Draft:
Evolving
Thoughts on Taking Science and Religion Seriously
Frank
T. Birtel
When
I began my first seminar on science and religion twenty years ago there
were only a handful of similar programs throughout the country and only
a very few abroad. Now there are hundreds of courses and seminars devoted
to this topic. Whether this is a reflection of accelerated interest or
a result of the generous support of the Templeton Foundation is unclear.
Science and religion are often thought to be in conflict and, if not in
conflict, at least to constitute distinct ways of knowing with separate
domains of interest and with prescribed limitations on the questions which
each could address. I believe the failure to take the truth claims of science
and religion seriously brought and still brings this about. Both demand
to be taken seriously: science by its success and religion by its ability
to address our shared existential angst or human insecurity or dependent
feeling of limitation. Seriousness is imperative for both scientist and
theologian. For personal reasons scientists often view their science instrumentally
eschewing the full implications of an explanatory theory and theologians
stress the limitations of science without specifying exactly what those
limitations are.
Development
of the Philosophy of Science
The
epistemological basis for legitimizing exchange between the “truths” of
science and the “truths” of religion is found in an epistemological position
called critical realism. This view of rationality arose primarily from
a consideration of the rationality of science. Historically, scientific
understanding progressed from naïve realism (scientific statements
correspond exactly to what is), to instrumentalism (science is concerned
only with prediction and control), to logical positivism (science is based
on immediate sense data manipulated by logical constructs), to Popperian
falsification theory (science makes falsifiable statements which are accepted
until falsified), to the sociology of science (normal science is problem
solving within a given paradigm: i.e., an accepted framework of understanding,
and revolutionary science is an overthrow of the
framework of understanding in favor of a new paradigm—the anomaly causing
the change and the acceptance of the new paradigm are socially influenced.
Different paradigms are incommensurate and truth is merely the accent of
the paradigm community. Perceived progress comes from reinterpretation
of older paradigms). Each viewpoint has difficulties. But at least the
sociology of science recognizes that science is not inductive, data and
theory interact, subject and object are linked, and theories are always
underdetermined. To overcomes difficulties of rationality inherent in the
sociological approach, critical realism developed. What is Critical Realism?
Critical
Realism:
Models,
metaphors and analogies are used to convey relationships
(functions
and structures) which are not total fictions but partially correspond to
what is the case. However due to this incompleteness, knowledge is always
revisable. Knowledge is expressed using a still developing language and
symbolism which is conditioned by the community's shared understanding
and history. The long term workability of a theory can best be explained
if we take the basic entities referred to in the theory to correspond to
actual entities. To assert the truth of an understanding is to assert that
the relationships which are communicated correspond to actual relationships.
This is tested by long-term workability in experiments and applications
and by certain epistemic properties which demonstrate coherence, consistency,
extendibility and comprehensiveness. To say this in another way, the best
explanation is accepted as true until a better explanation is available.
A better explanation does not overturn previously identified workable relationships
which may be clarified or extended by the new understanding. Explanations
aspire to truth and are not merely useful fictions. Critical realism rejects
the possibility of knowing things-in-themselves for two reasons: the mode
of expression (models, metaphors and analogies) and the substance of expressions
(relationships). In pointing to changing language and symbolism, to the
nature of the community and to the backward reference (historicity) the
critical realist's viewpoint acknowledges the central role of the paradigm
in shaping knowledge. Some theories work whereas others do not, because
some capture actual relationships; some theories are better than others
because they more completely meet the test for truth. All theories are
under-determined. There is no such thing as an uninterpreted
fact. There is always subject-object interaction. Objective knowledge seeks
to be universally communicable; subjective knowledge may remain provincial
and private. Scientific statements and scientific rationality takes this
form and the human condition demands it. Certainty is a bore anyway!
Intellectual
History of the Faith-Reason Problem
Within
the critical realistic framework one must take into account the intellectual
history of the faith-reason controversy. Some of the key figures are: Descartes,
Pascal, Hegel, Feuerbach and Nietzsche.
Descartes and Pascal dualistically separate the natural and the supernatural,
even though Pascal acknowledges that believing and knowing are intimately
connected. Hegel tries to escape dualism by making all reality part of
the dialectic of Absolute Spirit’s self contemplation. Religion then is
reduced to philosophy and Feuerback reinterprets
this to mean that God is simply the projection of man. The
foundation of modern atheism is established. Nietzsche
takes atheism to its full consequences by rejecting accepted values, all
antitheses, and the worth, purposivness,
reasonableness, goodness or shouldness
of reality itself. The individual imposes his or her values on reality
rather than reality communicating value to the individual. That is nihilism:
denial of the oneness, goodness and trueness of being. So the route of
the controversy has been through dualism, to making everything God, to
making everything man, to making everything self. In the process one learns
that dualism leads to schizophrenia, that a God worth believing in must
be secular and historical, that God at the expense of man is intolerable.
