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

Religion and scienceâ 521â

this view favoured a holistic understanding of human nature instead of the sort of soul–body dualism that modern science seemed to make untenable. As well as seeking consonance with scientific views of mind and brain, these writers also invoked biblical teachings about the indissolubility of the soul–body unity to support their case for physicalism, seeing the doctrine of the bodily resurrection, for instance, as more authentically biblical than belief in an immortal and immaterial spirit. In short, Hebrew holism was to be preferred, they said, to Hellenistic dualism. Others still need further convincing that a totally physicalist understanding of human beings can really do justice to traditional religious teachings about the soul.

From theory to practice: technology, ethics, politics

Many academic discussions about religion and science have taken place at an intellectual level. Religion and science are both, however, fundamentally practical activities. They both seek not only to describe the world, but also to change it. The prophetic voice in religion denounces injustices and abuses of the present day and calls for personal and social regeneration, reform, rebirth. Similarly, one of the leading justifications of the funding of scientific research is that it will provide the means of material improvement, for both rich and poor, through all sorts of new technologies, especially in the areas of communications, agriculture and medicine. In their different ways, religion and science both offer salvation. The leading questions driving academic discussions of religion and science have therefore often been about technology, ethics and politics rather than simply about competing intellectual positions. Historically, it has frequently been the spokespeople of religious traditions who have led the way in raising ethical concerns about experimentation on animals, the use of contraceptives, the development of nuclear weapons, the cloning of human beings, the patenting of genes, or the causes and consequences of climate change. Religions can also provide resources for those concerned with ecology and the ‘stewardship’ of the natural world.

Religion and science both have fraught and ambiguous relationships with the political world. Scientists have often claimed to be ethically neutral creatures, driven only by the pursuit of truth. On this view, it is down to elected politicians or, indeed, religious leaders, to form committees and make decisions about moral and political questions arising from science. Such a view, however, does not stand very close scrutiny. All scientific research programmes have to be funded, either commercially or from public money. Such funding generally has strings attached. The decision to accept funding from a pharmaceuticals company, an arms manufacturer or even a charity, a campaign group or a government agency is always an ethical and political one. Scientists have a good deal of cultural and political clout as a result of the status of their profession. That status, in turn, rests very heavily on the belief that scientists are objective and detached, motivated by purer motives than, for instance, party politics or sectarian religious views. One of the most interesting lessons of the history of science is that in the modern world few more powerful rhetorical strategies exist than claiming scientific status for one’s political ideology. Laissez-faire individualists, Socialists, Nazis and Communists have all claimed scientific authority for their political creeds. But while scientists and politicians today are quick to denounce such examples from history as perversions of both science and politics, they are not always so quick to notice cases in the present when science and politics have become closely intertwined. Interpreting scientific findings relating to physical and mental differences between people of different races, sexes,

522â Religions in the modern world

or sexual orientations, for instance, is inevitably a political activity, no matter how much people, on all sides, try to present their case as purely scientific or empirical, while depicting their opponent’s case as ideologically loaded (Dixon 2008: Chapter 6).

Connections between religion and politics are similarly double-edged. One of the most important functions of religious leaders has been to draw attention to the failings of political rulers. For such complaints to seem authentic, they must be seen to come from outside the political system itself. While scientists can appeal to the authority of nature and of scientific objectivity, religious writers can invoke a moral, spiritual, even divine authority which is, like the authority of the scientists, based on something beyond and above the messy and corrupt world of human affairs. Indeed, if any single rhetorical strategy has been more effective in political debates through history than the appeal to nature or science, it has been the appeal to God and morality. Disputes over the teaching of evolution and creation science in schools in the United States in the twentieth century illustrate perfectly these complex relationshipsÂ

between religion, science and politics.

