How Do We Know? : Understanding in Science and Theology [1 ed.] 9780567371041, 9780567132659

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How Do We Know?

ISSUES IN SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY This series is published under the auspices of the European Society for the Study of Science And Theology Series Editor Dirk Evers Advisory Board Grzegorz Bugajak (Philosophy), Warszawa, Poland Marie-Claire Groessens-Van Dyck (Paleobiology), Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium Antje Jackelén (Theology), Lund, Sweden Anne Kull (Theology), Tartu, Estonia Javier Leach (Mathematics), Madrid, Spain Hubert Meisinger (Theology), Mainz, Germany Marie Vejrup Nielsen (Theology), Aarhus, Denmark Lluis Oviedo (Anthropology), Rome, Italy Neil Spurway (Medicine), Glasgow, U.K. Roger Trigg (Philosophy), Warwick, U.K. Chris Wiltsher (Theology), Durham, U.K. Published in this series: How Do We Know? Understanding in Science and Theology (2010) Creation’s Diversity: Voices from Theology and Science (2008) Wisdom or Knowledge? Science, Theology and Cultural Dynamics (2006) Creative Creatures: Values and Ethical Issues in Theology, Science and Technology (2005) Design and Disorder: Perspectives from Science and Theology (2002) The Human Person in Science and Theology (2000)

How Do We Know? Understanding in Science and Theology

Editors Dirk Evers Antje Jackelén Taede Smedes

Published by T&T Clark International A Continuum imprint The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX 80 Maiden Lane, Suite 704, New York, NY 10038 www.tandtclark.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Copyright © Dirk Evers, Antje Jackelén, Taede Smedes, and contributors 2010 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-0-567-13265-9 (paperback) Typeset by Fakenham Photosetting Ltd, Fakenham, Norfolk Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements

vii

List of Contributors

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PART I: Understanding in Science

1

1

The Role of Understanding in Human Nature Peter Gärdenfors

3

2

The Origins of Science and Religion: Why Do People Have the Beliefs that They Do? Lewis Wolpert

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From Modern to Postmodern Conceptions of Knowledge – Where Do We Stand Today? Mikael Stenmark

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3

4

The Scientific Project: Knowledge Without Meaning? Håkan Snellmann

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How Do We Know about the Self: Theoretical, Experimental, and Neural? Rebekka A. Klein

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PART II: Understanding in Theology

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‘The End of Faith?’ Theology as Process Noreen Herzfeld

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7

Faith, Science and Postmodernity Antje Jackelén

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How Scientific Knowledge Changes Theology – A Case Study from Original Sin Eva-Lotta Grantén

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PART III: Understanding in Dialogue 9

Self, Knowledge and Faith: An Approach to Constructive Dialogue in Science and Religion W. Richard Bowen

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The Multiplicity of Purposes of ‘Religion and Science’ Willem B. Drees

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Towards Understanding ‘Understanding’ in Science, Epistemology and Theology Peter P. Kirschenmann

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On First Principles: Arthur Schopenhauer and Bridging the Science/ Religion Divide David K. Goodin

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PART IV: Understanding Through Narratives: A Case Study 13

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Index

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Knowing Through Narratives? Narrative Understanding and the Separation Between the Narrative and Non-narrative Marie Vejrup Nielsen

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‘Let Me Tell You a Story’: Narrative and Meaning in Science and Religion John A. Teske

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Preface and Acknowledgements

‘All humans by nature desire to know.’ With this sentence, Aristotle begins his metaphysics, one of the basic works of Western philosophy. Knowledge is something human beings naturally strive for; it seems to be woven into our humanity. Non-religious naturalists and religious people might agree on this statement. But how do we know? Here the ways of science and religion seem to part. Asking this question, we return to a fundamental theme basic for all reflections on religious thought in an age of science, i.e. to the epistemological question of how we gain knowledge in the scientific and in the religious realm and how these two domains of human truth claims relate. Is religious belief knowledge? If so, what kind of knowledge is it? How are religious beliefs justified? What kind of knowledge is science? How is its character related to its methodology? And how are both, religious beliefs and scientific theories, linked to human existence distinguished by its desire for reliable knowledge and truth? Every other year, the European Conference on Science and Theology (ECST) is organised by ESSSAT, the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology. ESSSAT is a scholarly society that promotes the study of the interactions of science and theology, thus creating opportunities for scholars from a wide diversity of backgrounds, geographically und linguistically, disciplinary and confessionally, to engage in conversation and debate. Besides the main lectures presented, an important part of each conference are the paper sessions which provide a platform for crossing borders, presenting research, and for interaction between young scholars and senior members of the academia. This volume has its origin in the twelfth ECST which took place in Sigtuna, Sweden, from 30 April to 5 May 2008. It presents authors from science, philosophy, and theology, who discuss the question of knowledge in science and religion from different perspectives and with different voices. The editors have arranged the contributions in four parts: Understanding in Science, Understanding in Theology, Understanding in Dialogue, and Understanding Through Narratives, reflecting the different backgrounds and subjects dealt with at the conference. Some of the contributions are revised and edited versions of the plenary lectures at ECST

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Preface and Acknowledgements

XII; others have been selected from the various short papers discussed at the conference. A selection of additional papers of the conference will be published in Volume 11 of the yearbook of ESSSAT, Studies in Science and Theology, which all society members receive and which can be ordered directly from ESSSAT (www.esssat.org). The publication of this volume is an opportunity to thank organisers and sponsors of our conference. We express our gratitude to Sigtunastiftelsen, where all conference activities took place and which offered a wonderful meeting place with great hospitality, and especially to their director Alf Lindeman. Sigtunastiftelsen was also an organisational partner and shared the financial burden for the conference. The main local organisers were Ulf Görman as vice-president for the conference and Eva-Lotta Grantén, whom we thank for all their efforts before and during the conference. It is also with gratitude that we acknowledge the support ESSSAT has received from the sponsors of the Sigtuna conference, the Swedish Royal Academy of Letters and the Swedish Research Council. Additional support was given by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation, the Olaus Petri Foundation at Uppsala University, and from the Diocese of Lund. Malin Pihlgren assisted with editorial work for this publication. Once again, the Radboud Foundation, NL, sponsored the ESSSAT Research Prize and the ESSSAT Student Prize for which we are most grateful. Finally we thank the staff of T&T Clark for their cooperation on this volume, now the sixth in this series. Dirk Evers

List of Contributors

W. Richard Bowen is a Fellow of the UK Royal Academy of Engineering, Initiator of i-NewtonWales and Professor of Engineering at the University of Wales Swansea. He has over 200 publications in engineering, science, philosophy and theology. In philosophy and theology he has special interests in understanding across conceptual schemes and ethics. Willem B. Drees is professor of Philosophy of Religion, Ethics and Encyclopaedia of Theology at Leiden University, The Netherlands. Since 2008 he is Editor in chief of Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science (2009). From 2002–2008 he served as president of the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology (ESSSAT). He is the author of Religion, Science and Naturalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), Creation: From Nothing until Now (London: Routledge, 2001), and Religion and Science in Context (London: Routledge, 2010). David K. Goodin is a religious studies PhD candidate and a faculty lecturer at McGill University in Montreal. He also holds a MA in environmental science from Florida International University in Miami. Eva-Lotta Grantén holds a doctorate in Theological Ethics from Lund University, Sweden. Her dissertation presented Christian neighbourly love in dialogue with evolutionary theories of altruism. She has been involved in research on ethical and theological aspects of prolongevity. She is currently working in a project on Lutheran theology and Original Sin. Eva-Lotta has been an ESSSAT officer since 2000, and is a minister in the Church of Sweden. Noreen Herzfeld is the Nicholas and Bernice Reuter Professor of Science and Religion at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. She holds degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics from the Pennsylvania State University and a Ph.D. in Theology from the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. Herzfeld is the author of numerous articles in both academic journals and the popular press as

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well as several books, including In Our Image: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Spirit (2002), Technology and Religion: Remaining Human in a Co-Created World (2009), and The Limits of Perfection in Technology, Religion, and Science (2010). Antje Jackelén is Bishop of the Lund Diocese, Church of Sweden. From 2001–2007, she taught systematic theology and religion and science at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago and was director of the Zygon Center for Religion and Science. She currently serves as president of the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology (ESSSAT). Jackelén is the author of numerous articles as well as several books, including The Dialogue between Religion and Science: Challenges and Future Directions (2004) and Time and Eternity: The Concept of Time in Church, Science and Theology (2005). Peter P. Kirschenmann is professor-emeritus in the philosophy of the natural sciences and philosophical ethics, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. He has been a supervising member of a research group ‘Scientific Understanding’ and a long-time member of the study group ‘Theology and Science’. A selection of his published articles can be found in his Science, Nature and Ethics: Critical Philosophical Studies, Delft: Eburon 2001. Rebekka A. Klein is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Chair for Ethics and Systematic Theology, University of Heidelberg, Germany. In 2009 she finished her Ph.D.-thesis on Humanity, Sociality, and the Theological Notion of God: An Interdisciplinary Investigation at the University of Zürich, Switzerland. Her research interests are in the field of an interdisciplinary dialogue of Theology and the Social Sciences, as well as Philosophical Anthropology, Ethics and Political Theory. Recent Publication: Die Inhumanität des Animal Sociale. Vier Thesen zum interdisziplinären Beitrag der theologischen Anthropologie, Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 51 (2009), 427–444. Marie Vejrup Nielsen, PhD, is Assistant Professor at the Department of Religious Studies at Aarhus University. She defended her PhD-dissertation entitled ‘Being Human – Crisis and Solution Grand Narratives of Humanity – The Doctrine of Sin in Dialogue with Evolutionary Biology’ September 2007 at the University of Aarhus. She is the winner of the ESSSAT Student Prize 2004. Håkan Snellman is professor emeritus at the Department of Theoretical Physics, KTH, Stockholm, Sweden. His main works are in theoretical particle physics and astroparticle physics. A part from scientific papers, Snellman has also contributed to several books, journals, radio and TV programs and given public talks on popular science and on the relation between science and religion. A recent contribution of his is the article ‘The Transformation of Values and the Scientific Project’ in The Meaning of Life in the 21st Century, Ed. Don Hanlon Johnson, iUniverse, Bloomington (2008).

List of Contributors

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Mikael Stenmark is Professor of Philosophy of Religion and Dean of the Faculty of Theology at Uppsala University, Sweden. His books include How to Relate Science and Religion: A Multidimensional Model (Eerdmans, 2004), Environmental Ethics and Environmental Policy Making (Ashgate, 2002), Scientism: Science, Ethics and Religion (Ashgate, 2001), and Rationality in Science, Religion and Everyday Life (University of Notre Dame Press, 1995). He has also published articles in journals such as Religious Studies, Faith and Philosophy, Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, Theology and Science, The Heythrop Journal, and Environmental Ethics. John A. Teske, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, PA 17022. Education: PhD, MA, Clark Univ., Worcester, MA, USA; BA, Indiana Univ. Selected Publications: ‘Neuromythology’ (2006), ‘Cyberpsychology’ (2002), ‘Cognitive Neuroscience and Temporal Ordering’ (2001), ‘The Genesis of Mind and Spirit’ (2001), ‘The Haunting of the Human Spirit’ (1999), ‘The Spiritual Limits of Neuropsychological Life’ (1996), all in Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science. Lewis Wolpert is Emeritus Professor of Biology as Applied to Medicine in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at University College, London. His research interests are in the mechanisms involved in the development of the embryo, particularly pattern formation. He was originally trained as a civil engineer in South Africa. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1980. He has been involved in the public understanding of science. His books include The Unnatural Nature of Science, Malignant Sadness – the Anatomy of Depression, Principles of Development, Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast – the evolutionary origins of belief, and How We Live and Why We Die – the secret lives of cells. He is an editor of the Journal of Theoretical Biology.

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Part I Understanding in Science

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1 The Role of Understanding in Human Nature Peter Gärdenfors

I. Introduction Why is understanding so important in the life of humans? We can easily imagine a life where we follow a set of rules without understanding why these rule are there. However, achieving understanding is a strong motivational factor for many of our endeavours. Understanding is a central concept in cognitive science since it concerns the coherence of a cognitive system and how the system evaluates its own coherence. Despite the enormous progress during the last centuries there are surprising lacunae in our scientific knowledge. The very concept of understanding has often been overlooked in educational, philosophical and psychological research. In the early stages of cognitive science the functioning of the brain was seen as similar to that of a computer. Bruner notes in his book Acts of Meaning (1990) that if thinking is seen as information processing, questions about meaning and understanding disappear. But a theory about human nature cannot be based on ‘information’, ‘processing’ and ‘behaviour’ only – it must contain some account of what it means to understand. Among other things, this involves putting the acts of humans in a social and cultural context. Understanding is nothing mysterious, but very little is known about how understanding arises. Within the humanities one finds the hermeneutic tradition concerning ‘Verstehen’. However, this tradition focuses on the possibilities of interpreting cultural products – books, paintings, symphonies, etc. Research is still in its nascent stage as regards the role of quotidian insights, for example, in ordinary students’ learning – what happens when you discover a connection you have not sensed before. A new insight is often connected with an aha-experience. However, when it comes to describing what happens in our heads when we understand, science has little to say. In this article I will focus on the role of understanding in culture, education and science, and more specifically, on how to use abstract theories to make sense of the world. However, first of all I must provide a general background to

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how I understand understanding. As a working hypothesis, I shall propose that understanding consists in seeing a pattern (Gärdenfors 2007, Gärdenfors and Lindström 2008). I shall begin by discussing how this idea, which derives from Gestalt psychology, is interpreted in modern cognitive science in terms of ‘hidden variables’. In particular I will show that the minds of humans are tuned to seeking causes and to reading the minds of others. As a first application of the ideas, I argue that what patterns are seen is to some extent dependent on the culture one lives in. The second application concerns education. It seems obvious that the goal of education should be that students understand the material they study. I propose that this is achieved by helping them to discover patterns that they cannot find on their own. I present some educational techniques such as visualizations, simulations and virtual agents that can be used to make students see the relevant patterns in a knowledge domain. Finally, I discuss the role of understanding in science. I argue that current proposals can be subsumed under the idea that understanding is seeing a pattern.

II. Understanding is seeing a pattern We find more or less abstract patterns at all levels of thinking, from seeing the stripes on a cat, to identifying the musical structure of a fugue by Bach or understanding the role of microorganisms in diseases. Some of the patterns we perceive are given by our biological constitution, some are learned during our childhood and our continued education, some are given by the culture we live in and some are provided by science. As I shall argue, perception of patterns is one of the most central cognitive processes. However, while relying on patterns increases our capacity to solve new problems, it can also hamper our ability to approach situations with an open mind. Above all, we perceive patterns visually. However, it should be noted that the idea of understanding by experiencing a pattern is viable in all sensory modalities. For example a sommelier can distinguish a fine wine by identifying acidity, sweetness, etc.; a bilingual child has learned fluently different phonemes from two languages; a perfume maker can create new scents by altering combinations of oils and flower extracts; and a sculptor can capture all the aspects of an ageing body with stiffened joints, muscles and wrinkled skin. All these are examples of experiencing a pattern that results in a better understanding of a knowledge domain. After attending a concert or visiting an art exhibition we say we are full of impressions. But it is a myth that our sensory experiences are ‘impressions’, in the sense that there is something that is pressed into our brains. Our brain is not a passive receiver of images and sounds from the surrounding world. It actively seeks patterns and it interprets what it receives. This continuously running process is the basis for all understanding. Our brain’s search for patterns, whether we are aware of it or not, takes place at a variety of levels. At the bottom of our understanding, there are biologically

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determined mechanisms that strongly control the way we perceive the surrounding world. At the top, one finds the cultural patterns that are required in order to interpret works of art, poetry, music, dance, etc. However, when we master the patterns, they also influence our perception of the cultural products. As a consequence, we don’t all see and hear the same things – there is no ‘objective’ description of the world (Gärdenfors 2007). As Goethe writes: ‘Es hört doch jeder nur, was er versteht’. To illustrate that the search for patterns is ubiquitous, let us begin with an example of a biologically controlled mechanism from the visual modality (see figure 1).

Figure 1: Visual pattern (from Marroquin 1976)

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At an early stage of the visual process, the brain tries to find patterns among all the dots. We perceive circles of different sizes in the figure. An interesting aspect is that one circle is soon replaced by another that suppresses the first, etc. The figure ‘lives’ even though not a single dot is moving. You may even discover Maltese crosses in the figure. If you do, the crosses will block the perception of the circles – and vice versa. The figure has no global meaning, but our visual system searches incessantly for patterns. There is therefore no unequivocal answer to how one ‘perceives’ the figure. The brain is full of mechanisms that fill in what falls on the retina, the eardrum or the other sensors. The experienced result is often a pattern in the form of a Gestalt. These processes were studied by the Gestalt psychologists in the first half of the twentieth century, but they have received a renewed interest since we are now beginning to understand the brain mechanisms behind this form of filling in. For example, consider Figure 2. We immediately perceive figure A as a circle and a rectangle, that is, we decompose it as in figure B, although there is no logical reason why it should not be decomposed as in figure C or D.

Figure 2: Perception of Gestalts The mechanisms that fill in are important from an evolutionary perspective: Bad lighting conditions or occluding objects do not prevent us from discovering danger or food, which clearly increases our fitness. If one sees the tail of a tiger, one will surely understand that there is a whole tiger in the vicinity. Therefore, we will have a better chance of surviving in our environment. Our brains have constructed a large repertoire of patterns. We are often not aware of them, but they can be elicited by various tricks. For example, look at the two pictures in figure 3. What do they depict?

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Figure 3: Incomplete depictions of objects It may not be difficult to see that the left is a picture of a violin, but for many observers a clue is needed for the picture to the right – a salient feature that deciphers the content. It is an elephant (with its head to the left). Suddenly the pieces fall into their places and one can interpret the picture – it becomes a Gestalt. The different parts become meaningful. For instance, one of the black blotches suddenly becomes the tip of the trunk. An interesting feature of such Gestalt experiences is that once you have seen the pattern, you cannot let it go away again – your mind is locked onto it. For some category systems, the effects of a categorization are amplified by the perceptual systems so that distances within a category are perceived as being smaller and distances between categories are perceived as larger than they ‘really’ are. This phenomenon is called categorical perception (see, for example, the articles in Harnad 1987). This finding implies that a reality where there are no sharp borders is sorted into distinct slots by our cognitive mechanisms. The categories can be seen as a kind of pattern. They are normally a product of learning, most of which is implicit. A simple but illustrative example of categorical perception is provided by figure 4:

Figure 4: An example of categorical perception

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If you focus on the upper row, the sign in the middle is seen as a B, while if you focus on the lower row, the very same sign is seen as 13. The example illustrates that the context determines how we understand the information that our senses receive. This mechanism makes our processing more efficient, but it also locks us into certain interpretations. The patterns above are culturally transferred since they form part of basic Western education that uses Latin letters and (adapted) Arabic numerals. The mechanism of categorical perception has been found in many domains, but has been studied in particular for phonetic systems (see, for example, Petitot 1989). Understanding a language presumes that one can correctly categorize the sounds of the language and group them into units we call words. Even though a set of sounds may be produced by an articulatory parameter that varies continuously (output variable), the auditory system perceives this variable in a categorical way so that when the articulatory parameter is varied along its scale, the perceived sound (input variable) seems to remain constant for a large interval and then suddenly jumps to a new sound that is relatively stable too. .

III. The causal drive Humans have a more or less innate drive to seek patterns in their experiences. Above all, we have a strong tendency to seek causes in the happenings of the world. In a previous book (Gärdenfors 2006), I called this tendency our causal drive. There are good evolutionary reasons why we should look for casual connections since they help us understand how the world hangs together. By reasoning about causes and effects we become much better at predicting the future. And human beings are, more than any other animal, dependent on their prospective thinking (Gärdenfors 2003). As a matter of fact, there is a very strong connection between seeing patterns and understanding causes. A causal variable is a kind of pattern that connects causes and effects. Conversely, seeing new patterns means that one sees new connections between phenomena in the world. A pattern thereby functions as a way of creating new causal explanations and offers new ways of solving problems. For example, if a parent discovers a connection between a grumpy child and that the child has not eaten for some hours, the parent can help the child by feeding it. If the parent then learns the variable ‘low blood sugar level’ as a causal variable behind the whimpering and understands what kind of food quickly raises the blood sugar level of the child, the problem-solving capacity of the parent becomes even better. Humans have a unique talent for extracting the hidden variables of the world. These variables often form the backbone of the patterns that we discover. Within philosophy of science they are called theoretical variables. A prime example is the forces we use to interpret and categorize the events and actions that are presented to us by our perception. On a more abstract level, various physical, social and other variables can help us understand a phenomenon that initially was a disconnected

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blur. The hidden variables that are used to perceive causal relations are fundamental examples of the patterns that humans are particularly apt at discovering. In support of my notion of a causal drive, Leslie (1987) argues that infants not only can follow objects with their gaze, but they also have a special mechanism or module in the brain that calculates the forces influencing an object. Such a system, if it exists, would be a paramount example of how the human brain can exploit the hidden variables that govern the world around us. My interpretation of the difference between humans and other species is that our inner worlds are much more efficient in exploiting hidden variables to make predictions about the future. The causes are not given to us by our senses, but our brains fill them in. White (1995) even claims that that we literally perceive the forces, just as we perceive the contours of objects even if they are not contained in the visual information that reaches the eyes. The great advantage of the causal drive is therefore that it improves our ability to forecast the future. But sometimes it becomes excessive: Even pure chance events, such as lottery prizes, are seen as a result of luck. But ‘luck’ does not exist – it is a pure figment of our minds. The fact that we talk about luck is just a sign that our brains are obsessed with finding causes for everything that happens. If there is no cause, we must invent one. The causal drive is therefore a strong factor behind the creation of myths and magical thinking. Magical thinking is particularly strong in children’s thinking. Piaget (1930: 174) writes: The child fills the world with spontaneous movements and living ‘forces’; the heavenly bodies may rest or move as they please, the clouds make wind of themselves, waves ‘raise’ themselves, trees swing their branches spontaneously to make a breeze.

This idea can be extended to adult thinking: one can interpret magical or animistic thinking as just an application of psychological causality to physical phenomena – agents are seen everywhere as causes of events. Magical thinking does not only occur in children but is common, in different forms, at all stages of life and in all cultures. If you have once had an accident after seeing a black cat running across the road from left to right, you become worried next time you see a black cat. And you should not walk under ladders or open umbrellas indoors, and so on, ad nauseam. I submit that the human understanding of physical forces has developed via animism and anthropomorphism. Presumably, we have long interpreted the physical events with the aid of social variables such as power and eventually understood how to think in terms of impersonal physical forces. This accords with Collingwood (1972), who writes: ‘Causal propositions [. . .] are descriptions of relations between natural events in anthropomorphic terms’. It should be noted that it is only during the last few centuries that we have created a purely mechanistic description of the world.

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Peter Gärdenfors IV. Reading the minds of others

The causal drive of humans does not only concern the physical world but also the mental one. Apart from physical forces, we can perceive the mental forces that govern the behaviour of others. Perceiving these forces forms the basis for intersubjectivity. In this context, intersubjectivity means the sharing and understanding of others’ mentality. The term ‘mentality’ is taken here to involve not only beliefs and other proposition-like entities, but all sorts of forms of consciousness such as emotions, desires, attentional foci and intentions. In the philosophical debate, intersubjectivity is commonly called having a ‘theory of mind’ (Premack and Woodruff 1978, Mitchell 1997). (I avoid this term because it often presumes that one can understand the beliefs of others, something which, on the account presented here, is but one aspect of intersubjectivity.) Along with becoming better at imagining the inner worlds of others, we have become more skilled at creating hidden variables that can explain the thoughts of others (and of ourselves). First of all we must understand the actions of others, since we generally derive the mental states of others from their behaviour (including their speech). This mechanism can be seen as a variant of the one that allows us to derive physical forces from the movements of objects. The intentions we ascribe to others are the hidden forces that make other agents behave as they do. Because we can imagine what others know and do not know, we become good at cooperation, something that has fostered the evolution of human language, culture and societies (Gärdenfors, to appear). A downside of this is that our knowledge about the knowledge of others also makes us more skilled at deception and counterdeception. If I can imagine what others know about what I know, it will be possible for me to foresee the potentially deceptive moves of others. In previous works (Gärdenfors 2003, 2008), I have distinguished different levels of intersubjectivity in order to understand the cognitive capacities of animals and children at different ages. 1.

2. 3.

4.

5.

Understanding the emotions of others. At this level one can, for example, understand that someone else is in pain. This is what is usually meant by empathy. Even though one can understand others’ emotions, it does not mean that one understands what they believe or want. Understanding the desires of others. This capacity involves understanding, for example, that others don’t like the same things as you do. Understanding the attention of others. This means that one can understand, for example, what someone else is looking at. However, this ability does not presuppose any conception of other parts of their inner world. Understanding the intentions of others. This capacity means, above all, being able to understand the objective that may lie behind another individual’s behaviour. Understanding the beliefs and knowledge of others. This ability involves, among other things, understanding that others don’t know the same things as you do.

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A final step in the development of intersubjectivity is small but crucial for selfconsciousness in its proper sense: I must realize that the inner world of my opponent does not only contain a representation of myself as a bodily agent, but as an agent with inner representations as well. I believe that it is only after this insight that the agent can become self-conscious in the sense that it can form representations of its own representations. Some support for this point can also be obtained from results in developmental psychology (see e.g. Wimmer and Hartl 1991, Gopnik 1993, Carruthers, to appear). Along the same lines, Dilthey, one of the forerunners of the hermeneutic tradition, writes that to understand is to connect an expression with an experience to learn to know a Geist. According to him, all understanding involves a ‘rediscovery of the I in the Thou’. Anticipating the modern debate he explains: ‘The understanding of self requires me to approach myself as others do, that is, from the outside to the inside’. In other words, self-consciousness can develop as a shortcut in the representations involved in higher forms of intersubjectivity: in my inner world I can have a representation of my own inner world.

V. Understanding other cultures A culture is not just people in an environment, but, more importantly, a particular way of understanding the world. Each culture brings with it a different set of patterns of interpretation. One problem is that it may be difficult to perceive the patterns of other cultures. Since they do not fit with those of our own culture, we often experience them as ‘strange’, ‘odd’ or simply foreign. Musical scales are clear examples of how cultural patterns can actually influence perception itself. When Westerners listen to Arabic or Indian music, they perceive many of the tones as being out of tune. The reason is that the Western music scale is based on twelve tones, while in Arabic music the scale can contain seventeen tones and in the Indian scale twenty-one. Western ears fail to sort the tones from an Indian raga or an Arabic love song into the twelve slots given by the standard scale. They do not fit with the categorical pattern of Western music. An alternative pattern in the form of a different scale must be picked up before the music can be fully appreciated. Cultural educational programs have a tendency to focus too much on teaching facts about other cultures and too little on understanding the basic patterns underlying cultural practices or belief systems. For this reason, education that strives to bridge cultures should focus on conveying the relevant patterns rather than facts about other cultures. In section 8, I shall discuss possible educational techniques to guide students in the recognition and comprehension of the relevant patterns of other cultures. There are strong ties between the patterns we perceive and the language we use. Patterns give meaning to the concepts we use when structuring the world. Language then names the patterns, not the single sensory experiences. Linguistic differences in cultural patterns often create mismatched expectations. For example, ‘breakfast’ is translated into ‘prima colazione’ in Italian. Yet the concept stands for

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radically different phenomena. I believe that an Italian seeing a full English (or American) breakfast for the first time will be as taken aback as an Englishman is disappointed when encountering the minuscule prima colazione at an Italian hotel. Examples like this are ubiquitous in translations between any two languages and they can even occur within a language when it is used in two culturally different regions. Cultural patterns can be subtle. A striking example of hidden categorical perception comes from the way in which a pharmaceutical company attempted to sell headache medicine to a new market. This company wanted to globalize its business and launched an advertising campaign in North Africa. Because a large proportion of the inhabitants were illiterate, the message was presented in the form of a cartoon (see figure 5).

Figure 5: An advertisement for a headache medicine The campaign was a failure. Those who could read, read Arabic, which is read from right to left and would only conclude that the medicine caused the headache. The intended meaning of the cartoon was thus interpreted in the opposite way. Those who could not read interpreted the cartoon as three separate figures and they could not understand the intended causal connection between the pictures. In Western cultures, people are so used to reading a cartoon from left to right and adding causal connections between the pictures that it does not occur to them that this could be a culturally induced pattern.

VI. The role of understanding in education It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. – Albert Einstein

Providing students with facts is a superficial form of education. Helping them create knowledge by teaching them how to interpret and evaluate the information

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is a much better form. However, human understanding goes beyond knowledge: The best form of education results in the students understanding the material they study. In my opinion, this is achieved by helping them to see patterns that they cannot discover on their own. What kind of understanding is relevant in learning is of course dependent on the goals of education. In some contexts, learning practical procedures is in focus; in others, facts about the world; in still others, learning abstract theories. An encompassing goal of education would be to understand how theories make sense of the world and provide explanations for practical procedures. Selz (1924/1981) proposed that insight occurs when a problem solver fills in a gap in the structural complex. For example, a child who realizes that the letters in a text correspond to separate speech sounds has cracked the reading code. The child has seen the pattern of language as formed by different phonemes and how they are connected to each other to make meaningful utterances. The rest is practice. Or a music student who suddenly understands how a Bach fugue is composed will be able to improve her performance by expressing more subtle variations. Every student recognizes the joy of suddenly understanding a difficult problem or suddenly seeing a pattern in a complicated domain. An elementary example is to understand that a negative slope in a graph represents a decrease of a variable. An experienced teacher can easily perceive when a student has understood. The experience of insight is subjectively experienced as: ‘Aha, now I get it!’ The emotional aha-insight occurs when the pieces fall into place in the pattern, and the insight means that the student has achieved a more refined understanding of the domain. From the cognitive neuroscience perspective one would also be interested in understanding what happens in the brain when, for example, a student experiences an aha-insight and what emotional and motivational responses correlate with such an insight. As a side remark, it can be noted that Land (1982) defined insight as ‘the sudden cessation of stupidity’. There are some recent exceptions (see for example Jung-Beeman et al. 2004), but, by and large, these processes have not been investigated. Although I lack the empirical data to support my position, I am convinced that the more often one experiences true understanding, the more motivated one will be to pursue one’s studies. In brief, I submit that understanding is a key motivational factor in education. An aha-experience is a strong scaffold in the process of meaning making, as it provides the student with an affective receipt attesting to an understanding of the salient features of a pattern. This internal information is useful for the student as a success feedback to her learning. It may also be useful as external communication to a tutor who may draw attention to the factors that generate the student’s aha-insight. A skilled teacher can analyse the learning situation and pinpoint personal, environmental and emotional factors leading to the understanding of the pattern. There is a saying that education is what is left when you have forgotten what you have learnt. This seems paradoxical because it is difficult to fathom how there can be any knowledge left when one has forgotten it. The paradox arises from the way we generally appreciate the concepts information and knowledge. My solution to

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the paradox is that education consists of the patterns you have assimilated during your life. To assimilate knowledge is to incorporate new knowledge in a form that is understandable to oneself. A pattern can remain even if the facts used to discover it are forgotten. The patterns are more important than facts since the former can be used for solving new problems that go beyond the training set. The deeper you understand, the more you can generalize your knowledge. And when you have understood, it is also much easier to explain your knowledge area to others. In other words, the one who understands can teach.

VII. Understanding and transfer Achieving understanding within a knowledge domain leads to an increased ability to solve new problems and to answer new types of questions relating to the domain. This is essentially what is called ‘transfer’ in educational research. In this section I will use the survey article by Bransford and Schwartz (1999) as a point of departure to describe the connections between understanding and transfer. Bransford and Schwartz (1999) reconsider some of the traditional ideas about what constitutes a demonstration of transfer. Instead of focusing on the ability to answer new questions within a knowledge domain, they want to emphasize how the ability to pose relevant questions within the domain has developed. For example when fifth graders and college students were asked to provide a plan for protecting Bald Eagles from extinction, the proposed plans of both groups failed on several accounts. However, when considering the questions asked by the two groups, there were decisive differences. The fifth graders tended to focus on individual eagles (What do they eat?) while the college students focused more on interdependencies between the eagles and their habitats (What about the predators of eagles?) By this view of transfer, it seems that the college students had learned general biological principles that they could now transfer to generate more relevant questions. By exhibiting a greater repertoire of patterns they could apply to it, they demonstrated a better understanding of the problem. In brief, learning with understanding is important for enhancing performance on subsequent transfer tasks. As an alternative, Bransford and Schwartz (1999) want to broaden the notion of transfer by focusing on the students’ ‘preparation for future learning’ (PFL). They write: So, rather than evaluate whether people can generate a finished product, the focus shifts to whether they are prepared to learn to solve new problems. For example, one determinant of the course of future learning is the questions people ask about a topic, because these questions shape their learning goals. [. . .] [T]he ideal assessment from a PFL perspective is to directly explore people’s abilities to learn new information and relate their learning to previous experiences.

In my terminology, PFL involves extracting the relevant patterns so that the understanding they provide can be applied to future problem situations.

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Bransford and Schwartz (1999) also argue that contrasting cases are important as guides to seeing patterns and thus to understanding. They describe an experiment as follows: The goal of our studies was to explore ways to help college students understand memory concepts (e.g., a schema). [. . .] Our experiments compared the effects of reading about memory experiments and theories versus actively analyzing sets of contrasting cases relevant to memory. Students in the contrasting cases condition worked with simplified data sets from original experiments. [. . .] Their task was to ‘discover’ the important patterns in the data. Students in the other condition wrote a multipage summary of a textbook chapter. [. . .] [W]e assumed that the use of contrasting cases would better prepare students to learn new information than would the activity of summarizing the text. As a means of examining this assumption, the new learning experience took the form of a lecture on memory theories and experiments. [. . .]. Students received a final prediction task that presented them with a new memory experiment and asked them to make predictions about the likely outcomes. Students in the ‘summarize plus lecture’ group did not do nearly as well as students in the ‘contrasting cases plus lecture’ condition.

They also argue that the PFL perspective highlights the importance of learners actively interacting with their environments. When learners have opportunities to get involved with reality and receive feedback, their learning improves quite dramatically and the importance of their previous experiences is revealed. Furthermore, studies show that information presented in the context of solving problems is more likely to be spontaneously utilized than information presented in the form of simple facts. Finally, Bransford and Schwartz point to the role of intersubjectivity in PFL: ‘An especially important aspect of active transfer involves people’s willingness to seek others’ ideas and perspectives. Helping people seek multiple viewpoints about issues may be one of the most important ways to prepare them for future learning’.

VIII. Educational techniques for understanding I now turn to the challenge of how education should be organized in order to boost the students’ understanding by making them discover the relevant patterns within a knowledge domain. If we follow Piaget’s constructivist view on education, students should not be taught the patterns, but they should discover them themselves. They should only be scaffolded with the right kind of material for the process. However, practical educational experience shows that this method is far from optimal. An orthodox constructivist viewpoint puts too high demands on the students: They are supposed to discover the patterns that it has taken scientists and professionals centuries to uncover. A teacher who introduces the theoretical structure within a knowledge domain will thereby present abstract patterns to the students. The pattern can, for example be a grammatical rule or a method of composing music. The pattern is often constructed from theoretical variables that are not given by experience.

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In education, merely introducing theories is not sufficient to achieve understanding. In high school and at college, scientific knowledge is presented via abstract theories, often in the form of equations or other symbolic notations. Yet, many students do not understand the theoretical elements beyond mechanically manipulating the formulas. For example, they pass their exams in physics by putting in the right numbers in the equations, without understanding the pattern expressed by the equation. In this way, students hardly achieve any deeper knowledge, let alone any understanding of the underlying patterns in physics. I believe that certain educational information technology (IT) tools, in the hands of an experienced teacher/supervisor, can be effective in promoting understanding In particular, I want to point to tools for visualizing abstract data and correlations, that is, visualizing the patterns, and to programs for simulating various processes relevant for grasping the patterns. When a teacher wants to convey patterns in abstract theories, visualization is an excellent method for promoting understanding, because it can pinpoint salient features in the pattern. In mathematics a third-degree equation suddenly becomes comprehensible when drawn as a graph, the connection between demand and supply in economics becomes graspable when drawn as curves in a diagram, and the development of a historical battle is easier to remember if presented by blocks and arrows on a map. Presenting theoretical patterns visually makes it easier for the students to connect to their own experiences and thereby their understanding will be considerably enhanced. If we consider the problem of conveying cultural patterns, I would point out that visualizations could be excellent tools in language education. In traditional dictionaries, words are explained by other words. But there are also ‘pictionaries’ where some words are explained with the aid of pictures. For example the differences between the English ‘breakfast’ and the Italian ‘prima colazione’ could quite easily be expressed using pictures. A simulation replaces a real course of events by a dynamic model where the most important variables are accounted for. Simulation programs can be said to be a form of visualizations – namely visualizations of dynamic systems. In the computer game SimCity the player can construct a complex virtual city with water supply, electricity, streets, schools, industries, etc. The goal is not to conquer anything, but to keep the dynamic system representing the city in balance so that the city can develop in a harmonic manner. There must not be a shortage of electricity or too expensive streets. The simulations do not give you real experiences of city planning, but they provide virtual experiences. When it comes to understanding a process, such experiences are valuable substitutes. Because the student can interactively control a number of variables, she may acquire a rather rich experience of different causal connections in the system and thereby achieve a better understanding of it. When involved in a simulation, a student will be more likely to understand how different variables interact and affect other variables. The virtual world of a simulator can complement the real one by providing situations that a student, for various reasons – ethical, economic, physical or temporal – cannot be allowed to experience directly, for example crisis management,

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stressful events such as a complicated surgical operation, and dangerous chemical experiments. Such virtual experiences become much more embodied and they stick to memory much more strongly than if the student just studies a text or abstract equations. On the other hand, the theories that are presented in textbooks can be supportive when interpreting the experiences. Understanding a knowledge domain builds on the interplay between theory and experience. Different kinds of media can be exploited to bring out patterns. When I want to learn about a knowledge domain, I already rely on books, television, movies, recordings, etc. These media give us substitute experiences. Role-playing offers simulations of social interactions that can also provide students with valuable ‘virtual’ experiences that they can later exploit in real life. If the students enact situations involving people from other cultures, the clashes between the cultures may become tangible without being embarrassing and without causing real problems. And then analyses of the clashes, together with a teacher or a supervisor, will be a very efficient method for understanding the underlying cultural patterns. If the teacher can act out the seemingly ‘odd’ sides of the knowledge domain in a way that brings out a pattern, the students will be assisted to see its rationale. Because role-playing involves interactivity, it is much more emotionally engaging than using traditional media. Today, teachers are accustomed to use various IT tools as a complement to their teaching and for providing a richer learning environment for their students. Intelligent tutoring systems are computer programs that function as a virtual tutor, albeit in a rather limited form. By using such a system, a student can practice a task at their own pace, repeat it as often as they like, and at the same time be given support by the systems at various points in the task. Along the same lines, virtual pedagogical agents can provide useful tools (Gulz 2004). A virtual pedagogical agent can be thought of as an embodied intelligent tutoring system or a visual representation of the system. Such agents can serve as a virtual tutor in a tutoring system. For example, suppose a student is working with social problems in society. By encountering virtual tutors representing different perspectives, the student can be made to see that a problem can be approached in different ways that partly contradict and partly complement each other.

IX. Understanding in science As a final topic I shall compare the proposal that understanding is seeing a pattern with the debate concerning the role of understanding in science. This is currently a much discussed topic (e.g. Trout 2002, de Regt 2004, de Regt and Dieks 2005, Kvanvig to appear, Mulder 2009, Kischenmann 2008; see also the review article by Keil 2006). In contrast to the early accounts of explanation and understanding (e.g. Hempel 1965, von Wright 1971) it is now widely agreed that understanding and what counts as an explanation is relative to the epistemic situation of the scientist, not anything universal (van Fraassen 1980, Gärdenfors 1980, de Regt 2004: 103). This means

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that scientific understanding is pragmatic and context-dependent. For example, in the heyday of classical mechanics, Lord Kelvin is famous for having said that ‘the test of “Do I or not understand a particular subject in physics?” is “Can I make a mechanical model of it?”’, but this ideal of understanding in physics has nowadays lost its appeal (de Regt and Dieks 2005: 138). It should also be remembered that for Newton’s contemporary colleagues his notion of forces that operate at a distance was mysterious, while today hardly anybody with a scientific background will find it unintelligible. One can divide the contemporary theories of understanding in science in two broad classes: causal and unificationist (de Regt and Dieks 2005). As an example of the causal theories, let us take Salmon’s 1984 book Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World. According to Salmon, ‘underlying causal mechanisms hold the key to our understanding of the world’ (Salmon 1984: 260) because ‘causal processes, causal interactions, and causal laws provide the mechanisms by which the world works; to understand why certain things happen, I need to see how they are produced by these mechanisms’ (Salmon 1984: 132). In my view, this account of understanding does not conflict with the one presented here. On the contrary, as I argued in section III., causal structures are special cases of patterns that can be discovered via the scientific process or via more mundane experiences. The alternative approach to scientific understanding, the unificationist conception, has been defended by Friedman (1974) and further developed by Kitcher (1981, 1989) and others. Friedman writes that science unifies our knowledge since it ‘increases our understanding of the world by reducing the total number of independent phenomena that I have to accept as ultimate or given. A world with fewer independent phenomena is, other things equal, more comprehensible than one with more’ (Friedman 1974: 15). Later, Kitcher argued for the fundamental role of patterns in this unificatory process: ‘Understanding the phenomena is not simply a matter of reducing the “fundamental incomprehensibilities” but of seeing connections, common patterns, in what initially appeared to be different situations. [. . .] Science advances our understanding of nature by showing us how to derive descriptions of many phenomena, using the same patterns of derivation again and again, and, in demonstrating this, it teaches us how to reduce the number of types of facts we have to accept as ultimate (or brute)’ (Kitcher 1989: 482). Again, it should be clear that the unificationist approach to scientific understanding, in particular in Kitcher’s version, can be subsumed under the idea that understanding is seeing patterns. After reviewing the causal and unificationist approaches to understanding in science, de Regt and Dieks (2005: 151) propose their ‘Criterion for Intelligibility of Theories’: ‘A theory T is intelligible for scientists (in context C) if they can recognise qualitatively characteristic consequences of T without performing exact calculations’. De Regt and Dieks attribute the general idea behind this criterion to Heisenberg. As examples of intelligible theories they mention the molecular theory of gases, ‘potential vorticity’ in meteorology and ‘field lines’ in electrostatics with the aid of which scientists can make purely qualitative predictions. However, it is clear from their descriptions of the examples that scientists use the theories to visualize the qualitative properties (de Regt and Dieks (2005) emphasize this

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themselves on p. 155). In other words, the scientists can see the patterns that are relevant for making the predictions. Once again, I conclude that also their Criterion for Intelligibility of Theories falls under the general idea of understanding as seeing a pattern. It should be noted however, that their criteria make understanding relative to the scientist who see the patterns – there is no thing as an absolute understanding within a scientific theory (a similar point is made by Mulder no date).

X. Conclusion In this article, I have focused on the role of understanding in human nature. The central hypothesis has been that understanding is experiencing a pattern. I have shown how this general idea can be applied when we look at understanding different cultures, understanding in education and understanding in science. However, there is a great need for research in order to obtain a deeper understanding of the cognitive and motivational processes involved in various forms of understanding. Among other things, there is a lack of psychological tests for when understanding occurs during a learning process. We also need to find out much more about how understanding generates motivation for further learning.

Acknowledgements An early version of this article was presented at the ESSSAT 2008 meeting in Sigtuna. I wish to thank the participants for several helpful comments. I also gratefully acknowledge support from the Swedish Research Council as a Senior Individual Researcher.

References Bransford, J. D., and Schwartz, D. L. 1999 ‘Rethinking transfer: A simple proposal with multiple implications’, Review of Research in Education 24, pp 21–59. Bruner, J., 1990 Acts of Meaning (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press). Carruthers, J. ‘How we know our minds: the relationship between mindreading and metacognition’, Behavioral and Brain Sciences (to appear). Collingwood, R. J. 1972 Essay on Metaphysics (Chicago IL: Gateway). De Regt, H. W. 2004 ‘Making sense of understanding’, Philosophy of Science 71, pp 98–109.

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De Regt, H. W. and Dieks, D. 2005 ‘A contextual approach to scientific understanding’, Synthese 144, pp 137–170. Dilthey, W. 1914–1936 Gesammelte Schriften (Leipzig: Teubner). Friedman, M. 1974 ‘Explanation and scientific understanding’, Journal of Philosophy 71, pp 5–19. Gärdenfors, P. 1980 ‘A pragmatic theory of explanation’, Philosophy of Science 47, pp 404–423. 2003 How Homo Became Sapiens: On the Evolution of Thinking (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 2006 Den meningssökande människan (Stockholm: Natur och Kultur). 2007a ‘Understanding cultural patterns’, in M. M. Suarez-Orozco (ed), Learning in the Global Era: International Perspectives on Globalization and Education (Berkeley CA: University of California Press), pp 67–84. 2007b ‘Evolutionary and developmental aspects of intersubjectivity’, in H. Liljenström and P. Århem (eds), Consciousness Transitions: Phylogenetic, Ontogenetic and Physiological Aspects (Amsterdam: Elsevier), pp 281–305. ‘The role of cooperation in the evolution of protolanguage and language’, Gary Hatfield et al. (eds), On the Evolution of Mind and Culture (to appear). Gärdenfors, P., and Lindström, P. 2008 ‘Understanding is experiencing a pattern’, in P. Gärdenfors and A. Wallin (eds), A Smorgasbord of Cognitive Science (Nora: Nya Doxa), pp 149–164. Gopnik, A. 1993 ‘How we know our minds: the illusion of first-person knowledge of intentionality’, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16, pp 1–14. Gulz, A. 2004 ‘Benefits of virtual characters in computer based learning environments: Claims and evidences’, International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education 14, pp 313–334. Harnad, S. (ed) 1987 Categorical Perception (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Hempel, C. G. 1965 Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays (New York NY: The Free Press). Jung-Beeman, M., et al. 2004 ‘Neural activity when people solve verbal problems with insight’, PLoS Biology 2(4), pp 500–510.

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‘Explanation and Understanding’, Annual Review of Psychology 57, pp 227–254. Kirschenmann, P. P. 2008 ‘On several matters labeled “understanding” regarding science and technology’, paper presented at the ESSSAT 2008 conference, Sigtuna, in this volume pp 143–153. Kitcher, P. 1981 ‘Explanatory unification’, Philosophy of Science 48, pp 507–531. 1989 ‘Explanatory unification and the causal structure of the world’, in P. Kitcher and W. Salmon (eds), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science Vol. 13 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), pp 410–505. Kvanvig, J. ‘The value of understanding’, in A. Haddock, A. Millar and D. H. Pritchard (eds), Epistemic Value (Oxford: Oxford University Press, to appear). Land, E. H. 1982 ‘Creativity and the ideal framework’, in G. I. Nierenberg (ed), The Art of Creative Thinking (New York: Simon & Schuster). Leslie, A. M. 1987 ‘Pretense and representation: the origins of “theory of mind”’, Psychological Review 94, pp 412–426. Lindström, P., and Holmqvist, K. ‘More attention allocation on a critical area of interest in an insight problem’ (in preparation). Marroquin, J. L. 1976 ‘Human visual perception of structure’ (Master’s degree thesis, MIT Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science). Mitchell, P. 1997 Introduction to Theory of Mind: Children, Autism and Apes (London: Arnold). Mulder, D. H. 2009 ‘Explanation, understanding, and subjectivity’ (http://www. bu.edu/wcp/Papers/TKno/TKnoMuld.htm [07/30/2009]). Petitot, J. 1989 ‘Morphodynamics and the categorical perception of phonological units’, Theoretical Linguistics 15, pp 25–71. Piaget, J. 1930 The Child’s Conception of Physical Causality (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul). Premack, D., and Woodruff, G. 1978 ‘Does the chimpanzee have a theory of mind?’, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 4, pp 515–526.

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Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World (Princeton: Princeton University Press). ‘The laws of cognitive activity, productive and reproductive: A condensed version’, in N. H. Frijda and A. D. de Groot (eds), Otto Selz: His Contribution to Psychology (The Hague: Mouton, 20–75. ‘Scientific explanation and the sense of understanding’, Philosophy of Science 69, 212–233.

Van Fraassen, B. 1980 The Scientific Image (Oxford: Clarendon Press). von Wright, G. H. 1971 Explanation and Understanding (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul). White, P. A. 1995 The Understanding of Causation and the Production of Action (Hove: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates). Wimmer, H., and Hartl, M. 1991 ‘Against the Cartesian view of mind: Young children’s difficulty with own false beliefs’, British Journal of Developmental Psychology 9, 125–138.

