Here are all the posts in my Theology and Science series so they can be accessed more easily:

Prelude

I. Introduction

II. The Evangelical Love Affair with Modern Science

III. The Poetic Imagination of Objectivity

1. Michael Polanyi (Part 1)
2. Thomas Khun (Part 2)

IV. Theological Perspectives

1. Walter Brueggemann (Part 1)
2. Lesslie Newbigin (Part 2)
3. Stanley Grenz (Part 3)

Conclusion (In Progress)

3. Stanley Grenz: Science and Eschatological Realism

Stanley Grenz has done much in the way of exploring the resources of Christian theology to engage the concerns of the postmodern culture. One key issue that comes to the fore in this discussion is epistemology, particularly the question of epistemological realism. This question has doubtless been floating at some level in the mind of the reader throughout this essay. As Grenz points out, “Christian theology maintains a certain undeniable givenness to the universe.”[1] How then can Christian theology reckon with the postmodern recognition to the situatedness and intersubjectivity of all knowledge? Moreover given the fact that what the dominant rationality presents as objective is often a cloak for ideology as Brueggemann has pointed out, is there any true epistemic access into reality at all?

In answering this question Grenz makes the helpful suggestion that the givenness of the universe “is not that of a static actuality existing outside of, and co-temporally with, our socially and linguistically constructed reality. Rather, seen through the lenses of the gospel, the objectivity set forth in the biblical narrative is the objectivity of the world as God wills it.”[2] Thus the ultimate objectivity of the universe must not be seen in some form of naïve realism in which he have a God’s-eye view of the world as it is now, but “ultimately the ‘objectivity of the world’ about which we can truly speak is an objectivity of a future, eschatological world.”[3] Thus as Grenz argues, the biblical narrative “leads to what we might call an ‘eschatological realism.’”[4]

Viewed through Christian lenses, there is indeed a real universe “out there.” But this reality lies “before,” rather than “beneath” or “around” us. And it is discovered through anticipation, and not merely experimentation…Therefore, the only ultimately valid “objectivity of the world” is that of a future, eschatological world, the “actual” universe is the universe as it will one day be.[5]

Grenz’s proposal offers significant resources toward constructing a viable version of theological realism that deals both with the implications of postmodern thought and preserves the Christian theological emphasis on the givenenss of the universe. We do indeed “see in a mirror darkly” (1 Cor. 13:12) prior to the eschaton.

However, could not Grenz’s proposals be further augmented by a partially realized eschatology in which the age to come has broken into the present in Christ which thus gives us an ‘inaugurated eschatological realism’? Such an understanding of epistemological realism is able to take stock of the noetic effects of sin, creaturely situatedness and intersubjectivity while maintaining that world can indeed be known not only in the future, but also through the presence of the future wrought in the work of Christ and continually made present to the church through the Spirit. Thus an eschatological epistemology is always an ecclesial epistemology in which knowledge of God and the world takes place in the community of the Spirit, which is united with the Son, thereby coming to know the Father. And it is in this dynamic of being brought into the self-knowledge of the Triune God that the church comes to know the world “as it really is” in the Triune life which is its eschatological telos. Thus, in the ecclesial anticipation of the eschaton that is the church we are able, albeit incompletely and imperfectly to know God and the world, purely through the self-gift of the Father in Christ and the Spirit. Thus the social reality we actively receive through the Spirit does indeed allow us to truly know reality, but only as pure the pure gift of the Triune God.[6]

Thus, theologically it should be clear that the resources of biblical eschatology both in its inaugurated and future dimensions offers resources to safeguard a chastened and nuanced from of epistemological realism.[7] Such a paradigm should be sufficient to allay the fears of those that think the position sketched here requires relativism and subjectivism.

