Mid-Watch Report: January 2006

Mid-Watch Report: January 2006
Relating Science and Religion: Our Choice, Our Future
by Rev. Sterling M. Durgy

Contents
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Introduction
The “Ogre” Over the Horizon
A History of Bigotry
The Rise of Darwinism
Darwinism Applied
Shall the World Stay Cold?
Related Readings in print and at this Web Site
Footnotes

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Mid-Watch Report

of The American Night Watch
Vol. 7 No. 1 January 2006

Relating Science and Religion:
Our Choice, Our Future

Conflict between science and religion is always under the surface in American culture today; at times breaking into national view through public policy debates. While many people are deeply involved in this controversy, it seems that the broader and deeper implications of this debate are seldom considered. Often framed as simply a debate about whether religion will control science or vice versa, the debate is really about our future and the kind of world we want for ourselves and our children.

To consider the broader perspective it is necessary to consider the assumptions behind how Americans think in our time. We must start with one of the underlying reasons scientists see attacks upon biological evolution as an attack upon the entire scientific enterprise and understand why many Christians are arguing from insight when they perceive danger in evolutionary thought.

The “Ogre” Over the Horizon

Scientists strongly opposed to belief in a Creator/Designer are most often motivated by their desire to protect their discipline of investigation. For many, it seems, religion is the “ogre” just over the horizon that, if allowed to come near, will impose restrictions that undermine the entire scientific enterprise and all of the benefits to humanity that come with it. An important part of what they fear is the introduction of a “God of the gaps.” Aristotle had a similar concern, and one way to understand theirs is to consider his objection to the views of an earlier Greek philosopher, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae.

Anaxagoras was born about 500 BC. At that time, philosophers were trying to understand how the universe was set into motion. Anaxagoras proposed the view that the universe was set into motion by Mind (Grk: Nous). Although Anaxagoras never fully explained what he meant by “Mind” — he may or may not have been referring to God or a god — it is certain that he was thinking of something separate from the material substance of creation. Aristotle considered this to be the first credible attempt to explain the orderly movement of the universe.1 It certainly seemed close to Aristotle’s view that all was set into motion by “Unmoved Mover” or a “Prime Mover.”2 Nevertheless, Aristotle was deeply critical of Anaxagoras. He complained that Anaxagoras only referred to this “Mind” when he couldn’t explain nature any other way.3 In other words, “Mind” was just a convenient device for Anaxagoras to fill a gap in his explanation of the universe. Aristotle had a good point.

Many scientists apparently view all traditional religions, including Christianity, in the same manner. They believe that because our ancestors didn’t know how the universe worked, they explained everything as the work of a supernatural God or gods. As science advances, there are fewer and fewer such “gaps” in our understanding that need to be explained this way. For example, our ancestors thought that when the sun darkened during the day that this was a divine omen. Now we know that a solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the earth and the sun. Once people believed that earthquakes resulted from divine anger or whim. Now, we know that the movement of enormous tectonic plates on the earth’s surface is responsible for earthquakes. Many secular scientists view the discovery of physical causes as reason to discard any concept that a supernatural God is involved in the natural universe at all.

The 20th century American philosopher/educator John Dewey taught that by eliminating any place for a God of the gaps, science would eventually leave no place for a supernatural God except in mysticism; and many intellectuals today — scientists and otherwise — would agree that this is what should happen.4 But many today would not share Dewey’s optimism. For them, there is an “ogre” just over the horizon — a threat that those who believe in God will rise up and destroy the scientific enterprise by forcing scientists to conform to their pre-scientific views of the world. For many, it seems, this ogre is not an object of their imagination, it is real, and it is a real threat to the future of science. And for those who think this way, this is a life and death conflict; one or the other — science or religion — must die. They thus see themselves not as defensive and paranoid but as those who must kill the ogre to ensure the future well being of the human race. This ogre may not cause them to lose any sleep at night, but it sure seems to be their mission to starve or destroy it when they go out into the world each day.

A History of Bigotry

If many scientists are motivated by the noble goal of protecting the integrity of scientific investigation, others are motivated to oppose religion by their anti-religious and/or anti-Christian bigotry. John Dewey, for example, was contemptuous of all traditional religions. And he made no secret of it. He explained his views in a book entitled, A Common Faith.

