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July 24, 2008
Faith and Science: No Meaningful Common Epistemology
John Hobbins at Ancient Hebrew Poetry uses a famous verse from the Psalms as a lead in to the claim, "Faith and science share a common epistemology." The verse he cites is Psalm 8:4[5], “What is man that you mind him; children of dust, that you note them? [John's translation]” He adds to his claim, "Generally speaking, neither religionists nor scientists seem very aware of the fact." I think that the reason "neither religionists nor scientists seem very aware of the fact" that "faith and science share a common epistemology" is that beyond the most superficial level it simply isn't a fact.
To address this issue thoroughly I would need to write a book or two or three, so I will only take a somewhat superficial and therefore simplistic look at two of the most important issues in the neighborhood: revelation and tradition.
I start by noting that there is nothing particularly scientific about scientific epistemology. We come to know everything that we know on our own the same way that scientists come to know what they know. There's a door over there. I know it because I see and understand its shape and structure and I came in here through it. I have considerable experience in opening and going through things with that general shape and structure. Yes, I have a theory of doors. I use that theory to help me identify other doors, to organize my ideas about doors as opposed to, say, windows, and to question whether some other unique looking thing is indeed a door, one that I dare attempt to go through. I test this unique looking thing and incorporate my new experience into my theory of doors. There is even a possibility that this unique looking thing may cause me to revise my theory of doors in important ways or even start over and develop a new theory of doors. Were I abnormally interested in doors, I'd use this theory to define a research program on doors.
Now, back to John's claim, I agree that there is a superficial, but only a superficial, overlap between the epistemology of faith, if one can meaningfully call it that, and the epistemology of science as if science has a unique epistemology onto itself. But I cannot agree that, except under trivial conditions, science and religion share a common epistemology. I certainly agree that there is a great sense of wonder among many scientists and among many religionists. There's a few deadheads everywhere. I even agree that for some religionists there is an open-endedness to many of the specifically religious questions they ask and even how they answer them. But there is a lot extra baggage in this epistemology of faith. That extra baggage generally includes revelation and always includes tradition. There may be very loose parallels between revelation and observation on the one hand and tradition and the history of science on the other. But it all ends with these very loose parallels.
Outside of specific religious traditions, revelation as a way of knowing does not holdout the possibility of there being universally accessible experiences. Observation does. My theory of doors would not surprise anyone who has ever seen a door. But religious theories, if I may call them that for heuristic reasons, are always full of surprises for the uninitiated and for those of other religious traditions. As Mark Twain, my favorite theologian, once said, "The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also [apud Paine, Mark Twain: a Biography]."
The history of science describes the intellectual trajectory from which current tentative understandings developed. But aside from describing that trajectory, our current understands need not encompass anything that preceded them. Of course, they usually do, but they need not. Science even disposes of irrelevant or misleading metaphors that were once thought neither irrelevant nor misleading nor even metaphors. I think of the scientific use of the word "aether" as used until modern theories of gases and vacuum came along. Some might claim that quantum vacuum has resurrected aether. But if it has, it has resurrected it as a completely different entity without any need for that now archaic term. On the other hand, tradition remains epistemologically authoritative for religion beyond defining an intellectual trajectory. One often sees herculean efforts to save, as somehow valid, elements of a religious tradition in the face of the ongoing intellectual trajectories. It appears to me, that much of the intellectual effort of religionists is dedicating to saving the very language of the tradition in the face of otherwise agreed upon results of observation and theory. Please note that I am not claiming that intellectual trajectories are somehow unimportant. They are important. They just aren't authoritative in science.
It is the faith part of the epistemology of faith that makes it different from the epistemology of science, not the wonder part.
Posted by Duane Smith at July 24, 2008 7:54 PM | Read more on Religion |
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Comments
Good explanation! The similarity Hobbins asserts is quite superficial. The apologetic is painful to read.
Have you ever read Bartley's Retreat to Commitment?
Posted by: N T Wrong at July 25, 2008 3:53 PM
Woo hoo! Thank you for saying something. That post was crazy. I thought about taking JH on, but I just got tired thinking about it. He's openly acknowledged his fideism. So it's hard to argue.
Posted by: Alan Lenzi at July 25, 2008 9:05 PM
N.T and Alan,
Thank you for your comments. I put off writing this a couple of days in the hope that someone else would give it a shot. N. T., I have not read Bartley but from your post on his book, I should. Of course, he wrote his book during the time I was out of this game and it isn't quite in the center of any of my abnormal interests. Alan, at the end of the day, I think fideism is the only way one can maintain a religious position and continue to try to be intellectually honest. But, part of being an intellectually honest fideist is accepting the rather extreme relativism that goes with it. In large measure, it was my inability to accept that relativism that led me to my current position with regard to god/gods and a whole lot of other things.
Posted by: Duane at July 26, 2008 4:48 PM
Sorry, comments are closed for this post.
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