Along with a degree in Political Science (B.A., Alfred University, 1987) and a Master of Theological Studies degree from Wesley Theological Seminary (1993), I spent two years in the graduate program at the School of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America, where my original plan was to study philosophy of science. I ended my academic career early because my wife and I decided to start a family. I try to keep up on the subject, although I have other interests equally pressing, not the least of them being helping to support my family, so it isn't like I have the latest publication from the various academic journals sitting on my night stand.
I am hesitant to enter into a conversation on the relationship between science and faith, because my views are extremely nuanced. I do not believe much good is done in any conversation on the issue, at least as it is carried out under the current rules of the game, because there is such a lack of understanding, not just by lay persons (both scientific and religious) but even practicing scientists and people of faith. The amount of scientific illiteracy, not just among those with deep religious faith but the population in general is troubling; the amount of religious illiteracy among scientists, not least those who profess to be hostile of it because of their study of it (see the posts on Sam Harris below), is equally alarming. Too often people are saying things about religion that are simply factually inaccurate (again, see Sam Harris), yet insist they are to be taken seriously because they are scientists.
I consider myself as someone who straddles a divide, largely artificial, between two ways of viewing the world. As I said below in response to Richard Dawkins, I am a faithful Christian and someone who accepts what science says about any number of natural phenomenon. I see no conflict between them because I do not understand them to be speaking of the same things at all. To put it quite simply. The conflict between religion and science is not about religion or science, but about power. As someone who is opposed to the imposition by the powerful of any worldview that violates individual integrity, I am equally opposed to the efforts to impose any religious wordlview - Christian, Muslim, Santeria - upon others and the claims by some not only that religion is either outmoded or deficient but actively hostile to the ongoing human project, and therefore religion needs to be discarded for a trust in reason, rationality, and evidence.
Science is a method for describing physical phenomena. It is a tool for understanding how the world works. It is incredibly complex, using arcane mathematic concepts and tools to substitute for less precise qualitative descriptions of these pheonomena. One important thing about science is that it considers itself self-corrective; while it insists its views on a variety of pehonena are accurate, it is always a provisional accuracy, recognizing that tomorrow some phenomena, some theory, some experiment, some something will come along and bring the whole tapestry of scientific theory crashing down, to be rebuilt on the new theory, experimental result, etc. Science, then, is an ongoing project, never finished, and it recognizes its own contingency in the very day-to-day practices that are the heart of the scientific enterprise.
Religion is a complex social phenomenon, best described as a way human communities, sometimes locally, sometimes scattered across vast distances of space and time, come to understand themselves and their place in the world. Religions deal with questions of the conduct of human relationships, how best to live a life within the tenets of the religion in question, and how to live with those who live outside the religious community.
While I admit these are only my inderstandings of these two projects, they are based on years of study, reflection, thought, argument, and reflection. Both serve deep human needs, needs that cannot be wished away or argued away. Both see themselves as integral to a fuller understanding of human life and the place of human life in the much larger grand scheme of existence. Neither one contains an inherently superior epistemological framework - one isn't better at figuring everything out than the other - nor an inherently superior ontological status - one doesn't make more clear than the other all that is or can be or could be. In other words, I see them as operating in entirely different fields of inquiry, with entirely different methods of operation, with entirely different goals and presuppositions.
There is nothing inherently superior in the scinetific method. There are many, past and present, who think there is, because science has been remarkably successful using this method at figuring out all sorts of things. While the case has been made again and again for the inherent superiority of scientific ways of thinking - often labeled rational or reasonable without any clear understanding of what those words mean or how they relate to the scientific enterprise - it has always failed because the scientific method is not designed, nor was it ever intended, to deal with anything other than that for which it developed, over time. The scientific study of and engineering of society, inaugurated by Auguste Comte, has been a dismal failure, despite the prevelance of sociology departments in our universities and colleges. Psychology, too, has only blossomed as we moved away from Freudianism and behaviorism and toward a cognitive, neurologically based understanding of the human mind. It is still limited, however, in how far any of its general statements can go in covering a vast array of individuals.
In other words, I believe the conflict between science and religion is largely artificial, created by those who exist outside either sphere of understanding, using each one or the other as a tool for control. My own preference is for a humble faith and a humble science, each operating within its own sphere of expertise and within the limits of its own way of knowing. The reality, of course is far different, and while I fear my own views sound a bit like Rodney King's during the LA riots in 1994, I cannot help but think that we would all be better off if, rather than push one way of knowing as better than any other, we allowed ourselves the liberating thought that maybe, just maybe, both have something to contribute to the human experience of living.
Virtual Tin Cup
