This essay is a continuation of a series on Ian Barbour’s book When Science Meets Religion. Prior essay:
When Science Meets Religion (Conflict). Discusses the first of Barbour’s four categories for examining the differing views on the relationship between science and religion.
Category 2–Independence
Although science and religion as independent areas of concern may not be the most constructive relationship, it at least begins to move each toward mutual tolerance if not respect.
By this view, religion and science are compartmentalized in three ways: 1) they ask different questions about life and reality; 2) they address different domains and perform different functions; and 3) they employ their own methods and language for inquiring about reality.
Protestant neo-orthodox theologians believe that God acts not through nature but through human history. Their emphasis is not on discovering the way nature works; that is the domain of science. These theologians believe that scientific concerns do not overlap with those of religion and therefore require no interference from it.
For example, theologian David Kelsey argues that whether creation had a definite beginning point has little relevance to the meaning of the creation stories, the purpose of which is to inspire gratitude for life.
The domain of religion is concerned with divine revelation as conveyed through the people and communities whose lives constitute Biblical stories. The Bible is not a literal description of creation, but conveys basic messages about God’s relationship with humans and about the world’s goodness and order.
Religious methods involve use of ritual, symbolic stories, and practices to “recommend a way of life” and inspire personal transformation (20). These are dimensions of reality that transcend the material world.
This category also includes the view that nature is the unredeemed servant of God who is primary cause, and that all secondary causality is predetermined.
On the science side, Stephen J. Gould represents the view of those scientists who believe that religion and science are separate domains. Gould believed that science and religion are “non-overlapping magisteria” (99-100). Science asks questions about how the world works. Religion, Gould wrote, deals with ‘questions of ultimate meaning and moral value’ (100).
Other scholars argue for a dual-language theory, that is, the language of science is geared toward explanation, control, and prediction, whereas the language of religion deals with moral principles, attitudes, and way of life.
Citation
Barbour, Ian G. (2000). When Science Meets Religion: Enemies, Strangers, or Partners? New York: Harper San Francisco, 2000.
Image: Einsames Haus (A Lonely House), by Michael Otto. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
May 7, 2008 at 5:43 pm
What could make the science/religion relationship still more complicated is that to define religion as dealing with the domain of revealed truth is the situation with regard to western, scripture-based religion but not, for example Buddhism. I’m much less familiar with other eastern religions, but I believe that the Judeo-Christian-Islamic concept of revelation is specific to those three.
May 8, 2008 at 2:23 am
Intelligence without the “Faith in Unseen” things will lead to ignorance of the the true purpose of this life. Bcos science itself is based and developed on certain fundamental beliefs. In Secondary school we all study in Mathematics Limit tends to Infinity. What is this Infinity. It is blind faith only. In physics, the entire material science is based on an assumption of an Imaginary Particle called “Photon”. Today’s electronics is also based on this faith only. The astronomy of the present modern world says that the boundary of the universe is 4 billion light years away from earth. One light year is the distance travelled by light in one year. Till today all these faiths remain as faiths. A true scientist will never deny God.