Ted:
You've raised many good points, but I don't want to reply to each of them
individually yet, in part because I'm waiting on David Campbell's answer
(regarding what he meant by NOMA and who in his mind is "guilty" of holding
to NOMA), and in part because I want to offer my reaction to Gould's first
essay, and see how it tallies with yours, and that of others here who have
read it. And then I want to apply my understanding of Gould to TE -- as TE
appears to me, based on many (not all) of its proponents on this list. And
I'll close by inviting corrections to my argument connecting TE with NOMA.
I re-read most of Gould's original essay on non-overlapping magisteria
(NOMA). And as I re-read it, two things struck me. First, Gould disagrees
with most of the people here because he is an unbeliever. Not just in
Christianity, but in God, the soul, etc. He's an unbeliever of the agnostic
kind rather than of the atheist kind, but still, an unbeliever, or if you
prefer, a non-believer. But second, beyond his personal unbelief, I'm
hard-pressed to find much difference between Gould's position and a lot of
what has been argued by members of this list. He seems to have set up
science and religion so that they can never be in the same room, or at
least, never be using the same chairs and couches when they are in the same
room, and therefore never be in serious conflict. He has a neat and tidy
recipe for peace between the two bodies of knowledge: you show us how to
get to heaven, and we'll show you how the heavens go; you teach us the right
"values", and we'll teach you the true "facts"; you explain to us the
mysteries of the soul, and we'll explain to you the mysteries of the body;
you teach us the metaphysical truth of divine design, and we'll teach you
the physical truth of evolutionary contingency. It's all very lovey-dovey.
The war between science and religion was a great misunderstanding. What
fools we were not to realize that good fences make good neighbours, and that
we could have avoided all the ugliness if we had just established the
correct boundaries. What fools the ancients were, not to realize that they
should have just let Plato handle the morals and Lucretius the physics.
Thus, for Gould, the road to peace is just to recognize which questions
science can handle, and which ones it cannot handle, and to come to a
similar distinction regarding religion. Yet he is too intelligent a man not
to realize that it is not that simple, and at one point in the essay, he
seems to grant that there are zones of potential conflict where the two
(science and religion) at least touch, and thus threaten the doctrine of
NOMA. But (whew! that was close!) by the end of the essay he has pretty
well neutralized the effect of any of the potential border conflicts, thus
preserving his doctrine, and we can all live happily ever after.
For example, he talks about the RC doctrine that, while the body may have
evolved via natural processes, the human soul is given supernaturally by
God. He acknowledges this as a potential conflict, since science cannot
admit that sort of statement. And how does he get out of it? He ends up
saying something like: "Well, the RC church may be right about the soul,
but even if it is, the separately created soul is something that my science
can't investigate, so there is no real conflict; I'll believe there isn't a
separately created soul, and the Pope can believe there is one; ultimately
it's a matter of private metaphysical taste that human beings can have great
conversations about, but nothing will ever be resolved by them." But that's
an evasion. If, as some believe, the soul can be explained completely as an
extension of allegedly analogous features in dogs, apes, etc. (as Darwin
speculated in The Descent of Man), if psychology and biochemistry and so on
can explain all our "higher" characteristics (reason, love, altruism, shame,
guilt, self-sacrifice, etc.) in terms of lower animal drives and instincts
and group survival strategies, then what do we need the "specially endowed
soul" for?
True, one could hold onto the soul as something "not disprovable by
science". But it would be redundant. There would be no need to suppose any
special moment of being endowed with a soul, or any special creative action
of God needed to produce one. Reasons of intellectual economy would suggest
dumping a doctrine that is entirely redundant, and indeed, the natural human
tendency has always been -- once something has been explained by
"science" -- to drop any explanation involving *special* divine action.
(Maybe hanging onto some notion of general divine involvement --
co-operation or some such -- but not for a moment supposing that the divine
involvement is such that it would ever need to be entered into an equation,
etc.) Once we had Galileo and Kepler and Newton explain the planetary
motion sufficiently, the angels in their spheres were dumped. There was no
place for them, other than an honorary one. They could be kept as forms of
ornament on quaint old maps of the cosmos, if one liked. (Like Hitler
keeping President von Hindenburg around for a few years after he had
achieved total power, for appearance's sake.) In sum, what Gould's evasion
fails to acknowledge is that, while "science" may never be able to formally
"disprove" theological teachings, it could (at least in principle) offer
explanations so complete that people would find the religious explanation
both redundant and unconvincing.
