I've spent some time lately thinking about the differences between theology and the scientific process. In particular, I've been questioning why my views on theology have changed considerably over the years. While evangelism is religion's marketing department, principled theology seems much closer to the rigor and discipline of scientific inquiry. At least on the surface, beliefs are evaluated with a lot more ruthlessness than one experiences in a casual gathering of like-minded religious believers.
I often complain that people have no stomach for nuance and complexity when looking at economics, or technology, or politics, or international relations, or history, or any number of different important subjects. Why, then, do I read something like this discussion and feel like I'm listening to an argument about Superman fighting Batman? If explaining global warming requires complex and counter-intuitive twists and turns, why shouldn't the nature of sin and divine providence?
The kind of scientific complexity that I'm talking about comes from a simple source. You compare your theory to observable reality, and see if it measures up. In particular, you see if your theory can be used to make accurate predictions about how things will work in the future. The willingness to change the theory when it doesn't measure up to reality is really at the heart of the process. As Isaac Asimov once said, "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but rather 'hmm... that's funny...'"
Theology -- and I'm using this loosely, by admission -- is about carefully refining something that can only be tested against itself. Inside of the Christian tradition, there's plenty of discussion about whether particular beliefs measure up to what's written in the Bible, or whether they fit with the rest of Church tradition, or whether they are internally consistent. But there is no external point of comparison, no lighthouse that exists outside the ocean of theory. Like the twists and turns of a long-running TV show's canon, the complexity that emerges in theology is there simply to keep it internally consistent.
It's perfectly possible that I'm changing the rules as I go, inventing a post-hoc rationale for dismissing the complexities of Christian theology while nodding thoughtfully at ideas I like. After a lot of consideration, though, I think that the difference is a genuine one.
Comments
As I understand it, your Permalink
Submitted by Matt Butcher on Thu, 12/01/2011 - 16:37
As I understand it, your conclusion is that while science is "integrationist", theology (or any religious talk?) is "isolationist." But that doesn't seem to follow from your argument.
You compare theology on the one hand with scientific theory, and on the other with Superman fighting Batman.
You start by suggesting that it does seem to be okay for theology to require some degree of complexity and nuance -- after all, most human disciplines (humanities or science) tend toward the same.
Then you suggest that while science is grounded in observable reality, theology (like Superman vs. Batman) is not. But you never really say what any of that means.
On the one hand, most philosophers of science and academic scientists have very elaborate explanations for what it means for a scientific theory to be grounded in, or even related to "observable reality". There are two very large issues to consider here.
First, there is the issue of what is called the "underdetermination of observation data". The ever-present Thomas Kuhn made this problem famous, but many have written about it before and since. In a nutshell, the problem is that observation data cannot support any theory adequately. You need theory to explain data, not the other way around. This is compounded tenfold when you deal with sciences that require any sort of instrumental apparatus (whether theoretical like lambda calculus or physical like a telescope or a combination like an fMRI). For in this case, one body of theory serves as a necessary bridge between observation data and another body of theory.
Secondly, history does not support the assertion that "best fit" of a theory to evidence is always an earmark of a good theory. Kepler, Copernicus, and Galileo were all (rightly?) criticized by their peers for a simple reason: None of their theories (about planetary motion, gravity, etc.) matched observation data as well as the competitors. The mature Ptolemaic system was more predictive than the nascent heliocentric competitor -- it matched the observation data more closely. Galileo's simplifying assumptions about gravity and resistance made his theory less predictive than the Aristotelian system against which he competed. His experiments were even falsified during his lifetime. And, if course, we could always toss Einstein into the mix. Do you know when the general and special theories of relativity were experimentally confirmed?
We tend to forget the failures in hindsight. We don't study failed theories, so we neglect the viewpoint that shows science as stumbling forward with theories that often times disagree with the evidence, sometimes winning but often losing. To put this pedantically: A theory's disagreeing with the evidence available at time t does not rule out the possibility that it will match the evidence available at time t+1.
Now on the other hand, there's the issue of whether theology (or, better, religious views at all) are isolationist. That is, to what extent do these areas claim to be connected with "observed reality"? As I understand it, you *suggest* that they don't. But you don't really explain this.
There are some religious positions that explicitly claim to be isolationist. Two examples are Wittgensteinian fideism (Rush Rhees, D.Z. Philips, Kai Nelson) and religious non-realism or anti-realism (Bultmann, Scweitzer, etc.). To paint with a broad brush, these groups are more likely to claim that religion is highly metaphorical, re-purposing commonplace words (like "god", "love", "prayer", "divinity") for different purposes.
How many people do you know that believe that? I don't know many.
Most of the religious believers I know very much believe their theories to be grounded in observable reality. They talk a lot about historical documents (one in particular), present experiences, social and political behavior (sometimes too political), and they have a very, very real concern with ultimate truth. If someone believed Superman was real, at best we'd dismiss this as a childish fantasy. For we KNOW that it's fiction. But religious believers very strongly believe -- and believe they have evidence for -- the existence of God. (Don't confuse proof, by the way, with knowledge, evidence or rationality. These are four very distinct ideas.)
