  value of existence, about our ultimate origin and
  destiny.

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• Ian Barbour, Religion and Science
• (ii) Separate languages
• Associated with the linguistic analysts,
  drawing from the later works of the 20th century
  philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein
• Language has a wide variety of functions, and
  each function or language game must be
  understood in its specific social context, and
  should not be judged by the standards of other
  language games.
• Scientific language aims to describe natural
  phenomena, make predictions about it, and control
  it through technological applications. We should
  not expect it to furnish an overall philosophy of
  life, or to express ethical norms
• Religious language is used to recommend a way of
  life, shape attitudes, facilitate communal ritual
  and private religious experience.

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• Ian Barbour, Religion and Science
• III. Dialogue
• A milder version of Integration science and
  religion have points of contact, but still
  important separations.
• Religion has, historically, lay the ground for
  science - e.g. with the assumption that world
  is orderly and rational
• Science raises questions that it itself cannot
  answer - this is where religion steps in and
  can offer aid (e.g. why is it that the universe
  is orderly?)

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• Ian Barbour, Religion and Science
• On the other hand, science fills in gaps in the
  religious account. Religion tells us that God is
  intelligent, that he created the world, while
  science shows us in astounding detail and with
  precision the work of Gods intelligence, the
  mechanics of his Creation.
• Further, detailed scientific knowledge of the
  world can evoke religious sentiment and wonder at
  creation (Newton, Einstein). On the other side,
  one might begin with religious awe of Gods
  creation and then desire to learn more about it
  through science.

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• Ian Barbour, Religion and Science
• IV. Integration
• A lot like the Dialogue model, but the relation
  between science is here thought to be more direct
  and dramatic.
• For example, according to the integration model
  the findings of science do not merely suggest the
  existence of God, but can be used rigorously in
  proofs for Gods existence. In this model,
  recent findings in science are employed in
  theological argument (e.g. The Fine-tuning
  Argument)

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• John Worrall, Does Science Discredit
  Religion?
• John Worrall defends the conflict model against
  the independence model, or what he refers to as
  the non-overlapping magisteria view (NOMA).
• He claims that There is no way in which you can
  be both properly scientifically minded and a true
  believer.

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• Worrall, Does
  Science Discredit Religion?
• There are three ways of interpreting NOMA,
  argues Worrall. And on each interpretation, it
  seems that religion still encroaches upon the
  scientific domain.
• (a) On the first interpretation, NOMA posits two
  realities a
• spiritual one within which religion is
  competent, and a
• material one, within which science is
  competent.
• Worralls response
• There is only one reality, and for any belief we
  have about what it contains we must ask the very
  same question what evidence do we have for that
  belief? Insofar as religion makes claims about
  reality, then, it is potentially in conflict with
  science.

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• Worrall, Does Science Discredit
  Religion?
• (b) Religious explanation only kicks in once
  science has gone as far as it can.
• Worralls Response
• (i) the realm of reality which science can
  explain has increased through its history thus
  religion is reduced to a God of the Gaps role.
• (ii) In order to count as a genuine explanation
  of those realities beyond the ken of science,
  religion must carry rational warrant. But
  acquiring rational warrant for our beliefs about
  reality must involve gathering evidence. But
  that is just what science is designed to do.

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• Worrall,
  Does Science Discredit Religion?
• (c) Religion makes no purely descriptive claims
  about reality but rather provides moral guidance
  and affirmations of the value of reality. It
  adopts a certain attitude toward reality.
• Worralls Response
• (i) In its pure form (c) indeed involves no
  conflict with religion.
• But in practice religious ethical
  views usually rely on
• descriptive claims about reality.

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• Atkins, Purposeless People
• Atkins is a clear proponent of scientific
  materialism. His position can be analysed into
  two component views
• (i) An epistemological view
• (ii)An ontological view

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• Atkins,
  Purposeless People
• (i) Science is the only path to knowledge. We
  can only rely on empirical data (in conjunction
  with logical reasoning).
• Thus we only have reason to believe in those
  things revealed to us by science. This takes us
  to the ontological thesis.

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• Atkins,
  Purposeless People
• All that exists in the universe is physical.
  Thus
• There are no supernatural phenomena e.g.,
  spirits, souls, gods.
• Humans are made up of the same thing as
  everything else in the universe matter.
• There is likely no such thing as free will since
  all events in the universe are physically
  determined.
• There is no ultimate (pre-ordained or fated by
  God) purpose or meaning to our existence.
• Our fate is annihilation and non-existence like
  everything else.

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• Atkins,
  Purposeless People
• Atkins supports his scientific materialism with
  claims about the success and explanatory
  simplicity of science
• P1. Over time, science has explained more and
  more of what was originally thought to be beyond
  human comprehension e.g., natural disasters, the
  origins of life, consciousness
• P2. Moreover, science explains with increasingly
  simple theoretical apparatus. This movement
  toward a Theory of Everything suggests that
  science is explaining reality at increasingly
  fundamental levels.
• _______________________________
• C1. There is thus inductive reason thus to
  conclude that science will overcome all barriers
  and eventually be able to explain everything in
  materialist terms.

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• Gardiner, Science and the
  Unknowable
• The expansive success of science over the last
  four centuries inspires Gardiners main question
  
• Can science eventually know everything?

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• Gardiner, Science and the
  Unknowable
• There are two senses of everything here
• (i) meaning every true proposition
• This is the trivial sense of everything.
  Knowing everything in this sense would include
  knowing infinite trivial truths such as how many
  hairs Plato had.
• (ii) meaning all the fundamental laws of
• physics which can be used to explain all
• physical phenomena
• These laws might reduce to a small elegant set of
  laws, the Theory of Everything - the
  ultimate dream of physical reductionism

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• Gardiner, Science and the
  Unknowable
• A current candidate for a TEO is Superstring
  Theory
• The multitude of fundamental particles (quarks
  and electrons) are in fact tiny vibrating
  one-dimensional strings.
• There are different kinds of particles because
  the strings vibrate at different frequencies.

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• Gardiner, Science and the
  Unknowable
• But there is a deep logical problem for any
  supposed TOE It necessarily will involve
  presuppositions, axioms, or brute facts that
  are left unexplained.
• We explain one thing, A, by reference to another
  more fundamental phenomenon, B. But we can then
  ask what explains B?

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• Gardiner, Science and the
  Unknowable
• Even if quantum mechanics becomes explained
  as part of a deeper theory - call it X - as
  Einstein believed it eventually would be, then we
  can ask Why X? There is no escape from the
  superultimate questions Why is there something
  rather than nothing, and why is that something
  structured the way it is? p. 355

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• Gardiner, Science and the
  Unknowable
• According to Gardiner, this explanatory limit
  leaves room for something resembling religious
  awe at the ultimate mystery of the universe.
• Note that it does not leave room for religion to
  step in and explain the mysteries that science
  cant For even religious explanation must
  invoke phenomena that are themselves left
  unexplained (supernatural phenomena).
• Rather, religion and science can share a common
  appreciation of the Unknowable, and humility in
  the face of it.