VIEWED FROM THE SHOULDERS OF GOD: THEMES IN SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY Cornel W du Toit Research Institute for Theology and Religion University of South Africa ii © 2007 Research Institute for Theology and Religion, University of South Africa, P O Box 392, Unisa 0003, Pretoria, South Africa First edition, first impression ISBN 978-1-86888-481-0 Cover design: Dawid Kahts Unisa Press University of South Africa Printed by: The Department of Production University of South Africa © 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means – mechanical or electronic, including recordings or tape-recording and photocopying – without the prior permission of the author, excluding fair quotations for purposes of research or re- view. iii CONTENTS Foreword . v 1 New Cosmology: A tower of Babel . 1 2 Values in the science-religion dialogue: Biological roots of human nature and interaction with cultural environment …. 15 3 Moral equilibrium of the universe: Genesis 3-11 and New Cosmology . 45 4 Common ground between science and theology . .. 67 5 Dominant scientific and technological worldviews: Christian responses . .. 83 6 Cartography of cultural and natural landscapes: Mapping metaphors in science and religion . 107 7 Limitations of the concept ‘law of nature’ as a source in science, philosophy, theology and law . .. 133 iv 8 The restoration of subjectivity in science, rationality and knowledge systems as a precondition for scientific integrity . .. 155 9 Some Barthian perspectives on the present science-religion debate: What is the place of ‘natural theology’ today? . 181 10 Evolutionary biology: A link between religion and knowledge? . 209 11 Arthur Peacocke’s contribution to the science-theology Debate . .. 231 12 Tout est bien? Natural and supernatural causes of evil: Perspectives from Hume’s treatise and Voltaire’s Candide . .. 251 13 The metaphysical mind in its physical environment: Religious implications of neuroscience . 275 14 Design, designers and the designing God: A critical look at some models . .. 297 15 Wisdom lost and regained? The possibility of reintegrating a fractured techno-scientific culture . .. 317 v Bibliography . 333 Index . .. 367 vi FOREWORD One of the more fascinating traits of human beings is the way they reconcile paradoxes and live with irreconcilables. Many find it impossible to reconcile science and religion, natural and supernatural, immanence and transcendence. So they choose to live in two apparently irreconcilable worlds. They visit the doctor with an incurable disease while fervently praying to God to heal them; they study the weather chart, praying for rain counter to its prognosis. But many others make their peace with the out-and-out bio- logical nature of life and accept their inevitable biological mortality. Yet others, while accepting their biological condi- tion, continue to find religion meaningful and allow room for God. Technoscience is manifestly putting pressure on religion. Religion is widely perceived as evolutionary scaffolding that propped up humankind in its childhood, but serves no further purpose now it has reached adulthood and must be demolished. We no longer need a projected father in heaven to see that justice prevails; we take responsibility for society ourselves. However, many believers disagree. Throwing religion out with the bathwater saps the verve of the human spirit. It strips life of aesthetics because its ‘truth’ is doubted. It reduces faith to this life only with no hope of anything beyond it. Yet religion evolves from one generation to the next. Since the dawn of Christianity God was worshipped Sunday after Sunday, but the mode of worship changed radically over the ages. Our expectations of God, our self-image and worldview are totally different from those of first century Christians. vii Religion can’t be kept alive artificially. If the need for it is superseded by something else it will cease to exist. But that does not necessarily mean that we will live in a post- religious phase with no value systems, justice, humility or morality. Hence the aim of the science-religion debate is not to ‘res- cue’ religion from science. The gods don’t need protection, they speak for themselves. A meaningful goal for the de- bate would be to clarify humankind’s apparently incorrigi- ble religiosity, and to reconcile the substance of faith and the concomitant expectations with our understanding of the physical functioning of our cosmos. To highlight the irrationality of religion – as scholars like Dawkins do – is easy. Pointing out misuses of religion is our duty; accept- ing religious ‘malpractices’ because they ‘do no harm’ is an insult to the human mind; hushing up scientific findings that appear to threaten religion is dishonest; denying the personal value that religion has for millions of human be- ings is a fallacy. Where does that leave us? Christianity offers countless plausible ways to accommodate