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Religion and Science

The relationship between religion and science is the subject of continued debate in philosophy and theology. To what extent are religion and science compatible? Are religious beliefs sometimes conducive to science, or do they inevitably pose obstacles to scientific inquiry? The interdisciplinary field of “science and religion”, also called “theology and science”, aims to answer these and other questions. It studies historical and contemporary interactions between these fields, and provides philosophical analyses of how they interrelate.

This entry provides an overview of the topics and discussions in science and religion. Section 1 outlines the scope of both fields, and how they are related. Section 2 looks at the relationship between science and religion in five religious traditions, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. Section 3 discusses contemporary topics of scientific inquiry in which science and religion intersect, focusing on divine action, creation, and human origins.

1.1 A brief history

1.2 what is science, and what is religion, 1.3 taxonomies of the interaction between science and religion, 1.4 the scientific study of religion, 2.1 christianity, 2.3 hinduism, 2.4 buddhism, 2.5 judaism, 3.1 divine action and creation, 3.2 human origins, works cited, other important works, other internet resources, related entries, 1. science, religion, and how they interrelate.

Since the 1960s, scholars in theology, philosophy, history, and the sciences have studied the relationship between science and religion. Science and religion is a recognized field of study with dedicated journals (e.g., Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science ), academic chairs (e.g., the Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at Oxford University), scholarly societies (e.g., the Science and Religion Forum), and recurring conferences (e.g., the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology’s biennial meetings). Most of its authors are theologians (e.g., John Haught, Sarah Coakley), philosophers with an interest in science (e.g., Nancey Murphy), or (former) scientists with long-standing interests in religion, some of whom are also ordained clergy (e.g., the physicist John Polkinghorne, the molecular biophysicist Alister McGrath, and the atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe). Recently, authors in science and religion also have degrees in that interdisciplinary field (e.g., Sarah Lane Ritchie).

The systematic study of science and religion started in the 1960s, with authors such as Ian Barbour (1966) and Thomas F. Torrance (1969) who challenged the prevailing view that science and religion were either at war or indifferent to each other. Barbour’s Issues in Science and Religion (1966) set out several enduring themes of the field, including a comparison of methodology and theory in both fields. Zygon, the first specialist journal on science and religion, was also founded in 1966. While the early study of science and religion focused on methodological issues, authors from the late 1980s to the 2000s developed contextual approaches, including detailed historical examinations of the relationship between science and religion (e.g., Brooke 1991). Peter Harrison (1998) challenged the warfare model by arguing that Protestant theological conceptions of nature and humanity helped to give rise to science in the seventeenth century. Peter Bowler (2001, 2009) drew attention to a broad movement of liberal Christians and evolutionists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who aimed to reconcile evolutionary theory with religious belief. In the 1990s, the Vatican Observatory (Castel Gandolfo, Italy) and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (Berkeley, California) co-sponsored a series of conferences on divine action and how it can be understood in the light of various contemporary sciences. This resulted in six edited volumes (see Russell, Murphy, & Stoeger 2008 for a book-length summary of the findings of this project).

The field has presently diversified so much that contemporary discussions on religion and science tend to focus on specific disciplines and questions. Rather than ask if religion and science (broadly speaking) are compatible, productive questions focus on specific topics. For example, Buddhist modernists (see section 2.4 ) have argued that Buddhist theories about the self (the no-self) and Buddhist practices, such as mindfulness meditation, are compatible and are corroborated by neuroscience.

In the contemporary public sphere, a prominent interaction between science and religion concerns evolutionary theory and creationism/Intelligent Design. The legal battles (e.g., the Kitzmiller versus Dover trial in 2005) and lobbying surrounding the teaching of evolution and creationism in American schools suggest there’s a conflict between religion and science. However, even if one were to focus on the reception of evolutionary theory, the relationship between religion and science is complex. For instance, in the United Kingdom, scientists, clergy, and popular writers (the so-called Modernists), sought to reconcile science and religion during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, whereas the US saw the rise of a fundamentalist opposition to evolutionary thinking, exemplified by the Scopes trial in 1925 (Bowler 2001, 2009).

Another prominent offshoot of the discussion on science and religion is the New Atheist movement, with authors such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens. They argue that public life, including government, education, and policy should be guided by rational argument and scientific evidence, and that any form of supernaturalism (especially religion, but also, e.g., astrology) has no place in public life. They treat religious claims, such as the existence of God, as testable scientific hypotheses (see, e.g., Dawkins 2006).

In recent decades, the leaders of some Christian churches have issued conciliatory public statements on evolutionary theory. Pope John Paul II (1996) affirmed evolutionary theory in his message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, but rejected it for the human soul, which he saw as the result of a separate, special creation. The Church of England publicly endorsed evolutionary theory (e.g., C. M. Brown 2008), including an apology to Charles Darwin for its initial rejection of his theory.

This entry will focus on the relationship between religious and scientific ideas as rather abstract philosophical positions, rather than as practices. However, this relationship has a large practical impact on the lives of religious people and scientists (including those who are both scientists and religious believers). A rich sociological literature indicates the complexity of these interactions, among others, how religious scientists conceive of this relationship (for recent reviews, see Ecklund 2010, 2021; Ecklund & Scheitle 2007; Gross & Simmons 2009).

For the past fifty years, the discussion on science and religion has de facto been on Western science and Christianity: to what extent can the findings of Western sciences be reconciled with Christian beliefs? The field of science and religion has only recently turned to an examination of non-Christian traditions, providing a richer picture of interaction.

In order to understand the scope of science and religion and their interactions, we must at least get a rough sense of what science and religion are. After all, “science” and “religion” are not eternally unchanging terms with unambiguous meanings. Indeed, they are terms that were coined recently, with meanings that vary across contexts. Before the nineteenth century, the term “religion” was rarely used. For a medieval author such as Aquinas, the term religio meant piety or worship, and was not applied to religious systems outside of what he considered orthodoxy (Harrison 2015). The term “religion” obtained its considerably broader current meaning through the works of early anthropologists, such as E.B. Tylor (1871), who systematically used the term for religions across the world. As a result, “religion” became a comparative concept, referring to traits that could be compared and scientifically studied, such as rituals, dietary restrictions, and belief systems (Jonathan Smith 1998).

The term “science” as it is currently used also became common in the nineteenth century. Prior to this, what we call “science” fell under the terminology of “natural philosophy” or, if the experimental part was emphasized, “experimental philosophy”. William Whewell (1834) standardized the term “scientist” to refer to practitioners of diverse natural philosophies. Philosophers of science have attempted to demarcate science from other knowledge-seeking endeavors, in particular religion. For instance, Karl Popper (1959) claimed that scientific hypotheses (unlike religious and philosophical ones) are in principle falsifiable. Many authors (e.g., Taylor 1996) affirm a disparity between science and religion, even if the meanings of both terms are historically contingent. They disagree, however, on how to precisely (and across times and cultures) demarcate the two domains.

One way to distinguish between science and religion is the claim that science concerns the natural world, whereas religion concerns the supernatural world and its relationship to the natural. Scientific explanations do not appeal to supernatural entities such as gods or angels (fallen or not), or to non-natural forces (such as miracles, karma, or qi ). For example, neuroscientists typically explain our thoughts in terms of brain states, not by reference to an immaterial soul or spirit, and legal scholars do not invoke karmic load when discussing why people commit crimes.

Naturalists draw a distinction between methodological naturalism , an epistemological principle that limits scientific inquiry to natural entities and laws, and ontological or philosophical naturalism , a metaphysical principle that rejects the supernatural (Forrest 2000). Since methodological naturalism is concerned with the practice of science (in particular, with the kinds of entities and processes that are invoked), it does not make any statements about whether or not supernatural entities exist. They might exist, but lie outside of the scope of scientific investigation. Some authors (e.g., Rosenberg 2014) hold that taking the results of science seriously entails negative answers to such persistent questions into the existence of free will or moral knowledge. However, these stronger conclusions are controversial.

The view that science can be demarcated from religion in its methodological naturalism is more commonly accepted. For instance, in the Kitzmiller versus Dover trial, the philosopher of science Robert Pennock was called to testify by the plaintiffs on whether Intelligent Design was a form of creationism, and therefore religion. If it were, the Dover school board policy would violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Building on earlier work (e.g., Pennock 1998), Pennock argued that Intelligent Design, in its appeal to supernatural mechanisms, was not methodologically naturalistic, and that methodological naturalism is an essential component of science.

Methodological naturalism is a recent development in the history of science, though we can see precursors of it in medieval authors such as Aquinas who attempted to draw a theological distinction between miracles, such as the working of relics, and unusual natural phenomena, such as magnetism and the tides (see Perry & Ritchie 2018). Natural and experimental philosophers such as Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Robert Hooke, and Robert Boyle regularly appealed to supernatural agents in their natural philosophy (which we now call “science”). Still, overall there was a tendency to favor naturalistic explanations in natural philosophy. The X-club was a lobby group for the professionalization of science founded in 1864 by Thomas Huxley and friends. While the X-club may have been in part motivated by the desire to remove competition by amateur-clergymen scientists in the field of science, and thus to open up the field to full-time professionals, its explicit aim was to promote a science that would be free from religious dogma (Garwood 2008, Barton 2018). This preference for naturalistic causes may have been encouraged by past successes of naturalistic explanations, leading authors such as Paul Draper (2005) to argue that the success of methodological naturalism could be evidence for ontological naturalism.

Several typologies probe the interaction between science and religion. For example, Mikael Stenmark (2004) distinguishes between three views: the independence view (no overlap between science and religion), the contact view (some overlap between the fields), and a union of the domains of science and religion; within these views he recognizes further subdivisions, e.g., contact can be in the form of conflict or harmony. The most influential taxonomy of the relationship between science and religion remains Barbour’s (2000): conflict, independence, dialogue, and integration. Subsequent authors, as well as Barbour himself, have refined and amended this taxonomy. However, others (e.g., Cantor & Kenny 2001) have argued that this taxonomy is not useful to understand past interactions between both fields. Nevertheless, because of its enduring influence, it is still worthwhile to discuss it in detail.

The conflict model holds that science and religion are in perpetual and principal conflict. It relies heavily on two historical narratives: the trial of Galileo (see Dawes 2016) and the reception of Darwinism (see Bowler 2001). Contrary to common conception, the conflict model did not originate in two seminal publications, namely John Draper’s (1874) History of the Conflict between Religion and Science and Andrew Dickson White’s (1896) two-volume opus A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom . Rather, as James Ungureanu (2019) argues, the project of these early architects of the conflict thesis needs to be contextualized in a liberal Protestant tradition of attempting to separate religion from theology, and thus salvage religion. Their work was later appropriated by skeptics and atheists who used their arguments about the incompatibility of traditional theological views with science to argue for secularization, something Draper and White did not envisage.

The vast majority of authors in the science and religion field is critical of the conflict model and believes it is based on a shallow and partisan reading of the historical record. While the conflict model is at present a minority position, some have used philosophical argumentation (e.g., Philipse 2012) or have carefully re-examined historical evidence such as the Galileo trial (e.g., Dawes 2016) to argue for this model. Alvin Plantinga (2011) has argued that the conflict is not between science and religion, but between science and naturalism. In his Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (first formulated in 1993), Plantinga argues that naturalism is epistemically self-defeating: if both naturalism and evolution are true, then it’s unlikely we would have reliable cognitive faculties.

The independence model holds that science and religion explore separate domains that ask distinct questions. Stephen Jay Gould developed an influential independence model with his NOMA principle (“Non-Overlapping Magisteria”):

The lack of conflict between science and religion arises from a lack of overlap between their respective domains of professional expertise. (2001: 739)

He identified science’s areas of expertise as empirical questions about the constitution of the universe, and religion’s domain of expertise as ethical values and spiritual meaning. NOMA is both descriptive and normative: religious leaders should refrain from making factual claims about, for instance, evolutionary theory, just as scientists should not claim insight on moral matters. Gould held that there might be interactions at the borders of each magisterium, such as our responsibility toward other living things. One obvious problem with the independence model is that if religion were barred from making any statement of fact, it would be difficult to justify its claims of value and ethics. For example, one could not argue that one should love one’s neighbor because it pleases the creator (Worrall 2004). Moreover, religions do seem to make empirical claims, for example, that Jesus appeared after his death or that the early Hebrews passed through the parted waters of the Red Sea.

The dialogue model proposes a mutualistic relationship between religion and science. Unlike independence, it assumes a common ground between both fields, perhaps in their presuppositions, methods, and concepts. For example, the Christian doctrine of creation may have encouraged science by assuming that creation (being the product of a designer) is both intelligible and orderly, so one can expect there are laws that can be discovered. Creation, as a product of God’s free actions, is also contingent, so the laws of nature cannot be learned through a priori thinking which prompts the need for empirical investigation. According to Barbour (2000), both scientific and theological inquiry are theory-dependent, or at least model-dependent. For example, the doctrine of the Trinity colors how Christian theologians interpret the first chapters of Genesis. Next to this, both rely on metaphors and models. Both fields remain separate but they talk to each other, using common methods, concepts, and presuppositions. Wentzel van Huyssteen (1998) has argued for a dialogue position, proposing that science and religion can be in a graceful duet, based on their epistemological overlaps. The Partially Overlapping Magisteria (POMA) model defended by Alister McGrath (e.g., McGrath and Collicutt McGrath 2007) is also worth mentioning. According to McGrath, science and religion each draw on several different methodologies and approaches. These methods and approaches are different ways of knowing that have been shaped through historical factors. It is beneficial for scientists and theologians to be in dialogue with each other.

The integration model is more extensive in its unification of science and theology. Barbour (2000) identifies three forms of integration. First, natural theology, which formulates arguments for the existence and attributes of God. It uses interpretations of results from the natural sciences as premises in its arguments. For instance, the supposition that the universe has a temporal origin features in contemporary cosmological arguments for the existence of God. Likewise, the fact that the cosmological constants and laws of nature are life-permitting (whereas many other combinations of constants and laws would not permit life) is used in contemporary fine-tuning arguments (see the entry to fine-tuning arguments ). Second, theology of nature starts not from science but from a religious framework, and examines how this can enrich or even revise findings of the sciences. For example, McGrath (2016) developed a Christian theology of nature, examining how nature and scientific findings can be interpreted through a Christian lens. Thirdly, Barbour believed that Whitehead’s process philosophy was a promising way to integrate science and religion.

While integration seems attractive (especially to theologians), it is difficult to do justice to both the scientific and religious aspects of a given domain, especially given their complexities. For example, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1971), who was both knowledgeable in paleoanthropology and theology, ended up with an unconventional view of evolution as teleological (which put him at odds with the scientific establishment) and with an unorthodox theology (which denied original sin and led to a series of condemnations by the Roman Catholic Church). Theological heterodoxy, by itself, is no reason to doubt a model. However, it shows obstacles for the integration model to become a live option in the broader community of theologians and philosophers who want to remain affiliate to a specific religious community without transgressing its boundaries. Moreover, integration seems skewed towards theism: Barbour described arguments based on scientific results that support (but do not demonstrate) theism, but failed to discuss arguments based on scientific results that support (but do not demonstrate) the denial of theism. Hybrid positions like McGrath’s POMA indicate some difficulty for Barbour’s taxonomy: the scope of conflict, independence, dialogue, and integration is not clearly defined and they are not mutually exclusive. For example, if conflict is defined broadly then it is compatible with integration. Take the case of Frederick Tennant (1902), who sought to explain sin as the result of evolutionary pressures on human ancestors. This view led him to reject the Fall as a historical event, as it was not compatible with evolutionary biology. His view has conflict (as he saw Christian doctrine in conflict with evolutionary biology) but also integration (he sought to integrate the theological concept of sin in an evolutionary picture). It is clear that many positions defined by authors in the religion and science literature do not clearly fall within one of Barbour’s four domains.

Science and religion are closely interconnected in the scientific study of religion, which can be traced back to seventeenth-century natural histories of religion. Natural historians attempted to provide naturalistic explanations for human behavior and culture, including religion and morality. For example, Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle’s De l’Origine des Fables (1724) offered a causal account of belief in the supernatural. People often assert supernatural explanations when they lack an understanding of the natural causes underlying extraordinary events: “To the extent that one is more ignorant, or one has less experience, one sees more miracles” (1724 [1824: 295], my translation). Hume’s Natural History of Religion (1757) is perhaps the best-known philosophical example of a natural historical explanation of religious belief. It traces the origins of polytheism—which Hume thought was the earliest form of religious belief—to ignorance about natural causes combined with fear and apprehension about the environment. By deifying aspects of the environment, early humans tried to persuade or bribe the gods, thereby gaining a sense of control.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, authors from newly emerging scientific disciplines, such as anthropology, sociology, and psychology examined the purported naturalistic roots of religious beliefs. They did so with a broad brush, trying to explain what unifies diverse religious beliefs across cultures. Auguste Comte (1841) proposed that all societies, in their attempts to make sense of the world, go through the same stages of development: the theological (religious) stage is the earliest phase, where religious explanations predominate, followed by the metaphysical stage (a non-intervening God), and culminating in the positive or scientific stage, marked by scientific explanations and empirical observations.

In anthropology, this positivist idea influenced cultural evolutionism, a theoretical framework that sought to explain cultural change using universal patterns. The underlying supposition was that all cultures evolve and progress along the same trajectory. Cultures with differing religious views were explained as being in different stages of their development. For example, Tylor (1871) regarded animism as the earliest form of religious belief. James Frazer’s Golden Bough (1890) is somewhat unusual within this literature, as he saw commonalities between magic, religion, and science. Though he proposed a linear progression, he also argued that a proto-scientific mindset gave rise to magical practices, including the discovery of regularities in nature. Cultural evolutionist models dealt poorly with religious diversity and with the complex relationships between science and religion across cultures. Many authors proposed that religion was just a stage in human development, which would eventually be superseded. For example, social theorists such as Karl Marx and Max Weber proposed versions of the secularization thesis, the view that religion would decline in the face of modern technology, science, and culture.

Functionalism was another theoretical framework that sought to explain religion. Functionalists did not consider religion to be a stage in human cultural development that would eventually be overcome. They saw it as a set of social institutions that served important functions in the societies they were part of. For example, the sociologist Émile Durkheim (1912 [1915]) argued that religious beliefs are social glue that helps to keep societies together.

Sigmund Freud and other early psychologists aimed to explain religion as the result of cognitive dispositions. For example, Freud (1927) saw religious belief as an illusion, a childlike yearning for a fatherly figure. He also considered “oceanic feeling” (a feeling of limitlessness and of being connected with the world, a concept he derived from the French author Romain Rolland) as one of the origins of religious belief. He thought this feeling was a remnant of an infant’s experience of the self, prior to being weaned off the breast. William James (1902) was interested in the psychological roots and the phenomenology of religious experiences, which he believed were the ultimate source of all institutional religions.

From the 1920s onward, the scientific study of religion became less concerned with grand unifying narratives, and focused more on particular religious traditions and beliefs. Anthropologists such as Edward Evans-Pritchard (1937) and Bronisław Malinowski (1925) no longer relied exclusively on second-hand reports (usually of poor quality and from distorted sources), but engaged in serious fieldwork. Their ethnographies indicated that cultural evolutionism was a defective theoretical framework and that religious beliefs were more diverse than was previously assumed. They argued that religious beliefs were not the result of ignorance of naturalistic mechanisms. For instance, Evans-Pritchard (1937) noted that the Azande were well aware that houses could collapse because termites ate away at their foundations, but they still appealed to witchcraft to explain why a particular house collapsed at a particular time. More recently, Cristine Legare et al. (2012) found that people in various cultures straightforwardly combine supernatural and natural explanations, for instance, South Africans are aware AIDS is caused by the HIV virus, but some also believe that the viral infection is ultimately caused by a witch.

Psychologists and sociologists of religion also began to doubt that religious beliefs were rooted in irrationality, psychopathology, and other atypical psychological states, as James (1902) and other early psychologists had assumed. In the US, in the late 1930s through the 1960s, psychologists developed a renewed interest for religion, fueled by the observation that religion refused to decline and seemed to undergo a substantial revival, thus casting doubt on the secularization thesis (see Stark 1999 for an overview). Psychologists of religion have made increasingly fine-grained distinctions between types of religiosity, including extrinsic religiosity (being religious as means to an end, for instance, getting the benefits of being a member of a social group) and intrinsic religiosity (people who adhere to religions for the sake of their teachings) (Allport & Ross 1967). Psychologists and sociologists now commonly study religiosity as an independent variable, with an impact on, for instance, health, criminality, sexuality, socio-economic profile, and social networks.

A recent development in the scientific study of religion is the cognitive science of religion (CSR). This is a multidisciplinary field, with authors from, among others, developmental psychology, anthropology, philosophy, and cognitive psychology (see C. White 2021 for a comprehensive overview). It differs from other scientific approaches to religion in its presupposition that religion is not a purely cultural phenomenon. Rather, authors in CSR hold that religion is the result of ordinary, early developed, and universal human cognitive processes (e.g., Barrett 2004, Boyer 2002). Some authors regard religion as the byproduct of cognitive processes that are not evolved for religion. For example, according to Paul Bloom (2007), religion emerges as a byproduct of our intuitive distinction between minds and bodies: we can think of minds as continuing, even after the body dies (e.g., by attributing desires to a dead family member), which makes belief in an afterlife and in disembodied spirits natural and spontaneous. Another family of hypotheses regards religion as a biological or cultural adaptive response that helps humans solve cooperative problems (e.g., Bering 2011; Purzycki & Sosis 2022): through their belief in big, powerful gods that can punish, humans behave more cooperatively, which allowed human group sizes to expand beyond small hunter-gatherer communities. Groups with belief in big gods thus out-competed groups without such beliefs for resources during the Neolithic, which would explain the current success of belief in such gods (Norenzayan 2013). However, the question of which came first—big god beliefs or large-scale societies—is a continued matter of debate.

2. Science and religion in various religions

As noted, most studies on the relationship between science and religion have focused on science and Christianity, with only a small number of publications devoted to other religious traditions (e.g., Brooke & Numbers 2011; Lopez 2008). Since science makes universal claims, it is easy to assume that its encounter with other religious traditions would be similar to its interactions with Christianity. However, given different creedal tenets (e.g., in Hindu traditions God is usually not entirely distinct from creation, unlike in Christianity and Judaism), and because science has had distinct historical trajectories in other cultures, one can expect disanalogies in the relationship between science and religion in different religious traditions. To give a sense of this diversity, this section provides a bird’s eye view of science and religion in five major world religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism.

Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, currently the religion with the most adherents. It developed in the first century CE out of Judaism. Christians adhere to asserted revelations described in a series of canonical texts, which include the Old Testament, which comprises texts inherited from Judaism, and the New Testament, which contains the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (narratives on the life and teachings of Jesus), as well as events and teachings of the early Christian churches (e.g., Acts of the Apostles, letters by Paul), and Revelation, a prophetic book on the end times.

Given the prominence of revealed texts in Christianity, a useful starting point to examine the relationship between Christianity and science is the two books metaphor (see Tanzella-Nitti 2005 for an overview): God revealed Godself through the “Book of Nature”, with its orderly laws, and the “Book of Scripture”, with its historical narratives and accounts of miracles. Augustine (354–430) argued that the book of nature was the more accessible of the two, since scripture requires literacy whereas illiterates and literates alike could read the book of nature. Maximus Confessor (c. 580–662), in his Ambigua (see Louth 1996 for a collection of and critical introduction to these texts) compared scripture and natural law to two clothes that envelop the Incarnated Logos: Jesus’ humanity is revealed by nature, whereas his divinity is revealed by the scriptures. During the Middle Ages, authors such as Hugh of St. Victor (ca. 1096–1141) and Bonaventure (1221–1274) began to realize that the book of nature was not at all straightforward to read. Given that original sin marred our reason and perception, what conclusions could humans legitimately draw about ultimate reality? Bonaventure used the metaphor of the books to the extent that “ liber naturae ” was a synonym for creation, the natural world. He argued that sin has clouded human reason so much that the book of nature has become unreadable, and that scripture is needed as an aid as it contains teachings about the world.

Christian authors in the field of science and religion continue to debate how these two books interrelate. Concordism is the attempt to interpret scripture in the light of modern science. It is a hermeneutical approach to Bible interpretation, where one expects that the Bible foretells scientific theories, such as the Big Bang theory or evolutionary theory. However, as Denis Lamoureux (2008: chapter 5) argues, many scientific-sounding statements in the Bible are false: the mustard seed is not the smallest seed, male reproductive seeds do not contain miniature persons, there is no firmament, and the earth is neither flat nor immovable. Thus, any plausible form of integrating the book of nature and scripture will require more nuance and sophistication. Theologians such as John Wesley (1703–1791) have proposed the addition of other sources of knowledge to scripture and science: the Wesleyan quadrilateral (a term not coined by Wesley himself) is the dynamic interaction of scripture, experience (including the empirical findings of the sciences), tradition, and reason (Outler 1985).

Several Christian authors have attempted to integrate science and religion (e.g., Haught 1995, Lamoureux 2008, Murphy 1995), making integration a highly popular view on the relationship between science and religion. These authors tend to interpret findings from the sciences, such as evolutionary theory or chaos theory, in a theological light, using established theological models such as classical theism or the doctrine of creation. John Haught (1995) argues that the theological view of kenosis (self-emptying of God in creation) anticipates scientific findings such as evolutionary theory: a self-emptying God (i.e., who limits Godself), who creates a distinct and autonomous world, makes a world with internal self-coherence, with a self-organizing universe as the result.

The dominant epistemological outlook in Christian science and religion has been critical realism, a position that applies both to theology (theological realism) and to science (scientific realism). Barbour (1966) introduced this view into the science and religion literature; it has been further developed by theologians such as Arthur Peacocke (1984) and Wentzel van Huyssteen (1999). Critical realism aims to offer a middle way between naïve realism (the world is as we perceive it) and instrumentalism (our perceptions and concepts are purely instrumental). It encourages critical reflection on perception and the world, hence “critical”. Critical realism has distinct flavors in the works of different authors, for instance, van Huyssteen (1998, 1999) develops a weak form of critical realism set within a postfoundationalist notion of rationality, where theological views are shaped by social, cultural, and evolved biological factors. Murphy (1995: 329–330) outlines doctrinal and scientific requirements for approaches in science and religion: ideally, an integrated approach should be broadly in line with Christian doctrine, especially core tenets such as the doctrine of creation, while at the same time it should be in line with empirical observations without undercutting scientific practices.

Several historians (e.g., Hooykaas 1972) have argued that Christianity was instrumental to the development of Western science. Peter Harrison (2007) maintains that the doctrine of original sin played a crucial role in this, arguing there was a widespread belief in the early modern period that Adam, prior to the Fall, had superior senses, intellect, and understanding. As a result of the Fall, human senses became duller, our ability to make correct inferences was diminished, and nature itself became less intelligible. Postlapsarian humans (i.e., humans after the Fall) are no longer able to exclusively rely on their a priori reasoning to understand nature. They must supplement their reasoning and senses with observation through specialized instruments, such as microscopes and telescopes. As the experimental philosopher Robert Hooke wrote in the introduction to his Micrographia :

every man, both from a deriv’d corruption, innate and born with him, and from his breeding and converse with men, is very subject to slip into all sorts of errors … These being the dangers in the process of humane Reason, the remedies of them all can only proceed from the real, the mechanical, the experimental Philosophy [experiment-based science]. (1665, cited in Harrison 2007: 5)

Another theological development that may have facilitated the rise of science was the Condemnation of Paris (1277), which forbade teaching and reading natural philosophical views that were considered heretical, such as Aristotle’s physical treatises. As a result, the Condemnation opened up intellectual space to think beyond ancient Greek natural philosophy. For example, medieval philosophers such as John Buridan (fl. 14th c) held the Aristotelian belief that there could be no vacuum in nature, but once the idea of a vacuum became plausible, natural philosophers such as Evangelista Torricelli (1608–1647) and Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) could experiment with air pressure and vacua (see Grant 1996, for discussion).