2 The Origins of Science and Religion: Why Do People Have the Beliefs that They Do? Lewis Wolpert

Most people believe that they are above average in relation to practically everything from intelligence to kindness, so unravelling the basis for their beliefs is a complex issue. It is important to recognise that it is a human characteristic that we cannot tolerate not knowing the causes of important events that affect our lives. If you go to the doctor, the one thing you cannot tolerate is if the doctor says, ‘I do not know what is wrong with you’. When the doctor does tell you what is wrong with you, you will tell yourself a story as to why you got that illness. My suggestion is that human beliefs originate from our unique ability to conceptualise that physical effects have physical causes. Causal understanding in children is a developmental primitive (Sperber et al. 1995). From observations of young children, there is evidence that from three months of age infants can reason about physical causality. They reason about these events according to three principles; the early age of onset suggest that this ability may be genetically determined: (1) moving objects maintain both connectedness and cohesion, i.e., they do not break up or fuse; (2) objects move continuously, and they do not disappear and appear again unless other objects are in the way; and (3) they move together or interact only if they touch. There are many experiments to support the view that young infants have this ability. For example, infants clearly understand that for a moving block to make another one move, it must make contact with it. At an early age, children know that a moving object – a ball – can make another move on impact. It is this primitive concept of mechanics, which may be the key causal belief, which evolved in early humans. At 18 months, infants are effectively using objects as tools. Children ask many questions about causes as they are growing up. My hypothesis is that the key to understanding the origin of religion is the evolution of such causal beliefs, i.e. what makes us human and different from all other animals is causal belief (Wolpert 2006). No animal has the concept of physical cause and effect and therefore could never play games such as billiards or cricket

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because these require a concept of cause and effect. There are experiments which show that chimpanzees, our nearest relatives in the animal world, cannot distinguish between a banana with a hook attached to the block and another banana just touching the block and therefore, more easily removed (Povinelli 2000). Experiments with apes show that they can pile boxes on top of one another in order to reach bananas attached to the ceiling, implying that apes have a concept of physical cause and effect But when Kohler put some stones on the floor so that every time the apes put a box down, the box toppled over, the apes never attempted to remove the stones. So Kohler concluded that apes do not have a concept of physical cause and effect. However, apes do some simple things with tools such as breaking nuts with stones and preparing sticks to get insects out of trees so they may be at the beginning of developing the capacity to have causal beliefs. There are Caledonian crows that do absolutely amazing things with sticks as tools but we do not understand it. There are many experiments which make it clear that a concept of physical cause and effect is innate in human beings, so we have to ask why this concept arose and what purpose it serves. My proposal is that it comes from tool making. You cannot make a tool of any complexity without having a concept of cause and effect. Stone tools, those little stone axes, go back a couple of million years but if I gave you a stone and said, ‘Will you please model this little stone into one?’ I think you would struggle quite hard because you have got to know where to hit it and how to hit it. Stone-making tools did not change for around two million years, and then about a hundred thousand years ago, the tools became more complicated (Schick and Toth 1993). Humans started putting stone bits onto a stick and you cannot do that without having a concept of cause and effect. In other words, technology drove human evolution. There are parts of the brain directly associated with tool use and if these get damaged, you may begin to brush your teeth with a screwdriver. The concept of cause and effect may have helped the evolution of language because you cannot have verbs unless you have this concept. Some people argue very cogently that it was gestures and tool throwing that gave rise to language. Once our ancestors had a concept of cause and effect, they began to wonder about the causes of things that affected their lives like illness, death, pain, bad weather, hostile animals, disease and dreams. Because they were aware that they themselves were causal agents, it was natural to deduce that other events in their environment also were also the result of the actions of causal agents. Early humans imagined that what caused all the things that they did not understand were some kind of human beings like themselves but who were invisible. I think that this extension of our causal beliefs to invoke invisible agents in the external world is the origin of the idea of gods. It is notable that most religious beliefs, but not all of them, have human-like gods. I want to argue that the idea of invisible human-like agents in control of powerful forces provided an explanation for many of the things our remote ancestors did not understand, and was the origin of religion. Such an interpretation of the world persists today because people who have such beliefs or the inclination to

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such beliefs, do better because it removes the anxiety of not understanding. It also provided a means of seeking help by, for example, prayer. Sloan Wilson (2002) argues that a religious group with similar beliefs have an evolutionary advantage because they help each other in many important ways. Thus those people who had religious beliefs did better and evolution selected those whose minds went in that direction. There is evidence that those people who have religious beliefs are on the whole are healthier than those who do not. A possible additional reason that religious beliefs persist is that there is a mystical aspect embedded in most of our lives. Surveys have found that many people have a strange experience once or twice a year. If you read William James’ masterpiece, The Varieties of Religious Experience it will tell you about people having really strong religious experiences. When Timothy Leary took LSD he said that: ‘I discovered the beauty, revelation, sensuality, the sense of a history of the past, God, the devil all lie inside my body, outside my mind’. How can this molecule do that? It must be because the circuits for these feelings reside in our brains and that LSD activates these circuits. So I suggest that we have in our brains this inbuilt tendency to mystical thinking which is very widespread through all human populations. Recently the active component of magic mushrooms has been isolated and when given to people with slightly religious beliefs, causes some of them to have religious experiences. I conclude that the tendency to have religious or mystical experiences is part of the human condition, but that this does not mean that these experiences tell us about the external world, only that they are a byproduct of the way the brain works. Science is quite different from religion which is based on faith not evidence or logic. Science is a different way of interpreting the world from religion and relies on reason applied to empirical observations instead of faith in traditional authorities and personal revelation. Science and religion are thus incompatible, despite claims to the contrary. Scientific beliefs are special, and different from any other kind of thinking because scientific thinking is not programmed in our brains in the way that religious thinking is. Scientific thinking does not deny the possibility of the existence of God, but does claim that there is no good evidence to support such a belief. Moreover, beliefs in miracles and the paranormal conflict with some of the basic tenets of physics, chemistry, and biology. All scientific thinking originates from the ancient Greeks. Thales of Miletos seems to have been one of the very first scientists as he tried to explain the world, not in terms of myths, but in naturalistic terms, terms that might be subject to verification by observation and experiment. What, he wondered, might the world be made of? His unexpected answer was: water. But more important than his answer was his explicit attempt to find a fundamental unity in nature. His approach expressed the belief that underlying all the varied forms and substances in the world, unifying principles and causes could be found. The possibility of objective and critical thinking about nature had begun. Never before, as far as we know, had someone put forward non-mystical ideas about the nature of the world that might be universal explanations. There was for the first time a conviction that

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the natural world was controlled by what might be called ‘laws’ i.e. nature behaves as if there are unvarying regularities. Human curiosity before the ancient Greeks had been entirely devoted to man’s relation to nature, rather than to nature itself. With the Greeks, man and nature were for the first time no longer believed to be inextricably linked, and there begins to be a distanced curiosity about the world itself. Perhaps this change is a reflection of the nature of ancient Greek society with its own traditions in law and literature. Their citizens cared about evidence. Since science had very few practical applications, it was the love of knowledge that drove the Greeks to the philosophy that led to science. And this, as Aristotle made clear, required leisure, in which slaves may have played a key role. By contrast, the Chinese laid the emphasis on dialectic rather than formal logic. They did not engage in speculative reasoning for its own sake. The Chinese had wonderful technology, but no science, and their beliefs were quite mystical. There was nothing like the Greek discussion of cause. Science is the best way we have discovered of understanding how the world works, as is demonstrated by the dramatic way it has changed the way we live in the developed nations in the last 100 years. Science is a communal enterprise, with many individuals contributing to a common body of agreed knowledge. Contrast this with the huge range of different religious beliefs around the world. There is no one scientific method other than to be internally consistent and to have explanations that fit with the real world, as determined by observation and experiment. In science, for any set of observations, there is only one correct causal explanation. There are many styles of doing science, from theory, to experiment, to careful observation. Does science provide beliefs that are fundamentally true? In general the answer is yes, but it is important to realise that new evidence can always make scientific conclusions subject to change. It is this willingness to change ideas to accommodate new data that distinguishes science from religion. Unlike religion, contemporary science is almost entirely independent of the particular culture in which it is done – science is universal, and there is no Western or Eastern science. If the history of science were to be rerun, its history would be different, but the conclusions would be the same. The individual scientist, unlike the artist in the arts, is ultimately irrelevant, and the scientific genius merely speeds up progress. Science is, with rare exceptions, independent of cultural beliefs. It is also important to realise that reliable scientific beliefs have no intrinsic ethical or moral content – they refer to how the world is. There are no ethics in Newton’s laws, nor in the genetic code, nor in the fact that genes can affect our mental health. I want to emphasise one common feature of science that I think relevant to understanding why non-scientists can have severe difficulty with scientific beliefs, that is, the unnatural nature of science (Wolpert 1992). Science does involve a special way of thinking about the nature of the world. Instead of just looking at the obvious relations between cause and effect, like a stone breaking being due to the force of a hammer, science tries to understand mechanisms at a deeper level. This

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continual search for more fundamental explanations leads to serious problems, for the way the world works does not fit with our day-to-day expectations, our common sense. Almost without exception, any common sense view of the world is scientifically false. Obvious examples are the movement of the sun with respect to the earth, and the fact that a force on a body does not cause movement, but acceleration. How unnatural it is to believe, rightly, that at a constant 400 miles per hour on a plane, there is no force acting on you moving you ahead? And how well does Darwin’s theory of evolution by random variation and natural selection fit with common sense? Science is basically in conflict with religion, for there is no scientific evidence for any gods or their supposed powers and special forces. Yet many scientists have been and are religious. Isaac Newton is an outstanding example of a very great scientist who was also deeply religious. He said ‘We must believe there is one God or supreme Monarch . . .’ While denying that Christ was consubstantial and co-eternal with the Father, Newton asserted that Christ deserved worship as the Redeemer. There is evidence from his manuscripts that he grounded his law of the universality of gravitation on the omnipresence of the one God whose free will determined ‘the frame of the world’. For him, it seems, the very beauty of the solar system reflects the aesthetic sensibility of God the Creator. The law of gravity did not have to be an inverse square law had God not wished it to be. The idea that humans have evolved from very simple and primitive creatures by random changes and natural selection is intolerable to those who believe that humans, as described, for example, in the Bible, were created by God. Curiously, it is partly with so-called scientific arguments that ardent creationists attack Darwinian evolution. But this is not to say that all the scientific questions relating to evolution have been solved. On the contrary, the origin of life itself, the evolution of the first cell from which all living beings evolved, is not understood. William James was unpersuaded that science can provide all the answers that we are capable of asking, and in one sense he is right. However much we understand, there will always be unanswered questions e.g. what was before the Big Bang? The limitation here may be that our ability to understand the world at the level of the very small and the very large may be constrained by the finite construction of our brains. We must have the intellectual courage to live with such unanswered questions, rather than invent answers that have no basis other than in mystical experience. Whatever explanations science can provide there will always be the unanswered question. But as Einstein said, the astonishing thing about the Universe is how much of it we can apparently understand. Science provides by far the most reliable method for determining whether ones beliefs are valid. It may be difficult, as it will go often against common sense, but its value is inestimable. Science is the most successful human endeavour in history.

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Lewis Wolpert References

Povinelli, P. J. 2000 Folk Physics for Apes (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Sperber, D. et al. (eds) 1995 Causal Cognition: A Multidisciplinary Debate (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Schick, K. D. and Toth, N. 1993 Making Silent Stones Speak (London: Weidenfield and Nicoloson) Wilson, D. S. 2002 Darwin’s Cathedral (Chicago IL: University Chicago Press). Wolpert, L. 1992 The Unnatural Nature of Science (London: Faber & Faber). 2006 Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast (London: Faber & Faber).

3 From Modern to Postmodern Conceptions of Knowledge – Where Do We Stand Today? Mikael Stenmark

A Swedish philosopher, Ingemar Hedenius, symbolizes the starting point for this symposium. In the 1950s his ideas, and in particular his criticism of Christianity, received a lot of attention in Sweden (Hedenius 1983). In his criticism he presupposed or took for granted certain ideas about science and knowledge. The view of science Hedenius took for granted goes something like this: Since the seventeenth century, scientists have disclosed important truths about the natural world, and those truths have replaced old prejudices and superstitions. The proper role of the sciences today is to continue to discovery objective facts about the world and to continue this process of enlightenment by engaging in free inquiry and by resisting attempts to hobble investigation for the sake of any moral, political or religious agenda.

Many in Hedenius’ days seem to have held this or a similar view of science. But today the situation is quite different. A number of scholars have question this image of science, even claimed that it is a myth. They would rather say that: It is very much in the interest of those who are currently in power in affluent societies to cultivate the idea of a pure science that stands free of moral, political, and religious values, and this myth serves as a tactic for excluding viewpoints that the powerful would like to marginalize. Science (with a capital ‘S’) is the heir of the Church and the Party. Science is therefore something we should be as suspicious about as the latter.1

Hence there are a number of scholars in the humanities and social sciences who do not anymore believe in the idea that science has an ability to ask and answer questions independently of one’s particular social and cultural context. That the world is perspective or position dependent is becoming a more and more selfevident starting point for these people, and there is furthermore no privileged perspective or position available. There is no science free from history and culture which can tell the citizens how things really are. What we have are stories about

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or signs of reality from a given perspective. Knowledge is always local and a social construction. Therefore we always have to ask: Whose science? Whose knowledge? Whose reason? But what consequences do these changes in conception of science or knowledge have for the status of science in society and for contemporary discussion about the relationship between science and religion? Should we just say that these people are dead wrong, and go on discussing science and religion the way we use to do, or are there important things we can learn from the relativists, postmodernists, sociologists of science, constructivists or whatever we want to call them? (I shall call them all social constructivists.)

I. The Objectivist Theory of Science and Knowledge So much for an overall introduction, let my now identify some of the key features in these contrasting (and I shall intentionally make them contrasting) perspectives on science and knowledge. I shall call the received view, the objectivist theory of science and knowledge. This view contains a number of ideas that I want to highlight and distinguish. a. The justified True Belief Account of Knowledge Hedenius and many other took for granted a particular theory of knowledge: the justified true belief account (sometimes called the ‘JTB account of knowledge’) (Plantinga 1993: 6f). According to this theory of knowledge, someone S knows something p (for instance ‘Dinosaurs once roamed the earth’), if and only if (1) This person S believes p (2) This person S is justified in believing p. (3) p is true. (It is a fact that ‘Dinosaurs once roamed the earth’.) If these conditions are satisfied then this person knows that dinosaurs once roamed the earth. Our early ancestors believed that the earth was flat (condition 1). They also thought they knew that the earth was flat. But even if their belief about earth was justified (condition 2), it was false. Because if a belief is to count as knowledge it must not only be justified, it must also be true (condition 3). And it was neither a fact then nor is it today that the earth is flat. But it is not sufficient just to believe that the earth is round and it is the case that the earth is round, something more is needed. Imagine one of our early ancestors saying to the other around the fire that he believes that the earth is round. The others ask why he believes that and he answer ‘I just believe it – for no particular reason’. Out of sheer luck he happens to be right, but according the JTB-account he did not know that the earth is round because condition 2 was not satisfied. b. Evidentialism What does it then mean to be ‘justified’ in believing p? Now we come to the second component of the objectivist view: evidentialism. According to this view a belief

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is justified only when there are good reasons or sufficient evidence to think that it is true. Perhaps W. K. Clifford’s claim, ‘it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence’, is the most well known statement of evidentialism (Clifford 1947: 77, cf. Hedenius 1983: 26). On this account ‘justified belief ’ just means ‘belief for which one has good reasons’. Hence the second condition of the definition could be explicated: (2´) This person S has sufficient evidence or good reasons to believe p.

c. The Evidential Theory of Rationality Hedenius does not really make a distinction between knowledge and rationality. Perhaps he thought that it is only rational to believe what one knows to be true. However, there appear to be many things that we do not know, but still are perfectly rational in believing. I believe for instance that my wife is home right now because she told me that she should be home. But perhaps she has changed her mind and gone to visit some friends instead. Would I not in those circumstances be rational in believing that she is home, although that turned out to be false? Or think about our early ancestors. They believed that the earth was flat. I would say that although they were wrong, they were rational in believe what they believed. Advocates of the objectivist view have typically taken this into account by simply dropping the third condition in the definition of knowledge. According to the evidentialist theory of rationality someone, S, is rational in believing something, p, if and only if: (1) This person S believes p. (2) This person S is justified in believing p.

Truth (‘P being true’) is then not a necessary condition for rationality; it is only that for knowledge. d. Scientific Realism The acceptance of scientific realism constitutes another key element of the objectivist view. Scientific realists claim, roughly, that (a) things in the world exist and have the properties they have independently of human activities, and that (b) scientists attempt to discover these (observable and unobservable) things and their properties. The world comes with an inherent structure which it is the task of scientists to discover. So scientists discover the properties of the world rather than construct or invent them. That is to say, scientific facts such as ‘Dinosaurs once roamed the earth’ are discovered rather than constructed. They are therefore mind-independent facts. They state what would be the case even if there were no humans around. According to scientific realists, scientific facts about the world are independent of us, and hence independently of our social needs, interests and values.

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e. Scientific Objectivism The idea is not just that scientists attempt to discover the mind-independent properties of this world but that they actually succeed in doing this. Science has found out, by and large, how things really are in the present state of things. Scientists succeed in doing this because they use objective scientific methods. Methods which in principle can be used by anyone and the outcome of their application would be the same whoever used these methods. The results they yield are therefore universally valid (that is, valid in all societies and cultures). So a scientific theory can successfully be assessed without any reference to its author and his or her social context. The assumption is that people are interchangeable as knower in science. Scientific objectivists claim, roughly, that (a) there are universally valid standards of justification and that (b) scientists have used them to justify their theories, and that (c) therefore scientists have found out, by and large, how things really are. If one claims (a) one is a ‘justification-objectivist’ and if one maintains (b) one is a ‘theory change objectivist’. Element 5 (objectivism) in combination with element 4 (scientific realism) entail that science delivers knowledge that everyone has reason to believe (public or universal knowledge) and that science delivers knowledge or discovers truths of an independently existing reality. f. The Correspondence Theory of Truth If one is a realist then it is natural (but perhaps not necessary) to think that the truth of a belief is a matter of how things stand with an independently existing reality. One accepts the correspondence theory of truth, if one holds, roughly, that beliefs, propositions or theories are, true if and only if they correspond to or fit the facts of reality. If the proposition ‘Dinosaurs once roamed the earth’ is true, there would have been a condition in the world that meets that requirement, and that condition is that dinosaurs once actually roamed the earth. So a linguistic entity (a proposition) or a mental state (a belief) if true corresponds to or fits a non-linguistic or non-mental state of affairs (those animals we call dinosaurs). If there was no such correspondence or fit because those animals never existed then the proposition or belief is false. g. The Privileged View of Science Advocates of the objectivist view also typically take science to be the paradigm example of knowledge and rationality. Science provides us with the most reliable path to knowledge and rational belief. Science is the royal road to truth. Harold I. Brown, for instance, expresses this view in respect to questions of rationality. He maintains that in the ‘case of rationality, science provides a crucial test case, since science, and particularly physical science, currently stands as our clearest example of a rational enterprise’ (Brown 1988: 79). h. The Value-free View of Science A further component of the objectivist view is a particular standpoint on how values and science are related, often called the value-free view of science. One

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version of the view says that science is or ought to be value-free in the sense that it delivers facts and not values, is objective or impartial and not subjective or biased, and is autonomous and not directed by any particular ideology, value-system or religion.2 Imre Lakatos expresses one version of the value-free view when he says that: In my view, science, as such, has no social responsibility. In my view it is society that has a responsibility – that of maintaining the apolitical, detached scientific tradition and allowing science to search for truth in the way determined purely by its inner life. Of course, scientists, as citizens, have responsibility, like all other citizens, to see that science is applied to the right social and political ends. This is a different, independent question . . . (Lakatos 1978: 258, italics original)

Let me also add two optional elements that some advocates of the objectivist view would embrace. i. Scientism This is not the view that science is the paradigm example of knowledge or rationality (element 7 above) but the view that the only genuine knowledge about reality is to be found through science and science alone.3 In the words of Bertrand Russell: ‘Whatever knowledge is attainable must be attained by scientific methods; and what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know’ (Russell 1978: 243). Science provides the only path to knowledge. Hence somebody S knows something p if and only if (1) This person S believes p (2) This person S is scientifically justified in believing p. (3) p is true. j. The Irrational of Religious Belief Hedenius like Bertrand Russell thought religions contained truth claims, but he believed them all to be false or at least not possible to justify and he therefore recommended atheism. Call this optional second element ‘the irrationality of religious belief ’. If we generalize we could say the claim is that no person (a) knows any religious belief to be true and no person – at least today – (b) is rational in holding any religious belief to be true because there are no good (scientific) reasons to hold a religious belief.4 No religious belief constitutes knowledge or such a belief is not reasonable or rational to hold because it is not an instance of (scientifically) justified belief.

II. The Constructivist Theory of Knowledge and Science The perhaps most important landmark to understand the development of social constructivism is the publication of Thomas Kuhn book, The Structure of Scientific Revolution in 1962. Before the publication the study of science was mainly done

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either as ‘armchair philosophy’ or by retired scientists who worked merely with the printed material on the shelves of their own libraries. Ziauddin Sarder even claim that up ‘to then, the sociologists had done their part in the general ideological programme whereby philosophers of science proved that science always got it right and historians showed that it happened. In the pre-war period, sociologists had nothing but adulation for science – as can be seen in the work of R. K. Merton’ (Sarder 2000: 40). From Kuhn on the professional historians of science rather went to archives: to the notebooks and the unpublished letters. Scientific ideas must be considered in the context of their time, in their own right and not in the retrospective light of the theories that ‘won’ the competition in the end. Also sociologists become inspired by Kuhn’s work and his ideas that science is not just a set of propositions or theories but a social practice. Science is part of culture and as such is an appropriate subject for sociological studies, just like any other human activity (Ruse 1999: 23f, Grant 2001: 59). One conclusion many (but of course not all) of these scholars engaged in ‘Science studies’ maintained followed from these historical and sociological studies of science – influenced of course also by other ideas around such as feminism and postmodernism – is that we need a different, a new conception of knowledge in general and of scientific knowledge in particular. Let me try to identify some of the key components of this constructivist theory of knowledge and science. Just as I did with the objectivist view I shall offer a rational reconstruction of the social constructivist view. My starting point will be something Paul Boghossian has writes. He claims that over ‘the past twenty years or so, however, a remarkable consensus has formed – in the human and social sciences, even if not in the natural sciences – around a thesis about the nature of human knowledge. It is the thesis that knowledge is socially constructed’ (Boghossian 2006: vi). If he is right, there is at least a new understanding of knowledge involved in social constructivism. How exactly this new theory of knowledge should be stated is not at all clear and those that advocate it also have quite different, more or less radical, ideas about it, but I think that Boghossian has identified at least one of the core idea of social constructivism namely that: Knowledge is socially constructed, that is to say that knowledge – in science or in any other human activity – is constructed by society or groups with society in ways that reflect their particular social needs, interests or values.

Let us start unpacking this idea by specify the meaning of the central notions ‘social’ and ‘constructed’. We could say that something is constructed if it is not there simply to be discovered but is produced or brought into being by intentional human activity reflecting human interests and needs. Secondly, something is socially constructed in contrast to individually constructed, that is, these things or facts were brought into being by a society, by a large group of people, or by an institution, and not just by an individual. Notice that it follows from the way I have expressed the core idea that social constructivists do not deny that we know things. They only deny that this

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knowledge should be thought of as independent of particular social needs and interests. Sometimes, however, social constructivists use the concept of knowledge in a peculiar way, which causes confusion. Sometimes they by ‘knowledge’ simply mean what people take to be knowledge or what they believe to be true (Bloor 1976: 3). But we already have other concepts for those things, namely ‘knowledge claims’ and ‘truth claims’. People make a lot of truth claims or knowledge claims and some of them also turn out to be true and we then typically use the word ‘knowledge’ to cover those latter cases. Other times social constructivists talk about ‘true knowledge’ or ‘false knowledge’ and ‘rational knowledge’ or ‘irrational knowledge’ (Börjesson 2003: 46, 51). But since truth is a necessary condition for knowledge there is no such thing as false knowledge. It is so at least if one accepts the JTB-account of knowledge. I want to suggest that we, initially at least, assume that social constructivists accept the traditional account of knowledge: knowledge is justified true belief. They certainly do not give us any alternative definition of knowledge. I shall also assume that they accept evidentialism (that justification has to do with having good reasons for what one believes) and the evidential theory of rationality. I propose rather that it is the other elements of the objectivist theory of knowledge and science that they reject. In an important way, however, the remarkable consensus that Boghossian finds in human and social sciences is not remarkable at all. These disciplines study social reality or culture, and social reality is a constructed reality. In order that for instance the concept ‘money’ should apply to the stuff in my pocket, it has to be the sort of thing that we think is money. If everyone stops believing it is money, it ceases to function as money, and eventually ceases to be money. Money is therefore a social construction. It is nevertheless true that the Swedish currency is kronor, and I know this because I have justified true beliefs about the Swedish currency. Not just money (that thing), but the fact that the Swedish currency is kronor is constructed. It is a fact which reflects human interests and needs. Had Swedes not had those particular interests they have, they might not have constructed that fact, but say the fact that the Swedish currency is euro. Moreover, the fact that there is money in the world is a mind-dependent fact since money could not have existed without people and their intentions to exchange goods with one another. If social history had been different then kronor would not be the Swedish currency. And what goes for money goes for governments, shops, law courts, cars, chairs, and so on. Social facts are then dependent on human agreements and interests (Searle 1995: 1–56). There is nothing remarkable about this consensus in human and social sciences. So if something is remarkable it is rather that social constructivists have taken the uncontroversial construction of social reality as a model for the construction of all reality, including all scientific reality (Kukla 2000: 57). What makes people ‘social constructivists’ is that they regard the scope of our constructive activities to be significantly greater than what is generally supposed to be the case. The social constructivist strategy is to show that something that we humans have thought to be natural is in fact social, but has become masquerade as natural and has therefore typically been believed to be inevitable although it is not (Hacking

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1999: 53f). Take one paradigm example ‘motherhood’. People have typically taken for granted that its meanings are fixed and inevitable, the consequence of childbearing and rearing. But they are in fact the consequence of historical events, social forces, and ideology. The traditional way of being a mother is not ordained by human nature. Therefore women today do not have to think that they go against their nature if they do not obey the traditional rules of family, but leave their children in kindergartens or let their husbands stay home on paternity leave (which at least is an option in Sweden today). So facts about motherhood seems at least to a large extent to be a social construction, perhaps the same applies to facts about being a women? Remember the famous words of Simone de Beauvior: ‘One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman’ (de Beauvior 1949). What about intelligence, madness, homosexuality? Could it even be the case that ‘human nature’ is a social construction and not a naturally given state of affairs? Perhaps there is no limit, perhaps all of our lived experience, and of the world we inhabit, is to be conceived of as socially constructed? Well we should, think so, according to social constructivists, for a number of reasons. I propose then that element 1 (the justified true belief account of knowledge), 2 (evidentialism) and element 3 (the evidential theory of rationality) of the objectivist view is left untouched. It is rather element 4 and beyond that are challenged and replaced: d´. Scientific Non-realism (or Constructvism) I will call one line of arguing for the construction of all reality the ‘conceptualization argument’. The idea is that reality is never given us as such but always as conceptualized and how it is conceptualized depends on our needs and interests. Therefore, no sense can be made of the idea that natural reality is a certain way in and of itself. There is no access to reality, even in the most empirical science, which is not mediated by language. A number of scholars have expressed this idea in different ways. In the word of Hilary Putnam and Richard Rorty: There is no God’s Eye point of view that we can know or usefully imagine; there are only the various points of view of actual persons reflecting various interests and purposes that their descriptions and theories subserve. (Putnam 1981:50) Take dinosaurs. Once you describe something as a dinosaur, its skin color and sex life are causally independent of your having so described it. But before you describe [something] as a dinosaur, or as anything else, there is no sense to the claim that it is ‘out there’ having properties . . . people like Goodman, Putnam and myself . . . think that there is no descriptionindependent way the world is, no way it is under no description. (Rorty 1998: 90)

How could this be developed into an argument that for instance facts about dinosaurs are social constructions? The key idea is, and on this point I follow Boghossian, that also natural scientists construct facts by accepting a way of talking or thinking which describe those facts (Boghossian 2006: 28f). Natural facts would then also be mind-dependent facts, constructed facts, because only minds are capable of describing the world. Nothing would be money unless people were

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prepared to so describe them. Correspondingly, nothing would be dinosaurs unless natural scientists were prepared to so describe them. All facts, whether they are social or natural facts, are description-dependent. Therefore, no sense can be made of the idea that natural reality is a certain way in and of itself. It is only when we adopt a particular way of talking, a conceptual framework, or point of view there come to be facts about the world. But which way of talking or point of view we adopt, depends on what is useful for us, and what is useful for us depend on our particular needs, interests and values. We ‘describe giraffes as we do, as giraffes, because of our needs and interests. We speak a language which includes the word “giraffe” because it suits our purposes to do so. The same goes for words like “organ”, “cell”, “atom” and so on’ (Rorty 1999: xxvi). Even those beliefs that seems most closely linked to observation, are infused with the concepts and categories in terms of which people make sense of the flux of experience. So scientific non-realists (or constructivists) claim, roughly, that (a) there is no way things really are in the world independently of human (linguistic) activities, and that (b) scientists attempt to construct reality in ways that are useful and which therefore reflects particular human needs, interests and values. There are facts, but they are always mind-dependent facts or constructed facts. So scientific facts about the world are dependent of us, and hence dependently of our social needs, interests and values. Notice though that social constructivists do not, on this account at least, deny that something exists independently of human activity. There would be something there if we did not exist. But this something does not have an inherent structure that scientists try to discover, rather it is structureless: it is not broken up into things or kinds of things. It is we (or the scientists) that structure reality into things and kinds of things. So social constructivists are ‘minimal realists’ or what Devitt calls ‘Fig-leaf realists’ (Devitt 1991). e´. Scientific Contextualism The conceptualization argument attempts to undermine scientific realism. The second line of reasoning is rather directed at scientific objectivism. It goes something like this: There are simply no self-evident or objective criteria for which aspects and properties that should provide the ground for descriptions of reality. (Börjesson 2003: 55, my translation) Kuhn effectively demystified science as the ‘disinterested search for facts,’ and showed how scientific agendas were set by faculty squabbles, funding pressures and peer groups as much as by theoretical problems and experimental results. (Grant 1998: 59) Feminist epistemologies, in common with many other strands of contemporary thought, no longer regard knowledge as a neutral transparent reflection of an independently ordered reality, with truth and falsity established by transcendent procedures of rational assessment. Rather most accept that all knowledge is situated knowledge, reflecting the position of the knowledge producer at a certain historical moment in a given material and cultural context. (Lennon 1997: 37) For the relativist [such as ourselves] there is no sense attached to the idea that some standards or beliefs are really rational as distinct from merely locally accepted as such.

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Because he thinks that there are no context-free or super-cultural norms of rationality he does not see rationally and irrationally held beliefs as making up two distinct and qualitatively different classes of thing. (Barnes and Bloor 1982: 27–28)

Contextualism comes in stronger and weaker versions. What these versions all have in common is the idea that the context, the situation or the particularities are taken to be of outmost importance. Contextualism is a reaction against the strong emphasis on universality and common human reason characteristic of the Enlightenment tradition and Modernity. The catchwords are ‘Whose truth, rationality, science, religion, ethics or gender?’ Scientific contextualists maintain then that (a) there are no universally valid standards of justification rather justification is always contextual or local, and (b) even if there were universally valid standards, scientists do not use (or rarely use) them when justifying the theories they accept. There are two claims involved here because even if there are universal valid scientific standards, it would not matter were much if it were not possible or at least likely for scientists to be moved to belief or theory acceptance by those standards. If one advocates (a) one is a ‘justificationcontextualist’ and if one advocates (b) one is a ‘theory change contextualist’. The first claim is then that all knowledge is situated knowledge, reflecting the position of the knowledge producer at a certain historical moment in a given material and cultural context. Therefore we have to ask ‘Whose science? Whose knowledge? Whose reason?’ The standards of justification to which scientific theories (or any theory or belief for that matter) are held to conform are inevitably influenced or shaped by particular social needs, interests and values. The second claim is that what a critical study of the history of science shows us is that scientists rarely believe what they believe solely on the basis of their exposure to empirical evidence: their particular need, interests and values must also be invoked. Time and time again we find, if we go through the history of science, that scientists have let other things than empirical evidence influence what they have believed and there is no reason to think that things are any different today. Actual scientific investigations are always from a point of view, motivated by all sort of personal factors, social needs and political or religious commitments, and within a certain cultural and historical context. f´. The Pragmatic and the Consensus Theory of Truth Since scientific realism is rejected, the idea that the truth of a belief is a matter of how things stand with an independently existing reality seems also to be problematic. In general social constructivists seem to reject the correspondence theory of truth and replace it within some kind of pragmatic theory or consensus theory of truth. A pragmatic theory of truth holds, roughly, that a belief, proposition or theory is true if it is useful to believe. According to Rorty, we accept the description we accept not because they ‘correspond to the way things are in and of themselves’, but because it serves our practical interests. Had we had different interests or needs, we might well have come to accept a very different set of descriptions of the world,

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once which did not employ concepts such as rivers, dinosaur, and mountains (Rorty 1999: xxvi). Another alternative social constructivists sometimes seem lean towards is a consensus theory of truth. It holds, roughly, that truth is what your epistemic peers or the people in power let you get a way with saying. Reality as it is in itself will not stand in the way of our talking one way or another, since there is no such thing as reality as it is in itself. This does not mean that anything goes or that all ways of talking will be on a par since some ways of talking are more useful than other. There are pragmatic reasons for belief. So evidentialism seems to be accepted it is just that good reasons are pragmatic reasons. (Do things work or not, given our needs, interests and values?) The idea is that when we claim that something is true, what we should be understood to mean is that it is true relative to our preferred way of talking, a way of talking which we will have adopted because it has come to seem so useful to us. So truth is always truth-for-us or truth from one or other perspective, and science is no exception to this rule. The truth is not something lying outside of scientific decisions, such as a reflection of an objective reality. Or, to put it another way, to the degree that there is an objective reality it is nothing more or less than what we take it to be. What is true is the result of social negotiation. Consensus is truth. The idea is that ‘science legitimates itself by linking its discoveries with power, a connection which determines (not merely influences) what counts as reliable knowledge’ (Aronowitz 1988: 204, italics original). g´. The Non-Privileged View of Science Furthermore, social constructivists are not ready to privilege science when it comes to knowledge and truth. Rather they typically believe that there are many different but equally valid ways of knowing the world, with science being just one of them. Rorty for instance tells us that he rejects ‘the idea that some discourses, some parts of the culture, are in closer contact with the world, or fit the world better, than other discourses. If one gives up this idea, then one will view every discourse – literary criticism, history, physics, chemistry, plumber’s talk – as on a par, as far as its relation to reality goes’ (Rorty 2007: 36). There are many alternative discourses for describing reality, but none is more faithful to the way things are in and of themselves, for there is no way things are in and of themselves. Undeniably, some of the theories these discourses generate will be more useful to us than others and hence we will accept some but not others. Quite frequently advocates of the objectivist view have claimed that we should strive to make the social sciences and the humanities a proper part of the natural sciences. They hope that it will eventually be possible to reduce or transform the humanities and social sciences into the natural sciences, so that real progress can also be achieved in these academic fields. Edward O. Wilson for instance writes that the ‘greatest enterprise of the mind has always been and always will be the attempted linkage of the sciences and humanities’. He calls the key to this unification ‘consilience’ and maintains that the ‘only way either to establish or to refute consilience is by methods developed in the natural sciences’ and its best support

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is the ‘consistent past success of the natural sciences. Its surest test will be its effectiveness in the social sciences and humanities’ (Wilson 1999: 8–9). However, the ironic twist is that some of the social constructivists seem to believe the very opposite. They think that the acceptance of the social constructivist theory of science and knowledge would turn this hierarchy of academic disciplines upside down. Sandra Harding for instance claims it makes good sense to think of the natural sciences as a subfield of the social sciences. She writes that ‘we should think about the natural sciences as being inside critical social sciences because the object-of-knowledge – ‘nature, herself ’ – never come to science denuded of the social origins, interests, values, and consequences of their earlier ‘careers’ in social thought’ (Harding 1991: 74). It is claimed that the social sciences are more fundamental than the natural sciences. h´. The Value-directed View of Science A further component of social constructivism is a particular standpoint on how values and science are related, which entails the rejection of the value-free view of science. Michael Root for instance maintains that ‘the practices of the science should include or be grounded on a view of the kinds of life worth pursuing’ (Root 1993: 2). Science is or ought to be value-directed in the sense that it should be designed to push or pull citizens in a direction that reflects and sustain a particular set of values or traditions. Helen Longino expresses a similar view when she claims that: The idea of a value-free science presupposes that the object of inquiry is given in and by nature, whereas the . . . [social constructivist] analysis shows that such objects are constituted in part by social needs and interests that become encoded in the assumptions of research programs. Instead of remaining passive with respect to the data and what the data suggest, we can, therefore, acknowledge our ability to affect the course of knowledge and fashion or favor research programs that are consistent with the values and commitments we express in the rest of our lives. From this perspective the idea of a value-free science is not just empty but pernicious. (Longino 1990: 191)

We need a new conception of science in which science and values are explicitly linked. ‘The model for good science should be research programs explicitly direct by libratory political goals’ (Harding 1991: 98). i´. Anti-scientism If social constructivists reject that science provides us with the most reliable path to knowledge and justified belief then by implication they also reject scientism, the idea that the only genuine knowledge about reality is to be found through science and science alone. They rather see scientism as an expression of intellectual imperialism j´. The Rationality of Religious Belief Moreover, social constructivists do not deny that religion could be part of ways of talking about the world that is useful and which reflects human needs, interests and

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values. So it could be quite rational to hold religious beliefs, and knowledge could be obtained in this discourse (or this part of the culture) just as well as any other human discourse (or part of culture). This does not mean that religion or religious beliefs could not be criticized, but such criticism is always contextual or local and is not based on any universally shared standards of justification or rationality. Justification or knowledge is always contextual or local. Let me end by quoting Thomas Günter. He writes in The Encyclopedia of Science and Religion, that ‘due to the strong and widely held realistic assumptions within science and theology, constructivism so far has not attracted very much attention in the dialogue between religion and science’ (Günter 2003: 165). I think that this should change and we should pay more attention to social constructivism in the dialogue between religion and science than we have done so far. This however does not mean that we must accept everything they say or reject all the elements of the objectivist theory of science and knowledge, but we need this discussion because we have to realize that science is after all a human practice.5

References Aronowitz, S. 1988

Science as Power: Discourse and Ideology in Modern Society (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press). Barnes, B. and Bloor, D. 1982 ‘Relativism, Rationalism, Sociology of Knowledge’ in M. Hollis and S. Lukes (eds), Rationality and Relativism (Cambridge MA: The MIT Press). Bloor, D. 1976 Knowledge and Social Imagery (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2nd edn). Boghossian, P. A. 2006 Fear of Knowledge (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Börjesson, M. 2003 Diskurser och konstruktioner (Lund: Studentlitteratur). Brown, H. I. 1988 Rationality (London: Routledge). Clifford, W. K. 1947 [1977] ‘The Ethics of Belief ’, in L. Stephen and F. Pollock (eds), The Ethics of Belief and Other Essays (London: Watts & Co). de Beauvior, S. [1949] 1972 The Second Sex, translated by H. M. Parshley (London: Penguin). Devitt, M. 1991 Realism and truth (Oxford: Blackwell, 2nd edn). Grant, I. H. 2001 ‘Postmodernism and Science and Technology’, in S. Sim (ed.), The

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Günter, T. 2003 Hacking, I. 1999 Harding, S. 1991 Hedenius, I. [1949] 1983 Kitcher, P. 2001 Kuhn, T. [1962] 1970 Kukla, A. 2000 Lacey, H. 1999 Lakatos, I. 1978

Lennon, K. 1997 Longino, H. E. 1990 Plantinga, A. 1993 Putnam, H. 1981 Root, M. 1993 Rorty, R. 1998 Rorty, R. 1999

‘Constructivism’, Encyclopedia of Science and Religion, Vol. 1 (New York: Thomson/Gale). The Social Construction of What? (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press). Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? (Milton Keynes: Open University Press). Tro och vetande (Stockholm: Bonnier). Science, Truth and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press). The Structure of Scientific Revolution (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2nd edn). Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Science (London: Routledge). Is Science Value Free? (London: Routledge). Mathematics, Science and Epistemology: Philosophical Papers, Vol. 2 (J. Worrall and G. Currie (eds), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). ‘Feminist Epistemology as Local Epistemology’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 71, 37–53. Science as Social Knowledge (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Warrant: The Current Debate (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Reason, Truth and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Philosophy of Social Science (Oxford: Blackwell). Truth and Progress, Philosophical papers, Volume 3 (New York: Cambridge University Press). Philosophy and Social Hope (New York: Penguin).

From Modern to Postmodern Conceptions of Knowledge Rorty, R. 2007 Ruse, M. 1999 Russell, B. [1935] 1978 Sarder, Z. 2000 Searle, J. R. 1995 Stenmark, M. 2001 Stenmark, M. 2006 Wilson, E. O. 1999

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‘Main Statement of Richard Rorty’, in R. Rorty and P. Engel (eds), What’s the Use of Truth? (New York: Columbia University Press). Mystery of Mysteries. Is Evolution a Social Construction? (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press). Religion and Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Thomas Kuhn and the Science Wars (Duxford: Icon Books). The Construction of Social Reality (New York: The Free Press). Scientism: Science, Ethics and Religion (Aldershot: Ashgate). ‘Rationality and Different Conceptions of Science’, in F. L. Shults (ed.), The Evolution of Rationality, (Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans). Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (New York: Alfred A. Knopf).

Notes 1 2 3 4 5

I am in debt to Philip Kitcher (2001: 3) in formulating these two images of science in this way. See Lacey (1999) and Stenmark (2006) for a more thorough discussion of the value-free view. See Stenmark (2001) for a more detailed anlaysis and evaluation of scientism. What is in bracket in this and the next sentence is included if one also accepts element 8 (scientism). I gratefully acknowledge financial support from The Swedish Research Council that made the writing of this essay possible.

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4 The Scientific Project: Knowledge Without Meaning? Håkan Snellman

I. The Scientific Project The Scientific Project (SP) is one of many projects that mankind has undertaken throughout history. Several thousand of years ago we were occupied by building pyramids, both in the Occident and in the New World. Later in Medieval Europe humans started to build Gothic cathedrals with a stunning ardency. This ended more or less with the Renaissance. Since then the western cultural elite has been occupied with the Scientific Project that symbolically can be taken to start with Galileo Galilei 1609. He then put his telescope to the eye and saw that there were mountains on the Moon and moons around Jupiter. This changed the Aristotelian picture that there is a different type of matter in the Heavens than on the Earth. In this article I will consider scientific knowledge as an outcome of the SP. Another outcome of the SP is the technology that it produces. A third outcome is the philosophical views that it frequently is said to produce. All these outcomes are tightly interwoven as the strains in rope. To simplify the discussion, I will in what follows focus on physics and to some degree on modern biology. Chemistry had an important impact on the development of our scientific description of matter and is today through quantum mechanics more tightly interwoven with physics than before.

II. Phases in the development of the SP Several phases can be distinguished in the development of the SP. Some of these are briefly described in what follows. The first phase starts with Galileo and is the application of experimentation and speculation to investigate the physical world under certain methodological restrictions. This phase reaches its first climax with Newton’s theory of gravitation and the establishment of mechanics as the primary model for natural phenomena. During this phase the notion of determinism is prevalent. Mechanics develops by physicists

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like Leibniz, Maupertuis, Lagrange, Hamilton and Laplace in the form of classical mechanics, with celestial mechanics as its crown achievement. The mathematical formulation goes under the name of analytical mechanics. A second phase begins with the realisation that there are non-deterministic aspects that need to be taken into account for the description of phenomena in nature. Maxwell and Darwin publish the same year, 1859, scientific works that use chance and randomness as tools for modelling processes in nature. This quickly develops into statistical mechanics by Boltzmann, Gibbs and others and in biology into neo-Darwinism after the 1950s. A third phase begins with relativity theory and quantum mechanics in the first decades of the 20th century. During this phase, in which the atomic structure of matter is established, one is forced to give up classical realism. In the theory of relativity the notions of space and time being some independent background, as conceived by Newton, is totally changed into a four-dimensional space-time continuum where time and space mix, implying a change in the notion of simultaneity, and in general relativity both space and time are dynamical variables that interact with matter. A fourth phase starts after World War II with the development of biology as a form of micro mechanics. The discovery of the DNA alpha-helix structure and the structure of proteins and their use for the description of the theory of evolution marks its entry on the scene. A fifth phase starts with Hubble’s discovery in 1925 of the expansion of the universe, the development of elementary particle physics and modern cosmology leading to the attempt at formulating a theory of everything (TOE). In this greatly simplified scheme, in the face of which many physicists might feel unhappy not to find themselves clearly represented (like solid state physics which is included in quantum physics/mechanics) there is a clear trend from determinism, that is mechanical and without purpose, to the addition of randomness, that is also without visible purpose, to the implementation of the mechanistic scheme to describe all of nature – classical mechanics, celestial mechanics, solid mechanics, fluid mechanics, continuum mechanics, quantum mechanics etc. – including modern biology. There are of course good reasons for this course of events. The reasons are to be found in the new notion of knowledge that is introduced in the SP and that will be elucidated below.

III. What is needed to establish a scheme of knowledge? Many scientists are sceptical to metaphysics and of its possible relevance to science. This is in my opinion a mistake, since in any serious self-reflection on one’s practice in science such aspects enter. To put up a scheme of knowledge we need at least three elements: 1. 2.

An aim for the knowledge, A set of criteria to validate a knowledge claim according to the aim,

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A common practice to obtain the same, or at least as similar as possible, experiences for us to reach consensus on what the basic observations or so called facts should be.

The aim determines the validation criteria and will influence the practice. In the SP the archetype of the common practice is the work in the laboratory or the observatory. This includes the understanding of the operation and use of the instruments that extend our senses into the micro or the macro world. a. An aim for knowledge Some people would argue that there is no need for an aim with knowledge. We seek knowledge for its own sake and more knowledge is better than less. In fact they would probably argue that they simply seek the truth about nature. The problem is not only that even this is an aim, but that we have not the slightest clue as to what could represent the truth. Our senses play tricks with us all the time. It is in order to diminish this problem that both Galileo and after him Descartes insist on that science should occupy itself with only the so called primary qualities of matter, like length, time, mass, velocity etc. The secondary qualities such as smell, colour, taste etc. are understood to depend upon our senses and should be avoided. Even so it is not possible to formulate criteria for a knowledge claim that pretends to aim for truth, since we don’t know how truth would manifest itself for us, even in the laboratory or the observatory, and not even if we stick to the primary qualities of matter. The history of physical theories, and how they are turned over, presents a clear illustration of this. As soon as we formulate a subordinate aim for the knowledge we seek, we can set up a set of criteria for it. The result is then a series of maps of nature in accordance with the aim. Several schemes of knowledge have been set up in the past. Not all of them were complete in all three aspects. However Aristotle devised a rather complete scheme. His aim was to find and establish the foreordained hierarchical order of everything in the universe. To this end he required information of four ‘causes’: the material, formal, efficient and final cause. Only then do we, according to Aristotle, have knowledge and understanding of a thing in relation to the universe. For him basically all human experiences could be used as common practice although even the Greeks understood the problem with the subjectivity of the senses. It seems to be the lack of a common practice that to some extent stops the Greeks from advancing in a systematic way into science as we understand it today. We therefore should denote the Greek science as the proto-scientific phase. Francis Bacon suggested that the aim of the Scienza Nova, the new science, the new knowledge of nature, should be to obtain power over nature. He wanted science ‘to bring relief of man’s estate’ and to use science to develop utilities for humans. He then realised that brooding into possible aims with nature stood in the way of this cause. ‘Inquiry into final causes is sterile, and like a virgin consecrated to God, produces nothing’ (Bacon 1623, bk. III, ch. 5) was his incisive formulation of the predicament we were into. Respecting nature as God’s creation would stop humans from exploiting her. Therefore final aims should be avoided. René Descartes was of

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the same opinion: final causes are to be banished from science. Ever since, scientists have adhered to this view, and decided to study nature as if devoid of intention or meaning. This prevails into our times. Modern science has reformulated the aim slightly into a less provocative one: the aim is to control and obtain power over nature and to predict the future. Power obviously makes you able to predict the future to some extent. The idea of predictability then comes into the foreground. The criteria for knowledge validation are then subject to this aim. b. A set of criteria to validate a knowledge claim according to the aim Which processes can be easily predicted? Clearly the repeatable ones! We therefore insist upon the study of repeatable events and that each experiment should be possible to repeat several times. We also seek to establish cause-effect relations in the processes in nature, essentially the efficient causes of Aristotle. The prototype for this is the relation between the set up of the experiment and its outcome. The set up is the cause and the outcome the effect of the cause. In this way each effect could be the cause of a new cause-effect relation in a chain ad infinitum. Normally it is believed that this chain can be cut at an arbitrary place and then from this place on the new situation is the cause of the following events. We do not need to consider any memory of the past. We also limit ourselves to what is called locality in space and time: all causes should be found in a limited region in space and time, otherwise the whole universe would be a potential cause including all its history. This is obviously not possible to have access to. In the experimental process there are things that cannot be changed and altered. These aspects are referred to as universal laws, like the law of gravitation or Newton’s law, and constants of nature, such as the value of the electric elementary charge, the gravitational constant, the speed of light in vacuum, etc. The other circumstances in the cause are referred to as boundary conditions. It is the experimentalist that must find out how much of the boundary conditions that can be varied and how much relevant information that we need to control to perform the experiment in a successful and repeatable way within the given accuracy of measurement. The theory is then suggested as soon as enough data are collected. Too few data do not in general make a good starting material for suggesting a theory. Too many theories can be suggested. Francis Bacon suggested the inductive method to be used in science: by measuring more and more accurately we would finally find out the laws of nature. This strategy has largely been abandoned in favour of the complementary strategy to guess or hypostatize a law and then subjects it to tests. This hypothetic-deductive method has been highly successful. It now becomes clear how the insistence upon determinism enters at the inception of the project in order to ensure predictability. With determinism we mean one-toone mappings. Given a certain situation, another unique and calculable situation should be reached in the next step in time, within the limits of experimental uncertainties. In general there are also one-to-many, many-to-one and many-to-many mappings. In quantum mechanics one-to-many situations are the general case.

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This diminishes the predictability, and we can only predict the statistical outcome of many experiments. Still, for technological applications, this often turns out to be enough. We also use a principle called Occam’s razor: we do not introduce more hypotheses than necessary to suggest at theory for the phenomena. The least number of assumptions that give an adequate description of the data are adopted. The theory is then subjected to further tests of its predictions. An important element in the scientific process is that we communicate our findings in an honest manner as to what we have found relevant for the experiment. It should in principle be possible for another scientist to repeat the experiment. Again, final causes are not supposed to be used as elements in the description or explanation of an experiment. The material causes of Aristotle are of course there as well as the formal causes. Since nature sometimes, if not always, show up one-tomany situations, the idea to use chance to model them is in line with the effort to avoid ‘final causes’. Chance can by definition not have any final cause or meaning. In quantum mechanics even the notion of classical realism had to be abandoned. Quanta cannot be assigned arbitrarily exact locations and velocities simultaneously according to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. This implies e.g. that electrons do not move in orbits around the atomic nucleus. We cannot in a classical way picture how they move, or rather behave. We can only predict the possibility to find them at various positions or with various momenta (= mass times velocity) at a certain time. ‘It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature’, was Niels Bohr’s conclusion of the situation. In biology Darwin’s theory of evolution is reformulated in modern times by the notion of DNA, as the carrier of the information of the individual. The model states that random mutations (of DNA) and the impact of the physical/biological/ geological environment, providing a ‘natural selection’ of the fittest, are the forces that drive the evolution. From this it follows that evolution has no direction and no aim or purpose. This is built into the model. c. A common practice As to the third element in the structure of knowledge we use rational thinking and study cause effect relations in the laboratory or observatory. With rational thinking is here basically meant mathematical modelling. This is important, since mathematics is the only contradictory free language we know. Once relations between observable quantities have been formulated in mathematical terms, we usually agree on these relations. An example is given by quantum mechanics. Most physicists agree on the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics and how to compute various predictions with it. However, as Max Jammer (1966) has pointed out there are a large number of different ways to interpret what the mathematical formulation means in ordinary words. Science has since the time of Galileo been understood as a process of measurements of the primary qualities of matter. However, as time goes on we can see that it is rather the experimental situation that characterizes science. Of course everything is still a kind of measurement: measurement relative to some standard of the

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primary qualities of matter. Nevertheless the configuration of the experimental set up is a decisive aspect of the experimental situation and of the interpretation of what the measurement says. This becomes even clearer in quantum mechanics, where the measuring device and the object become entangled after their interaction in a measuring situation. In each discipline it takes time to learn to perform experiments and understand the workings of the instruments or even suggest the construction of new instruments for various investigations. It is not always easy for the untrained eye or mind to use scientific instrument and to understand what they show. A well known example is the astronomical tube of Galileo, which even contemporary philosophers refused to look into. Another example is the microscope. When beginners look on biological specimens in the microscope, they rarely can see anything useful and clear to being with. Only after learning what to look for and how to complete the fragments of the picture into an intelligible form can they discern what the specimen is showing. Similar difficulties are presented with radiography. In the theory building we also require that the new theory is consistent, within the experimental error limits, with older established findings. This most often means that when the situation is adequate for the old theory to hold, then both the old and the new theory should give the same predictions within the error limits. Above, I have concentrated on the physical side of the SP at the expense of in particular chemistry. Chemistry has been very important for the development of the structure of matter, both in the way its structural simplification has been worked out to base chemistry on the stable basic elements in the periodic table, but also in the special way the carbon chemistry has been worked out in organic chemistry. Also the chemistry of gases was instrumental in establishing the theory of atoms. In quantum chemistry the science of chemistry and physics meet. In addition to chemistry, I have left out the other sciences like geology, meteorology, etc. But they can be seen to rely to a large extent on the findings in the other sciences as applied to various domains of interest.

IV. Consequences of the SP 1 The first thing that one has to admit is the great success of the SP. We certainly have obtained a strong power to manipulate nature. This has changed our daily lives fundamentally and totally in its technological applications as well as in the way we look upon and relate to nature. The first success came with Newton’s mechanics. In this theory Newton related the changes in velocity of the motion, i.e. the accelerations, to the mass of the particle and to the forces that act upon it. To get hold of these forces was to harness nature and obtain the power to control her that was Bacon’s aim. Thus we have heard since long that we tame the forces of nature in the SP. It is then clear how the idea of determinism became of primary importance. The applications were soon attempted not only to the planetary system and to ballistics but to all other fields of interest in nature, including physiology, with varying success. The program of determinism was gradually met with obstacles and the

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information needed to pursue it became simply to vast. Some new principle needed to be introduced. The only one that like determinism does not appeal to finality or purposes was the notion of chance and randomness. By definition chance does not contain any reference to aim. Is it then really by coincidence that two seminal works were published the same year, 1859, using randomness to model phenomena in nature: Darwin’s On the origin of species and Maxwell’s work on the theory of gases? After that the use of chance and randomness to model physical phenomena was rapidly taken on by Boltzmann in statistical mechanics, and finally by Heisenberg and Schrödinger in quantum mechanics. Also the impact on our lives from the elucidation of electromagnetic phenomena condensed into the so-called Maxwell’s equations cannot be overestimated. This makes part of continuum mechanics, or field theory. In the 1920s Edwin Hubble, by measuring the spectral lines from distant stellar objects, discovered that the lines are shifted towards long wave-lengths in the spectrum: they are red shifted. The red shift increased inversely proportional to the apparent brightness of the object. According to the psychophysical law of Fechner and Weber, the brightness is logarithmically related to the luminosity. Hubble therefore interpreted the red-shift as an effect of a Doppler shift. Distant stellar objects are moving away from us with a speed proportional to the distance from us. The conclusion is that the universe is expanding. This has led to the modern theory of the universe as expanding from a very hot start in the so-called Big Bang. More and more data seem to support this view and add more details to the scenario. Finally elementary particle physics has been introduced to describe the early phases of the universe, when it was very hot and the particles moved with velocities even higher than what can be reached in modern particle accelerators. The merging between elementary particle physics and modern cosmology has led to attempts to formulate a unified theory of all interactions and all forces: a Theory of Everything (TOE). This is not the place to discuss the prospects for such a theory and its possible implications. It suffices to say that it is the ultimate goal of a fully reductionistic approach to the physical universe. If we would cartoon the accelerating success during the 20th century it could go something like this: Due to the SP we have been able to split the atom and its nucleus, we have been able to tame the nuclear force, we have been able to transplant hearts, we can manipulate life in its beginning and at its end, we have put a man on the moon and claim that we know how the expanding universe was born. We also pretend that we will be able to formulate a theory of everything (TOE). ‘Success pyramidal!’ The 20th century has truly witnessed a development unlike anything in known history. We readily have to admit that. But in being a human project the SP also has other consequences.

