Science

Question 1

The emphasis on evidence and reason in science

Answer 1

• Modern scientific knowledge is based on observation and experience, empiricism.
• The other view is rationalism, the idea the human thought is the basis for all knowledge.
• Rationalists such as Descartes mistrusted human experience since human senses can be deceptive.
• Empiricists such as Isaac Newton observed, formulated hypotheses, tested them, and then drew conclusion based on the results.
• However even empiricists must use reason to interpret their observations and draw conclusions.

Question 2

Science uses both deduction and induction

Answer 2

• Modern science uses the inductive method they observe and gather evidence, analyse it, and form a hypothesis.
• If the hypothesis is correct, deduction can be used to predict things that should not be the case.
• The view that science is the only way to find true knowledge is called scientism.
• Scientific claims are naturalistic, and therefore have the potential to conflict with the supernatural claims of religion.

Question 3

Christian responses to the rise of science include Deism and Existentialism

Answer 3

• Deism
  o Deism is the idea that God created the universe with physical laws, then left it to operate on its own without any further divine intervention.
  o This eliminates a possible conflict between science and religion because it allows for the universe to be explained fully by science without needing to provide evidence for a God who intervenes in the world.
  o However, the idea of God in deism is different from the God of Christian belief, who has an ongoing personal relationship with humans.
• Existentialism
  o Existentialism argues that humans create their own reality through making choices.
  o The world is shaped by personal decisions.
  o Faith is a personal choice to make a commitment to God, not something with external meaning.
  o Paul Tillich developed this to show that people choose to commit to religious beliefs and symbols for a sense of meaning and purpose.
  o He argued that for Christians, God does not exist as a being, but is the source of existence itself, the ’ground of being’.
  o Belief in God in God expresses existential commitments, so it is not related to empirical fact.
  o Religion is in a different category to science, and there is no conflict between the two.

Question 4

Specific Scientific discoveries

Answer 4

• Darwin and the discovery of evolution
  o Darwin’s origin of species suggested that the simple natural mechanism on natural selection could explain the differences between and within species.
  o This made the idea of a designer God unnecessary.
  o It challenged the idea of purpose in creation and the idea that humans are a unique part of creation.
  o We are just what has evolved.
  o Darwin himself seems to have lost his religious beliefs because of this.
  o Most Christians today take the view that evolution is the mechanism by which God works to create humanity such as Rahner.
• Big Bang theory
  o Big Bang theory suggests that everything we now see came from a space-time singularity about 13.8 billion years ago.
• Quantum theory
  o World at its smallest scale.
• Neuroscience
  o The study of brain activity.

Question 5

Science as a stimulus to Christian ethical thinking

Answer 5

• Science itself is morally neutral however there are moral questions that arise when there are technology’s that impact upon other peoples live, e.g., embryo research, designer baby, environmental.
• Most Christians argue the world has been organised for the benefit of mankind.

Question 6

How scientific explanation has challenged Christian belief

Answer 6

• The ‘God of the gaps’
  o Argument that as scientific knowledge of the world increases, there is less scope for ‘God’ to be used as an explanation for what we do not understand.
  o Illustrated Flews’ Parable of the Gardener, where the believer refuses to accept that God does not act in the world, and that there will soon be no gap left for such a role.
• Responses to this,
  o Tillich’s argument that God is ‘Being-itself’, and not ‘a being’ who acts in the world.
  o John Polkinghorne’s view that God acts in the world by being active undetectably at the quantum level.
  o Wiles avoids the problem by arguing that God’s one ‘act’ in relation to the universe is creation, and that is ongoing.
• Nineteenth-century Christian responses to Darwin’s theory of evolution
  o The scientific wing of the COE derided the theory because it shows that humans are beasts, which is ironic because that is precisely what they are.
  o Liberal Christians usually admired it because they assumed that evolution was God’s way of creating humanity. Charles Kingsley thought that the idea of God creating creatures capable of self-development is noble.
  o Interventionists rejected evolution in favour of the idea that God intervenes in nature when he wants to. This view is now also taken by creationists.
• Contemporary responses to the Big Bang theory, including reference to creationist views
  o Big Bang Theory seemed to show there was a beginning to the universe, and that God was the cause of it.
  o Fine tuning argument supports this.
  o Multiverse theory defeats the fine-tuning argument.
  o However, Multiverse theory doesn’t explain why there is something rather than nothing.
  o Further, some physicists reject multiverse arguments because multiverses are unobservable, and so are unscientific.
  o The Catholic Church still endorses the Big Bang argument as being caused by the will of God.
  o Young Earth and Old Earth Creationists reject all or most of the scientific arguments about the origin of the universe.

