Abstract
Arguably, in the course of Western intellectual history, the rise of Christian theology and the development of modern science stand alone as the most influential and widespread among all the different ideas, theories, and developments since the beginning of recorded history.2 When we think of the many fundamental ways in which Christianity and science have been responsible for shaping and molding and otherwise influencing the fundamental concepts, values, and structure of modern Western societies, it is difficult to argue with such an assessment. It is not surprising then that religion and science are frequently found to have been in conflict for control of the hearts and minds of men and women. In modern times, the scientific revolution stands alone in terms of both the breadth and depth of the social changes that have accompanied it. It is not a matter of simple hyperbole that the scientific revolution is called a revolution. Its changes have proven to be global; in contrast, the Protestant Reformation, as revolutionary as it might have proven to be, was a “domestic affair” among people in Western European countries.3
Attention in this volume to the relationship between religion and science is not confined to this chapter. Readers should also examine Chapters III and VII for further discussion of the interplay between religion and science in the twentieth century.
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References
See, for example, Herbert Butterfield, The Origins of Modem Science, Second Edition(New York: Macmillan, 1957), pp. 175–90. Also see Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World( New York: Free Press, 1925 ), p. 2.
See Whitehead, ibid., pp. 1–2.
See John Hedley Brooke, Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991 ), p. 62.
See James F. Harris, Against Relativism: A Philosophical Defense of Method (LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court, 1992), pp. 16ff.
Ibid., pp.17–22.
Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, p. 3.
Ibid., pp. 54–55.
Harris, Against Relativism, p. 19.
Galileo observed that the surface of the moon was rough with mountains, much like the surface of the earth, and not a “perfect sphere” as Aristotle (and Ptolemy) had claimed. He also discovered the “stars” of Jupiter, the smaller, orbiting bodies of Jupiter that proved to be the moons of Jupiter, and he correctly predicted their orbits and positioning. He was the first to observe sunspots and, perhaps most importantly, the phases of Venus caused by the sun’s reflected light as the planet orbits the sun a direct piece of evidence that was predicted by the Copernican theory.
See Galileo Galilei, “Letter to Madame Christine of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, Concerning the Use of Biblical Quotation in Matters of Science,” in Men of Physics: Galileo Galilei, His Life and His Works, translated by Raymond J. Seeger (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1966), p. 271. Also, see Harris, Against Relativism, p. 20.
See Jerome Langford, Galileo, Science, and the Church( New York: Desclee, 1966 ), pp. 97–98.
See William R. Shea, Galileo’s Intellectual Revolution (New York: Science History Publications, 1972), pp. 174ff.; William Wallace, Galileo and His Sources (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 308ff.; and Harris, Against Relativism, pp. 20ff.
See Harris, Against Relativism, Chapter VII.
Actually, others (including Patrick Matthew, a Scottish naturalist in the early nineteenth century) had suggested the notion of natural selection as a bare idea, but no one had developed any sort of general, cohesive theory incorporating the notion of natural selection.
Daniel Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life( New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995 ), pp. 20–21.
See Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (London: Murray, 1859), p. 127. Quoted in Dennett, ibid., pp. 41–42.
Ian Barbour, Issues in Science and Religion( Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966 ), pp. 80114.
Ibid., pp. 89–98.
Ibid., p. 100.
For example, see Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, Part II, pp. 149–331.
David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, edited with an introduction by Richard Popkin ( Indianapolis, hid.: Hackett, 1980 ).
Ibid., Part IX, p. 56. This point is discussed more thoroughly in Chapter III.
Dennett calls this Hume’s “close encounter” with the notion of evolution. See Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, pp. 28ff.
Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Part VIII, pp. 51–52.
This way of putting the contrast between Hume and Darwin has evolved through discussions with several colleagues and through much reading. Credit to a particular source that is now lost to both memory and my notes may well be in order.
James Rachels, Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 131. Rachels focuses upon the result of the loss of man’s special place in the universe upon our understanding of moral theory.
For example, A. R.Wallace tried to preserve a special place for human beings because of our “high faculties.” See Barbour, Issues in Science and Religion, pp. 92–93, and Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, pp. 66–67. For a detailed and lengthy account of the differences between Darwin and Wallace, see Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin( London: Michael Joseph Publishing, 1991 ).
An interesting issue that is seldom brought to light is that there are two different and conflicting stories of creation in Genesis.
See Henry Morris, The Twilight of Evolution(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1963); The Remarkable Birth of Planet Earth(San Diego: Creation-Life Publishers, 1972); and The Troubled Waters of Evolution(San Diego: Creation-Life Publishers, 1974). Also see Scientific Creationism, edited by Henry Morris (San Diego: Creation-Life Publishers, 1974). and D. C. C. Watson, The Great Brain Robbery( Chicago: Moody Press, 1976 ).
Douglas Futuyma, Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution(New York: Pantheon Books, 1982); Langdon Gilkey, Creationism on Trial: Evolution and God at Little Rock(San Francisco: Harper und Row, 1985); Phillip Kitcher, Abusing Science(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1982); and Michael Ruse, Darwinism Defended( London: Addison-Wesley, 1982 ).
