{"id":2532,"date":"2013-05-11T08:35:35","date_gmt":"2013-05-11T15:35:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tgdarkly.com\/blog\/?p=2532"},"modified":"2013-05-11T08:35:35","modified_gmt":"2013-05-11T15:35:35","slug":"religion-and-science-method-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/2013\/05\/11\/religion-and-science-method-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Religion and Science: Method 1"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
“But already my desire and my will
were being turned like a wheel, all at one speed,
by the Love which moves the sun and the other stars.” — Dante, Divine Comedy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This begins a series of posts, drawn from parts of my doctoral dissertation, on methodology in the field of religion and science.<\/p>\n

1:\u00a0 Convergence to Conflict<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The field of \u201cscience and religion\u201d has become an important sub-discipline of modern theology.[1]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>This development parallels the rapid ascendancy of \u201cscience\u201d as the paradigm of trustworthy authority in modernity and the related development of the \u201cconflict\u201d or \u201cwarfare\u201d narrative of the relation between science and religion.[2]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>The rise of secularism is intimately related to the social and intellectual authority commanded by \u201cscience\u201d in modernity.[3]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Theology in the Christian, Jewish and Muslim traditions historically interacted fruitfully with the \u201cscience\u201d of the day, at least prior to the Seventeenth Century.\u00a0 <\/span>The Hebrew creation narratives in the Biblical book of Genesis both absorb and distinguish the ancient near eastern cosmologies of Assyria, Babylon and Egypt.[4]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>The Church Fathers adapted and transformed Platonic philosophy and cosmology, and medieval Muslim, Christian, and Jewish theologians adapted the insights of Aristotle after the rediscovery of the Aristotelian corpus by Islamic scholars.[5]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

In 1616, however, the Copernican view of heliocentrism, confirmed and popularized by Galileo, was condemned by the Catholic Church.[6]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>Galileo himself was condemned and his works were banned by Papal decree in 1633.[7]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>The Papal Decree of Condemnation asserted that<\/p>\n

The proposition that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026.<\/span><\/p>\n

The proposition that the Earth is not the center of the world and immovable but that it moves, and also with a diurnal motion, is equally absurd and false philosophically and theologically considered at least erroneous in faith. [8]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

There is considerable scholarly debate about the circumstances of Galileo\u2019s condemnation.\u00a0 <\/span>As Charles Hummel describes it, \u201cGalileo\u2019s trial of 1633 was not the simple conflict between science and religion so commonly pictured.\u00a0 <\/span>It was a complex power struggle of personal and professional pride, envy, and ambition, affected by pressures of bureaucratic politics.\u201d[9]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>Galileo\u2019s own acerbic personality, as well as the crisis of the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, and the Thirty Years\u2019 War, are also often cited by defenders of the Church as contextual factors around Galileo\u2019s condemnation.[10]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>Even after Galileo\u2019s condemnation, heliocentrism continued to be taught as a mathematical concept, and by 1835, the heliocentric texts of Copernicus and Galileo were removed from the Catholic Church\u2019s Index of Forbidden Books.[11]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>In 2000, Pope John Paul II formally apologized for the Church\u2019s treatment of Galileo, along with apologies for historic mistreatment of Jews, the Crusades, and other matters.[12]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Notwithstanding these qualifications, the Galileo affair represents a touchstone event for the relationship between theology and science.\u00a0 <\/span>The heliocentric cosmos challenged not only the interpretation of a few Biblical passages, but also the broader Aristotelian cosmology that informed the medieval synthesis of \u201cscience\u201d and theology.[13]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>When Newtonianism subsequently questioned Aristotelian causation and the sense of a great chain of being more broadly, Lyellian geology questioned the antiquity of the Earth and the \u201cdays\u201d of creation recorded in Genesis 1, and Darwinism questioned anthropocentric biology, theology faced an even more significant challenge.[14]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>At the same time, scientific methods of textual analysis, archeology and historiography were being applied to the Biblical texts in ways that questioned the fundamental integrity of the Bible.[15]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Nineteenth Century Christian thinkers reacted to the Newtonian, Lyellian and Darwinian challenges inconsistently.\u00a0 <\/span>During the ascendency of Newtonianism, many opted for a kind of mechanistic Deism that was at odds with the Christian view of a God who is intimately providentially involved with creation.[16]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>In Christian theology\u2019s first encounters with Darwinism, notwithstanding the perhaps exaggerated accounts of the clash between Samuel Wilberforce and Thomas Henry Huxley, the majority responded with cautious appraisal and appropriation of both Lyell and Darwin, while working with notions of providence that attempted to accommodate both the Biblical picture and Newton.[17]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>Their efforts sometimes led to theological aberrations such as William Paley\u2019s \u201cwatchmaker\u201d natural theology, but they nevertheless worked from a framework that assumed the \u201cbook of scripture\u201d and the \u201cbook of nature\u201d spoke complementary truths.[18]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

The Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy that erupted among American Protestants in the early Twentieth Century, however, ignited a tinderbox of conflict, highlighted in the infamous \u201cScopes Monkey Trial\u201d of 1925 in Dayton, Tennesee.[19]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>Fundamentalists rejected Darwinian science in toto, and further rejected in toto the historical-critical inquiry of the Biblical sources.[20]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>The rise of Protestant Fundamentalism supported the development of \u201ccreation science,\u201d which asserts that the Bible can be read as an innerant scientific text and that God literally created the universe in six days around 6,500 years ago.[21]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>The enormous cultural influence of \u201ccreation science,\u201d particularly in North America but increasingly world-wide, is evidenced by the multi-million dollar \u201cCreation Museum\u201d in Kentucky.[22]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>In the view of \u201ccreation science,\u201d there is a clear conflict between theology and modern evolutionary science.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

A somewhat more sophisticated version of this sort of creationism, is the \u201cIntelligent Design\u201d movement, which attempts to disprove the theory of evolution by through scientific evidences for \u201cdesign\u201d in creation through statistical gaps and probabilities and information theory.[23]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>Although many ID proponents do not identify with scientific creationism\u2019s insistence on reading the book of Genesis literally, they likewise presume that the Biblical revelation must somehow conform to and be confirmed by \u201cscience.\u201d[24]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>And because of this presumption, ID advocates generally argue that the findings of evolutionary biology fundamentally conflict with Christian theology.[25]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

The extraordinary cultural influence of \u201cnew atheists\u201d such as Richard Dawkins represents another extreme node of this warfare thesis.[26]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>Darwinism is here elevated to an all-encompassing worldview.\u00a0 <\/span>For example, David Sloan Wilson, Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences and Anthropology at Binghamton University, argues that Darwinian evolution fully explains everything, including every aspect of human nature.[27]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>Anyone who thinks otherwise, even \u201cintellectuals\u201d who are not religious, is a kind of fundamentalist, an \u201c\u2019academic creationist.\u2019\u201d[28]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>Religion, for these ultra-Darwinists, is like a pernicious virus that must be eradicated by science.[29]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n


