Thought Experiments, Science, and Theology 9789004685307, 9789004540330

Citation preview

Thought Experiments, Science, and Theology

Philosophical Studies in Science and Religion Series Editors Dirk Evers (Martin-​Luther-​University Halle-​Wittenberg, Germany) James Van Slyke (Fresno Pacific University, USA) Advisory Board Philip Clayton (Claremont University, USA) George Ellis (University of Cape Town, South Africa) Niels Henrik Gregersen (University of Copenhagen, Denmark) Antje Jackelén (Bishop of Lund, Sweden) Nancey Murphy (Fuller Theological Seminary, USA) Robert Neville (Boston University, USA) Palmyre Oomen (Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands) Thomas Jay Oord (Northwest Nazarene University, USA) V.V. Raman (University of Rochester, USA) Robert John Russell (Graduate Theological Union, USA) F. LeRon Shults (University of Agder, Norway) Nomanul Haq (University of Pennsylvania, USA) Kang Phee Seng (Centre for Sino-​Christian Studies, Hong Kong) Trinh Xuan Thuan (University of Virginia, USA) J. Wentzel van Huyssteen† (Princeton Theological Seminary, USA)

volume 10

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/​pssr

Thought Experiments, Science, and Theology By

Yiftach Fehige

LEIDEN | BOSTON

The Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data is available online at https://​cata​log​.loc​.gov lc record available at https://​lccn​.loc​.gov/2023037171​

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/​brill-​typeface. issn 1877-​8 542 isbn 978-​9 0-​0 4-​5 4033-​0 (hardback) isbn 978-​9 0-​0 4-​6 8530-​7 (e-​book) doi 10.1163/9789004685307 Copyright 2024 by Yiftach Fehige. Published by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Brill Wageningen Academic, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau and V&R unipress. Koninklijke Brill nv reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. Requests for re-​use and/​or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill nv via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-​free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents  Acknowledgments vii  List of Figures viii  List of Thought Experiments ix  Introduction 1 1  The Practice of Thought Experiments 5 1 The Natural Sciences 6 2 Mathematics, History, and Philosophy 25 3 Science and Religion 36 4 Conclusion 53 2  Two Hundred Years of Thought Experiments 55 1 From Kant to Mach 56 2 The Year 1986 62 3 The Pluralist Turn 67 4 A Nuanced Naturalism Is “True Enough” 82 5 Conclusion 94 3  Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity 96 1 Scientist-​Theologian 98 2 Diversity in Transition 102 3 Toys of Thought 115 4 Sexed Bodies 122 5 Sexuality in a Pluralist Perspective 135 6 Jews and Christians 145 7 Conclusion 153 4  Beyond Plato’s Heaven 155 1 Heaven and Pluralism 158 2 The Thought Experiment of the Book of Job 174 3 An Inconceivable Unity in the Imagination 202 4 Conclusion 220  Conclusion 221  Bibliography 225  Index 242

Acknowledgments It is often said because it is true: one cannot write a book and not accumulate much debt to others. I have many to thank; too numerous to list without taking the risk of forgetting someone who ought to be named. But I want them to know that I am deeply grateful. Generous institutional support came from the Deutsche Forschungs­ gemeinschaft, Humboldt Stiftung, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and Victoria College at the University of Toronto. I dedicate this book to my favorite thought experimenters, my children Magnus Amos, Yael Sara, and Nehemiah Sharon. I feel blessed to have a loving partner on my side with whom I can raise these wonderful human beings and live life to its fullest. Thank you, Amitai.

Figures All drawings were produced by Nine Budde (Berlin). 1  A pseudo-​realistic drawing of Einstein’s clock-​in-​the-​box 17 2  A pseudo-​realistic drawing of Bohr’s clock-​in-​the-​box 17 3  Brown’s Picture Proof of 1 +​2 +​3 +​… +​n =​n2/​2 +​ n/​2 26 4  A prison window with two iron bars that represent science and theology 107 5  Prison window with more iron bars representing more disciplines than science and theology 113 6  An illustration of Polkinghorne’s “hermeneutic spiral” towards greater unity in knowledge growing “bottom-​up” 119 7  Science and theology side by side spiraling “bottom-​up” each and together 120

Thought Experiments Listed in order of appearance.

Chapter 1

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Section 1 Galileo’s two cannon balls 7 Ship at rest or moving? 8 A light signal emitter on a train 8 Two rockets conjoined by a thread 9 The non-​rotating car and its garage 10 The clock-​in-​the box of Bohr and Einstein 12 The epr 15 Darwin’s wolves 20 Jenkins’ rare burrowing hare 22 Roughgarden’s dandelion competition 24

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Section 2 Brown’s Picture Proof of 1 +​2 +​3 +​… +​n =​n2/​2 +​ n/​2 25 Counterfactual Jesus 26 Foot’s Sc-​Rioters vs. Sc-​Tram 27 Shoemaker’s Brains Mix-​up 29 Ship of Theseus 29 Parfits’ amoeba thought experiment 30 Jackson’s Mary the color scientist 33 Dennett’s Mary i 34 Dennett’s Mary ii 34

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Section 3 Swinburne’s amoeba thought experiment 37 Swinburne’s mad surgeon 37 Wisdom’s gardener 40 Flew’s gardener 41 Mitchell’s resistance fighter 43 Hick’s travelers 44 Gosse’s navel of Adam 47 Dennett’s superman 49

newgenprepdf

x

Thought Experiments

28 Dennett’s murder of an artist 50 29 Putnam’s Seducer 52

Chapter 2

Section 4 30 Adam’s prelapsarian Knowledge 84

Chapter 3

31

Section 3 The mechanical models of the luminiferous æther 116

32

Section 4 Augustine on prelapsarian sex 125

33

Chapter 4 Section 2 The Book of Job 174

Conclusion 34 The Bees on the Synagogue windows 222 35 Putnam on elusive Logical Facts 223

Introduction I think you do need to take thought experiments seriously. swinburne 2020, 14:01 minutes

∵ This book fills two voids found in contemporary discussions on science and religion. Firstly, it presents a theological investigation into the practice of thought experiments in the natural sciences and beyond, including theology itself. Thereby it offers, secondly, something of a theological response to the pluralist turn that the history and philosophy of science has taken in recent years. The main thesis that I will defend in what follows is that thought experiments are of theological significance because the imagination is a means of divine revelation, and that we are best served to frame that revelation in pluralist terms. Here is the roadmap for the endeavour at hand: The first chapter will argue that, without thought experiments, discussions of science and religion would be as impoverished as the natural sciences and other scholarly endeavors would be without thought experiments. Contrary to first appearances, thought experiments are certainly not a fringe phenomenon in science and religion conversations. Thus, it is more important than it may seem at first to link today’s science and religion discussions to the philosophical debate over thought experiments. The second chapter seeks to vindicate the claim that an important factor for explaining the explosion of literature on thought experiments in the past thirty years is a clash between attempts at reaffirming the centrality of the traditional rationalism-​empiricism divide, on the one hand, and the emerging monism-​pluralism divide, on the other hand. I will argue that inquiries into thought experiments are not to be positioned along the rationalism-​empiricism divide, but instead along the monism-​ pluralism divide. Chapter 2 gives me the opportunity to say something about my preferred theory for explaining why many thought experiments have the astonishing cognitive power they in fact have. The third chapter offers an appraisal of the late John Polkinghorne’s assessment of thought experiments at the interface of science and religion. Polkinghorne was probably the first to position thought experiments theologically. The chapter’s central thesis is that Polkinghorne’s analysis points us in the right direction but is regrettably unsatisfactory insofar as it shows no appreciation of the cognitive significance

© Yiftach Fehige, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004685307_002

2 Introduction of both diversity and the imagination. I will argue that Polkinghorne promotes a theologically enhanced scientific monism and that he does so in a way that generates significant tensions in his theology of science. But he was nevertheless right in his contention that Christian theology itself relies on thought experiments in similar ways as science does and that this fact seems of some significance for any assessment of the relationship between science and religion. Still, as I will show, Polkinghorne’s views about thought experiments are unnecessarily constrained by a theologically enhanced scientific monism. Therefore, Chapter 4 aims for a pluralist framing of thought experiments. The fourth chapter advances the thesis that a pluralist framing of the imagination holds greater promise for accounting for the cognitive power of thought experiments than it may seem from the perspective of religious traditions which tend to think of truth in the singular. It is my hope that the originality of its main thesis is not the only strength of this study. I would like to think that it is also successful in clearly establishing the reasons which support a theological framing of thought experiments that I am submitting here for discussion. In my view, the topic of thought experiments is as intriguing as it is unique in its ability to facilitate inquiry into many of the central issues which arise from the encounter between science and religion today. Chapter 1 will offer a great deal of evidence in this regard. The notion of thought experiments is relatively young. I will argue this point in Chapter 2. And yet, the long history of Western thought offers a wealth of imagined scenarios which more than merely resemble today’s thought experiments, even before the time when the notion of thought experiments first sees the light of day. The existing literature on thought experiments presents many examples in this respect. Here I’d like to present only the two following examples. Both are relevant for present purposes: As to the first example, with Gregersen (2014, 130), we can go all the way back to the New Testament. He finds in the gospel of Luke (11: 12–​13) an example of a theological thought experiment. This is an observation of great significance in the context of this study. In Chapter 4 we shall entertain the claim that even in the incarnation, according to Brown (1999, 321), one finds proof of a general pattern of divine accommodation in the following sense: “The incarnation was a lived narrative of accommodation to the human condition, within which imagination played an indispensable part.” Insofar as Jesus of Nazareth was “truly human,” Brown (1999, 278) argues, it was “impossible” for Jesus “sanely to believe himself divine.” Jesus simply did not know that he was the second person of the trinity. The divine nature of Jesus of Nazareth was a genuine discovery of his followers at a later point after his death and under the impression of his resurrection. That process of discovery was as much facilitated by

Introduction

3

the imagination as the “lived narrative” of the incarnation itself, as it unfolded in the life and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth. Gregersen (2014, 130) claims that Luke 11: 11–​13 offers a theology of prayer. At the level of the canonical text, Jesus asks his audience to imagine a child requesting from their father a fish to eat. No father would serve a snake instead, Jesus explains, as he continues his thought experiment. Likewise, no father would serve a scorpion to their child if asked for an egg. Jesus then argues that those who pray for the “Holy Spirit” can be assured that the “Heavenly Father” will hear their prayer. Human fathers are “evil” and still give their children what they need. The “Heavenly Father” is good. Thus, petitionary prayers for the Holy Spirit are guaranteed to be effective. What the gospel of Luke offers here is not simply an analogy to make a theological point. I think there are at least three (not mutually exclusive) ways to understand the purported presence of thought experiments in the New Testament. Firstly, they are meant to convey theological knowledge Jesus had, but which he decided not to share, other than by indirect means, such as through thought experiments. Secondly, the presence of thought experiments indicates the more general reliance on thought experiments on Jesus’ part insofar as he dealt with his own mission. Thirdly, New Testament thought experiments demonstrate a dependency on thought experiments on the parts of the authors of the Gospels to develop their own theological message under the impression of the life and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth. I will argue that one can substantiate all three options in meaningful ways, but that the last two are of greatest theological consequence. I will argue that thought experiments are at the core of divine revelation. In Grant (2007) we find a second example that shows that the practice of thought experiments predates the notion of thought experiments. He stresses that scholastic natural philosophy departed from Aristotle in numerous ways in the 13th century. “Significant departures from Aristotle’s natural philosophy,” Grant (2007, 201) explains, “occurred not only directly, but also indirectly by way of counterfactuals, or hypothetical assumptions about the world.” These indirect departures, Grant (2007) argues, were facilitated by thought experiments, as “they were said to occur ‘according to the imagination’ (secundum imaginationem).” The use of thought experiments was “considerably stimulated by a theological condemnation in 1277, known as ‘The Condemnation of 1277,’ which was triggered by Aristotle’s natural philosophy.” The important point here is that “Aristotle often presented his conclusions about the world as absolutely necessary and impossible to be otherwise. For example,” Grant (2007, 202) clarifies, “Aristotle argued that there is only one world, and it is impossible for other worlds to exist.” That was deemed theologically problematic because God could surely have created more worlds than ours, although he probably

4 Introduction didn’t. And this is exactly what article 34 of the Condemnation of 1277 insists on. Accordingly, the method of thought experiments emerged as an integral part of Medieval natural philosophy, Grant (2007) argues. Essentially, (although somewhat anachronistically given that neither the notion of thought experiments nor the concept of science existed at the time), we find here a theological approval of the scientific method of thought experiments! If Grant (2007) is right, then surely the undertaking of this study is anything but peripheral in its theological focus on the intersection of science and religion while investigating thought experiments. There are some who literally fear that I am right in my theological positioning of thought experiments (see Fehige 2014). As the following pages will show, I hope, I cannot but think such fear to be the effect of a poor imagination.

Chapter 1

The Practice of Thought Experiments ...mystics, using only their minds, travelled across the celestial spheres to God himself It is only the illiteracy of the general public and of their stern trainers, the intellectuals, and their amazing lack of imagination that makes them reject [a comparison of such an achievement with the landing on the moon]. feyerabend 2010 [1975], 239

This chapter defends the claim that discussions of science and religion would find themselves as impoverished as discussions in the natural sciences and other scholarly endeavors without thought experiments. The thesis certainly entertains no trivial matter. For starters, there is continuing silence on the presence of thought experiments in some fields, such as anthropology. Secondly, some have outright denied the use of thought experiments in some fields, such as chemistry (see, e.g., Snooks 2006). Thus, one shouldn’t simply assume that the use of thought experiments is universal. It is important to note at this point that, in this chapter, I will assume—​ consistent with what I have argued elsewhere (see Fehige 2016b, 1–​29)—​that discussions about science and religion have become a field in its own right. In the third chapter I will have more to say to justify this assumption (see 3.1). The focus in this chapter will be on the demonstration of the extent of the use of thought experiments in the field of science and religion. To that effect I will discuss a selection of the many thought experiments that I deem to be exemplary in this regard. Unfortunately, there is no widely accepted definition of thought experiments to rely upon. Some deplore that situation (see, e.g., Häggqvist 2009, 58; Palmerino 2019, 458). Others highlight the importance of an open mind in approaching thought experiments (see, e.g., Stuart, Fehige, Brown 2018, 2). Either way, one must look at examples of thought experiments to get a better idea of their nature and importance in the natural sciences and beyond. In my selection of examples, I was, of course, guided by the thesis that this chapter seeks to advance. I seek to highlight both the frequent use of thought experiments in science and religion discussions at pivotal places and the subject matters that the selected thought experiments thematize.

© Yiftach Fehige, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004685307_003

6

Chapter 1

I will proceed as follows in this chapter: what comes first after this introduction is a discussion of examples of thought experiments in physics and biology (Section 1), followed by an exposition of examples from mathematics, history, and philosophy (Section 2). The discussion will then move on to examples of thought experiments which have the relationship between science and religion itself as their main theme (Section 3). A conclusion will round off our exploration of the rich world of the “laboratory of the mind”—​to use a phrase some have found apt to characterize the practice of thought experiments. 1

The Natural Sciences

In the 2006 novel The End of Mr. Y, by Scarlett Thomas, the main character, Ariel, writes a dissertation about thought experiments at a Department of English. Her office is located at the “Newton Building” of her university. This is not the only hint at the overlap of the worlds of literature and science with respect to thought experiments. When the opportunity arises for Ariel to discuss her views about thought experiments with a scientist, the reader encounters the notion that “all thought experiments are stories” (342). When the scientist prompts her to explain what she means, Ariel answers: “Well, because all thought experiments take the form of a narrative.” (342). Thought experiments and their narratives are probably not identical. Nevertheless, it seems equally wrong to identify thought experiments exclusively with the scenario that goes on in the imagination when we conduct a thought experiment. The fictional scenarios which thought experiments entertain are comparable to real-​world experiments in their entanglement of theory and phenomena. Real-​world experiments are fictional, too, although to a degree that is less defining than in the case of thought experiments: “That the human creation of special, ‘small worlds’, that are the experiments of the sciences, would be in continuity with the rest of the world, is itself a hugely creative and non-​intuitive idea,” argues McLeish (2019, 135). The difference between real-​world experiments and thought experiments consists neither in the absence nor presence of fictional elements. It is also not a higher or lower confidence in the operations of the mind that separates both types of experiments. And each presents its own suite of philosophical puzzles. The puzzle that sits at the center of the debate over scientific thought experiments is the following: how can we possibly learn anything new about nature by entertaining imagined scenarios without any new empirical information coming in when we run a thought experiment?

The Practice of Thought Experiments

7

The most discussed thought experiment is Galileo’s two (cannon) balls scenario. And here is a reading of it that has attracted a lot of attention in the literature. “Galileo asks us to imagine a heavy ball attached by a string to a light ball,” Brown (1986, 9–​10) recounts. Galileo did so to see what would “happen if they were released together. Reasoning in the Aristotelian fashion leads to an absurdity.” This is so, because “the lighter ball would slow up the heavy one, so the speed of the combined balls would be slower than the heavy ball alone (i.e., H +​L < H). However, since the combined balls are heavier than the heavy ball alone, the combined object should fall faster than the heavy one (i.e., H < H +​L).” And so, Brown (1986, 9–​10) stresses, we “have a straightforward contradiction; the old theory is destroyed.” But even more happens than that, because a “new theory is established; the question of which falls faster is obviously resolved by having all objects fall at the same speed. Here we have a transition from one theory to another which is quite remarkable.” This is said to be worthy of attention because there “has been no new empirical evidence. The old theory was rationally believed before the thought experiment, but was shown to be absurd by it. The thought experiment established rational belief in a new theory” in the absence of new empirical evidence, Brown (1986, 9–​10) concludes. Brown (1986) runs with this thought experiment, so far, in fact, that he eventually reaches Plato’s heaven. He pushes the thought experiment to such heights because of the Platonism that he finds endorsed by most mathematicians. And since today’s physics, especially theoretical physics, is highly mathematized, the disciplinary boundaries are assumed to be blurry enough that Brown (1986) feels entitled to extend the Platonism to the physical sciences that he finds evidenced by mathematics and widely endorsed by mathematicians. Thought experiments like Galileo’s enable us to learn things about the physical world in the absence of any new empirical evidence. By means of a thought experiment, Galileo discovered a new law of nature. It is a genuine discovery because Galileo, Brown (1986, 9–​10) contends, “peeked into Plato’s heaven.” This heaven is nowhere, of course, because the universals that populate it are abstract entities and thus cannot occupy a place. They are very different entities than canons and towers from which we can drop balls. These things can be heavy, but heaviness is in Plato’s heaven only. With the “mind’s eye” we can see those universals and how they relate, Brown (1986, 12) insists. This allows us to grasp the necessities that are claimed to be inherent in observable regularities as captured by laws of nature. Observation of regularities is not enough to explain the insights into the operations of the world that are stated by laws of nature. You can drop as many balls of different weight from a tower as you want, but you will never observe the necessity that Galileo’s

8

Chapter 1

thought experiment helped us to discover. Most of the time Platonic insight and observation of regularities go hand in hand. In Galileo’s case, however, Platonic insight, by means of a thought experiment, was sufficient to establish a new law of nature, Brown (1986, 9–​10) claims. It seems unnecessary to consider any further observational data to back up the new law of motion that Galileo’s thought experiment is seen to establish. The thought experiment is enough. Platonic perception, Brown (1986) contends, is really the best way to make sense of a discovery such as Galileo’s. Platonic perception is what separates thought experiments and unrealized physical experiments. It is simply not true, Brown (2013, 53) argues, that we would “see the same sort of things” we see in real-​world experiments, with the only difference being that they remain unexecuted. We see this much clearly, Brown (2013) argues, if we look at another thought experiment. Unlike Galileo’s, this thought experiment requires some preparatory work to render it more accessible. Of course, we shall make use of thought experiments to accomplish that necessary preparation. Imagine yourself on a ship. It could be either at rest in the port or moving away from it with constant velocity towards the sea. The waters are calm, and there is no sight of land from where you sit on the boat that would allow you to determine whether your boat is at rest or moving at a constant speed. Other people move around on the ship, kids are jumping around, and the water runs down from the faucet at the bar close to your seat. In the sea water you see fish swim, and air bubbles move upwards. From your seat you cannot really tell whether the ship is still in the port or moving with constant speed towards the open sea. If you realize that this can be the case, then you have grasped the concept of an inertial frame of reference. Special relativity theory postulates that all laws of nature are the same in every inertial frame. The theory further postulates that the speed of light is constant. It has the same value in every frame. Imagine yourself on a train now. Your seat is located right in the middle of the train. Outside the window you see a farmer on a field facing you and your train. Your train is equipped with devices that emit light. There is one device at the front and one at the end of the train. Imagine that each device emits a light signal at once. The farmer sees the two light signals emitted from each end of the train simultaneously as they reach the farmer at the same time. The train is in motion, however, at a specific constant speed in the direction of the light emitter at the front of the train. You will see the light signal from the front earlier, therefore, as the train has moved forward while the light signals were on the way to the farmer. It must be true, then, to say that simultaneity of distant events is relative to an inertial frame.

The Practice of Thought Experiments

9

Now let us imagine two identically constructed rockets, both initially at rest in an inertial frame (see Bokulich 2001, 290). We refer to this inertial frame as S. The distance between the two rockets is stipulated to be 100 meters apart in S. We further imagine that they are connected by a thin piece of thread. It is just long enough to connect the two rockets. We imagine further that the rockets are ignited simultaneously in S and accelerate to 4/​5th of the speed of light relative to S. Then they stop accelerating and move with a uniform velocity. From the point of view of an observer at rest in S, both rockets have been moving in tandem. The distance between them is still 100 meters for that observer. Of interest in this scenario is the fate of the thread. Will it break, we are to wonder. The point of this question is certainly not self-​evident. But we see clearer when we consider the so-​called Lorentz factor, according to which an object moving near the speed of light relative to an observer at rest will appear contracted in the direction of its motion, because its observed length will undergo a reduction in length by (1-​v 2/​c2)1/​2 (where v is the relative velocity of the moving object and c is the speed of light in a vacuum). The thread connecting our two rockets will contract to a length of 60 meters. Since the distance between the two rockets remains 100 meters, the thread will break. But what do we see if we imagine the scenario from the perspective of another inertial frame, S’, that is, from the perspective of an observer at rest relative to a rocket that travels uniformly at 4/​5th of the speed of light relative to S? The observer is on the rocket. From the point of view of our observer at rest in S’, the initial distance between the other two rockets is only 60 meters. The one ahead of the other in the direction of travel is seen accelerating first and coming to rest first relative to S’. The other rocket follows delayed. This effectuates an increase in the distance between the two rockets from 60 meters to 166.67 meters. This means the thread will also break from the perspective of an observer at rest in S’. The thread is only 100 meters long. What is exciting about this thought experiment, Bokulich (2001, 290) highlights, is that “Lorentz contraction can cause measurable stresses on moving bodies.” This result intrigues because, “according to special relativity, Lorentz contraction is a frame-​dependent phenomenon, and hence, is not thought to lead to any observable effects, such as a thread breaking.” Equally intriguing is that this thought experiment was retooled about twenty years later. It reaches the same conclusion but by a very different sort of analysis. “Rather than using the special theory of relativity to analyze this thought experiment,” Bokulich (2001, 290–​291) explains, Lorentz’s own æther theory is put to work. The “æther” is something comparable to water and air in that it acts like a medium facilitating the propagation of forces. The æther is stationary, and all motion is stipulated to be relative to it. The relevant factors now are the forces

10 

Chapter 1

on a molecular level with respect to the solidity of a body, like a thread connecting two rockets. The point of the “retooled” thought experiment is that “the atoms” are seen as “making up the thread in terms of nuclei with circular electron orbits.” What is shown is “that as the nuclei begin to move relative to the stationary æther, the initially circular orbits will deform into ellipses, contracting in the direction of motion by the usual Lorentz factor.” If they contract, so too will the thread. “If the thread is not strong enough,” Bokulich (2001, 292) concludes her reconstruction, “to overcome the inertia of the rockets and draw them closer together as it contracts, then the thread will break.” Up to this point, we have become familiar with the notion of an inertial frame, and an important postulate of relativity theory—​the principle that simultaneity is relative to an inertial frame—​, as well as the phenomenon of Lorentz contraction in its observable effects. A number of very well-​known thought experiments have assisted us in acquiring that familiarity. At this point, there should be no longer any doubt that physics is full of thought experiments. The last example about Lorentz contraction also demonstrates nicely the plasticity of thought experiments. We can “re-​think” thought experiments. The “same thought experiment,” Bokulich (2001, 286) argues, “can be ‘rethought’ from the perspective of different—​and even incompatible—​theories.” This strongly suggests that thought experiments do have a life of their own relative to theory, contrary to Hacking (1992). We are in a position now to look at the thought experiment that Brown (2013) wants us to consider so that we may come to an appreciation of the difference between sense perception and Platonic perception, and the corresponding distinction between thought experiments and unrealized real-​world experiments. Imagine a car that varies in its length from one inertial frame to another inertial frame, depending upon its relative velocity. Maximal length is reached at rest. Extremely short length is reached when the car is at speeds near the velocity of light. Imagine our car driving towards a garage at a very high speed. Looking at the car from the top of the garage, which is at rest, the car is Lorentz-​contracted because we are speeding to the garage. The car will clearly fit into the garage, as we assume that the car and garage have the same length in the common-​sense understanding of “length.” For us drivers the situation is not the same, however. The equality of inertial frames allows us to imagine the garage moving to us with our car being considered to be at rest while we are moving at constant speed. Now the garage is clearly too short for our car to fit into it. We have a paradox. The car does and doesn’t fit into the garage. The paradox can be solved when we recall the principle of the relativity of simultaneity. To see how that is, we need to reconstruct the order of events in

The Practice of Thought Experiments

11

the scenario as described from the two perspectives of the “car frame” and the “garage frame.” It is such, Brown (2013, 57) explains, that “in the car frame, due to the relativity of simultaneity, the front bumper of the car breaks through the wall of the garage before the rear bumper is inside the garage.” But in the “garage frame,” before the front bumper tears apart the rear wall of the garage, the “rear bumper” is inside the garage. For a short time, the car is in the garage, in contrast to what is seen from the “car frame” perspective. As if all of this isn’t already counterintuitive enough, physicists advise, according to Brown (2013), that while the car and the garage are Lorentz-​ contracted, we simply will not see the car and garage as contracted! What Brown (2013) alludes to here is the so-​called “Terrel effect” that cancels out the Lorentz contraction. What we would see is rotated objects instead! This is, according to Appell (2019, 41), “a consequence of the time it takes light to travel from various points” on the moving objects “to an observer’s eyes.” If the speed of light wasn’t finite, Appell (2019, 45) continues, then we would see length contraction, which “can be detected by careful measurement.” Accordingly, a visualization of our imagined car-​garage-​scenario should show a car rotated sideways and thus smashing the frame of the garage door while moving towards inside it. The main point of Brown (2013) in considering all this is that the thought experiment does not represent it this way, and, yet, it succeeds in bringing out insights which are correct, according to special relativity theory. This allows us to draw the conclusion, Brown (2013) argues, that thought experiments are about phenomena defined as specific idealizations construed out of relevant data. Rotation is part of the relevant data but idealized away. If we were in a position to realize the car-​garage thought experiment as a physical experiment, rotation would be observable. The idealization present in thought experiments in the car-​garage thought experiment is of a Platonic kind, Brown (2013) contends. He further argues that this idealization is irreducible to Aristotelian idealization (ignorance of colour of car and garage, for example) and Galilean idealization (distortion of reality by assuming a velocity approximating the speed of light, for instance). We do much more in the car-​garage thought experiment, Brown (2013) argues, than idealizing in an Aristotelian and Galilean manner. We stipulate that rotation doesn’t occur. This is Platonic idealization and it is unique to thought experiments, Brown (2013) concludes. It is not only reality but also appearance that can be falsified in a thought experiment—​rotation is assumed to be absent! In this respect, Brown (2013, 65) stresses, the car-​garage thought experiment challenges the “common view that thought experiments are imaginary versions of real experiments and are similar to them.”

12 

Chapter 1

According to Brown (1986, 2013), then, the two thought experiments, Galileo’s two cannon balls of different weight and the car to be parked in a garage, cause advocates of non-​Platonic accounts of thought experiments considerable difficulties. The two most promising accounts of thought experiments, Brown (2013) specifies, cannot deal in a satisfactory manner with the two examples we just considered. The first account sees them as arguments in disguise (see, e.g., Brendel 2018 for a most concise exposition and critique of this account). The second account that Brown (2013) rejects treats thought experiments as physical experiments which remain unexecuted in the real world. Brown (2013) claims that Galileo’s two (cannon) balls thought experiment exhibits an inductive leap that cannot be captured by the so-​called “argument view.” There is an insight, Brown (1986, 2013) argues, that does not result from the logical operations on the premises that the thought experiment makes. The knowledge we are said to gain with the help of the thought experiment must be seen as being sourced from Platonic perception. The car-​garage thought experiment is seen as helpful in understanding the nature of that kind of perception. It is taken to demonstrate the unique role that fabricated appearances can play in thought experiments. Once the imagined scenarios are realized, we will no longer deal with the same scenario that is featured in the original thought experiment. Thus, thought experiments are not identical with unexecuted real-​world experiments. Platonism, Brown (1986, 2013) concludes, is, therefore, just the best explanation we have available to make sense of a number of thought experiments in physics and beyond. In the examples we have considered following Brown (1986 and 2013), the more general Platonic nature of thought experiments just comes to light most clearly. Thought experiments seem indispensable especially at times when established conceptual frameworks undergo significant revisions (see Kuhn 1977 [1964]). This is true even if they fail to deliver new theories. What they allow scientists to do most often is to enhance understanding. They do this by facilitating a discussion as to whether we can expect certain phenomena to obtain. The rise of quantum physics at the turn to the 20th century proves that point exemplarily, as it challenges, Haroche (2013, 773) argues, in unique ways minds that “have evolved to understand the macroscopic world surrounding us.” It is good therefore that we have the tool of thought experiments. Since the “direct observation of the quantum strangeness,” Haroche (2013, 773) continues, proved elusive for a very long time, Bohr, Einstein, and others “described ‘thought experiments’” to address the non-​classical features of the quantum world. Among the famous examples is the “clock-​in-​the box” (or sometimes called “photon box”) thought experiment. It happens to be among those thought experiments of the past which both continue to attract the attention

The Practice of Thought Experiments

13

of physicists to this day (see, e.g., Dieks and Lam 2008, Kullie 2018, Nikolic 2012), and to be one of my favorite examples from the “laboratory of the mind”! The box that the thought experiment features is “supposed to keep photons for a while and to release them on demand.” The box is also equipped with a “clock to time a shutter which releases the photon.” Einstein and Bohr had their own versions of the thought experiment, which is an important fact in discussions of the thought experiment. They “could not envision,” Haroche (2013, 754) explains, that their thought experiments “would be one day feasible.” This is indeed true, and thus I am inclined to think that the thought experiment is part of the evidence that counts against any epistemology that requires thought experimenters to establish (“in principle”) realizability of their imagined scenarios in order rightfully to claim cognitive efficacy for them (see Buzzoni 2008, who holds that view; as well as my exchange with Buzzoni: Fehige 2012b and 2013b, and Buzzoni 2013). Thought experiments have done some heavy theoretical lifting in the struggle for acquiring the right perspective of the quantum world. Most of the scenarios entertained by Einstein and others in the early days of quantum physics were not realizable, because physicists at the time were not in a position to manipulate particles of light in the way many thought experiments suggested was possible. The practical “methods to achieve” such “subtle manipulation,” Haroche (2013, 754) specifies, “had to wait for the development of tuneable narrow band lasers, of fast computers and of superconducting materials, which are all, in one way or the other, technologies emergent from quantum theory.” Before these technologies emerged, observation of single particles was a matter of tracing “the debris they produced after being smashed against each other in fiery collisions. In these experiments,” Haroche (2013, 754) explains, “their existence and properties were deduced so to speak ‘post-​mortem.’” The strangeness of the quantum world has remained unchanged despite the remarkable technological innovations of recent decades. If we look at electrons, for example, and assume for simplicity’s sake that they can be characterized by a vertical spin (up or down) and a horizontal spin (right or left), and further assume as fact that they have either up-​spin or down-​spin and either right-​spin or left-​spin, then the strangeness of the quantum world presents itself to us as follows (see Albert 1994): electrons with an up-​spin, for instance, will be exiting upwards when we feed them into a measuring device that is designed to detect whether the electron has up-​spin or down-​spin. We can picture it such: when we throw a ball into a hole at the front side of a box (representing an electron entering a vertical spin measuring device), then the ball will exit through a hole at the top or at the bottom of the box after it passed through the box. The box is designed to lead all balls with an up-​spin to the exit

14 

Chapter 1

hole at the top, while those with a down-​spin will exit through the hole at the bottom of the box. We can measure the horizontal spin of electrons in a similar way. They exit the box either to the right or to the left. What is strange about the quantum world is that when we throw a hundred balls into the entrance hole of each of our two measuring boxes (representing simultaneous measurement of horizontal and vertical spin), then in each case fifty of them will emerge through either of the two exit holes in each box (up/​down and right/​ left). But when we consider a consecutive measurement process, and take, after a first measurement of the horizontal spin of a hundred balls (right/​left), only the right spinning ones in order to throw them into the entrance hole of a vertical spin measuring box (up/​down), and then take those that exited upwards and throw them again into the entrance hole of a horizontal spin measuring box (up/​down), then we do not see all of them exiting through the right hole of the box! What we observe instead is again a fifty-​fifty distribution, although we had thrown only right-​spinning balls into the vertical spin measuring box, before feeding those with detected up-​spin again to a horizontal measuring box. We have a sequence of three consecutive measurements here, and the result of the third is what is really puzzling, unless we are willing to accept that measurements can change the reality of that which is measured. In the course of the horizontal measurement, the value of the vertical spin has somehow changed. In contrast, in the macrophysical world, I can measure the length of a book and its width in consecutive order as often as I want, length and width of the book will not change. Even more intriguing is that once we take all the right spinning balls from a first horizontal measurement, feed them into the vertical measurement box and then collect all the balls emerging from that vertical measurement box (up-​spinning and down-​spinning ones) in a non-​ measuring third box in order to let them pass towards a second horizontal spin measuring box, we do get a hundred percent right spinning balls as a result of the third measurement. This does not happen, however, if all up-​spinning balls are prevented from reaching the non-​measuring third box. Then we face again the situation that fifty percent had their horizontal spin changed—​somehow. Whatever experimental set-​up one tries, the puzzling results always obtain. It also proves difficult to identify physical properties to explain the results. Members of the “so-​called Copenhagen-​Göttingen camp” (Bokulich 2008, 103), such as Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, advanced, therefore, an interpretation of the experimental results that accepts the observable effects as an indication of the way things actually are. What the experiments reveal to us are not definitive limits to our cognitive and technological abilities. They tell us something about the world. Einstein strongly disagreed with that kind of metaphysics, and in 1927, Bokulich (2008, 104) tells us, a “debate between

The Practice of Thought Experiments

15

Einstein and Bohr began as a series of informal discussions at the Fifth Solvay conference.” The sources for that debate are few, and too many commentators rely only on Bohr’s account, which was clearly written, Landsman (2006, 215) stresses, “from a winner’s perspective” and is, therefore, misleading in important respects. For example, it is not true that eventually “Einstein had to concede defeat,” as Polkinghorne (2007, 93) states, for example. In fact, Landsman (2006, 214) notes, “after decades of derision by the Copenhagen camp, Einstein’s star as a critic of quantum mechanics has been on the rise,” while “Bohr’s reputation as an interpreter of quantum mechanics” travels “in the opposite direction.” Einstein raised a “cluster of concerns” (Bokulich 2008, 105) about the theory of Bohr and others. One issue concerned the uncertainty principle of Heisenberg, according to which, Albert (1994, 60) explains, “certain pairs of measurable physical properties, such as […] horizontal and vertical spin, are said to be incompatible with each other.” Measuring one, the Heisenberg principle says, “will always uncontrollably disrupt the other.” This principle can be understood to be targeted by Einstein’s clock-​in-​the-​ box scenario, or so I will assume for present purposes. Discussions exist about the aim of that thought experiment (see, e.g., Fehige 2012a, 260). It is often stressed that Einstein had fully accepted Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle by the time he entertained the thought experiment in question in 1930 (see, e.g., the comments on this discussion in Bokulich 2008, 106). While we do not need to concern ourselves with such details in the present context, it is important to register “that Einstein was still playing with the idea of undermining” Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle “as late as 1933,” according to Landsman (2006, 225). That being said, it is undeniable that one can certainly read the clock-​in-​the-​box thought experiment “as the first historical example of a quantum system that cannot be understood correctly without invoking quantum nonlocality.” (Nikolic 2012, 1096) That is to say that Einstein’s thought experiment in this case is not read as intended to challenge the consistency of the Copenhagen-​Göttingen theory by proving the failure of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle with respect to a specific imagined scenario. Instead, Einstein is understood to argue by means of the thought experiment that the Copenhagen-​Göttingen theory is incomplete, and thus that the clock-​in-​the-​ box thought experiment is similar in aim to the thought experiment that we find entertained in the famous Einstein-​Podolsky-​Rosen (epr) paper of 1935 (see, e.g., Bokulich 2008, 107). The epr thought experiment features the possibility of interaction between two quantum systems A and B such that occurrences at A can have a physical effect on B instantaneously no matter what the distance between them is and independently of the physical conditions in the space in between them.

16 

Chapter 1

The absurdity of that possibility was meant to demonstrate the incompleteness of the Copenhagen-​Göttingen theory. Thought experiments can be “re-​ thought” as we have seen already, and it seems reasonable to accept that one can read the clock-​in-​the-​box scenario in a way that one finds seeds for the epr thought experiment in it. Likewise, according to Landman (2006, 227), “although Einstein’s original intention might have been to press what he felt to be a reductio ad absurdum argument against quantum theory, the [epr] paper is now generally read as stating a spectacular prediction of quantum theory.” It is understood to predict “the existence of what these days are quite rightly called epr-​correlations.” The epr thought experiment is part of the “most famous paper ever written about quantum mechanics.” If the clock-​in-​the-​box thought experiment has a role to play in that development, all the more reason to have a closer look at it, even if it did not allow the use that Einstein originally intended (see Bokulich 2008, 106–​107). What is indubitably true is that Einstein was, like Galileo, a master of thought experiments, and many of his thought experiments continue to attract attention in various contexts. It is not clear what Einstein’s actual views about thought experiments were (see, e.g., Brown 2011a, 152–​175; Kühne 2005, 234–​279), but he clearly used them very often in important contexts—​and the clock-​in-​the-​box scenario is certainly exemplary in this respect. Here is one possible reading then of the clock-​in-​the-​box scenario: it is about the measurement of conjoined physical properties of a photon insofar as they are subject to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Einstein imagines a box that is equipped with a shutter mechanism connected to a clock that controls it (see Figure 1). We are to imagine that the clock is set in such a way that the shutter opens at a very precise point in time. At that point a photon is imagined making its way out of the box. We thus know exactly the position of the photon at a particular time. What we can also do in order to determine its energy, is to weigh the box before and after the escape of the photon. The difference in the weight of the box enables us to infer with precision the energy of the photon, using the formalized equivalence of mass and energy (E =​mc2). What seems to follow is a direct challenge of the view that classical conjugate variables, like energy and time, cannot be measured with equal accuracy with respect to the photon that the imagined scenario features. The Heisenberg uncertainty relation for energy and time does not seem to hold in this case. In his account of the challenge, Bohr (1949) frankly admits the distress that Einstein’s thought experiment caused him. Maybe he only meant to add here some dramatic element to his recollection of events. All night long he had worked, Bohr (1949) recounts, on the answer to Einstein that he presented

The Practice of Thought Experiments

17

­f igure 1  A pseudo-​realistic drawing of Einstein’s clock-​in-​the-​box a n adaptation from bohr 1949, 225

to him the next morning. His answer draws attention to the weighing mechanism that would be required to do what Einstein imagines possible in order to challenge the uncertainty principle. Bohr imagines the addition of springs that hold the box from the top, and there is also a hitch at the bottom, which allows us to hang weights (see Figure 2). Bohr (1949) focuses on the motion of the box. It will move when the imagined photon leaves the box. Less weight means that the box moves up the scale. As we hang different weights onto the hitch to determine the precise change in the weight of the box (to determine ultimately the energy of the photon), the box moves down and up. The resulting momentum of the box makes it really difficult to adjust the pointer, which is installed on the sidewall of the box that faces a scale. The scale is fixed on a frame that holds the springs. When the box moves, it does so parallel to the scale. If the box gets heavier the pointer moves downward along the scale; if the box gets lighter, it moves upward the scale. Due to the nature of the springs, the weighing process is the more accurate, the more time we allow for the adjustment of scale and pointer. That means, the faster the weighing process is, the more inaccurate we can expect the determined weight-​difference to be, and thus the calculation of the energy of the photon. On the other hand, the more time one takes to weigh the box, the more inaccurate we can expect the reading of the clock to be, as the box moves in the direction of the gravitational force. This inaccuracy is taken by Bohr (1949) to be an inevitable consequence of the so-​called redshift formula

­f igure 2 A pseudo-​realistic drawing of Bohr’s clock-​in-​the-​box a n adaptation from bohr 1949, 227

18 

Chapter 1

of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. It says that a time-​measuring clock moving in the direction of gravitational force slows down. While certainly written from a winner’s perspective, the account of Bohr (1949) of his exchange with Einstein was part of a volume that was dedicated and presented to Einstein. That is to say that Einstein did have an opportunity to respond to Bohr’s story with any corrections he might have deemed necessary. But Einstein chose not to do so. This is truly surprising for one reason at least. Bohr’s reply seems flawed, although it is a matter of controversy what exactly it is that is wrong with Bohr’s reply. Some argue that no uncertainty relationship of energy and time can be inferred from Einstein’s general theory of relativity, because it is deterministic. Nothing indeterministic can therefore come out of it. Others argue that Bohr’s reply presupposes a deeper link between the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, a link that nobody has been able to spell out to this date. This missing link makes a unification of quantum mechanics and the general theory of relativity impossible. And then there are those who have objected that Bohr is not clear as to what time he is talking about. Einstein speaks about the time of the escape of the photon, and thus of the clock that is in the box. Bohr, however, refers to the time that it takes to weigh the box, and thus about a clock outside the box. In the present context, we are less intrigued by the challenges that the exchange between Bohr and Einstein poses to science. The thought experiment can teach us also important philosophical lessons, and these are of interest to us. According to Bishop (1999), the thought experiment renders the “argument view” of thought experiments moot. If that “argument view” were the correct account of thought experiments, then we had to describe the exchange between Bohr and Einstein in a way that is highly implausible in epistemological perspective, Bishop (1999) argues. A central question we are facing here is whether or not Einstein and Bohr dealt with one or two thought experiments. One way to look at the question is to distinguish between types and tokens of a thought experiment. Certainly, as we have seen already when considering the two-​rockets-​connected-​by-​a-​thread scenario, one and the same thought experiment can be “re-​thought”/​“retooled” in different ways. Another way to put it is to say that the same type of a thought experiment has many tokens. Advocates of the “argument view,” such as Norton (1991, 1996), are committed, according to Bishop (1999), to say that Bohr’s and Einstein’s version of the clock-​in-​the-​ box scenario are nothing but tokens of one and the same type of argument. But this is clearly wrong, because the two imagined scenarios require a reconstruction along the lines of two different types of arguments; we are dealing with substantially different premises and conclusions. Norton (2004, 64) accepts that this is the case. According to Bishop (1999), however, such a reading of the

The Practice of Thought Experiments

19

exchange is deeply problematic because it implies that Bohr simply ignored Einstein’s original argument and introduced a new one in its stead. This makes it difficult even to speak of a substantial exchange between Bohr and Einstein. We would have two scientists talking past each other, where one argument is simply placed alongside another argument. Such a reading of the encounter makes it really difficulty to understand how Bohr came to entertain the idea that his version of the thought experiment defeated Einstein’s version and left Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle intact. It is surely also not helpful to speculate that Bohr must have grasped an insincerity on Einstein’s end, and therefore simply deemed Einstein’s original challenge obsolete, the moment he had some idea as to how to counter Einstein’s challenge. As I have indicated above, it is reasonable to say that Einstein’s challenge actually stood, despite Bohr’s response. Einstein did continue to challenge the “Copenhagen-​Göttingen camp” along the lines of the clock-​in-​the-​box scenario, although shifting focus more and more from inconsistency to incompleteness considerations after 1930. In light of all these interpretive challenges, it is probably best to conceive of the exchange between Einstein and Bohr over the clock-​in-​the-​box scenario in terms of “counter thought experiments” (see Brown 2007). That is to say that we have here a pair of thought experiments ordered in such a way that one thought experiment introduced a phenomenon that is challenged by another, and where neither the premises nor the conclusion are the central matter of concern (see Brown 2007, 158). Such thought experiments exemplify most vividly a disconnect in the relation between beliefs, on the one hand, and the imagination, on the other. Accordingly, the proposal of Stuart (2016) rings true that the clock-​in-​the-​box is an example of the cognitive power of the imagination in enhancing scientific understanding. It is argued that we submit the imagined scenario to two tests to determine whether or not it was successful in what we assume its aim to be –​namely, enhancing understanding. The first is the test of meaningfulness and it checks in on the degree to which a thought experiment establishes meaningful relationships between new ideas and existing ones. The second is the test of fruitfulness and it concerns the ability we acquire when we understand something. To give examples from the religious context to clarify the nature of the two tests: If you answer the question in the negative whether trinitarian Christianity is monotheistic, you did not pass the first test. For present purposes we can think of the doctrine of trinity as the new idea that arose with Christianity and monotheism as an idea that existed already before; in Judaism, for example. As for the second test, you demonstrate understanding of trinitarian Christianity if you, as someone who is committed to that faith tradition, refrain from

20 

Chapter 1

engaging in religious practice that treats any of the three persons of the trinity as less than a deity or a deity independently of the other persons. The clock-​in-​the-​box thought experiment passes these tests insofar as it enables us, argues Stuart (2016, 28–​29), “to connect the uncertainty principle either to experience or to parts of physical theory,” and to see “how to justify and test it.” Such progress in understanding can probably only be deemed insignificant if we valorize truth (at the expense of understanding) in the sense that we are going to discuss in the next chapter (see Section 4). Thought experiments are not unique to physics. We also find thought experiments in Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859). Lennox (1991, 223) understands those to be “intended as tests … of the explanatory potential of [a]‌theory.” According to this interpretation, we don’t discover anything new about the world with their help. They are of cognitive significance nevertheless, because they demonstrate the explanatory power of a new theory. In Darwin’s case, Lennox (1991, 228) argues, the later sections of Chapter 4 of his On the Origin of Species “and much of Chapters 6–​8, serve to demonstrate and defend the explanatory potential of the theory, its ability to deal with facts it claims to explain, and which it might seem to be incapable of explaining.” It is here, Lennox (1991, 228) continues, “that the use of thought experiments dominates Darwin’s discussion.” Without these thought experiments, Lennox (1991) contends, Darwin’s work would have failed to convince. A review of the facts alone had been unsuccessful in convincing the reader of the explanatory power of the theory of evolution by natural selection. In this sense, thought experiments do the heavy lifting in the original statement of the theory. It is thought experiments, Lennox (1991, 228) claims, that “establish the reasonableness of the primary explanatory pattern(s) associated with the theory.” They show in particular how the theory can—​in principle—​deal with facts that seem irreconcilable with the theory. Lennox (1991) directs our attention to Darwin’s thought experiment that asks the reader to imagine wolves in an area with a high population of deer at a time when wolves are most pressed for food. Without doubt, Darwin finds, in consideration of this wolves-​deer-​scenario we cannot but conclude that “‘the swiftest and slimmest wolves would have the best chance of surviving, and so be preserved and selected’” according to Darwin as cited in Lennox (1991, 228). Darwin expands on the thought experiment and imagines changes to the nature of the wolves following advantageous preying behaviour to such an extent that “‘a new variety might be formed which would either supplant or coexist with the parent-​form,’” Darwin explains as cited in Lennox (1991, 229). Lennox (1991) qualifies these imaginary hypotheticals in Darwin’s opus

The Practice of Thought Experiments

21

magnum as thought experiments because of the important role they play in it, and the features they display. They must be concrete, plausible, and clear in order to exercise the force they do in Darwin’s case for his new evolutionary theory. Abstract terms would not have helped, and so Darwin needed to present scenarios that “involve the manipulation and observation of concrete objects, their properties, their changes, and their interactions,” according to Lennox (1991, 229). Their plausibility is a function of the familiar objects they feature, such as wolf packs and deer herds. Science fiction would have been unhelpful. Plausible scenarios to cement the analogy between artificial selection and natural selection is a different matter. Thus, Darwin refers to a case “of a population of wolves coming in two varieties apparently correlated with differences in prey,” Lennox (1991, 229) explains. Finally, there is the quality of clarity of the imagined scenarios. The struggle for survival under conditions of scarce resources is clearly instantiated in the scenario as the wolves are imagined to be hardest pressed for food, while there is an absolute increase in the fleetest prey. This situation then is imagined as leading to differences with respect to survival, preservation, and selection. The thought experiment further clearly conveys the notion of a new species emerging only “if the advantageous habit or structure be inherited by the swift wolf’s young, and that this same process be repeated over and over again,” Lennox (1991, 230) explicates. Unlike the Platonic thought experiments of Brown (1986, 1991, 2011a, 213), the Darwinian thought experiments of Lennox (1991) neither confirm a theory nor offer additional evidence to the empirical facts on which Darwin relies. Lennox (1991, 230) insists, however, “that they are more than “expendable bits of rhetoric, fraudulent stand-​ins for the evidence Darwin didn’t have” to boost his theory. Such an assessment of Darwin’s thought experiments would display a troubling misunderstanding of Darwin’s work. Darwin clearly states that he doesn’t have empirical evidence for the operations that his theory of evolution claims to be in effect in nature. The aim of On the Origin of Species is to convince us of the explanatory power of the theory he is advancing. One of the challenges that Darwin was able to address thereby concerns the relationship between variation and selection. The relevant variation must be more than average differences among the individuals of a population because evidence suggests that such variation cannot lead to a new species. But if we think of variation in terms of a more distinguished change in the nature of some individuals of a population, then another problem presents itself. The variation either leads to offspring that do not preserve the more pronounced differences to their parents’ nature, or to offspring that do. In the former case, variation seems to be inconsequential. In the latter case, selection has no role to play in the rise of the new species. Variation is what needs to be explained. A theory

22 

Chapter 1

of evolution in terms of natural selection seems explanatorily powerless otherwise. Fleeming Jenkins, Darwin’s contemporary, drew exactly that kind of conclusion and objected that the theory of natural selection is nonviable. In the present context it is certainly noteworthy that a version of Jenkins’ challenge to the explanatory scope of Darwinism continues to play a role to this day in science and religion discussions. Swinburne (2007a, 184) claims that Darwin’s theory does not get “us very far in understanding the process of evolution.” This is supposed to be true despite the neo-​Darwinian enhancements of the theory, argues Swinburne (2007a, 185), because the “basic structure” of the theory “remains” the same. Darwinian natural selection is actually not about evolution but about elimination of evolved non-​ advantageous variation. Moreover, elimination by natural selection leaves some of the non-​advantageous variants in place as by-​products of advantageous variants. Therefore, it is difficult to see, Swinburne (2007a) concludes, how natural selection is to shed light on the emergence of a new species. The situation is even worse, Swinburne (2007a, 185) continues, when we look at the “other determinant of evolution.” It concerns the mechanism that causes the variations to occur on which natural selection acts. Obviously, of all the possibilities only some variations were realized. “So, even as regards normal physical characteristics, at least half,” Swinburne (2007, 185–​186) reasons, “of the explanation of why we have the animals we do lies not in natural selection but in the chemical properties of genetic material which make it more prone to throw up certain variants than others.” In such challenges to Darwinism, thought experiments loom as large as in Darwin’s case for his theory. We are to imagine the many possible variants evolution has not yet thrown up, such as organisms, Swinburne (2007, 185) specifies, “with four wheels made of skin and bone, or organisms which eat coal, or organisms with built-​in catapults to fire stones.” Jenkins likewise tested Darwin’s theory by means of thought experiments. We are to imagine “a rare ‘burrowing hare’ in a non-​burrowing species” to see that the natural processes Darwin stipulates will not result in a burrowing species of hare. He also imagines a shipwrecked superman-​like, Robinson Crusoe-​type individual in order to show that despite all imaginable physical advantages and being on an island exclusively populated with non-​whites, the offspring he has with a native woman will not have the result of an island with “‘a white or even a yellow population,’” according to Jenkins as cited in Lennox (1991, 232). Jenkins concluded that, if Darwin’s theory failed in the event of such distinguished differences, then it must certainly fail for cases of slight and imperceptible variations, which is the kind of variation that Darwin actually stipulates to occur according to his theory. Jenkins’s critique forced Darwin to modify some of

The Practice of Thought Experiments

23

the thought experiments in later editions of On the Origin of Species in order to clarify that it is frequency of variants in a population that is essential for the theory. Another example from the biological sciences that satisfies the criteria of a Darwinian thought experiment in the sense of Lennox (1991) can be found in the work of the evolutionary biologist Joan Roughgarden, who has been an important voice in science and religion discussions (see, e.g., Roughgarden 2006). Her work will play a role in Chapter 3 and so I introduce it here briefly to be in a position to keep the discussion concise there (see Section 5). While she argues for harmony between the theory of natural selection and orthodox Christianity, she vehemently attacks both for what she claims they say about sexual diversity (see, e.g., Roughgarden 2010 and 2016). She is most disturbed by the heteronormative framing of Darwin’s sex selection theory, and the accord that is often established in that respect between biology and theology. The thought experiment we are going to consider is employed specifically to defend one important element of an alternative theory to sex selection theory that she promotes in her controversial work. It concerns the evolution of sexual reproduction. The explanandum is why there are two types of reproduction in nature, namely one asexual and the other sexual. Sex selection theory is the explanans that Roughgarden seeks to see replaced by an alternative that she claims is theoretically less incoherent, empirically more adequate, and overall, more “diversity conducive.” With that at times polemical attitude, Roughgarden has entered a scientific debate that is marked by an ostensible explanatory diversity, which I will exploit to some degree in Chapter 3 (see Section 5). There are about twenty accounts available today to explain why sexual reproduction evolved in addition to asexual reproduction, and not even one has commanded wide assent in the scientific community (see, e.g., Ruse 2012, 186). We have here a genuine case, Lennox (1991, 240) explicates, “where the implications of orthodox Darwinian selection theory seem to rule out something which is manifestly the case,” namely sexual reproduction. Sexual reproduction seems too costly to make sense in Darwinian terms. For example, only half of an individual’s genetic material is passed on, mates need to be found and the rearing of the offspring may be hard for one parent in cases where the other walks away from the responsibility. The primary task therefore, is to find an explanation that demonstrates an advantage of sexual reproduction over asexual reproduction that balances these costs. From a Darwinian perspective, it seems that sexual reproduction should have had no chance to be selected for: “any trait with that sort of disadvantage,” Lennox (1991, 239) tells us, would disappear from a population with breathtaking speed.” And yet, Lennox (1991, 239) continues, “there are many

24 

Chapter 1

examples of organic populations that maintain both, over a long period of time, a balance of sexual and asexual methods of reproduction.” Roughgarden (2009, 74) claims that “an adequate, if not completely satisfying answer is now available.” She proposes to label it the “genetic-​portfolio balancing hypothesis” and offers, what is most important in the present context, the following thought experiment to demonstrate the explanatory power of that hypothesis. We are to imagine a lawn, Roughgarden (2009, 82) instructs us, that is “to be covered by either of two species of dandelions, the common dandelion we see all the time in North America, which reproduces asexually, compared to a sexually reproducing dandelion-​plant from Europe.” The question Roughgarden (2009, 82) means to entertain with this scenario is, which “of the two species will wind up covering the lawn, the sexual species or the asexual species.” The sexually reproducing dandelion will outperform the asexually reproducing dandelion under the assumption that genetic variation in each species is such that we have plants with leaves that have a very fuzzy silver look (A1A1), a medium fuzzy silver look (A1A2), and leaves that are most absorptive of sun light (A2A2). “A” codes for the look of the leaves and is the location of the two alleles A1 and A2 which together code for the genetic diversity with respect to the look of the leaves of relevance in the thought experiment. “When it’s very sunny, A1A1 is best,” Roughgarden (2009, 83) explains, “when there is medium sun, A1A2 is best, and when it’s overcast, A2A2 is best.” A1A1-​North American dandelion plants will produce A1A1 offspring, A1A2-​North Americans create A1A2 offspring, and A2A2-​North-​Americans will bring about A2A2 plants. The situation is different in the sexually reproducing population. Possible scenarios include that A1A1-​European mate with A1A2-​European. According to Mendel’s laws we will get: ¼ A1A1, ½ A1A2, and ¼ A2A2. What also happens is back and forth mutation between A1 and A2. Neither is ever completely lost. What we see happening in this imagined scenario, Roughgarden (2009, 83) argues, is that “eventually the sexual species takes over the lawn, even though the asexual species can have a good long run as being the most common.” This is expected to happen, Roughgarden (2009, 83) clarifies, because “the asexual species is caught with all its genes in the wrong basket, so to speak.” What is problematic about this in Darwinian terms, according to Roughgarden (2009, 83), is that an “asexual species comes to a time when nearly all the plants are A1A1 when what would be best is A2A2 and the species gets hammered, whereas the sexual species continually maintains more of a balance among the genetic types of plants, and never gets hammered as badly.” What this means, Roughgarden (2009, 83) concludes, is that “an asexual population is like a natural get-​ rich-​quick scheme and a sexual population like a naturally balanced mutual fund.” The higher costs of sexual reproduction in comparison to asexual

The Practice of Thought Experiments

25

reproduction are outweighed by the considerable advantage that is inherent in maintaining genetic diversity. In conclusion of this section, let us sum up: we sampled ten thought experiments from the physical and biological sciences. We began with Galileo’s two cannon balls and ended with Roughgarden’s dandelion competition. The discussion of the selected thought experiments revealed numerous of their features that seem characteristic. They are indispensable (it seems difficult to do without them), and they are relatively ubiquitous (they can be found in various contexts of inquiry in the two scientific disciplines we have considered). Thought experiments are fictional (and they are stories is this sense, as they do not intend to represent reality as it is, although they aim to make sense of reality). It seems difficult to conceive of them as arguments (as their cognitive efficacy seems to go beyond the power that we usually think is inherent in the logical relations among propositions). Thought experiments appear to be more than just unrealized physical experiments (but, instead, fully executed in the imagination). They enjoy a relative independence from the theories they serve (since they can be retooled and rethought). And they are cognitively efficient in various ways (they can enhance understanding, such as Einstein’s clock in the box; or test the explanatory potential in the absence of sufficient factual evidence, such as Darwin’s wolves-​deer-​scenario and Roughgarden’s dandelion-​competition; or confirm a theory by means of establishing new evidence, such as Galileo’s two cannon balls). Now we shall move beyond the disciplinary boundaries of the natural sciences. 2

Mathematics, History, and Philosophy

Thought experiments are not less frequently employed in other disciplines than physics and biology. There is mathematics (see, e.g., Buzzoni 2011, Glas 1999, Van Bendegem 2003), and closer inspection, according to Starikova and Giaquinto (2018, 277), reveals that there is “no general bar for accepting that full blooded thought experiments are instruments, alongside proofs, for the advancement of mathematical knowledge.” Brown (2011a) goes a step further, as he so often does, and argues that mathematical thought experiments can even prove theorems. For instance, there is the theorem in number theory that says that 1 +​2 +​3 +​… +​n =​n2/​2 +​ n/​2. Here is the thought experiment that is taken to prove it: Each little square in the diagram (shown in Figure 3) is assumed to correspond to an arithmetic unit. What we see is a figure that consists of (n =​five) columns of squares of height one, two, …, (n =​five). When we put these

26 

Chapter 1

­f igure 3 Brown’s Picture Proof of 1 +​2 +​3 +​… +​n =​n2/​2 +​ n/​2 a dapted from brown 2011a, 91

pieces of information together, we can infer that the total number of small squares is the sum we seek, one +​two +​… +​(n =​five). The figure is also said to allow us to see that the total number of squares is the sum of the number of squares in the shaded and unshaded portions. We may further observe that the unshaded portion is half of an (n =​five) by an (n =​five) square. If we assume that an (n =​five) by (n =​five) square has (n =​five)2 unit squares in it, then we can infer that the unshaded portion has (n =​five)2/​2 unit squares. The figure is further credited with facilitating the insight that the shaded portion consists of one-​half square for each column, and so we may infer that there are (n =​five)/​2 shaded squares. Once we have come to see all this, the overall conclusion that we can draw is that the total number of unit squares is (n =​five)2/​2 +​ (n =​ five)/​2. Quod erat demonstrandum. In the context of this study, mathematical examples of thought experiments are interesting for at least two reasons. Firstly, while they may require a narrative both to convey the imagined scenario that they feature and to explain what the scenario is meant to demonstrate, mathematics—​like music—​can be seen to “illuminate word-less spaces within the human mind,” argues McLeish (2019, 260). There is reason here to think that the cognitive power of the imagination is not exhausted by the cognitive power inherent in the relating of propositions/​beliefs. Secondly, Scruton (2014, 162) argues that those spaces point us towards a “kind of pure aboutness,” which presents to us most vividly how the order of nature leaves room for the kind of transcendence that sits at the core of religious faith. In Chapter 4 we will come back to that abstract domain of the imagination. In historical studies we also find thought experiments heavily relied upon (see, e.g., De Mey and Weber 2003). Of interest in the present context is certainly the counterfactual scenario of a Jesus of Nazareth who was not crucified and raised from the dead, but still founded a religion through his teachings (see Eire 2009). I have selected this thought experiment here because it has significant theological implications, obviously, as history and theology are inseparable for Christians. The key point of the Christian faith is the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. And it is believed to be an historical event, as much

The Practice of Thought Experiments

27

as the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth were. It is Christianity’s “super miracle,” Swinburne (2007b, 121) contends. “The foundation event of Christianity was the Resurrection of Jesus,” Swinburne (2005, 251) explains. It is an historical event, not just a matter of subjective experience (see Swinburne 2010). The resurrection was the resuscitation of the body that hung on the cross on Golgotha. And this event occurred according to the divine plan of bringing about atonement and thus salvation through the incarnation. The crucifixion of an innocent person is taken to be the proper culmination of an atoning life. In short, no crucifixion–no “super-miracle,” and thus no atonement. Factually important for the thought experiment to work is that Christianity has been theologically diverse from the moment of its inception. There were Christians who believed Jesus to be God veiled in an unreal human body. Others believed that Jesus was an ordinary man. He was ‘adopted’ by God as his son. Then there were those who believed Jesus to be a lesser divinity than God the Father, and yet others who refused to believe that Jesus could have had a human soul, or a human will. The historical record also suggests that the mission to the gentiles would have taken place even if Jesus had not been crucified and that this mission would have been successful. And, Pontius Pilate did have a choice to release Jesus. Overall, the scenario is in the realm of the possible that a Jesus-​centered faith could have arisen that remained much closer to the parent religion of Second Temple Judaism. In the long run, then, if such a faith had prevailed, the Roman Empire and the West would have become a branch of Judaism—​a universalized Judaism, as it were. The thought experiment of an uncrucified Jesus illustrates nicely the entanglement of theological reflection, historical contingency, and imagination in the development of doctrine. It does so in a way that will preoccupy us to some extent in the fourth chapter. Philosophers—​maybe more often than not, unlike physicists, biologists, mathematicians, and historians—​, have only thought experiments available to address many of the important topics (see, e.g., Sorensen 1992, 7–​20) with which they find themselves concerned. The frequent use of thought experiments in ethics, for example, is due to moral limitations that exist for human experiments. They prevent ethicists from carrying out some of their imagined scenarios. Among the most famous ethical thought experiments is the runaway tram scenario (commonly referred to as the trolley problem), and it will play a role in the fourth chapter when we consider the Book of Job as a thought experiment. Foot (2002, which is a reprint of Foot 1967) introduced the runaway tram scenario in conjunction with another thought experiment. With the help of both thought experiments together, Foot (2002) aims to show that the Catholic “doctrine of the double effect” is defensible. The doctrine helps us, Foot (2002) contends, to make sense of moral decisions that we otherwise are

28 

Chapter 1

unable to justify. The discussion concerns actions that have both an intended effect and an effect that is not intended, although foreseeable and still accepted. This conceptual distinction serves moral assessments of actions and is not mere sophistry, Foot (2002) insists. Foot (2002) asks us to consider first the scenario where some person of responsibility and power is faced with rioters. A crime was committed, and it has remained unresolved. The rioters demand that a culprit be found and be punished for his deeds. Important about the scenario is that the rioters threaten that if no culprit is produced, then they will take their own bloody revenge on a particular section of the community. But nobody knows who committed the crime in question. The person in power faces a dilemma: either an innocent individual is produced as the culprit, or the blood of innocent people is shed, namely those who will be killed by the rioters in revenge of the unsolved crime they are reacting to. We are to imagine that the rioters hold five hostages. What should the person in power do? This is the first scenario (in the following: Sc-​Rioters). In contrast to Sc-​Rioters, Foot (2002, 23) entertains a second fictional scenario (in the following: Sc-​Tram). We are to imagine a “driver of a runaway tram which he can only steer from one narrow track on to another; five men are working on one track and one man on the other.” The breaks of the tram have failed. Which track should the driver choose for his tram? If we say the track with one worker on it is to be chosen, then we are committed to say that the person in power in Sc-​Rioters must sacrifice an innocent man. If the track with five people on it is recommended as the best moral solution in Sc-​Tram, then a contradiction arises if the person in power in Sc-​Rioters is expected to save the five hostages. According to Foot (2002, 23), the “doctrine of double effect offers us a way out of the difficulty” that we are facing in considering both Sc-​Rioters and Sc-​Tram. The doctrine of double effect permits one to choose bloodshed of many in Sc-​Rioters and the track with one worker on it in Sc-​Tram. The tram driver in Sc-​Tram does not intend to kill the worker, but only foresees and accepts his killing as part of his plan to save the lives of five people. The person in power in Sc-​Rioters uses an innocent person’s life to prevent bloodshed. Here is a consideration that makes clear enough the morally relevant distinction to be made between Sc-​Rioters and Sc-​Tram, according to Foot (2002, 23): if the one worker in Sc-​Tram survives after all, the tram driver “does not then leap off and brain him with a crowbar.” The situation is very different, argues Foot (2002, 23–​24), in Sc-​Rioters: the person in power “needs the death of the innocent man for his (good) purposes. If the victim proves hard to hang, he must see to

The Practice of Thought Experiments

29

it that he dies another way.” In conclusion, the Catholic “doctrine of the double effect” is said to have reason on its side. Another philosophical area that is marked by extensive use of thought experiments concerns the nature of personal identity, which is surely also among the most central topics in the encounter between religious traditions and modern science today (see, e.g., Scruton 2014). Shoemaker (1963, 23–​24) supposes that medical science has developed a technique whereby a surgeon can completely remove a person’s brain from his head, examine or operate on it, and then put it back in his skull.” This can be done “without causing death or permanent injury.” The day comes when “a surgeon discovers that an assistant has made a horrible mistake.” A Mr. Brown and a Mr. Robinson had been operated on for brain tumours. Brain extractions were performed on both of them. At the end of the operations a mistake happened. The assistant surgeon “inadvertently put Brown’s brain in Robinson’s head, and Robinson’s brain in Brown’s head.” As a result, one of the two “men immediately die, but the other one with Robinson’s body and Brown’s brain, eventually regains consciousness.” So, we have /​Brown’s brain → placed into Robinson’s body → survival of organism/​, and /​Robinson’s brain → placed into Brown’s body → death of organism/​. We are to call the survivor Brownson. This seems the right thing to do because our survivor “recognizes Brown’s wife and family (whom Robinson had never met), and is able to describe in detail events in Brown’s life, always describing them as events in his own life. Of Robinson’s past life he evinces no knowledge at all.” Moreover, after “a period of time he is observed to display all the personality traits, mannerism, interests, likes and dislikes, and so on that had previously characterized Brown, and to act and talk in ways completely alien to the old Robinson.” Brownson is Brown in Robinson’s body: /​Brown’s brain → placed into Robinson’s body → survives as Brownson → Brownson behaves and acts like Brown → must be Brown/​. The puzzle of personal identity exemplifies the more general difficulties that we encounter when we think about identity. The ancient thought experiment of the Ship of Theseus directs our attention to some of those. Its earliest occurrence is in Theseus 23.1 authored by the first century philosopher Plutarch. “The ship on which Theseus sailed with the youths and returned in safety, the thirty-​oared galley,” writes Plutarch, “was preserved by the Athenians down to the time of Demetrius Phalereus. They took away the old timbers from time to time,” Plutarch specifies, “and put new and sound ones in their places, so that the vessel became a standing illustration for the philosophers in the mooted question of growth, some declaring that it remained the same, others that it was not the same vessel.” (Perseus Project Texts 2018).

