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SCIENCE AND RELIGION IN DIALOGUE
Summary of a Talk by Dr. Mark Richardson
Report on by Corrine Alexander and Michael Jacobson
On Thursday, February 8, 1996, Mark Richardson presented the first
lecture in the lecture series for Religious Studies 102, Science and the
Sacred. Mr. Richardson is Assistant Professor of Philosophical Theology
at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. He is also directing
a major initiative at the interface of science and religion for The Center
for Theology and the Natural Sciences (Berkeley), sponsored by the Templeton
Foundation. He is the editor of the CTNS bulletin, a publication of scholarly
articles and book reviews in science and religion, and is co-editor of "Science
and Religion: History, Method, and Dialogue", available this spring.
Furthermore, he is a wonderful speaker, and if you missed it, you missed
a lot of fun.
If you happened to miss this talk, not all is lost if you have been
reading Barbour's "Religion in an Age of Science". Mr. Richardson
is also an Episcopalian priest and presented the modern models of the relation
between religion and science in culture today from a philosopher-theologian
perspective. In doing so he followed the three model approach outlined
in Barbour's book.
The first model discussed is termed the *Conflict Model*. In this
model which predominates in popular culture, science and religion are seen
as incompatible. These two entities present competing claims about the
same domain. He spoke of the dichotomy between scientism, called scientific
materialism by Barbour, and scriptural literalism. Scientism, with its
epistemological and metaphysical reductionism, claims to be objective, public,
and open to falsification. What is not verifiable, such as the personal
experience of religion, cannot be true. Under scriptural literalism, however,
science is tested against religion. It is through Scripture that scientific
truths are revealed. The critique of this model is aimed at reductionism,
as lower levels of the reductionist scheme constrain the properties of the
higher levels, but fail at a sufficient explanation of their nature. (sum
is greater than the parts).
The second model Mr. Richardson described is the *Independence Model*,
which predominates in academic culture. As the name implies, science and
religion are viewed as entirely different domains. They are so fundamentally
different that there is no basis of comparison, and privatization and compartmentalization
of science and religion results. The domain of science is nature, as it
deals with facts, time, space, and how the world works. Its mechanisms
are observation, experimentation, and reason. Religion's domain is the
spirit, and it focuses on values, eternity, God, and why the world works.
Its mechanisms are personal knowledge and revelation. God is viewed as
free and transcendent, while the universe is closed and determinant. The
dilemma arising from this model is in reconciling a mechanistic relation
to the universe with a spiritual relation to God as His creation. Additionally,
Mr. Richardson feels this model correctly expresses the notion of self-involvement
with the world, yet wrongly treats nature as strictly unreligious and forces
religion into a purely private role. The pressure of these incompatibilities,
he feels, pushes us into dialogue between science and religion. This brings
us to the third model discussed.
In the *Dialogue Model*, attention is placed on the interaction
of science and religion. Mr. Richardson began by describing the way in
which the Doctrine of Creation, a religious idea stressing the contingency,
order, intelligence, and goodness of the world, sets up a context for the
emergence of science. He continued by highlighting three main interfaces
where science and religion are wedded into dialogue.
* -The first interface is the so called boundary questions where science
no longer applies, such as when scientific inquiry eventually leads to questions
of the ultimate and metaphysics, which is not its original goal.
**- The second interface is the exploration of the methodological similarities.
For example, religion can learn from science's criteria of coherence and
objectivity. Furthermore, language functions in both traditions as a means
of organizing and explaining experience.
*** -The final interface involves the ways in which science sharpens our
understanding of previously-held convictions. It is demonstrated analogically
through the relationship between paradox in theology and the wave-particle
duality in physics. It can also be seen through supportive relationships
between science and religion, such as the Anthropic Principle's support
of the religious notion of the purposefulness of creation. Finally, science
often functions to reformulate existing ideas. Evolution, for example,
has changed our notions of humanity, and has allowed some to see God as
inherent and ever-present in creation.
These topics can be hard to get a handle on, especially when lumped
as one big group to be digested all at once. This review has not attempted
to instruct or inform someone with no previous knowledge of the topic.
It is merely a brief summary of the talk's key points, which may be better
understood as a result of reading Barbour. If you come to the remaining
lectures, you will not need to rely on a poorly written review for the information.