V. Consequences of the SP 2 The second type of consequences is the negative aspects of the SP on nature and the environment and on the human beings themselves. Despite its aim for predictability, we have not considered or not been able to foresee the adverse consequences of

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the fruits of the SP in the sciento-technological interaction between humans and nature: the depletion of natural resources, the contamination of nature, the atmosphere and the seas by chemical pollutants, the depletion of the ozone-layer, and the rise in the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Secondary effects from the SP also arise due to the enormously increased capacity of mechanical work as well as transportation. This has lead to the cutting down of rainforests with inundations and desertification as consequences, the impoverishment of the soil quality, the diminishing of animal and insect species, etc. All these phenomena taken together is considered by leading scientists and ecologists to be the worst threat to the survival of mankind that we have seen in recorded history. We have also produced nuclear weapons in such quantities that they are still a severe threat to all of civilization. And even in the future we see no end to these problems with present scientific based technology. For example the fusion energy program will lead to the production of very radioactive waste products that will be difficult to handle, not to mention the danger of leakage of the tritium needed to run the reactors, should this program be implemented. Tritium, which is a radioactive hydrogen isotope, if coming out into nature will quickly contaminate all kinds of biological material like plants, grass etc. Francis Bacon formulated the need and reason to abandon the final causes to obtain power over nature in his famous parabola cited earlier. Obviously, if we consider nature as a being consecrated to God, it might be difficult to have procreation of utilities for mankind, as long as we respect this. Modern humans have unfortunately let go of almost all prohibitions in this respect and lost perspective of the deeper values nature has for them.

VI. Consequences of the SP 3 Modern scientists also claim that there is no meaning in nature. Scientists like Jacques Monod (1970), Steven Weinberg (1977), Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkings (1986), William Provine (1989), etc (you may wish to add your own favourite names to the list) all go out in books and interviews to state this as a consequence of the SP. However, it should have been clear from the previous discussion that scientific knowledge provides us at best with a map of reality or nature. This map is constructed according to certain rules, the three elements that were described above. It should then be obvious that the above mentioned scientists all mistake the map for the reality. The map is constructed so as not to contain final causes or purposes. Nature is therefore described as being without meaning; this is part of the structure of the map. A map is made due to a certain aim and is then containing information relevant to that aim. If I want to go by car from my home to Sigtuna here, I need a map that tells me how the roads are connected, where I shall turn left or right and which way to choose at a cross-road. I don’t want to know irrelevant details that will not help me to go to Sigtuna, even if they could be relevant for other purposes. No-one would say that the road map is an accurate description of all reality. But that is what scientists claim when they say that nature

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is as in the construction of the map. To say that the SP shows that the world is meaningless is even self-contradictory. From where should then the aim with the SP come? Even if a certain scientist will join the project due to another reason, like interest of wanting to know how nature functions etc., in each case there is an aim behind, or else they are scientists merely by chance. But who needs to take seriously the statements of someone who talks aimlessly?

VII. What is the meaning of lack of meaning? Human beings in general perceive themselves as intentional beings. Intention, aim, significance, value etc. are all related to each other and are essential for human life. ‘I did not mean to’, means ‘I had no intention to’, ‘you mean much to me’, means ‘you have a high value for me’, etc. We therefore since olden times ask the eternal questions with respect to our existential situation: What is the meaning of life? From where do we come, who are we, where are we going? In other words: what is it all about? Now, the SP actually seems to answer these questions for us in the way it has constructed the maps. The answer is: ‘We come from nowhere, from a quantum fluctuation in the Big Bang, we are self-reproducing molecular machines: nothing but a rattling in the atoms, and we are going nowhere, since we are going to be swallowed by our expanding sun that will turn into a red giant on the stellar main sequence in about 5 billion years. End of story!’ It is obvious that this so-called scientific world picture has too weak connections to our existential perception of meaning and purpose in our lives, manifested for example in our aim to get power over nature. The map is good for its purpose, to obtain control over nature, but useless for decent living. The interactions that humankind has with nature are decidedly dependent on human values and how we tend to perceive nature. – But what about the facts, are they not just observational data? Yes, perhaps, but about what? Are they data about an object or about our measurement of the object or about . . .? Here the question of interpretation enters with full strength. We recall what Niels Bohr said at the advent of quantum mechanics that from now on physics is about what we can say about nature, not about what nature is. An experimental fact is usually a statement relating symbols to each other in a context. For example, an electron is a symbol for an element used to describe a set of experimental situations. The electron as a symbol is given one meaning in classical electrodynamics, another meaning in quantum electrodynamics, a third meaning in the standard model of elementary particles, and a fourth meaning in so called Grand Unified models etc. – But are the facts not speaking for themselves? No, they are theory biased. And even when facts that are not connected into larger theories they represent at best only the taxonomical level of the SP, and this is generally not sufficient. Albert Einstein (1955: 1) strongly objected to ‘the prejudice [that] consists in the faith that facts by themselves can and should yield scientific knowledge without free

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conceptual construction’. Again we can exemplify this with e.g. the solar system. On the taxonomical level it has almost no meaning, but a list of heavenly bodies. On the other hand in Ptolemaios’ system it has one meaning, another one in the Copernican system, a third meaning in Newton’s classical mechanics, and still another one in Einstein’s general theory of relativity. A similar discussion applies to the periodic system of elements. It is also important to realise that the scientist chooses the observations and therefore the facts he/she wants to base his/her theory on. Such valuable facts sometimes go under the name of ‘gold-plated events’ in physics. For example Niels Bohr chose the hydrogen spectrum as the starting point for his model of the atom. In an analogous way the so called quarkonium1 systems, their spectra and decay, were instrumental in establishing the description of nuclear matter (hadronic matter) as made up of quarks and gluons. The value here relates to the use of the data to establish theories of matter. Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm shifts are strongly related to the shift in interpretation that occurs when data or facts are re-evaluated in order to establish the foundation of an improved and more coherent description. Function and purpose are also separated, since objects can have several functions, depending on the various purposes with which they are used. But purposes are not allowed into the scientific description. We are therefore not even allowed in the map-making to use the concept ‘function’2 other than in restricted meaning within an organism or a system. With artefacts, however, the whole idea with them is usually to constitute an answer to an aim, a need. Facts and values are also separated in general, since values are not to be included in the scientific description for reasons that were mentioned earlier. Human beings further tend to distinguish between explanation and description. However, it is generally acknowledged in science that we deal with descriptions: maps. Explanations are always founded on something unexplained, and are therefore just more complex descriptions. Finally we mention briefly the distinction between understanding and knowledge. Here, I think most people would agree that for and understanding to be present, we usually require that the use and aim with something should be clear, like with a human artefact. With a description of nature, a map of nature, we cannot have a proper understanding of nature; we can only understand the map, since we know the aim with the map. However, the universe is not a description of a collection of facts only. For us human beings it is also a realisation of values, and as such a work of art. Culture is a vivid illustration of this. The explanation (description) of the universe or nature might change as new and better data are acquired. Thus Newton’s theory of gravity is replaced by Einstein’s general relativity theory. What was previously an understanding of nature (á la Newton) then becomes a ‘wrong understanding’ and the ‘new understanding’ is in terms of the general theory of relativity. In view of this difficulty, it has been suggested that ‘understanding’ is more like ‘being well acquainted with’ in the way of being able to use the description successfully in new and untried situations. When this view is associated with the notion of maps, there is no problem of understanding both new and old maps. Of course we can talk about a deeper

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understanding of nature coming from experience and from maps of nature from several different aspects, as in art, music, literature etc, and not only from the SP. What is considered a sufficient understanding for one person might not be so for another person. Theories are maps that describe in mathematical language concepts that connect measurable quantities to each other, both in a particular experiment and in classes of experiments. In this way they organise data and in general capture their essence into a formal relation between them and a few constants of nature. But, as Einstein put it, there is no way from experimental data to theories. Theories are free inventions of the mind, and as such an art form in themselves. The mathematical relations usually go under the name of laws of nature, if they are general enough. History shows that these ‘laws’ are only provisional. One has found in nature basically four more or less independent types interactions: gravitation, electromagnetism, weak interactions and strong interactions. In the modern so called standard model of the elementary particles there is a certain unification of the interactions into the electroweak interactions. There is also progress in unifying the strong and electroweak interactions into one Grand unified interaction. The gravitational interaction is much more difficult to include in a unified theory of all four interactions. The ultimate goal of unification is to construct a theory of everything. The best candidate so far is the super-string theory. Moreover the theories (and therefore the maps) we have established make up a ‘nested’ structure. They are constructed to function as if nature behaves according to the description they offer. Sooner or later we might have to change the theory, i.e. work out a better one. However, the old description works as if it is valid, as soon as the old conditions apply. We therefore don’t build houses using the Schrödinger equation, and we don’t really use the theory of General Relativity to go to the Moon. Newton’s theory works as if it is valid under these circumstances, and we therefore change map according to the type of problem we need to solve and the precision it requires.

VIII. The Scientific Project in the future As I have tried to describe above, the Scientific Project alone does not give us adequate understanding of nature. It is a description, a tool as how to obtain power over nature. Due to its construction it is unable to guide us as how to live in harmony with nature, or even how to use it in a responsible way. This is exemplified in the ethical committees that are set up in most respectable universities today. Since the outcome of the SP gives us a description of the world relative to an aim, and not a fundamental explanation of the universe, its purpose should be questioned, because tools should preferably be constructed to avoid harming their users and the environment. If the map thus is incomplete or even ‘bad and dangerous’, how could (should) we modify it to encompass values and aims that are so essential for us to live in harmony

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with nature? There are several different ways possible and only the future will tell which one is the better. A few contexts for a merging of meaning and the Scientific Project from a more general perspective could look as follows (Snellman 2007). One possibility is trying to associate purpose with function in a hierarchically nested way. This has been proposed for example by James Lovelock (1979, 1988, and 2006) and Lynn Margolis in the Gaia theory which probably can be extended to the whole universe. Also the use of the weak anthropic principle of Brandon Carter (1974) is a step in this direction. Another way would be to try to collect all knowledge into one whole system, thereby incorporating the human value system, since we are part of nature, with the scientific process. This is a program that David Bohm (1980) pursued in his theory of the implicate and explicate order. However, it seems to contain implicitly in its structure that the scientific project will collapse. As the precision increases more and more relevant conditions need to be considered, and this will finally be impossible to handle. Yet another way is to try to reformulate the purpose of the knowledge system by replacing ‘knowledge is power’ with something less harmful, e.g. ‘knowledge is responsibility’, suggested some time ago (Snellman 1990: 289, 1995: 124). Such a program will have implications for the set of criteria that enter into the validation of knowledge that were discussed above, and what was considered valid knowledge in the present system might then no longer be so considered in the new system. We could also try to subject the scientific project to a higher purpose altogether that would impress a different value system onto it. This is the essence of the point of view of e.g. Sayyed Hussein Nasr (1993, 1997) in several works from his the Encounter of Man and Nature from 1968 and onwards. Many people claim that our civilisation must be sustained by the SP. This seems however contradictory in the light of our previous discussion. Our civilisation will most likely collapse if we continue as we have done until now. We must change our SP and our civilization in some new direction. We actually should find a new project to focus on. During several thousands of years we have been working on an agricultural project. Still at the end of the 19th century a majority of Swedes were occupied with this project. Today however there is only a small fraction of the population that works in the agricultural sector, and we still produce much more food and agricultural products now than hundred years ago. I am therefore confident that even if the SP will be subjected to another project it will produce enough output to satisfy the need of our future, hopefully more caring and responsible, civilisation. We should be clear-sighted enough to see that the SP is at best a provisional project, an intermediary step towards a true civilisation. If we would start to seek communication with the intelligence in nature and in cosmos in a sincere way, i.e. a way that includes both the spiritual, mental and physical aspects of our situation (in this order), rather than to seek dominion over nature, it would certainly help us transcending the present state of affairs and establish a civilization, in which we human beings understand our role in the universe, feel at home in it and start to respect it.

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References Bacon, F. 1623 Bohm, D. 1980 Carter, B. 1974

Dawkins, R. 1986 Einstein, A. 1951

Jammer, M. 1966 Lovelock, J. 1979 1988 2006 Monod, J. 1970 Nasr, S. H. 1997

1993 Provine, W. 1989

Snellman, H. 1990

1995

2007

De dignitate et augmentis scientarium (London: Haviland). Wholeness and the implicate order (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul). ‘Large number coincidences and the Anthropic Principle in Cosmology’, in M. Longair (ed.), Confrontation of cosmological theories with observational data, IAU Symposium 63 (Dordrecht: Reidel). The Blind Watchmaker (New York: W.W. Norton). ‘Autobiographical Notes’, in P. Schilpp (ed.), Albert Einstein: Philosopher–Scientist, The Library of Living Philosophers VII (New York: Tudor), pp 1–96. The Conceptual Development of Quantum Mechanics (New York: Mac Graw Hill). Gaia, A new look at life on Earth (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press). The Ages of Gaia (Oxford: Oxford University Press). The revenge of Gaia (London: Penguin Books Ltd.). Le hazard et la nécessitée (Paris: Éditions de Seuil). Man and Nature – The Spiritual Crisis in Modern Man [Original edition The encounter of Man and Nature, 1968] (Chicago: ABC International Group). The Need for a Sacred Science (Richmond: Curzon Press Ltd.). ‘Can “Progress” Be Defined as a Biological Concept?’, in M Nitecki (Ed.), Evolutionary Progress (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). ‘Behöver vi en ny kunskapssyn?’ [Do we need a new understanding of knowledge?], in Postsekulariserat Interregnum (Delsbo: ÅSAK) pp 289–310. ‘Scientific Knowledge and Human Responsibility’, in Human Responsibilities – Approaching the 21st Century (Ansembourg: L.H. Europe S.A.), pp 124–131. ‘Postmodern attempts to restore meaning in our relation to

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Weinberg, S. 1977

The first three minutes (New York: Basic Books).

Notes 1 2

Neutral system of one quark and one anti-quark In mathematics a function is a map from one set to another.

5 How Do We Know about the Self: Theoretical, Experiential, and Neural? Rebekka A. Klein

I. Introduction This paper discusses the methodological question whether we can know about the self and how we achieve this. It argues that the notion of self should be defended against its critiques by establishing interdisciplinary relations between science, phenomenology and theology. Phenomenological analysis may be used to clarify the interpretation of scientific results, whereas theology can question the results of both, scientific investigation and phenomenological analysis, by pointing toward the transcendence of the Divine. The paper develops the view that a multi-perspective framework, which establishes interdisciplinary relations between different perspectives provides the best ground to argue in favour of the notion of self. A multiperspective framework does not merely integrate different perspectives; it also allows the questioning and comparing of each, in order to find the most effective solution or answer. Moreover, the formation of knowledge from many perspectives equals a better understanding. The second aim of this paper is to investigate the notion of selfhood not merely as a theoretical term, but also its experiential dimension as a neural function of the brain. For this purpose, the phenomenological notion of an experiential, minimal selfhood is applied to experimental findings regarding the neural constitution of empathical reactions in the brain. It will be shown that these findings can be best interpreted by referring to the concept of a relational self. This is a prominent concept in contemporary phenomenology and, is effective in understanding the embodied and embedded nature of the human mind: it is employed to investigate the mind in its manifold interaction with the world. Thus, the interrelation of mind and world in experience is the core of this concept. In order to form an argument for the notion of an experiential and relational self, this paper refers to recent exemplary findings about the key role of self-understanding in empathy for pain. Empathy for pain is a paradigm in social neuroscience, which includes an understanding of empathy and a set of experimental tools to investigate it.

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Recent studies of empathy for pain have shown that empathical reactions towards the pain of others are driven by neural re-representations of bodily self-states. These neural re-representations of self-states function as a medium for the brain’s simulation of the state of being of another person. In empathy for pain, the neural re-representations are deployed to mentalise the state of being of another person and this view asserts that the state of another is always simulated as self-state first, before being projected towards the other. Therefore, the brain’s activation of a neural self-image represents an indispensable step that is taken, in order to acknowledge the pain of others. In this neurobiological argument, understanding others is mainly reliant on the capacity of self-understanding. Finally, this paper discusses how the theological notion of the Divine may contribute to the scientific and phenomenological notions of selfhood. With regards to theology, any understanding of selfhood is bound to be transcended by the presence of the Divine and, as Divinity is not a wordly being, its presence has to be conceived as a presence in absence. Hence, the paper proposes that theology does contribute to an interdisciplinary understanding of scientific findings by pointing to the limits of human experience and by developing a critical notion of selfhood, based on the Divine presence in absence.

II. The Notion of Self in Current Phenomenology and Theory of Mind S. Gallagher and D. Zahavi, in their current book on the contributions of phenomenology to the theory of mind and cognitive science, clearly demonstrate that the notion of self is a very controversial issue that is discussed in a variety of different scientific fields, including philosophy of mind, social theory, cultural studies, psychiatry, developmental psychology, and cognitive neuroscience (Gallagher and Zahavi, 2008: 197). According to neuroscientist A. Damasio, affective neuroscience also contributes to this field of research. Affective neuroscientists investigate the neural network systems in the brain that are responsible for the formation of images and feelings: in explaining the function of these networks, they show that there is a sense of self that already occurs in the neural networks of bodily affection and sensual feeling. Thus, affective neuroscience argues that the notion of selfhood should not be seen as a product of theory and reflection; rather, it emerges from an embodied sense of self, which is built up in the brain. This embodied sense of self is constituted in the brain before we consciously know about ourselves. Hence, through the integration of bodily affections and feelings, neuroscience reveals a non-verbal and non-conscious dimension of selfhood missing from approaches that concentrate on the role of linguistics, symbol and narrative of self. The latter is also emphasised by Gallagher and Zahavi, who began a dialogue with contemporary neuroscience. The major question posed by their overview on the problems and challenges of investigating selfhood is, whether the notion of self is to be seen as fictional or real; i.e., whether the self is to be reasonably conceived as a mere linguistic construct or as an experiential reality. As they are in favour of the self as an integral part of the phenomenological structures of human experience,

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Gallagher and Zahavi provide a strong argument against the thesis (Metzinger 2005) that all self-knowledge is an illusion and that there is, in fact, no such thing as a self. They assert that, in order to secure the notion of selfhood against the so-called no-self doctrine, there is a two-fold notion of self in our lives: the narrative (linguistic) self and the experiential self. Whereas the narrative self is dependent on stories that we and others can tell about us, the experiential self appears to be an (invariant) dimension of first-personal givenness in the multitude of changing experiences. Gallagher und Zahavi argue that this twofold notion of self shall not be regarded as alternative but as complementary: experiential selfhood is a pre-linguistic presupposition for any linguistic, narrative, or conceptual selfreference (Gallagher and Zahavi, 2008: 205). Furthermore, Gallagher and Zahavi emphasise the phenomenological point of view that human experience is fundamentally relational. Thus, there is no isolated and wordless self as subject, as theory has proposed. From a phenomenological point of view, both, mind and world are not separate beings, with regards to an understanding of the embodied nature of selfhood. Hence, the phenomenological understanding of selfhood particularly contradicts the epistemological point-ofview: in this, the phenomenological self is not merely understood as an identity-pole that cannot be perceived or experienced (as proposed by I. Kant for the epistemic subject). Kant conceived the identity of self as a necessary pre-condition for all possible experiences, but Gallagher and Zahavi argue that it is much more appropriate to understand the self as an integral part of the experiential structure of our interaction with the world. To experience oneself does not imply that we interrupt worldly interaction to gaze inwards towards something that cannot be experienced; rather, it indicates that we experience the world with a certain quality of mineness. This is what renders a subjective experience from a phenomenological point of view: it is attributed to experience, in order to emphasise that it is due to subjectivity and perspective-taking, rather than objectivity and representation. A major insight of the phenomenological notion of self is that any experience of the world is an experience for me and carries, at least, a subtle presence of self. Finally, it may be asked: ‘what makes the phenomenological investigation of selfhood challenging for neuroscience?’ This is mainly due to the fact that phenomenology emphasises the pre-reflective and non-conscious dimensions of selfhood, yet points out that these are always linked to conscious self-experience. Thus, it argues against both naïve realism and pure constructivism. Furthermore, phenomenology does not understand selfhood in dualistic terms, as an internal reflection of worldly things. Rather, it points out that the structure of self begins from pre-reflective and unconscious interrelations of mind and world and develops into a conscious and linguistic selfhood.

III. Evidence for Neural Self-States from a Study on empathy for pain There are various notions associated with the ontological status and nature of selfhood in modern philosophy and science. These notions are related to different

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views of what the self is and how we can know about this. Modern epistemology has argued that self-knowledge is only present in self-conscious experience and is absent in physical and bodily experience. Neuroscience has overcome this dualism by investigating experiential structures of selfhood in the physiology of the brain. One major development in contemporary affective and cognitive neuroscience is that neuroscientists are increasingly able to discriminate between different aspects of selfhood in the brain. For example, they investigate certain neural patterns which allow the approach of a non-conscious, bodily sense of self underlying the conscious interaction with the world. This has led neuroscientists to claim that, in looking into the brain, we can learn much more about the self than our conscious mind reveals. In this view, the brain provides the proper biological basis for investigating phenomena and experiences relating to the self, because it gives us a non-verbal account of this. The non-verbal account plays an important role in the claims of neuroscience and, Antonio Damasio, in his book The Feeling of What Happens, refers to the non-conscious dimensions of self as a proto-self: this is an ‘interconnected and temporarily coherent collection of neural patterns which represent the state of the organism’ (Damasio 1999: 174). Damasio distinguishes the proto-self further from what he calls the core self, a conscious neural representation of the proto-self that is developed through modification by an object. Proto-self and core self are two modulations of the sense of self which can be discriminated in the brain: the first refers to a self that is not present in conscious and knowing acts, whilst the second refers to a self that is present in conscious acts (it is modified and changed by an interaction of mind and world). Both kinds of self together shape the formation of selfhood. Damasio’s remarks on the making of selfhood in the brain can be applied to recent findings in social neuroscience, which emphasise the function of neural self-states in empathy for pain. This issue was recently proven in empirical studies on the phenomenon of affective empathy, in research carried out by Chris Frith and Tania Singer at the University College of London. The following gives a short overview of one of these studies, with a focus on the interpretation and explanation of empirical data given in the study. Neurobiological research on social cognition and affection in the brain seeks to identify the neural processes underlying an agent’s social interaction with others. In the study contained in the article ‘Empathy for Pain Involves the Affective but not Sensory Components of Pain’ (Singer et al. 2004), a group of volunteers (composing of couples) were monitored while experiencing pain (either themselves or their partner). It was found that there is a neural substrate for such empathic responses. In the experimental design of the study, the subject’s brain was investigated in a self-other condition and in a self-condition. In the self-other condition, the subject was informed about their partner receiving a painful stimulation, whilst, in the self condition, the subject themselves received the painful stimulus. The results showed that, in order to experience another’s pain, there has to be an activation of the so-called ‘pain matrix’ in the subject’s brain. With the self-other condition, this pain matrix is not activated entirely, yet certain parts of it are: these are known as AI (anterior insula) and ACC (anterior cingulated cortex). Both neural

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circuits function as indicators of the subjective experience of the relevance of pain and their activation helps to build a judgement about the affective quality of pain. The right AI in particular is correlated with the awareness of the physical self as an entity of feeling: it represents an image of the body’s internal state. In the case of empathy, this image does not refer to our own but to another’s pain. Data from the study by Singer et al. (2004) showed that a subject’s brain develops a neural self-image whilst understanding the state-of-being of another. Indeed, building a self-image of one’s own state-of-being helps to recognise the experienced significance of a particular stimulus for another person. Furthermore, it helps in motivating and deciding on a proper reaction to the other person’s state-of-being. Thus, the investigation of the neural underpinnings of empathy for pain provides evidence for the hypothesis that the presence of another person’s state-of-being is reliant on the presence of self. Neurobiology argues that our understanding of others is based on an analogical self-other relationship: by nature, we are capable of understanding others because our brain consists of neural systems that give access to others’ minds by simulating their state of being as self-state and subsequently projecting them towards the other. Neurobiological experiments have shown that brain activations in neural circuits, which are normally part of self-states, are employed to develop an understanding of the other’s experience and state-of-mind. Thus, Neurobiology confirms the hypothesis that an analogical relationship between the self and other forms the basis of ‘how we know others’. Accordingly, it highlights self-experience as a facilitating condition of ‘other-understanding’.

IV. The Theological Notion of Divinity Theological responses to scientific findings and phenomenological analysis are based on the insight that the Divinity is not a being in the world: therefore, it can only be conceived of as presence in absence. Thus, when the notion of Divinity is referred to in interdisciplinary discussions, it can be used to introduce the notion of the limits of human understanding. Its function is to highlight the immanent boundaries of knowledge in science and phenomenology. As the Divinity is not a wordly object, it cannot be conceptualised as an object of the brain’s neural representations. To introduce the notion of Divinity into a neurobiological framework means to indicate that there is a structural limitation to this paradigm of knowledge: it cannot account for a transcendent meaning of reality. With regards to the concept of the relational self, the notion of Divinity points to the self ’s asymmetrical relationship with another, rather than to its symmetrical relationship with another self. The asymmetry in the self ’s relationship with another can be introduced by showing that the other is never fully grasped in the symmetrical relations of empathy. Other-understanding, which is bound to the insight that the other’s mind is similar to the self ’s mind, does not take into account that there might be at least some aspects of the other’s mind that are never grasped by the self.

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Thus, the notion of Divinity helps to highlight that there is a limitation of the self ’s relationality, when it comes to the understanding of the transcendent meaning of the ‘other’. In addition, it questions the concept of experience used in neuroscience. That which is merely conceived as a neural representation of objects or other minds misses the point that all such objects and minds can carry a transcendent meaning for human beings.

V. Conclusions This paper has argued that the merely theoretical notion of self; for instance, as used in epistemology, should be extended to an experiential and neural notion of self. Neurobiological findings show that there is an undeniable sense of self that accompanies social experience and action and this can be employed to argue in favour of the self as an ‘invariant dimension of first-personal givenness in the multitude of changing experiences’ (Gallagher and Zahavi, 2008: 204). Neural self-states are not activated separately from sensations and perceptions as a product of reflection; rather, they are part-and-parcel of our experiential understanding of the world and others. The fact that this experiential understanding is bound to be established in a symmetrical relationship can be questioned by referring to the theological notion of Divinity. As Divinity is to be conceived of as presence in absence, it highlights that there is an asymmetry in the self ’s relation to other selves and to the world. This asymmetry marks a ‘transcendence’ within the world that may have a critical function, with regards to the interdisciplinary formation of knowledge.

References Damasio, A. 1999 The Feeling of What Happens (San Diego: Harvest). Metzinger, Th. 2005 Being No One (Cambridge: MIT Press). Zahavi, D. and Gallagher, S. 2008 The Phenomenological Mind (London: Routledge). Singer, T. et al. 2004 ‘Empathy for Pain Involves the Affective but not Sensory Components of Pain’, Science 303, pp 1157–1162.

Part II Understanding in Theology

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6 ‘The End of Faith?’ Theology as Process Noreen Herzfeld

Introduction Sam Harris, in The End of Faith, credits religion as the source of much, if not most, of the violence in today’s world. He writes, Religion is as much a living spring of violence today as it was at any time in the past. The recent conflicts in Palestine, the Balkans, Northern Ireland, Kashmir, Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and the Caucasus are merely a few cases in point. In these places religion has been the explicit cause of literally millions of deaths in the last ten years (Harris 2004: 26).

Richard Dawkins is equally dismissive of religion. In The God Delusion, he writes that religion is, at best, a profound misunderstanding, and at worst a form of madness. According to Dawkins, ‘religion is about turning untested belief into unshakeable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time.’ (2006) Both find the antidote to religion’s irrationality in science. To Harris and Dawkins religion is a body of accumulated knowledge. This static view of religion sees no difference between past and present. Harris writes, ‘While religious people are not generally mad, their core beliefs absolutely are. This is not surprising, since most religions have merely canonized a few products of ancient ignorance and derangement and passed them down to us as though they were primordial truths’. (2004: 72) If religion is nothing but a body of ancient, and generally erroneous, knowledge, then perhaps we don’t know much, and how we know what we know would be quite limited. Of course, science has, at times, also been viewed as a body of accumulated knowledge. The science most of us encountered in our early schooling consisted of learning the periodic table, the names and attributes of the planets, the hierarchies of order, phylum, and species. But in general, we consider science to be a process, the scientific method. This characterization was evident in the December 2005 judgment in Dover Pennsylvania against the inclusion of Intelligent Design (ID) in high school biology classes. ID was rejected as a science, not because it espoused a

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series of erroneous facts, but on more dynamic epistemological criteria: it cannot be tested through experiment, it does not generate new questions, and ID leads to no useful results in the real world. These criteria are about science as process. They are about how we know, not what we know. They speak of ongoing observation and experiment, of further unknowns, of new and ever changing questions and applications. In a society that has embraced experiment, innovation, and change as a given, theology has two choices. On the one hand, it can present religious thought as static, one place in a world of change where change does not occur. The rapid pace of technological innovation, of cultural change and ever increasing globalization can make this stance appealing. The desire for changelessness in a changing world is one of several reasons for the rise of fundamentalism in both the Christian West and the Muslim East. The problem with the idea that religious thought does not change, however, is that it is basically a lie. A quick tour of Biblical, Qur’anic, or Vedic interpretation, and of religious practice through history, shows that neither interpretations of sacred texts nor religious practices have ever been static.1 The other choice is for theology to be as fluid as science, in fact, to adopt many of the same processes that characterize the scientific method. Such a theology need not dismiss the accumulated knowledge of tradition or scripture, just as science does not dismiss the large body of facts that have been garnered through careful observation and experiment. However, the theories that rest on these facts must be subject to change as new evidence emerges. A healthy theology that takes science, and, indeed, all other forms of rational inquiry, seriously must be willing to alter its perspective when truth so requires. Can theology be this open to change? Is there an example of a theology as flexible as the scientific method, one that meets the criteria of experiment, further questions, and useful results of the Dover ID trial? One can find examples of these criteria throughout the history of Christianity, and, indeed, in other faiths as well. But I am not a historian. In this article I shall limit myself to one example and speak primarily out of my own tradition. As a graduate student and scientist, I found myself drawn to the Religious Society of Friends, better known as the Quakers, precisely because both their core beliefs and their mode of worship are rooted in process. Revelation, in Quakerism, is an ongoing process, best encountered in the silence of meeting for worship. This view of theology as process is not unique to Quakerism; one finds a similar grounding in process in the mystical strains of most faiths, particularly in Zen Buddhism, Sufism, and yoga. Even Pope Benedict XVI (who is not noted for his mystical tendencies), in the controversial speech ‘Faith Reason, and the University’ delivered in Regensburg, noted that the scientific ethos is ‘the will to be obedient to the truth, and, as such, it embodies an attitude which belongs to the essential decisions of the Christian spirit’. But it is the Quaker tradition that, for me, best exemplifies a faith that gives the lie to Harris’ and Dawkins’ characterization of religion, and provides a model of a religion that honors a similar process as science. So let’s return to the criteria of the Dover ID decision – experiment, new questions, and useful results – to see how these criteria fit with the process of a Christian, and more specifically, Quaker theology.

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Grounding in Experiment and Observation: the First Dover Criterion Quakers believe that one should live by the truth. They take quite literally John 4.24: ‘God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth’. This led the early Quakers away from set prayers and creeds, to a mode of silent worship, in which one speaks only what one knows inwardly, and otherwise waits for the inner truth or light, the experience of God’s presence within. God is thus defined not through creeds or even scripture, but through an experimental process of waiting in silence. As physicist and Quaker Arthur Eddington notes, ‘The spirit of seeking which animates us refuses to regard any kind of creed as its goal’. (Kenworthy 1983: 70) Here we have Christianity as process rather than as body of knowledge. The inward revelation that comes from seeking is not opposed to revelation as handed down through scripture and tradition. Quakers believe that both are different expressions of a single reality. Though we agree with our fellow Christians in this high esteem for the Scriptures, from the earliest days the Society of Friends has regarded them as the record of revelation rather than the revelation itself, and has insisted that the Scriptures be not substituted for the Spirit which gave them forth or for Christ or for the Inner Light to which they testify. They are not the primary rule for faith and conduct. (New England Yearly Meeting 1986: 80)

This view of scripture as a record of the human experience of revelation, rather than as revelation itself, obviates Harris’ criticism that adherents to the monotheistic faiths must either rely slavishly on a literal acceptance of scripture or must reject that scripture altogether. The Quakers provide a middle way, one, I might add, that has been widely accepted among Christians since the advent of historical/ literary criticism. Pope Benedict views revelation, not as a ‘mere collection of true statements about God. Revelation is Jesus Christ himself – not the Greek philosopher’s unmoved mover but the God of Trinitarian and human relationships’. Thus, ‘Christianity is not an intellectual system, a collection of dogmas, or a moralism. Christianity is instead an encounter, a love story’. (Ratzinger 2005:686) Even evangelicals rarely take a completely literal reading of scripture. As William Cahoy, the current dean of my school of theology once said, in reference to Jesus’ injunction in Mark 9.47 to pluck out your eye or cut off a hand if it causes you to sin, ‘I’ll take them more seriously as soon as I see more one-eyed or one-handed fundamentalists walking around’. James Ault’s Spirit and Flesh, an ethnography of the fundamentalist movement supports Cahoy’s point, that these communities are often quite flexible in their interpretation of scripture. As an aside, I am currently teaching in the Faculty of Islamic Studies at the University of Sarajevo and in this guise I hear Sam Harris saying ‘well, that’s fine and good for Christianity, but what about Islam? For them the Qu’ran is revelation, plain and simple, not to be interpreted but slavishly followed’. This attitude shows a remarkable lack of knowledge of Islamic history. To Muslims the Qu’ran is indeed the very word of God, ‘not to be doubted’, in its own words. Yet there is a long history in Islam of interpretation, known as tafsir and ta’wil, in which the text

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is explored for both its exoteric and esoteric meanings. In the words of Andrew Rippin, Islamic scholar at the University of Victoria in British Columbia: ‘it is eye-opening . . . the amount of independent thought and diversity of interpretation that existed in the early centuries of Islam. . . . It was only in more recent centuries that there was a need for limiting interpretation’. (Stille 2002) If scripture is not in itself revelation, is revelation a source of religious knowledge at all? Margaret Fell, one of the mothers of Quakerism recounts her first encounter with Quakerism’s founder, George Fox. [He] said, ‘the scriptures were the prophets’ words and Christ’s and the apostles’ words, and what as they spoke they enjoyed and possessed and had it from the Lord . . . You will say, Christ saith this, and the apostles say this; but what canst thou say?’ . . . and then I saw clearly we were all wrong . . . and I cried in my spirit to the Lord, ‘We are all thieves, we are all thieves, we have taken the Scriptures in words and know nothing of them in ourselves’. (New England Yearly Meeting 1986: 13)

Fell echoes the intimacy of Benedict’s love story. The implication is that revelation is personal and internal. For Quakers, one source of this knowledge is found in the experience of the silence of the mind and heart that comes from sitting either alone or with others in meeting for worship. This sitting is often described as ‘waiting on the Lord’ where waiting is used in a dual sense. One indeed waits for something to happen, for some clarity or experience of the Light within. One also waits in the sense of attending to God, to the exclusion of all other thoughts and distractions. Sitting in the silence is an experiment, and, although one knows the results others have had, each experience is its own, and leads to its own results. But we all know the human capacity to fool oneself. Scientists recognize that experimentation can sometimes give erroneous results. Acceptable results should be replicable by other researchers, supported by the results found in other laboratories. Quakers note the same necessity. Before a Quaker makes a major decision, or in times of confusion or change, it is suggested that one consult a clearness committee. This is a group of peers, who sit in silence with the consultant seeking the truth together and then asking questions. A clearness committee never supplies answers, only questions designed to help shed light on the true nature of the problem or decision.

Generating New Questions: the Second Dover Criterion The questions of the Quaker clearness committee lead to the second criterion science holds up for theology. Does a given theory or practice lead to further questions and avenues of research? Kenneth Arnold writes, ‘Contrary to what people of science and religion long believed, questions, not answers, are the building blocks of the universe’. (Arnold: 2000) It is in the questions that both fields ask that we find much similarity, questions that include: Who are we? How are we related to the world around us? How does that world work? How are we related to

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one another? What are we to do to improve the lives of ourselves or others? A good scientific theory may provide a partial answer to one or more of these questions, but it should also lead to further questions and further avenues of research. Ted Peters describes this attribute of a scientific theory as its fertility. Science begins with questions; within a fertile theory the process of looking for answers should lead to further questions. Quakers also begin with questions. These questions have been organized into sets called Queries, which are read at meeting for worship at regular intervals. Queries are the only things that are regularly spoken aloud at meeting for worship. They are meant to stimulate self-examination, by both the individual and the meeting as a whole. Here is a typical set of queries: Do you live with simplicity, moderation, and integrity? Are you punctual in keeping promises, careful in speech, just and compassionate in all your dealings with others? Do you take care that your spiritual growth is not sacrificed to busyness but instead integrates your life’s activities? (New England Yearly Meeting 1986: 212)

These questions cannot be answered once and for all. They are questions one needs to ask over and over throughout one’s life. Each one leads to further questions. Thus, the spiritual life for the Quaker is not one of answers but one that follows Rilke’s advice to a young poet to ‘be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, . . . Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer’. (Rilke 1993: 35) This extends beyond questioning one’s own life to questioning any theory about the world or the divine. Explanations in science or religion must always be tentative. The provisional nature of scientific explanations has long been accepted, particularly in our post-Kuhnian age. In the realm of theology, physicist and theologian Arthur Peacocke has argued that models in theology should be considered equally provisional. (1979) As shockingly modern as this idea seems, Christianity has a long tradition of wariness of theological models, as exemplified in the apophatic tradition, which stresses the unknowability of God, describing what God is not rather than what God is. The Greek theologian Evagrius cautions us to ‘never define the divine’. (McGinn 1994: 155) Gregory of Nyssa notes, ‘Concepts create idols. Only wonder comprehends anything’. He goes further, to describe the best theologian as ‘he who has not discovered the whole, for our present chain does not allow of our seeing the whole, but conceived of God to a greater extent than another, and gathering in himself more of the likeness or adumbration of truth, or whatever we may call it’. (Catechetical Oration 30:17) This emphasis on the negative is also found in Quakerism, which, as Quaker Geoffrey Hubbard notes, seems to be based on a list of negatives – no priests, no creeds, no sacraments, no service – yet at the same time each negative rejects a limitation; no one priest, for all are open to the word of God; no defined creed, for each must find his own way of expressing his own experience; no

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sacramental rites, for all of life is sacramental; no prearranged service, so that our Meeting is open to God’s message. (Kenworthy 1983:12)

Like the endless questions of science, Quakerism is intrinsically open-ended because Quakers believe that they live in an open-ended universe. Their models of God and of the world are inherently provisional, just as Peacocke suggests. And these models should well be provisional. Not only is it rather hubristic for us to assume that we have both a complete revelation, in other words, all the facts, but also that we have made no mistakes in interpretation. Scientists have recently shown that the feeling of certainty has involuntary neurological roots. Certainty, like love or anger, arises out of neural mechanisms that function independently of reason or conscious thought. The feeling of knowing involves parts of the brain such as the prefrontal cortex and anterior insula, areas associated with pleasure and impulse. But theology does not require certainty. Theology rests on faith, the assurance of things hoped for. As Terry Eagleton (2006) notes, ‘while faith, rather like love, must involve factual knowledge, it is not reducible to it’. Faith allows for provisionality. Provisionality does not negate utility. Consider, for example, one application of the Quaker devotion to the truth discussed above. Commitment to the real, as known through experience, led the earliest Quakers to reject the visual arts, not through any concern with their subject matter, but because a painting is a substitute for the reality it seeks to portray. Why not look at the real thing, they argued. Quakers have since realized that this was a limited view and have changed their stance. Most would now agree with Elfrida Foulds, who writes: ‘The truth which the artist seeks and which he expresses through his art is part of the Universal Truth, just as the truth sought and expressed by the philosopher and the scientist and the theologian is part of the Universal Truth’. (New England Yearly Meeting: 146) This change in the view of art does not negate the underlying commitment to integrity. Quakers now question the virtual worlds of cyberspace and computer games on the same grounds. One should not deliberately choose illusion over reality. Evaluating these pastimes is an ongoing activity. The point here is that Quakerism calls us to make such an evaluation, rather than to embrace these entertainments in a mindless fashion.

Religion and Violence: A Case Study Of course, Quakers also shun the violence that is so endemic to the world of computer games. This brings us back to Harris’ critique of religion. Harris claims that religion, even moderate religion, poses a genuine threat to our survival as a species through its toleration of, in fact, advocation of violence. He finds in religious belief the root of violence, not only exemplified in past crusades, pogroms, and inquisitions, but in more recent conflicts – in Palestine, Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, Chechnya, Sudan – the list goes on. Harris mentions, and quickly dismisses, the pacifistic stance of Gandhi; he notes in a footnote

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that each faith has produced nonviolent contemplatives, though these are rare individuals. However, the Quakers have consistently taken a non-violent stand, as a group. One of the strongest testimonies of the Quakers, one which has set them apart from most other Christians, has been the peace testimony. Quakers generally reject all forms of war and violence. This rejection stems from a dual understanding of human nature. First, since Quakers believe that ‘there is that of God in every man’ one attacks God himself when one attacks another human being. Second, Quakers believe in an absolute equality of all persons that work against violence. While pacifism might be seen as another negation, the negation of war, it can also be seen as a call to action. Quakers have acted tirelessly as mediators in conflict and as promoters of economic development, so as to head off conflict. Do we have here a precept that is demanded of all Quakers, regardless of their experience? Not at all. In the 17th century it was part of the standard dress of the English gentleman to wear a sword. After William Penn had become a Quaker he began to feel uncomfortable with this accoutrement and asked George Fox whether, as a Quaker, he must stop wearing the sword. Fox’s reply was, ‘Friend William, wear thy sword as long as thou canst’. Thus, the Quaker devotion to integrity to one’s personal experience trumps the testimony to peace. This was seen also in World War II, when some young Quaker men chose to serve in the military. Though this choice was not condoned by the larger community, it was allowed. When I became a Quaker I found the peace testimony hard to accept. I eventually did come to accept it, yet within my own personal life I have found that this remains an ongoing process. My own devotion to the peace testimony has been called into question by my posting this year as I confront the genocide that was perpetrated in Sarajevo less than two decades ago. It is hard to look at hundreds of bodies from a mass grave, as I have done, and not think that we should have used any means, even violence, to stop their slaughter. I struggle right now with questions rather than answers on this front. Still, the hope remains that somehow one will be able to live in ‘the virtue of that life and power that [takes] away the occasion of all wars’. (New England Yearly Meeting 1986: 184)

The Results of our Process: the Third Dover Criterion A theology rooted in the experiment of silent waiting and resting on questions rather than answers could seem detached from the real world. The final criterion from the Dover trial, that of useful results, reminds science and theology that both have implications and responsibilities for how we live in the world. A last form of knowing is that of Matthew 7.16: ‘by their fruits you will know them’. As astronomer Neil Tyson notes: ‘Science’s big-time success rests on the fact that it works’. We are probably all grateful that the planes we routinely fly in were constructed by the laws of physics rather than ‘constructed by the rules of Vedic astrology’. (D’Souza 2008: 22) Philosopher Albert Borgman points out that science is valued in our society precisely for its transformative power. But many of the results we attribute to science are not results of science alone. Science works in

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tandem with the values we hold. Albert Einstein noted, ‘Science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be’. (Levin 2006: 32) Science is more than the contemplative quest for insight into the structure and mechanisms of the natural world. Intrinsically coupled with its offspring, technology, science seeks to improve the human condition, and in doing so rests on a series of value judgments. According to Francis Bacon, the true aim of science should be the mastery of nature and end of suffering, to ‘the glory of the Creator and the relief of man’s estate’. (Levin 2006: 33–4) The relief of man’s estate is a worthy goal. And though at times it seems as if scientific research is conducted in the spirit of ‘Gee whiz, what can we do next?’ a careful examination of the technologies we pour our time and effort into generally shows quite clearly that we truly seek ‘the relief of man’s estate’. Does religion, of itself, add to the ‘relief of man’s estate?’ Harris or Dawkins would claim that it does not. They see the fruits of religion as violence, the oppression of women, and the negation of rational thought. Harris (2004:15) considers religion to be ‘one of the principal forces driving us toward the abyss’. Beginning with the horror of 9/11, The End of Faith catalogues a history of man’s inhumanities to man that have been sanctioned by some religion. Americans, however, persist in correlating religion with personal ethics and civic vitality. A recent study by the polling group Public Agenda found that 78% of Americans believe that crime, greed, uncaring parents, materialism would all be mitigated if people were just more religious, and for 76% of them it does not matter which religion;2 any religion will do. Numerous other studies show religious practice to be a strong predictor of charitable giving, of better health and quicker recovery from illness, of civic cohesion. For many around the world, religious institutions provide the social safety net that political institutions do not. When religiosity is matched to GDP, the nations of the world fall into a predictable curve (with the US and Kuwait being the only exceptions): The higher the GDP, the lower the religiosity. The US position well off the curve reflects the fact that, while we have one of the highest GDPs in the world we have a social safety net that is more similar to those of mid-range developing nations, rather than those of Europe or Japan. Why did Hamas rise to popularity in Palestine? Not because everyone there espouses terrorism but because they provided social services. The same can be said of the Islamic Brotherhood in Egypt. Relief of man’s estate? By all means. Of course social services could be, and are, provided by the state rather than religious groups. One can also argue that the groups mentioned above are more political than religious. In the end, just as one could argue as to whether the discovery of nuclear fission is ultimately good or bad for humankind, one’s estimation of religion, whether one agrees with Harris or with the majority of Americans, is in the end purely subjective. My own list of religion’s contribution to the relief on man’s estate might begin with Bach’s B Minor Mass, the beauty of the poetry of Hafiz, or the light in Sainte-Chapelle.

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Conclusion: The End of Faith? Harris writes, ‘It is time we recognized that the only thing that permits human beings to collaborate with one another in a truly open-ended way is their willingness to have their beliefs modified by new fact. Only openness to evidence and argument will secure a common world for us’. He intends this as an indictment of religion, continuing, ‘The spirit of mutual inquiry is the very antithesis of religious faith’. (2004:48) He is both right and wrong. Harris is indeed correct in his support for beliefs that are open-ended; he is wrong to suppose that religious faith is necessarily inimical to this process. The Quaker tradition shows that it is quite possible for religion to rest on experience and questioning, and for these to form the basis for an active and involved faith, one that need never reject science and its findings, but will temper their use with the best wisdom that can be gained from personal and communal experience. This is a model that theology in general could benefit from. The publication of books such as Harris’ and Dawkins’ and the wide acceptance of their arguments pitting religion against reason, religion against science, should serve as a wake-up call for mainstream Christianity and Islam. Religion in the twenty-first century must consider the best of science, both as a body of knowledge and as a process. Theology must find its roots once again in experience, the same experience that was known to our forbears in the faith. We must be flexible enough to recognize when our models of creed or code are rooted, not in that experience, but in a culture or tradition that no longer fits the present. Theology must admit that our answers are provisional and that there will always be new questions arising from our changing world. Science, however, must do the same. Whenever scientists make absolute truth claims, or act as if their models are no longer provisional, they sink into scientism, a dogmatism as dangerous as any religious dogmatism. Our scientific quest has given us great power, power to heal and power to destroy. In a nuclear world, a world facing global warming, a world of easily hidden and transported explosives, we cannot afford ‘the end of faith’ that Harris suggests.

References Harris, S. 2004 Arnold, K. 2000 Ratzinger, J. 2004 Burton, R. 2008

The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (New York: Norton). ‘Living with Paradox’, Cross Currents 50. ‘Funeral homily for Msgr. Luigi Giussani’, Communio, 31: 4, pp 685–87. ‘The Certainty Epidemic’, Salon 29.

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Dawkins, R. 2006 D’Souza, D. 2008 Kenworthy, L. 1983 Levin, Y. 2006 McGinn, B. 1994

The Root of All Evil (Channel 4 broadcast, UK). ‘Why Miracles are Possible’, Columbia 88:1, pp 21–2. Quaker Quotations on Faith and Practice (Philadelphia: Friends General Conference). ‘The Moral Challenge of Modern Science’, The New Atlantis 14.

The Foundations of Mysticism: Origins to the Fifth Century (New York: Crossroad). New England Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice 1986 (Worcester Massachusetts). Peacocke, A. 1979 Creation and the World of Science (Oxford: Clarendon). Rilke, R. 1993 Letters to a Young Poet (New York: Norton). Stille, A. 2002 ‘Scholars are Quietly Offering New Theories of the Koran’, The New York Times, March 2.

Notes 1

2

See, for example Raymond Brown and Sandra Schneiders, ‘Hermeneutics,’ in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1990), pp 1146–65. For a history of Qur’anic interpretation, see chapter ten, ‘Muslim Scholarship and Qur’an,’ in W. Montgomery Watt and Richard Bell, Introduction to the Qur’an (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1970). The study can be found in the report For Goodness Sake: Why so many want Religion to Play a Greater Role in American Life, Public Agenda, 2007 http:// www.confidenceinforeignpolicy.org/files/pdf/for_goodness_sake.pdf.

7 Faith, Science and Postmodernity Antje Jackelén

I. Introduction Let me start my reflections on the relationship between these three, significantly broad, terms with a memory of one of the earliest religion-and-science conferences I attended. This was a conference at the Evangelische Akademie Loccum in Germany in the fall of 1988. Two years earlier, that same academy had hosted the event that went to history as the First European Conference on Science and Theology (ECST I).1 That conference was a decisive step on the way toward the birth of the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology (ESSSAT): it was officially founded at the Third European Conference on Science and Theology (ECST III) in Geneva 1990. From the 1988 Loccum conference I remember a rather animated debate between theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg and the late primatologist Christian Vogel about the relevance of theology for evolutionary biology. Pannenberg argued along the lines that God is necessary not only for a full, but even for an appropriate, understanding of nature, whereas Vogel insisted that the way the intellectual world works provides a definite refutation of Pannenberg’s statement. Your argument is like someone telling me that, while I am working here, there is a little balloon way over there that must impact my work. I look around and do not even see the balloon. Why would I in my scientific work care about a balloon that for me does not even exist? (Pannenberg and Vogel 1988: 187f),

Vogel asked Pannenberg, who in turn defended the position he has taken repeatedly: If the God of the Bible is the creator of the universe, then it is not possible to understand fully or even appropriately the processes of nature without any reference to that God. If, on the contrary, nature can be appropriately understood without reference to the God of the Bible, then that God cannot be the creator of the universe, and consequently he [sic] cannot be truly God and be trusted as a source of moral teaching either. (Pannenberg 1981: 662)

From this debate, I vividly remember a sense of unresolved unease with both scholars – with the theologian putting all his eggs in one basket and the scientist’s

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cocksureness of reducing theological questions to the insignificance of an accidental balloon. Up to this day I agree with neither Pannenberg nor Vogel. Both appear to build on the assumption of an exclusivism that almost inevitably leads to conflict: Either faith is crucial to every single element of science or it is not relevant at all (Pannenberg). Either science is 100% independent of every faith commitment or it is not science at all (Vogel). The relationship between faith and science needs to be understood in a context that is far more complex than the debate between Pannenberg and Vogel suggested at that point. In my view, the development of hermeneutics and some discussions in the area of postmodern philosophy have proven helpful in providing access and tools to describe and handle that complexity in more adequate ways. As a first step in arguing this case I need to revisit the position of a 100% pure science. In allusion to the Vogel quote above, I call this position for the little-balloon-view.