Some authors claim that Christianity was unique and instrumental in catalyzing the scientific revolution. For example, according to the sociologist of religion Rodney Stark (2004), the scientific revolution was in fact a slow, gradual development from medieval Christian theology. Claims such as Stark’s, however, fail to recognize the legitimate contributions of Islamic and Greek scholars to the development of modern science, and fail to do justice to the importance of practical technological innovations in map-making and star-charting in the emergence of modern science. In spite of these positive readings of the relationship between science and religion in Christianity, there are sources of enduring tension. For example, there is still vocal opposition to the theory of evolution among Christian fundamentalists. In the public sphere, the conflict view between Christianity and science prevails, in stark contrast to the scholarly literature. This is due to an important extent to the outsize influence of a vocal conservative Christian minority in the American public debate, which sidelines more moderate voices (Evans 2016).

Islam is a monotheistic religion that emerged in the seventh century, following a series of purported revelations to the prophet Muḥammad. The term “Islam” also denotes geo-political structures, such as caliphates and empires, which were founded by Muslim rulers from the seventh century onward, including the Umayyad, Abbasid, and Ottoman caliphates. Additionally, it refers to a culture which flourished within this political and religious context, with its own philosophical and scientific traditions (Dhanani 2002). The defining characteristic of Islam is belief in one God (Allāh), who communicates through prophets, including Adam, Abraham, and Muḥammad. Allāh‎’s revelations to Muḥammad are recorded in the Qurʾān, the central religious text for Islam. Next to the Qurʾān, an important source of jurisprudence and theology is the ḥadīth, an oral corpus of attested sayings, actions, and tacit approvals of the prophet Muḥammad. The two major branches of Islam, Sunni and Shia, are based on a dispute over the succession of Muḥammad. As the second largest religion in the world, Islam shows a wide variety of beliefs. Core creedal views include the oneness of God ( tawḥīd ), the view that there is only one undivided God who created and sustains the universe, prophetic revelation (in particular to Muḥammad), and an afterlife. Beyond this, Muslims disagree on a number of doctrinal issues.

The relationship between Islam and science is complex. Today, predominantly Muslim countries, such as the United Arabic Emirates, enjoy high urbanization and technological development, but they still underperform in common metrics of scientific research, such as publications in leading journals and number of citations per scientist, compared to other regions outside of the west such as India and China (see Edis 2007). Some Muslims hold a number of pseudoscientific ideas, some of which it shares with Christianity such as Old Earth creationism, whereas others are specific to Islam such as the recreation of human bodies from the tailbone on the day of resurrection, and the superiority of prayer in treating lower-back pain instead of conventional methods (Guessoum 2011: 4–5).

This contemporary lack of scientific prominence is remarkable given that the Islamic world far exceeded European cultures in the range and quality of its scientific knowledge between approximately the ninth and the fifteenth century, excelling in domains such as mathematics (algebra and geometry, trigonometry in particular), astronomy (seriously considering, but not adopting, heliocentrism), optics, and medicine. These domains of knowledge are commonly referred to as “Arabic science”, to distinguish them from the pursuits of science that arose in the west (Huff 2003). “Arabic science” is an imperfect term, as many of the practitioners were not speakers of Arabic, hence the term “science in the Islamic world” is more accurate. Many scientists in the Islamic world were polymaths, for example, Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna, 980–1037) is commonly regarded as one of the most significant innovators, not only in philosophy, but also in medicine and astronomy. His Canon of Medicine , a medical encyclopedia, was a standard textbook in universities across Europe for many centuries after his death. Al-Fārābī (ca. 872–ca. 950), a political philosopher from Damascus, also investigated music theory, science, and mathematics. Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) achieved lasting fame in disparate domains such as poetry, astronomy, geography, and mineralogy. The Andalusian Ibn Rušd (Averroes, 1126–1198) wrote on medicine, physics, astronomy, psychology, jurisprudence, music, and geography, next to developing a Greek-inspired philosophical theology.

A major impetus for science in the Islamic world was the patronage of the Abbasid caliphate (758–1258), centered in Baghdad. Early Abbasid rulers, such as Harun al-Rashid (ruled 786–809) and his successor Abū Jaʿfar Abdullāh al-Ma’mūn (ruled 813–833), were significant patrons of science. The former founded the Bayt al-Hikma (House of Wisdom), which commissioned translations of major works by Aristotle, Galen, and many Persian and Indian scholars into Arabic. It was cosmopolitan in its outlook, employing astronomers, mathematicians, and physicians from abroad, including Indian mathematicians and Nestorian (Christian) astronomers. Throughout the Islamic world, public libraries attached to mosques provided access to a vast compendium of knowledge, which spread Islam, Greek philosophy, and science. The use of a common language (Arabic), as well as common religious and political institutions and flourishing trade relations encouraged the spread of scientific ideas throughout the Islamic world. Some of this transmission was informal, e.g., correspondence between like-minded people (see Dhanani 2002), some formal, e.g., in hospitals where students learned about medicine in a practical, master-apprentice setting, and in astronomical observatories and academies. The decline and fall of the Abbasid caliphate dealt a blow to science in the Islamic world, but it remains unclear why it ultimately stagnated, and why it did not experience something analogous to the scientific revolution in Western Europe. Note, the decline of science in the Islamic world should not be generalized to other fields, such as philosophy and philosophical theology, which continued to flourish after the Abbasid caliphate fell.

Some liberal Muslim authors, such as Fatima Mernissi (1992), argue that the rise of conservative forms of Islamic philosophical theology stifled more scientifically-minded natural philosophy. In the ninth to the twelfth century, the Mu’tazila (a philosophical theological school) helped the growth of science in the Islamic world thanks to their embrace of Greek natural philosophy. But eventually, the Mu’tazila and their intellectual descendants lost their influence to more conservative brands of theology. Al-Ghazālī’s influential eleventh-century work, The Incoherence of the Philosophers ( Tahāfut al-falāsifa ), was a scathing and sophisticated critique of Greek-inspired Muslim philosophy, arguing that their metaphysical assumptions could not be demonstrated. This book vindicated more orthodox Muslim religious views. As Muslim intellectual life became more orthodox, it became less open to non-Muslim philosophical ideas, which led to the decline of science in the Islamic world, according to this view.

The problem with this narrative is that orthodox worries about non-Islamic knowledge were already present before Al-Ghazālī and continued long after his death (Edis 2007: chapter 2). The study of law ( fiqh ) was more stifling for science in the Islamic world than developments in theology. The eleventh century saw changes in Islamic law that discouraged heterodox thought: lack of orthodoxy could now be regarded as apostasy from Islam ( zandaqa ) which is punishable by death, whereas before, a Muslim could only apostatize by an explicit declaration (Griffel 2009: 105). (Al-Ghazālī himself only regarded the violation of three core doctrines as zandaqa , namely statements that challenged monotheism, the prophecy of Muḥammad, and resurrection after death.) Given that heterodox thoughts could be interpreted as apostasy, this created a stifling climate for science. In the second half of the nineteenth century, as science and technology became firmly entrenched in Western society, Muslim empires were languishing or colonized. Scientific ideas, such as evolutionary theory, became equated with European colonialism, and thus met with distrust. The enduring association between western culture, colonialism, and science led to a more prominent conflict view of the relationship between science and religion in Muslim countries.

In spite of this negative association between science and Western modernity, there is an emerging literature on science and religion by Muslim scholars (mostly scientists). The physicist Nidhal Guessoum (2011) holds that science and religion are not only compatible, but in harmony. He rejects the idea of treating the Qurʾān as a scientific encyclopedia, something other Muslim authors in the debate on science and religion tend to do. Moreover, he adheres to the no-possible-conflict principle, outlined by Ibn Rušd: there can be no conflict between God’s word (properly understood) and God’s work (properly understood). If an apparent conflict arises, the Qurʾān may not have been interpreted correctly.

While the Qurʾān asserts a creation in six days (like the Hebrew Bible), “day” is often interpreted as a very long span of time, rather than a 24-hour period. As a result, Old Earth creationism is more influential in Islam than Young Earth creationism. Adnan Oktar’s Atlas of Creation (published in 2007 under the pseudonym Harun Yahya), a glossy coffee table book that draws heavily on Christian Old Earth creationism, has been distributed worldwide (Hameed 2008). Since the Qurʾān explicitly mentions the special creation of Adam out of clay, most Muslims refuse to accept that humans evolved from hominin ancestors. Nevertheless, Muslim scientists such as Guessoum (2011) and Rana Dajani (2015) have advocated acceptance of evolution.

Hinduism is the world’s third largest religion, though the term “Hinduism” is an awkward catch-all phrase that denotes diverse religious and philosophical traditions that emerged on the Indian subcontinent between 500 BCE and 300 CE. The vast majority of Hindus live in India; most others live in Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia, with a significant diaspora in western countries such as the United States (Hackett 2015 [ Other Internet Resources ]). In contrast to the Abrahamic monotheistic religions, Hinduism does not always draw a sharp distinction between God and creation. (While there are pantheistic and panentheistic views in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, these are minority positions.) Many Hindus believe in a personal God, and identify this God as immanent in creation. This view has ramifications for the science and religion debate, in that there is no sharp ontological distinction between creator and creature (Subbarayappa 2011). Religious traditions originating on the Indian subcontinent, including Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism, are referred to as dharmic religions. Philosophical points of view are referred to as darśana .

One factor that unites the different strands of Hinduism is the importance of foundational texts composed between ca. 1600 and 700 BCE. These include the Vedas, which contain hymns and prescriptions for performing rituals, Brāhmaṇa, accompanying liturgical texts, and Upaniṣad, metaphysical treatises. The Vedas discuss gods who personify and embody natural phenomena such as fire (Agni) and wind (Vāyu). More gods appear in the following centuries (e.g., Gaṇeśa and Sati-Parvati in the 4th century). Note that there are both polytheistic and monotheistic strands in Hinduism, so it is not the case that individual believers worship or recognize all of these gods. Ancient Vedic rituals encouraged knowledge of diverse sciences, including astronomy, linguistics, and mathematics. Astronomical knowledge was required to determine the timing of rituals and the construction of sacrificial altars. Linguistics developed out of a need to formalize grammatical rules for classical Sanskrit, which was used in rituals. Large public offerings also required the construction of elaborate altars, which posed geometrical problems and thus led to advances in geometry. Classic Vedic texts also frequently used very large numbers, for instance, to denote the age of humanity and the Earth, which required a system to represent numbers parsimoniously, giving rise to a 10-base positional system and a symbolic representation for zero as a placeholder, which would later be imported in other mathematical traditions (Joseph 1991 [2000]). In this way, ancient Indian dharma encouraged the emergence of the sciences.

Around the sixth–fifth century BCE, the northern part of the Indian subcontinent experienced an extensive urbanization. In this context, medicine ( āyurveda ) became standardized. This period also gave rise to a wide range of heterodox philosophical schools, including Buddhism, Jainism, and Cārvāka. The latter defended a form of metaphysical naturalism, denying the existence of gods or karma. The relationship between science and religion on the Indian subcontinent is complex, in part because the dharmic religions and philosophical schools are so diverse. For example, Cārvāka proponents had a strong suspicion of inferential beliefs, and rejected Vedic revelation and supernaturalism in general, instead favoring direct observation as a source of knowledge.

Natural theology also flourished in the pre-colonial period, especially in the Advaita Vedānta, a darśana that identifies the self, ātman , with ultimate reality, Brahman. Advaita Vedāntin philosopher Adi Śaṅkara (fl. first half eighth century) was an author who regarded Brahman as the only reality, both the material and the efficient cause of the cosmos. Śaṅkara formulated design and cosmological arguments, drawing on analogies between the world and artifacts: in ordinary life, we never see non-intelligent agents produce purposive design, yet the universe is suitable for human life, just like benches and pleasure gardens are designed for us. Given that the universe is so complex that even an intelligent craftsman cannot comprehend it, how could it have been created by non-intelligent natural forces? Śaṅkara concluded that it must have been designed by an intelligent creator (C.M. Brown 2008: 108).

From 1757 to 1947, India was under British colonial rule. This had a profound influence on its culture as Hindus came into contact with Western science and technology. For local intellectuals, the contact with Western science presented a challenge: how to assimilate these ideas with Hinduism? Mahendrahal Sircar (1833–1904) was one of the first authors to examine evolutionary theory and its implications for Hindu religious beliefs. Sircar was an evolutionary theist, who believed that God used evolution to create current life forms. Evolutionary theism was not a new hypothesis in Hinduism, but the many lines of empirical evidence Darwin provided for evolution gave it a fresh impetus. While Sircar accepted organic evolution through common descent, he questioned the mechanism of natural selection as it was not teleological, which went against his evolutionary theism. This was a widespread problem for the acceptance of evolutionary theory, one that Christian evolutionary theists also wrestled with (Bowler 2009). He also argued against the British colonists’ beliefs that Hindus were incapable of scientific thought, and encouraged fellow Hindus to engage in science, which he hoped would help regenerate the Indian nation (C.M. Brown 2012: chapter 6).

The assimilation of Western culture prompted various revivalist movements that sought to reaffirm the cultural value of Hinduism. They put forward the idea of a Vedic science, where all scientific findings are already prefigured in the Vedas and other ancient texts (e.g., Vivekananda 1904). This idea is still popular within contemporary Hinduism, and is quite similar to ideas held by contemporary Muslims, who refer to the Qurʾān as a harbinger of scientific theories.

Responses to evolutionary theory were as diverse as Christian views on this subject, ranging from creationism (denial of evolutionary theory based on a perceived incompatibility with Vedic texts) to acceptance (see C.M. Brown 2012 for a thorough overview). Authors such as Dayananda Saraswati (1930–2015) rejected evolutionary theory. By contrast, Vivekananda (1863–1902), a proponent of the monistic Advaita Vedānta enthusiastically endorsed evolutionary theory and argued that it is already prefigured in ancient Vedic texts. His integrative view claimed that Hinduism and science are in harmony: Hinduism is scientific in spirit, as is evident from its long history of scientific discovery (Vivekananda 1904). Sri Aurobindo Ghose, a yogi and Indian nationalist who was educated in the West, formulated a synthesis of evolutionary thought and Hinduism. He interpreted the classic avatara doctrine, according to which God incarnates into the world repeatedly throughout time, in evolutionary terms. God thus appears first as an animal, later as a dwarf, then as a violent man (Rama), and then as Buddha, and as Kṛṣṇa. He proposed a metaphysical picture where both spiritual evolution (reincarnation and avatars) and physical evolution are ultimately a manifestation of God (Brahman). This view of reality as consisting of matter ( prakṛti ) and consciousness ( puruṣa ) goes back to sāṃkhya , one of the orthodox Hindu darśana, but Aurobindo made explicit reference to the divine, calling the process during which the supreme Consciousness dwells in matter involution (Aurobindo, 1914–18 [2005], see C.M. Brown 2007 for discussion).

During the twentieth century, Indian scientists began to gain prominence, including C.V. Raman (1888–1970), a Nobel Prize winner in physics, and Satyendra Nath Bose (1894–1974), a theoretical physicist who described the behavior of photons statistically, and who gave his name to bosons. However, these authors were silent on the relationship between their scientific work and their religious beliefs. By contrast, the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920) was open about his religious beliefs and their influence on his mathematical work. He claimed that the goddess Namagiri helped him to intuit solutions to mathematical problems. Likewise, Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937), a theoretical physicist, biologist, biophysicist, botanist, and archaeologist who worked on radio waves, saw the Hindu idea of unity reflected in the study of nature. He started the Bose institute in Kolkata in 1917, the earliest interdisciplinary scientific institute in India (Subbarayappa 2011).

Buddhism, like the other religious traditions surveyed in this entry, encompasses many views and practices. The principal forms of Buddhism that exist today are Theravāda and Mahāyāna. (Vajrayāna, the tantric tradition of Buddhism, is also sometimes seen as a distinct form.) Theravāda is the dominant form of Buddhism of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. It traditionally refers to monastic and textual lineages associated with the study of the Pāli Buddhist Canon. Mahāyāna refers to a movement that likely began roughly four centuries after the Buddha’s death; it became the dominant form of Buddhism in East and Central Asia. It includes Chan or Zen, and also tantric Buddhism, which today is found mostly in Tibet, though East Asian forms also exist.

Buddhism originated in the historical figure of the Buddha (historically, Gautama Buddha or Siddhārtha Gautama, ca. 5 th –4 th century BCE). His teaching centered on ethics as well as metaphysics, incapsulated in the Four Noble Truths (on suffering and its origin in human desires), and the Noble Eightfold Path (right view, right aspiration, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration) to end suffering and to break the cycle of rebirths, culminating in reaching Nirvana. Substantive metaphysical teachings include belief in karma, the no-self, and the cycle of rebirth.

As a response to colonialist attitudes, modern Buddhists since the nineteenth century have often presented Buddhism as harmonious with science (Lopez 2008). The argument is roughly that since Buddhism doesn’t require belief in metaphysically substantive entities such as God, the soul, or the self (unlike, for example, Christianity), Buddhism should be easily compatible with the factual claims that scientists make. (Note, however, that historically most Buddhist have believed in various forms of divine abode and divinities.) We could thus expect the dialogue and integration view to prevail in Buddhism. An exemplar for integration is the fourteenth Dalai Lama, who is known for his numerous efforts to lead dialogue between religious people and scientists. He has extensively written on the relationship between Buddhism and various scientific disciplines such as neuroscience and cosmology (e.g., Dalai Lama 2005, see also the Science and Philosophy in the Indian Buddhist Classics series, a four-volume series conceived and compiled by the Dalai Lama, e.g., Jinpa 2017). Donald Lopez Jr (2008) identifies compatibility as an enduring claim in the debate on science and Buddhism, in spite of the fact that what is meant by these concepts has shifted markedly over time. As David McMahan (2009) argues, Buddhism underwent profound shifts in response to modernity in the west as well as globally. In this modern context, Buddhists have often asserted the compatibility of Buddhism with science, favorably contrasting their religion to Christianity in that respect.

The full picture of the relationship between Buddhism and religion is more nuanced than one of wholesale acceptance of scientific claims. I will here focus on East Asia, primarily Japan and China, and the reception of evolutionary theory in the early twentieth century to give a sense of this more complex picture. The earliest translations of evolutionary thought in Japan and China were not drawn from Darwin’s Origin of Species or Descent of Man , but from works by authors who worked in Darwin’s wake, such as Ernst Haeckel and Thomas Huxley. For example, the earliest translated writings on evolutionary theory in China was a compilation by Yan Fu entitled On Natural Evolution ( Tianyan lun ), which incorporated excerpts by Herbert Spencer and Thomas Huxley. This work drew a close distinction between social Darwinism and biological evolution (Ritzinger 2013). Chinese and Japanese Buddhists received these ideas in the context of western colonialism and imperialism. East Asian intellectuals saw how western colonial powers competed with each other for influence on their territory, and discerned parallels between this and the Darwinian struggle for existence. As a result, some intellectuals such as the Japanese political adviser and academic Katō Hiroyuki (1836–1916) drew on Darwinian thought and popularized notions such as “survival of the fittest” to justify the foreign policies of the Meiji government (Burenina 2020). It is in this context that we can situate Buddhist responses to evolutionary theory.

Buddhists do not distinguish between human beings as possessing a soul and other animals as soulless. As we are all part of the cycle of rebirth, we have all been in previous lives various other beings, including birds, insects, and fish. The problem of the specificity of the human soul does not even arise because of the no-self doctrine. Nevertheless, as Justin Ritzinger (2013) points out, Chinese Buddhists in the 1920s and 1930s who were confronted with early evolutionary theory did not accept Darwin’s theory wholesale. In their view, the central element of Darwinism—the struggle for existence—was incompatible with Buddhism, with its emphasis on compassion with other creatures. They rejected social Darwinism (which sought to engineer societies along Darwinian principles) because it was incompatible with Buddhist ethics and metaphysics. Struggling to survive and to propagate was clinging onto worldly things. Taixu (1890–1947), a Chinese Reformer and Buddhist modernist, instead chose to appropriate Pyotr Kropotkin’s evolutionary views, specifically on mutual aid and altruism. The Russian anarchist argued that cooperation was central to evolutionary change, a view that is currently also more mainstream. However, Kropotkin’s view did not go far enough in Taixu’s opinion because mutual aid still requires a self. Only when one recognizes the no-self doctrine could one dedicate oneself entirely to helping others, as bodhisattvas do (Ritzinger 2013).

Similar dynamics can be seen in the reception of evolutionary theory among Japanese Buddhists. Evolutionary theory was introduced in Japan during the early Meji period (1868–1912) when Japan opened itself to foreign trade and ideas. Foreign experts, such as the American zoologist Edward S. Morse (1838–1925) shared their knowledge of the sciences with Japanese scholars. The latter were interested in the social ramifications of Darwinism, particularly because they had access to translated versions of Spencer’s and Huxley’s work before they could read Darwin’s. Japanese Buddhists of the Nichiren tradition accepted many elements of evolutionary theory, but they rejected other elements, notably the struggle for existence, and randomness and chance, as this contradicts the role of karma in one’s circumstances at birth.

Among the advocates of the modern Nishiren Buddhist movement is Honda Nisshō (1867–1931). Honda emphasized the importance of retrogressions (in addition to progress, which was the main element in evolution that western authors such as Haeckel and Spencer considered). He strongly argued against social Darwinism, the application of evolutionary principles in social engineering, on religious grounds. He argued that we can accept humans are descended from apes without having to posit a pessimistic view of human nature that sees us as engaged in a struggle for survival with fellow human beings. Like Chinese Buddhists, Honda thought Kropotkin’s thesis of mutual aid was more compatible with Buddhism, but he was suspicious of Kropotkin’s anarchism (Burenina 2020). His work, like that of other East Asian Buddhists indicates that historically, Buddhists are not passive recipients of western science but creative interpreters. In some cases, their religious reasons for rejecting some metaphysical assumptions in evolutionary theory led them to anticipate recent developments in biology, such as the recognition of cooperation as an evolutionary principle.

Judaism is one of the three major Abrahamic monotheistic traditions, encompassing a range of beliefs and practices that express a covenant between God and the people of Israel. Central to both Jewish practice and beliefs is the study of texts, including the written Torah (the Tanakh, sometimes called “Hebrew Bible”), and the “Oral Law” of Rabbinic Judaism, compiled in such works like the Talmud. There is also a corpus of esoteric, mystical interpretations of biblical texts, the Kabbalah, which has influenced Jewish works on the relationship between science and religion. The Kabbalah also had an influence on Renaissance and early modern Christian authors such as Pico Della Mirandola, whose work helped to shape the scientific revolution (see the entry on Giovanni Pico della Mirandola ). The theologian Maimonides (Rabbi Moshe ben-Maimon, 1138–1204, aka Rambam) had an enduring influence on Jewish thought up until today, also in the science and religion literature.

Most contemporary strains of Judaism are Rabbinic, rather than biblical, and this has profound implications for the relationship between religion and science. While both Jews and Evangelical Christians emphasize the reading of sacred texts, the Rabbinic traditions (unlike, for example, the Evangelical Christian tradition) holds that reading and interpreting texts is far from straightforward. Scripture should not be read in a simple literal fashion. This opens up more space for accepting scientific theories (e.g., Big Bang cosmology) that seem at odds with a simple literal reading of the Torah (e.g., the six-day creation in Genesis) (Mitelman 2011 [ Other Internet Resources ]). Moreover, most non-Orthodox Jews in the US identify as politically liberal, so openness to science may also be an identity marker given that politically liberal people in the US have positive attitudes toward science (Pew Forum, 2021 [ Other Internet Resources ]).

Jewish thinkers have made substantive theoretical contributions to the relationship between science and religion, which differ in interesting respects from those seen in the literature written by Christian authors. To give just a few examples, Hermann Cohen (1842–1918), a prominent neo-Kantian German Jewish philosopher, thought of the relationship between Judaism and science in the light of the advances in scientific disciplines and the increased participation of Jewish scholars in the sciences. He argued that science, ethics, and Judaism should all be conceived of as distinct but complementary sciences. Cohen believed that his Jewish religious community was facing an epistemic crisis. All references to God had become suspect due to an adherence to naturalism, at first epistemological, but fast becoming ontological. Cohen saw the concept of a transcendent God as foundational to both Jewish practice and belief, so he thought adherence to wholesale naturalism threatened both Jewish orthodoxy and orthopraxy. As Teri Merrick (2020) argues, Cohen suspected this was in part due to epistemic oppression and self-censuring (though Cohen did not frame it in these terms). Because Jewish scientists wanted to retain credibility in the Christian majority culture, they underplayed and neglected the rich Jewish intellectual legacy in their practice. In response to this intellectual crisis, Cohen proposed to reframe Jewish thought and philosophy so that it would be recognized as both continuous with the tradition and essentially contributing to ethical and scientific advances. In this way, he reframed this tradition, articulating a broadly Kantian philosophy of science to combat a perceived conflict between Judaism and science (see the entry on Hermann Cohen for an in-depth discussion).

Jewish religious scholars have examined how science might influence religious beliefs, and vice versa. Rather than a unified response we see a spectrum of philosophical views, especially since the nineteenth and early twentieth century. As Shai Cherry (2003) surveys, Jewish scholars in the early twentieth century accepted biological evolution but were hesitant about Darwinian natural selection as the mechanism. The Latvian-born Israeli rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865–1935) thought that religion and science are largely separate domains (a view somewhat similar to Gould’s NOMA), though he believed that there was a possible flow from religion to science. For example, Kook challenged the lack of directionality in Darwinian evolutionary theory. Using readings of the Kabbalah (and Halakhah, Jewish law), he proposed that biological evolution fits in a larger picture of cosmic evolution towards perfection.

By contrast, the American rabbi Morcedai Kaplan (1881–1983) thought information flow between science and religion could go in both directions, a view reminiscent to Barbour’s dialogue position. He repeatedly argued against scientism (the encroachment of science on too many aspects of human life, including ethics and religion), but he believed nevertheless we ought to apply scientific methods to religion. He saw reality as an unfolding process without a pre-ordained goal: it was progressive, but not teleologically determined. Kaplan emphasized the importance of morality (and identified God as the source of this process), and conceptualized humanity as not merely a passive recipient of evolutionary change, but an active participant, prefiguring work in evolutionary biology on the importance of agency in evolution (e.g., Okasha 2018). Thus, Kaplan’s reception of scientific theories, especially evolution, led him to formulate an early Jewish process theology.

