Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism (2 page)

It’s no surprise that this intellectual splendor has also had some unfortunate and unintended side effects. Some treat science as if it
were a sort of infallible oracle, like a divine revelation—or if not infallible (since it seems so regularly to change its mind), at any rate such that when it comes to fixing belief, science is the court of last appeal. But this can’t be right. First, science doesn’t address some of the topics where we most need enlightenment: religion, politics, and morals, for example. Many look to scientists for guidance on matters outside of science, matters on which scientists have no special expertise. They apparently think of scientists as the new priestly class; unsurprisingly, scientists don’t ordinarily discourage this tendency. But of course a scientist pontificating on matters outside her field is no better than anyone else pontificating on matters outside her field. Second, science contradicts itself, both over time and at the same time. Two of the most important and overarching contemporary scientific theories are general relativity and quantum mechanics. Both are highly confirmed and enormously impressive; unfortunately, they can’t both be correct.

Still, modern science is impressive and amazing. If there were serious conflicts between religion and current science, that would be very significant; initially, at least, it would cast doubt on those religious beliefs inconsistent with current science. But in fact, I will argue, there is no such conflict between Christian belief and science, while there
is
conflict between naturalism and science. My argument goes as follows. In
Part I
, Alleged Conflict, I note some areas of supposed conflict between science and Christian (and theistic) belief. First, there is evolution. Second, there is the claim that theistic religions endorse miracles or other kind of special divine action, thereby going against science. I argue that these apparent conflicts are
merely
apparent. There is no real conflict between theistic religion and the scientific theory of evolution. What there is, instead, is conflict between theistic religion and a philosophical gloss or add-on to the scientific doctrine of evolution: the claim that evolution is
undirected
, unguided, unorchestrated by God (or anyone else).

I argue next that there is no conflict between science and the thought that there are and have been miracles—for example, miraculous healings, and the chief miracle of Christianity, Jesus’ rising from the dead. In particular, I argue that special divine action, including miracles, is not incompatible with the various conservation laws (the conservation of energy, for example), in that these laws apply to systems that are
causally closed
—closed to causal influence from the outside. Any system in which a divine miracle occurs, however, would
not
be causally closed; hence such a system is not addressed by those laws.

In Part II, Superficial Conflict, I point out that there are indeed some areas of
actual
conflict between science and Christian belief. For example, certain theories from evolutionary psychology, and certain theories in scientific scripture scholarship (or “historical Biblical criticism,” as I will call it) are inconsistent with Christian belief. Unlike the alleged conflicts in Part I, these are real conflicts. Though real, however, these conflicts are
superficial
; that is because they don’t tend to provide defeaters for Christian or theistic belief. The reason, as I argue, is that the scientific evidence base, constrained as it is by methodological naturalism, is only a part of the Christian evidence base. Perhaps certain Christian beliefs are improbable from that partial evidence base; it doesn’t follow that they are improbable from a Christian’s complete evidence base. If so, however, these theories don’t (automatically, at any rate) constitute or provide a defeater for the Christian beliefs with which they conflict. This conflict is therefore properly thought of as superficial.

So far, then, what we see is that there is superficial conflict between Christian belief and science. But there is also concord, as I argue in
Part III
. In
chapters 7
and
8
I consider the “fine-tuning” arguments for theism, pointing out that they offer non-negligible evidence for theistic belief. And in
chapter 9
, Deep Concord, I point out several ways in which Christian and theistic ways of thinking are deeply hospitable to science.
These all revolve around one central theme: according to Christian belief, God has created us in his image, which includes our being able, like God himself, to have knowledge of ourselves and our world. He has therefore created us and our world in such a way that there is a
match
between our cognitive powers and the world. To use the medieval phrase, there is an
adaequatio intellectus ad rem
(an adequation of the intellect to reality).

In
Part IV
, Deep Conflict, I argue that the same most emphatically does not go for science and naturalism. Here there is superficial concord, if only because so many distinguished thinkers wrap themselves in naturalism like a politician in the flag, claiming that science is a supporting pillar in the temple of naturalism. But such concord is at best superficial; more exactly, perhaps, it isn’t as much superficial as merely alleged.