D. C. C.Watson, The Great Brain Robbery, p. 46. Cited in Kitcher, Abusing Science, p. 31.
Henry Morris, The Twilight of Evolution, p.77.
See Scientific Creationism, edited by Henry Morris, Chapter 3, “Uphill or Downhill”; Ted S. Clements, Science vs. Religion (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1990), pp. 159–60; and Michael Ruse, Darwinism Defended, p. 296.
See Ted S. Clements, ibid., pp. 158–67; Michael Ruse, ibid., pp. 285–302 and Chapter 14; and Phillip Kitcher, Abusing Science, Chapter 4.
Phillip Kitcher, ibid., p. 82.
For details of the importance of the shift from a `blending“ theory of inheritance to Mendel’s theory of genetics, see ibid., pp. 9ff.
For other objections to evolution by natural selection and their resolution, see Michael Ruse, Darwinism Defended, pp. 55and Another major challenge to Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection comes from Michael J. Behe, who maintains that evolution by natural selection cannot explain the irreducible complexity of the biochemical processes that take place on the cellular and molecular levels of living organisms. His major work, Darwin’s Black Box (New York: The Free Press, 1996), is discussed in Chapter VII.
Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970 ).
Ibid., p. 79.
Ibid., pp. 10ff.
Ibid., pp. 103.
Ibid., p. 120.
Ibid., p. 151. Some philosophers of science have interpreted this claim very radically, maintaining that the commitment to a new paradigm must be “irrational” since it is made independently of confirming evidence and in opposition to the evidence that supports the existing paradigm. Such a radical view gives rise to what has become known as “the irrationality thesis.” See Larry Laudan, Progress and Its Problems (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), pp. 3ff. Other critics have responded that such extreme interpretations are “gross distortions.” See Richard Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), p. 24.
For further discussion of Kuhn’s notion of paradigm-based science, see James F. Harris, Against Relativism, pp. 79–85.
Since the focus in this volume is upon the analytic tradition, I will not pursue the details of the postmodernists’ attack upon science because of considerations of space. For more details of postmodernism and science, see David Hull, Science as a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988); Barry Barnes, Interests and the Growth of Knowledge(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977); David Bloor, Knowledge and Social Imagery(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966); Helen E. Longino, Science as Social Knowledge: Values and Objectivity in Scientific Inquiry(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990 ).
See Harris, ibid., pp.175ff.
See, for example, James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed(New York: Seabury Press, 1975); Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation(Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orhis Books, 1973); Evelyn Fox Keller. Reflections on Gender and Science(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985); Sandra Harding, The Science Question in Feminism(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986); Letty Russell, Feminist Interpretations of the Bible(Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985); and Rosemary Radford Ruether, New Woman/New Earth( New York: Seabury Press, 1975 ).
For a Kuhnian approach and a detailed comparison to the different ways in which paradigms function in science and religion, see Ian Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science: The Gifford Lectures, 1989–91( San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1990 ), pp. 51–58.
Paul Feyerabend, Against Method( New York: Verso, 1975 ), p. 19.
See Paul Feyerabend, “How to Defend Society against Science,” in Scientific Revolutions, edited by Ian Hacking (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), pp. 156ff.
Ibid., p. 162.
See R. H. Bell, “Wittgenstein and Descriptive Theology,” Religious Studies Vol. 5, 1969, pp. 5ff.
Kai Nielsen, Contemporary Critiques of Religion( New York: Macmillan, 1971 ), p. 103.
A. R. Peacocke, The Sciences and Theology in the Twentieth Century (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), pp. xi-xii. Also see the discussion of Wittgensteinian language-games in Chapter IV.
For a more detailed and lengthy attack on the notion of radical relativism, see James F. Harris, Against Relativism.
See, for example, Ted S. Clements, Science vs. Religion, Chapter 4; Ian Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science: The Gifford Lectures, 1989–91, pp. 13ff; and Ian Barbour, Issues in Science and Religion, pp. 121ff.
Benjamin Whorf, “Science and Linguistics,” Technological Review, Vol. 42, no. 6, 1940. Reprinted in Language, Thought,and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Whorf, edited by John B. Carroll (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1956), to which the page numbers here refer, p. 212.
Ibid., p. 213.
See ibid., pp. 214 and 216. Also see “Language, Mind, and Reality,” in Language, Thought, and Reality, edited by John B. Carroll, p. 246.
Within the Hopi language, the notion of time is infused with the metaphysical distinction between manifested and manifesting. See Whorf, “An American Indian Model of the Universe,” in Language, Thought, and Reality, p. 59.
Although, as I discuss in Chapter 1X, John Hick argues that there is a single, underlying noumenal Real.
Benjamin Whorf, “Science and Linguistics,” in Language, Thought, and Reality, p. 216.
See The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax and Other Irreverent Essays on the Study of Language, edited by Geoffrey K. Pullum (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).
For a detailed treatment of the impact of these changes in physics upon religion, see Ian Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science: The Gifford Lectures, 1989–91, Chapters 4 and 5.