II. The little-balloon-view The little-balloon-view is by no means ridiculous.3 Why, indeed, would one care about a balloon whose existence is a matter of believing rather than knowing? Yet, the issues that are at stake in the dialogue between religion and science cannot be settled on the level of proofs of the existence of God. Rather, one has to pay attention to the underlying assumptions of the little-balloon-view and its implications for possible relationships between science and religion. A closer look suggests that these assumptions suffer from at least four serious misconceptions. First, in its claims to exclusivity, the little-balloon-view reveals a truncated and somewhat naïve understanding of what dialogue is. It focuses on finding the one correct answer at the expense of keeping a culture of questioning alive. It is the expression of a culture where the answer is perceived to override the question. The victory of the question over the answer is perceived as both the definition and the measure of progress. Thus, the little-balloon-view falls short of the dialogical adventure modeled for us in the example of a Socratic symposium, where the answer always keeps the door open for the next question. It refuses to embark on the maieutic venture of together birthing new knowledge, and is even less interested in the interdisciplinary co-parenting of such knowledge. Instead, I want to map the relationships between religion and science as a beneficial triangle drama between faith in knowledge (represented by the sciences), knowledge of faith (represented by religion and the critical and self-critical reflection on the contents and the effects of a religious tradition, i. e. theology) and their common responsibility for the world. Obviously, this framework will allow theology a more central role than that of an accidental little balloon. Second, the little-balloon-view is historically naïve. The relationship between religion and science has always been mutual and complex. I resist triumphalistic accounts of Western theology as the primus motor of modern science as much as I resist accounts that subsume the colorful tapestry of relationships between

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theology and science under the metaphor of warfare. There really is no need on either side for such cheap apologetics. Today, there is enough scholarship on the history of these relationships available to understand their complexity and to debunk any one-sided hero- and martyr-narratives. For example, John Brooke, David Livingstone and Ronald Numbers have provided strong evidence that receptions of science and technology have varied greatly dependent on time and place. The range of reactions to scientific and technological innovations holds far more alternatives than plain acceptance or outright rejection. Livingstone (2003) in particular has demonstrated how local circumstances often make all the difference in how new theories and thoughts are received. The cultural capital that is present at a certain place at a certain time sometimes funds things that are beyond the influence of science and theology themselves. These insights suggest that our metaphorical ‘balloon’ is not glued to some remote and insignificant fringe of the cosmos of knowledge; it has always been hovering over the waters of scientific and technological creativity and left us a rich historical track record. Third, the little-balloon-view is epistemologically naïve, because it tends to ignore the fact that the sciences operate on the assumption of certain views of nature that precede scientific activity. The point is that these assumptions are often unconscious or pre-empirical. Scientific activity is far from immune to undercurrents of religious beliefs. These undercurrents are often easier to identify in retrospect, since historical perspective can offer a perspicacity that is hard or even impossible to attain in relation to one’s present situation. For example, we are now able to assess the long-lasting repercussions of what once was a core understanding of Baconian science, namely the image of science as the saint, who gathers her followers in monastery-like noble communities, whereas nature is the wild woman that needs to be forced into submission. ‘I am come in very truth leading to you Nature with all her children to bind her to your service and make her your slave,’ as Francis Bacon (1964: 62) put it. We are probably less able to appraise the religious and quasi-religious assumptions that inform today’s research policies. But even our time holds its views on issues, such as what is or ought to be sacred, what makes for a meaningful life and what the rightful place of humans exercising their inventive and interventionist powers should be in relation to nature and the cosmos. It would be naïve to presume that these views do not affect the ways of science and technology and the reception of their achievements. Once again invoking the image of the balloon, epistemological analysis suggests that the theological questions do not let themselves be confined to a balloon, however big it may be. Rather, they are in the air that scientists and theologians are breathing together. Finally, the little-balloon-view is also anthropologically naïve. Both science and theology are done by people who as human beings are as frail as anybody else. Nevertheless, both enterprises desire to be held accountable to the highest standards of truth and honesty. The boldest truth pursued with radical honesty is entrusted into the hands and minds of fallible men and women. The challenges of this tension account for both striking successes and momentous failures. They are an expression of the human condition, which is – to say it with Paul Tillich

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– marked by the poles of finitude and freedom (Tillich 1963: 30–110, esp. 86f.). Mortality and creativity meet in the pursuit of science, technology and theology as much as anywhere (Cf. Jackelén 2005, 870f). Even before we learnt about the stem-cell fraud in Korea and clergy sex abuse in the Church, we knew that ideal and reality can be ways apart from each other. The best that theologians and scientists can do in this regard is to hold each other accountable. Both have ethical frameworks that could serve correlatively as scaffolding to keep those high standards intact. In that perspective, our little balloon would finally turn out to be something very different: namely a little irritating mosquito preventing the secure from falling into the sleep of complacency. Or, if we prefer to be more modest in the transmutation of metaphors, we will still be able to acknowledge that, rather than being insignificant at best, the balloon appears to represent a reality that both science and theology need to relate to in order to keep them successfully on track as human enterprises in their own right. Thus far, I conclude that dialogical, historical, epistemological as well as anthropological naiveté need to be overcome by acknowledging that theology and science have always been doing things for each other. To some irreducible degree, they already include each others histories, discoveries, world views and visions. Therefore, science should not be but ‘that little balloon way over there I do not even see’ for theology, and theology should not be but ‘that little balloon way over there I do not even see’ for science. The two enterprises are far too relevant to each other. Moreover, they are brought together in their common responsibilities for the ways of the world. Hence, it can be said of neither science nor theology that only one of them is the best and correct way to understand the world. In the course of further elaboration of this topic, one might in fact consider writing an entertaining book and call it The Little-Balloon Delusion! Where to go from here? Since I like to explore tension, I will turn to what may look as the opposite of the little-balloon-position, namely a postmodern view of knowledge. I will preface my thoughts on postmodernism with a little caveat, though:

III. Postmodernism may not be what you think it is Familiarity with postmodernism varies greatly among disciplines. In some circles, it has already become the news of the day before yesterday, an old hat. This occurs in literature, history, philosophy and theology. In other places, postmodernism has not even made the stage yet. It is regarded as irrelevant in some cases, and thus to be ignored; it is regarded as anti-scientific in others, and thus to be opposed. When it comes to the topic of postmodernism, we find both ignorance and opposition in religion-and-science-circles. Many scientists have been trained throughout their career to despise two phenomena as anti-science, namely feminism and postmodernism. And certainly, ever since Alan Sokal’s 1996 hoax ‘Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity’ scientists have had a good excuse to dismiss postmodernism as an intellectual

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fraud. The attempt to sell irrationality under the disguise of hyperrationality and the individualized intellectual hubris that replaces sincere knowledge with esoteric poetic language or sloppy thinking – these appeared to be two fitting descriptions of postmodernism serving as perfect excuses to ignore or oppose postmodernist thought. Scientists are certainly not the only ones to be critical of everything that smacks postmodernism. There are even theologians of varying color who eagerly oppose postmodernism for a variety of reasons. Some reject it because any questioning of what is perceived as the metaphysics (or the correct onto-theology) is perceived as an attack on truth itself; a position not unknown in and around the Vatican. Fides et ratio, the Encyclical Letter from 1998 by Pope John Paul II, affirms that postmodern thought merits appropriate attention. Yet, the impression that postmodernism is marked by major intellectual and existential failures and that it comes with a propensity toward nihilism prevails (Fides et ratio 91). The encyclical does not engage constructively with the radical hermeneutical challenges posed by postmodernism. The oneness of philosophy and truth and the certitude of faith are in principle taken for granted. Some Protestant voices, on the other hand, have reproached postmodernism for promoting egoistic self-centeredness, deeply at odds with the love command and the ethos of a Christian assembly (e.g. BrandbyCöster 2008: 56). Perusal of critical comments of this kind suggests that the line between serious critique and prejudice tends to be a very fine one, when it comes to postmodernism. Moreover, in both science and religion new quests for the unity of knowledge are being raised, more or less as a critical reaction to what is perceived as fragmentation and relativization due to postmodernism. I will briefly mention two examples of such quests. According to reviewer W. Richard Bowen, it is the main concern of J. Andrew Kirk in his 2007 book The Future of Reason, Science and Faith: Following Modernity and Post-Modernity to seek a unification of knowledge so that “the Western world might again regain . . . a consistency between thinking, believing and acting that is a prerequisite for the true flourishing of human life.”’(Bowen 2008: 20). This project is built on the assumption that theism can provide a unified explanation of the whole of life. As the reviewer reports, Kirk tends to present a ‘very explicit, one might say, dogmatic, account of theistic belief ’ (Bowen 2008: 22), which seems to be warranted by the desire to find a reliable foundation for ethics. In Kirk’s view, both modern and post-modern thought have substantial difficulties in providing a basis for moral actions. He is not the only one to voice such concerns. The alleged inability of postmodern thought to give justification for morality is frequently used as a point in case for the danger lurking in postmodernism. However, not all forms of postmodernism end up in complete moral relativism. Jacques Derrida claimed justice as something not to be deconstructed. Emmanuel Levinas developed radical ethical demands from the concept of alterity, epitomized in the face of the Other. By drawing on the characters of Odysseus and Abraham, Levinas (1988: 157–161) has elucidated the role of otherness for a constructive hermeneutical project. In spite of its wanderings in strange territories, the journey of Odysseus remains stuck with sameness: it is a round trip that ends where it

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started. In that sense it is a thoroughly modern project, if such an anachronism is permitted. Abraham on the other hand, starts out on a journey of no return. In his journey we see an image of genuine interest in the Other. In that sense, it is a postmodern journey, a pilgrimage with clearly ethical dimensions. Ethics is relevant to postmodernism even in additional ways: wherever postmodernism is understood in terms of radical hermeneutics (Caputo 1987), one cannot avoid taking the necessity and challenges of interpretation very seriously and one must acknowledge that interpretation always comes with an ethical dimension. Furthermore, the invocation of theism (as in Kirk) as a unifying force against pluralism, intellectual and moral relativism as well as the fragmentation of knowledge and values is problematic – at least in a Jewish and Christian setting. In the Bible, God appears every once in a while as a questioner and a challenger. This divine trait is even more prominent in Jesus who questioned and challenged the religious and social elite as much as ordinary men and women. Even the work of the Holy Spirit is described as free and surprising. There is no straight line from the God of the Bible and the works of the Holy Trinity to a philosophical theism that can provide consistency and unification of knowledge. A second example of a new quest for the unity of knowledge comes from a five year program in religion and science, the Metanexus Global Network Inititative, funded by the John Templeton Foundation. This is a grant program ‘for transdisciplinary exploration of the most profound questions of nature and humanity’. According to a communication from Eric Weislogel, Executive Director of Metanexus (in a letter announcing the program, dated February 26, 2008) ‘[t] he transdisciplinary approach suggests an important shift in mindset that significantly impacts teaching, learning, and research. It aims at providing . . . a synthetic or integral approach for regaining a sense of the unity of knowledge’. Similarly the Metanexus website states: This transdisciplinary approach, supplementing more mainstream academic research, is meant to open new fields of scientific research, to make new discoveries, and to pursue the unity or harmony of knowledge. It lays the groundwork for challenges to long-held assumptions and beliefs, helping to establish preconditions for paradigm shifts, intellectual breakthroughs, and the transformation of human knowledge.4

While both Kirk and Weislogel want to regain the unity of knowledge, their starting points and strategies differ. The former responds to the rationalism of modernity and the loss of meta-narratives in relativistic postmodernism with the attempt to reintroduce Christian theism as a foundational meta-narrative. In his letter, Weislogel does not focus on postmodernity. According to his approach the fragmentation of knowledge is caused by specialization in disciplines. Specialization has proven itself highly successful in many ways. Nevertheless, on the negative side, it leads to alienation between different fields of studies. The suggested remedy belongs to the sphere of scientifically expansionist attitudes, in Viggo Mortensen’s (1987 & 1989) terminology. The envisioned transdisciplinary approach leaves the analytic and reductive scientific methodologies fully intact.

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Instead, it ‘strives to expand the theoretical underpinnings of scientific exploration’. Moreover, Weislogel says, ‘it promotes scientific exploration of questions that have traditionally been considered only by philosophical methods’. There is no need to question the necessity and the success of reductive methods per se. What is needed, however, are careful definitions and distinctions, for example between ontological and methodological reductionism. Also, what is meant by unity of knowledge needs further exploration. The unity of knowledge – depending on what it is supposed to designate – may not necessarily be a desirable state. It would be misleading to present the unity of knowledge as a paradise lost due to the fall into modernity (specialization) and post-modernity (relativism). On the level of the individual person we regard the ability to cope with complementarity in thought and knowledge as a sign of maturity. Coping with the complexities of knowledge, including those brought to our attention by postmodern philosophers, does not seem all that different. Therefore, rather than desiring seamless unity, I find beneficial tension between different areas of knowledge more promising in terms of progress. Favoring a return to modernity as an alternative to postmodernism’s subjectivism and fragmentation will not prove all that helpful. Modernity’s quest was for universality and uniformity, whereas postmodernism in its most constructive mode looks for similarities-in-difference – navigating between the Scylla of boundless pluralism and relativism and the Charybdis of rigorous non-ambiguity, of totalization and reduction to sameness. I have come to find the middle ground between sameness and boundless pluralism very fertile. This experience makes me hesitant toward new quests for the unity of knowledge, because I am concerned that they will deprive us of the insights that come from recent developments in a number of sciences. These developments were facilitated by a noticeable shift in interest in science as well as in philosophy and theology during the 20th century, namely from the predominant interest in exploring continuities to a focus on discontinuities instead. This development can be traced from quantum leaps to the birth of galaxies through perturbances in space. It expresses itself in new ways of looking at science. For example, Stuart Kaufmann (2000: 119) talks about a more holistic understanding of creation that recognizes both science and story in our attempts to make sense of the universe, and about science itself as understood in terms of an ‘intermarriage of law and history’. Microbiologist Carl Woese (2004: 179), speaks of a release of biology ‘from the intellectual shackles of mechanism, reductionism, and determinism,’ which constitutes a turning point within the discipline. In the wake of these developments, we will need to approach the issue of unity of knowledge in ways other than those of classical modernity. We have evidence at hand that shows that deconstructionist discourse is not a blind alley into relativism, anti-science and anti-technology. Revisiting reductionism is not the same as advocating against science. If I am to summarize my constructive reading of postmodernism in one sentence, it will be this: not everything is construction, but pretty much everything we deal with, as facts of science, facts of religion and facts of life, comes along with constructions. And this embeddedness in construction is not necessarily a sign of

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lack of truth and rationality, but rather a sign of complexity. In that sense, dealing with postmodern critique of modernity does not require less rationality, but rather more than rationality. In my view, rather than coming with an invitation to embrace prejudice (irrationality) or being a label on a waste bin in which to dispose of all the undesired features of our societies (moral relativism), postmodernism is an invitation to give hermeneutics the crucial place in the dialogue between religion and science that it has not been given yet.

IV. Hermeneutics My shortest definition of hermeneutics runs like this: Hermeneutics is what turns suspicion from a vice into an art. It is taking seriously the critical questions of how we understand and how we interpret. Hermeneutics is a constructive way of handling the suspicion that we might never get it all right. Time and again, we find ourselves in places where a fully unequivocal understanding cannot be reached. This may be due to the limits of communication, the fluidity of language (which of course is a presupposition for linguistic creativity), preconceptions or plain prejudice. Hermeneutics explores the space of interpretation and critically addresses the issues emerging in this space. Thus, it deals with the nature of understanding itself. One of the tasks of hermeneutics is to follow key terms and concepts as they migrate from one place on the intellectual map to another and to analyze what happens along the way. For example, concepts such as relativity, complementarity, chaos, complexity and emergence all play a distinct role in the science of the past one hundred years. They have not stayed within once clearly defined borders, however, but keep migrating quite freely between different areas of knowledge. Along the way it so happens that they, like a sponge, absorb meaning from different contexts of inquiry, transfer such meaning from one context to another, and pour it into conceptual bowls that may be very different from the original source of the concept. In the course of this process both facts and their interpretation can change meaning; ideologies may build up which influence the further course of inquiry and understanding. Hermeneutical methods can be used to examine and evaluate such processes. Hermeneutics is also important in the analysis and evaluation of the use of metaphors in religion and science. Metaphors work – in theology as well as in science. They are indispensable in the communication of both scientific and theological knowledge. It would be a grave misunderstanding to refer metaphors in science to the area of pedagogical popularization or, even worse, to the realm of redundant decoration. Metaphors are essential even in the communication between scientists; the farther off from the scale of ordinary life science operates the greater the weight that has to be carried by metaphors. This is true of the very big as well as of the nano-world. It has to do with the experience that, the more the factual side of a metaphor is withdrawn from our senses, the greater power rests with the imaginary side of the metaphor. In other words: the more counterintuitive

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the object described by a metaphor is, the greater becomes the risk of being seduced by the wrong metaphor. It is characteristic of good metaphors that they function as catalysts and build loops of understanding that reinforce and provide guidance in formulating future research agendas. The role of metaphors in creating successful grant proposals should not be underestimated. Religious studies scholar Mary Gerhart and physicist Allan Russell have rightly argued that metaphors are inventive and constructive rather than descriptive: ‘By giving us new maps, metaphoric process engenders the new world views that mark and direct the course of human history’ (Gerhart & Russell 2001: 208). Without the transfer of meaning from one area to another – which is precisely what metaphors are about – the practice of science would be impossible. It is the tension between identity and difference in the metaphor that creates new meaning. Metaphors come with a whisper of uncertainty: exactly the tension between the ‘is’ and the ‘is not’ is the key to new understanding (cf. McFague 1982: 13). It is the hallmark of metaphors to come with a little bit of vagueness, which may look like a disadvantage. However, precisely this imprecision creates the crisis that makes further knowledge possible. Let me use a metaphor to describe how metaphor works: The imprecision is the crack in the pot of objective knowledge that points to the possibility of new knowledge emerging at and through the ruptures that can be found in all systems of knowledge. This crack is the reminder that the best understanding is often created while walking the edge between premature syntheses on the one side and fragmentation on the other. The awareness of the crack is both a curse and a blessing: it keeps us from the fulfillment of our desire to define the ultimate, yet it nurtures the sense of possibility and hope. We have not reached the end of all our exploring yet. The reservoir of the possible is by no means exhausted. There is more to come. It is life under the spell and promise of penultimacy. Francis Bacon’s optimism that ‘[g]enuine truth is uniform and selfreproducing’ (Bacon 1964: 71) on the one hand, and some postmodernist claims that declare every truth to be merely a matter of construction on the other hand, have one thing in common: they are both blatantly naïve.

V. Is postmodernism just a passing trend? For those thinking of postmodern otherness and particularity as risky for truth and morality it may be reassuring that some key features of postmodernism are not an invention of the last decades or so. There are examples of a ‘postmodern’ revolt against ‘modernity’ much earlier in history – if such anachronistic use of terminology is permitted for the sake of pointing out similarities in the structure of thought over the distance of centuries. To this end, I have chosen an example from the Christian tradition of the early 16th century. Arguing that postmodern thought has some helpful things to offer for theology and for the dialogue between theology and science, I will also refer to the work of a contemporary theologian. In his Heidelberg Disputation from 1518, Martin Luther quite famously

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distinguished between theologians of glory and theologians of the cross and clearly favored the second category. There is an epistemological difference between the two: the theologian of glory is – in our terminology – modern, and the theologian of the cross is sort of postmodern; this because the theologian of glory is preoccupied with the attempt to infer knowledge about God via an analogia entis, an analogy of being. One may say that she uses the methods well known from Thomas Aquinas’s five ways to prove the existence of God, namely the argument from motion to the first unmoved mover, from effects to the primal cause, from contingency to necessity and so forth. Such processes of logical inference presuppose an ontological likeness between the visible world and the invisible God. This kind of reasoning aims at a synthesis of the two poles. Luther takes a different route. Instead of analogical knowledge concentrating on similarity he emphasizes knowledge that focuses on dissimilarity. The analogical structure of knowledge is replaced, in the cross of Jesus Christ, by a dialectical structure, that is, by knowledge that knows something by knowing – not what is the same – but by what is other or even opposite. As Jon Sobrino (1978: 198f) remarks, The very first consequence of Jesus’ cross for Christians is a complete break with their customary epistemology. The cross shatters the self-interest that motivates us to gain knowledge of the deity. The cross breaks the inertia of analogical thinking and transforms it into dialectical thinking.

Another theologian and expert on the theology of the cross, Vítor Westhelle, does not go so far as to say that Luther abandons analogical reasoning all together. And certainly, no knowledge can do completely without analogy. Even dialectical thinking is dependent on the validity of analogical thinking. Yet, similarly as with the comparison between the exclusive little-balloon-view and relation-oriented postmodern reasoning there are significant differences in the use of analogy. Westhelle (2006: 44) observes that Luther ‘rejects exclusively analogical reasoning while keeping open some room for analogical correspondence’. Luther does not reject analogy altogether. Such a move ‘would lead to cynicism, even nihilism’. Instead ‘he constantly inserts elements of irony to disturb the tranquil realm of analogical correspondence’ (Westhelle 2006: 44). Westhelle (2006: 44) summarizes, ‘Luther’s theology is neither a total synthesis nor a complete separation, yet simultaneously it is both; it is irony breaking into the realm of analogy’. This brings us back to the cracks in the pot of objective knowledge – the cracks which, as noted above, point to the possibility of new knowledge emerging at and through the ruptures that can be found in all systems of knowledge; hence, my conclusion that the issues of postmodernism are not unheard of in earlier chapters of intellectual history. Luther’s deconstruction of analogy represents a clear contrast to scholastic epistemology. Once more in Westhelle’s words, scholastic consensus . . . made reason an infrastructure for faith; the latter fulfilled the former (donum superadditum), bringing it to perfection by means of analogy. Luther’s

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gesture was an ironic deconstruction of analogy: that which seems to be is in fact its opposite. (2006: 45)

In the Heidelberg Disputation, Luther questions the straight line of analogy from the visible to the invisible, saying: ‘He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross’ (Thesis 20). God’s self-disclosure is concealment in the cross of Jesus Christ, a hidden visibility. Therefore, it simply ‘is not sufficient for anyone, and it does him no good to recognize God in his glory and majesty, unless he recognizes him in the humility and shame of the cross’ (ibid.). In more contemporary terminology we would say: the theologian of glory goes after knowledge and love of what is like; that is, she goes after continuity and reduces everything to sameness, whereas the theologian of the cross asks for what is different and other, for what is hidden under the form of the opposite; she looks for discontinuity and is concerned with otherness. For Luther, it is the theologian of otherness, of the cross, who is the one who can say what things really are, which theologians of glory cannot. The exciting thing about theologia crucis, the theology of the cross, as hermeneutical principle is that it is a standard of Christian theology that challenges the certainties of theism and atheism alike. Westhelle (2006: 81f) describes the hermeneutics of the cross as an epistemic key that enables transgressive knowledge: ‘a theologian of the cross should constantly transgress the limits of accepted epistemes’ (2006: 84). And this is done, as Luther has it, by calling the thing what is actually is (Thesis 21). This commitment puts hermeneutics in the place where it is supposed to be: seeing what is the case as a means to comprehend one’s own involvement and what it means to become enabled to decide and to act. After this excursion into early modernity now back to our own century. John Caputo, a Roman-Catholic philosopher and leading interpreter of Derrida on American soil has plenty of positive things to say about postmodern thinking. His statements resonate remarkably well with Luther and Westhelle. Deconstruction to him is to expose the cracks and fissures in a thing while also opening it to its own future (Caputo 2007: 106). ‘Deconstruction is organized around the idea that things contain a kind of uncontainable truth, that they contain what they cannot contain’ (2007: 29). There is something paradoxical about Caputo’s expression of deconstruction being organized. One might suggest that deconstruction is not really an organized activity, but rather a disorganization of sameness in the interest of getting to know otherness. The second half of the sentence just quoted is highly interesting, though: things contain what they cannot contain. This statement reminds strongly of the Lutheran notion of the finitum capax infiniti – the finite being able to comprise the infinite, which actualizes both the theology of divine incarnation in Jesus Christ and the theology of the cross. Caputo even claims that things have a predisposition to be ‘auto-deconstructed by the tendencies of their own inner truth’ so that it becomes clear that ‘the other is the truth about the same, the truth that has been repressed and suppressed, omitted and marginalized, or sometimes just plain murdered, like Jesus himself . . .’ (2007: 29). Deconstruction to him is ‘a hermeneutics of the kingdom of God’ (2007: 29).

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The affinities to the epistemology of the (theology of the) cross are hard to ignore. According to Caputo, the benefits of deconstruction are not just marginal. In fact they go to the very heart of Christian theology: ‘I am proposing that what happens in deconstruction has an inner sympathy with the very “kingdom of God” that Jesus calls for’ (2007: 33). He summarizes: ‘Release from idolatry is the part of the relief, the good news, that postmodernity offers to the church’ (2007: 112). The hermeneutics of attention to the cracks and fissures and of willingness to take penultimacy seriously by always engaging with the challenges of deconstruction is in discord with a number of definitions and perceptions of what religion and theology are. It is, for example, at odds with Clifford Geertz’s well-known definition of religion as ‘(1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic’ (Geertz 1966). For Geertz, religion is a system that basically by virtue of its resistance to deconstruction acquires an aura of factuality and realism. The path of critical hermeneutics leads in the opposite direction. Does all this have any bearing on science and religion dialogue? Deconstruction is about being on the way to find the next step that may reveal truth and error. It is in line with what the reformers called theologia viatorum, the theology of those who are on their way. This perpetual questioning also has a structural similarity to the method of science. Rather than being anti-science, postmodernity and science have things in common. And rather than leading into moral relativism, postmodernity appeals to a justice-driven course of action. According to Caputo (2007:33), ‘deconstruction announces the good news about alterity . . . It has prophetic resonances that call for justice to flow like water over the land’. This is not only an association to the prophet Amos5 but also to Derrida, the apostle of deconstruction, who would see justice as the one category that cannot be deconstructed. In fact, deconstruction is the attempt to render justice. In this framework, rather than a metaphysics of presence we find an ethical call to respond to what is other; rather than God as a name we find the event of the holy in, with and under reality as we know it; rather than ontology we find relationality, and rather than exclusive focus on actuality we find increasing interest in possibility. Undecidability is not simply the mark of a deficit or a not-yet to be overcome at the earliest convenience. Rather, it holds a dialectical tension where the differences form the gateway to new knowledge that comes with provocation and en ethical dimension: the call of the Other. As Caputo argues in his The Weakness of God, the adequate presentation of God along these lines is not the God of design and order, but God the event, released from the constraints of the name into the poetics of the impossible. Caputo’s work is of interest also for another reason. The way in which he develops his theology of the event by reflecting on the biblical creation story of Genesis 1, constitutes an interesting merger between European continental philosophy and Anglo-Saxon process philosophy (Caputo 2006: 55–97). Some significant work in religion-and-science has been drawing on process thought – for example the

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work of Ian Barbour and John Haught. Caputo’s work opens a thought-provoking perspective: it may well be that the ditch between process philosophy and postmodern thought is not as broad as particularly critics of postmodernism might think. In fact, cross-fertilization between process philosophy and postmodern thought may prove valuable to the dialogue between science and theology. At any rate, it is enticing to compare these ideas in philosophy and theology to developments in the sciences from the theories of relativity and quantum physics to emergence, complexity research and systems biology. Even here, we note a shift in interest from studying linear developments, continuity and sameness to exploring exponential changes, discontinuity, difference and inter- and intrasystemic cooperation. The views of already quoted microbiologist Woese exemplify this point. He describes biology as a whole as being somewhere between its ‘reductive molecular past and its holistic future ‘(Woese 2004: 176). Biology is in need of a new guiding vision. According to Woese (2004: 185), biology should ‘break free of reductionist hegemony’ and reintegrate itself. The relationship between biology and the physical sciences must be reciprocal instead of hierarchical. Otherwise, biology will suffer from restraints that will prevent progress. Molecular biology makes a case in point; it ‘could read notes in the score, but it couldn’t hear the music’ (Woese 2004: 175). Thus, as Woese (2004: 174) has it, ‘biology has hit the wall of biocomplexity, reductionism’s nemesis’. A resynthesis of biology as the study of evolution in complex dynamic-systems has become necessary. In sum, I do not think that postmodernism is nothing but a passing trend. Labels may shift and disappear over time, but the hermeneutical concern that is at the bottom of it all has been around for a long time and there is no indication of its imminent demise. Quite the contrary, there are signs suggesting that hermeneutical issues are gaining in importance also in the sciences. Rather than dismissing everything that comes with a flavor of postmodernism offhand, we should act as always recommended: examining critically and constructively and keeping the good.

Conclusion: What then is the role of theology in the dialogue with science? At the end of these theological ruminations on faith, science and postmodernity, one may still want to ask: how can theology offer something special in our search for knowledge and meaning and in the dialogue between faith and science – something that is more than an accidental little balloon and something that is other than the exclusivism that shaped so much of the 1988 debate between Vogel and Pannenberg? Therefore, I will conclude this essay with some thoughts on what may be a proper role of theology in this context. In the Christian theological tradition we find the concept of the three offices of Christ, the so-called triplex munus: king, priest and prophet. I will use the analogy of this threefold office to reflect briefly on what should be the proper role of theology in the dialogue with science and elsewhere.6 The first possible role – that of a queen – is clearly an anachronism. The times

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when philosophy, including the predecessor of science, philosophy of nature, could be considered ancillae theologiae, servants of theology, are long gone. And I see no reason for any attempt at reviving them. The problems with Pannenberg’s claim of the necessary reference to the God of the Bible illustrate this quite cogently. The second role, the office of the priest, is often understood in terms of a mediating role. As such it forms part of the task of theology. Yet, in relation to science, it cannot be considered to be the main task of theology. Rather, the lion’s share of the mediating work is usually expected to be done by philosophy, and quite rightly so. The analytic and synthetic tools of philosophy have a given place in religion-and-science dialogue. Remains to consider the third office. Indeed, I think it is the prophetic role that describes most adequately and provokingly what theology can do in the dialogue between religion and science. It certainly is a demanding and delicate role. We know from history that prophets tend to get themselves into all kinds of trouble. Therefore, spelling out what the prophetic role of theology can mean in this context needs some care. What kind of person is a prophet? The portraits and narratives of prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures suggest that a prophet is a multifaceted person. Three facets emerge as a kind of common denominator. Many prophets live out their prophetic task by presenting themselves as three-in-one: a critic, a child and a clown in a single person. Applied to the role of theology, this suggests the following. As a critic, theology will hold rationality in highest regard and pursue standards of high intellectual rigor and integrity, but also be respectful of the limits of rationality and the penultimacy of all knowledge. This commitment will demand careful, daring and wise navigation between more than one set of Scyllas and Charybdises. Furthermore, a prophet will not be a prophet without knowing history: as a critic, the theological prophet will have to be well-acquainted with the history of the interaction between theology and science. As a critic, the theological prophet will also dare to use the language of sin, forgiveness and blessing and convincingly claim that sin and blessing are relevant to all discourses, even scientific ones. As a child, theology will never grow tired of asking its why-questions. With the hunger for life and the curiosity of a four-year-old, theology will keep the dimension of awe and wonder alive. It will also insist on asking those questions that the adult world has learned to avoid as inappropriate. In their dealings with all kinds of powers and sovereigns, theologians will remember that it took a child to point out the true transparency of the Emperor’s clothes. According to the teachings of Jesus, it is a child who is the greatest in the reign of God (Mt. 18.1–5). This is a relevant memento also for the pursuit of science. ‘Whatever you do to the little ones . . .’ (Mt. 25.31–46) is a robust criterion also in secular ethical reasoning. How will this particular project affect the little ones of this world? What will it do for them? What will it do against them? These are important and meaningful questions to ask in and about science and technology. A clown is about good and healthy laughter. As a clown, theology’s only power is the courage to look odd and to let itself be laughed at. The success of clowns is

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grounded in their ability to play with the categories of causation in such a way that they make everybody else burst into laughter. Not unlike the epistemological ambition of postmodern thought to gain knowledge from the cracks in the pot of objective knowledge, the clown releases something through the cracks that put an end to the serious composure of a face when it explodes with laughter. Clowns do embarrassing things, but they never embarrass anybody else – they always take the embarrassment upon themselves. By taking embarrassment upon themselves clowns create liberation for those who laugh at them. The best clownery always carries traits of vicarious suffering by which others are liberated. Thus it is an image of the salvation that scientists and theologians along with all humanity and the rest of creation are longing for. In the clown-role, theology will not start out by speaking explicitly about God or the Holy Trinity; rather it will start with sharing and enacting a specific culture while at the same time opening it up toward transcendence. It is an approach from below, as it were. The clown performs this approach by subtly playing with the category of causality: by doing the absolutely predictable (like stumbling and tripping) in always astonishing ways, the clown surpasses predictability in a stunning symphony of vulnerability and surprise. Causality is vigorously affirmed – in their gawkiness, clowns seem to be subject to the laws of nature even more than anybody else. Yet, the clown’s radical submission to the rules of causality serves something more and other; it evokes in the spectator a vision that reaches beyond the limits of mechanical causality – a transcendence of affirmed causality, so to speak. Causality is clearly confirmed, yet opened from inside towards transcendence. This is creativity: something new emerging not by negating causeand-effect but by participating in the symphony of vulnerability and surprise, finitude and freedom, fall and grace. This approach is radically different from world views that build on a supposed dualism between the natural and the supernatural. Such views routinely adhere to a rigid scheme of distribution: the natural goes to science and technology and the supernatural goes to faith. Although outmoded, such views are still in use, especially in circles that have an interest in exposing the supposed irrationality of religion. The line of argument seems compelling: when the irrationality of the category of the supernatural is successfully claimed, religion and theology are automatically redundant at best, harmful at worst. The prophetic image of the clown questions these assumptions convincingly by undermining the dualism of natural and supernatural. Theology works without that dualism. Another way of saying this is to describe the clown as an ideal figure that is deeply rooted in a clear analysis of reality. This is clown identity: Clowns bring together playful idealism and utter realism in a way that creates liberation. In doing so, they bear Christ-like traits. It is precisely this combination of realism and idealism that maintains human fascination with the figure of the clown. The clown’s subtle and liberating play with causality is deeply theological. In taking on the clown-role theology bears witness of the divine: creativity is born where the seriousness of the cause-effect mechanism is trumped by liberating laughter. In other words: Creativity implies a transcended cause-effect relationship

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such as the clown models it – not by negating the cause-effect-structure of the natural but by allowing for something new to emerge out of the symphony of surprise and vulnerability. Just as the reality of death is trumped by the great Easter laugh, the risus paschalis, known as a powerful element in some late medieval traditions of Christian liturgy. Critic, child and clown: in each of these roles, theology has something specific to offer to our common search for adequate and sustainable knowledge. I do think that along with science and other human endeavors, theology has some startling things to contribute to our knowledge about the world.

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Review of J. A. Kirk, 2007. The Future of Reason, Science and Faith: Following Modernity and Post-Modernity (Aldershot: Ashgate), in ESSSAT-News 18.1, pp 20–2. Brandby-Cöster, M. 2008 ‘Predikans tilltal’, in E. Gerle (ed.), Luther som utmaning (Stockholm: Verbum), pp 55–92. Caputo, J. D. 1987 Radical Hermeneutics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press). Caputo, J. D. 2006 The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press). Caputo, John D. 2007 What Would Jesus Deconstruct? The Good News of Postmodernity for the Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic). Fides et ratio. 1998 Encyclical Letter by Pope John Paul II. http://www.vatican. va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_ enc_15101998_fides-et-ratio_en.html accessed 080811. Geertz, C. 1966 ‘Religion as a Cultural System’, in M. Banton (ed.), Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion (London: Travistock), pp 1–46. Gerhart, M. and Russell, A. M. 2001 New Maps for Old: Explorations in Science and Religion (New York, London: Continuum).

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‘What is “Secular”? Techno-Secularism and Spirituality’, Zygon. Journal of Religion and Science 40, pp 863–74. ‘What Theology Can Do for Science’, Theology and Science 6, pp 287–303. Investigations (Oxford: Oxford University Press). ‘Den Andres spår’, in Etik och oändlighet (trans. M. Gunnarsson Contassot; Stockholm, Stehag: Symposium). Putting Science in its Place: Geographies of Scientific Knowledge (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). ‘Heidelberg Disputation (1518)’, in Luther’s Works Vol. 33, Career of the Reformer I (ed. and trans. H. J. Grimm; Philadelphia: Fortress Press). Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language (Philadelphia: Fortress Press). ‘The Status of the Science-Religion Dialogue’, in S. Andersen and A. Peacocke (eds.), Evolution and Creation: A European Perspective (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press), pp 192–203. Teologi og naturvidenskab: Hinsides restriktion og ekspansion (Copenhagen: Munksgaard).

Pannenberg, W. 1981 ‘Theological Questions to Scientists’, Zygon. Journal of Religion and Science 16, pp 65–77. Pannenberg, W., and Vogel, C. 1988 ‘Evolution-Kultur-Religion. Perspektiven und Schwierigkeiten des interdisziplinären Gespräches zwischen Evolutionsbiologie und Theologie’, in H. May, M. Striegnitz and P. Hefner (eds.), Kooperation und Wettbewerb: Zu Ethik und Biologie menschlichen Sozialverhaltens (Loccumer Protokolle 75. Rehburg-Loccum: Evangelische Akademie), pp 163–93. Pannenberg, W. 1997 ‘Theological Questions to Scientists’, in C. Rausch Albright and J. Haugen (eds.), Beginning with the End: God, Science, and Wolfhart Pannenberg, (Chicago and La Salle: Open Court), pp 37–50. Sobrino, J. 1978 Christology at the Crossroads: A Latin American Approach (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis).

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Tillich, P. 1963 Westhelle. V. 2006 Woese, C. R. 2004

Systematic Theology Vol. 3 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). The Scandalous God: The Use and Abuse of the Cross (Minneapolis: Fortress Press). ‘A New Biology for a New Century’, in Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews 68, pp 173–86.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6

Cf. the ESSSAT website: http://www.esssat.org, Conferences 1986–2000. The same text was also published in Rausch Albright and Haugen 1997. I first wrote about theology being more than a little balloon in Jackelén 2008. http://www.metanexus.net/globalnetwork/mgngrant.asp accessed 080817 (my emphasis). ‘But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream’. Amos 5.24 NRSV. The following paragraphs are revised from Jackelén 2008: 299–301.

8 How Scientific Knowledge Changes Theology – A Case Study from Original Sin Eva-Lotta Grantén

Can and should Theology change? Can, and should, changes in scientific knowledge be taken into account when theology reflects on central doctrines? This is a central question for the dialogue between science and theology. Several large areas of inquiry are opened by this question. First, it is obvious that science changes, but can and should theology change? The answer from history is that theology not only can, but also should, change, when circumstances change. There are several examples, like the change in theology relating to Jewish-Christian relations (Svartvik 2004). Whether science and theology change for the same reasons is a question beyond this article, but theologians embracing the epistemological perspective labelled ‘critical realism’ point to several similarities. Secondly, when theology changes, is this due only to a renewal in theological reflection? Despite the defendable position that theology is an autonomous realm of inquiry, it is evident that there are theological arguments that in their formulation are depending on other realms of knowledge. As the Swedish biblical scholar Jesper Svartvik (2007) shows, the discussion of slavery in Christian theology reveals a complex interplay between theology, politics and science. Pro-slavery American theologians mixed biblical scholarship regarding ‘the curse of Noah’ (Genesis 9.24–27), with scientific ideas regarding origins and status of separate races. It was presented as a scientific fact that some ‘races’ were inferior. These ‘inferior races’ were held as the same as those who descended from Ham, according to Genesis. The pro-slavery theologians came to the conclusion that slavery not only was allowed, but also commanded by God (Svartvik 2007: 221–226). If, like in this example, politics or science can be found having an impact on theological reasoning, what should theology do, when the context of theology changes? Thirdly, if theological change results from changes in the context of theology, one needs to ask: what does this context look like? Research conducted in the North of

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Europe shows that people in that context do have existential beliefs. These beliefs can be described as an outlook on life consisting of several components– explanations of the human condition, reflections on the meaning of life, moral systems, and beliefs about after-life – and that people hold their beliefs to be personal. However, personal views are always situated in a context and a tradition. This means that current knowledge and theories about human beings play a significant role in people’s beliefs, and in my Northern European context this knowledge is predominately scientific (Lindfelt 1999). What role should science then play in the cases where theology reflects upon the domain of science – nature? Several paths are possible. Some choose to replace theology with science, reducing theology to a personal sphere with no, or limited, connection to the natural world. Another path is to reject science altogether. A more fruitful way, in my opinion, is to engage in a dialogue that tries to respect the methods and results of science while still, through hermeneutics, trying to transform scientific knowledge into theological understanding. I argue that one of the criteria contemporary theology must meet is to reflect on science, both because science is a part of the context of theology and because of what I would call a correspondence criterion: theology must be in accordance with what is known about the natural world. I will not dwell on the issue of how to communicate between different strands of human rationality; instead I turn to what happens when such a communication takes place. I present a case study, in which theology still has to reflect further on the role of scientific knowledge for theological change, evident in the deconstruction and construction of theological truth. The case is the doctrine of original sin, presented here mainly from the Lutheran tradition.

The Case: Original Sin Original sin is a Christian concept, explaining how sin entered the creation and in what way sin affects every human person. The teachings on original sin expressed in the Lutheran confessions affirm those of Augustine of Hippo. Augustine taught that humanity was created good, but through the fall of Adam and Eve (described in Genesis 3) human nature became corrupted, and suffering and death entered the world. Augustine argued that original sin enfeebled the will, and this enfeebled will is shared by all persons. All humans have inherited Adam’s guilt and we are all in a state of sin from the moment of conception. According to Augustine, original sin was transmitted by concupiscence that accompanied sexual reproduction. This corrupted state of human nature called for a solution outside human nature: the death and resurrection of Christ. God’s salvation and grace is then given to every Christian. Luther discussed original sin in several places. In The Smalcald Articles from 1537, he affirmed Augustine’s teachings, and wrote: ‘sin originated [and entered the world] from one man Adam, by whose disobedience all men were made sinners, [and] subject to death and the devil. This is called original or capital sin’ (Luther 1921). This hereditary sin is a corruption of nature, which makes human beings

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unable to be good, and thus unable to earn merit, eliciting reward from God. The inherently sinful nature results in a complete alienation from God and the total inability of human beings to achieve reconciliation with God based on their own abilities. Luther described the human situation as living a life ‘incurvatus in se’ (turned/curved inward to oneself) a life lived ‘inward’ for the self rather than ‘outward’ for God and others. In The Bondage of the Will from 1525 (1955), discussing the freedom of the will with Erasmus of Rotterdam, Luther argues that the consequence of the fall – the corrupted and bonded will – is one of the cornerstones of the gospel. Luther and Erasmus were questioning neither the existence of human choice, nor the psychology of action. Rather, they discussed free-will in relation to God. By denying that human beings are independent agents in relation to God, their Creator, Luther could strengthen his chief argument – that it is impossible for humans to earn merits. When God’s grace is given without merit, a total renewal of corrupt nature takes place and a new person is created, Luther argues. While Erasmus in his defence of human freedom in relation to God found a motivation for change toward a true Christian, Luther found this road void of hope. The responsibility for salvation can never be a human project in any sense; it is doomed to fail. Therefore, God’s grace freely given is the true source of hope, according to Luther. Luther was holding onto the reality of sin and evil, while at the same time pointing to the overcoming of sin and evil in every person’s life. Within every human person there is a constant and life-long struggle between the old and the new person. Thus, human beings are never free from sin, yet justified by grace through faith.

Must Theology Change? What are the problems with Luther’s standpoint? The doctrine of original sin is troubling to many modern believers for several reasons; when explaining how sin entered the creation through the first humans, Adam and Eve, it does not correspond to current scientific knowledge about the origin of human beings. The concept of original sin portrays all human beings as born sinners. Theologians and ethicists struggle with the meaning and fairness of inherited guilt, and concepts of human freedom and responsibility are not easily reconciled with a doctrine stating that we are trapped in sin by our very nature. Today, it is debated whether it is even possible to speak of a common human nature, something that was taken for granted by medieval theologians. The close connection between the Augustinian version of the doctrine and human procreation has made Christianity look hostile toward sexuality. In discussions on original sin, feminist theology has accused theologians of focusing solely on male experience, putting women at risk by exhorting to self-denial (Plaskow 1980). The concept of original sin has, accordingly, been deconstructed from several perspectives, and it has become more or less invisible in contemporary Western theology and liturgy. The doctrine of original sin can be said to be in a state of crisis, sharpened by the fact that, although a lot

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of deconstructive critique has been put forward, not many, if any, contemporary Lutheran theologians have reflected on the issue in a constructive way. The foundation of the teachings on original sin is our shared experience of imperfection, which becomes evident both as an inclination toward evil, and as actions that violate or destruct human relations to God, others, the self, and creation. Based on this foundation, original sin has been employed as a model of explanation for the origin and procreation of human imperfection. With ‘human imperfection’, I refer to the shared human experience, emerging from our capacity to envisage a perfect, eternal, good or just condition of life, which human beings and human societies never reach or fulfil. Our experiences of human imperfection, and the actions that follow, raise questions about death and suffering, bring forth moral issues about freedom and determination, and lie behind our quest for possible change, our hope for progression or transformation. Thus, theology still needs a concept dealing with this shared experience. Doing away with the old doctrine does not make human imperfection disappear. Is there any way forward, then? I believe there is, but constructive work needs to be done. This is of vital importance in my own Lutheran tradition, because dealing with human imperfection is a condition for the teaching on justification and grace. I argue that it could be fruitful to separate the conclusions drawn by Luther and his contemporaries, still found valid in Lutheran communities, and the different arguments that can be criticized. A new construction of a concept dealing with human imperfection must, among other things, be based on sound anthropology. With ‘sound’ I mean that theology, (like in the original version), should make use of the best current knowledge about human nature. This means that theology must change, with science. The doctrine of original sin, in Western theology, rests on classical Aristotelian biology, which is no longer valid. We know that, although self-evident for Augustine and Luther, Adam and Eve are neither historical figures nor our common ancestors. Instead, we are related and connected to all living beings on Earth. At the same time, contemporary biological science, like once Aristotle, points to several aspects of the human condition, found central also when the doctrine of original sin once was formulated. For example, Darwinian science stresses the importance of inheritance – albeit nowadays understood in terms of genetics – for all living beings, including humans. What would it mean for Lutheran theology today if insights from Darwinian biology were brought into the discussion?

A Change in the Science of Human Nature When Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859, he presented his theory as the basic principle of the gradual changes that shape new life forms. It is a three-step argument. He started by recognizing the fact that there are variations within each species, variations that are hereditary. Secondly, more offspring are produced than can survive and reproduce. Thirdly, the individuals with a trait or variation beneficial in their environment will

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have more surviving offspring than individuals without, and thus this variation will spread in a population. This leads to the formulation of a principle for preserving beneficial variations, which Darwin named natural selection. The selection is related to environmental factors. When natural selection causes changes in gene frequencies within populations from generation to generation, evolutionary changes will take place. Evolution results from natural selection, and this implies competition within populations, leading to individual differences. In which level does the selection take place? Is it on the level of species, group or on the individual level? If behavior is important for survival, it becomes evident that it is the behavior of individuals that matters. For example, behavior that allows an individual to succeed at the expense of others within a group or population may even be bad for the group. This insight became a marked counter-argument to the widely held opinion that evolutionary processes promote the survival of the species. When the focus within evolutionary biology shifted from the species to the individual level, certain phenomena of social interaction appeared inexplicable. Why do certain individuals refrain from reproduction and even sacrifice themselves for other members of the social group? Darwin himself was puzzled by the sterile workers in ant colonies and social wasps’ nests (1996: 193). Thus, the central problem within this branch of biology became to explain altruism. A way of understanding altruism is to present it from the perspective of genes as Richard Dawkins did in his book The Selfish Gene (1976). From this perspective, individual altruism toward kin is the same as genetic selfishness, because shared copies of a gene in a relative gain from individual self-sacrificial acts toward kin. But altruism is not limited to kinship; this is only one way of ensuring altruism to be displayed toward those that would enhance the individual’s reproductive success. Robert Trivers suggested another mechanism in his 1971 article, The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism. The idea behind reciprocal altruism is that altruistic acts among unrelated individuals are repaid, or at least there is a promise of future repayment. Thus, altruism is displayed within the group and as a result individual fitness is enhanced for all those belonging to the group of actors (Trivers 1971). Both strategies are a display of selfishness, meaning enhanced fitness for the self through behavior securing the self, the relatives of the self or the group(s) that the self belongs to. It is important to recognize that this works for humans as well; evolutionary biology is universal in its claims. Every relationship between human beings can be described in this way – as permeated by selfishness. The picture painted by biology is very familiar to theologians. Lutheran theologian Ted Peters states: ‘by nature, we lack charity’ (2008: 39). Danish theologian Marie Vejrup Nielsen has investigated the narrative approach of evolutionary biology when dealing with human nature, a narrative she finds similar to the Christian version (2007). Biologist William Irons commented on this already in 1991: It is perhaps worth noting that the above picture of human nature, derived from evolutionary theory, agrees in many ways with the Christian belief in original sin. I leave it to theologians to explore exactly how similar and how different these views are. However, I

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will add that it seems to me that part of the power of the belief in original sin stems from the fact that it portrays human beings as we actually experience them, that is, as having a potential for moral behavior combined with corruptibility (1991: 52).

What Darwinian Science Can and Cannot Tell Theology The development of human beings in the past, through evolutionary forces of competition and struggle, has left us with the concept of a common human nature that in many respects can be described in a way that correspond to Augustine’s view of humanity after the fall. The concept of original sin is in accordance with Darwinian science on two points: we all share a common human nature, and human nature is hereditary. But science and Augustinian theology differ when it comes to the existence of a fall. No such thing as original perfection or paradise exists in Darwinian science, which is pointing to gradual changes in continuity instead. But when it comes to the experience of human beings ‘having a potential for moral behavior combined with corruptibility’, things get more complicated. Ted Peters, in a recent article, points out that biology, as science, cannot entirely account for the human phenomenon we describe as inherited original sin. What is lacking is precisely the vision of the alternatives; paradise, perfection, heaven or salvation (2008). And he is right, because science, as a method, is not about visions. Science therefore, is not sufficient in this regard: it can provide us with an accurate description of the state of the art, but, unlike theology or philosophy, it cannot provide a hope for possible change. But biological science is done by human beings, sharing the experience of imperfection. Few biologists suggest that we should accept our situation, instead it is recognized as a radical problem: our human nature is inherently ‘selfish’.1 According to Dawkins, the hope lies in human free will, more precisely in our ability to fight our nature through knowledge: ‘we have to turn against our creators’ (1976: 201). Other biologists have been more focused on how cooperation and symbiosis have shaped our nature; primatologist Frans de Waal even refers to Dawkins’ description as ‘quintessentially Calvinist, going back to the doctrine of original sin’ (1996: 17). De Waal claims that there are building blocks for change toward the better in our nature; the trick is to nurture these components, rather than the selfish ones. Dawkins and de Waal differ in opinion, whether there are elements within the human nature that can help us to fulfil a vision for the better, or if such elements must be found outside human nature, in culture. This leads to tricky questions; is culture ever independent from culture and in what way? The experience of human imperfection could scientifically be described as resulting from an evolved capacity to envision an alternative scenario, strengthened by, for example, religion. Evolved capacities generally exist because they have survival value. I will not go further down that road in this chapter, but it is worth noting the importance both biologists attribute to nurture. De Waal is primarily objecting to the strong identification of human nature with selfish inclinations, prevalent in Western culture, made most explicit by Thomas

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Hobbes. The recognition of human imperfection as not only a natural but also a cultural phenomenon is put at the centre by theologians dealing with structural sin, for example within the Liberation theology movement. The conclusion is that not only human nature needs transformation, but also human culture. Focusing solely on biology could easily lead to a simplified discussion on how to conquer the ‘beast inside’. Lutheran theologian Philip Hefner regards human beings as a result of the two different but symbiotic heritages of information making the biological creature ‘Homo’ and sociocultural systems merge into humanity. They cannot be separated within human beings, and it is the human being as a whole that needs transformation. Hefner finds theological models endorsing the eradication of evolved selfishness problematic. The evolved information within us will have to co-exist with the cultural information to enable survival: ‘The reptile in us has to be taught, not eradicated. If it were eradicated, we would die, because it is essential to us and to our life’ (1993: 184). Following the critique from de Waal, I would argue that not only the ‘reptile’ but also a ‘dove’ dwells within us. Although Darwinian science confirms the hereditability of some of the inclinations behind human imperfection, sin is not located solely in our biology; it is evident that sociocultural systems also need transformation. It is also evident that Augustine’s and Luther’s teachings on how human nature got corrupted, must be rejected. They are highly disputed both within and outside the Christian tradition. Why has theology kept Adam and Eve? Because an acceptance of ‘the fall’ not as a moment in history, but rather, as central narrative about the human condition, has consequences for understandings of ‘the Christ event’. Most doctrines of the atonement depend on the historicity of Adam and Eve. But science suggests that Adam and Eve never existed as the historical origin of humankind. Of course, it is possible to interpret the narrative generally, but that would have consequences for the doctrine of atonement. This is recognized for example among conservative Protestants, who insist on a literal interpretation of Genesis 3. Theologians hesitant toward literal biblical scholarship must accept that a change in scientific knowledge about the descent of human beings entails the necessity of theological change, not only in the case of original sin, but also in other central doctrines. An interesting example of a model of atonement not depending on the existence of the first couple can be found in René Girard’s discussions of Jesus as the final scapegoat (1986). As shown above, a change in the understanding of the descent of humankind is prone to have profound impact on the theology of atonement. But the issue is much wider; should we accept that we share a nature that, although not entirely responsible for all human imperfection and evil, still determines us to a constant struggle? If so, Darwinian biology describes this nature more accurately than the old doctrine, and it challenges theology to reflect upon a more valid account of how sin got into the world, and why it affects us all. The narrative in Genesis 3 can no longer be interpreted as a story solely dealing with human conditions, because these conditions, suffering and death, apply to all living beings, not only to those that inherit a corrupted will. The focus must turn toward the cumulative distortion facing every living being born into this world. The arguments brought forward, on

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the shared ancestry between humans and other animals, make it clear that a new construction of a concept of human imperfection must be able to include other living beings, both in an analysis of the consequences for our shared environment and in a vision for a shared future. Biological science also suggests that it is the human situation as such, not concupiscence that conveys sin. This challenges the constructed border between natural evil and human sin, because there are at least preconditions for sin in non-human nature. The acknowledgment of the human situation as prone toward imperfection is important because it can liberate us from a hopeless strive for personal perfection. However, other pressing questions remain to be dealt with by theology. Why is there sin in creation in the first place? How can we be saved? Is transformation possible? Although biological science provides us with an explanation of the origin of human imperfection and for some of the expressions of human imperfection, it gives us no (Dawkins) or limited (de Waal) hope for change. Theology must have faith in, and rely on, its own resources, and Luther’s main question is still ours; not only did he struggle with justification by grace, but also if God can give sinners faith in such a justification. His answer was that God is not only the giver of grace but also of faith.