Finally, before you could really make the case that theology is Superman vs. Batman, you'd also have to either show that it is in some way methodologically or epistemically inferior to other humanities, or relegate all humanities (literature, philosophy, art, history, communications, etc.) to the land of Marvel. For all of these fields are theory-laden (just tell a Shakespeare scholar that Marlowe wrote some of the plays attributed to Shakespeare), and share (roughly) the same commitment to meshing with "observable reality". Yet it's not commonplace to dismiss the humanities as hopeless isolationist because you don't see how their theories are backed by sufficient observation data. (And remember -- these endeavors are just as much about finding truth as quantum mechanics is.)
I'd suggest that the bottom line is very simple: The reason you think that theology sounds like Superman vs. Batman is caused by a combination of three things: (1) You don't believe in God, (2) yet you choose to read a theological argument that (3) is largely centered on resolving deep theoretical differences between two competing "scholarly" theories.
I have exactly the same experience listening to Freudians, superstring theorists, and baseball fans.
I'd suggest that the bottom Permalink
Submitted by Eaton on Wed, 12/14/2011 - 18:07
I think this is an excellent point. (Hi, Matt! It's great to have you commenting!)
I want to make clear that I'm not trying to form an argument for why Christianity is true or untrue, or anything along those lines. Although I don't think I did a great job of capturing it, my real question was about why the hotly debated "scholarly theories" of Christian theology felt like evidence of the seriousness of the Christian faith when I was immersed in it.
While I still find theology interesting, it no longer has the power that it once did to capture my imagination. Like superstring theory and Freudian psychology, it's an interesting way of looking at certain kinds of questions. When I talked about the connection to observable reality, I didn't mean that theology was inconsequential. Rather, I was thinking about the nature of theology in the world that I was raised and came of age: it's anchored firmly in the idea that Scripture is the be-all end-all of truth, and that figuring out the details is a matter of rightly interpreting the Bible. In that world, if your observations about the world are at odds with Scripture, then your observations are incorrect or you have misunderstood Scripture.
While some scientists obviously hold onto their own theories despite mounting evidence that they are incorrect, the rationalist/scientific camp holds that that "observable reality" is the ultimate arbiter of truth. Something that can't be observed is in the realm of philosophy or idle speculation -- interesting, but fundamentally unreliable.
I understand that this view of Scripture and theology isn't the way everyone believes -- even in Christianity the fundamentalist approach to Sola Scriptura and the idolization of Scripture is far from universal. It's that difference, though, that I was thinking about as I fired off the blog post. I remember thinking, before I posted, that it could probably use a few revisions before being published, but I threw caution to the wind. While I don't think I communicated what I'd hoped as effectively as I wanted to, I'm happy that I managed to lure you out of the shadows into commenter-land! ;-) Thanks!
How did I get pulled in to Permalink
Submitted by Matt Farina on Thu, 12/01/2011 - 17:39
How did I get pulled in to comment here?!?!?! Human behavior around getting sucked into commenting could be an entire area of study.
So, some observations...
Where this gets interesting is the inputs based on unknowns. Where do these come from? It's easy to say we observed something different so we refine our model. But, what about the parts that aren't based on observation? What happens when people change these parts for other possibilities and create different outputs? How do scientists handle these different outputs?
As a general public we are shielded from much of what happens in this space. I didn't realize what happened here or the attitudes surrounding this space until I started to read white papers about this stuff.
Many scientists have beliefs that affect what they think these unknowns are.
When we base our personal model of the universe, life, where we came from, and so on from these science models that are intertwined with beliefs we accept these beliefs whether we know it or not.
"The willingness to change the theory when it doesn't measure up to reality is really at the heart of the process." I would argue in some areas we need to allow for a willingness to visit and promote models based on more than one belief about the nature of the universe where we can't observe something. If it were only all about measurements....
My point is that science isn't as cut and dry as observation. Much of the science we see and let effect our outlook on the world has beliefs intertwined in it. It's not just a case of observation.
My point is that we often take observation for granted. We can't observe how old really old things are. We estimate it. We try to intelligently guess it. Things are transliterated to us (regular people) often as observation. But, are they? How accurate are the estimates? What are all the parts that went into that?
My point is that what we often think is observation isn't observation in the way we think it is. (Say this as if Jack Sparrow would say it. That's how I said it in my head and it was way more fun.) If we take the guestimates passed on as observations we take all this unknown to us background material along with it.
Note, I'm not saying what we should do. Just that there's more than meets the eye involved with this.
If you look at human history you can observe people adding a lot to the theology. For two examples see the hundreds of laws the hebrew people added to their culture by the time of Jesus and the new testament church. Or, look at the church traditions now (I can speak to these more than other religions based on experience of course).
To make this more fun and complex, you need to assume said deity exists to take this point of view.
There is also observation of everyday life. For example, I just finished reading a book and in it the person claimed to have seen "miracle" healings in more than one place. This person claimed to have observed these singularities happen.
When if comes to observation the search can quickly become more complex. I've asked these same questions and looked for these same things for years. I'm still learning and picking all of this apart myself.
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