On the other hand, there is deep and serious conflict between naturalism and science. Taking naturalism to include materialism with respect to human beings, I argue that it is improbable, given naturalism and evolution, that our cognitive faculties are reliable. It is improbable that they provide us with a suitable preponderance of true belief over false. But then a naturalist who accepts current evolutionary theory has a defeater for the proposition that our faculties are reliable. Furthermore, if she has a defeater for the proposition that her cognitive faculties are reliable, she has a defeater for any belief she takes to be produced by her faculties. But of course
all
of her beliefs have been produced by her faculties—including, naturally enough, her belief in naturalism and evolution. That belief, therefore—the conjunction of naturalism and evolution—is one that she can’t rationally accept. Hence naturalism and evolution are in serious conflict: one can’t rationally accept them both. And hence, as I said above, there is a science/ religion conflict (maybe a science/quasi-religion conflict) to be sure, but it is between science and
naturalism
, not science and theistic belief.

I have employed two sizes of print: the main argument goes on in the large print, with more specialized points and other additions in the small. This book is not intended merely for specialists in philosophy. I hope that students with a course or two in philosophy or for that matter anyone with an interest in the subject will find it intelligible and interesting.

Earlier versions of
chapters 3
and
4
appeared as “What is ‘Intervention’?” in
Theology and Science
, volume 6, number 4 (November, 2008); parts of
chapters 5
and
6
appeared earlier in “Games Scientists Play” in
The Believing Primate
, eds. Jeffrey Schloss and Michael Murray (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

This book originated as Gifford Lectures, entitled “Science and Religion: Conflict or Concord?” in the University of St. Andrews in 2005. I am deeply indebted to the electors for the invitation, and for the consequent opportunity to work out these ideas. I am also indebted to St. Mary’s College for wonderful hospitality; here I must mention in particular Alan Torrance and his late wife Jane Torrance, whose gracious kindness to me and my wife was genuinely remarkable.

There are many others to whom I am indebted for wise advice and valuable comment: for example, Mike Bergmann, Robin Collins, Oliver Crisp, Anders Kraal, Trenton Merricks, Brad Monton, Ric Otte, Del Ratzsch, Mike Rea, Elliott Sober, Roger White, Rene van Woudenberg, and Xiangdong Xu. Thanks are also due to a rotating cadre of grad students who read, discussed, and criticized various parts of the manuscript: among them are Andrew Bailey, Brian Boeninger, Kenny Boyce, Isaac Choi, Marcin Iwanicki, Matthew Lee, Dolores Morris, Timothy Pawl, Anne Peterson, Brian Pitts, Chris Porter, Ksenija Puskaric, Bradley Rettler, Josh Rasmussen, Aaron Segal, Amy Seymour, and Luke van Horn. (My apologies to any whom I have inadvertently omitted.) Special thanks are due to Nathan Ballantyne, Kelly Clark, Tom Crisp, and Dan Howard-Snyder,
all of whom graciously read and commented on the entire manuscript; Dan Howard-Snyder’s comments almost amounted to another book on the subject. I am entirely sensitive to the fact that with so much distinguished help I should have done better.

In 1939, the eminent British philosopher Charlie Dunbar Broad remarked that discussions of the relations between religion and science “had acquired something of the repulsiveness of half cold mutton in half-congealed gravy.”
¹
Some contemporary forays into the subject, for example by the above Four Horseman, are perhaps less half-cold and half-congealed than overheated and overdone. I’m hoping my contribution to the topic is both more judicious and more appetizing.

In the first part of this book, I propose to look into alleged conflict between religion and modern science. I’ll be concerned in particular with Christian belief and science; most of the alleged conflicts, however, have to do with
theism
, belief that there is such a person as God, rather than with doctrines that separate specifically Christian belief from other theistic religions such as Islam and Judaism. Most of what I say, therefore, will apply to other theistic religions as well as to Christianity.
Chapters 1
and
2
will deal with tensions between Christian or theistic belief and evolution.
Chapters 3
and
4
will examine the claim that God’s acting
specially
in the world (miracles, but other kinds of direct action as well) is incompatible with science. They will also briefly address two further claims: the claim that the so-called scientific worldview (what Peter Unger calls the “Scientiphical worldview”) is incompatible with religious belief, and the claim that religion and science are incompatible because the epistemic attitudes characteristic of them are incompatible.
¹