30 

Chapter 1

The primary concern of Shoemaker (1963) is not ships but Brownson, and persons more generally. Brownson has Robinson’s body without the brain of Robinson. Since Brownson displays Brown’s personality, Brownson must be Brown, unless we have reason to think that (brainless) bodily identity is essential for personal identity, which we don’t seem to have, given the scenario that the thought experiment features: /​Brown’s brain → placed into Robinson’s body → survives as Brownson → Robinson’s body is the same → but Brownson behaves and acts like Brown, not like Robinson → must be Brown/​. The thought experiment of Shoemaker (1963) was modified by David Wiggins in the 1960s, and it was Parfit (1971) who established Wiggins’ dramatized version firmly in personal identity discussions as the amoeba thought experiment. At this point, we have become accustomed to the fact that thought experiments are often “retooled” or “rethought.” Plasticity is an important feature of them, and it seems questionable to be more stringent about the identity of thought experiments than some seem to be with respect to persons. Parfit (1971, 4) wants us to imagine that our brain is transplanted “into someone else’s (brainless) body, and that the resulting person has my character and apparent memories of my life.” Most of us are said “to agree, after thought, that the resulting person is me.” So, we have /​My brain → placed into a brainless body → survival of organism → It is me in a new body/​. In his discussion of the scenario, Parfit (1971, 4–​5) assumes wide agreement that it is me in a new body who survived the brain transplantation. But what about Wiggins scenario where he imagines that his brain is divided, and each half is housed in a new brainless body. In the following I will refer to this scenario as the amoeba thought experiment. Both resulting organisms have his character and apparent memories of his life—​a situation comparable to what imagined to be the case with Brownson. The question that Wiggins intends to raise in entertaining this imagined scenario, according to Parfit (1971, 5), is the following: “What happens to me? There seems to be only three possibilities: (i) I do not survive. (ii) I survive as one of the two people. (iii) I survive as both.” Parfit (1971) argues against the first option, which would mean something like this: /​My brain is split in half → each half is placed into two brainless bodies → two organisms survive → neither organism is me → we have two new people/​. An important assumption that is made here concerns the possibility that I as a person could survive if my brain is split and transplanted into two different brainless bodies resulting in two living organisms. There is some empirical evidence that supports the assumption in question, as there are persons who survived with only half their brains. It must be then that I do survive the brain fission as a person. But which of the two organisms is me? We are told that it is implausible to entertain the second possibility, because “each half of my brain

The Practice of Thought Experiments

31

is exactly similar, and so,” Parfit (1971, 5) explains, “is each resulting person.” If true, then you can be one person in two organisms. You have now a divided mind, as you have two bodies. Epilepsy treatments can render this possibility plausible on empirical grounds, we are advised. The bridge between the two brain hemispheres is cut in such treatment plans, which results in two separate spheres of consciousness. Each controls the body of the person. “We cannot now call this absurd,” asserts Parfit (1971, 7). It is “a possible way of giving sense to the claim that I survive as two different people, using ‘survive’ to imply identity,” Parfit (1971, 8) reasons. The third option is most likely true, according to Parfit (1971). So, we have: /​My two brain hemispheres are separated → each hemisphere is placed into a brainless body → two organisms are created → both organisms are me → I have become two people/​. What follows from all this thought experimenting, Parfit (1971, 8) argues, is that we need to “give up the language of identity” to make sense of the third option. It seems just counterintuitive that one person can be two persons. Parfit (1971, 8) argues that it is probably not the case that “to any question about personal identity, in any describable case, there must be a true answer.” The word “true” is meant here in the metaphysical sense: in its existence causally independent of the concepts that we use to refer to the world. Parfit (1971, 9) goes on to argue that it is also dubitable that important questions about personal identity “turn upon the question about identity.” Instead, Parfit (1971, 10) reasons, in light of the thought experiments that we discussed, one should focus on the “relation of the original person to each of the resulting people.” That is to say that the language of identity is not helpful in considering the amoeba thought experiment, because identity is about a one-​one relation and all-​or-​nothing. But most of the “relations which matter in survival are, in fact, relations of degree,” according to Parfit (1971, 11). The overall argument, therefore, is that we need to fix our concepts to deal with the amoeba thought experiment. Parfit (1971, 14) urges us “to speak in a new way.” That means that we should accept that survival of persons “does not imply identity”; “that most of matters in survival are relations of degree,” Parfit (1971, 14) reasons, such as the relation concerning memory, or the relation between an intention or later action; and that “none of these relations needs to be described in a way that presupposes identity.” Probably very few would follow Thagard (2014) and Wilkes (1988) in dismissing outright such considerations as wild speculation of no philosophical consequence.” It seems advisable to rather side with those who see great merit in them for the investigation of the nature of personal identity, such as Kolak (1993), Praem and Asbjorn (2015), Stuart (2014), and Taliaferro (2001). After all, the ontology of persons is vexing, and many do think, like Scruton (2014), that it provides the key to a proper understanding of the relationship

32 

Chapter 1

between modern science and religious traditions. It is the central mystery of the world: “How can this thing,” Scruton (2014, 96) asks, “that is not a thing but a perspective, appear in the world of objects where it occupies no place?” Science cannot be of help to answer this question in a satisfactory manner, Scruton (2014, 57) insists, because science is about the order of nature and persons reach “beyond the ‘order of nature.’” Human persons are no accidents of the physical universe, and the world they create tells us a significant story of cosmological proportions. The “human world” emerges in a strong sense from the “order of nature.” That means, human culture is something radically new relative to nature. The evolution of the brain is part of the order of nature. But that is not true of the kind of consciousness that characterizes human persons. Scruton (2014, 76) further argues that the “human world” and the “order of nature” are “incommensurable” in important respects. Therefore, insofar as science has authority exclusively in matters concerning the “order of nature,” it can help us only to explain the “order of nature.” Scientific expertise is of limited use, the argument continues, if we want to shed light on the “human world.” This world includes theology, and God as a person will disappear from the world, Scruton (2014, 70) contends, “as soon as we address it with the ‘why’ of explanation, just as human persons disappear from the world, when we look for the neurological explanation of their acts.” We have to rest content, it is claimed, with some kind of cognitive dualism (though, not substance dualism!) in relating modern science and religious traditions. We can look at the world, Scruton (2014, 184) explicates, “in two ways—​the way of explanation, which searches for natural kinds, causal connections, and universal covering laws, and the way of understanding, which is a calling to account and a demand for reasons and meanings. What one finds in Scruton (2014) is a very common strategy of reconciling science and religion today. It employs the conceptual distinction between understanding and explanation in conjunction with a non-​reductive ontology of persons. One cannot explain persons, but only understand them. This is said to be true both of God as a person and human persons alike. Science is said to be about explanations, while religion is about understanding. Some of the support for such a “cognitive dualism” has been sourced from what, according to Dennett (2014, 104), must be the “most successful” thought experiment ever devised by analytic philosophers. The “sheer volume” of publications and the widespread confidence in its “reliability” are seen to permit no judgment to the contrary. The thought experiment targets physicalism about the human mind and features two imagined characters. One of them is Fred, who has extraordinary abilities to discriminate colours. We are not

The Practice of Thought Experiments

33

interested in him, but in the other character, named Mary, because unlike Fred she attracted most of the attention, as she is imagined having average colour perception capacities. Her eyes can process light of a certain wavelength in the way most people do when they see a blue sky, or a green lawn. Jackson (1982) introduced Mary to support his contention that our mental lives exhibit features, which have come to prominence as “qualia,” and claimed to be such that we simply cannot fit them “into the world view of science,” according to Jackson (1982, 135). This is for two reasons, we are told. Firstly, they escape the scope of scientific terms. For example, the determination of wavelength doesn’t capture the semantic wealth of the concept of red that Mary would use when she commends her friend for the good gardening in referring to the super delicious red tomatoes on her dinner plate. Secondly, qualia leave no causal traces on their own. The red quality of Mary’s colour experience does no causal work on its own. Whatever causal links we may happen to associate with colour experiences, it is not the colour experience itself but some neuronal activity that has the causal power, although colour experience is more than neuronal activity. When I see the red lamp of a fire alarm go on, most likely I will run to the nearest exit. It seems that the colour experience causes me to act in a certain way. But, this is not really the case, argues Jackson (1982, 133–​136). What is true instead is that my action and the colour perception have a common cause in the neuronal activities of the brain. We mistake for a cause what is actually an effect. Colour experiences are byproducts of evolution, Jackson (1982, 134) argues. Our inability to make sense of how to fit qualia into the world is also credited to natural selection. Here Jackson (1982, 133–​134) obviously assumes that such an ability would not afford us with any survival benefit. One wonders, of course, what exactly the survival benefits are that we must assume, according to that line of reasoning, to be inherent in our ability to understand the evolution of our physical universe, for example. It is certainly difficult to understand why natural selection would afford us with the cognitive powers to penetrate the fabric of the universe, but not that of our mental lives. At the centre of the controversy over the sweeping claims of Jackson (1982) has been Mary who is imagined living in an environment deprived of colours. She is very bright and happens to know everything about colours, but she has never experienced any colour. She is, Jackson (1982, 130) specifies, “for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor.” She happens to be a specialist in neurophysiology and has acquired, Jackson (1982, 130) details, “all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on” when she sees “ripe tomatoes, or the sky,” and uses “terms like ‘red’, ‘blue’, and so on.” Jackson (1982, 130) further

34 

Chapter 1

explains that she even knows “which wave-​length combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal chords [sic] and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering” of sentences like “The snow is white” or “The light is red.” The climax of the thought experiment is reached when Mary is released from her room. Alternatively, we can imagine her receiving a colour tv. The all-​decisive question, Jackson (1982, 130) tells us, with respect to the existence of “qualia” is: “Will she learn anything or not?” Jackson’s answer comes in disarming confidence: “It seems just obvious that she will learn something about the world and our visual experience of it.” We are to infer from that experience that “her previous knowledge was incomplete.” Since she had all the physical information, there must be more to know than physical information. And this is to show this: “Physicalism is false,” Jackson (1982, 130) claims. According to Dennett (2014, 116), it is not clear from the “standard presumption that Mary learns something, that Mary could not have figured out just what it would be like for her to see colours,” really holds water. Dennett (2014) thinks it doesn’t. He finds himself compelled to present several variations of Jackson’s Mary thought experiment, as his initial negative verdict on that thought experiment articulated previously “has been almost universally disregarded,” Dennett (2014, 104) complains. He is filled with astonishment by the fact that many philosophers think that our imaginary Mary would afford us any insights into the nature of our minds (see Dennett 2014, 107–​108), and is amused by the “Mariology” (Dennett 2014, 103) that has been going on. So, he has no choice but to overcome his critical distance to thought experiments as a tool for the study of the human mind—​a skepticism he shares with other cognitive scientists, such as Thagard (2014). “I am returning to the fray, and this time I will make my case at a more deliberate pace, dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s,” Dennett (2014, 106) advises. Here are two of the variations of Jackson’s Mary that he offers. A first variation has a different ending. Mary is confronted with a blue banana upon leaving her black and white room. She immediately realizes that she has been tricked because her scientific omniscience allows her to compute the differences in impact of a yellow and blue object on her nervous system, including the thoughts each generates (see Dennett 2014, 104–​107). A second variation showcases Mary “as a standard Mark 19 robot.” (Dennett 2014, 122–​ 126) The hardware is equipped for colour vision, but over the course of the thought experiment we are waiting for a pair of colour cameras to “replace her black-​and-​white cameras.” (Dennett 2014, 123) She kills the time by learning all about colours with the help of coloured objects and coloursighted

The Practice of Thought Experiments

35

Mark 19s. She compares “their responses—​internal and external—​to hers.” (Dennett 2014, 123) In the end she has full knowledge of the “million-​shade-​ colour-​coding system that is shared by all Mark 19s” (Dennett 2014, 123), and thus she is in a position to come up with a code “that enables her to colourize the input from her black-​and-​white cameras.” (Dennett 2014, 124) She continues to calibrate “and makes adjustments when necessary, gradually building up a good version of normal Mark 19 colour vision.” (Dennett 2014, 125) What happens after installation of the colour cameras is pivotal of course, and it is exactly nothing. “In fact, she has to check to make sure that she has the colour cameras installed. She has learned nothing. She knew exactly, Dennett (2014, 125) insists, what it would be like for her to see colours. The response of Dennett (2014) to Jackson (1982) illustrates once more the importance of counter thought experiments. In the first section we looked at the clock-​in-​the-​box thought experiment as an example of scientific counter thought experiments. The point of counter thought experiments, we recall, is to challenge a phenomenon that an imagined scenario seeks to establish, in contrast to thought experiments that are concerned primarily with the plausibility of the premises and conclusions that surround the imagined scenario in a thought experiment. Here we have an example of philosophical counter thought experiments. In Chapter 3 I will introduce what looks like a good example of theological counter thought experiments (see Section 4). In conclusion of this section, I summarize. Mathematics, history, and philosophy are as committed to the use of thought experiments as biology and physics are. Many other disciplines could have been considered (such as economics; see, e.g., Schabas 2018), but for brevity’s sake we focused on those that allow us to establish some meaningful links to the theological affinities of this study. The thought experiments that were discussed in this section are structurally the same as those we had looked at in the previous section. For example, we saw once more how malleable thought experiments are. Not only can thought experiments be “retooled” and “rethought” and reach identical conclusions from the standpoint of different theories. Thought experiments can turn on themselves and, in the case of counter thought experiments, for instance, the phenomena they originally featured are challenged. Also, like those of the previous section, the examples of this section confirm that thought experiments are very important tools of inquiry. Thought experiments are not about entertainment or mere illustration of abstract states of affairs. They are genuine tools of investigation. We find them at central places in extremely significant discussions about core issues, such as the nature of mathematical imagination, the assumed inevitability of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, the ethics of foreseeable but unintended negative consequences of one’s actions, and the

36 

Chapter 1

ontology of persons and consciousness. There is every reason to take thought experiments very seriously as epistemic devices in the natural sciences and beyond. 3

Science and Religion

With this section our attention turns to the meta-​theoretical question as to how to relate science and religion. Among those who advance a full-​fledged integration of modern science and orthodox Christianity is Richard Swinburne (whose views on the resurrection we touched upon earlier in Section 2). He defends a “substance dualism,” and the way I see it, this element of his philosophy is probably more pivotal for the success of his integration program than it may seem at first. In other words, it is not just one among many views he defends and thus one among many results of his philosophical approach to the relationship between science and religion. It is an integral part of the foundation of his approach. To put the matter crudely, the soul and everything that comes with it is of a nature that requires a very different kind of explanation than the sciences could be expected to provide. Swinburne rejects the divide between science and religion in terms of the conceptual distinction between explanation and understanding that we touched upon previously when we discussed Scruton (2014) (see Section 2). One reads often that science is about explaining and religion about understanding. We saw above that Scruton (2014) operates with this distinction and argues for a “cognitive dualism.” According to Swinburne, however, both science and religion explain—​not only science. He distinguishes between explanation by causes and explanation by reasons. Sometimes it is the case that we need more than scientific explanations to make sense of an event. Consider, for instance, the utterly trivial event of me getting orange juice from my fridge. You cannot fully explain this event, argues Swinburne, if you don’t consider my reasons for doing so, and reasons are not causes. While Swinburne rejects the explanation-​ understanding dichotomy as a model for relating science and religion, he does agree with Scruton (2014) that persons add a perspective onto the world that is central and irreducible to a scientific description of the world. But the irreducibility goes deeper than in the case of Scruton (2014), and consideration of this perspective does not only amount to greater understanding. It amounts to a genuine explanation. The mental and physical domains are independent of one another, although it happens to be the case in this world that they interact in the life of persons, for example. Scientific explanations pertain to physical states of affairs,

The Practice of Thought Experiments

37

while personal explanations are about mental events. There is no risk of overdetermination of one and the same phenomenon. Both scientific and personal explanation add up to one full explanation of the existence and nature of one and the same phenomenon. Pivotal for the integration of science and religion is, therefore, that the physical and mental are strictly independent, although both come neatly together under the guidance of the same method (i.e., what I would like to refer to, but not outline here as the “Swinburnian-​Bayesian method”) in explanations of one and the same phenomenon. If there were only one method to get to the truth (as Swinburne argues) and if the physical were to explain the mental (contrary to Swinburne), then theistic explanations would be a function of scientifically explainable states of affairs, since theistic explanations are a form of personal explanations, which are genuine explanations given they deal with mental events (which are independent of physical events). The intended integration would collapse ultimately into a reduction of religion to science and prove conflict between the two true, unless we revive the explanation-​understanding distinction and the ontology of a relative independence of the mental in relation to the physical realm. Swinburne (1993, 101) makes a point in stating that the view that “God is a person, yet one without a body seems the most elementary claim of theism.” Of interest to us now is that an important element of Swinburne’s case for substance dualism is his defence of the existence of an immaterial soul. It relies on the amoeba thought experiment that we discussed in the previous section (see Section 2). The two persons surviving the brain transplantation in the scenario of the amoeba thought experiment cannot be both me, contrary to Parfit (1971), argues Swinburne. If they were both identical with me, Swinburne (2004, 197) argues, “they would be the same person as each other (if a is the same as b, and b is the same as c, then a is the same as c) and they are not.” What follows from this, according to Swinburne (2004, 197), is that only one of them can be me, unless I do not survive at all. Moreover, and this is crucial, Swinburne insists that it is impossible to determine what happens to me based on knowledge about material matters. Swinburne (2004, 197) reasons that “mere knowledge of what happens to brains or bodies or anything else physical does not tell you what happens to persons.” Swinburne goes on to raise the question whether the solution to the problem that we are facing in the amoeba thought experiment is simply conceptual, as Parfit (1971) claims. That cannot be true, argues Swinburne; it must be considered a factual matter, not simply one of getting our terminology right. We clearly see that much, he claims, if we adopt the mad surgeon thought experiment of Bernard Williams who imagines that a mad surgeon is about to perform the split-​brain operation on you. He tells you (and we have every reason

38 

Chapter 1

to believe him) that the person to be formed from your left-​brain is to have an enjoyable life and the person to be formed from your right half-​brain is to be subjected to a life of torture. Whether your future will be happy or painful, or whether you shall survive an operation at all, are clearly factual questions. Yet, as you await the transplant and know exactly what will happen to your brain, you are in no position to know exactly what will happen to you. This is the “basic point—​however much we knew in such a situation about what happens to the parts of a person’s body, we would not know for certain what happens to the person,” according to Swinburne (2007a, 148–​149). Swinburne contends that the ontology of human persons evidences the categorical limits of modern science and the cognitive wealth of Christian theology. A human person, Swinburne (2007a, 146) argues “is the soul together with whatever, if any, body is linked temporarily to it.” Swinburne (2007a, 333) stresses that souls “are immaterial subjects of mental properties. They have sensations and thoughts, desires and beliefs and perform intentional actions. Souls are the essential parts of human beings.” While we can know about the existence and nature of souls through philosophical analysis, only theology can give us a meaningful explanation as to their origin. As we have seen previously when discussing Darwinian thought experiments (see Section 1), Swinburne argues that Darwinian evolutionary theory cannot explain fully the evolution of human bodies. Natural selection, Swinburne (2007a, 185–​186) argues, can only be part of the full story. Molecular biology will need to buffer any explanation in terms of natural selection. But even with such a buffer in place, Darwinian evolutionary theory, Swinburne (2007a, 195) explicates, “cannot explain the evolution of men.” There is little we can expect Darwinism to offer in order to fully make sense of the kind of mental life that characterizes human persons. Therefore, Swinburne (2007a, 198) concludes “that science cannot explain the evolution of a mental life.” What this means, Swinburne (2007a, 198) specifies, is “that, as far as we can see, there is no law of nature stating that physical events of certain kinds will give rise to correlated mental events, and, conversely, there is nothing in the nature of certain physical events or of mental events to give rise to connections” between the physical and the mental. Swinburne (2007a, 198) urges “that knowledge of what happened to a person’s body and its parts will not necessarily give you knowledge of what has happened to the person.” Swinburne (2007a, 198) concludes “that persons are not the same as their bodies.” Of significance in the present context is the desire of Swinburne (2007a, 150) to clarify that he “illustrated” his “argument by considerations” of thought experiments, but only to add that they are not “mere thought experiments.” Neurosurgery is making progress and the imagined scenarios he entertains

The Practice of Thought Experiments

39

are in the realm of the nomologically possible, he argues. The amoeba thought experiment and the mad surgeon scenario are not science fiction in this sense. Both are in the realm of the scientifically possible. There are three flaws here in Swinburne’s reasoning that matter for present purposes. Firstly, whatever the future may hold in terms of improved techniques in brain transplantation, Swinburne’s case does rest to a significant extent on largely counterfactual scenarios. Secondly, counterfactuality is not a defining feature of thought experiments. Many thought experiments in ethics are not counterfactual. They can be realized but aren’t because of moral considerations. The runaway tram of Foot (2002) is an example in point of fact. Thirdly, the thought experiments Swinburne employs to advance his case for the existence of an immaterial soul are clearly not illustrative, but evidentiary! They are to prove that there is a kind of knowledge about persons that has nothing to do with knowledge about their bodies. Insofar as this can be said to be true, it is taken to compel us to accept the existence of soul stuff—​that stuff which continues to exist when persons exist without materiality, i.e., their bodies. “Normally,” Swinburne (2007a, 153–​154) explicates, “the stuff of which substances are made is merely matter, but some substances (viz. persons) are made in part of immaterial stuff, soul-​stuff. Given, as I suggested earlier, that persons are indivisible, it follows that soul-​stuff comes in indivisible chunks, which we may call souls.” It is thought experiments which allow him to make a case for such strange stuff. I guess that Swinburne is worried by his reliance on thought experiments because he assumes them to be of no cognitive power as such. As the discussion of this chapter shows, however, such an assumption is difficult to accept. This leaves us with the mystery of where souls come from, because Swinburne holds the view that they have no natural explanation. They come from God, argues Swinburne. God creates each human soul anew and gives one to each embryo able to receive it. This explains, argues Swinburne (2007a, 199), “the existence and mode of functioning of souls (under the limited conditions of embodiment in bodies with brains).” Without such a personal, i.e., theological explanation, the existence of immaterial souls, Swinburne (2007, 199) reasons, is “likely to remain a total mystery.” God has the benevolent nature and ability to create and sustain a universe that is home to persons as embodied souls. In turn, the existence of persons evidences the existence of God! This is how Swinburne sees Christian theology and modern science mutually enrich one another. Together they can provide us with a full explanation of everything there is. I hasten to add that thought experiments are obviously indispensable to achieve that ambitious goal. Swinburne’s integration model for science and religion rests on the claim that theological assertions are comparable to scientific claims. This sharply

40 

Chapter 1

contrasts with the more widespread philosophical view today that theology and science have very little to do with one another—​at best that is. There is also the notion that science has simply replaced theology. In either case, theology is said to be far removed from all the cognitive virtues that modern science exemplifies. This is a new situation relative to the history of Western thought. Wisdom (1944, 185) finds that the existence of God is no longer an “experimental issue in the way it was.” If you pray for rain and continue to have faith in God, even if it does not start raining, then there is just very little difference between you and someone who doesn’t believe in the existence of God and thus wouldn’t pray for rain in the first place. Wisdom (1944) presents a now famous thought experiment to assist him in his analysis of the rationality of religion under the premises of modern science. Wisdom (1944, 191–​192) imagines two people to “return to their long-​ neglected garden and find among the weeds a few of the old plants surprisingly vigorous.” This comes as a surprise to them. “One says to the other ‘It must be that a gardener has been coming and doing something about these plants.’” But, upon “enquiry they find that no neighbor has ever seen anyone at work in their garden.” So, the “first man says to the other ‘He must have worked while people slept.’” Disagreement begins to set in between the two. “The other says, ‘No, someone would have heard him and besides, anybody who cared about the plants would have kept down these weeds.’” To that the “first man says ‘Look at the way these are arranged. There is purpose and a feeling for beauty here. I believe that someone comes, someone invisible to mortal eyes.’” This person believes that the more carefully they look, the more they shall find confirmation of this. They examine, therefore, “the garden ever so carefully and sometimes they come on new things suggesting that a gardener comes and sometimes they come on new things suggesting the contrary and even that a malicious person has been at work.” They do more than examine the garden carefully. They also study what happens to gardens left without attention. “Each learns all the other learns about this and about the garden. Consequently, when after all this, one says ‘I still believe a gardener comes,’” the other says “‘I don’t.’” Is this disagreement of any meaningful consequence, wonders Wisdom (1944, 191–​192). “Their different words now reflect no difference as to what they have found in the garden, no difference as to what they would find in the garden if they looked further and no difference about how fast untended gardens fall into disorder.” What this means is that “the gardener hypothesis has ceased to be experimental, the difference between one who accepts and one who rejects it is now not a matter of the one expecting something that the other does not expect.” What then is their disagreement about? “The one says

The Practice of Thought Experiments

41

‘A gardener comes unseen and unheard. He is manifested only in his works with which we are all familiar,’” reasons Wisdom. But, Wisdom (1944, 191–​192) continues, the “other says, ‘There is no gardener’ and with this difference in what they say about the gardener goes a difference in how they feel towards the garden, in spite of the fact that neither expects anything of it which the other does not expect.” Upon careful reflection of the gardener thought experiment, Wisdom (1944) rejects the view that it renders religion irrational. That is, Wisdom (1944) doesn’t think it is a good idea to define the rational in terms of the experimental. Such a narrow notion of rationality wouldn’t even do justice to actual scientific practice, Wisdom (1944, 196) stresses. Moreover, there are reasons that do not turn on facts. For example, argues Wisdom (1994, 193–​ 195), many of the reasons that we accept in a court of law are of this type. Confining the rational to the factual also suggests that we can have only reasonable disputes if they are about facts. But this is most certainly false, argues Wisdom (1994, 200). For example: “In criticizing other conclusions,” Wisdom (1994, 200) specifies, “we have not only to ascertain what reasons there are for them, but also to decide what things are reasons and how much.” Wisdom’s gardener thought experiment obviously does not aim to discredit the theistic view of the world as irrational nonsense in the face of modern experimental science. The thought experiment serves to clarify what it means that theism has ceased to be of an experimental kind and thereby it assists in drawing justifiable conclusions with respect to the rational nature of religious belief. It is a different question, of course, whether the assumption is true that religion used to be experimental in the sense of Wisdom (1994, 200). But unfortunately, I cannot pursue the question here. Antony Flew “retooled” the gardener thought experiment of Wisdom (1944). His adaptation draws all the conclusions that Wisdom (1944) argued against. This is due to the kind of falsificationism that Flew makes his own to demarcate meaningful and meaningless claims about the world. That is to say that, pursuing the kind of philosophical analysis exhibited in Carnap (1998), for example, in Flew’s rendering of Wisdom’s thought experiment, matters of semantics (what explains the meaning of words?) and confirmation in the sciences (on what grounds are scientific theories accepted?) are run together. Confirmation practice in the sciences is deemed to hold the key to understanding what it is to say that words have meaning. The falsificationism that Flew entertains to dismiss theology is positivist insofar as it admits as evidentiary only what is positively given to sense perception. In this respect there is no difference between falsificationism and verificationism. Both are positivist in this sense. In the absence of such evidence a statement is deemed meaningless if empirical evidence

42 

Chapter 1

speaks against the truth of what one is saying. You may think to understand the statement, but it has no meaning proper. Flew’s type of falsificationism amounts to the view that a sentence is cognitively substantial if it is meaningful, and it is meaningful only if it can be disconfirmed in the sense that one has an idea as to the kind of empirical evidence that would allow us to test the truth of that statement. It is not required that the truth of a claim is established for the claim to count as meaningful and thus as cognitively substantial. It is assumed here that scientists produce hypotheses by means of conjectures (whose truths are not established) that are then eliminated as science progresses by rigorous testing of hypotheses. Scientific progress is basically the elimination of erroneous hypotheses by means of empirical falsification. Theological assertions elude confirmation by empirical means in this sense, Flew contends, and thus the theological use of words are both meaningless and irrational. Those theological claims that give us an idea how to test them can be proven false by means of empirical evidence, and those that fail to give us an idea how to test them, are nonsense. In Section 3 we will have an opportunity to revisit the philosophy of science that informs Flew’s philosophy of language and meaning. It circulates under the label of “falsificationism,” although it was meant to be a “critical rationalism” by its most famous advocate—​Karl Popper. It is a rationalism because it does not accept that science is driven by data obtained from experience. Instead, science is driven by reasonable conjectures. Conjectures are highly informed and intelligent guesses about the workings of nature. They are reasonable in two respects. They are the outcome of an open-​ended consideration of reasons in support of those guesses and against them. They display an openness to learn from experience. The rationalism is critical for two reasons. It accepts that truth is a regulative ideal. It recognizes that the “rationalist attitude” is a moral choice, Popper (2020, 436) insists, as it cannot be justified such that one could avoid “all presuppositions.” What that means is that “a rationalist attitude must be first adopted if any argument or experience is to be effective, and it cannot therefore be based upon argument or experience.” Critical rationalism is grounded in a “faith in reason.” Noteworthy in the present context is that critical rationalism “must encourage the use of the imagination,” Popper (2020, 444) explains. Without the imagination, critical rationalism is impossible. Flew imagines that once “upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, ‘Some gardener must tend this plot.’” The disagreement between the two explorers sets in right there, we are told by Flew. “The other disagrees, ‘There is no gardener.’” To address their disagreement, they “pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen.” A new hypothesis is produced. “‘But

The Practice of Thought Experiments

43

perhaps he is an invisible gardener.’ So, they set up a barbed-​wire fence. They electrify it. They patrol with bloodhounds. […] But no shrieks ever suggest that some intruder has received a shock. No movements of the wire ever betray an invisible climber. The bloodhounds never give cry.” All this falsifying empirical evidence doesn’t impress the believer, because he remains “not convinced. ‘But there is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensible to electric shocks, a gardener who has no scent and makes no sound, a gardener who comes secretly to look after the garden which he loves.’” There is not much left for the sceptic to do but to say in despair, “‘what remains of your original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?’” (Flew, Hare, and Mitchell 1971, 13) Nothing can disprove the believer, reasons Flew, and thus the belief is not only meaningless but dangerous, because it translates into a problematic ethics (accept beliefs without evidence) and an unacceptable view of the world (there is a God who sustains and intervenes in the world). Theological assertions should be accepted as cognitively meaningful only if we are given an idea as to what could possibly disprove them. Otherwise, we are better off treating them as what they are, namely mere fabrications. Among the theistic rejoinders is one by Basil Mitchell, who insists on the cognitive nature of religious belief. What this means is that theological statements are not only expressions of emotions or attitudes, nor are they fabrications. They are about states of affairs that exist whatever our emotions or attitudes may be. And, yet there is a difference between scientific and religious beliefs, because religious claims are characterized by a greater ambivalence than scientific claims. This would render falsificationism inapplicable in matters religious. To see what that means, Mitchell imagines a time of war and a country under occupation. Accidental circumstances bring two members of the resistance together. They had never met before. After some time of togetherness, they go separate ways. “They never meet in conditions of intimacy again,” we are told. “But sometimes the Stranger is seen helping members of the resistance, and the partisan is grateful and says to his friends, ‘He is on our side.’” This contrasts with an instance when “he is seen in the uniform of the police handing over patriots to the occupying power. On these occasions his friends murmur against him; but the partisan still says, ‘He is on our side.’” Whatever the appearance, he still believes that “the Stranger did not deceive him. Sometimes he asks the Stranger for help and receives it. He is then thankful. Sometimes he asks and does not receive it. Then he says, ‘The Stranger knows best.’” His friends, however, say, in exasperation, ‘Well, what would he have to do for you to admit that you were wrong and that he is not on our side?’” The partisan refuses to answer and doesn’t want to put the Stranger to

44 

Chapter 1

the test. So, “his friends complain, ‘Well, if that’s what you mean by his being on our side, the sooner he goes over to the other side the better’” (Flew, Hare, and Mitchell 1971, 19). John Hick agreed with Mitchell that a cognitive position is warranted in response to Flew’s challenge. There is truth to theological assertions. There is more to be said, however, from Hick’s perspective, compared to what we find conveyed by Mitchell’s thought experiment (see Hick 1977). Hick advances the view of eschatological confirmation to respond to Flew’s challenge (Hick speaks of “eschatological verificationism” but means to respond to both verificationism and falsificationism; thus, I refer to his position as eschatological confirmation). Eschatological confirmation is the view that Christians hope for a corroboration for their claims in the “world to come” (however this hope is conceptualized: life after an individual’s death, or grand cosmological transformation, or apocalyptic renewal of the universe we inhabit). If no corroboration obtains, Hick (1977) reasons, then it seems that Christianity is proven wrong. Hick devised his own thought experiment to substantiate his notion of eschatological confirmation, and thereby to strengthen cognitivism about theological assertions in response to Flew’s challenge and comparable critiques of religion. Imagine two men, Hick (1977, 190–​191) asks us to do, who “are traveling together along a road. One of them believes that it leads to a Celestial City, the other that it leads nowhere; but since it is the only road there is, both must travel it.” For both of them this is the first time that they have been on this way. Therefore “neither is able to say what they will find around each next corner. During their journey they meet both with moments of refreshment and delight, and with moments of hardship and danger.” While on the way, “one of them thinks of his journey as a pilgrimage to the Celestial City.” The pleasant parts are seen as encouragements, “and the obstacles as trials of his purposes and lessons in endurance, prepared by the king of that city and designed to make him a worthy citizen of the place when at last he arrives there.” This is not what is going on in the other traveler. He “sees their journey as an unavoidable and aimless ramble. Since he has no choice in the matter, he enjoys the good and endures the bad.” Unlike for his companion, “there is no Celestial City to be reached, no all-​encompassing purpose ordaining their journey; only the road itself and the luck of the road in good weather and in bad.” Hick (1977, 190–​191) is in agreement with Wisdom (1944) and Flew that “during the course of the journey the issue between them is not an experimental one.” Both travelers “do not entertain different expectations about the coming details of the road, but only about its ultimate destination.” When they do turn the last corner, however, “it will be apparent that one of them has been

The Practice of Thought Experiments

45

right all the time and the other wrong. Thus, although the issue between them has not been experimental,” Hick (1977, 190–​191) concludes, “it has nevertheless from the start been a real issue.” Hick (1997, 193) advises fellow theists not “to be tempted by [a]‌short way with Flew’s falsifiability challenge” on the grounds that it is not determined by reason but only exhibits a “faith in reason.” Such a response, Hick (1977, 193) argues, is “unhelpful philosophical pedantry.” The challenge has substance regardless, Hick (1977, 193) insists, because it is obvious “that a supposedly declarative statement is pointless if it fails to claim that the facts of the universe are in some respect thus and not otherwise.” This is a clear endorsement of the kind of “evidentialism” that is advanced also by Swinburne. Insofar as religion is to be a cognitive matter, it must be about truth, and truth is a matter of evidence, and some of it, is of an empirical kind. Faith does not amount to acceptance of claims in the absence of evidence. It means, as Mitchell’s thought experiment is to show, that the evidence remains essentially ambiguous, because religion in its core is an interpersonal relationship between humans and God. Consequently, it is important for theologians, argues Hick (1977, 193), to show that “central propositions with which” they are “concerned are not empty or pointless.” All this is not meant, Hick (1977, 193) clarifies, to put God to a test, but is “true piety which waits patiently for the Lord to vindicate his faithful on the last day.” Highly insightful is the distinction made by Hick (1977) between two types of confirmation: “simple” and “complex.” Hick (1977) presents the following as an example of “simple” confirmation: The claim that there is a table in the room is confirmed by the visual perception of a table in the room. An example for complex confirmation is evolutionary theory by natural selection, according to Hick (1977). The theory cannot be verified by a single observation but requires cumulative experiential confirmation. Of what type then is eschatological confirmation? “Cognitive conclusiveness” is defined as the absence of any rational doubt. This may be achieved by means of simple or complex confirmation. In accordance with his celestial city thought experiment, Hick conceives of the confirmability of the Christian faith as an instance of complex confirmation. On the road to the City there is ambiguity with only some experiential support resulting in the absence of cognitive conclusiveness. Suffering in the world, for instance, gives reason to doubt the truth of Christianity. But there is also experiential support for the Christian faith, such as the historical record of the life and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth. Cognitive conclusiveness won’t be achieved, however, until the turn to the last corner on the road to the celestial City.

46 

Chapter 1

Christians hope that a final complex confirmation will occur. But not all kinds of belief can be expected to be confirmed! What Christians can reasonably expect to be confirmed is not the claim that God exists or statements about specific attributes of his nature. This wouldn’t be possible, argues Hick (1977, 195), because “God is not one object or person among others in the heavenly world.” And his nature is such that it cannot be experienced. “Limited powers” may be subject to experience as we know it. But certainly not omnipotence, explains Hick (1977, 195). The same is true for absolute benevolence, omnipresence, etc. Hick alludes here, of course, to the traditional understanding of God’s nature: we are limited in our powers, God is not; we can be good, but God is pure goodness; we are confined to a particular point and time at any moment of our existence, but God is everywhere at any time. What is to be confirmed, therefore, is, argues Hick (1977, 195), that “the history of the universe has led to an end-​state in which the postulated divine purpose for man can be seen to be fulfilled.” Hick (1977, 197) finds biblical support for his theory of the eschatological situation as defined in the Book of Revelation. “The life of heaven,” Hick (1977, 197) explains, is the life “of a community inhabiting a city. God is not a visible object there, but nevertheless he will be intimately present to the community of the redeemed; for ‘Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people,’” it reads in Rev. 21:3. “The new heaven and earth are to be free from evil; for God ‘will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more,’” Rev. 21:4 says. “Men and women will be so totally conscious of God that there will be no need of a temple. They will be living all the time in the temple of the divine presence: for the city’s’ temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb,’” we can read in Rev. 21:22, Hick (1977, 195) stresses. As these Biblical references are to show, the notion of eschatological confirmation is not an ad hoc idea in response to the challenge posed by positivist confirmation theories that tend to be highly critical of metaphysics, including Christian theology. Invoking the eschatological situation “is not a desperate ad hoc device intended to meet a skeptical challenge.” What Hick (1977, 201) claims to be doing here is drawing “out that aspect of the traditional theistic system of belief which establishes that system as a complex factual assertion.” The fact that Hick (1977) refers to the Book of Revelation to gain support for his defence of the cognitive interpretation of theological statements is not only interesting but significant in the present context, and this is true for two reasons. Firstly, the reference is facilitated by means of a thought experiment about the journey to a celestial city. Secondly, Polkinghorne (2007a, 93–​94) argues that the Book of Revelation itself contains thought experiments that

The Practice of Thought Experiments

47

are comparable to scientific thought experiments, such as the clock-​in-​the box scenario that we discussed in the first section (see Section 1). If true, then one could say the following: Hick (1977) is not guilty of ad hoc reasoning because the notion of eschatological confirmation has been with Christianity from the beginning, which was long before positivist theories of confirmation were aired by philosophers critical of theology. Moreover, the method that Hick (1977) employs, i.e., a thought experiment, to argue for eschatological confirmation, is sanctioned by the Bible itself. Hick (1997) is not alone in the inspiration he receives from the Bible for his thought experiments. There are numerous examples from the science and religion encounter that concern the figure of Adam in the book of Genesis. I am pointing out these examples because Chapter 3 will offer a reading of Augustine’s theological thought experiment about the sexual relations between Adam and Eve before the Fall (see Section 4). Not Adam’s genitals, but his navel attracted the attention of the 19th century British naturalist Philip Henry Gosse. Following the Protestant Reformation, the Bible was accorded a new status. Its meaning was restricted traditionally to matters theological and moral. In accordance with traditional Catholic teaching, Galileo insisted—​in his famous letter to the Duchess Christina in 1615—​on these limitations in the use of the Bible for cognitive purposes, as it had begun to be “thought to provide knowledge relating to history and geography, or the arts and sciences,” according to Harrison (1998, 126). At the same time, traditional systems of representation broke down, Harrison (1998, 120) argues. The natural world lost its intrinsic meaning and became opaque. Natural science was tasked to render it intelligible again. That is to say, the elevation of the literal sense at the expense of the allegorical and symbolic reading had two effects. Firstly, the Bible became a source of historical and scientific information. Secondly, natural objects were taken at their face value deprived of any deeper symbolic meaning. It became necessary to reconcile the science contained in the Bible with the findings of natural science, and thereby to imbue the natural world with meaning. As Bible and nature have the same author, contradictions between the two must be superficial and transitory only. According to the Book of Genesis, Adam is the first human, and all humanity has its origin in Adam. The Bible is silent on important anatomical details, and so the question arose if he had a navel. “In a theological debate more portentous than the old argument about angels on pinpoints,” Gould (1985, 1) explains, “many earnest people of faith had wondered whether Adam had a navel. He was, after all, not born from a woman and required no remnant of his nonexistent umbilical cord. Yet, in creating a prototype, would not God make

48 

Chapter 1

his first man like the rest to follow? Would God, in other words, not create with the appearance of pre-​existence?” At the time when the geological sciences gathered evidence for the enormous antiquity of planet earth, Adam’s navel served to establish harmony between science and religion! “The strata and their entombed fossils surely seem to represent a sequential record of countless years, but wouldn’t God create his earth with the appearance of pre-​existence?” Adam’s navel permits us to “believe that he created strata fossils to give modern life a harmonious order by granting it a sensible (if illusory) past.” God provided Adam with a navel to stress continuity with future men. Likewise, he endowed “a pristine world with the appearance of an ordered history. Thus, earth might be but a few thousand years old, as Genesis literally affirmed, and still records an apparent tale of untold eons.” (Gould 1985, 1–​2) Gosse advanced this argument in his Omphalos: Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot (1857). Gosse was not, Gould (1985, 2) stresses, a “hopeless crank or malcontent,” but “Britain’s finest popular narrator of nature’s fascination,” although a “committed fundamentalist of the Plymouth Brethren Sect.” Gould (1985, 2–​3) finds that Omphalos has no parallel in the “anthropology of knowledge.” It is the work of a keen naturalist, and it is just not self-​evident why such a committed scientist brought himself to think that his domain of study was a mere illusion. The argument that Gosse develops, according to Gould (1985), begins with the premise that all the natural processes are endlessly cyclic (egg to chicken to egg, oak to acorn to oak). He conceived of divine creation as unrelated to these natural processes. That is to say that divine creation of something new is original. There is nothing pre-​existent to that which is created by God. But God creates such that the divine creation harmonizes with the cyclical natural processes. ‘Prochronic” is the term Gosse uses to refer to the appearances of pre-​existence, such as patterns of “wear” and “replacement” in vertebrates that were created as adults. However, whatever may follow in terms of natural processes once God brought something into existence, they are of a “diachronic” kind. Gosse’s reasoning amounts to the claim that the nature of Adam’s navel is not the exception but the norm in nature! And, since both prochronic and diachronic features of the world are products of divine creation, the illusory character of the former doesn’t render them untrue ultimately. “The prochronic part,” Gould (1985, 10) clarifies, “is neither a joke nor a test of faith; it represents God’s obedience to his own logic, given his decision to order creation in circles.” What we find in Gosse’s Omphalos is an offer to practicing scientists of a model that can help them resolve any potential religious conflicts arising from

The Practice of Thought Experiments

49

the science of the day. It is “not a challenge to their procedures or the relevance of their information,” Gould (1985, 10) explains. After Darwin, such harmonization surely lost all their credibility, argues Dennett (2011a, 27), because any metaphysically fabricated demonstration of harmony between science and religion just shows nothing. Christianity is a fantasy, because there isn’t “a shred of evidence for” the truth of its claims, argues Dennett (2011a, 27); “but it’s a free country, and it might be harmless enough to keep such fairy tales alive.” They do harm, however, Dennett (2011a, 27) insists, “since they can, in fact, do serious damage to the epistemological fabric of our society.” This happens, for example, when public policies are based on them. The discrimination of homosexuals may be a good example in this regard. To those who think that theistic creeds are in a better position than “any science fictional fantasy,” Dennett (2011a, 28) wants us to imagine that “Superman, son of Jor-​El, also known as Clark Kent, came from the planet Krypton about 530 million years ago and ignited the Cambrian explosion.” Superman, not god, guided the evolution in exactly the manner that theistic Darwinists claim it happened for the sake of the creation of humanity. Theistic Darwinism is the view that evolution occurs by natural selection and that a god as defined by theism guides that process by means of divine intervention at the causally indeterminate molecular-​biological level such that it has resulted in the creation of various species, including humans. A god as defined by theism is, according to Swinburne (1993, 1), “something like a ‘person without a body (i.e., a spirit) who is eternal, free, able to do anything, knows everything, is perfectly good, is the proper object of human worship and obedience, the creator and sustainer of the universe.” Dennett asks us to imagine that it isn’t a god who guides the evolutionary process, but Superman! What his thought experiment is meant to establish with full force, Dennett (2011a, 28) argues, is the fact that the “burden of proof falls” on those who think the “theistic story deserves any more respect or credence than” the Superman theory. It is difficult to see, Dennett (2011a, 29) confesses, “any rational grounds for preferring” theism “over “Supermanism—​which I don’t espouse, but see perfectly consistent with contemporary evolutionary theory.” We could even come up—​Dennett (2011a, 29) continues his critique of theistic Darwinism—​with a description of “experiments that could make” Supermanism “highly probable if they panned out.” For instance, Dennett (2011a, 29) specifies, let us imagine “we drill and dynamite a big crater in the Burges Shale.” What comes to light for the very first time are Jor-​El’s golden plates (not Angel Moroni’s), Dennett (2011a, 29) tells us, “which unlike Moroni’s, don’t conveniently disappear, and are soon carefully studied by the National Academy of Science.” What the study reveals is that the plates are actually a letter of

50 

Chapter 1

Jor-​El to his son, Dennett (2011a, 29) imagines, “explaining how to ensure that the intended gene duplications occur to hasten the path to new body plans, the evolution of vision, and eventually of vertebrates.” Alternatively, one could drive Supermanism out of the debate and just draw on the inconvenience that religious diversity causes Christian theists. We just need to imagine, Dennett (2011a, 29) continues, that “the clouds could part, and a giant voice could boom out in all the languages of the world simultaneously, saying: ‘I, Allah, of whom Muhammed is the prophet, have been intervening in evolution for billions of years on this little planet.” This little spin to the thought experiment is presented to suggest that Christians would not accept such a heavenly declaration as counterevidence to their own claims to the truth, and thereby to expose the irrational commitment they make themselves. According to Dennett (2011a), a dissociation between metaphysics and science will also not help much to save theism. To be sure, science has not proven theism to be false by ruling out supernatural causes once and for all. We come to see this when we imagine an art critic found dead who has penned a really negative review of an artist. This artist is suspected of murdering the art critic, because one of the artist’s sculptures was found beside the art critic. The sculpture had the blood of the art critic on it and a copy of the nasty review the art critic had penned was placed on the corpse. It really looks like a clear case: art critic murdered by artist who couldn’t handle a scathing review of his art by that critic. But the artist has an excellent defence team. It can show that the sculpture found at the alleged crime scene had been in the possession of the art critic for years. There is photographic evidence of that, and, also of its location in the apartment of the art critic, namely on a shelf close to where our art critic likes to read the newspaper. It was a habit of the art critic to read the newspaper every morning at 9am. The scathing review of our artist was published in the papers on the day of his death. It was also at around that time that a moderate earthquake shook the apartment of the art critic. And there was no forensic evidence that the artist on trial was in the apartment. The defence concludes, Dennett (2011a, 30) tells us, that, for all those reasons, the death of the art critic “was by natural causes, not a murder, not a death with an intending and intelligent author.” The prosecution is not finished yet, however, and calls an expert, Dennett (2011a, 31) continues. The testimony of that expert favors the conclusion that the artist must be the murderer, despite the case the defence has made, because it only showed “that it could have been an accident, but not that it was an accident.” Both hypotheses, accident and murder are equally reasonable. Moreover, Dennett (2011a, 31) details, we cannot rule out that the artist “could have arranged for the earthquake to happen just so! Nothing we know

The Practice of Thought Experiments

51

in geology by itself rules out the possibility that people can cause earthquakes by wishing for them hard enough.” When pressed by the prosecution that an account of the death in terms of natural causes is just so much more compelling, the expert responds that this is true, but the court cannot assume as proven that all events happen for natural causes. And this is most certainly true, according to Dennett (2011a, 31), “because naturalism is tacitly assumed in all reputable courts of law, and throughout scientific investigation.” In his response to Dennett (2011a), Plantinga (2011b) rejects the Superman and art critic thought experiments as unhelpful for the discussion about the relationship between science and theism. He deems them unsuitable for purposes of inquiry into the truth of the notion that a theistic God guided the species producing evolutionary processes that Darwinism describes. Unlike Superman, a theistic God is eternal and thus in a position to oversee evolutionary processes that span much more time than the life of Superman, “who was brought up in the 1930s,” Plantinga (2011b, 41) notes, “and by now would be scarcely more than eighty years old.” Superman is also not powerful enough to accomplish something like the evolution of the human species. “So Supermanism isn’t at all relevantly like theism,” Plantinga (2011b, 41) clarifies. “Supermanism is a silly thesis; it doesn’t in the least follow that theism is, or that the idea that God has guided and directed evolution is.” As for the conclusion that Dennett (2011) draws from the imagined death of the art critic scenario, Plantinga (2011b, 42), finds it just mistaken. You can do physics and don’t have to assume that there is no God who has the power to intervene in nature. This would not be a correct way of looking at the practice of physics. Finally, Plantinga (2011b, 43) regrets that Dennett (2011) didn’t address the central issue, namely the likelihood that evolution produced truth-​tracking human minds, as it did, if there wasn’t a theistic God. It is the position of Plantinga (2011b) that the likelihood would be very low. In his response, Dennett (2011b) basically argues that Plantinga’s imagination is insufficiently disciplined by science. Science proves him wrong, which makes total sense, argues Dennett (2011b, 47), because “Plantinga’s story was first assembled in an age of scientific ignorance, when almost nobody had the idea that the Earth was round, and no one had an inkling of its age, for instance.” Such confidence in the powers of science leads Dennett in his philosophy of mind, according to Putnam (1987, 15), also to “abandon the deepest intuitions we have about ourselves-​in-​the-​world,” and to reject the reality of intentionality. Putnam (1987, 16) recounts that, according to the naturalism advanced by Dennett, we are to believe that “no one really has propositional attitudes (beliefs and desires), that ‘belief’ and ‘desire’ are just notions from a false theory

52 

Chapter 1

called ‘folk psychology.’” Such a philosophical position, argues Putnam (1987, 4), is the result of a scientific realism run wild. The reality of tables is denied “as we ordinarily conceive them,” because science “has discovered that the table is mostly empty space.” As science progresses, the reality behind appearances becomes clear—​no tables, no beliefs. The role that science assumes in such philosophies of science, argues Putnam (1987, 4), are comparable to the “Seducer in the melodramas of the 1980s.” There are lots of promises made by the Seducer to an “Innocent Maiden,” which represents common sense realism. But the Seducer fails to deliver when the time comes. Science promises to liberate us from all the antirealist enemies, who deny that those things exist that our best theories talk about. When they “have travelled together for a little while,” Putnam (1987, 4) insists, “the ‘Scientific Realist’ breaks the news” to the common sense realist, which is the Maiden, that what she “is going to get” back “isn’t” (emphasis in original) her tables and beliefs. “In fact, all there really is—​ the Scientific Realist tells her over breakfast—​is what ‘finished science’ will say there is—​whatever that maybe.” The point of the thought experiment of Putnam (1987, 4) is for us to see the false promise of scientific realism. The metaphysics of scientific realism is not the way to go if we want to save the reality that we are familiar with, the reality consisting of tables, chairs, persons, and God. In conclusion of this section, let’s sum up: we have reviewed about ten thought experiments, all of which aim at the relationship between science and religion. Some of them are meant to strengthen the case for harmony and others to advance conflict between the two. The point of the discussion was not to engage in any kind of adjudication on the matter of how to relate science and religion. Instead, it is the frequent use of thought experiments in this area that fascinates us. Thought experiments are as indispensable in the field of science and religion as in those areas of investigation that we explored in the two previous sections. It is not only the case that central issues in the encounter between science and religion require the use of thought experiments, but also the topic of their relationship. Swinburne’s attempt at downplaying the role that thought experiments play in his own integration of science and religion is particularly interesting in this respect. Equally significant in the context of the present study is the exchange over Flew’s challenge to theology that I have reconstructed in this section. The exchange was largely facilitated by thought experiments, comparable to some of the discussions which took place between Einstein and Bohr over quantum physics (as briefly discussed in Section 1). Finally, we touched on possible biblical roots of theological thought experiments. Overall, then, we can conclude that thought experiments are most certainly not a peripheral matter in the field of science and religion. What this fact

The Practice of Thought Experiments

53

may mean in theological perspective is maybe less clear, and it is the issue that has motivated this study. 4

Conclusion

We have travelled far and wide through the “laboratory of the mind.” It has been an exciting journey for sure. We have encountered, among other things, conjoined cannon balls in free fall, a car that fits and doesn’t fit into a garage, four-​wheeled organisms that evolution has not yet brought forth, dandelions in competition for living space on a lawn, trolleys that are about to run over people, brains misplaced in the wrong bodies, an invisible gardener, and Superman as the creator of the world. The travels served the thesis that science and religion discussions would be as impoverished as the natural sciences and other scholarly endeavors without thought experiments. The truth of the thesis is one thing, its theological significance quite another. Going forward I shall argue that the practice of thought experiments tells us something very important theologically. It drives home the theological significance of the imagination and compels us to escape a narrow focus on beliefs and theories in investigations of the encounter between science and religion. An exclusive focus on creeds and scientific theories in the analysis of that encounter seems wanting. No doubt, it does matter a great deal to understand, for example, how Darwinian evolutionary theory relates to the Christian belief that every human being who has ever lived would not have been around if it were not for special divine action. And yet, there is more to understand about the encounter between science and religion than the relationship between doctrines and theories. The practice of thought experiments confronts us with a stunning cognitive power of the imagination. We have come to appreciate in this chapter that imagination and theory can progress independently of one another. This is one of the many defining characteristics of thought experiments that was laid bare during the discussions of this chapter. During our discussion of the many thought experiments that this chapter showcased, we also touched on some of the prominent accounts of thought experiments. Two of them sit at the centre of the current debate over thought experiments. Each presents one of the two extremes of the spectrum of theories of the nature of thought experiments that have been proposed to date. On the one end of the spectrum, we have the view that thought experiments are vehicles for something like a Platonic intuition. The idea is that our minds can grasp truths about the world that we couldn’t possibly gain by empirical means alone. The apparent indispensability of thought experiments is explained such

54 

Chapter 1

that the cognitive power of both logic and sense perception are insufficient to make sense of the progress that we have been making in the natural sciences and beyond. On the other end of the spectrum, we find the view that thought experiments are nothing but arguments in disguise. Their indispensability is explained in terms of greater accessibility of the innovative arguments that thought experiments state. We surely could reconstruct a thought experiment such that all the picturesque elements of a thought experiment disappear, but the cognitive power remains. What is left after such a reconstruction is the propositional core of the thought experiment, which does the heavy cognitive lifting. There is absolutely no need to go beyond logic and sense perception to account for the cognitive efficacy of thought experiments. In between these two extremes one finds several alternative theories of thought experiments. We glimpsed at one of them, namely, a “Kantian view of thought experiments,” according to which every thought experiment is an unrealized real-​world experiment. In principle, every thought experiment is realizable. Realizability is a function of the technological-​operational details that thought experiments feature. What the observations about existing accounts of thought experiments clearly indicate is the following: This study might be unique in its theological aims, but it surely has a wider scholarly context. Philosophical discussions about thought experiments go back at least two hundred years, and it is to this history that I will turn now. Thereby I will duly situate the analysis of the theological significance of thought experiments at the interface of science and religion that follows in Chapters 3 and 4.

Chapter 2

Two Hundred Years of Thought Experiments If we rely only on the natural foreordering of the structures of the mind and reason, then many concepts will remain so stuck to other concepts, and will never be combined with others in the way that they should be. If only there were a procedure like decomposition in chemistry, where the elements swim around, lightly suspended, able to combine and recombine to form any product. But since such a procedure is not available, one has to join things together intentionally. One has to experiment with ideas. lichtenberg 1971, 453–​454 [K308], translated by Yiftach Fehige and Michael T. Stuart

In the first chapter we scrutinized the practice of thought experiments. I defended the thesis that science and religion discussions would be as impoverished as the natural sciences and other scholarly endeavors without thought experiments. Be it debates over central issues that arise in the encounter between science and religion, or controversies over the right model to relate the two, we find thought experiments. This chapter looks at the history of the philosophical analysis of thought experiments. It seeks to sketch the developments in the history of philosophical treatments of thought experiments. We shall consider a possible periodization of that history in order to address a pressing question: why did the literature on thought experiments explode in the past thirty years? A quick search reveals that probably few other fields of philosophical study have more publications to show than the one dedicated to thought experiments. I will defend the claim that an important factor in that development is a clash between traditional epistemologies and an appreciation of the diversity in science. Philosophy of science had taken a pluralist turn (some say: pluralistic turn), and this permitted the re-​location of thought experiments in the vicinity of the “cognitive content of science,” to put it in the words of Kuhn (1996 [1962], 188). Indeed, as Ruphy (2016, xi) rightly notes, “few today would deny that the philosophical tide has clearly turned in favor of the plurality of science.” The “pluralist-​turn” in philosophy and the acknowledgment of the cognitive power of thought experiments go hand in hand (a thesis I first articulated in Fehige 2021). © Yiftach Fehige, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004685307_004

56 

Chapter 2

Here is the roadmap for this chapter: in the first section we will quickly review the maturing of the discussion about thought experiments from 1811 up to 1986 (Section 1). In particular, I will argue that one must resist the temptation to overstate the role that Mach (1905) played in the formation of thought experiments as a topic in its own right. The second section stresses the lack of accounts available to make sense of the events around 1986 (Section 2). It is those events that led us to where we are today in the discussion about thought experiments. Yet, it is not really clear as to what exactly it is that explains them. In the literature we find many guesses and casual remarks in this regard. Some suggest that mainstream philosophy of science simply ignored the context of discovery and thus neglected the practice of thought experiments in the analysis of scientific knowledge. As the context of discovery was taken more seriously for philosophical considerations, thought experiments received attention increasingly. Others find that the development must be credited to Platonism, as discussed in the previous chapter. Platonism about thought experiments, the argument goes, provoked scathing responses and thus led to an intense debate, as mainstream philosophy of science was entrenched in empiricism. None of these ideas are wrong, but in isolation they are not sufficient. We need an account that can frame them in such a way that they will reach their full potential. In the third section I will propose such an account, and I hope originality is not its only merit (Section 3). Section 4 seeks to strengthen that account beyond what I say in Section 3. To that effect I will highlight the nuanced naturalistic accounts of thought experiments which have emerged in the literature. We will also look very briefly at concurrent developments in philosophical epistemology more generally which amount to an opposition to the “valorization of the truth.” 1

From Kant to Mach

Mach (1897) has certainly a special place in the history of philosophical discussions about thought experiments. According to Fehige and Stuart (2014), however, the history goes back more than 200 years (see also Daiber 2001, Kühne 2005, Moue et al. 2006, Schildknecht 1990). That history can be divided into four periods. The focus of the ensuing discussion is on the transition from the third to the fourth period. At no time before have scientific thought experiments received the level of attention philosophers have given them in the past thirty years. This is only one of the many intriguing facts of the very exciting, and yet largely still unexplored, history of philosophical discussions about thought experiments (see Stuart and Fehige 2021).

Two Hundred Years of Thought Experiments

57

The first period (1750s to about 1811) should be called the Forerun. The word “thought experiment” didn’t exist yet, but a number of similar notions were in use. What we find are wonderful examples of experiments with thoughts and ideas in the work of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–​1791). His writings even offer some ideas to inform a more substantial discussion of their nature. One also finds poems of productive imagination in that period (see, e.g., Fehige 2013a). It is Novalis (Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg) (1772–​ 1801) who exhibits those in his literary work. His use of them echoes central tenets of the philosophy of early German romanticism. Immanuel Kant (1724–​ 1804) is also part of the Forerun with his treatment of experiments of pure reason in his Critique of Pure Reason (1781), and the extensive use of thought experiments in his Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786). There are good reasons to think that the practice of thought experiments goes back to ancient philosophy at least (see, e.g., Ierodiakonou 2005, 2018; Becker 2018; Corcilius 2018) and that it was established practice in medieval (natural) philosophy (see, e.g., Grant 2007, King 1991, Perler 2008). And yet, apparently it isn’t before the 18th century that the need arises to create some distinct conceptual space for that practice. The context of that creation probably explains to a good part why the discussion about thought experiments centers on scientific examples to this day. According to Hacking (2004), it is the time when the “laboratory style” gains in significance. It is one “style of scientific reasoning” among many that the history of science offers. It can be defined, argues Hacking (2004, 184), by a distinct exchange “between the producers of analyzed data and the merchants of theoretical approximations.” An important feature of the “styles of scientific reasoning” is that they “open up new territory as they go,” according to Hacking (2004, 185). Thought experiments are part of the new landscape opened up by the “laboratory style.” It is the time when the concept of experiment begins to gain significance beyond the “scientific context” (see, e.g., Daiber 2001). Accordingly, the second period (about 1811 until 1897) is marked by the introduction of the actual word “thought experiment” by Hans Christian Ørsted in 1811 (see Ørsted 1811 [1920]). We could refer to this period, therefore, as the Inauguration. It is noteworthy that there is a direct link to the Forerun. Ørsted is advancing a Kantian natural philosophy. In particular, Witt-​Hansen (1976, 49) argues that in “the elucidation of the role of thought experiments in physics, [Ørsted] refers to Kant’s [Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786)].” Ørsted (1811 [1998], 295–​296) notes the predominance of the experimental method in physics and, in that context, he claims that the point of this method “is not merely to contemplate the external world or to find its essence that it

58 

Chapter 2

has thus limited itself as a peculiar art of imitation; it also wants to set our mind in creative activity in order to develop lively and vigorous knowledge which is more in harmony with the constant evolution of nature.” Thought experiments are vehicles of that creative activity—​in matters physical as well as those which are purely intellectual (“presented only to the mind”), such as mathematics. The Inauguration period remains largely unexplored. As is, we have a period characterized by the work of a single natural philosopher, namely Ørsted. Whatever the merits of Ørsted’s contribution may be, the assessment is certainly incorrect that it lacks any systematicity as Moue et al. (2006, 63) claim. Such an assessment misses the depth of Ørsted’s treatment of thought experiments, as laid bare by the substantial treatment of Kühne (2005, 92–​165). It also overstates the degree of systematicity that we find in Mach (1897) (and detailed by Sorensen 1992, 51–​75). Limbo is what we could call the third period (about 1897 to 1986), because it is the time when, in hindsight, the topic of thought experiments awaits full recognition. It basically begins with Mach’s article “Über Gedankenexperimente,” which was published in 1897 in the journal Zeitschrift für den Physikalischen und Chemischen Unterricht. Important is that Ørsted’s Kantian notion of thought experiments had no detectable impact on the philosophical discussions of thought experiments in this period. Towards the end of the Limbo period in the 1980s we see increasingly the production of what may be called “lists of past authorities” on thought experiments. Rehder (1980, 105–​106) lists Ernst Bloch and Max Weber, Ernst Mach, Karl Popper, Alexius Meinong, and Pierre Duhem. Poser (1984, 182) lists Mach, Duhem, Popper, and Thomas S. Kuhn. Unfortunately, both forgot Lakatos (1978a [1970]). These lists were created for two reasons. Firstly, they were to show how little philosophy of science had to say about the subject matter at the time when the list was created. Secondly, the lists were meant to contextualize the position on thought experiments that the list’s author intended to advance. There is agreement among the creators of “lists of past authorities” that Mach (1897) is to be credited for the invention of the philosophical concept of the “thought experiment.” Well into the 1990s, one can read that “Ernst Mach introduced the term ‘Gedankenexperiment’” (Humphreys 1993, 214). Today we know that credit for that should go to Ørsted (1811 [1998]). Of course, this does not minimize the accomplishment of Mach (1897). In terms of Rezeptionsgeschichte it was Mach (1897, or better: 1905), not Ørsted (1811 [1998]) that had a lasting effect on discussions about thought experiments in the 20th century. Noteworthy is also that Mach (1897) was the first who appreciated thought experiments as a practice not exclusive to science.

Two Hundred Years of Thought Experiments

59

In an elaborated version Mach (1897) became Mach (1905). The central claim about thought experiments, however, remained the same. “Besides physical experiments,” Mach (1905, 136) argues, “there are others that are extensively used at a higher intellectual level, namely thought experiments.” Their cognitive power lies, according to Mach (1905, 136), in “a thought experience.” The oxymoron of a thought experience is revealing of the general strive of Mach (1905), under the influence of the promising unifying power of the emerging Darwinian evolutionary theory, for a conceptual framework that transcends the traditional empiricism-​rationalism divide. While committed to empiricism, Mach (1905, 138) does not hesitate to assign rationalistically appearing thought experiments a central role in the history of science, because its cognitive power is not seen as a function of a priori truth as traditionally conceived. Mach (1905, 138) refers to an innate capacity to experiment. Humans and animals share that capacity, although it has reached a significantly new level with the rise of memory: “For we can find in memory,” Mach (1905, 136) argues, “details that we failed to notice when directly observing facts.” Thought experiments are like all experiments in that by means of variation we can acquire new knowledge—​physical experiments vary conditions in the environment, thought experiments vary “imagined conditions” to shed new light on memorized facts. In both cases experiences are “collected” by “observing changes” following a “deliberate” manipulation of the conditions under which certain states of affairs obtain, either in the world or in the mind. There is nothing unusual about thought experiments, Mach (1905, 145) argues, because “even the simplest thought of the physicist concerning some individual sense experience does not coincide entirely with reality.” No thinking about the world captures experiences in their totality, and thought experiments are just one of many possible paths that scientists can take to attune thoughts with facts and with one another. Every physical experiment, Mach (1905, 136) claims, is preceded by a thought experiment, and, at times, Mach (1905, 137) notes, a thought experiment seems to make it superfluous to realize it in the real world, because its outcome is “definite and decisive.” This doesn’t happen because the outcomes would be logically compelling. On the contrary, Mach (1905, 138) contends that the key “thought process” is not fully determined by logic, and Mach (1905, 146) specifies that “the schemata of formal and even inductive logic cannot help much.” And, yet, Mach (1905, 143) notes, it is “paradoxes” which “set off the process we call thought experiment.” Unlike Ørsted (1811 [1920]), Mach (1897, 1905) did trigger some critical discussion among eminent contemporary philosophers at the time, as evidenced by Brentano (1988 [1905], 86–​87 and 111) and Meinong (1907), for example. This is probably a crucial fact to be taken into account when explaining the stature

60 

Chapter 2

Mach (1897, 1905) assumed eventually in the philosophical discussions about thought experiments in the 1980s. This is to say that, overall, the impact of Mach (1897, 1905) on the Limbo must not be overstated. There are several reasons for exercising caution with respect to the role of Mach (1897, 1905) in the history of philosophical discussions about thought experiments. Firstly, treatments of thought experiments still remained few after Mach (1897, 1905). To paraphrase Brown (2011a, 66), it was possible to become an expert on thought experiments over the course of a long weekend. It is true, however, that an important difference to the periods of the Forerun and Inauguration is that the lack of substantial discussion of the topic was increasingly perceived as a problem, especially towards the end of the Limbo period (see, e.g., Poser 1984, 182). It is just not clear that this is an effect of Mach (1897, 1905). The philosophy of Mach was held in high esteem throughout the 20th century. Moreover, his views on thought experiments were included in his major work Erkenntnis und Irrtum (Mach 1905), not hidden within an obscure article or journal entry. And yet, we find only few discussions of thought experiments in the Limbo. Secondly, of the few philosophers of science who discussed thought experiments in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, some use the word “thought experiment” but clearly are not employing the Machian notion of thought experiments. This is true, for example, of Kuhn (1977 [1964]). We find the word “thought experiment” used. But there is no discussion of Mach (1905) on the matter of thought experiments, and the theory that is presented in Kuhn (1977 [1964]) is clearly incompatible with the theory of thought experiments one can find in Mach (1905). There may even be some meaning in the fact that the analysis of Kuhn (1977 [1964]) was originally part of a collection that honours Alexandre Koyré (1892–​1964). Koyré uses the notion of “imaginary experiments” and favoured a rationalist philosophy of science. His historical analysis led him to the conviction that “the founders of modern science, among them Galileo,” Koyré (1943, 405) explains, had much more to accomplish than to criticize established theories in light of new facts. “They had to destroy one world and to replace it by another. They had to reshape the framework of our intellect itself,” Koyré (1943, 405) continues, in order “to restate and to reform its concepts, to evolve a new approach to Being, a new concept of knowledge,” and even “a new concept of science” itself. Galileo felt “obliged to drop sense-​perception as the source of knowledge,” Koyré (1943, 423) claims, “and to proclaim that intellectual, and even a priori knowledge, is our sole and only means of apprehending the essence of the real.”

Two Hundred Years of Thought Experiments

61

Kuhn (1977 [1964]) doesn’t endorse rationalism about science. Instead, he advances the position of what could be called “conceptual constructivism.” It is argued that concept and reality are inevitably entangled to a degree that knowledge arising from conceptual analysis can amount to new knowledge of the world. “Though the contemporary epistemological vocabulary supplies no truly useful locutions,” Kuhn (1977 [1964], 265) complains, “I want […] to argue that from thought experiments most people learn about their concepts and the world together.” In thought experiments, nature presents us with a challenge that is answered by means of inquiry into the conceptual realm. Thirdly, as the example of Kuhn (1977 [1964]) shows, it is fair to say that no cohesion existed in the discussion of thought experiments during the Limbo period. It was still possible to refer to the subject matter independently of the word that we find in Ørsted (1811 [1998]) and Mach (1897, 1905), or to use the word “thought experiment,” but relatively detached from the notions of thought experiment that we can find developed in Ørsted (1811 [1998]) and Mach (1897, 1905). These observations cast some doubt on the speculation of Buzzoni (2018, 2–​3) that the Machian Gedankenexperiment outperformed the Ørstedian one in its impact on the philosophical discourse about thought experiments, because philosophy of science during the Limbo period consistently rejected the Kantian a priori but not Machian empiricism. The idea here is that the Machian philosophy, unlike Ørsted’s Kantianism, found positive reception in mainstream philosophy committed to empiricism. With that, the Machian concept of thought experiments was positioned well enough to facilitate at least some discussion about thought experiments. This assessment seems questionable with respect to the Machian notion of thought experiments. And, even with respect to the mere word, more caution seems prudent. There are indeed more discussions of thought experiments in the Limbo period than in the two periods before, but they show a preference for the word “imaginary experiments,” such as Popper (1959, 442–​456), although it is clear that Popper means what Mach (1897, 1905) calls thought experiments. And all this happened at a time when some, such as MacLachlan (1973, 374) and Yourgrau (1967, 868), began to make a clear distinction between “thought experiments” and “imagined experiments.” To sum up, the history of philosophical discussions about thought experiments can be divided into four periods at least. One is characterized by the circulation of notions which resemble the concepts of thought experiments that we see introduced later. As a technical term the word ‘thought experiment’ sees the light of day in 1811, but it isn’t until Mach (1897, 1905) that some dedicated discussion about thought experiments for wider philosophical analysis takes place, although still very localized. It would take another eighty years to

62 

Chapter 2

establish thought experiments as a topic in their own right. Insofar as a story is to be told that explains the developments from 1897 to 1986, it seems insufficient to draw a straight line from Mach (1905) to the fourth period in the history of philosophical discussions about thought experiments. 2

The Year 1986

The fourth period in the history of philosophical treatments of thought experiments (the period since 1986) could be labelled Proliferation, because it is the most prolific of all four. When the year 1986 arrived, more than 175 years had passed since Ørsted (1811 [1998]) introduced thought experiments as a term of philosophical analysis. Philosophy of science had rather little to show, however, in terms of a substantial presentation of the subject matter. The impact of that lack of attention was even detectable in the metaphilosophical discourse of the 1980s. Philosophers began tentatively to discuss the importance of thought experiments as a philosophical method (see, e.g., Myers 1986). On April 18, 1986, Tamar Horowitz and Gerald Massey opened a conference on thought experiments at the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. It was the very first conference on thought experiments in the 20th century, and maybe the very first in the history of philosophical inquiry into thought experiments. In their introduction to the volume that published the conference proceedings, Horowitz and Massey (1991) begin with the question as to whether observation by means of experiments is a useful criterion to draw a line between science and philosophy. Such a demarcation seems doubtful for two reasons, they argue. Firstly, every physical thought experiment is a “Gedankenexperiment” to an extent. Secondly, philosophers conduct thought experiments like scientists do. The editors of the conference proceedings go on to report on Nicholas Rescher’s historical claim that thought experiments were the preferred method of the Presocratics, Massey’s own metaphilosophical assessment that they are at the heart of analytic philosophy at the time, and J. N. Mohanty’s contention that phenomenology’s central method amounts to thought experimentation. The contribution of Mach (1897, 1905) is only mentioned, but Kuhn’s treatment of thought experiments is discussed in more detail, because, according to Horowitz and Massey (1991, 1), “it seems that what has sparked contemporary interest has been” the work of Kuhn (1977 [1964]). This is a very important hint at a possible reason for the outburst of discussions about thought experiments in the 1980s, and it will receive more scrutiny below.