Dewey wanted people to do away with “religion” as a concept to the extent that he rejected the word “religion” itself as having no real meaning.5 He viewed mysticism as a purely human experience rather than an encounter with the supernatural.6 However, he wanted people to be “religious.”7 To be “religious” was to pursue “art, science and good citizenship” for the benefit of all.8 Dewey wanted to make it known that his concept of religiosity was a replacement for traditional faiths. He wrote, “There is such a thing as faith in intelligence becoming religious in quality — a fact that perhaps explains the efforts of some religionists to disparage the possibilities of intelligence as a force. They properly feel such a faith to be a dangerous rival.”9

When Dewey used the word “God,” he sometimes put the word in quotes, yet still worried that the use of the term might mislead people to think that he referred to a supernatural Being.10 Instead, “the divine” for Dewey consisted of personal goals that would benefit the human race.11 To remove all doubt of his true attitude towards religion Dewey wrote,

. . . I should be sorry if any were misled by the frequency with which I have employed the adjective "religious" to conceive of what I have said as a disguised apology for what have passed as religions. The opposition between religious values as I conceive them and religions is not to be bridged. Just because the release of these values is so important, their identification with the creeds and cults of religions must be dissolved.12

Dewey’s contempt for religion was expressed in his approach to education as well as in his scholarly writings and, arguably, has influenced many in the current educational establishment as well. Stephen Carter observed, “The leading twentieth-century thinker on public education, the estimable John Dewey, was of the plainly stated view that one of the reasons for public schools was to remove the irrational religious influence that the children might otherwise retain from their parents.”13

The bigotry exhibited by Dewey did not begin with him, however. It has deep roots that extend hundreds of years into the past. A hostile attitude towards traditional religions was openly manifested by the intellectuals of the period known as “the Enlightenment.” Neil MacDonald placed the dates of the Enlightenment, “from the English Revolution of 1688 to the French Revolution of 1789.”14

In evaluating the Enlightenment, Frederick Copleston observed that among the most “salient features of the thought of the period” was the determination to break free from, “theological and metaphysical presuppositions,” fully convinced that, “the advance of ‘reason’ was incompatible with mediaeval religion or with a philosophy which was closely associated with theology.”15

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote an article entitled, “What is Enlightenment?” in 1784.16 He declared that man was finally “coming of age,” daring to think for himself after years of dependence upon the opinion of authorities.17 The intellectual “immaturity” Kant had especially in mind had to do with religion. Kant judged immature thinking, “in religion is not only the most harmful but the most dishonorable.”18 He believed that, “dogmas and formulas” are “fetters” holding people to the ideas of the past and preventing them from attaining new insights through the application of their reasoning abilities.19 He firmly denied that any group of clergymen or theologians had the right to teach doctrine that could not be changed.20

Kant later expanded his views on religion in his book, Religion Within the Bounds of Reason Alone. Although he claimed that he promoted Christianity, it was a form of the faith that is hardly recognizable as such. He denied any relationship between the Old Testament and New Testament, claiming that Old Testament history was completely unreliable and that Judaism in the time of Christ held to inward morality only because Judaism had learned virtue from Greek paganism — a position that is totally outrageous.21 He denied that God is Trinity.22 He also denied the importance of Jesus as someone who lived in history. Kant believed that the idea of Jesus as the example (archetype) of the person totally committed to God was the only Jesus that was useful.23 In keeping with this concept, he maintained that, “No thoughtful person . . .” could bring himself to believe in the vicarious atonement of Christ on the cross; believing, instead, that this referred to a person’s hardship in living a moral life.24 Contrary to the common understanding of the Gospel, especially after the Protestant Reformation, Kant maintained that, “the right course is not to go from grace to virtue but rather to progress from virtue to grace.”25 In Kant’s view, people save themselves by choosing to be moral in response to God’s inner call to right behavior.26

Kant saw Christianity as only a stepping stone that would be discarded when a universal religion emerged; a religion devoid of prayer, dogma, and ceremonies.27 In this future “universal religion of reason,” Kant believed, “ecclesiastical faith” — including Christianity — will be cast aside much as a tadpole casts aside its tail; and then, in his view, the Kingdom of God will be on earth.28 Kant thus believed in a development of religion that moved past traditional Christianity.

