What science, what religion?

By Frank Birtel

(This compressed summary points to issues which must be reflected upon to comprehend the interaction of science and religion. An entire semester of teaching is needed for proper development of these topics. It is my hope that even an inadequate summary will suggest what is relevant and often neglected. This is where I have arrived after twenty five years of thought about science and religion. The books listed at the end clarify the concepts and theories which may appear mysterious in this summary.)

Talk about the encounters of science and religion, now universally expanding with increasing approbation, remains clouded in ambiguity by the failure to be specific about what science and what religion are conversing. If science is understood purely instrumentally and religion focuses on morality where does the need for conversation arise? Perhaps only considerations of the limits appropriate to the focus of each will be relevant to the conversation. Only when one acknowledges the explanatory nature of each will a true encounter take place.

Both understandings have their origin in interpreted human experience. Some scientific theories work and others do not, an explanation is required. All humanity shares a fundamental existential angst or experience of contingency, that realization cries out for religious explanation.  But in each case what is the appropriate framework for seeking these explanations?

If the structure of reality is approached within the framework of understanding sometimes called the block universe understanding, that is, classical physics with relativity theory, but without quantum physics, then the conversation is doomed from the outset. Free will succumbs to physical determinism. Cause and effect except in the sense of predetermination is without basis. The explanation of our angst becomes a statement of our ignorance.

If religion itself is seen as a source of salvation and the world is treated as a distraction, why should there be any conversation at all with science? If Christians stress Jesus as a divine emanation, what else, science included, can compete for relevance? If religion claims privileged information beyond the need for explanation, science becomes irrelevant to faith.

Hence the question: what science and what religion permit conversation?

The context for arriving at these understandings is the epistemology of the investigator. Although critical realism has been the most common epistemology among writers on science and religion, very few consistently apply the implications. An example of this is the dismissal of the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics on the basis of the model rather than on the basis of the correct or relevant relationships which the model portrays. Yet critical realists are said to believe that what we know are relationships, not things in themselves. Models, metaphors and analogies change but those relationships tested by long term workability do not. Since explanations are sought and since quantum physics is essential to avoid conflict, does one have the option to ignore the many worlds model? To appreciate how it has been ignored, is only necessary to check its marginal involvement in the many discussions which have taken place on divine action in the world.

Besides the epistemological preliminaries, there are religious preliminaries. Without conviction that God exists, any religious considerations are purely instrumental and not explanatory. But what is our image of God and on what basis do we arrive at the conviction that God exists? The answer fundamentally affects what is acceptable to a religious understanding and to the relevance of science to that understanding. If dualism separates matter and spirit, the here and now and the hereafter, reason and faith, the natural and the supernatural, then interaction between science and religion becomes trivialized. Therefore , a holistic connection is a sine qua non for substantive discussion.  How will a holistic framework be conceptualized?

Our task then is at least fourfold: first, to establish the governing epistemological preliminaries; second, to clarify our conception of God's existence; third, to articulate the content of the fundamental scientific theories; fourth, to describe the essential religious insights of the reality we experience.

I. Epistemology

Now after positivism and naïve realism, science can be viewed as a progressive evolution to uncover the true.  In spite of a prevalent misunderstanding, science is NOT inductive. The influence of Popper and Kuhn and an attempt to overcome difficulties inherent in these epistemologies have led to critical realism. The extent of subject-object interaction and the grounding of truth is somewhat obscured in Popper’s analysis. And Kuhn’s rejection of the cumulative and expanding nature of scientific knowledge, with his superficial acceptance of truth as the consensus of the paradigm community, his denial of communication between different paradigms leading to a degree of scientific irrationality are elements of his analysis which were overcome.

Each individual’s reality is a virtual reality. Information of the senses is communicated to the brain whose programs construct the individual’s virtual reality. Yet a shared perception of reality is possible, the objective element being the universal communicability of many aspects of each individual’s virtual realities. Two critical insights of critical realism are that what is known are relationships and that the long term workability is a necessary and sufficient condition that the claimed relationships at least partially correspond to actual relationships. In this sense the workable part of a scientific theory is never overthrown. The models, metaphors and analogies used in communicating relationships may and do change. The language and symbolism selected to convey knowledge are continually developing and every understanding is colored by historical reference.

Nothing is more fundamental to an examination of the encounter of science with religion and to our understanding of each than the epistemology we bring to the task. If we think knowledge is hierarchical then science and religion meet in boundary questions. In other areas science has no competence. Whereas if knowledge is not hierarchical there are no questions about which science has no input. We must carefully distinguish between limitations and levels of explanation. For all issues there are many levels of explanation and no level of exclamation is complete in itself. For example, we can explain why the water in a pan is boiling in many ways: (1) energy imparted to the molecules of water causes a change of state (2) the heat of the gas fire under the pan causes the boiling (3) the need for hot water for tea is the reason for boiling (4) the need for tea…, etc. All these levels of explanation are relevant. This is not a hierarchy of explanations for each is an essential part of the total explanation. One might conjecture that any subset of reality is totally explained only by all reality.

Our critical intelligence drives us to seek the truth.  Somewhat inexplicably we are grasped by the future.

II God

A God who is not historical and secular is irrelevant. The deist God is a prime example and progenitor of modern atheism. What is relevant is our history and our lives. A God whose function is restricted to the moral law often becomes oppressive and de-humanizing  Our focus then is redirected from the meaning of reality to the service of another reality. A God who is wholly other becomes an object and thus limited and oppositional. Only a dualistic structure can support this kind of separation from experienced reality and consequently introduce enormous tension between the natural and the supernatural, ending in obsession with one or the other. Therefore through an affirmation of the meaning of experienced reality we are led to a panentheistic alternative. Because reality is also filled with non-meaning, a commitment to trust in meaning necessitates that there is a source, support and goal which cannot be thwarted by the non-meaning we experience. With this philosophical God our existential angst remains, unless the source, support and goal is personalized. For personalization, we turn to religious traditions.