Thus, the idea that science can never, under any circumstance, affect the
way that human beings think about "soul", in any way that could adversely
affect religion, strikes me as historically indefensible, and
psychologically naive. We only live in one reality, not two; and if we
think that science tells us things that are true about that reality, those
truths are going to affect how we think of other aspects of that reality.
Especially when the reality that is the object of science is *us*, the
conclusions of science will have a profound effect. It is one thing when
science tells us that Jupiter is not a god but a rock in space, or that
Jupiter is not moved by angels but by the impersonal force of gravity; it is
another and more disturbing thing when science tells us -- or appears to
tell us -- that we are not the beings that we always thought and felt we
were, but are nothing but bundles of selfish genes, or sets of programmed
neurons, or drives, or whatever. Such self-conceptions eventually become
part of us. All one has to do to verify this is to read any psychology
textbook, including those used in conservative Christian colleges. Would
Augustine or Dante or C. S. Lewis assent to those descriptions of human
nature? And where did those conceptions come from, other than modern
science? Any facile separation of "science" and "religion" or "science" and
"theology" on matters of this kind, along the lines of "You psychologists
and anthropologists do your job, and we theologians will do ours,
and we'll get along just famously together on the question of soul" -- is
simply not credible.
Now, though we haven't often discussed "soul" here, we have discussed
evolution, and it seems to me that many here support Gouldian reasoning when
it comes to evolution. The narrative seems to go something like this: "The
biologists tell us that contingency and natural laws are entirely sufficient
to get from non-life to life, or from bacteria to man, and *if you wish*,
you may privately also suppose that in some way a "design" is being
implemented by the apparently undirected processes. There is no law against
believing in multiple, redundant explanations, and design is a metaphysical
concept, outside of the authority of science to pronounce upon. But science
does not need your redundant appeal to "design" in order to explain every
last detail of how things happened. As long as you accept that, believe as
you will." Thus, many here seem to be arguing that scientists can hold onto
God, not because the evidence from nature demonstrates or strongly indicates
the existence of a designer, but merely because even a complete Darwinian
account of evolution, and a complete chemical account of the origin of life,
wouldn't formally disprove his existence. But even if that's strictly
logically true, we must consider that for those who dwell outside of such
theoretical discussions as ours, the psychological effect of origin accounts
in which teleology is entirely redundant is going to be an anti-religious
one. To the average churchgoer, if Darwinism, along with its origin-of-life
and evolutionary psychology adjuncts, is *entirely* correct, God will seem
redundant, and it's hard to worship a redundant being with all your heart.
Now one might might respond: But why couldn't a completely impersonal
process be God's way of creating, if we suppose the process was a planned
one? Well, it could, and I've mentioned Denton as someone who suggests that
kind of blending of naturalism and design. But the language of
neo-Darwinism is not the language of planning, followed by delivery through
some natural process. It's the language of contingency and lucky bounces,
and despite the cleverest arguments of people here to accommodate the
radical contingency supposed by neo-Darwinism (a radical contingency brought
out most fiercely by Gould) to an omnipotent, omnipotent, Providential God,
the fit is very awkward. It seems awkward to me, and I'm more open than
most to being persuaded that apparent contradictions are really paradoxical
truths. How much more awkward is it going to seem to the average
churchgoer in the pews? If you tell the average churchgoer in the pews that
Darwinian processes explain everything, including the development of the
human soul, *even if you specify that you mean it "only on the scientific
level"*, you've started the wheels turning. After all, if Darwinian theory
is capable of deriving our bodies from bacteria, and evolutionary psychology
is capable of deriving our souls from the souls of animals, how can we be
sure that we *need*
more than the scientific level? Why should we believe that science cannot
account for everything, if it can account for the very heart of what makes
us human, i.e., the soul?
