27/04: Science and Religion
Category: Religion & Public Policy
Posted by: an okie gardener
Last night as I was setting our clock radio, I caught these words from Dr. Dean Edell over WBAP Dallas/Ft. Worth. He was commenting on something the pope said about science, and made this statement (close to a quote, but maybe not exact) : science deals with things that are real, religion deals with faith. Let's think about this assertion.
First, science deals with things that are real. Leaving aside the fact that for a time science dealt with "ether" rather than a vacuum between planets and stars, he seems to imply that everything real can be dealt with by science. Really? Science can deal with what our senses can perceive directly or indirectly, and our minds comprehend and theorize about. But is that all there is? In other words, it is a statement of faith to believe that there is nothing real beyond what science can deal with. A challenge: prove, by scientific method, that there is nothing more than what science can deal with. Can't be done. A good scientist who understands the philosophy of science would not claim that all of reality can be comprehended by science.
Second, religion deals with faith. Yes it does. But, religions make truth claims. In so doing, religions make claims about reality. Now this reality may or may not concern things that science also can investigate, but nonetheless, statements are made as facts, not simply as opinions. And who said that science is the only allowable method of checking truth claims?
As for what the Pope said, I am not sure what Dr. Edell referred to. Perhaps some of the critiques of science made by Benedict XVI, the philospher-bishop, such as this from his 2007 encyclical In Hope (in extended section. Or, more probably this address.
25. What this means is that every generation has the task of engaging anew in the arduous search for the right way to order human affairs; this task is never simply completed. Yet every generation must also make its own contribution to establishing convincing structures of freedom and of good, which can help the following generation as a guideline for the proper use of human freedom; hence, always within human limits, they provide a certain guarantee also for the future. In other words: good structures help, but of themselves they are not enough. Man can never be redeemed simply from outside. Francis Bacon and those who followed in the intellectual current of modernity that he inspired were wrong to believe that man would be redeemed through science. Such an expectation asks too much of science; this kind of hope is deceptive. Science can contribute greatly to making the world and mankind more human. Yet it can also destroy mankind and the world unless it is steered by forces that lie outside it. On the other hand, we must also acknowledge that modern Christianity, faced with the successes of science in progressively structuring the world, has to a large extent restricted its attention to the individual and his salvation. In so doing it has limited the horizon of its hope and has failed to recognize sufficiently the greatness of its task—even if it has continued to achieve great things in the formation of man and in care for the weak and the suffering.
26. It is not science that redeems man: man is redeemed by love. This applies even in terms of this present world. When someone has the experience of a great love in his life, this is a moment of “redemption” which gives a new meaning to his life. But soon he will also realize that the love bestowed upon him cannot by itself resolve the question of his life. It is a love that remains fragile. It can be destroyed by death. The human being needs unconditional love. He needs the certainty which makes him say: “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38- 39). If this absolute love exists, with its absolute certainty, then—only then—is man “redeemed”, whatever should happen to him in his particular circumstances. This is what it means to say: Jesus Christ has “redeemed” us. Through him we have become certain of God, a God who is not a remote “first cause” of the world, because his only-begotten Son has become man and of him everyone can say: “I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20).
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First, science deals with things that are real. Leaving aside the fact that for a time science dealt with "ether" rather than a vacuum between planets and stars, he seems to imply that everything real can be dealt with by science. Really? Science can deal with what our senses can perceive directly or indirectly, and our minds comprehend and theorize about. But is that all there is? In other words, it is a statement of faith to believe that there is nothing real beyond what science can deal with. A challenge: prove, by scientific method, that there is nothing more than what science can deal with. Can't be done. A good scientist who understands the philosophy of science would not claim that all of reality can be comprehended by science.
Second, religion deals with faith. Yes it does. But, religions make truth claims. In so doing, religions make claims about reality. Now this reality may or may not concern things that science also can investigate, but nonetheless, statements are made as facts, not simply as opinions. And who said that science is the only allowable method of checking truth claims?
As for what the Pope said, I am not sure what Dr. Edell referred to. Perhaps some of the critiques of science made by Benedict XVI, the philospher-bishop, such as this from his 2007 encyclical In Hope (in extended section. Or, more probably this address.
25. What this means is that every generation has the task of engaging anew in the arduous search for the right way to order human affairs; this task is never simply completed. Yet every generation must also make its own contribution to establishing convincing structures of freedom and of good, which can help the following generation as a guideline for the proper use of human freedom; hence, always within human limits, they provide a certain guarantee also for the future. In other words: good structures help, but of themselves they are not enough. Man can never be redeemed simply from outside. Francis Bacon and those who followed in the intellectual current of modernity that he inspired were wrong to believe that man would be redeemed through science. Such an expectation asks too much of science; this kind of hope is deceptive. Science can contribute greatly to making the world and mankind more human. Yet it can also destroy mankind and the world unless it is steered by forces that lie outside it. On the other hand, we must also acknowledge that modern Christianity, faced with the successes of science in progressively structuring the world, has to a large extent restricted its attention to the individual and his salvation. In so doing it has limited the horizon of its hope and has failed to recognize sufficiently the greatness of its task—even if it has continued to achieve great things in the formation of man and in care for the weak and the suffering.
26. It is not science that redeems man: man is redeemed by love. This applies even in terms of this present world. When someone has the experience of a great love in his life, this is a moment of “redemption” which gives a new meaning to his life. But soon he will also realize that the love bestowed upon him cannot by itself resolve the question of his life. It is a love that remains fragile. It can be destroyed by death. The human being needs unconditional love. He needs the certainty which makes him say: “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38- 39). If this absolute love exists, with its absolute certainty, then—only then—is man “redeemed”, whatever should happen to him in his particular circumstances. This is what it means to say: Jesus Christ has “redeemed” us. Through him we have become certain of God, a God who is not a remote “first cause” of the world, because his only-begotten Son has become man and of him everyone can say: “I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20).
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Martian Mariner wrote:
J.P. Moreland covered (in exhaustive, dense detail) this topic in "Christianity and the Nature of Science," and comes to much the same view as you've described. Basically, he says that science by its nature NEEDS philosophy for guidance, that science is not the only approach to explaining truths (nor the sole user of the "scientific" method), and that "scientific realism", or viewing science's theories as fully explaining the real world, is successful on a case-by-case basis, not as an overarching worldview.
Available here: http://www.amazon.com/Chris...