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Science and Belief in God: Concord, Not Conflict
Robert C. Koons
This presentation
begins with the important question, What is science? Dr. Robert Koons traces
the development of science through history and provides his audience with
accurate definitions of science, especially as it relates to theism. He
recognizes an "explosion of knowledge" in our day and age. In the midst
of this expansion of facts, science has become an extremely powerful social
institution, establishing a "magisterium of fact" promoted by a "priesthood
of science."
In the 20th century, the myth of the uniqueness of science has led many to
accept "the scientific method" as the only objective way of looking at
reality. Common sense, however, shows us that we can come to an understanding
of knowledge, even through natural obeservation alone, thereby realizing
many relationships between science and faith.
In spite of the advancing evidence for a strong correlation between theism
and science, propagandists of the early 20th century insisted upon a conflict
between science and belief. Regardless, Western theism demonstrated a genius
for weaving together a cohesive science based upon a theistic metaphysics
which caused science to advance. "Without faith in the rational intelligibility
of the world and the divine vocation of human beings to master it, modern
science would never have been possible," Koons explains.
Modern science, therefore, is grounded in theistic metaphysics—science
is the artifact of a perfect Mind. It follws, then, that something transcendent
undergirds the fundamental laws of nature, that is, we will discover "principles
of compelling beauty" beneath everything in the natural world. Furthermore,
there is a fundamental source of this beauty. The mechanist cannot believe
in
this fundamental source, i.e., he cannot accept the artifact
of a reasonable God who has fitted us to the task of interpreting reality
in this manner. The theist, on the other hand, can fully embrace this precise
correlation between science and belief in God, the view that Robert Koons
so clearly demonstrates for his audience—that of concord, not conflict.
~ Dr. Koons is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas,
Austin. His latest book is Realism Regained: An Exact Theory of Causation,
Teleology, and the Mind (Oxford University Press, 2000) His first
book, Paradoxes of Belief and Strategic Rationalities (1992) received
the Gustave Arlt Prize in Humanities.
Program recording date and length: 4-21-03 ~ 59 Minutes (This study was presented originally at UCLA.)