I believe that TEs here and elsewhere are quite sincere in saying that more
than science is needed to define and explain the universe, life and man. I
also agree with them. My problem is that I don't see why they hold this
view, given the solidity they attribute to evolutionary explanation, and
given that more and more scientists are building on evolutionary explanation
at both ends, i.e., regarding the chemical origin of life and the
explanation of human behaviour in terms of evolutionary psychology. History
shows that modern science has a way of incorporating more and more into its
sphere; we can see how it has moved from physics to chemistry to geology and
biology to anthropology and psychology. In the case of the last three
fields (probably the last four), many initially believed that science could
never explain such realms. History also appears to show a retreat of
theology from many of these realms, and from many other realms as well --
even Biblical criticism is now a secular science, and Catholic and
Protestant scholars read articles by Jewish and secular scholars on the "Q"
source without qualm. It thus looks as if, in the language of NOMA, science
is like the former Soviet Union, unwilling to respect its boundaries, and
determined to dominate Poland, Hungary, Romania, East Germany, etc., whereas
theology is akin to a Europe that keeps shrinking as the Soviet Union moves
relentlessly westward, poised to invade and swallow Austria, West Germany,
etc. Based on our past experience, how can we be sure that science will not
expand indefinitely, and theology shrink indefinitely, until theology
occupies, perhaps, the area of Liechtenstein or Andorra? It seems to me
that many TEs, by allowing science to define its own areas of competence,
have more or less allowed an infinite process of boundary restructuring
within NOMA, whereby science gets larger and larger, and theology smaller
and smaller. Science today appears to have an empire the size of Genghis
Khan's, and theology an empire the size of Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Theology
seems less and less important, and more and more plays second banana to
science, constantly offering it more and more as the price of any sort of
survival at all, cutting deals out of weakness rather than out of strength,
e.g.: "We'll allow you to explain the origin of life and body and soul in
completely reductionist terms, and won't utter a peep, as long as you give
us the Resurrection, and we'll acknowledge that even that can't be proved
scientifically, as long as you grant that it can't be *dis*proved
scientifically." If that's the trade that TEs make, I think they're making
a really, really bad trade.
Thus, I still need to hear how TE differs from NOMA. I don't mean, how do
individual TEs differ from Gould, by accepting certain historical events
that Gould did not accept. My question is: Outside of belief in historical
claims of Christian religion (prophecy, miracles, resurrection), don't TEs,
in their science and their theoretical thinking, practice NOMA exactly as
Gould recommends? Aren't TEs in fact NOMA-accepters who also happen to
believe in some historical miracles? And since I don't want to be accused
of generalizing falsely, let me change that to: Aren't *some* TEs in fact
NOMA-accepters who also happen to believe in some historical miracles?
It appears to me that at least some TEs here fit the above description; but
I'm willing to adopt a new perception if people here can show me the
difference -- if they can show me that their version of TE (1) does not
simply cede to the current scientific consensus whatever intellectual
territory that it demands [counterexamples would be nice] and (2) looks at
the distinction between science and religion quite differently from the way
that NOMA does.
Cameron.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ted Davis" <TDavis@messiah.edu>
To: "asa" <asa@calvin.edu>; "Cameron Wybrow" <wybrowc@sympatico.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 2:49 PM
Subject: Re: Schools and NOMA (was Re: [asa] Atheist finds God thru Behe's
books....)
>>> "Cameron Wybrow" <wybrowc@sympatico.ca> 10/21/2009 1:45 PM >>> wrote
>>> (among other things):
I can't speak for the anti-ID wing of YEC with any confidence, but I am in
regular contact with a large number of ID supporters, of all types,
including YECs, OECs, religious syncretists, and even hard-boiled agnostics.
Some of them are on-side with macroevolution; others reject it. But one
thing that all of them, or almost all of them, have in common, is a hatred
of NOMA.
Further, many of these people would see NOMA as closely allied with TE.
From the ID point of view, many if not most TEs believe that all events
happen due to natural causes (however much God may be mysteriously
"co-operating" with those causes), and their acceptance of Darwinian
evolution (which is 100% naturalistic), is directly connected with that.
And again from the ID point of view, while the religious sincerity of most
TEs is not denied, it looks as if religion for TEs belongs in the private
world of faith. For example, in the insistence of many TEs that not even
God's bare existence can be established through the observation of nature,
ID people see a cleavage, a sort of schizophrenia between the "science" half
of the soul and the "religion" half of the soul, where "science" knows the
external world, and "faith" knows God, and never the twain shall meet.
Science can't talk about God, and faith can't talk about nature. And from
the ID point of view, that sounds an awful lot like NOMA.