Scientific Knowledge and Theological Change I will finally return to the question whether a change in scientific knowledge should result in theological deconstruction and reconstruction. The case study I presented shows that science cannot replace theology. Such a claim would require that science is transformed into scientism. This is evident, because science can only give us knowledge about human imperfection, it cannot understand human imperfection or evil, or find a way to liberation from evil without the use of philosophy or theology. Likewise, theology cannot replace science. Claiming that theology can explain evil and suffering without biology equals the claim that human beings are something else than vulnerable and limited bodies, for example by elevating theological anthropology to something entirely beyond biology. We, as theologians, cannot hide from scientific knowledge, or pretend that we can talk about the human condition without acknowledging that human beings are bodies. We are bodies that share ancestry with other living beings, bodies that tell us that the human situation is first and foremost the situation of a living creature. So, theology must keep engaging in continuing interdisciplinary conversations with biology. A change in science might be a necessary condition for change in theological doctrines, but it is far from sufficient. Several other conditions have to be met as well, especially when theology turns from deconstruction to construction. To invite change is not to abandon your position but to start new reflection. Theology must not only be in correspondence with current knowledge, it must be truly contextual. By way of including the profound impact social experiences have on individuals, theology can enrich its understanding of the human predicament. Such understanding should be inclusive, that is, non-individualistic and non-anthropocentric.

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It must first and foremost be relevant for people. Theological reflection must be solidly grounded in human experience and correspond to current knowledge of the world we live in. This calls for an ethical and existential reflection on how to liberate ourselves to love and care for others, inspired by the hope of transformation, given by a gracious God.

References Darwin, C. 1996 Dawkins, R. 1976 Girard, R. 1986 Hefner, P. 1993 Irons, W. 1991 Lindfelt, M. 1999

Luther, M. [1537] 1921

Luther, M. [1525] 1955

Peters, T. 2008

Plaskow, J. 1980

Svartvik, J. 2004

On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (Oxford: University Press). The Selfish Gene (Oxford: University Press). The Scapegoat (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press). The Human Factor (Augsburg: Fortress). ‘How Did Morality Evolve?’ Zygon. Journal of Religion and Science 26, pp 49–89. Autonomi, tradition och självförverkligande: tre artiklar om etik och livsåskådning [Authonomy, Tradition and Self-realization: Three Articles on Ethic and View of Life] (Åbo: Åbo Akademi University). ‘The Smalcald Articles, Part Three, Article 1: Of Sin’ in Triglot Concordia: The Symbolical Books of the Ev. Lutheran Church, (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House). ‘The Bondage of the Will’, in J. Pelikan and H. T. Lehmann (eds.), Luther’s Works Vol. 33 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House). ‘The Evolution of Evil’, in G. Bennett, M. J. Hewlett, T. Peters and R.J. Russell (eds.), The Evolution of Evil (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht), pp 19–52. Sex, Sin and Grace: Women’s Experience and the Theologies of Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich (Lanham: University Press of America). ‘Christological and Soteriological Reflections in the Wake of Half

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Svartvik, J. 2007

Bibeltolkningens bakgator [The back streets of biblical interpretation] (Stockholm: Verbum).

Trivers, R. 1971

‘The evolution of reciprocal altruism’, Quarterly Review of Biology 46, pp 35–57. Tullberg B. and Tullberg, J. 1994 Naturlig etik: en uppgörelse med altruismen [Natural Ethics: A Confrontation with Altruism] (Stockholm: Lykeion). de Waal, F. B. M. 1996 Good Natured (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996). Vejrup Nielsen, M. 2007 Being Human – Crisis and Solution in Grand Narratives of Humanity – The Doctrine of Sin in Dialogue with Evolutionary Biology (Aarhus: Aarhus University).

Notes 1

One of the few examples of biologists arguing that we should give in to our selfishness is found in the Swedish authors Birgitta and Jan Tullberg. They confront the biological understanding of altruism with the ‘Christian’ position, arguing that the ‘Christian ethics’ of self-sacrifice must be abandoned and replaced with an ethics based on biological theories. (Tullberg and Tullberg 1994).

Part III Understanding in Dialogue

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9 Self, Knowledge and Faith: An Approach to Constructive Dialogue in Science and Religion W. Richard Bowen

‘The Jewish God said . . . “Dawkins was a scientist and therefore liked to demolish his opponents coldly and logically, taking down the fabric of religion as he proceeded. As that was not how religion was constructed, it was a ludicrous approach, and not too difficult to counter” ’ (Kington 2007).

Introduction Religion has recently received sustained criticism from leading biological scientists. The tone of their highly influential viewpoints is often that of invective rather than measured academic discussion. The more strident critics make severe restricting assumptions regarding religion, including that ‘the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other’ (Dawkins 2006: 50) and that personal religious experience has no real cognitive value. These restrictions are accompanied by a view that science can uniquely and directly give access to knowledge. Such restrictions greatly hamper the critics’ understanding of religion and cause them great puzzlement regarding how it can have such a significant role in human existence. The public debate around these criticisms has a tendency to approach pantomime1 – ‘Oh yes God exists!’ . . . ‘Oh no he doesn’t!’. At a more serious level, theologians are writing texts exploring the nature and origin of the present bifurcation of knowledge into that of the material world provided by the (supposedly) indubitable empirical methods of the sciences and that of (supposedly) questionable epistemological status, such as religion. Such texts typically trace the origin of the breach between science and faith to Descartes’ separation of the known object from the knowing subject. For example, an insightful recent analysis recognises this starting point and then through a detailed historical evaluation seeks to stimulate a discussion across the divide that can promote a reunification of knowledge (Kirk 2007). However, this otherwise highly articulate analysis reaches an impasse by

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presenting a very explicit seven-point account of the nature of theistic belief that it takes to represent theism in ‘its most acceptable and convincing form’. Just the first of these seven points is that ‘theism refers to the existence of a personal, infinite, perfect being who is the creator of the universe (and of all possible universes)’ (Kirk 2007: 206). For anyone unfamiliar with theological terminology this is likely to appear a very complex statement comprising incompatible concepts. This attempt at dialogue is likely to fail here. Development of a better understanding of the relationship between science and faith is an aspiration that requires constructive dialogue. Such dialogue has at least has two important initial requirements. First, that all participants acknowledge the human limitations of their own understanding.2 Secondly, it needs a fertile, mutually acceptable and comprehensible common starting point. Invective and pantomime responses do not meet the first requirement. Neither God as a scientific hypothesis nor complex theological terminology meets the second requirement. The purpose of this chapter is to consider, as a starting point, a topic where both biological scientists and theologians have to admit their limitations – the concept of self. Pertinently, this is the Cartesian point to which the present bifurcation between science and faith has been traced. First, the paper will recall a curious discussion. Secondly, some recent ideas on the nature of the self will be considered, including Ricoeur’s three-fold hermeneutic. Thirdly, an analogous three-fold analysis of an immensely beneficial type of scientific knowledge, knowing how, will be presented. Fourthly, it is suggested that a comparable three-fold hermeneutic can also provide a description of significant aspects of faith. Thus, the overall proposal is that if critics of religion can be engaged in discussion through the common ground of the hermeneutics of self and knowing how, it may be helpful to continue dialogue through expression of an analogous three-fold hermeneutic of faith. Some salient features of the proposed approach are outlined.

A curious discussion One of the more thoughtful biological scientists to criticise religion has written, ‘I admit, I am a reductionist materialist atheist’ (Wolpert 2006: x. Italics added). Intrigued by the formulation of this statement, the present writer (WRB) initiated the following discussion with the critic (LW): WRB – ‘In what sense can a reductionist use the term I ? For example, surely a reductionist would have to avoid terms like “I think” and write (at the most) something like “thinking is occurring”. Maybe you are an “emergist materialist”’. LW – ‘I does not seem to me to be antireductionist, as it is no way against I being made up of a particular group of cells’. WRB – ‘Hmm. You probably think of I as being more than just a particular group of cells – maybe at least a group of cells experiencing (self)-consciousness and

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having a certain coherent experience over time. Reductionism may be defined as “any theory or method that holds that a complex system can be completely understood in terms of its simpler parts and components”. That would suggest that a reductionist description of consciousness would depend on there being something like consciousness in single cells or even, at a lower level, individual atoms. This seems odd’. LW – ‘I cannot accept your second point about reductionism. It merely means that there must be no conflict between different levels of organisation and that much at one level can be accounted for by the lower level. Consciousness is a word I try to avoid’. This last sentence seemed close to a juxtaposition of the incongruous, so the discussion proceeded no further.3 However, it had already confirmed both that there are limits to the capability of scientific hypotheses regarding matters of human importance and that interesting dialogue can be initiated at such limits. It also confirmed ‘The tenacity of personal pronouns, even in the statement of the reductionist thesis . . . the resistance of the question “who?” to its elimination in an impersonal description’ (Ricoeur 1992: 138).

I – the tenacity of the personal pronoun There is definitely something it feels like to be a person. Additionally, others are prepared to treat our feelings as real. However, the exact status of the self is the subject of controversy. For many philosophers, the self is no more than a sequence of experiences of a body: ‘For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but a perception’ (Hume 1888/1978: 252). Not all agree. Among the conditions required for our concept of personal identity are spatiotemporal continuity of body, relative temporal continuity of body structure (frogs can only turn into princes in fairy tales), memory, and a measure of continuity of personality (Searle 2004: 196f). The first two of these conditions are third-party4, the third is first-person and the fourth is mixed. The nature of the temporal content of these experiences has led some philosophers to conclude that consideration of self as simply a sequence is inadequate: ‘We do not just have disordered experiences; rather, all of the experiences I have at any instant are experienced as part of a single unified conscious field. Furthermore, the continuation of that conscious field throughout time is experienced by the possessor of that conscious field as a continuation of his or her own consciousness’ (Searle 2004: 201). This has led Searle to postulate ‘at least a formal notion of the self ’, at the minimum ‘a point of view’, which can also help give an account of rationality, free choice, decision making, reasons for action, responsibility and planning for the future.

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More recently, science has begun to consider the nature of the self. It is important in science to choose the appropriate level for an explanation. The self apparently lies more at the biological level than at the atomic level. Biologists refer to emergent or systems level properties. For example, the heartbeat is a systems level property at the cellular level; there is no specific oscillator at the atomic or molecular level. In the same way, it can be considered that though the self, I, has a necessary connection with the brain, I is at a different level (Noble 2006: 129). However, there is a real conceptual difficulty in this scientific approach to the self. Science aims to be objective, third-party, unattached to a specific viewpoint. Yet, the more detached the explanation of the self, the further it moves from an individual’s first-person, subjective feeling of I (Nagel 1974). It is genuinely difficult to understand how an objective description of I could be formulated. We do, however, have subjective, inside knowledge. Descartes made use of inside knowledge to assume the I, ‘I think, therefore I am’ (Descartes 1637/1998: 18). However, for others, such as Ricoeur (1992: 18), this is too immediate – there is a need to develop a hermeneutic as a means to imply the self. Ricoeur’s hermeneutic is sophisticated, but to a good approximation can be considered as being three-fold: 1.

2.

3.

Reflection, that is, self-reflection Many features of such reflection have already been mentioned. It is curious that we can say to ourselves, ‘It’s me here!’. Especially intriguing is our awareness of our ability to initiate actions. We are agents, not simply part of events. The experience of personal continuity and change with time We can ascribe to our lives a genuine sense of narrative unity and assume a degree of personal authorship. In this there is a complex tension between continuity and change. Even though a series of photographs of an individual taken through a lifetime may show great physical changes, they remain images of the same person. Yet there is also a sense of real change, as Golding (1982: 71) has perceptively expressed, ‘Want as a child and as an old man you do not achieve an ambition. You remember a child wanting’. Through awareness of others, including their testimony Others can tell us, ‘It’s me here!’. By observing and listening we can discover the specific qualities of others, and such knowledge can help us elucidate our own nature. Others can also tell us directly about how we appear to them.

In such ways, both first-person and third-party, we imply our knowledge of I.

Useful knowledge – knowing how The type of knowledge that the critics of religion view as being provided uniquely and directly by science consists of objective, third-party propositional statements, knowing that. However, there is another type of knowledge, described by Ryle (1949/2000: 28) as knowing how.5 This is, in some ways, a more complex type of

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knowledge, involving objective understanding but being particularly a subjective ability to accomplish specific tasks. To give a simple example, many of us can ride a bicycle well even though we could only inadequately describe qualitatively the physics and physiology underlying that ability. Producing a quantitative mathematical simulation of such an ability would be a formidable task. Indeed, the knowledge that is essential to us is not such description or simulation but to be able to ride. Knowing how is immensely important to disciplines such as engineering and medicine. Bridges mostly do not collapse and patients often recover. When engineering and medical knowledge combine, as in the provision of clean drinking water and sanitation, the benefits are enormous. In everyday usage, there is also a sense of certainty about knowing how – we do not speak of believing how (Ryle 1949/2000: 29). This certainty has relevance to one of the key difficulties in the philosophy of scientific knowledge, the problem of pessimistic induction, ‘Put crudely, all past theories have turned out be false, therefore it is probable that all present and future theories will be false as well’ (Lipton 2005: 1265).6 In contrast, know-how cannot be challenged directly in this way, ‘So, while the philosopher might argue that any scientific theory might come to be rejected, he cannot claim that we might one day wake up to find that the bridges that have been constructed according to older engineering methods have all collapsed, or that all methods of transport have ground to a halt because the underpinning knowledge was defective’ (McCarthy 2006: 49). Knowing how involves a process, to be pursued in a manner analogous to our gaining understanding of self, giving access to knowledge indirectly. Indeed, it might be described in terms of a three-fold hermeneutic: 1.

2.

3.

Reflection on the physical nature of the task Accomplishment in engineering and medicine requires appraisal of the task to be undertaken and knowledge of the underlying science and mathematics. Such knowledge must be appropriately applied to the task. Experienced-based development of skills with time The engineer and doctor acquire their skills through practical activities which often occur over extended periods of time. The resulting practical knowledge has a substantial first-person, subjective component. At a simple level, the child shouts, ‘I can do it!’ on first riding a bicycle. At a more complex level, few of us could match the skills of an accomplished ballet dancer, however much we study the theory of ballet. The guidance of expert practitioners, their testimony Engineers and doctors learn much through listening to and observing others who can. ‘Let me show you how to do it’, is often a very welcome offer. The information so imparted is not conceptual. If we as beginners fail, an expert can often precisely and with ease tell us what we are doing wrong.

Our knowledge of self and knowing how are acquired by analogous routes. In both cases the objective components are accompanied by subjective inside knowledge.7

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Modern critics of religion have been very concerned with the inadequacy of conceptual descriptions of God. In practice, no set of conceptual statements can provide a satisfactory account of the essence of religious faith. Seen from the perspective of a progressive Jew, this has been expressed, ‘I do not want to encourage the common and primitive practice of presenting a picture of religious life that would reduce it to religious doctrine . . . I do not propose for a minute that religion is reducible to religious claims: there is much more to religion that that’ (Lipton 2007: 33–34). Further, if the intention of such criticisms is to strike at the core of faith, they are actually misguided. As a leading Anglican theologian has written, ‘You won’t be surprised to hear that I haven’t yet found the decisive new argument that will prove once and for all that there is a God; but we do need to remember that the number of people who come into a living personal faith as a result of argument is actually rather small’ (Williams 2007: 20). So how do people come to religious faith? There are many answers to this question. However, two features of such faith are noteworthy in the present context. First, religious faith can be crucially important to an individual. Indeed, it can be a key feature of his or her self-identity. Secondly, such faith can determine the way in which he or she acts in the world; thus it is part of knowing how. Indeed, the development of faith might be described in terms of a three-fold hermeneutic: 1.

2.

3.

Reflection, on the mystery of existence and personal religious experience This may involve both an outward consideration of why anything exists at all, on the nature of living entities, and an inward self-reflection. The inward and outward combine in a remarkable way in conscience, the voice which is apparently both within us and beyond us. The development of faith with practice in time ‘Christian faith is not a system. It cannot be portrayed as a complete, finished intellectual construction. It is a path, and it is characteristic of a path that it only becomes recognisable if you enter on it and start following it’ (Ratzinger 2003/2004: 145). Faith is a type of practical knowledge, with both first-person and third-party components: in the Christian tradition, ‘To be a believer is to follow the way of the parables and Jesus as parable’ (McFague 1982: 65); expressed from a Jewish perspective, ‘being a Christian or a Jew is not so much a matter of subscribing to one community’s core doctrine as of affirming its core story’ (Goldberg 1981: 15). Participation in the faith community, their testimony The church enables mutual participation in testimony in at least three ways. Exegesis shows how texts carry meaning. Ritual provides a means of shared expression beyond the range of words. Fellowship puts into action the mutual care and support that is a vital aspect of New Testament teaching.

So religious faith, just as our knowledge of I and knowing how, develops from both objective, third-party components and subjective, first-person, inside knowledge.

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A foundation for dialogue Modern critics of religion claim that only cold scientific logic can give access to knowledge, which can then be uniquely expressed in third-party form. The analysis presented so far shows that such a claim cannot be consistently maintained. Every time that such a critic attempts to give an account of his or her personal identity, he or she will use a mixture of first-person experience and third-party knowledge. Every time that such a critic demonstrates that he or she knows how, he or she is using a mixture of first-person experience and third-party knowledge. As has been shown, it is possible to analyze both our awareness of personal identity and our ability to know how in terms of analogous three-fold hermeneutics. Religious faith can also be analyzed in terms of a similar three-fold hermeneutic that combines first-person experience and third-party knowledge. Such faith does not require the abandonment of intellectual credibility – it has a structure comparable to that affirmed whenever the critic says, ‘I know how . . .’. The next task is to consider the nature of the dialogue that might arise if this similarity of structure is recognized. The present aim is not to provide a comprehensive analysis but rather to indicate some salient features of the proposed approach to dialogue.

Reinstating the person The most important omission from the critics’ analyses is simply – or not so simply – the person. However, the claims of the critics of religion that science is impersonal are not borne out by the practice of science. Neither is the practice of science ethically neutral. For example, the arguments used in recent campaigns for legislature to allow stem cell research focus not on the resulting access to greater scientific knowledge but, rather, on the potential benefits resulting from possible treatments for debilitating illnesses. These are ethical arguments based on the value of human life, or at least the value of improved quality of human life. Indeed, more generally, the atheism of the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries is often based, in its origins and aims, on ethical and hence personal premises: that a world of such injustice and suffering cannot be the work of a just God, much less a good God (Benedict 2007: 42). The critics’ omission of the person may derive from a broader error in modern philosophical practice. For example, it is pertinent to note that a similar lacuna existed until recently in ethical theory (Stocker 1976/1997). Modern ethical analysis has tended to adopt consequentialism as a default position, due to its apparent simplicity and quasi-empirical basis. However, consequentialism allows any action in principle, has no provision for justice and is impersonal. The other dominant approaches of contractualism and a Kantian based emphasis on duty have also led to impersonal systems. The person, however, has been reinstated in ethical discussion, most memorably formulated by Levinas (1961/1969: 219) who describes an ethical act as ‘a response to the being who in a face speaks to the subject and tolerates only a personal response’. The reinstatement of the person is

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also necessary in dialogue in science and religion, hence the acknowledgment of personal participation in the present approach.

Restoring intellectual modesty The reinstatement of the person reminds us that each participant should engage in dialogue with a modesty appropriate to the human limitations of personal understanding. As a minimum, this requires a recognition that each of us has only a single, restricted viewpoint in time and place. Each participant also needs to acknowledge his or her finite capacity to understand; there is certainly likely to be much beyond our comprehension. Additionally, our ability to communicate our understanding may be restricted by the limitations of language, especially for entities or processes beyond the naturally familiar. Furthermore, each of us must be prepared to acknowledge the difficulty of definitively confirming the correctness of our understanding. The personal and participatory aspects of our knowledge should also encourage us to view our understanding as being essentially exploratory rather than ultimately explanatory. A central feature of both science and religion is their heuristic nature, a guiding in discovery and an exploration of possibilities. The pursuit of scientific endeavour requires heuristic commitment to the methods of scientific enquiry. In the case of religion, heuristic commitment may be identified with faith. Reinstating the person in our descriptions of science and religion should make participants in dialogue cautious about too forceful a use of the designation ‘truth’. Philosophical approaches to truth often imply some access to intellectual knowledge independent of the specific enquiries being undertaken, such that a correspondence, a certainty of representation, may potentially be established. Such independent access does not exist in the case of science and while it may be claimed in certain religious traditions it does not provide a helpful starting point for dialogue in science and religion. In the context of the present approach it may be tentatively proposed that truth may be more fruitfully considered as being that which allows appropriate interaction with, or appropriate relation to, reality (the world). Such a consideration of truth may be considered applicable to knowledge of I, knowing how and religious faith. The critic of religion may well object to such considerations on the grounds that scientific knowledge has a unique definitiveness. Such an objection is frequently made by contrasting the great multiplicity of religions with the apparently unified nature of science. Also in this instance, a continued focus on the personal and participatory nature of both science and religion can help maintain a dialogue. Thus, even religions as different as Christianity and Buddhism have strong parallels in ethical practice. For example, the key features of Buddhist ethics have been characterised as: awareness, mindfulness or alertness to the situation around us; identification, empathy and sympathy for others; action, based on the equal dignity of all persons (Queen 2000: 6). The New Testament parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25–37) provides a very specific example of exactly this three-fold

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sequence. Further, though something like a common scientific method exists, there is a great diversity of sciences. It is in fact rather difficult to achieve agreement among biologists, chemists, physicists and engineers regarding scientific priorities, the nature of an acceptable scientific explanation, and the overall success of a scientific project. This is one of the reasons for the difficulty in successfully pursuing multidisciplinary research and one of the origins of the great number of highly specialised scientific journals. It can be much more difficult to persuade a physicist and a biologist to collaborate than it is to establish inter-faith cooperation!8

Emphasising participation, toward ontology The presently proposed approach emphasises participation rather than ontology. Such an emphasis on participation leads to a focus on the practices of science and religion and finds that they have key common features. However, scientific explanations also often make ontological claims in the sense that they refer to underlying entities which are themselves unobserved, which are very often in principle unobservable, and to which scientists ascribe a real existence. Correspondingly, religions make ontological claims in the sense of that which is beyond our direct knowledge of phenomena (as perceived by the senses) but not beyond potential knowledge. Due to our limited human ability to understand, express and confirm ultimate explanations, such ultimate claims need to be made with care. Just as a recent book on consciousness was titled Consciousness – creeping up on the hard problem (Gray 2004), we need to show similarly gentle approaches in considering science and religion. Starting with ontology, as do the critics of religion, is not a helpful way to begin dialogue in science and religion. Indeed, it is disingenuous of the critics to begin with ontology, as one of the reasons for the success of science is that it often skirts around the most difficult problems within its own remit. To give a specific example, the theory of evolution is rightly considered a major scientific achievement even though there is no adequate explanation of how the first cells arose. More generally, even central concepts in science such as time and mass become elusive when profound explanations are sought. The critics of religion rightly like to emphasise the practical successes of science, especially as demonstrated in technological advances that improve our material wellbeing. However, the intellectual content of reductionist, materialist atheism has failed to provide coherent and comprehensive embodiment at critical stages in human life. Simple examples are the continued use of the church on the occasions of birth (baptism), marriage and death by those who do not profess a Christian faith. Such participation may be claimed to be ‘without buying into the supernatural beliefs that historically went along with those traditions’ (Dawkins 2006: 344). Such a claim implies a clean separation of first-person participation and intellectualized, third-party knowledge. However, actions are themselves a type of knowledge as they show an appropriate interaction with the world. Hence, continued participation in christenings, weddings and funerals implies some acquiescence in their religious content even for the intellectual sceptic.

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As noted, the critics of religion focus their attention on ‘informative’ aspects, especially claims regarding ultimate explanations. However, the importance of social, participatory activities at critical stages in human life draws attention to the ‘performative’ nature of religion, it is a way of living (Benedict 2007: 6). Indeed, in daily practice throughout life, religion can provide appropriate interaction with reality through ‘connection, synergy and integration with parallel lives’ (Ground 2008: 401), fellowship, in a way which is beyond the scope of science. Such connection is itself a type of knowing how, a synthesis of first-person experience and third-party knowledge. Indeed, such relations may not only be the most immediately applicable type of knowledge provided by religion, they may also be a very fruitful way of beginning to access ultimate explanations. As Buber has written, ‘The extended lines of relation meet in the eternal Thou. Every particular Thou is a glimpse of the eternal Thou’ (1923/2004: 61). Personal relationships are the common experience of all. They depend on our self-knowledge and on our knowledge of other selves. They may well provide the most fertile, mutually acceptable and comprehensible common ground for moving discussion in science and religion in an ontological direction once constructive dialogue has been re-established.

Concluding aspiration The development of constructive dialogue in science and religion could make an important contribution to the promotion of human flourishing. Recent criticism of religion, by leading biological scientists, has shown a tendency to childishness in both content and form. Replies by theologians have shown a tendency to great conceptual abstraction. The poet Czeslaw Milosz (2004/2005: 49) has written: I apologize, most reverend theologians, for a tone not befitting the purple of your robes. I thrash in the bed of my style, searching for a comfortable position, not too sanctimonious and not too mundane. There must be a middle place between abstraction and childishness where one can talk seriously about serious things.

The approach outlined in the present article is offered in a similar tone of modesty. It is offered in awareness of the embodied nature of our lives and in recognition of our limited human ability to understand, express and confirm ultimate explanations. It is suggested as a useful starting point for constructive dialogue in science and religion.

Acknowledgment I thank Iselin Eie Bowen for perceptive comments during the development of this chapter.

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Appendix Scientific knowledge which appears at first to be of a knowing that type can also be viewed as resulting from an ability to accomplish specific tasks and hence from a process similar to that described here for knowing how. An early formulation of a view of this type was given by Bridgman (1927). The requirement for such ability is very apparent in contemporary molecular biology, the findings of which often depend on elaborate procedures which require detailed description when the work receives journal publication, and where leading laboratories compete strongly to employ key skilled individuals. Again, experimental highenergy physics depends on the specific abilities of many individuals working as a team. Indeed, such skills are a pervasive requirement throughout science – if different researchers produce conflicting results, the first task of resolution is very often to examine in detail the experimental procedures that led to those results. Hence, it would be possible to generalise the discussion of this article to include both types of knowing, but this is not necessary for the present purposes.

References Benedict XVI 2007 Spe Salvi (London: Catholic Truth Society). Bridgman, P. W. 1927 The Logic of Modern Physics (New York: The Macmillan Company). Buber, M. 1923 I and Thou (London: Continuum, 2004). Originally published as Ich und Du, Berlin: Schocken Verlag. Dawkins, R. 2006 The God Delusion (London: Bantam Press). Descartes, R. 1998 Discourse on Method (Indianapolis: Hackett). Originally published 1637. Goldberg, M. 1991 Jews and Christians: Getting Our Stories Straight (Eugene: Wipf and Stock). Golding, W. 1982 A Moving Target (London: Faber and Faber). Gray, J. 2004 Consciousness – Creeping up on the Hard Problem (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Ground, I. 2008 ‘The Measure of Things – Humanism, Humility and Mystery’ (Review), Philosophy 83, pp 399–403.

118 Hawking, S. 2003 Hume, D. 1978 Kington, M. 2007 Kirk, J. A. 2007 Levinas, E. 1969

Lipton, P. 2005 2007

McCarthy, N. 2006 McFague, S. 1982 Milosz, C. 2005 Nagel, T. 1974 Noble, D. 2006 Queen, C. S. 2000 Ratzinger, J. 2003

Ricoeur, P. 1992

Ryle, G. 2000

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On the Shoulders of Giants (London: Penguin Books). A Treatise of Human Nature (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Originally published 1888. ‘Why Pullman and Dawkins are no match for the Deities’, The Independent 4 December. The Future of Reason, Science and Faith (Aldershot: Ashgate). Totality and Infinity (Pittsburgh: Dudesque University Press). Originally published as Totalité et Infini, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1961. ‘The Truth About Science’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 360, 1259–1269. ‘Science and Religion: the Immersion Solution’, in A. Moore and M. Scott (eds.), Realism and Religion: Philosophical and Theological Perspectives (Aldershot: Ashgate), pp 31–46. ‘Philosophy in the Making’, Ingenia 26, pp 47–51. Metaphorical Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press). Second Space (New York: Ecco). Originally published 2004. ‘What is it like to be a bat?’, The Philosophical Review 4, pp 435–50. The Music of Life: Biology Beyond the Genome (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Engaged Buddhism in the West (Boston: Wisdom Publications). Truth and Tolerance (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004). Originally published as Glaube-Wahrheit-Toleranz: Das Christentum und die Weltreligion, Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder. Oneself as Another (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Originally published as Soi-même Comme Un Autre, Editions du Seuil, 1990. The Concept of Mind (London: Penguin Books). Originally published 1949.

Self, Knowledge and Faith Searle, J. R. 2004 Stocker, M. 1997

Williams, R. 2007 Wolpert, L. 2006

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Mind: A Brief Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press). ‘The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories’, in R. Crisp and M. Slote (eds.), Virtue Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp 66–78. Originally published 1976. Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief (Norwich: Canterbury Press). Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast: The Evolutionary Origins of Belief (London: Faber and Faber).

Notes 1

2

3 4 5 6 7 8

In Britain, a pantomime is a kind of play performed at Christmas time typified by farce, predictable plot, stock characters, topical jokes and audience participation. Such modesty was eloquently expressed by Isaac Newton toward the end of his life, ‘I do not know how I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy, playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself, in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me’. Quoted in S. Hawking (2003: 732). As well as being a pre-eminent scientist, Newton had strong interests in theology. I thank Professor Wolpert for taking part in this exchange, which took place by email in 2007. ‘Third-party’ is used to indicate that the involvement of a particular individual in that knowledge is incidental. Aristotle made a related distinction between episteme, theoretical knowledge, and techne, practical knowledge. The quotation exaggerates for the sake of effect. See Appendix. I make these comments having created and spent many years managing a multidisciplinary research centre.

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10 The Multiplicity of Purposes of ‘Religion and Science’ Willem B. Drees

My point of departure in this contribution is somewhat pessimistic: I don’t think ‘science and religion’ is doing well in an intellectual sense. One might even say: ‘The science and religion dialogue’ does not exist as an intellectually coherent entity, though it obviously does exist as a social reality. There are implicit boundaries to the community that operates with ‘science and religion’. Advocates of atheism do not seem to belong to the club, even when they write on religion and on science, nor do outspoken advocates of intelligent design. I think the latter are outside because a pro-science attitude is assumed in ‘religion and science’, while polemical atheists are outsiders because a religion-friendly attitude is assumed, even though religion may be taken in a very agnostic or liberal way. As a social reality, any ‘religion and science dialogue’ is to be understood in its context; reflections on these topics are always located, at least as much as scientific work can be considered located (Livingstone 2003). This contextual character implies that ‘religion and science’ appears in multiple forms. Saying that ‘religion and science’ exists as a social reality does not necessarily imply that intellectual achievements are excluded; the natural sciences are social realities as we have learned from historians and sociologists of science, but they have also earned our esteem as achievements with remarkable intellectual unifying power and practical applicability. The deeper questions ask what the characteristics of ‘religion and science’ are, and whether the characteristics of this hybrid are conducive to delivering knowledge or understanding. Though ‘religion and science’ is social, we are successful in spreading the idea that the subject exists as a legitimate intellectual subject. There is the dynamics of books, courses, lecture series, and local and international societies. There is the Andreas Idreos chair at Oxford University, previously held by John H. Brooke and now by Peter Harrison. There is the Starbridge lectureship at Cambridge University, held by Fraser Watts, who as a former president of the British Psychological Society has earned his scientific standing. In 2006 Harvard advertised a chair in ‘religion and science’. Some initiatives have respectable age such as the Institute of Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS, since 1954) and the scholarly journal Zygon: Journal

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of Religion and Science (1966). There are many more initiatives, centers, journals and publications that could be mentioned. Among these is ESSSAT, the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology, a professional society that focuses on the study of interactions, and not on a confessional position regarding religion or a particular view of the relationship between religion and science. By the way, I will use in this contribution a ‘we’ (and ‘our’) for persons involved in the hybrid ‘religion and science’. As former president of ESSSAT and editor of Zygon I cannot exempt myself from this ‘we’. I hope those readers who see themselves as outsiders to ‘religion and science’ still enjoy this self-reflective exercise on religion and science in their interactions. There are good reasons why we aspire to make the ‘science and religion’ enterprise intellectually credible. The intellectual dimension is needed to be socially effective. This necessity has to do with the attitude of scientists, who (mostly) understand themselves as dealing with reality, seeking to understand the world as well as possible. The demand for intellectual credibility also has to do with the attitude of believers, who for the most part tend to be realists. And it has to do with a particular, modern cultural norm: Legitimacy ought to be based on intellectual standing, a norm which I share. But does this aspiration entail the necessity to hold that theology has an epistemic status similar to the status of science, either by upgrading the status of theology, or by downplaying the standing of science? We need intellectual standing, but – according to my observation – the dialogue is not in good shape, measured by its intellectual ambitions. We are not received well by professionals in nearby fields: not by most scientists, who consider the ‘science and religion dialogue’ a spare time issue, a hobby of a few colleagues but not relevant to their professional work, nor by philosophers, theologians, or scholars of religious studies, who consider it as falling short of the standards of their discipline. And it is dubious whether one can speak of progress in understanding; in many ways we revisit the same issues and rehearse arguments and ideas presented earlier by Ian Barbour, Ralph Burhoe, Philip Hefner, Arthur Peacocke and others. In my opinion, the best case for intellectual progress can be made for the historians of science. They have incorporated the theme in their professional work, and thereby have gone well beyond earlier, useful but fairly apologetic contributions such as those of the Dutch historian R. Hooykaas (1972). If the diagnosis is that we are not doing well, whereas we need intellectual strength, the question is: Why don’t we do better? Not out of neglect, laziness or stupidity. My proposal in this essay is that some of the underlying questions and definitions of problems are insufficiently clear. What are we after? I suggest that it may be useful to reflect upon the field with the help of the insider/outsider distinction, so as to clarify problems. Briefly summarized my thesis is as follows: We tend to lean toward an insiders’ perspective, arguing for a particular religious position, but at the same time we try to behave as outsiders, so as to gain credibility in the world of science and science-based epistemic attitudes. Betting on both horses may be necessary, but it also makes our kind of exploration more difficult.

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The insider-outsider problem is relevant in many areas, and challenges due to the outsider perspective are often not welcomed by the insiders. In the first section of this chapter I will explain what I mean by the insider-outsider problem. Thereafter various sections on the ‘religion and science dialogue’ follow, as seen from an outsider perspective, accompanied by some on insider interests in ‘religion and science’. This brings me to the additional problem that ‘religion’ is a concept with multiple meanings, an issue addressed in the context of the analysis of the insider’s agenda.

Insider-outsider problems and the study of religion Could someone who is deaf, understand music? In his study on Das Heilige (1917; translation 1950: 8) Rudolf Otto wrote at the beginning of the third chapter: The reader is invited to direct his mind to a moment of deeply-felt religious experience, as little as possible qualified by other forms of consciousness. Whoever cannot do this, whoever knows no such moments in his experience, is requested to read no farther (. . .). We do not blame such an one, when he tries for himself to advance as far as he can with the help of such principles of explanation as he knows, interpreting ‘aesthetics’ in terms of sensuous pleasure, and ‘religion’ as a function of the gregarious instinct and social standards, or as something more primitive still. But the artist, who for his part has an intimate personal knowledge of the distinctive element in the aesthetic experience, will decline his theories with thanks, and the religious man will reject them even more uncompromisingly.

Otto’s idea is that personal experience is necessary to gain access to the real meaning of religion. Unlike Otto, I make no claim about the priority of the participant over the observer, as if the one would have real knowledge and the other an incomplete, limited and hence distorted understanding. However, I think it is heuristically useful to pay attention to differences in approaching a subject. Speaking very generally, an insider participates in practices considered meaningful, true, or right. An outsider might concentrate on the discourses, contexts and interests involved, and consider the way these practices may be useful to insiders. Can one have both, say timeless insight and divine guidance, mediated by human scriptures and institutions? Insiders and outsiders deal with different problems. When considering horrible, immoral or miraculous stories from the Bible, an outsider might treat such passages as throwing some light on what people once believed. The believer, for whom the Biblical text is supposed to be normatively significant, has a problem: how to read those texts as relevant for us, and as appropriate to the story of God, without endorsing their unwelcome aspects. This type of problem is as old as religion; allegorical interpretation and other distinctions between the literal or superficial meaning and the deeper or true meaning have been made again and again. Let me give one more example of the difference between insiders and outsiders: Though suffering may be an existential issue for all humans, the question how to

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combine the reality of evil in combination with belief in a good and almighty God, is only a problem for the believer. An outsider might describe the insider’s discourse, perhaps in psychological terms, as handling cognitive dissonance (McCutcheon 2007: 54–56). Insider-outsider problems are not exclusive to the study of religion. The human sciences have to face them all the time; humans speak of their ideas, ideals and feelings, while the psychologist or sociologist might see interests and group pressure. And if not the human sciences, then we might consider the neurologists and other physiologically minded observers, who speak of brain processes and hormones when one claims to be in love, enchanted by a smile and personality. Elements of the outsider discourse can become absorbed in the insider discourse. Concepts from the toolkit of psychology, such as ‘playing different roles’ or being ‘under stress’, have become acceptable as part of one’s self-description. With the problem of understanding ‘reasons’ (an insider concept, related to mind) in a world of causes (brain processes) comes the question what the relation is between explanations and the justification of our own behavior. Similarly, there is the issue of values that humans appeal to in a world apparently driven by interests; what is the legitimacy of moral discourse used by naturally evolved beings? Even science, the study of nature, may be considered in a dual perspective, as a quest for truth, driven by rational considerations, and as an all too human enterprise, motivated by an urge for power and reward. Philosophy might serve as mediator between the two perspectives, by dispelling false oppositions such as the one between brain and mind, or the one between evolved and moral. The philosophy of mind is typically addressing the question how neural processes can be bearers of meaningful discourse. Meta-ethics and philosophy of biology concern the multiple ways in which ‘selfish genes’ might give rise to moral individuals (e.g., Midgley 1994). Philosophy of science is addressing the question of how such fallible human practices can deliver more or less objective, culture-independent knowledge (e.g., Kitcher 1993). Let us return to religion. My teacher in philosophy of religion, H. G. Hubbeling (1987: 3), defined the task of philosophy of religion in relation to religious studies as follows: ‘Science of religion does not ask for the truth or falsity of religious institutions or statements, it just describes and explains them. Philosophy of religion, then, may be characterized as follows: Philosophy of religion = science of religion + the investigation of truth or falsity’. In that sense, philosophy of religion comes closer to systematic theology, the intellectual concern of the insider. However, there is also a relevant distinction between the two (Hubbeling 1987: 1): ‘in a philosophical statement a reference to revelation is not permitted, whereas in theology one may refer to revelation as an argument’. That is, in philosophy of religion we do not have the insider perspective based on any particular religious creeds, revelations or experiences, but we do have the attempt to think through the truth and value of religion with the best available truth about religions. From an external perspective it may be argued that belief in the truth of religion plays an important functional role. The anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1966: 3)

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concluded that ‘sacred symbols function to synthesize a people’s ethos – the tone, character, and quality of their life, its moral and aesthetic style and mood – and their world view – the picture they have of the way things in sheer actuality are, their most comprehensive ideas of order’. This insight regarding the role of symbols in synthesizing ethos and worldview brought him to an often quoted definition (Geertz 1966: 4): a religion is (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions which such an aura of facticity that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.

This definition is, as a definition of the empirical phenomena of religiosity, not perfect. Perhaps it puts too much emphasis on the cognitive role of symbols as contributing to conceptions of the order of existence, thus bypassing ritual, social and other non-cognitive roles of religion. Perhaps the definition fails given complexities of representation and truth (Frankenberry and Penner 1999). Besides, the definition suggests a causal arrow from symbols via conceptions to moods and motivations, whereas symbols may also express moods and motivations – the passage quoted just before, about synthesizing ethos and worldview, has less of this causal suggestion to it. However, in so far as the definition is about the cognitive side of a religion, what could be called ‘a theology’, the definition highlights the observation that, in religious thought, conceptions of the order of existence are intertwined with the appreciation of reality and norms for our behaviour. To speak of the world as God’s creation has a descriptive and a prescriptive aspect to it. In the article quoted before, Geertz speaks of models of the world and models for the world, that is, of models that seem to be descriptive and models that articulate a normative orientation and transformative ambition. It is a typically outsider definition which depicts religious symbols as useful (moods and motivations). However, the ‘aura of facticity’ implies cognitive aspects for the sincere believer. So far I have made a few remarks on the insider-outsider problem, in general and in relation to religion. The main part of this essay will be on issues as they arise in the ‘religion and science’ area. I will first discuss a few approaches that might be illuminated in terms of an outsider perspective: apologetics for science, for technology, for religion, and for religious studies in the academy. I also will discuss the usefulness of appealing to science in controversies about the proper understanding of one’s religion. Thereafter, we will consider ‘insider’ agendas for ‘religion and science’. Let me repeat a remark made in the introduction already. Valuable insights can be learned from both perspectives. They help us see different aspects of the processes, and by acknowledging these multiple perspectives, they are modified, or at least challenged.

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Why engage in ‘religion and science’? From an outsider perspective, one might see ‘religion and science’ as apologetics, functioning in particular social contexts. Many think of it as apologetics for religion, but in my opinion, it is as much apologetics for science and technology. Among religiously minded people, ‘religion and science’ may serve as apologetics for science. Quite a few communications presented as ‘religion and science’, whether on web sites or in books, are almost indistinguishable from science popularizations. To promote the acceptance of science, presenting fascinating scientific insights in a non-threatening way might, already, be an effective action. Elaborate arguments are not needed for most people; the purpose is served by popular science with a pious gloss or by a presentation of suggestive parallels between religious convictions and scientific insights. If the parallels are inspiring, science cannot be perceived as a threat to these religious convictions. One may even conclude that the religious tradition was there first, a matter of priority that makes science even less threatening. Among the more specific strategies that may make science acceptable to religious believers we find epistemic arguments against scientism (Midgley 1992; Stenmark 2001). Quite a few appeal to Thomas Kuhn (1970) and other philosophers of science to argue that science is tied to paradigms and personal preferences and hence is not as objective and universal as it seems. Reconciliatory goals can be served by ontological arguments as well, indicating that there might be ‘room for God’ in the context of scientific insights, as is the common theme of the Vatican Observatory – CTNS (Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences) series on ‘scientific perspectives on divine action’ (e.g., Russell, Stoeger, and Ayala 1998). Furthermore, there are other strategies that might make science more acceptable, such as pointing out that there are major scientists, of the past or the present, who are believers of an appropriate kind. One might also draw on the history of science to point out the religious origins of modern science, for instance in a reformed emphasis on human labor or in a broader conception of creation as a contingent order. Such examples and analogies are not much as formal arguments, but they may serve to appease, and thus serve as apologetics for science among those who suspect that their beliefs are under threat. A quite different strategy, but useful for a similar purpose, is Stephen Gould’s (1999) plea to consider science and religion as non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA): then the message also can be that people need not be afraid of evolutionary ideas, as religious beliefs are not threatened thereby. Of course, if the audience assumes that there are certain specific challenges, these need to be addressed. If, as in Galileo’s days, the heliocentric view is supposed to be at odds with Joshua’s request that the Sun should halt over . . ., it becomes important to make clear that the apparent difference between the biblical text and the new scientific description is not relevant. If an evolutionary understanding of reality is supposed to undermine morality, it may be important to counter that concern.

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My general point is that a wide range of strategies, among which quite a few are weak as formal arguments, are all adequate, if the purpose is to make science acceptable to a religiously minded audience. It is not whether a strategy is logically strong, but whether it is effective that is decisive here. Promoting science and science based technology among those who might be hesitant at first, may well be a concern of sponsors rooted in the business community as well as of partners among institutions that serve the scientific community in general, such as Academies of Science. Such apologetic roles are not a new phenomenon. In a study on the interactions of religion and science in the past, titled Reconstructing Nature, John Brooke and Geoffrey Cantor (1998: 148 & 153) have in a chapter on natural theology sections on ‘Natural theology and the Promotion of Religion’ as well as on ‘Natural Theology and the Promotion of Science’; thus highlighting two functions of natural theology in the 18th and 19th century in England: to make religion acceptable, but even more to make science a respectable profession field, in the eyes of the religiously minded as well as others. In the past, natural theology also served to inform people on new scientific insights and to convey to them the message that science is an ally rather than an enemy. Thus, my observation is that one major role of ‘religion and science’ in a religious culture is to serve as apologetics for science, a role fulfilled in many different ways.

Apologetics for technology Sciences that are primarily descriptive and explanatory align well with natural theology in the traditional sense, as such sciences may allow for a design argument to reconcile science and religion. The ambition seems to be to show that this world is well ordered, that there is a Sovereign Giver of the laws that have generated this order, and that this is the best of all possible worlds. However, these associations do not comply as well with chemistry, engineering, and other sciences involved in the transformation of reality. One cannot engage in engineering and argue at the same time that this world is the best of all possible worlds (Brooke and Cantor 1998: 314–346; Brooke 2003). Our technological actions are inspired by the idea that this world can be improved upon. We need our technology for the morally lofty purposes of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and caring for those who are ill (Drees 2002). Thus, when serving as advocacy for technology, apologetics may also take the form of a plea for social responsibility and human actions as ‘created co-creators’. Relative to the earlier version of natural theology, it is quite different whether one emphasizes creation as given or stresses a call for conversion and transformation. When ‘playing God’ is used as an accusation, theology tends to emphasize the given character of reality; whereas the same expression may serve as an appeal for liberation, accepting moral responsibility and using our capacities to transform the world to the better. In my opinion, the active, transformative side of science is neglected too often, in favor of the more passive role of science in understanding

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reality. However, the choice between emphasizing ‘understanding creation’ and ‘transforming reality’ is a religious one. This religious choice is connected with a larger one, regarding the role of religion in public conversation on technology – to serve as a source of motivation for science and technology or to serve again and again as a brake on technological developments.

Apologetics for religion Nowadays, apologetics for science may be especially relevant in the United States, with its widespread popular sentiment against evolution and against scientific elites, but what about Europe? Given that the acceptance of science is much more widely spread in Europe, this drive for religion and science may be less relevant. However, in the European context, a different apologetic agenda may be more significant: not the advocacy of science to a religiously minded audience, but the advocacy of religion to a science minded, secular audience. Thus, the message might be: Religion is not that impossible, given science. Perhaps an argument stressing separate spheres (NOMA) is not needed to insulate pre-existing beliefs from science, but it might suggest the relevance of another domain, of moral and aesthetic values, as complementary to science. Perhaps one might even convey the message that the moral dimension needs a religious framework. It helps religion, at least, if religion is seen as not being against science and at odds with socially useful, new technologies. Or, for some others, it might give new legitimacy to religion if religion serves to speak on behalf of the concerned, of those frightened by new technologies – that too implies that it has a meaningful role in our time.

Apologetics for theology and religious studies in the Academy At the universities of today, the issue of academic politics often recurs: whether theology or religious studies deserve a place in a secularized institution such as the modern research oriented university. In that context, it may be useful to argue that the structure of theology resembles that of respected scientific disciplines – for example, by reformulating both in terms derived from Imre Lakatos’s ‘methodology of scientific research programmes’ (see Murphy 1990: 58–87). What are the norms for being scientific (or academic)? Can theology live up to those standards? Are the standards for the humanities lower than those for the natural sciences? If so, does that help theology? Are the standards for the sciences lower than we thought? (Again, the popularity of Kuhn in the ‘religion and science discourse’ may serve well.) Does that help theology, or is an argument that science is also perspectival and dogmatic not enough? There is another side to ‘religion and science’ in the academy, and that is the avoidance, by and large, of engagement with the secular study of religion, such as is typical of the history of religions and anthropological and social studies of

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religions. Such studies are often methodologically agnostic and functional in orientation. Some voices in the study of religion are perceived as reductionist and challenging, setting up such studies of religion as competing with a religious understanding of religion. The secular study of religion with its immanent, social, and naturalistic vocabulary conflicts with the religious interest of many in ‘religion and science’. Though the avoidance of engagement with religious studies is intelligible, in the context of academic politics, out of fear of becoming absorbed in humanistic and social scientific studies, in my opinion, however, such a challenge is to be accepted and addressed. Avoidance of the social scientific perspective in favor of the natural sciences threatens the credibility of ‘religion and science’ and thus, in the long run, its relevance.

A role for ‘religion and science’ in religious controversies So far, I suggested that ‘science and religion’ may serve well as apologetics in relation to various groups. However, the engagement with science has another role as well. Religious communities are not homogeneous; there is always debate on the proper way to relate to the tradition and to the world. Engagement with science can perhaps be a factor in this internal debate. Both dissenters (advocates of a minority position) and the established religious authorities may well want to have the legitimacy provided by science at their side. ‘Religion and science’ is about the truth of ideas but as much about authority within religious traditions. It is a major battleground between revisionists and traditionalists in each tradition. Let me support this thesis with brief reflections on some major cases in ‘religion and science’. The controversies surrounding Galileo began with a dispute within the scholarly community between advocates of scholastic approaches and those who favored instrumental science. Religious accusations were used in scientific disputes by adherents of scholastic science. However, the conflict shifted from being within the scientific community to being within the church. In the church, the conflict was not so much between religion and science as between the different religious orders (Jesuits, Dominicans). The Galileo affair took place in the context of struggle over authority in exegetical matters, in the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation as articulated at the Council of Trent. The outcome of the Galileo affair affirmed the authority of the pope and church officials over lay reading of scripture (Pedersen 1983; Drees 1996, 60–62). In the reception of Darwin’s ideas in the nineteenth century, the issue was not just evolution. Even the exchange between Bishop Wilberforce and Thomas Huxley in Oxford in 1860 was not only about the implications of evolution. Tension also arose because of the changing nature of the scientific profession, the replacement of the gentleman-naturalist elite by scientific professionals doing science for a living (Turner 1978). Alongside this intra-scientific dimension of the controversy, there was an even more important intra-religious controversy, which might be summarized roughly as one between liberals and orthodox believers. Science was of minor

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importance in the controversy, which raged more deeply over the acceptability of a historical understanding of Scripture (Welch 1972; 1985; Drees 1996, 64–67). Even the most well-known title, suggesting a conflict between science and theology, Andrew White’s History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896), is misunderstood if the intra-religious dimension is neglected. White was the first president of Cornell University, a nondenominational university. Cornell was organized as a Christian university, with compulsory attendance at chapel services (Altschuler 1979, 68, 81). Frustration about the ecclesiastical opposition he met from those in charge of denominational colleges, probably influenced White’s articulation of a ‘warfare of science with theology’. White took religion seriously but quarrelled with sectarianism and theological dogmatism. He envisioned a religion in harmony with science: ‘Religion, as seen in the recognition of “a Power in the Universe, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness”, and in the love of God and of our neighbour, will steadily grow stronger and stronger’ (White 1896, xii; see Drees 1996, 67–68). The perception of White’s book as antireligious might be seen as an example of a more general trend, described by Jeffrey Stout in his study Democracy and Tradition (2004). Stout notes how orthodox believers and outspoken secular authors use each other as contrast, as if these two approaches are the only ones available, thus excluding the more liberal positions as genuine alternatives. Conflicts over evolution in the United States need not be perceived as being primarily about the truth of evolutionary explanations, or as a struggle between religious believers and secularists. Rather, they have to do with society, with family values, abortion and gun control, and with the definition of genuine Christianity. Should that be considered Christianity, as creationists and other evangelical Christians understand it, or will it resemble more the self-understanding of, what used to be called, the main stream? In a court case in Arkansas in 1981, the opponents of a pro-creation science ‘balanced treatment law’ were parents and teachers, but also ‘the resident Arkansas Bishops of the United Methodist, Episcopal, Roman Catholic and African Methodist Episcopal Churches, the principal official of the Presbyterian Churches in Arkansas, other United Methodist, Southern Baptists and Presbyterian clergy’, as well as three Jewish organisations (Overton 1982: 308). Let me emphasize that ‘religion and science’ is not just an intra-religious issue within Christianity. An example from a different cultural context is the project ‘science for monks’ (Garewal 2005), initiated by the Dalai Lama. In the quest for understanding modern Western knowledge, we can also see a contest for authority; some Tibetan monasteries are not participating. The engagement is not only with science for science’s sake; science is an instrument in a struggle on the reform of Tibetan Buddhism. Another example, from the world of Islam; even though popular understanding, especially since September 11, 2001, has it that Islamist groups oppose Western culture, the main opponents of these groups are not Westerners. The fundamental issue is the question of authority within Islamic circles. Who speaks the true version of Islam? ‘Islam and science’ cannot but be a part of the wider struggle on which Islam will acquire the upper hand: a traditional and mainly anti-modern

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version or a more liberal one. Controversies within Christianity, in the nineteenth century, over science, scripture, hermeneutics and historical knowledge have close parallels in current controversies among Muslims (Taji-Farouki 2004).