The view that religion developed in an evolutionary type of process was expressed even before Kant. The English philosopher David Hume wrote an essay in 1757 entitled, “The Natural History of Religion” in which he presented his view that man developed religion in an attempt to deal with the uncertainties of life.29 He argued that it was natural for people to think that there were many gods and to develop belief in only one God later as their thinking became more sophisticated. His recognition of the superiority of monotheism did not mean that he embraced Christianity, however. Although he acknowledged that the “design” argument for the existence of a divine Creator had some validity because of the “mystery” of creation, Copleston noted that Hume believed that Christianity and Islam were destructive because, “the transition from polytheism to monotheism has also been accompanied by the growth of fanaticism, bigotry, and intemperate zeal . . . .”30

Hume did not quite argue against all religion. But, he denied the validity of revealed religion, such as Christianity. His approach to philosophy was an attempt to create a science of man using the same methodology that Isaac Newton had applied to the universe.31 Although Hume expressed his views on religion in several key writings, Gerard Loughlin observed that Hume’s “Natural History of Religion,” “. . . is, perhaps of more importance for the history of theology, since it announces a more purely secular approach to religion, issuing in nineteenth-century ‘anthropology of religion’ and twentieth-century ‘religious studies.’”32

Hume was not alone in seeking to exclude traditional religion from science. Several French philosophers promoted similar lines of thought. Turgot (1727-1781) believed that human history involved inevitable progress and that religious views of the world were the most primitive.33 Condorcet (1743-1794) divided all human history into nine epochs of progress.34 Like Hume, Condorcet wanted to promote a secular science of man, and like Kant, Condorcet believed that humanity, through scientific progress, was moving towards a final, tenth epoch of continual growth in happiness and morality.35 He was followed by Saint-Simon (1760-1825), who firmly believed that the science of the 18th century made theology a thing of the past.36 He did not reject religion altogether, holding pantheistic views; but he completely rejected traditional Christian doctrine.37

It was Auguste Comte (1798-1857), for a time secretary to Saint-Simon and now considered to be the “Father of Modern Sociology,” who presented the clearest and most widely known proposal for human progress beyond religion.38 Comte proposed three great periods of human progress.39 The first, the “theological” period, was one in which natural events were attributed to personal, supernatural beings such as God or gods. In the second period, the “metaphysical,” natural events were attributed to impersonal forces of nature. In the third and final stage, the “scientific” or “positivistic” stage, people realize that they can never know more about the universe than they can observe, and leave behind any attempt to explain reality with theology or metaphysics.

In the 20th century, those who looked to Hume and followed after the judgments of the Enlightenment directed philosophy away from the study of Truth to the study of language. In the early judgment of Ludwig Wittgenstein and those who came to be known as “Logical Positivists,” any discussion of theology, metaphysics, and even morals is completely meaningless. They promoted the view that our speech tells others what we believe, but whether we say that we believe in God or whether we say we are atheists, our statements, in their view, tell us nothing about reality. Thus, attitudes established in the Enlightenment found expression in 20th century thought.

But what is most important for our discussion here is the insight that bigotry against religion was firmly established in some academic circles decades before Darwin’s theory of evolution was introduced.

The Rise of Darwinisn

In spite of the movement to remove God from scholarship, most scholars continued to give God a prominent place in their view of the universe and human life. The German scholars Friedrich Schleiermacher — now known as the “Father of Theological Liberalism” — and G. W. F. Hegel, not only gave God a prominent place in their understanding of the world, they embraced Christianity as the purest religion; at least in their time.40 Their views became widely influential both in Europe and in America by the mid-19th century. Nevertheless, like Kant, both reinterpreted traditional Christian doctrines to fit their philosophical interpretations of the world.41 The “God” acknowledged by both and in other academic circles tended to be impersonal.42 Scholars widely valued what they could learn about God from nature — “natural theology” — over what could be learned about God from Scripture — “revealed theology.” Even Christian scientists and scholars tended to place too much weight on natural theology; claiming that they could learn more about God through nature than is actually the fact.43

In the mid-19th century, Ludwig Feuerbach, a former student of Hegel, published writings critical of Hegel and promoting the concept — much more strongly than Hume — that divine beings (gods) are the creation of people’s imaginations. Feuerbach significantly influenced the thought of Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and many others.44