<\/p>\n
\n
\n

[1]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> See, e.g., Rachel Muers and Mike Higton, Modern Theology:\u00a0 <\/span>A Critical Introduction <\/span>(Routledge 2012), Chapter 11; Peter Harrison, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion<\/span> (Cambridge Univ. Press 2010); Alister McGrath, Science & Religion:\u00a0 <\/span>A New Introduction <\/span>(Wiley-Blackwell 2nd<\/sup> ed. 2010).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[2]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> See McGrath, Science & Religion:\u00a0 <\/span>A New Introduction<\/span>, at pp. 9-11.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[3]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> See, e.g., <\/i>Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self:\u00a0 <\/span>The Making of Modern Identity (Harvard Univ. Press 1989), Chapter 19; A Secular Age<\/span> (Harvard Univ. Press 2007), Chapter 7; Brad S. Gregory, The Unintended Reformation:\u00a0 <\/span>How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society<\/span> (Harvard Univ. Press 2012), Chapter One; Jonathan I. Israel, Radical Enlightenment:\u00a0 <\/span>Philosophy and the Making of<\/span> Modernity 1650-1750 (Oxford Univ. Press 2002); John Hedley Brooke, \u201cScience and Secularization,\u201d in Peter Harrison, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion<\/span> (Cambridge Univ. Press 2010).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[4]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> See <\/i>John F. Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament:\u00a0 <\/span>Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible<\/span> (Baker Academic 2006); M. Conrad Hyers, The Meaning of Creation:\u00a0 <\/span>Genesis and Modern Science<\/span> (Westminster John Knox 1984).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[5]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> See <\/i>Hans Boersma, Heavenly Participation:\u00a0 <\/span>The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry<\/span> (Eerdmans 2011); David B. Burrell, Freedom and Creation in Three Traditions <\/span>(Univ. of Notre Dame Press 1993); David C. Lindberg, \u201cThe Fate of Science in Patristic and Medieval Christendom,\u201d in The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion<\/span>; Conor Cunningham, Darwin\u2019s Pious Idea:\u00a0 <\/span>Why the Ultra-Darwinists and Creationists Both Get it Wrong<\/span> (Eerdman\u2019s 2010), Chapter Seven.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[6]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> See<\/i> Charles E. Hummel, The Galileo Connection:\u00a0 <\/span>Resolving Conflicts Between Science & The Bible<\/span> (InterVarsity Press 1986); \u201cFamous Trials:\u00a0 <\/span>The Trial of Galileo\u201d webpage, available at http:\/\/law2.umkc.edu\/faculty\/projects\/ftrials\/galileo\/galileo.html.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[7]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> Hummel, The Galileo Connection<\/span>, at pp. 108-118; \u201cThe Trial of Galileo\u201d webpage, text of Papal Condemnation, available at http:\/\/law2.umkc.edu\/faculty\/projects\/ftrials\/galileo\/condemnation.html.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[8]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> \u201cThe Trial of Galileo\u201d webpage, text of Papal Condemnation, available at http:\/\/law2.umkc.edu\/faculty\/projects\/ftrials\/galileo\/condemnation.html.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[9]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> Hummel, The Galileo Connection<\/span>, at p. 116.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[10]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> See <\/i>The Vatican Observatory Website, \u201cThe Galileo Affair,\u201d available at http:\/\/vaticanobservatory.org\/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=197%3Athe-galileo-affair&catid=89%3Ahistory-of-astronomy&Itemid=242&lang=en.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[11]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> Id.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[12]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> The theological basis for these apologies is set forth in the International Theological Commission\u2019s December 1999 doucment Memory and Reconciliation:\u00a0 <\/span>The Church and the Faults of the Past<\/i>, available at http:\/\/www.vatican.va\/roman_curia\/congregations\/cfaith\/cti_documents\/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000307_memory-reconc-itc_en.html<\/a>, approved by then-Cardinal Josef Ratzinger acting as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[13]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> See <\/i>Hummel, The Galileo Connection<\/span>, Chapter 1.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[14]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> See <\/i>Rachel Muers and Mike Higton, Modern Theology:\u00a0 <\/span>A Critical Introduction<\/span> (Routledge 2012), Chapter 11.\u00a0 <\/span>As Conor Cunningham argues, it is not at all clear that any of these developments do, in fact, challenge all notions of a chain of being or of human uniqueness.\u00a0 <\/span>Cunningham, Darwin\u2019s Pious Idea<\/span>, at pp. 2-3.\u00a0 <\/span>This perspective will be developed later in this Chapter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[15]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> Cite\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[16]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> See <\/i>Taylor, A Secular Age<\/span> (Harvard Univ. Press 2007), Chapter 7.