It would be a serious matter if any of these alleged conflicts were genuine. First, science is widely and justly celebrated as a splendid intellectual achievement—perhaps mankind’s most splendid effort along these lines; but then any human enterprise in serious conflict
with it has some explaining to do. Second, science does or should enjoy particularly high regard among Christians. A central feature of Jewish, Christian, and at least some strands of Islamic thought is the doctrine of the
imago dei
; we human beings have been created in the image of God. A central feature of
that
idea is that we resemble God not just in being persons, beings who can think and feel, who have aims and intentions, who form beliefs and act on those beliefs, and the like; we resemble God more particularly in being able to
know
and
understand
something of ourselves, our world, and God himself. Thus Thomas Aquinas:

Since human beings are said to be in the image of God in virtue of their having a nature that includes an intellect, such a nature is most in the image of God in virtue of being most able to imitate God;

and

Only in rational creatures is there found a likeness of God which counts as an image… . As far as a likeness of the divine nature is concerned, rational creatures seem somehow to attain a representation of [that] type in virtue of imitating God not only in this, that he is and lives, but especially in this, that he understands.
²

Of course the idea of the
imago dei
has been understood in many ways. Some Lutheran and Reformed Creeds (e.g., the Belgic Confession, the Westminister Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism) seem to deny that we human beings still display the image of God; they speak of that image as constituted by “righteousness, knowledge and holiness” (Heidelberg Catechism) and declare that this image was lost (or mostly lost) in the fall. But here there may be less disagreement than meets the eye; the apparent disagreement may be mainly termi nological.
Some Reformed thinkers distinguish a broad image of God (as with Aquinas, including personhood, rational faculties, knowledge of right and wrong) from a narrow image (righteousness, knowledge of God, and holiness); those who claim that the image of God was lost in the fall are thinking of the narrow image, and presumably would not make the same claim about the broad image. Furthermore, all the creeds presuppose that human beings display that broad image.

Although we are divine image-bearers, our knowledge and understanding is of course partial and fragmentary and often shot through with error; nevertheless, it is real. Taken naively but (so I say) accurately, modern science is an enormously impressive attempt to come to know something about ourselves and our world. (Think, for example, of the development of physics from Newton’s day to ours: surely an unexcelled display of cooperative intellectual power and depth.) Modern science is therefore a most impressive way in which humankind communally reflects the divine nature, a striking development of the image of God in humanity. Accordingly it is to be prized by Christians and other theists; but then conflict between religion and science, from that perspective, is initially anomalous, disturbing, perplexing.

Like it or not, however, there is and has been at any rate apparent conflict.
³
Many Christians have at least the vague impression that modern science is somehow unfriendly to religious belief; for other believers it is less a vague impression than a settled conviction. Similarly, many scientists and science enthusiasts argue that there is opposition between serious religious belief and science; indeed, some claim that religious belief constitutes a clear and present danger to science. Still others see religious belief as
steadily dwindling in the face of scientific advance. Tension between religion and science goes back at least to the seventeenth century, where the alleged conflict centered on astronomy.
⁴
There is the famous Galileo affair, often portrayed as a contest pitting the Catholic hierarchy (representing the forces of repression and tradition, the voice of the Old World, the dead hand of the past, etc.) against the forces of progress and the dulcet voice of sweet reason and science. This way of looking at the matter dates back to Andrew Dixon White and his rancorous
History of the Warfare of Science and Theology
. White, in his characteristically restrained and judicious way, describes Galileo’s ecclesiastical opponents as “a seething, squabbling, screaming mass of priests, bishops, archbishops, and cardinals.”
⁵
Of course this way of looking at the matter is enormously simplistic; much more was involved.
⁶
The dominant Aristotelian thought of the day was heavily a prioristic; hence part of the dispute was about the relative importance, in astronomy, of observation as opposed to a priori thought. Also involved were questions about what the Christian (and Jewish) Bible teaches in
this area: does a passage like
Joshua
10:12–15 (in which Joshua commands the sun to stand still) favor the Ptolemaic (or Tychonic) system over the Copernican? Naturally enough, the usual struggle for power and authority was also present.
⁷
Nevertheless there certainly did seem to be at least some degree of conflict between the developing modern science and Christian belief, or at any rate ideas closely associated, at the time, with Christian belief.