All of this helped prepare the way for Darwin’s theory of biological evolution. It was the kind of theory that many scholars were looking for; one consistent with their philosophical outlook. Charles Singer observed of Darwin’s Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection, “Evolution was perhaps unique among major scientific theories in that the appeal for its acceptance was not the evidence for it, but that any other proposed interpretation of the data seemed wholly incredible.”45 Nevertheless, many scholars thought that Darwin’s theory of biological evolution provided confirmation that human history involves an evolution in thought away from religion, that secular science alone brings human progress, and that religion interferes with the advancement of science.

Influenced to at least some degree by Comte, Darwin believed that the advancement of science was hindered by a “God of the gaps;” believing, “that terms such as ‘plan of creation’ or ‘unity of design’ were often used as facades to hide ignorance.”46 Hutchison observed, “After Darwin . . . positive science discouraged theological concerns and explanations. . . . While some scientists had always espoused mixed views of the historical reliability of the biblical stories, a stronger, united antibiblical voice characterized the new positive science.”47

Many scientists interpreted this to mean that the “ogre” that threatened scientific progress had been forced to retreat “over the horizon.” It was not yet dead, but it no longer affected scientific research in any significant way — at least not for the moment. A new reality, scarcely noticed by many, accompanied this departure, however, one that, despite their failure to notice, would not be benign.

Darwinism Applied

Although it is the conflict over biological evolution that usually draws attention, it is the consequences of evolutionary theory outside biological science that are the most significant. John Dewey was among those whose philosophy was greatly affected by Darwinism.

Dewey was one of several philosophers whose approach came to be known as “American pragmatism.” Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, George H. Mead, and John Dewey were the most prominent members of this group. James was a medical doctor who was influenced — as were, perhaps, the other pragmatists to some extent — by the Swedenborgianism of James’s father. As early as 1880, William James published a lecture in which he argued that Darwinism helped explain why certain men become known as “great.”48 James later separated the study of psychology from philosophy and theology, making it part of the sciences. His influence on American culture, with regard to both psychology and philosophy, was great. Yet, it was Dewey who most closely adapted the philosophy of pragmatism to Darwinism and who was most influential in making pragmatism a dominant part of the thinking of most Americans.

The pragmatists have been largely successful in persuading Americans to judge values by their philosophy even though their names are not widely known outside academic circles today. Most Americans have never heard of “American pragmatism” and many Americans would deny that they are influenced by any philosophy.

Nevertheless, in accordance with the philosophy of pragmatism, most Americans judge that if anything is successful, it must be OK. The religious form of this argument is that if anything is successful, it must be blessed of God. This judgment seems to be applied without thinking by most Americans in our time.

In a more formal sense, pragmatism says that if two or more ways of reaching a goal bring success, they are morally equivalent.49 Thus, in the past, a person who earned a great deal of money in America tended to be more respected than someone who inherited wealth. Or, again, the person who earned money by doing something that benefitted others was more respected than the person who earned money through something frivolous. By the latter part of the 20th century, however, the most important thing was to have money; whether inherited, earned through the invention of medical technology that many people benefitted from, earned by the sale of a device that worked for only a short while and died, resulted from gambling, or was gained through the sale of pornography. Along with this came “conspicuous consumption;” demonstrating one’s success publicly to others. This is, however, only one way in which pragmatism affected American thought.

For William James, this led to the conclusion that any religion — or even atheism — was valuable if it helped people cope with life. The form of this argument perhaps heard most frequently today is that anyone’s religious beliefs — including atheism — are equally worthy of respect as long as they produce a “moral” life. Religion also becomes something individual and personal, solely for one’s own benefit; something that cannot and should not be shared with others. Organized religion and traditional doctrines are thus devalued by James’s teaching.