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[17]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> From a Protestant perspective, for example, see Mark A. Noll and David N. Livingstone, eds., B.B. Warfield, Evolution, Science, & Scripture:\u00a0 <\/span>Selected Writings<\/span> (Baker 2000).\u00a0 <\/span>For a typical account of the Huxley-Wilberforce conflict as a watershed crisis moment for Christian theology, see Muers and Highton, at p. 212-215.\u00a0 <\/span>For a more careful account of the Huxley-Wilberforce encounter, David Livingstone, \u201cThat Huxley Defeated Wilberforce in Their Debate Over Evolution and Religion,\u201d in Ronald L. Numbers, ed. Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths About Science and Religion<\/span> (Harvard Univ. Press 2009); J.R. Lucas, \u201cWilberforce and Huxley:\u00a0 <\/span>A Legendary Encounter,\u201d The Historical Journal<\/span> 22:313-330 (June 1979).\u00a0 <\/span>For an account that limits the immediate significance of the debate but underscores the genuine theological tensions felt by Wilberforce over the problem of human evolution, see Frank James, \u201cOn Wilberforce and Huxley,\u201d Astronomy and Geophysics<\/span> (1) 2005.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[18]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> See<\/i> McGrath, Science & Religion:\u00a0 <\/span>An Introduction, at p. 31; John Henry, \u201cReligion and the Scientific Revolution,\u201d in The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion<\/span>, at pp. 52-55.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[19]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> Id.<\/i>, at p. 220-221.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[20]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> See <\/i>George Marsden, Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism<\/span> (Eerdmans 1990), Chapters 6, 9.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[21]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> See Ronald L. Numbers, The Creationists:\u00a0 <\/span>From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design<\/span> (Harvard Univ. Press 2006); \u201cAnswers in Genesis\u201d website, available at http:\/\/www.answersingenesis.org.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[22]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> See<\/i> Creation Museum Website, available at http:\/\/creationmuseum.org\/.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[23]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> See id<\/i>.; William A. Dembski, Intelligent Design:\u00a0 <\/span>The Bridge Between Science & Theology<\/span> (IVP Academic 2002); \u201cUncommon Descent\u201d website, available at http:\/\/www.uncommondescent.com.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[24]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> See <\/i>Conor Cunningham, Darwin\u2019s Pious Idea<\/span>, at pp. 278-280.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[25]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> Hence the double meaning in the title of one of William Dembski\u2019s recent books:\u00a0 <\/span>The End of Christianity:\u00a0 <\/span>Finding a Good God in an Evil World<\/span> (Baker Academic 2009), in which Dembski argues that Christianity fails without a scientifically demonstrable chronology for the Fall from Eden.\u00a0 <\/span>Dembski\u2019s attempt to provide such a chronology is certainly far more sophisticated than that of creation science.\u00a0 <\/span>He accepts the geological age of the Earth and even the broad outlines of biological evolution (albeit punctuated in some way by infusions of Divine \u201cdesign\u201d apart from the ordinary processes of nature), but he argues that the Fall had retroactive effects because time can run forwards and backwards.\u00a0 <\/span>Absent this sort of mathematical construction of the retroactive effects of time, however, it seems that Dembski would agree with the ultra-Darwinists that Christianity has been scientifically<\/i> falsified.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[26]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> See, e.g., Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion<\/span> (Mariner Books 2008).\u00a0 <\/span>See also Cunningham, Darwin\u2019s Pious Idea<\/span>, at pp. 272-275 (\u201cOur Auntie Jean and Richard Dawkins\u201d).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[27]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> David Sloan Wilson, Evolution for Everyone:\u00a0 <\/span>How Darwin\u2019s Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Ourselves<\/span> (Delacorte Press 2007).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[28]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> Id.<\/i> at 3 (quoting The Nation, \u201cThe New Creationism:\u00a0 <\/span>Biology Under Attack,\u201d 1997).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

[29]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> Dawkins, The God Delusion<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Photo credit:\u00a0 NASA<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This begins a series of posts, drawn from parts of my doctoral dissertation, on methodology in the field of religion and science. 1:\u00a0 Convergence to Conflict The field of \u201cscience and religion\u201d has become an important sub-discipline of modern theology.[1]\u00a0 This development parallels the rapid ascendancy of \u201cscience\u201d as the paradigm of trustworthy authority in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[71,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cosmos","category-science-and-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-EQ","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}