Science's Compatibility With Christianity (AQA A-Level Religious Studies): Revision Notes

Science's Compatibility With Christianity

Introduction: Understanding the relationship between science and Christianity

Science operates through analysing evidence and forming hypotheses about the fundamental structures of the universe. It remains limited to what can be observed and tested. Religion, by contrast, often makes claims beyond empirical evidence - discussing God, the afterlife, and other matters outside science's scope. This raises the question of whether any valid knowledge exists beyond direct experience.

When do conflicts arise?

Clashes between science and religion typically occur when:

• Religion makes claims that can be examined through scientific evidence
• Religious believers claim the universe displays purpose and direction
• Religion asserts a special, providential place for humanity

These claims become testable through empirical methods, creating potential areas of disagreement.

Context: Intelligent Design and fundamentalism

Intelligent Design theory

Before examining compatibility views, it's important to understand why some approaches are rejected by scientists:

Intelligent Design attempts to present creationism in modern terms but faces significant criticism:

• The scientific community almost unanimously rejects it as pseudoscience
• Its scientific claims are minimal and generally rejected
• Its main ideas cannot be tested (testability being a hallmark of genuine science)
• It insists certain structures show evidence of design by supernatural intelligence
• Claims structures like the eye cannot develop through gradual steps

Michael Behe's contribution:

• American biochemist and Intelligent Design proponent
• Argues many biological systems are 'irreducibly complex' at molecular level
• Suggests removing any component would stop the system working
• Claims this challenges Darwinian evolution because irreducible complexity cannot develop through successive modifications

Scientists argue Intelligent Design theorists ignore available evidence that contradicts their position.

Understanding fundamentalist biblical interpretation

The fundamentalist interpretation of Genesis represents a recent and minority phenomenon within Christianity, though it has grown rapidly (especially in the USA):

Fundamentalist characteristics:

• Treat an English translation of the Bible as literal truth
• Use biblical text as key to understanding everything
• Claim to defend God's truth against scientific attack
• Present themselves as traditional, though this approach is historically recent

Common misrepresentations: Many atheists mistakenly believe all religious people are creationist fundamentalists, leading them to dismiss the more intellectually based and balanced views of mainstream Christians.

John Polkinghorne's approach to compatibility

Background and credentials

John Polkinghorne (b.1930) uniquely combines scientific and theological expertise:

• English theoretical physicist
• Ordained Anglican priest
• Professor of Mathematical Physics at Cambridge University (1968-79)
• Resigned his chair to become a priest in 1982
• Knighted in 1997

Polkinghorne represents scientists who reject the alleged divide between religion and science, arguing both can coexist meaningfully.

Science and Creation: The Search for Understanding

Polkinghorne's work addresses fundamental questions about the relationship between scientific inquiry and religious faith.

The motivation for understanding

Polkinghorne begins by identifying a shared foundation:

The desire to understand the world motivates all those who work in fundamental physics. A similar desire inspires the religious quest.

This establishes that both scientists and religious believers share a fundamental drive to comprehend reality.

The intelligibility of the universe

Polkinghorne's central premise: The world is intelligible (we can understand it through science) when it might easily not have been so. This has obvious religious implications.

Why should the universe be understandable?

Polkinghorne emphasises the remarkable nature of scientific understanding:

Our scientific achievements:

• Understanding of general and special relativity
• Grasp of quantum mechanics
• Development of String Theory
• These achievements are astounding given the complexity involved

The puzzle of intelligibility:

The world's intelligibility is surely a significant fact about it. We are so familiar with understanding the world that we usually take it for granted. It makes science possible. Yet it could have been otherwise. The universe might have been disorderly chaos rather than orderly cosmos. Our minds have proven apt and adequate for solving all problems the physical world presents to us.

Challenging evolutionary explanations: Polkinghorne questions whether evolution alone explains human cognitive abilities. For instance, Einstein's ability to conceive General Relativity seems incredible as merely a by-product of survival struggles. What survival value does such abstract thinking possess?

The Anthropic Principle

Definition: The cosmological constants appear fine-tuned to produce beings like ourselves who are capable of understanding the universe. The fact we exist suggests an 'Anthropic Principle' behind the universe - that cosmological constants are designed to produce humans.