Nevertheless, Dewey was not only the pragmatist whose philosophy most reflected the influence of Darwinism, he was the one most opposed to traditional religions. In 1909, Dewey lectured on the subject, “The Influence of Darwinism on Philosophy” claiming that, in his words, “the ‘Origin of Species’ introduced a mode of thinking that in the end was bound to transform the logic of knowledge, and hence the treatment of morals, politics, and religion.”50 George Mead, who worked closely with Dewey, witnessed that Dewey believed that Christian doctrine had been completely discredited by 19th century science.51 Dewey’s book A Common Faith indicates that he believed the Scopes trial had provided public evidence of this.52

When life is viewed in Darwinian terms, life consists of ever-changing circumstances. The goal of life is, thus, continual adaptation. As with Kant, the past is left behind. But, unlike with Kant, there is no “perfect future” to move toward. There is no God to define what constitutes a perfect and just Kingdom on earth; no lasting values that define what is “moral.” The only thing that matters is to adapt in order to thrive in each new situation, whatever that situation might be. The past doesn’t help because those situations don’t exist any more. Looking to the future doesn’t help because there is no way to know what the future will be like. “Truth” doesn’t necessarily matter if believing in a fantasy helps us to survive but facing up to “reality” doesn’t. We live in an eternal “now” in which our environment continually challenges us to change.

Traditional religion is discounted in this view. Contending that there is abiding Truth takes our focus away from the uniqueness that we must face to be successful in our current situation. However, mysticism — such as Swedenborgianism or New Age beliefs — is more acceptable because it doesn’t depend upon unchanging Truths or doctrines; focusing on our experience of the here and now.

Darwinism is based upon “survival of the fittest.” The expectation of Dewey, apparently, was that conformity to this view of life would challenge people to dedicate themselves to continual improvement to successfully face the challenges of each day. He argued that if the intellectual energy devoted to the supernatural and Christian doctrine were redirected to solving human problems through secular science, significantly greater progress would be made towards solving the problems of the world.53 Further, Dewey expected that human beings would work together to solve their common problems. Dewey wrote, “Whether or no we are, save in some metaphorical sense, all brothers, we are at least all in the same boat traversing the same turbulent ocean. The religious significance of this fact is infinite.”54

Nevertheless, Dewey’s expectation would not be fulfilled. Rather than providing a challenge that would encourage people to work together, Dewey’s pragmatism provided the rationale for people to be self-serving. By stressing individualism in judgment, pragmatism provided incentive for people to choose their own direction without rules. By insisting that the challenges of today are different from those of yesterday and those of tomorrow, pragmatism removed any incentive to study history, literature, or philosophy of the past or to prepare for the future. By dismissing traditional religion and a supernatural Deity, pragmatism removed the burden of searching for Truth and values. Dewey’s enormously influential program was expected to transform education into something more useful. Instead, Dewey helped create the cultural environment that mystifies so many today — one in which students have no incentive to study and learn because their judgments are as good as anyone else’s and, because there is no God nor future, their individual happiness is all that matters — let the progeny look out for themselves.

It would be wrong to say that pragmatism and Darwinism were the only significant influences upon contemporary culture. But they have certainly played a major role. In his study of what has caused American students to cease having a hunger for knowledge, Allan Bloom wrote, “Liberalism . . . the kind we knew from John Stuart Mill and John Dewey, taught us that the only danger confronting us is being closed to the emergent, the new, the manifestations of progress. No attention had to be paid to the fundamental principles or the moral virtues that inclined men to live according to them.”55 No matter how many signals we try to send younger people to the contrary, they understand the underlying message provided by our educational institutions and mass media.

Shall the World Stay Cold?

If the pragmatists were not shy about using Darwinism to advance and shape their agenda, they were, nevertheless, completely averse to following Darwinism to its logical conclusions. Enlightenment prejudices in favor of the evolution of human culture and the inevitability of human progress were not only at the core of these teachings, they helped mask the darker side of Darwinism.

Darwinism, which looked at life as the sole product of natural forces, led to the view that the universe is one, large, complex machine. If so, then all events are completely determined by a sequence of natural events; human freedom is an illusion.

