Материал: The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion by John Hinnells

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A second ancient question is about the relative authority of the different sources of human knowledge: our senses, our reason, the testimony of others and the testimony of scripture. This problem has surfaced in a number of different guises. Philosophers and theologians have written about the relationship between faith and reason, whether these are opposed routes to knowledge, and which should be given priority. Another way that this epistemological question has been discussed is to think about God’s two books – the book of nature and the book of scripture. Do these books tell the same story? Do you need to be an expert to be able to read them properly, or can anyone understand them? Can they be read in the same way? Historians of science have shown that the way these two books were read, and by whom, underwent significant changes as the modern period unfolded, and that this was one of the central factors in developing relationships between religion and science.

The emergence of ‘religion and science’ as an academic field

Considerations of the ways to relate knowledge of nature and knowledge of God, prior to the nineteenth century, were frequently undertaken in works of ‘natural theology’. Authors of such works, echoing the opening lines of Psalm 19, ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands’, reassured their readers that new scientific experiments, theories and technologies were supports and not hindrances to religious faith (see Brooke 1991; Brooke and Cantor 1998). Such writers agreed with Galileo, who had said that the book of nature and the book of scripture, since they had the same divine author, could not contain contradictory truths. Any apparent contradiction must result from faulty reading. William Paley’s celebrated work, entitled simply Natural Theology (2006; first published 1802), was the classic expression of the view that the study of natural contrivances confirmed what was already known through revelation, namely that the world was the product of a divine contriver. As the nineteenth century wore on, however, discussions about the relationship between religion and science became more urgent and agonised. Works of natural theology continued to be written, arguing that the scientific study of all aspects of nature revealed it to be the handiwork of a wise, powerful and benevolent God. But the tone was becoming increasingly defensive. Theologians confronted a bewildering array of perceived threats

–to biblical chronology, to mind–body dualism, to the possibility of miracles – posed by developments in the sciences of geology, physiology, neurology, psychology, sociology and evolutionary biology. ‘Religion and science’ was emerging as a lively intellectual arena in which a variety of different contests could be played out.

The first half of the twentieth century saw a steady stream of books on the relationship between religion and science, produced by scientists, historians, philosophers and theologians. Dominating themes included philosophical and scientific interpretations of evolution, including Henri Bergson’s influential Creative Evolution (first published in French in 1907) as well as debates specifically about Darwinism, and about new developments in physics and cosmology (Bowler 2001). However, it was only in the second half of the century that ‘religion and science’ became organised as a distinct and recognisable academic field, with its own university courses and textbooks, and a specialist journal. One year in particular – 1966

–might be considered the watershed. That was the year that saw both the foundation, in Chicago, of Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, the first academic journal in the area, and also the publication of British physicist-theologian Ian Barbour’s important and substantial book, Issues in Science and Religion.

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Barbour’s work set the agenda, the tone and the standard for much subsequent writing on the subject. Issues in Science and Religion was divided into three sections: ‘Religion and the History of Science’, covering Galileo, Newton, Enlightenment rationalism, Darwinian debates and twentieth-century ‘process’ thought; ‘Religion and the Methods of Science’, which looked at the roles of empirical evidence and authority in constructing and choosing between theories in both science and religion; and ‘Religion and the Theories of Science’, focusing on theological issues raised by developments in particular scientific areas including quantum physics, genetics and artificial intelligence. More recent books on religion and science (and, indeed, the rest of this chapter too) still tend to be organised along much the same lines. In his more recent work, Barbour (1997) has developed an analysis of four different possible ways of relating science and religion: conflict, independence, dialogue and integration. He argues in favour of ‘dialogue’ and ‘integration’ as his own preferred models. Like most writers in the field, Barbour’s ethos is pluralist yet apologetic, rejecting the idea of an essential conflict between religion and science and seeking a more conciliatory and constructive interaction. Many authors have developed this approach further in the forty years since Barbour’s seminal book. In Britain, John Polkinghorne (1994) and Arthur Peacocke (1984, 1993) have produced notable work in this tradition, as have Nancey Murphy (1990) and Robert J. Russell et al. (1999) in the United States. In recent years, very substantial financial and institutional support for work seeking creative ‘dialogue’ and ‘integration’ between science and religion has been provided by the John Templeton Foundation, and by the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS) in Berkeley, California, which, in 2003, launched the journal Theology and Science.

Criticisms of the ‘dialogue’ project

While recognising the importance, for many practical, ethical and political reasons, of encouraging constructive dialogue between scientists and representatives of religious traditions, there are nonetheless several important criticisms that have been made of this ‘dialogue’ project. I should say at the outset that advocates of such dialogue would be the first to acknowledge the weight of these criticisms, and have certainly recognised and responded to them. It will be useful to articulate them nonetheless. Perhaps the three most important are: that the supposed ‘dialogue’ is one-sided; that it neglects the plurality of both science and religion; and that it does not acknowledge the fact that it is largely just about Christianity.