The history of the faith-reason controversy leads us to the fundamental
question: To trust or not to trust that reality has meaning, value worth, shouldness,
reasonableness or purpose? It is critically rational to trust.Trust
is the foundation of ethics, science and religion.For
ethics, because man is a part of that reality, and thus man should
be man, and ethics becomes the factual question of understanding what it
means to be human. One does not know the meaning, but one who trusts can
act to eliminate non-meaning. For science, since one must trust
that reason is reasonable. For religion, trust in meaning in the
face of non-meaning leads to a source, support and goal of that meaning Whom
we call God. Thus God is indirectly verified by experienced reality.
Let
us now get serious about religion and science.
Religion
Religion
arises out of our experience of existential angst. Everything is based
upon experience, particularly, on experience with experience. Each new
experience is evaluated in relation to previous experience, either extending
its insight, raising objections or leading to its rejection. Religious
experience is human experience interpreted by a religious tradition. Salvation
comes to us through liberating human experience, experiences which remove
the threat of non-meaning. Revelation is the recognition of God as the
source of the liberation. In this sense God is the Good which we experience.
Scripture records God’s liberating actions. And churches preserve, remember
and celebrate God’s liberating action in the world. Salvation is in the
world and not in the churches! However our awareness of salvation requires
the churches. Interpretation of scripture is a hermeneutical process involving
both tradition and situation. We look to the past from the present in the
light of a future. And what remains constant in the deposit of faith is
the ratio of tradition to situation. Neither numerator nor denominator
remains constant. Christians find their understanding of God in the man
Jesus. For as a man he cannot be understood independently of his relation
to the Father and the Father cannot be understood except through Jesus.
Thus Jesus is God for Christians. But as man Jesus is limited by time and
place, Jesus obscures God as well as revealing Him. As eschatological prophet
He announces the coming of the Kingdom: this reality without threats to
meaning, this world without its negatives.
Conclusions:
Salvation is found in the world, so the fabric of reality is relevant to
salvation. As we distance ourselves from religious experience we incur
greater and greater risk of error. Since religious experience is a human
experience, salvation depends upon human freedom to choose the Good and
God is defenseless against our mistakes. But our trust in God tells us
that all will be right in the end and that this must be the structure of
reality. Everything that happens isn’t God’s will, but God’s Willwill
ultimately prevail. If there were no negatives in reality, then the extent
to which we understood reality would coincide with our knowledge of God.
Science helps to explain the structure of reality.
Science
Classically
science gave us a picture of reality necessarily in conflict with religious
belief. Beginning with Galileo, science sought objectivity by denying that
purposes or goals were a valid means of explanation: i.e., science was
non-teleological. Classical science was deterministic in a way that made
no room for free will. Cause and effect in any philosophical sense could
not be accommodated and so-called causes always preceded effects.(Cause
and effect was trivialized to the fitting together of the pieces of a jigsaw
puzzled rather than reference to cutting pattern for the puzzle.) Existence
had purely Platonic significance. Conditional hypothetical assertions which
we use daily had little more than emotional content. And finally time was
for the most part an irrelevancy. The classical understanding of science-often
referred to as the block universe—is clearly in conflict with religious
belief.
Presently,
physics searches for a Theory of Everything which by its very name proposes
to explain reality reductively. By Dawkins we are told that evolution is
driven by the survival of the gene and depends upon random mutation, selected
breeding and environmental support (not intelligent design). And
computer scientists in studying artificial intelligence often regard man
as a finite state machine. Somehow each of these explanations strikes us
as explanatorily unsatisfying, incomplete and sterile. Hence we and many
scientists are satisfied to take science instrumentally but not as explanation.
However, science is not inductive, but actually seeks explanations.
Many
of these difficulties are overcome by a post-modern understanding of the
fabric of reality. Each of the theories above which are used and accepted
by science today appear to be explanatorily
inadequate when taken separately, however all of these theories taken together
hold explanatory potential. Since our experience of reality is a virtual
reality experience, we need to probe the physical limitation on virtual
reality representations which ultimately requires us to understand the
limits of computation.Evolution
is the driving force of history. Knowledge can be understood physically
as preserved complexity. Existence means physical existence: i.e., ultimately
present as consequence of the laws of physics. To understand the limitations
of the physical laws we turn to Quantum mechanics. Deutsch in his book
on “The Fabric of Reality” proposes that reality can be understood by reduction
to four basic theories: epistemology, relativistic quantum mechanics, evolution
and the theory of computation. Yes, this is reductionistic,
but the reduction is to theories some of which are higher level theories,
not reduction to physics alone.