Two Hundred Years of Thought Experiments

63

Among the delegates to the conference of Horowitz and Massey was John D. Norton. Thought experiments, Norton (1991) contends, are nothing but arguments in disguise. In the context of this study, this is no news, as we briefly touched on that theory in the first chapter (see Section 1). As we saw there, the position advanced by Norton (1991) is commonly referred to as the “argument view” of thought experiments. The idea is that we cannot get more out of a thought experiment than logic and established empirical knowledge permit. We learn, rather, from new inferences of established empirical knowledge. This can happen because the inference brings something to light that was hitherto not obvious. In this sense thought experiments help us to learn new things about the world. They draw out consequences from the established empirical knowledge that informs the assumptions that premise a thought experiment. To be clear, Norton (1991) does accept that scientific thought experiments can have cognitive power, and that the history of science attests to that. But he finds that we are not compelled to move beyond the confines of moderate empiricism. In thought experiments, Norton (1991, 129) argues, no “reporting of new empirical data” occurs. Given the absence of new empirical information, their power must be a function of arguments, as there are only two accepted sources of evidence in science, according to Norton (1991), namely new data and arguments. Arguments, Norton (1991, 129) reasons, utilize “information we already have.” Norton (1991, 129) defines thought experiments as “arguments which: (i) posit hypothetical or counterfactual states of affairs, and (ii) invoke particulars irrelevant to the generality of the conclusion.” The imagined story featured by a thought experiment is said to contain propositions which we need to extract and organize into a polished argument in order to assess its merit. During such a reconstruction, we separate argument from all the elements of the imagined story that do little to advance the argument. For example, Norton (1991, 130) points out that “in one version of the thought experiment in which Einstein sought to demonstrate that the effects of acceleration mimic those of gravitation, he asked us to imagine a physicist-​observer who has been drugged,” and “that he is enclosed within a box.” Such particulars “are irrelevant to the generality of the conclusion which Einstein seeks to draw.” Thought experiments are mere arguments, either of a deductive (truth-​preserving) or inductive (truth-​extending) kind. Norton (1996, 2004) admits also abductive (the inference to the best explanation) and informal arguments (such as arguments by analogy). Norton (1991) lists numerous caveats for his view. The first is that he only identifies necessary conditions for thought experiments. That is, there can be arguments which “(i) posit hypothetical or counterfactual states of affairs, and

64 

Chapter 2

(ii) invoke particulars irrelevant to the generality of the conclusion,” but are not thought experiments. Another concession is that we might have access to a Platonic realm of universals as Brown (1986) claims. But he insists that it would only happen by means of argumentation, and not via a Platonic intuition as a source of knowledge that is independent of logic and sense perception. Norton (1991) also entertains the possibility that a thought experiment makes a kind of an inductive leap that we are not familiar with yet. In such a case, reconstruction may prove difficult at first. Norton (1991) also concedes that his view does not amount to the recommendation that we better not use thought experiments. Norton (1991, 131) finds that “one can almost guarantee” that attempts at the elimination of that practice will fail, because thought experiments are often introduced when it proves difficult to develop “the straight argument.” While Norton (1991) defended his “argument view” in Pittsburgh, Brown introduced his Platonism to an audience at a conference at a location about 8000 km away—​in Dubrovnik (former Yugoslavia). The paper would make it into the very first issue of the newly established journal International Studies in The Philosophy of Science bearing the title: “The Dubrovnik Papers: From Galileo to Newton.” Brown (1986) is the very first article in that issue. Horowitz and Massey would invite Brown later on to contribute to their edited collection that was to feature all the papers presented at the Pittsburgh conference. They made the right editorial decision to place Brown (1991) just before Norton (1991) as the seventh of twenty-​one chapters under the succinct title “Thought Experiments: A Platonic Account” in the third section of Horowitz and Massey (1991), which is dedicated to thought experiments in the sciences. In the same year when Horowitz and Massey (1991) was published, the first edition of Brown (2011) appeared. Platonism about science was live again. We are already very familiar with the Platonism about thought experiments that Brown (1986, 1991, 2011) defends (see Section 1). We remember that thought experiments are claimed to be like vehicles for Platonic intuition. Empiricism is said to be at a total loss when it comes to accounting for the conclusion of thought experiments, such as Galileo’s two falling cannon balls scenario (discussed at length in the first chapter; Section 1). The contention is that thought experiments, such as Galileo’s, contain more information about the world than we can possibly find in the assumptions that are being made about the imagined scenario. Moreover, they establish true findings which do not follow logically from those assumptions. Thought experiments allow us to make genuine discoveries, and the best explanation we have available to make sense of this fact, is a Platonic account. What Norton considers superfluous imaginary elements of thought experiments, are actually essential, according to Brown (1986, 1991, 2011). Without

Two Hundred Years of Thought Experiments

65

them, no Platonic discoveries can take place. “I have made being ‘visualizable’ or ‘picturable’ a hallmark of any thought experiment,” Brown (2011, 17) recounts. He clarifies that perhaps “‘sensory’ would be a more accurate term. After all, there is no reason why a thought experiment couldn’t be about imagined sounds, tastes, or smells. What is important,” Brown (2011, 17) stresses, “is that it can be experienceable in some way or other.” The example of the car-​garage thought experiment that we looked at in the first chapter can prove that point well (see Section 1), argues Brown (2013). The same is true of mathematical thought experiments (see Section 2). In hindsight one can say that the two events of 1986 in Pittsburgh and Dubrovnik marked the beginning of the fourth and ongoing period in the history of the philosophical analysis of thought experiments. In light of the discussions about thought experiments as they had unfolded between 1986 and 1993 and in response to Norton’s review of the first edition of Brown (2011) (published in 1991), Brown (1993, 38) correctly sensed that “in time the rapidly growing literature on thought experiments may come to regard our respective views as the polar positions, with new contributions trying to carve out intermediate views.” In fact, this was true already then. Most contributions to the discussion about thought experiments after 1986 defined themselves in contradiction to either view. The noteworthy exception is probably Sorensen (1992), and further down I will offer some reasons as to why that is. But even one exception won’t undermine the conclusion that the Norton-​Brown-​debate is central to understanding the proliferation. If true, then the question arises as to what exactly it is about the exchange between Brown and Norton that led to the explosion in the literature on thought experiments. The following possibilities come to mind most readily: The first concerns Brown’s Platonism: Such a position didn’t fit into mainstream philosophy of science, if the assumption is correct that it was in the firm grip of empiricism. Platonism about science must have led to controversy. Revealing in this respect, although uttered at a much later point in the Proliferation, is the outcry of Urbaniak (2012): “Platonic thought experiments—​ how on Earth?” And Brendel (2004, 94) outright dismisses the Platonic view as “highly implausible.” Brown’s Platonism certainly played a role in the outburst of discussions about thought experiments. It is a peculiar position indeed and very demanding in its epistemological premise (the assumption of a capacity of seeing with the mind) and ontological premise (the assumption of the existence of a Platonic realm). And, yet, Brown had an eminent predecessor, namely the aforementioned Koyré, and there was knowledge of that fact among the disputants since the beginning of the Proliferation (see, e.g., Hacking 1992, 302; Gooding 1992a, 69–​70). Nenad Miščević was present in Dubrovnik when Brown

66 

Chapter 2

delivered his 1986 paper. It was the beginning of his involvement in the debate on thought experiments, and he proved to be a friendly, yet firmly dissenting critic of Brown’s views. Telling is the reminder of Miščević (1992, 215) at the beginning of the Proliferation that “the best-​known defender of the [Brownian] uncompromising Platonism about thought experiments is Alexandre Koyre [sic].” Uncompromising indeed, because it was fully understood at the time that Koyré saw in Galileo the inventor of thought experiments as a scientific method and that this alleged fact played an important role in his demonstration of the a priori nature of science, as highlighted by Gooding (1992b, 281) and others. Palmieri (2003, 232) highlights the fact that many scholars “have followed Koyré’s thesis on Galileo’s use of thought experiments.” The second possibility concerns Norton’s Empiricism: There is a “rationalistic” appearance to thought experiments and this seems to contradict outright Norton’s position. In the words of Arthur (1999, 215): “Norton fails to realize that thought experiments […] are remarkable epistemologically.” But, if the assumption is that philosophy of science was in the firm grip of empiricism at the time, then Norton’s position should have been the only one acceptable. This explains Norton’s worry going into the 1986 Pittsburgh conference that he may be ridiculed for stating something very trivially true about thought experiments (personal conversation with Norton at a workshop on thought experiments in Paris a decade ago). Nevertheless, while his empiricism is probably not the key aspect of Norton’s exchange with Brown that will allow us to make sense of the transition into the Proliferation, it is difficult to deny that extreme positions such as his (or Brown’s) had a role to play. The third possibility concerns the palpable character of the clash of Platonism and Empiricism in the Brown-​Norton exchange: Again, it is absolutely unnecessary to deny that it was probably of great advantage for the exposition of thought experiments as an important topic of inquiry in its own right to have two extreme positions so neatly at hand in a most intriguing exchange between two admirers of powerful scientific examples of the laboratory of the mind. But, as I have argued above, the entire Limbo period is characterized by a clash of noticeably irreconcilable epistemologies, including extreme positions on thought experiments. We have Duhemian skepticism about the worth of thought experiments, a Koyréan rationalism that elevates thought experiments to a pivotal method of Galilean science, and a Machian naturalism that can seem like a first shot at something like an evolutionary epistemology of thought experiments. And, as the example of Krimsky (1973) shows, there was a lucid awareness of that situation among the stakeholders in the discussion on thought experiments. The tangible clashing of opposing

Two Hundred Years of Thought Experiments

67

epistemologies, such as occurred in the exchange between Brown (1991, 2004) and Norton (1991, 2004) was surely nothing new. In conclusion, then, it seems that something must be added to the picture as it has been developed up to this point. Neither the “argument view,” nor the “Platonic account” of thought experiments, and also not the palpable character of the collision of the two views in the Norton-​Brown exchange do the trick. Something is missing to make sense of why, starting around 1986, thought experiments began to receive the attention they deserve. There are probably many factors to be considered, such as institutional affiliation (Norton is part of the esteemed Center for Philosophy at Pittsburgh), founding of a new philosophy of science journal (in which Brown (1986) appeared), etc. In this respect, the account I am going to offer is certainly not comprehensive enough. Yet, it is more comprehensive than what we find in the literature to date. 3

The Pluralist Turn

Earlier we hinted that the influence of Kuhn (1977 [1964]) on Horowitz and Massey (1991,1) might help us to make sense of the developments in the 1980s. Unfortunately, Horowitz and Massey (1991) offer nothing more than a hint. Kuhn (1977 [1964]) offered probably the most elaborate discussion of thought experiments at the time. It is possible that the hint of Horowitz and Massey (1991) at Kuhn was meant to stress only that fact in order to make sense of the growing interest in thought experiments. However, I think there is more here than that. In his review of some of the literature on thought experiments of the early years of the Proliferation, Gooding (1994, 1032) observes that none of the contributions under review kept “with Kuhn’s rejection of the rationalist—​ empiricist dichotomy.” There are other hints in the literature that go into a similar direction, such as in Cohnitz (2006, 61) and Moue et al. (2006, 67–​68). It seems worthwhile to follow in that direction. Given the centrality of the Brown-​Norton-​debate that was established in the last Section (2), we are now interested in understanding the relationship between that debate and those hints at the centrality of Kuhn’s work for the transition from the Limbo to the Proliferation. Above we looked already at the theory of thought experiments that is offered by Kuhn (1977 [1964]) (see Section 1). In his treatment of thought experiments, Kuhn (1977 [1964], 265) complains that “contemporary epistemological vocabulary supplies no truly useful locutions” to deal with thought experiments. We have to go beyond traditional epistemologies to deal with thought experiments. Hence, Kuhn (1977 [1964]) does not defend thought experiments as vehicles of

68 

Chapter 2

Platonic insight or argument. Rather, his position is that scientists, like “most people learn about their concepts and the world together.” It is a mistake to think of Galileo’s thought experiment, argues Kuhn (1977 [1964], 242), in such a way that “the new understanding produced” by it “is not an understanding of nature but” only “of the scientist’s conceptual apparatus.” And yet, Kuhn (1977 [1964], 241) clarifies, Galileo is “relying exclusively on familiar data.” In his rejection of traditional epistemologies as suitable frameworks to deal with thought experiments, Kuhn (1977 [1964]) is certainly not the first in the history of philosophical treatments of thought experiments. Inspired by the emerging Darwinian evolutionary theory, as we have seen, Mach (1905) had sought to overcome the traditional gap between the a posteriori and the a priori. This enabled him to do justice to the actual practice of thought experiments as exhibited in the history of science, despite their rationalist appearance, and the considerable tensions to empiricism that are created by that appearance. It seems that Kuhn (1977 [1964]) and Mach (1905) share a concern. Traditional epistemology is (or better: traditional epistemologies are) deemed unhelpful for dealing with the reality of thought experiments. This contention requires some unpacking to render it intelligible in the present context. The concepts to which Kuhn (1977 [1964]) refers play the role that the innate a priori plays in Mach (1905). We understand that role only when we look at the theory of science that Kuhn (1996 [1962]) advances. It has basically four central elements: (1) Scientific truth is relative: According to Kuhn (1996 [1962], 4), observation “and experience can and must drastically restrict the range of admissible scientific belief, else there would be no science. But they cannot alone determine a particular body of such belief. An apparently arbitrary element,” Kuhn (1996 [1962], 4) explains, “compounded of personal and historical accident is always a formative ingredient of the beliefs espoused by a given scientific community at a given time.” It is, therefore, mistaken to locate the “cognitive content of science” in the knowledge we find “embedded” in the application of theories, according to Kuhn (1996 [1962], 187). Kuhn (1996 [1962]) is very clear here that the arbitrary element is not to be seen as in conflict with the cognitive aims of science. For instance, that arbitrary element can be seen to impact the axiological level of science (epistemic values, such as: theories should be simple), because the application of these values can vary significantly from individual to individual. Kuhn (1996 [1962], 186) stresses the importance of the arbitrary element in this sense for science as a cognitive enterprise. Most problems a science deals with can be resolved by the means it has available, and “most proposals for new theories do prove to be wrong. If all members of

Two Hundred Years of Thought Experiments

69

a community responded to each anomaly as a source of crisis or embraced each new theory advanced by a colleague, science would cease.” But the stability created by shared values in a scientific community mustn’t be too firm, because that might lead to stagnation. “If, on the other hand,” argues Kuhn (1996 [1962], 186), “no one reacted to difficult problems or to brand-​ new theories in high-​risk ways, there would be few or no revolutions,” like the ones Kuhn (1996 [1962]) shows the history of science to exhibit. “In matters like these,” Kuhn (1996 [1962], 186) reasons, “the resort to shared values rather than to shared rules governing individual choice may be the community’s way of distributing risk and assuring long-​term success of its enterprise.” In summary, science is highly context-​sensitive, and this serves its cognitive aims well. (2) Theory and nature are entangled: Scientific research can be described, argues Kuhn (1996 [1962], 5), “as a strenuous and devoted attempt to force nature into the conceptual boxes supplied by professional education.” What a scientist sees,” Kuhn (1996 [1962], 112) claims, “is determined jointly by the environment and the particular normal-​scientific tradition” that the scientist “has been trained to pursue.” While it is difficult to delineate an epistemology that clarifies the entanglement of concepts and world, two other observations seem equally true. Firstly, according to Kuhn (1996 [1962], 126), there is no such thing as “‘the given’” of experience but rather “‘the collected with difficulty.’” Secondly, all attempts have failed to develop a theory of a “language of pure percepts,” Kuhn (1996 [1962], 127) specifies. Either they simply assume as true some “current scientific theory” or “some fraction of everyday discourse,” according to which “all non-​logical and non-​perceptual terms” are sought to be eliminated. An important “characteristic of all discoveries from which new sorts of phenomena emerge,” explains Kuhn (1996 [1962], 62), “is the gradual and simultaneous emergence of both observational and conceptual recognition.” Changes in the concepts of space, time, and mass were “central to the revolutionary impact of Einstein’s theory. Though subtler,” Kuhn (1996 [1962], 102) specifies, “than the changes from geocentrism to heliocentrism, from phlogiston to oxygen, or from corpuscles to waves, the resulting conceptual transformation is no less” decisive. It meant, Kuhn (1996 [1962], 102) continues, “a displacement of the conceptual network through which scientists view the world.” You cannot derive Newtonian dynamics from Einstein’s. Commenting on the impact that Newton’s notion of gravity had with respect to moving science beyond a contact-​mechanics by searching for forces innate to matter, Kuhn (1996 [1962], 106) explicates that without that “supramechanical aspect of Newtonianism,” the chemistry

70 

Chapter 2

of Lavoisier and Dalton “would be incomprehensible.” That aspect of 18th century Newtonianism facilitated both the discovery of new data and the development of new concepts in a way “previously unimaginable.” Kuhn (1996 [1962], 106) sees here clear historical proof of the claim that changes “in the standards” that govern “permissible problems, concepts, and explanations,” can “transform a science,” and even “the world” in some significant respects. There is a sense, Kuhn (1996 [1962], 110) contends, in which concepts “are constitutive of nature as well.” (3) Scientific rationality has not evolved continuously: “Cumulative acquisition of unanticipated novelties,” Kuhn (1996 [1962], 96) claims, “proves to be an almost non-​existent exception to the rule of scientific development.” The view that science is cumulative partly owes its popularity to a historically implausible understanding of “the ability of scientists regularly to select problems that can be solved with conceptual and instrumental techniques close to those already in existence.” The discontinuity that characterizes the history of science, Kuhn (1996 [1962], 136–​137) reasons, is systematically disguised by “textbooks of science together with both popularizations and the philosophical works modeled on them. […] All three record the stable outcome of past revolutions and thus display the bases of the” currently accepted scientific tradition. “The temptation to write history backward,” Kuhn (1996 [1962], 138) finds, is not unique to scientists; it “is both omnipresent and perennial.” It affects scientists more, however, “because the results of scientific research show no obvious dependence upon the historical context” of inquiry, Kuhn (1996 [1962], 138) explains. It shouldn’t actually show any signs to that effect because the scientific facts appear the more objective the less historical facts about their discovery are reflected in their presentation! “The result of such a manner of presentation is a persistent tendency,” Kuhn (1996 [1962], 139) stresses, “to make the history of science look linear or cumulative, a tendency that even affects scientists looking back at their own research.” For example, according to Kuhn (1996 [1962], 139), Newton “wrote that Galileo had discovered that the constant force of gravity produces a motion proportional to the square of the time.” That is only true once “Galileo’s kinematic theorem,” Kuhn (1996 [1962], 139) continues, is embedded in the “matrix of Newton’s own dynamical concepts.” Galileo said nothing of the sorts Newton attributes to him. In Galileo’s discussion of falling bodies, Kuhn (1996 [1962], 136–​137) specifies, we “rarely” see allusions to forces, “much less to a uniform gravitation force that causes bodies to fall.”

Two Hundred Years of Thought Experiments

71

Kuhn (1996 [1962], 108) claims that the “case for cumulative development of science’s problems and standards is even harder to make than the case for cumulation of theories.” For example, Kuhn (1996 [1962], 108) explains that Einstein’s explanation of gravitational extraction “has returned science to a set of canons and problems that are, in this particular respect more like those of Newton’s predecessors than of his successors.” Another example that Kuhn (1996 [1962], 107–​108) provides concerns “the development of quantum mechanics.” It “has reserved the methodological prohibition that originated in the chemical revolution,” i.e., to do “away with chemical principles” resulting in the “failure to explain qualities of compounds.” With the rise of quantum physics, chemists “now attempt, and with great success, to explain the colour, state of aggregation, and other qualities of the substances used and produced in the laboratories.” (4) Paradigms are incommensurable: The notion of a “paradigm” is among the central analytical categories that Kuhn (1996 [1962]) employs to advance his theory of science. Consequently, it has attracted much attention in the critical reception of the work of Kuhn (1996 [1962]), as the postscript of 1969 notes that was added to later editions of the essay on the nature of scientific revolutions (originally published in 1962): “Several of the key difficulties of my original text,” Kuhn 1996 [1962], 174) notes, “cluster about the concept of a paradigm.” Kuhn (1996 [1962], 109) distinguishes the “cognitive” and “normative functions” of paradigms. Paradigms enable (cognitive function) and guide (normative function) a science. Science always operates under the regiments of paradigms, which are not universal rules, but rather achievements, such as laws, theories (& their application, including instrumentation), problems and methods. They are recorded in textbooks and shape the training of the next generation of scientists. The history of science shows that paradigms can exhaust their cognitive power and thus the historian can find them replaced in an abrupt manner when anomalies relative to a paradigm persist to irritate scientists in their observance of a paradigm, and promising alternatives have become available. “Anomaly appears only,” Kuhn (1996 [1962], 65) specifies, “against the background provided by a paradigm.” Anomalies can either cause or at least contribute (see, e.g., Kuhn (1996 [1962], 66) to a shift in paradigm. “The decision to reject one paradigm is always simultaneously the decision to accept another,” Kuhn (1996 [1962], 77) insists, and “the judgment leading to that decision involves the comparison of both paradigms with nature and with each other.” At times of substantial changes, a new paradigm is acquired and the old one discarded.

72 

Chapter 2

This is true with respect to the paradigms of subfields (e.g., quantum physics, Newtonian dynamics) and the paradigms of fields (e.g., physics). Fields can encompass many paradigms being followed by practitioners of different subfields. Changes to the paradigm of a field can impact its subfields, but not necessarily, and vice versa. Also, changes in paradigm of a subfield (such as quantum physics) of one field (physics) can impact other fields (chemistry). In this sense, science is never, argues Kuhn (1996 [1962], 49), “a single monolithic and unified enterprise that must stand or fall with any one of its paradigms as well as with all of them together.” Accordingly, revolutions in the sense of paradigm shifts can be big or small. There are “major paradigm changes, like those attributable to Copernicus and Lavoisier,” Kuhn (1996 [1962], 90) concretizes, but also “smaller ones associated with the assimilation of a new sort of phenomenon, like oxygen or X-​rays.” The discovery of X-​rays made an impact on the paradigm of those “whose research dealt with radiation theory or with cathode ray tubes,” elucidates Kuhn (1996 [1962], 91). “Astronomers,” however, “could accept X-​rays as a mere addition to knowledge,” argues Kuhn (1996 [1962], 9), because “their paradigms were unaffected by the existence of a new tradition.” The transition from one paradigm to another involves considerable adjustments, according to Kuhn (1996 [1962], 41), with respect to the “strong network of commitments—​conceptual, theoretical, instrumental, and methodological,” which every science exhibits. “The transition from a paradigm in crisis to a new one,” Kuhn (1996 [1962], 24) stresses, “is far from a cumulative process.” What paradigms offer, argues Kuhn (1996 [1962], 24), is a “promise of success discoverable in selected and still incomplete examples.” A science not plagued too much by anomalies “consists in the actualization of that promise.” Paradigm and problems mutually reinforce each other in this sense. “The more precise and far-​reaching that paradigm is,” argues Kuhn (1996 [1962], 65), “the more sensitive an indicator it provides of anomaly and hence of an occasion for paradigm change.” Very rarely, two paradigms coexist (see, e.g., Kuhn (1996 [1962], xi), and even when they do, they are “often actually incommensurable,” Kuhn (1996 [1962], 103) insists. “In a sense that I am unable to explicate further,” Kuhn (1996 [1962], 150) admits, “the proponents of competing paradigms practice their trades in different worlds.” A paradigm permeates experience, observation, language, and theories. We cannot think scientists to be able to transcend the boundaries of their world without adopting an alternative, Kuhn (1996 [1962], 126–​127) reasons, because we neither have “‘the given’ of experience” available, nor a non-​viciously-​circular theory of a “language of pure percepts.” Kuhn (1996 [1962], 94) argues that the premises and values shared by different parties to a debate over paradigms are not sufficiently

Two Hundred Years of Thought Experiments

73

extensive” to explain “paradigm choice.” The paradigms to choose from differ in at least two important respects. Firstly, successive “paradigms tell us different things about the population of the universe,” Kuhn (1996 [1962], 103) clarifies, “and about that population’s behaviour.” Secondly, Kuhn (1996 [1962], 103) continues, “a new paradigm often necessitates a redefinition of the corresponding science.” The choice is partly guided by values that depend on the paradigm chosen (see, e.g., Kuhn (1996 [1962], 110). There is no point of view beyond and above the paradigms from which scientists can choose. And yet, whatever the scientist “may see” while being fully committed to this or that paradigm, clarifies Kuhn (1996 [1962], 129), scientists are “still looking at the same world.” It is not the case that paradigms were not corrigible by the scientific practice that is enabled by the paradigm it follows. What is true, according to Kuhn (1996 [1962], 122), is that only scientific practice that follows a paradigm leads “to the recognition of anomalies and to crises.” These “are terminated, not by deliberation and interpretation, but by a relatively sudden and unstructured event,” and in that they resemble a gestalt switch. The important difference to a gestalt switch is, Kuhn (1996 [1962], 114) differentiates, that the “scientist can have no recourse above and beyond what he sees with his eyes and instruments.” According to Kuhn (1996 [1962], 150), “the transition between competing paradigms cannot be made a step at a time, forced by logic and neutral experience.” Kuhn (1996 [1962], 170) concludes that we may “have to relinquish the notion, explicit or implicit, that changes of paradigm carry scientists and those who learn from them closer and closer to truth.” There can be no doubt that science does develop. “But nothing that has been said or will be said,” Kuhn (1996 [1962], 170) qualifies, “makes it a process of evolution toward anything.” It is probably impossible to overstate the impact of the work of Kuhn on discussions about the history and philosophy of science in the past decades. Douglas (2009, 61) rightly notes that “Kuhn challenged the prevailing views in philosophy of science in many ways, and his work shaped the field for years to come.” His ideas about incommensurability, Hacking (2010, xi) observes, soon took “the world by storm.” The unity of science had become a contested historical reality. The work of Kuhn (1996 [1962]) significantly undermined the confidence in the search for unity in the sciences that prevailed at the time in philosophy of science. Science was seen to progress to a single truth about nature. Unification of theories were seen to be the primary vehicle of that progress. Such unification means something like the replacement of at least two established theories by one theory. This theory is seen to be truer because it has considerably greater explanatory power with respect to the domains of phenomena of the replaced theories. What used to be unrelated domains of

74 

Chapter 2

phenomena have become one domain now. Kuhn (1996 [1962] does not question the construction of such unifications in science and the resulting appearance of progression to greater unity in diachronic perspective. What Kuhn (1996 [1962] can be taken to throw into doubt is the inference from such constructions to a metaphysics of science that advances the view that

(1) the ultimate aim of a science is to establish a single, complete, and comprehensive account of the natural world (or the part of the world investigated by the science) based on a single set of fundamental principles; (2) the nature of the world is such that it can, at least in principle, be completely described or explained by such an account; (3) there exist, at least in principle, methods of inquiry that if correctly pursued will yield such an account; (4) methods of inquiry are to be accepted on the basis of whether they can yield such an account; and individual theories and models in science are to be evaluated in large part on the basis of whether they provide (or come close to providing) a comprehensive and complete account based on fundamental principles. kellert, longino, and waters 2006, p. x

This is the position of scientific monism. Friedmann (2002) argues that the challenge that the work of Kuhn (1996 [1962]) poses to scientific monism has parallels in the philosophy of the logical positivists, especially that of Rudolf Carnap. In “Kuhn’s theory of the nature of scientific revolutions,” Friedmann (2002, 181) argues, “we find an informal counterpart” of a thesis present in Carnap, namely that scientific theories depend on principles that are in an important sense irrational. They constitute the rationality which guide scientific theories but are themselves not the result of a rational discourse that would follow the norms that they enact. Science moves from paradigm to paradigm and that movement is not the result of an ahistorical overarching scientific rationality. If Kuhn (1996 [1962]) is right, urges Friedman (2002, 182), then “there would seem to be no sense left in which” a transition from one paradigm to another “can still be viewed as rational, as based on good reasons.” The upshot of Foucault (1973 [1966]) goes in the same direction, although the work differs in very important respects from that of Kuhn (1996 [1962]). The “paradigms” of Kuhn (1996 [1962]), however, are comparable to the “epistemes” of Foucault (1973 [1966]) in at least three respects. Firstly, argues Gordon (2012, 137), “both paradigm and episteme function as prior but historically contingent frameworks of knowledge.” Secondly, both “impose an internal homogeneity upon the modalities of research or the rules for truth and falsity that

Two Hundred Years of Thought Experiments

75

characterize a given age.” Thirdly, “both exhibit a fragility that can be burst asunder with a violence that precludes talk of continuity or progress.” While Kuhn (1996 [1962]) insists “on the necessity of a monopolistic paradigm in each field in order to enable scientific research,’ according to Chang (2012, 87), some of his companions went considerably further in this respect, such as his fellow incommmensurabilist, Paul Feyerabend. Feyerabend (2010 [1975], 276, n.11) advises that he had “read Kuhn’s book manuscript in 1960 and discussed it extensively with” him. Feyerabend (2010 [1975]), xxii) considers it a “masterpiece,” and, overall, Feyerabend (2010 [1975]), 286–​287) finds that his own and Kuhn’s views align well. Still, Feyerabend (2010 [1975]) claims that the historical record compels us to endorse a pluralism about science that penetrates even the “monopolistic paradigms” that Kuhn (1996 [1962]) advances. Kuhn (1996 [1962]) admits a diversity of “paradigms” in diachronic perspective. Nevertheless, he also sees diversity of paradigms in a synchronic perspective, namely, with respect to a field, insofar as its subfields follow paradigms of some significant autonomy relative to the field’s paradigm. However, like the field, a subfield has always only one paradigm, unless it is in crisis. In contrast, Feyerabend (2010 [1975]) urges that Kuhn’s crisis mode is actually the norm. The belief in unity by a single paradigm is a residue of the metaphysical doctrine of scientific monism that Kuhn (1996 [1962]) is seen to target. According to Feyerabend (2010 [1975], 132), however, knowledge “needs a plurality of ideas.” It is just not true “that well-​established theories” were ever “strong enough to terminate the existence of alternative approaches.” Feyerabend (2010 [1975], 13) stresses that a “scientist who wishes to maximize the empirical content of the views he holds and who wants to understand them as clearly as he possibly can must therefore introduce other views; that is, he must adopt a pluralistic methodology.” Here the pluralist turn in the philosophical analysis of science reaches the synchronic perspective explicitly. Scientific pluralism emerges here as the view that diversity in theories (and by extension of aims and methods) in science is to be affirmed for the sake of benefits that such diversity is believed to afford. Feyerabend (2010 [1975], 132) goes on to list those benefits. A “defence” of “alternatives” is often “the only way of discovering the errors of highly respected and comprehensive points of views.” Feyerabend (2010 [1975]) suggests that the anomalies which feature in Kuhn (1996 [1962]) wouldn’t be as prominent as Kuhn (1996 [1962]) claims them to be without more than one paradigm in place at the same time—​be it in a subfield or field. Moreover, revolutions in the sense of Kuhn (1996 [1962]), such as the Copernican revolution, were not, according to Feyerabend (2010 [1975], 144–​145), driven by a crisis of one paradigm. Instead, Feyerabend (2010 [1975], 111) sees a new “world-​view” arise when

76 

Chapter 2

revolutions occur and with that a transformation of numerous fields/​subfields at the same time, including, Feyerabend (2010 [1975], 136) specifies: “cosmology; physics; astronomy; the calculation of astronomical tables; optics; epistemology; and theology.” Finally, the notion of a set of values, methods, and facts subsumed under one paradigm glosses over the complexity of the entangled processes of discovery and justification: “Inventing stories and contemplating them in a relaxed and ‘artistic’ fashion,” Feyerabend (2010 [1975], 150) explains, “scientists often make moves that are forbidden by” established “methodological rules.” These scientists very often “interpret the evidence so that it fits their fanciful ideas, eliminate difficulties by ad hoc procedures, push them aside, or simply refuse to take them seriously.” What guides them are “worldviews,” Feyerabend (2010 [1975], 177) insists, and there are always many at play at the same time, according to Feyerabend (2010 [1975], 256–​257). A scientist “must compare ideas with other ideas rather than with ‘experience’,” Feyerabend (2010 [1975], 13) reasons, “and he must try to improve rather than discard the views that have failed in the competition. Proceeding in this way,” Feyerabend (2010 [1975], 14) continues, “he will retain the theories of man and cosmos that are found in Genesis, or in the Pimander, he will elaborate them and use them to measure the success of evolution, and other ‘modern’ views.” Feyerabend (2010 [1975], 14) goes even so far to consider the possibility that this procedure may lead to the “discovery that the theory of evolution is not as good as is generally assumed and that it must be supplemented, or entirely replaced, by an improved version of Genesis.” Scientific knowledge, Feyerabend (2010 [1975], 14) contends, emerges always from an “ocean of mutually incompatible alternatives.” There is truth, but the history of science is not a “gradual approach to” one single truth. The history of science does not consist in “a series of self-​ consistent theories that converges towards an ideal view.” Feyerabend (2010 [1975], 12) urges us to come to an acknowledgment of all those elements of irrationality that “monopolistic” theories of reason create in order to please “lower instincts” and a “craving for intellectual security in the form of clarity, precision, ‘objectivity’, ‘truth’.” Religion and the imagination are certainly among the “irrational” elements of a dominant “world-​view” today. And so Feyerabend stresses on various occasions the fact that theology should be considered a science (a selection of representative quotes can be found here: Munchin 2019, 470). He also highlights the capacity of stories to unleash the power of the imagination, and this leads him to a positive view of the important role of thought experiments (see Stuart 2021a). Feyerabend (2010 [1975], 13) proscribes the method of “counterinduction”: Introduce and elaborate hypotheses which are inconsistent with well-​ established theories and/​or well-​established empirical evidence. This is all the

Two Hundred Years of Thought Experiments

77

more important as a “world-​view influences perception, thought, argument,” Feyerabend (2010 [1975], 177) claims, and imposes limits “on the roaming about the imagination.” Thought experiments help to break up those limits. Some course correction was intended by Lakatos (1978b [1970]), but the theory of research programmes that it proposed couldn’t bring the bandwagon of pluralism about science to a halt. The main goal of Lakatos (1978b [1970]) is to enhance the falsificationism of Popper (1959) in order to uphold the notion of the unity of science as a continuing growth in the production and explanation of novel facts. According to Lakatos (1978b [1970], 46–​47), the “basic concept of the logic of discovery” is not a single theory, but “a succession of theories.” This series is to be “appraised as scientific or pseudo-​scientific.” The theories in that series are “connected by a remarkable continuity which welds them into research programmes.” It is claimed that the “logic of discovery cannot be satisfactorily discussed except in the framework of a methodology of research programmes.” Newtonian physics is seen as the prime example of a research programme. Like all such programmes it has a hard core (the three laws of motion and the law of gravity) and a protective belt of auxiliary hypotheses around that core (e.g., those concerning absolute space and time). Research programmes can progress or degenerate depending on the advancements that can be made at the theoretical and empirical level (neither alone is sufficient). New research programmes can be grafted on to older ones. However, Lakatos (1978b [1970], 69) specifies, the “history of science has been and should be a history of competing research programmes (or, if you wish, ‘paradigms’).” He rejects the view that we are dealing with a “succession of periods of normal science: the sooner competition starts, the better for progress. ‘Theoretical pluralism’ is better than ‘theoretical monism’: on this point Popper and Feyerabend are right and Kuhn is wrong.” Degeneration in theoretical and empirical respects is not a “sufficient reason to eliminate a research programme.” The only objective reason to do that “is provided by a rival research programme which explains the previous success of its rival and supersedes it by a further display of heuristic power.” Lakatos (1978b [1970], 70–​72) is quick to add, however, that “budding research programmes” are exempt from that logic of discovery and that defeat of a research programme is no straightforward matter as long as it enjoys the support of “talented, imaginative scientists.” Lakatos (1978b [1970], 86) also argues that despite a research programme’s degeneration it may be kept in the loop, as a “scientist in the ‘defeated’ camp” may “put forward a few years later a scientific explanation of the allegedly ‘crucial experiment’’’ against the defeated programme, but now explained “within (or consistent with) the allegedly defeated programme. Then “the honorific title may be withdrawn

78 

Chapter 2

and the ‘crucial experiment’ may turn from a defeat into a new victory for the programme. Examples abound.” By 1978 scientific pluralism was established as a serious alternative to scientific monism. In his presidential address at the 1978 biennial meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, Patrick Suppes looks back at the history of 20th century philosophy of science. The topic of his reflections is the “unity of science.” The main point of the address was to declare that the philosophy of science had taken a pluralist turn. Suppes (1978) touches on some of the reasons why the turn occurred. He argues that unification seems unlikely in a linguistic sense. What he observes is a divergence, not a convergence, of the technical languages used in the different scientific disciplines. Suppes (1978) also casts doubt on the feasibility of physicalism and other forms of reductionism as a possible venue to achieve consilience. Moreover, Suppes (1978) argues that there is no meaningful material method (in contrast to more trivial formal methods, such as mathematics) common to all the different sciences that could assist in meaningfully establishing a unity of science. The pluralist turn in philosophy of science had become official. Telling in this respect is the casual remark of Putnam (1987, 72) that “there is no such thing as the scientific method. Case studies of particular theories in physics, biology, etc., have convinced me that no one paradigm can fit all the various inquiries that go under the name of ‘science.’” Indeed, as Ruphy (2016, xi) correctly observes, “not yet dead but rather moribund is the philosophical search for the scientific method (in the sense of a logic of justification, not to mention in the sense of a general methodology) and, rightly or wrongly, the related demarcation problem” between science and pseudoscience “has not maintained much topicality in recent times.” I had opportunity to showcase only a few arguments in this section that favour scientific pluralism. Still, it is safe to conclude that in the context of historical and philosophical studies of science, scientific monism carries a more considerable burden of proof today than probably half a century ago. This situation sharply contrasts with a notable tendency among some scientists to portray their own discipline or even science at large in perfect alignment with scientific monism. A case in point is Atkins (2018). Atkins (2018, 116–​ 117) moves from the hope for “unification of all the forces” in physics by means of a “demonstration” that all these forces are but “one face of a single force,” to a reductionism that explains, according to Atkins (2018, 130) how these forces “give rise to chemistry, and through chemistry biology, and through biology zoology, and through zoology sociology, and through sociology civilization.” Atkins (2018, 80) plays with open cards: “I deal here with interpretation not equations.” His interpretation of today’s science leads Atkins (2018, 167) to

Two Hundred Years of Thought Experiments

79

optimism “about the consequences of finding one day in the future a theory of everything.” And yet, “we might find that there are two or more equally successful descriptions of everything, and not be able to choose between them.” Atkins (2018, 167–​168) continues to say that maybe there are “myriad seemingly irreconcilable and yet equally valid descriptions of the world waiting to be discovered, myriad collections of mutually self-​consistent yet seemingly disparate laws of nature.” I couldn’t imagine a better example than Atkins (2018) to illustrate a perplexity that probably sits at the center of the debate over a pluralist framing of the kind of diversities that characterize science. On the one hand, the history of science attests to remarkable moments of unification, such as in the case of electromagnetism. On the other hand, the same history calls into question an interpretation of those moments of consolidation in terms of scientific monism. Scientific pluralists do not deny moments of successful unification but offer an alternative framework to explain them. We are in a position now to attempt a reading of all those hints at the work of Kuhn that we find in the literature on thought experiments to make sense of the transition from the Limbo to the Proliferation. Kuhn is highly relevant for a discussion of that transition in (at least) the following three very important respects: Firstly, Kuhn (1977 [1964]) offers an important contribution to the discussion of thought experiments. It was substantial enough to spark interest in the topic of thought experiments. Accordingly, Kuhn (1977 [1964]) can be found in all “lists of past authorities” on thought experiments (see Section 1). In this respect Horowitz and Massey (1991, 1) are correct to say that their conference responds to an interest in the topic of thought experiments that was sparked by Kuhn (1977 [1964]). The link from Kuhn (1977 [1964]) to the outburst of discussions that occurred at the end of the 1980s, however, is less direct than an assessment suggests that looks only at Kuhn (1977 [1964]). While some accepted Kuhn’s framing of the challenge that thought experiments pose, the focus of the discussion in the Proliferation has been on the exchange between Brown and Norton. Even the partially “Neo-​Kuhnian” account of thought experiments defended by Gendler (1998) positions itself primarily in relation to the exchange between Brown and Norton. Moreover, it is doubtful that Kuhn (1977 [1964]) would have found the considerable resonance it did have, had it not been framed by the work of Kuhn (1996 [1962]). Kuhn himself established the connection between the two publications. We find three references to Kuhn (1977 [1964]) as forthcoming in Kuhn (1996 [1962]), 88, 123, 124), and one reference to Kuhn (1996 [1962]) at a very important place in the argument outlined by Kuhn (1977 [1964], 261–​265), namely when the indispensable cognitive power of thought experiments in science is defended.

80 

Chapter 2

Secondly, Kuhn (1996 [1962]) directed the philosophical attention to history of science and actual scientific practice. One reason why this seems highly relevant for a proper understanding of the rise of the Proliferation is the occurrence of the “new experimentalism” in the 1980s. The contributions of Galison (1987), Hacking (1983), and Franklin (1986) led to the assessment that “philosophy of science seems to be in a state of flux,” notes Ackermann (1989, 190), “and the possibilities opened up by the new experimentalists seem to offer genuine hope for recovery of the solid intuitions of the past about the objectivity of science, but in the context of a much more detailed and articulate understanding of actual scientific practice.” I am not the first to argue that this development is to be linked to the rise of the topic of thought experiments in the 1980s (see, e.g., Buzzoni 2008, 17–​ 21), and the most comprehensive study on thought experiments to date also supports my assessment in this respect, namely Sorensen (1992), which was a result of that development. “Sorensen explicitly sets his book,” McAllister (1993, 688) observes, within the “recent literature on experiment.” In my view, however, Sorensen’s contribution wasn’t powerful enough to cause an outburst in the discussion on thought experiments, and this for various reasons. For starters, key figures at the time deemed it a total mess of a book (see Massey 1994). Secondly, the study keeps distance from the Brown-​Norton exchange. It could afford to do so because it develops a “naturalistic” account of thought experiments, according to which thought experiments are defined as genuine experiments, whether deployed in science or philosophy. The account critically receives the work of Mach (1905), although employing a Kantian notion of experiment. “An experiment is a procedure,” Sorensen (1992, 186) defines, “for answering or raising a question about the relationship between variables by varying one (or more) of them and tracking any response by the other or others.” Accordingly, a thought experiment is to be defined, argues Sorensen (1992, 205), as “an experiment that purports to achieve its aim without the benefit of execution.” Sorensen (1992) can afford to circumvent the Norton-​Brown exchange by virtue of the naturalism it advances. Like Mach (1905) and Kuhn (1977 [1964]), Sorensen (1992) shows awareness of the need to move beyond the traditional rationalism-​empiricism divide in tackling the challenges posed by thought experiments. Like Mach (1905), Sorensen (1992) sees promise in Darwinian evolutionary theory and thus attracts serious objections in this respect (see Maffie 1997). Like Kuhn (1996 [1962]), Sorensen (1992) prioritizes methodologically actual practice over theoretical and general epistemological considerations in his analysis of thought experiments. For example, skepticism about philosophical thought experiments is dismissed on grounds that it is a recognized method in the sciences and that it is without alternative for the

Two Hundred Years of Thought Experiments

81

achievement of certain aims in philosophy (see Sorensen 1992, 3–​20). A naturalistic approach to the topic is one way of keeping “with Kuhn’s rejection of the rationalist—​empiricist dichotomy,” argues Gooding (1994, 1032), and in Gooding (1990, 1992a, 1992b) he himself aims to prove that point. Thirdly, the Norton-​Brown debate sat squarely with developments related to the pluralist turn that above I have tried to sketch in some of its significant manifestations. But thought experiments were not the only topic were traditional epistemologies and pluralism about science clashed. Fox Keller (2002), for example, expresses frustration with philosophy of science’s continuing abstract treatment of central epistemological notions, such as “scientific knowledge” and “scientific explanation.” This is misguided, Fox Keller (2002, x) argues, because her “own experience, as both a scientist and an historian, suggests” a very different approach. “It persuades me,” Fox Keller (2002, x) continues, “that answers to such questions are not given but contingent; not universal but rather matters of local, and historically specific, disciplinary culture.” What she finds is a diversity of explanatory practice in 20th century embryology, namely explanation by such different practices as physical modeling, use of metaphors, and computer simulations. This diversity is to be accounted for, according to Fox Keller (2002), in terms of the values and interests that drive science. There is always a specific “explanatory culture” in place (reminiscent of Kuhn’s paradigms, Feyerabend’s worldviews, and Foucault’s epistemes—​disregarding the considerable differences that exist between all these notions). It is this “explanatory culture” that imbues explanatory power to certain kinds of practices and reasoning. The practices do not have explanatory power intrinsically. “Explanatory pluralism,” Fox Keller (2002, 300–​301) argues, follows from that, because the values and interests that always drive science are impossible to unify, due to the insurmountable limits of the cognitive capacities “inherent in the human condition.” Explanatory pluralism is not a vice, but a virtue. Fox Keller (2002) is a wonderful example with which to illustrate how a concern for the integrity of scientific practice can (it certainly doesn’t have to!) drive scientific pluralism. In her advocacy of scientific pluralism, Ruphy (2016, 22) turns our attention to what she deems an unfortunate double divorce that marked much of 20th century philosophy of science. There is the separation in the method of analysis between “discovery procedures” and “justification procedures” and it “coincided with a transition from a generative conception of justification to a consequentialist” theory of how justification works in the sciences. The core idea of that theory is “that the empirical justification of a scientific hypothesis may come from its true empirical consequences (and not from its antecedents).” This is a “‘logical inversion’ of scientific methodology” and

82 

Chapter 2

as such a “philosophical fiction,” argues Ruphy (2016, 22), “to the extent that it has no counterpart in actual scientific practice.” What we find instead in actual scientific practice, according to Ruphy (2016, 22) is “rather a ‘local turn’: the procedures actually followed by scientists (discovery procedures as well as justification procedures) became highly dependent on the objects of study.” If we follow scientific practice we are led, therefore, to an appreciation of methodological diversity in the sciences. The variety of objects, Ruphy (2016, 22) explains, translates into a variety of methods. That variety is one thing, a pluralist framing of it is another. Fox Keller (2002) makes a case for scientific pluralism based on her historical findings about the diverse explanatory practice in embryology. She offers epistemological reasons for her pluralist framing of the diversity in the sciences that historical and sociological analysis brings to light. In conclusion of this Section, I summarize. The Brown-​Norton debate facilitated an exponential growth in interest in thought experiment because it just didn’t sit well with the pluralist turn in philosophy of science. The reaffirmation of the traditional empiricism-​rationalism divide was at odds with that turn. At the same time, the Norton-​Brown debate coheres with that turn in one important respect. We find thought experiments in the context of discovery, which was no longer deemed irrelevant for a philosophical analysis of science. Yet, the Brown-​Norton debate framed thought experiments as a topic for philosophical discussion in terms of exactly that kind of empiricism-​rationalism divide which had become questionable in the course of the pluralist turn. The explosion in high-​quality literature on thought experiments was certainly a positive effect of that clash of philosophical cultures. However, it had negative effects as well. For starters, the centrality of the Brown-​Norton debate produced an artificial division in the discussion on thought experiments, as Mayer (1999) observes. There were those who focused exclusively on thought experiments in philosophy (“meta-​philosophy”), and others who were preoccupied with thought experiments in the sciences. Moreover, the critique of the reaffirmation of traditional epistemological categories in tackling thought experiments required much effort and energy. Numerous important features of thought experiments were neglected as a result of that, or so it seems. This appears to be the case, for instance, with respect to the literary aspects of thought experiments (but see, e.g., Elgin 2014, Swirski 2007). 4

A Nuanced Naturalism Is “True Enough”

There is much in the literature on thought experiments that lends support to the account of the transition from the Limbo period to the period of the

Two Hundred Years of Thought Experiments

83

Proliferation that I have offered in the previous section. For starters, Brown’s Platonism was rejected by Holton (1993) as deeply flawed in his philosophical bias against the historical details. From the early years of the Proliferation also James McAllister developed this line of reasoning, and he did so in response both to Brown and Norton. The position reached maturity in McAllister (1996). McAllister (1996) focuses on the epistemological notion of evidence and argues that both Brown and Norton miss the target in their approach. A “rationalist” and “empiricist” notion of evidence is simply not sufficient to understand the cognitive power that a thought experiment can assume. According to McAllister (1996), in the context of an Aristotelian philosophy of physics, Galileo’s two cannon ball thought experiment (that we discussed in the first chapter; see Section 1), is inadmissible as a piece of evidence. To have evidential significance, Galileo’s thought experiment required substantial modifications to what we saw Kuhn (1996 [1964) call “paradigm,” Foucault (1973 [1966]) “episteme,” Feyerabend (2010 [1975] “worldview,” and Fox Keller (2002) “epistemological culture.” What the historical record “strongly” suggests, McAllister (1996, 236) argues, is that evidential significance “is the outcome of historical and local accomplishments.” More precisely, the historical record suggests that the evidential significance of an experiment is not an intrinsic property of it. It is conferred on an experiment at a particular time in particular areas of science by the persuasive efforts of scientists. Consequently, it is argued (and meant as an objection to the readings of Galileo by Brown and Norton) that Galileo proposed that we no longer deem natural occurrences to be of evidential significance. Instead, evidential significance is to be vested in entities that, Galileo believed, were better indicators of the truth, namely phenomena. It is phenomena that features in thought experiments. Before McAllister (1996), someone like Koyré (1943, 405) stressed that “the founders of modern science, among them Galileo,” had much more to do than “to criticize and to combat certain faulty theories, and to correct or to replace them by better ones.” What they had to do, Koyré (1943, 405) continues, is “to destroy one world and to replace it by another. They had to reshape the framework of our intellect itself. That means that they had “to restate and to reform” concepts, “to evolve a new approach to Being, a new concept of knowledge, a new concept of science—​and even to replace a pretty natural approach, that of common sense,” i.e., Aristotle’s, “by another which is not natural at all.” Of interest in the context of this study and consistent with the claims of Koyré (1943), is the thesis of Harrison (1998) that the rise of Protestant Biblical literalism contributed to the establishment of the experimental method. “It is my contention that in the broader context of the change which took place over the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,” Harrison (1998, 264) writes, “the

84 

Chapter 2

development of experimental science was a response to the breakdown of traditional systems of representation, in particular as they were embodied in approaches to the biblical text.” And no less intriguing in the present context is the thesis of Harrison (2007) that a Biblically inspired thought experiment was part and parcel of those developments. What did Adam know and what loss in cognitive capacity did the human mind experience in consequence of the original sin of Adam? “When in the sixteenth century,” Harrison (2007, 49) argues, the Protestant reformers came to pass judgment on the theology they had inherited from the scholastics, they were highly critical of the trend towards increasingly mild views of the Fall that dated from the times of Aquinas.” What they did, according to Harrison (2007, 49), was to urge a return “to the more severe Augustinian position. Indeed, in certain respects they surpassed Augustine in their stress on the depravity of human nature.” Harrison (2007, 51) contends that Augustine’s anthropology in this sense explains to some considerable degree the rise of early modern science. Experimental science ‘arose out of a renewed awareness that the attainment of knowledge was not a natural, easy process, but rather one that called for the imposition of external constraints: rigorous testing of knowledge claims, repeated experiments, communal witnessing, the gradual accumulation of ‘histories’, the use of ‘artificial instruments to amplify the dim powers of the senses, and the corporate rather than individual production of knowledge.” According to McAllister (1996, 239), Galileo replaced Aristotle’s natural occurrences with phenomena as primary vehicles of evidential significance. And, in the Galilean system, experiments are just the better means to study phenomena. While in Aristotelian terminology experimentum was “a witnessed natural occurrence,” McAllister (1996, 239) continues, “experiment in Galileo’s usage is a contrived occurrence determined in its entirety by a phenomenon and to no extent by accidents. Because experiments display phenomena in accident-​free form, they provide a direct test of theories in Galilean mechanics.” The accounts of thought experiments that Brown and Norton offer are seen to totally miss the importance of the shift in the notion of evidential significance, and the corresponding reconceptualization of experiments. The same objection that McAllister (1996) levels against Brown and Norton applies against a reductive naturalism. This is so because thought experiments are assessed in their cognitive efficacy as detached from “historical and local accomplishments.” Sorensen (1992) advances a naturalistic account. McAllister (1996) deems it reductive in the sense specified, and thus unhelpful in meeting the challenge posed by thought experiments. To put the point more bluntly: whatever the merits and perils of the traditional epistemologies of rationalism and empiricism may be, the reach of

Two Hundred Years of Thought Experiments

85

these epistemologies isn’t far enough to afford a full account of the practice and importance of thought experiments. A naturalism of a reductive spin is also unsatisfactory as a theory of thought experiments, because again we find the epistemological relevance of the historical and social context insufficiently taken into account for purposes of philosophical analysis. Congruent with (and here even interpreted as being supportive of) my reading of the transition from the Limbo to the Proliferation is that nuanced naturalistic accounts of thought experiments are received very favourably in the contemporary discussion. For example, Brendel (2004) argues for a naturalistic theory of intuitions to makes sense of the cognitive power that thought experiments can assume in science, philosophy, and beyond.” Brendel (2004, 94–​95) dismisses, as we have noted already previously, Brown’s Platonism as “highly implausible” in its epistemological and ontological assumptions and deems it “unintelligible because it remains entirely unclear when and why an intuitive grasp of the abstract realm can go wrong.” Thought experiments are fallible, and while Brown concedes that much, Brendel (2004) finds that Brown fails to account for thought experiments that are unsuccessful. Norton is said to be correct insofar as every thought experiment can and should be reconstructed propositionally as arguments, especially when disagreements about outcomes arise. But the fact that thought experiments can be subjected to a careful assessment in such a way, doesn’t justify the equation of thought experiments with propositional lines of reasoning. “Although thought experiments can be reconstructed as arguments,” Brendel (2004, 96) explains, it is not necessary “to go as far as Norton and claim that all thought experiments really are explicit arguments.” If “there is in fact always a complex kind of argumentation going on in our minds while we conduct a thought experiment,” Brendel (2004, 96) reasons, “the effortless, quick and very often commonly shared conclusions drawn from thought experiments would be difficult to explain.” Some thought experiments, like Galileo’s canon ball thought experiment (as discussed in Chapter 1; see Section 1) require “prioritized adaptive logics,” Brendel (2018, 288) notes, to reconstruct the argument that Norton (1991, 1996, 2004) believes to be hidden in them. “But it seems highly implausible,” Brendel (2018, 288) objects, “that we actually execute arguments of this elaborate logical form when we conduct thought experiments.” In fact, Brendel (2018, 290) argues, such a view “is not supported by empirical research.” In Chapter 1 we looked at the exchange between Einstein and Bohr over the clock-​in-​the-​box thought experiment (see Section 1). We found in that thought experiment a wonderful example of the plasticity of thought experiments. “Surely,” Brendel (2018, 285) states, scientists are “willing to subsume various instances of thought experiments under one thought experiment type, even

86 

Chapter 2

though the underlying argumentative structures are different.” The clock-​in-​ the-​box scenario is a powerful counterexample to the “argument view,” and so is the color-​deprived Mary of Jackson (1982) and Dennett (2014) (see Section 2). More importantly, Brendel (2018, 287) argues, is that Norton’s notion of argument (permitting deductive, inductive, abductive, and even informal arguments) is simply too broad to do any meaningful work in addressing the epistemological challenge he finds them to pose. The claim that all thought experiments are nothing but arguments because not even one can be identified that we couldn’t reconstruct as arguments “is simply vacuously true,” Brendel (2018, 287) objects. The account of thought experiments that Brendel (2004, 96) herself proposes assumes “that some hidden premises function as background knowledge,” and that “they need not be explicitly activated when we conduct a thought experiment.” Central to her account is that intuitions are part of the cognitive dynamics that defines thought experiments. They are very different, however, from the intuitions of Brown (1986, 1991, 2011) (and the “rationalistic intuitions” of Bealer 1998 and 2002, for that matter). Their nature does not align well with rationalism. Brendel (2004, 96) defines intuitions “as mental propositional attitudes which are accompanied by a strong feeling of certainty.” This is a plausible proposal, I find. It explains much about thought experiments, such as their fallibility, their relativity, their plasticity, and their indispensability (all of which we have discussed in the first chapter). It explains well why often nothing else seems to work but thought experiments in order to move forward—​be it in the sciences or philosophy. Intuitions provide desperately needed guidance in relating evidence and hypotheses, which are always linked by background beliefs. “A given evidential relation,” Longino (1990, 44) argues, “may be determined by just one background belief or by a set of assumptions of varying degrees of generality and complexity, but in the absence of any such beliefs no state of affairs will be taken as evidence of any other.” I understand the intuitions of Brendel (2004) to reside in what Wilson (2002, 1–​16) defines as the “non-​Freudian” unconsciousness. It is that part of our mental life, Wilson (2002, 133) explains, that consists in “a system of mental processes that are inaccessible, no matter how much people try to observe them.” Introspection in particular is not a good way to try to get in touch with them. And yet, these mental processes are indispensable for understanding our reasoning, feelings, and actions. “As the mushrooming mountain of evidence plainly indicates,” Myers (2002, 51) summarizes (an important result of a body of empirical research that is highly relevant for present purposes), “we have two minds—​two ways of knowing, two kinds of memory, two levels of attitudes.” In this specific respect, it is certainly not true that thought

Two Hundred Years of Thought Experiments

87

experiments confront us with a challenge unlike any other epistemic device. Rather, the difficulties posed by thought experiments are representative of those concerning human cognition at large in its location at the intersection of consciousness and unconsciousness. It seems just wrong to deny that just by living we do “acquire intuitive expertise that makes most of life effortless,” according to Myers (2002, 67). Thought experiments allow us to tap into that expertise. In my view, Brendel (2004) is committed to something like a theory of “grounded cognition” in the sense of Barsalou (2008). Human cognition, according to theories of “grounded cognition,” is not about computation of amodal symbols in a modular system. As Barsalou (2008, 617) explains, “Instead, grounded cognition proposes that modal simulations, bodily states, and situated action underlie cognition.” According to that theory, our experiences with the natural and social environment, as well as those of our internal mental states are not transduced into symbols on which cognitive operations are performed. The story is said to be entirely different. “Most accounts of grounded cognition,” Barsalou (2008, 618) claims, “focus on the roles of simulation in cognition.” Simulation is defined here as “the reenactment of perceptual, motor, and introspective states acquired during experience with the world, body, and mind. As an experience occurs (e.g., easing into a chair),” Barsalou (2008, 618) continues, “the brain captures states across the modalities and integrates them with a multimodal representation stored in memory (e.g., how a chair looks and feels, the action of sitting, internal awareness of comfort and relaxation).” When knowledge is needed to represent a category (e.g., chair), Barsalou (2008, 618) specifies, “multimodal representations captured during experiences with its instances are reactivated to simulate how the brain represented perception, action, and introspection associated with it.” Important in the context of this chapter is that advocates of “grounded cognition” seek to be agnostic about the consequences of their empirical findings for controversies over the traditional empiricism-​rationalism divide! In fact, to an extent, that divide is believed to be unhelpful in shedding light on the nature of human cognition. We are familiar with that notion by now. In lack of a better word, I label such an approach to human cognition as a nuanced naturalism because it does recognize the entanglement of the natural and social realm and in this respect stays clear of the idea that the social is reducible to the natural (and vice versa, for that matter). It is probably important to stress in the context of this study that a nuanced naturalism can accommodate supernatural events, such as divine revelation. In Fehige (2012a) I define the cognitive power of thought experiments in terms of a (nuanced) naturalistic theory of intuitions. Intuitions are shaped by the

88 

Chapter 2

natural environment, our physiological constitution, and the communities to which we belong. In what I label in Fehige (2012a) theological thought experiments, we find intuitions at work that are shaped in a constitutive manner by the normative sources of religious authority, such as Scripture and Tradition. I do not intend to recount here the theory of theological thought experiments that I offer in Fehige (2012a). I only mean to address a possible worry that may arise concerning my endorsement of nuanced naturalism in a theological context. Brendel (2004) and Brown (1986, 1991, 2001) agree that our capacity to intuit is crucial in order to understand the astonishing cognitive power that thought experiments can display. There is also agreement between the two that intuition is fallible. But they radically disagree about the nature of both the capacity to intuit and its products (intuitions). Thought experiments, Brendel (2004, 96) insists, “do not provide a special method of a priori access to the Platonic realm.” Instead, they help us to bring to light the mental propositional attitudes accompanied by a strong feeling of certainty of which some “are relatively stable and commonly shared,” Brendel (2004, 96) elaborates, because “we belong to the same biological species and to cultural and scientific communities with some shared knowledge.” The stability is neither intrasubjectively nor intersubjectively absolute, since intuitions, argues Brendel (2004, 96), “also depend on our changing experience and knowledge. This explains why the conclusion that all bodies fall at the same speed in Galileo’s thought experiment seems to us (and to Brown) to be immediately clear, whereas Salviati in Galileo’s Discorsi had a hard time getting Simplicity to reach this conclusion.” A nuanced naturalism about thought experiments can also accommodate the idea that, similar to physical models, thought experiments are performed on mental models. Miščević (1992) and Nersessian (1992) argue in this direction. (Both relate more explicitly than Brendel (2004) to relevant insights furnished by the cognitive sciences.) When we conduct a thought experiment, we set up a mental model in our minds first, and then all the experimental operations are performed on that model. The narrative that helps to set up the mental model is not the thought experiment. The narrative of thought experiments functions a bit like a user manual to set up the experiment. Once the mental model is in place, as it were, the experiment can start. Mental models are run on different minds. Intriguing are especially those cases where different results obtain. This leads to a search as to the reasons for the differences in outcome. What “distinguishes thought experiments from logical arguments and other forms of propositional reasoning,” argues Nersessian (1992, 292), “is that reasoning by means of a thought experiment involves constructing and making inferences from a mental simulation. This is what makes a thought

Two Hundred Years of Thought Experiments

89

experiment both ‘thought’ and ‘experimental’.” A thought experiment originates, Nersessian (1992, 292) continues, from “the construction of a dynamical model in the mind by the scientist who imagines a sequence of events and processes and infers outcomes. She then constructs a narrative to describe the setting and sequence in order to communicate the experiment to others, i.e., to get them construct and run the corresponding simulation and presumably obtain the same outcomes.” The representations involved in mental modelling are not linguistic in nature. Mental modelling is a kind of internal modelling in the realm of what Barsalou (2009) labels offline re-​enactment of multi-​modal states (perceptual, motor, and introspective), which were acquired during experience with the world, body, and mind. What happens during “visual processing of a bicycle,” for example, is, Barsalou (2009, 1281) explains, that “neurons fire for edges and surfaces, whereas others fire for colour, configural properties and motion.” This establishes an “overall pattern of activation across a hierarchically organized distributed system.” This represents the bicycle in vision. “Analogous patterns of activation in other sensory modalities,” Barsalou (2009, 1281) continues, “represent how the bicycle might sound and feel. Activations in the motor system represent actions on the bicycle. Activations in the amygdale and orbitofrontal areas represent affective reactions.” Representations in the absence of bicycles are not symbolic, but rather re-​enactments of the learned activation patterns, according to “grounded cognition.” It is a kind of re-​living the experience offline. “When retrieving a memory of a bicycle,” Barsalou (2009, 1281) elaborates, “associative neurons partially reactivate the visual state active during its earlier perception.” The same happens “when retrieving an action performed on the bicycle.” Then “associative neurons partially reactivate the motor state that produced it.” There is room for creativity here because a “re-​enactment never constitutes a complete reinstatement of an original modal state.” Re-​enactments, Barsalou (2009, 1281) stresses, “are always partial and potentially inaccurate.” The partiality and potential inaccurateness are sources of originality and error. There is no originality without fallibility, as it were. Re-​enactments can be conscious and unconscious. “When re-​enactments reach awareness,” Barsalou (2009, 1281) specifies, then “they can be viewed as constituting mental imagery.” From the perspective of “grounded cognition,” then, it seems implausible to think about thought experiments in terms of the “argument view.” Cognition is “grounded (or “situated” for that matter) in the technical sense that “at any given moment in perception, people perceive the immediate space around them, including agents, objects and events present.” This remains true even “when people focus attention on a particular entity or event in perception.”

90 

Chapter 2

They “continue to perceive the background situation—​the situation does not disappear.” What follows from this is a refreshing perspective on the particulars which feature in a thought experiment. “If perceptual experience takes the form of a situation,” argues Barsalou (2009, 1283), “and if a conceptual representation simulates perceptual experience, then the form of a conceptual representation should take the form of a perceived situation. When people construct a simulation to represent a category, they should simulate the category in a relevant perceptual situation, not in isolation.” “According to traditional views,” Barsalou (2009, 1283) clarifies, in an example like the perception of a bicycle, “bicycle is represented as a generic set of amodal propositions that become active as a whole every time the category is processed.” In contrast, according to grounded cognition theorists, “the cognitive system produces many different situated conceptualizations of bicycle, each tailored to help an agent interact with bicycles in different situations. One situated conceptualization for bicycle might, for example, “support riding a bicycle, whereas others might support locking a bicycle, repairing a bicycle and so forth.” From the perspective of “grounded cognition,” Barsalou (2009, 1283) argues, “the concept for bicycle is not a single generic representation of the category. Instead, the concept is the skill or ability to produce a wide variety of situated conceptualizations that support goal achievement in specific contexts.” What the outlined nuanced naturalistic accounts of thought experiments have in common is a very critical distance to the rationalism-​empiricism divide in crucial respects. Telling in this respect is that advocates of “grounded cognition” “continue to be called neo-​empiricists,” Barsalou (2016, 1123) complains, “even though none of us to my knowledge explicitly rejects important native contributions. Strong biological constraints certainly exist on the cognitive system, including on conceptual processing.” The theme here looks very familiar by now: the traditional empiricism-​rationalism divide is too shallow to capture the nature of human cognition. I could rest my case here, but I shall bolster my argument. There are developments in epistemology which deserve also full recognition in the present context, insofar as they have impacted on the discussion of thought experiments. I find additional support for my account of the transition from the Limbo to the Proliferation in critiques of traditional philosophical epistemology, such as the one offered by Elgin (1993 [1991], 2002, 2007). Her central claim is that traditional philosophical epistemology valorizes the truth. This is an effect of a narrow focus on knowledge. She refers explicitly to the practice of thought experiments in science to argue that understanding is a much more appropriate category than knowledge for purposes of epistemological analysis.