Intermediary conclusions on outsider perspectives In the previous sections we have considered different contexts for ‘religion and science’. However, in each of these the emphasis has been on what the engagement with ‘religion and science’ might do, rather than engagement with the ideas themselves. ‘Religion and science’ is about the truth of ideas, but it is as much about authority within religious traditions, about the place of theology in the academy, about the acceptance of religion in science minded culture, as well as about the acceptance of science in a religiously minded culture. A self-reflective consideration of the interests served by ‘religion and science’, may not be appreciated by all involved, just as scientists do not like science studies of a more sociological, relativist kind. However, I think we ought to think through, clarify and appreciate outsider perspectives on religion and we should consider the situated character of ‘religion and science dialogues’. ‘Religion and science’ has multiple roles, depending on the audience and context: in faith communities, universities and society at large. There are substantial differences between, for instance, European and American situations, and these differences have their consequences in the intellectual debate. This self-reflective task should not be, however, the only approach, as we also need to go ahead in our role as insiders. I will turn to that now.

Two typical agendas for insiders Fides quaerens intellectum, ‘faith seeking understanding’, is an ancient formula, used in the 10th century by Anselm of Canterbury to describe his view of the intellectual theological project, repeated by Karl Barth in the 20th century (Barth 1931), and throughout the ages used by many other theologians as well. Theology, upon this view, takes its point of departure from faith. There is not a non-religious trajectory leading to religious belief, no scientific proofs for the existence of God or the truth of scripture. Faith is not a result of engagement with secular knowledge, but given by tradition or individual life experiences, or rather, given by God, as one would say upon such a perspective. If this is the insider’s position, what, then, might the role for ‘religion and science’ be? One function might be conceptual clarification; enriching convictions by providing a model that allows one to represent the idea. Models need not be true or plausible when they are to serve as model to clarify the idea. A more far reaching ambition would be to construct plausible models, or at least models that show that particular religious ideas are consistent with modern knowledge, and thus not excluded by science. The situation is similar to that of using analogies and

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thought experiments in science; they may serve heuristic and didactic purposes, but they also aspire to present something as it really is, though from a perspective that is inaccessible to us. As inspired by such an agenda, I appreciate many of the reflections on divine action and modern science, reflections on divine eternity, on creation, and many other themes, as well as some of the defences against outspoken atheism. Understanding reality is a somewhat different priority, as it is not so much an already accepted faith that is the point of departure. Rather, the aim would be to construct a worldview. Examples of such projects could be the manifold discussions on quantum physics, chaos, or emergence. More than by theologians, this category might be represented by scientists, though certainly not exclusively so. A, somewhat related, ambition is the understanding of scientific and personal knowledge, the grounds for the successes of scientific knowledge, the similarities and dissimilarities between different human enterprises, and the limitations of particular approaches. Of course, this might be done in service of the first agenda, but could also be an intellectual aim by itself.

My own agenda As far as I consider myself an insider, a participant in ‘religion and science’, what might my own agenda be? I recognize four priorities: (1) The first one is to think through science as best available understanding of reality; this is a version of the second agenda above. Given the global success of science, with unifying theories, predictions made possible, and the possibility to control natural processes technologically, the science inspired framework I advocate would be a form of naturalism (see Drees 1996). In my opinion, any theist has good reasons to be naturalist as well, not in the ultimate sense of denying God’s transcendence as creator, but in the sense of welcoming the insight that nature has an impressive integrity and coherence. If this world is God’s creation, any knowledge we have of this world is knowledge of God’s creation. God is not to be found so much in the lacunae of our current knowledge, in the gaps, but rather in what we have uncovered. If our skills and powers are gifts of God, we should not look for God when we fail, but appreciate God for all that has become possible. Nature, religiously spoken of as creation, is not opposed to God, but should be valued as God’s gift. With the aspiration to understand reality comes the aspiration to consider the limitations of such an understanding. I think there are persistent limit questions regarding the scientific framework. Any scientific theory explains how things are now, on the basis of certain assumptions – the previous conditions and the laws of nature that apply to the case. These previous conditions or laws can be explained in turn with the help of again earlier stages or more general principles, but these too are assumed and not yet explained. Thus, one can extend the chain of explanations towards more fundamental principles and earlier stages, but there is no absolute end to this quest. The horizon may shift, but there will always be a horizon. The archetypical limit questions are: Why is there something rather than nothing? And

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why is the world ordered this way, and not differently? I do not think these series of questions may lead to an answer; instead, they indicate an open-endedness where one might speak of a divine creator or a cosmic principle, or just be agnostic in silent awe. Not only am I interested in those speculative limit questions. We should also aspire to understand ourselves, including our religious traditions that embody some of the cultural, social and moral wisdom of previous generations. These traditions and their wisdom are not always adequate for new circumstances, but certainly worth considering. How do traditions function, how do they help us to transmit values and create community? All of that is part of the desire for understanding reality. Even if one accepts science and is personally fascinated by its findings, one might leave it at that, and not trouble others with this type of knowledge. However, I think that would be intellectually and morally inadequate. Thus, (2) a second priority is to communicate science. Scientists and their work deserve the respect of their fellow humans. Still more important is a pastoral concern for ordinary humans. Understanding the scientific perspective helps to protect them against superstition, and thus against being abused by sellers of nonsensical cures and therapies. There is also an intellectual concern: if the scientific community is so successful in cooperating across cultural boundaries, there might be lessons to be learned – lessons that could be of some use for the humanities. (3) I am not only interested in communicating science; the other side of it is communicating religion and morality to a science minded audience. Upon a simplistic understanding of science, human religious, moral and aesthetic traditions can be dismissed as misguided and outdated. However, such a scientism would, in itself, be misguided as such human traditions are part of our reality, and thus have to be understood in the context of the human sphere – scientific understanding need not imply their elimination. Thus, I would like to encourage people to live with their traditions while reconstructing them, just as human beings always have done. Perhaps science itself plays a role in thinking through the elements of a tradition, conceptually; or science might help us in finding new narratives and metaphors, that may shape our experiences and guide our actions. A photo of the Earth just rising above the moon, one of the lasting images of the Apollo missions, has given us a new perspective on our planet. Thus, I would like to consider, protect and convey the significance of values in a world of facts, of ultimacy in a world of finitude, and of serenity in a world of actions. (4) Last but not least, I am interested in thinking through possibilities for theology. But what then might theology be? How does it relate to scientific knowledge? In the next and almost final section I will offer a proposal.

A proposal for understanding theologies Earlier in this essay I quoted Clifford Geertz who observed that people use religious symbols to synthesize their ethos with their view of the world (Geertz 1966: 3). In

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my opinion, it seems typical of theologies, as systematic positions, that they offer a particular view of the way the world is and of the way the world should be, thus of the True and the Good, of the real and the ideal. Each theology is a particular mix of, or a particular relationship between cosmology (in the metaphysical sense as a view of the way the world is) and axiology (the theory of values, a philosophically reflected articulation of our moral intuitions). A simple example: God created this world (a ‘cosmological’ claim), and hence we need to be good stewards (a normative claim). Thus, as a heuristic formulation that may help to clarify and explore a complex area of discussion, I suggest the formula: a theology = a cosmology + an axiology, the + sign not being a mere addition, but hiding the crucial issue of how the two are brought together. Theologies can be quite different in the way they relate and prioritize cosmological and the axiological aspects. The definition allows concentration on existential issues, which become prominent when our reality is not in accord with what we think ought to be, thus stressing the tension that might be involved in the ‘and’ or ‘+’ in the formula. But it may also be about supernatural or magical elements, as particular claims regarding the cosmological order. Within the Christian tradition, there are – according to my definition – various theologies. When emphasis lies on God’s saving activity, the tension between the way the world is and the way it will be is prominent, whereas in creation oriented views (whether ecologically inspired or as natural theologies) cosmology and axiology stand less in contrast; the prophet emphasizes the tension, whereas the mystic stresses the way we belong to reality. Whiteheadian process thought is one particular articulation of the interplay of axiological and causal elements. This way of integrating regulative ideals with cosmology has required particular, and in my opinion problematic, choices in cosmology; choices regarding pan-experientialism and regarding the place of physics in the order of the sciences. However, it is an interesting and relevant attempt to integrate valuational and causal elements in a single categorial scheme. To the insiders of ‘science and religion discussions’ this may seem to resemble the scheme proposed by Nancey Murphy and George Ellis in their book On the Moral Nature of the Universe (1996). However, my formula is a heuristic thesis for exploring the field, rather than a substantial one about the proper view, according to these authors, of the relationship between theology, ethics and the sciences. Besides, in this context, I do not want to make a statement on ‘the moral nature of the universe’. My scheme can also be used to describe the positions of those who consider the universe to be a-moral, whether indifferent or evil (e.g. Thomas H. Huxley or George C. Williams). Unlike Murphy and Ellis, for whom each level of understanding requires a higher one until it finally includes a doctrine of God, I do not consider an atheist to be necessarily deficient in understanding; rather, he or she holds a different existential position. Furthermore, I would prefer not to have that much continuity between science, metaphysical cosmology and theology, nor

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line up ethics with the social sciences as they do – as if ethics can be understood to be descriptive (the way things are) rather than transformative. The definition of theology as ‘cosmology and axiology’ does not yet refer to the natural sciences. Cosmology is, of course, related to the sciences. However, the relation is not straightforward. One may distinguish between science and any interpretation of science as a view of reality, that is, any cosmology, metaphysics or philosophy of nature. A cosmology, in this sense, is a view of what the world (with its substances and relations, and conceptions of space, time, matter, forces, causality etc.) might be like, given what we know (and what we know not to be the case; science may well be stronger in what it excludes than in what it includes). Any such metaphysics is an interpretation of scientific knowledge, constrained by the sciences but also underdetermined by them. It may be useful to further distinguish between various aspects of the sciences: theories, taxonomies and empirical generalizations, as well as observations and experiments. At the ‘high end’, there are theories that describe vast domains of realities. That is where the integration provided by the sciences is most clearly in sight. Among these are Newton’s understanding of forces and motion, the atomic theory of matter with the Periodic System, electromagnetism, neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory, quantum physics, Einstein’s improved understanding of forces, motion, and space and time, and so on. At the ‘low end’, there are the manifold observations and experiments that connect scientific ideas to the world. The relations between the high end and the low end vary. Some connections are inductive in kind, generalizations toward general rules or statistical expectations. Major relations are, however, hypothetical-deductive, where the creative researcher postulates entities, forces or other causal factors that may explain the observed phenomena. Certainty is always limited. Inductive generalization may be of limited validity beyond the phenomena that formed the basis for the generalization, as conditions not yet taken into account can be essential. Hypothetical-deductive approaches, such as advocated by Popper, acknowledge openly the creative and provisional nature of the hypothesis – which may be refuted if deduced consequences do not match observations. However, such refutations are not final, since it happens that one does not consider the theory itself refuted, but instead one of the additional hypotheses involved, such as hypotheses regarding the measuring equipment or the initial conditions, an insight taking into account the underdetermination of refutations and theories that has come to be known in philosophy as the Duhem-Quine thesis. Even if one accepts a particular theory, metaphysical or cosmological inferences drawn from it may be highly disputable. Does quantum mechanics force upon us an indeterministic metaphysics? Not at all, as witnessed by the continuing debates over the interpretation of quantum mechanics. Does the Special Theory of Relativity that describes space-time as a four-dimensional spacetime force upon us the idea that time is spatial and the future is just as much already there as the past? Again, interpretations diverge. Precisely in regard to the cosmologically most interesting issues, such as the nature of time and of causality, of matter and of interactions, science is at its most speculative. Chemists work with the Periodic Table,

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and atoms consist of protons, neutrons and electrons, and the first two are made up of quarks – but what is the end of the line – superstrings? And the Big Bang theory is a very successful theory describing the evolution of the universe, but precisely when we get to the very beginning, beyond the Planck horizon, the theory becomes unreliable, as we need a quantum theory of space and time – an area of quantum cosmology where approaches are as much guided by pre-conceived philosophical ideas and preferences in mathematics as by observations. So far, I have described theological convictions as combining cosmological and axiological ones. Each of these convictions is related to underlying disciplines, such as ethics and the natural sciences, with these in turn related to observations, experiments and moral intuitions. Deep down, of course, both series relate to the world in which we live and the experiences we have. Thus, in a sense there are two levels were integration occurs; integration takes place at the theoretical level of theology (or worldview) and it happens in practice, in life as lived, an observation made in relation to a similar but not identical scheme by Jürgen Hübner at the 2nd European Conference on Religion and Science (Hübner 1990: 177). a theology

a cosmology

an axiology

scientific images, theories

ethics, reflective morality

observations & experiments

moral intuitions

Life in the world In my opinion, the attempt to combine ‘is’ and ‘ought’ statements is what makes theology so problematic and so valuable. This difficulty of the combination finds, again and again, expression in the problem of evil, which typically concerns the relationship or tension between the two main components. Thus, this scheme allows to envisage Marcion’s problem in a constructive way; Marcion was a Christian ‘heretic’ in the 2nd century, who argued that the creator of this ambivalent world could not be the same as the one to whom Jesus referred as his loving Father. To what extent can the two lines be integrated? The theological attempt to combine ‘is’ and ‘ought’ statements also clarifies a major difference between theology and philosophy. Philosophically speaking, mixing ‘is’ and ‘ought’ statements is considered fallacious. One cannot, from the factual claim that a substance is natural, get the recommendation that it is good – it may well be poisonous. Religious belief lives by this combination, e.g. in beliefs

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about creation combining both ideas about ultimate origins and appropriate behavior. ‘Religion and science’ plays a problematic role, precisely at this interface. It often attempts to use cosmological discourses to resolve value issues, which is a move that does not work, in my opinion. For instance, whether certain phenomena can be understood in a reductionist way or in terms of emergence, or both, does not by itself decide on their significance and value. Therefore, in engaging in ‘religion and science’ it is necessary to analyze the cosmological aspects, the contribution science makes to our worldview, but at the same time acknowledge explicitly where other judgments come into play, not based on science but on moral, aesthetic or religious preferences. These evaluations are not forced upon us by science, but can be arrived at independently, relative to scientific information. By introducing such evaluations, we shift from knowledge to belief, and are thus engaged in religious reflection (theology) rather than in philosophy.

Concluding remarks ‘Religion and science’ is not just about relating religious and scientific knowledge. It is a complex of discussions, carried through in books, articles, websites, and conferences, that has many facets. In this essay it has been argued that it is helpful to distinguish between the way this discussion is perceived by the participants, as a quest for understanding, and the way it might be understood from a greater distance, by outsiders, as apologetics for science and technology, for religion and for theology in the academy, and in intra-religious competition as a means to enhance legitimacy. Given this multifaceted nature of the discussion, one might conclude that there seem to be no generalities on ‘religion and science’; to understand what is going on, one has to analyze the situated, contextual, uses of the discourse, the dynamics of the interactions (not just the ideas but the alliances and shifts). As historian John Brooke (1991: 4f.) wrote: ‘it is almost always assumed that there are lessons to be learned from history. The object of this book is not to deny that assumption, but to show that the lessons are far from simple. (. . .) The real lesson turns out to be the complexity’. The lack of generalities is almost a general rule, thereby contradicting itself, but the idea might be clear. It is useful to acknowledge the distinction between insider and outsider perspective; historians and social scientists may develop an outsider perspective while theologians and philosophers are participating in an inside discourse. All insider discourse is object for the outsider study; there is no safe haven. The insider may hope for timeless truth in situated processes, but the outsider studies the interactions without assuming more than the historically contingent. However, it might be that self-referential coherence arises, in that the outsider analysis does not undermine the insider perspective, but reformulates it. All outsider discourse has to be incorporated in the insider’s perspective in one way or another; the religious perspective tends to be totalizing, at least in the context of ‘religion and science’. Thus, just as any extensive particular theology has

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to incorporate that there are humans who believe differently, whether as heathens, heretics, atheists or fellow believers, any theology that seeks to integrate the scientific perspective into its own view also has to take into account that there may be other ways of understanding the intellectual interaction and integration. One important difference between the two discourses: in the outsider’s perspective, understanding is separate from justifying; one may understand why people make a false argument, why they behave in despicable ways, and so on – without thereby excusing the behaviour. However, in the insider discourse, understanding a certain point of view is often the same as accepting it as a legitimate point of view; the pinnacle of understanding being someone else is being converted to the other’s point of view. My hope is that some versions of the two accounts may be compatible, with epistemic modesty, when appropriate. Such compatibility depends on the accounts. Thus, outsider’s descriptions may act as incentives for insiders to reformulate their own position. Achieving such compatibility, with the differences regarding understanding and justifying, is not easy, just as it is not easy in philosophy of mind, meta-ethics, or the philosophy of science. Let me conclude with a remark about the general theme of this book. Is ‘religion and science’ about understanding? The outsider understands that ‘religion and science’ is about interests; the insider’s interest is that ‘religion and science’ is about understanding.

Acknowledgments This contribution developed from a lecture given at the Twelfth European Conference on Religion and Science, held in Sigtuna, Sweden, April 30 – May 5, 2008. The text was written while on leave from the Leiden University Institute for Religious Studies, as the J. Houston Witherspoon Fellow for Religion and Science of the Center of Theological Inquiry, Princeton, and also an affiliate fellowship of the Center for the Study of Religion of Princeton University. The study leave was partly funded by the national research foundation NWO, the Netherlands, in the context of a research project in its program ‘the Future of the Religious Past’. Some material on outsiders’ perspectives reuses extensively (Drees 2005); some passages on the understanding of theology draw on an essay by the author in J. Proctor, ed., Envisioning Nature, Science and Religion, (2009). A more extensive development of the ideas in this paper has been published as Willem B. Drees, Religion and Science in Context: A Guide to the Debates (Routledge, 2010).

References Altschuler, G. C. 1979 Andrew D. White – Educator, Historian, Diplomat (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).

The Multiplicity of Purposes of ‘Religion and Science’ Barbour, I. G. 1997 Barth, K. 1931

Brooke, J. H. 1991

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Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues (New York: HarperCollins). Fides quaerens intellectum: Anselms Beweis der Existenz Gottes im Zusammenhang seines theologischen Programms (München: Kaiser).

Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 2003 ‘Improvable Nature?’, in W. B. Drees (ed.), Is Nature Ever Evil? Religion, Science and Value (London: Routledge). Brooke, J. H., and Cantor, G. 1998 Reconstructing Nature: The Engagement of Science and Religion (Edinburgh: T&T Clark). Burhoe, R. W. 1981 Towards a Scientific Theology (Belfast: Christian Journals Ltd). Drees, W. B. 1996 Religion, Science and Naturalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 2002 ‘“Playing God?” Yes! Religion in the Light of Technology,’ Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 37, pp 643–54. 2005 ‘“Religion and Science” as Advocacy of Science and as Religion versus Religion’, Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 40, pp 545–53. Frankenberry, N. K., and Penner, H. H. 1999 ‘Clifford Geertz’s Long-Lasting Moods, Motivations, and Metaphysical Conceptions’, Journal of Religion 79, pp 617–40. Garewal, G. 2005 ‘Mixing Monks, Models, Molecules, and Mathematics’, Science and Theology News 5, p 32. Geertz, C. 1966 ‘Religion as a cultural system’, in M. Banton (ed.), Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion (London: Tavistock), pp 1–46; reprinted in C. Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), pp 87–125. Gould, S. J. 1999 Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life (New York: Ballantine). Harrison, P. 2007 The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Hefner, Ph. 1993 The Human Factor: Evolution, Culture, and Religion (Minneapolis: Fortress).

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Religion and the Rise of Modern Science (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press).

Hubbeling, H. G. 1987 Principles of the Philosophy of Religion (Assen: Van Gorcum). Hübner, J. 1990 ‘Science and Religion coming across’, in J. Fennema and I. Paul (eds.), Science and Religion: One World – Changing Perspectives on Reality (Dordrecht: Kluwer), pp 173–81. Kitcher, Ph. 1993 The Advancement of Science: Science without Legend, Objectivity without Illusions (New York: Oxford University Press). Kuhn, Th. 1970 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2d edn). Livingstone, D. N. 2003 Putting Science in Its Place: Geographies of Scientific Knowledge (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). McCutcheon, R. T. (ed.) 1999 The Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of Religion: A Reader (London: Cassell). McCutcheon, R. T. 2007 Studying Religion: An Introduction (London: Equinox). Midgley, M. 1992 Science as Salvation (London: Routledge). 1994 The Ethical Primate: Humans, Freedom and Morality (London: Routledge). Murphy, N. 1990 Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning (Ithaca: Cornell University Press). Murphy, N. and Ellis, G. F. R. 1996 On the Moral Nature of the Universe (Minneapolis: Fortress). Otto, R. 1950 The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and its Relation to the Rational (trans. J. W. Harvey; London: Oxford University Press, 2d edn). The passage involved is also reproduced in (McCutcheon 1999: pp 74–81). Overton, W. R. 1982 ‘United States District Court Opinion: McLean v. Arkansas’, in M. Ruse (ed.), But Is It Science? The Philosophical Questions in the Creation-Evolution Controversy (repr., Buffalo, NY: Prometheus), pp 307–31. Peacocke, A. R. 1993 Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and Becoming – Natural, Divine and Human (London: SCM, rev. edn).

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‘Galileo and the Council of Trent’, Journal for the History of Astronomy 14, pp 1–29. Russell, R. J., Stoeger, W. R. and Ayala, F. J. (eds.) 1998 Evolutionary and Molecular Biology: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action (Vatican City State: Vatican Observatory, and Berkeley: Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences). Stenmark, M. 2001 Scientism: Science, Ethics and Religion (Aldershot: Ahgate). Stout, J. 2004 Democracy and Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Taji-Farouki, S. (ed.) 2004 Modern Muslim Intellectuals and the Qur’an (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Turner, F. M. 1978 ‘The Victorian Conflict between Science and Religion: A Professional Dimension’, ISIS 69, pp 356–76. Welch, C. 1972 Protestant Thought in the Nineteenth Century (1 vol; New Haven: Yale University Press). Welch, C. 1985 Protestant Thought in the Nineteenth Century (2 vols; New Haven: Yale University Press). White, A. D. 1896 A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (2 vols; New York: Appleton).

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11 Towards Understanding ‘Understanding’ in Science, Epistemology and Theology Peter P. Kirschenmann

I. Introduction Understanding, apparently, comes in many kinds and one could add: so do misunderstandings. One hears or reads of the ‘public understanding of science’ or about a ‘theological understanding’ of human existence. One speaks of explanatory, emphatic, intercultural, spiritual and many other sorts of understanding. There is an epistemological distinction between propositional and objectual understanding, and there is a distinction between wide-ranging and full scientific understanding. Philosophers of science used to sideline understanding as being something subjective, psychological, pragmatic and hence epistemically irrelevant, favouring objective analyses of explanation. Now, understanding is often portrayed as the goal of science. Also epistemologists, debating the value of knowledge, have advocated a turn to the value of understanding. My purpose is to critically survey a selected variety of matters that have been referred to as ‘understanding’. Furthermore, there might be an expectation that a focus on understanding could bring about a closer rapprochement between the parties in the so-called dialogue between theology or religion and science than discussions of the (dis)similarities of theological ‘knowledge’ or ‘explanation’ (e.g., in terms of ‘intelligent design’) or also rationality and their scientific counterparts, bound as these counterparts are to very stringent (e.g. logical-mathematical and empirical) requirements. Thus, I also want to come to some answer on whether such an expectation would be justified. I first dwell on the ‘grammar’ of understanding, compared to knowledge and explanation. I distinguish between person-bound understanding and understanding in a more impersonal sense, as a general view or a ‘pre-understanding’. I note that common (English) parlance leaves much room for philosophers to specify their own paradigmatic notion of understanding. Next, I turn to the epistemological analysis of knowledge and understanding and, in particular, to the

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intricate debate about their value. The debate also concerns their differences, e.g. in the face of epistemic luck and in their relation to truth. Entering philosophy of science, I first discuss the (research-)pragmatic, contextual, yet epistemic-relevance view of scientific understanding. I also critically discuss a conception of alternative kinds of scientific understanding, including wide-ranging and full understanding. Lastly, I comment on the argument that the sense of understanding cannot be a mere by-product of explanation, since philosophers have to rely on it in evaluating competing accounts of explanation. Next, I deal with theological understanding, which seems to play a role only in a general sense, by comparing it with scientific understanding. Yet, as in the case of knowledge (or also that of rationality), I mainly see differences here too, apart from some vague analogies. Amongst other things, I comment on the use of metaphors, on the place of narratives, on the insider/outsider problem and its relation to truth, and point to the distinct ‘practical’ side of religion and theology. Finally, I conclude that my discussion should make the elusiveness of the notion of understanding ‘understandable’. Nonetheless, I think, the differences between scientific and theological understanding should be clear enough, although this does not mean that they should be unrelated. Finally, I also comment on the alleged subjectivity, non-objectivity, of all understanding, supposed to make it epistemically irrelevant and marring insider accounts.

II. Some ‘Grammar’ of ‘Understanding’ A first distinction regarding the uses of ‘understanding’, I think, should be between its uses in the sense of ‘he/she understands (that /how)’ and those in a more generalized sense, as in ‘a Christian understanding of creation’. Roughly speaking, it corresponds to the difference between the verb ‘to understand’ and the noun ‘understanding’. It parallels distinctions between ‘he/she knows’ or even ‘he/she has an explanation’ and ‘knowledge’ or ‘explanation’ in a general, more abstract sense. In many cases, ‘he/she knows’ and ‘he/she understands’ can be and are being used all but interchangeably; in some cases, this also goes for ‘he/she can explain’ or ‘he/she has an explanation for’. Yet, there are certain differences. We speak of ‘understanding’ in this sense as definitely person-bound, as an achievement and as graded, unlike knowledge or explanation. Such differences have to do with the important point that knowledge raises questions of warrant, while understanding concerns interrelations between, or structures of, things or ideas, even when we speak of ‘understanding a problem’. Thus, in particular, there are cases of knowledge (or having an explanation) without understanding. This is so in cases of rout learning or in certain cases of testimonial knowledge, as when a little boy knows (and ‘can explain’) that the house burnt down because of a short-circuit, since his father told him so, yet without understanding it (cf. Pritchard 2008). Furthermore, as a matter of principle, I think, there can only be knowledge of plain facts, but no understanding of them. For instance, I can know the plain fact that my appointment is at 11 o’clock, which

Towards Understanding ‘Understanding’ in Science, Epistemology and Theology 145 just is not something to be understood. Philosophers of science, as we shall see, are wont to speak of understanding phenomena or objects. They only may do so, because they do not just think of their factual occurrence or existence, but immediately and implicitly of questions about their causes, internal constitution and relations with other things. Whether there also are cases of understanding without knowledge is an intricate question. Here are some improper examples. Maybe one could say that certain animals understand how to get out of their caves without having anything like knowledge (or like an explanation, for that matter). Or, somewhat tritely, one could say that understanding a fictitious story cannot involve knowledge of the happenings related, while it of course does involve knowledge of the story. Proper examples, as we shall see, may be supplied by cases of epistemic luck. Many kinds of understanding, I add here, like understanding what’s in a letter, don’t involve explanations, simply because no explanation is called for. Often, as I have indicated, ‘understanding’ is used in a generalized, rather impersonal, sense – as a general view, account or ‘pre-understanding’ concerning some subject-matter. Think of the examples already given or of ‘materialist understanding of consciousness’ or ‘a Protestant understanding of divine grace’. In the light of the preceding discussion, one might almost say that these are misuses of the term, but I myself will also not avoid this rather common usage in what follows. I also am inclined to think that, for instance, a reference to (groups of) persons is implicitly present in such uses, namely materialist thinkers and Protestants or Protestant theologians. At any rate, while the view of abstract, objective knowledge in a Popperian world 3 is quite defensible, it seems to me that one cannot speak of world-3 understanding. There still are other uses of the term. Think of Hume’s An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, where it is used in the sense of one of our important mental capacities. There of course is the question of the extent to which, in dealing with understanding, one should rely on common (English) parlance (cf. Kvanvig 2008)? Note here also the problems of translating ‘understanding’ in all its senses into other languages, and trying to do so by means of one equivalent. In other words, common parlance leaves plenty of room for philosophers to specify some phenomenon, some cognitive state, as paradigmatic understanding or just their favourite kind of understanding, assigning to it some special role.

III. On the Epistemic Value of Knowledge and Understanding According to the standard definition, knowledge is justified true belief. Cases of Gettier-style epistemic luck (which can occur in cases where something has broken the connection between the justification and truth of a belief) have made clear that these three conditions are not sufficient. Epistemologists have not yet reached agreement on a suitable fourth condition, e.g. an undefeasibility condition, or some other kind of solution.

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There is no comparable definition or analysis of understanding (nor any comparable to the well-articulated philosophical models of scientific explanation). The least one can say, I think, is that understanding is a particular cognitive or epistemic state or maybe, rather, a set of such states, which can count as cognitive achievements; it is a grasping of interrelations of things or ideas. It is a complex of thoughts, characterized by some insight and entertained with considerable assurance. Yet, we may have to distinguish here between the initial state of grasping something (often accompanied by an ‘Aha-experience’) and the resulting more permanent state of having a good grasp on it. Phenomenologically, the initial state (and, consequently, also the final state) is an achievement of sorts: it indeed emerges from cognitive efforts of the person concerned, but appears to be at the same time something that then just happens to this person. In recent years, epistemologists have become entangled in an exciting debate about the value of knowledge, which of course has involved the analysis of knowledge, but also the relationship between knowledge and understanding. They rediscovered the question in Plato’s Meno, namely whether mere true belief is after all not just as valuable as knowledge. It has become articulated as the ‘swamping problem’: if justification is merely instrumental in reaching ‘the goal of truth, the presence of truth swamps any value that justification might add’ (Kvanvig) (and, for that matter, any value a fourth condition might add). Inasmuch as justification can be taken to be less central to understanding, the value of understanding seems to be less plagued by this problem (although some might say that it is even more vulnerable for that reason). I cannot enter into the many intricacies of that debate. One point of contention is whether understanding, like knowledge, is ‘factive,’ has truth among its conditions. My strong inclination is to say: yes. I think, one cannot (be said to) understand something that is not so. Of course, this is adopting a normative point of view: we should assess someone’s understanding in this sense. Another question is whether understanding, unlike knowledge, is immune to epistemic luck. If not, (the value of) understanding would not be that much different from (that of) knowledge. I tend to side with D. Pritchard, who has argued that understanding is incompatible with Gettier-style luck, but compatible with what he calls ‘environmental luck’ (Pritchard 2008). Thus, in the presence of environmental luck, when, e.g., one happens to ask the only person in a large crowd who knows why the house burnt down, one can have understanding without (safe) knowledge. Pritchard goes on to argue that, since understanding is a cognitive achievement, it is of distinctive value: understanding, rather than knowledge, is the goal of inquiry and possesses in this respect a final value. There is a question of whether the ‘distinctive’ value of understanding is supposed to reside in its being a final value. Many final values are not particularly distinctive, for instance the value of a leak finally found and fixed. The questions in my mind are whether understanding is also of intrinsic value, which I should want to assert, and what this intrinsic value consists in. Epistemologists, ‘understandably’, have been less interested in ‘understanding’ used in the generalized sense, in the sense of a viewpoint or maybe even as just an

Towards Understanding ‘Understanding’ in Science, Epistemology and Theology 147 opinion. Using it in this sense, one leaves open whether the understanding actually is correct, whether it is ‘genuine’ and not ‘sham’ (Mulder 2008) or ‘counterfeit’ (Trout 2002). This avoidance of a full claim of truth is often also present in personalized uses of the term, as when ‘I understand that’ is used hedgingly in the sense of ‘I gather that’.

IV. Understanding Regarding Science Henk W. de Regt, head of a research group ‘Scientific Understanding’ at my university, has in the past years formulated and defended a (research-)pragmatic, contextual account of scientific understanding, nevertheless supposed to establish its epistemic relevance. He first distinguishes three kinds of understanding (De Regt 2009a): (1) psychological understanding: the Aha-experience accompanying explanation (2) pragmatic understanding: the ability to work with a particular theory (3) scientific understanding: possessing an explanation

an

To de Regt, (3) is the epistemic aim of science, (1) is epistemically irrelevant, yet – in contrast with traditional philosophy of science – ‘(3) requires (2)’, wherefore (3) ‘cannot be fully objective’ and wherefore (2) is said to be epistemically relevant. De Regt has worked out a ‘Criterion for Understanding Phenomena’: ‘A phenomenon P can be understood if a theory T of P exists that is intelligible (and meets the usual logical, methodological and empirical requirements).’ And, as needed by this criterion, a ‘general Criterion (or test) for the Intelligibility of Theories’: ‘A scientific theory T is intelligible for scientists (in context C) if they can recognise qualitatively characteristic consequences of T without performing exact calculations.’ It appears that these are criteria concerning (2) pragmatic understanding. Indeed, he also states, as his ‘account of the epistemic relevance of the pragmatic dimension,’ that scientists’ ability to use a theory depends on ‘the right combination of scientists’ skills and theoretical virtues’ (accuracy, consistency etc.), which can vary individually and in different historical contexts. Yet, the relationship of (2) with, or its difference from, (3) scientific understanding, as the goal of science, is not explicated. Thus, the epistemic relevance of (2) remains obscure. In an earlier draft, de Regt gave the following definition: ‘X is (positively) epistemically relevant if it is truth-conducive, that is, if it promotes the attainment of true knowledge’. Sarcastically, one could retort that this would imply that financing research was epistemically relevant as well. What this shows is that a possibly intrinsic connection between X and the goal of science, be it truth or understanding, needs to be spelled out. This has been done in the usual application of the definition, namely in the distinction between epistemic and non-epistemic values (cf. McMullin 1983). What one can safely though somewhat tautologically say is that genuine understanding possesses epistemic standing, that it attests to the truth of what is grasped.

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Note in particular that the criteria apparently concern conditions of understanding, possible understanding (notice the ‘can be understood’), and not understanding itself. It just appears to be easier to state such relevant conditions than to state what scientific understanding itself is. This impression is reinforced by an otherwise excellent doctoral dissertation by another member of the research group mentioned (Leonelli 2007). To be sure, formulating such criteria or conditions can go a long way in characterizing what is typical of scientific kinds of understanding as compared with other kinds of understanding. The innocent-looking word ‘right’ used above, meant to guarantee the epistemic relevance of (2), covers up some related subtle points. One could say that it is an attempt to protect the account given against Gettier-style luck. For, some scientist could satisfy the intelligibility-criterion, recognize qualitatively characteristic consequences of T through a ‘wrong,’ but luckily error-compensating, combination of skills and theoretical virtues. Does he/she then possess understanding? Since the ‘right combination’ requirement is not made an explicit part of the criteria and since they concern only conditions of understanding, de Regt’s account will not yield an answer. A central element of de Regt’s account is the use of a scientific theory. Thus, it is an attempt to characterize just one, though important, kind of scientific understanding. There are many scientific areas in which full-blown theories are lacking. One example, recently elaborated (Goodwin 2007), is organic chemistry, where an isolation of ‘a relatively small set of robustly applicable concepts’ has led to a ‘dramatic qualitative improvement of organic chemists’ understanding’ of chemical transformation. Another philosopher of science who considers understanding as the goal of science – and as depending on even wider contexts than in de Regt’s eyes – is Hugh Lacey. Lacey (1999: 102) ventures the following: The objective of science is to gain understanding of phenomena. This includes to encapsulate (reliably in rationally acceptable theories) possibilities that are open to a domain of objects, and to discover means to realize some of the hitherto unrealized possibilities.

I want to draw attention here to his rather demanding notion of understanding, namely his stressing that ‘to understand a phenomenon (event, state of affairs, thing, object in the broadest sense: including material object, person, social institution)’ (96) includes to grasp possibilities of the objects concerned. One of Lacey’s main theses is that this scientific understanding can take different forms, depending on the approach taken to scientific inquiry; in particular, it need not just be sought after under traditional materialist strategies, which according to him are rooted in the interest of control. He introduces a general distinction, already mentioned above. Materialist understanding ‘is an instance of what I call “wide-ranging understanding”’; its emphasis is on explanatory principles that ‘produce understanding across the widest range of experimental, technological and natural spaces’ (98). The other (set of) form(s) ‘I call “full understanding.” It seeks . . . to understand objects in all of their dimensions’ (99), their ‘relationships

Towards Understanding ‘Understanding’ in Science, Epistemology and Theology 149 with the environments – physical, ecological, human, social, (sometimes) spiritual’ (97). Thus, his ‘full scientific understanding’, quite untraditionally also pertains to practical or even existential possibilities and interests. As prime examples, thus alternatives to materialist understanding, he discusses ‘grassroots empowerment’ and feminist approaches to scientific inquiry. While Lacey thus is very explicit about what is or should be covered by his various forms of understanding, i.e. their content, he is silent about what the phenomenon of understanding itself is. Mostly, evidently, he uses ‘understanding’ as a generalized notion, sometimes in a ludicrously equivocal way, as when he speaks of ‘(a form of) understanding seeking to understand’. (His quandary in this regard parallels the question in de Regt’s case about the relation of (2) and (3). But perhaps I should not make such a point of this; the idea may just be: some (measure of) understanding may, with due effort, result in better understanding.) Finally, it is at least terminologically odd to learn that ‘full understanding is necessarily bounded’ (99), even though one ‘understands’ that this is so because no particular investigation can identify all the possibilities of an object. Dwayne H. Mulder has argued, against traditional philosophers of science, that the subjective sense of understanding cannot be completely removed from a proper theory of scientific explanation. A rather convincing-sounding consideration of his (Mulder 2008, 3) is that there seems to be no reason (a) for calling an account of an event which never has led nor could lead to a sense of increased understanding of why the event occurred, an ‘explanation,’ and (b) for denying that an account from which ‘very many psychologically healthy, intelligent, well-educated adults’ claim to gain an increased level of understanding ‘is at least a potential explanation’. Further, an appeal to some theory of explanation for supplying such a reason, according to Mulder, will not do. Such theories are contested, and the familiar method of counterexample used in debating them again relies ‘on the presence or absence of a sense of understanding generated in the counterexample’ (4). One can object that this argumentation is not quite watertight, shifting from one meaning of ‘sense of understanding’ to another. Counterexamples usually rely on some pre-understanding of what could count as an explanatory account; it functions as a sort of pre-scientific critical understanding. Mulder’s first-mentioned consideration, however, concerns the understanding resulting or not resulting from a scientific explanatory account; it is a sort of Aha-experience or the absence of it. Especially in the case of our ‘strange’ modern theories of physics, these two meanings of understanding will hardly coincide. Furthermore, Mulder does not say whether, given his arguments, he considers the sense of understanding to be epistemically relevant.

V. Understanding Regarding Theology: Comparisons Not being a specialist, I embark on the ‘philosophy of theology’ (which does not possess such a distinct profile as the philosophy of science) and the philosophy of religious studies by way of comparison. I think, one will not find many analyses

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of theological understanding itself; the term ‘understanding’, when it is used, is used in a generalized sense (cf. Drees et al. 2007). Also, one will not find much of a comment on the epistemic relevance of theological understanding or its relationship to ‘theological knowledge’. It is clear that understanding figures as a goal of the fields concerned, but also in another sense, like e.g. in anthropology or the historical sciences, as a method or means for constructing accounts or even explanations. Unlike the natural sciences, these fields do not only have matters of fact as their objects of research, but they primarily deal with exegetical matters, intentions, meanings, interpretations or with existential guidelines and eschatological promises. The accounts often are metaphorical, analogical, symbolical, narrative. I shall comment on some of these points. Of the metaphors and analogies used by theologians over the years quite a few have referred to science, as more or less implicit attempts to close the gap between the two fields. I doubt that those have contributed to a ‘greater understanding’. I think of Jürgen Moltmann’s (1985) otherwise admirable theology of creation, which portrays the Spirit as the energy or information of creation. Or take John C. A. Emmett’s (2007) very recent proposal to understand Trinity by means of a model issuing from his ‘Quantum Interaction Theology’. In the sciences, metaphors and analogies have figured at best, though sometimes importantly, in its development and in science education. It of course is a philosophical task in its own right to articulate what metaphorical understanding amounts to (which will include an examination of radical views, confronting my remarks on the differences in metaphoricalness, namely views that all our thinking, speaking, understanding and knowing is metaphorical). The Bible consists of many narratives. Usually, scientific knowledge is contrasted with, or even opposed to, narrative knowledge. Edwin Koster (2005) argued that narratives possess their own rationality, and that decisions between different interpretations of narratives by practitioners of religious studies (thus, ‘outsiders’ rather than ‘insiders’) is, like in the case of historians, comparable to scientists’ choices between competing hypotheses, as both essentially involve judgment. Koster went on to criticize de Regt for neglecting the role of judgment in scientific understanding (Koster 2009). Yet, Koster’s comparison is a rather formal one, not touching on specific and substantial differences. The notion of judgment cannot build a specific bridge between theology or religious studies and science, since just about any human activity involves judgment. Note also that Koster, even more than de Regt, focuses on the role of judgment and understanding in the research process and is silent on the possibly resulting kinds of understanding. Next to different versions of narrative theology, there has emerged the (more general) narrative approach, employed for instance in identifying (the common structure of) narratives within different theories. Marie Vejrup Nielsen (2007) did this for Christian (theological) and evolutionary-biological ‘understandings’ of human nature, arguing for the fruitfulness of this approach for the dialogue between religion and science. I do not find fault with her analysis as such, but note

Towards Understanding ‘Understanding’ in Science, Epistemology and Theology 151 that the narratives she attributes to evolutionary biology are not strictly scientific, but philosophical or world-view extrapolations of this science. All of the preceding comments also raise the insider/outsider problem (cf. Koster 2008): is a scientifically respectable study of religion only possible for an outsider, not concerned with its possible truth, or is real (theological) understanding of a religion only possible for insiders, i.e. for believers? For believers, their understanding of a transcendent world and its relation to this world, theologically worked out or not, is factive and thus not variable in dependence of one’s interpretation. Outsiders bracket the question of truth of religious narratives, but certainly intend their accounts, interpretations or explanations, to be true to those narratives. The difference between insiders and outsiders may be comparable to the difference between expert and layman understanding of science, though as a rule both are concerned with the truth of the matters to be understood. Sometimes, laymen might be content with having their understanding be true to the accounts, ‘testimonies’, as given by the scientific specialists. Insiders may justify the use of metaphors and symbols specifically on account of the inscrutableness of God. We could say that this concerns understanding why there will remain a mystery. It is vaguely comparable to the ‘understanding’ or conviction that science will remain a never-ending quest, which however does not qualify as a scientific understanding. Our comparisons have so far yielded greater differences than similarities between theological and scientific understanding. At root, theological understanding just does not involve ‘intelligible mathematical theories’ or ‘robustly applicable concepts,’ the ‘pragmatic understanding’ of which can lead to explanations of further phenomena, possibly also in other domains, thus to a ‘wide-ranging understanding’. The topic of understanding does not make theology more comparable to science than the topic of knowledge (or rationality). Even greater differences emerge when one turns to the ‘practical’ parts of religion and theology. Understanding of the meaning of life, what our values should be and what we can hope for, have no counterparts in science. To be sure, one could draw some analogies between the ‘practical’ understanding of a religious person and de Regt’s ‘pragmatic understanding,’ directing scientists in their research, their professional life, or Lacey’s ‘full understanding,’ covering possibilities of responsible uses of scientific knowledge.

VI. Conclusions My discussion should have made it ‘understandable’ why the notion of understanding has been experienced as rather elusive, whether it concerns epistemology, science, or theology. There just are so many ways, kinds, and shades of understanding. To some extent, they can be classified according to the kinds of interrelations or structures being understood. But it has proved to be hard to characterize something like their common core or cores. I have already concluded that theological kinds of understanding are rather different from scientific ones.

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Yet, I do not take this to mean that they are or should be unrelated. There is a theological view that, before the fall, human reason was whole, and thereafter broken or corrupted (cf. Bayer 2008); the latter phase would include scientific reason and understanding, which would therefore be perverted in their core. The task of theology is then seen as that of articulating some of the original unity between faith and reason. While I do not share this view, I still think that theology should, comparably to philosophy, though in religious terms, continue aiming at some overarching understanding, also of the place and role of science in this world. This includes taking the deliverances and ways of science seriously into account and also its ways of understanding the world. These ‘understandings’, meant here in the general sense, will of course be fallible. There still is the frequent allegation that all understanding, at any rate, is subjective, thus non-objective, and that this makes it epistemically irrelevant and also mars insider accounts (cf. Koster 2008a). I stressed that understanding as phenomenon always is personal. Yet, this firstly does not mean that it is inaccessible: it can be communicated or manifested in many ways. And this secondly does not mean that it is totally non-objective, but only that there might be particular difficulties in assessing it. We, as teachers, have all along assessed and graded some forms of understanding of students in – maybe sometimes questionable – objective ways.

References Bayer, O. 2008

‘Glaube und Vernunft. Protestantische Perspektive’ in M. Laube, G. Pfleiderer (Hg) Die Vernunft der Religion – Protestantische Aspekte einer aktuellen Kontroverse (Loccumer Protokolle 62/07) (Rehburg–Loccum: Evangelische Akademie), pp 91–107. De Regt, H. W., Leonelli, S, & Eigner, K. (eds) 2009 Scientific Understanding: Philosophical Perspectives (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press), pp 21–42. De Regt, H. W. 2009a ‘Understanding and Scientific Explanation’ in De Regt et al., pp 21–42. Drees, W. B., Meisinger, H. and Smedes, T. A. (eds) 2007 Humanity, the World and God: Understandings and Actions (Studies in Science & Theology 11) (Lund: Lund University). Emmett, J. C. A. 2007 ‘Kenosis and Creation: Who Empties What into Where and When?’ in Drees et al., pp 83–96. Goodwin, W. 2007 ‘Scientific Understanding after the Ingold Revolution in Organic Chemistry’, Philosophy of Science 74, pp 386–408.

Towards Understanding ‘Understanding’ in Science, Epistemology and Theology 153 Koster, E. 2005 2008 2009 Kvanvig, J. 2008

Lacey, H. 1999 Leonelli. S. 2007 McMullin, E. 1983

Moltmann, J. 1985 Mulder, D. H. 2008 Nielsen, M. V. 2007 Pritchard, D. 2008

Trout, J. D. 2002

In betovering gevangen? Over verhaal en rationaliteit, religie en irrationaliteit (Budel: Damon). ‘Storende subjectiviteit? Over insiders and outsiders in de studie van religie’, Tijdschrift voor Theologie 47, 135–163. ‘Understanding in Historical Science: Intelligibility and Judgment’ in De Regt et al., pp 314–334. ‘The Value of Understanding’, accessed January 15 at http:// www3.baylor.edu/~Jonathan_Kvanvig/pdf/The%20Value%20 of%20Understanding.pdf. Is Science Value Free? Values and scientific understanding (London/New York: Routledge). Weed for Thought: Using Arabidopsis thaliana to Understand Plant Biology (Ph.D.-thesis, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam). ‘Values in Science’, in P. D. Asquith and T. Nickles (eds.), PSA 1982, Vol. 2 (East Lansing: Philosophy of Science Association), pp 3–28. Gott in der Schöpfung: Ökologische Schöpfungslehre (München: Chr. Kaiser). ‘Explanation, Understanding, and Subjectivity’, accessed January 15 at http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/TKno/TKnoMuld.htm. ‘Narratives of Human Nature: A New Approach Interdisciplinary Dialogue’ in Drees et al., pp 9–25.

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‘Knowing the Answer, Understanding and Epistemic Value’, accessed January 15 at http://www.philosophy.ed.ac.uk/staff/ documents/KnowingTheAnswer.pdf. ‘Scientific Explanation and the Sense of Understanding’, Philosophy of Science 69, pp 212–233.

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12 On First Principles: Arthur Schopenhauer and Bridging the Science/Religion Divide David K. Goodin

This paper presents a new inroad for the dialogue between the two seemingly exclusive worldviews of science and religion – an inroad which happens to be an old and overlooked philosophical project. Modern science is an outgrowth of nineteenth century empiricist epistemology, which in turn was a reaction to continental philosophy and in particular to the excesses of Hegel. Tracing the origins of this development will reveal perspectives that will lead beyond the entrenched hostility between present day science and religion apologists. Constructive dialogue can only proceed along an accepted framework of facts and conceptions common to both domains. Empirical naturalism has become the expected starting point for a dialogue. This has pushed religion to protect itself through the social and cognitive sciences. But without a way to speak about metaphysical knowledge, the move to empiricism has undercut the traditional basis for the revealed religions of the world. Doctrinal (cataphatic) and mystical (apophatic) theology have been left out of the mainstream dialogue, and philosophy is likewise marginalized, with the only exceptions being process thought and those philosophers who employ postmodern critique to scientific explanation. This then frames the parameters for debate. While scientism clings to empirical naturalism, the defenders of religious truth appeal to postmodern pluralism, naturalistic process theology, and the cognitive sciences to show that religious experience is both explicable and natural for the evolved hominid brain. Yet despite even these most modest of proposals, the resolute adherent of scientism will refuse to concede any ground to what is seen by him as an opening to outmoded religious superstitions. Dialogue then breaks down and becomes polemic. This paper seeks to break through this impasse and attempts to reopen the dialogue. The history and underpinnings to the emergence of empirical naturalism will be examined before the philosophical approach to the natural sciences developed by Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) is brought forward.