Epistemology
tells us it is futile to seek ultimate justifications, but that it is reasonable
to accept best explanations. Science beginning with intuitive proposals
for solving problems almost always ends with highly non-intuitive explanations
which must be accepted because they are better explanations.
Quantum
mechanics tells us that
this universe is actually a multiverse
and how universes fit together within the multiverse.
Observation of the effects of interference is best explained by the assumption
that particles are interfered with by other particles. The
Dawkins
states that evolution
is about gene preservation. Genes replicate in very specific environments
and hence exhibit knowledge of their environments. So what is actually
being preserved is that knowledge. Evolution then is about the survival
of knowledge, preservable complexity. And Life is fundamental to this survival.
The
theory of computation tells
us that the Turing Principle asserts the existence of a universal virtual
reality generator, a single machine which can reproduce (given sufficient
energy, information and upkeep) any environment which is physically possible
(within the laws of physics). The preservation of knowledge is important
if a Turing machine actually exists. Such a machine requires an infinite
amount of information in the form of an infinite tape feed in order to
replicate any physically possible environment. The existence of the universal
Turing machine implies that reality is very self
similar – this explains why it is amenable to being understood and it literally
mandates its own understanding. Reality is anything which is autonomous
and complex and kicks back. Universality necessitates that all universes
in which knowledge is preserved must ultimately be in communication and
in fact converge to a single point. These considerations in addition force
acceptance of artificial intelligence as real intelligence, for the Turing
machine can generate all physically possible environments and does.
Thus
the fabric of reality is explained by the interaction of these theories:
epistemology, computation, quantum mechanics and evolution; and religion provides
the source, support and goal of this meaning. Let’s remember that, though
explanatory, what is explained are relationships
– models themselves are revisable.
Application
What
does theology looks like when reality is understood in this post-modern
fashion? How might this perspective affect theology; for example, theodicy?
Some
people are moved turn to God as the result of catastrophic events and others
are inclined to reject God because of them. Thus the question of evil in
a world created by a good and all powerful God becomes a significant issue
for any theology. Theodicy addresses this puzzlement.
The
problem is twofold: (1) the structure of reality must of necessity require
the existence of both good and bad and (2) the goodness of God must argue
for the structure of reality.
The
thesis I wish to defend is that the many worlds interpretation of quantum
mechanics answers (1) and that the omega point theory answers (2). In
combination they provide the most reasonable current explanation and basis
for a post-modern theodicy.
(
Go to “A Post-modern Theodicy” to develop this line further.)
Reflection on aPostmodern Theodicy
Comprehending suffering and evil within the providence of a good and omnipotent God poses a stumbling block to belief for some and a bridge to belief for others. Traditional attempts to overcome this paradoxprovide insightswhich raise as many questions as they purportto answer. Many resolutions of the problem seem to conflict with our scientific understanding of reality and with sober reflection on experiential realities. Nevertheless, modern theologians shirk the task of developing any rethought framework for a relevant postmodern theodicy.
Suffering presents itself under many guises. Undeniably some human suffering is productive, enabling greater insight into the limitations of the human condition and fostering growth to a higher level of maturity.Suffering for a cause forces us to select and order our priorities. The suffering of others stimulates us to compassion and away from our self-centeredness so that what is a curse for others becomes a blessed opportunity for the comforter. Reaction to suffering of these forms does much to enlighten us about what isgood and true and beautiful. Yet, even in these cases, may we not raise the question of “why so much?” often without any relief? If this so-called productive suffering is needed, nevertheless we certainly do not welcome it. “…do not put me to the test…” we entreat. Beyond this there is senseless suffering – suffering accompanied by no apparent good: massive starvation , torture and crueltyto the young, helpless and abandoned. Finally we have to recognize thatindependent of the human will and the human conditionsuffering is endemic to all creation and totally arbitrary in choosing its victims.Necessary, unavoidable and unexplainable, the suffering of the past, present and future challenging our trust in meaning as much as it motivates a trust in God. The believer places all these negative experiences in the hands of God, but ironically in the hands of the same God who is in some sense their source as well .
