{"id":3780,"date":"2015-05-22T14:33:51","date_gmt":"2015-05-22T21:33:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/?p=3780"},"modified":"2020-01-09T04:14:22","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T11:14:22","slug":"against-natural-theology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newcoolthang.com\/index.php\/2015\/05\/against-natural-theology\/3780\/","title":{"rendered":"Against Natural Theology"},"content":{"rendered":"
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“Of course it was not given to mortal reason to decipher the hieroglyph of the universe in detail; but the important fact is that this was the fundamental aim of all wisdom and learning, coloring the whole intellectual life and all but excluding any interest in prediction and control, in \u201cnatural science\u201d as we know it. From this follows the intense faith in the intelligibility of the world that makes the medieval scholar, whether mystic seeking wisdom by intuition and vision, or rationalist seeking it by dialectic, reject our modern agnosticisms and romanticisms\u2026
\n“Whether the mystic sought symbolism in nature or in history, or the scholastic sought the form and end of all things, there was this same hierarchical order of importance leading up to God, supreme reality, supreme end, supreme genus. And since such was the use of learning, it mattered little, after all, whether nature be exactly described or history accurately written\u2026
\n“Indeed, a knowledge of natural history for its own sake would have been regarded as almost blasphemous, taking men\u2019s thoughts away from its essential meaning for man.”<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 – John Herman Randall, Jr., The Making of the Modern Mind, pg. 35<\/p>\n

“…all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator.”<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 -Alma 30:44<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

It has become almost a platitude of sorts to say that the relationship between science and religion is “complicated” if only because science deals with facts and mechanisms while religion deals with morals, meaning and salvation. \u00a0Stephen Jay Gould went so far as to claim that the two have non-overlapping magisteria such that the two can never be directly compared to one another since they are never (ever!) talking about one and the same thing. \u00a0Most people in the bloggernacle aren’t will to follow Gould that far, but they do seem to follow him to some extent or another. \u00a0These people typically agree that religion is\u00a0primarily concerned with morals and meanings, but they\u00a0also notice that the scriptures do make quite a few factual claims. \u00a0Consequently, such people tacitly assume, if not outright state that religion is often guilty of stepping on science’s toes but not the other way around. \u00a0There is a lot in this perspective that I want to push back against.<\/p>\n

At the heart of this confused perspective lies the mistaken belief that scientific investigation just is<\/em> the paradigmatic search for truth. \u00a0It sees science as the scientific investigation of facts and religion as the (ideally) scientific investigation of morality, meaning or salvation. \u00a0In fact, it would be difficult to provide a better definition of theology. \u00a0Thus, to the extent that there is a non-overlapping magisteria between science and religion, it parallels the non-overlap that exists between different scientific disciplines such as molecular biology and linguistics. \u00a0In other words, religion is taken to be a systematic and potentially academic investigation into moral phenomena that more or less follows the same rules of reason that structure well-established science. \u00a0Nothing could be further from the truth. \u00a0(It is worth noting that this misunderstanding of religion is the real danger\u00a0to be found within natural theology – ID in particular – as well as\u00a0the LDS tendency to project it onto Alma 30:44.)<\/p>\n

The problems with this view of religion-as-moral-science are more transparent\u00a0from a historical perspective. \u00a0The quote from Randall (above) provides a concise description of what academia consisted in prior to the scientific revolution. \u00a0The truth that scholars sought had very little to do with accurate description, prediction or control and the idea of gaining knowledge of the natural world “for it’s own sake” simply made no sense in that context. \u00a0Several\u00a0things are quite clear from his description:\u00a0 First, there was clearly no distinction between facts and values such that one could distinguish the magisteria of factual truths from that of moral truths. \u00a0Second, even if such a distinction could be made, truth clearly did not consist in the non-moral description of the natural world, no matter how accurate it might have been. \u00a0Third, the absoluteness\/relativity of truth was totally unrelated to the accuracy or objectivity of any such non-moral description, but was instead situated\u00a0within an absolute moral hierarchy that culminated with God. \u00a0Thus, while there is already a Greek influence (mostly Aristotle) in this picture of which Mormons are rightly suspicious, \u00a0the point I wish to highlight is that this view of the systematic investigation truth radically differs from that of modern science. \u00a0It would thus be a major mistake to, on the one hand, \u00a0read the definitions, truths and virtues of modern science back into most of our canonized texts and, on the other, uncritically accept the definitions, truths and virtues of modern science as “natural” or in some sense non-negotiable. \u00a0In fact, once one rejects the very idea of natural theology, there seems\u00a0little reason to believe that science seeks truth (in its pre-scientific sense) at all.<\/p>\n

