Science and Religion, con't

One can hardly pick up the paper or a magazine without finding an article that pits evolution against faith or religion. The New York Times has an article that refers to this in terms of the differences between politics in the U.S. and in Europe. I find most of the articles in the popular press fairly simplistic as well as reductionistic.

A excellent article that treats this issue with both intelligence and care was written by Avery Cardinal Dulles in the October 2007 issue of First Things. In "God and Evolution" Dulles attempts to address the issue of evolution from a Christian position. His introduction refers to a week of study on science and religion at Castel Gandolfo sponsored by the pope in September 1987. Cardinal Dulles summarizes part of a letter that the pope wrote to those involved in the dialogue:

He [the pope] recommended a program of dialogue and interaction, in which science and religion would seek neither to supplant each other nor to ignore each other. They should search together for a more thorough understanding of one another's competencies and limitations, and they should look especially for common ground. Science should not try to become religion, nor should religion seek to take the place of science. Science can purify religion from error and superstition, while religion purifies science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each discipline should therefore retain its integrity and yet be open to the insights and discoveries of the other.

If only we would heed this advise!

Cardinal Dulles summarizes several different positions that Christians take concerning evolution. (He does not consider creationism, i.e., that the world was made in six days and began 6006 B.C. credible and does not address this view.) The first group represented by Francis Collins 'accepts the Darwinist account as accurate on the scientific level but rejects Darwinism as a philosophical system. This group believes that God uses the processes of evolution to work out his creative plan. The second group, Intelligent Design represented by Michael Behe, believe that the only way to make sense of the history of life is to see God's direct intervention at particular periods (like the development of the eye, for example). The third group represented by philosopher of science, Michael Polanyi, "agree that biological organism cannot be understood by the laws of mechanics alone."

He doesn't attempt to adjudicate between the three, although he hangs his hat on the peg of the third group. But he makes the point that reductionistic science purports to reduce all knowledge to what can be ascertained by the scientific method. As he notes,

Some contemporary scientific atheists are so caught up in the methodology of their discipline that they imagine it must be the only method for solving every problem. But other methods are needed for grappling with questions of another order. Science and technology (science's offspring) are totally inadequate in the field of morality...The tendency of science, when it gains the upper hand, is to do whatever lies within its capacity, without regard for moral constraints...To distinguish between the right and wrong use of power, and to motivate human beings to do what is right even when it does not suit their convenience, requires recourse to moral and religious norms.

We need to better inform ourselves about the relationship between science and religion especially in relation to the issues involved in evolution so that we can elude the simplistic arguing that occurs in the popular press and so that we can engage in dialogue that is thoughtful and gracious that will lead to greater understanding.