Reform Judaism endorses an explicit anti-conflict view on the relationship between science and religion. For example, the Pittsburgh Platform of 1885, the first document of the Reform rabbinate, has a statement that explicitly says that science and Judaism are not in conflict:

We hold that the modern discoveries of scientific researches in the domain of nature and history are not antagonistic to the doctrines of Judaism.

This Platform had an enduring influence on Reform Judaism over the next decades. Secular Jewish scientists such as Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Douglas Daniel Kahneman, and Stephen J. Gould have also reflected on the relationship between science and broader issues of existential significance, and have exerted considerable influence on the science and religion debate.

3. Central topics in the debate

Current work in the field of science and religion encompasses a wealth of topics, including free will, ethics, human nature, and consciousness. Contemporary natural theologians discuss fine-tuning, in particular design arguments based on it (e.g., R. Collins 2009), the interpretation of multiverse cosmology, and the significance of the Big Bang (see entries on fine-tuning arguments and natural theology and natural religion ). For instance, authors such as Hud Hudson (2013) have explored the idea that God has actualized the best of all possible multiverses. Here follows an overview of two topics that continue to generate substantial interest and debate: divine action (and the closely related topic of creation) and human origins. The focus will be on Christian work in science and religion, due to its prevalence in the literature.

Before scientists developed their views on cosmology and origins of the world, Western cultures already had a doctrine of creation, based on biblical texts (e.g., the first three chapters of Genesis and the book of Revelation) and the writings of church fathers such as Augustine. This doctrine of creation has the following interrelated features: first, God created the world ex nihilo, i.e., out of nothing. Differently put, God did not need any pre-existing materials to make the world, unlike, e.g., the Demiurge (from Greek philosophy), who created the world from chaotic, pre-existing matter. Second, God is distinct from the world; the world is not equal to or part of God (contra pantheism or panentheism) or a (necessary) emanation of God’s being (contra Neoplatonism). Rather, God created the world freely. This introduces an asymmetry between creator and creature: the world is radically contingent upon God’s creative act and is also sustained by God, whereas God does not need creation (Jaeger 2012b: 3). Third, the doctrine of creation holds that creation is essentially good (this is repeatedly affirmed in Genesis 1). The world does contain evil, but God does not directly cause this evil to exist. Moreover, God does not merely passively sustain creation, but rather plays an active role in it, using special divine actions (e.g., miracles and revelations) to care for creatures. Fourth, God made provisions for the end of the world, and will create a new heaven and earth, in this way eradicating evil.

Views on divine action are related to the doctrine of creation. Theologians commonly draw a distinction between general and special divine action, but within the field of science and religion there is no universally accepted definition of these two concepts. One way to distinguish them (Wildman 2008: 140) is to regard general divine action as the creation and sustenance of reality, and special divine action as the collection of specific providential acts, such as miracles and revelations to prophets. Drawing this distinction allows for creatures to be autonomous and indicates that God does not micromanage every detail of creation. Still, the distinction is not always clear-cut, as some phenomena are difficult to classify as either general or special divine action. For example, the Roman Catholic Eucharist (in which bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus) or some healing miracles outside of scripture seem mundane enough to be part of general housekeeping (general divine action), but still seem to involve some form of special intervention on God’s part. Alston (1989) makes a related distinction between direct and indirect divine acts. God brings about direct acts without the use of natural causes, whereas indirect acts are achieved through natural causes. Using this distinction, there are four possible kinds of actions that God could do: God could not act in the world at all, God could act only directly, God could act only indirectly, or God could act both directly and indirectly.

In the science and religion literature, there are two central questions on creation and divine action. To what extent are the Christian doctrine of creation and traditional views of divine action compatible with science? How can these concepts be understood within a scientific context, e.g., what does it mean for God to create and act? Note that the doctrine of creation says nothing about the age of the Earth, nor does it specify a mode of creation. This allows for a wide range of possible views within science and religion, of which Young Earth creationism is but one that is consistent with scripture. Indeed, some scientific theories, such as the Big Bang theory, first proposed by the Belgian Roman Catholic priest and astronomer Georges Lemaître (1927), look congenial to the doctrine of creation. The theory is not in contradiction, and could be integrated into creatio ex nihilo as it specifies that the universe originated from an extremely hot and dense state around 13.8 billion years ago (Craig 2003), although some philosophers have argued against the interpretation that the universe has a temporal beginning (e.g., Pitts 2008).

The net result of scientific findings since the seventeenth century has been that God was increasingly pushed into the margins. This encroachment of science on the territory of religion happened in two ways: first, scientific findings—in particular from geology and evolutionary theory—challenged and replaced biblical accounts of creation. Although the doctrine of creation does not contain details of the mode and timing of creation, the Bible was regarded as authoritative, and that authority got eroded by the sciences. Second, the emerging concept of scientific laws in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century physics seemed to leave no room for special divine action. These two challenges will be discussed below, along with proposed solutions in the contemporary science and religion literature.

Christian authors have traditionally used the Bible as a source of historical information. Biblical exegesis of the creation narratives, especially Genesis 1 and 2 (and some other scattered passages, such as in the Book of Job), remains fraught with difficulties. Are these texts to be interpreted in a historical, metaphorical, or poetic fashion, and what are we to make of the fact that the order of creation differs between these accounts (Harris 2013)? The Anglican archbishop James Ussher (1581–1656) used the Bible to date the beginning of creation at 4004 BCE. Although such literalist interpretations of the biblical creation narratives were not uncommon, and are still used by Young Earth creationists today, theologians before Ussher already offered alternative, non-literalist readings of the biblical materials (e.g., Augustine De Genesi ad litteram , 416). From the seventeenth century onward, the Christian doctrine of creation came under pressure from geology, with findings suggesting that the Earth was significantly older than 4004 BCE. From the eighteenth century on, natural philosophers, such as Benoît de Maillet, Lamarck, Chambers, and Darwin, proposed transmutationist (what would now be called evolutionary) theories, which seem incompatible with scriptural interpretations of the special creation of species. Following the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859), there has been an ongoing discussion on how to reinterpret the doctrine of creation in the light of evolutionary theory (see Bowler 2009 for an overview).

Ted Peters and Martinez Hewlett (2003) have outlined a divine action spectrum to clarify the distinct positions about creation and divine action in the contemporary science and religion literature that focuses on Christians, agnostics, and atheists. They discern two dimensions in this spectrum: the degree of divine action in the natural world, and the form of causal explanations that relate divine action to natural processes. At one extreme are creationists. Like other theists, they believe God has created the world and its fundamental laws, and that God occasionally performs special divine actions (miracles) that intervene in the fabric of those laws. Creationists deny any role of natural selection in the origin of species. Within creationism, there are Old and Young Earth creationism, with the former accepting geology and rejecting evolutionary biology, and the latter rejecting both. Next to creationism is Intelligent Design, which affirms divine intervention in natural processes. Intelligent Design creationists (e.g., Dembski 1998) believe there is evidence of intelligent design in organisms’ irreducible complexity; on the basis of this they infer design and purposiveness (see Kojonen 2016). Like other creationists, they deny a significant role for natural selection in shaping organic complexity and they affirm an interventionist account of divine action. For political reasons they do not label their intelligent designer as God, as they hope to circumvent the constitutional separation of church and state in the US which prohibits teaching religious doctrines in public schools (Forrest & Gross 2004). Theistic evolutionists hold a non-interventionist approach to divine action: God creates indirectly, through the laws of nature (e.g., through natural selection). For example, the theologian John Haught (2000) regards divine providence as self-giving love, and natural selection and other natural processes as manifestations of this love, as they foster creaturely autonomy and independence. While theistic evolutionists allow for special divine action, particularly the miracle of the Incarnation in Christ (e.g., Deane-Drummond 2009), deists such as Michael Corey (1994) think there is only general divine action: God has laid out the laws of nature and lets it run like clockwork without further interference. Deism is still a long distance from ontological materialism, the view that the material world is all there is. Ontological materialists tend to hold that the universe is intelligible, with laws that scientists can discover, but there is no lawgiver and no creator.

Views on divine action were influenced by developments in physics and their philosophical interpretation. In the seventeenth century, natural philosophers, such as Robert Boyle and John Wilkins, developed a mechanistic view of the world as governed by orderly and lawlike processes. Laws, understood as immutable and stable, created difficulties for the concept of special divine action (Pannenberg 2002). How could God act in a world that was determined by laws?

One way to regard miracles and other forms of special divine action is to see them as actions that somehow suspend or ignore the laws of nature. David Hume (1748: 181), for instance, defined a miracle as “a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the deity, or by the interposal of some invisible agent”, and, more recently, Richard Swinburne (1968: 320) defines a miracle as “a violation of a law of Nature by a god”. This concept of divine action is commonly labeled interventionist. Interventionism regards the world as causally deterministic, so God has to create room for special divine actions. By contrast, non-interventionist forms of divine action require a world that is, at some level, non-deterministic, so that God can act without having to suspend or ignore the laws of nature.

In the seventeenth century, the explanation of the workings of nature in terms of elegant physical laws suggested the ingenuity of a divine designer. The design argument reached its peak during the seventeenth and early eighteenth century (McGrath 2011). For example, Samuel Clarke (1705: part XI, cited in Schliesser 2012: 451) proposed an a posteriori argument from design by appealing to Newtonian science, calling attention to the

exquisite regularity of all the planets’ motions without epicycles, stations, retrogradations, or any other deviation or confusion whatsoever.

A late proponent of this view of nature as a perfect smooth machine is William Paley’s Natural Theology (1802).

Another conclusion that the new laws-based physics suggested was that the universe was able to run smoothly without requiring an intervening God. The increasingly deterministic understanding of the universe, ruled by deterministic causal laws as, for example, outlined by Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827), seemed to leave no room for special divine action, which is a key element of the traditional Christian doctrine of creation. Newton resisted interpretations like these in an addendum to the Principia in 1713: the planets’ motions could be explained by laws of gravity, but the positions of their orbits, and the positions of the stars—far enough apart so as not to influence each other gravitationally—required a divine explanation (Schliesser 2012). Alston (1989) argued, contra authors such as Polkinghorne (1998), that mechanistic, pre-twentieth century physics is compatible with divine action and divine free will. Assuming a completely deterministic world and divine omniscience, God could set up initial conditions and the laws of nature in such a way as to bring God’s plans about. In such a mechanistic world, every event is an indirect divine act.

Advances in twentieth-century physics, including the theories of general and special relativity, chaos theory, and quantum theory, overturned the mechanical clockwork view of creation. In the latter half of the twentieth century, chaos theory and quantum physics have been explored as possible avenues to reinterpret divine action. John Polkinghorne (1998) proposed that chaos theory not only presents epistemological limits to what we can know about the world, but that it also provides the world with an “ontological openness” in which God can operate without violating the laws of nature. One difficulty with this model is that it moves from our knowledge of the world to assumptions about how the world is: does chaos theory mean that outcomes are genuinely undetermined, or that we as limited knowers cannot predict them? Robert Russell (2006) proposed that God acts in quantum events. This would allow God to directly act in nature without having to contravene the laws of nature. His is therefore a non-interventionist model: since, under the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, there are no natural efficient causes at the quantum level, God is not reduced to a natural cause. Murphy (1995) outlined a similar bottom-up model where God acts in the space provided by quantum indeterminacy. These attempts to locate God’s actions either in chaos theory or quantum mechanics, which Lydia Jaeger (2012a) has termed “physicalism-plus-God”, have met with sharp criticism (e.g., Saunders 2002; Jaeger 2012a,b). After all, it is not even clear whether quantum theory would allow for free human action, let alone divine action, which we do not know much about (Jaeger 2012a). Next to this, William Carroll (2008), building on Thomistic philosophy, argues that authors such as Polkinghorne and Murphy are making a category mistake: God is not a cause in the way creatures are causes, competing with natural causes, and God does not need indeterminacy in order to act in the world. Rather, as primary cause God supports and grounds secondary causes. While this neo-Thomistic proposal is compatible with determinism (indeed, on this view, the precise details of physics do not matter much), it blurs the distinction between general and special divine action. Moreover, the Incarnation suggests that the idea of God as a cause among natural causes is not an alien idea in theology, and that God incarnate as Jesus at least sometimes acts as a natural cause (Sollereder 2015).

There has been a debate on the question to what extent randomness is a genuine feature of creation, and how divine action and chance interrelate. Chance and stochasticity are important features of evolutionary theory (the non-random retention of random variations). In a famous thought experiment, Gould (1989) imagined that we could rewind the tape of life back to the time of the Burgess Shale (508 million years ago); the chance that a rerun of the tape of life would end up with anything like the present-day life forms is vanishingly small. However, Simon Conway Morris (2003) has insisted species very similar to the ones we know now, including humans, would evolve under a broad range of conditions.

Under a theist interpretation, randomness could either be a merely apparent aspect of creation, or a genuine feature. Plantinga suggests that randomness is a physicalist interpretation of the evidence. God may have guided every mutation along the evolutionary process. In this way, God could

guide the course of evolutionary history by causing the right mutations to arise at the right time and preserving the forms of life that lead to the results he intends. (2011: 121)

By contrast, other authors see stochasticity as a genuine design feature, and not just as a physicalist gloss. Their challenge is to explain how divine providence is compatible with genuine randomness. (Under a deistic view, one could simply say that God started the universe up and did not interfere with how it went, but that option is not open to the theist, and most authors in the field of science and religion are not deists.) The neo-Thomist Elizabeth Johnson (1996) argues that divine providence and true randomness are compatible: God gives creatures true causal powers, thus making creation more excellent than if they lacked such powers. Random occurrences are also secondary causes. Chance is a form of divine creativity that creates novelty, variety, and freedom. One implication of this view is that God may be a risk taker—although, if God has a providential plan for possible outcomes, there is unpredictability but not risk. Johnson uses metaphors of risk taking that, on the whole, leave the creator in a position of control. Creation, then, is akin to jazz improvisation. Why would God take risks? There are several solutions to this question. The free will theodicy says that a creation that exhibits stochasticity can be truly free and autonomous:

Authentic love requires freedom, not manipulation. Such freedom is best supplied by the open contingency of evolution, and not by strings of divine direction attached to every living creature. (Miller 1999 [2007: 289])

The “only way theodicy” goes a step further, arguing that a combination of laws and chance is not only the best way, but the only way for God to achieve God’s creative plans (see, e.g., Southgate 2008 for a defense).

Christianity, Islam, and Judaism have similar creation stories, which ultimately go back to the first book of the Hebrew Bible (Genesis). According to Genesis, humans are the result of a special act of creation. Genesis 1 offers an account of the creation of the world in six days, with the creation of human beings on the sixth day. It specifies that humans were created male and female, and that they were made in God’s image. Genesis 2 provides a different order of creation, where God creates humans earlier in the sequence (before other animals), and only initially creates a man, later fashioning a woman out of the man’s rib. Islam has a creation narrative similar to Genesis 2, with Adam being fashioned out of clay. These handcrafted humans are regarded as the ancestors of all living humans today. Together with Ussher’s chronology, the received view in eighteenth-century Europe was that humans were created only about 6000 years ago, in an act of special creation.

Humans occupy a privileged position in these creation accounts. In Christianity, Judaism, and some strands of Islam, humans are created in the image of God ( imago Dei ). Humans also occupy a special place in creation as a result of the Fall. In Genesis 3, the account of the Fall stipulates that the first human couple lived in the Garden of Eden in a state of innocence and/or righteousness. This means they were able to not sin, whereas we are no longer able to refrain from sinning. By eating from the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Good and Evil they fell from this state, and death, manual labor, as well as pain in childbirth were introduced. Moreover, as a result of this so-called “original sin”, the effects of Adam’s sin are passed on to every human being. The Augustinian interpretation of original sin also emphasizes that our reasoning capacities have been marred by the distorting effects of sin (the so-called noetic effects of sin): as a result of sin, our original perceptual and reasoning capacities have been marred. This interpretation is influential in contemporary analytic philosophy of religion. For example, Plantinga (2000) appeals to the noetic effects of sin to explain religious diversity and unbelief, offering this as an explanation for why not everyone believes in God even though this belief would be properly basic.

There are different ways in which Christians have thought about the Fall and original sin. In Western Christianity, Augustine’s doctrine of original sin is very influential, though there is no generally accepted Christian doctrine on original sin (Couenhoven 2005). For Augustine, humans were in a state of original righteousness before the Fall, and by their action not only marred themselves but the entirety of creation. By contrast, Eastern Orthodox churches are more influenced by Irenaeus, an early Church Father who argued that humans were originally innocent and immature, rather than righteous. John Hick (1966) was an influential proponent of “Irenaean style” theodicy in contemporary Christianity.

Over the past decades, authors in the Christian religion and science literature have explored these two interpretations (Irenaean, Augustinian) and how they can be made compatible with scientific findings (see De Smedt and De Cruz 2020 for a review). Scientific findings and theories relevant to human origins come from a range of disciplines, in particular geology, paleoanthropology (the study of ancestral hominins, using fossils and other evidence), archaeology, and evolutionary biology. These findings challenge traditional religious accounts of humanity, including the special creation of humans, the imago Dei , the historical Adam and Eve, and original sin.

In natural philosophy, the dethroning of humanity from its position as a specially created species predates Darwin and can already be found in early transmutationist publications. For example, Benoît de Maillet’s posthumously published Telliamed (1748, the title is his name in reverse) traces the origins of humans and other terrestrial animals from sea creatures. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposed chimpanzees as the ancestors to humans in his Philosophie Zoologique (1809). The Scottish publisher and geologist Robert Chambers’ anonymously published Vestiges of Creation (1844) stirred controversy with its detailed naturalistic account of the origin of species. He proposed that the first organisms arose through spontaneous generation, and that all subsequent organisms evolved from them. Moreover, he argued that humans have a single evolutionary origin:

The probability may now be assumed that the human race sprung from one stock, which was at first in a state of simplicity, if not barbarism (1844: 305)

a view starkly different from the Augustinian interpretation of humanity as being in a prelapsarian state of perfection.

Darwin was initially reluctant to publish on human origins. While he did not discuss human evolution in his Origin of Species , he promised, “Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history” (1859: 487). Huxley (1863) wrote Man’s Place in Nature , the first book on human evolution from a Darwinian point of view which discussed fossil evidence, such as the then recently uncovered Neanderthal fossils from Gibraltar. Darwin’s (1871) Descent of Man identified Africa as the likely place where humans originated, and used comparative anatomy to demonstrate that chimpanzees and gorillas were closely related to humans. In the twentieth century, paleoanthropologists debated whether humans separated from the other great apes (at the time wrongly classified into the paraphyletic group Pongidae ) about 15 million years ago, or about 5 million years ago. Molecular clocks—first immune responses (e.g., Sarich & Wilson 1967), then direct genetic evidence (e.g., Rieux et al. 2014)—favor the shorter chronology.

The discovery of many hominin fossils, including Ardipithecus ramidus (4.4 million years ago), Australopithecus afarensis (nicknamed “Lucy”), about 3.5 million years old, the Sima de los Huesos hominins (about 400,000 years old, ancestors to the Neanderthals), Homo neanderthalensis , and the intriguing Homo floresiensis (small hominins who lived on the island of Flores, Indonesia, dated to 700,000–50,000 years ago) have created a rich, complex picture of hominin evolution. These finds are supplemented by detailed analyses of ancient DNA extracted from fossil remains, bringing to light a previously unknown species of hominin (the Denisovans) who lived in Siberia up to about 40,000 years ago. Taken together, this evidence indicates that humans did not evolve in a simple linear fashion, but that human evolution resembles an intricate branching tree with many dead ends, in line with the evolution of other species. Genetic and fossil evidence favors a predominantly African origin of our species Homo sapiens (as early as 315,000 years ago) with limited gene-flow from other hominin species such as Neanderthals and Denisovans (see, e.g., Richter et al. 2017).

In the light of these scientific findings, contemporary science and religion authors have reconsidered the questions of human uniqueness, imago Dei , the Incarnation, and the historicity of original sin. Some authors have attempted to reinterpret human uniqueness as a number of species-specific cognitive and behavioral adaptations. For example, van Huyssteen (2006) considers the ability of humans to engage in cultural and symbolic behavior, which became prevalent in the Upper Paleolithic, as a key feature of uniquely human behavior. Other theologians have opted to broaden the notion of imago Dei. Given what we know about the capacities for morality and reason in non-human animals, Celia Deane-Drummond (2012) and Oliver Putz (2009) reject an ontological distinction between humans and non-human animals, and argue for a reconceptualization of the imago Dei to include at least some nonhuman animals. Joshua Moritz (2011) raises the question of whether extinct hominin species, such as Homo neanderthalensis and Homo floresiensis , which co-existed with Homo sapiens for some part of prehistory, partook in the divine image.

There is also discussion of how we can understand the Incarnation (the belief that Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, became a human being) with the evidence we have of human evolution. Some interpret Christ’s divine nature quite liberally. For instance, Peacocke (1979) regarded Jesus as the point where humanity is perfect for the first time. Christ is the progression and culmination of what evolution has been working toward in the teleological, progressivist interpretation of evolution by Teilhard de Chardin (1971). According to Teilhard, evil is still horrible but no longer incomprehensible; it becomes a natural feature of creation—since God chose evolution as his mode of creation, evil arises as an inevitable byproduct. Deane-Drummond (2009), however, points out that this interpretation is problematic: Teilhard worked within a Spencerian progressivist model of evolution, and he was anthropocentric, seeing humanity as the culmination of evolution. Contemporary evolutionary theory has repudiated the Spencerian progressivist view, and adheres to a stricter Darwinian model. Deane-Drummond, who regards human morality as lying on a continuum with the social behavior of other animals, conceptualizes the Fall as a mythical, rather than a historical event. It represents humanity’s sharper awareness of moral concerns and its ability to make wrong choices. She regards Christ as incarnate wisdom, situated in a theodrama that plays against the backdrop of an evolving creation. Like all human beings, Christ is connected to the rest of creation through common descent. By saving us, he saves the whole of creation.

Debates on the Fall and the historical Adam have centered on how these narratives can be understood in the light of contemporary science. On the face of it, limitations of our cognitive capacities can be naturalistically explained as a result of biological constraints, so there seems little explanatory gain to appeal to the narrative of the Fall. Some have attempted to interpret the concepts of sin and Fall in ways that are compatible with paleoanthropology, notably Peter van Inwagen (2004) and Jamie K. Smith (2017), who have argued that God could have providentially guided hominin evolution until there was a tightly-knit community of primates, endowed with reason, language, and free will, and this community was in close union with God. At some point in history, these hominins somehow abused their free will to distance themselves from God. These narratives follow the Augustinian tradition. Others, such as John Schneider (2014, 2020), on the other hand, argue that there is no genetic or paleoanthropological evidence for such a community of superhuman beings.

This survey has given a sense of the richness of the literature of science and religion. Giving an exhaustive overview would go beyond the scope of an encyclopedia entry. Because science and religion are such broad terms, the literature has split up in diverse fields of “science engaged theology”, where a specific claim or subfield in science is studied in relation to a specific claim in theology (Perry & Ritchie 2018). For example, rather than ask if Christianity is compatible with science, one could ask whether Christian eschatology is compatible with scientific claims about cultural evolution, or the cosmic fate of the universe. As the scope of science and religion becomes less parochial and more global in its outlook, the different topics the field can engage with become very diverse.

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How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• Brown, Malcolm, 2008, “Good Religion Needs Good science”, Church of England web site. [ Brown 2008 available online (archived) ].
• Hackett, Conrad, 2015, “By 2050, India to Have World’s Largest Populations of Hindus and Muslims”, 21 April 2015, Pew Research Center. [ Hackett 2015 available online ].
• Mitelman, Geoffrey A., 2011, “Why Judaism Embraces Science”, HuffPost , 20 June 2011; reposted on Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion web site. Mitelman 2011 available online
• Pew Forum, 2021, “Most U.S. Jews Identify as Democrats, but Most Orthodox Are Republicans”, Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project, 4 May 2021. [ Pew Forum 2021 available online ]
• Plantinga, Alvin, “Religion and Science”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = < https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/religion-science/ >. [This was the previous entry on religion and science in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — see the version history .]
• Wikipedia article on the relationship between religion and science .
• National Center for Science Education: Science and Religion .
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Comte, Auguste | cosmological argument | Hume, David: on religion | teleology: teleological arguments for God’s existence | theology, natural and natural religion

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Bryce Huebner, Evan Thompson, Meir-Simchah Panzer, Teri Merrick, Geoff Mitelman, Joshua Yuter, Katherine Dormandy, Isaac Choi, Egil Asprem, Johan De Smedt, Taede Smedes, H.E. Baber, Fabio Gironi, Erkki Kojonen, Andreas Reif, Raphael Neelamkavil, Hans Van Eyghen, and Nicholas Joll, for their feedback on an earlier version of this manuscript.

Copyright © 2022 by Helen De Cruz < helen . decruz @ slu . edu >

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On the Intersection of Science and Religion

Over the centuries, the relationship between science and religion has ranged from conflict and hostility to harmony and collaboration, while various thinkers have argued that the two concepts are inherently at odds and entirely separate .

But much recent research and discussion on these issues has taken place in a Western context, primarily through a Christian lens. To better understand the ways in which science relates to religion around the world, Pew Research Center engaged a small group of Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists to talk about their perspectives. These one-on-one, in-depth interviews took place in Malaysia and Singapore – two Southeast Asian nations that have made sizable investments in scientific research and development in recent years and that are home to religiously diverse populations.

The discussions reinforced the conclusion that there is no single, universally held view of the relationship between science and religion, but they also identified some common patterns and themes within each of the three religious groups. For example, many Muslims expressed the view that Islam and science are basically compatible, while, at the same time, acknowledging some areas of friction – such as the theory of evolution conflicting with religious beliefs about the origins and development of human life on Earth. Evolution also has been a point of discord between religion and science in the West .

Hindu interviewees generally took a different tack, describing science and religion as overlapping spheres. As was the case with Muslim interviewees, many Hindus maintained that their religion contains elements of science, and that Hinduism long ago identified concepts that were later illuminated by science – mentioning, for example, the antimicrobial properties of copper or the health benefits of turmeric. In contrast with Muslims, many Hindus said the theory of evolution is encompassed in their religious teachings.

Buddhist interviewees generally described religion and science as two separate and unrelated spheres. Several of the Buddhists talked about their religion as offering guidance on how to live a moral life, while describing science as observable phenomena. Often, they could not name any areas of scientific research that concerned them for religious reasons. Nor did Buddhist interviewees see the theory of evolution as a point of conflict with their religion. Some said they didn’t think their religion addressed the origins of life on Earth.

Some members of all three religious groups, however, did express religious concerns when asked to consider specific kinds of biotechnology research, such as gene editing to change a baby’s genetic characteristics and efforts to clone animals. For example, Muslim interviewees said cloning would tamper with the power of God, and God should be the only one to create living things. When Hindus and Buddhists discussed gene editing and cloning, some, though not all, voiced concern that these scientific developments might interfere with karma or reincarnation.

But religion was not always the foremost topic that came to mind when people thought about science. In response to questions about government investment in scientific research, interviewees generally spoke of the role of scientific achievements in national prestige and economic development; religious differences faded into the background.

These are some of the key findings from a qualitative analysis of 72 individual interviews with Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists conducted in Malaysia and Singapore between June 17 and Aug. 8, 2019.

