The Territories of Science and Religion
Peter Harrison, The Territories of
Science and Religion, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press,
2015.
1 The Territories of Science and Religion
The distinction notion of “science” and “religion”
resulted from political power and the accidents of history to some extent.
Therefore, the primary task for science-religion relations is to reconsider the
historical understanding of these two concepts.
Historical Amnesia
|
Periods/notions |
Religion |
Science |
|
Premodern (interior) |
Religio: worship True religion: genuine worship to a real
God -The acts of worship motivated by inner
piety. Like the other virtues, it’s a moral habit. |
Scientia: a habit of mind or an
intellectual virtue. -The rehearsal of the processes of
demonstration that strengthens the relevant mental habits. It is an
intellectual habit. |
|
Modern (exterior) |
The Christian
religion: addition of the definite article is suggestive of a system of
belief. |
Descartes: the skill to solve every
problem. 19th century: elements of
the philosophy curriculum. -The production of new scientific
knowledge. |
Another
pair of Notions
(1) Theology
Aristotle:
a speculative science.
Christianity:
the teaching of Christian scriptures.
(2)
Natural Philosophy
It
includes such topics as God and the soul, but excludes mathematics and natural
history.
2 The
Cosmos and the Religions Quest
Q:
What did people in antiquity conceptualize their activities which are regarded
as science and religion?
Popular
narrative: science distinguished itself from
mythological or religious explanations of natural phenomena by rational
account.
Actually, pre-Socratic philosophers always
refer to gods and divine principles. E.g. Thales declared “all things are full
of gods”. Hence, myths can be compatible with rational explanations.
Natural philosophy in ancient Greek
concerned the relationship between cosmos and morality. They believed that
moral order is built into the structure of the cosmos.
According to Aristotle, three theoretical
sciences are natural philosophy, mathematics, theology. The Stoics argued
physics and logic served ethics, i.e. the aim of study is personal formation.
Anyway, it shows the tendency to fuse scientific, ethical, and religious
concerns.
Christianity
First Christians identified
themselves as modes of worship, a new kind of race, and a way of life. For
example, Christianity in the Pauline formula is “neither Jew nor Greek, slave
nor free, male nor female.” The conceptualization of a religious way of life
floats free from specific cultural contexts.
Two influences from Judaism. (1)
Interiorization of religion; (2) Textual culture underscores the divine word
and a central text.
The Precondition of the Idea of Religion in
the Modern Period
Popular narrative: Christianity
conflicts with classical culture.
Pagan philosopher Celsus described
Christians as ignorant bucolic yokels who believe without rational thought.
However, later Christians started to claim Christianity is a new kind of
philosophy or one true philosophy. For example, they believed Proverb taught
ethics, Ecclesiastes, natural philosophy, and the Song of Songs, theological
contemplation. They are three stages of spiritual growth. They claimed
philosophy for the Greeks and the Law for the Jews were a preparation for the
Gospel.
Some Expressions
Catechism originally was used for canonical
doctrines of Epicureanism. Reciting them is an exercise of self-examination and
the cure of soul.
Creed (credo) means to trust or to have
confidence in. Ancient people figured the beginning of worship consists in
placing one’s trust in the gods.
Doctrine (doctrina) means teaching, the
habit produced by instruction.
These expressions provide a framework for
the understanding of scripture and guide to the bounds of legitimate reading.
Conclusion
(1) “Theology” indicates
natural philosophy was not divorced from religious concerns.
(2) Christianity demoralized and
detheologized natural philosophy.
(3) Christianity criticized pagan superstition, such as the worship of heavenly bodies.
3 Sign and Causes
Premodern Time: Symbolic and Causal
Understanding of the Order of Nature
Two Resource of Scripture: the Bible and Nature
Rationale: God can be known through the visible creation.
Origen and his Followers
The Interpretation of Scripture (The manifold meanings of Scripture)
(1) Literal or historical. Jerusalem means a place, the city of the Jews.