2. Conclusion: Theology and Science as Inter-Religious Dialogue?

At this point a final reflection should be sufficient to bring this essay to a close. I submit that dialogue between theology and science should more closely resemble inter-religious dialogue than anything else. Given that both disciplines consist of particular socially embodied traditions with particular ideological commitments, there is little reason to suppose that there should be a great degree of continuity and commensurability between the theological-scientific tradition embodied in the church and that embodied in the scientific community.[8] As Brueggemann has noted, science and theology cannot be dichotomized with one being objective and the other subjective. Rather both forms of discourse are poetic construals of the world that give their allegiance to a particular set of ideals and ideology. In the postmodern context where the poetic and rhetorical basis of all forms of human reasoning are becoming apparent, the poet will become more and more epistemologically basic.[9] While this will again almost certainly sound like rank relativism to modernists, both evangelical and liberal, perhaps this is more due to the fact that our theological articulation of the nature of the world has been so bound to the culture of modernity that what should have sounded like a poetic, imaginative counter-narration of the world based on the revelation of God in Christ, was instead nothing more than a domesticated legitimation of the status quo. That such has been the case will doubtless be denied by those holding to such positions, but that is the normal response of people whose perceived monopoly on rationality and power is called into question. Nevertheless, I maintain on the basis of the above argument that it is important for the church to give up on the modern scientific worldview and it’s conceptualities of objective truth, not because we do not believe our convictions are ultimately and absolutely true, but because such an understanding of truth as being that which any objective, rational person can apprehend has let us off the hook from having to be witnesses. For a Christian understanding of truth must always begin and end with the peculiarity and particularity of Jesus Christ who proclaims “I am the truth” (Jn. 14:6) and that we come to know the truth in and through discipleship that begins with the words, “Follow me” (Lk. 6:27) and ends with the cross. For it is on the cross that the dominant rationality rages against the Crucified. Nevertheless, for those of us who claim that the Crucified has been raised to resurrection life, the dominant rationality need no longer hold sway over our strivings after truth. “Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5)

[1] Grenz, Renewing the Center
, 245.

[2] Grenz, Renewing the Center, 245-246.

[3] Grenz, Renewing the Center, 246.

[4] Grenz, Renewing the Center, 246.

[5] Grenz, Renewing the Center, 246.

[6] For a helpful supplement to Grenz’s eschatological realism, see Middleton and Walsh, Truth is Stranger, 141-171.

[7] Consider this in conversation with Brueggemann’s prophetic epistemology. The prophetic epistemology is again connected with eschatological realism in that in the Spirit’s revelation to the prophet the world to come is revealed to the prophet and breaks into the present in the form of a counter-‘as’ in Brueggemann’s terminology.

[8] For what is perhaps the most nuanced, if I think a bit overly optimistic attempt to engage in a critical interdisciplinary approach to theology and science, see Alister McGrath, A Scientific Theology: Three Volumes, Nature, Reality, Theory (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001-2003).

[9] See Brueggemann, Finally Comes the Poet for an exploration of this theme.

the true opposition [between theology and science] is not between reason and
revelation as sources and criteria for truth. It is between two uses to
which reason is put. It may be put to the service of an autonomy which
refuses to recognize any other personal reality except its own; which treats all
reality as open to the kind of masterful exploration that is appropriate to the
world of things, where the appropriate phrase is “I have discovered.” But
it may equally be put to the service of an openness which is ready to listen to,
be challenged and questioned by another personal reality. In neither kind
of activity can we engage except as rational beings. When reason is set
against revelation, the terms of the debate have been radically confused.
What is happening is not that reason is set against something which is
unreasonable, but that another tradition of rational argument is being set
against a tradition of rational argument which takes as its starting point a
moment or moments of divine self-revelation and which will continue to say, not
“We discovered,” but “God has spoken and acted.”[5]

The scarcely concealed assumption is that he word “scientific” refers to a kind
of study which has no prior commitments about the nature of truth but has a
totally open mind, as thought the scientific mind were a sort of empty page on
which nothing had yet been written. The truth, of course is that both
approaches – the confessional and the scientific – presuppose (as all rational
inquiry must presuppose) a long tradition of thought and practice that
determines which beliefs are plausible and which are not.[6]

The business of the church is to tell and embody a story, the story of God’s
mighty acts in creation and redemption and God’s promises concerning what will
be in the end. The church affirms the truth of this story by celebrating it, interpreting it, and enacting it in the life of the contemporary world. It has no other way of affirming its truth. If it supposes that its truth can be authenticated by a reference to some allegedly more reliable truth claim, such as those offered by the philosophy of religion, then it has implicitly denied the truth by which it lives. In this sense, the church shares the postmodernists’ replacement of eternal truths with a story. But there is a profound difference between the two. For the
postmodernists, there are many stories, but no overarching truth by which they
can be assessed. They are simply stories. The church’s affirmation is that the story it tells, embodies and enacts is the true story and that others are to be evaluated in reference to it…It is if you like, a counterhistory, interpreting the same evidence in a different way.[10]

the correspondence of between a person’s beliefs and actual facts. This definition is futile since there is no way of knowing what the actual facts are except by the activity of knowing subjects. The definition implies a standpoint outside the real human situation of knowing subjects – and no such standpoint is available.[11].