The study included 24 people in each of three religious groups (Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists), with an equal number in each country. All interviewees said their religion was “very” or “somewhat” important to their lives, but they otherwise varied in terms of age, gender, profession and education level.

A majority of Malaysians are Muslim, and the country has experienced natural migration patterns over the years. As a result, Buddhist interviewees in Malaysia were typically of Chinese descent, Hindus were of Indian descent and Muslim interviewees were Malay. Singapore is known for its religious diversity; a 2014 Pew Research Center analysis found the city-state to have the highest level of religious diversity in the world.

Insights from these qualitative interviews are inherently limited in that they are based on small convenience samples of individuals and are not representative of religious groups either in their country or globally. Instead, in-depth interviews provide insight into how individuals describe their beliefs, in their own words, and the connections they see (or don’t see) with science. To help guard against putting too much weight on any single individual’s comments, all interviews were coded into themes, following a systematic procedure. Where possible throughout the rest of this report, these findings are shown in comparison with quantitative surveys conducted with representative samples of adults in global publics to help address questions about the extent to which certain viewpoints are widely held among members of each religious group. This also shows how Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists as well as Christians around the world compare with each other.

The goal of this project was to better understand how people think about science in connection with their religious beliefs. Past research on this topic has often focused on the views of Christians living in the U.S. or other economically advanced nations. This study sought to fill that gap by talking, one-on-one, with Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists living in two growing economies in Southeast Asia: Malaysia and Singapore. Pew Research Center conducted qualitative interviews with 72 people, including 24 in each of the three religious groups (12 in each country).

To be eligible for the study, interviewees had to identify their religious affiliation as Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist, and describe religion as either “very” or “somewhat” important in their lives. They varied in other demographic characteristics, including age, gender, ethnicity, profession, employment status and educational attainment.

Interviews were conducted by Ipsos Qualitative with a local, professional interviewer, using a guide developed by Pew Research Center. Interviews lasted about one hour and were conducted in English in Singapore, and in English or Malay in Malaysia. The Singaporean interviews were conducted June 17 to July 26, 2019, and the Malaysian interviews were done July 31 to Aug. 8, 2019.

Center researchers listened to audio recordings of the interviews and systematically coded transcripts for thematic responses, using qualitative data analysis software. Themes were revised and integrated throughout the coding process, until researchers agreed upon a consistent set of categories. The qualitative interviews are based on small, convenience samples of individuals and are not representative of religious groups in either country. Whenever possible, these findings are shown in comparison with quantitative data from global surveys using representative samples of adults who identify as Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or Christian. You can find the interview guide  here .

Interviewees paint three distinct portraits of the science-religion relationship

One of the most striking takeaways from interviews conducted with Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists stems from the different ways that people in each group described their perspectives on the relationship between science and religion. The Muslims interviewed tended to speak of an overlap between their religion and science, and some raised areas of tension between the two. Hindu interviewees, by and large, described science and religion as overlapping but compatible spheres. By contrast, Buddhist interviewees described science and religion as parallel concepts, with no particular touchpoints between the two.

A similar pattern emerged when interviewees were asked about possible topics that should be off limits to scientific research for religious reasons. Many Muslim interviewees readily named research areas that concerned them, such as studies using non-halal substances or some applications of assisted reproductive technology (for example, in vitro fertilization using genetic material from someone other than a married couple). By contrast, the Hindus and Buddhists in the study did not regularly name any research topics that they felt should be off limits to scientists.

Muslim interviewees say science and religion are related, but they vary in how they see the nature of that relationship

On the relationship between science and islam.

“I don’t see any conflicts [between science and religion]. From what I know in the Quran, they say that there is science in Islam. They talk about the sun, the moon, the stars. They talk about how the water can go up to the sky and become the clouds. When it’s heavy, it goes down to the Earth where it’s taken by the plants when it evaporates up again. It’s part of science.” – Muslim man, age 35, Singapore

“I know that sometimes science and religion don’t tally. … As a person of religion, we tend to believe what our book says. Yeah, I believe what the Quran says, [rather] than scientific proof.” – Muslim woman, age 40, Singapore

Muslims frequently described science and their religion as related, rather than separate, concepts. They often said that their holy text, the Quran, contains many elements of science. The Muslims interviewed also said that Islam and science are often trying to describe similar things. “The research in science are related to the Quran. There are similarities between religion and what is explained by science,” said one Muslim woman (age 25, Malaysia).

The Muslims interviewed offered a wide variety of opinions about the nature of the relationship between science and religion, and whether the two are harmonious or conflicting. Some described science and Islam as compatible overall. For example, one Muslim man said that both science and his religion explain the same things, just from different perspectives: “I think there is not any conflict between them. … In my opinion, I still believe that it happens because of God, just that the science will help to explain the details about why it is happening” (age 24, Malaysia). Others qualified their statement by saying that science is compatible with religion, but the actions of individual scientists can be problematic. “Actually, science and religion don’t conflict with each other – it’s humans’ opinions that conflict,” said one interviewee (Muslim man, age 36, Malaysia).

“I think there is not any conflict between them. … In my opinion, I still believe that it happens because of God, just that the science will help to explain the details about why it is happening.” – Muslim man, 24, Malaysia

Still others described the relationship as conflictual. “I feel like, sometimes, or most of the time, they are against each other. … Science is about experimenting, researching, finding new things, or exploring different possibilities. But then, religion is very fixed, to me,” said one Muslim woman (age 20, Singapore). Another interviewee said scientists typically do not consider the views of religious people when conducting their research. “Scientists, whatever they do, they don’t ask for opinions from people well-versed in religious matters,” said another Muslim woman (age 39, Malaysia).

When asked, many of the Muslims interviewed identified specific areas of scientific research that bothered them on religious grounds. Some of the areas mentioned by multiple interviewees included research that uses non-halal substances (such as marijuana, alcohol or pigs), some pregnancy technologies that they considered unnatural (for example, “test tube babies” or procedures that use genetic material not taken from a husband and wife) or cloning.

Representative surveys of Muslims in countries around the world find variation in the share of Muslims who see any conflict between science and religion, although this share is less than half in most countries surveyed. The 2018 Wellcome Global Monitor asked respondents if “science has ever disagreed with the teachings of your religion.” Across 51 countries that have large enough samples of Muslims that their views can be broken out separately and analyzed, a common response is that science has “never disagreed” with Islamic religious teachings. 1

Muslims vary in their views about the conflict between science and the teachings of their religion

Similarly, a Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2011 and 2012 that examined the views of Muslims found that, in most regions, half or more said there was no conflict between religion and science, including 54% in Malaysia (Muslims in Singapore were not surveyed). Three-in-ten Malaysian Muslims said there is a conflict between science and religion; the share of Muslims around the world who took this position ranged from a high of 57% in Albania to a low of 14% in the Palestinian territories.

Hindu interviewees generally see science and religion as compatibly overlapping spheres

The predominant view among Hindus interviewed in Malaysia and Singapore is that science and Hinduism are related and compatible. Many of the Hindu interviewees offered – without prompting– the assertion that their religion contains many ancient insights that have been upheld by modern science. For instance, multiple interviewees described the use of turmeric in cleansing solutions, or the use of copper in drinking mugs. They said Hindus have known for thousands of years that these materials provide health benefits, but that scientists have only confirmed relatively recently that it’s because turmeric and copper have antimicrobial properties. “When you question certain rituals or rites in Hinduism, there’s also a relatively scientific explanation to it,” said a Hindu woman (age 29, Singapore).

On the relationship between science and Hinduism

“I believe that whatever science says, the purpose has already been told in my religion. For example, it is said that drinking water from a copper container is very good. This has been proven by the ancestors many years ago. But now only these scientific people come out and say that it is good to use it.” – Hindu woman, age 29, Malaysia

“No, feel free to go ahead and [research] everything. Why would you need to restrict yourself from information or knowledge? Because Hinduism is based on knowledge. It’s called ‘Nyaya.’ That’s ‘knowledge,’ literally translated.” – Hindu man, age 38, Singapore

While many of the Hindu interviewees said science and religion overlap, others described the two as separate realms. “Religion doesn’t really govern science, and it shouldn’t. Science should just be science. … Today, the researchers, even if they are religious, the research is your duty. The duty and religion are different,” said one Hindu man (age 42, Singapore).

Asked to think about areas of scientific research that might raise concerns or that should not be pursued for religious reasons, Hindu interviewees generally came up blank, saying they couldn’t think of any such areas. A few mentioned areas of research that concerned them, but no topic area came up consistently.

The sense that Hindus generally see little conflict with science aligns with survey findings to date. In three of the four countries in the 2018 Wellcome Global Monitor with large enough samples of Hindus for analysis, majorities said that science had “never disagreed” with the teachings of their religion, including two-thirds of Hindus in India – which is home to the vast majority of the world’s Hindus. In Singapore, however, Hindus expressed more ambivalence: About half (48%) said science has not disagreed with the teachings of Hinduism, while nearly four-in-ten (38%) said that it has. 2

Buddhist interviewees see science and religion as operating in parallel domains

Buddhist interviewees described science and religion in distinctly different ways than either Muslims or Hindus. For the most part, Buddhists said that science and religion are two unrelated domains. Some have long held that Buddhism and its practice are aligned with the empirically driven observations in the scientific method ; connections between Buddhism and science have been bolstered by neuroscience research into the effects of Buddhist meditation at the core of the mindfulness movement.

On the relationship between science and Buddhism

“Science is something more modern, but Buddhism is something like a mindset. And science is more practical, but Buddhism is theoretical. It is not conflicting.” – Buddhist man, age 40, Malaysia

“I would say that the two [science and religion] are running parallel. It’s difficult to merge the two.” – Buddhist man, age 64, Singapore

One Buddhist woman (age 39, Malaysia) said science is something that relates to “facts and figures,” while religion helps her live a good and moral life. Another Singaporean Buddhist woman (age 26) explained that, “Science to me is statistics, numbers, texts – something you can see, you can touch, you can hear. Religion is more of something you cannot see, you cannot touch, you cannot hear. I feel like they are different faculties.”

To many of the Buddhist interviewees, science and religion cannot be in conflict, because they are different or parallel realms. Therefore, the Malaysian and Singaporean Buddhists largely described the relationship between science and religion as one of compatibility.

Indeed, even when prompted to think about potential areas of scientific research that raised concerns for religious reasons, relatively few of the Buddhists mentioned any. Among those who did cite a concern, a common response involved animal testing. Buddhist interviewees talked about the importance of not killing living things in the practice of their religion, so some felt that research that causes harm or death to animals is worrisome.

The tenor of these comments is consistent with survey findings from the 2018 Wellcome Global Monitor. Majorities of Buddhists in all 10 countries with large enough samples for analysis said that science has “never disagreed” with the teachings of their religion. 3 This includes 59% of Buddhists in Singapore. (In Malaysia, 55% of Buddhists said the same. However, these results should be interpreted with extra caution because there were just 129 Malaysian Buddhists in the survey sample.) Far smaller shares of Buddhists in these countries see a conflict between science and their religion’s teachings.

Surveys among Christians find wide variation in perceptions of conflict between religion and science though more see at least some conflict than do not

For comparison, representative surveys of Christians around the world also find widely ranging views about whether religion and science have ever disagreed or are generally in conflict. The 2018 Wellcome Global Monitor survey finds wide variation in Christians’ views on this issue. 4 The U.S. stands out, along with several southern European nations, for its relatively high share of Christians reporting that science has disagreed with the teachings of their religion (61%). By contrast, 22% in Singapore, 18% in Sweden and 12% in the Czech Republic say the same.

Christians worldwide vary in whether they see disagreement between science and their religion’s teachings

Pew Research Center surveys asked a similar question in Central and Eastern Europe as well as in Latin America . Christians in these regions tilt toward saying that “there is generally a conflict between science and religion.” A median of 49% of Christians in Central and Eastern Europe say there is generally a conflict, and a median of 39% say there is not. The median view on this question in Latin American was similar (50% to 40%).

Views of conflict between science and religion by Christians in Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America

In a U.S.-based Pew Research Center survey , a majority of Christians (55%) said that science and religion are “often in conflict” when thinking in general terms about religion. When thinking about their own religious beliefs, however, fewer Christians (35%) said their personal religious beliefs sometimes conflict with science; a majority of U.S. Christians (63%) said the two do not conflict.

Such findings broadly align with Elaine Howard Ecklund and Christopher P. Scheitle’s analysis in “Religion vs. Science: What Religious People Really Think,” which finds that many U.S. Christians see little conflict between science and their faith.

This survey also provides a window into the kinds of things that Christians see as a conflict between science and religion. In an open-ended question included on the Center’s survey, respondents who said science conflicted with their personal religious beliefs were asked to identify up to three areas of conflict. Christians most commonly mentioned the creation of the universe, including evolution and the “Big Bang” (cited by 38% of U.S. Christians who saw a conflict between science and their religious beliefs). Respondents also mentioned broad tensions including the idea that man (rather than God) is “in charge,” beliefs in miracles, or a belief in the events of the Bible (26%). Others cited conflict over the beginning of life, abortion, and scientific technologies involving human embryos (12%) or other medical practices (7%).

Evolution is a more frequent point of conflict for those in Abrahamic faiths such as Islam and Christianity

Evolution raised areas of disagreement for many Muslim interviewees, who often said the theory of evolution is incompatible with the Islamic tenet that humans were created by Allah. Evolution is also a common, though by no means universal, friction point for Christians. By contrast, neither Buddhist interviewees, followers of a religion with no creator figure, nor Hindu interviewees, followers of a polytheistic faith, described discord with evolution either in their personal beliefs or in their views of how evolution comports with their religion.

Some Muslims interviewees see origination of humans from the prophet Nabi Adam as at odds with evolution

When asked about the theory of evolution, Muslim interviewees generally talked about conflict between the theory of evolution and their religious beliefs about the origins of human life – specifically, the belief that God created humans in their present form, and that all humans are descended from Adam and Eve. “This is one of the conflicts between religion and Western theory. Based on Western theory, they said we came from monkeys. For me, if we evolved from monkeys, where could we get the stories of [the prophet] Nabi? Was Nabi Muhammad like a monkey in the past? For me, he was human. Allah had created perfect humans, not from monkey to human,” said one Muslim man (age 21, Malaysia).

Islamic views on evolution

“Nonsense. I believe that Nabi Adam is the first human in the world. Before Nabi Adam was created, other living things such as dinosaurs and so on were also created. The theory of human evolution from apes to human is very different from the teaching in Islam.” – Muslim man, age 24, Malaysia

“That theory to me is absurd. People might be saying that during time of Mesopotamia, the people there hunch and bow, with appearance looking like an ape. Maybe that is why one says we come from apes. But, for me, I believe that we come from Adam and Adam came from heaven.” – Muslim woman, age 36, Malaysia

“Our ancestors are not monkeys. Maybe there’s similarity in the DNA, but in Islam the first human is Adam. He’s not a monkey.” – Muslim man, age 35, Singapore

Others emphasized that evolution is only a theory and has not been proven true. “It’s just a theory, because there is no specific evidence or justification. … Just because the DNA [of humans and primates] has a difference of a few percent, that doesn’t mean we are similar,” said a 29-year-old Singaporean Muslim man. Still others said that Charles Darwin developed this theory in order to get famous and did not put adequate thought or research into his theory.

However, a handful of Muslims said they personally believed that humans were descended from primates via the evolutionary process, even though they believed that this deviated from Islamic teaching. “Monkeys can crawl. After that, stand, stand, stand, then become human, right? Yes, I think so. I think, yeah, that one I believe. … [But] religion says all humans in the world come from God. A bit of conflict,” said a 44-year-old Muslim woman from Singapore. Another Muslim woman (age 39, Singapore) said she was open to the concept of evolution, even though her religion tells a different story. “According to religion, we don’t originate from monkeys. But being that we may be related, the possibility is there,” she said.

A Pew Research Center survey of Muslims worldwide conducted in 2011 and 2012 found a 22-public median of 53% said they believed humans and other living things evolved over time. However, levels of acceptance of evolution varied by region and country, with Muslims in South and Southeast Asian countries reporting lower levels of belief in evolution by this measure than Muslims in other regions. In Malaysia, for instance, 37% of Muslim adults said they believed humans and other living things evolved over time.

In the U.S. context, a 2011 Pew Research Center survey found that views of evolution among American Muslims were roughly split: 45% said they believed humans and other living things have evolved over time, while 44% said they have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.

Hindu and Buddhist interviewees emphasize the absence of conflict with the theory of evolution

Evolution posed no conflict to the Hindus interviewed. In keeping with thematic comments that Hinduism contains elements of science, many interviewees said the concept of evolution was encompassed in their religious teachings. “In Hinduism we have something like this as well, that tells us we originated from different species, which is why we also believe in reincarnation, and how certain deities take different forms. This is why certain animals are seen as sacred animals, because it’s one of the forms that this particular deity had taken,” said a 29-year-old Hindu woman in Singapore. When asked about the origins of human life, many Hindu interviewees just quickly replied that humans came from primates.

The Buddhists interviewed also tended to say there was no conflict between their religion and evolution, and that they personally believed in the theory. Some added that they didn’t think their religion addressed humans’ origins at all. “I don’t think Buddhism has any theory on the first human being or anything. For Buddhism, we don’t really have a strong sense of how the first human came along,” said a Buddhist man in Singapore (age 22).

Hindu views on evolution

“I don’t think evolution has anything to do with religion, nothing to do with Hinduism. That was just adaptation. For example, apes to men. It was just adaptation that people eventually changed over time.” – Hindu man, age 26, Singapore

“The concept (of evolution) is the same. The Hindus say it in a different way, and modern science says it in a scientific way.” – Hindu woman, age 27, Malaysia

Buddhist views on evolution

“[Buddhism says] we are all made out of the atoms and molecules, not that we are created by God. Like Christians believe that we are created by God, but no, I as a practicing Buddhist do not believe in that.” – Buddhist woman, age 60, Malaysia

There is limited global survey data on this issue. However, Pew Research Center’s 2014 Religious Landscape Study found that 86% of Buddhists and 80% of Hindus in the U.S. said that humans and other living things have evolved over time, with majorities also saying this was due to natural processes.

Surveys of Christians globally find that majorities in most publics surveyed accept the idea that humans and other living things have evolved over time

Pew Research Center surveys conducted in Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America find that a majority of Christians in most countries in these regions say humans and other living things have evolved over time. An 18-country median of 61% of Christians say this in Central and Eastern Europe, while a median of 30% say instead that humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time. The median views on this issue are similar in Latin America (59% and 35%, respectively).

Evolution beliefs by Christians in Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America

Views of American Christians are about the same as those global medians: 58% in a 2018 Pew Research Center survey said that humans and other living things have evolved over time, while 42% said they have always existed in their current form.

People’s responses to questions about evolution can vary depending on how the question is asked , however. Specifically, a 2018 Pew Research Center survey focusing on beliefs about the origins of humans found more white evangelical Protestants, Black Protestants and Catholics expressed a belief in evolution when given the option to say that humans evolved with guidance from God or a higher power .

Such differences in how Christians see the issue of evolution are broadly consistent with an analysis by Fern Elsdon-Baker and her research completed with colleagues in the UK and Canada, which suggest that people’s views on evolution can be nuanced, depending on the exact questions asked.

Interviewees across Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist groups cite tension with research that “goes against nature” or involves harm to animals

Two areas of potential conflict with science cut across religious groups. Interviewees from all three groups raised concerns about scientific research that interferes with nature in some way or that causes harm to animals.

Views on animal welfare and scientific research

“When we do scientific research, we just have to ensure we did not endanger other living things, including animals and humans. We don’t bring harm to any of the people, that is the basic moral value.” – Hindu man, age 22, Malaysia

“In Islam, for example, you shouldn’t subject any human or animals to cruelty. So, I believe if you want to do any testing on rats, you need to ask yourself: “Will the rats suffer?’” – Muslim man, age 59, Singapore

In discussing scientific research using gene editing, cloning and reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist interviewees raised the idea that such practices may go against the natural order or interfere with nature. As one Buddhist man simply put it: “If you have anything that interferes with the law of nature, you will have conflict. If you leave nature alone, you will have no conflict” (age 64, Singapore). Similarly, a Muslim woman said “anything that disrupts or changes the natural state” goes against religious beliefs (age 20, Singapore).

When probed about potential areas of scientific research that should be “off limits” from a religious perspective, individuals from all three religious groups talked about the need to consider animal welfare (and sometimes human welfare) in scientific research. This idea occasionally came up when interviewees were asked for their thoughts about cloning and gene editing; others mentioned animal welfare concerns at other points of the interview, along with the need for ethical treatment of living things in general. Buddhists and Hindus in particular emphasized the need to “do no harm” when probed about characteristics that make someone a good follower of their religions.

A few interviewees thought one other topic should be off limits to scientific exploration: research aimed at core beliefs such as the existence of God, the heavens or holy scripture.

Touchpoints between religion and biotechnology research areas

Interviewees were asked to talk about their awareness of and views about each of three specific research areas in biotechnology – new technologies to help women get pregnant, gene editing for babies, and animal cloning. People had generally positive views of pregnancy technology such as in vitro fertilization, although Muslim interviewees pointed out potential objections depending on how these techniques are used. Views of gene editing and cloning were more wide-ranging, with no particular patterns associated with the religious affiliation of the interviewees.

Individuals from all three religions generally approved of pregnancy technology and in vitro fertilization

The first scientific development raised for discussion involved technologies to help women get pregnant. Interviewees often volunteered that they were familiar with in vitro fertilization, commonly referred to as IVF, which is an assisted reproductive technology. Individuals who expressed positive views about IVF mentioned things pertaining to the help it brings to people trying to conceive in modern times. Some even surmised that IVF itself or the knowledge to develop it was a gift from God.

Buddhists and Hindus on IVF

“I don’t think my religion would have any comments on [IVF and surrogacy]. I think Christians would have more comments on it. Like the very staunch Christians, they think that they can’t do this and that. They are very specific.” – Buddhist woman, age 26, Singapore

“It’s a good thing. Some couples don’t have the chance to get babies. With these technologies, people are finding happiness.” – Hindu man, age 24, Malaysia

Muslims accept pregnancy technologies, with conditions

“You cannot use another person to carry your baby, but people want their own flesh-and-blood baby. So, [IVF] is a really good opportunity. Because otherwise people usually just adopt, and it’s not their flesh and blood. They don’t want that.” – Muslim woman, age 24, Singapore

“In my opinion, IVF does not have any conflict with the religion because it helps to continue the descendants and it involves the correct and qualified person. … The man should be the person who is qualified and marry the woman, and the wife should be the person who is qualified to receive the fetus from the man.” – Muslim man, age 24, Malaysia

“For that particular woman to perform this scientific procedure, the company that executes this procedure must make sure that the woman has a certificate of marriage, meaning legitimately married. I think it is that simple. If she is not married, but she wants (to perform this procedure), I don’t think the company should do it. It is immoral.” – Muslim man, age 36, Malaysia

Even among supporters of these technologies, one common sentiment was that people were either unsure of where their religion stood on this issue or thought that other people – those who were older, more conservative or more religious – might be against it. “I think the old-timers are having a bit of a difficult time with being OK with [IVF]. The young generation, my generation, and the ones younger are OK with this,” said one Hindu man (age 26, Singapore).

Some Hindus and Buddhists noted that they were comfortable with pregnancy technologies themselves, but said that there is pushback from other religions, particularly Islam and Christianity. For instance, when asked about IVF, one Buddhist man said, “Oh, wow, that’s a very good question. Controversy, right? I heard about such before, I think, especially coming from Christianity. But, my personal take, I feel it is fine. It’s still trying to get the balance of being a believer of a religion vs. overly superstitious or believing too much in that religion that you forgo the reality of life going on” (Singapore, age 37). Another noted that Buddhism and Hinduism don’t have the same staunch views on IVF as Muslims. “In Buddhism, we don’t have this type of restriction. It’s totally different from other [religions], if I’m not wrong. If you talk about Muslims, there is. If you talk about Hindus, I think also they don’t,” he said (age 43, Singapore).

Muslim interviewees tended to accept technologies to facilitate pregnancy. However, some Muslims emphasized that they would only be OK with these technologies if certain criteria were met – specifically, if the technologies were used by married couples, and with the couples’ own genetic material. “IVF is fine with me because it uses the couple’s egg and sperm and the mother’s body. You need help inseminating the egg, that’s all,” said one Muslim man (age 59, Singapore). Some Muslims also expressed concern about surrogacy in particular; they said Islam prohibits bringing outside parties into a marriage, and that surrogacy is effectively having a third person enter the marriage. A few other Muslims in the study mentioned the need to consult edicts or talk with leaders in the religious community before they would be able to be fully supportive, a common practice for many controversial issues in Islam.

Opinions varied widely on gene editing and animal cloning

Interviewees, regardless of their religion, said the idea of curing a baby of disease before birth or preventing a disease that a child could develop later in life would be a helpful, acceptable use of gene editing. But they often viewed gene editing for cosmetic reasons much more negatively.

Views on gene editing vary depending on how it is used

“I think science and technology aims to help the people. If you modify the baby, it is not good for them. The baby might also not want what the parents edited. In terms of the treatment of diseases, I think is good, as you can cure the baby.” – Buddhist man, age 23, Malaysia

“I like one half of it, the other half I don’t like. The half that I like was eliminating the diseases. The part where you can make the eye color and all that? I wouldn’t say I’m against it, but I’m definitely not up for it.” – Hindu woman, age 40, Singapore

Muslims’ concerns with “playing God”

“Cloning, to put it simply, you’re delving into an area where you’re playing God. It is concerning because if it’s taken as something that’s normal, it means that humans can do things that previously no one could do. That means we could create ourselves. That goes against the beliefs that I have, because as a Muslim, while we have the ability to do certain things, it does not mean that we should do those things.” – Muslim man, age 29, Singapore

Several interviewees brought up the idea of not agreeing with gene editing out of fear that people might want to Westernize their children. For example, some repeated the concern that gene editing would be used to create babies with blond hair and blue eyes. “In terms of the diseases, I think it is acceptable. If they want to change the hair or eyes color? We are not European people,” said one Muslim woman (age 47, Malaysia).

Views of cloning were similarly conditional. Individuals from all three religions remarked on their disapproval of cloning for humans. But interviewees generally found animal cloning to be a much more acceptable practice. Many people interviewed envisioned useful outcomes for society from animal cloning, such as providing meat to feed more people, or to help preserve nearly extinct animals. For example, a Hindu woman said, cloning “is a good idea because some of the animals, like tigers, are on the brink of extinction, so I think it is good to clone before they are extinct” (age 27, Malaysia).

Many of the issues raised about gene editing and cloning mirrored each other. Some of the concerns were based on religious traditions and values. For example, primarily Muslim interviewees mentioned that cloning could interfere with the power of God, who should be the only one who can create.

To the extent Hindus and Buddhists in the study expressed religious concerns pertaining to gene editing and cloning, they generally brought up the idea that these scientific methods might interfere with karma or reincarnation. (Some interviewees also mentioned the potential of IVF to interfere with karma, but they were generally less concerned about this.) One Buddhist woman, talking about gene editing, said: “Sometimes the person is born with sufferings, and it is because maybe previously he had been doing some evil things” (age 45, Singapore). When asked about cloning, a Hindu man expressed similar views. “For Hinduism, we believe that how we look like, how we are, our hands and our legs, it’s because of our past life. So, for example, they will always say that if I am handsome and I’m smart, it’s because in my past life I actually was a nicer person to people. Because of karma, because of reincarnation, I was born back into the better person” (Hindu man, age 25, Singapore).

