The Magisterium

[Robert Tulip]

Stephen J. Gould's … "NOMA" theory, "non-overlapping magisteria" …. [argued that] science and religion were independent magisteria. http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html (That was 1997, but people still talk about it today regularly in the discussion of science and faith.)

Thank you for opening up this discussion. We have previously discussed Gould’s NOMA theory at Booktalk. It can be simplified as the idea that science is the realm of facts while religion is the realm of values, as a fancy way of expressing the old positivist fact-value distinction.

The idea that these magisteria should not overlap is one of those ‘careful what you wish for’ things, since it implies that religion has no ability to comment on any matter of fact, and that science tells us nothing of importance. In fact it amounts to a tactical way of asking religious people not to bother scientists.

Of course religion and science overlap, in so far as both comment on both facts and values. Thank you for the link. Gould may be a useful reference point, although I have my doubts. I really enjoy his scientific work, but like Dawkins his ability to analyse religion is constrained by his reference frame with its lack of respect for the older traditions of philosophy.

I don't fully agree with Gould, but even he admitted mid-way through his NOMA essay that there is some "interdigitating in wondrously complex ways along [science and religion's] joint border" and by the end he even softened his definition by conceding that NOMA "enjoins...the prospect of respectful discourse, of constant input from both magisteria toward the common goal of wisdom."

Interdigitate is a nice way to say hold hands. I don’t think that image is a helpful way to explain the proper relation between science and religion. My view is that faith should be subordinate to reason, but that status should actually allow faith to have a new enhanced value compared to the current situation. The view of influential atheists such as Dawkins is that faith is intrinsically blind, and therefore a species of false consciousness. That removes any scope for faith to be true and useful, and is an attitude that helps to explain the growing doubts about the value of faith in the broader society.

Faith can be a virtue, providing a basis for absolute certainty regarding core scientific knowledge such as the existence of the universe and the reliability of abundantly confirmed empirical knowledge. I don’t think it makes sense to have faith in imaginative speculation that lacks empirical grounding. However when people have faith in themselves or in visionary ideas, it is still the same attitude as that guy who said ‘remove hence to yonder place’.

Also I love how the pagan philosopher, Mortimer J. Adler, so expressed it: “Ultimately there can be no disagreement between history, science, philosophy, and theology. Where there is disagreement, there is either ignorance or error.” (FYI, Mortimer converted at the end of life.)

The ultimate is not humanly attainable. There will inevitably be ongoing major disagreements between scholars in these fields, reflecting their different perspectives. That is all to the good, as long as people can engage in respectful dialogue. The principle that we have one shared reality is logical, but linking that to our fractured world of appearances faces great challenges that require humility. The Catholic Church has historically not been particularly humble in its magisterial assertion of holding the one true ultimate faith. Major elements of Catholic orthodoxy are in fact in disagreement with science, especially the concepts of the miraculous and the supernatural. To remove this disagreement the church has to give ground to science and accept that its miraculous claims are symbolic, not literal.

"Unlike the childish scientists mocked by Trasancos, theologians apparently have a special space ship..."

Haha! I like him, but he failed to grasp the physics and mathematics here. (Both Jaki and Duhem opined that to seriously comment on science and religion, one needs to have done science, not just a little, but for at least 15 years.)

Not true. It is possible to make serious contribution without having been a practicing scientist. The most important thing is to be able to engage a wide audience with well reasoned argument. A range of disciplines in the humanities, such as philosophy, can provide this ability. In my own case, my study of science has been entirely informal and broad ranging. My Masters Thesis on Heidegger’s ontology explored major ideas in scientific method, especially around the continued scientific and cultural influence of the philosophy of Descartes.

I was referring there to Jaki's well-known application of Gödel's theorem. Whether you call it universe or creation, the same is true. Cosmological theories in physics are mathematical. Gödel’s theorem holds that mathematical constructs cannot have in themselves proof of their own consistency. The toddling child was just a metaphor.

Every time I get into discussion about Gödel I find myself thinking that he is necessarily wrong, as a matter of simple logic. Obviously his work is subtle and complex since it is generally recognised to be irrefutable on its own terms, but the summary you have given, that mathematical constructs cannot have in themselves proof of their own consistency, appears to be readily refuted by the internal consistency of the axioms of Euclidean geometry.

With the toddling child metaphor, my objection was the implication that science cannot know the ultimate truth, but religion can. I think religion should be a lot more humble regarding its epistemic assertions about the existence of an ultimate intentional entity called God.