RE: PBS: Can We Believe in Both Science and Religion?

The problem of science and religion it seems to me is one of defining
‘religion’. There is no consensus.

I like the way that Roy Clouser in his Myth of Religious Neutrality
(University of Notre Dame Press, 1991, pp. 21-22):

A religious belief is any belief in something or other as divine...
'Divine' means having the status of not depending on anything else.

Hence, a religion is a worldview or ideology that attributes the status or
nature of divinity to something or someone; it does not necessarily have a
cultic dimension.

I have attempted to develop a typology for science and religion (Evangelical
Quarterly LXII (1) (Jan 2000)):

A: 'science replaces religion'. (Dawkins, Atkins, …)
B: 'religion replaces science'. (Extreme creationsists, …)
C: 'science shapes religion'. (De Chardin, Paul Davies, Thomas Berry,..)
D: 'religion shapes science'. (Cloiuser, Dooyeweerd, Wolterstorff, ..)
E: 'science and religion are independent'. (Gould, Donald MacKay, …)
F: 'science and religion in dialogue'. (Polkinghorne)

In the article I attempted to show that all the positions collapse to the
religion shapes science position.

To use a metaphor, religion is the roots of a tree and the sciences
(history, theology, physics, ..) are the branches.

If anyone would like a copy of the paper, I'd be happy to e-mail one (state
whether you'd like it as rtf or Word).

Cheers,

Steve

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Received on Sat Sep 4 04:46:32 2004