Pew Research Center surveys in the U.S. survey find a strong relationship between levels of religious commitment and views on biotechnology developments, including gene editing. In a 2018 survey , majorities of U.S. Christians, including white evangelicals and other Protestants as well as Catholics, said if the development of gene editing for babies entailed embryonic testing, it would be taking the technology too far. A common finding in Center surveys of Americans on emerging biotechnology issues such as gene editing for babies and animal genetic engineering is that public opinion depends on the use and effects of emergent technologies for society. 5

Religious differences fade as interviewees think about the value of government investments in scientific research

Not all aspects of science are seen through a religious lens. Regardless of their religion, the people we spoke with overwhelmingly described investment in scientific research, including medicine, engineering and technology, as worthwhile. Malaysians and Singaporeans alike broadly shared this feeling.

Support for investment in scientific research

“I think it is very, very worth investing because the research is not just gathering information and data, but indirectly it creates job opportunities for the future. These would be very useful for the future and it can directly help a country to develop.” – Muslim man, age 33, Malaysia

“For me, engineering and technology investment is worthwhile because we want to be comparable to other advanced countries.” – Muslim man, age 21, Malaysia

“It’s never enough [investment], because the more we do, the better results we’ll get. … Maybe one day there would be a cure for cancer in a very easy way. Maybe they will be able to detect mental illnesses through scans. If that is possible through research, it will be a breakthrough for a lot of people.” – Hindu man, age 38, Singapore

On scientific research and national prestige

“If we do something that no other countries have been doing, we can make good money out of it and we can be a pioneer in that field. A lot of Malaysians have been contributing their ideas to other countries, but not to their own country. … So why not we do it for our own country, and get a name for Malaysia, and get famous.” – Hindu woman, age 29, Malaysia

In both countries, interviewees described government investment in science as a way to encourage economic development while also improving the lives of everyday people. People often were particularly enthusiastic about government investment in medicine and spoke of its potential to improve their country’s medical infrastructure and care for an aging population.

But others expressed some hesitation about government investment because they felt their government wasn’t doing a good job of ensuring that the research produced meaningful results, or because they thought the research didn’t benefit the public directly. “If there’s results, then it will be worthwhile. … I don’t think [there are results] because I’ve never heard anybody say ‘Wow, Singapore has discovered a new drug,’” said one Buddhist woman (Singapore, 26). Some interviewees also said they supported government investment in medical research, but that they thought the private sector could take care of investment in engineering or technology.

Malaysians also mentioned that a sense of national pride or prestige could come from government investment in science and the subsequent achievements. For example, one Buddhist woman (age 29) said research on medicine and technology could help Malaysia “become famous compared with other countries.” A Hindu man, 24, said he hoped the government would increase its spending on engineering and technology, because it would provide more jobs and show that Malaysia is a high-achieving country. He said more investment would “[help] a lot of people to achieve their dreams. You are putting Malaysia in the top table.” Another Malaysian man expressed a similar sentiment, saying: “For me, engineering and technology investment is worthwhile because we want to be comparable to other advanced countries” (Muslim, age 21).

We appreciate the thoughtful comments and guidance from Sharon Suh, Ajay Verghese and Pew Research Center religion experts including Besheer Mohamed, Neha Sahgal and Director of Religion Research Alan Cooperman on an earlier draft of this essay.

We greatly benefited from Mike Lipka’s editorial guidance, graphic design from Bill Webster, and copy editing from Aleksandra Sandstrom.

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Journal of Unification Studies

Volume XIX - (2018)

Integration of science and religion: a hermeneutic approach.

• Noda, Keisuke

Journal of Unification Studies Vol. 19, 2018 - Pages 101-132

Note: This article is based on the author's work Multi-Dimensional Hermeneutics for the Integration Science and Religion .

This article takes a hermeneutic approach in articulating a thesis for the unity of science and religion. It examines interpretive frameworks in Unificationism and how it shapes our understanding of religion, science, and their integration. Since the concept of truth is a critical factor in one’s interpretive framework, the article touches upon concepts of truth and as it presents a multi-dimensional hermeneutics as a framework for the idea of the “unity” of science and religion in Unificationism.

Three Views of the Relationship between Science and Religion

As the term “Unificationism” indicates, unification is the key characterizing idea of the Unification Principle (UP), and the unity of religion and science is one of the central theses of the UP. Exposition of the Divine Principle explains that one of the missions of the “new truth” that is UP is the unity of science and religion: “The new truth should be able to unify knowledge by reconciling the internal truth pursued by religion and the external truth perused by science.” [1]

In the philosophy of religion, the relationship between science and religion is one of the central issues. There are three views of their relationship: 1) conflict, 2) independence, and 3) integration.

1. Conflict

The first view sees the relationship between science and religion as one of conflict. This view is exemplified by the dispute between the Ptolemaic geocentric view of the cosmos that at one time was endorsed by the Roman Catholic Church, and the Copernican heliocentric view. It led to the house arrest of Galileo, who held the heliocentric view, by church authorities. Another example is the dispute between those who believe in Darwinian evolution and those who believe in creationism. In the United States, the dispute took the form of court cases over what teachers can teach at public schools. [2]

Why and how does conflict arise between science and religion? The conflict model frames them as two opposite views of reality, one held by scriptural literalists the other by scientific materialists, both who proffer “factual” descriptions of the world. The scriptural literalists interpret biblical narratives as descriptions of literal, historical facts. Scientific materialists see science as the sole source of knowledge about the reality of the world and view religion as having nothing to do with the factual reality.

The dispute exists often on two levels: first, over which discipline or knowledge is qualified to describe the factual reality of the world; second, over what are the “facts.” Scriptural literalists argue for the supremacy of divine authority, while scientific materialists argue for the supremacy of scientific knowledge. Based on their view on the authority of knowledge, scriptural literalists accept all biblical narratives including miracles as factual events. Scientific materialists reject divine authority and miracles, and argue for the authority of the sciences and hold those findings as facts.

Here, there are two problems. First, there is no such thing as pure, un-interpreted fact. From phenomena, we choose and select some of them as facts and link them in a certain order or pattern. Human perception, cognition, and understanding are only possible based on the process of selecting and choosing certain phenomena as facts. In this process of cognition and comprehension, certain selection criteria are at work in human mind. Without a cognitive mechanism for categorizing perception and understanding, we cannot discern certain phenomena as facts.

Both biblical literalists and scientific materialists fail to recognize this hermeneutic dimension in human understanding. The biggest problem is their naïve dogmatism, which fails to account for some critical reflection to recognize the presence of a hermeneutic dimension. Such blindness is an impediment to the advancement of knowledge.

The real disputes are: 1) what constitutes an authority of knowledge, and 2) what are facts. These disputes are neither religious nor scientific, but rather they are a question of one’s philosophical position. This conflict between science and religion can thus be a starting point for reflection and critical examination of one’s philosophical assumptions.

2. Independence

The second view holds that science and religion are totally independent forms of knowledge. Protestant neo-orthodoxy and logical positivism are two examples of this view of science and religion.

Karl Barth (1886-1968) was a Protestant neo-orthodox theologian. Barth argues that: religion and science are two distinct, disparate, and dissimilar types of knowledge; their aims, methods, and the origin of authority are totally distinct. He separates God and human knowledge about God: God is transcendent and unknowable, and we come to know God to the extent God discloses Himself through revelation.

Logical Positivism, which is rooted in Wittengstein’s method of linguistic analysis, was one of the most influential movements in the philosophy of science in early twentieth century. They divided knowledge into three kinds: 1) knowledge that is verifiable by empirical science; 2) formal knowledge, such as logic and mathematics; 3) the rest of know ledge, including religion, ethics, literature, etc. Logical positivists argue: A statement is cognitively meaningful as far as it is verifiable by empirical sciences; verifiability is the criterion by which to assess whether a statement is cognitively meaningful; statements in religion, ethics, and literature are cognitively meaningless, since although they may have poetic or emotional value, their truth or falsity is not verifiable by empirical sciences.

Logical positivism lost its popularity in the late 20th century for several reasons, which I will explain later. Nevertheless, the view of science and religion as two disparate, totally separate “language-games” remains influential in the philosophy of science. Under this view, religious language provides moral recommendations for a particular way of life, and scientific language provides prediction and control over natural phenomena; their purposes and functions are disparate and there is no interaction between science and religion; finally, there is no mechanism to translate one into the other and no common denominator. What issues are present in the view of science and religion as independent of one another? Each discipline has its relative autonomy. Each has its methods of validating knowledge. Although there are disputes over what counts as valid methods and forms of knowledge, each discipline has relative autonomy and its own integrity.

The human being, however, is a unified phenomenon. Each discipline is a specific way to abstract a certain aspect of phenomena and simplify it based on conceptual tools/schema from each discipline. But once it is so simplified, human beings fit it into a unified narrative. In other words, while each discipline yields knowledge based in its specific way to interpret phenomena and its particular perspective, human beings seek to understand how one type of knowledge informs another type of knowledge. This tendency for the integration of knowledge is intrinsic to human beings.

It is a mistake to think that knowledge from one specific discipline can present the whole reality of phenomena. Reality is a complex, synthetic unity. Each discipline is an abstraction or a one-sided view of the world from a specific perspective; and to depict the reality of the world it is necessary to find the relationships among multiple disciplines. By discovering how one discipline informs other types of knowledge, we can come closer to the reality of the world. Such endeavors toward the discovery of the complex reality of the world is the hermeneutic of hermeneutics, that is, the interpretation of interpretation.

3. Integration

The third view sees the relationship between science and religion in integral way. This model is an attempt to integrate above mentioned two views, the conflict view and independence view. Like the independence view, it recognizes that religion and science have different approaches and different types of knowledge. It also recognizes conflicts between them and tries to resolve them. In other words, this approach is an attempt to present a consistent and coherent explanation that can resolve the conflicts based on the differences between science and religion.

In a sense, philosophy is historically an endeavor to find a way to integrate all knowledge. The metaphysics of Plato, Aristotle, and medieval thinkers, epistemology in modern philosophy, phenomenology, analytic philosophy, pragmatism, and deconstructionism are attempts to find the best approach to capture the complex reality of the world. While each discipline is an attempt to find specific knowledge, philosophy is an attempt to discover meta-knowledge—the knowledge underneath all knowledge. For this reason, when we inquire into the integration of knowledge, we are, one way or another, led to a philosophical field as we critically examine each discipline and seek to integrate knowledge.

Natural Theology and Process Theology

In the integration of religion and science, there are two major approaches in theology: natural theology, and developmental-type theologies such as process theology. This typology is not a sharp distinction but simply a general tendency: the former is more traditional and the latter is innovative.

Natural theology is distinguished from revealed theology. While revealed theology takes the primary source of knowledge from what is understood as revelation—primarily Scripture, natural theology is the attempt to justify beliefs by using reason and experience. Many pay attention to the development of science and try to incorporate scientific knowledge in an approach to theology. For example, Richard Swinburne, a contemporary theologian, uses probability theory to support the argument from design for the Creator God. [3] One of the platforms of natural theology is the Gifford Lectureships, established by Adam Lord Gifford (1820–1887) to “promote and diffuse the study of Natural Theology in the widest sense of the term—in other words, the knowledge of God.” [4] Natural theologians try to show how sciences can support their beliefs.

A common criticism of natural theology is that its use of science is selective or partial; natural theologians pick and select unfairly those scientific findings that can support their claims and ignore the rest. Such critiques lead us to the question of what we understand by scientific knowledge. This leads us to the whole question of what science is, including a cluster of questions including what we mean by verification, falsification, observation, proof, and more.

New theologies, notably process theology, take a different approach to knowledge. Process philosophy was developed by Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947), a philosopher and mathematician, and his line of thought was developed into process theology by Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000) and John B. Cobb (1925~). [5] They identified the issue not as one of compatibility between scientific findings and faith, but as a problem with the assumptions, concepts, and frameworks of thought upon which both science and religion operate.

Whitehead presented a philosophical framework within which we can see both faith and science under a new light. The scope of his critique includes the concept of being (applicable to both God and the world), time, and truth. In other words, he argues that conflicts between science and religion are not resolvable on the level of claims or findings in religion and science; integration is possible only when we go deeper into philosophical assumptions and frameworks. An exposition of his innovative approach and a comparative study with Unificationism deserves a separate and thorough discussion on another occasion.

There are other attempts to explore an integral approach by taking contemporary developments in science as the basis to explore approaches to religion. For example, contemporary physics presents a number of challenges to the concepts of time, space, and the reality of being that require interpretation. Some theorists try to establish a model that can integrate science and religion/spirituality. Such attempts are based on redefining and broadening the concept of religion by going beyond doctrines of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and many try to integrate an Eastern religious dimension.

Steps toward Integration

Unificationism seeks an integrated model. Within the framework of Unifica tionism, some may pursue a natural theology model by finding supportive claims in science to justify religious beliefs. However, this model cannot avoid the charge of an unfair selection of convenient “findings” to justify certain beliefs. It may have some appeal to those who already share the same belief, however it does not have much appeal beyond certain faith communities. For Unificationism which boldly claims the unity of science and religion, this model is not sufficient. To carry out the task of integration, a more fundamental approach is necessary. To find a better approach for integration, we would like to delve into the issue a little further. We will consider how conflicts between science and religion emerge, and in particular two questions: 1) What kinds of issues do science and religion conflict about? and 2) Where do those conflicts come from? For the first question, religion and science differ over the factual reality of the world. Further questions arise in answering the second question: what are the mechanisms, authorities, and methods to gain knowledge about the factual reality of the world? Some believers may hold the absolute authority of God and supremacy of faith over reason in determining the factual reality of the world. Opponents may reject these theses and recognize science as the sole, legitimate form of knowledge for understanding reality.

The whole issue raises a cluster of questions concerning the bodies of knowledge called religion and science: What do we mean by facts? What exactly do we mean by proof, evidence, and verification? How do theories and assumptions, and observations and experiments work together?

So far, we assumed that we understand what we mean by science and what we mean by religion. When we step back and reflect on science and religion at a fundamental level, we encounter basic questions about what science is and what religion is. For example, what are the defining charac ter istics of science and religion? What makes a body of knowledge science or religion? The issue is a hermeneutic task: how to interpret science, religion, and their relationship. Further, what are the steps we need to take in order to explore an integrated approach, particularly from a Unificationist perspective?

We will take the following four steps. First, we will examine the distinct approaches to truth in science and religion, presented by the UP as two approaches to truth. Second, we will examine the characteristics of science by briefly tracing the development of the philosophy of science. Third, we will turn our attention to religion and critically examine our approach to it, and in particular our interpretive frameworks for it. Fourth, we will try to articulate what we mean by the integration of science and religion in the UP.

This examination will present multiple perspectives through which to interpret religion and science. Although the UP makes certain claims, how to interpret them is an open question. There are in fact multiple ways to interpret the UP.

The path we explore here is merely one possible path among many. No view, in principle, can be an infinite, exhaustive perspective. Even if one particular perspective may proffer a holistic picture, it is still a partial and limited view. Every view is limited by its angle of analysis and horizon and context of interpretation. One may take a different path, for instance that of another discipline such as psychology or sociology. For example, Carl Jung presented how religions are tied to the unconscious realm of the human psyche in his psychology; his “analytic psychology” displays his unique integral approach to religion and science. In philosophy, one may take a linguistic analysis approach. 

What I present here is a hermeneutic approach which focuses on “interpretation.” It holds that a change in the framework of interpretation may lead to the discovery of new ways to interpret science and religion, and even open new possibilities for understanding the UP.

The Unification Principle and Theories of Truth

In philosophy here are four major theories of truth: 1) correspondence theory of truth; 2) coherence theory of truth; 3) pragmatic theory of truth; 4) existential/experiential theory of truth. Each theory captures a specific aspect of the complex and diverse phenomena of truth. If UP can bring about the unity or integration of science and religion, one must determine whether UP can integrate various theories of truth.

We can view science and religion or each discipline as a specific way to discover and present truth. The idea of the unity of science and religion necessarily entails the unity of truth; as we need to clarify what we mean by unity, we need to investigate what we mean by the unity of truth. The following analysis, though far from complete, will show how the UP relates to major theories of truth and what the unity of truth means in the UP, as a step towards envisioning UP’s integration of science and religion.

1. The Correspondence Theory of Truth and the Concept of Resemblance in the UP

The correspondence theory of truth defines truth as the correspondence or agreement between ideas and reality. Yet, problems arise when we try to get to the true reality. There are two problems. First, how do we know that the knowledge we have is the final, true reality? The quest for the final thing-in-itself leads to infinite regress. As Kant noted, the thing-in-itself is more like a regulative idea than constitutive idea. Second, human understanding is necessarily perspectival. Conceptual frameworks, the concepts we use for our understanding, contribute to what we see. There is no such thing as pure, perspective-free comprehension. [6] Even in seemingly interpretation-free mystical experiences in religious practices, one frames the experience within a limited narrative and conceptual scheme available to the person at that time.

The problem of the correspondence theory of truth lies in the idea of perfection or complete finality. Problems arise when we interpret corres pondence as an exact or perfect match with the definitive, true reality. Here, the UP presents the concept of resemblance. [7] Wittgenstein illustrated his approach with the concept of “game.” [8] You cannot define game by something that is common to all games, because there is no essential feature common to all. Games are more or less similar and they partially overlap, like family members. Wittgenstein called this a “family resemblance”:

Although ideas, statements, and realities are not the same, UP speaks of correspondence among them with the concept of resemblance. It is not an exact, perfect match, but denotes a degree of approximation or similarity. The concept of resemblance links ideas, linguistic representations, and reality, not as an exact, perfect match but with a degree of approximation.

Yet rejecting a perfect-match interpretation of resemblance does not lead to relativism. We can determine the validity of a resemblance by the degree of correspondence. While we can affirm some as highly probable and others as not, there is no claim of finality or infallibility in our knowledge of reality.

UP classifies degrees of resemblance into three levels: symbolic, image, and substance. [10] When we interpret correspondence in terms of resemblance, we can talk about the degree of correspondence. No matter how accurate the description may be, language is not reality, but rather a symbolic representation. In other words, turning reality into symbols and images is an of interpretation.

2. The Coherence Theory of Truth and UP

The coherence theory of truth defines truth as coherence and consistency among the claims, statements, beliefs, observations, experiences, other constitutive components of a theory. This criterion is used for a wide range of theories in various disciplines. It is hard to “make sense” if a theory is incoherent, inconsistent, and full of contradictions.

Problems arise, however, when attempting to compare and assess equally coherent, yet mutually incompatible, competing theories. Even if the assumptions are absurd and false, you can still develop a theory with certain degree of coherence and consistency.

The Divine Principle tries to give a more coherent and consistent interpretation of biblical passages than traditional Christian views. The underlying appeal of its interpretation is its coherence.

Coherence as a measure of truth is probably the most universal quality that any theory, whether religious or scientific, needs to have. This is likely due to the nature of human understanding. In order to understand the myriad things in front of us, we try to select and put them together so as to make a coherent body of knowledge or a coherent narrative. Human understanding requires this synthesis, and the guiding idea underneath all synthesis is the quest for coherence and consistency.

Just as correspondence should be understood as an approximation, the coherence of any theory should be understood as a matter of degree. Every theory has ambiguity, contradiction, and inconsistency; no theory is perfectly coherent and consistent. This also applies to the UP.

Since the UP strives for the unity of science and religion, giving a coherent account to diverse claims and findings is an enormous task. Religions, both in theory and practice, have mutually exclusive and contradictory claims and beliefs. The idea of the unity of religions is a nearly incomprehensible idea if we consider mutually exclusive, logically incompatible claims among them. In each field of science, there are likewise contradictory claims and approaches.

Without having some degree of coherence and consistency, no plausible theory is possible. The UP certainly gives a coherent and consistent account at some level, although it also has contradictions and ambiguities.

The UP holds the unity of knowledge as its ideal. At this stage, it is best to interpret the idea of unity in the UP as a process of collaboration and a quest for cross-disciplinary knowledge that can reveal the interconnectedness of otherwise disparate bodies of knowledge. Thus, the real unity and integration of science and religion is an ongoing task mandated by the UP rather than its achievement.

3. Values and the Pragmatic Theory of Truth

The pragmatic or practical theory of truth defines truth in terms of its practical effects. No matter how logical and coherent a belief system is, and how extraordinary the revelation on which it is based, it is utterly meaning less if it has no positive effects on people and the world. It is natural that any knowledge claim will be assessed within the context of its life-world.

Why do we seek truth? We can classify our activities, both cognitive and practical, into two areas: facts and values. The former is our attempt to find facts and operating principles with accuracy and certainty. The whole of such activities is tied to the latter: values. The motive and purpose, be it implicit or explicit, of our quest for truth is tied to realizing values.

From the perspective of human activities, truth can be considered with respect to motives, purposes, and outcomes. We can consider the activities connected to realizing truth from a value perspective. The pragmatic theory of truth takes this approach.

We can broadly see the natural, social, and human sciences as inquiries into factual truth and principles governing reality. We can also interpret religion as an inquiry into values and their realization in unique forms. The UP’s vision for the unity of science and religion is to bridge and integrate facts and values. When we interpret science and religion as two major endeavors to find and realize truth, the pragmatic or practical assessment of such endeavors is an appropriate approach to truth.

4. The Existential Theory of Truth and the UP Concept of Embodiment of Truth

The concept of being in the UP points to an existential concept of truth. The UP conceptualizes each being as an “Individual Embodiment of Truth.” [12] This concept suggests two points: first, each being is a manifestation of truth; second, truth is individuated in each being and each being is seen as an individual manifestation of truth.

We tend to conceive truth as an object of knowledge. We posit truth as some kind of existence, which we strive to discover or hold. Under this concept, the self and truth somehow exist separately. It implies that you can exist without truth, and that truth as a kind of object you can have or lose.

The concept of the embodiment of truth is a perspective that sees each being as the embodiment or manifestation of truth. Manifestation can take place in varying degrees, which the UP categorizes into three stages: symbolic, image, and substance. Accordingly we can express truth on three levels: first, as linguistic, logical, and mathematical symbolism; second, through imagery such as art, music, poetry; and third, as a substantial being itself. While science, art, and religion approach truth in different ways, they also cross over. Religion often pursues embodiment of truth on the level of substance.

Integral Approach to Truth in Unificationism

Each view of truth has its advantages and disadvantages. What is the best approach, and why should we take such an approach? In the face of various concepts of truth, we are perplexed to settle on just one. It seems best to understand truth as a manifestation of some transcendental dimension. What distinguishes truth from all other kinds of understanding is its compelling power. No matter how much human manipulation is involved, truth appears as that which compels acceptance. For this reason, we describe our truth-experience as a discovery, enlightenment, or realization. Truth manifests itself not from our will or imagination but as something beyond. People may interpret this transcendence by ascribing it to God, a natural principle, structure of thought, or structure of being.

Truth manifests in various phases. When you posit reality as an object, you capture truth as the correspondence of ideas, statements and claims with an object or state of affairs. When you try to comprehend something, some coherence or consistency appears and makes the issue at hand meaningful and comprehensible. You may also have transformative experience through some teachings. This transformation takes place not by your will but by that which transcends your action and will. When we face some practical effects, we are compelled to recognize the pragmatic value of a given event.

Thus, phenomena of truth appear in multiple spheres: the objective sphere (correspondence theory of truth), sphere of human understanding (coherence theory of truth), sphere of transformative experience (transformative experience or embodiment of truth), and social, cultural spheres (pragmatic theory of truth). Each theory of truth seems to be a conceptualization of the phenomena of truth.

In reality, truth appears as a totality, and we capture its phenomena through various perspectives. We can approach the phenomena of truth from an objective perspective, the mechanism of human understanding, a transformative experience, and a social value perspective. Because such divisions are built into the way our language is structured, we can approach the whole analysis from the perspective of language. From a philosophical perspective, the basic categories of thinking (being, knowing, valuing, acting, and others) design our thought in such a way as to guide our comprehension. According to the type of inquiry and one’s approach, a certain type of truth is highlighted.

What is the UP’s perspective? I argue for a multi-dimensional approach. In order to capture the phenomena of truth in its full scope, we can examine it in terms of the multiple criteria presented in those theories of truth. The judgement of truth is a synthetic act that balances the plausibility of claims in multiple spheres. As I discussed, no single theory of truth is perfect or complete. By considering each claim through multiple spheres, we can make the best judgement of truth. Among the claims there may be contradictions, inconsistencies, lack of evidence, and other flaws. Since the UP strives for the unity of knowledge, it is best to take a multi-dimensional approach by striving for a synthesis of these phenomena of truth.

This integral approach is built with two components: an integral concept of truth and a multidimensional approach to disciplines. When one develops a theory, be it in science or religion, one holds a certain concept of truth in the background of theorizing. How one’s concept of truth affect the theory varies from one theorist to another. For example, Freud developed his psychoanalytic theory as a causal deterministic theory, as if symptoms are causally determined by early childhood experiences in relation to sexual desires. An objectivist concept of truth seems to be driving his theoretical construct. The majority of post-Fredudian psychoanalysts, on the other hand, take pragmatic approaches. They see mental illness as a symptom caused or affected by multiple factors and apply various methods according to what works best for the patient. They abondoned the strong objectivist model that Freud had and adopted pragmatic approaches. They agree that mental illness is too complex to be laid a single determinant. Nevertheless, the analyst’s concept of truth is still reflected in his or her theory.

It is one of the tasks of Unification Hermeneutics to study how one’s concept of truth and associated ontological stance are reflected in one’s theory. Analysis of one’s concept of truth is a good tool to understand why and how one constructed a theory as one did. By discerning the theorist’s concept of truth, we can distill useful findings about the theory. For example, post-Freudian psychoanalists adopted useful insights from Freud’s theory even while they abondoned his narrow deterministic objectivism.

When we take multidimensional approach to religion and science, it is necessary to asess the various onotological assumptions behind each theory. The concept of truth is one of key assumptions a theorist holds. In order to make a multidimensional interpretation possible, analysis of concepts of truth is a necessary step.

Philosophical Characteristics of Scientific Knowledge

The UP views science and religion as two primary approaches to truth, and presents the vision of the unity of science and religion. Prior to the question of the meaning of unity, first we need to clarify what science and religion are. One of the critical tasks in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of religion is defining science and religion, respectively. I will explore the characteristics of science and religion to the extent that it contributes to the clarification of what we mean by their unity in the UP.

1. Logical Positivism: The Verifiability Thesis

Defining science is already a big task. We can approach science from multiple perspectives: as a body of knowledge, a methodology, a unique language-game, and a social activity. Similarly, we can see religion as a body of knowledge, a methodology, a unique language-game, and a social activity.

In the recent history of the philosophy of science, logical positivists first characterized scientific knowledge from the perspective of the nature of knowledge. They presented verifiability as the criteria of meaningfulness of claims or statements. They advocated verifiability thesis: that statements are cognitively meaningful only when they are empirically verifiable.