Concluding remarks

Even in this brief survey of issues arising in the study of interactions between the worlds of religion and science, we have seen how many different philosophical, theological, ethical and political interpretations can be given to the results of scientific research. From the gruesome habits of the ichneumon wasp to the mysteries of psychic phenomena – from parasitology to parapsychology – there has always been controversy about what the natural can reveal about the divine, and how such revelations should shape our actions. Scientific understandings of the universe and our place in it, together with the technological advances that come with them, will undoubtedly continue to provide material for a wide range of intellectual and political controversies as long as human civilisations survive. Students of ‘religion and science’, through their attempts to get to grips with the huge variety of engagements to which these fundamental human endeavours have given rise, will perhaps be less surprised than others to find, lying around the cradle of every science in the future, as the strangled snakes beside that of Hercules, extinguished scientists and their defunct research programmes, extinguished ethicists and their superseded philosophies, extinguished politicians and their exploded ideologies and, no doubt, one or two extinguished theologians too.

Bibliography

Barbour, Ian (1966), Issues in Science and Religion, London: SCM Press.

—— (1997), Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues, San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco (in the UK as London: SCM Press, 1998). A thorough and wide-ranging survey by one of the central figures in the field.

Bowler, Peter J. (2001), Reconciling Science and Religion: The Debate in Early Twentieth-Century Britain, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

—— (2007), Peter J. Bowler, Monkey Trials and Gorilla Sermons: Evolution and Christianity from Darwin to Intelligent Design, Cambridge MA and London: Harvard University Press.

Brooke, John H. (2003), ‘Darwin and Victorian Christianity’, in Jonathan Hodge and Gregory Radick (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Darwin, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 192–213.

——Â and Geoffrey Cantor (1998), Reconstructing Nature: The Engagement of Science and Religion, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.

Religion and scienceâ 523â

—— and Ronald Numbers (eds) (2009), Science and Religion around the World, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Brown, Warren S., Nancey Murphy and H. Newton Malony (eds) (1998), Whatever Happened to the Soul? Scientific and Theological Portraits of Human Nature, Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Cantor, Geoffrey and Chris Kenny (2001), ‘Barbour’s Fourfold Way: Problems with his Taxonomy of Science-Religion Relationships’, Zygon 36: 765–81.

Clayton, Philip (1997), God and Contemporary Science, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Dawkins, Richard (2006), The God Delusion, London: Bantam.

Dembski, William A. and Michael Ruse (eds) (2004), Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dixon, Thomas (2002), ‘Scientific Atheism as a Faith Tradition’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 33: 337–59.

——Â(2003) ‘Looking Beyond “The Rumpus about Moses and Monkeys”: Religion and the Sciences in the Nineteenth Century’, Nineteenth-century Studies 17: 25–33.

——, Geoffrey Cantor, and Stephen Pumfrey (eds)Â (2009), Science and Religion: New Historical Perspectives, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Drees, Willem B. (1990), Beyond the Big Bang: Quantum Cosmologies and God, La Salle, IL: Open Court. ——Â (1996), Religion, Science and Naturalism, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge Uni-

versity Press.

——Â (2003), ‘“Religion and Science” Without Symmetry, Plausibility, and Harmony’, Theology and Science 1: 113–28.

Dueck, Alvin, and Cameron Lee (eds) (2005), Why Psychology Needs Theology: A Radical-Reformation Perspective, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Ferngren, Gary B. (ed.) (2000), The History of Science and Religion in the Western Tradition: An Encyclopedia, New York and London: Garland.

Harrison, Peter (2006), ‘“Science” and “Religion”: Constructing the Boundaries’, The Journal of Religion 86: 81–106.

Huxley, Thomas H. (1893), Collected Essays, Volume 2: Darwiniana, London: Macmillan.

James, Frank (2005), ‘An “Open Clash Between Science and the Church”? Wilberforce, Huxley and Hooker on Darwin at the British Association, Oxford, 1860’, in David Knight and Matthew Eddy (eds), Science and Beliefs: From Natural Philosophy to Natural Science, Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 171– 93.

Knight, Christopher C. (2001), Wrestling with the Divine: Religion, Science, and Revelation, Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Kuhn, Thomas (1996), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd edition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Larson, Edward J. (1997), Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate over Science and Religion, New York: Basic Books.

Lindberg, David C. (2003), ‘Galileo, the Church, and the Cosmos’, in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers (eds), When Science and Christianity Meet, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, pp. 33–60.