***
Ted comments:
Some might see this analysis as a bit "over the top," in terms of a profound
distaste for the NOMA position on the part of ID proponents; and, in terms
of a comparable distaste for those TEs who sound like NOMA supporters to ID
proponents. From my own experience with larger groups of ID supporters,
however, I confirm the accuracy of what Cameron is saying. This is one of
the reasons, IMO, why have a reapproachment between some forms of ID and
some forms of TE (something I would like to see) will be very, very
difficult. There are deeply entrenched views and attitudes on this
particular aspect of the issue. IDs almost all see NOMA, or even the much
more sophisticated complementarity view -- which is much older, more
sophisticated, and much friendlier to orthodox Christian belief -- as an
unacceptable "privatization" of faith. No amount of evidence concerning the
public witness for Christian faith that individual TEs often engage in (I am
thinking of people like Collins, Lamoureux, George Ellis, Polkinghorne, Dick
Bube, or countless others) seems to dissuade ID advocates from drawing this
conclusion. If you don't embrace a very strong form of natural theology
(which is what ID is equivalent to, IMO), then somehow your faith is simply
"privatized," even though it is publicly and widely proclaimed.
As I've said in the fairly distant past, ID advocates and TE advocates
usually have different views of what it means to make science one's
Christian vocation. A bit more respect for diversity on this, in both
directions, would be a good thing for the body of Christ, IMO. (You can
find hundreds to put in each "camp" within the ASA, and we get along pretty
well most of the time, but the ASA itself has sometimes been caricatured by
those who don't understand who we are.)
I disagree myself with Gould's NOMA view, insofar as Gould used it to deny
to Christians (at least implicitly, if not explicitly) the right to claim
that Christ was raised bodily from the grave -- among other things. Thou
shalt not make religious claims that involve statements about physical
reality, he might have said. And, he was wrong about that. His book,
"Rocks of Ages," however, is really pretty good overall. Among other
things, Gould is one of only a few scholars who understood what White's
"warfare" thesis was really about: the progressive elimination of core
theological claim in the name of science, in order to ensure the survival of
religion in a scientific age. What Gould apparently not see, however, is
that many contemporary thinkers involved with the "dialogue" of science and
religion, coming from the very liberal end of Christian theology, are
actually embracing White's warfare view -- despite their repeated denials of
the warfare view. I wrote about this in "Zygon," Dec 2000 (an essay that I
actually wrote before I saw Gould's 1999 book).
****
Cameron also wrote this:
This why I asked, in another conversation, what it would take, for a TE, to
put Christianity at risk. If NOMA applies, then Christianity is
bulletproof, at least on the side of science. No conceivable fact uncovered
by science, no conceivable law or theory or scheme of the world uncovered by
science, could ever put Christian teaching in doubt. And TEs appear to
believe that Christianity is scientifically bulletproof. So if NOMA is not
the basis of this invulnerability of Christianity to any possible discovery
of science, what is?
***
Ted comments:
My own answer to the indirect question in the first sentence of the
paragraph just quoted is as follows. What it would take to put Christianity
at risk, IMO, is clear and unambiguous evidence that either (a) Jesus was
not crucified; or (b) Jesus was not raised bodily from the grave after his
crucifixion. Gould almost certainly thought that "science" had made (b)
impossible to believe, but obviously I would differ with him on that. I
have yet to see the demonstration, you might say. This is not a
"bulletproof" claim, in terms of science--if we include archaeology among
the sciences (as I do). Are there any possible conclusions of the natural
sciences that would "put Christianity at risk"? An interesting question.
I'm not too confident of an answer. I would myself find actual hard
evidence of an enormous multiverse very disturbing -- there, I admitted
that, which some have probably suspected. But, hard evidence for me would
probably have to involve actually observing some other part(s) of the
multiverse, and if I have it right that isn't in the cards. So, have I
thereby made Christianity invulnerable to refutation by natural science? On
the other hand, part of my uncertainty about this involves the fact that
some smart Christians I know think that an infinite God might as well have
created a multiverse that is for practical purposes also infinite. (That's
not a new idea, theologically, as many will realize; there were discussions
of this at least as early as Nicholas of Cusa in the 15th Century.)
Cameron will no doubt bring biology into this somewhere, but I'm not sure
that biology puts Christianity into doubt. (It depends on how biology is
defined and how Christianity is defined.) At the basic level, you could say
that physiology refutes life after death; one of Compton's critics went
after him that way (for details, see the next issue of PSCF). But, I don't
think physiology has anything to say about the new heaven and earth...
And, I fail to see how *any* of the sciences has anything *at all* to say
about the Trinity, or atonement, or faith, hope, and love. Not to mention,
grace. If Cameron or anyone else can show me where I'm wrong, I'm all
ears -- or, eyes.
Ted
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Received on Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:55:22 -0400
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