Following David Hume’s division of knowledge, they divided knowledge into three categories: 1) formal knowledge such as logic and mathematics; 2) knowledge verifiable by empirical sciences; 3) the rest of knowledge including ethics, religion, literatures, and others. Validity of formal knowledge (logic and mathematics) is presupposed. Their issue was to distinguish cognitively meaningful knowledge (categories 1 and 2) from the rest (category 3).

If we can determine whether a claim is true or false, it is cognitively meaningful. The key is whether we have a way to determine whether a claim is true or false. Consider the statement, “the Moon is an astronomical object that orbits Earth.” We can determine the truth-value (true/false) of the claim with observations.

Next, consider the statement, “the Moon is lonely.” The statement may have poetic meaning and value, but it is cognitively indeterminate. Logical positivists argue that this statement is cognitively meaningless because we have no way to determine the truth-value or truth/falsity of the statement.

Next, they extended this criterion to ethics and religion. According to this criterion, statements and claims in ethics and religion are cognitively meaningless because we cannot determine truth/falsity using empirical science. For example, “stealing is bad” is considered an expression of preference of the claimant and cognitively meaningless. Thus while religious statements have poetic value and meaning, since they are neither true nor false they are considered to have no cognitive meaning.

Logical positivists sought for the unity of sciences based on their view of physics as the most reliable and solid science. They tried to establish a translation mechanism from other “fuzzier” sciences to the language of physics. By unity, they meant a translation of claims/statements of each scientific discipline to the language of physics, “universal slang.” This attempt apparently failed. I will point out two major problems of logical positivism and two major thinkers who changed the course of the history of philosophy of science, Popper and Kuhn.

Problem 1: Theory-Observation Circularity

What is verification? A simplified version of the verification process is this: first, you have a thesis; second, experiences, observations or experiments can tell you if the thesis is true or false by providing data to verify your proposed thesis. Verification is the affirmation of a proposed thesis or claim with empirical evidence.

In order for the theory-observation mechanism to work, observations and empirical data must be independent from the theory. If the empirical data is not independent of theory, it cannot be used as the criteria to determine whether the theory is true or false. In other words, observational language must be neutral to or independent of theoretical language.

However, in science, is there such a thing as pure observational data apart from a scientific theory? For example, volts or grams are meaningful only within electromagnetic theory or gravitational theory. All such data is theory-loaded. Theory and observation form a circularity; they form a kind of hermeneutic mechanism of a part-whole. Just as the meaning of a part emerges through its relationships with the whole and its context, the meaning of empirical data emerges from the context of a given theory.

Problem 2: The Fallacy of Induction

Induction is a type of inference to derive a general statement from a number of particular instances or observations. It is one of popular methods known from antiquity. Closer examination, however, reveals complex relations between logical universality and empricical particularity.

If one interprets a level of “generality” as strict universality, one encounters a problem. Empirical observations can never generate a universal statement. No matter how many experiences you may have, you will never get to a universal statement. For example, consider the statement “all swans are white.” No matter how many swans you may observed, there only needs to be one counter-example to destroy the thesis. No experience-based thesis can exclude this possibility. In fact, there are black swans.

Observations and experiences can increase the probability but, in principle, the thesis is always open to falsification. For this reason, David Hume characterized induction as a habit or custom of thought rather than a strict scientific methodology. Karl Popper called induction “myth” [13] and rejected its validity.

Furthermore, even the verifiability thesis (a statement is cognitively meaningful only when it is verifiable by emprical observations) is itself a meta-philsophical assumption rather than empirically verifiable statement. Logical positivism cannot establish its own thesis without allowing some non-empirical assumptions. As Thomas Kuhn pointed out, scientific theories are built on hypotheses scientists gained from intuition, inspiration, imagination, and other sources beyond empirical data.

2. Scientific Knowledge Is Not Interpretation-free Knowledge

Is scientific knowledge interpretaton-free knowledge or is it a type of interpretive knowledge? Logical positivists firmly held the former view, presenting scientific knowledge as solid, verified, and therefore true knowledge, in contrast to knowledge in religion, ethics, literature, and others. Because logical positivists held an objectivist view of truth and took science as such knowledge, they categorised the rest of knowledge as “subjective” interpreted knowledge.

From a historical perspective, the notion that scientific knowledge is interpretation-free, neutral and objective was first envisioned by the thinkers of the Enlightenment. In trying to liberate knowledge from authority, prejudice, and tradition, those thinkers envisioned modern science as the path to such prejudice-free, interpretation-free knowledge. Thus, Logical Positivism was the culmination of ideals of the Enlightenment. [14]

However, as Thomas Kuhn and post-Kuhnian philosophers of science point out, there is no such thing as interpretation-free, pure objective knowledge. Every type of knowledge is loaded with theoretical and non-theoretical assumptions in the background of its theory. In this sense, each and every scientific theory is a form of hermeneutic theory.

Karl Popper: Falsifiability, Open Attitude, and Critical Rationality

Karl Popper (1902-1944) was one of the best known critics of Logical Positivism. He disagrees with the proposition of logical positivists, who saw the problem as finding the criteria for assessing the meaningfulness of statements or claims in order to resolve problems that they saw as generated by the misuse of language. In the preface to 1955 English edition of Logic of Scientific Discovery , he clarified his disagreement with the basic stance of such “language analysists,” including logical positivists:

Further, while logical positivists presented science as a body of proven knowledge, Popper presented science differently. First, he presented scientific knowledge as a tentative knowledge open to falsification. Second, the scientific attitude is an open to testing and refutation, and to accepting a better theory if there is any. In Logic of Scientific Discovery , Popper defines the scientific attitude as openness to falsification and accepting a better theory.

Behind his falsification thesis, we need to recognize his perspective on science. He rejected the view of scientific progress as a cumulative linear process of confirmed knowledge. In reality, when a theory is challenged it often adds ad hoc hypotheses to save the theory. It is rather an open attitude that submits a theory to refutation that makes the stance scientific. In essence all knowledge is provisional, and the key to development is a series of trial and error “conjectures and refutations.” [17]

Based on his criteria of science, Popper examined Marxism and the psychoanalytic theories of Freud and Adler. All of them claim to be scientific theories; their very credibility is based on their theories being science. Nevertheless, Popper found these theories can evade any falsification by adding additional ad hoc hypotheses; they are not refutable, not because they are true, but because they are not in principle falsifiable. They are, Popper argues, pseudo-science and dogma.

Consider what is viewed as a non-scientific theory, such as astrology. Its predictions can never be refutable because you can always interpret events in such a way to confirm the prediction. The same is true for religion. Suppose one day you receive God’s blessing from a minister, but right after leaving church you get into a serious car accident. When you go back to the minister and complain, the minister says, “You could have died, but you did not because of God’s protection.” One of the reasons why so many mutually exclusive religious belief systems exist is the lack of a falsification mechanism. We will discuss more about religion in the next section.

Popper does not deny the role of an irrational element in scientific discovery:

Thomas Kuhn: The Social-Historical Dimension of Science

The second critic of logical positivism was Thomas Kuhn. He is known for his term, “paradigm,” which has become common vocabulary. While logical positivists presented science as objective, universal knowledge free from social, historical factors, Kuhn clarified the presence of social, historical dimensions in science. Kuhn was a historian of science. He found that the process of the development of science is a two-stage process: puzzle-solving under a leading paradigm and then the radical shit of that paradigm, which he called a “scientific revolution.”

In each science, how do we legitimize certain procedures, protocols, methods, and other components of science? Scientific communities define the criteria of acceptable procedures, methods, and other components based on a leading “disciplinary matrix” (Kuhn used this term for “paradigm” in his later works). A scientific theory develops by puzzle solving until it encounters a series of anomalies, at which point a new theory emerges to solve those anomalies. Although some scientists try to save the old theory by modifying it, they eventually recognize a new theory as a better alternative. Kuhn called this radical shift of paradigm or disciplinary matrix as a scientific revolution.

A good example is the shift from Newtonian Physics to the Einsteinian Theory of Relativity. Each theory is built on different concepts of time and space, mathematics, and other assumptions. These two theories are incom mensurable. Hence, the shift from Newtonian physics to Einstein’s theory is a radical shift, comparable to a religious conversion.

Kuhn also asserted that science itself is influenced by the society in which it develops. What counts as science or scientific is determined by the scientific community in each period of history. Although science strives for an a-historical, universal knowledge, it has sociological and historical dimensions.

Furthermore, as data is theory-loaded, what counts as evidence, confirmation, verification, falsification, and the methods and procedures is determined by scientific communities.

Fuzziness of Scientific Knowledge

Some may assume scientific knowledge is solid, definitive, valid, interpretation-free objective knowledge, in contrast to other kinds of knowledge such as religious knowledge. For this reason, many use scientific proofs or evidence as the way to validate “fuzzy” knowledge. Scientific knowledge is certainly less fuzzy than knowledge in the humanities. Nevertheless, scientific knowledge has fuzzy elements, such as social, historical dimensions (Kuhn), presumptiveness (Popper), and an interpretive dimension (theory-data circularity and others).

The degree of fuzziness varies from discipline to discipline. As Popper pointed out, psychoanalytic theories have a larger area of fuzziness than physics. In Persuasion and Healing: A Comparative Study of Psycho therapy , [20] Jerome Frank argues that there are common factors that make psychoanalysis, rhetoric, religion, and any other healing practices work. He lists four common factors that make healing possible:

1) An emotionally charged, confiding relationship with a helping person;

2) A healing setting such as doctor’s office, a sacred place in religion or a contemporary room setting for inspirational seminars;

3) A rationale, conceptual scheme, or myth that provides a plausible explanation for the person’s symptoms and prescribes a ritual or procedure for resolving them; and

4) A ritual or procedure that requires the active participation of both patient and therapist and that is believed by both to be the means of restoring the patient’s health.

The proponents of a particular psychoanalytic theory argue based on their exclusive effects on patients and use the results of healing as scientific evidence. As psychiatrists know, their real effects are quite limited. Frank compared various psychanalytic theories and their effects. He found the above four factors to be critical to a theory’s success. He argued that as far as those factors are present, any psychotherapeutic theory more less yields the same results; he found no significant difference in effectiveness. Frank extended his argument to religions as well; as far as it has above elements, it will be effective.

Frank’s studies have extensive implications. We often ascribe the effects on patients as the evidence for the truth of a belief system or healing method. He rejects this thesis and holds that the effects are rather dependent on the match between the patient and what the healer provides and on the above factors. For example, if the patient has a religious orientation, religiously-oriented psychotherapy such as Jungian or Viktor Frankl’s theory work better; if the patient abhors religion, behaviorist or Freudian approaches may work better. There are all kinds of healing seminars by religious and non-religious inspirational speakers. They can be equally effective if above conditions are met. This is an example of the effectiveness of rhetoric. For those who believe in business principles, having seminars at big corporations add authority and credibility to inspirational speakers. A presentation’s effectiveness, Frank argues, is not because its content is true.

Theories in economics and other social sciences are built on varieties of assumptions and “fuzzy” interpretations. Even in quantum mechanics there are multiple interpretations regarding elementary particles. In a broad sense, each theory is a hermeneutic device constructed by a creative human mind.

From natural sciences to social sciences, there are degrees and types of “fuzziness.” Science as a knowledge seems to be built by two orientations: objectivity and constructiveness. As Popper noted, science is a presumptive knowledge that develops by “conjectures and refutations.”

As an attitude, the scientific attitude is open to falsification and critical self-examination. As we can see in the examples of Marxism and Freudianism, scientific theories can turn into pseudo-scientific dogmas and ideologies.

How do we interpret the concept of the unity of science and religion in the UP? We will come back to this question after we examine what is religion.

Philosophical Characteristics of Religious Knowledge

Defining religion is already a tremendous task. There are so many forms and types in religion. It is best to consider religion, for now, as a type of discourse built on a certain belief system that pertain to values. We can categorize certain types of discourse as religion by “family resemblance.”

1. Religion and Spirituality

Exposition of the Divine Principle is the primary text of Unificationism. The UP is presented within the context of Judeo-Christian traditions. The text is organized and constructed by giving unique interpretations of biblical narratives; this positions Unificationism within the genealogy of Judeo-Christian traditions. Also, it characterizes itself as the completion of the purposes of Christianity. As Christian beliefs comprise the framework of interpretation in the UP, this framework limits the horizon and perspective of inter pretation. Although the UP envisions the integration of eastern and western traditions, the framework of interpretation already limits its approach.

From the middle of the 20th century, there has been growing interest in spirituality. Some pursued paths for spirituality without commitment to religious doctrines and affiliations. Some discovered their paths in Eastern religious traditions, mysticism, Native American spirituality, and other non-Christian traditions.

The UP envisions the unity of religions. Although it still remains to clarify what that unity means, we need to have a broader framework of interpretation to find religious and spiritual dimensions in the UP beyond the Judeo-Christian sphere. By taking a broader philosophical perspective, we can critically examine the Christian-based claims and explore the possibility of concepts and ideas in UP that are consistent with non-Christian religions and spirituality.

Religions certainly include a wide range of phenomena that include both non-religious and religious spirituality. For example, Judeo-Christian traditions depict God as a personal Creator God, a projection of humans as an anthropomorphic Being. Eastern religions such as Taoism, Hiduism, and Christian mysticism depict Ultimate Reality as indescribable and beyond conceptualization. The phenomenal world exists as diversity that we can differentiate by conceptualization, but the undifferentiated oneness of the Ultimate Reality is beyond conceptualization. Meister Eckhart (1260-1328), a mystic German monk, argued that God is not a being to which our categories of thought and language can be applied; we must empty the self to have direct union with God. Both Eastern religious traditions and Western mysticism present existential or experiential paths to God or the Ultimate Reality.

Both Exposition and Unification Thought present God as a kind of composite being consisting of various conceptual components. Two questions arise: 1) Is God an object of conceptualization? and 2) Is such a conceptual approach, which objectifies God, an appropriate path to God?

Individuals who claimed to have experienced God commonly express God as utterly indescribable, overwhelming beyond any conceptualization and expression by language. Even those who claimed to have a near-death experience and encounter with God commonly point out the trans-conceptual, trans-linguistic nature of their experiences with God.

The UP does not present such aspects of God and experiential paths to God, at least in its ontology. In Unification Thought texts such as New Essentials of Unification Thought , the late Dr. Sang Hun Lee briefly touched on this issue in the “Unity in Structure of the Original Image.” Nevertheless, there is no systematic exposition in UP of an experiential dimension, that integrates such human experience with the divine with a description of who God is.

If the UP envisions the unity of religions, it must explore such dimen sions of God and paths to God. Otherwise, entire religious fields including Eastern religious traditions and Western mystical traditions will remain unexplored. In order to accomplish this task, the UP may have to take a non-Christian or trans-Christian framework of interpretation. The UP as a philosophical endeavor may have to take up this task.

2. Objectivism and Constructivism: Biblical Narratives

The UP is built on the assumption of the truthfulness of biblical narratives. Starting from the Garden of Eden narrative, the UP presents itself as the interpretation of bible narratives. Are those stories descriptions of facts?

There are two interpretations, objectivism and constructivism. Objectivists believe that biblical narratives are descriptions of historical facts that literally happened. Constructivists believe that those narratives are symbolic expressions of some kind of truth about life but not descriptions of real events; biblical narratives are constructed in order to convey some other kinds of truth or knowledge.

There are variations within both positions. Among objectivists, some believe in every biblical narrative as literal fact, including all kinds of miracles and unlikely events. Others interpret biblical narratives by adjusting their comprehension so as to make them reasonable in light of their understanding of scientific knowledge. The issues that are subject to dispute include the creation of the world, the virgin conception of Jesus by Mary, Jesus walking on water, resurrection of the dead, Moses parting the sea, and others. UP interpret some stories as literal facts and some as symbolic. [21] The UP generally has an objectivist orientation, yet it gives its own interpretation on the ground of reasonableness and basic scientific knowledge.

Constructivists hold that biblical narratives are not description of historical facts; they are constructed by human beings to depict some kinds of truth or knowledge. For example, Joseph Campbell (1904–1987), a well-known American mythologist, holds that mythologies are not descriptions of historical facts but symbolic or literary expressions of facts in the human subconscious mind. Campbell refers to Carl Jung’s (1875–1961) of consciousness-based understanding of religion. Jung holds that the individ ual’s sub-conscious is rooted in a universal or “collective unconscious”; religions of the world are social, cultural, symbolic, artistic, and narrative expressions in this collective consciousness. In Jung’s cosmology, individual consciousness is like the tip of an iceberg and all individuals’ sub-consciousness are linked together through a collective consciousness. Campbell found the origin of common theses in mythology in the collective consciousness as explained by Jung.

It must be noted that Jung is not saying all religious narratives and works are mere constructions of human imaginations, as pure materialists do. Materialists (they are objectivists who believe in the material as the sole objective reality) deny the existence of any spiritual or religious principle in the universe. Religious objectivists argue the origin of religion from the objective existence of religious principles. Jung does not argue that the origin of religion from such objective principles. He argues rather that the origin of religion is the “collective unconsciousness.” Jung believes in the existence of such spiritual principles as synchronicity (unusual coincidence of events). He views religion primarily as social, cultural constructions out of the collective unconsciousness. Is Jung religious? Yes, he is, but not in the same way as religious objectivists are. In this sense, his approach to religion is constructivist.

Campbell also takes a constructivist approach to religion. He ascribes the origin of myth to: 1) unconscious, psychological roots; 2) social values originating from personal experiences and dreams translated into social, communal narratives and rituals; and 3) personal values that reflect the transformative, therapeutic functions of myth. He further points out that myths were born in order to transcend death: “This recognition of mortality and the requirement to transcend it is the first great impulse to mythology” [23] Such transcendence is needed to assure the continutity of society in spite of individual death: “two fundamental realizations – of the inevitability of individual death and the endurance of the social order – have been combined symbolically and constitute the nuclear structuring force of the rites and, thereby, the society” [24] Finally, he notes that our understanding of the nature and universe at a point of time in history shapes specific forms of myth and writes: “the modes of nature-knowledge that in the course of the millennia have shaped and reshaped man’s image of his world.” [25]

Campbell views religion as “canonized myth,” and biblical narratives not as literal facts but symbolic, poetic reflections of the mystical facts hidden in the human mind, which Jung depicted. He denies that biblical narratives are historical facts:

What is the UP’s position? It has certainly an objectivist orientation. Does it totally reject constructivism? How does one interpret the UP?

One thing UP has to deal with is the claim of supremacy that is common to it and all religious groups. Scientific communities do not necessarily share the same understanding, but they do have some loosely common under standing in spite of conflict and opposition. Religious communities are split into denominations, religious traditions, sects, and groups. The biggest problem is that each group often claims its supremacy and authority over others and there is no common criteria to measure their claims.

Campbell points out that religious narratives are in fact constructed in order to portray believers as special or chosen. Mythical narratives in each religion and its culture depict its unique and superior relationship with the divine.

Such claims of supremacy are often tied with an objectivist view. Why does each group need an objectivist claim? By tying their tribal or sectarian or group claims to objectivity, they can universalize their claim as an undisputed truth beyond tribal limitation. With an exclusive superiority claim and mentality, religious and denominational conflicts follow.

Religion has multiple aspects: a belief system, texts, rituals, organizations, institutions, communities, and others. To understand religion as a whole, we need to analyze it from multiple perspectives such as archeology, sociology, psychology, organizational theory, economics, natural sciences, and others. Although my focus is a belief system, an analysis of those components of Unificationism from those disciplines will be fruitful.

Unificationist Perspective on the Unity of Religion and Science

Internal-external truth in the up.

The UP characterizes itself as the “new truth” that “should unify knowledge by reconciling the internal truth pursued by religion and the external truth pursued by science.” [28] What do internal truth and external truth mean and how are they distinguished from one another? Furthermore, how does this internal-external distinction of truth in UP relate to standard theories of truth?

There are many ways to distinguish science and religion. The internal-external distinction in the concept of truth in UP, however, seems to be pararell to the distinction of “ought” and “is,” that is, the prescriptive and the descriptive. There are various forms and types of religions. Nevertheless, truth in religion demands or prescribes what one ought to do or ought to be. Religious narratives, rituals, and practices convey direct or indirect messages of truth that tell human beings how they should live. Truth in science, however, tends to be descriptive. Truth in science conveys descriptive reality of the world.

These two elements, the prescriptive and the descriptive, exist both in religion and science. Nevertheless, prescriptive aspect is central to truth in religion, whereas descriptive aspect of truth is central to science. We can also characterize this distinction in terms of values and facts.

Be it science or religion, we have another kind of question: how do we know something is true? what are the criteria we use when we judge something is true or false? The four theories of truth described above—correspondence, coherence, pragmatic and existential—seem to answer these questions. They are the criteria we use when we make judgements about whether something is true or false.

One can see the distinction between internal and external truth as an ontological issue, whereas the standard four theories of truth, broadly construed, are an epistemological issue. We can approach the question of the internal-external distinction of truth from the types of questions that science and religion generally deals with.

Science generally deals with factual questions about the human mind, social behaviors, and natural phenomena. It deals with reality within the boundary of procedures, methods, and practices defined by scientific communities in each discipline. And yet, we saw that the use of scientific procedures and methods alone does not make for science. Deceptions and pseudo-science use those methods but do not stay within acceptable boundaries of a discipline. Acceptable standards change over the development of science, set and deter mined by scientific communities. Every scientific theory has its assumptions, and they may have philosophical positions as well.

Moreover, in spite of radical differences and disputes among scholars, what counts as scientific is determined by communities of scientists. We cannot ignore social, historical dimensions for what counts as science or scientific. Moreover, as was discussed, scientific theories have “fuzziness,” an indeterminable space subject to interpretation.

The strict distinction between internal and external truth also breaks down with respect to religion, when we look at it more closely. Human beings have many questions in life: why was I born; what is the meaning of my life; or, how should I live? Those questions about value and meaning are tied to some factual questions: is there afterlife; what does the afterlife look like; does God exist? Religions give varying answers to those factual questions.

Consider the question, does God exist? Science neither proves nor disproves God’s existence. Why does the question matter? If God’s existence has no effect on the meaning of life, this question is probably not critical. The existence of God is critical precisely because it affects the interpretive framework of life individually or collectively. Descriptions of truth in religion ultimately prescribe how one should live and act. Descriptions often imply prescriptions.

For all these reasons, we can find an internal aspect in external truth and an internal aspect in external truth. This points to their integration in the UP.

What does the Unity of Science and Religion Mean?

What does the UP means by the unity of science and religion? The UP envisions integration of science and religion. We can see what integration means in three areas: knowledge, attitude of inquiry, and social activities. For the topic of religion and science, many discuss the first area. Nevertheless, the second and the third are equally important.

1. Knowledge: Interdisciplinary and Multi-disciplinary Approach

As the development of knowledge today is led by the development of science, many use science as the basis to establish the credibility of one’s belief. The use of science to support one’s claims or beliefs is common regardless of one’s beliefs, be atheism, monotheism, or another set of beliefs. Although no scientific theory is perfect, each theory has a certain degree of certainty or probable truthfulness. Scientific knowledge must pass through the intersubjective critical rationality of a scientific community.

I posit that the unity of knowledge is not a conflation or mixture of science and one’s belief stance. This attitude generates all kinds of pseudo-science and ideology-led speculative theory. Certainly, the unity of science and religion can include the study of science to support one’s religious beliefs. I argue, however, that we must be cautious of the conflation of beliefs, be it religious or anti-religious, and science.

A cautious stance does not rule out exploration of creative endeavors to develop a new integral approach based on the knowledge of science and religion. For example, logotherapy, developed by Viktor Frankl, is a psychotherapy based on the psycho-somatic-spiritual triadic understanding of human beings. He views the spiritual dimension as the key to turn a person’s “existential vacuum” (feelings of the meaninglessness of life) to meaningfulness. [29]

There are mutually exclusive and logically contradictory claims within the same discipline and among multiple disciplines. Even basic assumptions and approaches can be radically different and conflicting. A multi-dimensional hermeneutic approach does not or is not expected to resolve such conflicts by giving a verdict or a final decision. Rather, such an approach functions as a mediator by liberating each discipline from dogmatism and providing a platform for mutual understanding.

The idea of unity or integration may be realized first on an attitudinal level. From this attitude of mutual understanding, we can pursue a framework of thinking that can see phenomena from another level not previously imagined. The multi-dimensional approach is best understood as a platform for cooperation and mutual understanding to pursue a better model to explain given phenomena. An open question is whether any concepts found in the UP can provide such a model.

2. Attitude: Balancing Critical Rationality and Religious Faith

What is a scientific attitude? It is an attitude of critical rationality. It is opposite from dogmatism, claims of infallibility, and even radical forms of fideism. Even if you claim that God is infallible, your knowledge about God is fallible. Fideism is a position that claims the supremacy of faith and, in its radical form, it does not allow for any space for rational self-examination.

The unity of religion and science in the UP can be interpreted as a balanced attitude of faith and reason. Faith is neither blind obedience to authority nor uncritical dogmatic self-assertion. The UP defines both science and religion as endeavors to seek truth; even revelations require interpretation. Your horizon of interpretation and perspective limits what you see or how you see knowledge that is revealed.

Critical and reflective attitude can lead to the examination of one’s concept of truth. If the UP envisions an integral approach, it should take an open attitude to various approaches to truth as well. As I discussed, truth can be approached in terms of correspondence, coherence, practical effects, and existential transformation. No single approach is perfect and each one has its advantages and disadvantages. I argue that we should take a multi-dimensional approach to the concept of truth as well. By looking at the phenomena of truth from multiple angles, we can find the most plausible account. On some issues, we may find that there is a single acceptable claim. On other issues, we may hold onto more than one claim, even if they are mutually exclusive, until we come to a consensus. If there is no consensus, then the issue would remain open.

3. Social Activities: Collaboration between Religion and Science

The unity of science and religion can be interpreted as collaboration among activities. In medical facilities, for example, patients seek help from medical doctors. When patients suffer from terminal illness or are in the last stages of life due to aging, they often face the question of the meaning of life and death. In order to cope with such needs, hospitals in the US provide chap lains. In prisons, inmates need not only well-maintained physical facilities but also inmates need help in reflecting on their lives and finding a new path after prison. To meet such needs, prisons in the US provide chaplains. The US military provides chaplains both for soldiers in active duty and for those who returned from an assignment. Some colleges also provide chaplains. Questions regarding value and meaning are an inextricable part of life. Hospital chaplaincy is one of many ways to integrate religion and science in the social services.

In the Unification movement we can see activities such as the International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences (ICUS), [30] Universal Peace Federation (UPF), [31] and others as the implementation of the unity of religion and science in the UP.

Hermeneutics of Hermeneutics

What kind of knowledge is the UP? Is it religious knowledge or scientific knowledge? Is it a philosophical knowledge that critically examines science and religion and explores their possible integration?

I view each theory, be scientific or religious, as an interpretive theory. If we hold this perspective, we can see the UP as an interpretive theory of interpretations, that is, hermeneutic of hermeneutics.

UP probably has two tasks: 1) to serve as a platform for collaboration between religion and science, the UP works as a theoretical and practical umbrella for religious and scientific collaboration; 2) the UP is directly engaged in theories in science and religion; this engagement, at the same time, provides an opportunity to re-interpret the UP.

For the latter, we may need to free the UP from its current biblical context of interpretation in Exposition , and explore other interpretive frameworks, and further to take a critical stance to identify and examine the basic presuppositions of the UP.