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The starting point for establishing a theory of knowledge is the necessary antecedent for all possible knowledge: consciousness itself. This is where Descartes began. Using the first principle of the recursive awareness of self, he systematically worked his way out from the solipsism of mere consciousness to being able to describe the intelligible nature of the empirical world. Following critiques by Hume and others, Kant took up the project anew and was able to masterfully map the inner dynamics for the cognitive acts of knowing and understanding. Kant also proved that spatial and temporal awareness are not contained in raw sensory experience, but the products of the rational rendering of sense data within the intellect. Epistemology hit its high-water mark with Kant. No previously assumed premise or postulate survived his rigorous critical examination. Even the human ‘soul’ had to be re-grounded in something actually provable, which in this case was consciousness itself (whose substance was a priori time) as the ultimate object of the inner sense, but even here the soul was only demonstrable during a person’s lifetime. Its permanence after the death of the body could not be positively established. The same went for God. Postulates such as the existence of an immortal soul or the existence of God were only possibilities arising from antinomies of logic. From this foundation, Kant could proceed to describe the empirical world with complete assurance of the veracity of his claims. But a problem was soon discovered. First principles always determine the nature of all subsequent claims. By beginning with the first fact of consciousness, all resulting conclusions regarding reality were necessarily contingent upon an experiencing subject for their existence. Kant therefore could not give the sense-world complete independence from our perception of it. In the end, all he could say was that the sense-world appears the way that it does due to the particular nature of the human brain which renders sensory data consistently according to its inner constitution. What sense objects are in-and-of-themselves cannot be determined beyond their intelligible properties. Kant’s work highlighted that fact that the mind is only connected to the world by our five senses. The mind creates its own ‘virtual reality’ by constantly interpreting the incoming sensory data by adding spatial and temporal qualities, thereby making it into something intelligible: a process based upon experience and the given properties of the brain’s perceptual manifold. Consequently, it is easy to trick the mind with optical illusions (e.g., mirages). Yet the limitation of this first principle would only come clear in the works of later philosophers including Hegel (1770–1831) who conflated the empirical world with human ontology, leading to speculative excess.1 Dissatisfaction with the Hegelian approach led natural philosophers to begin anew with a different first principle. Continental philosophy had seemingly hit a dead-end. The empiricists would instead take perception as a given truth, and do this uncritically despite Kant’s work here.2 They started with the reality of the empirical world as it appears to the mind, and then sought to work backwards to eventually describe the phenomenon of consciousness itself. The empiricists

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embraced Newtonian physics and mechanical materialism for causal explanations, and by using inductive reasoning and scientific verification they made stunning advances in cataloging the attributes of the phenomenal world. This is modern science as we know it. But there is a problem with this approach too, in fact the very same problem that hampered the continental philosophers. A first principle controls the nature of all subsequent conclusions; all knowledge carries within itself the biases and presuppositions of its first principle. An empirical fact is not actually value-neutral and objective. An empirical starting point mandates that the conclusion reached must relate back to the initial presumptions about empiricism and mechanical materialism. No other causes or consequences can be supported from this methodological constraint. And so, just as the rational epistemologists in the Kantian tradition would work outward from consciousness only to be able to determine the senseworld as a collection of intelligible properties, the empiricists started with the mechanical materialism of the sense world and worked back to the mind, but could only conclude that personal identity was just brain chemistry. The central question remains: are we somehow free from the dictates of natural necessity, or are we mere Cartesian bio-mechanical automatons ourselves? Both aspects of this question serve as a basis for a mutually exclusive worldview, yet each in itself is unsatisfactory: the first neglects causal agency in the natural world, while the second precludes the possibility of free will, moral agency, and higher ideals such as justice for society. It is true that scientific knowledge can be extrapolated into compelling explanations consistent with the scientific worldview, which is to say: its own first principle. But an explanation is not a scientific fact. A scientific explanation is only, at best, a self-consistent narrative in agreement with its empirical framing. But here it must be recalled that even the Neo-Kantians developed similar selfconsistent and logical explanations concerning the empirical world from the vantage point of consciousness while allowing for God and the entirety of human lived-experience.3 Equally compelling explanations can be developed from this vantage point provided that one is inclined to accept consciousness as the best of all starting places. And so self-consistency, logic, and adherence to methodical principles are not tests of ultimate truth in-and-of-themselves. The key point to recognize here is that the process of scientific explanation is itself a kind of hermeneutical circle. There is simply no way for empiricism to set out to find anything other than empirical data. The beginning presupposes its conclusions through the teleology of the first principle. It should be no surprise that metaphysics cannot be proven by physics. What is surprising is that many philosophers today expect metaphysics to somehow justify itself in this arena before it is acknowledged as making genuine and valid claims. Such a proposal is as nonsensical as trying to disprove the existence of God using only theological arguments. The science and religion dialogue must get beyond this. Since Darwin, some defenders of religious worldviews believe they must restrict their arguments to scientific naturalism. A modern myth has emerged that Darwin somehow disproved the existence of God. In truth, he only destroyed the last

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remnants of medieval scholasticism which had embraced Aristotle’s ontology and cosmology as ways to interpret Scripture. It was an Aristotelian inspired hermeneutical lens that led to the conclusion that created species had to be immutable, and that the species of nature comprised a single unchanging great chain of being. The power of Aristotle’s philosophy was that it seemed able to unite the social, political, natural and theological domains into a single and apparently coherent worldview. Even when fractures began to appear in the system, no one was prepared to abandon the scala naturae. Naturalist John Ray rationalized that the fossils of extinct life had to be cast-outs from Noah’s flood. Linnaeus likewise insisted that he only rearranged the scala naturae into his scientific classification system to facilitate study. But Darwin proved that the Linnaean system actually showed evolutionary descent. While the religious authority over the truth fell as a consequence, the crucial problem with the scala naturae was its philosophical grounding, not its links to religion.

II. The Truth about Science At this point of the discussion, we need to take a critical look at the seeming advantage of scientism in the public debate. Empirical naturalism has now risen to the status of an authority over the domain of truth, just as religion had been prior to the age of Enlightenment. The scientist has taken the place of the theologian for divining the realm of Truth (with capital T). Much of the polemic venom on the part of adherents of scientism is a direct reflection of this fact. After all, they seem to think that it has been two centuries since the dawn of the Enlightenment – so why are people still clinging to outmoded superstitions and baseless religious dogma? Their rhetoric is often intentionally mocking and insulting. But does this not indicate the weakness of their claims? Yes, it has been over a century since Darwin and Nietzsche, the supposed death-knells for religion – yet Christianity is alive and well today. Perhaps Church attendance is down in Europe, and many religious people will admit that seeds of agnosticism have taken root, but there has been no great atheist revolution to purge society. Soviet Communism was not able to crush the Russian Orthodox Church. Rather, the Church thrived under persecution, and faith grew stronger. And even in the United States, already strong religiosity actually increased throughout the 1990’s (Gallup and Lindsey 2000: 9). The shrillness of scientism in the face of this resurgence reveals the anxiety of an usurper in the face of continuing popular discontent. It also demonstrates that much of the rhetoric of scientism is not based in actual science but in deception. The word ‘science’ has become synonymous with technology, engineering, and even the nebulous ideal of progress. Mathematics has also been conflated with science even though it employs a deductive methodology and science is strictly inductive. Yet these dissimilarities are being played down in the rhetoric to become Science (with capital S). While it is not improper to call a discipline that utilizes the scientific method a science, strictly speaking the scientific part is only the means for testing hypotheses against experimental data called the scientific method. The

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sciences of geology and biology, for example, include non-scientific elements such as conjecture and inspired guesswork; these no doubt prove fruitful in developing research hypotheses, yet they must be submitted to scientific methods and critical peer review for verification. Failure to remain rigorous has lead to the greater problem of the word science being conflated with any systematic disciplined techniques. Real science is the scientific method only. Everything else, no matter how methodologically disciplined, no matter how much math is employed in its practice, or even if its work utilizes scientific findings – none of this is actually science. Rocket science, for example, is not science, but theoretical mathematics, physics, engineering, economic analysis, and political aims which also employs materials testing and failure investigation (real sciences) in rocket design. The point here is that the word science has become synonymous with trustworthiness, and this is where the deception of scientism takes place. The scientific worldview consists of explanations consistent with empirical naturalism, accepted scientific theories, and known causal principles that have been discovered by using scientific methods. But a scientific explanation may not always be testable through scientific methods. A case in point is evolution. It is an explanation based on the various theories for the emergence of various species (breeds and varieties of existing types) but evolution is not itself testable. Directional selection, reproductive isolation, and resource partitioning on the other hand are real and testable scientific theories concerning variant emergence. This is not to say that evolution is a flawed idea, or problematic or deficient in any way. It is simply not a scientific theory. It is merely an explanation consistent with empirical naturalism. Scientism likewise is not science but an extrapolated explanation used as rhetoric in the public arena. Empirical naturalism is just one principle which helps to explain the world; it is not the only one, nor is it always the best.

III. Moving Forward So where does this leave us today? The internal coherence of an explanation is an important factor in forming a narrative for the cultural understanding of knowledge. But an explanation can also be rhetorically used to persuade people to accept a particular ideological worldview. Much of today’s dialogue in science and religion seems to fall into the latter category. What has not been considered is that maybe the neo-Kantians and the empiricists are both right, each in their own way. The real issue is the first principle used. Once again, if the first principle is empirical, the resulting view of reality must be wholly empirical too. Likewise, the continental philosophers found themselves locked into a worldview that was wholly contingent upon perception, and thus always related back to consciousness. Both worldviews are equally valid and self-consistent; both are equally true from their respective vantage points. This is the first key to help bridge the impasse. A first principle based on consciousness yields the ‘lived experience’ of human existence. This is how life is seen from the vantage point of the internal sense of self. A first principle based

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on empiricism, on the other hand, gives the ‘conditioned experience’ for human existence, which is to say, all the factors that impact upon the internal sense of self. Take for example the lived experience of a teenager, which is one reality. This teenager will soon find herself conditioned by the empirical facts of aging as well as by imposed social conditions. The inner sense of self has to shift with these new conditions, creating a new lived experience. Likewise, we could also point to the lived experience of enjoying drugs. At first, this may be a lived experience of consequence-free pleasure, but this ‘reality’ of consciousness will soon be conditioned by the empirical medical realities that impose themselves upon that lived experience. Simply stated, human life is never simply a matter of the conscious awareness we bring to it. Harsh reality inexorably encroaches on our inner lives in one way or another. This may come by the way of tragic accidents to loved ones, the toxins and other environmental hazards in our food, internal biochemical interactions such as medical drug side-effects or allergic reactions, seasonal climate changes that impact our moods, hunger and tiredness, etcetera. But it is also true that the empirical does not control the lived experience entirely. The human mind can create its own reality, for better or worse, to help us navigate our way through life. A prisoner of war can at times make himself oblivious to his tormentors, retreating to an inner world within. This felt and believed reality can be more real to that person than anything else, since the first principle of a lived experience is consciousness. For this very reason, scientific explanations of human experiences of love and loss, death and dying, family and childhood, and mystical religion can never fully explain and capture the essence of the lived human experience. People are wholly free to create any personal experience of life from the conditions imposed upon it by the empirical world. Our lived experience of reality will always be different than anything science can fully encapsulate.

Schopenhauer’s Etiology

Rational Ontology (Consciousness)

The Kantian Traditions

Authentic Being

Natural Sciences

Postmodern Analysis Physical Conditions of Life (Physical Being)

Social Conditions of Life (Social Being)

The Cognitive Sciences Figure 1: Investigating the Spheres of Ontology

Social Sciences

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Postmodernists, dissuaded in part by the seeming dead-end of continental philosophy in the Kantian tradition, turned to hermeneutical analysis of being in a social context. A person can be seen as a being that is socially created by the shared cultural lexicon of a pre-interpreted world; it is a linguistic ontology that governs the social being. These three perspectives reveal the interplay between the inner and outer worlds of human existence, and collectively these perspectives delineate the full scope of ontological reality, i.e. lived and conditioned experience (Figure 1). The postmodernists by themselves are only positioned to challenge reported claims to certainty and scientific explanations as cultural narratives. They cannot offer an alternative integrative narrative. Instead they defend disunity and plurality. Moreover, a first principle governs their thinking too: a social collective starting point necessarily yields a socially constructed world and person. This approach is thereby hamstrung by its own starting point because a culturally determined social configuration necessarily shifts with the emergence of new cultural manifestations, which in turn changes the outlook and sensibilities of the social collective. While this places the postmodernists in a position to discuss the intersection of the social conditions of ontology and personal identity, when a postmodern perspective is used in the public arena, the postmodernist will always appear to be on the defense against an ongoing onslaught by the apologists of scientism who offer narratives with veracity. In a battle of rhetoric, the postmodernist will always be seen in the weaker position, and thus more likely to fail to get their points across.

IV. An Epistemology for Religion and Science Simply making a distinction between the lived and conditioned experience of life, as I have done, is not enough. Society is in need of a framework that can deal both with physics and metaphysics; there needs to be a worldview that is capable of considering and reconciling both sets of knowledge. This is where Arthur Schopenhauer can step in to help bridge the impasse and reorder the rhetorical dynamics of the public dialogue. Schopenhauer was the only continental philosopher who broke free from the solipsism of consciousness and found a way to posit causality in the empirical world independent of human perception, creating a true philosophy of science. For this reason, Schopenhauer represents an inroad to start a conversation with scientists on their own terms, but without surrendering the unique place of human dignity represented by the lived experience within consciousness. Schopenhauer’s etiology is the missing piece to complete the fields of investigation delineating the entirety of authentic human experience (Figure 1). A return to continental philosophy with its first principle based on consciousness is not an opening to unreality. Kant was exceedingly careful to ground all truth claims in the absolutely knowable. No room remained for any speculative metaphysics beyond that. Schopenhauer advanced Kant’s work by establishing the reality of the sense world, and by taking a few more well-placed steps into verifiable metaphysics. But as readers of Schopenhauer already know, the path he went down eventually lead to Buddhism. If the science and religion dialogue centered

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on Buddhist cosmology, then our goal has been reached through Schopenhauer. But ours is (for the most part) an occidental debate, and more particular, a Judeo-Christian one. And so, just as Nietzsche only took from Schopenhauer his cosmological causality for his own idea of the Will to Power, we can likewise restrict ourselves to Schopenhauer’s etiological epistemology. Empiricists as far back as Linnaeus took the objects available to perception as the ‘thing in itself ’ (Ding an sich) in its entirety. Kant would declare that the thing in itself is unknowable, thereby demonstrating the limits of the mind to be able to discern the empirical world indirectly using the five physical senses. Schopenhauer however recognized the need for an epistemology that accounts for the natural world apart from human perception and subjectivity. So he took the Transcendental Ideas from Kant and sought to extend the range of transcendental objects that were not hyperbolic species of the noumena. Schopenhauer did this by examining etiological changes in the objects of perception within Kantian space-time. To understand Schopenhauer, we must first discuss Comte Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707–1788). Causality, according to Buffon, is a rational ascription regarding the objects of perception. Yet Buffon showed that, even here a process of discernment exists that mitigates the human factor, so that causes in the phenomenal world can be identified. Buffon realized that, ‘because our senses, being themselves the effects of causes that we cannot know, can give us ideas of effects only, and never of causes,’ and so we are limited to asserting a physical truth as merely the probability of an observed outcome to reoccur from experience (1969: 108). The field of mathematics, on the other hand, proceeds from abstraction and extrapolated identity and so, ‘what we called mathematical truths . . . have no reality’ apart from these relational definitions within mathematics itself (106). Yet, ‘these truths would always have been matters of pure speculation, mere curiosity and utter uselessness, if we had not found the means of associating them with physical truths’ through the field of physics (107). This becomes the key link between the thing in itself within the sense-world and the seemingly irreducible rationalism of the mind. Causality, a rational deduction, can also be identified as an empirical reality independent of experiencing subjects. Physics determines mathematically the causal relations in the sense-world, in that ‘what is involved here is combining and calculating the probabilities in order to judge whether an [observed] effect depends on one cause rather than another’ (108). Thus, the probability of whether one cause over another (e.g., temperature or pressure) is responsible for an observed change can be calculated to a mathematical certainty, allowing causality to be deduced out of the Heraclitean stream of raw sense data. Physics, chemistry, and other natural sciences have been able to determine the properties of the natural forces in those fields of study. But the etiology of beingobjects had not been examined the same way. This is what Schopenhauer did. He described the natural force operating here as the Will (Wille). The Will is not a self-causal agency in intention or volition, but a generic name for the cause of change from one physical state to another. The Will is supra-personal and indeed, a nonhuman force operating within Kantian space-time that is responsible for the

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physical and chemical changes detected by science (Schopenhauer 1969: 98ff.; §17, §18). The Will is causality and the ‘thing in itself ’ subsisting phenomena. This then is Schopenhauer’s solution to the Kantian aporia. Delving one step further towards the true nature of the noumenon, Schopenhauer declared that reality is die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. Schopenhauer also externalized the Kantian forms of sensible intuition to prove that nature was not a mental phenomenon. He did this by extending the range of Transcendental Ideas that exist as the ‘unbounded extension of their empirical use’ as Kant had described (1950: 81, §45). This led him to examine phenomena in historical time, and to ask himself why it is that the same phenomenal forms keep reoccurring: ‘In all these forms we recognize only the different aspects of the principle of sufficient reason [of existence] that is the ultimate principle of all finiteness, of all individuation, and the universal form of representation as it comes to the knowledge of the individual as such’ (1969: 169, §30). He concluded that a Transcendental Idea for these objects of perception must control the appearance of each new discrete manifestation. These were the Platonic Universals, and they allowed Schopenhauer to go further than Kant in describing empirical reality. The phenomenal world could then be presented as a storehouse of Platonic Forms trapped in physical substance, which exist independently from perception, and change in appearance as objects move from potentiality to actuality in time through the Will. Schopenhauer established that Kantian space-time existed in the mind and in the sense-world too.

V. Religious Metaphysics and Science This paper has drawn a line between consciousness and the empirical world by highlighting the difference and interplay between lived experience and the conditioned experience of life. A second line must be drawn between ontology and metaphysics. Kant derived his entire metaphysics from the a priori rational consciousness. He left the sense-world to be controlled by its empirical character known through the mind; only the human soul (whose substance is a priori time) had the possibility of true moral freedom and immortality. While some adherents of scientism attack even such modest claims of a higher world order as delusional and harmful, the real problem of the science and religion dialogue is the possibility of a metaphysical reality encroaching on the natural world. Many fear the renewal of young earth creationism and a return to what Carl Sagan (1996) called a ‘demonhaunted world’. This is not the path opened up by Schopenhauer. His etiology allows for philosophy to deal with changes in the natural world in a way that is not contingent upon human perception for its existence. The domains of natural science can now be considered through the Kantian philosophical framework as it was developed by Schopenhauer, bringing continental philosophy into the science and religion dialogue as an alternate means for explanation. Moreover, because some religious traditions are more or less receptive to a philosophical perspective, Schopenhauer

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provides an inroad here too. Buddhism, as already mentioned, is a natural fit for Schopenhauer; the eschatology of his cosmology in fact ends in Nirvana. The idealism of his system, on the other hand, represents an access point for those Christian traditions most aligned with Plato. Eastern Orthodox Christianity is perhaps in the best position to take advantage of this opening. Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) described created beings as ‘the essence-forming logoi or inner principles of existent things’ (The Philokalia IV, 387). Palamas was citing the Neo-Platonist pseudo-Dionysios (circa 6th Century), who had inspired Maximos the Confessor (580–662) to describe the created order as the eternal ideas of things (logoi) subjected to time and change: ‘since nature exists in the world in a temporal mode, its movement is subject to change because of the world’s limited stability and its liability to alteration and corruption through the passage of time’ (The Philokalia II, 272, no. 48), which entails a cosmology that redresses both dynamic nature and theodicy (Goodin 2008). Orthodoxy’s affinity with Platonism is in marked contrast to Catholicism, which had turned away from Augustinian Neo-Platonism and embraced Aquinas’ interpretation of Aristotle and the scala naturae. Evolution is creative and ongoing. Having the fixity of species as the unchanging links in a great ontological chain proved disastrous to the Christian worldview, with repercussions continuing to the present day. Western Christianity is in need of a new perspective that acknowledges recent scientific findings. Schopenhauer’s insights on original sin and grace (1969: 404ff., §70) may be of particular interest to Catholic theologians. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881– 1955), a Catholic Priest and paleontologist, represents another way to embrace evolution, though his view of evolution as having an aim is something that science cannot support. Schopenhauer, on the other hand, presents (a Lamarckian view of) evolution as only vaguely and haphazardly striving toward sentience over time, a corollary in the struggle for existence, not a secret shaping by a supra-natural influence aiming toward consciousness (Schopenhauer 1969, 142–152, and §27 particularly 145ff., 149ff.).4 Nietzsche was the first philosopher to write from the continental tradition in the wake of Darwin, and, like Schopenhauer, he upholds the arbitrariness of evolution, as Nietzsche’s introduction to ‘Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense’ makes very clear. However, scholarship on Nietzsche is divergent; some scholars understand Nietzsche as a proto-postmodernist, others as an a posteriori positivist who gives epistemological priority to the natural body over the emergent a priori mind. These are all views that are dependent on whether he is read through the lens of either his unpublished or his earlier works. For example, Bittner in his Introduction to the English translation of Nietzsche’s late notebooks (Nietzsche 2003: xxi) indicates that Nietzsche had re-envisioned Schopenhauer’s cosmological will for his own theory of the Will to Power, changing its metaphysical character to the sum of all organic and inorganic forces that are replicated at each level of physical reality. This a posteriori conception is compatible with modern science, especially since it shows the applicability of a philosophical perspective in generating new questions for subsequent scientific research.5

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Nietzsche attacked Kant on the idea of an immortal soul by showing that the object of inner subjectivity is not a simple or universal substance for humanity, but a complex configuration of the Will to Power arising from physiological and epigonic cultural forces. Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) would similarly dismantle Kant’s foundation of a metaphysical ‘moral world’ by showing the cosmological antinomies could not be unconditioned for theoretical usage in ethics. Schweitzer instead turned to Schopenhauer to ground religious ethics in direct perceptual intuition and compassion (Schweitzer 1966: 121ff.). Schweitzer was a Lutheran minister, a medical doctor, and a Kantian philosopher. His later works sought to explicate how his Reverence for Life ethic was compatible with all the world’s religions through an ‘ethical mysticism’ (Goodin 2007: 415). But much of this work languishes in his Nachlass. Ironically, it was his research in environmental science on the bio-accumulation and bio-amplification of radio-nucleides in nature associated with nuclear weapons testing and development that distracted Schweitzer from completing his work on world religions (405f.). Nevertheless, his Reverence for Life ethic shows the power and potential of the scientific and religious worldviews working together in important social contexts.

VI. Conclusions Nietzsche claims to look at science through the perspective of an artist (Nietzsche 1967: 19; BT, Attempt at Self-Criticism §2). It was his project to take nihilistic scientific facts and transform them into life-affirming cultural conceptions, but always correlating these conceptions to the best possible scientific knowledge. Schweitzer advanced Nietzsche’s work by finding a way to be inclusive of world religions even while being scientifically rigorous. This is an entirely appropriate project today. And just as there is no single vision in the arts, there need not be a single worldview that unites science and religion. There can be no return to the single inflexible vision of a scala naturae, and no authoritarian control over explanation. This is as true of religion as it is of scientism. In this essay I have argued the following points: 1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6.

The sciences present the factors that constitute the ‘conditioned experience’ of life. The philosophies of consciousness (rational ontology and postmodernism) describe the ‘lived experience’ of life. The interplay of lived experience and conditioned experience constitute the authentic ‘beingness’ of life. The means to investigate all the interrelated factors of authentic being are the social sciences, the physical sciences, the cognitive sciences, and the philosophies of consciousness respectively. The missing field of study has been between rational consciousness and the physical sciences, a gap that is bridged by the etiology of Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer allows for causality in the empirical world to be considered in

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David K. Goodin the a priori framework of the continental traditions, which opens a doorway for scientific and religious knowledge to be synthesized from the perspective of ‘lived experience’. Nietzsche and Schweitzer were cited as examples of how philosophy can be reconciled to natural science. How religion can accommodate science using a philosophical framework was very briefly outlined for Catholicism (Teilhard de Chardin and Schopenhauer), Eastern Orthodoxy (Gregory Palamas and Maximos the Confessor), Protestantism (Schweitzer), and Buddhism (Schopenhauer).

Science achieves its objectivity by dehumanizing knowledge; all subjective elements of opinion, belief, or first-person experience are eliminated through the scientific method. It is this dehumanizing aspect that makes the scientific worldview unsuitable for explaining how people should think about themselves and society. Scientism is not just anti-religious; it is anti-humanistic at its very core. The data derived from the scientific method only become knowledge when it is retranslated into rational consciousness and imbued with Kantian space-time; objective scientific knowledge thereby becomes subjective once again. The simple fact that water freezes at zero degrees Celsius is meaningless until it is applied to innumerable scenarios in which that datum becomes meaningful to human lives. While scientism is one such subjective worldview that makes sense of scientific knowledge, it is unsuitable for social contexts such as ethics. So where does this leave us for contemporary science and religion dialogue? Schopenhauer provides an epistemology that allows for the lived experience of consciousness to consider causality in the empirical world in ways the Kantian and Hegelian traditions could not. His etiology allows for ethics, religion, and science to be brought together and synthesized within the humanizing frame of a first principle based on rational consciousness. Science provides the essential corrective to correlate consciousness and social understanding to the empirical facts and dynamics of the natural world. Society must continually correct its worldview, for example, against the impending realities of climate change and unsustainable lifestyles that exceed the planet’s carrying capacity. Kant’s fundamental epistemology remains unimpeached, even though its religious foundations were undermined by Nietzsche and Schweitzer. Schopenhauer began a project to develop Kant’s philosophy further, which was then advanced in different ways by Nietzsche and Schweitzer. These remain starting points for the work that remains to be done. Schopenhauer provides a bridge that enables science and religion to achieve a new synthesis. The opening briefly sketched in this essay must be taken further by present day scholars in philosophy and religion. Nihilistic scientific knowledge must be retranslated into subjective understanding in narratives that uphold the authentic being of lived experience. This is perhaps the best opportunity to break the current stalemate in the dialogue.

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References Buffon, C. 1969

‘Discourse on Studying and Treating Natural History’, in L. Crocker (ed.), The Age of Enlightenment (New York: Harper & Row), pp 104–111. Gallup, G. Jr. and Lindsay, D. M. 2000 Surveying the Religious Landscape: Trends in U.S. Beliefs (New York: Morehouse). Goodin, D. K. 2008 ‘Sinners, Satan and the Insubstantial Substance of Evil: Theodicy within Orthodox Redemptive Economy’, Theandros: An Online Journal of Orthodox Christian Theology and Philosophy 6/1, available at http://www.theandros.com/nonbeingevil.html. 2007 ‘Schweitzer Reconsidered: The Applicability of Reverence for Life as Environmental Philosophy’, Environmental Ethics 29, pp 403–421. Hartmann, E. 1931 Philosophy of the Unconscious: Speculative Results According to the Inductive Method of Physical Science. (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltd.). Kant, I. 1950 Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic (New York: The BobbsMerrill Company). Lange, F. A. 1880 History of Materialism and Criticism of its Present Importance. Vol. II (Boston: Houghton Osgood & Co.). 1881 History of Materialism and Criticism of its Present Importance. Vol. III (London: Trubner & Co.). Lindroth, S. 2004 ‘The Two Faces of Linnaeus’, in T. Frängsmyr (ed.), Linnaeus: The Man and his Work (Sagamore Beach: Science History Publications), pp 1–62. Lovelock, J. 2000 Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (New York: Oxford University Press). McMenamin, M. and McMenamin, D. 1996 Hypersea: Life on Land (New York: Columbia University Press). Nietzsche, F. 2003 Writings from the Late Notebooks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 1967 The Birth of Tragedy and The Case of Wagner (NewYork: Vintage Books). The Philokalia. 1998 Vol. IV. (London: Faber & Faber).

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The Philokalia. 1981 Sagan, C. 1996

Vol. II. (London: Faber & Faber). The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (New York: Random House).

Schopenhauer, A. 1969 The World as Will and Representation: Vol. I (New York: Dover Publications). Schweitzer, A. 1966 The Essence of Faith: Philosophy of Religion (New York: Philosophical Library).

Notes 1

2

3

4

Frederick Albert Lange (1828–1875) wrote that Hegel ‘washed his hands’ of the particulars of Nature if they conflicted with his theories (1880:50); or worse, he would ‘bend the facts to suit a philosophical theory’ (239, n. 43). Linnaeus (1707–1778) was the pre-eminent natural scientist of the 18th Century, and believed that empiricism allowed the scientist ‘to know the thing itself (res ipsas nosce)’ and that the essence, the very being of plants and animals could be revealed through examination of their biological structures (Lindroth 2004: 4, 30). For Lange of Marburg, the objectivity of the natural sciences resides exclusively in the common sensory organization of the human brain, and this fact explains how different people can report similar observations for the same phenomena (1881: 177; also 202ff.). The seeming mechanical materialism of the natural world is therefore, for Lange, not the result of its intrinsic properties, but the categorization of sensible intuitions in the mind as Kant described. So-called scientific objectivity, Lange concludes, is merely shared epistemological subjectivity through the Kantian perceptual manifold. But the mind and the Kantian soul were not limited by the empirical because the mind synthesizes its own inner-world through which humanity retained its special cosmological dignity. Lange attempted to bridge scientific empiricism with the more humanizing traditions of German idealism with his claim that natural science itself exposes ‘the same transcendental root of our human nature, which supplies us through the senses with the idea of the world of reality, and which leads us in the highest function of nature and creative synthesis to fashion a world of the ideal in which to take refuge from the limitation of the senses, and in which to find again the true Home of our Spirit’ (364f.). Lange was arguing against the emerging spirit of scientific nihilism which threatened to disillusion society, a project later taken up by Nietzsche. Eduard von Hartmann (1842–1906) co-opted for this idea, and argued that Schopenhauer’s Will became a force influencing human history. Hartmann was specifically attacked by Nietzsche for this idea. Hartmann further believed

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that ‘unconscious ideas’ operated within organisms: ‘This relation is clearest in instinct and the unconscious presentations which have reference to bodily processes. Here every single unconscious idea is accompanied with an unconscious will of self-preservation and preservation of the species’ (1931: 55). Consciousness is affected by ‘the instincts concerned with understanding of sensuous perception, the formation of abstractions and indispensible ideas of relation, the formation of language, or to the instincts of shame, disgust, selection in sexual love, &c’. (55). While this perhaps remains a useful concept today, Hartmann went further to write that ‘the Unconscious furthers historical progress, be it in thoughts (mystical acquisition of truths) or deeds, whether in the individual (as in heroes of history), or in masses of the people (as in the constituting of states, migrations of nations, crusades, revolutions of a political, ecclesiastical, or social kind, &c.)’ (56). Thus, Hartmann laid the foundation for Carl Jung’s notion of archetypes. But Nietzsche stood in opposition to Hartmann’s optimism in believing that emergent heroes and unfolding history happens naturally. For Nietzsche, history is instead always written by those heroes who break free from the natural order, from the dictates of their historicity and from present contexts. Bittner claims that Nietzsche’s Will to Power is unsupportable as a scientific theory (Nietzsche 2003: xxii). But modern ecological science contends that such cosmological dynamics do in fact take place. McMenamin and McMenamin (1996: 11) argue that life on land is merely an extension of sea life; all bodies are enclosed wet spaces for complex ecosystems of microorganism, parasites, parasites of parasites (hyper-parasites) and multiple higher levels of hyper-parasitism. Species as conceived by human perception, such as horses, dogs, ourselves, etc., are irrelevant to the real evolutionary dynamics taking place within; our existence is merely a function of our ability to keep our inner ‘hypersea’ wet, supply it with nutrients, maintain it at a proper temperature, and eliminate waste. Hypersea is very much a modern case study in Nietzsche’s cosmological Will to Power. Similarly, James Lovelock (2000: 33) argues in his Gaia theory that the biosphere is made by and for aerobic and anaerobic microbes; the atmosphere is under active cybernetic control that maintains stable but non-equilibrium thermodynamic conditions suitable for themselves. Again, people, dogs, horses, etc. are merely aerobic extensions of the microbial world; another case study in which the bodies of perception are only an emergent secondary reality to the struggle of internal Will to Power forces.

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Part IV Understanding Through Narratives: A Case Study

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13 Knowing Through Narratives? Narrative Understanding and the Separation Between the Narrative and Non-narrative Marie Vejrup Nielsen

I. Introduction The answer to the epistemological question ‘how do we know?’ could be: we know through narratives. Researchers involved in the examination of narratives across a broad disciplinary scope (including psychology, cognitive sciences, law, and literary studies) have in the last decades focused on how narratives function not only as a medium for sharing information or uniting a social group, but also as a way of knowing. The theory is that human beings understand through narratives on a very fundamental level. They structure their experiences into coherent narrative units; they fill their world with agents and plots in order to make that world meaningful. The claim by many narrative researchers is that we live through stories, through meaningful structures with heroes and villains, stories with different genres that set the framework around how humans understand their world and themselves.1 This article will present three perspectives from narrative research. First of all the perspective of Donald Polkinghorne will be utilized as an example of a position which holds that narratives are fundamental to human knowledge. Also Polkinghorne’s thoughts on the separation between the narrative and the non-narrative will be presented. Second, the position of Jerome Bruner on the separation of the narrative and the non-narrative will be presented, including a perspective on how his work might actually point to possible overlap between the two domains. These two narrative researchers set up the parameters for asking why there are stories where there should be none, because they both separate the narrative from the non-narrative along the disciplinary demarcations between the humanities and the natural sciences. But if this separation holds, then why can we find stories in non-narrative domains, such as the natural sciences? The article will then move to a brief presentation of some examples of such narrative involvement from two scientists, in this case Richard Dawkins and E. O. Wilson. In

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order to provide an answer to the question, the article will present the discussion by H. Porter Abbott concerning the unnarratability of the theory of evolution by natural selection. Abbott takes his departure in the work of Richard Dawkins and gives some indications of why Dawkins and others use narrative language in a non-narrative domain. Finally, the conclusion of the article will raise the issue of the constructiveness of viewing the separation of the narrative from non-narrative as a boundary between disciplines. This article also aims at raising the awareness of how developments within narrative research might be of interest to those working within the field of science and religion.2

II. Narrative knowing Donald Polkinghorne’s work Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences (Polkinghorne 1988) maps out how the narrative turn has affected the studies of history, literature and psychology. The narrative turn is understood as the spread of research into narratives in a wide variety of fields and as a broadening of the definition of what a narrative is and where they can be found.3 In Polkinghorne’s view, human beings are narrative beings and their lives are pervaded with narrative: The products of narrative schemes are ubiquitous in our lives: they fill our cultural and social environment. We create narrative descriptions for ourselves and for others about our past actions, and we develop storied accounts that give sense to the behavior of others. We also use the narrative scheme to inform our decisions by constructing imaginative ‘what if ’ scenarios. On the receiving end, we are constantly confronted with stories during our conversations and encounters with the written and visual media. (Polkinghorne 1988: 14)

Polkinghorne goes on to note how Roland Barthes has described the different functions of this narrative nature of human kind: [A]t the individual level, people have a narrative of their own lives which enables them to construe what they are and where they are headed. At the cultural level, narratives serve to give cohesion to shared beliefs and to transmit values. (Polkinghorne 1988: 14)

Narratives as such are not ‘just’ stories or some peripheral part of human existence; they are at the core of human being and of being able to make sense of life. The narratives work both on the individual and the cultural level. The cultural narratives create a common cultural context by passing on the stories of the past and by connecting all individual stories into a common collection of narratives. Polkinghorne defines the function of narratives as follows: [N]arrative is a scheme by means of which human beings give meaning to their experience of temporality and personal actions. Narrative meaning functions to give form to the understanding of a purpose to life and to join everyday actions and events into episodic units. It provides a framework for understanding the past events of one’s life and for

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planning future actions. It is the primary scheme by means of which human existence is rendered meaningful. (Polkinghorne 1988: 11)

Polkinghorne stresses how the insights of the philosopher Paul Ricoeur into the importance of temporality in narratives has become a central notion for the thinkers of the narrative turn. Narratives infuse the temporality of human beings with meaning. A narrative has a plot and through this offers an explanation of human actions, connecting what is otherwise random events into a timeline filled with meaning. Polkinghorne holds on to a fundamental difference between the narrative and the non-narrative and emphasises the importance of recognizing narrative understanding: In narrative organization, the symmetry between explanation and prediction, characteristic of logico-mathematical reasoning, is broken. Narrative explanation does not subsume events under laws. Instead, it explains by clarifying the significance of events that have occurred on the basis of the outcome that has followed. In this sense, narrative explanation is retroactive. (Polkinghorne 1988: 21)

Narratives are explanatory, but they do not follow the same explanatory path as logical or scientific statements. Instead narratives chain events together by forming a meaningful connection between past, present, and future. The main point of Polkinghorne’s book is an assertion of the need for various disciplines to realize the fruitfulness of the narrative approach. His work is a starting point for a new interest in broadening the insights into what can be gained from this approach and provides a broad spectrum of arguments for the necessity of the approach, all of which basically are bound to the idea of narrative being, of human beings as a narrating species. Polkinghorne presents the separation between narrative and non-narrative as a separation between the natural sciences (the logico-mathematical sciences) and the human sciences in order to create a room for the humanities over against the natural sciences, that is; a room for narratives as legitimate ways of knowing.

III. The narrative and the non-narrative A similar separation between the narrative and the non-narrative is expressed in the work of narrative thinker Jerome Bruner. Bruner is a psychologist by education and has throughout his career been interested in how human beings learn and how cultural knowledge is passed on. His interests are very widespread and have in recent years led him to study law and business from a narrative perspective. In his work Actual minds, Possible Worlds (Bruner 1986) Bruner explores narratives and sets up a distinction between what is and what is not narrative: There are two modes of cognitive functioning, two modes of thought, each providing distinctive ways of ordering experience, of constructing reality. The two (though complementary) are irreducible to one another. Efforts to reduce one mode to the other or to ignore one at the expense of the other inevitable fail to capture the rich diversity of

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thought. Each of the ways of knowing, moreover, has operating principles of its own and its own criteria of well-formedness. They differ radically in their procedures for verification. A good story and a well-formed argument are different natural kinds. Both can be used as means of convincing another. Yet what they convince of is fundamentally different: arguments convince one of their truth, stories of their likeness. The one verifies by eventual appeal to procedures for establishing formal and empirical proof. The other establishes not truth but verisimilitude. [. . .] [T]he narrative mode leads instead to good stories, gripping drama, believable (though not necessarily ‘true’) historical accounts. It deals in human or human-like intention and action and the vicissitudes and consequences that mark their course. (Bruner 1986: 11–13)

This lengthy quote is useful because it opens the important discussion of narrative meaning and interdisciplinarity in distinguishing between a ‘paradigmatic’ and a ‘narrative’ mode of thought. For the rest of his book, Bruner deals with the narrative mode after having duly set up the limits of this mode. Bruner clearly emphasizes how important it is to avoid the ‘all is narrative’-approach which seems to have come out of some of the postmodernist theories on narrative. For Bruner, the realm of science is not in itself narrative; it has a distinct mode of thought which should never be reduced to narrative no matter how much imagination goes into scientific discovery. Especially the difference between verification and verisimilitude is interesting. It suggests that while science can verify or falsify its hypothesis, narrative and literature can only achieve nearness to what is ‘real’. It can only attempt to hold up a mirror or somehow create a re-enactment of life. It can approximate the truth, but it cannot claim it. The interesting thing is not that these are the conditions for narrative, but that Bruner claims that the natural sciences are different. That in science it is possible to come further than just to be ‘truth-like’ and actually become ‘truth-full’ to some extent through verification of their theories. Thereby Bruner holds onto a position abandoned by radical postmodern relativists, who would claim that all anyone can claim is verisimilitude for their version of the world. Bruner denies the complete ‘storyfication’ of human experience of the world and holds on to some point of reference outside narratives, such as the empirical studies of the natural sciences. But Bruner obviously struggles with keeping this difference as strictly defined as the above quote seems to indicate. Initially the separation of the narrative and paradigmatic is done in order to legitimize the narrative approach of the human sciences by compartmentalising it: They [humanities and science] may begin at a common origin, but they diverge and specialize with different aims in mind where world making is concerned. Science attempts to make a world that remains invariant across human intentions and plights. [. . .] On the other hand, the humanist deals principally with the world as it changes with the position and stance of the viewer. (Bruner 1986: 50)

But this quote points to a common sphere for the two ways of understanding; both approaches are in the business of ‘world making,’ something which in Bruner’s own thinking is strongly connected to narrative. It might be this tension in his early

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works that Bruner realizes in his brief comment on the separation of narrative from paradigmatic in a later work: I think now that my youthful and yearning belief that there were two mutually translatable worlds of mind, the paradigmatic and the narrative, was profoundly mistaken. Yes, a paradigmatic mode of thought relies on the verification of well-formed propositions about how things are. And yes, the narrative one is also directed toward the world, not toward how things are but toward how things might be or might have been. [. . .] Surely we can live with the two, the austere but well-defined world of the paradigmatic and the darkly challenging world of narrative. Indeed, it is when we loose sight of the two in league that our lives narrow. (Bruner 2002: 102)

While insisting that science is not ‘just narrative,’ Bruner in this later work stresses the necessity for having both modes of thought close together. The change in Jerome Bruner’s attitude between the two books is not so much a change of opinion, as a sign of the change in the general attitude towards narratives found in the ‘narrative turn’. Stories or narratives are not only found in fiction. They are everywhere and they interconnect with other modes of thought. Especially Bruner’s interests in using a narrative approach in teaching and in the analysis of legal documents are good examples of the general narrative turn. Bruner shows how the narrative approach does not leave the problems of other epistemological approaches behind. It still must confront the major themes of truth assertions, reference and the definitions and distinctions put into use by it. And it must also watch out for simple reductionism. But the general narrative turn opens up a search for narratives where they have not been sought before and thereby opens up the possibility of gaining new and interesting knowledge about human existence. Bruner’s original approach is still helpful, because it holds a balance between assimilation and dissimilation in the question of interdisciplinary relations. None of the two modes of thought are reduced to the other, but at the same time, the mode of narrative is not in any way viewed as less important or dispensable for research into the human capacity for understanding. Bruner created a two-realms model, which holds on to the necessity of both realms and to their interconnectedness in every human life. Thereby Bruner points to the connection between these two separate spheres: they are both ways of understanding our world, that is: they are both part of the epistemological approaches available to human beings. Therefore Bruner’s later position might point to the fruitfulness of leaving the separation between narrative and paradigmatic as a demarcation between disciplines, and instead open for a model where the narrative and paradigmatic, although separate ways of understanding, are part of every academic discipline. That the separation of the narrative and the non-narrative also plays a role within the field of science and religion can be seen in the work of for example Ian Barbour and Wentzel van Huyssteen, as representing two reasons for this separation.4 Ian Barbour’s separation is based on his ideas on the difference between religion and science, where religion is narrative and science is not. The narrative therefore does not enable a dialogue between the two fields. This connection is instead established

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through the common use of paradigms and models. Van Huyssteen expresses his scepticism towards narrative thinking due to its affiliation with postmodernist relativist positions, which block dialogue between the two fields. Both positions acknowledge the power of narrative in human lives, but neither Barbour nor van Huyssteen see any basis for dialogue between religion and science in this dimension of human knowledge. They also both share the tendency expressed in Bruner’s initial position, that the separation between the narrative and the non-narrative mirrors a separations between fields. But as we shall see in the following, some scientists seem to ignore this boundary and in more or less deliberate ways cross the line between their scientificparadigmatic work and the narrative, that is: they tell narratives based on their paradigmatic-scientific discoveries and theories.

IV. Stories where there should be none? This article wants to address particularly one feature of the work of some scientists, in this case, two evolutionary scientists, who have been able to bring discussions of their theories and findings to the general public; that is the narrative involvement of Richard Dawkins and E. O. Wilson. Both are engaged in narrative language: they have crossed the boundary between the narrative and the non-narrative, as is depicted by Polkinghorne and Bruner. It is necessary to briefly look at how these scientists are involved in narrative language before attempting to answer why they are so. Richard Dawkins has filled his books with plotlines and agents, but the most infamous example, which will be discussed again later in this article through H. P. Abbott’s work, is this: We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators. (Dawkins 1989 [1976], 200–201)

These three lines give us the fundamental features of any narrative: a plotline and agents. The agents we meet are first of all ourselves, the ‘we’ of humanity; and secondly, the selfish replicators, our creators, the genes. The plotline also unfolds clearly: we are created and cultured as machines, we are held capture by forces inside and outside us; but there is a way out, a rebellion which will lead to a different future. This is only one example of a narrative feature appearing within the evolutionary theory as presented by Richard Dawkins, but it has become the focal point of much debate.5 Sociobiologist E. O. Wilson also has involved himself in the narrative domain from early on in his career. Wilson launches a challenge to those domains which have been able to hold on to people and convince them of their truth through narratives. He presents an alternative mythology based in science: It [i.e. scientific materialism] presents the human mind with an alternative mythology that until now has always, point for point in zones of conflict, defeated traditional religion.

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Its narrative form is the epic: the evolution of the universe from the big bang of fifteen billion years ago through the origin of the elements and celestial bodies to the beginnings of life on earth. The evolutionary epic is mythology in the sense that the laws it adduces here and now are believed but can never be definitely proved to form a cause-and-effect continuum from physics to the social sciences, from this world to all other worlds in the visible universe, and backward through time to the beginning of the universe. (Wilson 2004 [1978], 192)

And in the conflict of epics, the evolutionary story has one advantage. It is closer to the truth: The evolutionary epic is probably the best myth we will ever have. It can be adjusted until it comes as close to truth as the human mind is constructed to judge the truth. And if that is the case, the mythopoeic requirements of the mind must somehow be met by scientific materialism so as to reinvest our superb energies. (Wilson 2004 [1978], 201)

Wilson’s thoughts on ‘the mythopoeic requirements of the mind’ express the same idea as found within narrative research today: human beings are cognitively wired for stories. And for Wilson the battle between religion and science is a battle of who tells the best myths. Science must step up to the challenge and present an epic which can be used to channel the resources of humanity in a more constructive direction than what has previously been achieved through religion. Both Dawkins and Wilson have continued their involvement with narrative language, as can be seen by their more recent publications such as Dawkins’ The Ancestor’s Tale – A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution from 2004, and Wilson’s 2002 book; The Future of Life. But these brief examples above are enough to state that these two scientists have moved into the narrative domain and it also gives some hints as to why. In the final part of this article, I will present the work of H. P. Abbott in relation to especially Richard Dawkins’ use of narrative language and utilize Abbott’s discussion in presenting an answer to why these scientists cross the line into the narrative domain.

V. Narrating the unnarratable or: why there are stories where there should be none The separation of the paradigmatic and the narrative plays a significant role in the work by H.P. Abbott concerning the non-narrative nature of the theory of evolution by natural selection in his article ‘The Narratability of Evolutionary Theory’ (Abbott 2003). The background of Abbott’s article is the awareness of how vital narratives are to human understanding to the point where phenomena or elements of our world that are not narrativizable are not understandable, something which mirrors the understanding found in the work of Polkinghorne and Bruner (Abbott 2003: 143). If the experiences of our lives cannot be structured as a narrative, then they will be very hard to understand, to remember, and to retell. This is in Abbott’s view one

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of the reasons why evolution by natural selection is such a difficult concept to grasp. Evolution by natural selection is ‘anti-narrative’ in its very outset, because it does not entail any real ‘agency’, i.e. some form of personalized agents moving the story along through their intentional actions. There also is no real plot line. There is no plot with a beginning, middle and ending to create the purpose and flow of a story. Instead the theory just states that various things have happened in succession for no overall purpose but simply following the rules laid out in evolutionary biology. There is no story here, there are just events upon events with no point or meaning. Evolution by natural selection goes against the human natural preference for narrative structures and the meaning gained from it. And Abbott adds to this that this narrative challenge of the concept can ‘explain why Darwinian evolution has been subjected to so many narrative re-workings that invariably distort to the degree that they seek a clear narrative rendering’ (Abbott 2003: 144). There is a tension between the apparent lack of narrative features and the fact that ‘because natural selection is a way of understanding change over time, which in turn would appear to be a kind of action, it is difficult to find other terms with which to describe it’ (Abbott 2003: 144). The theory of evolution by natural selection is non-narrative in itself, but the theory has features which seem to call upon the narrative tendencies of human understanding, which primarily change over time in Abbott’s understanding. It is specifically the notion of natural selection which poses the greatest narrative challenge, the mechanism of evolution, whereas the general theory of evolution ‘in its general contours can be narrativized with a certain degree of success. The story of an evolutionary descent from a species of carnivorous quadrupeds in the Eocene to present-day whales can be rendered [. . .] by treating transitional species as the narrative entities and indicating the action or events by the repeated use of the verb-construction “evolved into” ’ (Abbott 2003: 158). But this general scheme does not in any way move to a discussion of what mechanism actually is behind the ‘evolved into’ and therefore it is too broad to communicate the specific content of a Darwinian theory. Therefore Abbott concludes his article as follows: Though narrative may be the only efficient language we have for representing the general course of evolution, to understand that course specifically as evolution by natural selection, we must let go of the overarching narrative model, even as we preserve narrative understanding for the host of events that make evolution possible. (Abbott 2003: 161)

Evolutionary theory is not in itself narratable, and this offers a challenge when it is to be understood by human beings who are wired to understand through narratives. But some scientists have attempted to mend the gap between the non-narrative and the narrative. Abbott mentions Richard Dawkins as one of the scholars who have taken up the challenge of making Darwinian theories understandable. With his use of terminology Dawkins has opened up for narrative language within evolutionary theory. Richard Dawkins coined the terminology of ‘selfish gene’ or ‘selfish replicator’ which (although Dawkins himself warned against it) took on the role of an actor in the evolutionary drama in the minds of many readers. Abbott

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mentions Dawkins thoughts on allowing some ‘license for sloppy language’ (Abbott 2003: 144) in relation to the attempt to make these theories understandable: ‘If we allow ourselves the licence of talking about genes as if they had conscious aims, always reassuring ourselves that we could translate our sloppy language back into respectable terms if we wanted to [. . .]’ (Dawkins 1989 [1976], 88). When this so-called sloppy language is examined, it turns out that it is in fact narrative language. Although there is nothing in evolutionary science to indicate that the gene or the organism for that matter is an agent in a drama with an unfolding overall plotline, it seems almost necessary when one wishes to make the theories intelligible to the general public to do so through such sloppy e.g. narrative language. Dawkins says that this is legitimate in so far as we always remember that the theories can be translated back into ‘respectable terms’ (Dawkins 1989 [1976], 95). Interestingly, Dawkins here expresses what seems to be an acknowledgement of a paradigmatic as well as a narrative level within evolutionary biology. That is, a paradigmatic level, the ‘respectable’ level, and a narrative level, which is used as an educational means to an end, the explanation of Darwinian theories to the public. Here, the narrative and the paradigmatic are not separated into two different academic disciplines, but utilized as a form of communication between levels of scientific work. Dawkins recognizes the importance of narratives in human understanding and points to one central element in the answer to why a scientist would move into the narrative at all: to make the scientific insights understood and accepted beyond the narrow circle of professionals. Abbott’s concern is exactly this move from the non-narrative theories into a narrative language. For Abbott: ‘Darwin’s was a dull masterplot, an incursion of postmodern discord into one of the great ages of narrative orthodoxy’ (Abbott 2003: 148). And he describes how exactly this dull masterplot is reconstructed in a much more interesting and colourful way through Dawkins’ move into the narrative. This is primarily done through redressing Darwinism with the two key narrative features which are missing on the paradigmatic level: plot and agency. This becomes clear in the quote from Dawkins’ book, presented above, which Abbott also focuses on. This quote clearly shows how two central narrative features are utilized in Dawkins book. Not only is the scene set with various agents, here primarily the genes and humans, but a plot is outlined. There seems to be a story with heroes and villains struggling over who will decide the fate of humanity: will it be the selfish genes, our creators, or will it be us, the special species, with the ability to rebel? It is obvious that Dawkins does indeed engage in narrative language and it is also clear why he does so: he wants to tap into the cognitive advantage gained through narratives. This cognitive advantage was also underlined by E. O. Wilson in his earlier work through the concept of a ‘mythopoeic drive’. But there is more to it than just a general educational purpose and Abbott offers some interesting insights into this possible further dimension of the narrative involvement: the conflict between evolutionary theory and Christian conservative movements in recent decades. Abbott mentions the Christian narrative of the beginning of human kind as a story with key constituent events following a specific outline (Abbott 2003: 152). He then continues to discuss the use of a version of this

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creation story by Christian creationist groups who argue in favour of the Christian understanding of creation that conflicts with evolutionary biology. The creationists have a good story and therefore a cognitive advantage over the scientific material, which is not easily narratable and therefore loses important ground in the minds of the recipients of the information. The Christian narrative has ‘narrative portability,’ which is lacking in the biological theory of natural selection (Abbott 2003: 153). It is therefore obvious why scientists like Richard Dawkins, so deeply involved in the conflict with religious, conservative groups over the understanding of the development of life, move into story-telling. It is not only to gain an epistemological edge in relation to the general understanding of the theory. It is also in order to compete with and maybe even replace other cultural narratives which are seen as incompatible with his own. Abbott’s claim, that scientists like Dawkins are narrating the unnarratable when they transform their science into narratives, could be related to another position within narrative research, which states that basically all narratives fall under the heading of narrating of the unnarratable. David Herman takes such a position. Herman points out that all narratives are constructions based in the unnarratable. It is a change of any sequence into a meaningful structure: ‘[. . .] narrative can be construed as a system for structuring any time-based pattern into a resource for consciousness, making it possible for cultural as well as natural objects and phenomena to assume the role of cognitive artifacts to begin with’ (Herman 2003: 170). Therefore the unnarratability of natural phenomenon does not in itself block the human tendency or ability to construct narratives and also on this point there is less difference between disciplines. Narrating natural selection is one way of narrating what is not in itself narrative, that is, events and natural phenomena. If we apply Hermans theory to Dawkins’ project, it seems that Dawkins is doing something very fundamentally human: expressing the human ability to understand our world through narratives. Again this points to the constructiveness of leaving behind the separation of the narrative and the non-narrative along disciplinary lines. Instead we should be open to analyzing narratives everywhere, for example in the natural sciences, without deeming such narratives illegitimate. Abbott’s article raises many important points in connection with the project of this article. First of all, Abbott points to the importance of separating the scientific/ paradigmatic levels from the narrative by emphasizing that what takes place is a narrativization of the data and interpretations taking place on the paradigmatic level. Secondly, Abbott points to the centrality of narrative in human knowing: human rationality is bound up with narratives. We understand through narratives in such a way that it is very hard for us to grasp the unnarratable.6 In this way there is a consistency between the work of Polkinghorne, Bruner and Abbott pointing to some general tendencies within narrative research.7 The development in Bruner’s thought as well as the combination of Herman’s position with Abbott’s seems to point to the fruitfulness of opening up for discussion of a separation of the narrative from the non-narrative within each discipline, instead of between disciplines.