Two Hundred Years of Thought Experiments

91

Elgin (1993 [1991], 14) urges that we replace “knowledge” as the central category when thinking about the nature of human cognition, because “understanding is more comprehensive than knowledge ever hoped to be.” This view coheres well with the position of Fox Keller (2002) to which I drew attention above (see Section 3). “Explanatory satisfaction,” Fox Keller (2002, 103) argues, “is akin to narrative satisfaction: the explanations that propitiate our need for understanding, the stories we like to hear, are those that meet the expectations we bring with us. Such expectations are formed from a reservoir of experiences that are not only technical and scientific but also social and political.” The position of Elgin (1993 [1991], 14) also coheres well with the reading of the clock-​ in-​the-​box scenario that I offered in the first chapter following Stuart (2006) (see Section 1). There I argued that we conceive of that scenario as a counter thought experiment that serves the advancement of understanding. Elgin (2004, 113) doubts that the acquisition of new truths is what should be assumed as the overarching epistemic objective in our cognitive engagement with the world. She refers to the sciences and notes the abundance of anomalies and outstanding problems that we find there. Such findings must instill skepticism towards an epistemology that places the concern for truth front and center. Laudan (1984, 123) goes into a similar direction when he stresses the point that many scientific “theories in the past, so far as we can tell, were both genuinely referring and empirically successful, but we are nonetheless loathe to regard them as approximately true. Consider, for instance,” Laudan (1984, 123) continues, “virtually all those geological theories prior to the 1960s.” Alternatively one could look at “the chemical theories of the 1920s which assumed that the atomic nucleus was structurally homogenous. I am aware of no sense of approximate truth,” Laudan (1984, 123) argues, “according to which such highly successful, but evidently false, theoretical assumptions could be regarded as truthlike.” These considerations are, of course, part of his famous argument of “pessimistic induction” against scientific realism. The basic idea is to raise doubts about the notion that we were approximating the one single truth in science. The history of science is seen to undermine such a notion in many respects that matter for rendering the notion plausible. Relevant is, of course, also the precise relationship between successive theories. Laudan (1984, 126) stresses, for example, that we simply do not find what we “we should expect to find,” if science were to approximate the truth, namely: (a) proof (or better: proofs) “that later theories do indeed contain earlier theories as limiting cases, or (b) outright rejections of later theories that fail to contain earlier theories.” All of this does not sit well with a positioning of the challenges posed by

92 

Chapter 2

thought experiments along the empiricism-​rationalism divide where truth is the primary concern—​be it assumed to reside in experience or Plato’s heaven. Like Laudan (1984), Elgin (1993 [1991], 2004, 2007) relates to those developments in the history and philosophy of science from Kuhn (1996 [1962]) to Lakatos (1978b [1970]) that I sketched above (see Section 3). She notes how difficult it actually is to separate neatly what is true and what is false even in such a successful enterprise as science. What she has in mind specifically is confirmation holism. Popper (1959) upholds the notion that isolated empirical consequences of a theory can be sought to falsify and thus corroborate a theory if the falsification fails. In Lakatos (1978b [1970]) this view is shown to be utterly naïve. A theory is part of a research programme defined by a “core” and “auxiliary hypotheses.” The engine of science is not merely individual theories but research programmes, i.e., a cluster of theories. In this sense the truth of individual scientific theories is irrelevant for the philosophical analysis of science. It is one thing to judge the merit of a research programme by its power to produce and explain new facts. It is another to determine which element of the research programmes deserves credit for that. The difficulties that burden metaphysical theories of truth are amplified, according to Elgin (1993 [1991], 2004, 2007), by the established practice of idealization. Idealizations are by definition not true. The relationship between truth and cognition must be revisited, Elgin (1993 [1991], 2002, 2007) urges, and this is to be done in consideration of the arts. The arts are said to function cognitively in ways that are similar to science (and philosophy, for that matter). She finds that we need to be willing to face the epistemic risks we always actually take, but which we have not come to consider in our philosophical theories about cognition. In our cognitive pursuits, we are not only after propositional truths. Sometimes, Elgin (2004, 113) asserts, “it is epistemically responsible to prescind from truth to achieve more global cognitive ends.” And, even insofar as propositional truths do matter, they are always part of a larger cognitive enterprise that features pictures, words, equations, and diagrams, according to Elgin (1993 [1991]), all of which requires the ability of understanding. The framing of problems, the development of experiments, and the interpretations of data are all important scientific practices which exhibit the regiment of understanding—​ not knowledge. We are mistaken to think, she urges, that we could understand physics, for example, if we knew all physical truths. Physicists have a feel for their subject. Without it, they couldn’t function effectively in their capacity as physicists in relation to the constraints exercised by their discipline. There is also an ability on display to benefit from the cognitive labours involved in doing physics. This is a kind of “know-​how” that also enables physicists to spell

Two Hundred Years of Thought Experiments

93

out the intellectual and practical implications of what they find by theoretical and empirical means. In all these respects, we see the cognitive power of understanding on display. Elgin (1993 [1991], 2002, 2007) stresses that the type of understanding she is interested in is not identical with propositional knowledge, nor can it be reduced to it. She further contends that the kind of understanding that she sees exhibited by science (and philosophy) is not too different from that in the arts. Among the noteworthy affinities in this respect is the practice of exemplification. Exemplification enhances understanding, she claims. Exemplars afford epistemic access to the features they exemplify, although exemplars denote and state nothing, but only refer by means of the exemplification they instantiate. The famous Michelson-​Morley experiment is said to give access to the invariance of the speed of light. The painting Guernica is taken to make the horror of wars accessible. An exemplar exemplifies by means of instantiation. Fabric swatches, for example, exemplify. They exemplify the pattern, colour, texture, and weave of a fabric. Paint samples instantiate a specific colour. Sample problems in science textbooks are also exemplars. Exemplars require interpretative work because they are not literal, and exemplification, Elgin (1993 [1991], 20) argues, “depends on and varies with context, function, and background assumptions.” Exemplification in its capacity to enhance understanding is not only a heuristic matter, Elgin (1993 [1991], 2002, 2007) asserts. She deems this to become obvious when we consider the fact that theories admit multiple models of the universe (a fact that I highlighted above with reference to Atkins 2018; see Section 3). A theory would be rendered inapplicable if exemplification didn’t specify the set of admissible models. Thereby, theories are grounded in their domain. The fictional character of much of art is not seen to weaken the case that Elgin (1993 [1991], 2002, 2007) makes. She does admit that there is a problem to be addressed in this respect. It is just not obvious how fiction could advance understanding of anything that is non-​fictional. In addressing this problem, she emphasizes the many fictions that we find in the sciences employed for non-​ fictional purposes. Elgin (1993 [1991], 24) directs our attention to the fictions of science, and to the practice of thought experiments especially. These are “imaginative exercises” that she finds “are obviously informative.” She argues that thought experiments are not different from experiments with respect to the exemplification they accomplish. Physical experiments and thought experiments alike are “vehicles for exploration and discovery,” Elgin (1993 [1991], 25) reasons, and both provide “contexts in which features may be demarcated, their interplay examined, their implications drawn out.” The remoteness to the

94 

Chapter 2

factual realm enables them to be subversive and thereby, Elgin (1993 [1991], 25) urges, “transform our understanding of features and the conditions of their realization.” Even a physical experiment “is no mere matter of bringing nature indoors,” Elgin (2014, 222) insists; but it is the creation of artificial environments to control the constraints of nature with respect to a phenomenon targeted by the experiment. The power of thought experiments, Elgin (2007, 47) specifies, “lies in no small measure in the flexible, variable, but nonetheless binding character of the constraints that the imagination imposes on them.” Practicing scientists see no reason to disagree here, insofar as they can appreciate—​to use the words of McLeish (2019, 135)—​the “hugely creative and non-​intuitive” nature of the idea that “the human creation of ‘small worlds’, that are experiments of the sciences, would be in continuity with the rest of the world.” In conclusion of this section, I summarize. Numerous accounts of thought experiments have emerged in response to the Brown-​Norton debate. In this section I presented some of them in support of the thesis this chapter seeks to render plausible. Especially those accounts that align with a nuanced naturalism, I have argued, support my view that it is the tensions between developments surrounding the pluralist turn in philosophy, on the one hand, and the reinforcement of the traditional empiricism-​rationalism divide by the Norton-​ Brown debate, on the other hand, that should be considered a key factor to make sense of the explosion in the literature on thought experiments in the past thirty years. 5

Conclusion

We began this chapter with a periodization of the history of philosophical treatments of thought experiments. I argued that the history spans over more than two hundred years, at least. That history can be divided into four periods: forerun, inauguration, limbo, and proliferation. It is the transition from the third to the fourth that preoccupied us in this chapter. We asked what it is that explains the unprecedented growth in interest in thought experiments in the past thirty years. In response to that question, I advanced the claim that the reinforcement of the traditional empiricism-​rationalism divide by the Norton-​Brown debate is a key factor to be considered in making sense of that development. Historical and philosophical studies of the sciences have taken a “pluralist turn.” A pluralist framing of the diversity that characterizes the sciences had become a viable option. The traditional empiricism-​rationalism divide proved too shallow to meet the challenges that thought experiments

Two Hundred Years of Thought Experiments

95

pose. In a sense, the discourse on thought experiments has become aligned with a monism-​ pluralism divide. The monism-​ pluralism divide then is the context in which to pursue the many questions that exist pertaining to thought experiments in the sciences and beyond. I have introduced a definition of scientific monism in this chapter. We shall work with that definition going forward. This chapter presented plenty of opportunities to introduce important facets of the current state of the rich discussions about thought experiments. Knowledge of these will prove useful in the chapters to come. At this point we are familiar with numerous theories about thought experiments. I outlined in some detail the position of Ernst Mach, for example, as well as the framework that I myself favour to explain the cognitive power of thought experiments. Thought experiments tap into the cognitive power of intuitions. Intuitions are defined as mental propositional attitudes accompanied by a strong feeling of certainty. They are fallible and demonstrate the dynamics of what is labelled “grounded cognition.” This chapter also discussed the work of Thomas S. Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, and Imre Lakatos to follow a trajectory at whose end we find scientific pluralism. Equally important are the concurrently emerging critiques of traditional philosophical epistemology, such as Catherine Elgin’s. We even touched on some theological aspects of the topic of thought experiments. We glanced at the role of imaginary investigations into Adam’s prelapsarian knowledge in discussions about the foundations of early modern science. It is, of course, the theological side of things that we are aiming for ultimately in this study. In the first chapter we saw how prominent thought experiments in science and religion discussions are. This raised the question of the possible theological significance of that finding. With this chapter we have positioned this question along the lines of the monism-​pluralism divide. In the next chapter we will confront a theological account of thought experiments that seeks to align with scientific monism. It is the account of the late John Polkinghorne. The importance of Polkinghorne’s work in the field of science and religion can hardly be overstated. One couldn’t wish for a better way of initiating a theological analysis of thought experiments.

Chapter 3

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity It’s what happens when you try to combine God with science. It’s narrative, pure and simple. There’s a beginning, a middle, and an end. And the middle is only there because the beginning is; the end is only there because the middle is. And in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. scarlett thomas, The End of Mr. Y, 358

To the best of my knowledge, the late John Polkinghorne1 was the first to locate the topic of thought experiments at the interface of science and religion, and he explicitly did so in theological perspective. His theological contention is that the presence of thought experiments in both the physical sciences and Christian theology is an important piece of evidence to think that they are jointly progressing towards a trinitarian theory of everything. The main thesis that I seek to defend in this chapter is that Polkinghorne was right about the theological significance of thought experiments, but wrong in his related assessment of the cognitive power of diversity and the imagination. This thesis is a function of the following three claims: The first claim concerns my interpretation of the theological framework that guided Polkinghorne in his assessment of thought experiments. I will argue that something like a theologically enhanced scientific monism controlled his appreciation of thought experiments. For the sake of brevity, I will sometimes simply say that Polkinghorne advanced a theological monism. What I mean is that his writings exhibit a clear commitment to scientific monism and an awareness that scientific monism needs theological support. The writings of Polkinghorne require a great deal of interpretative work to understand what exactly “theologically enhanced” should mean in this context. The second claim is that Polkinghorne is absolutely right in his contention that Christian theology relies on thought experiments in similar ways as science

1 While I was working on this chapter, I was saddened to receive the news that this giant of the field of science and religion had passed on. May his memory be a blessing to us all.

© Yiftach Fehige, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004685307_005

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

97

does and that this fact is of significance for the assessment of the relationship between science and religion. Polkinghorne (2007a, 93) offers us the clock-​in-​ the-​box scenario as a representative example of the scientific use of thought experiments and some passages from the book of Revelation (21: 1–​4 and 22: 1–​5) as examples of theological thought experiments. The scientific example is fine. I discussed it at length in Chapter 1 (see Section 1). The theological examples were a poor choice, although elsewhere I have tried to make sense of them (see Fehige 2012a). Fortunately, Christian theology has many examples to offer and better ones than those to which Polkinghorne refers. I will present a reading of one of my favourite theological thought experiments. It concerns Augustine’s theology of human sexuality. As my discussion will make clear, Polkinghorne was certainly right about the existence of thought experiments in Christian theology comparable to those we find in science. I will even attempt to read Augustine’s thought experiment such that it aligns with the clock-​in-​the-​box thought experiment (see Section 1). The basic idea here is to think of Augustine’s exploration of the prelapsarian nature of human sexuality as an instance of counter thought experimentation. Augustine’s views changed over time as he kept revisiting the matter throughout his career as a Christian thinker. But whether it is true or not that we are dealing here with a counter thought experiment, it should be undeniable that we have here a great example of a theological thought experiment. The third claim that I seek to bolster in this chapter is that Polkinghorne’s views about thought experiments are unnecessarily constrained by his theological monism. Polkinghorne assigns thought experiments a place of last resort in the pursuit of the one single truth. Only if nothing else works, then thought experiments seem admissible. I think that this is an unfortunate positioning of thought experiments. Hence, I will launch into a critique of a central element of Polkinghorne’s theological monism. It concerns the assumption that the significant diversity that Polkinghorne himself noted to be characteristic of science and theology is ultimately transient. I find this difficult to accept. Thus, in addition to what I have said already in the previous chapter, I will offer further reasons to justify my skepticism in this respect. Right from the start I want to make it unequivocally clear that the upshot of my critique of Polkinghorne’s views about thought experiments in this respect is not that Polkinghorne promotes a theologically enhanced scientific monism, and that this would be implausible, because scientific monism has fallen on hard times in historical and philosophical discussions about science today (as demonstrated in Chapter 2; Section 3 in particular). This will not be my argument. I do not aim to show that his views might be considered out of touch with the developments in (mainstream) history and philosophy of science. On the

98 

Chapter 3

contrary, I take his theology of science very seriously in an effort to understand why exactly he thinks that science and theology are better off when they remain fully committed to scientific monism despite some of the significant diversity that has been shown to characterize science and to be most likely not to be of a transitory kind. The roadmap for this chapter is as follows: in the first section I will relay some biographical remarks about Polkinghorne as a central figure in the discussions about the relationship between science and religion (1). This section is both a homage to the late John Polkinghorne and a brief introduction to the field of science and religion, as it constitutes the primary context of the discussions about thought experiments that Polkinghorne’s work (and this study) advances. Section 2 will introduce central elements of Polkinghorne’s theology of science (Section 2), before I then turn to his views on thought experiments in Section 3. In Section 4 I argue in support of Polkinghorne’s claim that Christian theology offers thought experiments like physics does (4). It is in that section that I present Augustine’s thought-​experimental engagement with prelapsarian human sexuality. I will retain the topic of human sexuality in the fifth section to raise skepticism about Polkinghorne’s theologically enhanced scientific monism with respect to the scientific side of things (5). The goal of that section is to take a big step towards liberating thought experiments from the constraints which result from Polkinghorne’s theologically enhanced scientific monism. I will provide the case of explanatory pluralism about the evolution of sexual reproduction, which has come to be seen as the “queen of all problems” in evolutionary theory. In the last section (6) I will sketch my theological position on the relationship between Christianity and Judaism that I have developed elsewhere (see, for example, Fehige 2012c and 2014). The point of Section 6 is to show why Polkinghorne’s “pneumatological inclusivism” doesn’t strike me as solid enough to strengthen sufficiently his theologically enhanced scientific monism insofar as the theological side of things is concerned. 1

Scientist-​Theologian

In this section I will relay some biographical remarks about the late Polkinghorne. At the same time, I will show in what sense the interdisciplinary discussions about science and religion have morphed into a field in its own right. The intended biographical sketch and the genealogy of the field go hand in hand, as Polkinghorne’s work was foundational to the field.

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

99

Polkinghorne was born in 1930, and he passed on in 2021. He had two lives, as it were. It was at the turn to the 1980s that he began to articulate in monograph-​length his thoughts about how both lives integrate (see, e.g., Polkinghorne 2007b, ix). Undoubtedly, this was to the benefit of the renewed science and religion discussions at the time. Partly due to his work, those discussions have become today, according to Dixon (2008, 13), an “academic field in its own right.” The American physicist-​turned-​humanist scholar, Ian Barbour, was in many ways, as Briggs, Halvorson, Steane (2018, 33) rightly note, “the twentieth-​century father of the [field].” His work began to bear first fruits when Polkinghorne was enjoying the comfortable life of a mathematical physicist. Polkinghorne had been professor in that capacity for about eleven years at the University of Cambridge when he resigned in 1979 in order to become an Anglican Priest. Barbour had published his groundbreaking Issues in Science and Religion two years before Polkinghorne was promoted from lecturer to professor in 1968. In “mapping so magisterially an entire field of study,” Brooke (2014, 315) explains, Barbour’s book gave discussions about science and religion “academic respectability.” Later on, in many respects Polkinghorne built upon the foundation that Barbour laid. According to Slocum (2015, 133), he “was founding President of the International Society for Science and Religion,” for example, “and a founder of the Society of Ordained Scientists.” Polkinghorne (2000, 957) identifies as a “scientist-​theologian,” and in about thirty monographs he has articulated his position on most of the central topics which arise from the encounter between science and Christianity. Polkinghorne became a priest in the Church of England in 1982 after theological studies at Westcott House in Cambridge. He “served parishes in South Bristol and Blean,” Slocum (2015, 133) tells us, and he “was appointed Fellow, Dean, and Chaplain of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in 1986.” It was a “few years into” his “ordained ministry,” Polkinghorne (2000, 956) recalls, that he “came to the conclusion that a major part of” his “vocation was to think and write about how science and theology relate to each other.” In effect, Hogan (2009, 559) observes, Polkinghorne earned recognition as a “first generation scholar in the renewed dialogue between science and religion.” In 2002 he was awarded the Templeton Prize, the highest recognition possible for a “scientist-​theologian.” The Templeton Prize was established in 1972 “to recognize discoveries” which yield “new insights about religion especially through science” (https://​www​.tem​plet​onpr​ize​.org​/temple​ton​-prize​-hist​ory​/)​. Polkinghorne’s “treatment of theology as a natural science” impressed the selection committee insofar as it “invigorated the search for an interface between

100 

Chapter 3

science and religion.” (https://​www​.tem​plet​onpr​ize​.org​/laure​ate​/john​-c​-polki​ ngho​rne​/) When he received the prize, he had been retired already for six years from his position as President of Queen’s College, Cambridge, after seven years of service in this role. In 1993 Polkinghorne delivered the prestigious Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh. He argued that “traditional Christian belief can be seen to be valid when it is critically examined in a scientific age.” The “Nicene Creed provides us with the outline of a rationally defensible theology which can be embraced with integrity,” Polkinghorne (1996, 8) insists, “as much today as when it was first formulated in the fourth century.” These are sweeping claims indeed, and not long ago few outside religious communities with an interest in the analysis of science would have felt the need to even pay attention to them. In the 1980s, Brooke (2014, 312) reminds us, it was the “common view that science had liberated itself from theology by the end of the seventeenth century.” Theology was deemed a matter of a very troubled past characterized by constant conflict emerging from a clash between religious tradition and scientific progress. “The idea that science and theology had always been in conflict,” Brooke (2014, 318) recalls, “was widespread, despite contrary scholarship.” Accordingly, Brooke (2014, 317) argues, “historical analysis was not a luxury, but vital for correcting platitudes on science and religion.” Eventually, careful historical work led to a correction of simplistic ideas about the past interaction of science and religion. That work “described the thoroughly entangled relationship” of science and religion, Numbers (2010, 263) explains, such that “prospecting for historical complexity has become something of a rush among historians of science and religion.” And, yet, Hardin, Numbers, and Binzley (2018) cannot but complain that the idea of an essential conflict between science and religion just will not die. Some argue that the reason for this is ideology only. We are told by Plantinga (2011a), for example, that the ideology of naturalism misleads most of the philosophical assessments of the relationship between science and religion today (we touched on his position in 1.3). Once we remove the ideological barrier of that naturalism, we see perfect harmony between them, the argument goes. Darwinism proper, for example, says little about the probable truth of the beliefs produced by our minds. Darwinism may suggest human nature to be the result of natural causes exclusively, and thereby to undermine belief in a Creator. But, if we spell out the consequences of such a naturalistic interpretation of Darwinism, Plantinga (2011a) contends, then we come to realize that such a metaphysics is actually self-​defeating. What follows from the conjunction of Darwinism and naturalism, it is argued, is that, more likely than not, all of our beliefs are false, including those pertaining to Darwinism itself! True beliefs and survival have little to do with one another, as

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

101

empirical evidence is argued to suggest strongly. We are advised about organisms whose survival-​conducive behaviour doesn’t even seem to require the formation of beliefs—​not to mention true beliefs. If we accept Darwinism to be true, Plantinga (2011a) asserts, then we commit ourselves to the possibility of true beliefs, and the most promising way to cash in that blank cheque of truth, is theism. A benevolent creator will create humans capable of forming true beliefs, we are advised. In historical perspective, such arguments in favour of a perfect harmony between science and religion are considered as problematic as claims of an essential conflict between the two. We touched on this important debate before (see Section 3). Brooke (1991, 22) insists, “problems arise as soon as one enquires about the relationship between ‘science’ and ‘religion’ in the past. Not only have the boundaries between them shifted with time, but to abstract them from their historical and local contexts can lead to artificiality as well as anachronism.” Such considerations have been stressed to the point that any “urging of a consonance between science and religion has the potential,” Harrison (2015, 198) argues, “to reinforce the very conditions that make conflict possible.” What this means is that advocates “of constructive dialogue are … unknowingly complicit in the perpetuation of conflict,” because they accept the conceptual commitments of modernity about the nature of science and religion. Those commitments are deeply problematic relative to the history of each, the argument goes. Polkinghorne’s theology of science is exemplary in its urging of consonance, although Polkinghorne (2007a, xi), for example, does express awareness of the difficulties inherent in general claims about the relationship between science and theology in a diachronic and synchronic perspective. Nevertheless, it was Polkinghorne’s position that science and Christianity have always been in harmony—​more or less. It just couldn’t be otherwise, he found, since the “book of Nature” and the “book of Scripture” have one and the same author. We just need to get ideological barriers out of the way to appreciate the deep-​seated harmony that exists between the two. Polkinghorne’s strong advocacy for overall harmony between modern science and the Christian faith earned him the reputation of an “apologist for Christianity in a scientific age,” an “honourable title” he gratefully accepted as long as it is clear that he had “no desire whatsoever to be a polemicist for a cause, even the Christian cause.” Polkinghorne (2000, 959) expresses the hope to be “honest enough in [his] writing to acknowledge when [he is] perplexed and not sure exactly what to say.” In conclusion of this section, we can note that the context of Polkinghorne’s position on thought experiments is the field of science and religion that we have explored in Chapter 1 with respect to the many thought experiments it

102 

Chapter 3

has to offer (see 1.3). In a way then, we are picking up where we left things at the end of Chapter 1. While the field has moved towards an emphasis on complexity at the expense of generalizing historical accounts of the relationship between science and theology, a tendency perseveres to oscillate between harmony and conflict, on the one hand, and complexity, on the other hand, in systematic treatments of the two. Polkinghorne’s work is exemplary in both respects. On the one hand, historical critiques of simplistic demarcations between science and theology instill confidence on his part in the continuing legitimacy of theological perspectives on nature. On the other hand, existing tensions between the two are deemed superficial only. Polkinghorne sees hope for unification as he finds both science and religion follow the same kind of rationality. 2

Diversity in Transition

In the previous chapter we looked at the developments that led to a pluralist turn in the history and philosophy of science. In that context, I introduced a definition of scientific monism (see 2.3). It is the view that

(1) the ultimate aim of a science is to establish a single, complete, and comprehensive account of the natural world (or the part of the world investigated by the science) based on a single set of fundamental principles; (2) the nature of the world is such that it can, at least in principle, be completely described or explained by such an account; (3) there exist, at least in principle, methods of inquiry that if correctly pursued will yield such an account; (4) methods of inquiry are to be accepted on the basis of whether they can yield such an account; and individual theories and models in science are to be evaluated in large part on the basis of whether they provide (or come close to providing) a comprehensive and complete account based on fundamental principles. kellert, longino, and waters 2006, p. x

This definition will guide us now in our critique of Polkinghorne’s theology of science. Of course, what is of particular interest to us is how Polkinghorne’s theological views about science shape his position on method generally and thought experiments in particular. Scientific monism is a metaphysical theory about the history and nature of science. Thus, at this point we ask what Polkinghorne’s views about the

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

103

relationship between science and metaphysics are. Polkinghorne (2005, 35) argues that science calls for “metaphysical decision” at times. A case in point is quantum physics, because even after a hundred years of successful exploitation of its techniques, its interpretation still remains a matter of dispute (we touched on that in 1.1). Another example is the relationship between different scientific disciplines. We need to transcend the boundaries of the individual disciplines to see the whole picture. Metaphysical abstinence in such cases would amount to an abdication from the proper task of scientists, namely, to seek an understanding of the world, according to Polkinghorne. What is not called for, however, is pure speculation. While the “search for truth is an intellectual adventure,” Polkinghorne (1996, 32) argues, “rather than the execution of a programmed procedure,” it is important to ensure—​to the extent possible—​that choices in cognitive matters not merely serve the satisfaction of previously formed expectations (see also Polkinghorne 2005, 169). Polkinghorne (2007a, 7) is clear in that he doesn’t trust the rational powers of a human mind that is unaided by experience, although he sees the limits, in particular, of the experimental method in science. Polkinghorne (2005, 34) takes chaos theory and the Einstein-​Podolsky-​Rosen paradox to show that “isolatability” (a prerequisite of experiments) is “far from being a universal property.” According to Polkinghorne (2007b, 98–​99), the path to knowledge is always “bottom-​up.” It is a movement from the experiential realm (“experiences,” “phenomena,” “data”) to knowledge (“belief,” “theory,” “understanding”). Polkinghorne (1996, 38) sees understanding at the top; it is “the crown of knowledge.” Polkinghorne (1996, 4) deems it “natural” for scientists to endorse such an epistemology, because they have “learned so often in [their] exploration of the physical world that ‘evident general principles’ are often neither so evident nor so general as one might at first have supposed.” According to Polkinghorne (2007b, 98–​99), the scientist “learns certain lessons” while practicing science. These lessons are also relevant for the theologian. Among those lessons is that one has to be “open for the unexpected.” Theology should, like science, “always seek first to accept and evaluate the phenomena, whatever they might be, and allow experience rather than so-​called ‘reason’,” Polkinghorne (2007b, 98–​99) insists, “to set the agenda.” Reason, Polkinghorne (2007b, 99) remarks, “is often a euphemism for paucity of imagination.” Insofar as Polkinghorne is committed to scientific monism, we can understand him to argue that it is an acceptable metaphysical view in light of the way science is actually practiced. It would be the right choice to make when we look at how science is actually done. What is very important to note here is that the decision to favour scientific monism is not primarily motivated by theological considerations, but by reflections about the history and practice of

104 

Chapter 3

science! And, yet, we will find in Polkinghorne’s work a theologically enhanced scientific monism, insofar as theological tenets can be cited to strengthen that decision, such as, Polkinghorne (1996, 47) explains, the “unity of God.” It is in this specific sense that one should speak of a theologically enhanced scientific monism in the work of Polkinghorne. While scientific monism is said to enjoy partial support from theology, the commitment to scientific monism is a metaphysical choice deemed justified in light of the history and practice of science. In Polkinghorne, theological considerations neither enjoy primacy nor the comfortable position of a priori truth. His theological monism is first of all a scientific monism. Scientific monism is a view that reflects a metaphysical choice. All metaphysical choices must be grounded in the experiential realm (“experiences,” “phenomena,” “data”); otherwise, they amount to pure speculation. This is also true for theology. The supernatural origin of the normative experiential realm is irrelevant in this respect. Both the universe and the normative sources of religious authority are “supernatural” insofar as both are the result of the actions of a God who is not part of nature—​from Polkinghorne’s Christian point of view, that is. But these actions had effects in the experiential realm, and it is from this realm that science and theology move upward to increased understanding of the universe and God. So, it is not the case that Christianity would be committed to scientific monism because there is one God who created and sustains one experiential realm that can be studied scientifically and theologically in pursuit of the one single truth about God and world. Such a reasoning would constitute a “top-​down” approach to the metaphysical problem that diversity in science (and beyond) can amount to (as outlined in detail in 2.3). Philosophical theology is said to have its limits, accordingly. On the one hand, Polkinghorne (1996, 53) concedes that logic and conceptual analysis have their place in the search for knowledge, because if “the notion of God” was “incoherent, he could hardly exist.” Logical considerations and conceptual analysis are, therefore, certainly part of faithful theology, argues Polkinghorne (1996, 53). On the other hand, Polkinghorne (2007a, 5 and 7) stresses that “evidential” matters have much “greater significance” in cognitive affairs than logical or conceptual matters. This is claimed to be true for theology and science alike. It is the actual character of the revealed God and the cognitively accessible world that must remain the controlling factor in our search for the truth about God and the universe. Science teaches us a “bottom-​up” approach. “In 1900,” Polkinghorne (1996, 53) explains, “any competent first-​year philosophy undergraduate could have demonstrated the ‘incoherence’ of anything appearing sometimes like a wave and sometimes like a particle.” Science surprises us, however, as this “is how light was found to behave and, through the

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

105

universe-​assisted logic of that discovery, we have been led to the invention of quantum field theory, which combines wave-​like and particle-​like behaviour without a taint of paradox.” It is not Polkinghorne’s intention to “scorn philosophy’s aid to conceptual clarity.” He does not “deny its utility.” Polkinghorne (1996, 54) only protests “against any claim to prejudge the issue of experience.” Insofar as theological considerations, such as those concerning the unity of God, are to play an essential role in the metaphysical decision to favour scientific monism over scientific pluralism in accordance with a “bottom-​up” approach, they amount to no more than complementary evidence that obtains quite independently of considerations about the history and philosophy of science. One will also need to proceed “bottom-​up” in mounting the evidence. In other words, and here I am introducing an image to assist me in outlining Polkinghorne’s theology of science, there is neither a single “line up,” from science up to theology, nor one “down,” from theology to science. They are not ordered hierarchically on top of one another (science over theology, or vice versa). Instead, each represents one “line up,” originating in experience and moving towards true knowledge. The two “lines-​up” of science and theology are relatively independent of each other. One of the “lines up” runs from nature to metaphysics (“science”) and the other from history to God (“theology”). Although “in both kinds of enquiry,” Polkinghorne (2007a, 1) explains, “this truth will never be grasped totally and exhaustively,” it can be, Polkinghorne (2007a, 1) insists, “approximated to in an intellectually satisfying manner,” which “deserves the adjective ‘verisimilitudinous.’” This is the case, Polkinghorne (2007a, 1) explicates further, “even if it does not qualify to be described in an absolute sense as ‘complete.’” But how then are we to relate the two “lines up” if they don’t connect! We have to add something to the image to see how they are related, according to Polkinghorne. Let’s imagine further a circle in-​between the two “lines up.” This imagined circle represents a hermeneutic circle. It represents the movement from interpreted experiential realm (“experience,” “phenomena,” “data”) to resulting verisimilitudinous knowledge (“belief,” “theory, “understanding”), and back to resulting interpreted experiential realm, and so on. It is also important to note that we find, in addition, according to Polkinghorne, such a circle within each of the two “lines up.” Polkinghorne means here to acknowledge the “theory-​laden” nature of experience when he speaks of a circular motion in the movement from “bottom” (experiential realm) to the “top” (understanding as crown of knowledge) withing science and theology each and in their interaction. One can put Polkinghorne’s position here in the words of Longino (1990, 162), and see him arguing that the experiential realm as such cannot function as “evidence

106 

Chapter 3

for a hypothesis independently of some background assumption(s) in light of which the data acquire evidential relevance.” In other words, experience is never fully passive, nor does it bring things into existence. Experience means here something like a mode of an informed relating to a domain of inquiry that is assumed to exist independently of that inquiry with respect to some of the entities and some of their properties found in that domain. The circularity involved in the relationship between experience and interpretative framework is “benign” and not “vicious,” argues Polkinghorne (2007a, 9). He is not alone in this view. As we saw in the second chapter, Kuhn (1996 [1962]), Feyerabend (2010 [1975]), and Lakatos (1978b [1970]) have moved the discussion about the relationship between theory and experience into a similar direction (see 2.3). But Polkinghorne (2007a, 9) insists that science and theology can nevertheless progress in a way that leads to a “monotonical increase” in knowledge with respect to both “lines up” individually and together! The task of a theology of science is to establish some connections between the two “lines up” in order to bring that progression towards greater unity to light. We are touching here on a clear commitment to what I label a theologically enhanced scientific monism. Even at the risk of overusing images, but for clarity’s sake, I’d like to entertain the image of the prison window at this point (see Figure 4). From the perspective of Polkinghorne’s theology of science, one could read the image as follows: Humanity is inside receiving the sunlight. The sun partly floods the space. It represents the one single truth, which humanity is said to be in pursuit of. We cannot look right into the sun to study its nature. What we can do instead is follow the traces in science and theology that are suggestive of such a truth. The two vertical iron bars represent science and theology. Let us assume we could also see spider webs in between these two bars. They would represent the points where humanity made progress in seeing connections between science and theology with respect to a better understanding of the one single truth. When we look at the inner life of the two iron bars a better image than spider webs will be introduced to clarify how there could be any meaningful connections between science and theology. I am probably overworking the image here, but I find its illustrative value just too good. The image also represents nicely Polkinghorne’s critical attitude towards an Enlightenment ideal that centres on reason and human autonomy. There is no way out of the prison of ignorance for humanity by reasoning on its own. Of course, using iron bars to represent science and theology is a bad idea in many respects. Iron bars are too solid to allow us to appreciate the hermeneutical-​circular work that is happening in science and theology (thus I will replace this image ultimately). And yet, Polkinghorne

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

107

­f igure 4 A prison window with two iron bars that represent science and theology. One needs to imagine the sun falling into the room through that window that represents the divine presence in all things that exist.

was certainly convinced that the progress “upward” that he finds humanity has been making so far is solid. With this image in place, we can delve a bit into the premise that science has an ultimate aim. In the last chapter I outlined in detail why the assumption of such an aim is anything but self-​evident (see 2.3) There can be no doubt that science is done for all sorts of purposes. The aims of science are many: to develop technologies, to discover laws of nature, to earn fame, to provide explanations, to enhance understanding, to find the truth, etc. Science is certainly not aimless in this sense, neither in synchronic (see, e.g., Rowbottom 2014) nor in diachronic perspective (see, e.g., Laudan 1984). The assumption of an overarching aim encompassing the history of science and all scientific practice is a totally different matter, however, and it is complicated by its metaphysical nature. We are not dealing here with sociological claims, such as that all scientists happen to pursue an ultimate aim, or that science as a cultural institution happens to be defined by a pursuit of an overarching aim. The claim that we find in Polkinghorne’s work is that science wouldn’t be science if there wasn’t an ultimate aim of which it is in pursuit. It certainly can be argued that early modern science was motivated by a search for Adam’s prelapsarian knowledge (see 2.4). This is an historical contention about the view of some figures of early modern science that the ultimate aim of the study of nature is to regain the knowledge that Adam lost after he had committed the original sin. Polkinghorne endorsed such historical claims in support of scientific monism. But Polkinghorne (2007a, 108) also notes that such theological considerations began to become irrelevant in the 18th century because many scientists “had come to treat theological insight as if it were of no relevance to the quest for true understanding.” And yet, “true understanding” is, Polkinghorne insisted, the ultimate aim of science’s pursuit of the one single truth. It is not clear on what grounds we are to accept that assumption of an ultimate aim of science. Let’s turn to Polkinghorne’s ontology. Maybe it provides some clues in this respect. The world is intelligible, according to Polkinghorne. It is intelligible because God created and sustains everything there is. This intelligible world meets a

108 

Chapter 3

humanity, according to Polkinghorne, who paraphrases Augustine, that is restless until it finds rest in God who is origin and destiny of both world and humanity. This desire, argues Polkinghorne (1996, 51) with passion, extends to the investigation of the natural world. It is a like knows like situation of cosmic proportions that we are dealing with here. In this respect, Polkinghorne (2000, 961–​962) contends that the “theological view is a total view, based on the claim that at the deepest level the universe makes sense.” That may be true, but the difficulty that we are encountering now is how to reconcile such a theological assertion with a “bottom-​up” approach to the relationship between science and theology. As we have seen in the last chapter, such an absolutist notion of an ultimate aim does not sit well with the synchronic and diachronic diversity of aims in science. The identification of such an ultimate aim is not itself aimless, but rather is guided by particular goals and values. There is a double relativity, as it were, to claims about an overarching ultimate aim of science, according to Ruphy (2016, 78): “not only does our image of the world in terms of order or disorder vary depending on the evolution of our best theories, but it can also vary depending on the questions that we happen to ask about the system being studied with a given theory.” I understand that Polkinghorne did accept that double relativity to a degree when he explicates that any talk about an ultimate aim is a matter of metaphysical choice ultimately. His historical remarks (in scientific and theological matters!) strongly suggest that he deemed the available empirical evidence so powerful that even the skeptic about metaphysics and theology should see science progressing towards an overarching ultimate aim, namely to the one single true account of everything there is (see for a most representative and insightful discussion in this respect: Polkinghorne 2007a, 48–​72). Nothing else should be expected given his “bottom-​up” approach. In synchronic perspective, Polkinghorne was much more hesitant to articulate strong claims about the unity of science. When he did, and this is certainly interesting, he stressed that he argues from a theological point of view. For example, when Polkinghorne (2005, 58) looks into “the origin of” the “many diverse but interrelated aspects of reality,” his answer is: “For the religious believer, the source of these dimensions lies in the unifying will of the Creator.” The theological tenet of the “unifying will of the Creator,” is considered by Polkinghorne (2005, 58) to be a “fundamental insight that makes intelligible not only that the universe is transparent to our scientific enquiry, but also that it is the arena of moral decision and the carrier of beauty.” Polkinghorne’s move onto theological territory in this case is consistent with his claim that science alone cannot be the whole story to be told about the universe. Polkinghorne (2005, 3–​4) argues that “the best explanation of persistent scientific explanatory power and

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

109

technological success is that science succeeds in describing … the way things actually are.” Polkinghorne (2005, 3) saw such realism not weakened a bit by his concession that “naïve objectivity” is certainly to be rejected, as “we do not see quarks, but their existence is indirectly inferred.” After all, Polkinghorne (2007, 2) contends, “quark theory is surely … verisimilitudinous.” The problem is that anti-​realists are not so sure about that, because, Wray (2013, 1720) explains, “given that many past successful theories have turned out to be false, success is not a reliable indicator of truth.” Moreover, successful “but false theories have enabled scientists to generate vindicated novel predictions.” We are right back to the discussions that we delved into with Chapter 2. The point that I think is worthwhile making here is that there seems to be a tension sitting right at the core of Polkinghorne’s theology of science. We have a strong commitment to a “bottom-​up” methodology in thinking about both science and theology, individually and in how they interrelate. At the same time, there is a strong commitment to a scientific monism that relies to a great deal on theological support. In other words, it seems that the metaphysical decision can go easily also in the other direction with some kind of scientific pluralism emerging as a serious alternative to scientific monism, unless theological considerations boost the choice in favour of monism. I think Polkinghorne realized the tension that I am directing attention to here. Thus, he was eager to identify benefits that he deemed exclusive to theological monism. They were seen to outweigh the alleged benefits of scientific pluralism. One of the benefits that I find that Polkinghorne (1996, 70) explicates, for example, is of a cognitive nature: “Atheists are not stupid, but they explain less.” This is a charming attempt to disarm the atheist. As a booster to scientific monism in accordance with a “bottom-​up” approach, it won’t do the trick, however. For starters, this is only an argument for scientific monism if the explanatory power of theological accounts of the universe depends on the assumption that theological monism is true. This is a really interesting issue, and, in a way, it sits at the core of this chapter. It seems to me that theistic explanations for natural phenomena are one thing. A theologically enhanced scientific monism deemed consistent with Polkinghorne’s “bottom-​ up” approach is quite a different matter. It is not at all clear how to reconcile the situation between science and theology as depicted with the help of the prison-​window image, on the one hand, with the idea that theology can guide us to scientific monism in the absence of sufficient evidence in the history and practice of science to favour scientific monism. There is a second reason for my skepticism. We haven’t yet looked at the ability of Christian theology itself to deal with diversity in its own domain. I will have something to say about that later on in this chapter (see 3.6). After

110 

Chapter 3

all, according to Polkinghorne, theology is like science in its “bottom-​up” movement to the truth. Science and theology are seen to move upwards side by side with some connection-​points such that we see a linear-​progressive approximation of both to the one truth about the world. To put the point more vividly: as science unified three of the four fundamental forces, Christian theology united heaven and earth in the doctrine of a God incarnate. Of course, Christianity confesses that God is one (see Deuteronomy 6:4, or 1 Timothy 2: 5), and “Christ” the truth (see John 14: 6) and ultimate unity (Galatian 3: 26–​28); “Christ” is not only all, and all in all (see Colossians 3: 11), but alpha and omega (see Revelations 1: 8; 22: 6, and 22: 13). But it is a long way from such credal statements to a methodologically controlled scientific monism in theological perspective in accordance with a “bottom-​up” approach to science and theology! At this point I’d like to introduce a contrast that allows me to throw my critical remarks into greater relief. In Chapter 1 I introduced the integration model of Swinburne (see 1.1 and 1.3). Unlike Polkinghorne, Swinburne’s program to establish harmony between science and Christian theology amounts to a full-​fledged integration of the two. Swinburne (2004) basically claims that there is one single method that characterizes science such that it keeps its many aims, methods, and theories together. That method is the Bayesian method. It leads to the discovery of truth in the following way: scientists speculate about nature for the sake of the production of a hypothesis. This hypothesis is then assessed with respect to its theoretical merits, such as ontological parsimony or explanatory scope. Then one looks at the world to find empirical support for the hypothesis. And, in comparison with the theoretical and empirical merits of competing hypotheses, scientists ultimately come to accept the one hypothesis as most probably true that seems superior, all relevant things considered. This method, according to Swinburne (2005), is applicable in matters scientific and theological. It permits the elimination of hypotheses whose truth is less probable, all relevant things considered. In the end, Christianity prevails, according to Swinburne—​not science alone, nor other religions. Obviously, I am being very sketchy here, but more is really not needed for present purposes. In my view, Polkinghorne and Swinburne share a commitment to (what I prefer labelling) a theologically enhanced scientific monism. Yet, Polkinghorne doesn’t think there is one single scientific method that holds all science together in the sense that Swinburne does. He also stresses that theology has its own methods. Polkinghorne keeps science and theology at much greater distance than Swinburne, and each are seen as much patchier than it appears to be the case in Swinburne. Each is said to develop at its own pace to the one single true account of the world. They do that, however, not

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

111

completely independently. Overlap between the two can be expected and increasingly so, as each makes progress. In turn “scientist-​theologians” can relate both domains by means of dialogue and in light of established progress such that the emerging one true account of the world becomes more tangible. The overlap that “scientist-​theologians” are well-​placed to bring to light resembles in important respects the unifications that one can find achieved in each domain. Polkinghorne is also not of the conviction that speculation plays the significant role that Swinburne assigns to it. He stresses the priority of the experiential realm also with respect to the discovery of new truths about the world. Finally, Polkinghorne—​as we will see in more detail at a later point—​seeks to sustain more of a dialogue among the religions than Swinburne, although both share the view that Christianity is the one true religion. With the contrast to Swinburne in place, I can reiterate as follows the upshot of my critique so far of Polkinghorne’s theologically enhanced scientific monism: either the “bottom-​up” approach as portrayed above is the right way of going about science and theology and their relationship, or theological monism is true. I cannot see how both sit well together in a methodologically controlled way that Swinburne can claim, at least, for his own apologetic move towards a theologically enhanced scientific monism: the scientific method leads us to the one true account of the world and that is the Christian account. Accordingly, the set of fundamental principles that feature in the definition of scientific monism that we have been following here, must be scientific and theological in nature if Swinburne is right. Examples of scientific principles in this sense and at the metaphysical scope that Swinburne intends, maybe the Darwinian biological notion of evolution of life by natural selection, or Noether’s mathematical claim that wherever there is a symmetry, there is a corresponding conservation law. Examples of comparable theological principles would be that an absolutely good God would create a universe like ours, or that the divine creation of libertarian free will necessitates the existence of moral and natural evil. While clearly displaying a strong commitment to a theologically enhanced scientific monism, Polkinghorne (2005, 7) does appreciate the “patchy” nature of science, and even favours a pluralist ontology of science to some extent. He was a dedicated proponent of the metaphysics of strong emergentism. He rejected ontologies that seek to “reduce” everything to the physical. Debates surrounding reductionism center on the metaphor of a hierarchy of realities and related scientific disciplines with the physical/​physics being at the foundational level and the abstract/​mathematical at the highest. In science and religion discussions the divine/​theology is placed on top of the abstract/​ mathematical. To employ once more the “prison-​window” image (that we have

112 

Chapter 3

been working with; see Figure 4), it was Polkinghorne’s view that advocates of atheistic “reductionism” make the mistake to position the two “lines up” of science and theology horizontally, instead of vertically, and then to seek to “pull down” theology. This endeavour not only harms theology, but also science, Polkinghorne claimed. That is not the way to order the different dimensions of reality. Polkinghorne (2005, 35) makes a great deal of chaos theory in support of the contention that nature is characterized by an “ontological openness.” Polkinghorne believed that it can assist us in making room in our ontology for such important emergent and essentially non-​physical phenomena as the human mind, mathematical truth, and divine revelation. Polkinghorne’s ontology is one that actually tolerates many “lines-​up” (not only those two representing science and theology), and each of them moves from the experiential realm (“experience,” “phenomena,” “data”) to knowledge (“belief,” “theory,” “understanding”). For example, when the human mind discovered the mathematical aspects of reality, what “emerged were mathematicians, not mathematics”. Reality is, Polkinghorne (2005, 57) asserts, “many-​layered,” and it requires “a variety of modes of responses” to do justice to reality in its entirety. Using the image of the prison-​window, we could depict the situation as follows: science and theology are the most outer “lines-​up” (iron bars) with many “lines-​up” (iron bars) in between, representing mathematics, the arts, etc (see Figure 5). What we cannot see in Figure 5 are the “non-​vicious” hermeneutic circles in each of the disciplines represented, and in between them. It is a rich ontology indeed, although we are to believe that it does not transcend the boundaries of “dual-​aspect monism,” according to Polkinghorne (1996, 21), which is the metaphysical position that “there is only one stuff in the world (not two—​the material and the mental), but it can occur in two contrasting states (material and mental phases, a physicist would say).” There is only one “stuff,” but reality is “multilayered,” and thus we find a diversity of domains of inquiry, disciplines, and perspectives which characterize the human quest for the one truth, according to Polkinghorne (2005, 57). Such diversity reflects reality, but should be deemed transient for various reasons, according to Polkinghorne. With respect to science, the situation is said to be such that its history evinces its ability to bring about remarkable unifications and this often in ways previously deemed impossible. “One could write,” Polkinghorne (2007a, 97) argues, “the history of modern physics in terms of its being a continuing quest for greater generality and deeper unity in our conceptual understanding of the physical world.” The same is true for theology, Polkinghorne (2005, 122) insists, although things are a bit more complicated

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

113

here because, Polkinghorne (1996, 39) clarifies, “its method is not only elusive but its infinite Subject is also necessarily beyond the total grasp of finite minds.” Neither science nor any other cognitive endeavour will be successful alone in providing the grand theory of everything that Polkinghorne believed to be in reach for humanity. Polkinghorne (2005, 51) is exceptionally harsh on those biologists who “attempt to force classical Darwinian thinking into the role of an explanatory principle of almost universal scope.” But that attempt “has proved singularly unconvincing as it seeks to inflate an assembly of half-​truths into a theory of everything.” Only together will all cognitive endeavours succeed in approximating “a fully integrated story” to the degree possible from a human point of view. Christian theology, however, Polkinghorne (2007a, 110) argues relentlessly, knows that the story to be told is something like the Christian story. It is argued that we find the “most profound understanding in terms of” a “true Theory of Everything” in “trinitarian theology.” With that story, Polkinghorne (2005, x) contends, the “great human quest for unified understanding” has found its most promising key to unlock the secrets that remain on the path to the one truth. Science is still “often unable to make satisfactory connections between different domains,” Polkinghorne (2005, xii) concedes. Nevertheless, history attests to the ability of science to consolidate areas of investigation in ways previously thought impossible. In light of the discussion in the previous chapter it should be obvious how contentious this claim is (see 2.3) if it is meant to support scientific monism. The developments in history and philosophy of science outlined there, don’t seem to impress Polkinghorne (1996, 39) much, as he finds that an “intellectual optimism” is more than justified. This is “the belief that we possess an open-​ended capacity for understanding what we have not yet conceived” to take the next steps towards greater unification.

­f igure 5 Prison window with more iron bars representing more disciplines than science and theology

114 

Chapter 3

It takes such an optimism especially with respect to the theological challenge posed by the diversity of faith traditions, according to Polkinghorne. The history of science is said to prove the transient nature of diversity in science. Dual-​aspect monism is taken to unify disciplinary diversity that results from strong emergentism and the diversity of layers of reality following from that. And, since the rationality exhibited by Christian theology is not radically different from the rationality that characterizes science (as claimed by Polkinghorne 2007a), theology is one discipline among equals. For example, like the history of science is seen to have progressed steadily towards the one truth about physical nature, so has the history of Christianity succeeded in getting closer to the one true nature of God. Where disciplinary boundaries diversify, a universal rationality unifies. Wherever we look, we find diversity in transition, according to Polkinghorne. Polkinghorne didn’t think religious diversity was an exception to that! The diversity of faith traditions, Polkinghorne (1996, 177) clarifies, isn’t merely a function of “culturally determined opinions … We must not commit the genetic fallacy of supposing that origin explains away the content of belief.” The core of the issue is that the “discrepancy in the accounts of ultimate reality,” Polkinghorne (1996, 177) continues, offered by the various faith traditions is simply too great to come together under one umbrella. Polkinghorne (2005, 135) presents what could be labelled “pneumatological inclusivism” as the most promising way to bring about an integration that seems not only conducive to genuine dialogue among adherents of the different faith traditions, but also does justice to humanity’s ability to grasp the full truth. Polkinghorne relied on the pneumatology of Vladimir Lossky, who thinks of the third person of the trinity, the Holy Spirit, as “‘unmanifested, hidden, concealing Himself in His very appearing.’” Unlike the “Father” and the “Son,” the “Holy Spirit” has no image. This “insight” seemed “profoundly illuminating” to Polkinghorne. There is a “process” of formation of the image of the Spirit. The formation happens “in the assembly of those transformed by the salvific reality of the sacred.” This can happen outside the Christian community, Polkinghorne, explicates, as the “Holy Spirit” is said to blow “‘where it chooses’ … (John 3:8).” Because of the workings of the “Holy Spirit,” trinitarian Christians can have the confidence that “the divine has not been left without witness at any time or in any place.” Polkinghorne built his inclusivist theology of religious diversity on this pneumatology. “Here I find,” Polkinghorne (2005, 135) concludes his case for pneumatological inclusivism, “the trinitarian grounding for the recognition of the presence of spiritual authenticity among the diverse faiths.” At the same time, it is the “theological undergirding of the expectation of fruitfulness in the long and demanding process of interfaith dialogue that lies ahead of us.” According

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

115

to Polkinghorne (2005, 107), such a theological perspective on interfaith dialogue does full justice to the trinitarian principle of united separation and separated unity. In conclusion, then, the writings of Polkinghorne strongly suggest a commitment to scientific monism. The history and practice of science, like the history and practice of theology are seen to exhibit a rationality that strongly favours a metaphysical choice in favour of scientific monism. The trinitarian principle of united separation and separated unity permits even the framing of diversity that persists in terms of such a metaphysics. What remains unclear is whether the theological enhancement that I have argued scientific monism to experience in the work of Polkinghorne sits well with the “bottom-​up” approach he favoured for the investigation of the relationship between science and theology. 3

Toys of Thought

In the previous section I offered an interpretation of Polkinghorne’s theology of science with respect to the monism-​pluralism divide that we had explored in the previous chapter. Polkinghorne’s emphasis on experience makes it certainly not self-​evident that there should be room for consideration of thought experiments in his theology of science unless we assumed him to opt for the “argument view.” I will show in this section that he does not. He neither sides with the “argument-​view” nor with Brownian Platonism. And yet, according to Polkinghorne, thought experiments do matter in science and theology alike. They are a noteworthy element of the universal rationality that, Polkinghorne (2007a) argues, guides science and theology toward the one trinitarian account of the world. According to Polkinghorne (2005, 95), the “bottom-​up approach” requires scientists and theologians to follow only the “unrelenting pressure of actual experience.” Thought experiments, however, do not seem to provide us with new experiences. All the same, Polkinghorne knew that the consolidations in science and theology that he builds on were hard-​won achievements. So, while speculation is said to not sit well with a “bottom-​up” approach, speculation is just unavoidable at times to make progress in this regard. Hence, we find thought experiments among the methods that Polkinghorne (2007a) considers an essential part of his “bottom-​up approach.” Clearly, in this respect Polkinghorne (2007a) was in full alignment with the pluralist turn that we explored in Chapter 2 insofar as that turn led to a full recognition of actual scientific practice in the analysis of science. Looking at how science is practiced,

116 

Chapter 3

one cannot but come to an appreciation of the important role that thought experiments play in science (and beyond). This was firmly established in the first chapter. It is a different matter, of course, how to make sense of that fact. Interesting are the expressions that Polkinghorne used in his admission of thought experiments into the canon of acceptable methods. Polkinghorne (2007a, 93) refers to them as useful “toys of thought.” As a “speculative exercise,” Polkinghorne (2005, 169) specifies, a thought experiment is said to go “beyond the point of firmly based knowledge” to entertain “rational possibilities.” They can help to establish, according to Polkinghorne (2007a, 93), a “useful clarification” of significant consequences of some firmly established knowledge, and allow us, thereby, Polkinghorne (2005, 169) insists, to gain crucial “insight.” This sounds all very harmless from the perspective of a “bottom-​up” approach. Things are way more complicated than that, however, and in this section I will show how that is. Sometimes, Polkinghorne (2005, 169–​178; 2007a, 93–​94) reasons, in science and theology alike we have no other method available but thought experiments in order to make progress. This is especially true in areas that are far removed from the experiential realm and which therefore face puzzles whose possible solutions carry scientists and theologians considerably beyond the boundaries of well-​established knowledge. Examples from the history of physics and Christian theology prove this point. We looked at one of the examples to which Polkinghorne (2007a, 93) refers, namely the clock-​in-​the-​box scenario entertained in an exchange between Einstein and Bohr (see 1.1). There is another example of scientific thought experimentation that we can find discussed in Polkinghorne (2007a). It concerns the “mechanical models of” the “luminiferous æther” of James Clerk Maxwell and William Thomson’s (Lord Kelvin) (we touched on the notion of an “luminiferous æther” in 1.1). These models are said to display a combination of properties that, at the time, the “luminiferous æther” was assumed to exhibit, namely, subtlety (as material bodies appeared to move freely through that æther) and stiffness (as it was supposed to be the material substrate that serves as the medium for carrying light defined as electromagnetic waves). The “baroque constructions of wheels within wheels,” Polkinghorne (2007a, 57) comments, “were surely not intended to be realistic, but they were thought experiments.” They were used, Polkinghorne (2007a, 57) specifies, to “test the credibility of the assumptions being made” concerning the properties in question (i.e., subtlety and stiffness). Polkinghorne (2007a) finds thought experiments indispensable in physics insofar as they facilitate the process of “realistic interpretation” that is deemed essential to science as it moves closer to the one truth.

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

117

Maxwell and Thomson’s models were crucial, argues Polkinghorne (2007a, 57–​58), in moving physics away from “naïve objectivity” concerning the nature of light as electromagnetic waves to a “much more subtle account.” Einstein’s special relativity retired the assumption of an æther, Polkinghorne (2007a, 57) claims. The “energy present in the electromagnetic fields themselves,” Polkinghorne (2007a, 57) explains, does the “waving.” Erwin Schrödinger and Max Born helped understand that the waves “are waves of probability,” Polkinghorne (2007a, 57) continues, and mathematical formalizations of their development describe the “potentialities present in the unpicturable quantum states associated with the electron.” This “realistic interpretation,” Polkinghorne (2007a, 56) concludes, is very much unlike the waves “people first thought about” when entertaining the notion of light as waves, namely, those which were directly perceptible, “such as the waves of the sea and sound waves induced by vibrating strings.” In the previous section, I introduced Polkinghorne’s idea that within a discipline and between disciplines, hermeneutic circles drive the progress towards deeper understanding. The topic of thought experiments allows us to have closer look at the inner life of those circles. The hermeneutic circle, Polkinghorne (1996, 38) explains, connects experiential realm (“bottom”) and knowledge (“top”) in his “bottom-​up” approach. At this point I would like to introduce another image to clarify the matter at hand. The “prison window” images (see Figures 4 and 5) has done its work. Now I want us to imagine the “bottom-​up” movement as a kind of spiral from interpreted “experience” to resulting verisimilitudinous “understanding,” and “back” towards resulting interpreted “experience” at a higher level. We can picture the situation like this (see Figure 6). Down at the bottom we can imagine the beginning of science—​be it modern science, or going even further back to pre-​Socratic natural philosophy. If we take the image to picture the hermeneutic circle in Christian theology, then maybe the bottom down there is the experience that formed the emergence of the Jewish people. In any case, there is a “move from motivating experience to attained understanding,” and “back,” Polkinghorne (2007b, xii) argues, arriving then at a higher level. This, we are told, is not only “natural for a scientist.” It is also the way that the “cousinly relationship” unfolds that Polkinghorne sees “existing between science and theology.” The “circular” movement upwards is such, Polkinghorne (2007a, 51) insists (against the “post-​modernist”), that progress is being made “linking start to finish and giving” that—​which I label here, for lack of a better word, the emerging spiral—​the character of an increasing profound grasp of truth.” If we combine this “spiral” image and the “prison-​window”

118 

Chapter 3

image, then the “inner life” of the two “iron bars” representing science and theology, begins to look like this placed side by side: Science has been “led time and again,” Polkinghorne (1996, 50) claims, “to an intellectually satisfying, and essentially unique, fundamental understanding.” The understanding in question manifests itself, Polkinghorne (1996, 36) specifies, as a feeling of “an intellectual contentment with the picture being entertained.” The history of science is said to “suggest most strongly” that science can “gain verisimilitudinous knowledge of physical reality” in exactly this way. Scientists, Polkinghorne (1996, 51) argues, while establishing intimate connections between science and theology, “experience the universe’s rational transparency to us, and this wonderful intelligibility is indeed made comprehensible by the insights” that Christian theology affords. Confidence in the operations of the mind is ultimately justified by theological belief in the divine origins of both mind and world, Polkinghorne (2005, 58) explains, as well as the “unifying will of the Creator.” The link between mind and world is clearly not seen as being directly of a Darwinian kind, like in Mach (1897, 1905) or Sorensen (1992), but could be seen as being maybe indirectly of such a nature, insofar as the truth of theistic Darwinism may be assumed here (God created humanity by means of evolution by natural selection). So, the situation with respect to the relationship between science and theology is less like “spider webs in between iron bars” (see Figures 4 and 5), but more like “two spirals placed side by side and beginning to interlock at their top parts” as science and theology each grow in knowledge and understanding. Obviously, then, there is no reason to expect that Polkinghorne’s theology of science should reject the practice of thought experiments as cognitively efficacious, despite the primacy that it assigns to the experiential realm. Instructive in this respect is also that Polkinghorne (1996, 51) defends (against the “constructive-​empiricist” philosopher Bas van Fraassen) the principle of congruence between mind and world. Polkinghorne (1996, 32) believes that knowledge emerges from a “mutual conformity” between mind and world such that “how we know is controlled by the nature of the object,” while “the nature of the object is revealed through our knowledge of it.” Here we touch again on Polkinghorne’s principle of like knows like that I discussed already in the previous section. The emerging spiral never floats in a dream world. With those important clarifications in place, there are other complications to be addressed. One of them arises from Polkinghorne’s endorsement of mathematical Platonism. Polkinghorne (1996, 27) is a committed “Platonist about the world of mathematical truth.” But this didn’t make him a Brownian Platonist about scientific thought experiments, because, from the point of view of Polkinghorne’s theology of science, such a Platonism

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

119

­f igure 6 An illustration of Polkinghorne’s “hermeneutic spiral” towards greater unity in knowledge growing “bottom-​up”

conflates the two realms of mathematics and physics in a way similar to what Polkinghorne alleges “neo-​Darwinists” do in their disregard for “strong emergence” when aiming for a reductionist, comprehensive account of human nature. To put the problem once more in terms of the “prison-​window” images (Figures 4 and 5): Brown’s Platonism about scientific thought experiments fails to appreciate the distance between the “iron bars” of the “prison window” that would represent mathematics and physics. Like all the other disciplines, mathematics and physics are separated and arranged vertically, not horizontally. The move from experience to understanding is vertical (and a spiral at that, as the move follows the hermeneutic circle in the way just described). What Brown’s Platonism about thought experiments suggests, then, is a “top-​down” move from the mathematical to the physical realm, as we can think of them as being assumed by Brown (1986, 1991, 2011, 2013) to be in horizontal arrangement on top of one another. What is true, according to Polkinghorne, is that the “iron bars” that represent both realms are made up of the “same stuff,” and so are humans, whose general capacity to experience allows them to access all sorts of different aspects of the reality that is made up of that “stuff,” since Polkinghorne assumes, to say it again, a principle of like knows like. But—​and this is the main point—​sense perception is the mode of experience conducive to truth in science, while something like the Platonic intuition may be the way to think about the experience of mathematical states of affairs. So, from the perspective of Polkinghorne’s theology of science, the problem with Brownian Platonism about science is not the mathematical realism it implies. It is rather that the distance of the spirals of mathematics and physics and their constellation are misrepresented. Polkinghorne’s notion of experience is obviously broad enough to accommodate Brown’s Platonic intuition, but experience is “domain-​specific” in its different modes. Both Polkinghorne’s “experience” of the mathematical aspects of reality and Brown’s Platonic intuition bring us into contact with mathematical reality and facilitate genuine discoveries comparable to those facilitated by sense perception. Mathematical truth is, Polkinghorne (2007a, 91) insists, “forced upon us by experience and not just embraced in a fit of unrestrained

120 

Chapter 3

­f igure 7  Science and theology side by side spiraling “bottom-​ up” each and together

speculative exuberance.” That is not to say that we couldn’t fail in that endeavour. Fallibilism knows no limits! There is agreement here with Brown that corrections of mistakes ultimately result from the mathematical reality that is experienced, and not merely by means of logic or sense perception. In physics, on the other hand, there is no room for Platonic intuition. It is not the mode of experience in matters physical. There is another aspect of the Brownian Platonism that doesn’t agree with Polkinghorne’s philosophy of science. As we saw in the previous chapter (see 2.4), the Platonic intuition of Brown (1986, 1991, 2011, 2013) is “immediate,” while Polkinghorne’s “experience” is not. It is always embedded in a hermeneutic circle, as described. It is safe to say, then, that the framework of a Brownian Platonism is not suitable to capture Polkinghorne’s position on thought experiments. What about the “argument view” (as outlined in previous chapters)? Instructive in this respect is that Polkinghorne (2007b, 99) rejects a certain “school of thought in modern theology” that “seeks to contain its understanding withing the mental straitjacket of what is considered conceivable ‘in a scientific age.’” Polkinghorne (2007b, 99) objects that such an approach is actually “profoundly unscientific.” In the present context I am reading Polkinghorne’s objection here in two ways. Firstly, the “argument view” contradicts the actual way thought experiments are used in science. This coheres very well with the reading of the clock-​in-​the-​box scenario that I spelled out in the first chapter, and to which Polkinghorne (2007a, 93) refers us as a representative example of a scientific thought experiment. Thought experiments are not only arguments in disguise. Secondly, being “scientific” means allowing yourself to be surprised. Polkinghorne (2007b, 99) stresses that the “scientific view of the world is full of surprises.” Insisting on “reason” can amount to “paucity of imagination,” argues Polkinghorne (2007b, 99). Polkinghorne

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

121

(2005, 170) finds fault with the view “that the resources of imaginative thinking should be neglected altogether.” The question, of course, is to what extent they should be considered! Telling is Michael Faraday’s struggle with his “overactive imagination” (Cantor 1991, 196). On the one hand, we have the positivist-​sounding Faraday. The imagination doesn’t matter in science. What matters are observable facts and those facts alone. In 1853 he warns his audience: “Keep your imagination within bounds, taking heed lest it run away with your judgment,” as cited in Cantor (1991, 196). On the other hand, his actual work as a scientist attests to the great importance of the imagination. He was one of the “most brilliant speculators,” argues Cantor (1991, 208), and finds that “a strong case can be made for Faraday’s speculative writings having been more important to the history of science than his empirical discoveries.” Instructive in this respect is also Albert Einstein’s reliance on the imagination. Gimbel (2015, 12) finds that for “Einstein, thinking was never a linguistic endeavor. Language may be necessary for communication of our thoughts to others, but he thought it stood in the way of connecting ourselves to the world itself and to the world of our own mind.” Words and concepts can become a major obstacle for a scientist. Images can help to overcome the stumbling block that language can create in the discovery of the world. Accordingly, Gimbel (2015, 12) notes, “Einstein’s science would always have a very visual, pictorial sense to it –​full of thought experiments, models, and metaphors.” Of course, a complicating factor with respect to such an imagination-​ friendly characterization of Einstein’s theory of science, is the verificationist spin that Einstein’s philosophical reflections can take at times. Brown (2011a, 165) addresses the complication and explains that Einstein admits the “intuitively obvious” to verify a specific type of scientific theories, namely “principle” theories (in contrast to “constructive” theories). The special and the general theory of relativity are both “principle theories,” according to Brown’s reading of Einstein. That is, Brown (2011a, 162) specifies, they are “non-​speculative, non-​ hypothetical, non-​conjectural.” When Einstein advances the “identification of gravitational and inertial mass,” Brown (2011a, 165–​166) argues, he brings about a unification that “differs from what normally passes for unification: a theory which explains quite disparate phenomena is said to unify them. Such unification is also taken to be evidence that the unifying theory is true.” Brown (2011a, 166) stresses that such a notion of unification is applicable in cases of Einsteinian “constructive theories.” With respect to “principle theories,” the situation is, Brown (2011a, 166) explains, that “a perceived, not a derived, unification” is entertained: “so it has no evidential merits. But then this is no surprise, since on Einstein’s view, a principle theory doesn’t explain anything

122 

Chapter 3

anyway.” Brown (2011a) realizes that it must be irritating to be told that the special and general theory of relativity don’t explain anything. And so, Brown (2011a, 166) introduces the distinction between an intended explanatory power and explanations that happens to obtain with respect to a theory. This inserts some vagueness into the distinction between “constructive” (which are by definition intended as explanatory) and “principle” theories which can obtain explanatory power (unintended) because, Brown (2011, 166) argues, “every proposition has infinitely many consequences.” To sum up: what we find in the work of Polkinghorne is a view of thought experiments according to which they facilitate progress achieved by means of a hermeneutical circle that allows science and theology to spiral up from the experiential to the truth. Moreover, Polkinghorne’s position on thought experiments aligns with the majority view that thought experiments shouldn’t be seen as vehicles of a Platonic intuition in the sense of Brown (1986, 1991, 2011, 2013), nor of arguments in the sense of Norton (1991, 1996, 2004). Finally, the cognitive power of thought experiments is explained in terms of the imagination. What remains unclear is how to position the imagination in relation to the experiential “bottom” and the intellectual “top” of knowledge. Thought experiments and the imagination are somewhere “in between.” They are indispensable when experience cannot guide us, and the next level of the spiral towards the truth inaccessible is. 4

Sexed Bodies

In the previous section I discussed the position of thought experiments in relation to Polkinghorne’s theology of science. According to Polkinghorne (2007a), the use of thought experiments is an instantiation of the kind of rationality that we are to believe is manifest in both science and theology. I have expressed some skepticism about the theological monism that guides the discussion of Polkinghorne (2007a). We were also unable to achieve sufficient clarity as to the exact position of the cognitive power of thought experiments in relation to the dynamics of the hermeneutic circle that is claimed to spiral upward from experience to truth. In any case, Polkinghorne (2005, 170) urges us to take the resources of imaginative thinking more seriously. Two things are clear in this respect. Firstly, while it is said to be driven by experience, science must not rely on experience only. Secondly, while propositional reasoning gives meaning to experience, it must not prejudge the outcome of experience. Theological monism is forward-​ looking, or maybe—​ in Polkinghorne’s case—​ better: “up-​ ward”-​ looking. Probably for this reason, we find only

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

123

eschatological examples of thought experiments in Polkinghorne (see Fehige 2012a). But the theological laboratory of the mind is so much richer than that. What I am going to do in this section is to go back in the history of Christian theology. My intention is to showcase my favorite example of a theological thought experiment. It concerns Augustine’s poking around in the bedroom of Adam and Eve. He wanted to understand what was going on there before their expulsion from paradise. We are already familiar with thought experiments about Adam. In the first chapter, for example, we looked at thought experiments that focus on Adam’s navel (see 1.3). In Chapter 2 I referred to the role of imaginary investigations into the prelapsarian knowledge of Adam in laying the foundations of modern science (see 2.4). The wider context of the thought experiment that I am about to discuss were debates surrounding the theological qualities of the body in the fourth century c.e. For example, Manichaeism, to which Augustine subscribed before his conversion to Christianity, had a most negative view of the body. Manichees equated embodiment with the fallen nature that resulted from the transgression of Adam and Eve. Such a view is difficult to reconcile with the Biblical account of creation offered in the first three chapters of the book of Genesis, which was probably accepted as a true historical narrative by Augustine, while fully accessible to an allegorical reading. Augustine engaged with the Biblical narratives of Creation and Fall throughout his life on at least five occasions, and we are interested in one important type of revisions that he undertook in his views about possible sexual relations between Adam and Eve before the Fall. An important constant in his reflections on human sexuality is that the sin of Adam and Eve meant a drastic change in the ontology of human nature. Thought experiments served him (and others) in identifying the specific nature of that change. Augustine considered what we call thought experiments today as essential in the difficult task of ascertaining the consequences of the Fall for human nature. They are indispensable, argues Augustine, because “unbelief” arises quickly in this regard if one lets oneself be guided exclusively by the “facts of our experience,” according to civ. Dei 14. 24 (I am using the common abbreviations of Augustine’s work: civ. Dei =​ The City of God; cited here, unless stated otherwise, in the translation of Dyson 1998, here: 625). Augustine is explicit in how important it is that we allow the imagination to do its work (see, e.g., civ. Dei 14.26; Dyson 1998, 630) At times, it can be difficult to orient oneself in Augustine’s “laboratory of the mind,” because he is truly experimental in relating the numerous variables that present themselves to him in his contemplation of the changes in the nature of human sexuality as a result of original sin.

124 

Chapter 3

The thought experiment that I like to draw attention to, is central to Augustine’s theology of human sexuality and continues to be of great significance for Christian theology to this day, contrary to what is suggested by Schafer (2019). Augustine’s theology of sexuality was more liberal at the time than it may seem from today’s perspective. “It is common to blame the real demonization of lust” in Western culture on Augustine, observes Blackburn (2004, 49), but only to argue that things are a bit more complicated than that. The “association of lust with uncleanliness and disgust,” argues Blackburn (2004, 56), was firmly in place, as well as the association with “the wiles of the devil, darkness, the animal, the body, and eventually death, damnation, and hell.” Augustine found himself confronted with an existing theological depreciation of human sexuality. He submits that theology to some important revisions, despite the “monstrous” (Blackburn 2004, 50) notion of original sin that Augustine introduced—​Adam’s sin that is transmitted “down through the whole of humanity, all corrupted by the sinfulness of lust.” Still, it is difficult to deny that “in his overheated culture, Augustine was something of a moderate.” A theological thought experiment, I am going to show, played an important role in this moderation, as Augustine’s “rigorous philosophical mind zeroed in on the situation before the Fall. In Paradise, things were as God intended.” (Blackburn 2004, 57). Driven by a theological monism that thinks of progress exclusively in terms of an upward-​ spiraling-​ progressive accumulation of propositional truth, considerations of human nature in paradise no longer carry much theological significance for Polkinghorne. Polkinghorne (2005, 139) argues that “the advance of science has made untenable for us today” an anthropology that has humanity descend from Adam and Eve. “It is obvious,” declares Polkinghorne (2005, 139), “that our knowledge of the long history of life,” which we have gained in a Darwinian age, “does not permit us today to believe that the origin of physical death and destruction is linked directly to human disobedience to God.” Knowledge about human nature has progressed to a point that compels Christian theology to disregard the story of Adam and Eve as cognitively significant. Following Chang (2014, 87) we could think of the attitude that Polkinghorne (2005, 139) displays here as the result of a “closure obsession.” The “phlogiston theory” was never shown fully wrong and replaced by the “oxygen theory,” according to Chang (2014). Only historians and philosophers driven by scientific monism suffering from a “closure obsession” tend to think such replacements of theories occur. A theory is believed to have been proven wrong once and for all and thus has been replaced for good by a new, truer theory.

