Science can’t
[S]cience tends to look at the world and treat it as an ‘it’, as an object; something you can kick around, pull apart and find out what it’s made of – that’s the experimental method, which is science’s great secret weapon. But we also know there is a whole swath of encounters with reality, where we meet it not as an object, as an ‘it’, but as a person. Above all, we encounter God in that way and when we move to that realm, testing has to give way to trusting. If we set traps to see if you are my friend, I’ll destroy the possibility of friendship between us.
Not so fast. Sometimes, when we meet an object as a person, testing does not have to give way to trusting; on the contrary, trusting is the wrong move. I’m sure we can all think of examples without help. Of course we don’t want to set traps for someone who is already a friend, but we don’t make friends with everyone we ever encounter, either. It’s not the case that in every encounter with an object that is not an it but a person, trust is invariably the only right response. And a second point: the analogy is silly, because we don’t ‘encounter God’ the way we encounter other persons. It’s not at all obvious that when we ‘encounter’ something that we consider God (and what is that something, exactly?) then testing has to give way to trusting – especially not on the risible grounds that God won’t be our friend if we test it instead of trusting it. If God is that huffy, God can go find someone else to play with.
In Polkinghorne’s opinion, while it can show how things fit together, science can’t explain where the structure comes from: “Religion offers a broader and deeper understanding.” He asserts that what may normally appear as a happy accident becomes intelligible if it is seen as “reflective of the mind and the will of the creator. It just explains more”.
What does ‘explains’ mean there? ‘Explains more’ in what sense? It doesn’t explain, for instance, the mind and will of the creator, or the creator. So in what sense does religion offer a broader and deeper understanding? I’m guessing that Polkinghorne means in the sense that he finds it more congenial and comforting, more emotionally satisfying. I say that because it isn’t really intellectually satisfying (because of the infinite regress), yet believers always claim that religion ‘explains better.’ ‘Better’ must mean something like in a more friendly or anthropocentric or familiar way.
Even if one accepts that testing has to give way to trusting, whom to trust?
Plenty of people I know have various silly beliefs–not all of them religious–and when I point out evidence against those beliefs, they don’t trust _me_.
I’m developing a theory about theology. There seem to be two kinds of theologians in the world: Theocrats with more education than is usual for their kind, and muddle-headed twits who spit out one fuzzy metaphor and atrocious analogy after another and call it “insight.” The latter are no more intellectually honest than the former, but they do make for better neighbors.
*sigh*
Was most disappointed to see it was The Hootsmon giving space to this tired old “God of the gaps” flummery.
Still, a brief perusal at the comments below the article was relatively heartening.
Right, now to go and badger the SNP about their annoying love-affair with faith schools…
:-)
Brace yourselves folks, because the Oxford study that Ophelia links to will inevitably regurgitate miles and miles of this kind of guff – especially as it’s tied up with the Templeton crowd.
Chris, unfortunately yes, I heard one of their lead scientists, also a devout christian, on BBC Radio 4 asserting that religion does not have enough of an important role in public life…
A bit of google ‘research’ throws up that this man is an FRS (Sorry GT! – awarded in 1974, six years before reigning University prof, eight years before ordination)
Yet he has stated in his book From Physicist to Priest that:
“He does not have a totally untroubled faith. Sometimes Christianity seems to him to be just too good to be true, but when this sort of doubt arises he says to himself, ‘All right then, deny it’ and he knows this is something he could never do.”
I can never get past this contradictory aspect of faith in intelligent people.
Anyway, from the extract OB is quoting, he seems to be mistaking testing the reality of the meeting and testing the person we meet, which only makes sense if you assume a priori that there is a god.
As someone else said, it’s bad science and bad theology (or at least bad logic…)
From testing to setting traps in 1 step.
My guess is the guy has trust issues.
Or perhaps he has trap issues.
He should test his traps, they might be faulty.
Great article. Wish you could’ve given some more analogies to fill out the article as you shredded Polkinghorne’s analogy.
–MichaelDePaula.com
RE: Science can and will understand Religion, and vice versa, in the 21st century!
BTW, OB, I think your nice B&W entry could have been a better read, if its column-width could have had been cut down by half — just a food for thought! Thank you all!
Best wishes, Mong, author “Decoding Scientism” (work in progress since Jul 2007), “Gods, Genes, Conscience” (Jan 2006: http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0595379907) and “Gods, Genes, Conscience: Global Dialogues Now” (Feb 2006: http://www2.blogger.com/profile/18303146609950569778); a retired cancer biomedical research pioneer (1970s-80s) turned critical reader-independent modern philosopher of ME (Mind & Emotion, including morality & ethics), pursuing Epistemology of Self (& other selves) empirically as a rekindled post-midlife passion and profession, whose works are based on the current advances in interdisciplinary science and integrative psychology of Science and Religion worldwide; ethically, morally; metacognitively, and objectively.
Epistemology of other selves…interesting.
“I’m guessing that Polkinghorne means in the sense that he finds it more congenial and comforting, more emotionally satisfying. I say that because it isn’t really intellectually satisfying (because of the infinite regress), yet believers always claim that religion ‘explains better.'”
Yes, that is a guess, OB.
*My* guess is that your massive generalisation that believers always claim that religion ‘explains better’, is based you on needing to meet more people.