Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: Paul Tyson's A Christian Theology of Science has convinced me that David Hume would not be able to affirm the Nicene Creed, though admittedly I didn't need much convincing. In fact, Tyson persuaded me of nearly all his claims about matters before, say, 1922. It is not as though I disagree with the rest, but that in telling the sweeping story of theology's fate in modernity—on which I agree with Tyson—he cuts off his story too soon: a hundred years ago, just when things were about to get exciting in theology again. If he had continued telling the story until today, his book would likely come to very different conclusions; my own conclusions, not coincidentally.1 My plan here is first, to summarize the book, second, to continue Tyson's own story but filling in the missing last century, and finally, to consider a few examples to show how Tyson's Christian theology of science could cash out in scientific practice. Tyson's thesis belongs to a broader category of models which conceive of theology and science in terms of conflict. Note, however, how terrifically narrow is Tyson's conflict: Christians need only have problems with a science that is a priori empiricist, rationalist, and reductionist. How far we have come since the view of the late nineteenth century that science and religion are perpetually and inevitably at war! Andrew Dickson White, who was one of the founders (or rather inventors) of that earliest incarnation, bears a strange similarity to Tyson. In 1869, White argued that science and religion are at war. Then again, he reflected later, Protestants can be good scientists. So maybe the war is only between science and ecclesiasticism, which was how he restated his thesis in 1876. But even that was too broad. He later supposed that the real conflict must be between science and dogmatic theology.2 Eventually he settled on calling his magnum opus, which was narrower still, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom. This is a mirror image to Tyson. Whereas White treated science as one thing and theology as the problem child, Tyson here treats theology as mostly one thing—the affirmations of the ancient creeds—and science as needing further nuance. Here is Tyson's story. The first scientists had little reason for conflict with theology; why would they? They were mostly Christians themselves. But along came Hume (empiricism), Kant (rationalism), and later reductivists who left no room for the beliefs of creedal Christians. If this is Tyson's magnum opus, maybe it should be called, A History of the Warfare of Theology with Empirico-Ratio-Reductionist Science in Modernity—which is indeed admirably narrow. The root of the conflict, for Tyson, is competing ‘first truth discourses’, a term that was new to me. Before modernity, Christian theologians were theocentric ontological foundationalists (TOF). By this, Tyson means that theology was built on top of a “Platonically inflected Christian epistemology.”3 If Christians must adopt a rival first truth discourse, Christians cannot do real theology and speak faithfully of some (or maybe all?) scientific matters. Tyson names the rival first truth discourse ‘egocentric epistemological foundationalism’ (EEF). This, Tyson claims, lies at the heart of all modern science and controls the research culture of universities. How bad is the war? Sometimes, according to Tyson, it's quite bad: ‘perhaps it is time for at least a serious minority of Christian philosophical theologians to depart from the academic cities and build monasteries in the desert again.’4 Other times, it is not so bad, as when Tyson speaks only of friction: ‘a theological engagement with science that retains the integrity of Christian epistemology is going to be characterized by first-order friction. This friction should not be feared.’5 There is another strange similarity between White and Tyson here: their surveys of theology end in the late nineteenth century. We know why White's story ends here (he died), but why does Tyson's? He was just about to get to the exciting part of the story! My next section aims to continue Tyson's story, not to challenge his presuppositions, but to show that if we include theologians after, say, 1922, the very same story that Tyson wants to tell looks very different. ‘The passage from Hermann Reimarus, to Friedrich Schleiermacher, to David Strauss, to Ludwig Feuerbach, and to Karl Marx is a complex yet bold line of conceptual influence’, Tyson writes. After them, who came next? Whatever it was, Tyson continues, ‘it seems to me that the dominant intellectual currents of nineteenth-century European Protestant theology did not—in general—have the theological or philosophical resources to resist the infatuating pull of scientistic compromise with their most foundational truth commitments.’6 So, who did come next in theology? Tyson never says, but readers of this journal know. A young Swiss theologian who refused to play the game under these conditions. Karl Barth proclaimed a pox on both sides, both those too ready to culturally accommodate (like Schleiermacher) and those too ready to culturally repudiate (like Charles Hodge). Then Hans Frei, who was the premier interpreter of Barth for the American audience, published The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative which deconstructed all members of Tyson's ‘bold line’ of influence from Reimarus to Schleiermacher to Strauss. George Lindbeck then published The Nature of Doctrine which named, in a theoretical way that Barth never managed, the theological cul-de-sacs of modernity by labelling the liberal view as experiential-expressive and the conservative position as cognitive-propositional. This in turn birthed the narrative theology of Stanley Hauerwas and, later, the Radical Orthodoxy of John Milbank. And the rest is history, especially known to this audience because this leads directly to the founding of Modern Theology.7 What followed among Christian philosophers after the influence of Descartes, Locke, Hume, and Kant? Much the same as what we saw in post-Barthian theology, though with a reading of Barth that was perhaps less inflected by Wittgenstein. Choosing just two examples, Nicholas Wolterstorff's Reason within the Bounds of Religion deconstructed the Kantian rationalist tradition and (joined by Alvin Plantinga) his Reformed Epistemology deconstructed much of the post-Cartesian foundationalist tradition.8 Like Barth, Reformed epistemology proclaimed a pox on two houses: on the one hand, secular foundationalism, and on the other, the biblical foundationalism of Hodge, which had resulted in the doctrines of inerrancy and a new modern biblical creationism. From these Reformed thinkers, and similar movements among neo-Thomists, this renaissance of Christian philosophy was immediately followed by the virtue revivals of Anscombe and MacIntyre, as well as various forms of analytic theology. the of in the ‘philosophy of science’ is not a genuine of. Actually, science and philosophy (which we tend to call ‘philosophy of science’) is much the same enterprise as science and religion. The first truth discourse of naturalistic materialism defines both philosophy and science in most of what passes for the philosophy of science today. Put another way, the empiricist, rationalist, and materialist understandings of modern philosophy that have raised science itself to the status of a functional first philosophy mean that contemporary science and philosophy are already harmonized; secular philosophy and naturalistic science have long since combined to form the first truth discourse of Western modernity.9 At one point, Tyson alludes to A.J. Ayer, so let's start there. Tyson writes, ‘Christian theology has its own TOF-framed rational understanding of nature, but such an understanding is not the religiously anti-religious analytical rationality of, for example, logical positivism.’ But logical positivism no longer holds the near-absolute control over the discipline which it once enjoyed. More than fifty years ago, The Encyclopaedia of Philosophy entry pronounced it ‘dead, or as dead as a philosophical movement ever becomes.’ And even if a neo-positivist remnant remains, so what? Yes, logical positivism held that the non-empirical disciplines—theology, ethics, and metaphysics—were meaningless pseudo-statements, not even capable of being wrong or right. That makes it ‘anti-religious’ in a sense (I suppose?), but twentieth-century philosophy of science is a big tent. Everyone will be at odds with someone at one time or another. Yes, a ‘Christian theologian, then, has good reason to dismiss contemporary empiricism as a truth stance …’ but so for and of and Tyson's perhaps with logical positivism are not are to the last hundred years of in the philosophy of This is all the his narrative has he has to consider who in the philosophy of science even be his Tyson does in one in and contemporary and of are in contemporary So, what did next? first, published of which a on the of the And was on his the for later to the of ontological which Tyson treats as in science and and that of the we for to be or are by the and in which an is under the of Science and or of to on how scientific the a of scientific The stance of and has further and scientific to show that scientific out of an between the and the So much for empiricism least of the foundationalist and the view from too few philosophers of science with in theology, the and scientists who to and are There are even and and Tyson. I we could how and Tyson are by serious but I we already know. It is for that their the only in the The of these has to show that theology, and philosophy of science have over the last century, especially with the of various and After Barth, the looks different. if at does filling in the theology of the last one hundred years Christians If the theologians and are is no view from is in the Christian narrative because all is only was the foundationalist for a and to but theology is on with in this The are within their own and to the and we that this only a And if and agree on even a of all this, Tyson's story until makes his start to very different. theologians for foundationalism, in the This is to play the game that Barth refused to is that Marx out to be a good why would Marx be such a in Theology and What or theologian already know that we own and we can all what in when he a of He that could be but then again, so could the Nicene it has my to tell Tyson's own story, not to his It should be for to agree than disagree because Tyson and I know and so of the same of his Tyson's narrative of the of science and theology a of the as we know being to an epistemological foundationalism as the first truth of all scientific he scientists should to theocentric ontological foundationalism as their first This would the from being to with theology and would science to a on which it My by is that when Tyson's story is by one hundred his he this I can of two for to the last century need not the claims of the Tyson play what I will call the That he could the post-Barthian tradition is itself a of because than Tyson's own foundationalism is he could say, here be of academic philosophers and but it scientific practice. science is how it was a century I will these two in was the founding of and was by as the of among American for much of the century. he Hans of the was can affirm that and can only that the in the story of the but not in are to for theologians Frei, is no to history, if by that we mean of a first truth Tyson's So, Tyson play the all theologians in the post-Barthian tradition are little than I Tyson will this not least because I that Tyson is a foundationalist What about the This one I consider far Whatever Lindbeck or or in their Tyson could it scientific in If are to Tyson on this point, he has a challenge for that the of of should be as a say, the of the this point, Tyson is that is no different than 1922. this challenge and it then that we Tyson's narrative at the end of the of science was a century ago, and science can only be by a turn to as a first truth How does this what scientists do in their their their and their that the the two on They would that was in dead on that all on and that cannot This is what call an and is to such that models of the cannot Tyson's and would likely agree about this, it is what Tyson wants to models of perhaps with in such as the does he have in that the should as a in and research as the one to It is not on this how does to scientific Tyson time on and than he does on the perhaps this will be At various in the book, Tyson claims an about and are in of and history, but claims that a in their is with Christian He writes, I do not know about the of and one way or I in the as a category of The of is a it has than of can for the Christian who treats the first truth of their as So it seems that only the is to a Christian and not the of and that Tyson later claims that both and and the in the of are for Christian theological are we cannot or as so as to Christian with a materialist and and view of and This ends being rather Tyson claims we can be or about the of the at he seems to that their is This is especially as Tyson never that the is to an And even if that would not why a could be about the but to their of It is what Christians Christians who are are supposed to do with the of the when it with scientific I two of Tyson's of the between theological beliefs and the of scientists. I will call friction and The first way of Tyson the as one of friction. 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Then again, Tyson have of just that in a line between the theological and scientific If this is the then it is how theology can scientific claims the being to theological Tyson would to would need to be to get to the heart of how his theology of science would and the discipline in that compromise theology as a first truth
Source: Modern Theology
DOI: 10.1111/moth.12908
Authors: John Perry, D.T. Everhart
Institutions: University of St Andrews, London School of Theology
Language: English
Subfield: History and Philosophy of Science
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,630
OpenAlex ID: W4388766965