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

125

In sharp contrast, Feyerabend (2010 [1975], 14), as we have seen in the second chapter (see 2.3), finds that Darwinism actually needs the myth of Genesis to grow in content and explanatory power! Longino (1990, 230–​231) also accepts a theoretical pluralism in the sense of “a variety of theories on a given subject matter.” Such pluralism reflects both the complexity of a phenomenon and the nature of the relationship between evidence and theory. More specifically, Longino (1990, 219) explains, the “intellectual practices of observation and reason do not exist in a purified form. When purged of assumptions carrying social and cultural values, they are too impoverished to produce scientific theories of the beauty and power that characterize even the theories we do have.” There is a multiplex reinforcement process at play in theory building between those “contextual values” and the values which constitute a scientific field, such as truth, simplicity, coherence, empirical adequacy, etc., on the one hand, and between values and the complex nature of a phenomenon under investigation, such as human nature. Of course, I don’t mean to suggest with these comments that we go back to a pre-​Darwinian understanding of human nature. But the biblical account of Adam and Eve must surely be of continuing cognitive significance for Christians. After all, “Jesus Christ” is the “new Adam” (see Hebrews 2: 5–​9). An important premise of Augustine’s theology is that because Adam and Eve transgressed, the ontology of human nature has changed. Sexual desire is a central element in Augustine’s story of decline, because “it is ‘lust that arouses the impure parts of the body’ that is Augustine’s paradigm for all other lusts (civ. Dei 14.16),” according to Miles (2012, 83–​84) and lust is “‘decisive evidence of original sin.’” At around 388/​89 in his first exegetical treatment of paradise according to Genesis, Augustine addresses the question “in what sense we should understand the union of male and female before sin, as well as the blessing that said, ‘Increase and multiply, and generate and fill the earth.’” (Gn. adv. Man. 1.19.30; Gn. adv. Man. =​ Genesis Commentary Against the Manichees; cited here in the translation of Teske 1991, 77) Augustine’s answer is that we are permitted “to understand it spiritually and to believe that it was changed into carnal fecundity after sin” (Gn. adv. Man. 1.19.30; Teske 1991, 77). It is Augustine’s position here that Adam and Eve could not have had sexual relations before the Fall. Before the Fall, there was no sex as we know it. Sex is a consequence of the Fall. The relationship of Adam and Eve and that of spirit and body were analogous and such that the former ruled and the latter obeyed. What came of that “was the spiritual offspring of intelligible and immortal joys filling the earth, that is, giving life to the body and ruling it.” (Gn. adv. Man. 1.19.30; Teske 1991, 78) Augustine argues that “there were not yet children of this world before they

126 

Chapter 3

sinned. For the children of this world generate and are generated, as the Lord says, when he shows that we should contemn this carnal generation in comparison with the future life which is promised to us.” (Gn. adv. Man. 1. 19. 30; Teske 1991, 78) Augustine seems to follow here the principle that the eschatological situation mirrors to some degree the situation that we had in paradise. If we can expect no sexual relations for the sake of reproduction in heaven, Augustine reasons, then there is no reason to assume that there was sex in paradise. Another important premise of Augustine’s deliberations here is that sexual relations can have only one purpose, namely biological reproduction. In conclusion, then, Adam and Eve had no sexual relations before the Fall. They were best buddies and enjoyed themselves greatly for the benefit of their bodies that were kept under spiritual control. As I recalled before, in the first chapter we looked at a thought experiment that features Adam’s navel and the heuristic value that the 19th century British naturalist Gosse attributed to it (see 1.3). Gosse addressed, as we have seen, the theological complications that arose from fossil records suggesting a longer history of life than what seemed reconcilable with Biblical chronology. Like Adam’s navel, the fossil records were just illusory, Gosse proposed. Adam’s naval and the fossil records are divine fabrications, Gosse argued, with no reality in natural processes. This allowed him to reconcile science and Christianity at the time. A complication comparable to fossils and Adam’s navel arises for Augustine when his “mind’s eye” turned to the creation of Eve. The twenty-​third verse of the second chapter of the book of Genesis in the Septuagint text that Augustine followed tells us the following: a “γυνή” (gynē) was created in addition to the “ἀνδρὸς” (andrós). The text stresses a distinction between “γυνή” and “ἀνδρὸς” by highlighting that “γυνή” was formed from parts of that “ἀνδρὸς,” which is Adam. God had taken a “πλευρῶν” (pleurón) of Adam to form the “γυνή.” The “γυνή” was meant to be the “βοηθὸν” (boēthón) of the “ἄνθρωπον” (ánthrōpon). So, God forms first Adam (“ἀνδρὸς,” “ἄνθρωπον”) from the earth and then a helper (“βοηθὸν”) for him, and this by using parts from Adam’s side (“πλευρῶν”). The picture that suggests itself to Augustine in Gn. adv. Man. 2.11.15 is that the “γυνή” stands for women in the sense of a specific sex and the “ἀνήρ”/​ “ἄνθρωπος” for men in the sense of a specific sex, and that the Bible makes a statement here about the theological meaning of sexual dimorphism as it exists in the postlapsarian world. Augustine is confronted with the prelapsarian fact of sexual dimorphism. This raises the question of its meaning if there were no sexual relations in paradise. Augustine maintained his spiritual interpretation of the relations between Adam and Eve. The dimorphic embodiment of Adam and Eve has a symbolic meaning. Augustine explains “that by

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

127

spiritual union she might bring forth spiritual offspring, that is the good works of divine praise, while he rules and she obeys.” (Gn. adv. Man. 2.11.15; Teske 1991, 111) “Christ” as “wisdom,” argues Augustine, rules men; women in turn are ruled by men. It was not enough, Augustine reasons, that the hierarchical relationship between “Christ” and humanity is exemplified in sexually undifferentiated human beings. The hierarchical relationship between soul and body in each human alone did not do the trick to symbolize the relationship between “Christ” and humanity sufficiently clear. Reason is “virile,” Augustine argues, and must keep the animal parts of humans in check, “by the help of which it governs the body.” (Gn. adv. Man. 2.11.15; Teske 1991, 111) To symbolize the “virility” of reason, the “woman was made.” (Gn. adv. Man. 2.11.15; Teske 1991, 111) We are dealing with three pairs of subordination here: humanity to “Christ,” women to men, body to reason. The meaning of sexual dimorphism is that what we see in one human “we can see more clearly in two humans, that is, in the male and female.” (Gn. adv. Man. 2.11.15; Teske 1991, 111) Sexual differentiation has no other than a symbolic meaning; “so that the flesh does not lust against the spirit, but is subject to the spirit, that is, so that carnal desire is not opposed to reason, but rather ceases, by obeying, to be carnal.” (Gn. adv. Man. 2.12.16; Teske 1991, 113) In paradise, there is no sexual desire and reason rules by spiritual perfection. It is not only that there is no uncontrolled sexual desire. There is no sexual desire—​period. However, there is yet another complication that the text presented to Augustine. Gen 2.24 states that men leave their parents to become one flesh with their wives. Again, the physical nature of the bodies of Adam and Eve presents itself powerfully to Augustine’s mind. Gen 2.24 challenges a spiritual interpretation of embodiment. The verse clearly suggests that Adam and Eve are expected to create their own family, and that many families are to follow. At first, Augustine upholds his spiritual interpretation. He argues that Gen 2.24 is only a “prophecy” (Gn. adv. Man. 2.13.19; Teske 1991, 115). The verse anticipates what will happen after the Fall, namely, that “the children of this world generate and are generated” (Gn. adv. Man. 1.19.30; Teske 1991, 78). While we may reasonably assume Augustine aimed the thought experiment against the Manichees, their negative view of the body still held sway over Augustine, who, as was mentioned above, was one of them once. In consequence, we see here most vividly a clash of a body-​critical disposition on Augustine’s part and the strong suggestions of the Biblical text that even before the Fall sexual relations between Adam and Eve could have taken place. The text certainly permits the formation of a mental image that runs counter to what Augustine believed to be true.

128 

Chapter 3

The phenomenon that presents itself to Augustine’s mind is ambiguous enough to allow him to draw the desired conclusion, but only with the help of two ad hoc assumptions. The first is that sexual dimorphism is to be interpreted exclusively allegorically. The second is that Gen. 2.24 is meant as a prophecy and states what will happen after the Fall. God certainly knew that the Fall would happen, it is reasoned, and thus Gen 2.24 is argued to make a statement about the sexual unions after the Fall. Clearly, Augustine’s exertion of rhetoric reveals more than it conceals. The phenomenon presenting itself to Augustine’s mind simply resists the theory about human nature that Augustine seeks to derive from the biblical text. The fact of sexual dimorphism and the expressed expectation of men to live in union with a woman, were clearly a distraction for Augustine, who generally tended, Clark (2010, 171) rightly notes, to “focus on God and the soul, rather than on the environment of paradise.” In addition to these distractions, the derived postlapsarian nature of sexuality implied the postlapsarian nature of marriage. Marriage was assumed to render sexual relations licit! If there are no sexual relations before the Fall, then marriage must be postlapsarian. That was a problem for Augustine because he held marriage in high regard. It could not be just a consequence of the Fall. At this point, there is considerable tension in the belief system of Augustine. There is the tension between the image of prelapsarian human sexuality, on the one hand, and the belief that sexuality is a consequence of the Fall, on the other hand. And there is the tension between that belief and the conviction that marriage must be prelapsarian. Noteworthy is that Augustine uses a more “concrete, historical interpretation” of the creation account, Schafer (2019, 37) observes, when he writes against “the various fourth and fifth-​century critics of matrimony by defending the institution of” marriage. In the Christian world at the time, marriage competed much more than today with exclusive chastity in the minds of theologians. The return of “Christ” (“Parousia”) was believed to be sooner rather than later. What is the point of reproduction if the end of time is imminent? Many deemed marriage to be contrary to Christian fellowship, as a consequence. Augustine became more receptive to the suggestion of the Biblical text that sexual desire predates the Fall. Maybe the body was less passive after all before the Fall? Maybe the body did have a life of its own in paradise? Adam and Eve were given food, for example; they had to eat to sustain their bodies! In Gn. Adv. Man Augustine does not comment on the fact that Adam and Eve were given food to eat (Gen 1.29). And, of course, eating is the central theme of the story of the Fall! By the time Augustine penned his voluminous work civ. Dei, our desire to eat had assumed a more prominent place in Augustine’s mind

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

129

and work. “Food was present, lest he hunger; drink, lest he thirst; and the tree of life, lest age decay him,” notes Augustine. (civ. Dei 14. 26; Dyson 1998, 628) In civ. Dei 5.11, he reminds his reader that God gave Adam and Eve in addition to “memory, sensation and appetite […] mind, intelligence and will.” (Dyson 1998, 206) Consistent with that is his view that bodies “are no ornament, or employed as an external aid; rather they belong to the very nature of man.” (civ. Dei 1.13; Dyson 1998, 22) With the God given appetite for food, comes the food to satisfy it, as we can read in Gen. 2.9 and 2.16. Adam and Eve were “required to eat and drink in order to preserve and sustain” (Schafer 2019, 42) their bodies, Augustine increasingly appreciates. The prelapsarian bodies began to assert themselves more and more in Augustine’s mind as something very active in appetite for food and sexual desire. It is unnecessary to overstate things here. Credit for the development of Augustine’s thought does not go exclusively to the thought experiments he obviously entertained. But it would be totally remiss to ignore the role thought experiments obviously did play in that regard. “Could it be,” asks Augustine, that Adam and Eve “desired to reach out to the forbidden tree and eat of it, but were afraid to die? If so, those human beings were already troubled by both desire and fear, even in that place.” (civ. Dei 14.10; Dyson 1998, 603) Surely, any pious male Christian who has ever experienced an orgasm knows, according to Augustine, that there is something discomforting about it. They are said to “prefer to beget children without lust of this kind, if such a thing were possible” after the Fall, because “when he achieves his climax, the alertness and, so to speak, vigilance of a man’s mind is almost entirely overwhelmed.” (civ. Dei 14.16; Dyson 1998, 614) Augustine underwent a considerable period of confusion about the nature of the embodiment of Adam and Eve in the period after he had penned Gn. adv. Man. It is difficult to disagree with Miles (2012, 82) that Augustine actually continued to be “conflicted” in this respect throughout his theological career. In his discussion of rape, for instance, “some of the most body-​denying statements of Augustine’s entire corpus appear,” Miles (2012, 82) stresses. This is most disturbing, of course. Yet, one cannot but acknowledge that ultimately, he assumed a firm opposition to “body-​hatred” (Moncion 2016, 653) theologies of human sexuality. It is important indeed to avoid the “serious interpretative pitfalls” (Coakley 2012, 168) in this respect. Augustine does not offer us only an “‘anti-​body’ theology” (Coakley 2012, 271). His theology is skeptical of the body. There is no question about that. The embodiment of Adam and Eve in paradise was a challenge to him, and he addressed it by means of thought experiments. It “cannot be proved by experience” that Adam and Eve had sexed bodies, and yet he finds “no reason for us not to believe” (civ. Dei 14.26;

130 

Chapter 3

Dyson 1998, 629) what is presented to the mind in contemplating the Biblical creation accounts. Ultimately, in Gn. litt. ( = ​Literal Meaning of Genesis, used in the translation of Taylor 1982; see also civ. Dei 14 for what follows), Augustine offers us an alternative exegetical position on the “erotic impulse” (Moncion 2016, 654) that drives the body in eating and sexual intercourse before and after the Fall. Augustine proposes a noteworthy revision to his original thought experiment—​a counter thought experiment, as it were! The situation here resembles the exchange between Einstein and Bohr over the clock-​in-​the-​box scenario (see 1.1) and what is happening between Jackson (1982) and Dennett (2014) (see 1.2). Augustine now outright denies the impossibility that Adam and Eve came “together in sexual intercourse” in paradise (Gn. litt. 9.3.5; Taylor 1982, 73). Augustine can no longer “see what could have prohibited them from honorable nuptial union and the bed undefiled even in Paradise.” (Gn. litt. 9.3.6; Taylor 1982, 73) “God instituted marriage from the beginning,” he argues in civ. Dei 14.22, “before man’s sin, in creating male and female; for the difference in sex is quite evident in the flesh.” (Dyson 1998, 621) Augustine notes that one “can without incongruity” (civ Dei 14.22; Dyson 1998, 622) understand the relations between Adam and Eve spiritually, as we have seen he did earlier in his career. Yet now he declares the utter implausibility of such an interpretation, because the “fact that there are bodies of different sexes” (civ. Dei 14.22: Dyson, 621) resist a symbolic interpretation such that “‘male’ and ‘female’” would symbolize “something else in each individual man: for example, the distinction between the ruling element and the ruled.” (civ. Dei 14.22; Dyson 1998, 621) Obviously, Augustine introduces here an important distinction between a “congruent” reading of the text and what the mind’s eye is compelled to concede as it hooks onto the prelapsarian “fact” of sexual dimorphism. This fact makes it perfectly plausible that Adam and Eve could have had sex in paradise, argues Augustine now. The purpose of sex in paradise “would not be to have children succeeding parents who die.” (Gn. litt. 9.3.6; Taylor 1982, 74) Instead, Augustine argues, those “who would be born would develop to the same state” as their parents, namely a state of “physical strength,” which they can maintain as they eat “from the tree of life.” (Gn. litt. 9.3.6; Taylor 1982, 74) Eventually, “when the determined number would be complete” (Gn. litt. 9.3.6; Taylor 1982, 74), their bodies would transform into spiritual bodies and no more children would be “begotten.” (Gn. litt. 9.3.6; Taylor 1982, 74) We have no choice but to believe “that even if no one had sinned” (civ. Dei 14.23), procreation for a certain “number of righteous people instead of only two” (civ. Dei 14.23) would have happened. “The seed of offspring” (civ. Dei 14.24; Dyson 1998, 225), Augustine depicts “the happy state that

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

131

existed in Paradise” (civ. Dei 14. 21; Dyson 1998, 621), “would have been sown by the man and received by the woman at the time and in the quantity needed, their genital organs being moved by the will and not excited by lust.” (civ. Dei 14.24; Dyson 1998, 625–​626) While it had become imaginable now for Augustine that Adam and Eve could have had sex in paradise, he also advises that they didn’t have sex. There is a very simple reason that Augustine offers to convince the reader that this was the case. He explicates that “soon after the creation of the woman, before they had relations, they committed the sin because of which they were destined to die and because of which they went forth from the place of their blessedness.” (Gn. litt. 9.3.8; Taylor 1982, 74) Adam and Eve could have had sex for the sake of creating a specific number of descendants, but they didn’t have enough time to do so; “as, indeed, was the case; for it was only after Adam and Eve had been dismissed from Paradise that they came together to beget children, and did beget them.” (civ. Dei 14.21; Dyson 1998, 621) It seems difficult to deny that Augustine came to “counter” his original thought experiment insofar as he now denies the occurrence of the phenomenon entertained in Gn. adv. Man., namely exclusive spiritual intercourse of sexually differentiated bodies exemplifying the virility of reason. The theologically significant difference between the situations before and after the Fall is no longer the transition from spiritual intercourse to bodily sexual relations. Instead, what has changed, according to Augustine, is a change in the quality of the sexual relations that were part of God’s creation from the beginning. Sexual relations as such have become an integral part of the original created order. If time had permitted it, Adam and Eve probably would have had sex. “One might also say that the delay,” Augustine reasons, “was due to the fact that God had not yet ordered” Adam and Eve “to come together in nuptial union.” We can expect that such a union needed to be ordered, “since there was no drive of concupiscence coming from rebellious flesh.” Augustine explains that “God had not ordered such a union,” because God meant to provide simply what Adam and Eve needed for the time after the Fall. He provided “everything in the light of his foreknowledge, in which He undoubtedly foresaw their fall, as a result of which the human race was to be generated as a mortal race.” (Gn. litt. 9.3.8; Taylor 1982, 75) In summary, Adam and Eve could have had sex, but they didn’t —​before their expulsion from paradise, that is. Against those “who think this could not have been” that Adam and Eve could have had sex, Augustine underscores the importance of thought experiments in settling the matter. It is a poor theology that looks at “nothing but the ordinary course of nature as it is after man’s sin and the punishment he received. But we ought not to be in the number of those who accept only

132 

Chapter 3

what they have been accustomed to see.” (Gn. litt. 9.3.7; Taylor 1982, 74) “For their sin happened first, and so they were dismissed from Paradise,” Augustine elaborates in civ. Dei 14.26 (Dyson 1998, 630), “before they could come together in the task of propagation as a tranquil act of will.” He adds further in response to the sceptic: “When such things are now mentioned, then, how can anything occur to the human senses apart from the experience of turbulent lust, and not the placid will that I have imagined?” (civ. Dei 14.26; Dyson 1998, 630) Augustine admits here basically that his initial thought experiment in Gn. adv. Man. might have followed too much the situation after the Fall. This had led him to a problematic assessment of the theological significance of sexual dimorphism and embodiment. Now he sees “in what sense the woman was … a helper for the man,” namely “for the sake of bearing children.” (Gn. litt. 9.3.9; Taylor 1982, 75) The reason for such reproduction in paradise was not survival of humanity, since Adam and Eve were not mortal. Augustine argues that “if successors could have been sought by those destined to die, with greater reason companions could have been sought by those destined to remain living.” (Gn. litt. 9.9.14; Taylor 1982, 79) There was an earth to be populated “by two human beings,” and they could not have carried out that “obligation to society except by procreation.” (Gn. litt. 9.9.14; Taylor 1982, 79) The commandment to populate the earth in turn makes sense to Augustine because “the human race is a distinguished ornament for the earth.” (Gn. litt. 9.9.14; Taylor 1982, 79) Beauty is not the only reason why it can be expected that Adam and Eve would have had sexual intercourse if time had permitted. There was sexual desire present in Adam and Eve, according to Augustine. He insists their bodies were natural and not spiritual. As such, we must acknowledge that their bodies did have a life of their own in relation to the spirit, and something in that relationship changed “when they ate the fruit of the forbidden tree.” (Gn. litt. 9.10.16; Taylor 1982, 80) Like the desire to eat, sexual desire was a feature of the natural bodies of Adam and Eve before the Fall. What happened to the bodies after they sinned was not the emergence of sexual desire, but the loss of control of sexual desire by will. Augustine shies away from a proper phenomenology of that desire and instead ventures into a mechanistic description of that desire. We are told that “the first couple before they sinned could have given a command to their genital organs for the purpose of procreation.” (Gn. litt. 9.10.18; Taylor 1982, 81) If they had had sex, Adam and Eve would not have experienced pleasure, like the bees have been given “the power of reproducing their young just as they produce wax and honey.” (Gn. litt. 9.10.18; Taylor 1982, 81) Since the time of the Fall, however, the genitals have been “at war with the law of the mind.” (Gn. litt. 9.10.18; Taylor 1982, 82) The difference between the

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

133

prelapsarian and postlapsarian world, therefore, is not the absence or presence of human sexuality. It is the quality of sexuality that separates the two states of being human. Before the Fall sexual relations were well-​ordered and guided by beauty for the sake of populating the earth aiming for a specific number of righteous people (in reference to Luke 20: 34). After the Fall, as part of the divine punishment for the original sin, lust begins to rule, which Augustine defines as sexual desire uncontrolled by the will. The “disobedient nature of this lust,” Augustine teaches, reminds us of the “retribution” that has been “visited upon man for that first disobedience” of Adam and Eve (civ. Dei 14.20; Dyson 1998, 620). Therefore, we feel ashamed about sexual matters. But it was only “fitting,” Augustine explains, that “retribution should appear especially in that part of the body which brings about the generation of the very nature that was changed for the worse through that first and great sin.” (civ. Dei 14.20; Dyson 1998, 620) Augustine’s counter thought experiment about the sexual relations between Adam and Eve did also have significance for Augustine’s views about the fate of our natural bodies in the world to come. While sex “‘as we knew it,’ as well as reproduction, will no longer be needed in the resurrection,” Miles (2012, 87) explains, “Augustine disagreed strongly” with the view of “Greek patristic authors contemporary to” him that sexual dimorphism was exclusively the result of God’s foreknowledge that Adam and Eve would sin and thus reproduction would become essential for the survival of humanity. “Sexual differentiation was part of a fallen nature that would not continue into the eschatological existence,” Miles (2012, 87) explicates, according to those Christian theologians. In the world to come, all humanity will be male! In contradiction to that view, Augustine insisted that female bodies will be preserved in the world to come because of their beauty. God will take away bodily defects, Miles (2012, 87; citing civ. Dei 22.17) explains, but the “‘sex of a woman is not a defect, but nature.’” There will be no longer sex and childbearing, according to Miles (2012, 87; citing civ. Dei 22.17), “‘but the female parts will nonetheless remain in being, accommodated, not to the old uses, but to a new beauty (decori novo).’” Given such an entanglement of protology and eschatology in Augustine and the impact of his theology on Christian teachings in the centuries to come, it would seem greatly mistaken to argue from the knowledge that modern science has gained about hominization to an irrelevance of Augustine’s exercise in the imagination for Christian theology today. This is a highly implausible position, although it is undeniable that evolutionary biology does necessitate careful re-​examinations of traditional interpretations of the Biblical assertions about a paradise from which humanity was expelled (see, e.g., Austriaco 2018). Moreover, my classification of Augustine’s deliberations as being exemplary of

134 

Chapter 3

the nature of theological thought experiments relieves them to some degree of any constraint of factuality concerning any place and time of a paradise and any wrongdoing right there. Many thought experiments are counterfactual, although counterfactuality is not a defining characteristic of thought experiments, as I have demonstrated in the first chapter. Mailaender (2001) demonstrates the ongoing relevance of Augustine’s counter thought experiment. He uses it to derive an objection to Augustine’s theology of sexuality as it informs today’s teaching in the Roman Catholic Church, for instance. The objection of (Mailaender 2001, 3) relates to the comparability of the “desire for the pleasures of sex” and the “desire for the pleasures of eating.” In anticipation of my discussion of Mailaender (2001), I highlighted in my discussion of Augustine’s counter thought experiment how “appetite for food” and sexual desire can be positioned to one another such that a comparison of them seems instructive for the purposes of shedding light on the nature of the embodiment that Adam and Eve can be imagined having enjoyed, according to Augustine. Mailaender (2001) finds that Augustine’s analysis of eating (as outlined in conf. 10.30–​41; conf. =​Confessions) is incomplete and that this incompleteness should be considered instructive in correcting a comparable shortcoming in Augustine’s phenomenology of sexual desire. “The point of eating,” Mailaender (2001, 7) argues, is not only “gulping down food because we are hungry and must eat to live.” It also gives pleasure, and insofar as eating is a human activity, Mailaender (2001, 8) stresses, it “also realizes another more complicated good—​the human community that a shared meal can constitute.” Likewise, Mailaender (2001, 13) reasons, “sexual desire also embodies, nurtures, and enriches the good of carnal conversation and community—​the complete sharing of life—​between husband and wife.” So, it seems wrong, as Augustine is seen to suggest in civ. Dei 14.26 that pleasurable sexual unity was not a good in itself, but only procreation driven by a desire for beauty. It seems more appropriate, Mailaender (2001, 14) concludes, to think of sex as serving two goods, namely the “two goods of children and bodily communion.” We find basically two pairs of goods compared in Mailaender (2001). One pair, I suggest, we name as nourishment & community (through eating) and the other as reproduction & interpersonal unity (through sexual intercourse). One could assume that Adam and Eve had not sinned and that enough time had passed for them to fill the earth with beautiful human beings up to a certain number. Then they and all the other couples might have found a healthy mix of chastity and pleasurable sex in personal union (instead of seeing their bodies transform into spiritual entities, as Augustine suggested, once the predetermined number of earthlings was produced). One lesson a committed

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

135

Augustinian could take away from such an imagined scenario for today’s discussion, I understand Mailaender (2001, 14) to argue, is that the imaginary scenario might justify the position that to “express marital communion in the sexual act while using contraceptives is not unlike sharing in a festive meal when one is not hungry and eats a little.” I am myself not so sure that such a view can do full justice to the nature of the kind of sexual desire that leads to acts of bodily encounters not aimed at reproduction. It does not seem obvious to me that one can really assume such an expression of sexual desire to be comparable to eating in the absence of hunger for the sake of community and companionship. But what I like about the proposal of Mailaender (2001) is that Augustine’s counter thought experiment could be retooled such that it unfolds a subversive potential to counteract a mostly conservative appropriation of Augustine’s theology today. I conclude that Christian theology offers its own examples of thought experiments. Augustine’s investigations into the nature of human sexuality at the beginning of creation is a case in point. Moreover, as this example shows, thought experiments in Christian theology can be structurally similar enough to those in science that a comparison between the two fields of study is certainly meaningful in this respect. I have suggested that Augustine’s imaginative investigations of prelapsarian sexuality resemble the situation between Einstein and Bohr over the clock-​in-​the box thought experiment (see 1.1), to which Polkinghorne (2007a) refers us explicitly. While Polkinghorne (2007a) was surely right about all of this, the skepticism that I articulated in previous sections remains in effect concerning Polkinghorne’s commitment to a theologically enhanced scientific monism in his assessment of the cognitive power of thought experiments. 5

Sexuality in a Pluralist Perspective

In the previous section we looked at how Augustine grappled with the nature of prelapsarian sexuality. From an Augustinian point of view, the human nature that is normative for Christian theology is the one originally created by God, in contrast to the fallen human nature. Human sexuality is at the centre of numerous controversies which plague Christianity today. Cook (2016, 188) relates to that fact and he rightly notes that the central “question on which Christians are not agreed concerns the boundaries of what might be considered natural, or ‘ordered’, sexuality.” In this respect probably little has changed since the times of Augustine. What did change, however, is that science “has come to comprise our main way of understanding what is natural,” Cook (2016,

136 

Chapter 3

188) observes. This has led, Cook (2016, 88) notes, to a “reenvisioning of the Christian doctrine of creation in the light of Darwin’s theories.” In “order to read scripture well,” Cook (2016, 193) advises, theologians “need to read it alongside the book of nature. Each book helps us to interpret the other better.” In this sense Christian tradition and modern science can mutually enrich one another. This may be true. My concern is something else in this section. I would like to follow the hint at evolutionary theory but not to advance a theology of human sexuality. My point in what follows is something entirely different. I am going to present a case of explanatory pluralism in order to cast doubt upon the assumption that all diversity of significance in the scientific realm is transitory in nature. This is a central assumption in the theological monism that I have argued we can find promoted in the work of Polkinghorne. Among the thought experiments that I discussed in the first chapter was one we sourced from the work of Roughgarden (2009) (see 1.1). The exposition of that thought experiment presented us with the opportunity to touch on discussions about the origins of sexuality. Roughgarden (2004 and 2009) defends the view that her own theory of the origins of sexual reproduction is more accepting of sexual diversity than established alternatives. Indeed, discussions about the explanatory power of Darwinism with respect to the origins of sexual reproduction and concerns about biological frameworks that are affirmative of sexual diversity are intertwined. Dewar (2003, 225) explains that phenomena of sexual diversity, such as homosexuality, become “puzzling when viewed from the evolutionary perspective.” Darwinian evolutionary theory basically identifies two mechanisms of evolution. The first is natural selection and it is to account for traits that are directly conducive to survival (e.g., camouflage) or indirectly as by-​products of the evolution of other beneficial traits (e.g., phenotypic mimicry). The second mechanism is sexual selection, and, according to Tobias et al. (2012, 2274), it makes sense of those traits that “appear to impose costs without delivering any survival benefits.” An example of such a trait is the Peacock’s tail. Roughgarden (2004, 164) urges us to consider sexual selection theory as “biology’s first theory of gender.” The first of the three claims that this theory is seen to make is that there is a near universal binary of male and female in nature; males and females exhibit essential characteristics. The second claim is that the females select males based on specific criteria, such as beauty and physical strength. “Thus Darwin imagined that males come to be the way they universally are,” Roughgarden (2004, 165) explains, “because these males are what females universally want.” As a result, Roughgarden (2004, 165) continues, “the species is better off.” Darwin’s third claim concerns “social life,” as he contends,

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

137

according to Roughgarden (2004, 165), that “‘it is certain that amongst almost all animals there is a struggle between males for the possession of females.” Homosexuality would be a case for sexual selection theory to solve. Yet, Gobrogge et al. (2007, 718) argue that it “is difficult to extend” the theory, for example, to the homosexual male population, “since homosexual men usually do not have sex to procreate.” The list of explanatory hypotheses that were proposed to address the problem is quite long. In Poiani and Dixon (2010, 12–​25) we find a fairly comprehensive table that extends over thirteen pages! According to Roughgarden (2004 and 2009), this inflation of hypotheses is one of the indicators that sex selection theory is just wrong. It needs to be replaced by an alternative theory. The theory in its contemporary use “makes matters worse,” argues Roughgarden (2004, 167), “by adding new mistakes, morphing what Darwin actually wrote into a caricature of male hubris.” Male promiscuity, for example, is seen to be explained by alleged cheap sperm, while female choosiness is accounted for in terms of expensive eggs. It is not only non-​reproductive sexual behavior, such as homosexual intercourse, that is puzzling from the perspective of evolutionary theory. The evolution of sexual reproduction itself has been a problem. Meirmans and Strand (2010, S5) have argued quite extensively that the “Fisher–​Muller theory for sex was the widely accepted explanation for why sex is the dominant form of reproduction in nature.” That theory asserts “that sex is adaptive because it enhances the rate of evolution.” In the 1970s a discussion emerged among evolutionary theorists, as to the “selective forces” that “were responsible for the origin of the sexual process,” Maynard Smith (1971, 163) writes, and “by what selective process” it is “maintained.” These questions are “easier to ask,” Maynard Smith (1971, 163) observes, “than to answer them; the fact that we cannot answer them with confidence is a challenge to evolution theory.” In comparison to asexual reproduction, sexual reproduction appears just too costly for individuals to make sense of it from the perspective of evolutionary theory. “Having sex requires effort,” Ruse (2012, 186) clarifies; the “actual act may be all fun and games, but the work leading up to it is not trivial.” So much for the efforts that go into mating. There are also complications with respect to the raising of the offspring, “if and when the female has been impregnated.” The “male is conspicuous only by his absence,” Ruse (2012, 186) notes. “Why should she waste all of that effort if fifty percent of the genes being transmitted are not hers?” Consequently, it was argued, according to Meirmans and Strand (2010, S3), that “one would expect that an asexual lineage invading a population of conspecific sexuals should quickly drive the sexual population extinct.” But this is not what happens.

138 

Chapter 3

Soon after the issue was raised, the origins and maintenance of sexual reproduction was dubbed the “‘queen of problems in evolutionary biology’” (following the work of Bell 1982), according to Meirmans (2009, 21; see also Meirmans and Meirmans 2019). With that development, Meirmans and Strand (2010, S7) recount, “researchers from various fields in biology began to contribute to the quest for an explanation for sex.” The number of explanations grew, as the discussion quickly “expanded from the theoretical field of population genetics into the theoretical and empirical research fields of ecology, cell biology, paleontology, and molecular biology.” This has led to a significant enhancement of the diversity of explanations “already present in the research area.” There is “no consensus regarding the explanation as of today.” There are numerous aspects of sexual reproduction that a single unifying account needs to consider. At the center we find the question as to why sexual reproduction evolved in addition to asexual reproduction. That is the explanandum. The various aspects to be considered pull evolutionary biology into different directions in providing an explanation (see, e.g., Fehr 2001 and 2006). Among the available accounts is the “genetic-​portfolio balancing hypothesis” of Roughgarden (2009). We are familiar with that hypothesis. As mentioned previously in this section, in the first chapter we discussed the dandelion-​lawn thought experiment that Roughgarden (2009) offers in support of that hypothesis (see 1.1). The point of sexual reproduction, Roughgarden (2009) proposes, is to maintain genetic diversity in a population. That is her hypothesis. The sub-​disciplinary context of her work is population genetics, which is primarily concerned with variation in the expression of a trait in a population over generations. Roughgarden (2009) explicitly rejects two alternative accounts. There is the theory that sexual reproduction helps a species to evolve better than asexual reproduction permits it to, because it allows the combination of beneficial mutations that occurred independently at different genetic locations (such as heat tolerance and uv resilience). “This bringing together of mutations from different lineages is called between-​locus genetic recombination,” Roughgarden (2009, 74) explains. Among the problems that this account faces is a theoretical complication. The “genetic recombination in sex,” Roughgarden (2009, 75) argues, not only brings beneficial mutations together, “it also splits them apart.” Mathematical modelling can demonstrate that “the time to fix a double favorable mutant in a sexual population is only marginally better, if at all, than in an asexual population.” The same theoretical complication haunts another account, which claims that sexual reproduction prunes bad genes. A “progressive decline of asexual populations,” Roughgarden (2009, 77) explains, is projected by that account, as deleterious mutations accumulate in a species. In

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

139

addition to the theoretical double-​edged sword of recombination, the account is challenged, as claims lack empirical support that explain extinction in terms of an accumulation of deleterious mutations. So much for Roughgarden’s hypothesis and the two existing accounts she explicitly rejects. Other accounts of the evolution of sexual reproduction do not stem from population genetics. Among them is the dna-​repair hypothesis. Its sub-​ disciplinary context is molecular biology. “Since the 1953 identification of the structure of the dna molecule,” Longino (2013, 51) observes, “techniques enabling identification, isolation, and manipulation of genetic material have developed at an amazing pace.” The focus of the dna-​repair hypothesis is on the individual (not on the population) and the health of the gametes it produces (and not on the relation between genetic variation and trait expression in a population over time). Advocates of the dna-​repair hypothesis note that evolutionary biologists, according to Bernstein and Bernstein (2013, 60), “have often assumed that the potential benefit of producing genetically varied progeny is of substantially greater consequence than the advantage of dna repair.” This assumption is called into doubt. The production of genetically varied offspring is claimed to be “insufficient to explain the adaptive advantage of meiosis specifically, and the adaptive benefit of sex generally.” It is proposed that something like “between-​locus genetic recombination is rather seen as a byproduct of homologous recombinational repair during meiosis, and that any benefit of producing varied progeny is a long-​term population level effect that would supplement the advantage of dna repair.” The hypothesis is that sexual reproduction is an effect of meiosis understood here as a mechanism that repairs damaged dna and thereby leads to production of healthy gametes in individuals. Meiosis is the type of cell-​division that leads to the production of gametes. Unlike in the case of mitosis, the cells that are produced by means of meiosis (let us call them “successors”) are not genetically identical to the cells from which they are made (let us call them “ancestors”). The “successors” also have only half of the genetic information that is contained in the “ancestors,” because the “successors” are created to fuse with “successors” of individuals of the opposite sex. During meiosis “crossing-​over” occurs. Chromosomes of the same type exchange genetic information while they are paired. This introduces a source of genetic variety in a population. Unique combinations of genetic coding emerge on the same position of chromosomes of the same type (“allele”), as the paired chromosomes exchange fragments of their material. While paired, homologous chromosomes can function as templates to repair any damages that may exist.

140 

Chapter 3

The dna-​repair account of the evolution of sexual reproduction sources some of its empirical support from studies that are interpreted to demonstrate how “exposure of eukaryotes to a dna damaging agent causes increased meiotic recombination,” Bernstein and Bernstein (2013, 51) explain, “as measured by exchange of allelic markers.” For example, “X-​irradiation increases meiotic allelic recombination in Saccharomyces cerevisiae … and in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans.” X-​irradiation is among the causes of dna damage. At this point, we have looked at four accounts of the evolution of sexual reproduction. There are about twenty accounts that are available today, according to Fehr (2001, 147). This explanatory diversity itself has provoked intense discussions in the field, while, as mentioned before, not even one commands wide assent in the scientific community, Ruse (2012, 186) advises. As we saw in this chapter, Polkinghorne was fully aware of the “patchy” nature of much of science (see Section 2). The lack of consensus as such is not what I am after here. My point is rather than it seems implausible to assume that the explanatory diversity in question is transient. It seems to me that it rather favors a pluralist framing, and that is the point that I wish to make here. It seems that the evolution of sexual reproduction is one of those phenomena that resist the logic of scientific monism. Fehr (2001 and 2006) has made a case to that effect and it does align with the outcomes of other studies about explanatory practices in the sciences more generally. I cannot recount the argument of Fehr (2001 and 2006) in full here. Some of it should be introduced into the present discussion, however, to render my contention plausible that Polkinghorne’s theological monism glosses over important details of the “patchy” nature of science that he himself fully acknowledged. One possibility to overcome explanatory diversity about the evolution of sex is to employ the notion of a “mechanism.” The main idea is to argue that the various explanations highlight different aspects of one and the same mechanism. To keep the discussion manageable in the present context, let us consider only two of the four accounts that we have looked at so far, namely the genetic-​portfolio-​balancing hypothesis and the dna repair hypothesis: the idea would be to account for the evolution of sexual reproduction such that we think of sexual reproduction as a mechanism that maintains diversity in a population and ensures the production of healthy gametes. Population genetics and molecular biology go hand in hand here. And this signals already one of the problems that the proposed unification would encounter. It glosses over important details in how we are to bridge the considerable existing sub-​ disciplinary gap between population genetics and molecular biology. For instance, the genetic-​portfolio-​balancing hypothesis focuses on populations and looks at their development over many generations. The hypothesis also makes it

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

141

very hard not to look favourably at group selection, i.e., the idea that the mechanisms of evolution act also on groups as such, not only on individual members of those groups. In sharp contrast, the dna-​repair hypothesis is concerned with individuals and their gametes. It zooms in on molecular processes that happen in much shorter periods of time than the development of populations over the course of many generations. The dna-​repair hypothesis also appears to be in line with respect to the widespread skepticism among evolutionary biologists concerning group selection. In addition to those noteworthy divergences, unification of the two accounts in terms of a mechanistic framework is further complicated by the “context-​ dependency” of mechanistic explanations themselves. Part of that context, Fehr (2006, 106) explains, are “background conditions that allow researchers to recognize or discover a mechanism,” as well as “the features of the world idealized in a description of a mechanism,” and “the set-​up and termination conditions of the mechanism.” Moreover, contexts encompass ontological assumptions “that make the phenomenon being explained intelligible.” In other words, a mechanism is not simply an empty vessel that can sail between population genetics and molecular biology and accept any cargo. It is rather that mechanisms are more like vessels that will only be suitable for transportation of specific cargo, because the containers each port uses are different, as well as the cranes that move the cargo on and off the vessels, etc. These features of mechanistic explanations are very important, because any decontextualizing of “these mechanisms by uniting them under a single explanatory framework forces one to ignore,” according to Fehr (2006, 185), “the factors that made them satisfactory explanations in the first place.” In summary: the more one tries to unify, the greater the risk of loss in explanatory power! Alternatively, one could attempt unification by elimination of evolutionary accounts of sexual reproduction. But such an approach amounts to an engineering solution to a metaphysical problem. Many of the existing accounts seem indispensable, as they touch on highly relevant aspects which make sense of the evolution of sexual reproduction in its full reality. After all, Fehr (2001, 146) reminds us, sexual reproduction “is a complicated phenomenon.” Many aspects of sexual reproduction can be explained very well, and the respective accounts are strong. It is just that the full picture seems to elude the scope of one single account. To sum up the discussion up to this point: the evolution of sexual reproduction means a significant challenge to scientific monism insofar as it resists explanation in terms of a single unified account. In the history of the discussions about the phenomenon in question, we see an increase, not a decrease in the number of accounts. Moreover, from a systematic perspective it seems that the

142 

Chapter 3

more one manages to unify existing accounts, the lower the explanatory power is that one obtains. This very specific example of explanatory pluralism about the evolution of sexual reproduction can certainly lend some support to skepticism about Polkinghorne’s scientific monism. The pluralism that we are encountering here is no anomaly relative to scientific explanatory practice in general. We looked at the study of Fox Keller (2002) in Chapter 2 (see Section 3). Fox Keller (2002, 297) stresses that the “need for understanding, as for explanation, is a human need, and one that can be satisfied only within the constraints that human inquirers bring with them.” The “multiplicity of explanatory styles in scientific practice,” Fox Keller (2002, 300) argues, reflect “the manifest diversity of epistemological goals which researchers bring to their task.” Complex phenomena, such as the evolution of sexual reproduction and the development of an embryo, Fox Keller (2002, 300) reasons, “may in fact require such diversity.” Fox Keller (2002, 300) suggests that explanatory pluralism is not only “a reflection of differences in epistemological cultures but a positive virtue in itself, representing our best chance of coming to terms with the world around us.” The “essential diversity” of interests and values that drive “the scientific pursuit” encourages us to endorse a pluralist framing of some of the vexing diversity we find in science. The case that Fox Keller (2002) makes for scientific pluralism more generally is not metaphysical (in the sense of Cartwright 1999 and Dupré 1993, for instance). What this means is that no general ontological conclusions are reached from the explanatory pluralism that is claimed to exist with respect to specific phenomena, such as the evolution of sexual reproduction. Ruphy (2016, 53–​71) finds that general ontological conclusions wouldn’t sit well anyways with the principle of the double relativity of knowledge that we have considered already in this chapter (see Section 2). The case that Fox Keller (2002, 301) makes is “epistemological and methodological” insofar as it is, on the one hand, “grounded in the disunity of human interests and on the other hand in the limits of the computational and cognitive capacities of the human condition.” Any “desire to encompass the world in a unified theory” is frustrated by that disunity and limitation. But what about the evidential base that Polkinghorne saw as driving science? Longino (1990) has argued that interests and values always inform the background assumptions that render evidence intelligible in their support of a theory that relies on that evidence. “No set of data is evidence for a hypothesis,” Longino (1990, 162) contends, “independently of some background assumption(s) in light of which the data acquire evidential relevance.” The same evidence can support different, even incompatible theories. Background

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

143

assumptions relate evidence and theories such that the evidence becomes significant from the point of view of a theory. “States of affairs,” Longino (1990, 40) argues, “do not carry labels indicating that for which they are evidence or for which they can be taken as evidence. Any attempt,” Longino (1990, 40) continues, “to find some unique or direct relation between states of affairs and those hypotheses for which they are taken as evidence reveals that there is no such relation and that anything that is the case or is imagined to be the case can be taken to be evidence that something else is the case.” Theories are the product of scientific practices, and these practices are social in nature. The kind of reasoning involved in doing science is not merely that of inferring. It means to make judgments considering available evidence (and other considerations), and it is those judgments that result in acceptance of theories. The judgments (and not only the theories) can be made subject to public criticism, and thereby any relevant background beliefs. Thereby, related interests and values can be rendered objective and conducive to knowledge-​ acquisition. Longino (1990, 80) proposes that science is the more objective the more diverse a scientific community is. It is more likely that a scientific practice “will be objective, that is, that it will result in descriptions and explanations of natural processes that are more reliable in the sense of less characterized by idiosyncratic subjective preferences of community members that would otherwise be the case.” While the social nature of science undermines scientific monism, it does serve science as a cognitive enterprise, and does not undermine it. The more widely shared certain values and interests are, the greater the agreement can be. This could explain the outstanding moments of consolidation in the history of science. Unification in this sense is an accord of interests and values in a scientific community, and not necessarily a step closer to the one single truth. In any case, science and society are to some noteworthy degree entangled, and scientific aims, methods, and theories make no exemption in this respect. The kind of entanglement in question also becomes obvious when we look at how objects of scientific inquiry are formed. “Any science (or any methodological inquiry),” Longino (1990, 99) argues, “must characterize its subject matter at the outset in ways that make certain kinds of explanation appropriate,” such as mechanistic explanations. Other kinds of explanation are made “inappropriate,” such as teleological explanations. “This characterization occurs,” Longino (1990, 99) contends, “in the very framing of questions. A complete articulation of the goals of any scientific inquiry includes a description of the kind of explanation or understanding,” Longino (1990, 99) specifies, “that such inquiry aims to provide. This description, or preliminary characterization of the inquiry’s subject matter, can be called the

144 

Chapter 3

specification, or constitution, of the object of inquiry.” That object of inquiry gives orientation and stability to scientific inquiry. In other words, already in the formation of objects of inquiry social values once external to science become constitutive to science. Longino (2013, 16) explains that her “social epistemological stance supports a pluralist response to the existence of multiple scientific approaches to a given phenomenon or range of phenomena. A nonpluralist will see multiplicity as a sign that either critical evaluation or more empirical work is needed to winnow the options to a single correct approach.” Longino (2013) goes beyond explanatory pluralism about the evolution of sexual reproduction and defends a pluralist framing with respect to human sexuality more generally. All available approaches in this area, Longino (2013, 113) argues, ask “the same question: What causes/​explains human behavior? But this question is both too broad and too vague to admit a single answer.” The word “behavior” can mean various things (behavior as disposition, behavior as episode, behavior as dimension of variation in a population among populations, behavior as individual characteristic, species-​specific & species-​typical behavior vs variation in behavior within species and populations). And the “causal” questions that are raised can aim for different things (why does a population or species do this? [population level]; why does/​did an individual do this? [level of individual organism]; how did an individual come to be an organism that does this? [evolutionary level]; why do individuals or populations do that under certain conditions? [dispositional/​episodic]; how does an individual/​population do this? [mechanical]). Accordingly, Longino (2013,132–​133) ultimately contends that each approach brings with it a prior and distinctive representation of the domain of investigation. Each employs distinctive strategies to sort alternative models of hypotheses regarding etiology. The result is a partial rather than a complete specification of alternatives, each specification incorporating partially overlapping but differently measured sets of phenomena. The partiality is not a simple part-​whole relation, as the approaches can’t simply be integrated into a single picture. Since the methodologies developed within the different approaches are designed to differentiate between causal influences in a particular space of possibilities […], and since the spaces utilized, as well as their contents, differ from approach to approach, one approach does not have the capacity to discriminate among the causes proper to the other approaches.

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

145

The upshot of Longino (2013) is that some of the existing explanatory diversity in science with respect to human sexuality is most likely here to stay. We should not deem it transient. A final note: pluralism about science does not require existing diversity. Polkinghorne, as we have seen (see Section 2), was very concerned about a “neo-​Darwinism” that produces “half-​truths” about human nature. In such accounts, “gene-​centrism” reigns supreme. Humans are slaves to their genes. Waters (2006) has proposed a pluralist framing of genetics in the canon of the biological sciences. Waters (2006, 200) argues that such a framing relieves us from drawing implausible conclusions from the huge success of genetics “about the causal primacy of genes (or dna).” These are among the claims that Polkinghorne (2005, 51) dismisses as the “half-​truths” of the “neo-​Darwinists.” One can put the vague point that Polkinghorne makes here as follows: “The staying power of gene-​centrism stems not from the alleged power to explain all processes of interest directly in terms of genes and gene regulation,” according to Waters (2006, 209), “but in its incredible utility for investigating biological processes.” What is truly exciting about Waters’ (2006) approach is that he employs a science, namely, genetics, to make a case for explanatory pluralism in science, although explanatory diversity is not a feature of genetics. I summarize in conclusion of this section. The work of Polkinghorne exhibits a strong commitment to scientific monism (as defined for present purposes). Insofar as scientific monism is irreconcilable with explanatory pluralism, the phenomenon of sexual reproduction amounts to a case against scientific monism in the perspective of evolutionary theory. Explanatory pluralism about that phenomenon is not exceptional in science. There is empirical evidence then that scientific monism has considerable limits. Not all diversity in science seems transient, contrary to what Polkinghorne claims. 6

Jews and Christians

It is entirely possible that the interpretative theory of Polkinghorne’s theology of science that I have developed and been following in this chapter places too much emphasis on the ability of science to bring about unifications on the path to the one single truth. The “metaphysical choice” in favour of scientific monism, may after all be largely motivated by his theology. According to Polkinghorne (2007a, 110), “ultimately” the relationship between science and Christianity will find “their most profound understanding in terms of that true Theory of Everything which is trinitarian theology.” It may be true that science will remain patchy for the reasons that I have offered up to this point. But

146 

Chapter 3

Christian theology could give us sufficient reason to uphold scientific monism. I myself cannot see how such an interpretation of Polkinghorne’s theological monism is reconcilable with the clearly articulated commitment to a “bottom-​ up” approach to science and theology. In this section I will nevertheless assume, for the sake of argument, that it is Christian theology’s march to ever greater unification that carries Polkinghorne’s theological monism. My argument will be that we still have excellent reasons to be very skeptical. In Chapter 2 we learned about episodes in the history of science that look more like a step backward than forward (see Section 3). Such episodes are seen to be in violation of the logic of a cumulative-​linear model of scientific progress. The revival of ancient heliocentrism during the Copernican revolution one finds cited very often in that respect. This is one important challenge to scientific monism that is relevant now. In the following, I shall refer to it as the challenge of nonlinearity. The other challenge relevant now is the one that I developed in the previous section, namely that there are phenomena that resist the logic of scientific monism (see Section 5). Going forward, I will refer to it as the challenge of permanency. What I will do now is present an argument that seeks to position the relationship between Jews and Christians in analogy to the challenge of nonlinearity and the challenge of permanency. As for the challenge of nonlinearity, Christian theology certainly took a “U-​turn” with respect to its views about Rabbinic Judaism. After hundreds of years of very tragic interactions between Christianity and Judaism, traditional Christian teachings on Rabbinic Judaism were revised at a breathtaking pace in the second half of the 20th century. As for the challenge of permanency, the theological insights that accompanied that remarkable “U-​turn” give us reason to think that the relationship between Judaism and Christianity is among the theological phenomena that resist the logic of theological monism. Elsewhere I have recounted the developments in question and spelled out the accompanying significant theological insights (see, e.g., Fehige 2010, 2012c, 2014, 2016, 2017). Thus, I can be relatively brief in this section. Of the many claims Polkinghorne made in support of his theological monism, two are relevant in this section. The first concerns the development of Church teachings. The genealogy of Christian doctrines is described as a steady and yet slow climb up on the “spiral” that represents theology’s pursuit of the one single truth (see Figure 6 and 7). The Nicene Creed is the result of such a development. With that Creed, the theological diversity that had reigned before its formulation found consolidation eventually. What seemed at the beginning of Christianity to be an insurmountable theological diversity, proved transient ultimately. The development was driven by the experiences that the

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

147

Apostles had in their encounter with Jesus of Nazareth. The Christological divine/​human paradox that resulted from that is seen as proof of its truth by Polkinghorne, and not at all as a piece of counterevidence. Reality often surprises us, as Polkinghorne has insisted. As in the case of the wave/​particle dualism, the divine-​human nature of “Jesus Christ” transcended established logic and conceptual spaces. It takes time for reality to prevail. The Nicene Creed is “bottom-​up” metaphysics at its best, according to Polkinghorne (1996). The second claim of Polkinghorne that is of interest in this section is that religious diversity can be accounted for in terms of what I labelled previously as pneumatological inclusivism (see Section 2). Christianity is only one among many religious traditions, globally speaking. But, as we saw, Polkinghorne reasoned that even the intricate reality of religious diversity can be understood as transient from the Christian point of view. The Holy Spirit is assumed to be present in each religious tradition. The Holy Spirit guides all religions eventually to that one salvation that God promised to humanity in “Jesus Christ.” It seems then: wherever we turn, there is the promise of unity in matters theological. What a contrast to the situation in science, one might be inclined to think in light of the considerations that are seen to favor scientific pluralism. I see things very differently, however. As for the first claim, 20th century Christianity came to realize that its teachings about Rabbinic Judaism were theologically self-​defeating to a degree. Traditional teaching was just not the right response to the lively presence of Rabbinic Judaism after the coming of “Jesus Christ.” The notion that Christianity followed Judaism in the history of the same covenant between God and humanity, is deeply problematic. If it is to mean only the chronological fact that Judaism came first and Christianity after, then it is as acceptable as trivial. That chronology can mean many things theologically. If it is cited, however, to support the view that Christianity somehow replaced or surpassed or perfected Judaism, then the following complication arises: the longer Christianity awaits a fulfillment of the divine promise of “Christ” that he will come back to complete his work, the more that promise resembles the divine promise that sustains the Jewish hope for the coming of the Messiah (see Freyer 2000). We are looking here at a very serious problem indeed. God promised the Jewish people never to forsake them (‫םָ֑לֹוע תיִ֣רְבִלםָ֖תֹרֹדְל‬, Gen 17:7). That promise is part of the Christian Scripture. If it is really true that Christianity replaced or surpassed or perfected Judaism, then it seems that God’s promise to the Jewish people was not kept, and that they were forsaken. If that is true, then Christians need to wonder on what grounds they can believe that “Jesus Christ” will keep the promise he has given to his followers. A God who forsakes its people once, could certainly do it again. This is probably the most important

148 

Chapter 3

complication arising from the idea that Christianity replaced or surpassed or perfected Judaism in the history of the covenant between God and humanity. A totally implausible response to this problem is that Jews just wouldn’t be able to recognize when a promise made to them by God was fulfilled (namely in “Christ”!). I have never understood how anyone could find this assumption theologically plausible. It goes to the core of the intimate relationship between humanity and God. If such a grave misunderstanding of God’s actions in the world can actually be assumed to be theologically feasible in the case of the Jewish people, then it becomes very difficult to understand how Christianity can place any confidence in its own understanding of the life and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth. Christians need to accept, for their own sake, then, that Christianity and Judaism are to co-​exist, and that both need to recognize the possibility of salvation outside of either Tora or Gospel, if it makes sense at all to entertain the scenario of eschatological confirmation (see 1.3). In fact, several Christian communities have come to recognize that contemporary Judaism does in fact enjoy (what I call) a full revelatory status that is independent of Christianity (see Fehige 2010 and 2012). Christian theology has obviously revised its teaching on Judaism in this regard. With that it moved back hundreds of years and entered a theological conversation with contemporary Judaism, which in turn has responded favorably to that change of heart (see only Novak 1992 and Kogan 2008). This explains the important role that the eleventh chapter of Paul’s epistle of Romans has played in related discussions. And so, on Good Friday under the cross, for example, Roman Catholics no longer pray for the conversion of the “perfidious Jewish people” but, instead, ask that the Jewish people grow in love to God and the faithfulness to God’s covenant. In summary, theology knows “U-​turns.” So much for the challenge of nonlinearity. Is pneumatological inclusivism a good framework to position the relationship between Jews and Christians? I don’t think so, and this for two reasons at least. Firstly, it has a “tri-​theistic” spin. Polkinghorne realized that it is not conducive to inter-​faith dialogue to assume on the Christian side that in all world religions “Christ” is present, although its members just can’t see it. If scientific monism suffers from a “closure obsession” (Chang 2014, 87), then a Christo-​ centric theological monism suffers from monologue fatigue. Polkinghorne thus proposed to assume, instead, that the Holy Spirit is present everywhere. This way he hoped that Christianity can have it both ways, namely, to keep a commitment to theological monism and to engage in dialogue with other religions. The problem is that the Holy Spirit is in separated unity (although

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

149

in united separation) with the Father and the Son. There is no Spirit without Father and Son, and if the Spirit is present, “Christ” is present. Secondly, the pneumatological inclusivism of Polkinghorne underestimates the theological consequences which result from a recognition of the independent full revelatory status that Christianity has come to grant Judaism, as just outlined. I will elaborate on this now, and while doing so, it will become clear in what ways I see that the encounter between Christianity and Judaism strongly suggest a theological pluralism that goes even considerably beyond the theological confines of that encounter. I begin with some trivialities. The Christian Scripture exhibits a remarkable theological diversity that even the most superficial reader will note (see for an excellent exposition of that diversity: Biblical Pontifical Commission 1993). More important in the present context is that it is also divided into two “Testaments,” and a good part of one of them (the “Old Testament”) is shared with the Jewish Scripture (for an excellent exposition of this diversity, see the Biblical Pontifical Commission 2001). The original and continuing primary addressee of those parts that are shared with the Jewish Scripture, are the Jewish people. What I understand this to mean for present purposes is that the hermeneutic circle that Polkinghorne trusted to move theology up the spiral of understanding towards the one single truth, is actually permanently interrupted. This is true because of the independence of a Jewish reading of those texts relative to a Christian reading of those texts (see, e.g., Zenger 2004). This follows from the recognition of the full revelatory status of Judaism independently of Christianity. In other words, Polkinghorne’s “trinitarian” scientific monism runs into troubles with respect to its Biblical foundation. A trinitarian reading of the Christian Scripture competes constantly with a non-​trinitarian, i.e., Jewish reading. Advocates of a theological unity of the Christian Scripture pursue basically two strategies and I will address each in turn to see what resolution they could offer to salvage theological monism in light of the complications that I have just established. The first strategy is to develop a theology of revelation that centres on the claim that a true church has been given divine permission to find meanings in a Scriptural text that can even run counter to the theology it exhibits as reconstructed in a methodologically controlled historical-​critical perspective. This is the strategy that Polkinghorne (2005, 121–​122) seems to endorse, although he didn’t follow it through all the way to its apologetic, anti-​Judaistic end. We find a most comprehensive defense of that strategy in Swinburne (2007b). We are already familiar with important premises and claims of Swinburne’s theology. “If God chooses to reveal his message in human language,” Swinburne

150 

Chapter 3

(2007b, 102) argues, “he chooses a tool too feeble to convey an unequivocal message to all nations and generations unless backed up in some way.” The church that Jesus has established is that “backup”; it is “the interpreter of revelation,” according to Swinburne (2007b, 288). The theological heterogeneity of Scripture is only superficial—​transient! God is the true author of Scripture, Swinburne (2007b, 277) reminds us, “in the strong sense that not merely did he authorize its publication in his name but he ensured in advance that the message of each of its sentences was as it was while allowing to be expressed in the styles of its various human authors and compilers.” All that what the human authors wrote, Swinburne (2007b, 277) reasons, was ambiguous in the sense “that a fuller context could give it a different meaning from what it would have on its own.” Thus, “Jesus Christ” established a Church to ensure that we understand Scripture exactly as God intended it. With respect to contemporary Judaism, Swinburne (2007b) feels entitled to say that it cannot fully understand the divine revelation it has received. Its teachings fall short in significant ways, Swinburne (2007b, 240) contends, and this judgement can be reached by allegedly objective standards that he claims could be derived from the kind of revelation that he argues we can expect from God to receive, given the probable truth of classic theism, which Swinburne (2004) claims to have established. There is a “Jewish God,” Swinburne (2007b, 243) tells us, and there is the “God of the Christians”(Swinburne 2007b, 267). Judaism, Swinburne (2007b, 128 and 136) advises, was actually meant to be incorporated into Christianity. The “Old Testament,” Swinburne (2008, 280) speculates, is only a preparation for the final revelation in Jesus of Nazareth. Accordingly, only those theological statements of the Old Testament, Swinburne (2007b, 170) explains, that were confirmed by Jesus’s teaching are to be considered authentic divine revelation. The Christian Church has actually replaced “Old Israel,” a “New Israel” was established in its stead, Swinburne (2007b, 152) argues, and that Israel is the Church. This strategy raises huge theological concerns on my part. Firstly, it is rather difficult to see how it cannot harm the relationship between a historical-​ critical Biblical exegesis, on the one hand, and systematic theology (in the sense of a Church dogmatics), on the other hand—​and this probably to a point of irreparability at that (see, e.g., McLean 2013). Theology seems to happen only at the level of Church doctrine. Biblical exegesis is nothing but a historical-​ philological exercise. Biblical exegesis is no longer recognizable as theology proper. Related to that, secondly, it becomes utterly unclear in what sense Scripture could be said to exercise any normative function in the Church if its only purpose is to provide the Church with some important “data” for spiritual reflection and intellectual systematization, as Swinburne (2007b, 195

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

151

and 215) argues it to be the case. The tragic relationship between Jews and Christians provides, in fact, a proof in point for the need and actuality of a normative function of Scripture in Church teachings. For example, pioneering exegetical work on Romans 11—​among many other things—​led the Church to revisit its anti-​Judaistic teachings. Thirdly, the strategy as advocated by Swinburne is clearly “anti-​Judaistic” in its bizarre theological statements about the Jewish faith. I doubt Polkinghorne would have agreed with those antagonizing descriptions of the Jewish faith we just noted. And they are certainly not conducive to interfaith dialogue between Jews and Christians. Fourthly, the strategy is not even successful in establishing the kind of unity that features in Polkinghorne’s theological monism. One wonders which of the many Christian churches are to be considered part of the Church that God is claimed to have established in “Jesus Christ” in order to issue those binding interpretations that unifies a theologically heterogeneous Scripture. The Christian community is factually in schism, and the ecclesiological diversity exhibited by that schism is probably not less significant than Scripture’s theological diversity. Swinburne (2007b, 182) is aware of this problem, and concedes that “the Church is divided and cannot function properly.” The total abandonment of a methodologically controlled, historical-​critical Biblical exegesis of normative importance in the religious life of the Christian community, is not only a price too high to pay for the sake of maintaining theological monism facing a theologically heterogenous Christian Scripture. It seems that the price is not even worth paying. Diversity stays and pluralism remains a very serious option. All that emphasis on that one overarching single truth that all religions are said to be after (see Swinburne 2005) begins to look problematic from a Christian point of view. The second strategy basically presents the canon (the final overall text of Scripture) as a subject that practices its own theology. This is the strategy of, for instance, Söding (2005). A historical-​critical Biblical exegesis that identifies the different stages in the history of that final “canonical” text is deemed methodologically secondary in the search for theological meaning. A text acquires its full theological meaning only in the context of the canon. That is the normative meaning; it is the one revealed truth. The canon frames all of its parts such that an overarching intention can come to the fore. A historical-​critical exegesis that works hard to ascertain that meaning is called Biblical theology. That theology is in constant conversation with systematic theology (in the sense of a Church dogmatics; the normative Christian doctrines/​teachings). There surely must be a theological unity behind all that theological diversity in Scripture, it is argued, because the Christian community that canonized Scripture must have thought of it as a theological unity. It is further argued that there is a theology of revelation that can be found in the Christian Scripture. That theology suggests

152 

Chapter 3

a theological unity—​the Christian Scripture suggests its own unity. Finally, we find in the Christian Scripture the phenomenon of “self-​referentiality” (“re-​ lecture,” “inter-​textuality”) and its logic can help to solidify in a methodological manner a theological unity behind all the theological diversity. The overarching theological meaning that is claimed to exist at the canonical level is not seen as an achievement by means of some kind of textual or editorial synthesis. Instead, the contention is that it is acquired as a result of the mere fact that texts were collected in a canon! The second strategy is also very problematic for numerous reasons. Firstly, the problem of Jewish vs Christian reading of the same texts is obviously not solved (see for a most nuanced and clear critique of the second strategy in this respect: Gross 2001, 135–​139). Jewish “Biblical theology” can challenge the Christian Biblical theological reading of a text that is part of both the Jewish and Christian canon. Secondly, a historical-​critical Biblical exegesis that identifies the different stages in the history of the canonical text is ultimately deemed irrelevant (not only methodologically secondary) in its theological significance. Only the canonical final text matters theologically. Thirdly, historical-​critical Biblical exegesis is methodologically controlled in its treatment of canonical texts in synchronic perspective only as long as it proceeds on grounds of textual evidence. But it is really implausible to claim the existence of such evidence for the canon as a whole. Individual texts express the intentions of one or more human authors, and then there are also those intentions that guided the many editorial interventions detectable in the canonical texts. Textual evidence can trigger investigations into auctorial and editorial aims in this respect, and this is often done with an eye on possible recipients (the communities who received the texts). The canon no doubt provides an external reference frame for all the texts it contains. That frame is just that, however: external. We cannot simply postulate that an overarching meaning has emerged at the level of the canon as a whole that would suspend the original intentions of the texts and editorial interventions the canon evinces in the final form of its text. In my view, this amounts to hermeneutical violence that is exercised in order to overcome the resistance those texts exert at times. We don’t know enough about the process of canonization to support the postulate of an overarching theological meaning independently of the nature of the canonical texts themselves. In any case, that process was probably more one of excluding texts, and less a production of a macro-​text with its own overarching theology. The first strategy postulates an overarching intention on God’s part that justifies the projection of meaning onto texts that are foreign to them in historical-​critical perspective. The second strategy postulates that the canon itself creates such an overarching meaning that imposes unity where theological diversity reigns.

Quantum Physics, Sexuality, and the Trinity

153

We are dealing with self-​serving postulates, it seems. Fourthly, insofar as we can find a theology of revelation in certain texts of the canon that suggest a framework as to how to establish theological unity, the second strategy sets one voice among many absolute. This is all the more problematic as the very idea of a canon could actually be to ensure that none of the theologies that the canon entails are set absolute, as, for example, Gross (2001, 134 and 140) suggests. To put the idea in the words of Feyerabend (2010 [1975], 14), the canon demarcates the limits of the “ocean of mutually incompatible alternatives, each single theory … each myth that is part of the collection forcing the others into greater articulation.” In conclusion, the relationship between Christianity and Rabbinical Judaism provides significant counterevidence to Polkinghorne’s theological monism in historical and systematic respects. 20th century Christian theology largely came to endorse that Rabbinic Judaism enjoys a full revelatory status independently of Christianity. From that position, a reading of those biblical texts constantly disturbs a unifying trinitarian interpretation of the Christian canon that are also part of the Jewish Scriptures. The challenges of nonlinearity and permanency stand. 7

Conclusion

In this chapter I have defended the thesis that Polkinghorne was right about the theological significance of thought experiments, but wrong in his related assessment of the cognitive power of diversity and the imagination. To that effect, I first contextualized Polkinghorne’s work in the field of science and religion, and then showed how something like a theologically enhanced scientific monism controls the appreciation of thought experiment that we find in that work. A very detailed presentation of Augustine’s thought experiment about prelapsarian human sexuality was meant to support Polkinghorne’s claim that Christian theology relies on thought experiments in similar ways as science does and that this fact is of significance for the assessment of the relationship between science and religion. At the same I have been very critical throughout this chapter of the theologically enhanced scientific monism that guides that assessment in the work of Polkinghorne. My critique reached a climax in the discussion of explanatory pluralism about sexual reproduction in biology and theological pluralism that I see emerge from the encounter between Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism. I think there are sufficient reasons in place now to justify a move away from the framework of theological monism in the assessment of thought experiments at the interface of science and theology.

154 

Chapter 3

In summary, these are the reasons: Firstly, it seems that theological monism (as defined) is difficult to reconcile with the desired “bottom-​up” metaphysics in certain respects. Secondly, a theological monism (as defined) tends to marginalize the cognitive power of the imagination. To put this in terms of the terminology introduced in Chapter 2: theological monism (as defined) valorizes the truth. Thirdly, there are scientific and theological phenomena which seem to defy theological monism (as defined). For these reasons, in the next chapter we shall undertake a pluralist framing of thought experiments.

Chapter 4

Beyond Plato’s Heaven I simply accept the claim that religious practitioners imaginatively produce concepts of God shaped by their desires. But I reject the claim that an imaginative origin for religious belief implies that ‘God is just a product of our consciousness’. tilley 2020, 353–​354

Theologies today are displaying a pluralism that cannot be now reduced to unity. rahner 1970, 239–​240

In the present chapter we shall assume that thought experiments have cognitive efficacy in the natural sciences and beyond, including the field of science and religion. Over the course of the previous chapters, I have offered many reasons which I believe lend strong support to that assumption. For example, the first chapter proved the prevalence of thought experiments. We looked at their use in the natural sciences, mathematics, history, philosophy, and the field of science and religion. I argued that thought experiments are certainly not a fringe phenomenon in cognitive matters in all these areas. Also, in Chapters 1 and 2 we looked at the debate over thought experiments in philosophy of science. While thought experiments certainly found their skeptics, it is largely accepted that thought experiments have a cognitive power that cannot easily be dismissed. In a way, their cognitive power is seen to be indispensable in the natural sciences (and beyond), although it continues to be a matter of debate how to make sense of their obvious importance in the cognitive realm. Some find arguments in disguise at work in thought experiments, while others use them to make a case against the kind of valorization of truth which, they argue, prevails in philosophical epistemology in a way that is contrary to what scientific practice suggests. The discussion of various theories about the cognitive efficacy of thought experiments allowed us to appreciate why it seems reasonable to think that an account has greatest promise that benefits from research into grounded cognition pertaining to the nature of intuition and mental modelling. Moreover, in Chapter 3 we came to appreciate that the late Polkinghorne concurred with the assessment that thought experiments are essential in science, and how he argued for Christian theology to be included

© Yiftach Fehige, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004685307_006

156 

Chapter 4

in the list of disciplines which rely on thought experiments. A critical appraisal of Polkinghorne’s monist framing of thought experiments led us to an appreciation of diversity of various kinds. In the present chapter we shall develop a pluralist framing of thought experiments in theological perspective. The main thesis this chapter seeks to defend is that a pluralist framing of the imagination has greater promise to account for thought experiments than it may seem from the perspective of religious traditions that tend to think of truth in the singular. Here is the roadmap for what follows: We ended Chapter 3 with a discussion of the relationship between Christianity and Judaism. I argued that both faith traditions continue to be intimately linked and that their relationship introduces significant pluralist elements at the core of the Christian faith. What I did not inquire about right there, was the Jewish perspective on pluralism. In Section 1 of this chapter, I will do exactly that. In Chapter 3 I argued that the co-​existence of the two faith-​traditions is, in a very qualified sense, comparable to the phenomenon of sexual reproduction (see 3.5 and 3.6). Both resist a framing that accords with the metaphysics exhibited by scientific monism (as defined previously). In a similarly synoptically proceeding analysis of diversity (having both science and religion in mind), the Jewish philosopher Menachem Fisch promotes what he refers to metaphorically as a “heavenly pluralism.” Thought experiments have an important role to play in that pluralism. Judaism is “required to engage in keen and perpetual thought experimentation,” argues Fisch (2019a, 14). In Chapter 3 we looked at the theological diversity that characterizes the Christian Scripture. We also looked at the two most prominent proposals as to how to overcome that diversity in accordance with the metaphysical principles exhibited by the view of scientific monism. In Section 2 of this chapter, we shall come back to this extremely important topic of Christian theology (2). I will aim to show that the theological diversity is actually an opportunity and not an obstacle. I will introduce the Book of Job as a biblical thought experiment and discuss two interpretations of this book. One is offered by McLeish (2014, 102–​148) and it will help us to locate in biblical perspective thought experiments as vehicles of the imagination at the interface of science and religion. The other interpretation is presented by Brown (2000, 177–​225) and it allows us to think of thought experiments as devices of an imagination that should be considered a means of divine revelation. The presence of thought experiments in the Bible (see also Gregersen 2014) is of significance for various reasons relative to the aim of this chapter. Firstly, as we saw in Chapter 1, Hick argues that the notion of eschatological confirmation has biblical roots and is thus not simply an ad hoc assumption in

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

157

confronting positivist philosophies of confirmation (see 1.3). In a similar vein, if one can demonstrate that the notion of thought experiments applies meaningfully to parts of the Bible, then it seems that thought experimentation is not a scientistic imposition on the Christian tradition. And the fact that the Book of Job is part of both the Christian and Jewish Scripture makes it an ideal example to support a pluralist positioning of the sources of religious authority (such as Scripture and Tradition) that I mean to argue for in this chapter. Secondly, the late Polkinghorne claimed that parts of the Book of Revelation offer us eschatological thought experiments (see Fehige 2012a). Of course, as I made clear in Chapter 2, the concept of a thought experiment is as recent as 1811 (see 2.1). And yet, what is meant to be captured by that technical term goes much further back. If one is entitled to find thought experiments in Plato and Aristotle, then one is certainly permitted to search for them in the Bible. I think the Book of Job is a better example than the Book of Revelation, because—​as Brown (1999, 283) rightly observes—​what we find in the Book of Revelation is a “riot of imagery” that makes it largely inaccessible today. Thirdly, since the Bible is a major source of religious authority in Christianity, the finding of Biblical thought experiments adds weight to the topic of thought experiments insofar as we seek to locate it at the interface of science and religion. Fourthly, the Book of Job allows us to entertain the claim that the Bible contains not one but actually many important “trajectories” (to borrow a notion from Brown 1999, 2000) for later developments in the understanding of God and the world. In Chapter 1 we realized that one of the characteristic features of thought experiments is their plasticity. Thought experiments can be “rethought” (see 1.1). We also saw that one runs into trouble if that plasticity is cast exclusively in propositional terms. We engaged with the clock-​in-​the-​box thought experiment to that effect (see 1.1). A reading of the Book of Job as a thought experiment can therefore boost claims that there are important “trajectories” originating in the Book of Job that launch the imagination in the development of divine revelation. Fifthly, in Chapter 3 I introduced the debate among Biblical scholars about whether a historical or a literary approach to the Bible should be prioritized in addressing the theological diversity that the Bible exhibits. Reading the Book of Job as a thought experiment opens up something of a middle path insofar as the historical approach tends to cement diversity and the literary approach leans towards establishing unity. Neither outcome is desirable. Sixthly, the canonical text of the Book of Job continues to irritate. God and “Satan” basically run a human experiment on poor Job. They want to see if there is a breaking point for Job in his tolerance of suffering at which he loses faith in God. In Chapter 1 we saw that scenarios like the trolley thought experiment are incredibly important tools to investigate the moral realm (see 1.2).