belief in a personal god and personal salvation within the parameters of present- day technoscience. The science-theology debate has helped it to do so: not to devise new proofs of God’s exis- tence; not to sacrifice honesty in order to preserve religion; but to uphold the meaning that religion offers in a proficient manner. Even those who operate without a religious framework must acknowledge that religion evolved to en- able humankind to accomplish what has been accom- plished. To claim that we can face up to the challenges of our time without the backing of an unshakable spirit is hu- bris. But the driving force of the human mind is not de- pendent on just a handful of religious interpretations. The mind is bigger than that and we must give it more leeway. To a great extent human spirituality has become secular, viii finding transcendence inter alia in immanence. The sci- ence-theology debate offers plenty of examples. Thus the premise of this book is that we should have the guts to accept the multifaceted biological nature of exis- tence without surrendering the values that are essential for the human spirit to survive. The angle of the book is basi- cally Christian, with due regard to possible approaches from other religious traditions. Chapter 1 is a thumbnail sketch of what the dialogue is about. It permits panoramic vistas from a pinnacle (like people standing on God’s shoulders with a bird’s eye- view). Naturally the validity of our pinnacle talk is tested when we have to pick our way through the labyrinth of re- alities on the ground, but what we bring with us from the tower top is the very values that are the hallmark of the human mind. That is the theme of chapter 2. Chapter 3 analyses six protological stories in Genesis 3-11 to find a perspective from a historical religious source that offers useful guidelines for interaction with our natural and tech- noscientific environment. Chapter 4 explores the ways in which religion and science approach their respective worlds (texts). For all the parallels, each has its peculiari- ties. Metaphor and narrative are singled out as seemingly the most effective approach available to theology, and to some extent to science as well. Chapter 5 takes the reader on a lightning tour of the worldviews that determine us. The dominant Western worldview has largely outgrown its Christian infancy and has to find new meaning in a tech- noscientific environment. In theology critical realism has contributed to a stance that continues to assign values a key role in a scientific context. Chapter 6 elaborates on the theme by examining how we map our complex world. Al- though our cartography (science) was honed to a fine art in the modernist framework, humankind needs more. The sciences remain a road map that directs us on our journey, ix but they remain a background to, and a preparation for, the journey: they are not what the journey is about. The way we understand things and the wherewithal at our dis- posal largely determine how we live, but they are not what life is about. We turn to Heidegger for examples of how to integrate scientific artefacts with our human nature to make life meaningful. The cartography of the human spirit as imago Dei is explored in order to fathom its underlying spirituality. Chapter 7 seeks to deconstruct one of the car- dinal metaphors that shaped Western culture through the ages: the metaphor of natural law that was transposed from nature to philosophy, jurisprudence, physics and the- ology, with all its religious luggage. In time these disci- plines came to realise that the application of the metaphor far exceeded its scope. If the concept of natural law is anachronistic, the sciences have to reappraise the basic metaphors that serve as their criteria. Chapter 8 endeav- ours to give science a human face by recognising the role of the human subject anew. This is done by way of post- epistemology in the form of an axiological epistemology that expands the requirements of good epistemology to include important human values. The foundation of West- ern epistemology – representation – is broadened to in- corporate factors like language and tradition that feature in local contexts. By discussing the axiological dimension of knowledge systems we draw attention to the power factors at work in our epistemologies. Chapter 9 looks at the negative sentiments that accrued to the notion of natural theology in Western theology. This is done with reference to the work of Karl Barth, a leading figure in this regard. The aim is not to reinstate classical natural theology, but to work out a contemporary natural theology consonant with present-day interactions between science and theology. Barth’s reaction should be seen in the context of his time. In that context he contributed significantly to the interpreta- tion of biblical texts that deal with creation and with certain x provisos, his views leave scope for natural theology.