Abstract
In the preceding Part 1 of this two-part paper, I set out the background necessary for an understanding of the current status of the debate surrounding the relationship between science and religion. In this second part, I will outline Ian Barbour’s influential four-fold typology of the possible relations, compare it with other similar taxonomies, and justify its choice as the basis for further detailed discussion. Arguments are then given for and against each of Barbour’s four models: conflict, independence, integration and dialogue. In contradiction of the recent trend to dismiss the conflict model as overly “simplistic”, I conclude that it is the clear front-runner. Critical examination reveals that theology (the academic face of religion) typically proceeds by first affirming belief in God and then seeking rationalisations that protect this belief against contrary evidence. As this is the very antithesis of scientific endeavour, the two disciplines are in unavoidable and irreconcilable conflict.
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Notes
Namely, the prominent “New Atheists” Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens: See Part 1.
The classic and decisive refutation of the argument from design is due to Dawkins (1986).
Recall too from Part 1 Wittgenstein’s influential family-resemblance analogy, according to which there may be no necessary and sufficient conditions for category membership, yet the categories are nonetheless valid and useful.
Note the assumption that there is a distinctive and valid “religious way of reasoning”, which is contrary to our conclusion in Part 1 of this two-part article.
A quote widely attributed to Albert Einstein is: “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former”.
As Peters puts it: “The question of God is no longer a religious question; it is a scientific one”.
Tyson has been at great pains to stress that he is agnostic, and essentially uninterested in matters of religion.
I am sure CMI adherents would dissent vigorously from this characterisation, to which my response would be that “concrete” and “meaningful” would have to mean different things to them and to me. The stock example given is that quantum indeterminancy makes room for divine action. But not only is quantum indeterminancy still not fully understood in agreed-upon fashion by physicists, thus making a shaky foundation on which to try to ground a theology, the vague notion of “making room for God” is a far cry from religion offering a useful pointer for scientific research, as CMI would claim the ability to do as part of its raison d’être.
Note the similarity here with the division into “matters of fact” and “relations of ideas” (i.e., Hume’s fork) as mentioned in Part 1.
It is difficult to be definitive on this as the religious beliefs—or otherwise—of many scientists remain private to them. Also, individual scientists may well be identified as, e.g., Jewish or Christian, purely on the grounds of family background, while either having little or no adherence to Jewish or Christian belief, or having rejected it.
It has to be said that, in the hands of theologians highly prone to take the existence of God as a given on the basis of faith, the two flavours of theology have an inevitable tendency to conflate. That is, the majority of theologians are seemingly unable to look dispassionately at the scientific evidence for the existence of God (no doubt because there isn’t really any) without lapsing into ab initio acceptance of the very thing that is at issue, i.e., God’s existence.
That is, due to Thomas Aquinas.
Recall from Sect. 3 that this is Barbour’s preferred model.
“Retreat to the possible” is a form of rhetoric often employed by apologists in which it is held that if something is logically possible, no matter how unlikely, and it has not been definitively refuted, then it has to be taken seriously as a valid belief independent of the evidence for or against it. The more rational position, and that held by scientific naturalists, is that the strength of belief in a proposition like the resurrection should be proportional to the strength of the evidence for it, i.e., virtually zero.
His examples are actually presuppositions of religion rather than of science, but let us be charitable and allow that dialogue is two-way.
In fact, based on their respective track records of providing answers to deep questions about the universe and its workings, religion is far less well equipped than science in this regard.
Systematic theology is a form of the discipline that abstracts themes from across scripture and organises them under headings. For example, eschatology is to do with end-times and afterlife, Christology is the study of the nature of Jesus, his divinity, his life, his teachings, etc., soteriology is concerned with the doctrine of salvation, and so on. Having organised themes in this way, one can proceed to study the way that they relate to one another. Systematic theology contrasts with biblical theology, in which the various books of the Bible are taken as a whole, and contrasted with one another. To a physical scientist like myself, the apparent need to preface the name of a discipline with the qualifier “systematic” is a pointer to its lack of inherent systematicity. After all, “systematic physics” would be something of a tautology.
John Templeton himself provides some insight into this intent with the quote: “All of nature reveals something of the creator. And god is revealing himself more and more to human inquiry, not always through prophetic visions or scriptures but through the astonishingly productive research of modern scientists.” Source: https://www.templeton.org/about/sir-john, last accessed 24 January 2022.
... with the award of the Templeton Prize, whose value (in an apparent attempt to buy esteem for the notion of science-religion dialogue with his extravagant wealth) substantially exceeds that of a Nobel Prize.
Science is simply too strong an opponent for most careful, educated religionists to be reckless enough to pick a fight with it.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/a-scientific-defense-of-t_b_523416, last accessed 25 January 2022.
http://www.issacharfund.org/, last accessed 25 January 2022.
In the interests of fairness, I should mention that atheist organisations sometimes sponsor books too, although relatively rarely. An example is Carrier’s On the Historicity of Jesus, part-funded by Atheists United. Of course, one should maintain a similarly open-minded attitude to appraising these.
This is my own example, not mentioned by Coyne, although it might as well have been.
Coyne does not mention my favourite comical Old Testament stricture: Leviticus 19:27, “You shall not shave around the sides of your head, nor shall you disfigure the edges of your beard” (New King James Version), which vividly illustrates the depths of stupidity to which the Bible is capable of sinking. I will never forget my first visit to Israel in 1984 when I discovered to my utter amazement that large numbers of contemporary Orthodox Jews actually took this craziness seriously and acted accordingly. Do they not think their God has more important things to concern him than their shaving habits? Note too the presumption that all of God’s people are male.
Not to mention religious wars, inquisitions, burnings at the stake, etc.
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Keith Ward and John H. Brooke for taking the time to reply with commendable good grace to several questions that I posed to them during the writing of this paper. I am indebted to Chang In Sohn of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS), Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA, who kindly supplied original copy for Fig. 3.
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Damper, R.I. Science and Religion in Conflict, Part 2: Barbour’s Four Models Revisited. Found Sci (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-022-09871-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-022-09871-z