158 

Chapter 4

It seems really difficult to resist the temptation of reading the Book of Job as a thought experiment given how it bears resemblance to the trolley thought experiment. The last section of this chapter advances the claim that thought experiments are not vehicles of an imagination that would enable us to achieve unification (in the sense of theological monism) where divides would prevail otherwise. I will offer three arguments to that effect. Firstly, the imagination is not one but many. Secondly, the imagination as a means of divine revelation is diversity affirming. Thirdly, while I do not intend an affirmation of a full-​blown anarchy concerning the imagination, there is a considerable anarchic spin to thought experiments that deserves recognition. 1

Heaven and Pluralism

This section presents an appraisal of a most intriguing pluralist framing of thought experiments at the interface of science and Judaism. In Chapter 2 we looked in some detail at the history of philosophy of science. Our interest was to understand what triggered the explosion in the literature on thought experiments. We came to realize that the work of Kuhn (1996 [1962], 1977 [1964]) was pivotal in that respect (see 2.3). In this section I will assume familiarity with Kuhn’s theory of science. Laudan (1982, xiii) famously claimed that “Kuhn’s model of scientific change as developed” in Kuhn (1996 [1962]) “is deeply flawed” and that it is, therefore, time to leave Kuhn behind us: “It is time to say so publicly and openly.” Fisch (2013) doesn’t think so. Kuhn continues to be of great significance, according to Fisch (2013), because his work highlights a problem that tends to be overlooked. The problem in question concerns the possibility of submitting one’s own most fundamental norms and values to a critique by others. Fisch (2013, 320) urges us to pay more attention to the nature of agency with respect to its normative dimension, and, to that effect, he identifies three components of human agency: “endorsing reasons, applying them in action, and exposing them to the critical appraisal of others.” Going forward I will refer to the first component as human agency A, to the second component as human agency B, and to the third component as human agency C. Norms protect values, and so normativity enters the picture insofar as every action (including doing nothing) involves “a value judgment,” according to Fisch (2013, 321). Fisch (2013, 321) claims that this is true in two respects at least. Firstly, the present state of the world is either deemed satisfactory (thus the doing of nothing) or in need of change (thus the doing of something).

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

159

Secondly, an agent usually has choices as to what to do exactly in the latter case. A value judgment, Fisch (2013, 321) continues his analysis, “necessarily presupposes reference to an existing set of relevant values or criteria of propriety.” It is a central contention of Fisch (2013, 321) that “a normative framework must necessarily be in place” for human agency to work. Human agency A and B are unproblematic, argues Fisch (2013, 321), with respect to the dependency of practical rationality on norms and the possibility of a critique of those norms and related values. They are cases of “norm application.” Fisch (2013, 321) explains that conducting “oneself rationally” at the level of human agency A and B “is to hold oneself accountable to one’s existing standards of propriety.” Things get complicated, however, with respect to human agency C. Fisch (2013, 321) asks how we are to think it possible that an agent submits norms and values effectively to a rational appraisal, as those norms and values will inevitably guide that appraisal. As we saw in Chapter 2, this is exactly the problem that the work of Kuhn (1996 [1962]) raises for science (see 2.3). Fisch (2013, 325) rightly observes in reference to Friedman (2002) that “Kuhn’s famous work” has led to a fierce challenge of “‘the ultimate rationality of the scientific enterprise.’” This is believed to follow from the work of Kuhn (1996 [1962]), since scientific rationality is claimed to be dependent on a normative framework that defines what rational is in matters scientific. Moreover, there is no rationality above and beyond framework-​dependent scientific rationality that could guide the transition from one normative framework to another. Finally, normative frameworks do not come in hybrids and are incommensurable. This is the Kuhnian puzzle, and it is an instance of the larger problem concerning human agency C. The central question is, Fisch (2013, 323) argues, “how one can be motivated to” expose one’s own norms to the critical appraisal of others and thus submit “the set of values to which one is still committed” to a substantial critique. The prospect of such an explanation is dim, according to Fisch (2013, 323), because it just seems “humanly impossible” to make sense of a framework transition where “a constitutive framework be impeached by the very principles of rational reasoning and reckoning of which it is constitutive.” If that is true, then criticism by others must fall on deaf ears, because criticism “aims not only at being heard and understood but as being endorsed by its addressees as self-​ criticism.” Therefore, for it to be effective, such criticism, Fisch (2013, 323) continues, must be “levelled not from the critic’s but” from the agent’s perspective, “emulating, as best it can, their world view and values, mounting its case on premises that they hold true in ways they deem valid.” It is here where the key lies to a solution to the problem we are facing.

160 

Chapter 4

“Normative critics,” Fisch (2013, 323) observes, “normally frame their arguments to some extent untruthfully, arguing from a perspective very close to that of their addressee, yet sufficiently (and subtly) different from it to be able to at least mount a valid argument.” The argument “will inevitably be dismissed,” as it is “levelled at heartfelt norms. And yet,” Fisch (2013, 324) continues, “the picture of its addressee’s normative identity conveyed by the argument’s premises may linger on and register, uncoupled from the argument itself.” In other words, normative self-​criticism works because it penetrates the imagination. The propositional lines of reasoning, i.e., the arguments, which are articulated in the context of a fundamental critique of one’s most dear norms and values, may be blocked by the agent who is subjected to normative criticism. But the image of that agent that is being conveyed in the course of the exchange of arguments in the context of normative criticism—​that image can stick. It sticks especially when those who criticize are deemed “sincere” by the one who is criticized, according to Fisch (2013, 324). Then agents can awaken to the “realization that” they are seen differently from the way they see themselves. The cognitive power of normative criticism results from a clash of two images of the same self that are very close and yet in important respects different! The result can be that an ambivalence obtains in agents. The ambivalence concerns norms and values that are constitutive of the image that agents have of themselves. In effect, agents can be moved to loosen up their commitments to norms that are affected by the ambivalence that has obtained. Then the norms can be subjected to critical treatment by the agent. Going forward, I shall refer to the solution that Fisch (2013) offers to the problem concerning human agency C as the ambivalence solution. It is extremely important for present purposes to note that this solution affirms the significance of the imagination in cognitive matters. Self-​criticism would be impossible without the cognitive efficacy of the imagination. As noted previously, according to Fisch (2013), a significant instantiation of the problem concerning human agency C in the scientific realm, is the Kuhnian puzzle. Fisch (2013) is confident that his ambivalence solution will do to solve that puzzle. In the present context, it is unnecessary to challenge the confidence that is on display in Fisch (2013) in this regard. Fisch (2013, 325) describes the Kuhnian revolutions as “two-​stage processes, in which practitioners of voice and standing are first ‘ambivalated’ by critics.” The second stage is that those practitioners “later (inadvertently) promulgate their newfound indecision within their communities by means of a particular form of published work.” Fisch (2013, 325) claims that these two stages “represent irreducible moments of intense intra-​subjective deliberation that do not

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

161

admit easily to the collectivist modes of explanation that have come to dominate science studies since Kuhn.” Indeed, as we saw in Chapter 2, Kuhn shifted the focus in much of mainstream analysis of science to the level of the community. For instance, scientific progress is a community affair, according to Kuhn (1996 [1962], 170), since “the nature of such communities provides a virtual guarantee that both the list of problems solved by science and the precision of individual problem-​ solutions will grow and grow. At least,” Kuhn (1996 [1962], 170) continues, “the nature of the community provides such a guarantee if there is any way at all in which it can be provided. What better criterion than the decision of the scientific group could there be?” Fisch (2013) is seeking to strengthen the role of the individual in the analysis of science. He is not alone in that. Noteworthy here is the approach of Esfeld (2001a, 2001b, 69–​101) who seeks to reconcile realism and a social theory of linguistic meaning, while avoiding an objective idealism (as advanced by Robert Brandom). Realism means here the claim that science has epistemic access to a world that is causally and ontologically independent of the contents of what scientists think about the world. Epistemic access to the world is conceptually dependent, however. Esfeld (2001a) argues that the dependence on community-​relative concepts and related social practices of our epistemic access to the world, does not require us to give up realism. The key here is the nature of open-​ended “I-​thou” relations, according to Esfeld (2001a). In contrast to “I-​we” relations, the “purpose of I-​thou relations,” Esfeld (2001a, 117) explains, “is not to integrate individuals into a community by achieving communal agreement. These relations do not stop at any communal agreement. They are open-​ended. It is always possible,” Esfeld (2001a, 117) clarifies, “for a further person to join in and challenge received assessments.” The critical potential of the individual goes further, because over and above such challenging, “any person can come back to her former assessments and correct them from a new perspective.” The important point Esfeld (2001a, 117) makes in this respect is that “a person can criticize from her perspective not only thoughts of another person, but also thoughts that are shared by all the members of a community.” In the words of Esfeld (2001b, 132): “For any one claim that a whole community takes to be correct, it is possible that the process of determining meaning has to go on or has to be taken up again, because someone challenges that claim by giving a reason.” Fisch (2013) can be understood to add two important elements to Esfeld’s open-​ended I-​thou relations. Firstly, where Esfeld (2001) just assumes that self-​ criticism is possible, Fisch (2013) offers a theory to strengthen that assumption. Secondly, Esfeld (2001) claims that sense perception drives self-​criticism. Fisch

162 

Chapter 4

(2013), however, also assigns the imagination a pivotal role in self-​criticism. That is the point of the ambivalence solution. “Truly transformative normative self-​criticism is possible,” according to Fisch (2013, 325), and “it depends necessarily on an environment of potentially ‘ambivalating’ trusted criticism.” Fisch (2013, 325) uses Peter Galison’s notion of “the scientific trading zone” to locate the “ambivalating” at “the ‘locales’ of the professional engagement outside one’s home community, where one bids for financial support, ‘trades’ with neighbor disciplines for techniques or instruments, offers scientific opinion, engages students, the media, the public, or the historians, sociologists, and philosophers of one’s field.” It is here, Fisch (2013, 326) explains, where “practitioners are frequently required to articulate elements of their world view” to others such that “practitioners are liable to experience the destabilizing and ‘ambivalating’ force of external criticism.” In effect, a “framework transition” can be set “in motion.” Once in motion, the imagination continues to have its significance. It generates possibilities to change the existing framework. “When analyzed prospectively,” Fisch (2013, 326) explains, we find hybrids of established and innovative frameworks. Such “works can be seen to represent anxious, unstable yet highly creative departures from heartfelt commitments capable of motivating others to seek cleaner, more radical breaks with the old.” Among the examples that Fisch (2013, 326) lists are “Tycho Brahe’s part geocentric, part heliocentric planetary theory’ and Poincare’s Kantian yet non-​Kantian geometrical conventionalism.” A “religious trading zone” that Fisch (2013, 327) claims to be comparable to the “scientific trading zones” with respect to the dynamics of self-​criticism just described, is the encounter between Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity as discussed in Chapter 3 (see 3.6): “Jews and Christians read certain passages of the Old Testament’s halakic passages very differently.” I argued in Chapter 3 that this inserts pluralist elements into Christian theology. I will show now how my thesis finds support in the work of Fisch. The theological diversity that results from the encounter between Jewish and Christian interpretations of the same texts is always also a clash of “the very different interpretative standards that yield,” according to Fisch (2013, 327), the “different readings in the first place.” Every disagreement over the interpretation of the text always also goes beyond the particulars at the textual level, including differences in hermeneutical methods. It brings to light some of the significant divergences with respect to “the constitutive internalized set of religious norms and values that furnishes a person’s reasons to believe, understand, and act,” argues Fisch (2013, 327). The encounter between Jews and Christians can be seen to amount to an “exposure to the trusted, potentially

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

163

ambivalating critique of members of” the other faith community. As such it can enable Jews and Christians to deepen their “normative self-​questioning.” From the Jewish perspective of Fisch (2013), the horizontal axis of religious self-​criticism, as exemplified in the Jewish-​Christian encounter, corresponds to the vertical axis of religious self-​criticism. That is to say that the normative sources of Rabbinic Judaism compel us to reject a notion of divine revelation that presupposes that God is (morally) perfect. Fisch (2013, 328) turns to the “formative canon” of Judaism, “to use Moshe Halbertal’s term,” and intends to make a case against a perfectionist theology of divine revelation. A discussion of examples aims to show that “the rabbinic literature of late antiquity, that of the Talmudic period, is sorely divided on the very question of the moral perfection of, not only God, but of all of Judaism’s sources of religious authority,” according to Fisch (2013, 328). There is a voice in the Talmudic literature that “contests” “submissive religiosity”; “rigorously and systematically in all its forms and on all levels—​firmly, explicitly, and self-​consciously.” Religious authority is not the issue. Judaism has four “main sources of religious authority,” according to Fisch (2013, 328), namely: “Scripture, the halakic tradition, the halakic authorities, and the Almighty himself.” Let’s look at the examples that Fisch (2013) offers in support of his thesis that the Jewish tradition offers a critical perspective on a perfectionist theology of divine revelation. Fisch (2013, 329–​331) draws our attention to Talmudic discussions of Moses’ farewell speech in the Book of Deuteronomy. Moses recalls how he disobeyed God. He had been ordered to provoke a war with Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and to conquer his kingdom. But, instead, he sent messengers to Sihon the Amorite and offered to pass peacefully through the kingdom. The Talmud offers various explanations of Moses’ disobedience. According to one account, Moses disobeyed because in Deuteronomy 20: 10, the Torah commands that proclamation of peace to a city must always precede a military attack on it. That is to say that Moses experienced a moral conflict. One source of religious authority, namely God, commands a military attack without any proclamation of peace. Another source of religious authority, i.e., the Torah, commands a proclamation of peace before a military attack is launched. Moses is seen to have sided with the Torah. This is remarkable in and of itself. Yet, such an account of Moses’ disobedience still abides by the principles of what may be labelled a submissive theology, according to Fisch (2013, 329), because Moses questions neither of the two commands. A rather different approach is taken elsewhere in the Talmud, Fisch (2013, 329) explains. The Rabbis offer the explanation that Deuteronomy 20: 10 was decreed after Moses had taught God through his disobedience what is morally right. Moses had taught God a lesson in ethics and the result of that is

164 

Chapter 4

Deuteronomy 20:10. Fisch (2013, 330) finds that “Moses is here forcefully portrayed as challenging God’s decree by refusing to provoke war with the Amorites on moral grounds.” God does not demand blind obedience from Moses. Instead, in response to the disobedience of Moses, God “heeded the objection of Moses” and “introduced the required changes in the written Torah.” A blatant violation of constitutive principles of a submissive theology comes to the fore here. What we have before us is both a token and an endorsement of a confrontational theology. A similar genealogy of a law that is contained in the written Torah is presented in the Talmudic literature, Fisch (2013, 330) argues, with respect to Deuteronomy 24: 16. It introduces the principle of individual liability with respect to idiolatry. Fathers shall not be liable for the idolatrous actions of their children, and vice versa. The Talmud tells us that initially, according to Fisch (2013, 330), God intended punishment for idiolatry up to the fourth generation. This notion was abandoned, Fisch (2013, 330) stresses, as it was seen once more that God came to acknowledge and endorse “Moses’s superior moral judgment,” which led to a revision of the Torah (“indeed of the Ten Commandments themselves!”). The “explicit denial of God’s moral perfection” that we encounter here (and “consequently that of the Torah”), “is by no means regarded as an attack on or subversion of religion.” Fisch (2013, 330) contends that the Talmud offers us here the notion of God as “a covenanting God” in the sense that “the covenant his human partners are invited to enter, is not one of religious obedience and surrender, but one better described as a covenant of constructive confrontation.” The confrontation is not an end in and of itself, but it serves “the betterment of the world, the betterment of the Torah, and the betterment of the self.” Examples abound in the Talmudic literature, according to Fisch (2013), in support of the notion of a covenant of constructive confrontation. God is compared to an “imperfect potter,” Fisch (2013, 332) explains. There is an important theological voice in the Jewish tradition according to which God’s “handiwork is not” only “not always up to par.” It is also that “unlike the typical potter, God needs the flaws to be pointed out to him.” The imperfection extends to all sources of religious authority that we find endorsed in the Jewish tradition, namely the written Torah, God, and halacha, including both the halachic authorities and the laws with which they are concerned. For instance, one finds the halachic prohibition of petitionary prayer in anguish rejected on grounds that God does not always do the best, while it is affirmed that God could do better—​like an imperfect potter. To sum up our discussion up to this point: neither science nor religion would reach their target domain if it wasn’t for the norms that establish I-​We-​relations

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

165

and corresponding conceptual frameworks. Our epistemic access to God and the world is conceptually dependent in this sense. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that we are prisoners of our conceptual frameworks. Open-​ended I-​ thou relations have the power to escape the confines of established concepts and corresponding social practices, and thereby initiate corrections. In effect we do not necessarily end up believing things about God and the world that aren’t the case. Such corrections require the possibility of self-​criticism. The imagination lies at the heart of self-​criticism. The image of the self that is held by that self and the image of that self that is conveyed to that self by others, clash. The two images are not too different. Yet, in important respects they are different. The critic intends his image of the criticized self to be partially false for his criticism to be of any effect. The dissonance between the two images can create an ambivalence in the criticized self. The ambivalence in turn can lead to a transformative process. The imagination also plays an important role in that process towards a new normative framework. It requires a good deal of creativity to turn the ambivalence into an innovation. Divine revelation in the Jewish tradition is not above the reach of the imagination in both respects. On the contrary, according to Fisch (2013), there is an important theological voice in the Jewish tradition that deems the imagination to be integral to Rabbinic Judaism. Now I will show how Fisch (2017) goes even one step further in his analysis. The theology of Judaism, which claims Judaism to be a covenant of constructive confrontation, is not only one voice among others, argues Fisch (2017), but it dictates the deep grammar, as it were, of the Talmud. Fisch (2017, 104) states as his main thesis that the story of the Oven of Akhnai “holds the key to the Talmud’s unique religious experience.” To see why that is “requires attending first to another widely cited Talmudic legend.” The claim here is that the Oven of Akhnai builds on that other Talmudic legend, which according to Fisch (2017, 104), is the “well-​known account of the foundational dispute between the Houses of Hillel and Shammai, and their famously heavenly resolution.” In my terminology, the upshot of God’s intervention in the debate between the two “Houses” is, according to Fisch (2017), that the theological diversity sanctioned by a theology of Judaism, which claims Judaism to be a covenant of constructive confrontation, receives a general pluralist framing. Pluralism is not just one voice in the Jewish tradition. Rabbinic Judaism is defined by theological pluralism. Going forward, I shall refer to the story of the Oven of Akhnai as the oven story, and to the story of the heavenly resolution of the debate between the Houses of Hillel and Shammai as the resolution story. This should simplify things. Both stories are located, Fisch (2017, 105) explains, at a meta-​level in the sense that they represent “two rare yet extremely potent moments” in which

166 

Chapter 4

the Talmud “steps back, as it were, and reflects upon its own practice.” The resolution story addresses “the question of Halachic decision-​making.” The issue here is basically how to proceed when Jewish law in its existing commands and prohibitions face unprecedented concrete practical challenges. The “House of Shammai” and the “House of Hillel”—​the Shammaites and the Hillelites—​have very different views in this regard. They are committed to traditional teachings but disagree profoundly as to how to treat them. Each party claimed that their own way of reaching decisions in matters of Jewish law is the right one. As they couldn’t reach an agreement after a three-​year long dispute between the two camps, “‘a heavenly voice issued forth an announcement,’” Fisch (2017, 105) cites the Talmud. The announcement is very puzzling. Here it is in the translation of Fisch (2017, 105): “‘«…these and these are the words of the living God, yet Halacha is in accord with the House of Hillel».’” The point that God is making here, Fisch (2017, 106) argues, is not the truth of particular rulings in matters of Jewish law. “In other words,” Fisch (2017, 106) clarifies, “the heavenly voice should not be understood as ruling sweepingly in favour of the Hillelites’ specific Halachic rulings, but as ruling in favour of their approach to the procedures of Halachic decision-​making.” And yet, the rulings of the Shammaites are not dismissed because these (those of the Hillelites) and these (those of the Shammaites) are the words of the living God. This is what a complicated wording of a pluralist framing of theological diversity apparently looks like. Fisch (2017) argues that the pluralism we see established in the resolution story has four important elements. The first element is that the diversity that we find sanctioned by God must be the result of an existential and not merely an intellectual commitment. It is possible to list all sorts of pros and cons and thereby to reach a variety of decisions in halachic matters. But that is not what God is seen to endorse here. Instead, the pluralism that Fisch (2017, 106) sees to receive divine approval in the resolution story requires “real debate.” God’s intention was not the establishment of a “debating club” where the debating parties only hold their views for the sake of the debate. The establishment of a debating club wouldn’t be enough, Fisch (2017, 106) reasons, because “no one is better placed to defend and justify a position than someone committed to it, just as no one is better placed to criticize a position than one who ardently opposes it.” Let’s refer to this element of pluralism as the commitment element. The entertaining of intellectual possibilities is not the point of the “heavenly pluralism.” In anticipation of my discussion of the theology of revelation offered by Brown (1999, 2000) in the next two sections, I am noting at this point a full agreement between the analysis of Fisch (2017, 106) and Brown (2000,

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

167

322) with respect to the commitment element of theological pluralism. Brown (2000, 322) goes unusually far “in acknowledging a debt to heretics” concerning the evolution of Christian orthodoxy. Heresy is defined in that context as a legitimate interpretation of the open biblical text. It is legitimate because the interpretative space of the text permits it and requires it. In this respect, from the standpoint of orthodox Christianity one can admit that “heresy is usually sincere in its pursuit of the truth.” Yet, “what its projections commonly reveal,” Brown (2000, 323) explains, “is a one-​sidedness that needs correction if the overall balance of the Church’s existing understanding of revelation is not to be fundamentally distorted.” So much for the commitment element of theological pluralism from the perspective of Brown (2000, 322). The element that I will refer to as the openness element concerns the assessment that, unlike the Shammaites, the Hillelites realize and acknowledge “the real limitations of self-​criticism,” Fisch (2017, 107) explains—​“especially normative self-​criticism.” The Hillelites “recognize the need” of the committed critic in order “to avoid the blinkered, empty cycles of self-​affirmation.” They “allow their positions to prove their mettle in the face of real opposition.” The openness displayed by the Hillelites “is rewarded by a dynamic process of Halachic enrichment and reform.” This “stands in sharp contrast to the Shammaites’ zealous and stagnant traditionalism.” The third element that Fisch (2017) introduces into our discussion, I’d like to refer to as the maintenance element. It follows from God’s preferential treatment of the Hillelites approach to halacha on grounds that a “Hillelite school of thought devoid of opposition is incapable of functioning in proper Hillelite fashion.” What we have here, is basically a rendering by Fisch (2017) of the notion that there is some diversity that is to stay—​and not of a transitory kind. “The crucial point is,” Fisch (2007, 108) clarifies, “that in order to maintain a full-​blooded Hillelite approach,” it is just not enough to have “Halachic diversity in place.” The Shammaites “represent the ultimate rabbinic opposition imaginable. To endorse Hillelism is not to endorse pluralism in theory, but requires commitment to ensuring the presence of a real plurality of real dissenting voices in practice.” We are reaching a crucial point in our analysis of the heavenly pluralism under consideration here, because Fisch (2019a, 14) claims that the third element can also be satisfied by means of thought experiments. In cases where the opposition in practice is missing, “all God-​fearing Jews” must “constantly and prudently imagine” the ultimate rabbinic opposition. “In other words, at the highest rung of Judaism’s scale of normative self-​cleansing,” Fisch (2019a, 14) stresses emphatically, “one is required to engage in keen and perpetual thought experimentation.” This cannot be true, one is tempted to object. For

168 

Chapter 4

starters, aren’t thought experiments only opposition in theory, and not in practice? Moreover, how could it be that the conduct of thought experiments satisfies the commitment element? Aren’t thought experiments only about intellectual possibilities and thus amount to nothing but the production of artificial diversity? Is it possible that they have an existential dimension to them? I think an objection along these lines is only valid if it is assumed that the imagination cannot be a principal way in which God speaks to humanity. While Fisch doesn’t say explicitly (though he surely implies) that the imagination is a means of divine revelation, it is the position of Brown (1999, 2000) (and will be discussed in the next two sections). In any case, I see Fisch (2013, 2017, 2019a) committed to a rejection of a binary of the real and the imagined in the following sense: the commitment element, the openness element, and the maintenance element do not carry the weight they do in virtue of their realization in the physical world. If anything, then, the “heavenly pluralism” of Fisch (2013, 2017, 2019a) strengthens the cognitive power of thought experiments insofar as they are devices of the imagination. In the words of Brown (2000, 330), “revelation [also] advances through the imagination.” Like the work of Fisch (2013), so does that of Fisch (2017) show a concern for both the horizontal and the vertical axis of divine revelation. The resolution story, Fisch (2017, 112) explicates, “vividly exemplifies the two axes of Talmudic engagement, but more importantly, like no other text I know, it explains their intimate connection.” The endorsement of Hillelites by God in the resolution story, Fisch (2017, 110) argues, has also consequences for the theological characterization of the halachic tradition as divine revelation. Hillelite changes to that tradition are not merely corrections of previous understanding of that tradition. They are genuine revisions of the tradition. We are returning here to the notion that we have found advanced by Fisch (2013), namely, that divine revelation is not perfect in the sense that religious teachings at one point in time were irreversible. Fisch (2017, 110) sees in the resolution story a divine recognition of divine imperfection, because the endorsement of the Hillelite way of treating halachic tradition amounts to an “open-​ended vision of constant Halachic rethinking and enriching, that while commencing from well-​defined, heartfelt points of departure, lacks authoritative fixed points or boundaries.” This is the fourth element of the “heavenly pluralism” that Fisch (2017) promotes. I am labelling it the imperfection element. To sum up, theological pluralism is not just one voice in the Jewish tradition. It is the fabric of Rabbinic Judaism. There are four elements that characterize the pluralism that Fisch (2017) claims we find established by God from the Talmud’s perspective: commitment element, openness element, maintenance

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

169

element, and imperfection element. The imagination is essential to this pluralism with respect to all four elements. Judaism’s inward pluralism has consequences for its outward relationships, according to Fisch (2013, 2017). For instance, Judaism must actively turn outward and seek criticism of itself, and not live a sectarian existence. The engagement with Christians is not an exception but the norm for Jewish existence. Judaism is not about blind submission to God and God’s teaching. It is about challenging its tradition in acceptance of the authority of God, the written Torah, and halacha. Judaism accepts that there can be genuinely new divine revelation. Revelation is ongoing. It is not a matter of the past. God and her teachings are not above history. The eternal covenant between God and God’s people is a genuine partnership of mutual benefit. This partnership opens Judaism up to other religions and beyond, including science. The burden that rests on a Judaism of such a pluralist kind is brought out well in the oven story, to which Fisch (2017,113–​123) draws attention next. The story features the walls of a study house that is said to be collapsing in honor of the Shammaites and to be resuming an upright position in honor of the Hillelites. The walls are neither upright nor collapsed. Using the image of a study hall that is home to both Shammaites and Hillelites, Fisch (2017, 116) puts the position of the resolution story as follows: It “envisages a study hall capable of accommodating both Houses and more in a happy plurality of radically diverse and disputing approaches, enjoying or resisting the enriching mutual challenge each poses to the other, while granting each other the space and liberty to live and to flourish as each sees fit.” In other words, the “heavenly pluralism” will work out just fine. In contrast, the oven story introduces the symbolism “of the ambivalated and confused walls frozen for all time halfway between collapsing,” Fisch (2017, 116) clarifies, “and straightening back up.” The oven story “offers a striking and sobering image of the gradually emerging realization of the sheer incoherence involved in undertaking to accommodate a full-​blooded and authentic Shammaite presence, not merely in proximity of, but under the rule of an equally full-​blooded and authentic Hillelite governing body,” as the resolution story is understood to establish. The heavenly voice of the resolution story makes a re-​appearance in the oven story, but this time announcing that the Shammaites (not the Hillelites!) are always right. Fisch (2017, 117) argues that this is still a continuation of the resolution story, and not a Shammaite rewrite of that story in their own favour. “What lends the story remarkable depth and profundity,” Fisch (2017, 117) argues, “is its tragic description of how all three involved parties,” namely, the Hillelites, the Shammaites, and the Almighty, “slowly realize what they had

170 

Chapter 4

got themselves into.” The heavenly pluralism doesn’t work out just fine. But the oven story has also a positive message, Fisch (2017) insists. Fisch (2017, 118) is concerned with the role of the “heavenly voice” that we find featured in the oven story and resolution story. In what sense does the oven story state that the Shammaites are always right, Fisch (2018, 118) asks. His answer is that it confirms the truth of the Shammaite rulings at the very moment when the heavenly voice was heard. It is a validation of the status quo. The existing halachic teaching of the Shammaites is authentic and true. What God did not announce, Fisch (2018, 118) argues, is that their teaching will necessarily remain halacha forever on grounds that it is halacha at that point! Shammaites are recognized by God as “perfectly reliable carriers of Halachic tradition.” Interpreted this way, we can see that there is coherence in the announcements of the heavenly voice in both stories. The announcement in the resolution story says that these (those of the Hillelites) and these (those of the Shammaites) are the words of the living God. The announcement in the oven story does not suspend Hillelite ruling, but re-​affirms the full legitimacy of the Shammaites rulings as expressions of existing tradition. Halacha can change, however, and it is the Hillelite way of going about it when deliberating necessary changes that is sanctioned by God in both stories. The announcements of the heavenly voice in both stories are consistent. Consistency isn’t the problem, but the fact that the Hillelite understanding of halacha is unacceptable to the Shammaites. They lack, therefore, motivation to participate in deliberations premised under the Hillelite principle of a revisable halacha. Consequently, Fisch (2017, 123) reflects, “Hillelites and Shammaites, if they wish to remain true to themselves and relatively at peace with one another, are doomed to occupy separate communal spaces.” Hence the deeply tragic development in the oven story, and in the history of Rabbinic Judaism. Two separate communities have emerged—​not housed by one and the same study hall. According to Fisch (2017, 123), division does not have to have the last word here. The oven story suggests that Rabbinic Judaism could move beyond the division that has obtained between traditionalists and reformists as a matter of act. Fisch (2017, 123) discerns in the oven story a possibility to bridge the gap between the two camps. It has considerable “costs,” though. Fisch (2017, 119) stresses that the oven story features a Hillelite rejection of heavenly rulings. It is the figure of Rabbi Yehoshua, Fisch (2017, 119) tells us, who firmly dismisses “the heavens’ intervention” on behalf of the Shammaites in the oven story. Following this trajectory in the oven story, Fisch (2017, 123) considers the possibility that one accepts such a rejection, but not as it is meant in the oven story. Instead, we allow a suspension of the ruling in favor of the Hillelites in

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

171

the resolution story, while leaving intact the ruling in favor of the Shammaites in the oven story. In other words, the “costs” of bridging the gap between traditionalists and reformers are a highly selective reading of both stories. It is a move difficult to justify at the propositonal level. The situation is different if one accepts such “costs” in consideration of the ambivalence solution. After all, the divinely sanctioned pluralism seems to leave no other alternative. There is a second complication that needs to be addressed. It concerns the role of God in all this. Pluralism commits one to the view that God’s role is in principle diminished with respect to the adjudication of disagreements over matters of divine revelation. In a sense, God is not sovereign over his own revelation! This is a remarkable theological position. And yet, it may be justified in consideration of the written Torah, again following a “trajectory” we find in the oven story. The narrator in the oven story—​Fisch (2017, 119) cites the Talmud here—​, advises that since the written Torah was given at “‘Mount Sinai, we pay no heed to a heavenly voice for you have already written in the Torah at Mount Sinai: «to incline after a multitude».’” In other words, the written Torah justifies the move to suspend heavenly rulings in favor of theological pluralism—​ even if such suspension may seem arbitrary in other respects. After all, Fisch (2017, 120) explains, the “heavenly voice wanted more. It wanted” Hillelites and Shammaites “to share an all-​inclusive ruling body, to establish a joint study hall and assembly that would be charged with legislative authority.” Fisch (2017, 120) goes on to specify that this institution was meant to rule such that it “would proceed in Hillelite fashion, but in which the Shammaite approach would be both welcome and deemed to be an authentic expression of the word of God.” In other words, the relative arbitrary suspension of a heavenly ruling would happen in accordance with the divine intention of establishing a heavenly pluralism within the Jewish tradition. The problem here, of course, is that we are dealing with divine revelation after all, and not merely human theorizing and lawmaking. It is God’s revelation. And yet, limiting the reference to adjudication by divine intervention in discussions of controversial halachic matters, might seem only heretical from the perspective of a submissive theology. In short, Fisch (2017) suggests that Jews disregard some of God’s involvement for God’s own sake. Fisch (2017) has a strong tendency to minimize the challenges that his pluralist framing of Judaism faces. Some of the challenges I have just specified. Fisch (2017, 123) categorizes them as important facets—​not problems—​of the way the Talmudic literature conducts itself generally, namely, in “keenest self-​ critical reflection, by means of well-​crafted narratives rather than by abstract philosophical reasoning.” Of course, as I hope I was able to establish clearly, it is a philosophical theory of normative self-​criticism that guides the aim of

172 

Chapter 4

Fisch (2013, 2017, 2019a) in his reconstruction of a theological pluralism from the sources of religious authority in the Jewish tradition. It is not for us to decide here whether the undertaking of Fisch (2013, 2017, 2019a) is successful with respect to its interpretation of the Talmud. Our concern is rather the role of the imagination and whether there are theological reasons to think that a pluralist framing can do justice to the imagination in ways that a monist framing cannot. I think that Fisch (2013, 2017, 2019a) exceeds the expectations in this respect. Fisch (2017, 126) erects before us “an imaginary republic of letters” that accommodates diversity of all sorts and thus permits “study and debate in an imagined inter-​communal no-​man’s land, or even better trading zones,” a republic that “remains delightfully uncontrolled and ungoverned.” To wrap up this section, we can note that there is a Jewish perspective on pluralism that supplements in important respects the pluralist framing of Christian theology that I have sketched in Chapter 3 with respect to the encounter between Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity (see 3.6). My argument there centered on the challenges for a monist framing of the relationship between Christians and Jews that arise from the theological diversity exhibited by the Christian Scripture, especially insofar as some of its texts are also part of the Jewish Scripture. From the point of view of Fisch (2013, 2017, 2019a) a pluralist framing of that encounter is to be welcomed in Jewish perspective. Fisch (2013) also confirms the pluralist trajectory that we reconstructed in Chapter 2 in consideration of the history of philosophy of science. The Kuhnian puzzle is seen to exemplify the much larger issue of how to make sense of human agency C, i.e., normative self-​criticism. In a sense, Rabbinic Judaism solves it in even more radical pluralist terms, according to Fisch (2013). Proposed is an ambivalence solution to the Kuhnian puzzle, and that it be extended in scope to include the theological realm. Thereby, Fisch (2013) can be understood to complement the cognitive value that Esfeld (2001a and 2001b, 69–​101) assigns to open-​ended I-​thou relations. Important in the present context is that the “ambivalating” of Fisch (2013) relies on the imagination in essential ways. The ambivalence is an effect of the cognitive power of the imagination, and it is by means of the imagination that the ambivalence can morph into a transformative process for the sake of the betterment of self, world, and even God. The encounter between critic and criticized is comparable to trading zones. It is here where the “ambivalating” happens, within those who are criticized and by means of challenges that emerge from the exposure to the trusted and sincere critic. It is less the arguments that are exchanged in that context and more the images of the criticized that are conveyed during the exchange of arguments that do the “ambivalating.” God is not excluded from such challenging, and in effect Fisch (2013) establishes a confrontational theology, in contrast

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

173

to a submissive theology that presupposes divine perfection. According to one important voice in the Jewish tradition, Judaism is not submission to God but a covenant of constructive confrontation between God and the people of God. Fisch (2017) builds on the analysis of Fisch (2013) and finds that a confrontational theology is not only one voice among many in the Jewish tradition. It is the fabric of Rabbinic Judaism, and Fisch (2017) characterizes the theological pluralism that results from the constitution of Judaism by means of four essential elements: commitment element, openness element, maintenance element, and imperfection element. Fisch (2017) finds that, according to the resolution story, the establishment of a covenant of constructive confrontation under pluralist premises was God’s intention, according to Talmudic Rabbinic theology. The oven story does not contradict that message necessarily, although as the history of Judaism attests, it alerts us to the difficulties inherent in a pluralist Judaism. A “heavenly pluralism” that requires that traditionalists and reformists stay under one roof is extremely demanding. And yet, the “imaginary republic of letters” has enabled Judaism to do the humanly possible in working towards the ideal. Hence, according to Fisch (2019a), thought experiments are among the necessities of Jewish faith. So much for a summary of what we have accomplished in this section. We will turn now to the Book of Job, and it is surely noteworthy that Fisch (2013, 329) finds in the Biblical character of Job a proponent of the confrontational theology, which he argues to be a chief characteristic of a Rabbinic Judaism that endorses theological pluralism. “The fact that Job alone occupies the confrontational position, while the submissive position is occupied collectively by his friends is,” Fisch (2019b, 1) finds, “telling in itself.” The Book of Job amounts to a clash between submissive theology and confrontational theology. “Submissive religiosity requires one to justify divine action and to obediently conform to God’s will,” Fisch (2019b, 1) explains, “and to the demands of one’s religion—​which are usually taken to be one and the same—​regardless of individual circumstances and the assessment of one’s conduct. The dictates of submissive religiosity are absolute and timeless,” Fisch (2019b, 1) continues. They are “never a matter of specific happenings. The voice of religious submission is hence unconditional and collective. By contrast, confrontational religiosity is animated by human reason and judgment.” Hence, according to Fisch (2019b, 1), it is “by nature, forever perspectival, specific, and local. It is therefore no surprise that its biblical paradigm is presented in the form of a tortured, well-​meaning, and reflective individual pondering his personal plight and first-​ person certainty of being deeply wronged.” I am skeptical that this description is fully to the point of the story (although Fisch is not the first to present Job that way; see Brown 2000, 185). It is true that Job does challenge God. He

174 

Chapter 4

does not just accept the suffering he had to endure. He wants an answer from God as to why he must suffer. He thinks of himself as a good person undeserving of the tragedies that have befallen him. Yet, Job does submit eventually, although he never receives an explanation from God as to why he had to suffer, and God rewards Job for his submission. I do agree, however, that the Book of Job deserves careful consideration in the context of a pluralist framing of the “imaginary republic of letters.” This is the task set for the next section. 2

The Thought Experiment of the Book of Job

In this section I will treat the Book of Job as a thought experiment. In the tripartite Hebrew Bible, we find the book in the third part, namely the Ketuvim alongside the Psalms, Proverbs, the Megilot & the Book of Daniel, as well as the Minor Histories (see Hazony 2012, 35). In the Christian Bible, we find the Book of Job in the third of four sections, namely the “The Poetic Books,” of its first part, i.e., the Old Testament (see Strawn 2020, 8). The Book of Job tells us about a bet between God and an opponent of God (“Satan”). The opponent has visited earth and, while telling God about it, God expresses admiration for the faithfulness and righteousness of Job. Unlike God, the opponent believes that Job’s exemplary character is only due to the wealth, health, and privileged social standing that Job enjoys. As God disagrees with that judgment, God permits the opponent to submit Job to suffering. It is a test to ascertain who is right. Job is fully unaware of the experiment to which he has been submitted. As tragedies begin to befall him, he insists that God explain to him the deplorable situation in which he finds himself. Job is convinced of his innocence. Meanwhile everyone around him seeks to find faults in Job that could explain the unfortunate turn his life has taken (his three friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, and a critic named Elihu). Eventually, God does make an appearance. However, while engaging with Job (­chapters 38 to 41 of the book), God doesn’t disclose to Job that he was involuntarily subjected to an experiment. It is surely possible to read ­chapters 38 to 41 of the book as a lengthy put down of Job. Job submits: “Then Job answered the lord: See, I am of small account: what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth.” (In the translation of The New Oxford Bible, Fully Revised Fourth Edition, 2010, ed. by Michael C. Coogan, p. 768) But God continues and recounts his powers and deeds as Creator of the world. “Then Job answered the lord: I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted … I have uttered what

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

175

I did not understand … therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (same translation as before, p. 770). Obviously, the book’s concern is the problem of evil. It was argued by Stump (2010, 177–​226) that its literary character proves helpful to this day in theological treatments of that problem. There are problems too large, Stump (2009) stresses, to be dealt with exclusively by means of an analysis of arguments in the sense of logically organized propositions. Those problems necessitate the use of narratives, according to Stump (2009, 2010), because human cognition is not only a matter of propositional reasoning. The school of analytic philosophy especially has some catching up to do in this regard. “I am hardly the first philosopher,” Stump (2009, 254) advises, “to whom it has occurred that analytic philosophy would benefit by some attention to literature.” The use of narratives to such avail will lose its effectiveness, Stump (2009, 259) explains, “if we try to reduce a narrative to expository (that is non-​narrative prose).” Instead, Stump (2009, 259) contends, we must aim to retain the non-​propositional elements of the story. “A real story cannot be captured in a set of non-​narrative propositions designed to summarize” the story’s cognitive core, Stump (2009, 259) explains. As we saw in Chapter 1, it is a central claim of Brown (2011a) that thought experiments go beyond propositional reasoning in their cognitive efficacy. He offers a Platonic account of the non-​propositional elements to explain the cognitive power thought experiments can have (see 1.1). Equally important for present purposes is to recall the discussion in Chapter 1 of the non-​propositional features of religious rationality that some have stressed in response to positivist critiques of religion (see 1.3). Moreover, in Chapter 2 we looked at an account of thought experiments in terms of grounded cognition (see 2.4). There again we touched on the claim that there are non-​propositional elements that are pivotal to account for the cognitive power of thought experiments. Furthermore, a similarly important attempt at capturing cognitively significant moments of non-​propositionality in science and religion, is the emphasis that we saw the late Polkinghorne place upon the necessity of a “metaphysical choice” (see 3.2) in relating modern physics and Christian theology. Finally, in the first section of this chapter we discussed the ambivalence solution and its affirmation of the cognitive power of the non-​propositional realm. Of course, there are different notions of non-​propositionality at play here. Still, it seems there are very good reasons to take the claim seriously that human cognition has important non-​ propositional elements. Undeniably, there is an air of mysteriousness that surrounds the non-​ propositional realm. I want to make it unequivocally clear that this is not an effect of the theological orientation of my discussion here. For example, the

176 

Chapter 4

non-​propositional is that which gives content to statements that purport to report states of affairs and yet occupies no inferential role in virtue of doing that. That is to say that the purported content is not sufficiently explained by the logical-​deductive relations, nor the semantic relations in a broader sense, nor the evidential relations that exist among beliefs one holds. It is mysterious insofar as the content is not just given, although empiricists tend to see it that way. “There is an important demarcation between ‘passivist’ and ‘activist’ theories of knowledge,” Lakatos (1970, 20), explains. “’Passivists’ hold that true knowledge is Nature’s imprint on a perfectly inert mind: mental activity can only result in bias and distortion. The most influential passivist school is classical empiricism.’” According to Sellars (2000 [1956], 39), passivist theories of knowledge run into trouble insofar as “to say that a certain experience is a seeing that something is the case, is to do more than describe the experience. It is to characterize it as, so to speak, making an assertion or claim, and—​which is the point I wish to stress—​to endorse the claim.” In the first section of this chapter, we looked at the normative dimension of knowledge to which Sellars (2000 [1956]) draws attention. In the words of Sellars (2000 [1956], 76), the important point in this regard is “that in characterizing an episode or a state as that of knowing, we are not giving an empirical description of that episode or state; we are placing it in the logical space of reason, of justifying and being able to justify what one says.” The challenge is how to link the non-​propositional and propositional such that each retains its integrity. Obviously, then, the complications we encounter in shedding light on the cognitive power of thought experiments, insofar as their non-​propositional dimension are concerned, is certainly not a product of the theological orientation of our discussion. We shall accept for present purposes the premise that narratives have a cognitively significant dimension of non-​propositionality. This applies to the Book of Job. We shall further assume that the imagination is part of that non-​propositonal dimension. There is another complication that needs to be addressed. It concerns the debate as to whether lengthy pieces of literary fiction, such as the Book of Job, can be considered a thought experiment. Sorensen (1992, 222–​224) argues that we better not regard such artistic works as thought experiments because brevity ought to be a defining feature of thought experiments. On the other hand, there are pieces of literary fiction that identify as thought experiments, such as God’s Debris: A Thought Experiment by Scott Adams (2004) and The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas (2006). Moreover, it has been argued that the difference between novels, for example, and thought experiments, is only a matter of degree, not of kind. To that effect, Swirski (2007) defends the relevance of literary fiction for cognitive aims in terms of an evolutionary account of the

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

177

truth-​tracking function of stories. Literary fiction and thought experiments are both ways of storytelling which played an important role in the evolution of our species. The role of storytelling in our evolutionary history can in turn shed light on how it is possible that literary fiction and thought experiments can exercise significant epistemic power. What we are offered here is an account of thought experiments in terms of evolutionary epistemology. “Locating literature within the explicitly formulated body of extra-​literary knowledge,” Swirski (2007, 38) explains, “identifies fiction as an integral form of the empirical enterprise. Likewise, such locating provides a framework for evaluating literature in terms of truth content and even originality.” Furthermore, in Chapter 2 I discussed the work of Elgin (1993 [1991], 2004, 2007, 2014) (see 2.4), and there we had an opportunity to appreciate her reasons for considering pieces of literary fiction as thought experiments of cognitive efficacy within the larger context of a critique of “valorizing truth.” Finally, in the first chapter we looked at thought experiments like Foot’s tram-​and-​rioters’ scenarios (see 1.3). With an eye on the specific case of the Book of Job, the resemblance in character (while not in length) to those scenarios is just too strong to ignore. For the reasons just stated (and some others), I have argued elsewhere that the Book of Job can surely be regarded a thought experiment (see Fehige 2019). I do not intend to repeat here what I said there. Rather, in view of the aim of this chapter, I will exhibit two interpretations of the book, and thereby seek to re-​affirm the book’s thought experimental character, which in turn will lend considerable support for the thesis of this chapter. As a reminder, the thesis is that a pluralist framing of the imagination has greater promise for accounting for thought experiments than it may seem from the perspective of religious traditions that tend to think of truth in the singular. I ended Chapter 3 with an exposition of an important problem in Christian theology. It concerns both the unity of the Christian Scripture considering the theological diversity whose irreducibility has been cemented by the historical-​ critical method and the significant revisions of Christian teachings on Judaism (see 3.6). I offered a critique of the two solutions that probably enjoy the most support today. There are two premises of those solutions that are of interest for present purposes. The first is that the unity of the Christian Scripture is a theologically desirable goal. The second is that it is to be achieved at the propositional level. In Chapter 3 I offered plenty of reasons for why I am not convinced that the first premise holds insofar as the goal in question is part of the larger project of theological monism. In this section I will further my critique considerably in this regard. This chapter focuses on the role of the imagination and affords plenty of opportunities to critique the second premise as well.

178 

Chapter 4

The theological diversity of the Christian Scripture is certainly not the most significant complication for theological monism today. I have no intention of overstating my case in this respect. And, yet, ultimately, any conversation about science and Christianity is pulled back to the Bible—​one way or the other. As I demonstrated in the first and third chapter, a secularization has been progressing that claims modern science as its most valuable ally. Traditional religions are deemed irreconcilable with modern science in formal and material respects. Religious claims are seen to be held either by faith alone, or if attempts are made to counter that contention and to corroborate religious assertions by empirical evidence, a clash with our best scientific theories is seen to be inevitable. There is a battle between modern science and traditional religions, and it happens in the propositional realm—​at the level of religious beliefs and scientific theories. Christianity claims that every human being is created in the image of God. This cannot be true because we know today that every member of the human species is here due to evolution by natural selection. The authors of the Bible didn’t know better and thus the Bible tells us things we can no longer accept to be true. Science has superseded religion in this sense. This is certainly a fair representation of one of the many arguments offered today against the cognitive worth of traditional religions, such as Christianity. As we saw, Swinburne (2005, 123) rejects such arguments. He concedes “that it is very important to have true religious belief, and that the best we can do towards getting one is to investigate.” While the investigation is necessarily metaphysical because of the scope of the investigation, it is still not very different from what happens in the sciences. What is required is an investigation by means of probabilistic reasoning. Relative to what science and other religions tell us about God and the world, Christianity is a rational enterprise if careful analysis leads to the conclusion that it is more probable than not that its religious goals are attainable. Swinburne (2005) doesn’t argue that every Christian must undertake such an analysis, nor that every faithful Christian is compelled to affirm all teachings of Christianity in order to be deemed rational. The claim is rather that the core of the Christian revelation is constituted by beliefs, namely, those summarized in the Creed, which, Swinburne (2005, 218) contends, “has the resources to explain how pursuit of the Christian way will achieve the goals of religion.” Thus, he appeals “to the tradition of Christian doctrine down the years.” This brings him to the original revelation, which Swinburne (2007b, 135–​172) claims is the life and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth, which contains all beliefs that we need to have in place to determine that more probable than not, only a Christian life will satisfy the three purposes of religion. These are, according to Swinburne (2005, 159–​196), to render proper

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

179

worship and obedience to God, to gain salvation for oneself, and to help others gain salvation. The Bible is not the original revelation, Swinburne (2007b, 136–​137) explains. It is an important source of religious authority nevertheless, Swinburne (2007b, 185) qualifies, because for “all Christians, Scripture (i.e., the Bible) forms the core of the deposit of faith. It is a record of the original revelation.” It is the Bible, Swinburne (2007b, 239) specifies, “from which any claims about the content of revealed doctrine must be derived.” Objective criteria, Swinburne (2007b) contends, have assisted the Christian community in making derivations of doctrine from the original revelation. Swinburne (2007b, 107–​131) identifies four tests to determine if a claim is an expression of a divine revelation. For example, there is the “miracle-​test.” Only God can do miracles in the sense of violations of laws of nature. If a religious claim is supported by a miracle, it must be taken seriously as a candidate of divine revelation. The resurrection of Jesus is claimed to be a “super-​miracle.” It is of such a kind that no other miracle (the parting of the red sea, for instance, or the very existence of the Qur’an) could even compete with it. Swinburne (2007b, 173–​218) also names public procedures that ensure that derivations of doctrines from the original revelation as recorded in the Bible are objective. For example, derivations achieved by ecumenical councils confer objectivity in this sense. According to Swinburne (2007b), there are at least three reasons why we should think that God would task a community, like the Christian church, with the derivation of revelatory truth. Firstly, while the original revelation (and thus the deposit of all revelatory truth) occurred in the life and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth, some of the truths were inaccessible until after the resurrection of Jesus had occurred. An example is the triune nature of God. Jesus knew, according to Swinburne (2007b), that he was the second person of the trinity. He just couldn’t say it explicitly. It would have jeopardized his mission. Secondly, God decided to reveal oneself by means of language. Language is a very feeble tool. It leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Thus, a community was established that enjoys the authority to interpret Scripture and derive the revelatory truth that God intended to reveal in the life and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth. Thirdly, revelatory truth mustn’t be too obvious because that would make attainment of salvation too easy. Going forward, I will refer to the approach represented by Swinburne (2007b) as proposition-​centrism. Up to this point, I have offered much context to render proposition-​centrism as plausible as problematic. The thought experiments that I discussed in the third section of the first chapter explain well the motivation and aim of such an approach. Proposition-​centrism guides Flew’s gardener thought experiment as much as Hick’s celestial city thought

180 

Chapter 4

experiment. Mitchell’s war resistance thought experiment, however, is critical of proposition-​centrism. Chapter 2 showed why proposition-​centrism falls considerably short in important respects if it is meant to furnish a comprehensive analysis of science (see 2.3). As a cognitive enterprise, science is not only about the theories it has to offer and the beliefs it supports. It is a much richer reality. In Chapter 3 we saw how Polkinghorne tried to do justice to that fact. Still, for the sake of upholding a theological monism, proposition-​centrism prevailed in his writings (see 3.2 and 3.3). And, in the first section of this chapter, we discussed the claim that proposition-​centrism leaves us clueless as to how norms of rationality could ever change insofar as they are the ones we must rely upon in their critique. Rationality governs the relations among propositions (and their relations to actions), and yet points us beyond the propositional realm. In the end, we came to appreciate the dominion of the imagination over the propositional realm in important respects. Another way of describing the dominion of the imagination in the scientific realm is in the words of McLeish (2014, 102), who writes “that science runs far deeper, quirkier and at more fully human levels than we would think from stories of relentless discoveries, spectacular phenomena or the cool application of a fixed methodology. We know better,” McLeish (2014, 102) explains—​with an eye on what I’d call proposition-​centrism as it is exhibited by overblown secularization theories—​, “than to swallow an inadequate narrative that portrays science as simply replacing an ancient world of myth and superstition with a modern one of fact and comprehension.” Such a secularization narrative runs into serious trouble, according to McLeish (2014), because it cannot explain why the universe is intelligible, why our minds are equipped to understand the universe, and why we value science? Going forward, I will refer to these questions as the three great questions. Conceiving of science as a “‘love of wisdom of natural things’,” McLeish (2014, 26) argues, enables us to provide an answer to the three great questions and thus to “describe” much better “what scientists do” when they engage in “the rigorous and competitive search after knowledge.” Going forward, I will refer to this claim as the wisdom answer (to the three great questions). It is the contention of McLeish (2014, 102) that today’s science is to be framed “within a broader and older ‘love of wisdom of natural things.’” It “does indeed call on a growing illumination of nature by experiment and imagination, creating understanding where there was none before and opening up the exploration of new phenomena. It maps, in increasing detail, the physical world onto patterns, often mathematical ones, in our own minds. These practices,” McLeish (2014, 102) continues, emerge “from an ancient longing, and from an older narrative of our complex relationship with the natural world. Its primary

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

181

creative grammar,” McLeish (2014, 102) explains, “is the question rather than the answer. Its primary energy is imagination rather than fact. Its primary experience is more typically trial than triumph—​the journey of understanding already travelled always appears to be a trivial distance compared with the mountain road ahead.” In short, according to McLeish (2014, 171), what we have come to call science today, is defined by “a deep impulse to understand the physical world, to get under its skin and reconstruct it mentally,” and in this regard it is “as old as any written record of human culture.” We are, of course, interested in the imagination as the “primary energy” of science as conceived. The word “scientist” expresses a relatively young notion, McLeish (2014, 25) concedes. Moreover, modern science is certainly characterized by a greater confidence in the experimental method “since the seventeenth century,” according to McLeish (2014, 176), resulting in an “explosion of scientific understanding of nature since then.” Yet, McLeish (2014, 176) insists, today’s science is “in palpable continuity with much earlier scientific writing: the delightful manipulation of the trapped air under water recorded by Gregory of Nyssa in the fourth century,” McLeish (2014, 176) exemplifies his bold claim, “or with the material exploration of coloured light by Robert Grosseteste in the thirteenth.” Moreover, today’s science, McLeish (2014, 176) claims, “is also in continuity with the notion of value” accorded to understanding nature. Obviously, then, McLeish (2014) commits to a strong continuity thesis. The history of modern science does not begin in the 17th century. It goes all the way back to Biblical times. There was no radical break, no revolution, that explains today’s science. McLeish (2019, 134n8) cites the famous opening sentence of Shapin (1996, 1) in his support: “There was no such thing as the Scientific Revolution, and this is a book about it.” What McLeish (2019, 134n8) does not tell his reader are the reasons that Shapin (1996) offers for his assessment. “Many historians,” Shapin (1996, 3) reports, “are now no longer satisfied that there was any singular and discrete event, localized in time and space, that can be pointed to as ‘the’ Scientific Revolution.” That is to say, it is not the absence of a qualitative break that is the problem—​contrary to what McLeish (2019, 134n8) suggests—​ but the claim that we are looking at a single and discrete event. There was a qualitative break in the history of science, but it just did not occur at one single point in time and space. It was a slow transformation occurring at various places at different times. The second reason that Shapin (1996, 3–​4) offers pertains directly to the critique of theological monism that we are concerned with in this study. Historians would “reject even the notion that there was any single coherent cultural entity called ‘science’ in the seventeenth century to undergo revolutionary change.” The point here is not that the word ‘science’ is a product of the 19th century. That is also true. What Shapin (1996, 3) draws attention to is

182 

Chapter 4

the fact that historians find that science was not one but many, as it were! The continuity thesis is right to stress a “continuity of seventeenth-​century natural philosophy with its medieval past,” Shapin (1996, 4) states. But McLeish (2014, 2019) intends to go way further back than to the 12th and 13th century. There is science in the Bible already, McLeish (2014) contends. “It is just not possible,” McLeish (2014, 210) ventures to say, “to define a moment in the history of thought that marks a temporal boundary between the ‘prescientific’ and ‘scientific’.” That is deemed to be true insofar as we define today’s science in terms of the “questioning longing to understand, to go beneath the superficialities of the world in thought, to reconstruct the workings of the universe in our minds.” Furthermore, argues McLeish (2014, 210), “it is a human endeavour deeply and continually rooted in theological tradition.” In historical perspective, then, “science turns out to be an intensely theological activity, and the history of science makes us realize that the “community and project of science in its many forms” today “represent continuity of the biblical story that begins with creation itself, and of the making of humankind ‘in the image of God.’” In other words, a love of wisdom of natural things, i.e., natural philosophy, we not only find in today’s science and its predecessors, but also in the long history of Christian theology, including its Scripture. Today’s science and theology amicably compete with one another, and the three great questions facilitate that competition to some significant extent. With that claim, McLeish (2014, 209) argues that science and theology “are not complementary, they are not in combat, they are not just consistent—​they are of each other.” This is necessarily so, because there “can be no boundary delineating territory between them that does not immediately nullify their essence. We need a theology of science because we need a theology of everything. If we fail,” McLeish (2014, 209) explains, “then we have a theology of nothing. Such a theology has to bear in mind the tension that the same is true for science—​it has never worked to claim that science can speak of some but not of other topics.” Thus, the rather steep claim before us in McLeish (2014) is that the nature of today’s science makes theological considerations inevitable as the three great questions exemplify—​be it in systematic or historical perspective. And theology cannot avoid science without falling short of providing the wisdom answer to the three great questions. The historical reconstruction of the wisdom answer brings McLeish (2014, 102–​148) to the Book of Job. In a way, the book becomes an integral part of the history of science. Such an interpretation seems an impermissible imposition on the text. And, yet, the interpretation of McLeish (2014, 102–​148) becomes self-​explanatory in ways which allow us to gain further insight into the theological depth of the imagination and the nature of the thought experiment

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

183

that I think the Book of Job offers us. McLeish (2014, 138) urges us to consider that the Book of Job is only “superficially” about the “‘problem of evil’.” In its substance, the book is rather an important document of natural philosophy. What we find in it, McLeish (2014, 176) argues, is an “encouragement to search for wisdom and understanding.” The double focus on wisdom and understanding “resonates strongly with the dual methodology of experiment and theory, and with the deep-​lying longing for wisdom that their meeting can release.” The book “speaks to a deeper significance to understanding nature than simply knowing things.” What the book thereby offers is a theology of a “‘covenant with the rocks,’” McLeish (2014, 262) contends. The central theme of the Book of Job is the relationship of order and chaos. “Wisdom,” McLeish (2014, 263) clarifies, “recognizes that nature needs the violent energies of both order and chaos to give birth to life in the first place.” In short, the Book of Job offers us a thought experiment in natural philosophy, and not anything like a treatise on the problem of evil. Labelling the Book of Job as a thought experiment highlights the fact that its cognitive efficacy is surely not exhausted by the various arguments it offers concerning the vexing problem of evil, or the nature of creation for that matter. The thought experiment of the Book of Job has a meta-​level insofar as it directs our attention to the cognitive efficacy of the imagination in numerous ways. Firstly, the book engages the imagination insofar as it is a piece of literary work. Secondly, it sanctions the use of the imagination for cognitive purposes in matters scientific and theological. Thirdly, it literally begs to be re-​thought. This is true insofar as the book engages the imagination, sanctions the use of the imagination for cognitive purposes, and remains surprisingly inconclusive. McLeish (2014, 75–​101) discusses the topic of the relationship between chaos and order in today’s science. His intention is to prepare thereby his reading of the Book of Job. McLeish (2014, 75) argues that science “is, perhaps unexpectedly, as open to the unpredictable as it is to the predictable.” McLeish (2014, 75) offers his views on “how we currently think about chaotic systems in nature.” This is to give us “a taste of this challenging and beautiful realm of current science before we explore in depth the classic Old Testament text—​the Book of Job—​that confronts uncontrolled chaos in nature with the greatest felt indignation.” Three phenomena are discussed: comets, storms, and earthquakes, and McLeish (2014, 81) advises that everyone can expect bad news whose “predilection is for universal tidiness.” The model of a single pendulum helps McLeish (2014, 76–​85) to shed light on the difference between “regular” and “irregular” comets in terms of differences in the “energy landscape” opened up by the interplay of “potential energy” and “kinetic energy” in the behavior of a single pendulum put in motion. The model

184 

Chapter 4

of a double pendulum is used by McLeish (2014, 88) to explain the chaotic behavior that storms display as the result of “high energy and higher number variables.” One “of the features of the phenomenon known both colloquially and technically as ‘chaos,’” McLeish (2014, 88) explains, “is complex behavior which will diverge from any practical prediction before long.” The “simplified systems of granular materials” (such as “a stationary pile of sand grains”) serve McLeish (2014, 92) to elicit “the wisdom of which questions we should ask, and which we should not” with respect to earthquakes. The science “motivated by storms above and earthquakes below,” McLeish (2014, 98) concludes, brings to the fore “two very different worlds in which predictability has vanished from even the most powerful methods” science can deploy. “This seems at first to frustrate its goals,” McLeish (2014, 98) reasons, “whether they are cast in the modern narratives of understanding, modelling, measuring and predicting or in the more ancient ones” that feature “wisdom, relationship, and fruitfulness.” However, argues McLeish (2014, 99), “new understanding might actually be opened up by grasping ignorance with both hands as part of our science.” Such is the case, McLeish (2014, 100) adds, with respect to “the theory of statistical mechanics,” which suggests that nature, according to McLeish (2014, 101), actually “operates on a statistical foundation, finding ways in which new levels of order can emerge from chaotic substrate.” Statistical mechanics, McLeish (2014, 100) specifies, “assumes in a strict sense that our ignorance of the underlying motion is total” in its explanation of, for example, the “‘pressure’ in a room” as a simple “aggregation of the effect of trillions of gas molecules colliding with its walls.” McLeish (2014, 100) stresses the impossibility of “calculating the motion of any of them for more than a fraction of its trajectory.” Statistical mechanics enables us, however, “to predict the pressure with extreme accuracy if we know the density and temperature of the air” present in a room. In conclusion, then, argues McLeish (2014, 101), there is “a creative tension between the chaotic and the ordered” and that tension “lies within the foundations of science today.” The creative tension between chaos and order is a “narrative theme of human culture that is as old as any,” according to McLeish (2014, 101). The Book of Job is seen to attest to that. McLeish (2014, 104) directs our attention to the fact that, when God eventually appears to Job, he does so in a violent windy storm, “so situating” God’s “entire monologue within one of the wisdom tradition’s great metaphors for chaos.” In consequence, McLeish (2014, 106) invites us to follow the way the Book of Job “develops the human confrontation with the material universe.” We are to find in it “a rich mine of resources in our search to locate today’s science in a much longer human narrative.” McLeish (2014, 108) observes that Job is not preoccupied with ending his own suffering (at first). Instead, Job

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

185

laments the lack of a moral order in God’s creation. The reader of the story knows that the “chaos, incommensurability, and injustice” that McLeish (2014, 109) observes Job to find “everywhere” in God’s creation while faced with his own suffering as an innocent person, is not of God’s making. It is God’s opponent who causes it. God only permits God’s opponent to cause the suffering of Job to have it proved that Job’s faithfulness and righteousness is not due to the wealth, health, and privileged social standing that Job enjoys. Of course, there is order, though neither Job nor his friends can detect it. But all of them keep exploring options to find order in the chaos they experience. That leads to an impasse. Finally, God speaks—​out from the chaos (represented by a whirlwind). Job finds himself confronted first with question after question about the nature of creation that God throws his way, and following that, he is presented with a divine praise of creation. While God fails to disclose the details of the bet with “Satan” that led to Job’s suffering, Job—​and not his friends in their various interpretations of Job’s suffering—​finds himself finally “justified,” McLeish (2014, 110) reasons. The imagination is led astray to some extent by the depiction of the suffering of the innocent Job insofar as the topic of creation is concerned, according to McLeish (2014, 110). The imagination needs some recalibration here. In my view, this means to rethink the thought experiment that the Book of Job offers so that “it calls to mind” more clearly, according to McLeish (2014, 111), “the creative task that asks nature the right questions at the right time, questions that open up paths of understanding rather than lead to thickets of further confusion.” It is the contention of McLeish (2014, 111) that there is “a track through the book that starts with the workings and structure of the natural world, and, while winding through the arguments of the disputations” pertaining the suffering of Job, “never leaves it.” The book opens with a presentation of “a common natural physicality that blurs the distinction between the chaotic processes of storm and wind outside” a human body, McLeish (2014, 112) argues, and “the processes of disease and decay within it.” In Job’s first speech, McLeish (2014, 113) finds a “creation hymn, albeit a dark one” that continues “travelling along the direction suggested by the Prologue—​that control and chaos begin with the natural world, and that the human condition is intimately woven within it, not apart from it.” The explanation of Job’s suffering that Job’s friend Eliphaz offers, promotes a theology of creation, according to McLeish (2014, 115), where nature runs “on simple lines, so that creation is kind to those who deserve it, yet turns its back on those who do not.” Eliphaz offers the notion of a “covenant with a stone” that Job can look forward to as a reward if he were to repent. McLeish (2014, 115) explains that this notion means an extension of “a mutual relationship of understanding, reliance

186 

Chapter 4

and permanence” to “the inanimate stones.” In response to Eliphaz, McLeish (2014, 116) tells us, “Job accuses God’s universe of capricious disorder.” The second friend, Bildad, also “urges Job to consider lessons from creation,” McLeish (2014, 116) notes. To this Job responds with a cosmology, according to McLeish (2014, 117), that de-​centralizes humanity with the aim to portray “God’s power as equally destructive as constructive.” Job reminds his friends of earthquakes and other phenomena that are as much beyond human reckoning as wondrous (Job 9:5 and 10). Job offers the “counter-​narrative of the injustice of a creator who assembles living, self-​conscious matter and then makes it suffer in uncontrollable decay,” McLeish (2014, 118) elucidates. The third friend to speak is Zophar, and McLeish (2014, 118) records that he finds how “wisdom in creation’s purposes lies beyond” anyone’s grasp. Up to this point, then, the thought experimenter has touched on three theologies of creation in the contemplation of the suffering of the innocent. There is first the notion that the physical order follows a moral order. Human suffering has nothing to do with God directly. Suffering can be traced back to immoral behavior. A second theology stresses the mysteriousness of creation. There must be some meaning to human suffering, although it is beyond our grasp. A third theology denies any obvious order in creation and seeks to hold God accountable for the injustices that result from that. Job advances the third theology, McLeish (2014, 120) clarifies. “In contradiction to an ordered cosmos supportive of human existence, Job emphasises the dark side of chaotic creation.” The confrontation of all three theologies alerts the thought experimenter to “natural phenomena,” McLeish (2014, 121) argues, “and to the human desire to ask questions of them, even to draw meaning from them.” The thought experimenter becomes “also deeply aware of the ambiguity of the natural world in relation to humankind, both in its direct physical channels,” McLeish (2014, 121) reasons, “and in the conceptual and reflective” realm. God’s perspective has not entered the picture yet. Before this happens, the dispute among the friends heats up. McLeish (2014, 121) observes that “the theme of the natural world becomes subdominant,” although “it is never lost, and occasionally bursts out into the main thematic line.” Job finds himself confronted with “clear and open accusations,” McLeish (2014, 125) notes. As this happens, McLeish (2014, 126) tells us, “the nature imagery also climbs to a new dynamic level.” At the same time, McLeish (2014, 127–​128) observes, Job “accuses God.” His “use of nature” to that effect “continuous to be more subtle than that of the friends.” It reveals a “quest for wisdom and understanding,” argues McLeish (2014, 132), and in Job 28: 12 this journey is named. McLeish (2014, 132–​134) seeks to shed light on the “juxtaposition” of wisdom (practical knowledge) and understanding (intellectual and contemplative grasping) that

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

187

we find in Job 28. Job 28:28 states that fear of God is wisdom. McLeish (2014, 133–​134) argues that “the reason that God knows where to find” wisdom “is precisely” described in Job 28:23: God “‘looked to the Ends of the Earth,” the text reads, and God “fathomed it.’” What we find here in Job is an “extraordinary claim,” McLeish (2014, 134) contends. It offers us a clear theological perspective on science as a love of wisdom of natural things. If wisdom is fear of God, then fear of God means to walk the path of science. Wisdom, McLeish (2014, 134) unfolds, “is to be found in participating in a deep understanding of the world, its structure, and dynamics.” The “upwardly spiraling arguments of the book of Job” lead us to “an extraordinary invitation to engage” with God “and especially with his ‘fathoming of the universe.” Wisdom is participation in the process of divine understanding. God’s appearance is around the corner. “In our climb towards the pinnacle of the book,” argues McLeish (2014, 135), “we seem to have hit a vertical precipice.” The introduction of the topic of wisdom “sends us in a different and indirect trail towards the peak, like a turn onto a contour.” We are directed to the cosmos itself in our attempt to find an answer to the problem of the suffering of the innocent. We can begin “to wonder if nature” is only a source of illustration to drive home arguments by means of metaphors and analogies. Consequently, we see the text to direct the imagination to “the human relationship with nature,” McLeish (2014, 136) observes. Job and Elihu facilitate that kind of imaginative engagement. Elihu’s “attention to detail,” McLeish (2014, 137) finds, “takes us to new ground, for, whereas we have met the rain before, we have not imagined its cycle of formation from evaporation to mist and precipitation.” By doing so, Elihu “gives creation a voice.” His gaze reaches what is hidden, such that nature can disclose herself. Elihu’s “appeal to Job to recognize that there is a message in nature more subtle than the one he is currently hearing,” McLeish (2014, 137–​138) reasons, “looks initially fresh, but in the end we see that his vision is as claustrophobic as that of his other companions.” Elihu’s cosmology is anthropocentric and committed to a mysticism about nature. The next to speak is God—​finally. “Centre stage is superficially the ‘problem of suffering,’ McLeish (2014, 138) argues, “but by ­chapter 37” it is clear that there is more here. The main theme of the Book of Job are actually the three great questions, as it were. It seems that no one knows, according to McLeish (2014, 139), how to find “wisdom, how to hear from her, how to give Wisdom herself a voice.” Job 28 hints at an answer, as we noted. It is in his “knowledge of nature’s structure and workings,” McLeish (2014, 139) recalls, that God knows the way to wisdom. Wisdom, McLeish (2014, 141) explains, is “within the knowledge of nature,” and it follows the “hints at a balance between order and chaos rather

