The Religion-Science Debate Is Theological
So in the comments to that diavlog, someone mentioned an article by Jerry Coyne in The New Republic as a sort of definitive takedown of this whole reconciling religion/science effort.
I’d have to say it’s less than definitive in my estimation. Now I’m about to head out into these turbulent waters again, so I want to one point crystal clear. I am only trying to make one tiny tiny (but I think crucially important and totally neglected) point relative to this whole debate. So if the comments start flying I would ask that we try to hew to debating this one point. Not the stupid God exists, no God doesn’t, religious people are stupid, no they’re not kinda thing that usually happens.
The point I’m making is more a process one. It has more to do with the presuppositions and the space from which the argument is being had in the first place–then the God/no God part of the debate itself. If you know the former well you can basically predict the latter positions and where the conversation will (not) go as a result anyway.
My point is that whenever someone enters this debate they have to become theologians. Whether they be scientist, New Atheist, religious scientist, believer, philosopher, whatever. And (and this and is the hinge) the majority of these people are really bad theologians. Now to be a theologian does not require one to believe in God. You can easily be an atheist theologian. Or if you like an atheological theologian. It only requires basically learning how to discourse in the humanities. Questions about hermeneutics (how to understand texts), what texts are relevant, how to read, how to dialog. That’s about it really. But generally that minimum threshold is not met. For example, if someone is worried about The Bible (or Quran or whatever) having too much influence as a text of revelation, then that person can approach the text in the same way–as having been granted a deep legitimacy by a community of readers–as say playwrights read Shakespeare as a kind of canon. Again it requires some learning but just basic humanistic capacity really.
Otherwise how can we have a religion-science debate when half of that equation is not properly understood?
I mean if I participated in a religion-science debate and made some argument based on Lamarckian evolution theory I would be (rightly) ejected from the room because that’s debunked and I would have shown myself up to be an idiot on this subject. Why then is it okay to make equivalently (or in fact much worse) mistakes in terms of theological understanding and get away with it?
Once a person enters the domain of theological/religious argumentation–as a humanistic discipline–then they no longer get to play the science card as trump. Even an agnostic is attempting to make a theological argument/point.* They enter a different domain with its own rules of discourse, modes of argumentation, and the like. That makes those not from within that discipline vulnerable which is why at their worst, some individuals will cover over that vulnerability by just attacking their opponents. Fundamentalist religious believers do this in the reverse relative to science–which again once the debate is more in the scientific side they are out of their understanding. I might add that fundamentalists are also really piss poor theologians so they are double losers in this debate :(.
Now I should say going in Jerry Coyne is by no means the worst offender of this type. [That award probably goes to Richard Dawkins]. Actually in some ways Coyne is much smarter on a theological front than others (e.g. the aforementioned Dawkins and PZ Myers). So the fact that Coyne is in fact so confused about religious terminology does not bode well for this whole enterprise. If Coyne is this bad, how much worse then the others. [Read more →]
July 2, 2009 34 Comments