Question 7

The belief that science is compatible with Christianity with reference to the views of John Polkinghorne

Answer 7

• SAC
  o In SAC, Polkinghorne argues that the world is intelligible when it might easily not have been so.
  o Our minds have an amazing ability to understand the world.
  o The rationality of the universe is a reflection of the rationality of the creator.
  o Evolution of course is a fact, but it does not explain Einstein’s ability to think out the theory of relativity (which has no survival value).
  o JP also accepts the Anthropic principle and the fine-tuning argument, largely because he considers multiverse theory to be unscientific, because parallel universes cannot be observed.
  o JP’s strongest point is probably the intelligibility of the world, which to man Christians might suggest the intention of a rational creator.
  o There are problems with JP’s ideas, however.
  o If Multiverse theory is speculative because other universes are unobservable, so are all ideas about an unobservable and transcendent God. Moreover, JP cannot show that the creator is the God of Christianity, that is an article of Christian faith, and not of scientific knowledge.
• SAP
  o In SAP, JP analyses the idea of God’s providence.
  o He agrees that God does not act ‘fussily’ in the world but argues that God can act providentially in the world at the quantum level, ‘nudging its probabilities’ so as to produce tangible results in the world at the macro level.
  o This seems very vague.
  o If we cannot see these results, how do we know they are there?
  o If we can, then why would God not simply intervene at our level?
  o Moreover, if God can act in the world at all, we are back to the problem of evil: if God acts, then he appears to act selectively.
  o Such a God is not the Christian God of love.
• OW
  o In OW, JP claims that there is an analogy between the activities of theology and science, and that they are both concerned with the understanding and ordering of experience.
  o Moreover, religious experiences are more common than most people think, and are different cultural responses to the same reality.
  o This seems an odd argument, since it seems to suggest the ‘facts’ of Christianity are not facts at all, just cultural interpreting.
  o JP goes on to suggest that the Christian scriptures are evidence for Christian claims about Jesus, and that this evidence needs to be examined by reason.
  o This is of course true, but JP says that this is like handling the observational evidence of science, which it is not: science deals with repeatable observations of specific data.
  o Christian claims about Jesus are that they are a unique revelation of God.

Question 8

Different Christian Responses to issues raised by science: genetic engineering

Answer 8

• GE is not the same as cloning. It involves using enzymes to transfer pieces of DNA from one organism into the DNA of another organism, so the organism with the added DNA becomes genetically modified.
• Applications include modification of plants and animals in order to increase yields and to increase resistance to diseases and pests; also, in humans to cure conditions such as cystic fibrosis and Alzheimer’s to engineer children with ‘improved’ characteristics; and to produce transhumans.

Question 9

Catholic Churches response to GE

Answer 9

• Gives qualified approval to GE in plants and animals, not least to feed the hungry, although a NML approach might put a question mark over altering the genetic code of animals so that they cannot fulfil their final end. The Church also approves of therapeutic GE in order to cure human diseases but is hesitant over germline therapy where unforeseen bad effects would be passed on to children.
• GE to take humanity to a transhuman state is rejected: humanity would no longer be in God’s image.

Question 10

Protestant Churches response to GE

Answer 10

• Have a wider range of views.
• Much of the Protestant approach echoes the caution of the Catholic Church, but Fletcher’s Situation Ethics, for example, does not rule out transhuman GE, refusing to be bound by religious laws or doctrines.
• Some Protestant Churches have clear policies on GE, for example the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, which spells out four areas for ethical concern: the sanctity of human life; the protection of human dignity; the acceptance of social responsibilities, and the stewardship of God’s creation.