188 

Chapter 4

than domination of either.” This theory of wisdom constitutes “the uncompleted storyline, and its ‘loose ends’ have become the inflamed nerve endings of Job’s physical and mental anguish in a cacophony of voices that lead nowhere.” In this sense, the book presents “writer, compiler, and reader” with a “choice” of concluding the imaginary engagement with the wider implications of Job’s suffering or to consider yet another perspective. There seems “only one voice, of course, that remains to speak.” And so, we see God attend to the “loose ends” of the “uncompleted storyline.” What God presents to Job is not a “put-​down,” McLeish (2014, 142) insists, but “a whirlwind tour of creation from its beginning to the present, from the depths to the heights and from its grandest displays into its inner workings.” God takes us on a “‘grand tour’ of recapitulation of not only the nooks and crannies of creation familiar from the earlier disputation but also the uncharted places special to” God’s speech alone. This “means that we, with Job, look further into creation and ask deeper questions of it than ever before. We begin to answer the call to perceive nature in a new way.” God takes us, McLeish (2014, 143) explains, “in our imagination to the very places that were searched out in the quest for wisdom” in Job 28. Thereby, it shows “other ways of thinking about creation” than in anthropocentric terms. The thought experimenter is invited to think about nature “through the eye of its creator.” This affords us with a new perspective on the “tension between chaos and order, assumed in the earlier chapters as mutually exclusive and in combat with one another.” As I discussed previously on various occasions, thought experiments of purported cognitive efficacy are not all of the same kind. For example, in Chapter 3 I have entertained the view that the thought experiment I contend we find in Augustine’s reflections on possible sexual relations between Adam and Eve in paradise might be a member of the class of counter-​thought experiments (see 3.4), as it resembles examples of that class that we encountered in the first chapter, such as the clock-​in-​the-​box (see 1.1) and Mary the color scientist (see 1.2). Sorensen (1992, 135–​160) proposes to think of all thought experiments as “alethic refuters.” They are “expeditions to possible worlds,” according to Sorensen (1992, 135). Some thought experiments aim to refute alleged necessities (“necessity refuters”), others refute possibilities. One way to frame the interpretation of the Book of Job presented by McLeish (2014, 101–​148) is to think of it as a “necessity refuter” to render an anthropocentric notion of nature implausible from an imagined theocentric perspective. McLeish (2014, 143) draws our attention to Job 38:25, which speaks to the fact that it rains over land uninhabited by humans to satisfy the needs of that land and its vegetation. Moreover, it thereby endorses the life-​conducive powers of chaos represented by the storms that bring that rain. The inference

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

189

from human suffering to a complete lack of order is thereby disturbed. In turn, science as “love of wisdom of natural things” assumes an intrinsic value. The challenging questions God puts before Job (rather than being a put-​down to demonstrate his divine power) do not mean to assert “as some have assumed,” McLeish (2014, 145) explains, “that God can actually command the clouds, the floodwaters and the lightning,” for example, “in a strict control of every swirl and dart.” The Jobian thought experiment is an invitation to “think through a world that runs on a command-​and-​control economy.” The thought experiment targets—​seen from the perspective of McLeish (2014, 145)—​“our assumptions” about nature, with respect to “its freedom, its ‘way’ and its contained and creative chaos.” In the end, McLeish (2014, 146) asserts, “Job, and humanity with him” are “decentralized.” In short, ultimately the thought experiment serves the establishment of an ecocentric notion of nature. The taxonomy of Sorensen (1992, 135–​160) cannot capture the imaginative leap to the ecocentric notion of nature, because it is concerned exclusively with matters of logical inference. The taxonomy of Brown (2011, 33) isn’t, and insofar as the imaginative leap to an ecocentric notion of nature is concerned, we might want to think of the Jobian thought experiment before us as a “mediative thought experiment.” “In a mediative thought experiment,” Brown (2011, 38) explains, “we start with a given background theory and the thought experiment acts like a midwife in drawing out a new conclusion.” In the case of the Jobian thought experiment as reconstructed by McLeish (2014, 102–​148), the background theory would be a theistic cosmology. The imagined scenario that is entertained is the suffering of an innocent human being caused by Satan with divine permission. The new conclusion is ecocentrism about nature. The ecocentric notion of nature is, McLeish (2014, 146) suggests with “trepidation and against the weight of opinion,” also a meaningful answer to Job. There are five reasons in favor of such a suggestion. Firstly, the ecocentric notion of nature asserts that all (human) life in all its reality owes to both chaos and order. Secondly, in consideration of the ecocentric notion of nature, Job ends his revolt to God. Thirdly, the ecocentric notion of nature does not mean a cementation of ignorance about the workings of nature. It opens up a future for humanity by means of a search for wisdom. “There is a history of knowledge,” McLeish (2014, 147) puts it, “with a past, a present, and a future. Job and those who read about him are invited to assume a role within that history.” Fourthly, the ecocentric notion of nature compels us to rethink the relationship between humanity and nature. Humanity must go considerably beyond any kind of an instrumentalist disposition to nature. There is a covenant between humanity and nature. The book offers us, McLeish (2014, 148) thinks, “the loftiest of all biblical perspectives on the programme we have called the ‘love of wisdom

190 

Chapter 4

of natural things.’” And, fifthly, especially “in the light of the explicitly future-​ oriented search for wisdom” it is “plausible” to understand the presentation of the ecocentric notion of nature in “eschatological terms.” While Job sees his fate reversed in the end, “we never find an epilogue to match the prologue scene of the heavenly court,” McLeish (2014, 148) observes. In Chapter 3 I have discussed how current Biblical exegesis basically oscillates between a historical-​critical and a literary approach to the Christian Scripture (see 3.6). McLeish (2014, 110–​111) shows some awareness of the tensions this oscillation creates for his interpretation of the Book of Job. I understand him to side with the literary approach in his emphasis on theological unity with respect to the canonical text of the book. He agrees with “scholars” who “have recognized an underlying unity to the book,” although others “have suggested that God’s appearance and speeches have been ‘glued on’ to the earlier chapters at a later date and by a different author.” Indeed, it is the “predominant scholarly opinion that the Book of Job is the result of a long process,” Longmann iii and Dillard (2009, 225) report. “Most scholars believe that the dialogues (Job 3–​31) form the basis of the book. At a later point an older prose folktale was divided and used as a frame.” Important for an assessment of the interpretation of McLeish (2014, 102–​148) is that some scholars also “argue that the speeches of Elihu and Yahweh and the poem to wisdom (Job 28) were even later additions,” according to Longmann iii and Dillard (2009, 225). Reading the Book of Job as a thought experiment lends support to the interpretation of McLeish (2014, 102–​148) in this regard. In other words, it seems to me that the analytical tool “thought experiment” opens up a middle ground in relation to the clash between a historical-​critical and a literary approach to Scripture (as discussed in 3.6) in a very specific sense. The Book of Job is paradigmatic in this regard, as Brueggemann and Lenafelt (2021, 267) rightly note insofar as it “is a towering classic of the human literary and theological imagination.” McLeish (2014, 102–​148) contends that the Book of Job necessitates consideration of the imagination in two respects. Firstly, the Book of Job engages the imagination. Secondly, the Book of Job sanctions the use of the imagination for cognitive purposes in matters scientific and theological. There is a third respect, however, and it impacts directly on the discussions of the divide between a historical-​critical approach and a literary approach to the Bible. It concerns the role of the imagination in the production of the canonical text as a literary document of divine revelation. To put my point boldly in the words of Davenport (1983, 295): “It could be described as learning by thought experiment even” if the writers, editors, and redactors “did not think of the process that way” themselves. On the view of Davenport (1983, 295), “composing” is a matter of “a bootstrap process” where produced writings and imagination

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

191

enter a procedure of mutually enriching one another. What makes consideration of the analytical tool of a thought experiment in this respect “even more attractive,” according to Davenport (1983, 297), is that it explains how authors, editors, redactors “can create things, when they started, they did not conceive of.” Going forward I shall refer to this notion as surplus composition. In Section 1 of the present chapter, we discussed some of the reasons that the Jewish tradition offers to include God as an imperfect author of Scripture in the dynamical process of creativity that led to the text of the Torah. The resulting theology coheres well with the critique that I offered in Chapter 3 with respect to the notion that there would be an overarching divine intention that has been driving the process of divine revelation towards the canonical text of the Christian Scripture—​an intention that could be reconstructed by means of methodologically controlled Biblical criticism (see 3.6). My argument here is, to put it boldly: In his interpretation of the Book of Job, McLeish (2014, 102–​ 148) capitalizes on surplus composition and in turn presents a reading of the Book of Job that reaffirms the theological significance of the surplus composition that is assumed to be the case. Thereby it lends support to a reading of the Book of Job as a thought experiment in two further respects. Firstly, the book is a device of the imagination to investigate the nature of wisdom. Secondly, with an eye on the three great questions, the wisdom answer that McLeish (2014, 102–​148) thinks he can extract from the book confirms the cognitive value of the imagination for matters theological and scientific. What I intend to do in the remainder of this section is to further the analysis of surplus composition with respect to its implications for a theory of divine revelation. While I understand McLeish (2014, 102–​148) to read the Book of Job as a thought experiment in natural philosophy, Brown (2000, 177–​225) seeks to position the book as a Christological thought experiment, at least according to my reception of his work for present purposes. The two readings are not mutually exclusive, of course. Brown (2000, 177–​225) begins his exegesis with a critique of an approach to Scripture that limits itself to the confines established by the historical-​critical method. “More recent Christian writing,” Brown (2000, 177) reports, “has tried to reinstate a presumed original intention.” He finds, however, that such an approach to the book has brought “impoverishment rather than enrichment.” What is to be done instead, Brown (2000, 177) proposes, is “to trace the discussion” of the book in the Christian tradition, “from the canonical Job through the Testament of Job, Gregory the Great, Aquinas, Calvin, and Blake.” The aim of that exercise is to “demonstrate” that these “later and often much despised interpretations do sometimes constitute significant advances of the canonical text.” The “Christian community today

192 

Chapter 4

is the poorer if in its response to innocent suffering it is not allowed to build upon these rewritings of Job’s story.” Brown (1999, 209) reports his general lack of satisfaction with “most Old Testament scholarship,” because there is a “tendency to ‘freeze’ one particular reading of the text as normative, whether it be original context, the presumed intentions of particular sources, the book’s final canonical form, or its significance when viewed in the light of the New Testament.” The “more recent, literary approaches” are not satisfactory either. According to Brown (1999, 275), “the danger in relying exclusively on more literary approaches is that the Church will fail to acknowledge development within Scripture, and so the necessity for continuing development beyond.” It is important to note here that “development” does not mean linear progress to the one single truth. Instead, the word “development” is to stress the reasons for the presence of a significant degree of theological diversity in Scripture. “Acknowledgement” of “development” means the recognition that Scripture offers various theological perspectives on the same issue and that there can be contradiction among them. Brown (1999, 2000) advances the view that Scripture (like other sources of religious authority) attests to the nature of divine revelation as developing tradition, which in turn lends credibility to the assumption that development of tradition post Christum can amount to genuine divine revelation. Going forward, I will refer to this contention as the development view. The development view affirms surplus composition, because Brown (1999, 2000) further contends that the imagination plays a central role in those developments. Going forward, I will refer to this claim as the imagination view and consider it as an alternative to proposition-​centrism (as defined earlier in this section). The development view and the imagination view are the two major contentions outlined in Brown (1999, 2000). Before turning to the particulars of the reading of the Book of Job that Brown (2000, 177–​225) offers in support of both views, I shall say a little bit more about the larger theological framework that embeds the views—​like I did in the case of McLeish (2014, 102–​148). As for the imagination view, Brown (1999, 2000) contends that it is not only language and the propositional realm where divine revelation has happened, but also in the imagination and the non-​propositional realm. “One of the principal ways,” Brown (1999, 6) asserts, “in which God speaks to humanity is through the imagination.” Brown (1999, 6) adds that “the human imagination has not stood still over” two thousand years of Christian history. Brown (2000, 270) insists that the cognitive significance of the imagination is not unique to divine revelation. He argues that “any adequate approach to the enrichment of human understanding” requires consideration of both the propositional and the non-​propositional aspects of cognition. Brown (2000, 347) finds

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

193

that “the imagination can give us an alternative access to truth,” although it is important, Brown (2000, 250) advises, “to avoid over-​simple generalizations about imaginative truth.” The history of Christianity shows that “imaginative distortions” happen, according to Brown (2000, 261). “Even the imagination,” Brown (2000, 227) stresses, “contributed to some notable deformations.” Of course, Brown (1999, 2000) is not the first to argue that the imagination is a means of divine revelation. For example, he has an eminent predecessor in this regard in the medieval thinker Al Ghazali (see Hughes 2002). Both share an interest in strengthening the role of the imaginative faculty relative to the rational faculty. The goal is not playing the two off one another but to stress the significance of the imaginative faculty. Insofar as the imagination “lacks definition” (Abraham 2020, 814), while being “formidable,” it is paramount to follow the circumscription of its operation relative to the development view. The development view intends to render the divide between an historical-​ critical approach and a literary approach to Scripture deeply problematic in the following sense: emphasis on insurmountable theological diversity on grounds of methodological concerns with respect to the integrity of the text of Scripture risks establishing an unfortunate dichotomy between divine revelation and the human grappling with that revelation, while the presentation of theological unity by means of literary methods at the level of the canonical text risks obscuring that divine revelation is a process. “A more fruitful approach,” according to Brown (2000, 401), “is first to allow texts their own independent integrity, and only then let the risen Christ cast his own distinctive but separate light on the narrative concerned. That way the value of both is respected.” Of course, advocates of the historical-​critical method will say that this is exactly the approach they favor. Brown (1999, 2000), however, assumes that they are guided by a theology of revelation that considers a Christian interpretation of Biblical texts as being exterior to divine revelation. Indeed, we followed in Chapter 3 a case for rejecting a theological unity of the Christian Scripture because it would seem impossible to vindicate in a methodologically sound way the claim that there is an overarching divine intention detectable at the textual level that could function as textual evidence in support of the claim that such an intention has driven the history of the final text of the canon. Brown (1999, 2000) turns this argument upside down, as it were. It is true that the Bible is characterized by a theological diversity that lacks unity at the textual level. This diversity, however, exhibits the nature of divine revelation. It is a process, and we should not expect anything else but theological diversity if we accept two premises. The first is that human thinking is inescapably conditioned in historical, social, and cultural respects. The thinking of Jesus is no exception to that, insofar as he was fully human. The second is that

194 

Chapter 4

God meets those conditions in order to reach the human mind. Interesting are the cases where Biblical texts refer to one another (relecture). The literary approach highlights those instances in its aim to establish theological unity at the canonical level. Brown (1999, 2000), however, rejects such an absolutist notion of divine revelation if it is meant to uphold the traditional distinction between original revelation and tradition, or if intended to eliminate certain theological trajectories that originate in the Biblical text. The development view is diversity-​affirming in virtue of the nature of both human thinking and divine revelation. Brown (2000, 401) addresses the fact that his preferred approach to the Bible sanctions a post-​resurrection Christian reading of Scripture even when it amounts to a “most arbitrary imposition” on a text. Surplus composition and thus consideration of thought experimentation can alleviate some of the concerns that arise in this respect. The text that is subjected to a “most arbitrary imposition” is itself a fabrication to some extent, argues Brown (2000, 402), and insofar as it is a fabrication, its ability to bring us closer to the truth is actually enhanced—​not impaired. Scripture offers layers of theological perspectives. The original layer is an illusion, Brown (1999, 2000) maintains, insofar as it is meant to be closer to the truth. For instance, “while discussion of the issue of the book” of Job, Brown (2000, 182) explains, “will be new to the canon,” we also know that the book “can by no means claim to be the first detailed treatment in the Near East of the religious issues raised by suffering.” Brown (2000, 183) stresses that it is important to take these historical facts into account, because “questions do not arise out of thin air, but from specific cultural contexts.” In this sense, Brown (2000, 149) explains, “questions of ontology” are not the primary concern of Scriptural texts, or of religious symbolism more generally. We “put the emphasis in the wrong place if ontological questions are seen as more fundamental than questions of meaning and truth.” Brown (1999, 282) informs his reader that he sees a need for us “to come to terms with a notion of truth much larger than the purely historical. Not only can truth be more powerful in its effect when mediated through the imagination, imaginative rewriting can convey aspects of truth which might otherwise be neglected in a purely factual account.” Insofar as divine revelation is believed to seek to “achieve maximum relevance” to the people at the time and place where it occurs, Brown (1999, 276) finds it compelling to believe that such impact will make interpretation “within a growing tradition” necessary in order for it to become universally significant, “as fresh implications” are “sought for new situations, and perhaps even to a considerable degree.” God must be understood to sustain a “continuing dialogue with his Church” in the sense of a continuing divine revelation, according to Brown (2000, 109),

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

195

because the incarnation is no exception to the general pattern of divine revelation that Brown (1999, 2000) argues the Christian sources of religious authority to attest to. There is an agreement here with Swinburne (2007b) insofar as the church is the bearer of divine revelation. Insofar as humans contribute to the ongoing process of divine revelation, the “community of faith,” Brown (2000, 291) argues, is “indispensable.” But he rejects proposition-​centrism. His argument is that “both within the Bible and beyond more often than not truth has emerged through lively disagreement, and not simply by formal acceptance of an existing deposit or simple deductions from it.” Brown (2000, 333–​334) opts for councils (in contrast to, for example, individual theologians or the Papacy) as the institution of ultimate authority in the Christian community. “Conciliarism,” he advises, “is the way ahead,” because “individual distortions of truth are inevitable, and so the wider the range of voices heard the more successfully we can guard against what might otherwise be the likely consequences of our prejudices.” Brown offers here a “diversity-​affirming” ecclesiology. Unlike Swinburne (2007b), Brown (1999, 2000) does not think that the church’s role is simply to “formally accept” or “deduce” truths that were “deposited” once and for all by Jesus himself. According to Brown (1999, 278), Jesus could not have believed, for example, that he was the second person of the trinity, insofar as he was fully human. The formal acceptance of the doctrine of the trinity was not a successful explication of a truth that had been deposited in the original revelation of the incarnation event. It was a genuinely new divine revelation. And, as Jesus had employed the imagination in exemplary ways, Brown (1999, 282) argues, it is “little wonder that the later Church continued” the “pattern of imaginative reflection” that the event of the incarnation itself exhibits. Today’s theological reflection, Brown (1999, 276) reasons, “is caught in the particularities of the moment no less than was Jesus himself.” He urges us to concede “a very high degree of accommodation to the human condition in the incarnation.” Like Swinburne (2007b), Brown (1999, 2000) maintains the view that the Bible is not the original divine revelation from a Christian point of view. As we saw, according to Swinburne (2007b), the life and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth are the original divine revelation. The Bible documents the revelatory event of the incarnation and provides data for further theological reflection. An important disagreement in this regard between Swinburne (2007b) and Brown (1999, 2000) is that original divine revelation does not come in the singular for Brown (1999, 2000). The Bible is an important document of an evolved tradition. This is true with respect to the Bible both in its entirety and its parts. The Bible and any of its parts direct the theological attention backwards (to earlier

196 

Chapter 4

(Biblical) traditions), forwards (to traditions referring back to older (Biblical) traditions), and sideways (to cultural contexts). Divine revelation is better not identified “with the final result” of an evolved tradition within the Bible. Brown (2000, 59) asks us “to pause and reflect whether God is really contained by the scriptural text or whether he might not use creative developments of it to continue to speak to subsequent generations.” In fact, such is the “pattern of divine accommodation” to meet historically and socially conditioned human minds on the receiving end. This pattern is “established within Scripture itself.” In the words of Brown (1999, 274), “divine revelation” is accommodation “to particular social contexts and further developments occurring in consequence.” Scripture, Brown (2000, 82) argues, often resorts “to entirely fictional narratives as a way of theological reflection.” Brown (1999, 5) wants “to focus the reader’s attention upon the way in which even the stories within Scripture itself have not stood still. In very many cases they have been subject to imaginative ‘rewriting’, both within the canon and beyond.” Unlike Swinburne (2007b), Brown (2000, 330) contends that the original divine revelation is not a matter of a past point in time and space, but that it continually advances, and this also “through the imagination.” He outright rejects the dichotomy of “Original Revelation” and “Tradition” with respect to its status as divine revelation. Being a Christian means to bathe in a continuing stream of divine revelation (and the stream does not only run through the Christian community!). According to Brown (1999, 134), “any adequate account” of revelation “must always take seriously the process itself, as much as the community’s present experience and understanding, and it is the entire stream that needs to be seen as part of God’s action, failure and all.” Scripture itself is an “evolving tradition,” Brown (1999, 300) tells us, and the post-​biblical teachings are not, Brown (1999, 131) stresses, just expressions of improved understanding of a revelation that was deposited by an act of original divine revelation. Divine revelation, Brown (2000, 373) argues, “continued to be communicated throughout the history of the Church by means of fresh narratives.” Overall, then, the concern that drives Brown (1999, 2000) is to underline “the way in which the imagination has functioned in the history of religion, and within Christianity in particular, as means of generating new insights, insights which,” Brown (2000, 31) explains, “the Christian may legitimately regard as revelation, not merely human responses, but divinely motivated.” The progress achieved thereby is not linear. Tradition “does not develop in a single straight line but by exploring a range of possibilities” which follow “trajectories” originating in sources of religious authority. The development “cannot escape the messiness of history,” insofar “as the justification for change is concerned.” When change occurs, it is not arbitrary and external to careful theological

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

197

deliberation. Yet, “thinking does not always,” Brown (2000, 162) insists, “proceed by logical inference.” Sometimes it “develops imaginatively, simply through symbolic imagery being put to new uses.” Brown (1999, 2000) does not intend to establish the notion of what may be labelled a boundless divine revelation. The Christian imagination is constrained by theological “trajectories” to be found in its sources of religious authority, such as in the Bible and existing doctrines. Heresy means to set any of those “trajectories” absolute. The “trajectories” require a continuing, nuanced “imaginative engagement” because of the historically and socially conditioned human mind, as well as the divine accommodations in light thereof. To be human, Brown (1999, 317) explains, “entails being part of one social context rather than another, and that, though this does not determine what one thinks, it heavily conditions and shapes all one’s thought.” Idiolatry “is the product of a poor imagination, rather than of imagination being allowed to roam free and untrammelled.” And, yet, the resurrection of Jesus offers something of an Archimedean point, Brown (1999, 316) claims. While “Jesus’ imagination had worked along one set of tracks; its fulfilment came along quite another, but the two were nonetheless closely related.” The resurrection “offered unequivocal evidence that his hopes had been fulfilled: God was now indeed closer to his people than ever before.” It is from this Archimedean point, I gather, that a firm Christian standpoint emerges in those cases when the Christian community goes beyond the confines of existing trajectories. In such cases, tradition turns “back on itself to offer a critique of earlier views. That does not make it a purely human enterprise, Brown (1999, 374) explains, “though it does make it more difficult to identify precisely where God is at work.” What we have before us in Brown (1999, 2000) is indubitably a rather comprehensive and substantial theology of revelation. Some of its claims are steep indeed. It is impossible to do full justice to such a major proposal in the space available here. The same is true of what McLeish (2014, 2019) has to offer to our discussion. And yet, a detailed look at the interpretation of the Book of Job that each has to offer, permits as much of a fair treatment of each work as can be expected for present purposes. Brown (1999, 2000) and McLeish (2014, 2019) both direct our attention to the theological significance of the imagination and this in explicit reference to the Book of Job, which we approach as a thought experiment in the present section. Sandbeck (2013) argues that there are three types of positions on the role of the imagination in the specific context of the science and religion encounter. The first is an outright rejection of the imagination as conducive to truth. The second type finds in the imagination a criterion to separate science and religion. The former is about reason, the latter is about imagination. This position stresses the illusory character of

198 

Chapter 4

the imagination. The third type of position deems the imagination essential in both science and religion. This is my position, and I find that the work of both Brown (1999, 2000) and McLeish (2014, 2019) lend considerable support to it. With that clarification in place, we shall turn back to the Book of Job, which in the present context we understand to be a specific vehicle of the imagination—​a thought experiment. “The fundamental issue that needs to be addressed,” Brown (2000, 183) reasons, “is how God’s answer from the whirlwind” in Job 38–​41 “was intended to function, and so what kind of attitude it was supposed to evince on the part of the believer.” Like McLeish (2014, 101–​148), Brown (2000, 182–​194) rejects the view that God’s appearance to Job either means a put-​down (intending to end the debate over suffering of the innocent, or to render inquiry into that matter inappropriate), or merely the affordance of a reassuring experience instead of a clear answer to Job’s question. He argues that we better receive it as the starting point of the important “subsequent developments” that followed. Whereas McLeish (2014, 101–​148) focuses on the inextricable entanglement of science and theology that the Book of Job is claimed to enforce, Brown (2000, 177–​225) is interested in the problem of the suffering of the innocent. The passage of Job 38–​41 “cries out for some expression of concern for humanity if worthiness for worship is to be sustained,” according to Brown (2000, 189), “and this is in fact what we find later versions of the tale attempting to provide.” Brown (2000, 189) tends to agree that the Book of Job stresses mysteriousness of God in response to the suffering of the innocent. It fails “to integrate that sense of mystery with any notion of how this relates to the goodness of God” in light of which further exploration of the issue seems reasonable. The Book of Job establishes a tension but does not offer a satisfactory resolution. Insofar as the Book of Job is considered a thought experiment, and following the taxonomy of thought experiments proposed by Brown (2011, 33), it is of a “destructive” kind primarily, according to Brown (2000, 189). He thinks it targets the benevolent nature of God. It seeks to render the assumption of an absolutely benevolent God implausible. Later versions of the thought experiment became necessary, and in them we find imaginative leaps that put them into the “constructive” category of thought experiments in the taxonomy of Brown (2011, 33). These contributions are to “be viewed as essential,” argues Brown (2000, 197), although Brown (2000, 201) makes it clear that he “does not wish to deny” that “the canonical text underscores” points “of great importance” later versions of the thought experiment fail to make, such as Job’s anger. This is consistent with the contention of Brown (2000, 161–​162) that the history of religious imagination, including the Christian imagination, is not of a linear-​ progressive kind. “Thus, while it is entirely proper,” Brown (2000, 201) reasons,

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

199

“to criticize later” versions of the Jobian thought experiment “insofar as they fail to legitimate anger, they may also be read as attempting to answer that further issue of how one is to behave at the point beyond anger.” The Jewish tradition, Brown (2000, 194–​204) reports, entertains a variety of interpretations of the book that follow the different “trajectories” that one can substantiate in the canonical text of the book, which Brown (2000, 195) stresses is of an “open character.” The canonical text, Brown (2000, 196) emphasizes, “did not exclude the possibility altogether” that Job wasn’t actually innocent. The Testament of Job and some passages in the Talmud go in this direction—​ and ignore the bet between God and God’s opponent. It is also a theme in some medieval sermons. “However,” Brown (2000, 196) adds, “this was by no means the norm. Instead, overwhelmingly resort was had to the notion of the resurrection.” This strand of interpretation we also find in the Testament of Job, and the Book of Tobit, as well as the Targum of Job. All these texts, Brown (2000, 197) explains, leave “us in no doubt of the necessity of introducing a life beyond the grave” in consideration of the suffering of the innocent. “Somewhat surprisingly, seventeenth-​century Judaism was even willing to consider the possibility of reincarnation.” The Jewish tradition of dealing with the Book of Job also demonstrates a concern for the fate of other characters than Job. The wife of Job, for example, “is given short shrift” in the canonical text. “Instead of vague generalities,” Brown (2000, 200) observes, “on the human level it has become a matter of valuing individuals in their own unique particularity.” An even greater change is “observable,” Brown (2000, 203) reports, with respect to the relationship between Job and God. The Testament of Job documents a “search for a deeper relationship, a more sustained experience of the divine, than the canonical work appears to allow,” according to Brown (2000, 204). As for the Christian tradition, Brown (2000, 204) gives “first a brief indication of what happened in the liturgy and in art,” while “noting the various ways in which Jewish and Christian reflection interconnected,” and before “identifying” what he considers “the defining characteristics of Christian development.” For example, Brown (2000, 205) discusses “Dürer’s famous picture of Job and his wife with two musicians,” and observes that music “played a major role in the Testament.” Brown (2000, 206) claims that the painting evinces a moment in a long “development” of “theological and artistic tradition.” The evolution of the “iconography” of Job was “open enough” to permit the “artistic imagination” to respond to “the new scourge of syphilis in the sixteenth century” before the “literary imagination” was able to catch up. Brown (2000, 207) shifts his attention to the “most significant contribution which the Christian tradition came to make in the continuing task of interpreting the agenda set by the Book of Job.” He notes that “the eighteenth century

200 

Chapter 4

presents something of a watershed.” Accordingly, “he treats the modern period separately. Prior to that point, two main contributions may be identified, one positive and the other negative. The positive,” Brown (2000, 208) clarifies, “concerns internalization” (suffering is not something purely external; the final resolution to suffering becomes a matter of internal attitude/​mental attitude); “the negative too narrow an understanding of particular providence” (suffering in accordance with a divine plan to test, reward, or punish in conjunction with belief in life after death to ensure that the plan will be fulfilled). The positive development is not primarily, Brown (2000, 211) argues, an effect of reading “the Book of Job in the light of Christ.” The development is rather the result of the influence of “monasticism.” It “developed such demands that sustained internal reflection “had the effect of “extending the internalization of morality to the reception of suffering.” With respect to the negative development, like in the “Jewish tradition,” Brown (2000, 212) argues, “the Christian resurrection did come to dominate the interpretation of Job.” An artistic expression of that we find in Handel’s interpretation of Job 19:25–​26 in his Messiah (part iii, no. 45). In light of the belief in the resurrection of Jesus, “the continued assertion of some connection” between sin and punishment informed a theology of suffering that sees God as the cause of it. Kant’s On the Failure of All Philosophical Attempts at Theodicy” (1791) is representative of the major change that occurred in the reception of the Book of Job within the Christian tradition in the eighteenth century. Guided by Job 27:5, Brown (2000, 218) explains, the aim of Kant (1791) was “to make human freedom central to a ‘practical solution’” to the problem of innocent suffering. “We are not the passive instruments of providence; it is up to us to respond in our freedom to the situation, and in that response we discover what is meant by grace.” This is the position, Brown (2000, 218) argues, “towards which the Church has been moving over the succeeding two centuries.” Particular providence lost its foothold because it deprived individual suffering from its individuality and subsumed it to explanations of a more general kind following the logic of standardized types, such as testing, rewarding, or punishing an individual. Brown (2000, 220) turns to “William Blake’s illustrations for the Book of Job as indicative of perhaps the most important way of coming to terms with suffering in this new understanding of experience as no longer directly engineered by God.” This new understanding is deeply influenced, Brown (2000, 222) insists, by a “developing, imaginative tradition.” In Blake’s imaginative theology “particular providence is seen,” Brown (2000, 223) finds, as a “freely chosen decision to interpret suffering however caused, in a particular way and so, correspondingly, shape one’s life of discipleship.” In this theology we encounter “a much more complete integration of ethics and internalization in that the

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

201

solution to suffering is understood to lie not just in attitudes (patience, faith, and so forth) but also in our capacity to change those attitudes in the light of such experience. Our freedom now plays an integral part” in suffering. Instead of assuming the presence of Christ in suffering, Brown (2000, 223) continues his analysis of Blake’s artistic work, it is believed now that “Christ is actually discovered in the suffering.” Far from seeing “God to vacate the scene,” Brown (2000, 224) explains, God’s new role is to “achieve an even more central role, as we seek his grace” to use creatively the situations of suffering resulting from “accidents of life and our own choices,” although the “historical Jesus” would have viewed things differently. In wrapping up this section, we can conclude that a reading of the Book of Job as a thought experiment advances the thesis of this chapter in numerous respects. Firstly, surplus composition affirms the cognitive value of the theological diversity that the history of the canonical text of the Book of Job exhibits. The Book is the result of thought experimentation in this respect, and the theological diversity that results from that mental activity is of intrinsic value. Secondly, the theological diversity that we find at the textual level, and which is never conclusively resolved, not only directs our attention to the cognitive significance of the non-​propositional character of the story. For example, many commentators seek to draw theological significance from the reported appearance of God in response to Job’s questioning. The appearance as such is deemed to be of theological significance. It is seen to fill the void at the propositional level that God creates, as God neither discloses his bet with ‘Satan’ nor offers any other account of Job’s suffering. According to the development view, the theological diversity at the textual level also throws the premise into doubt that the process of divine revelation has a single vanishing point. This is surely true of the Book of Job and also of Scripture at large. Thirdly, the imagination view can source support from the affirmation that the Book of Job makes of the power of the imagination in cognitive matters. The book both engages the imagination and sanctions the use of the imagination for theological purposes. The imagination is not just the next best cognitive tool. Fourthly, the two interpretations of the Book of Job that this section has featured are united in their claim that the imagination is an integral part of divine revelation, although they surely differ in detail. Insofar as they diverge in their understanding of the main message of the book, they display powerfully how imaginative engagement within a single stream of divine revelation sustains theological diversity consistent with the plasticity that we found to be characteristic of thought experiments. And yet, one might ask at this point: what about the imagination itself? Isn’t the imagination a great unifier? Isn’t it that the imagination unifies

202 

Chapter 4

where beliefs divide? This is the issue that I will address in the next and final section of this chapter. 3

An Inconceivable Unity in the Imagination

In the first section of this chapter, we discussed the ambivalence solution that is meant to solve the problem that the nature of normative self-​criticism is seen to pose. The solution affirms the cognitive power of the imagination. In its commitment to a “heavenly pluralism,” Judaism fosters a culture of normative self-​criticism inwards and outwards. Judaism’s “heavenly pluralism” depends on the cognitive power of the imagination in that regard. Thus, in turn the imagination is framed in pluralist terms. Thought experiments are devices of the imagination. Hence, they are not the next best thing, but seem essential to perpetuate the “heavenly pluralism” insofar as it defines Judaism. In Section 2, we looked at the Book of Job as a thought experiment to make sense of this extremely challenging text. From the Jobian point of view that we have developed in that section, the consideration of the imagination is theologically essential in three respects at least. Firstly, insofar as surplus composition is an acceptable category for purposes of Biblical criticism, thought experimentation accounts for a significant degree of theological diversity in diachronic perspective on the text of the Book of Job. The text grew over time and with that growth the text has accumulated numerous theological layers which are not necessarily coherent at the propositonal level. As such, the text exhibits traces of “real imaginative effort” (Brown 2000, 100), and lends support to the development view. Secondly, in synchronic perspective on the Book of Job, the theological diversity at the level of the canonical text strongly encourages “imaginative engagement” (Brown 2000, 58) with the text. Even if we were to consider only the dialogues among Job and his three friends, there is a significant theological diversity at the textual level that resists integration to some noteworthy extent. We are looking at an even greater complexity once we consider the text in its entirety. Some see different theologies of nature in conversation with one another. Others focus on the various accounts of the suffering of the innocent that the text offers. Thirdly, insofar as the text initiated an “imaginative engagement” for theological purposes, the various interpretations that have been produced of the canonical text are part of the “imaginative consciousness of the Church” (Brown 2000, 111). They are constitutive elements of an ongoing stream of divine revelation by means of the imagination. One should use the image of “a trajectory” to describe interpretations that are consistent with the Biblical text, although not necessarily identical with what that text says. At

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

203

other times, however, a “more radical notion” needs to be used to qualify the development. In such cases, Brown (1999, 374) explains, “tradition, as it were,” is “turning back on itself to offer a critique of earlier views. That does not make it a purely human enterprise, though it does make it more difficult to identify precisely where God is at work.” In “trying to tell the revelatory story we need to recognize a God at work everywhere in his world in helping to shape our comprehension of his purpose.” In this section we shall look at the imagination as a possible unifier in the sense of theological monism. Elsewhere I have entertained in critical perspective the notion that the imagination (at the non-​propositional level) unites whereas beliefs (at the propositional level) divide (see Fehige 2022). I do not intend to repeat here what I have said there. There are three arguments that I have in mind for discussion in this section. I intend to offer them to strengthen the critique of theological monism that we have initiated in Chapter 3 and conclude with the present section. I will argue first that the imagination is not unified enough to serve a theological monism. Then I shall show in what sense the imagination as a means of divine revelation resists theological monism in virtue of the destabilizing nature of the imagination. My third argument directs the attention to the constraints under which the imagination undoubtedly operates. Surely, there are constraints that channel its creative energy. Yet, the imagination has also an anarchic spin, which, I’d like to think, further weakens the case for theological monism. As for my first argument, McLeish (2014) seeks to find common ground where others exaggerate the division between science and religion, Christianity in particular. The imagination is an important part of that common ground. We have discussed some of his views relevant to that issue in the previous section. Therefore, he and his work don’t need an introduction at this point. McLeish (2019) identifies commonalities between scientific and artistic creativity where others see mutually exclusive cultures. The two works of McLeish (2014) and (2019) are not unrelated, because “there are close parallels between the strained relation of science and religion and that between science and art,” according to McLeish (2019, 25). I will first clarify in what sense the imagination can emerge from such an analysis as a possible unifier, and then clarify why that would be a role the imagination cannot play. There is a “pressing need to bring forward,” argues Lima-​De-​Faria (2020, 4), “the original sources in which leading scientists and renowned artists, explained the principles that they followed in their discovery of novel phenomena, and in the creation of unique works of art.” McLeish (2019) shares this diagnosis. There is “a clear issue of misunderstanding in the perception of science within popular culture as an activity that calls on minimal imagination,”

204 

Chapter 4

according to McLeish (2019, 18). But the public is not to be blamed, McLeish (2019, 4) clarifies. Scientists and artists do not talk much about the significance of the imagination in their original work; philosophy of science does neither, because it suffers from—​to put it in the terminology we have developed in the last section: proposition-​centrism. This is exemplified by the work of Popper (1959), which is “celebrated for the most detailed modern outworking of a scientific method.” Popper (1959) “wrote at length on how hypotheses may be refuted, but remained quiet on how they might be imagined in the first place. While acknowledging the vital necessity of such imaginative preconception,” McLeish (2019, 4) argues, “Popper declared” such use of the imagination “as essentially non-​methodological; he had nothing to say about it.” But the imagination was recognized as cognitively significant “from Aristotle to Einstein,” McLeish (2019, 31) reasons. There is this “creative first step” that is common to both science and art, and it is that crucial moment in the creative process that McLeish (2019) draws attention to in his analysis. The “starting hypothesis,” McLeish (2019, 28) advises, for his journey through art and science is the existence of a “cousinly creativity with constraint.” At the end of that journey, McLeish (2019, 304–​308) identifies—​in summary of his findings—​eight stages of the creative process in the sciences and the arts (mistakenly he refers to them as “seven”; clarified by email correspondence). They are meant to widen current notions of the scientific method. In Chapter 2 we saw that the notion of a scientific method is a rather controversial topic in the field of the history and philosophy of science. Important here, however, is to note the intent of McLeish (2019) to present something of a methodology for the use of the imagination. His critical remarks about Popper (1959) can surely be understood to that effect. Moreover, in the context of his analysis of Robert Schumann’s The Konzertstück for Four Horns (1849), he uses the expression of a “methodology of creativity within constraints” (McLeish 2019, 230) to qualify the observation that “‘composers of first rank‘” display a “‘a strategic genius of setting up problems and resolving them within the connection of tonality.’” The use of the imagination in science and literature also evokes the existence of a “methodology of creativity,” according to McLeish (2019, 188). For present purposes, we are less interested in a comprehensive appraisal of the highly intriguing details of the phenomenology of scientific and artistic creativity that McLeish (2019) presents. Of significance here is rather the following. There is clearly an interest in identifying points of unity amongst various scholarly endeavours, especially science and religion, as well as science and the arts, that motivates the two works of McLeish (2014) and (2019). An important theme in both works are the three great questions, and we know already that he contends that a theological answer to these questions is the

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

205

best among the available options. McLeish (2019, 276) ascertains in Joseph Priestley’s “theology of scientific exploration” a “modern” theory of “scientific imagination within a much larger narrative of human advancement towards the divine … within the new experimental programme of enlightenment science.” The “practice of science,” like novel-​writing, McLeish (2019, 188) argues, means a “recreation of the world” and as such it “is a high expression of human liberty, yet constrained by the observed world.” Thereby science participates in humanity’s desire to make sense of the world. In this respect, science itself is “a story with a beginning, middle, and end,” McLeish (2019, 188) explains. “The telos [sic!], the end—​in both senses of finality and purpose—​run through novel-​and science-​making.” In the “age of Newton and Bacon,” McLeish (2019, 189) argues, there was a strong “theological underpinning of hope” that instilled confidence in the actors that the new “experimental project” serves an overarching “telos.” McLeish (2019, 136–​137) finds in a theologically oriented experimental science the bedrock of the literary novel, because experiments are stories with a beginning, middle, and end. Experiments and novels alike “create small, alternative worlds, microcosmic mirrors of the universe we inhabit.” There are different constraints in effect in each, but both follow a “mandate to create such living microcosms.” These creative acts are part of “the story of creativity” that springs “from the deepest and oldest sources that sustain our humanity,” according to McLeish (2019, 311), and insofar as this is true, there “is another reason to let the equally deep-​lying web of theological narratives interpret the basic narrative of creation.” McLeish (2019, 313) sees “three windows onto creativity through which theological approaches promise to provide special insight, in addition to their witness to evolving human culture.” Firstly, there “is the delight in formulating creation narratives and in locating the topic of origins as a central theme.” Secondly, theology gravitates to “‘grand narratives’, which he knows to be academically unfashionable today.” Thirdly, in theological perspective, a “frequently recurring theme” is the purpose of human creativity. The three windows can be mapped onto the three great questions that we are only too familiar with by now: why is the universe intelligible, why are our minds equipped to understand the universe, and why do we value science. “A meta-​question that must arise from a comparative study of human creativity” like the one McLeish (2019) intends to offer, “is the purpose of art and science themselves,” according to McLeish (2019, 313). Darwinian evolutionary theory is one way to look at that question, but “there are other important ways of articulating purpose.” Among them is the way of natural philosophy. “For natural philosophers in the West, from late antiquity to the early modern period era,” McLeish (2019, 324) explains, “the reason that human beings set their minds to comprehending

206 

Chapter 4

the natural world is that a state of vision and understanding is both their origin and their destiny.” That is the “Biblical grand narrative.” Our cognitive capacities, such as “sense perception, imagination, memory, and understanding are the rungs of a scientific Jacob’s ladder.” McLeish (2019, 324) refers here to Genesis 28: 10–​22, which tells us that Jacob has a dream of a ladder/​staircase that reaches to the sky; messengers of God move on it up and down. God appears to Jacob and renews the promise he had made to Abraham and Isaac. The land on which he rests is his and he will have many descendants. McLeish (2019) clearly expresses a tendency to favour a monist framing of the imagination in theological terms. Therefore, I am inclined to understand him to advance a theological monism as defined for present purposes (see 3 and 2). To uphold theological monism, a recourse to a theological grand narrative seems necessary because of the pluralist turn that the history and philosophy of science has taken, as clarified in Chapter 2 (see Section 3). The phenomenology of the imagination that McLeish (2019) offers also exhibits a noteworthy diversity, and this is most interesting for present purposes. He identifies three “domains of the imagination.” They do not align with disciplinary boundaries. In fact, McLeish (2019, 25) objects to “an arbitrary disciplinary set of divisions,” because they “blur our comprehension of creativity itself.” In his comparison of scientific and artistic creativity, he doesn’t want to “construct parallel accounts of the creative narrative in art and science.” Instead, he prefers a phenomenological approach so that they can tell “their stories together within” the three domains of “visual, textual, and abstract.” There is a general characteristic of the imagination. It is a means for “‘bringing hidden things to light,” McLeish (2019, 37) explains. It enables us to illuminate “what is still hidden in nature” and to bring “into conscious apprehension new understanding that is latent within our minds.” We are familiar with this notion of the imagination as a mediator between the hidden and the visible, the conscious and unconscious. In Chapter 2 we looked at the theory of thought experiments that Mach (1897, 1905) offers us (see Section 1). Unlike Mach (1897, 1905), McLeish (2019) does not pursue an evolutionary account of the cognitive power of the imagination, although he thinks that it is an important piece of the greater picture. I will briefly address now each of the three domains of the imagination that McLeish (2019) explores in order to give us a more complete picture of their commonalities and differences. Thereby the disunity of the imagination that I wish to stress in the present context will be thrown into relief, or so I hope. First to the visual domain: In our discussion of the Platonism defended by Brown (2011a) we touched on the philosophical discussion about the nature of visual perception (see 1.1). Critics of Brown (2011a) argue that his Platonic

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

207

seeing with the mind’s eye is so very different from visual seeing that the analogy obscures more than anything. In response, Brown (2011a, 108) stresses the many things we still don’t know about visual perception: “The claim that we understand ordinary sense perception is simply fraudulent.” We understand the part from photon-​emission to neural activity in the visual cortex, but not the most important part from “there to belief about the object seen.” This continues to be a “complete mystery,” Brown (2011a, 108) insists. McLeish (2019, 76) goes into a similar direction, although not heading for Platonism. He distinguishes between the “physics of vision” and “the complete science of visual perception.” He seeks to demonstrate the dependence of vision on the imagination. McLeish (2019, 100) speaks of a “dialogue between mind and the material that the image negotiates. In classical and medieval times, the duality of visual imagination and perception found expression in the delicate complicity of intromission and extramission.” Today’s physics of vision is intromissive (i.e., there is an emphasis on what the perceived objects contribute to visual perception). The complete science of visual perception today, however, is “resolutely extramissive” (i.e., there is an emphasis on what the mind contributes to visual perception), according to McLeish (2019, 76). Science and art can be creative because visual perception is never a one-​way street, argues McLeish (2019, 83), where traffic moves “from nature onto a symbolic plane.” Instead, it is “a dynamic tension,” and there is “communication between the representation and the represented.” It is Augustine’s theory of vision that affords McLeish (2019, 87–​88) the opportunity to comment on what he deems to be the epistemologically foundational role of vision in relation to the imagination. “Corporeal vision is the pure sense that humans share with animals. Intellectual vision (spiritale) is unique to humankind, and included [sic!] the ability to recast and rearrange physical reality within the imagination. It is here,” McLeish (2019, 88) explains, “that Augustine gives us the idea of the “‘mind’s eye.’ The highest form of vision, the noetic, or sapiential (wisdom), is the ability to extrapolate to realities beyond those sensed.” In short, the imagination enables visual perception, and visual perception in turn leads to visual imagination of various kinds. As for the “textual” or “narrative” domain of the imagination, in the previous section we touched on the question whether novels can be thought experiments. It is especially the novel and its historical and systematic links to experimental science that attract the analytical gaze of McLeish (2019). There are fictional elements present in physical experiments and experimental elements in the literary fictions of novels. “The drawing of parallels between fictional writings and scientific investigation has a long history,” McLeish (2019, 129) rightly notes. Science and literature parted in the nineteenth century,

208 

Chapter 4

McLeish (2019, 178) reports. And, yet, in the experimental novel of Émile Zola, for example, McLeish (2019, 181) discerns the beginning of social science. Not only in Émile Durkheim and Max Weber, but also in Zola we find “a route into an experimentally based science of human communities. The path taken by twentieth-​century university departments of social science would, of course, diverge from his vision.” This development maybe understandable, since the divergence of science and literature—​which is inconceivable from the point of view of the Romantics and which was “feared by Humboldt and Wordsworth” (McLeish 2019, 182)—​has become reality in the twentieth century. But the divergence did not materialize in a way that catapulted science from the narrative domain of the imagination. Of course, the scientific thought experiments that we discussed in the first chapter prove that point all too well. Some scientific thought experiments more than others exemplify what McLeish (2019, 183) observes about writing more generally: “it can be a journey into unanticipated places, into which the writer takes the first conscious step, but thereafter becomes a receptive observer.” As “authors of fiction” realize that they “are not—​not nearly—​as ‘free’ to control their characters as their readers may suppose,” McLeish (2019, 129) notes, they “experiment with the writing over and over again.” Like in the other domains of the imagination, creativity always operates under internal and external constraints. Literary and scientific writing each have their own formal constraints in addition to those that are imposed on the narrative imagination by whatever subject matter is under investigation. Noteworthy at this point is also that the scientific practice of explanation by metaphors that we discussed in Chapter 2 (see Section 3), is certainly also located in what McLeish (2019) identifies as the narrative domain of the imagination. The picture defines the visual domain and the word the narrative domain of the imagination. In contrast, mathematics and music directs us to another domain of the imagination—​ the “wordless and picture-​ less,” according to McLeish (2019, 207). The wordlessness and picturelessness explain the extremely mysterious character of the abstract domain of the imagination. It is “the absence of referent,” McLeish (2019, 213) explains, that creates an enormous challenge to making sense of it. We saw in the first and the third chapter how unique mathematics is understood to be in this respect and in consideration of its cognitive power. Many tend to favour realism about mathematics to explain its efficacy in science. Mathematical truths are discovered, like electrons and dna were discovered. In comparison, music is even more unique. “Everyone knows that music means something,” McLeish (2019, 199) reports, “but no one can say what it is.” While both “draw frequently on the other visual

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

209

and textual planes of imagination,” McLeish (2019, 260) clarifies, “they both need ultimately to take leave of them.” With that brief sketch of the three domains of the imagination, I come to my first argument as to why the imagination must disappoint insofar as it is measured by the standards of theological monism. McLeish (2019) gravitates to the grand narrative of the Bible and its reception in Western natural philosophy. The intention is, I think, to achieve some unity where diversity prevails. It may be true that the three domains of the imagination do not coincide with established disciplinary boundaries. But the imagination itself isn’t one, but three at least. Referring to the three domains as “the trinity of disciplines and modes of creation,” as McLeish (2019, 339) does, creates only the appearance of some kind of unity, while in fact there isn’t one. So, what about the unifying power of that grand Biblical narrative? It must disappoint because there is no unique religious domain of the imagination (in addition to the visual, textual, and abstract). Thus, insofar as the expected unifying power of the Biblical grand narrative is driven by a purported unifying power of the imagination, that expected unity cannot be established, as it is limited by the boundaries that exist between the three domains of the imagination. In this sense, theology’s ability to contribute to a framing of the imagination that could meet monist expectations is pretty much rendered moot. This is my first argument against the imagination as a possible unifier in the sense of theological monism. As for my second argument, it has two features. In my presentation of the argument, I shall utilize the work of Brown (1999, 2000), since it was introduced in the last section, and thus requires no further introduction. This helps to keep things brief and to the point. First, some context. Insofar as the imagination is a means of divine revelation—​as outlined in the previous section in terms of the imagination view—​it is diversity-​affirming rather than unifying. The notion of surplus composition that I introduced in the previous section is meant to account partly for theological diversity in the Bible as a result of imaginative engagement. This kind of diversity is qualitatively different from theological diversity in the Bible insofar as it is seen to be the result of divine accommodation at the propositional level over time. The latter may be deemed transient under the assumption of an overarching divine authorial intent that is understood to guide the production of the canonical text of Scripture (disregarding here the shortcomings which I have argued exist in this respect in Chapter 3; see Section 6). The development view that I also introduced in the previous section affirms theological diversity in this sense. God accommodates the inescapable historical and cultural conditions of human thinking in the process of divine revelation by means of the imagination. As I just argued, the imagination is not united. Therefore, the diversity that it produces in religious

210 

Chapter 4

contexts is certainly not only a function of the need “to move with a changing world,” as Brown (2000, 331) puts it. Insofar as it is the result of divine accommodation, “revelation advances through the imagination,” (Brown 2000, 330) explains, and it continues “to be communicated throughout the history of the Church by means of fresh narratives and new images,” according to Brown (2000, 373). Thus, the assumption of an overarching authorial intent with respect to the theological diversity in the Bible just will not do to satisfy the requirements of theological monism. The distinction between Scripture and Tradition is misleading in this respect, as I have stressed in the previous section following Brown (1999, 2000). More specifically, the argument that I want to articulate now is that the history of development by means of imaginative engagement neither unfolds in a “linearly progressive” way, nor does it necessarily assume unification in eschatological perspective. The history of Christianity, Brown (2000, 261) stresses, is not only a success story. Christians have “to come to terms with two kinds of corrupting influence, one deriving from the imagination and the other from theological reflection.” The “imagination can sometimes seriously distort perspective,” Brown (2000, 261) argues. This distortion can lead to theological displacement. The history of Mariology, for example, attests to such “imaginative distortions.” He means “the promulgation of the dogma of the immaculate conception in 1854,” which, Brown (2000, 261) insists, “cannot be dismissed as a mere nineteenth-​century aberration, but instead must be seen as a deep-​seated fault running through much of the Church’s tradition.” Brown (2000, 261–​278) sketches the history of Mariology. At the beginning is a notion we are only too familiar with. We encountered it in the third chapter when we discussed Augustine’s views about human sexuality in paradise (see Section 5). It is the notion, Brown (2000, 262) explains, “that all humanity stands under condemnation in virtue of participation” in the sin committed by Adam. Only “Christ, as exempt from all sinful tendency, could save us.” If true, Mary could not have been exempt from all sinful tendency. But this is not what the dogma of 1854 says. Key to understand the development from Augustine to the 1854 dogma, is the “imaginative contrast with Eve (already present in Justin and Irenaeus in the second century),” according to Brown (2000, 262). The divine punishment for Eve was pain in childbirth. “Belief in Mary’s sinlessness,” Brown (2000, 263) explains, arose slower than the concession that Mary in her unconditional submission to God’s will could have given birth to Jesus without pain. By the “Middle Ages the belief in her perfection had become universal, however. She was now the “new Eve in the most obvious sense of all.” Consequently, Duns Scotus drew the conclusion that Mary “was born without even the disposition to sin which all have shared since Eve’s fall. Conducive to that stage of

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

211

the development were two factors. Firstly, there is a Biblical reason. The identification of Mary “with the bride in the Song of Songs and with Wisdom,” Brown (2000, 264) reasons, was common enough that “both images could appeal powerfully to the imagination” in favour of the belief in the absolute sinlessness of Mary. Secondly, there is a theological reason. Theological objections at the time to the equation of Mary and Christ regarding sin-​lessness were really less powerfully made than they could have been. In their moderation, the objections reveal a tendency to accept the elevation of Mary close to Christ. There is a third factor to be considered to explain how that elevation made it to a dogma in 1854. So, two traditions eventually met in the imagination on the path to the dogma of 1854. Nevertheless, scientific advances had led to an erosion of the assumption that there ever was a human nature immortal and free of pain at childbirth. Thus, Mary just could not have been “exempt from pain in childbirth or from death than any other being.” But, the well-​ established tradition of the “Eve-​Mary” contrast—​“an exercise in the imagination”—​helped generate attitudes to the contrary, Brown (2000, 265) explains. Ameliorative in this respect was that the contrast was embedded in “a more general aesthetics that stressed the symmetry of the balance between the tree of temptation and the cross as tree of life.” Another factor that needs to be considered is the role that Catholic Spain played in the development of the dogma of 1854. In consideration of “the paintings on the subject by El Greco, Velasquez, Rubens, Zurburán, and Murillo” as famous exemplars of “Spanish iconography,” and in light of the fact that the deeply Catholic “Spanish monarchy saw its own fortunes as closely bound up with those of Mary,” Brown (2000, 265–​266) argues that Mary was enlisted as a powerful monarch “in support of the Spanish crown.” The “Spanish iconography” was successful “firing the popular imagination,” including the many “visions of Mary in the nineteenth and twentieth century.” This hint at the vision of Mary is not meant to be taken as evidence that the visions were mere fabrications, and this is for two reasons at least, argues Brown (2000, 267–​268). Firstly, “even biblical experience is a mixture of truth and falsehood and heavily conditioned by its context.” Secondly, God “chooses to build upon what individuals can already comprehend.” In consequence, Brown (2000, 270) reasons, Mary emerged as someone “with a humanity too remote from our own or else is assigned a status perilously close to divinity.” Going forward, let us call the former distortion Dehumanization (Mary was not a human like us) and the latter Divinization (Mary was like the Holy Spirt or Christ). Dehumanization is theologically problematic, because if Mary was without sin then “Christ could not have died for her,” Brown (2000, 270) reports an objection from Origen. Moreover, Mary and Christ become indistinguishable

212 

Chapter 4

with respect to the miraculous character of their birth. Divinization is a problem, because Mary begins to assume roles of “the Holy Spirit,” or—​if the Christology is particularly inadequate at a time—​even of “the Son.” Brown (2000, 271) argues that there should “be little doubt that” Mariology developed along the lines of Dehumanization and Divinization. It was a “gradual progression” and “its problematic content is still clearly observable today.” Both imagination and doctrine were “forced into new patterns in order to preserve certain underlying truths.” The result was regrettable displacements. A correction is in order today, Brown (2000, 276) claims, but not only with respect to Mary! “Because of the way in which human beings have evolved and the social conditioning to which they are all subject, not even Christ,” Brown (2000, 276) contends, “could escape the effects of ‘original sin’ in disposing him in certain directions rather than others. So, it is not clear what is gained in speaking of either Christ or Mary as exceptions.” Imagination and tradition need to turn back on themselves to make room for a critique of the dehumanizing of Mary and Christ, and of the perilous divinization of Mary! Of interest now are not the details of the development of Mariology that Brown (2000, 261–​278) sketches. It is the fallibility of the imagination that I wish to stress, because it compels us to draw on the appraisal of the argument of pessimistic induction in pluralist perspective. Chang (2012, 224–​227) offers “an optimistic rendition of the pessimistic induction.” I introduced the pessimistic induction in the second chapter (see Section 4) and it guided parts of my critique of the realist elements of Polkinghorne’s theological monism in Chapter 3 (see Section 2 and 3). We know that past scientific theories have turned out to be false in various respects. Some of their claims about the structure of the world have turned out to be false and many theoretical terms which featured in them have turned out to refer to nothing at all. And yet, these theories were successful in many respects. They had predictive power and explained important features of the domain they were intended to be about. The pessimistic induction infers from that historical record a lack of warrant for assuming that our current theories are true. Chang (2012, 226) suggests “we should be thinking,” instead, “how wonderful it is that we can be so successful without even knowing the truth.” There was no phlogiston and yet the phlogiston system of chemistry was remarkably successful. Electrochemists in the nineteenth century did excellent work and yet had no idea about how atoms become ions by gain or loss of electrons. Atomic chemistry was equally successful before it knew a great deal of the deep nature of atoms. “So, the pessimistic induction can make us happy, if we learn to turn it on its head,” Chang (2012, 226) reasons. “What is really wrong in the pessimistic induction scenario,” Chang (2012, 227) argues, “is the notion that a successful theory should be rejected if another

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

213

successful theory comes along and seems to declare the old theory to be false. That is precisely what conservationist pluralism argues against.” Diversity is to be preserved—​to be rejected are misleading “later triumphalist declarations of unity,” Chang (2012, 185) advises. In the words of Brown (1999, 210), we ought to “take seriously each stage of” past development “as at least in principle capable of informing our present understanding.” We need to conserve theological diversity. This is the first part of my second argument. The second part of my second argument against a monist framing of the imagination in theological perspective concerns eschatology. I find myself often confronted with the objection that surely in eschatological perspective a pluralist framing of diversity in theological terms must hit a wall. It is a common view indeed that it can be expected that in the eschaton all theological diversity will be overcome. The one single truth will be established. In the first chapter we discussed the characterization of eschatological confirmation of Hick (1977) (see Section 3). Insofar as the notion of eschatological confirmation makes any sense at all, it can be expected to be of a rather complex kind, comparable to confirmation of theories like evolution by natural selection, in contrast to the kind of simple confirmations, such as of observational claims, like: There is a red car in the parking lot. If theological diversity is a function of both divine accommodation and the historical and cultural conditioning that human thinking is always subjected to, then I cannot see why in eschatological perspective the process of ongoing divine revelation should be conceived of as a diversity-​pruning exercise. The contrary seems to be the case, insofar as it is true that “the imaginative consciousness of the Church” (Brown 2000, 111) connects in the present both the tradition and the eschaton. What is to be confirmed in the eschaton is not the truth about “Christ’s resurrection as an isolated exception without any immediate relevance” to the lives and times that followed that historical event. “If we assume something like the traditional understanding of Christ and his significance,” Brown (2000, 96) reasons, “then there is a need for imaginative distance to be retained in recognition of the fact that Jesus lived in a very different world. Imaginative closeness only becomes relevant,” Brown (2000, 96) continues, “when we consider the impact of his resurrection in the here and now of the believer’s experience.” Imaginative closeness means “the ability to mediate across time.” What is required, Brown (2000, 99) explains, is “imaginative re-​identification” of the life and deeds of Jesus “under very different circumstances.” A “real imaginative effort” is always necessary. The various imaginative re-​identifications that occurred from past to present are not suspended between heaven and earth, as it were, awaiting divine judgment in a distant future. Brown (2000, 110–​123) offers four reasons in

214 

Chapter 4

support of that contention. Firstly, “Christ’s life,” Brown (2000, 114) argues, “affects not just the future but also the past.” It is not a moment in a history of divine revelation that expenses with the past, contrary to what, for example, Swinburne (2007b) argues. Secondly, true humanity means community. It cannot be, therefore, that the resurrection of Christ means the exaltation of one human only, i.e., Jesus. “Admittedly,” Brown (2000, 115) reasons, “one could talk” of the relationship the exalted Jesus sustains with those who remained on earth. But would it not be “an odd sort of human life if that was the only form of contact he had with those of the same nature as himself across several, perhaps countless millennia?” If true it certainly meant a denial of the “essentially social character of human beings” in virtue of the belief in the ascension of Christ. In other words, whatever heaven exactly is, argues Brown (2000, 116), it “must necessarily be social in character: a societa perfecta,” although he is aware that the image of a perfect society has been misused in the past for unethical political purposes, which Brown (2000, 117) is inclined to attribute to “failure of imaginative nerve.” Thirdly, “there is the issue of the question of ‘the communion of saints’,” Brown (2000, 117) explains. His concern is the need for a bridging of the divide between those dead and those still alive. One important reason for that concern is the broken relationships that could not be repaired because life was cut short by death. It looks “as though issues of forgiveness could cloud almost permanently the lives of the living and of the dead,” Brown (2000, 118) argues, “unless heaven is acknowledged as a present reality. To some, God’s forgiveness may seem alone relevant, but that is surely to adopt a solipsistic attitude,” Brown (2000, 119) explains, “as though our relations were with God alone and not also with the social reality of which he has made us an inescapable part.” Fourthly, in our “historically conscious age,” Brown (2000, 119) argues, “it surely makes no sense to think of us all rising at the same time and immediately being capable of interrelations with one another.” This is hermeneutically naïve, because even if we were to consider only the contents of the Christian faith (and not all that scientific progress, for instance, we have been making since Jesus, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas lived), “major problems would emerge, such as different attitudes to providence or pain, or certain things once regarded as self-​evident where most of us now take a different view, such as usury or contraception or the status of women.” The aim of Brown (2000, 120) is to make a case for the eschaton as being concurrent to the world we inhabit. “Thus, to have any hope of understanding one another, these earlier figures would need to live imaginatively through subsequent history, and, if imaginatively, why not in some sense the real thing?” The point that I wish to make here, however, is this: assuming that Brown (2000) is right, then it seems true to say that the theological diversity we are

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

215

grappling with at this side of the grave, is surely not absent at the other side of the grave. The eschaton must disappoint as a great unifier in this respect. “If narrative” and the diversity it accommodates is “fundamental to who we are,” Brown (2000, 120) reasons, “it is hard to see why that importance should cease beyond the grave.” That everlasting well-​being that Christians are believed to have been promised to enjoy in the eschaton is not a divine imposition on them. God does not dictate “a new identity of doubtful continuity with our old,” Brown (2000, 121) specifies. What “is surely required is some real and intimate connection with who and what we once believed ourselves to be,” and “our identity is so heavily shaped by our specific temporal and geographic circumstances that we cannot simply be changed in a flash into a new identity.” In turn, one can “think of heaven as in part constituted by endless exploration of the infinite riches of God.” This concludes the second fold of my second argument against a monist framing of the imagination in theological perspective. I am coming to my third argument. Both McLeish (2014, 2019) and Brown (1999, 2000) think of the cognitive power of the imagination as an operation under constraint. “Science,” McLeish (2014, 246) states, “is the reimagination of the world under the physical constraints of that world by observation and experiment.” This is the “idea of ‘constrained imagination,’” McLeish (2014, 244) explains. “Creative energy without constraints,” McLeish (2019, 163) claims, “becomes a ‘large loose baggy monster’, full of arbitrary elements, and ultimately lacking in meaning.” Both the arts and the sciences recognize that idea of constrained imagination. “If writing a sonnet is the collision of creativity within constraint of expressing within a tight form and with new potency the human experience of the world,” McLeish (2019, 27) reasons, “then science also becomes the conception of imagination within constraint. We re-​ create the universe by imagination within the constraints of its own form.” Brown (2000, 389–​405) also identifies constraints to define revelatory truth. There are “nine types of criteria,” Brown (2000, 389) explains, “which I have in effect been applying.” They are “intended to apply no less to priorities within the scriptural text as to modifications made subsequently.” One of the types of criteria concerns the “degree of imaginative engagement.” Brown (2000, 402–​ 403) argues that such a type of criterion is necessary because “it is impossible to demarcate the effectiveness of fiction and truth. “Indeed, I argued that this was pre-​eminently so of the Gospel narratives themselves.” The Gospel narratives do not aim to record historical facts but to portray Christ. “By pointing to where his life and teaching would finally lead, the evangelists offered a more accurate portrait of who Christ was and is, and his relevance to ourselves, than if they had given us a literal record of what he did and said while on earth.” According to Brown (2000, 402), “historical fact is by no means the only type of

216 

Chapter 4

truth to which narratives intended to lay claim.” That “type of writing” did not conclude with the canon. Imaginative engagement is a categorical imperative for Christians, and it is constrained by the other eight types of criteria, such as the “empirical criteria.” This is where science enters the picture, although Brown (2000, 393) uses “the looser term ‘empirical’ because there is empirical truth outside the sciences that needs to be considered. Stuart (2020) notes that the notion of a constrained imagination enjoys great popularity among those who are disposed to accept the view that the imagination is of great significance in matters of human cognition. The contention is, Stuart (2020, 969) specifies, that “only appropriately constrained uses of imagination” can be trusted. As we saw, this is a view held by many commentators of scientific thought experiments in an effort to demarcate them from science fiction. The goal is, accordingly, to identify the right constraints. Constraints are right if we have reason to think that adherence to them will lead to knowledge and not mere fantasies. In the previous chapters we looked at many proposals as to what the right constraints are in this sense. For example, some propose that thought experiments have cognitive power insofar as they relate empirically true propositions (constraint on content) in a logically valid way to one another (constraint on operation). Others argue that thought experiments must be sufficiently detailed in their technological-​operational set-​up (constraint on content) to render the imagined scenario that they entertain, realizable in principle (constraint on operation). Again, others look for the right conditions of intuiting. Thought experiments pump intuitions (constraint on operation) and they can be faulty, if the conditions are not right, conditions which the imagined scenarios provide (constraint on content). All these proposals are perfectly reasonable under the assumption that thought experiments amount to a method in the sciences and beyond. This assumption in turn rests on the premise that cognitive progress is always a methodological matter. We recognize here an important element of the theological monism that I am submitting to a critique in this section insofar as it is to frame the imagination in its demonstrable cognitive efficacy. Going forward, I shall refer to the idea that only under constraint the imagination is cognitively powerful, as the view of methodological constraint. For the sake of my argument, I am assuming that theological monism is committed to that view. Feyerabend (2010 [1975]) targets the linking of method and truth. What he means by methods here are firm, unchanging, and absolutely binding rules for scientific practice. He contends that the history of science does not instill confidence in the tenability of the linking in question. “Given any rule, however ‘fundamental’ or ‘rational’,” Feyerabend (2010 [1975], 7) argues, “there are always circumstances when it is advisable not only to ignore the rule, but

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

217

to adopt its opposite.” Among the exemplary types of blatant violations of widely accepted rules are the introduction of ad hoc hypotheses, or hypotheses that contradict well-​established and generally accepted experimental results, as well as hypotheses whose content is smaller than the content of the existing and empirically adequate alternative, and also the introduction of self-​inconsistent hypotheses. His point is that such violations were conducive to progress, and not only an obstacle. Science is much ‘sloppier’ and ‘irrational,’” Feyerabend (2010 [1975], 160) insists, “than its methodological image.” He rejects “the attempt to make science more ‘rational’ and more precise,” because it “is bound to wipe it out,” as he believes the history of science clearly demonstrates. The proposal of Feyerabend (2010 [1975]) is not the abandonment of methodology and truth in science. Instead, he invites us to consider anarchism about science, because “all methodologies, even the most obvious ones, have their limits,” according to Feyerabend (2010 [1975], 241). The claim is not that all methodologies are worthless. Part of the proposed anarchism is the proliferation of theories, and not their elimination, because knowledge thrives in an “ocean of mutually incompatible alternatives,” according to Feyerabend (2010 [1975], 14). “Nothing is ever settled, no view can ever be omitted from a comprehensive account.” His “intention is not to replace one set of general rules by another such set,” Feyerabend (2010 [1975], 16) clarifies, “my intention is, rather, to convince the reader that all methodologies, even the most obvious ones, have their limits.” Later on, Feyerabend (2010 [1975], 131) advises that knowledge “needs a plurality of ideas, that well-​established theories are never strong enough to terminate the existence of alternative approaches. Theoretical alternatives in this sense are “almost the only way of discovering the errors of highly respected and comprehensive points of views.” One way to accommodate the critique of Feyerabend (2010 [1975]) is to permit exceptions to the view of methodological constraint. This may explain why “no one,” as Stuart (2020, 971) reports, “explicitly claims that a constraint-​based epistemology could tell us, for every epistemically successful use of imagination, why it succeeds.” I cannot see how such exceptionalism could be reconciled with the optimism of theological monism. Thus, there is reason to assume that from the point of view of theological monism, the view of methodological constraint expresses rather an absolutist position. If that is true, then we must acknowledge that one serious problem “with constraint-​based views” of the imagination is, according to Stuart (2020, 972), “that they provide constraints that are either too restrictive or too permissive.” For example, among the types of constraints that are advanced by Brown (2000, 389–​405), are Christological criteria. That makes total sense since his

218 

Chapter 4

aim is to throw the theological significance of the imagination into relief as it is demonstrated by the Christian tradition. And yet, the evidence that Brown (2000) has produced compels him to admit that it cannot be true of the Christian imagination “that every story within the tradition be required to bear a christological meaning,” as Brown (2000, 401) puts it. Brown (2000, 295–​317), for example, is driven by a concern to do justice to the new developments in the Jewish-​Christian encounter. Brown (1999, 273) includes Islam and the non-​ religious environment at large and argues that bringing to light how the three major monotheistic religions have been “developing within their own traditions” allows “for a healthier respect both for the process and for the current position within each,” while even the less religious “world need not be seen as entirely set apart from God’s revelatory action in the world.” The “surface conflict is sometimes discovered after all not to run deep.” This is consistent with the insistence of Brown (1999, 374) that “in trying to tell the revelatory story we need to recognize a God at work everywhere in his world.” In other words, constraining the imagination too much will lead to a poor theology of revelation. On the other hand, if one interprets the “Christological constraint” too loosely, then it becomes too permissive, and thus moves beyond the limits permissible according to the view of methodological constraint in Christian perspective. I do not wish to turn this type of complication into an argument against the cognitive power of the imagination. After all, in Chapter 3 I set up part of the problem that we are encountering here without any consideration of the imagination. The challenge one faces here is not unique to a theology of the imagination. My point is rather that the imagination cannot escape the challenge of theological diversity. Brown (2000, 317–​342) is fully aware of the challenge. He turns it actually into an argument in favour of the development view and imagination view. There is a “pattern” of theological “conflict generating insight” by means of the imagination in the Bible, Brown (2000, 317) argues, and it is a pattern one finds “repeated in the community’s faith’s later history.” In fact, I see Brown (2000, 321–​327) committed to the ambivalence solution. That is not my present concern, though. I am interested in the anarchic spin that the imagination can assume at times. Instead of the view of methodological constraint, thought experiments suggest that the norms and values that guide the imagination better not, to put it in the words of Stuart (2020, 973), rob the “imagination of its ability to break us out of progress-​impeding boxes.” Idolatry means “poor imagination,” Brown (2000, 382) contends. In my view, theological monism risks disabling the imagination by making certain theological positions absolute in the interest of overcoming diversity. But it is diversity that allows the imagination to flourish, according to Brown (2000, 317–​327). There is a “need for the presence,” Brown

Beyond Plato’s Heaven

219

(2000, 292) argues, “of an open imagination that insists upon the exploration of alternative possibilities.” Stuart (2000, 973) turns to Galileo’s two cannon balls thought experiment to exemplify the openness of the imagination in the scientific realm. It is fitting that we end this study with the same thought experiment as at the beginning (see 1.1). As we saw in the first chapter, Brown (1986) draws considerable capital from the fact that the move to a new, post-​Aristotelian, concept of motion challenges the view of methodological constraint in the sense that true premises (constraint of the content) and valid inferences (constraint of operations) alone will not account for its innovation. “If Galileo’s use of the imagination requires true premises and valid inferences to be epistemically approved,” argues Stuart (2020, 973), “it must be counted as an epistemically poor use of imagination.” This is contradicted by the fact that “Galileo’s uses of imagination fueled a massive leap forward for science.” Admission of the limits of the view of methodological constraint, in light of thought experiments like Galileo’s, is surely also supported by the advice that characterizes the work of the late Polkinghorne. As we saw in Chapter 3, Polkinghorne (1996, 54) protests “against any claim to prejudge the issue of experience” (see 2). It is reasonable to reserve an equally important role for the products of our imagination. My third argument against a monist framing of the imagination is meant to do justice to the fact that thought experiments, as important devices of the imagination, “can be epistemically progressive for science,” as Stuart (2020) rightly argues, “even when it is being used in apparently irrational ways (e.g., by breaking constraints on good inference making) and sometimes it is used in this way.” Thought experiments, like the imagination in general, have a “playful distancing power” to them, which—​I have argued in this chapter—​can be necessary for cognitive progress in science and theology alike. Of course, as Brown (1999, 127) rightly notes, “that makes the search for criteria of truth in revelation more difficult” than suggested by Swinburne (2007b), for example. “The imagination too needs its critics,” Brown (1999, 376) clarifies. And yet, we “need to acknowledge how much religion flourishes, and thus the revelation that God seeks to address to humanity, by the reader in each generation being set free to appropriate what the imagination can discover in the interstices of the ‘moving’ text that are a religion’s story.” That is impossible to do if truth is “narrowly confined to ‘fact’; nor can the biblical text be allowed the final say. Image, text, and truth need to work together, not in opposition.” To sum up this section, there are at least three reasons to keep the imagination at a critical distance from theological monism. Firstly, the imagination is not one but many. The divisions in the imagination do not align with

220 

Chapter 4

disciplinary boundaries. And yet, they are substantial enough to temper expectations of unification in the realm of the imagination. The religious imagination is not a distinct domain of the imagination. It moves within the three domains of the visual, textual, and abstract. In this sense, grand religious stories of unification cannot overcome the divisions that run within the imagination. Secondly, the fallibility of the imagination supports conservationist pluralism, and the idea of an eschatological confirmation does not necessarily mean a permanent overcoming of theological diversity either. Thirdly, theological monism is committed to the view of methodological constraint, which, it can be argued, is in tension with the empirical record of the cognitive impact of an unconstrained imagination. 4

Conclusion

In this chapter I have advanced the thesis that a pluralist framing of the imagination has greater promise to account for thought experiments than it may seem from the perspective of religious traditions that tend to think of truth in the singular. Numerous arguments have emerged in its support. Firstly, insofar as Judaism is committed to a “heavenly pluralism” the imagination receives a pluralist framing in two respects. The first concerns the dependence on normative self-​criticism. This in turn requires an endorsement of the ambivalence solution. At the heart of the ambivalence solution is the imagination. The second concerns the role of thought experiments in sustaining the “heavenly pluralism.” Secondly, Christianity can endorse a “heavenly pluralism” in consideration of divine accommodation and the inevitably conditioned human mind. Divine revelation is ongoing. The imagination is as important as theological reflection for the sake of doctrine in sustaining divine revelation. Thirdly, insofar as science and theology are inescapably entangled, the imagination in its creative power is situated in a pluralist way. This is true in three respects. The first is that science and theology are independent of one another to some significant degree. The second concerns religious diversity. The third concerns the diversity that obtains as the result of imaginative engagement. Fourthly, religion depends on the imagination, and it thrives because of it. The extensive discussion of the Book of Job that this chapter offers clearly supports such an assessment. The imagination, however, resists a monist framing for three reasons at least. The first reason is that the imagination is not one but many. The second reason is that the imagination is fallible and, as such, supports a conservationist pluralism, even in eschatological perspective. And the third reason is a demonstrable openness of the imagination.