The first concern challenges the idea that there is really a balanced ‘dialogue’ between religion and science, or that work on religion and science has built a two-way ‘bridge’, allowing traffic to cross between theological and scientific communities. The reality seems much less balanced than either of these metaphors suggests. If it is a conversation, it is one in which science does all the talking and theology all the listening; if it is a bridge, the traffic across it seems to go just one way (compare Russell (2003), who favours the ‘bridge’ metaphor, with Drees (2003) who is more critical). It is generally scientific theories, and the philosophy of scientific method, that set the terms of the interaction, and religion and theology that are required to fit in with the theories, and to mimic the methods. Professional theologians write books and organise conferences about how their work should be shaped and constrained by the latest developments in the sciences. Professional scientists, even those with a religious commitment and a sympathy for the ‘dialogue’ project, only rarely seem to find their decisions about experimental and theoretical work being affected by theological or religious considerations. And, following on from this, some might ask whether religious

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traditions should not, in any case, be seeking to take a more critical stance and speak in a more ‘prophetic’ voice when commenting on science and technology, rather than always seeking harmonious dialogue. It goes without saying that prominent scientific atheists, such as Richard Dawkins (2006), are also adamant for their own reasons that good-natured dialogue between science and religion is impossible (for the opposite point of view, see Ward 2008).

The second criticism – that the ‘religion and science’ project overlooks plurality – is a particularly important one. Too frequently in the pages of books about religion and science one encounters statements about ‘the relationship’ between two ‘disciplines’ called ‘science’ and ‘religion’, or, indeed, about building a bridge between ‘the religious community’ and ‘the scientific community’, as if these were all singular items. In reality, of course, there are, and have been historically, an almost infinitely wide array of different sciences and different religions. It is, further, virtually impossible to reach definitive answers to questions about what counts as ‘science’ and what as ‘religion’. Although we can all agree that physics, chemistry and biology are sciences, what about psychology and sociology? Even if we agree about those, what about economics, history, psychoanalysis, philosophy, theology? Are any or all of these scientific disciplines? What about ‘creation science’ and ‘Intelligent Design’? Similarly with ‘religion’: perhaps, from a Western perspective, the monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam are what we have in mind when we talk about ‘religion’. But what about Eastern traditions such as Buddhism and Confucianism? Is it accurate to put them into the same category? And what about New Age movements; or cults surrounding dead celebrities; or humanistic and atheistic traditions; or political ideologies such as Socialism or Nazism; or popular protest groups such as the anti-globalisation movement? Do any or all of these count as religions? Perhaps, for some people, science itself, or some form of scientific naturalism, can fulfil religious functions (Dixon 2002; Drees 1996; Midgley 2002). Not only is it difficult to know how far the boundaries of ‘science’ and ‘religion’ extend, but also some enterprises and individuals have been simultaneously religious and scientific. How, in these cases, can we construe the idea of a ‘dialogue’? Finally, we must remember that ‘science’ and ‘religion’ are, in any case, not real things or agents that can literally engage in a dialogue. They are abstractions that stand for a plurality of individuals, communities, institutions and practices, as well as ideas and theories. Which of these are being brought together in a ‘dialogue’ or ‘integration’? Although (as this chapter itself amply demonstrates) it is difficult to eliminate general statements about ‘science’ or ‘religion’ from one’s writing altogether, more specific statements, and ones that replace singulars with plurals, will often be more accurate and informative.

The third criticism follows on from this point. One of the ways in which discussions of science and religion are in danger of talking in misleadingly general terms rather than attending to particularities is when the terms ‘religion’ or ‘theology’ are used when what is actually being discussed is exclusively Christian religion or Christian theology. The overwhelming majority of academic contributions to the area of ‘religion and science’ in the last forty years or so have been written by individuals who profess some form of Christian faith (and of these, many are members or ministers of Protestant churches, whether Anglican, Reformed or Lutheran). The problem is not that most discussions of ‘religion and science’ are parts of specifically Christian, often Protestant, theological projects. The problem arises only when it seems that this particular context is being obscured or hidden by the use of very general language. Although talking about ‘religion’ and ‘theology’ in general terms might help to foster inclusiveness and pluralism in academic discussions, it could also have quite

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the opposite effect. Non-Christian readers might feel that the usage implies not an openness to plurality, but rather an arrogant assumption that ‘religion’ and ‘theology’ are synonymous with a particular kind of Christianity. And, looking at it from the other direction, members of particular religious traditions might feel that the distinctive values and beliefs of their traditions are being obliterated in general statements about an all-purpose, lowest-common- denominator modern category of ‘religion’ (Harrison 2006). For these reasons, some would say that, if the subject at hand is essentially the relationship between modern physics and Anglican theology, or between evolutionary theory and American evangelicalism, it would be best simply to say so, rather than conducting a more general discussion about ‘religion’, or ‘theology’, and ‘science’.