Then, there is the issue of morality. In the late 19th century, the philosopher Friederich Nietzsche — who hated Judaism and Christianity with a passion — was, nevertheless, disturbed by what he saw coming in their place. Bloom wrote, “‘God is dead,’ Nietzsche proclaimed. But he did not say this on a note of triumph, in the style of earlier atheism—the tyrant had been overthrown and man is now free. . . . Nietzsche was a cultural relativist, and he saw what that means—war, great cruelty rather than great compassion.”56 Nietzsche rejected Darwinism for his own, secular view of human development. Nevertheless, as in social Darwinism, he believed that conflict and struggle in the time of horror he foresaw were necessary to further the development of the human race.57

“Survival of the fittest” meant that neither individuals, nor businesses, nor governments were beholden to treat people with dignity and respect, nor life as sacred. Any tactic that worked could be used to increase power and eliminate opposition. It was the duty of the stronger to prevail. This kind of thinking shaped American businesses in the late 19th century. It was incorporated into the philosophy of Karl Marx, and thus lived out in communist countries and in the fascist policies of Nazi Germany as well in the 20th century. Tens of millions died and many more abused for the “advancement” of these governments. Men and women ceased to be considered human; their lives having less value than the beasts of burden and slaves of earlier centuries— for they were viewed simply as bio-chemical machines. In the latter twentieth century, even in western culture, the view increasingly prevailed that human beings are just sophisticated bags of chemicals — followed by all of the social problems that must follow when people no longer believe that anything is sacred.

Perhaps the greatest shortcoming of the secular academy is its failure to be fully self-critical, to perceive, in the history of the 20th century, the failure of some of the basic ideas that shaped scholarly thought in the 19th and 20th centuries, and to admit, on those grounds, that its rejection of religion generally — and Christianity in particular — needs to be re-examined. Instead, evolution is presented as sacred dogma. It is discussed in journals, articles, books, and television programs. Yet, there seem to be few presentations in which any serious criticism of the Darwinism is discussed.

There seems to be a determination to encourage people to question their religious beliefs paired with an equal determination to prevent anyone from raising questions about Darwinian evolution. Students who question the theory are ridiculed. Those with strong academic credentials and experience who question Darwinism are kept off university faculties and prevented from having their writings discussed in schools. When secular scientists discard a belief because it has been proven wrong, it is held up as evidence of the progress of secular science. But when Christians hold a belief about the universe that is later proven wrong, it is seen as evidence that all Christianity is false and destructive. This double standard is pure bigotry.

Many of the colleges and universities that promote and accept this bigotry on their campuses are supported, in one way or another, by public funds. As such, they have an obligation to include people of faith in their universities just as they accept any others. This is not the promotion of a new public policy — it is to put in practice the policy that is guaranteed by our Constitution and Bill of Rights, and that we should expect to be enforced, as a matter of course, by our government.

At the same time, anti-religious scholars deny themselves the benefit of scholarly critics who may, by their questioning, open up new directions of study and reflection. Academic disciplines today are collaborative. Disagreements within disciplines are expected and are universally seen as helping fields to advance. It is not uncommon to have certain large questions basic to a discipline remain open to debate. And there is no reason this cannot be tolerated in the matter of belief in a Deity — and that Deity’s relationship to the world around us — as well as with other differences of opinion.

Hutchison observed, “In seeking to exclude God from any discussion of science the scientific establishment is violating its own rules of logic.”58 The fact is that while there is a very real danger that a “God of the gaps” may prevent necessary study and research, the possibility must be kept open that some “gaps” in our knowledge of the world can only be explained by Deity — and this deserves to be explored in the sciences as well as in other disciplines of knowledge. In reality, religion is not excluded from academia today solely because of the belief that it will reintroduce the past, but because there are those secularists who fear that their monopoly upon the academy — and with that their chance to control all of culture unopposed — will come to an end. This monopoly must end, however, if scholarship is to truly serve all and not just some elite.

Copleston judged that Dewey never proved his naturalistic world view, he simply assumed it; “Dewey assumes, for example, that the day of theological and metaphysical explanations is past, and that such explanations were bogus,” and further, that, “it is open to question whether Dewey’s philosophy as a whole is really coherent.”59 It is time for Dewey’s kind of Enlightenment bigotry to end and for scholarship to take up the full challenge of the search for Truth.

It is because we are human, and not just bio-chemical machines, that this quest for Truth cannot exclude God. For as Paul told the philosophers on Mars Hill, God created people, “That they might seek God, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain likewise of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring” (Acts 17:27, 28); upon which John Wesley commented, “No words can better express the continual and necessary dependence of all created beings, in their existence and all their operations, on the first and almighty Cause, which the truest philosophy as well as divinity teaches.”60 -SMD

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