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VI. Conclusion It has become clear through Abbott’s study that one reason for scientists to use narrative language when they present their work to a broader public is the cognitive advantage it gives. It is simply easier to understand that which can be told as a narrative. Dawkins is seemingly intuitively aware of this and uses narrative language throughout his many books in a variety of ways, although he does not describe what he is doing as a move into narrative. Also Wilson’s idea of ‘the mythopoeic requirements of the mind’ expresses the same idea as found within narrative research today: that human beings are cognitively wired for stories. Because of this hard-wiring, it is important that evolutionary biology tells the best story. This confirms Abbott’s point that the involvement with narratives by these evolutionary biologists is not only linked to informing those outside evolutionary biology about the theory, but also to engage in competition with other sources of information about what it means to be human. The article has also pointed to how the separation between the narrative and non-narrative might not always follow the separation between disciplines, such as the traditional separation between the humanities and the natural sciences. Instead the separation might lie within each field, such as can be seen from Dawkins’ move between a paradigmatic and a narrative level within evolutionary biology. The aim of this article has primarily been to draw interest towards the developments within narrative research and point to how some of the researchers are dealing with themes relevant to the field of science and religion, such as the demarcation between hard science and other modes of thoughts or other disciplines, as well as discussions directly linked to the issues of science and religion, such as the narrative involvement of Richard Dawkins in relation to Christian conservative groups. These studies have shed some light on why scientists like Dawkins and Wilson move into the narrative dimension: to harness the power of narrative because it is such a fundamental part of human knowledge and understanding. Within the field of science and religion these developments of narrative thinking have not been shown much interest, and it is one of the aims of this article to raise an awareness of how these developments touch upon issues relevant to the field, ranging from the fundamental issues of epistemology to specific studies of how narratives play a role in the conflict between some evolutionary scientists and conservative Christian groups.

References Abbott, H. P. 2003

‘Unnarratable Knowledge: The Difficulty of Understanding Evolution by Natural Selection’, in D. Herman (ed.), Narrative Theory and the Cognitive Sciences (Stanford: CSLI Publications), pp 143–162. Abbott, H. P. (ed.) 2002 The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative (New York/Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

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Barash, D. P. and Barash, N. 2005  Madame Bovary’s Ovaries: a Darwinian Look at Literature (New York: Delacorte Press). Brockelman, P. T. 1992 The Inside Story: a Narrative Approach to Religious Understanding (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press). Bruner, J. 1986 Actual Minds, Possible Worlds (Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press). 2002 Making Stories: Law, Literature, Life (Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press). Currie, M. 1998 Postmodern Narrative Theory (Houndmills/New York: Palgrave Macmillan). Dawkins, R. 1979 ‘In Defense of Selfish Genes’, Philosophy 56, pp 556–573. [1976] 1989 The Selfish Gene, (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 2004 The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution (New York: Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin Company). Donald, M. 2002 A Mind So Rare: The Evolution of Human Consciousness (New York: W. W. Norton & Company). Herman, D. 2003 ‘Stories as a Tool for Thinking’, in D. Herman (ed.), Narrative Theory and the Cognitive Sciences (Stanford: CSLI Publications), pp 163–192. McAdams, D. P. 1993 The Stories We Live By: Personal Myths and the Making of the Self (New York: The Guilford Press). Midgley, M. 1979 ‘Gene-juggling’, Philosophy 54, pp 439–458. 1983 ‘Selfish Genes and Social Darwinism’, Philosophy 58, pp 365–377. Nielsen, M. V. 2007 ‘Narratives of Human Nature’, in Drees, W. B., H. Meisinger, and T. A. Smedes (eds.), Humanity, the World and God: Understandings and Actions (Studies in Science & Theology 11) (Lund: Lund University), pp 9–25. Ochs, E. and Capps, L. 2001 Living Narrative: Creating Lives in Everyday Storytelling (Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press). Polkinghorne, D. 1988 Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press). Vollmer, F. 2005 ‘The Narrative Self ’, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 35, pp 189–205.

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White, H. 2000

‘An Old Question Raised Again: Is Historiography Art or Science? (Response to Iggers)’, Rethinking History 4, pp 391–406. Wilson, D. S. and Gottschall, J. 2005 The Literary Animal: Evolution and the Nature of Narrative (Evanston, Ill: NorthWestern University Press). Wilson, E. O. [1978] 2004 On Human Nature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). 2002 The Future of Life (New York: Vintage Books/Random House).

Notes 1

2

3

4 5 6

7

There are many theories on what constitutes a narrative, but the basic elements of agents and plot are included in most of them. Donald Polkinghorne lists several features with a strong emphasis on plot (Polkinghorne 1988: 17–22). Thomas Leitch offers a discussion of What Stories Aren’t in his work (Leitch 1986). For further reading on the development of narrative thinking as well as on narratives and human knowledge see (Abbott 2002, Brockelman 1992, Donald 2002, McAdams 1993, Ochs & Capps 2001, Vollmer 2005). This article is based on research done in relation to my PhD-dissertation Being Human: Crisis and Solution in Grand Narratives of Humanity – the Doctrine of Sin in Dialogue with Evolutionary Biology, defended September 2007 at the University of Aarhus. For a detailed analysis of the narrative elements of Richard Dawkins and E. O. Wilson, see the dissertation. The dissertation is forthcoming as Sin and Selfish Genes – Christian and Biological Narratives, published by Peeters in the series Studies in Philosophical Theology. Mark Currie is one researcher who represents this tendency clearly in his presentation of the aim of the narrative research as: ‘a narratology capable of bringing its expertise to bear on narratives wherever they can be found, which is everywhere’ (Currie 1998: 1). For a presentation and discussion of Ian Barbour’s and Wentzel van Huyssteen’s approach to narratives, see Nielsen 2007. See for example the debate between philosopher Mary Midgley and Richard Dawkins (Dawkins 1979, Midgley 1979, Midgley 1983). Another interesting element which could be mentioned in connection with this is Hayden White’s theories on tropology in historiography. White points out how historical studies are always a narrativization of historical events, that is: events are interpreted and placed in connection with each other as a narrative with a certain meaning and connection between the elements. This construction is necessary in order to understand the historical events, but it is a narrativization of the non-narrative to some degree (White 2000). The interaction between narratives and evolutionary theory has taken on a new dimension in the recent move into literary studies by Darwinian evolutionary biologists. The aim for these researchers is to approach literature from a Darwinian perspective and bring literary studies in as one area of evolutionary theory (Wilson & Gottschall 2005, Barash & Barash 2005).

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14 ‘Let Me Tell You a Story’: Narrative and Meaning in Science and Religion John A. Teske

I will tell you something about stories . . . They aren’t just entertainment. Don’t be fooled. They are all we have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death. L. M. Silko

One of the ways to distinguish between understanding in science and in religion is provided by Jerome Bruner’s (1986, 1990) distinction between paradigmatic and narrative modes of understanding. The paradigmatic mode involves synchronic understanding via logical proof, empirical observation, and causal explanation, putatively more characteristic of science. The narrative mode involves diachronic understanding via storied accounts of the ‘vicissitudes of human intentions’ organized in time, explanations not being causal, but in terms of believable narratives of actors (human and otherwise) striving to do things over time. The latter mode would be more characteristic of novelists or poets than of scientists or logicians, and arguably more characteristic of religion. That religion is about propositional beliefs is a canard regularly put forth by anti-religious polemicists attempting to cast religion as paradigmatically defective, such as Richard Dawkins (2006), Daniel Dennett (2006), Sam Harris (2004), and Christopher Hitchens (2007). On the other hand, Owen Flanagan (2007) has recently pointed out that religious views can cause the difficulty themselves (and for any who are not on board with their particular tradition, among the world’s diversity) when they assert that their story is true and authoritative. Even agnosticism puts itself in epistemic difficulty, ‘since it treats theistic claims as assertions, as truth functional, but ones where the evidence is insufficient to decide which assertion to make. But theistic claims are sayings not assertions, and thus questions about their evidentiary status can’t really sensibly arise’ (footnote 2, pp 257–258). If religious views are understood or expressed as stories, the epistemology is less problematic.

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That religion is not centrally about paradigmatic claims is an idea supported by theologians and religious scholars at least from Rudolf Bultmann (1958) and Reinhold Niebuhr (1949), including more popular recent accounts like that of Karen Armstrong (1993), but certainly even to contemporary Muslim scholars like Reza Aslan (2005). The latter argues that factual questions are irrelevant, that no evangelist would have been at all concerned with recording objective observations of historical events. While it may be true that there are also principles, propositions about religious concepts, it is a mistake to pretend that religion provides an alternative explanatory account of the natural phenomena with which science concerns itself. The questions that matter are about what the stories of a religion mean. The meaning for human lives, even of the paradigmatic accounts of science itself, also require a wider framework of narrative meaning, in which those accounts can be said to have any meaning or sense for our lives. The present thesis takes a narrative view of religion as presumptive background, but asserts that, while science is necessarily inclusive of the paradigmatic, since attention to reasoned analyses and empirical observations are important to establishing causal explanations, that the paradigmatic mode is ultimately insufficient for many explanatory scientific accounts to be rendered comprehensible even on scientific grounds. This is likely to be true in the historical sciences generally (which include evolutionary biology), in explaining the behavior of complex adaptive systems, and in the human sciences in particular, in which stories may well constitute the best scientific explanations. These are explanations in which causal relationships may be embedded within and expressions of higher-order systemic constraints provided by complex system dynamics, best understood via the temporal organization of intentionalities which constitute narrative. Philosophers of science have been pointing out for decades that the received nomological-deductive, covering law model of science is simply inadequate to account for human behavior (e.g. Cummins 1983), perhaps living things in general, as the progressive elimination of time and context ignores the central role that time and context themselves play for living things. Standard physical explanations tend to assume closed, isolated, near equilibrium systems, explanations that run into difficulties with open-ended, dissipative, nonequilibrium systems. A different logic of explanation is required for historical, contextually embedded processes, including human actions. Here many of the causal mechanisms operate between levels of hierarchical organization, manifesting as context-sensitive constraints, and are capable of producing novel and surprising emergent properties (Juarrero 1999). In the case of specifically human actions, our intentions, consciousness, and meaning are manifested by the brain’s self-organizing dynamics, which initiate, control, and constrain the causalities of organismic behavior. Alicia Juarrero (1999) provides an account of intentionality in which the brain’s distributed dynamics originate, regulate, and constrain skeleto-muscular processes, such that the resulting behavior ‘satisfies the meaningful content’ embodied in the complex dynamics from which it was issued . . . [providing] continuous, ongoing control and direction by modifying in real time the probability distributions of lower level neurological processes (p 7).

‘Let Me Tell You a Story’: Narrative and Meaning in Science and Religion 189 Covering law models are inadequate, since the precise pathways which will be taken by complex adaptive systems will be ineradicably unpredictable. Such complex adaptive systems, out of which intentions emerge, have behavioral trajectories which are in principle unique, contingent, and nondeterministic even in stable states, and unpredictable across the bifurcations which can eventuate in phase transitions, or more catastrophic transformations (e.g. conversions, or other life-changing events). Given such unpredictability, the only explanation can be a historical, interpretive story which retrospectively retraces the actual changes in dynamics, including their embedding in an historical and structured environment (including external symbolic technologies, cf. Clark 2003, Donald 2002). In open systems, embedded by feedback in context and history, their distinctive character and behavior will embody the sedimentation of the contingencies and idiosyncrasies experienced over history and development. There is, of course, a difference between the story one might tell about the changes in dynamics of a complex adaptive system and the stories that human beings also, and of necessity, tell about themselves, which may play an integral role in the very constitution of meaningful lives through time. So we also must tell a story about the storytelling itself. According to Juarrero (1999), without narrative, personality traits and human actions are incomprehensible, so it becomes necessary to explain human actions using a hermeneutic, narrative model, much as is the case with other interpretive understandings. For example, the overall meaning of a text is constructed out of the interrelations between individual passages, as, in turn, the meaning of individual passages depends upon the larger text in which they are embedded. A nomologicaldeductive, covering law model may only be adequate for atemporal, acontextual, isolated, linear phenomena. For complex, dynamic phenomena, context-dependent constraints progressively individuate and mark them as historical, embodying within their structure the conditions under which they were created and by which they have been transformed. For such systems, sensitive to initial constraints, irregularities and fluctuations, and capable of dramatic divergences, interpretation is always required, and the meaning of events can be fully understood only in the context of the higher-level constraints that govern them. We can only understand human motoric behavior in the context of the intentions which they serve (or fail to serve). For phenomena that are essentially contextual and historical, the logic of explanation must be hermeneutic rather than deductive, involving an interpretive circle that runs from parts to wholes and back again, not a reduction of purposive acts to nonpurposive elements, of reasons to the causes which they constrain. Causality does not exhaust meaning. Neither are narratives an alternative opposed to scientific naturalism, but the context within which such accounts must be understood if they are, finally, to make any sense, to have any meaning at all. Juarrero (1999) ultimately suggests that ‘the current revival of interest in myth, the tales of Genesis, and storytelling in general is not unrelated to the perceived inadequacies of the received logic of explanation that modern philosophy and science has offered to the public at large’ (p 241). In providing concrete, contextual, temporally grounded re-creations of the open, non-linear dynamics of real processes, including their historical embeddedness, such narratives respect our

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sense of place, and the importance of a particular point of view rooted in space and time. Human persons and their actions can simply not be understood via Thomas Nagel’s (1989) classic scientific ‘view from nowhere,’ as it is precisely their point of view which makes them comprehensible. An appeal to explanation as being proof like, or definitional, rather than narrative is to remove both time and contingency. In contrast, the temporal and contextual form of narrative, particularly in its mythic form, ‘In the beginning . . .,’ treats time and place as ontologically real, and recognizes the epistemic role of such connections. According to Umberto Eco (1990) the meaning of a narrative can only be understood in time and context. Stories explain, make events comprehensible, and make events meaningful via their richness of description, showing the warp and weave of multiple connections in time and context, the very fabric of being for particular events. To banish time and context is to banish individuality. Meaningful explanation of human action is therefore necessarily genealogical, story-like, and richly contextual (Juarrero 1999). What are the implications of this logic of explanation for the relationship between religion, ideology, mythology and science, particularly human science? Philosophers since Brentano (1970 [1874]) have argued about the irreducibility of intentional language, an ‘intentional stance’ over and above a physical or even a more functionalist design stance (Dennett 1987). That is, over and above asking causal questions about how something is made up or how it came to be, or design questions about its role or function in some larger system (already a question about ends served), we account for human actions in terms of the beliefs and desires of human agents and the intentional human ends which those actions serve. We also ask larger questions of meaning in terms of broader agencies, be they human communities, or what we take to be sacred or divine. In some sense this is what we mean by meaning. This is not an account that is alternative or opposed to physicality or design, but is an additional requirement for comprehensibility, for meaningfulness. None of this is to say that our physicality, our evolution, our history, or our individual development does not help us to understand how it is that we come to be able to undertake intentional, meaningful action, but it does not exhaust that or how we do it. In the past generation, much progress has been made in such understanding, often by comparing the contrasting designs and surprising incapacities and dissociations present in artificially intelligent systems, animals, infants and children, and the neurologically impaired (Baron-Cohen 1995). Indeed, it is our physicality, and our evolutionary design, that makes it possible for us to compute the ‘social exchange algorithms that define a social world, of agents, benefits, requirements, contingency, and cheating’ (xiii), and which is necessary to realize these functional and informational relationships. What does it mean that John walked out to his mailbox, inserted a key, opened it, looked inside, then closed it and walked back? We understand these actions in terms of the intentional states we attribute to John, viz., that he thought the mail might be there, wanted to retrieve it, found it absent, and, perhaps, felt some disappointment at this new knowledge. We tell a story by stringing together descriptions of these intentional states in ways that make sense in terms of our folk psychology, and though there may be some

‘Let Me Tell You a Story’: Narrative and Meaning in Science and Religion 191 species-wide universals rooted in the co-evolution of neocortical size, group size, and language in our Pleistocene past, the biological roots of these capacities also enable the cortical and developmental plasticity that may be shaped differently by socialization across different ecologies, cultures, and histories (cf. Deacon 1997). Prior to the existence of such intentional states, it is not clear how we can say that meaning even existed in the universe, except to the extent that we read it into the intentionalities of agencies in our pre-human past. Need such stories be true, or empirically verifiable? It is unclear how one could ever tell, nor might it matter, except to the extent that such stories affect how we make sense out of ourselves and our actions now, or how they have been made sense of by other historical human agents. Alternately, while we may be able to verify physical accounts, or even accounts dependent upon design (evolutionary or otherwise), it is only by virtue of a narrative, composed of intentionalities, that we find them meaningful. It may well be a product of the evolution of our social intelligence that we can construct such narratives, which invariably include anticipating the consequences of our behavior and the likely behavior of others, in a context in which the physical evidence is rapidly shifting, ambiguous, and can also change as a consequence of one’s own actions, and in interaction with others equally capable of such constructions (cf. Humphrey 1984). As philosophers of language (e.g. Searle 1969) have pointed out, the very meaning of linguistic (and probably nonlinguistic) communication is only apprehended by the attributions of a speaker’s intentional states. Hence, narrative sequences of attributed intents are essential to the very construction of meaningful lives. Much of my own recent work has been dedicated to exploring the religious implications of the role of such narratives in our lives, our consciousness, memory, identity, morality, and meaning itself. In a recent article on ‘Neuropsychology: Brains and Stories’ (Teske 2006), I summarized much of my previous work, and began to sketch a more comprehensive overview of how personal narratives, particularly the broader mythic and religious content of human stories, so deeply engage human beings. It is a fuller narrative of our lives, our own life story, which produces our sense of identity and self, our personal history, our wounds received and inflicted, our attempts to shape and be shaped by others spiritually, intellectually, and emotionally, down to our deeply embodied physical existence. I believe that the functions involved in constructing and in responding to stories, memory, attention, emotional marking, and temporal sequencing, and the neurological events that support them, the product of an evolutionary hypertrophy of the prefrontal cortex, are integrated and made coherent by the cultural invention of myth and story. The narrative structuring of higher cognitive functioning enables the construction of meaning, relationship, morality and a cognizance of the purposes which extend beyond individual boundaries. This shapes our neural affect system, and the dynamic narratives by which we construct selves and relationships (two sides of the same coin). Of necessity, and by socialization, the particular narrative forms and themes are drawn from culturally available myths and stories, our experience colored by the larger stories within which we try to interpret and make sense out of our lives. As Charles Taylor (1989) indicated, narrative constitutes our movement in a moral

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space, our striving after valued goals and ends, and the vicissitudes of the conflicts and struggles that we meet, and create, along the way. While this is not the time or place to review the evidence for such a neuromythological view, it is important to recognize that it includes the evidence for a neural substrate for narrative selves, and a subcortical mediation of motivated and emotional experience by which stories sustain their felt significance, by which they move us. It includes a subcortical ‘replaying’ of sequenced events by which the narrative formulation may both be central to declarative memory of those events, and to any ability to synthesize such events into diachronic representations of self, other, and relationship. The shaping of such narrative content over the course of development can account for emotional engagement in narrative, the development of a narrative self, and the differentiated embedding of human meaning and individual identity in broader narratives, metanarratives, mythologies, ideological and religious systems. It is the tension, climax, and denouement of narrative that makes it compelling; it may also be what makes it memorable, that we encode events in story form in order to better remember them. Infantile amnesia, the rapid loss of unreported dreams, of unattended disjoint events, or of traumatic sequences, may all be understood better via a model, building from long-term neural potentiation, reactivation, the relationship between arousal and memory, and the rehearsal and retelling of stories. This model suggests that human memory, particularly of personally relevant episodic events may carry a heavy dependence on narrative form, the arousal producing qualities of narrative tension, conflict, and resolution, and their intentional goals and purposes. Objective events do not occur in storied form; the same set of events can be attended, selected, emphasized, and ordered into quite different stories, just as I can tell a story of my academic career as a series of heroic accomplishments, or of tragic accidents. Erik Erikson (1958), one of the more important theorists of modern identity, equates adulthood with an identity constructed in terms of a life story: To be an adult means among other things to see one’s own life in continuous perspective, both in retrospect and prospect. By accepting some definition of who he is, usually on the basis of a function in an economy, a place in a sequence of generations, and a status in the structure of society, the adult is able to selectively reconstruct his past in such a way that, step for step, it seems to have planned him, or better, he seems to have planned it (pp. 111–112).

While a fuller account of this theory would have to include subsequent feminist critiques, and a revision of our understanding of the relationship between identity and intimacy (Gilligan1982, Chodorow 1978), what this means is that becoming an adult involves a reconstruction of the past in a way that leads to the present. While this does not falsify the past, it must use fictional and imaginative power to ‘make sense’ of the facts as we remember them. We can understand this as a way of making ourselves intelligible by accounting for behavior in terms of intentionality, rationalizing it in the form of a life story (Slugoski and Ginsburg 1989). ‘Narrative makes sense of a brain’s own behavior, and may underlie the sense of a unitary self ’

‘Let Me Tell You a Story’: Narrative and Meaning in Science and Religion 193 (Roser and Gazzaniga 2004). For Anthony Giddens (1991), a person’s identity is constituted by keeping a particular narrative going. Dan P. McAdams’ research on the narrative construction of self (1985, 1993, 2005) suggests that we make a life by making a story. We explain important parts of ourselves by telling stories, shared in intimate conversation, internalized and evolving, imbuing our lives with meaning and purpose. Stories also create a shared history, linking people in time and events, an unfolding drama which is made more in the telling than in the events themselves. As Alasdair MacIntyre (1984) suggests, our very notion of the ‘good’ is understood in the context of narrative. What is good for the individual is what contributes to the completion of a life story, what is good for humankind is then understood in terms of features common to all life stories. McAdams (2005) presents evidence that, in the context of American culture, it is the redemptive sequence, of stories about fear, loss, sadness, and guilt leading to joy and excitement, that sustains hope and commitment, stories which are often tied explicitly to religion. Clearly, we may need an eschatology to provide prospective components that are beyond the life of the individual. Collections of the broader mythologies and religious stories of a culture provide a unifying context for surviving crises, finding roots, fixing memories, and of self-discovery. Our lives can only be meaningful to the extent that they express culturally meaningful stories. Heroic stories of defeat and victory, contamination and redemption, exile and homecoming, or romantic stories of alienation and reunion, betrayal and forgiveness, sacrifice and bliss can provide a meaningful integration of scattered, dissociated, painful, and otherwise uncontrolled images and emotional responses into coherent form. Moreover, in doing so, they can actually provide psychological healing for sufferers of post-traumatic stress (Shay 1994), or even improved physical health in college students (Pennebaker 1989, 1997). The emergence of a narrative self, our narratives shaped within a cultural history of mythic and religious forms, provides a compelling set of explanatory and meaning-engendering purposes important to bridging scientific and religious understandings of human lives (Teske 2006). Let us be clear. To the extent that religions try to make paradigmatic claims, they are either not likely to be testable, or, where they oppose naturalistic accounts provided by science, are likely to be wrong. In any case, it is the narrative, diachronic framework for such claims in which they have sense or meaning. To the extent that science provides us with a paradigmatic, synchronic description of objects or events, it does not provide meaning. It is the framework into which such descriptions are placed that does, frameworks which science itself does not provide, including the scientific faith that the world can be understood and made sense of at all. In the case of human beings (and other complex adaptive systems), the standard paradigmatic account may be insufficient even on a scientific basis, since a full understanding of such beings requires a diachronic, narrative account. These are not alternative to naturalistic accounts, but the narrative in which such accounts must be understood if they are to ultimately make sense. We can certainly study human beings, and even religions, as natural phenomena, but that will not exhaust what they are. This is not to posit some additional supernatural components, but

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only to argue that standard paradigmatic, causal accounts of events do not exhaust the kinds of relationships between them. In living beings, narrative accounts are likely to be prospective as well as retrospective. While repeatable events enable predictive prospection, unrepeatable, novel, creative, ‘emergent’ events do not; one of the limitations of the ‘human sciences,’ is that, as MacIntyre (1984) pointed out, they can finally only be about the past, one of the reasons they are notoriously poor at predicting novel historical events, from the fall of the Soviet Communism to the emergence of the World Wide Web. Hence the need for the understandings of history, philosophy, mythology, and theology to provide the prospective futures into which human beings can live. We must realize that our finitude, even as a species, always leaves us with unanswered mysteries, unpredictable futures, a natural world that is metaphysically ungrounded, and an inevitable horizon of subjectivity (cf. Rahner 1969) beyond which our understanding may only be apophatic or beatific. There may be unanswerable existential questions that need believable answers in order for us to live meaningful lives, and for there to be a human future at all. Hence, it may be that a broader theological and escatological framework becomes necessary for stories that extend prospectively into a future that is other than a repeatable past. Despite my own deep disbelief in the dogmatics of most of my own faith tradition, I confess an incapacity to understand my life without concepts like sin, grace, redemption, resurrection, sacrifice, compassion, and the acceptance of bodily and emotional suffering. Jean-Paul Sartre (1965) notoriously described the self as a true novel, and argued that since contemporary religious and social institutions no longer provide the myths with which we can identify, that we are faced with seeking truth and meaning by creating our own myths about ourselves. While I think it is true, as the existentialists would have it, that we need to make the myths our own for them to make our lives meaningful, the task of constructing the future of a people, a culture, or a species is not an individual one. We also tell and write stories of relationships, of families, of communities, and of wider human futures, and we do much of this quite collaboratively. Indeed, we do so within the context of long historical traditions, many of which are religious. To paraphrase MacIntyre (2006), it may only be in the light afforded by religious and theological doctrines concerning human nature and the human condition that we can really address the questions that ought to be central to us all, secular or not, not because of any particular answers that these doctrines provide, but in their way of addressing the questions. These are, finally, escatological questions about the ultimate meaning and fate of our lives, only faith providing the assurance that such meaning exists at all. Stories may play essential roles in memory, in consciousness, and in meaning, but they only really do so when we make them our own, or it is always someone else’s meaning and not ours. As Antonio Damasio (1999) points out, consciousness may well begin with the power to tell a story with words, our particularly human consciousness being constituted by taking the position of a narrator. That means identifying with characters, and taking our own unique perspectives as authors and sometimes (but not always) agents in the stories that make up our lives.

‘Let Me Tell You a Story’: Narrative and Meaning in Science and Religion 195 The complexities, the variations, the contingencies involved, to say nothing of the necessary substrate of our own feeling bodies, permit no other recourse. Religions require making stories our own, at greater ‘degrees of interiorization of the spiritual dynamics,’ as Wolfhart Pannenberg once put it (1993), the events of our lives making sense only within the moral landscape of stories within which the vicissitudes of our intentions and those of others play out. That they are from particular points of view is one of the central characteristics of story, and what is necessarily absent in nomological science. Nevertheless our own stories are understood by their place in larger and more inclusive stories, in the processes by which we construct meaningful lives, narratives being constituted of movement in moral space, particularly in stories of healing and redemption (McAdams 2005). Religion and mythology are what provide the larger stories within which individual stories make sense, and without which they cannot. I have already indicated that, to the extent that external, objective events do not occur in story form, narratives are, from a paradigmatic point of view, always fabrications and, to that extent, are always fictional. Stories may include actual events, of course, or fail to do so, and there is a facticity that constrains truth-telling in stories. But a story can be true to the facts and still fail to mean much, not be very memorable, and not in that sense, be true to meaning. Narrative theorists, clinical psychologists, and, for that matter, literary critics, share a view that stories are not a record of facts (though they may also record facts), that they are less about facts than about meaning, and that a past, from a particular point of view, is always constructed in the telling. As a result, we do not judge stories by their adherence to empirical fact, but by narrative criteria: e.g. coherence, openness, credibility, or integration. Donald Spence (1982) distinguishes between narrative truth and historical truth, where narrative truth is not the truth of logic, science, and empirical demonstration, but something more like verisimilitude. Despite the necessary attention to facticity of a good historian, if what I am saying is right, that the historical sciences (to say nothing of history itself) cannot make sense of the behavior of complex adaptive systems in general and of human action in particular without attention to narrative, then perhaps it would be safer to use the distinction made by the novelist Tim O’Brien, in a collection of stories about the war in Vietnam (1990), who distinguishes between story truth and happening truth. O’Brien’s (1990) largely first person accounts of a soldier coping with combat in Vietnam are moving, and effective, so much so that many veterans reading his stories find them to be ‘healing,’ as reported by a psychiatrist treating posttraumatic stress in Vietnam veterans (Shay 1994). But at the end of the book O’Brien confesses that while he was there, walking through the jungles, everything else is invented. One of the most fascinating stories is one called ‘The Man I Killed,’ and the story is full of guilt, obsessive reverie, adrenaline-induced time dilation, and the incoherence of fragmentary impressions as the narrator tries to make sense out of a fresh corpse as he sits on the side of the trail. O’Brien tells the reader that he is inventing himself, and while he didn’t actually kill the man, he was there, could form a vivid image of a face of a man with a jaw in his throat, and he also shared the guilt, because of his presence. Then he confesses that even that is invented: ‘I

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want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story truth is truer sometimes than happening truth’ (p 203). The happening truth was that he was young, was in a world of many dead bodies with many faces, but he was afraid to look, and was left twenty years later with ‘faceless responsibility and faceless grief ’. His stories make things present, both for himself and for his readers, and allow him, and them, to look at things, to attach faces to ‘grief and love and pity and God,’ and be able to feel again. So when his daughter asks him if he ever killed anyone in the war he can say, honestly, ‘of course not’. Or, honestly, ‘Yes’. Story truth is not about providing external descriptions of the world to be judged by their veridicality. As Bruno Bettelheim says in his analysis of the psychological power of fairy tales (1977), they can help us deal with grief, loss, fear by giving us models of how to make sense of them. Robert Coles (1989), in his work on the moral imagination, highlights the integrative functions of stories, in healing what is sick or broken, bringing together what is shattered, helping us cope with stress, and moving us toward fulfillment and maturity, functions for which paradigmatic, happening truth is woefully inadequate. I think that mythology and religion can be far better understood by viewing them in terms of narrative truth, as products of the imagination, as symbolic (though we too easily forget this), as ways of organizing the cold hard facts of the world into meaningful and symbolic narratives, rather than operating as if the cold hard facts are all that existence is about. They can be all there is (though it is remarkably arrogant, even strange, given the history of science, to presume that there isn’t still a lot we do not know about) without being what they mean. Nobody argues with the claim that not everything can be expressed scientifically. This is not to say that we cannot or should not provide scientific, causal accounts of art, music, poetry, literature, and religious experiences; they need not involve magical or mysterious powers. But what they express is not expressed scientifically. ‘The arts work our imaginations with all the playful tricks of language, allegory, metaphor, and metonymy that science, for its purposes, doesn’t much care for’ (Flanagan 2002, p 23). Finally I think we are also, truly and really, as much constituted by what we imagine ourselves to be, whether prospective or fictional. I agree with Ted Laurenson that it is in their imaginative projections that the religions or mythological systems of the world, make it possible to address our ‘perceptions of separateness,’ and ‘the brute facts of individual desire, suffering and death’ (Laurenson 2007, p 813). ‘Why find an end in the narrative self if there is no point to the narrative?’ (814). We cannot learn what ends to project merely by looking at the happening truth of science. Possibilities are constrained by facts, and the more we know about the facts, the more realistic our projection of possibilities might be, but it takes imagination, not science, to invent those possibilities. ‘Religion is part of our dream of possibilities; its study provides a lens for the observation of many aspects of what the human enterprise is and can be about, of explorations of what it might mean to have different notions of ourselves, and why it might matter if we did’ (814). As long as we are alive, our stories are not complete, their meanings always and necessarily prospective; when we shuffle off this mortal coil, they are finally no longer ours to tell, but parts of other peoples stories, as they are ours, all parts of a larger story in

‘Let Me Tell You a Story’: Narrative and Meaning in Science and Religion 197 which, as only faith teaches us, our lives will have meant something, which is finally not ours to determine. This article was also published in Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, vol. 45, no. 1 (March 2010): 91–104.

References Armstrong, K. 1993 Aslan, R. 2005 Baron-Cohen, S. 1995 Bettelheim, B. 1977 Brentano, F. [1874] 1970 Bruner, J. S. 1990 1990 Bultmann, R. 1958 Chodorow, N. 1978 Merlin, D. 2002 Clark, A. 2003 Coles, R. 1989 Cummins, R. 1983 Damasio, A. 1999 Dawkins, R. 2006

A History of God (New York: Ballantine). No god but God (New York: Random House). Mindblindness (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (New York: Vintage Books). Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (Ed. O. Kraus) (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul). Actual Minds, Possible Worlds (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Acts of Meaning. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Jesus Christ and Mythology (New York: Scribner’s). The Reproduction of Mothering (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press). A Mind So Rare (New York: Norton) Natural–Born Cyborgs (New York: Oxford University Press). The Call of Stories: Teaching and the Moral Imagination (Boston: Houghton Mifflin). The Nature of Psychological Explanation (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). The Feeling of What Happens (Orlando, FL: Harcourt). The God Delusion (New York: Houghton Mifflin).

198 Deacon, T. W. 1997 Dennett, D. C. 1987 2006 Eco, U. 1990 Erikson, E. H. 1958 Flanagan, O. 2002 2007 Giddens, A. 1991 Gilligan, C. A. 1982 Harris, S. 2004 Hitchens, C. 2007 Humphrey, N. 1984 Juarrero, A. 1999 Laurenson, E. C. 2007 McAdams, D. P. 1985 1993 2005 MacIntyre, A. 1984 2006

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The Symbolic Species (New York: Norton). The Intentional Stance (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). Breaking the Spell (New York: Viking). The Limits of Interpretation (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press). Young Man Luther (New York: Norton). The Problem of the Soul. (New York: Basic). The Really Hard Problem (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). Modernity and Self-Identity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press). In A Different Voice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). The End of Faith (New York: Norton). God Is Not Great (New York: Twelve). Consciousness Regained (New York: Oxford University Press). Dynamics in Action (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). ‘Persons and Dreams of Possibility in Religion and Science’, Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 42, pp 813–815. Power, Intimacy, and the Life Story (New York: Guilford). The Stories We Live By (New York: William Morrow). The Redemptive Self (New York: Oxford University Press). After Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press). ‘The End of Education: The Fragmentation of the American University’, Commonwealth October 20. Vol. CXXXIII, Number 18. The View from Nowhere (New York: Oxford University Press). Faith and History (New York: Scribner’s). The Things They Carried (New York: Viking Penguin).

‘Let Me Tell You a Story’: Narrative and Meaning in Science and Religion 199 Pannenberg, W. 1993 ‘Spirit and Mind’, in T. Peters (ed.), Toward a Theology of Nature: Essays on Science and Faith (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press), pp 148–161. Pennebaker, J. W. 1989 ‘Confession, Inhibition, and Disease’, in L. Berkowitz (ed.) Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 22 (NY: Academic Press), pp 211–244. 1997 ‘Writing about Emotional Experiences as a Therapeutic Process’, Psychological Science 8, pp 162–166. Rahner, K. 1969 Hearers of the Word (New York: Herder & Herder). Roser, M. and Gazzaniga, M. S. 2004 ‘Automatic Brains – Interpretive minds’, Current Directions in Psychological Science 13, pp 56–59. Sartre, J.-P. 1965 Essays in Existentialism (Seacaucus, NJ: Citadel). Searle, J. 1969 Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (New York: Cambridge University Press). Shay, J. 1994 Achilles in Vietnam (New York: Simon & Schuster). Slugoski, B. R. and Ginsberg, G. P. 1989 ‘Ego Identity and Explanatory Speech’, in J. Shotter & K. J. Gergen (eds.) Texts of Identity (Newbury Park, CA: Sage) pp 36–55. Spence, D. 1982 Narrative Truth and Historical Truth. (New York: Norton). Steiner, G. 1989 Real Presences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Teske, J. A. 2006 ‘Neuromythology: Brains and Stories’, Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 41, pp 169–96. Taylor, C. 1989 Sources of the Self (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press).

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Index

a priori 156, 163, 164, 166 Abbott, H. P. 174, 178–80, 182, 183, 185 agnosticism 187 altruism 99 Altschuler, G. C. 130, 138 analogia entis 86 analogy 86, 87, 153 Anselm of Canterbury 131 anthropic principle 56 apologetics 128 Aristotle 47–9, 98, 119, 158, 164 Armstrong, K. 188, 197 Arnold, K. 70, 75 Aronowitz, S. 39, 41 Aslan, R. 188, 197 atheism 33, 87, 115, 121 Augustine of Hippo 96, 98, 100, 101 Ault, J. 69 axiology 134, 135 Ayala, F.J. 126, 141 Bach, J. S. 74 Bacon, F. 47, 48, 50, 52, 57, 74, 79, 85, 92 Barash, D. P. 184, 185 Barash, N. 184, 185 Barbour, I. 89, 122, 138, 177, 185 Barnes, B. 38, 41 Baron-Cohen, S. 190, 197 Barth, K. 131, 139 Barthes, R. 174 Bayer, O. 152 belief 23–8, 30, 31 Bell, R. 76

Benedict XVI, Pope 68–70, 75, 112, 113, 116, 117, 118 Bennett, G. 103 Bettelheim, B. 196, 197 Bible 27, 82, 123, 150 Big Bang 27, 51, 53, 136, 179 biology 45, 46, 83, 89, 98, 99, 101, 102, 151, 159 Bittner, R. 164, 169 Bloor, D. 35, 38, 41 Boghossian, P. A. 34–6, 41 Bohm, D. 56, 57 Bohr, N. 49, 53, 54 Boltzmann, L. 46, 51 Borgman, A. 73 Börjesson, M. 35, 37, 41 Bowen, I. E. 116 Bowen, W. R. 81, 92 brain 3, 4, 6, 9, 13, 24, 25, 59, 60, 62, 63, 72, 110, 124, 155–7, 188, 191 Branby-Cöster, M. 81, 92 Bransford, J. D. 14, 15, 19 Brentano, F. 190, 197 Bridgman, P. W. 117 Brockelman, P. T. 184, 185 Brooke, J. H. 79, 121, 127, 137, 139 Brown, H. I. 32, 41 Brown, R. 76 Bruner, J. 3, 19, 173, 175–9, 182, 184, 187, 197 Buber, M. 116, 117 Buddhism 114, 130, 161, 164 Buffon, G.-L. 162, 167

202 Bultmann, R. 188, 197 Burhoe, R. 122, 139 Burton, R. 75 Cahoy, W. 69 Cantor, G. 127, 139 Capps, L. 184 Caputo, J. D. 82, 87, 88, 92 Carruthers, J. 11, 19 Carter, B. 56, 57 causal drive 8–10 cause 23–6, 47–9, 90, 162 chance 49, 51 chemistry 45, 50 Chodorow, N. 192, 197 Christianity 71, 75, 114, 130 church 112 Clark, A. 189, 197 Clifford, W. K. 31, 41 cognitive science 3, 13 Coles, R. 196, 197 Collingwood, R. J. 9 consciousness 109 consequentialism 113 contextualism 37, 38 Copernican System 54 cosmology 51, 134–6, 158 creation story 182 creationism 163 creationist 27, 130, 182 cross 86–8 culture 11, 12, 17, 19, 34, 54, 100 Cummins, R. 188, 197 Currie, M. 184, 185 Dalai Lama 130 Damasio, A. 60, 62, 64, 194, 197 Darwin, C. 46, 49, 51, 98, 99, 103, 129, 157, 158, 164, 181 Dawkins, R. 52, 57, 67, 68, 74–6, 99, 100, 102, 103, 107, 115, 117, 173, 174, 178–85, 187, 197 de Beauvior, S. 36, 41 de Regt, H. W. 17–19, 147, 150–2 de Waal, F. 100, 102, 104 Deacon, T. W. 191, 197 deconstruction 87, 88, 102 Dennet, D. C. 187, 190, 197 Derrida, J. 81, 87, 88

Index Descartes, R. 47, 107, 110, 117, 156 determinism 45, 48, 50 Devitt, M. 37, 41 Dieks, D. 17, 18, 20 Dilthey, W. 11, 20 Dionysios Areopagita 164 dogmatism 75 Donald, M. 184, 185, 189 Drees, W. 127, 127, 129, 130, 132, 138, 139, 150, 152 D’Souza, D. 73, 76 Duhem, P. 135 Eagleton, T. 72 Eco, U. 190, 198 Eddinton, A. 69 education 12–16, 19 Einstein, A. 12, 27, 53–5, 57, 74, 135 Ellis, G. F. R. 134, 140 emergence 89, 137 Emmet, J. C. 150, 152 empathy 60, 62 empiricism 155, 157, 160, 168 epistemology 62, 155, 156, 161, 162, 166 Erasmus of Rotterdam 97 Erikson, E. 192, 198 eschatology 193 ESSSAT 77, 94, 122 ethos 125, 133 evidentialism 30, 35, 36 evil 124, 136 evolution 27, 49, 99, 115, 135, 164, 180, 190 experience 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 13–18, 25, 27, 37, 47, 55, 60–4, 69, 72, 73, 75, 102, 103, 109, 113 experiment 26, 27, 48, 49, 53, 55, 68–70 explanation 143–7, 149, 157, 159, 160, 163, 188, 190 faith 72, 75, 78, 112, 113, 131, 152 Fechner, G. T. 51 Fell, M. 70 feminism 34, 37 finitude 194 Flanagan, O. 187, 196, 198 Foulds, E. 72 Fox, G. 70, 73 Frankenberry, N. K. 125, 139

Index Friedman, M. 18 Frith, C. 62 future 8, 9, 14, 48, 109, 135, 175, 194 Gaia theory 56, 169 Galilei, G. 45, 47, 49, 50, 126, 129 Gallagher, S. 60, 61, 64 Gallup, G. 158, 167 Gandhi, M. 72 Gärdenfors, P. 4, 5, 8, 10, 17, 20 Garewal, G. 130, 139 Gazzaniga, M. S. 193, 199 Geertz, C. 88, 92, 124, 125, 133, 139 gene 181 Gerhart, M. 85, 92 Gestalt 4, 6, 7 Gettier, E. 145, 146, 148 Gibbs, J. W. 46 Giddens, A. 198 Gilligan, C. A. 192, 198 Ginsburg, G. P. 192, 199 Girard, R. 101, 103 Goethe, J. W. 5 Goldberg, M. 112, 117 Golding, W. 117 Goodin, D. K. 164, 165, 167 Goodman, N. 36 Goodwin, W. 148, 152 Gopnik, A. 11, 20 Gottschall, J. 185 Gould, S. J. 126, 139 grace 97, 98, 102 Grant, I. H. 34, 37, 41 Gray, J. 115, 117 Gregory of Nyssa 71 Gregory of Palamas 164, 166 Ground, I. 116, 117 Gulz, A. 17, 20 Günter, T. 41, 42 Hacking, I. 35, 40, 42 Hamilton, W. 46 Harding, S. 40, 42 Harnad, S. 7, 20 Harris, S. 67–9, 72, 74–6, 187, 198 Harrison, P. 121, 139 Hartl, M. 11, 22 Hartmann, E. 167–9 Haught, J. 89

203

Hawking, S. 52, 118 Hedenius, I. 29–31, 33, 42 Hefner, P. 101, 103, 122, 139 Hegel, G. W. F. 155, 156 Heisenberg, W. 3, 18, 19 Hempel, C. G. 17, 20 Herman, D. 182, 184 hermeneutics 78, 82, 84–8, 110, 112 Hewlett, H. 103 Hitchens, C. 187, 198 Hobbes, T. 100, 101 Holmquist, K. 21 Hooykaas, R. 122, 139 Hubbard, G. 71 Hubbeling, H. G. 124, 140 Hubble, E. 46, 51 Hübner, J. 136, 140 humanities 29, 39, 173, 176 Hume, D. 109, 118, 145, 156 Humphrey, N. 191, 198 Huxley, T. 129, 134 Intelligent Design (ID) 67, 68, 121 intersubjectivity 10, 11, 15 Irons, W. 99, 103 Islam 69, 70, 75, 130 Jackelén, A. 80, 93, 94 James, W. 27 Jammer, M. 49, 57 John Paul II, Pope 81, 92 Juarrero, A. 188–90, 198 Jung-Beeman, M. 13, 20 justification 97, 98, 102, 145, 146 Kant, I. 61, 156, 161–3, 165, 167, 168 Kaufmann, S. 83, 93 Keil, F. C. 17, 21 Kelvin, Lord 18 Kenworthy, L. 69, 72, 76 Kington, M. 107, 118 Kirk, J. A. 81, 82, 107, 108, 118 Kirschenmann, P. P. 17, 21 Kitcher, P. 18, 21, 42, 43, 124, 140 Köhler, W. 24 Koster, E. 150–2 Kuhn, T. 33, 34, 37, 42, 54, 126, 128, 140 Kukla, A. 35, 42 Kvanvig, J. 17, 21, 145, 146, 153

204 Lacey, H. 42, 43, 148, 149, 151, 153 Lagrange, J. L. 46 Lakatos, I. 33, 128 Land, E. H. 13, 21 Lange, F. A. 167, 168 Laplace, P.-S. 46 Laurenson, T. 196, 198 law 26, 27, 54 Leary, T. 25 Leibniz, G. W. 46 Leitsch, T. 185 Lennon, K. 37, 42 Leonelli, S. 147, 153 Leslie, A. M. 9, 21 Levin, Y. 74, 76 Levinas, E. 81, 93, 113, 118 liberation theology 101 Lindfelt, M. 96, 103 Lindroth, S. 167, 168 Lindsay, D. M. 158, 167 Lindström, P. 4, 21 Linnaeus, C. 158, 162, 168 Lipton, P. 111, 112, 118 Livingstone, D. N. 79, 93, 121, 140 Longino, H. E. 40, 42 Lovelock, J. 56, 57, 167, 169 LSD 25 Luther, M. 85–7, 93, 96–8, 101–3 MacIntyre, A. 193, 194, 198 Marcion 136 Margalis, L. 56 Marroquin, J. L. 5, 21 mathematics 49, 57, 158 Maupertuis, P. L. 46 Maximos Confessor 164, 166 Maxwell, J. 46, 51 McAdams, D. P. 184, 185, 193, 195, 198 McCarthy, N. 111, 118 McCutcheon, R. T. 124, 140 McFague, S. 85, 93, 112, 118 McGinn, B. 71, 76 McMenamin, D. 167, 169 McMenamin, M. 167, 169 McMullin, E. 147, 153 meaning 53–5, 189, 190, 193 measurement 49, 50 mechanics 45, 46, 50, 54 meme 178

Index memory 192 Merlin, D. 198 Merton, R. K. 34 metaphor 84, 85, 150 metaphysics 46, 81, 88, 161, 163 Metzinger, T. 61, 64 Midgley, M. 124, 126, 140, 184, 185 Milosz, C. 116, 118 Mitchell, P. 10, 21 Moltmann, J. 150, 152 Monod, J. 52, 57 Mortensen, V. 82, 93 Mulder, D. H. 17, 19, 21, 147, 149, 153 Murphy, N. 128, 134, 140 music 123 Nagel, T. 110, 118, 190, 198 narrative 60, 61, 82, 99, 101, 110, 133, 144, 150, 151, 161, 173–99 Nasr, S. H. 56, 57 natural science 173, 175, 176 naturalism 132, 155, 159 Neo-Kantians 157, 159 neuropsychology 191 neuroscience 60, 61, 64 Newton, I. 18, 26, 27, 45, 46, 48, 50, 51, 54, 55, 119, 135 Niebuhr, R. 188, 198 Nielsen, M. V. 99, 104, 150, 153, 184, 185 Nietzsche, F. 158, 162, 164–9 Nirvana 164 Noble, D. 110, 118 Numbers, R. 79 objectivism 32, 37 O’Brien, T. 195, 198 observer 123 Occam’s razor 49 Ochs, E. 184, 185 ontology 115, 158, 160, 161, 165 original sin 95–104 other 81 Otto, R. 123, 140 Overton, W. R. 130, 140 pacifism 73 pain 60, 62, 63 Pannenberg, W. 77, 78, 89, 90, 93, 195, 198

Index pantomime 107, 119 pattern 4–8, 11–19 Peacocke, A. 71, 72, 76, 122, 140 Pedersen, O. 129, 140 Penn, W. 73 Pennebaker, J. W. 193, 198 Penner, H. H. 125, 139 person 113, 114 Peters, T. 71, 99, 100, 103 Petitot, J. 8, 21 phenomenology 59–61, 63 physics 45, 46, 49, 51, 53, 149, 157, 159, 161, 162 Piaget, J. 9, 15, 21 Planck, M. 136 Plantinga, A. 30 Plaskow, J. 97, 103 Plato 146, 164 pluralism 83, 155 Polkinghorne, D. 173–5, 178, 179, 182, 184, 185 Popper, K. 135 possibility 148, 196 postmodernism 34 postmodernity 77, 78, 80–5, 89, 90 Povinelli, P. J. 24, 28 prayer 25 Premack, D. 10, 21 Pritchard, H. 144, 146, 153 process thought 134 Proctor, J. 138 Provine, W. 52, 57 Ptolemaios 54 Putnam, H. 36, 42 Quakers 68–75 quality 47 quantum mechanics / theory / physics 45, 46, 48–51, 53, 83, 89, 132, 135, 136, 150 Queen, C. S. 114, 118 Quine, W. V. 135 Qu’ran 69, 76 Rahner, K. 194, 199 randomness 46 rationality 31, 35–7, 40, 84, 90, 144, 151 Ratzinger, J. S. Benedikt XVI, Pope Ray, J. 158

205

realism 31, 46, 95 reality 35, 132, 160, 161, 175 reason 124, 152 reductionism 83, 89, 109, 177 relativism 81–4, 88 relativity 46, 54, 55, 89, 135 revelation 70 Ricoeur, P. 175 Rilke, R. M. 71 Rippin, A. 70 Root, M. 40, 42 Rorty, R. 36–9, 42, 43 Roser, M. 193, 199 Ruse, M. 34, 43 Russell, A. 85, 92 Russell, B. 33, 43 Russell, R. J. 103, 126, 141 Sagan, C. 163, 168 Salmon, W. C. 18, 22 Sarder, Z. 34, 43 Sartre, J.-P. 194, 199 scala naturae 158, 164, 165 Schick, K. D. 24, 28 Schopenhauer, A. 155–68 Schrödinger, E. 51, 55, Schwartz, D. L. 14, 15, 19 Schweitzer, A. 165, 166, 168 scientism 33, 43, 102, 126, 158, 159, 165, 166 Searle, J. R. 35, 43, 191, 199 selection 27, 49, 99, 159, 169, 174, 180 self 59–64, 192, 194 Selz, O. 13, 22 Shay, J. 193, 195, 199 Silko, L. M. 187 simulation 16 Singer, T. 62–3 Slugoski, B. R. 192, 199 Snellman, H. 56, 57 Sobrino, J. 86, 93 social science 29, 35, 39, 40, 60 Sokal, A. 80 space 46, 48, 135, 136 Spence, D. 195 Sperber, D. 23, 28 Steiner, G. 199 Stenmark, M. 43, 126, 141 Stille, A. 70, 76

206 Stocker, M. 113, 118 Stoeger, W. R. 126, 141 story 29, 83 Stout, J. 130, 141 supernatural 90 super-string theory 55 Svartvik, J. 95, 103, 104 Taju-Farouki, S. 131, 141 Taylor, C. 191, 199 technology 127, 128 Teilhard de Chardin, P. 164, 166 teleology 157 temporality 175 Teske, J. 191, 193, 199 Thales of Miletos 25 theism 82, 87, 108 theory of everything (TOE) 46, 51, 55 theory of mind 60 Thomas Aquinas 86, 164 Tillich, P. 79, 80, 94 time 46, 48, 135, 136 tool making 24 Toth, N. 24, 28 trinity 90 Trivers, R. 99, 104 Trout, J. D. 17, 22, 147, 153 truth 32, 38, 39, 47, 69, 72, 75, 84, 114, 144, 146, 147, 151, 155, 158, 162, 195, 196 Tullberg, B. 104 Tullberg, J. 104 Turner, F. M. 129, 141 Tyson, N. 73

Index values 74 van Fraassen, B. 17, 22 van Huysteen, W. 177, 178, 185 verification 176 verisimilitude 176, 195 Verstehen 3 Vietnam 195 violence 72–4 Vogel, C. 77, 78, 89 Vollmer, F. 184, 185 von Wright, G. H. 17, 22 Watt, S. M. 76 Watts, F. 121 Weber, E. H. 51 Weinberg, S. 52, 57 Weislogel, E. 82, 83 Welch, C. 130, 141 Westhelle, V. 86, 87, 94 White, A. D. 130, 141 White, H. 185 White, P. A. 9, 22 Wilberforce, S. 129 Williams, G. C. 134 Williams, R. 112, 119 Wilson, D. S. 25, 28, 185 Wilson, E. O. 39, 40, 43, 173, 178, 179, 181, 183, 185 Wimmer, H. 11, 22 wisdom 133 Woese, C. 83, 89, 94 Wolpert, L. 23, 28, 108, 118 Woodruff, G. 10, 21 Zahavi, D. 60, 61, 64

understanding 3–22, 54, 63, 143–53