McGrath, Alister E. (1998), Science and Religion: An Introduction, Oxford, UK; Malden, MA: Blackwell. Midgley, Mary (2002), Evolution as a Religion: Strange Hopes and Stranger Fears, revised edition, London

and New York: Routledge.

Moore, James R. (1979), The Post-Darwinian Controversies: A Study of the Protestant Struggle to Come to Terms with Darwin in Great Britain and America, 1870–1900, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Murphy, Nancey (1990), Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Numbers, Ronald L. (2006), The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design, 2nd

edition, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

524â Religions in the modern world

Oppenheim, Janet (1985), The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in Britain, 1850–1914, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Paley, William (2006), Natural Theology, edited with an introduction by Matthew D. Eddy and David Knight, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Peacocke, Arthur (1984), Intimations of Reality: Critical Realism in Science and Religion, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

——Â(1993), Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and Becoming – Natural, Divine, and Human, enlarged edition, Minneapolis: Fortress Press (in the UK as London: SCM Press).

Polkinghorne, John (1994), The Faith of a Physicist, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press (in the UK as Science and Christian Belief, London: SPCK).

Ruse, Michael (2003), Darwin and Design: Does Evolution Have a Purpose? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.

Russell, Robert J. (2003), ‘Bridging Theology and Science: The CTNS Logo’, Theology and Science 1: 1–3.

——, Nancey Murphy, Theo C. Meyering and Michael A. Arbib (eds) (1999), Neuroscience and the Person: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action, Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory; Berkeley, CA: Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences.

Sarkar, Sahotra (2007), Doubting Darwin? Creationist Designs on Evolution, Oxford, UK; Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Saunders, Nicholas (2002), Divine Action and Modern Science, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Scott, Michael and Andrew Moore (eds) (2007), Realism and Religion: Philosophical and Theological Perspectives, Aldershot: Ashgate.

Turner, Frank M. (1993), Contesting Cultural Authority: Essays in Victorian Intellectual Life, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

van Huyssteen, Wentzel (2006), Alone in the World: Human Uniqueness in Science and Theology; The Gifford Lectures, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Ward, Keith (2008), Why There Almost Certainly is a God: Doubting Dawkins, Oxford: Lion. Watts, Fraser (2002), Theology and Psychology, Aldershot: Ashgate.

Suggested reading

Brooke, John Hedley (1991), Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

An excellent place to start: an erudite, engaging, informative and thought-provoking historical survey.

Clayton, Philip and Zachary Simpson (eds) (2006), The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

A comprehensive collection of over fifty concise essays by leading experts on all the key issues.

Dixon, Thomas (2008), Science and Religion: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press. An introductory book expanding at somewhat greater length on the historical, philosophical and theological issues touched on above.

Ferngren, Gary B. (ed.) (2000), The History of Science and Religion in the Western Tradition: An Encyclopedia, New York and London: Garland.

An invaluable reference work with contributions by leading scholars on historical, philosophical, religious and scientific themes coming right up to the present day and paying attention to particularities of time and place. Also available in condensed form as: Gary B. Ferngren (ed.) (2002), Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Religion and scienceâ 525â

Larson, Edward J. (1997), Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate over Science and Religion, New York: Basic Books.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning study, combining a vivid account of the Scopes trial with perceptive broader reflections.

Lindberg, David C. and Ronald L. Numbers (eds) (2003), When Science and Christianity Meet, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

A collection of studies by leading historians in the field, aimed at a broad readership.

Polkinghorne, John (1994), The Faith of a Physicist, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press (in the UK as Science and Christian Belief, London: SPCK).

An engaging and sophisticated study by an eminent theoretical physicist now ordained in the Anglican Church.

Post, Stephen G. et al. (eds) (2002), Altruism and Altruistic Love: Science, Philosophy and Religion in Dialogue, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

A substantial interdisciplinary work seeking answers from scientists, philosophers and theologians to fundamental questions about human nature and human morality.

Watts, Fraser (2002), Theology and Psychology, Aldershot: Ashgate.

An engaging and accessible survey of the theological implications of scientific accounts of the human mind, from evolutionary psychology to artificial intelligence.