[1] See Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 57-65; see also Foolishness to the Greeks, 95-100.

[2] Newbigin, The Gospel, 57.

[3] Newbigin, The Gospel, 58.

[4] Newbigin notes the similarities in the descriptions of scientific discovery and divine revelation. The descriptions of both of these events are strikingly similar, rendering invalid the epistemic distinction between reason and revelation. See Newbigin, The Gospel, 60-61.

[5] Newbigin, The Gospel, 62.

[6] Lesslie Newbigin, Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt and Certainty in Christian Discipleship (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 46.

[7] Newbigin, Proper Confidence, 67.

[8] Newbigin, Proper Confidence, 75-76.

[9] Newbigin, The Gospel, 10.

[10] Newbigin, Proper Confidence, 76-77.

[11] Newbigin, The Gospel, 22.

[12] Lesslie Newbigin, Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 33; see also The Gospel, 126.

IV. Regaining a Theological Perspective on Objectivity and Knowledge

A critical point is being reached in constructing a theological response to the challenge of science. We have noted that science is considerably more limited and less intimidating than the standard evangelical approaches have often thought. Science, like theology is a particular, situated discipline embodied in a community, bound by a common faith and worldview. Thus, as has been stated above, dialogue between theology and science when seen in this light is analogous to inter-religious dialogue.

However, prior to explicating this claim in its fullness, I will articulate the theological rationale for so doing. I will engage with three different strands of the Christian theological discipline as represented by three important areas of theological study, biblical theology, missiology and theology of culture. First I will examine the biblical theology of noted Old Testament theologian, Walter Brueggemann whose numerous works in biblical studies engage significantly with issues of ideology, objectivity and epistemology. Following this, I will examine the thought of missiologist, Lesslie Newbigin who in many ways provides a theological exposition of Polanyi in attempting to rework the question of theology and science. Finally, I will breifly engage with the work of postconservative evangelical theologian, Stanley Grenz, who has sought to engage the questions of epistemology and theological method in the postmodern context.

1. Walter Brueggemann: Prophetic Criticism and Objective Ideology

Walter Brueggemann is almost unquestionably the most influential Old Testament theologian in the United States today. His many works hit on countless Old Testament themes, always with a vigorous application to contemporary living. One of the key features that pervades all of Brueggemann’s thought is the confrontation between the world (view) articulated in the biblical narrative and the ideological forms of dominant rationality[1] that it speaks against and deconstructs. Given what we have seen thus far through the work of Polanyi and Kuhn, science is not an objective, disinterested discipline, but is in fact particular, sectarian, and ideologically driven. When modern science is seen in this light, Brueggemann’s work can be seen as a very helpful commentary against the accommodation of theology to science. When theology and science encounter one another, we witness not simply a conflict of abstract disciplines, but a collision of communities, each with distinct ideological-theological commitments.

As Brueggemann makes clear, following key postmodern thinkers, scientifically ‘objective’ facts that purport to describe the world as it ‘really is’ are in fact acts of imaginative construal, that is of the imaginative application of a particular, partisan paradigm (read: worldview) for viewing reality on the basis of a particular political-ideological agenda. “Thus all knowing,” Brueggemann argues, “is imaginative construal, even if disguised as something else. The world we take as ‘given’ is a long established act of imagination that appears to be and claims assent as the only legitimate occupant of the field. It follows, then, that long-imagined ‘givens’ can indeed be challenged and a ‘countergiven’ is entertainable.”[2] Brueggemann goes on to argue that

the long-established ‘givens’ will prevail because they are accepted as beyond
criticism. They will prevail until a counter-‘as’ is imagined and
voiced. It is astonishing how a long-established ‘as’ can keep people in
their social place, how a daring an alternative ‘as’ can be in changing social
relationships and the power that keeps them unchanged.[3]

Brueggemann explicates this notion of the ‘as’ and the counter-‘as’ through the exhortation of 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 where Christians are enjoined to live “as free persons.” Brueggemann notes that on one level this injunction to live ‘as’ on the basis of faith is precisely contrary to “facts.” However, this is only so because “facts” have been co-opted by the dominant rationality which seeks to taut itself as objectively true. The Christian injunction to live as free persons then, is not simply a fiction, but is a counter-‘as’ which gives way to a new reality. “It accepts an alternative construal of reality as a legitimate and valid one, thereby displacing another ‘as’ that is the imposed work some other act of imagination.”[4] Thus for Brueggemann, “the Christian gospel is a counter-‘as’ to the long accepted ‘as’ that is widely and uncritically accepted as objectively real.”[5]