For any theory to be plausible, it needs to meet certain conditions. Those conditions are spelled out as various aspects of truth: 1) correspondence of ideas/theses/claims and reality/state-of-affairs—this is a perpetual quest without an end; 2) coherence and consistency within claims and theses in a theory and with other established theories and findings; 3) practical effects on individuals and on society; and 4) existential effects, such as the transformative effects on the person. These components are applicable to the UP. The plausibility of the UP will emerge if the interpretation of the UP and the UP’s interpretation of various theories and practices meet those criteria. Exploration and creative engagement with other theories and practices is necessary to make the UP socially accountable and to develop its potential.

Scientific disciplines have inherent mechanisms of self-critique and openness to new theories. It relativizes itself and keeps an open stance. Religion, on the other hand, tends to hold to the absoluteness of its truth and is not open to revision or change. I believe UP needs to overcome this tendency to fixedness in religion, if it is to meet the challenge of integrating religion and science.

In this regard, we reviewed various philosophical positions from which to interpret religion, such as objectivism, constructionism, pragmatism, and so on. The purpose of such an attempt was to liberate religion from dogmatism and to make an introduction to a multi-layered approach. Such an attempt is, however, not the end but the beginning of a path to unification. The UP itself needs to explore new interpretive frameworks to interpret the UP itself by taking into account studies in human, social, and natural sciences. Theists including Unificationists tend to reject non-theistic accounts of religion due to their philosophical positions. The multi-dimensional approach rejects this narrow or dogmatic approach and is open to studies based on non-theistic assumptions. By identifying the layers of philosophical assumptions, we can analyze the merits of each study, layer by layer. Even if the theory itself is integrally tied to philosophical assumptions and positions, we can separate a body of knowledge into its layers by applying multiple perspectives. Multi-dimensional hermeneutics is an attempt at interpretation through a series of separation and integration. [32]

[1]  Sun Myung Moon,  Exposition of the Divine Principle  (New York: Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, 2006), p. 7.

[2]  Some well-known court cases include the Scopes Monkey Trial (The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes) in 1925, Epperson v. Arkansas in 1968, and McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education in 1981. Although the disputes in these cases have taken various forms, they are essentially derived from a conflict between creationism and the theory of evolution. The disputes were also intertwined with two interpretations of the Bible according to Christian fundamentalism and Christian modernism; Christian fundamentalism held to a literal interpretation of the Bible while Christian modernism offered a flexible interpretation of the Bible so as to make it compatible with evolution.

[3]  Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God , rev. ed., (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991)

[4]  Gifford Lectures Organization site. https://www.giffordlectures.org/. Accessed December 2, 2017

[5]  John B. Cobb, Jr. and David Ray Griffin, Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976).

[6]  Edmund Husserl tried to develop phenomenology as an interpretation-free, presupposition-free philosophical methodology. Zen Enlightenment is often conceived as the direct experience of Buddhist truth without conceptual biases. Nevertheless, discourse is not possible without the use of some kind of conceptualization. One may use “negation” to describe extra-conceptual state of affairs, such as the unlimited or infinite. One may also use analogy or poetic expression to describe extraordinary experiences.

[7]   Exposition of Divine Principle , Creation 3.2 “Good Object Partners for the Joy of God,” pp. 33-36

[8]  See Ludwig Wittgenstein and G. E. M. Anscombe,  Philosophical Investigations: The English Text of the Third Edition (New York: Prentice Hall, 1958), sections 66-71

[9]  Ibid., Section 67, p. 32e

[10]  In Exposition of Divine Principle , the concept of resemblance is applied between God and the world. See Creation 1.2 “The Relationship between God and the Universe,” pp. 19-21

[11]  On embodiment of truth, see Keisuke Noda, “Understanding the Word as the Process of Embodiment,” Journal of Unification  Studies 1 (1997): 55-70.  www.journals.uts.edu/volume-i-1997/6-understanding-the-word-as-the-process-of-embodiment  

[12]   Exposition of Divine Principle , pp. 19-21

[13]  Karl Popper,  Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (London: Routledge, 2010), p. 53 

[14]  For extensive analysis of objectivity and hermeneutic dimension of scientific knowledge, see Richard J. Bernstein,  Beyond Objectivism  and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics , and Praxis (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011). 

[15]  Karl Popper,  Logic of Scientific Discovery  (London: Routledge, 2005), p. xiix

[16]  Ibid, p. 20

[17]  Ibid

[18]  Ibid, p. 22. Here, “inter-subjectively tested” means a series of testing by scientific communities

[19]  Ibid, pp. 8-9

[20]  Jerome D. Frank, and Julia B. Frank.  Persuasion and Healing: A Comparative Study of Psychotherapy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993).

[21]  For example, in the Garden of Eden narrative, the UP interprets the serpent, the tree of life, and the tree of good and evil as Lucifer (archangel), perfected man, and perfected woman. See Exposition of the Divine Principle , Chapter 2 “Human Fall,” pp. 53-67 

[22]  Joseph Campbell,  Myths to Live By (New York: Penguin, 2003), p. 210

[23]  Ibid, p. 22

[24]  Ibid, pp. 22-23

[25]  Ibid, p. 24

[26]  Ibid, p. 12

[27]  Ibid, p. 10

[28]   Exposition of the Divine Principle , p. 7

[29]  Viktor Frankl presents his existential analysis in depth in The Doctor and the Soul: From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy  (London: Souvenir Press, 2014).

[30]  See the history of ICUS. http://icus.org/. Accessed 01/16/2018

[31]  See Universal Peace Federation site. http://www.upf.org/. Accessed 01/16/2018

[32]  The UP conceptualizes this process as Origin-Division-Union Action. See New Essentials of Unification  Thought (Tokyo: Unification Thought Institute, 2006), pp. 84-85

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The dialogue between science and religion: a taxonomic contribution.

1. Introduction

2. ways of relating science and religion—a literature review, 3. on the typology of modern dialogue between science and religion.

on the one hand, the scholastic dialogue model mediated by the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary methodologies, as an epistemological interaction operating among various scientific disciplines and Western heterodox theologies (all operating under the rigor of the status of academic disciplines); and on the other hand, the personalist dialogue model mediated by the Orthodox patristic gnoseology, as an interpersonal relation of joint work between the Orthodox theologian (who brings knowledge through faith based on indemonstrable truths received by means of supernatural Revelation) and the scientist (who brings knowledge through scientific reasoning based on demonstrable truths obtained by means of observational, laboratory or mental experiment).

3.1. The Scholastic Model of the Science andReligion Dialogue

3.1.1. the interdisciplinary approach, 3.1.2. the transdisciplinary approach.

the constraint brought by the use of inter- and transdisciplinarity in the dialogue between science and religion leads to theology assuming the status of academic discipline. Even though the original meaning of theology is that of understanding and experiencing God (as theology is “ the discovery of God given to man ”, it is the experience of a supernatural Revelation), the Western scholastic theology accepts its status of academic discipline as a dialogue partner of science; as an academic discipline and using scientific methods, scholastic theology cannot reach—not out of bad will but as a result of the methods used—the experience of the uncreated, as God does not represent a valid and recognized object of study by science. Studying the “created”, scholastic theology either deprives itself of its natural experiential and ecclesiastical content, therefore becoming void of supernatural Revelation (as it is the case for the interdisciplinary mediation of the dialogue), or wanders itself in the blurred areas of trans-religiosity (as in the case of the transdisciplinary mediation of the dialogue); a clear result of these developments is that we have been witnessing a scholastic dialogue in which inter- and transdisciplinarity mediate at most an exercise of speech about God and not a conversation with God.

3.2. The Personalist Model of the Science and Religion Dialogue

“And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God…My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power…What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.” (I Corinthians 2, 1, 4, 12–13)

the dialogue includes the interpersonal communion between the theologian and the scientist; the interpersonal communion results in the synergic working-together act between the Orthodox theologian (contributing by means of his religious faith based on the indemonstrable truth received through supernatural Revelation) and the scientist (contributing by means of scientific reason based on demonstrable truth acquired through observational, laboratory or mental experiments); through the synergic working-together act, the scientific rationality discovers its own limitations, being therefore precluded from its own ossification, instead, it is helped to be able to open up to humble contemplation, faith, to become spiritual; the spiritualization of reasoning through humble contemplation enables grace to structure it based on the internal existential reasons of things, making them meaningful, while this revealing of the spiritual rationality of things being likely to confess a genuine epistemological transfiguration of the scientific rationality itself.

3.2.1. Interpersonal Communion

3.2.2. a synergic working-together act.

for the scientist, the world is “a school of souls having rationality and a place where knowledge of God may be learned, being a guide for the things seen and felt, a mental guide for the contemplation of the unseen” ([ 34 ], p. 77). By practicing the profession in the spirit of faith, the scientist uses the union between reason and faith to consolidate and complete his knowledge in the specific area of study; for the Orthodox theologian, not to fall into the temptation called Scholasticism, and to better understand the way in which man may reveal God through scientific knowledge. Therefore, we should remember that Saint Basil the Great himself wrote Homilies on Hexaemeron, in which “knowledge from sciences of the time were used to understand the Scripture as it had the only key of the Scripture, the grace of the Holy Spirit” (emphasis added.). ([ 35 ], p. 27)

3.2.3. Spiritualization of Reason

the first argument: antinomic thinking is used by the Savior himself: “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for Me will find it.”; (Matthew, 16:25)

the second argument: antinomies operating with the ternary logic of paradox are positive for knowing God as this way even the natural reason itself—which operates with binary logic of the uncontradicted assertion—is prevented from getting ossified, it humbles ([ 39 ], p. 54). Therefore, “ … the asceticism of reason is faith, that is self-denial. The act of self-denial of rationality is the expression of an antinomy” ([ 40 ], p. 105). Pavel Florensky also notes: “ We should not, we have no right to defile contradiction with the dough of our philosophies! Let contradiction remain profound as it is! ” In addition, it is important to understand that at the core of antinomy lies not so much the force of rejection or dissolution of contradictions, as the force of attraction or symbolic composing of opposites, with respect for their identity; ([ 40 ], p. LIV)

the third argument: the antinomy shakes rationality and, according to the free will of man, the light of the Holy Spirit or an evil spirit may penetrate in the created gap ([ 39 ], p. 57). However, while the antinomy actually creates a gap, the very possibility of the appearance of such a gap comes from the fact that “ grace is constitutive of reason , it is the spirit, the power that puts things into motion, gives life to reason” (emphasis added) ([ 39 ], p. 57). Therefore, the state of union is the fundamental condition expressing the real relationship between faith and reason, more exactly between grace and reason. As Father Dumitru Stăniloae observes, faith is the grace touching reason, it is a “spiritual feeling” of God’s faith, it is the “…spiritual feeling of God from His acts, His power touching us”; ([ 32 ], p. 69; apud [ 39 ], p. 56)

the fourth argument: with reference to the fact that reason is put into motion by spirit, Saint Basil the Great confesses: “I believe there are two powers in the human mind: one is evil and demonic capable of luring us into falling, and the other one is divine and good, capable of elevating us to the likeness of God.” (apud [ 39 ], p. 57; [ 41 ], p. 481)

if reason is put into motion by an evil spirit, it darkens itself and gets conceited , indifference and contempt towards the divine appears and the “wisdom of the world” is obtained. For our analysis, this context means that the scientist, by means of the contemplation of nature and through the act of the scientific investigation of the reality he studies, arrives to a conclusion that there is no God;

if reason is put in motion by the grace of the Holy Spirit, it can open towards humble contemplation, faith, it gets spiritualized . In this moment, the pure soul experiences apathy (stillness of the soul similar to calmness of a divine nature), as through it “the Image of God is restored in the soul” (apud [ 39 ], p. 55; [ 42 ], p. 117). In our terms, it means that for a scientist open to humble reflection, the contemplation of nature and the investigation of reality are occasions to confess the faith of God. Therefore, looking back into the work of Saint Basil the Great, we may observe that “…this world was not created in vain or in the desert but for a useful purpose and for great use for those who live on earth (…) the world is indeed a school for souls endowed with reason and a place where the knowledge of God may be experienced (…) through the things seen and felt in it, the world is a guide of the mind to contemplate the unseen ” (emphasis added). ([ 34 ], p. 77; apud [ 39 ], p. 64)

3.2.4. Acquiring the “Epistemological Transfiguration”

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• 1 Due to contextual relevance our analysis refers to the Christian religion only.

© 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ).

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Sanda, D.C.; Smarandoiu, L.A.; Munteanu, C. The Dialogue between Science and Religion: A Taxonomic Contribution. Religions 2017 , 8 , 35. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8030035

Sanda DC, Smarandoiu LA, Munteanu C. The Dialogue between Science and Religion: A Taxonomic Contribution. Religions . 2017; 8(3):35. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8030035

Sanda, Dragos Constatin, Luana Alexandra Smarandoiu, and Costea Munteanu. 2017. "The Dialogue between Science and Religion: A Taxonomic Contribution" Religions 8, no. 3: 35. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8030035

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Philosophia

E-journal for philosophy & culture, independence: a non-reductive view of the relationship between science and theology (deepening of barbour’s approach).

Abstract: During the last several decades, the dialogue between science and religion has been influenced by certain approaches in the philosophy of religion and the philosophy of science. Proponents of this movement suggest several models of how to articulate the relationship between these two domains. One of the most influential was Ian G. Barbour and his four views: conflict, independence, dialogue, integration. Although many authors criticized Barbour’s views, this paper demonstrates that the second category, independence, is underestimated and has overlooked potential. The paper develops this potential, examines objections to the independence view, and proposes a philosophical argument supporting independence as a non-reductive view of the relationship between science and theology.

Introduction

In his famous books, [1] Ian Barbour [2] analyzes important questions about the relationship between science and religion. He proposes four views on the relationship between science and religion: conflict, independence, dialogue, and integration. It is a graduated model, in which the last degree (integration) is the most desirable, according to Barbour. With all due respect to this model and its author, his view of independence is too simplistic and the potential for this view of the relationship between science and religion has been underestimated.

This paper will examine and deepen particularly the independence view on the relationship between religious and social knowledge, especially science. It is important to offer a broader and deeper philosophical analysis of this model and to propose a better justification for why science and theology are independent of each other. “Religious and non-religious people ask whether and how the scientific picture of the natural world might be reconciled with traditional religious views.” [3] Although this question is good and important, science and theology cannot be reconciled in a proper sense, because both of them are separate and independent domains. Barbour respects this independence, but only temporarily. “I believe that the Independence thesis is a good starting point or first approximation. It preserves the distinctive character of each enterprise, and it is a useful strategy for responding to those who say conflict is inescapable.” [4] In contrast, this paper asserts that independence is not only a starting point but also a key interpretive model for describing the potential relationship between science and theology.

Why address the relationship between science and theology?

The current period has witnessed the increased influence [5] of religious groups, opinions, and beliefs, which enter into important decisions of national and international organizations. Jonathan Fox argues that ignoring or underestimating religious phenomena (which is what happens) is dangerous because religion, as a worldview, affects many decision-makers on a global scale. [6] It is clear that in many parts of the world, religious beliefs are being transformed into policies that threaten not only human rights but also local and international security. In the Christian European context, the situation is calmer in this respect at present. [7] The relationship between religion and society is not a source of overt conflict (tension remains, but there is no open warfare), although this relative calm has not always been the case in Europe, which has had many so-called religious conflicts and wars in the past. However, it must be acknowledged that the vast majority of these conflicts used religion as a pretext. A rational debate on the relationship between religion and society is important in the current situation in Euro-American civilization.

However, such a debate requires a good understanding of the more fundamental relationship between the sources of human knowledge. Here, philosophy can play a very important role. Because philosophy can identify epistemological boundaries and subsequently formulate the principles of dialogue between partners with different noetic scopes. In the European context, the two phenomena of religion and science played key roles from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. The relationship between the two areas has not always been peaceful. Despite the turbulence of this relationship, it turns out that both spheres – if they work together – can contribute to the development of society and even knowledge. This paper hopes to contribute philosophically to an adequate understanding of this relationship, so that it is not a source of conflict, but, on the contrary, of tolerance and understanding.

Who is a partner to whom?

The most prominent and most influential current social knowledge is science. If someone is trying to influence today’s society or gain influence over the decisions of social groups, the most effective way is to use scientific methodology and spread it to society. But who is to be a partner in scientific discourse concerning religion? The first problem is the question of the relationships among entities – what areas of knowledge to consider. The phenomenon of religion is very broad and dependent on the individual and the relatively arbitrary actions of followers of a particular religious faith. It is very difficult to think of this heterogeneous group of phenomena (beliefs, actions) as a partner of dialogue with science because of their heterogeneity and indefinability. It is obvious that religions intersect with various scientific disciplines (sociology, religion, psychology, and others), but this relationship is descriptive. Various scientific disciplines analyze, for example, sports, but the fact that sports activities are the object of scientific observations does not establish a special relationship between science and sport.

Nancy Murphy argues for the importance of thinking about the relationship between science and theology. [8] She stresses theology, because in her view, religion (and Christianity in particular) is a complex phenomenon that includes various beliefs, morals, worship styles, and various manifestations of religious or sacred practice. The relationship between science and religion or theology involves a mutual or reciprocal relationship in which both partners methodically focus on each other, and based on this relationship formulate some new knowledge. Therefore, it makes more sense to consider the possibility of a relationship between science and theology.

Philosophers and theologians

In the European religious and philosophical context, the Unmoved Mover appears in Aristotle and later in Thomas Aquinas. The Unmoved Mover had one essential feature in common with both philosophers: it (He) was the cause of all things. The unmoved mover is the ontological origin of every single thing, inanimate nature, plants, animals, and of course human beings. According to this principle, nature begins with the impersonal (Aristotle) or personal (Thomas Aquinas) principle. This principle can be inductively devised through the individual stages of being or creation. Nature and its exploration, so to speak, helps a philosopher or theologian who asks for the beginning of all that exists. For philosophers like Aristotle and Aquinas, nature is an ally not only in the knowledge of the laws of nature but also in the knowledge of a transcendent being, God. In this perspective, science and theology can become partners in dialogue, and the results of their research can lead to complementary knowledge.

The Protestant neo-orthodoxy of the late 19th and early 20th centuries emphasized something quite different. In the context of the dynamic growth of knowledge of the natural sciences, with less and less space left for God, Karl Barth and others began to claim that God appears in history rather than in nature. [9] More precisely, the revelation of God to man is limited by the Revelation of man available only through Scripture ( sola scriptura ). This attitude is not surprising in the Protestant tradition. Since the time of Luther and Melanchthon, in Protestant theology, the exclusive emphasis on Scripture has also been reflected in the fact that legitimate (natural) philosophical theology was impossible. Knowledge of the Creator through means other than Scripture has always been considered foolish in this tradition.

In this view, theology and science are independent paths of knowledge, which are indifferent to each other. Science is based on an experimental method, its language is mathematical, and its goal is the development of knowledge. Religion uses the hermeneutic method, its language is metaphorical, and its goal is the rebirth of human existence. This is how the factual and existential are separated. [10] If God and the sacred can be known only by methods of faith and Revelation or Scripture, then any knowledge of the natural sciences has almost no relationship to the subject of religion and theology. Religion and theology on the one hand and science on the other hand are almost unrelated.

The Two-language Theory

At universities and among scientists in the fields of natural and exact sciences, but also at theological schools, the explanation of the relationship between natural science and theology often employs the so-called two-language theory. It might seem that “it respects the sovereign territory of both science and theology… it is advocated by highly respected persons in both fields.” [11] Exact scientists describe experiential material using their own methodological approach and their own terminology. In this approach, hypotheses are formulated and later verified into theories, which offer a comprehensive picture of some part of human experience or the world, with which people may not even have an ordinary human experience. Theology works with its own methodology and terminological apparatus as well, with theological concepts acting as theories to explain the questions commonly call religious questions.

Can there be any intersection between the areas of knowledge formulated in this way – exact science on the one hand and theology on the other? It seems that questions of theology and questions of science could intersect and, according to the theory of different languages, it does occur. However, the answers science and theology reach differ. The orthodox proponent of the theory of different languages explains knowledge in science and in theology as analogous and even comparable. The key difference does not lie in the content of the claims of science and theology, but rather in their epistemic linguistic expression. Thus, the scientist and the theologian develop a similar type of knowledge, they try to answer the same questions in principle, but their languages—that is, their terminology and conceptual schemes—are different. “A two-language approach also receives philosophical support from instrumentalism. According to instrumentalists, scientific theories are not representations of reality but useful intellectual and practical tools.” [12] Therefore, sometimes science and theology seem to be independent of each other, but according to this theory, they are interconnected and cohesive.

Two arguments serve as a brief critique of the theory of different languages. The first argument refutes competition between these “two languages.” However, the theory of two different languages, denying the independence between science and theology, is based on very vague and uncertain premises. First of all, if there are two kinds of knowledge about the same subject of research, it should be possible to decide which knowledge or theory—whether scientific or theological—is more appropriate for a given question. A less adequate response should then be rejected. However, science and theology do not compete with each other in this way.

The second argument is about the absence of a metalanguage. It is the strongest objection to the theory of different languages. Science and theology are not able to find a common ground, the point from which different language constructions derive. The theory of different languages immanently presupposes a point of view independent of science and independent of theology. Science and theology could reach such a point of view only if their different languages were reducible to a common language or to the language of one of them, a situation of which no one seems to find convincing.

The relationship between science and theology as independence

With this background, the independence of science and theology seems most appropriate. This independence must be described in non-reductive terms to avoid the reduction of either science or theology. The following section introduces various aspects of the dependence and independence of science and theology and addresses the potential religious beliefs of naturalists. It will explain whether science and theology can have common themes or whether they can analyze the same experiences.

Science and theology are separate and independent processes of cognition, which have their specific objects of research and different methods. They enter a mutual relationship randomly, as their relationship does not follow from a methodological approach either in science or in theology. The moment of the relationship between science and theology is the boundary point of these procedures. In other words, it is a meta-scientific and meta-theological effort. However interesting the meeting of science and theology may be, it does not produce in a strong sense scientific knowledge or theological knowledge. Thus, the relationship between science and theology is not the subject of research into any of these paths to knowledge. They work with different types of experience and their goals are for different kinds of knowledge.

The relationship between science and theology is thus a relationship of independence with the following character: science can proceed autonomously in its research, and in an imaginary world without theology, it could exist and solve the problems it solves now. Likewise, theology can proceed autonomously in theological inquiry, and again in an imaginary world without science, it could exist and produce theological knowledge.

There are various objections to such a recognition of the independence between science and theology, including a) the instrumental dependence of science and theology, b) taking into account the religious beliefs of scientists, and c) science and theology nevertheless have common themes and questions.

The objection of the instrumental dependence of science and theology

One of the objections that can be raised to the independence of science and theology is that they use some of the same tools, methods, and procedures. For example, contemporary textual criticism of the Bible cannot proceed without the tools of paleography, archeology, history, ethnology, linguistics, religion, and other disciplines. On the other hand, from a certain point of view, it is possible to deduce some theological concepts in science, such as the concept of infinity in mathematics. [13] Both theology and science use methods such as induction, deduction, and various argumentation procedures, which are, however, more general tools of rationality and cognition.

This objection demonstrates that the dependence of science and theology is, in a sense, evident only at the level of tools or methods. If this objection is legitimate, science and theology are independent at the level of the propositional or intentional contents of their claims. [14] Thus, the relationship between science and theology could be characterized by instrumental dependence but content independence or indifference.

Even instrumental dependence is not absolute, because science and theology differ in many ways in their instrumentation and methodologies. They already differ in principle in that science verifies its knowledge by experiment. On the contrary, faith as the subject of theology comes from the individual experience of hearing. [15] The relativity of instrumental dependence is also confirmed by the fact that theology (including biblical exegesis) existed even before modern scientific tools of textual criticism. According to Kvasz, theology is, metaphorically speaking, scaffolding or a tool or a ladder that has played a very important role in building modern science (Galileo, Descartes, Newton). However, this instrumental task has already been fulfilled. Science no longer needs theology in this sense. After modern science has climbed the ladder to the next level, it can leave the ladder unharmed. Therefore, the integration between science and faith is not possible in the content sense, but in the formal sense (in the way modern science transcends the world of antiquity). [16] In any case, instrumental dependence is too weak an argument in favor of the necessary relationship between science and theology.

The objection of considering the religious beliefs of scientists

Statistics could lead to a different conclusion than the thesis of the independence of science and theology. Undoubtedly, some scientists profess religious beliefs and even build or contribute to theological knowledge. As McGrath argues, “if about 40 percent of active scientists have a true religious belief, it is clear that the issue of the relationship between science and religion is still present and significant.” [17]

However, this objection has two problems. First, it speaks of the relationship between scientists and their religious beliefs, which only indirectly concerns the relationship between science and theology. Second, statistics do not show a substantial and intrinsic link between the content of scientific knowledge and religious knowledge. Statistics also point to a relationship between science and golf because 41 percent of scientists occasionally play golf. If golf is not a sufficiently intellectual and cognitive activity, for example, the fact that 38 percent of scientists write or read detective stories could lead to the conclusion that the relationship between science and detective stories is significant. A serious researcher would not consider these contingent links as the basis of any serious relationship.

Therefore, neither the presence nor the absence of religious beliefs among scientists says anything about the relationship between theology and science. Even after this second objection has been raised and answered, it is appropriate to regard their relationship as one of independence.

The objection that science and theology have common themes and questions

Research and studies that deal with the relationship between science and theology often raise as points of dialogue the issues of the beginning of the world, the universe, the origin of man, and so on. “Despite … different functions, science and faith have a common field of their interest. These are for example the space formation, creation of life and person on the earth.” [18] To examine this objection, this paper will analyze whether the theme of the beginning of our universe is really a common theme for science and theology.

What is called the beginning or origin in Christian theology can certainly be called creation. The first five words of the Pentateuch are: “In the beginning God created…” [19] So, it seems that the very beginning of physis and nomos can indeed be subjects or questions for both science and theology, which interprets the Bible in this regard. However, the primary and crucial difference in asking the question of the origin of the universe to scientists and theologians is the horizon on which this question is asked and on which they seek the answer. A scientist asks questions about the beginning of reality as a matter of the history of the subject of his experience today. Thus, the explanation for the beginning is an explanation of how the history of the subject of the present experience has occurred linearly in time. The result of the scientific description of the beginning is the state of matter or precursor or pre-energy in the first descriptive moment of its existence. Whether science knows the history of the universe from 1.10 -43 of the second or from 1.10 -99 of the second or from the 2 nd second is irrelevant to the theologian.

The theologian seeks a beginning on the horizon of origin and thus for the Author of the beginning, the Author who is the creator of the world and man. As important as the theme of creation is, its theological interpretation does not lie in the study of the origin of the universe as the beginning, but in the study of the Author as the beginning of every possible world and every human being. Some philosophers consider two types of causality in this context. So-called primary causality refers to the Author, the Creator, and secondary causality refers to how the history of the physical world unfolded from the first unit of time of its existence. [20] It is clear from this distinction that the questions of who and how seek answers to different aspects of the problem.

Some speak of an analogy between the laws of nature and God or about the order of the world, which evokes the Author of order. [21] With similar analogies and such free flow, science does not work in any other way unless it wants to provide an open door for God (and it is not the science that does it).