The multiverse objection

Multiverse theory attempts to explain fine-tuning without God:

• Suggests given enough universes, some (including ours) must be ordered by chance
• If other universes exist but are completely unobservable
• Basing scientific arguments on their possible existence becomes pointless (and unscientific)

Polkinghorne's response: He dismisses multiverse theory as speculative, arguing it looks like an attempt to eliminate a major objection to his views about God 'fine-tuning' the cosmological constants.

Evaluating these arguments

If this is the only universe: Polkinghorne appears almost certainly right - the fine-tuning and intelligibility would be overwhelming evidence for God's existence and intention to create our experienced universe.

However, challenges exist:

Evidence for earlier cycles: Research by Penrose and Gurzadyan suggests radiation from the Big Bang shows signs of an earlier cycle. If earlier cycles existed, the number of attempts could be large enough to produce universes where intelligent life arises simply by chance.

The problem with natural theology: Polkinghorne makes a strong case for a religious dimension to life but makes no compelling case this dimension must be Christian. Just as Aquinas' Cosmological Argument ends each 'Way' with "This all men speak of as God" (merely assuming this being would be the Christian God), natural theology cannot demonstrate specifically Christian truth.

Science and Providence: God's Interaction with the World

Understanding providence

Definition: Providence is the belief God has chosen to provide for, create, nurture and sustain humankind - that life is guided by God for His own purpose. Some thinkers, including Polkinghorne, make this a key factor in their understanding of God.

Special providence

Polkinghorne argues:

• Without special providence, the idea of Christianity's personal God has no content
• Special providence means God seeks to meet people's individual needs in individual ways

How God acts providentially

The quantum level mechanism: God influences events undetectably at the quantum level. Since quantum level events influence everything at our level, God can intervene providentially for us.

Polkinghorne suggests:

Christian understanding of providence steers between facile optimism and fatalistic pessimism. God doesn't fussily intervene to deliver us from all discomfort but neither is He an impotent beholder of cosmic history. Patiently, subtly, with infinite respect for the creation He deals with, He works within the flexibility of its process.

Evaluating providence arguments

Strengths: For those accepting God's providence doctrine, Polkinghorne makes a reasonable case that God can intervene subtly in the world at the quantum level.

Weaknesses:

The evidence problem: Saying God could work through quantum processes is one thing. Having any hope of demonstrating this is quite another - the main problem seems to be one of evidence.

One World: The Interaction of Science and Theology

Religious experience

Polkinghorne refers approvingly to A.N. Whitehead's suggestion:

The dogmas of religion are attempts to formulate in precise terms the truths disclosed to the religious experience of mankind. In exactly the same way, the dogmas of physical science are attempts to formulate in precise terms the truths discovered by the sense perceptions of mankind.

Whitehead's two claims:

1. There is an analogy between the activities of theology and science
2. Both are concerned with understanding and ordering experience

Polkinghorne's development:

• Religious experiences are far more common than most people think
• Different experiences encountered by believers in world religions are 'different culturally conditioned responses to the same reality'

Critical consideration: If such experiences are 'culturally conditioned', this might imply all Christianity's 'facts' are nothing more than interpretations of religion. They may not express facts comparable to scientific facts.

Jesus and scripture

Polkinghorne's claim: Christian scriptures are evidence for Christians' claims about Jesus, and this evidence needs examining through reason.

He suggests:

Scripture's use is closely akin to the handling of evidence in observational science.

Critical evaluation:

General conclusions about Polkinghorne's views

The limits of scientific claims

There is probably one (and only one) scientific claim Christians can make: 'There is a God'. This is a valid scientific hypothesis based on:

• The universe exists
• The universe is intelligible
• The universe arguably has a cause external to itself

However, this claim can be made by any religion, not just Christianity.

Polkinghorne's achievement

Polkinghorne's attempt to give more precise scientific basis for Christian claims is an excellent defence of a personal, Christian point of view. However, it doesn't establish a scientific basis for Christianity. Belief in Jesus' resurrection remains a belief, not a scientific hypothesis.

The compatibility conclusion

Christianity is nevertheless compatible with science insofar as most rational Christians (like Polkinghorne) see Christianity and science as different ways of understanding reality. Those who:

• Reject science as being unchristian
• Reject Christianity as being unscientific

These positions rather miss the point.

Remember!