(2) Tropological. The human soul.
(3) Anagogical. The heavenly city of God.
(4) Allegorical. The Church of Christ.
Augustine Theory of Signs
“……things in the natural world, like words,
are capable of signifying.”(p.60) Hence, the hermeneutic method of Scripture also
signifies the worldview that there are different layers of the natural world
and “natural objects have spiritual meanings”. (p.75)
The Function of Science
Hugh of Saint Victor contended that “the arts and sciences provide a means for the partial restoration of the prelapsarian perfection of the world.” (p.66)
Albert the Great maintained that the
science of sacred doctrine is mental training.
Aquinas’s “Analogy of Being”
“The creatures provide a way to understanding God as the causal
source of their being, since to some degree effects resemble their causes.” (p.68)
Modern Time: New science of Nature
Reformation: Literal Sense
Protestant theologians prioritized the historical
or literal sense of the holy text.
New Science in the 17th Century: Efficient Causation
It was a new nonsymbolic understanding of nature. For example, “Bacon proposes a new, nonallegorical way of reading the book of nature.” (p.76) Instead of symbolic hermeneutic language, people began to utilize the mathematical formulation and developed the notion of natural laws (the regularities of nature).
4 Science and the Origins of “Religion”
The End of Ends
The prevailing of Aristotelian model of virtues was called into question.
(1) Change in the natural world came to be understood in terms of laws of nature that were thought to operate externally on inert particles of matter.
(2) Protestant thinkers refused a doctrine of salvation by good works. Luther contended that righteousness is not in us in a formal sense, as Aristotle maintains, but is outside us. In other words, individuals were not justified by virtue of inner quality, but on account of their relationship to God.
(3) In the 17th century, people stressed the fallibility of human reason. They replaced Aristotle’s theory with the nonteleological, mechanical and experimental philosophy.
Definite Articles
“True religion” became “the true religion”. It means the key point of religion changes from interior disposition to explicit belief and creedal knowledge. The identification of Christianity became the outward profession of a set of propositional beliefs.
Religion and Religions (pp.97-102)
When religion became “the religion”, the plural term “religions” also comes into wide use. At the very beginning, the religions signified Catholicism and Lutheranism. With wars of religion, the religious conflicts ended up with the formation of modern state. Religions as competing creedal systems were combined creation of the clergy and the state. Finally, now we have world religions, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism.
True Religion Revisited
Like science, as a set of propositions, the question, “which religion is true?”, appeared.
(1) Relativistic option, like Jean Bodin.
(2) True religion is identified with piety.
(3) Trying to adjudicate the rival claims of religions.
Science and the Age of Evidences
In the early modern time, science and religion were alliance, as “physico-theology” means. For example, Robert Boyle believed that the experimental philosophy would provide “new Weapons for the defense of our ancientest Creed.”(p.112) Science was an apologetic strategy. Anyway, it was a rationalization and propositionalization of the Christian faith.
【Q: If inter-religious dialogue or studies of world religions are based on the modern understanding of “religion”, is this kind of discussion valid? Because if ancient people revived, they would be surprised and consider so-called inter-religious dialogue as a fake proposition (even nonsense). 】
5 Utility and Progress
In this chapter, I think the author mainly discusses the changes in the understanding of some key notions. They are utility, charity, dominion and progress.
