I only managed to give part A... the rest of the talk consisted of Q&A
Science and Religion: The Harmony of Faith and Reason
Leo White
A. More general picture as frame: Harmony of faith and reason
a. Define
i. Faith: shorthand for what we know via revelation, through God’s supernatural intervention (e.g., prophets)
ii. Reason: shorthand for what we know via our reflection upon common natural experience (doesn’t require miracle, just human nature to ascertain)
b. Faith and reason harmonize because…
i. God is one, source of all being and truth, hence all truths must be mutually consistent
c. Faith and reason overlap (that is, their content overlaps)
i. Faith includes both truths we could know ONLY via revelation (Trinity) and those we could know by reflecting upon experiences common to all humans (that there is a God)
ii. Reason includes those same truths about God, human dignity, morality even those these may also be objects of faith (but in elevated manner: for example, we may naturally recognize that humans deserve respect; through faith we regard humans as the image of God [Genesis])
d. The support each other
i. Faith, by reminding us that the natural world about us has been FREELY crafted by God, by indicating that this nature is a sign of God’s goodness and wisdom motivates us to study nature precisely as God’s craftsmanship: (during the Renaissance believers such as Galileo and Kepler were motivated by faith to study nature in this way. )
ii. Just as nature has God as source and purpose; so too reason points to faith as completing human knowledge
1. monotheismà Trinity;
2. human freedom combined with shortcomings yet striving for infiniteà grace as completing human heart
B. Science defined
a. Genus of definition: Part of what falls under “reason” in the expression “faith and reason” just discussed
b. Specific difference: It aims to provide explanations of events through a process called the scientific method. This process begins with a conjecture about the explanation for the something that has happened (or that happens regularly), then the invention of an experiment to test that conjecture; (a key feature of such experiments is that they tend to use measurements); the experiment; and finally a decision about whether the results of the experiment strengthen or weaken the plausibility of the proposed explanation.
C. How science, as part of reason, harmonizes with (overlaps/supports?) faith
a. In how it reveals nature
i. Confirm that nature is lawful, which suggest that it is the product of a rational mind (note the fact that as soon as a new branch of mathematics is invented, we find something in nature that it helps us to understand… as if nature has an Inventor who is really good at math)
ii. beauty is a heuristic for scientific discovery implies a sense of beauty in the Creator (philosophers of science talk about lovelieness: the fact that a scientist, when trying to figure out how to explain an event in nature, is well-guided by asking “well, which answer would be more beautiful?”
iii. Augustine: universe as beautiful handiwork of Craftsman
b. How scientific enterprise itself reveals human nature
i. Scientific inquiry reveals human freedom, creativity, longing for unbounded truth and knowledge, God-like grasp of whole cosmos,
ii. The scientist, philosopher, theologian and poet all have in common a kind of wonder at the universe as a whole, an aesthetic appreciation for it… these point to something great about the human spirit which in turn points to God as something even greater.
D. Problems
a. Philosophical: Positivism
i. Because the scientific method makes progress by focusing on reality only insofar as measureable,
ii. it tends to be silent or critical minded about the purposes of things, as purpose can’t be measured
1. math doesn’t treat purpose: it abstracts from it, but the scientific method admits only the quantifiable aspects of nature;
2. hence it tends to overlook purpose an important aspect of nature;
iii. hence those schooled ONLY in science and not in philosophy or faith are tempted to regard all other claims to knowledge as unreasonable and fictions
1. purpose seen as fictional, human projection by those schooled only in scientific method.
2. Such an interpretation of reality is an ideology: a one-sided view of reality (Chesterton: heresy is a half truth gone mad)
3. Its name: positivism
iv. But if we adopt a positivistic ideology, then we lose a lot
1. would get rid not only of God, but ALSO human dignity, freedom, objectivity of morals (Brave New World): AND
2. science itself would not be possible if reality were stripped down to what a scientist can measure
3. positivists are inconsistent because they are motivated by something that they cannot measuren (love of truth).
b. A quick review of Historical problems in the interface between science and faith
i. Evolution
1. Some regard it as mere unfolding of laws of nature and chance events: not result of miracles or providence:
2. This topic deserves detailed consideration: but if God is continual source of the very existence of universe, then evolution could easily be part of God’s ongoing providence. The truth of evolution in no way diminishes God’s being the ongoing source of the existence of the natural world (what Christoph Schoenborn calls creation continuo)
a. Intelligent design neither necessary nor sufficient to defend monotheism: a red-herring
ii. Physics
1. Some regard laws of nature describing nature as a closed system, one that thereby prohibits miracles, for miracles would be changes in nature that result from divine freedom
2. Reply:
a. The positivist who places this objection is, in a sense, a very religious person, for it takes an act of faith to look at laws of nature in this way, as being necessary truths when we cannot see or hear or feel necessity (rather we project it onto nature as a result of looking at it through the lens of mathematics).
b. if there objection to miracles were correct then there would be no HUMAN freedom either,
c. hence there would be no such thing as science, for science, if it is to get us to the truth, must involve freedom.
iii. Astrophysics (used to be problem: now an opportunity)
1. After Newton prior to 20th century: people thought we lived in an eternal, static universe
2. The Big bang theory showed that the universe that we are able to measure etc. has a beginning
3. The anthropic principle supports the claim that the universe seems to be designed to foster the development of life.
iv. Psychology (Freud)
1. Some regard religion as unfolding of unconscious desires, etc.
2. Much of the claims made in the name of science have no science to back them; atheism can be wish fulfillment too (especially of young testosterone-rich males)
v. Maybe the desire operative in human nature is for the infinite: maybe it’s a sign that there’s more to human nature than positivists recognize.
vi. History of science as pro/contra religion:
1. Galileo as e.g. of antagonism?
2. Actually it’s an exceptional case (and not an exercise of the official teaching authority of the Church or magisterium):
3. see Copernicus’s good relationship with pope, who consulted with Copernicus regarding needed calendar reform;
4. See Kepler; and many believers who studied nature because they believed
a. including Fr. George Lemaitre, the Belgian priest who first formulated the Big bang hypothesis.
b. Mendel, founder of genetics, was a monk
E. Closing remark
i. We live at a time when science has given rise to technology that invites us to instrumentalise human nature (e.g., transhumanism)
ii. Religion and philosophy that recognizes human dignity are needed complements to the scientific method
iii. so that science can be well-guided in its search technologies that will help us live well
iv. so that scientific truth will be put in its correct context as we seek the truth that will truly set us free.
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