Theology and science therefore also ask the questions of the beginning of the world or man differently and work with a different type of experience. Therefore, they are not partners who speak about the same issues in different languages, but partners who necessarily speak about different questions. “Science is based on human observation and reason; theology is based on divine revelation.” [22] This statement does not set theology in opposition to scientific reason but distinguishes it and makes it independent of scientific reason.

Squeezing the relationship between theology and natural science into one question of creation (or origin) is reminiscent of an example from Greek mythology about Procrustes, which McGrath [23] mentions in another context. Procrustes had an unpleasant habit of cutting off his guests’ feet if they did not fit the iron bed that he offered them. And so, it seems that the idea that both theology and science have the same beginning is a reduction of either science or theology but most often of both.

Do science and theology know the same thing?

This section’s title question can be reworded as: Do theology and science have the same subject matter? Do science and theology ask the same questions? Is the similarity between science and theology in the processes of research and knowledge acquisition necessary or contingent? Does the consideration of the relationship between the two entities necessarily follow from the nature of one or the other effort?

Historically, relationships between science and theology have been built. The nature of theology, but also of science, does not contradict this relationship, but it is arbitrary and does not necessarily follow from the nature of science or theology. The reason for building these relationships lies in the confusion of the questions asked, which do not lead to any new relevant knowledge. A second reason is the interest of individuals in both methods of cognition. This combination of methods can bring an interesting perspective to knowledge and mutual tolerance, but by no means is there an immanent necessity for either discipline to turn to the other.

When discussing science and religion, it must be acknowledged that these are very interesting convergences. These intersections can even provide interesting stimuli for thinking about the meaning of the world and the meaning of man. An explanation of this intersection, however, must be sought either in personal interest in both areas or in extra-religious or extra-scientific questions. These questions are appropriate unless they are described as theological or scientific questions.

Barbour believes that such a separation of scientific and theological responses will prevent a coherent synthesis of science and theology. [24] He is correct, but not in that the position of independence of science and theology will make that synthesis impossible. It is not possible because science and theology employ different methods of cognition.

If one asks whether science and theology are related to what is called the meaning of the world or the meaning of man, the answer is yes. For “meaning questions,” both theology and science have meaningful contributions, as do many other human experiences and activities. However, the answers to questions about the meaning of the world and the meaning of man are not answers from science or theology. These answers are, of course, necessarily human, but they cannot simply be confused with answers that are scientific knowledge nor with answers that belong exclusively to theology. [25] No one would ask those questions anymore; they would simply reach for answers from science or theology.

Thus, the answer to questions about meaning are beliefs that are extra-scientific but also extra-theological, beliefs about what has value and what in the world and in human life is meaningful. The basic answers about the meaning of human existence are not readily available in science or in theology. Suppose one understands theology as a kind of reflection of a set of revealed beliefs, as a reflection of a belief that has its norms outside of the human individual who believes. Are there any results of scientific knowledge that are necessary for today’s theological research? Probably not; theology could be developed without (natural) science. Of course, there is no need to be so radical. Without a doubt, it is refreshing and inspiring to learn about current scientific developments. But, in principle, these two realms are independent.

Theology and science do not necessarily meet. There is no essential relationship between them. No correct question of science is, in the exact sense of the word, a question of theology, and vice versa, no religious belief or theological knowledge is the answer to scientific questions.

If there is no substantial connection between the contents of scientific and theological knowledge, it is necessary as a working hypothesis to assert that their relationship is one of independence, indifference. Therefore, all those who claim that today’s science is independent of religion are right; religion is not based on science, nor is science an extension of religion. [26] Confusion exists because many people see a relationship between the two, but they cannot explain why this relationship is necessary or why it necessarily follows from the study of either science or theology. Postulating the relationship between science and theology necessarily requires many more assumptions and uncertain premises than understanding their relationship as indifferent, seeing no relationship between them. Independence could be a “way to avoid conflicts between science and religion… They can be distinguished according to the questions they ask, the domains to which they refer, and the methods they employ.” [27]

However, indifference does not create a conflict; on the contrary, it prevents it. “Conflict occurs when people ignore these differences [between science and theology]; when people from the position of religion formulate a scientific claim, or when scientists cross the line of their field…” [28] The justification of the independence of science and theology is not reductive, nor does it hinder the autonomy of either science or theology.

Bibliography

Barbour, I. G., Religion in an Age of Science (Gifford Lectures) , New York, HarperCollins Publishers, 1990.

Barbour, I. G., Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues , San Francisco, HarperCollins Publishers, 1997.

Barbour, I. G., When Science Meets Religion. Enemies, Strangers or Partners? New York, HarperCollins Publishers, 2000.

Fox, J., ‘Religion as an Overlooked Element of International Relations’. In: International Studies Review , vol. 3, no. 3, 2001, pp. 53-73.

Kvasz, L., ‘The Invisible Dialog Between Mathematics and Theology‘. In: Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith , vol. 56, no. 2, 2004, pp. 111-116.

Kvasz, L., ‘Vedecká racionalita a súčasné prístupy k transcendencii‘[‘Scientific rationality and current approaches to transcendence‘], In: Slavkovský, A., Vydrova, J., Vydra, A.) (eds.), Boh a racionalita [God and rationality] , Pusté Úľany, Schola Philosophica, 2010, p. 213-232.

Lindbeck, G. A., The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age. Louisville/London, Westminster John Knox Press, 1984.

McGrath, A. E., Dialóg přírodních věd a teologie . Praha, Vyšehrad, 2003 (orig. The Foundations of Dialogue in Science and religion , Wiley-Blackwell, 1998).

Murphy, N., ‘On the Nature of Theology‘. In: Richardson, W. M. & Wildman, W. J. (eds), Religion and Science. History, Method, Dialogue. London, Routledge, 1996, pp. 151-160.

Peters, T., Science, Theology, Ethics , London and New York, Routledge, 2016.

Sweetman, B., Why Politics Needs Religion , Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press Academic, 2006.

Tapp, Ch., ‘Infinity in Mathematics and Theology‘. In: Theology and Science , vol.  9, no. 1, 2011, pp. 91-100.

Thomas, S. M., ’A Globalized God: Religion’s Growing Influence in International Politics.’ In: Foreign Affairs , vol. 89, no. 6, 2010, pp. 93-101.

Visala, A., ’Analytic Theology and the Sciences’, In: Arcadi, J. M., Turner, J. T. (eds.) T&T Clark Handbook of Analytic Theology , Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021, pp. 407-422.

Volek, P. – Labuda, P., ‘Philosophical and Theological Fundaments of the Dialogue between Science and Religious Belief‘, In: Itinerarium : rivista multidisciplinare dell´Istituto Teologico “San Tommaso” Messina , vol. 13, no. 31, 2005, pp. 127-134.

Ján Hrkút Department of Philosophy, Catholic University in Ruzomberok, Slovakia [email protected]

[1] Barbour, I. G., Religion in an Age of Science (Gifford Lectures) , New York, HarperCollins Publishers, 1990; Barbour, I. G., Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues , San Francisco, HarperCollins Publishers, 1997; Barbour, I. G., When Science Meets Religion. Enemies, Strangers or Partners? New York, HarperCollins Publishers, 2000.

[2] Ian Graeme Barbour (1923–2013) was an American physicist, philosopher, and theologian. At the beginning of his career at the University of Chicago, he worked as a teaching assistant to Enrico Fermi. From 1989 to 1991 Barbour gave the Gifford lectures at the University of Aberdeen. He holds the Templeton Prize (1999) and, together with Arthur Peacocke and John Polkinghorne, is considered to be one of the most important authors on the relationship between science and religion at the beginning of the 21st century.

[3] Visala, A., ’Analytic Theology and the Sciences’, In: Arcadi, J. M., Turner, J. T. (eds.) T&T Clark Handbook of Analytic Theology , Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021, p. 408.

[4] Barbour, I. G., When Science Meets Religion. Enemies, Strangers or Partners? New York, HarperCollins Publishers, 2000, pp. 57-58.

[5] See Thomas, S. M., ’A Globalized God: Religion’s Growing Influence in International Politics.’ In: Foreign Affairs , vol. 89, no. 6, 2010, pp. 93-101; and also: Sweetman, B., Why Politics Needs Religion , Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press Academic, 2006.

[6] Fox, J., ‘Religion as an Overlooked Element of International Relations’. In: International Studies Review , vol. 3, no. 3, 2001, pp. 53-73.

[7] This statement refers to the context and the relationship between the majority Christian religion and European society. It does not take into account the extremist religious groups that have attracted the attention of Europe in recent years through terrorist attacks. Legitimate representatives of religious communities, e.g., Islam in Europe, have always distanced themselves from these attacks in Europe.

[8] Murphy, N., ‘On the Nature of Theology‘. In: Richardson, W. M. & Wildman, W. J. (eds), Religion and Science. History, Method, Dialogue. London, Routledge, 1996, pp. 154.

[9] Barbour, I. G., When Science Meets Religion. Enemies, Strangers or Partners? New York, HarperCollins Publishers, 2000, p. 18.

[10] Kvasz, L., ‘Vedecká racionalita a súčasné prístupy k transcendencii‘[‘Scientific rationality and current approaches to transcendence‘], In: Slavkovský, A., Vydrova, J., Vydra, A.) (eds.), Boh a racionalita [God and rationality] , Pusté Úľany, Schola Philosophica, 2010, p. 214.

[11] Peters, T., Science, Theology, Ethics , London and New York, Routledge, 2016, p. 18.

[12] Barbour, I. G., When Science Meets Religion. Enemies, Strangers or Partners? New York, HarperCollins Publishers, 2000, p. 56.

[13] See Tapp, Ch., ‘Infinity in Mathematics and Theology‘. In: Theology and Science , vol.  9, no. 1, 2011, pp. 91-100; Kvasz, L., ‘The Invisible Dialog Between Mathematics and Theology‘. In: Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith , vol. 56, no. 2, 2004, pp. 111-116.

[14] Opponents of such an approach include Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend, who in their theories consider the paradigms in which science and theology are produced. Ruptures or changes of these paradigms can then cause changes in one area, while of course the propositional content of one area affects the contents of others.

[15] Verbum externum; ex auditu. See Lindbeck, G. A., The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age. Louisville/London, Westminster John Knox Press, 1984, p. 43.

[16] Kvasz, L., ‘Vedecká racionalita a súčasné prístupy k transcendencii‘[‘Scientific rationality and current approaches to transcendence‘], In: Slavkovský, A., Vydrova, J., Vydra, A.) (eds.), Boh a racionalita [God and rationality] , Pusté Úľany, Schola Philosophica, 2010, p. 229.

[17] McGrath, A. E., Dialóg přírodních věd a teologie . Praha, Vyšehrad, 2003, p. 21 (orig. The Foundations of Dialogue in Science and religion , Wiley-Blackwell, 1998).

[18] Volek, P. – Labuda, P., ‘Philosophical and Theological Fundaments of the Dialogue between Science and Religious Belief ‘, In: Itinerarium: rivista multidisciplinare dell´Istituto Teologico “San Tommaso” Messina, vol. 13, no. 31, 2005, pp. 127-134.

[19] Bible, Book of Genesis 1, 1.

[20] Barbour, I. G., When Science Meets Religion. Enemies, Strangers or Partners? New York, HarperCollins Publishers, 2000, p. 19.

[21] In this book, Oxford’ Professor Alister McGrath explicitly argues in favor of using analogy in science (pp. 199-210), but he makes one inaccuracy. All analogies from the history of science are analogies between the already discovered scientific principle and the hitherto inexplicable subject of the study of science. It is never an analogy from the field of religion that explains the subject of the study of science. Therefore, McGrath must rightly be asked about the adequacy of the analogy of order in the world with God. McGrath admits to a certain loosening of the strict scientific method in his analysis of the relationship between science and religion, when he writes at the end of his book with a poetic license and an analogy of beauty and joy (see pp. 241-43).

[22] Barbour, I. G., When Science Meets Religion. Enemies, Strangers or Partners? New York, HarperCollins Publishers, 2000, p. 18.

[23] McGrath, A. E., Dialóg přírodních věd a teologie . Praha, Vyšehrad, 2003, p. 52 (orig. The Foundations of Dialogue in Science and religion , Wiley-Blackwell, 1998).

[24] Barbour, I. G., When Science Meets Religion. Enemies, Strangers or Partners? New York, HarperCollins Publishers, 2000, p. 52.

[25] However, even though religious faith is close to these questions, it is not in itself a simple answer to an individual’s basic question about the meaning of the world and the meaning of himself.

[26] Kvasz, L., ‘Vedecká racionalita a súčasné prístupy k transcendencii‘[‘Scientific rationality and current approaches to transcendence‘], In: Slavkovský, A., Vydrova, J., Vydra, A.) (eds.), Boh a racionalita [God and rationality] , Pusté Úľany, Schola Philosophica, 2010, p. 229.

[27] Barbour, I. G., When Science Meets Religion. Enemies, Strangers or Partners? New York, HarperCollins Publishers, 2000, p. 47.

[28] Barbour, I. G., When Science Meets Religion. Enemies, Strangers or Partners? New York, HarperCollins Publishers, 2000, p. 2.

Philosophia 27/2021, pp. 35-50

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The complexity thesis between the global and the local: interview with John Brooke

2017, Electronic Bulletin of the Brazilian Society of History of Science

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History of Science and Religion: A Historiographical Introduction

By sarah a. qidwai.

Historiography, or how historians write history, is often a tricky topic to pin down. Methods are often developed over time, or sometimes they seemingly appear out of nowhere. To that end, the field of the history of science and religion in the academic context has its own historiographical past. Understanding and engaging with scholars in the field is often difficult without this historiographical context.

In July of 2019, at the first annual meeting of the International Research Network for the Study of Science and Belief in Society in Birmingham, many participants from the symposium were present and I had a chance to reflect on the immense privilege I had as a young scholar to dive into the history of science and religion as a field, in such an exciting setting. This blog post offers those wishing to break into the field of the history of science and religion a crash course and introduction to some key historiographical texts and discussions.

So what exactly is the complexity thesis and why did historians of science and religion try to re-examine it?

The historiographical account in the field began with the conflict thesis, or the notion that the relationship between science and religion was one of conflict. Two publications that are often mentioned as the origins of this idea are: History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science (1875) by John William Draper and A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896) by Andrew Dickson White.

Around the 1970s, historians of science and religion started pushing back on this notion of conflict between the two. This included monographs by John Hedley Brooke, Ronald Numbers, James Moore and David Lindberg. The next historiographical leap was the move from conflict to complexity. It was John Hedley Brooke’s groundbreaking publication Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (1991) that directly challenged the notion of conflict. Scholarship in the field of history of science and religion moved towards what Ron Numbers dubbed “the complexity thesis.”

The complexity thesis adopts a historical methodology that refuses to break down the relationship between science and religion into simple narratives of conflict, harmony, or independence, but rather requires an empirical analysis in each specific historical context. There are several edited volumes that discuss the complexity thesis. However, the complexity thesis is not really a thesis at all but a response to a thesis. Building on this foundation, in his book The Territories of Science and Religion (2015), Peter Harrison argues that the assumption of a so-called relationship between science and religion is rather anachronistic because the terms “science” and “religion” are modern categories. Those categories need to be unpacked in their context every time.

Following these works, the discussions around the utility and status of the complexity thesis can be seen in several edited volumes. In 2010, the publication Science and religion: new historical perspectives by Thomas Dixon, Geoffrey Cantor and Stephen Pumfrey was published. Based on a conference in Lancaster in 2007 to mark the retirement of John Hedley Brooke.

Then, in 2019, another analysis of the complexity thesis was presented in Bernie Lightman’s edited volume Rethinking history, science, and religion: an exploration of conflict and the complexity principle . The latest edited volume asks us to go beyond the complexity thesis and examine various other interdisciplinary angles.

While there are many more publications in the field, there is still a lot of work remaining. The conversations at a global level have not yet received the attention they deserve. The bulk of scholarship in the field is based on European and Judeo-Christian narratives.

It is my contention that as historians, we have to move further to discuss multiple worldviews, how they intersect with each other and contextualize the role of other critical areas, such as gender and colonialism. We need to untangle the use of not only the terms ‘science’ and ‘religion’, but the others I mentioned earlier on a case by case basis. Given that, we also need to populate the field with historical investigations outside this focus before we can assess the status of the complexity thesis any further.

These texts are a sample of what is out there in the field of science and religion. Here are some additional online resources in various formats:

• There is an excellent podcast by Nick Spencer called “The Secret History of Science and Religion” You can listen to episode 1 “The Nature of the Beast” here (unavailable in some countries).
• You can watch Peter Harrison’s Gifford lectures online. Here is a link for the first one “ The Territories of Science and Religion “. 
• This is a great summary about the relationship between science and religion by Tom McLeish.
• Finally, there is this excellent entry on religion and science in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Helen De Cruz.

Sarah Qidwai is a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto’s Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology. Sarah’s research interests include the history of science and religion, science and colonialism, and South Asian studies. For more on Sarah’s research see her Research Profile .

Follow Sarah on Twitter: @skidwayy

Selected Bibliography

• Brooke, John Hedley. 1991. Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives . Cambridge University Press
• Brooke, John Hedley, and Ronald L. Numbers. 2011.  Science and religion around the world . New York: Oxford University Press.
• Dixon, Thomas, G. N. Cantor, and Stephen Pumfrey (eds.). 2010. Science and Religion: New Historical Perspectives . Cambridge University Press
• Draper, John William. 1875.  History of the conflict between religion and science . New York: Appleton.
• Elshakry, Marwa. 2013. Reading Darwin in Arabic (1860-1950). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
• Fehige, Yiftach J. H. 2016. Science and Religion: East and West . Routledge.
• Fyfe, Aileen. 2004.  Science and salvation: evangelical popular science publishing in Victorian Britain . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Harrison, Peter. 2015. The Territories of Science and Religion . The University of Chicago Press.
• Keel, Terence. 2018.  Divine variations: how Christian thought became racial science . Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
• Lightman, Bernard V. 2019.  Rethinking history, science, and religion: an exploration of conflict and the complexity principle . University of Pittsburgh Press
• Lindberg, David C., and Ronald L. Numbers. 1986.  God and nature: historical essays on the encounter between Christianity and science . Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Ungureanu, James C. 2019.  Science, religion, and the Protestant tradition: retracing the origins of conflict . Pittsburgh; University of Pittsburgh Press.
• White, Andrew Dickson. 1896.  A history of the warfare of science with theology in christendom . New York: D. Appleton & Co.

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The Warfare between Science and Religion

edited by Jeff Hardin, Ronald L. Numbers, and Ronald A. Binzley

Why is the idea of conflict between science and religion so popular in the public imagination? The "conflict thesis"—the idea that an inevitable and irreconcilable conflict exists between science and religion—has long been part of the popular imagination. In The Warfare between Science and Religion , Jeff Hardin, Ronald L. Numbers, and Ronald A. Binzley have assembled a group of distinguished historians who explore the origin of the thesis, its reception, the responses it drew from various faith traditions, and its continued prominence in public discourse.

Several essays in the book examine the...

Several essays in the book examine the personal circumstances and theological idiosyncrasies of important intellectuals, including John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White, who through their polemical writings championed the conflict thesis relentlessly. Other essays consider what the thesis meant to different religious communities, including evangelicals, liberal Protestants, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Finally, essays both historical and sociological explore the place of the conflict thesis in popular culture and intellectual discourse today. Based on original research and written in an accessible style, the essays in The Warfare between Science and Religion take an interdisciplinary approach to question the historical relationship between science and religion. This volume, which brings much-needed perspective to an often bitter controversy, will appeal to scholars and students of the histories of science and religion, sociology, and philosophy.

Contributors: Thomas H. Aechtner, Ronald A. Binzley, John Hedley Brooke, Elaine Howard Ecklund, Noah Efron, John H. Evans, Maurice A. Finocchiaro, Frederick Gregory, Bradley J. Gundlach, Monte Harrell Hampton, Jeff Hardin, Peter Harrison, Bernard Lightman, David N. Livingstone, David Mislin, Efthymios Nicolaidis, Mark A. Noll, Ronald L. Numbers, Lawrence M. Principe, Jon H. Roberts, Christopher P. Scheitle, M. Alper Yalçinkaya

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Edward Grant

edited by Gary B. Ferngren

David C. Hoffman

Aaron Gillette

This is a book worthy of reading, digesting, and emulating in its close analysis of science and religion. The Warfare between Science and Religion will give the reader a trustworthy account of the most recent scholarship about the religion science nexus.

Historians of science have been attempting to destroy this myth—that science and religion have been perennially at war—for the past 40 years or so. Nonetheless, as the subtitle of the book conveys, this is the idea that wouldn't die. [ The Warfare between Science and Religion ] brings together a group of historian myth-busters who have been thinking about this question... One of the virtues of this book is that it also looks at science and religion interactions in Islam and Judaism as well as Christianity.

The history of the assertion that science and religion are inevitably in conflict is dominated by two late nineteenth-century narratives; John William Draper's History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874) and Andrew Dickson White's A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896). The present very welcome volume contains seventeen essays that examine these classic texts, their reception by contemporaries and the subsequent history of the conflict thesis.

The questions whether, why, and to what extent science and religion are in conflict has been one of the abiding motifs of Western culture. This collection by an international group of scholars covers the subject from a rich variety of angles... Those who are interested in the science-and-religion debate, and the impact of science as a cultural force, will find this book a fascinating read.

Accessible, historically illuminating, meticulous.

The focus of this outstanding collection that criticizes the idea of conflict between science and religion, represents the historian John Hedley Brooke's call for attention to the complexities of history... The idea of warfare between science and religion largely deserves burial, but as these essays show, the sentiments for conflicts endure.

The Warfare between Science and Religion is amply successful in its project of providing a historical understanding of the warfare thesis—or, better, of the warfare theses —over a broad historical and ideological range, through a series of accessible and interesting chapters. And it is a vitally important project, considering the persistence of conflicts involving science and religion in the United States.

This very timely collection is to be valued. The contributors are all first class.

The best single-volume collection of separate-author essays about the history of science and religion in the major modern monotheistic Western traditions. These essays from a host of distinguished historians remind us that history is complex because people are complex, even scientists.

When and why did the idea of conflict between science and religion emerge? These insightful and pathbreaking essays take us on an exhilarating historical tour which shows that notions of ‘warfare’ and ‘conflict’ reflected cultural realities of the time. It offers an essential intervention in modern debate.

Book Details

Introduction Mark A. Noll and David N. Livingstone 1. The Warfare Thesis Lawrence M. Principe 2. The Galileo Affair Maurice A. Finocchiaro 3. Rumors of War Monte Harrell Hampton 4. The Victorians

Introduction Mark A. Noll and David N. Livingstone 1. The Warfare Thesis Lawrence M. Principe 2. The Galileo Affair Maurice A. Finocchiaro 3. Rumors of War Monte Harrell Hampton 4. The Victorians: Tyndall and Draper Bernard Lightman 5. Continental Europe Frederick Gregory 6. Roman Catholics David Mislin 7. Eastern Orthodox Christians Efthymios Nicolaidis 8. Liberal Protestants Jon H. Roberts 9. Protestant Evangelicals Bradley J. Gundlach 10. Jews Noah Efron 11. Muslims M. Alper Yalçınkaya 12. New Atheists Ronald L. Numbers and Jeff Hardin 13. Neo-Harmonists Peter Harrison 14. Historians John Hedley Brooke 15. Scientists Elaine Howard Ecklund and Christopher P. Scheitle 16. Social Scientists Thomas H. Aechtner 17. The View on the Street John H. Evans Contributors Index

Jeff Hardin, PhD

Ronald l. numbers, ronald a. binzley, phd.

with Hopkins Press Books

Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions

• Reference work
• © 2013
• Anne L. C. Runehov 0 ,
• Lluis Oviedo 1

Department of Systematic Theology, Faculty of Theology, Copenhagen University, Copenhagen, Denmark

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Pontificia Universita Antonianum, Roma, Italia

• The first to involve all academic disciplines
• The first to involve all religions, including indigenous traditions
• The first to treat the area systematically so that new research areas are identified
• The first to treat important thinkers and concepts in direct relation to their significance for religions and academic disciplines
• The first to include the views of religious and academic authorities, as well as outsider perspectives

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About this book

"To all who love the God with a 1000 names and respect science”

In the last quarter century, the academic field of Science and Theology (Religion) has attracted scholars from a wide variety of disciplines. The question is, which disciplines are attracted and what do these disciplines have to contribute to the debate? In order to answer this question, the encyclopedia maps the (self)-identified disciplines and religious traditions that participate or might come to participate in the Science and Religion debate. This is done by letting each representative of a discipline and tradition answer specific chosen questions. They also need to identify the discipline in relation to the Science and Religion debate. Understandably representatives of several disciplines and traditions answered in the negative to this question. Nevertheless, they can still be important for the debate; indeed, scholars and scientists who work in the field of Science and Theology (Religion) may need knowledge beyond their own specific discipline. Therefore the encyclopedia also includes what are called general entries. Such entries may explain specific theories, methods, and topics. The general aim is to provide a starting point for new lines of inquiry. It is an invitation for fresh perspectives on the possibilities for engagement between and across sciences (again which includes the social and human sciences) and religions and theology. This encyclopedia is a comprehensive reference work for scholars interested in the topic of ‘Science and Religion.’ It covers the widest spectrum possible of academic disciplines and religious traditions worldwide, with the intent of laying bare similarities and differences that naturally emerge within and across disciplines and religions today. The A–Z format throughout affords easy and user-friendly access to relevant information.Additionally, a systematic question-answer format across all Sciences and Religions entries affords efficient identification of specific points of agreement, conflict, and disinterest across and between sciences and religions. The extensive cross-referencing between key words, phrases, and technical language used in the entries facilitates easy searches. We trust that all of the entries have something of value for any interested reader.

Anne L.C. Runehov and Lluis Oviedo

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Table of contents (1682 entries)

Front matter, a priori arguments, a priori/a posteriori.

• Neil Spurway

Abhidhamma Piṭaka

Abhidhamma, southern.

• Ven. Agganyani

Abhidharma, Northern

• Kuala Lumpur Dhammajoti

Aboriginal Studies

Academic theology, action control.

• Giacomo Rizzolatti, Maria Alessandra Umiltà

Adaptation, Behavioral

Adaptationism, adaptiveness, aesthetics (philosophy).

• Charles Taliaferro

Affective Attitudes

Editors and affiliations.

Anne L. C. Runehov

Lluis Oviedo

Bibliographic Information

Book Title : Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions

Editors : Anne L. C. Runehov, Lluis Oviedo

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8265-8

Publisher : Springer Dordrecht

eBook Packages : Humanities, Social Sciences and Law , Reference Module Humanities and Social Sciences , Reference Module Humanities

Copyright Information : Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Hardcover ISBN : 978-1-4020-8264-1 Published: 18 May 2013

eBook ISBN : 978-1-4020-8265-8 Published: 19 June 2013

Edition Number : 1

Number of Pages : LVIII, 2372

Number of Illustrations : 31 b/w illustrations, 50 illustrations in colour

Topics : Religious Studies, general , Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, multidisciplinary , Philosophy of Religion , Philosophy of Science , Regional and Cultural Studies

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