Conclusion Theological experimentation is not at all impossible. murphy 1990, 173

Buzzoni and Savojardo (2019) have objected to my earlier work on the relationship between theology and thought experiments on two grounds. First, Buzzoni and Savojardo object that theology operates in the non-​empirical realm (broadly conceived), unlike the natural sciences and the humanities, because its primary object of study is God, who is by definition outside of space and time. Thus, with respect to the domain of investigation, Buzzoni and Savojardo argue that theological thought experiments are very different from thought experiments in other fields, contrary to what I claim. Second, the aim of theology is absolute truth, unlike the natural sciences and the humanities. Hence, Buzzoni and Savojardo assert, in virtue of the aim of theological thoughts experiments they are in a very different category than those in other areas of investigation, contrary to what I claim. It is my hope that this study has contributed significantly to a clarification of the issues to which both objections relate. In any case, Buzzoni and Savojardo (2019) show that the thesis that I have advanced in the preceding chapters is well motivated. I have made a case for the contention that thought experiments are of theological significance because the imagination is a means of divine revelation, and that revelation is better framed in pluralist terms. To that effect, in the first chapter I argued that science and religion discussions would be as impoverished as the natural sciences and other scholarly endeavors without thought experiments. But why is that? Before I addressed that question head on, in chapter two I first situated the question within the larger history of philosophical discussions about thought experiments. We noted the explosion of literature on thought experiments in the past thirty years, and in the chapter I argued that an important factor to account for the flourishing of work on thought experiments is a clash between traditional epistemologies and an appreciation of diversity in science. The history and philosophy of science had taken a pluralist turn. But is it possible to do justice to the demands of pluralism from a Christian point of view? In response to that question, as it were, in the third chapter I defended the view that Polkinghorne’s analysis of thought experiments seeks to accommodate the scientific practice of thought experiments in theological terms but falls short in its lack of appreciation of the theological significance of both diversity and the imagination.

© Yiftach Fehige, 2024 | DOI:10.1163/9789004685307_007

222 Conclusion But what adjustments exactly are to be made to the theological framework in order to address that deficit? Chapter four introduced two major adjustments, as it were. First, it advanced the claim that a pluralist framing of the imagination holds greater promise for accounting for thought experiments than it may seem from the perspective of religious traditions that tend to think of truth in the singular. The first adjustment is to think of divine revelation as an ongoing process. The second adjustment is to accept the imagination as a means of divine revelation. Those two adjustments must seem radical in nature from the perspective of much traditional theological thought. I am certain that there is a battery of questions and issues which I was unable to do justice to. That conceded, nevertheless it is not difficult to identify seminal contributions to the science and religion discussion that are consistent with the main thesis of this study. A representative example is certainly Murphy (1990). Her central thesis is that Catholic theology is a research programme in the sense of Lakatos (1987a [1970]) and thus a science. That means that we are dealing with a succession of theories which satisfy two important requirements. The first of those is that the succession of theories follows a heuristic. That heuristic makes it clear what parts of the research programme are to be treated as irrefutable on methodological grounds. It also specifies how to make changes to the parts of the research program that can change. The second requirement is that the research programme must be progressive. There must be new facts. Murphy (1990) argues that Catholic theology can satisfy both requirements. What else does the last requirement amount to if not acceptance of ongoing divine revelation? It is noteworthy that Murphy (1990, 173) embraces the idea of “theological experimentation” in recognition that factual novelty in the natural sciences is usually achieved by physical experiments. Of course, what she means to endorse is the significance of thought experiments for theological purposes, and thereby to accept the imagination as a means of divine revelation. When the work of Murphy (1990) first appeared, the cognitive role of the imagination in science and theology was still in the dark. Therefore, I’m not surprised that there is not yet a full recognition of the importance of thought experiments and the imagination in Murphy (1990). In fact, to this day, proposition-​centrism as defined in this study is pretty much the norm in theological thought. To name an example from the literature on pluralist theologies of religion, Rose (2013, 7) defines pluralism “as the view that the limitations of language necessarily imply ceaseless proliferation of religious languages, none of which can be universally plausible.” I’d like to end with two thought experiments. How could I not? The first (adapted from God’s Debris by Scott Adams, 2004, 90–​91) is about very curious

Conclusion

223

bees. They land on the window of a synagogue. Each bee lands on a part of the window with a unique colour. One bee looks through the window where the glass is green, the other where it is blue, and so on. The only way for them to experience the inside of the synagogue is through the part of the glass on which they have landed. As they communicate what they are seeing, they realize that they are not seeing the same. They begin to wonder what the interior of the synagogue really is like. They make little progress but are determined to pursue the one single truth about the interior of the synagogue. In the previous pages I have meant to make a case for my conviction that the situation the bees find themselves to be in would not be much different with respect to the pluralist implications of the perspectivism they are experiencing if they entered the interior of the synagogue (see for a discussion of the perspectivism that is surely conducive to my claim: Giere 2006). Putnam (1987, 18–​19) offers a thought experiment that captures well what I have been venturing towards in the preceding chapters. Imagine two logicians who contemplate a world that contains three individuals, x1, x2, x3. The question arises as to whether non-​abstract entities exist that are not “individuals.” One logician answers the question in the negative, the other in the positive. The former finds it totally plausible that those three individuals exist independently and unrelated. They are like logical atoms. The latter, however, finds that for each pair of individuals there is an object that is their sum. This logician is a mereologist who studies parts and wholes by means of calculus. Now we have seven objects in our world: x1, x2, x3, x1 +​x2, x1 +​x3, x2 +​x3, x1 +​ x2 +​x3. What is the world really like? Putnam thinks that God himself would not know the answer unless a choice is made as what logic ought to be applied in this case. It is extremely difficult to end on a better note.

Bibliography Abraham, Anna. 2020. “The Force of the Imagination.” The Cambridge Handbook of Imagination, ed. by Anna Abraham, 811–​814. Cambridge University Press. Ackermann, Robert. 1989. “Review Article: the New Experimentalism.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 40: 185–​190. Albert, David Z. 1994. “Bohm’s Alternative to Quantum Mechanics.” Scientific American 270: 58–​67. Appell, David. 2019. “The Invisibility of Length Contraction.” Physics World 32 (8): 41–​45. Arnold, Bill T. 2014. Genesis. Cambridge University Press. Arthur, Richard. 1999. “On Thought Experiments as A Priori Science.” International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 13: 215–​229. Atkins, Peter. 2018. Conjuring the Universe: the Origins of the Laws of Nature. Oxford University Press. Atkins, Peter. 2000. “Science and Religion: Rack or Featherbed—​The Uncomfortable Supremacy of Science.” Science Progress 38: 25–​31. Austriaco, Nicanor P. G. 2018. “Defending Adam After Darwin: On the Origin of Sapiens as a Natural Kind.” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 92: 337–​352. Barbour, Ian. 1997. Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues. HarperSanFrancisco. Revised and Expanded Edition. Barsalou, Lawrence. 2016. “On Staying Grounded and Avoiding Quixotic Dead Ends.” Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 23: 1122–​1142. Barsalou, Lawrence. 2009. “Simulation, Situated Conceptualization, and Prediction.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 364: 1281–​1289. Barsalou, Lawrence. 2008. “Grounded Cognition.” Annual Review of Psychology 59: 617–​645. Bealer, George. 2002. “Modal Epistemology and the Rationalist Renaissance.” In Conceivability and Possibility, ed. by Tamar S. Gendler and John Hawthorne, 71–​125. Clarendon Press. Bealer, George. 1998. “Intuition and the Autonomy of Philosophy.” In Rethinking Intuition: the Psychology of Intuition & Its Role in Philosophical Inquiry, ed. by Michael DePaul and William Ramsey, 201–​239. Rowman & Littlefield. Becker, Alexander. 2018. “Thought Experiments in Plato.” In Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments, ed. by Michael T. Stuart, Yiftach Fehige, and James R. Brown, 44–​56. Routledge. Berger, Peter. 2014. The Many Altars of Modernity: toward a Paradigm for Religion in a Pluralist Age. De Gruyter. Bell, Graham. 1982. The Masterpiece of Nature: the Evolution and Genetics of Sexuality. University of California Press.

226 Bibliography Bernstein, Harris, and Carol Bernstein. 2013. “Evolutionary Origin and Adaptive Function of Meiosis.” IntechOpen http://​dx​.doi​.org​/10​.5772​/56557​. Biblical Pontifical Commission. 2001. The Jewish People and their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible. http://​www​.vati​can​.va​/roma​n​_cu​ria​/congre​gati​ons​/cfa​ith​/pcb​ _do​cume​nts​/rc​_con​_cfa​ith​_​doc​_​2002​0212​_pop​olo​-ebr​aico​_en​.html​. Biblical Pontifical Commission. 2001. 1993. The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church. Pauline Books & Media Boston. Bishop, Michael. 1999, “Why Thought Experiments are Not Arguments.” Philosophy of Science 66: 534–​541. Blackburn, Simon. 2004. Lust. Oxford University Press. Bohm, David. 2009. On Creativity. London and New York: Routledge. Bohr, Niels. 1949. “Discussions with Einstein on Epistemological Problems in Atomic Physics.” In Albert Einstein: Philosopher-​Scientist, ed. Paul A. Schilpp, 201–​240. George Banta Publishing Company. Bokulich, Alisa. 2008. “Paul Dirac and the Einstein-​Bohr Debate.” Perspectives on Science 16: 103–​114. Bokulich, Alisa. 2001. “Rethinking Thought Experiments.” Perspectives on Science 9: 285–​307. Bradley, James. “Mathematics and Theology—​Key Themes and Central Historical Figures.” Theology and Science 9: 5–​26. Brendel, Elke. 2018. “The Argument View: Are Thought Experiments Mere Picturesque Arguments.” In The Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments, ed. by Michael T. Stuart, Yiftach Fehige, and James R. Brown, 281–​292. Routledge. Brendel, Elke. 2004. “Intuition Pumps and the Proper Use of Thought Experiments.” Dialectica 58: 88–​108. Brentano, Franz. 1988 [1905]. Über Ernst Mach’s “Erkenntnis und Irrtum”: Mit zwei Anhängen: Kleine Schriften über Ernst Mach, Der Brentano-​Mach-​Briefwechsel. Ed. by Johann C. Marek and Roderick M. Chisholm. Editions Rodopi b.v. Briggs, Andrew, Hans Halvorson, and Andrew Steane. 2018. It Keeps Me Seeking: the invitation from Science, Philosophy, & Religion. Oxford University Press. Brooke, John H. 2014. “Living with Theology and Science: from Past to Present.” Theology and Science 12: 307–​323. Brooke, John H. 1991. Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives. Cambridge University Press. Brown, David. 2000. Discipleship & Imagination: Christian Tradition & Truth. Oxford University Press. Brown, David. 1999. Tradition & Imagination: Revelation and Change. Oxford University Press.

Bibliography

227

Brown, James R. 2013. “What do we see in a thought experiment?” In Thought Experiments in Philosophy, Science, and the Arts, ed. by Melanie Frappier, Letitia Meynell, and James R. Brown, 52–​68. Routledge. Brown, James R. 2011c. “Swinburne on God and Simplicity.” Jahrbuch für Religionsphilosophie 10: 195–​204. Brown, James R. 2011b. “Über das Leben im Labor des Geistes.” Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 59: 65–​73. Brown, James R. 2011a. The Laboratory of the Mind: Thought Experiments in the Natural Sciences. Routledge. 2nd Edition. Brown, James R. 2007. “Counter Thought Experiments.” Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements 61: 155–​177. Brown, James R. 2004. “Why Thought Experiments Do Transcend Empiricism.” In Contemporary Debates in the Philosophy of Science, edited by C. Hitchcock, 23–​43. Blackwell. Brown, James R. 1993. “Author’s Response.” In Metascience 3: 38–​40. Brown, James R. 1991. “Thought Experiments: a Platonic Account.” In Thought Experiments in Science and Philosophy, ed. by Tamar Horowitz and Gerald Massey, 119–​128. Rowman & Littlefield. Brown, James R. 1991. “Thought Experiments: a Platonic Account.” In Thought Experiments in Science and Philosophy, ed. by Tamar Horowitz and Gerald Massey, 119–​128. Rowman & Littlefield. Brown, James R. 1986. “Thought Experiments Since the Scientific Revolution.” International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 1: 1–​15. Brown, James R., and Yiftach Fehige. 2019. “Thought Experiments.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. by Edward N. Zalta, ​. Brueggemann, Walter, and Tod Linafelt. 2021. An Introduction to the Old Testament. Third Edition. Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Butler, Judith. 1999. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. 10th Anniversary Edition. Taylor & Francis. Buzzoni, Marco. 2018. “Pierre Duhem and Ernst Mach on Thought Experiments.” hopos: the Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 8: 1–​27. Buzzoni, Marco. 2013. “On Thought Experiments and the Kantian A Priori in the Natural Sciences: a Reply to Yiftach J. H. Fehige.” Epistemologia 36: 277–​293. Buzzoni, Marco. 2011. “On Mathematical Thought Experiments.” Epistemologia xxxiv: 61–​88. Buzzoni, Marco. 2008. Thought Experiments in the Natural Sciences: an Operational and Reflexive-​Transcendental Conception. Königshausen & Neumann.

228 Bibliography Buzzoni, Marco, and Valentina Savojardo. 2019. “Thought Experiments between Theology, Empirical Science, and Fictional Narrative.” Religions 10 (6), 693 (pages 1–​16). https://​doi​.org​/10​.3390​/rel1​0060​393​. Cantor, Geoffrey. 1991. Michael Faraday: Sandemanian and Scientist. The MacMillan Press. Carlström, Charlotta. 2020. “‘God’s word does not change as trends do’–​Contemporary discourses on homosexuality in Swedish Christianity.” Theology & Sexuality 26: 28–​44. Carnap, Rudolf. 1998. “The Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical Analysis of Language.” Translated by Arthur Pap. In Beginning Metaphysics: an Introductory Text with Readings by Heimir Geirsson and Michael Losonsky, 444–​461. Oxford: Blackwell. Cartwright, Nancy. 1999. The Dappled World. Cambridge University Press. Chang, Hasok. 2012. Is Water H2O? Evidence, Realism and Pluralism. Springer. Clark, Gillian. 2010. “Paradise for pagans? Augustine on Virgil, Cicero, and Plato.” In Paradise in Antiquity Jewish and Christian Views, ed. by Markus Bockmuehl and Guy G. Stroumsa, 166–​178. Cambridge University Press. Clark, Stephen R. L. 1992. “Where Have All the Angels Gone?” Religious Studies 28: 221–​234. Coakley, Sarah. 2013. God, Sexuality, Self: an Essay ‘On the Trinity.’ Cambridge University Press. Cohnitz, Daniel. 2006. Gedankenexperimente in der Philosophie. mentis. Conway-​Morris, Simon. 2003. Life’s Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe. Cambridge University Press. Cook, Christopher C. H. 2016. “Science and Theology in Human Sexuality.” Theology & Sexuality 24: 183–​199. Coogan, Michael. 2010. Ed. The New Oxford Annotated Bible. Oxford University Press. Corcilius, Klaus. 2018. “Aristotle and Thought Experiments.” In Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments, ed. by Michael T. Stuart, Yiftach Fehige, and James R. Brown, 57–​76. Routledge. Corry, Leo. 1995. The Kuhnian Agenda and the History of Mathematics. (Preprint, vol. 19). Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. Currie, Gregory, and Ian Ravenscroft. 2011. Recreative Minds: Imagination in Philosophy and Psychology. Clarendon Press. Daiber, Jürgen. 2001. Experimentalphysik des Geistes: Novalis und das Romantische Experiment. Vadenhoeck & Ruprecht. Davenport, Edward. 1983. “Literature as Thought Experiment (On Aiding and Abetting the Muse).” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 13: 279–​306. Davies, Paul. 1992. The Mind of God: the Scientific Basis for a Rational World. Simon & Shuster. Dawkins, Richard. 2006. The God Delusion. Houghton Mifflin Company.

Bibliography

229

De Mey, Tim, and Eric Weber. 2003. “Explanations and Thought Experiments in History.” History and Theory 42: 28–​38. Dennett, Daniel C. 2014. “What RoboMary Knows.” In: Dennett, Daniel. Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness, 103–​129. mit Press. Dennett, Daniel C. 2011b. “Habits of Imagination and Their Effect on Incredulity: Reply to Plantinga (Essay 2).” In: Dennett, Daniel C., and Alvin Plantinga, Science and Religion: Are They Compatible, 45–​55. Oxford University Press. Dennett, Daniel C. 2011a. “Truths That Miss Their Mark: Naturalism Unscathed.” In: Dennett, Daniel C., and Alvin Plantinga, Science and Religion: Are They Compatible, 25–​37. Oxford University Press. Dewar, Colin S. 2003. “An Association between Male Homosexuality and Reproductive Success.” Medical Hypotheses 60: 225–​232. Dieks, Dennis, and Sander Lam. 2008. “Complementarity in the Einstein-​Bohr Photon Box.” American Journal of Physics 76: 838–​842. Dixon, Thomas. 2008. Science and Religion: a Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. Douglas, Heather E. 2009. Science, Policy, and the Value-​Free Ideal. University of Pittsburgh Press. Dummett, Michael. 1993. Frege: Philosophy of Language. Harvard University Press. 2nd Edition. Dupré, John. 1993. The Disorder of Things. Cambridge University Press. Dyson, R.W. 1998. Augustine: the City of God against the Pagans. Cambridge University Press. Einstein, Albert. 1950. The Theory of Relativity and other Essays. Philosophical Library, Inc. Eire, Carlos M. N. 2009. “The Quest for the Counterfactual Jesus: Imagining the West without the Cross.” In Unmaking the West: ‘What-​If?” Scenarios that Rewrite World History, ed. by Philip E. Tetlock, Richard Ned Lebow, and Geoffrey Parker, 119–​142. The University of Michigan Press. Elgin, Catherine. 2014. “Fiction as Thought Experiment.” Perspectives on Science 22: 221–​241. Elgin, Catherine. 2007. “The Laboratory of the Mind.” In A Sense of the World: Essays on Fiction, Narrative, and Knowledge, ed. by John Gibson, Wolfgang Huemer, and Luca Pocci, 43–​54. Routledge. Elgin, Catherine. 2004. “True Enough.” In Epistemology, ed. by Ernest Sosa and Enrique Villanueva, 113–​131. Blackwell. Elgin, Catherine. 1993 [1991]. “Understanding Art and Science.” Synthese 95: 13–​28. Reprint of “Understanding Art and Science.” In Philosophy and the Arts, ed. by Peter A. French, Theodore Uehling Jr., and Howard Wettstein, 196–​208. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Volume xvi. University of Notre Dame Press.

230 Bibliography Esfeld, Michael. 2001b. Holism in Philosophy of Mind and Philosophy of Physics. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Esfeld, Michael. 2001a. “How a Social Theory of Meaning can be reconciled with Realism.” Facta Philosophica 4: 113–​131. Fehige, Yiftach. 2022. “Divided by Language, but United in the Imagination?” Sophia (online first). Fehige, Yiftach. 2021. “The Annus Mirabilis of 1986: Thought Experiments and Scientific Pluralism.” hopos: the Journal for the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 11: 222–​240. Fehige, Yiftach. 2019. “The Book of Job as a Thought Experiment: On Science, Religion, and Literature.” Religions. 10 (2), 77 pages 1–​12), https://​doi​.org​/10​.3390​/rel1​0020​077​. Fehige, Yiftach. 2017. “The Super-​Miracles of Modern Science.” Toronto Journal of Theology 33 (S1): 39–​71. Fehige, Yiftach. 2016b. Ed. Science and Religion: East and West. Routledge. Fehige, Yiftach. 2016a. “Dialogue? Not. Quite. Yet. The Second Vatican Council on Judaism and Modern Science.” Science et Esprit: Revue de Philosophie et de Theologie 68: 275–​285. Fehige, Yiftach. 2014. “Circumcising ‘Revelation-​Based’ Thinking? On the Rationality of Inter-​religious Dialogue in the Encounter between Christianity and Judaism.” Toronto Journal of Theology 29: 351–​368. Fehige, Yiftach. 2013b. “The Relativized A Priori and the Laboratory of the Mind: towards a Neo-​Kantian Account of Thought Experiments in Science.” Epistemologia: Italian Journal for Philosophy of Science 36: 55–​73. Fehige, Yiftach. 2013a. “Poems of Productive Imagination: Thought Experiments, Christianity, and Science in Novalis.” Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 55: 54–​83. Fehige, Yiftach. 2012c. Das Offenbarungsparadox: Zur Dialogfähigkeit von Juden und Christen. Paderborn: Schöningh. Fehige, Yiftach. 2012b. “‘Experiments of Pure Reason’: Kantianism and Thought Experiments in Science.” Epistemologia: Italian Journal for Philosophy of Science 35: 141–​160. Fehige, Yiftach. 2012a. “Quantum Physics and Theology: John Polkinghorne on Thought Experiments.” Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 47: 256–​288. Fehige, Yiftach. 2011. “Gedankenexperimente in der Offenbarungstheologie: Eine erste Annäherung.” Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 58: 109–​129. Fehige, Yiftach. 2010. “The Art of Dialogue and the Christian-​Jewish Encounter: a First Approach.” Jahrbuch für Religionsphilosophie 9: 67–​93. Fehige, Yiftach, and Michael T. Stuart. 2014. “Origins of the Philosophy of Thought Experiments: the Forerun.” Perspectives on Science 22: 179–​220.

Bibliography

231

Fehr, Carla. 2006. “Explanations of the Evolution of Sex: a Plurality of Local Mechanisms.” In Scientific Pluralism, ed. by. Stephen Kellert et al., 167–​189. University of Minnesota Press. Fehr, Carla. 2001. “The Evolution of Sex: Domains and Explanatory Pluralism.” Biology and Philosophy 16: 145–​170. Feyerabend, Paul. 2010 [1975]. Against Method. Verso. Fisch, Menachem. 2019b. “Job and the Bible’s Theo-​Political Divide.” Religions 10 (1), 33 (pages 1–​11), https://​doi​.org​/10​.3390​/rel1​0010​033​. Fisch, Menachem. 2019a. “Gulliver and the Rabbis: Counterfactual Truth in Science and the Talmud.” Religions 10 (3), 228 (pages 1–​15), https://​doi​.org​/10​.3390​/rel1​0030​228​. Fisch, Menachem. 2017. “Proving by Miracle: the Myth History of Talmudic Judaism’s Coming of Age.” Toronto Journal of Theology 33 (S1): 103–​127. Fisch, Menachem. 2013. “Science, Religion, and Rationality: a Neo-​Hegelian Approach.” Toronto Journal of Theology 29: 319–​336. Flew, Antony, R. M. Hare, and Basil Mitchell. 1971. “A Symposium: Theology and Falsification.” In Philosophy of Religion, ed. by. Basil Mitchell, pp. 13–​22. Oxford University Press. Foot, Philippa. 2002. “The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect.” In: Foot, Philippa. Virtues and Vices: and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy, 19–​31. Oxford University Press. Foot, Philippa. 1967. “The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect.” Oxford Review 5: 5–​15. Foucault, Michel. 1973 [1966]. The Order of Things: an Archaeology of the Human Sciences. Vintage Books. Fox Keller, Evelyn. 2002. Making Sense of Life: Explaining Biological Development with Models, Metaphors, and Machines. Harvard University Press. Franklin, Allan. 1986. The Neglect of Experiments. Cambridge University Press. Freyer, Thomas. 2000. “Vom christlich-​jüdischen Gespräch zum Dialog? Theologische Notizen zur Semantik eines Leitbegriffs.” Theologische Quartalsschrift 180: 127–​146. Friedman, Michael. 2010. “Synthetic History Reconsidered.” In Discourse on a New Method: Reinvigorating the Marriage of History and Philosophy of Science, ed. by Mary Domski and Michael Dickson, 571–​813. Open Court. Friedman, Michael. 2002. “Kant, Kuhn, and the Rationality of Science.” Philosophy of Science 69: 171–​190. Galison, Peter. 1987. How Experiments End. The University of Chicago Press. Giere, Ronald N. 2006. Scientific Perspectivism. The University of Chicago Press. Gendler, Tamar. 1998. “Galileo and the Indispensability of Scientific Thought Experiment.” The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 49:397–​424. Gimbel, Steven. 2019. Einstein: His Space and Times. Yale University Press.

232 Bibliography Glas, Eduard. 1999. “Thought Experimentation and Mathematical Innovation.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 30: 1–​19. Gobrogge, Kyle L. et al. 2007. “Homosexual Mating Preferences from an Evolutionary Perspective: Sexual Selection Theory Revisited.” Archives of Sexual Behaviour 36: 717–​723. Gooding, David. 1994. “Review Article: Imaginary Science.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 45: 1029–​1045. Gooding, David. 1992b. “What is Experimental About Thought Experiments?” psa: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers, 280–​290. Gooding, David. 1992a. “The Procedural Turn; or, Why Do Thought Experiments Work?” Cognitive Models in Science (vol. xv of the Minnesota Studies in Philosophy of Science), ed. by Ronald N. Giere, 45–​76. Minnesota University Press. Gooding, David. 1990. Experimenting and the Making of Meaning. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Gordon, Peter E. 2012. “Agonies of the Real: Anti-​Realism from Kuhn to Foucault.” Modern Intellectual History 1: 127–​147. Gould, Stephen J. 1999. Rock of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life. Ballantine Books. Gould, Stephen J. 1985. Adam’s Navel. Penguin Books. Grant, Edward. 2007. “Thought Experiments and the Role of the Imagination.” In: Grant, Edward. A History of Natural Philosophy: from the Ancient World to the Nineteenth Century, 200–​211. Cambridge University Press. Gregersen, Niels H. 2014. “The Role of Thought Experiments in Science and Religion.” In: The Science and Religion Dialogue: Past and Future, ed. by Michael Walker, 129–​ 140. Peter Lang Press. Gross, Walter. 2001. “Ist biblisch-​ theologische Auslegung ein integrierender Methodenschritt? In Wieviel Systematik erlaubt die Schrift? Auf der Suche nach einer Gesamtbiblischen Theologie, ed. by Frank-​Lothar Hossfeld, 110–​149. Herder. Hacking, Ian. 2010. “Introduction to the Fourth Edition.” In: Feyerabend, Paul. 2010 [1975]. Against Method, vii–​x vi. Verso. Hacking, Ian. 2004. “‘Style’ for Historians and Philosophers.” In: Hacking, Ian. Historical Ontology, 178–​199. Harvard University Press. Hacking, Ian. 1992. “Do Thought Experiments Have a Life of Their Own? Comments on James Brown, Nancy Nersessian and David Gooding.” psa: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers, 302–​308. Hacking, Ian. 1983. Representing and Intervening. Cambridge University Press. Häggqvist, Sören. 2009. “A Model for Thought Experiments.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 39: 55–​76.

Bibliography

233

Halvorson, Hans. 2020. “Concluding Unscientific Image.” Metascience 29: 177–​185. Hanson, Sven Ove. “Falsificationism Falsified.” Foundations of Science 11: 275–​286. Hardin, Jeff, Ronald L. Numbers, and Ronald A. Binzley (eds.). 2018. The Warfare between Science and Religion: the Idea that Wouldn’t Die. Johns Hopkins University Press. Haroche, Serge. 2013. “Controlling Photons in a Box and Exploring the Quantum to Classical Boundary.” Annalen der Physik 525: 753–​776. Harrison, Peter. 2015. The Territories of Science and Religion. The University of Chicago Press. Harrison, Peter. 2010. “Introduction.” In The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion, ed. by Peter Harrison, 1–​17. Cambridge University Press. Harrison, Peter. 2007. The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science. Cambridge University Press. Harrison, Peter. 1998. The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science. Cambridge University Press. Hazony, Yoram. 2012. The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture. Cambridge University Press. Hick, John. 1977. “Eschatological Verification Reconsidered.” Religious Studies 13: 189–​202. Hogan, Edward M. 2009. “John Polkinghorne and Bernard Lonergan on the Scientific Status of Theology.” Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 44:558–​82. Holton, Gerald. 1993: “Review of James R. Brown, The Laboratory of the Mind: Thought Experiments in the Natural Sciences.” Isis 84: 836–​838. Horwitz, Allan V. 2016. “Sexual Behaviour.” In What’s Normal? Reconciling Biology & Culture, 168–​193. Oxford University Press. Horowitz, Tamara, and Gerald Massey (eds.). 1991. Thought Experiments in Science and Philosophy. Rowman & Littlefield. Hughes, Aaron. 2002. “Imagining the Divine: Ghazali on Imagination, Dreams, and Dreaming.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 70: 33–​53. Humphreys, Paul. 1993. “Seven Theses on Thought Experiments.” In Philosophical Problems of the Internal and External World: Essays on the Philosophy of Adolf Grünbaum, edited by John Earman et al., 205–​227. University of Pittsburgh Press. Ierodiakonou, Katerina. 2018. “The Triple Life of Ancient Thought Experiments.” In Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments, ed. by Michael T. Stuart, Yiftach Fehige, and James R. Brown, 31–​43. Routledge. Ierodiakonou, Katerina. 2005. “Ancient Thought Experiments: a First Approach.” Ancient Philosophy 25: 125–​140. Jackson, Frank. 1982. “Epiphenomenal Qualia.” The Philosophical Quarterly 32: 127–​136. Jammer, Max. 1999. Einstein and Religion. Princeton University Press. Janssen, Dirk-​Jan, and Peer Scheepers. 2019. “How Religiosity Shapes Rejection of Homosexuality Across the Globe.” Journal of Homosexuality 66: 1974–​2001.

234 Bibliography Kellert, Stephen H., Helen E. Longino, and C. Kenneth Waters. 2006. “Introduction: the Pluralist Stance.” In Scientific Pluralism, ed. by Stephen H. Kellert, Helen E. Longino, and C. Kenneth Waters, vii–​x xix. University of Minnesota Press. King, Peter. 1991. “Mediaeval Thought-​ Experiments: the Metamethodology of Mediaeval Science.” In Thought Experiments in Science and Philosophy, ed. by Tamar Horowitz and Gerald Massey, 43–​64. Rowman & Littlefield. Kitcher, Philip. 2001. Science, Truth, Democracy. Oxford University Press. Kolak, Daniel, 1993. “Metaphysics and Metapsychology of Personal Identity: Why Thought Experiments Matter in Deciding Who We Are.” American Philosophical Quarterly 30: 39–​50. Kogan, Michael S. 2008. Opening the Covenant: a Jewish Theology of Christianity. Oxford University Press. Koyré, Alexander. 1943. “Galileo and Plato.” Journal of the History of Ideas 4: 400–​428. Krimsky, Sheldon. 1973. “The Use and Misuse of Critical Gedankenexperimente.” Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 4: 323–​334. Kühne, Ulrich. 2005. Die Methode des Gedankenexperiments. Suhrkamp. Kuhn, Thomas S. 1977 [1964]. “A Function for Thought Experiments.” In: Kuhn, Thomas S. The Essential Tension, 240–​265. University of Chicago Press. Kuhn, Thomas S. 1996 [1962]. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press. Kullie, Ossama. 2018. “How to Understand the Tunneling in Attosecond Experiment? Bohr–​Einstein Photon box Gedanken Experiment, Tunneling Time and the Wave Particle Duality.” Annals of Physics 389: 333–​351. Lakatos, Imre. 1978b [1970]. “Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes.” In: the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, ed. by John Worrall and Gregory Currie, 8–​101. Cambridge University Press. Lakatos, Imre. 1978a [1970]. “What does a mathematical proof prove?” In: Mathematics, Science, and Epistemology, ed. by John Worrall and Gregory Currie, 61–​69. Cambridge University Press. Landsman, N.P. 2006. “When Champions Meet: Rethinking the Bohr-​Einstein Debate.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 37: 212–​242. Laudan, Larry. 1984. Science and Values. University of California Press. Lennox, James G., 1991, “Darwinian Thought Experiments: a Function for Just-​So Stories.” In Thought Experiments in Science and Philosophy, ed. by Tamar Horowitz and Gerald Massey, 223–​245. Rowman & Littlefield. Lichtenberg, Georg Ch. 1971. Schriften und Briefe: Zweiter Band, ed. by Wolfgang Promies. Carl Hanser. Lima-​de-​Faria, Antonio. 2020. Science and Art are Based on the Same Principles and Values. Artena Anarchist Press.

Bibliography

235

Longino, Helen E. 2013. Studying Human Behavior: How Scientists Investigate Aggression and Behavior. The University of Chicago Press. Longino, Helen E. 1990. Science as Social Knowledge: Values and Objectivity in Scientific Inquiry. Princeton University Press. Longmann iii, Temper, and Raymond B. Dillard. 2009. An Introduction to the Old Testament. Second Edition. Zondervan. Mach, Ernst. 1905. “Über Gedankenexperimente.” In Erkenntnis und Irrtum, 181–​197. Leipzig: Verlag von Johann Ambrosius Barth (translated by Thomas J. McCormack. 1976. Knowledge and Error, 134–​147. Reidel. Mach, Ernst. 1897. “Über Gedankenexperimente.” Zeitschrift für den Physikalischen und Chemischen Unterricht 10: 1–​5. MacLachlan, James. 1973. “A Test of an ‘Imaginary’ Experiment of Galileo’s.” Isis 64: 374–​379. McLean, Bradley. 2013. “Lessons Learned from Swinburne: a Critique of Richard Swinburne’s Revelation: from Metaphor to Analogy.” Toronto Journal of Theology 29: 369–​388. Maffie, James. 1997. “Just-​so Stories about ‘Inner Cognitive Africa’: Some Doubts about Sorensen’s Evolutionary Epistemology of Thought Experiments.” Biology and Philosophy 12: 207–​224. Mailaender, Gilbert. 2001. “Sweet Necessities: Food, Sex, and Saint Augustine.” Journal of Religious Ethics 29: 3–​18. Massey, Gerald J. Massey. 1994. “Review of Thought Experiments by Roy A. Sorensen.” The Philosophical Quarterly 44: 530–​534. Maynard Smith, John. 1971. “The Origin and Maintenance of Sex.” In Group Selection, ed. by George C. Williams, 163–​175. Routledge. Mayer, Verena. 1999. “Was zeigen Gedankenexperimente?” Philosophisches Jahrbuch 106: 357–​378. McAllister, James. 1996. “The Evidential Significance of Thought Experiments in Science.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 27: 233–​250. McAllister, James. 1993. “Review of Thought Experiments by Roy A. Sorensen.” Mind 102: 686–​689. McLeish, Tom. 2019. The Poetry and Music of Science: Comparing Creativity in Science and Art. Oxford University Press. McLeish, Tom. 2014. Faith & Wisdom in Science. Oxford University Press. Meinong, Alexius. 1907. “§ 15. Das Gedankenexperiment.” In: Meinong, Alexius. Über die Stellung der Gegenstandstheorie im System der Wissenschaften, 67–​77. R. Voigtländer. Meirmans, Stephanie. 2009. “The Evolution of the Problem of Sex.” In Lost Sex: The Evolutionary Biology of Parthenogenesis, ed. by Isa Schön, Koen Martens, and Peter van Dijk, 21–​46. Springer.

236 Bibliography Meirmans, Stephanie, and Meirmans, Patrick G. 2019. “The Queen of Problems in Evolutionary Biology.” In eLS, ed. by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Chichester. doi: 10.1002/​ 9780470015902.a0028485. Meirmans, Stephanie, and Roger Strand. 2010. “Why are there so many theories for sex, and what do we do with them? Journal of Heredity 101: S3–​S12. Meynell, Letitia. 2018. “Images and Imagination in Thought Experiments.” In The Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments, ed. by Michael T. Stuart, Yiftach Fehige, and James R. Brown, 498–​511. Routledge. Miles, Margaret. 2012. “From Rape to Resurrection: Sin, Sexual Difference, and Politics.” In Augustine’s City of God: a Critical Guide, ed. by. James Wetzel, 75–​92. Cambridge University Press. Miščević, Nenad. 1992. “Mental Models and Thought Experiments.” International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 6: 215–​226. Moncion, Laura. 2016. “Erotic Food Metaphors in Augustine’s Confessions.” The Heythrop Journal lvii: 653–​658. Moue, Aspasia S., Kyriakos A. Masavetas, Haido Karayianni. 2006. “Tracing the Development of Thought Experiments in the Philosophy of Natural Sciences.” Journal for General Philosophy of Science 37: 61–​75. Munchin, David. 2019. “Paul Feyerabend: the Worst Friend of Theology.” Theology and Science 17: 469–​484. Murphy, Nancey. 1990. Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning. Cornell University Press. Myers, David C. 2002. Intuitions: Its Powers and Perils. Yale University Press. Myers, David, and Letha Dawson Scanzoni. 2005. What God has joined together: the Christian Case for gay Marriage. HarperCollins. Myers, Mason C. 1986. “Analytical Thought Experiments.” Metaphilosophy 17: 109–​118. Nagel, Thomas. 2013. Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-​Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False. Oxford University Press. Nagel, Thomas. 2007. The Last Word. Oxford University Press. Nersessian, Nancy. 2007. “Thought Experimenting as Mental Modeling: Empiricism without Logic.” Croatian Journal of Philosophy 20: 125–​161. Nersessian, Nancy. 1992. “In the Theoretician’s Laboratory: Thought Experimenting as Mental Modeling.” In Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. 1992. Vol. Two: Symposia and Invited Papers, 291–​301. University of Chicago Press. Nikolic, Hrvoje. 2012. “epr before epr: a 1930 Einstein-​Bohr Thought Experiments revisited.” European Journal of Physics 33: 1089–​1097. Norton, John D. 2013. “Chasing the Beam of Light: Einstein’s Most Famous Thought Experiment.” In Thought Experiments in Philosophy, Science, and the Arts, ed. by Melanie Frappier, Letitia Meynell, and James Robert Brown, 123–​140. Routledge.

Bibliography

237

Norton, John D. 2004. “Why Thought Experiments Do Not Transcend Empiricism.” In Contemporary Debates in the Philosophy of Science, edited by C. Hitchcock, 44–​66. Blackwell. Norton, John D. 1996. “Are Thought Experiments Just What You Thought?” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 26: 333–​366. Norton, John D. 1991. “Thought Experiments in Einstein’s Work.” In Thought Experiments in Science and Philosophy, ed. by T. Horowitz and G. Massey, 129–​148. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 129–​148. Novak, David. 1992. Jewish-​ Christian Dialogue: a Jewish Justification. Oxford University Press. Numbers, Ronald L. 2010. “Simplifying Complexity: Patterns in the History of Science and Religion.” In Science and Religion: New Historical Perspectives, ed. by Thomas Dixon, Geoffrey Cantor, Stephen Pumfrey, 263–​282. Cambridge University Press. Ørsted, Hans Christian. 1811 [1920]. “Første Indledning til den almindelige Naturlaere.” In Hans Christian Ørsted: Naturvidenskabelige Skrifter: Samlet Udgave me to Afhandlinger om Hans Virke, volume iii, ed. by Kristine Meier, 151–​190. Andr. Fred. Høst & Søn. Ørsted, Hans Christian. 1811 [1998]. “First Introduction to General Physics: a Prospectus of Lectures in this Science.” In Selected Scientism Works of Hans Christian Ørsted edited by Karen Jelved, Andrews D. Jackson, and Ole Knudsen, 282–​309. Princeton University Press. Palmerino, Carla R. 2019. “Exploring Thought Experiments.” Metascience 28: 455–​458. Palmieri, Paolo. 2003. “Mental Models in Galileo’s early Mathematization of Nature.” Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 34: 229–​264. Parfit, Derek. 1971. “Personal Identity.” The Philosophical Review 80: 3–​27. Perseus Project Texts. 2018. http://​pers​eus​.uchic​ago​.edu​/pers​eus​-cgi​/cit​eque​ry3​.pl?dbn​ ame=​Gre​ekTe​xts&getid=​1&query=​Plut​.%20T​hes​.%2023​.1​. Perler, Dominik. 2008. “Thought Experiments: the Methodological Function of Angels in Late Medieval Epistemology.” In Angels in Medieval Philosophical Inquiry: Their Function and Significance, ed. by Isabel Iribarren and Martin Lenz, 143–​153. Ashgate. Phillips, D.Z. 1970. Faith and Philosophical Enquiry. Routledge & Kegan Paul. Plantinga, Alvin. 2011b. “Superman vs. God?” In: Dennett, Daniel C., and Alvin Plantinga, Science and Religion: Are They Compatible, 39–​43. Oxford University Press. Plantinga, Alvin. 2011a. Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism. Oxford University Press. Poiani, Aldo, and Alan F. Dixson. 2010. Animal Homosexuality: a Biosocial Perspective. Cambridge University Press. Polkinghorne, John. 2007b. One World: the Interaction of Science and Theology. Templeton Foundation Press. Polkinghorne, John. 2007a. Quantum Physics and Theology. Yale University Press.

238 Bibliography Polkinghorne, John. 2005. Exploring Reality: the Intertwining of Science and Religion. Yale University Press. Polkinghorne, John. 2000. “The Life and Works of a Bottom-​Up Thinker.” Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 35: 955–​962. Polkinghorne, John. 1996. The Faith of a Physicist: Reflections of a Bottom-​Up Thinker. Fortress Press. Popper, Karl. 1959. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. University of Toronto Press. Popper, Karl. 2020 [1945]. The Open Society and Its Enemies. Princeton University Press. Poser, Hans. 1984. “Wovon handelt ein Gedankenexperiment?” In Ontologie und Wissenschaft: Philosophische und Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zur Frage der Objektkonstruktion, ed. by H. P. Poser and H.-​ W. Schütt, 181–​ 198. tub-​ Dokumentationen (Issue #19). Praem, Sara Kier, and Asbjorn Steglich–​ Petersen. 2015. “Philosophical Thought Experiments as Heuristics for Theory Discovery.” Synthese 192: 2827–​2842. Putnam, Hilary. 1987. The Many Faces of Realism. Open Court. Rahner, Karl. 1970. “Theology—​Nature.” In: Sacramentum Mundi Online. ​. Rees, Martin. 2000. Just Six Numbers: the Deep Forces that Shape the Universe. Basic Books. Rehder, Wulf. 1980. “Versuche zu einer Theorie von Gedankenexperimenten.” Grazer Philosophische Studien 11: 105–​133. Rose, Kenneth. 2013. Pluralism: the Future of Religion. Bloomsbury. Roughgarden, Joan. 2016. “The Gender Binary in Nature, Across Human Cultures, and in the Bible.” In Transsexuality in Theology and Neuroscience, ed. by Gerhard Schreiber, 413–​439. de Gruyter. Roughgarden, Joan. 2010. “Evolutionary Biology and Sexual Diversity.” In God, Science, Sex, and Gender, ed. by Patricia Beattie Jung and Aana Marie Vigen, 89–​104. University of Illinois Press. Roughgarden, Joan. 2009. The Genial Gene: Deconstructing Darwinian Selfishness. University of California Press. Roughgarden, Joan. 2006. Evolution and Christian Faith: Reflections of an Evolutionary Biologist. Island Press. Roughgarden, Joan. 2004. Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People. University of California Press. Rowbottom, Darrell P. 2014. “Aimless Science.” Synthese 191: 1211–​1221. Rucker, Rudy. 1982. Infinity and the Mind. Birkäuser. Ruphy, Stéphanie. 2016. Scientific Pluralism Reconsidered: a New Approach to the (Dis) Unity of Science. University of Pittsburgh Press. Ruse, Michael. 2012. The Philosophy of Human Evolution. Cambridge University Press.

Bibliography

239

Sandbeck, Lars. 2013. “Imagination.” In Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions, ed. by Anne L. C. Runehov, Lluis Oviedo, 1038–​142. Dordrecht: Springer. Schabas, Margaret. 2018. “Thought Experiments in Economics.” In The Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments, ed. by Michael T. Stuart, Yiftach Fehige, and James R. Brown, 171–​182. Routledge. Schafer, Steve. 2019. Marriage, Sex, and Procreation: Contemporary Revisions to Augustine’s Theology of Marriage. Wipf and Stock Publishers. Schildnecht, Christiane. 1990. Philosophische Masken: Studien zur literarischen Form der Philosophie bei Platon, Descartes, Wolff und Lichtenberg. j.b. Metzler. Scruton, Roger. 2014. The Soul of the World. Princeton University Press. Shepherd, Carol A. 2019. Bisexuality and the Western Christian Church: the Damage of Silence. Palgrave Macmillan. Shoemaker, Sydney. 1963. Self-​Knowledge and Self-​Identity. Cornell University Press. Slocum, Robert B. 2015. The Anglican Imagination: Portraits and Sketches of Modern Anglican Theologians. Routledge. Snooks, R. J. 2006. “Another Scientific Practice Separating Chemistry from Physics: Thought Experiments.” Foundations of Chemistry 8: 255–​270. Söding, Thomas. 2005. Einheit der Heiligen Schrift? Zur Theologie des Biblischen Kanons. Freiburg i Br.: Herder. Sorensen, Roy A. 1992. Thought Experiments. Oxford University Press. Starikova, Irina, and Marcus Giaquinto. 2018. “Thought Experiments in Mathematics.” In The Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments, ed. by Michael T. Stuart, Yiftach Fehige, and James R. Brown, 257–​277. Routledge. Stone, Ken. 2008. “Bibles That Matter: Biblical Theology and Queer Performativity.” Biblical Theology Bulletin: Journal of Bible and Culture 38: 14–​25. Strawn, Brent A. 2020. The Old Testament: a Concise Introduction. Routledge. Stuart, Michael T. 2021a. “Telling Stories: Feyerabend and Thought Experiments.” hopos: Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science. (in print). Stuart, Michael T. 2020. “The Productive Anarchy of the Scientific Imagination.” Philosophy of Science 87: 969–​978. Stuart, Michael T. 2016. “Taming theory with thought experiments: Understanding and scientific progress.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 58: 24–​33. Stuart, Michael T. 2014. “Cognitive Science and Thought Experiments: a Refutation of Paul Thagard’s Skepticism.” Perspectives on Science 22: 264–​287. Stuart, Michael T., and Yiftach Fehige. 2021. “Motivating the History of the Philosophy of Thought Experiments.” hopos: Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 11: 212–​221.

240 Bibliography Stuart, Michael T., and Yiftach Fehige, and James R. Brown. 2018. “Thought Experiments: State of the Art.” In The Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments, ed. by Michael T. Stuart, Yiftach Fehige, and James R. Brown, 1–​28. Routledge. Stuart, Michael T., and Yiftach Fehige, and James R. Brown (eds). 2018. The Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments. Routledge. Stump, Eleonore. 2010. Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering. Oxford University Press. Stump, Eleonore. 2009. “The Problem of Evil: Analytic Philosophy and Narrative.” In Analytic Theology: New Essays in the Philosophy of Theology, ed. by Oliver D. Crisp and Michael C. Rea, 251–​264. Oxford University Press. Suppes, Patrick. 1978. “The Plurality of Science.” In Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. 1978. Vol. Two: Symposia and Invited Papers, 3–​16. University of Chicago Press. Swinburne, Richard. 2020. “Are We Bodies or Souls? | Richard Swinburne.” https://​www​ .yout​ube​.com​/watch?v=​Bebz​y6QK​gGQ (Accessed April 6th, 2022). Swinburne, Richard. 2010. The Resurrection of God Incarnate. Oxford University Press. Swinburne, Richard. 2007b. From Metaphor to Analogy. Oxford University Press. Swinburne, Richard. 2007a. The Evolution of the Soul. Clarendon Press. Revised Edition. Swinburne, Richard. 2005. Faith and Reason. Clarendon Press. 2nd Edition. Swinburne, Richard. 2004. The Existence of God. Clarendon Press. 2nd Edition. Swinburne, Richard. 1993. The Coherence of Theism. Clarendon Press. 2nd Edition. Swirski, Peter. 2007. Of Literature and Knowledge: Explorations in Narrative Thought Experiments, Evolution, and Game Theory. Routledge. Taliaferro, Charles. 2001. “Sensibility and Possibilia: a Defense of Thought Experiments.” Philosophia Christi 3: 403–​420. Taylor, John H. 1982. The literal meaning of Genesis. Newman Press. Thagard, Paul. 2014. “Thought Experiments Considered Harmful.” Perspectives on Science 22: 288–​305. Thagard, Paul. 2005. “The Emotional Coherence of Religion.” Journal of Cognition and Culture 5: 58–​74. Tilley, Terence W. (2020). “Religious Understanding and Cultured Practices.” In: Varieties of Understanding. New perspectives from Philosophy, Psychology, and Theology, ed. by. Stephen R. Grimm. 253–​273. Oxford University Press. Tobias, Joseph A., and Robert Montgomerie, and Bruce E. Lyon. 2012. “The Evolution of Female Ornaments and Weaponry: Social selection, Sexual selection and Ecological competition.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 367: 2274–​2293. Teske, Roland J. 1991. Saint Augustine on Genesis. The Catholic University of America Press. Urbaniak, Rafael. 2012. “Platonic thought experiments—​how on Earth?” Synthese 187: 731–​752.

Bibliography

241

Van Bendegem, Jean Paul. 2003. “Thought Experiments in Mathematics: Anything but Proof.” Philosophia 72: 9–​33. Waters, Kenneth. 2006. “A Pluralist Interpretation of Gene-​Centred Biology.” In Scien­ tific Pluralism, ed. by. Stephen Kellert et al., pp. 190–​214. University of Minne­ sota Press. Wilkes, Kathleen V. 1988. Real People: Personal Identity without Thought Experiments. Oxford University Press. Wisdom, John. 1944. “Gods.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (1944–​1945) New Series 45: 185–​206. Wilson, Edward O. Wilson. 1978. On Human Nature. Harvard University Press. Wilson, Timothy D. 2002. Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious. Harvard University Press. Witt-​ Hansen, Johannes. 1976. “h.c. Ørsted, Immanuel Kant, and the Thought Experiment.” Danish Yearbook of Philosophy 13: 48–​65. Wray, K. Brad. 2013. “Success and Truth in the Realism/​Anti-​Realism Debate.” Synthese 190: 1719–​1729. Yourgrau, Wolfgang. 1967. “On Models and Thought experiments in Quantum Theory.” Monatsberichte der Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin 9: 886–​874. Zenger, Erich. 2004. “Zwei Testamente—​Eine Bibel.” Jewish-​Christians Relations (June 30, 2004) http://​jcre​lati​ons​.net​/Zwei​_​Test​amen​te​_​-​_Ein​e​_Bi​bel​.1796​.0​.html?L=​2 &pdf=​1​.

Index Abduction 63, 86 Ackermann, Robert 80 Adam and Eve 47–​48, 84, 95, 107, 123–​134, 176, 188, 210, 222 Adams, Scott 176, 222 Aim of science  Diachronic perspective 49, 74–​75, 101, 107–​108, 202 Synchronic perspective 75, 101, 107–​108, 152, 202 Albert, David 13, 15, 121, 163 Ambivalence solution to the problem of human agency 160, 162, 165, 172, 175, 202, 218, 220 Anthropocentric notion of nature 188 Appell, David 11 Argument view of thought experiments  See Thought experiments, views of Aristotle 3, 7, 11, 83–​84, 157, 204, 219 Arthur, Richard 66 Atkins, Peter 78–​79, 93 Augustine, St. 47, 84, 97–​98, 108, 123–​135, 153, 188, 207, 210, 214 Barbour, Ian 99 Barsalou, Lawrence 87–​90 Bishop, Michael 18 Blackburn, Simon 124 Blake, William 191, 200–​201 Block, Ernst 121 Bohr, Niels 12–​19, 52, 85, 116, 130, 135 Bokulich, Alisa 9–​10, 14–​16 Brendel, Elke 12, 65, 85–​88 Brooke, John 99–​101 Brown, David 2–​3, 156–​157, 166–​168, 191–​210, 203, 209–​218 Brown, James R. 5, 7–​8, 10–​12, 16, 19, 21, 26, 64–​65, 67, 86, 88, 119–​120, 121–​122 Brueggemann, Walter 190 Buzzoni, Marco 13, 25, 61, 80, 221 Cantor, Georg 121 Carnap, Rudolf 42, 74 Challenge of nonlinearity 146–​148, 153 Challenge of permanency 146–​148, 153

Chang, Hasok 75, 124, 212–​213 Christianity 2, 19, 23, 27, 36–​39, 44–​53, 57, 96–​104, 109–​136, 145–​157, 162–​163, 167–​ 182, 190–​203, 210, 214–​221 Christological divine–​human paradox 147 Confirmation 41–​42, 44–​47, 92, 148, 157, 213 Eschatological 44–​47, 148, 213 Holism 92, 157 Scientific 41–​42 Simple and complex 45–​47, 213 Confrontational theology 164–​165, 172–​173, 184, 186 Cook, Christopher 135–​136 Copernican revolution 72, 75, 146 Critical rationalism 42 Darwin, Charles 20–​25, 49 Darwinism 38, 49–​51, 53, 59, 68, 80, 100–​ 101, 111, 113, 118–​119, 124–​125, 136–​137, 145, 205 Davenport, Edward 190–​191 Deduction 13, 63, 86, 176, 195 Dennett, Daniel 32, 34–​35, 49–​51, 86, 130 Development view of divine revelation 192–​ 194, 201–​202, 209, 218 Deuteronomy, Book of 110, 163–​164 Dewar, Colin 136 Diachronic features of the world 48, 74–​75, 101, 107–​108, 202 Dillard, Raymond 190 Diversity affirming theology 114–​115, 149, 151–​152, 156–​158, 162, 165–​167, 172, 177, 194–​195, 201, 209, 213–​215, 218 See Brown, David Divine revelation 1, 3, 87, 112, 150, 156–​158, 163, 165, 168–​171, 179, 190–​203, 209, 213–​ 214, 220–​222 Boundless divine revelation 197 Imagination view of divine revelation 192, 201, 209, 218 Dixon, Thomas 99, 137 dna-​repair hypothesis 139–​141 Doctrine of double effect 27–​29

243

Index Domains of the imagination 26–​27, 48, 73–​74, 93, 106, 109–​113, 120, 144, 164, 206–​209, 220 Abstract 26, 206, 208, 220 Narrative 207–​208, 220 Visual 206, 208, 220 Duhem, Pierre 58 Durkheim, Émile 208 Dyson, Robert 123, 129–​133 Ecocentric notion of nature 189–​190 Einstein, Albert 12–​19, 25, 52, 63, 69–​71, 86, 103, 116–​117, 121–​122, 130, 135, 204 Einstein-​Podolsky-​Rosen paradox 15–​16, 103 Elgin, Catherine 82, 90–​95, 177 Empiricism-​Rationalism divide 59, 82, 87, 90, 92, 94 Epistemes 74, 81, 83 Eschatology 44–​47, 123, 126, 133, 148, 156–​ 157, 190, 210, 213, 220 Esfeld, Michael 161, 172 Explanatory pluralism 81, 98, 136, 142, 144–​ 145, 153 Falsificationism 41–​44, 77, 92 Faraday, Michael 121 Fehige, Yiftach 4–​5, 13–​15, 55–​57, 88, 97–​98, 123, 146, 148, 157, 177, 203 Fehr, Carla 138, 140, 141 Feyerabend, Paul 5, 75–​77, 81, 83, 95, 106, 125, 153, 216–​217 Fisch, Menachem 156–​173 Flew, Antony 41–​45, 179 Foot, Philippa 27–​28, 39 Foucault, Michel 74 Galileo 7–​8, 12, 16, 25, 47, 60, 64–​71, 83–​85, 88, 219 Galison, Peter 80, 162 Genesis, Book of 47–​48, 76, 123–​126, 130, 206 Genetic-​portfolio balancing hypothesis (evolution of sexual reproduction) 24, 138, 140 Giaquinto, Marcus 26 Gimbel, Steven 121 God 3, 5, 27, 32, 37, 39–​40, 43–​51, 96, 104–​ 105, 107–​108, 110–​111, 114, 118, 123–​135, 147–​158, 163–​223

Gooding, David 65–​67, 81 Gordon, Peter 74 Gosse, Philip Henry 47–​48, 126 Gould, Stephan Jay 48–​49 Grant, Edward 3–​4, 48, 57, 149, 169 Gregersen, Niels H. 2–​3, 156 Grounded cognition 87–​90, 95, 155, 175 Hacking, Ian 10, 57, 65, 73, 80 Häggqvist, Sören 5 Handel, George Frideric 200 Hardenberg von, Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr 57 Haroche, Serge 12–​13 Harrison, Peter 47, 83–​84, 101 Heavenly Pluralism 156, 166–​173, 202, 220 Heisenberg, Werner von 14–​16, 19 Heisenberg uncertainty principle  See Heisenberg, Werner von Hick, John 44–​48, 156, 179, 185, 213 Hillel and Shammai, Houses of 165–​171 Historical-​critical approach to the Bible 149–​152, 190–​193 Holy Spirit 3, 114, 147–​148, 212 Horowitz, Tamar 62–​64, 67, 79 Human agency 158–​160, 172 Imagination view of divine revelation 192, 201, 209, 218 Imaginative faculty vs. rational faculty 193 Imperfection element 168–​169, 173 I-​thou relations 161, 165, 172 I-​we relations 161, 164 Jackson, Frank 33–​35, 86, 130 Jenkins, Fleeming 22 Jesus of Nazareth 2–​3, 26–​27, 35–​36, 45, 125, 147–​151, 178–​180, 193, 195, 197, 200–​201, 210, 213–​214 Jewish-​Christian relations 163, 218 Job, Book of 27, 156–​158, 173–​177, 182 Judaism 19, 27, 98, 146–​158, 162–​173, 177, 199, 202, 220 Kant, Immanuel 54–​61, 80, 162, 200 Kantian view of thought experiments  See Thought experiments, views of Keller, Evelyn Fox 74, 81–​83, 91, 102, 142

244 Index Knowledge 56, 76, 81, 95–​98, 107, 123, 126–​ 129, 133, 135, 153 Prelapsarian 95–​98, 107, 123, 126–​129, 133, 135, 153 Scientific 56, 76, 81 Koyré, Alexandre 60, 65–​67, 83 Kuhn, Thomas 12, 16, 55–​63, 67–​83, 92, 95, 106, 158–​161, 172 Incommensurability 32, 71–​73, 159, 185 Kuhnian puzzle 159–​160, 172 Paradigms 71, 78–​83, 125, 173, 190 Kühne, Ulrich 16, 56, 58 Laboratory-​style of scientific reasoning 57 Lakatos, Imre 58, 77, 92, 95, 106, 176, 222 Research programmes 77, 92, 222 Landsman, N.P. 15 Laudan, Larry 91–​92, 107, 158 Lenafelt, Tod 190 Lennox, John 20–​23 Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph 55, 57 Lima-​de-​Faria, Antonio 203 Literary approach to the Bible 157, 175–​177, 183, 190, 192–​194 Logic of discovery  See Scientific discovery, context of Logical positivists  See Positivism Longino, Helen 74, 86, 102, 105, 125, 139, 142–​145 Longmann iii, Temper 190 Lorentz contraction 9–​11 Luke, Gospel of 2–​3, 133 Mach, Ernst 56–​68, 80, 95, 118, 206 Machian view of thought experiments  See Thought experiments, views of MacLachlan, James 61 Mailaender, Gilbert 134–​135 Manichaeism 123–​127 Mary, Mother of Jesus 210–​212 Massey, Gerald 62–​64, 67, 79–​80 Maxwell, James Clerk 116–​117 Maynard Smith, John 137 McAllister, James 80, 83–​84 McLeish, Tom 6, 26, 94, 156, 180–​209, 215 Meinong, Alexius 58–​59 Meirmans, Stephanie 137–​138

Methodological constraint, imagination view of 216, 217–​220 Miles, Margaret 125, 129, 133 Mitchell, Basil 43–​44, 180 Mohanty, J.N. 62 Moses 163–​164 Murphy, Nancey 221–​222 Myers, David 62, 86–​87 Neo-​Kuhnian view of thought experiments  See Thought experiments, views of Nersessian, Nancey 88–​89 Newtonian physics or dynamics 69–​72, 77 Nicene Creed 100, 146–​147 Nikolic, Hrvoje 13, 15 Non-​Freudian unconsciousness 86 Norton, John D. 18, 63–​68, 79–​86, 94–​95, 122 Ørsted, Hans Christian 57–​62 Oven of Akhnai 165, 169–​173 Oven story  See Oven of Akhnai Palmerino, Carla 5 Parfit, Derek 30–​31 Pessimistic induction 91, 212 Plantinga, Alvin 51, 100, 101 Platonic view of thought experiments  See Thought experiments, views of Platonism 7–​8, 10–​12, 21, 53, 56, 64–​68, 83, 85, 88, 115, 118–​122, 175, 206–​207 Pneumatological inclusivism 98, 114, 147–​149 Poems of productive imagination 57 Polkinghorne, John 1–​2, 15, 46, 95–​157, 175, 180, 212, 219, 221 Popper, Karl 42, 58, 77, 92, 204 Positivism 41, 46–​47, 61, 74, 76, 82, 121, 142, 157, 170, 175, 200, 223 Priestley, Joseph 205 Prochronic features of the world 48 Proposition-​centrism 179–​180, 192, 195, 204 Protestant reformation 47 Protology 134 Putnam, Hilary 51–​52, 78, 223 Rationalism-​Empiricism Divide  See Empiricism-​rationalism divide

Index Rehder, Wulf 58 Revelation 1, 3, 46, 87, 97, 110, 112, 149–​158, 163–​171, 178–​179, 190–​203, 209–​222 Romans, Epistle to the 148, 151 Roughgarden, Joan 23–​25, 136–​139 Rowbottom, Darrell 107 Ruphy, Stéphanie 55, 78, 81–​82, 108, 142 Ruse, Michael 23, 137–​140 Sandbeck, Lars 197 Schafer, Steve 124, 128–​129 Schrödinger, Erwin 117 Schumann, Robert 204 Scientific justification, context of 76, 78, 81–​82 Scientific discovery, context of 56, 76, 82 Scientific monism 74–​75, 77–​79, 95–​115, 122, 124, 135–​136, 140–​158, 177–​178, 180, 182, 203, 206, 209, 210, 212, 216–​220 Scientific pluralism 1, 75–​82, 95, 98, 105, 109, 115, 125, 136, 142, 144–​158, 165–​173, 202, 213, 220–​222 Scruton, Roger 26, 29, 31–​32, 36 Sexual selection theory 24, 136–​137 Shapin, Steven 181–​182 Shoemaker, Sydney 29–​30 Slocum, Robert 99 Sorensen, Roy 27, 58, 65, 80–​81, 84, 118, 176, 188–​189 Starikova, Irina 25 Stuart, Michael T. 5, 19–​20, 31, 56, 76, 91, 216–​219 Stump, Eleonore 175 Submissive theology 163–​164, 169, 171, 173–​ 174, 210 Suppes, Patrick 78 Surplus composition 191–​192, 194, 201–​ 202, 209 Swinburne, Richard 1, 22, 27, 36–​39, 45, 49, 53, 110–​111, 149–​151, 178–​179, 195–​196, 214, 219 Swirski, Peter 82, 176–​177 Talmud 163–​173, 199 Templeton Prize 99–​100 Thagard, Paul 31, 34 Theocentric notion of nature 188 Theology 96–​97, 104, 110, 111, 122, 124, 136, 140, 146–​147, 149, 150–​154, 156–​158, 162,

245 165–​168, 171–​173, 177–​178, 180–​181, 192–​ 194, 197, 201–​203, 206, 209–​210, 218, 212–​214, 217–​218, 220 Theological diversity 146, 149, 151–​152, 156, 162, 166, 172, 178, 192–​194, 201–​202, 209–​210, 213–​214, 218, 220 Theological monism 96–​97, 104, 110, 111, 122, 124, 136, 140, 146–​147, 149, 151, 153–​154, 158, 177–​178, 180–​181, 203, 206, 209–​210, 212, 217–​220 Theological pluralism 149, 153, 165, 167–​ 168, 171–​173 Theology of revelation 150–​153, 166, 193, 197, 218 Theoretical monism 77 Theoretical pluralism 77, 125 Theories of knowledge, Activist vs. Passivist 176 Thomas, Scarlett 6, 58, 95–​96, 176 Thomson, William (Lord Kelvin) 116 Thought experiments, examples of 16–​10, 29–​31, 33–​35, 37, 39, 43–​46, 49–​53, 85, 97, 116, 120, 130, 138, 147, 157, 179, 180, 188, 191, 217–​218 Amoeba 30, 31, 37, 39 Celestial City 44–​46, 179 Christological 147, 191, 217–​218 Clock-​in-​the-​Box 16–​20, 35, 85, 97, 116, 120, 130, 157, 188 Dandelion-​Lawn 138 Invisible Gardener 43, 53 Mary’s Room 33–​35, 45 Mitchell’s War Resistance 43–​44, 180 Ship of Theseus 29 Superman 49–​53 Thought experiments, views of  Argument view 12, 18, 63–​64, 67, 86, 89, 115, 120 Intuition account 85–​88, 95, 120, 122 Mental models account 88–​89, 155 Neo-​Kuhnian theory 79 Platonic account 7–8, 10–12, 21, 53, 56, 64–68, 83, 85, 88, 115, 118–122, 175, 206–207 Three great questions, the 180, 182, 187, 191, 204–​205 Torah 163–​172, 199

246 Index Trading zones, scientific and religious 162, 172 Understanding vs explanation 32, 36

Wilkes, Kathleen 31 Wisdom, John 40–​41, 44 Witt-​Hansen, Johannes 57 Wray, K. Brad 109

Verificationism 41, 44, 121

Yourgrau, Wolfgang 61

Weber, Max 26, 58, 208 Wiggins, David 30

Zola, Émile 208