Progress
For classical schools and medieval theology, progress means the movement in which the goal-oriented entities move naturally toward their ends. (p.120)
For Bacon and modern thinkers, progress means the cumulative addition to, and incremental improvement of , an external body of knowledge. (p.120) One of the crucial historical factors here is the advance of printing technology. Due to the possibility of large-scale printing, knowledge can be stored for the first time. (p.123)
Utility
The old criterion of usefulness is the nurture of moral and religious qualities. However, now the usefulness is understood as the material benefits of learning. (p.128) For new natural philosophy, people believed that its legitimacy is based on its social utility. (p.126) According to Joseph Glanvill, he said experimental philosophy is real philosophy because it deals with “real” things instead of abstract concepts, and it is very serviceable (useful) to religion. (p.127)
Charity
For premodern thinkers, charity is one of the theological virtues. Nevertheless, modern philosophers counted it as an institution. (p.131) They claim charity is the relief of the human estate. It is derived from the Latin expression, “hominum statum levandum et juvandum”, which means to ease and improve the human condition. Therefore, charity equates to promoting material welfare, i.e. ameliorating the material infirmities that attend the human condition. (p.133) Bacon regards human infirmity as resulting from the Fall, so the task of new science is to offer a means of human redemption. (p.134)
Dominion
Due to the theory of the Fall, the goal of the religious life was to restore the lost dominion over nature. (p.137) For medieval theologians, the inner restoration was the necessary precondition for the reassertion of human dominion over things. However, for modern thinkers, due to the literal reading of the Bible, dominion over nature is the exercise of control over the natural world.
【As far as the utility section, it can also be used to explain why nowadays lots of young students prefer to choose financial disciplines as their major rather than art. It is because students favor the material usefulness of financial subjects and think literature, history and philosophy are useless.】
6 Professing Science
In this final chapter, the author attempts to explain the formal formation of the science-religion relationship. In the 17th century, modern religion was born. In the 19th century, William George Ward started to define science as a physical and experimental science. New science focus on experiments and the accumulation of observational data.
The Meaning of Science
In the 19th century, science had various usages. Sometimes it referred to the study of Greek philosophy, and sometimes it referred to the study of the classics.
A Common Context?
In the early modern period, there was a common context which means people believed in the unity of knowledge, so natural science tended to mix up with moral edification and pious sentiments about the Creator. (p.157)
“Science” and the Beatification of Bacon
Bacon inspired people to do research by the method of induction. “The method of induction, then, came to be thought of as a divinely sanctioned mode of reasoning that characterized both true religion and genuine science.” (p.154) “Praise of the Baconian method could extend to the view that inductive habits of mind not only promoted the cause of true science, but also provided the basis of proper moral and religious sentiments.” (p.171)
In the 17th century, “it was still assumed that certain habits of mind—closely allied with moral sensibilities—were necessary for the correct prosecution of science. The difference now was that the speculative and deductive habits of mind associated with scientia were displaced by inductive and experimental dispositions. This meant that some systems of natural knowledge—those premised on speculation alone—had the capacity to stand in opposition to religion.” (p.158)
The Scientist
“The second half of the nineteenth century witnesses the disintegration of the common religious and moral context of scientific endeavors, and sees the reconstruction of ‘science’ around the principle of a common method and a common identity for its practitioners.” (p.159) Therefore, modern science emerges from a threefold process: (1) a new identity, the scientist; (2) distinctive method that excludes religious and moral considerations; (3) new science is consolidated by drawing sharp boundaries and positing the existence of contrast cases, such as science and pseudo-science, and science and religion.
Science and Its Methods
For example, biology was divorced from natural history. It diminished the didactic and moral elements and applied the laboratory as its research method.
The new understanding of science, that science is fundamentally human activity, replaced science as an accumulation of data. Besides, the major player is from God to the scientist. (p.169) Meanwhile, people think that the scientific method must extend itself to all forms of enquiry. (p.170) 【这就是为什么我们现在追求普遍性（甚至普世价值？）】
Anyway, modern science was distilled by “the creation of a special professional identity (the scientist), the specification of a distinguishing set of methods (the scientific method), and the replacement of a traditional nomenclature (natural philosophy and natural history)”. (p.170)
Boundary Work and Myth Making
The fictional story about a conflict between science and religion was invented. It is misleading. For example, in fact, the flat earth myth was actually a conflict within science, and the Galileo event was a conflict within religion. (p.173)
Diplomatic Relations?
People also set up modes of science-religion relation: conflict, independence, dialogue, and integration.