The Christian tradition offers numerous alternatives for reconciling the goodness of God with the presence of evil. Patristic thought sees the negatives of reality as necessary for human growth in spiritual maturity. In the fourth century growing out of the Gnostic influence which viewed salvation as the overcoming of an essentially evil material world, Augustine reaffirms the goodness of God’s creation contaminated by the abuse of human freedom and attributes the option for this misuse to Satanic temptation. Thomas manipulates the philosophical distinction between primary and secondary causation in an attempt to preserve God’s omnipotence, human freedom and the facticity of imperfection. Modern Protestantism represented by Barth disassociates itself from Hellenistic notions of omnipotence looking only toward the revelation in Jesus of goodness of God’s grace in overcoming all evils or represented by Bultmann and existentialism evades explanation of suffering by limiting God’s interaction with creation to the personal. Process theology limits God’s power to interaction with the world to influence and persuasion rather than effective interference. Catholic theology has moved from rejection of the world to commitment to the world and from acceptance of sufferingto requiring acts of liberation.
Perhaps
the most successfulof
these approaches to explain the presence of evil in the world rests upon
the Thomistic tradition which in turn rests upon an Aristotelian world
view. But modern science and particularly post-modern science replaces
the very basis for the legitimacy of this analysis. What possible theodicies
emerge from the perspective ofa
post-modern world view? Of course, there is always a danger in anchoring
our understanding in revisable science. However,
In all theodicies which purport to justify suffering and evil within the creation of a good God, the proffered explanation invariably rests upon the assertion of an inherent contradiction for things to be otherwise. God cannot be required to do the impossible. But what is impossible and why? What in the structure of reality prevents the absence of evil and suffering? Note that there is no assumption here that human freedom necessitates the possibility ofunwanted events,for some catastrophic occurrencespredate human existence and all natural phenomena hardly seem attributable to human intervention.Put this way the question of the impossibilitythat things could be otherwise demands the full force of scientific explanation without invoking freedom as the scapegoat. The problem is twofold: (1) the structure of reality must of necessity require the existence of both good and bad and (2) the goodness of God must argue for the structure of reality.
The thesis I wish to defend is that the many worlds interpretation ofquantum mechanics answers (1) and that the omega point theory answers (2) . In combination they provide the most reasonable current explanation and basis for a post-modern theodicy.
It is not my intention to mount a defense of the many worlds interpretation, although the plausibility of this explanation becomes increasingly apparent from recent developments—quantum computation and studies of the global solutions to the Hamilton-Jacobi equations of classical mechanics. What this viewpoint does is replace probabilistic assertions by factual assertions of existence in some universe. Similarly so-called hypothetical assertions become actuality in some universe. Right choices become those choices in favor of knowledge where knowledge is understood physically as preserved complexity -- complexity adapted to its niche. Ultimately only knowledge is preserved in the multiverse and this knowledge spreads across all universes.The driving force of the evolutionary process is the preservation of knowledge. This knowledge is communicated through virtual reality representations. The Turing Principle assures that all that is physically possible can be reproduced by a universal virtual reality generator. Teilhard de Chardin tells us that what man can do he will do and many worlds tells us that he really does. These observations are investigated in David Deutsch's book, The Fabric of Reality.Neither is my intention to mount a defense of Tipler's Omega Point Theory, although its analysis is intimately connected to the concrete realization of the Turing Principle by providing a possibility for infinite energy and infinite information near the end. The scientific models of the many worlds interpretation and of the omega point theory are revisable and subject to replacement by better explanations, but the relationships which they convey make unrevisable truth claims.
An omnipotent and loving God would bring into existence everything which is logically possible that could be drawn back to Himselfto share in perfection. In the end all will be right. Andthe beginning makes possible everythingwhich can be made right
in the end. Our God is a God who does not deny existence to anything which could ultimately share in His perfection. Thus suffering is not necessary, but to rule it out would actually limit the dimensions of God's love.
Wheredoes freedom and our need to use that freedom responsibly fit into this explanation? A good choice creates those relationships which tend to be preserved across the multiverse, whereas a choice inconsistentwith the meaning we trust reality to have is non-adaptive and makes no claim to preservation in the long run. Since knowledge must spread across the entire multiverse near the omega point, it is only the good whichultimatelyendures. From a theological standpoint we are asserting that good makes a claim on survival and evil makes no such claim. God cannot draw evil back to Himself.
God is the good that we experience and the good which we use our freedom to choose.
Thus the goodness of God requires the structure of reality and the structure of reality necessitates the existence ofboth good and evil.God's grace consists in presenting Himself for our choice in the reality which we experience.