There is awareness in the academic field of ‘religion and science’ that non-Christian religions have generally been excluded. Members of the ‘Abrahamic’, monotheistic traditions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), by virtue of having in common certain prophets, teachings, historical contexts and basic theological assumptions about the Creator and his creation, can engage in a degree of shared discussion about relationships between science and religion. The very general questions alluded to in the introduction to this chapter, for instance, about relationships between the book of nature and the book of scripture; between faith and reason; and between the seen and the unseen, would make some sense to Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. The answers given to those questions would differ widely, not only between these faiths, but also within each tradition, but the questions could be discussed with some integrity nonetheless. But can the dialogue be extended even further? Robert Russell, in the editorial of the first issue of Theology and Science, expresses the hope that it can. He envisages the bridge-building project being extended to connect ‘cosmology, physics, biology, and genetics and other religious traditions, such as Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism’ (Russell 2003: 3). However, it is hard to imagine that the preoccupations of writers in the field of ‘religion and science’ will be very easily exported beyond the pale of Western monotheism. As historians have shown, those preoccupations have arisen from a very particular set of intellectual, social and political circumstances in Western Europe and North America, especially from the seventeenth century onwards. It might be better for proponents of science–religion dialogue to focus on articulating more precisely their own particular political agendas and theological commitments, rather than trying to stretch the boundaries and the senses of ‘science’ and ‘religion’ yet further in an attempt to create a universal dialogue.

Religion and the history of science

Some of the most interesting academic work of recent years on relationships between religion and science has been produced by historians. Their work has often highlighted the sorts of concerns about the ‘dialogue’ project mentioned earlier. They have particularly warned against the tendency to over-general, essentialist and schematic treatments of religion and science (Brooke 1991; Brooke and Cantor 1998; Cantor and Kenny 2001; Harrison 2006). ‘Serious scholarship in the history of science’, John Hedley Brooke wrote, in his 1991 book, Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives, ‘has revealed so extraordinarily rich and complex a relationship between science and religion in the past that general theses are difficult to sustain’ (Brooke 1991: 5). Brooke is one of many historians who have used historical examples to falsify generalisations about science and religion. Simple overarching stories about either war or peace, about either the building of walls or the building of bridges,

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are no longer tenable. Historians have taught us to ask, when confronted with a statement about relations between science and religion, to whose religion, which science, and what time and place, the statement refers (or belongs). The conclusion we must draw, according to Brooke, is that there is ‘no such thing as the relationship between science and religion. It is what different individuals and communities have made of it in a plethora of different contexts’ (Brooke 1991: 321). Jews, Christians and Muslims at different times and in different places, have all contributed to the development of modern science, and have reacted to that development in particular ways (Brooke and Numbers 2009; Clayton and Simpson 2006: Part I; Ferngren 2000: Part IV). Pre-modern and early-modern Islamic culture, for example, provided a particularly fertile environment for the growth of the sciences of mathematics and astronomy, which were used, among other things, to calculate the correct times of prayer and the direction of Mecca from different locations. The experience of Jews in relation to modern science was different again. Excluded from the leading European universities in the early-modern period, Jews still developed a strong connection with the science and practice of medicine, and, once exclusions from academic institutions were finally removed, subsequently were able to contribute significantly in all areas of the sciences.

Complexity has become the key note of recent histories of science–religion engagements. Grand narratives are to be replaced with local histories; sweeping generalisations are to be falsified by way of thorough and historically sensitive case studies (Dixon 2003). The last twenty-five years have seen the production of an impressive array of studies, which together provide those interested in religion and science with the materials to throw doubt on almost any generalisation with a well-chosen counterexample (for a flavour of these, see Brooke 1991; Brooke and Cantor 1998; Dixon, Cantor and Pumfrey 2009; Ferngren 2000; Lindberg and Numbers 2003; Moore 1979).

Celebrated episodes that had previously been cited, by writers sympathetic to Huxley’s ‘extinguished theologians’ history of science, as examples of a conflict between religion and science, have now been reappraised. The Galileo affair, for example, can be understood as comprising several different conflicts. There was a theological conflict: between those who thought that only bishops and church councils had the authority to reinterpret the scriptures, and those who, like Galileo, thought that an individual layman could decide that a particular passage, which seemed to conflict with scientific knowledge, should be read figuratively. This was a particularly sensitive issue in the wake of the Reformation. There was a scientific conflict: between believers in the old Aristotelian world-view and the Ptolemaic astronomy and defenders of the new Copernican system. There was a philosophical conflict: between those who thought that the Copernican system was merely a useful device for making astronomical calculations and predictions and those who thought that it actually described the true arrangement of the planets. There was a political conflict: between Galileo’s friends, patrons and supporters and those who felt he was an arrogant and untrustworthy character whose influence needed to be curbed. Historians have thus looked for deeper causes of tension and conflict in the politics and theology of the seventeenth-century Roman Catholic Church. The Galileo affair, from this perspective, looks less like a conflict between a man of science on the one hand and church leaders on the other, and more like a tense and politically charged discussion among Catholics about biblical interpretation, Aristotelian science, and the relationship between individual believers and the church hierarchy (Brooke and Cantor 1998: Chapter 4; Lindberg 2003).

More recent conflicts about evolution have also been reinterpreted. Victorian confrontations between Darwinians and Anglicans have become legendary. At a packed