Burgy: in your installment #3 you say,
> On page 6 Griffin makes the following statement, which shows, I think, an
> understanding of science with which I cannot agree; I think it simply
> incorrect: "Science ... may show that all events in this world, including
> those events in which we make conscious decisions, are fully enmeshed in
> a deterministic nexus of causes and effects ... As scientists,
> accordingly, we affirm determinism, while as religious persons we affirm
> freedom." For me, the statement above does not describe science as I was
> trained and now understand. It is the difference between assuming
> causality (methodological naturalism) and a scientism that asserts a
> final deterministic reality has been identified. The last I regard as a
> scientist's "deadly sin." I am unimpressed by the fact that some persons,
> much better writers than me, do commit this sin; I cannot follow them.
> Even when I was not a Christian, I would not follow them in this regard;
> I considered it hubris of a particularly repugnant order.
As I read it, Griffin is not at all saying that this is his own
understanding of the character of science. Rather, he is posing this as one
way in which a person from the "two-truth camp" (science and theology
generate _independent_ truths that need not be reconciled, even where there
seem to be contradictions) _might_ present his/her case for the independence
of science and theology. He then proceeds to list common objections to this
approach.
Howard Van Till
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri May 25 2001 - 13:20:54 EDT