From Conflict to Dialogue and All the Way Back. Review of Yves Gingras, 'Science and Religion: An Impossible Dialogue' (original) (raw)
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Science and Religion as Historical Traditions
After Science and Religion, 2022
2016 saw the publication of Science and Religion: An Impossible Dialogue by French-Canadian sociologist Yves Gingras. 1 The book, it must said, does not constitute a particularly helpful intervention, and against the grain of virtually all recent scholarship presents a reactionary reassertion of the discredited notion of an enduring historical conflict between science and religion. 2 But it does offer an interesting challenge, evident in its title, in that it enquires after the conditions of possibility for a dialogue between science and religion, and raises the normative issue of whether such a dialogue is desirable. By way of contrast, much contemporary science-religion discussion has tended to assume, to some degree uncritically, both the possibility and desirability of dialogue between science and religion. 3 This chapter begins with the question posed by Gingras's book, asking what must be true of 'science' and 'religion' for dialogue between them to be possible. One obvious response to this question is that they must in some sense be commensurable: that is, be the kinds of entities that can be in conversation with each other. My suggestion will be the understanding them in these terms can perpetuate an illicit reification in which they come to be understood primarily as enterprises that deliver propositions about the world. The chapter explores two main alternatives: science and religion as formative practices; and science and religion as historical traditions. The latter argument proceeds by way of a discussion of the problem of incommensurability, and potential solutions to it. In both cases, some form of historically informed philosophy turns out to be vital for an understanding of the relations between science and religion.
Journal of Biblical and Theological Studies, 2017
The idea of inevitable and perpetual conflict between science and religion is known among historians as the “conflict thesis.” It exploded in popularity in the late nineteenth century with the rise of the Victorian scientific naturalists to positions of leadership in prominent scientific institutions. A common misperception exists concerning the two authors most central to the widespread dissemination and lasting popularity of the conflict thesis: John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White. This misperception assumes that because Draper and White pitted science and religion at odds, they were not themselves theologically engaged. On the contrary, Draper and White held very specific theological views and championed them in their written works. Like others at the time, they shaped their theology to conform to their vision of science, a vision articulated by scientific naturalism, with its commitments to inviolable natural laws and nature as a closed system of physical causes. They viewed their theologies as the solutions that would bring peace in the conflict between science and religion. Since the commitments shared by the Victorian scientific naturalists remain central in science as it is conceived to the present day, the theological adjustments to accommodate them also continue. To understand the work of Draper, White, and other leading Victorian scientific naturalists offers valuable insight into the nexus of philosophy of science, metaphysics, and philosophy of religion both in the late nineteenth century and in the ongoing scholarly discussion of divine action today.