The historical distance which the Randall quote provides also allows us to identify many of the ways in which science has transformed and continued various aspects of this medieval tradition. \u00a0First, medieval scholars\u00a0assumed the world around us to be intelligible to human minds since it was created for us by a mind that is itself very similar to ours. \u00a0Modern science, by contrast, continues with this strong assumption while at the same time placing the supernatural justification for it out of bounds. \u00a0Within this context we can better understand Galileo’s rejection of not only Catholic teachings, but of Tycho Brahe’s empirically indistinguishable model of the universe, a great deal of Kepler’s empirical data along with his fabrication of data. \u00a0Such behaviors on his part were\u00a0almost certainly motivated not by any kind of objective or scientific virtues, but\u00a0by his quasi-religious commitment to Pythagorean mysticism in which the universe is literally and deeply shaped according to mathematical relationships. \u00a0This mystical religion was\u00a0a major\u00a0historical influence for the claim that quantifiable properties are “primary” and thus more real than the qualitative and thus “secondary” qualities, thus making quantitative descriptions more true than qualitative descriptions. \u00a0It is from this perspective that many prioritize\u00a0the quantitative facts\u00a0of science over the qualitative metaphors of scripture. \u00a0The Hebrew prophets took qualitative descriptions of morals and meanings to be deep truths behind the world. \u00a0The Pythagorean mystics took quantitative descriptions of facts to be deep truths of the universe. \u00a0Modern science seems unable to justify either position.<\/p>\n

Second, within the medieval context skepticism and relativism both constituted subversive attacks that undermined moral authorities and as such were\u00a0no different from moral weakness and\/or deviance.\u00a0 It is obvious why such things would be resisted and condemned within such a context – think Korihor. \u00a0Within the context of modern science, however, it’s not at all clear what danger actually follows from an everyday\u00a0person’s rejection of the absoluteness of natural science – especially if science is as value-free as it sometimes claims. \u00a0In the case of the science wars, for example, it’s far from obvious\u00a0what the scientists were supposed to be protecting (other than their own position within society) from “post-modern” attacks. \u00a0In fact, it is not clear\u00a0if or why I personally have any obligation beyond mere cafeteria-like personal convenience to accept anything that scientists say, let alone ahead of religious truths that I am clearly obligated to believe. \u00a0The view that science is getting at deep and absolute truths that all people\u00a0are under some obligation to adhere to is\u00a0clearly the remnants of the\u00a0natural theology tradition in which natural philosophers (they would later be relabeled “scientists” in order to\u00a0further\u00a0distance themselves from other philosophers) were merely continuing theology by different means.<\/p>\n

In summary, ID is not bad because religion has no place in science since modern science was originally created as the\u00a0intelligent design of physics and there is\u00a0plenty of religion within it still. \u00a0Instead, ID is bad because science has no place in religion in the sense that it is not and was never meant to be a systematic or scientific investigation of morals, meanings and salvation. \u00a0Such human reasoning – as natural theology clearly is – simply has no place within religious faith. \u00a0To be sure, I am not at all comfortable rejecting science as a whole, nor am I saying that practicing scientists should change any of their practices. \u00a0We should, however, acknowledge that it would be a mistake to equate the useful information that science\u00a0can\u00a0provide us with an absolute truth that is in any sense morally binding upon the everyday person.<\/p>\n