For very insightful and illuminating treatments of relativity theory and “the big bang theory,” see Ian Barbour, ibid., pp. 108ff. and pp. 125ff. I discuss big bang theory and the anthropic principle in Chapter III in the treatments of the cosmological and teleological arguments for the existence of God.
One experiment that yields such results is the well-known “split-screen electron interference test,” in which a stream of electrons is passed through a screen with two slits in it. The results of this experiment support both a particle and a wave theory of electrons. For a full description of this experiment, see Ian Barbour, ibid., pp. 96–97, and James F. Harris, Against Relativism, pp. 30–31.
Ian Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science: The Gifford Lectures, 1989–91, p. 97.
For a very clear and simple explanation of how and why this is true, see John Hedley Brooke, Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991 ), p. 328.
There are many accounts of this phenomenon. For a particularly accessible account in a fascinating book about superstring theory, see Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe (New York: Vintage Books, 1999), pp. 112ff.
See ibid., pp. 331ff., and Ian Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science: The Gifford Lectures, 1989–91, pp. 114ff.
Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics(Boulder, Colo.: Shambhala Publications, 1975 ).
Ibid., p. 130. This characterization is very similar to the absolute monism that dominated much of the English-speaking philosophical world in the late nineteenth century (see Chapter I).
Ibid., p. 131.
Ibid., pp. 161–63.
Ian Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science, p. 119.
For a more detailed comparison of modem physics and Eastern religions on space and time, see Ian Barbour, ibid., pp. 119ff.
This figure comes from Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe, p. 130. Pay attention to his footnote 7. A great advantage of Greene’s book is the analogies he uses to help lay readers conceptualize the extremes of quantum mechanics, relativity, and string theory. In this case, he suggests that if an atom is magnified to the size of the known universe, the Planck length (within the atom) would grow to the size of a tree.
For a thorough discussion of uncertainty and religion, see Ian Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science: The Gifford Lectures, 1989–91, pp. 101ff.
See Willard Pollard, Chance and Providence( New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958 ).
Christopher F. Mooney, Jr., Theology and Scientific Knowledge(Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996 ), pp. 99–100.
Ibid., pp. 100–01.
Ibid., p. 102.
Ian Barbour makes a similar point by claiming that human freedom emerges at a certain level of complexity. See Ian Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science: The Gifford Lectures, 1989–91,p. 117.
One may argue, as does William Alston, that there may be additional, nonnaturalistic causes that must also be counted, but this seems like an argument from ignorance to the effect that there may be other things about the universe that we do not know and that we cannot understand but for which we must make allowance. For an interdisciplinary approach to many of the issues raised by chaos theory for the philosophy of religion, see Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, edited by Robert John Russell, Nancey Murphy, and Arthur R. Peacocke (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory Publications, 1995 ).
Ian Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science: The Gifford Lectures, 1989–91, pp.23–24.
A. R. Peacocke, The Sciences and Theology in the Twentieth Century (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), p. xiv. Peacocke argues for his rejection of the sociology of knowledge and his adoption of a form of critical realism in his Imitations of Reality (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Darne, 1984), pp. 19ff.
A. R. Peacocke, The Sciences and Theology in the Twentieth Century, p. xiii.
Ibid., p. 21.
Ibid., p. 5–6. Peacocke explains that he is really concerned with the natural sciences as opposed to the social sciences and with theology as opposed to religion.
Philip Clayton urges a similar approach. See his God and Contemporary Science(Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdman’s, 1997 ).
One should keep in mind here that since Peacocke is a critical realist, the description of the world provided by science cannot be taken strictly literally.
Peacocke, Science and the Christian Experiment( London: Oxford University Press, 1971 ), p. 123.
Ibid., Chapter 5.
Ibid., p. 169.
Ibid., pp. 140ff.
Ibid., p. 170.
Ian Barbour has expressed his basic agreement with the theology of nature approach in Religion in an Age of Science, p. 30.
Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World( New York: Macmillan, 1925 ), p. 183.
Ibid., p. 189.
Ibid., p. 185.
See Ian Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science, pp. 28ff.
Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality( New York: Harper and Row, 1929 ), p. 4.
Simple location is the metaphysical view of things according to which particulars can be located individually and independently on spatialltemporal axes. See Whitehead, ibid., p. 208.
Ibid., p. 28.
Ibid., p. 521.
Ibid., pp. 523ff.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (New York: Harper and Row, 1959). First published in the French, 1955. See pp. 180ff.
Ibid., pp. 257ff.
Ibid., pp. 292ff.
See Charles Hartshorne, The Divine Relativity (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1948); Charles Birch and John Cobb, The Liberation of Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Charles Birch, Nature and God (London: SCM Press, 1965); Also, for a critical treatment of process philosophy and, in particular, its relation to theology, see Ian Barbour, Religion in an Age of Science: The Gifford Lectures, 1989–91, Chapter 8.
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Harris, J.F. (2002). Religion and Science. In: Analytic Philosophy of Religion. Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy of Religion, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0719-0_5
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