Only those religious traditions which respect our trust in experienced reality and our ability to fathom that reality through human reason can react with scientific explanations.

III Science

The scientific picture of the fabric of reality is premised on four basic theories:1) quantum physics 2) epistemology 3) computation 4) evolution.

The multiverse  interpretation of quantum physics furnishes the only explanatory model. Although just a model the relationships which are modeled correspond to actual relationships and it is these which we accept, not the truth of the model itself. That is what a critical realistic epistemology requires. In the multiverse, science postulates the existence of all that is physically possible; that is, allowed by the known laws of physics. A generalization of Turing's result asserts that there exists a universal computer or better a virtual reality generator: a single device capable of producing any physically possible virtual reality given the support of unlimited energy, infinite information and sustained maintenance. The importance of this should not be minimized. All that any one perceives is virtual reality – a reality created by sense data transmitted to the brain. The existence of a simple device with this capacity implies that reality exhibits a high degree of self similarity and, of course, that is why man can know it. Knowledge is physical, being structures that persist unchanged everywhere in the multiverse. Life is about the physical embodiment of knowledge. An entity is adapted to its niche if it embodies knowledge that causes the niche to keep that knowledge in existence. The driving force of evolution is then, not preservation of the genes, but rather preservation of knowledge. (Monod once said knowledge is the only value!) Our experience of time is the experience of different moments in the multiverse. One's history is a certain path through the multi-verse which is not predetermined although the multiverse is predetermined by the laws of physics. Our freedom consists in the choice of this path. (All that is good is already given and we choose to grasp it or do not!) Knowledge drives our ethics in the sense that understanding what it means to be fully human (understanding of the humanum ) is the foundation of all ethical behavior.

(If we had complete knowledge of the situation it would be impossible to choose in contradiction to this knowledge, unless we reject meaning.)

Since the block universe is incompatible with religious belief (Being deterministic, there is no valid concept of freedom!) a valid dialogue between science and religion is made possible only by the introduction of quantum physics. Therefore the role of quantum physics is absolutely crucial to any dialogue. The only explanatory model of quantum physics today is the multiverse model. So it is in the context of this model that all interaction occurs.

One must be highly suspicious when quantum physics is not an ingredient of the discussion, for a discussion which circumvents quantum theory can only occur by limiting the scope of science; that is, by making certain questions irrelevant to scientific inquiry or by specifying inadequacies in the science itself. These inadequacies are regarded as irremovable and God becomes the answer science cannot provide. (God of the gaps !) [Cf. Kung's new book, The Beginning of All Things]

Specifically, there are two ways to minimize the interaction of science and religion 1) claim science is limited in the questions which it addresses. There are inherent boundaries to scientific investigations. e.g. questions of ultimacy.2) the uncertainty of scientific results, particularly with respect to the foundations of mathematics.

IV Religion

All religion has its basis in existential angst. Salvation consists in removing the negative experience which underlies this insecurity. Certain instances of salvation require more than human explanation. When such instances of salvation are understood within a religious tradition, they become revelations. Thus what is considered religious experience is always a human experience and salvation is always in the world. Understanding the truth of a religious tradition requires a hermeneutical and critical theoretical approach. Thus the truth of religious understanding depends both on the original tradition which is passed on and on the current situation in which the truth is sought. Religion preserves, remembers and celebrates the experience of salvation. This provides hope of the reign of justice and a world without the need for indignation, for which otherwise there would exist no empirical basis. Religions which seek meaning outside the world are antithetical to science and science is antithetical to them.

Religion and Science are struggling still to come to grips with this discovery that they are and always have been talking about the same thing, and they are finally learning how to talk to one another, with setbacks, as usual.

Footnotes

The natural and the supernatural cannot be compartmentalized. (Descartes and Pascal)

A God not involved in history and secular activity is not worth believing in. (Hegel)

God cannot be embraced if as a result the human must be compromised. (Feuerbach)

Belief in God must be rooted in a meaningful reality. (Nietzsche)

Knowing and believing cannot be separated. (Pascal)

Faith therefore is not to be divorced from reason, but equally reason never excludes faith. (Tichmeuller)

Faith then is a deep and total openness to the dictates of critical rationality. (Kung)

We understand the present from the past with an eye to the future. (Schillebeeckx)

The four components of the discussion :

Introduction to the main themes and issues in the study of religion and the natural sciences. Text: When Science Meets Religion:Enemies, Strangers or Partners? Ian Barbour, Harper San Francisco, 2000  and  Is Nature Enough? (Meaning and Truth in the Age of Science), John F Haught, Cambridge University Press, 2006

An attempt to establish epistemological foundations for the interaction of science and religion. Text: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn, University of Chicago Press, 1970 and Justification of Science and the Rationality of  Religious Belief,  Michael Banner, Oxford University, 1990.

 The intellectual history of the problem and construction of a possible postmodern paradign for integrating science and religion. Texts: Does God Exist? Hans Kung, Crossroad, 1978.

New challenges which come from taking seriously postmodern science and religion. Texts: Church:The Human Story of God, Edward Schillebeeckx, Crossroad,1991 and The Fabric  of Reality, David Deutsch, Penguim, 1997