Let me begin by (re-)introducing myself, my name is Jim Turner. I'm a
mathematician at Holy Cross College and I have been on this listserve for a
couple years now, but I haven't contributed for nearly a year-and-a-half.
I'm delurking because for the past year I've been struggling with how to
incorporate my Christian beliefs into my academic practice as a scientist
(in the guise of a mathematician). This, of course, is not a novel concept
with anyone involved with the ASA and/or this mailing list. I didn't seriously
start thinking about this until I was a postdoc at the University of
Virginia and I attended a local Presbyterian church (PCA). There some
members were strongly advocating a YEC position which supported a strong
anti-evolutionary stance. This didn't sit well with some church members who
were part of the academic community, but instead of creating two warring
camps both sides decided to meet on a semi-weekly basis to find some
common ground. Unfortunately, I had to move to a new job so I didn't get
to witness any finality of that discussion. One of the areas that was
explored, in those discussions, was the difference between practicing
science and fitting scientific understanding into a theological framework.
This is something I've been trying think about how to do as a
mathematician, but I want to raise something broader in scope.
Recently, Alvin Plantinga has written several articles in PSCA and Origins &
Design on methodological naturalism. If I understand him correctly he
supports the practice of methodological naturalism in the form of Duhemian
science which he describes as
"Proper science, insofar as it is to be common to all of us, will have to
eschew any dependence upon any metaphysical and religious views held by
only some of us ... if science is to be properly universal, it can't employ
assumptions or commitments that are not universally shared." [Origins &
Design vol.18, no.2, page 29]
He goes on to say that this does not prevent smaller groups that hold
common metaphysical or religious beliefs to expand upon scientific theories
by incorporating in said beliefs. For the Christian this would be what
Plantinga calls Augustinian science
"According to the fuller Duhemian picture, then, we would all work
together on Duhemian science; but each of the groups involved -
naturalists and theists, for example, but perhaps others as well - could
then go to incorporate Duhemian science into a fuller context that includes
the metaphysical or religious principles of that group. Call this broader
science 'Augustinian science'." [loc. cit. p. 31]
I personally like this as a starting point. The Christian practicing
science tends to try to locate where he/she feels their understanding of
science meshes with their theological stance, usually resulting in some
position on creation. One problem that occurs, though, is that disputes
break out among Christians over these finer points on where science and
scripture seem to give conflicting interpretation on God's creation. Many
of those conflicts revolve around disputes about scientific theory
(radiometric dating is an example that comes to mind). It seems to me that
the Christian community can begin to take a unified position on science by
agreeing upon a Duhemian picture for science. At the same time, maybe a
"Duhemian" theology could also be agreed upon (one God, salvation through
Christ, triune nature of God, ...) and then an Augustinian science can be
practiced by individual groups where different interpretations begin to occur.
This may be all wishful thinking, but I don't personally see why each position
on creation (YEC, PC, ID, TE, ect.) cannot try to make their case without
being assaulted by their fellow Christian brethen. I don't see this
happening, though, without every party agreeing upon a common theological and
scientific ground at the start. I think Plantinga's approach is a good one.
It may be also a good way to enable us Christians to take a more unified
position on scientific positions as we iteract with non-believers and keep
them from preventing us from presenting the gospel of Christ.
So is this a good approach for Christians to do science? Can some form of
Duhemian science be agreed upon which would allow competing Augustinian
sciences in a positive way?
In Christ,
Jim Turner
Fides quaerens intellectum
" ... accounts of truth that treat mathematical and non-mathematical
discourse in relevantly similar ways do so at the cost of leaving it
unintelligible how we can have any mathematical knowledgable whatsoever;
whereas those which attribute to mathematical propositions the kind
of truth conditions we can clearly know to obtain, do so at the expense
of failing to connect these conditions with any analysis of the
sentences which shows how the assigned conditions are conditions of
their truth." - Paul Banacerraf