Ultimately, this perspective must be seen as deriving from an alternative epistemology that is particular to the Christian narrative and community. The Christian community – to the extent that it is faithful – operates not on the basis of the dominate ideology that masquerades as objective truth but on the basis of a prophetic epistemology that is grounded in the reality of the work of God that the community has witnessed in its common life. Put another way, there is nothing ‘objective’ about the Exodus.[6] The Exodus is a reality to which there is no objective access apart from how it is seen on the basis of the reigning paradigm (worldview) of the observer. The higher critic imaginatively construes this event to be a myth-shrouded story of a small group of slaves escaping from Egypt on a well-placed sandbar.[7] This imaginative, poetic, ideological interpretation of the Exodus is one that has obtained dominance and thus presents itself as ‘objective historical fact.’ However, when it is recognizes that this assertion is nothing more than the commitment of a community to a particular form of life and interpretation in the world, it becomes apparent that it is possible to articulate a “counterworld” which offers new and imaginative possibilities that the previous ideology sought to suppress.[8]

This can be further illustrated through Brueggemann’s expositional work on the historical Psalms (Ps. 78, 105, 106, 136). Here Brueggemann points out that these Psalms “articulate a counter-world, offered as a subversive alternative to the dominant, easily available worlds that are ever present in and tempting for Israel.”[9] In contrast to the ‘objective’ views of higher critics, the Psalms do not articulate a primitive worldview, which needs to be superceded by a scientific one. Rather, “’salvation history’ is in fact a counter-history, a recital ‘from below’ the royal, established account of social reality.”[10]

All of this culminates in Brueggemann’s vision of a prophetic epistemology that should undergird Christian theology. Over-against the dominant, ‘objective,’ ‘scientific,’ royal rationality, “‘a more excellent way’ had been given to us in narrative mode, the only mode available outside royal rationality. O
nly stories lie beyond royal reason.”[11]

Moreover, as Brueggemann points out, the biblical presentation of an alternative epistemology grounded in the prophetic paradigm does not oppress and suppress the other as the royal rationality does. Rather, the world seen through the eyes of prophetic epistemology ultimately seeks to reconcile the enemy, rather than to overcome and dominate him either through ideological or technological manipulation.[12] This is portrayed most clearly in Brueggeman’s reading of the narrative of 2 Kings 6:8-23. In this situation, the people of Israel are under the oppression of Syria, who seemingly raids Israel at will. However, Elisha the prophet is constantly thwarting Syria’s raids by foretelling when and where they will attack (6:8-10). Thus, the Syrian king dispatches his army to apprehend Elisha. However, when the army surrounds Elisha, the eyes of his terrified servant are opened to see that the armies of God far outnumber the power of the dominating, hegemonic enforcers of Syria (6:17). Then, as blind eyes are opened, the eyes of the Syrian army are struck blind (6:18).[13] Elisha then proceeds to lead the entire army to Jerusalem. Once there, the king asks Elisha if he should put them to the sword (6:21). Elisha, however, denies the king any such opportunity to meet the Syrian threat with violence. Instead food is set before the former invaders and what was meant to be violent conflict erupts into a joyous feast. The narrative goes on to note that after this event, Syria stops raiding Israel (6:23).

This narrative shows forth that the biblical vision is one in which the reality of the prophetic counter-epistemology does not lead to the violent overthrow of the dominant rationality, but rather to a communal feast which brings forth a peace that the rationality of kings cannot understand. As Brueggemann points out,

the prophetic narrative embedded in these royal recitals of certitude is a
strange idiom. It protests against and undermines royal certitude with its
power for life. Royal power could only lead to death and endless
hostility. The narrative proposes another way that breaks the vicious
cycle of death and hostility.[14]

This alternative epistemology that breaks the vicious cycle of the dominant rationality is grounded in radically new way of seeing the world, namely through the eyes of the prophet who recognizes that “those who are with us are more that those who are with them” (6:16).

To be drawn into this new and different way of knowing the real world around us involves a radical reeducation that teaches us

• The cruciality of prayers of petition which resubmit life the One with
  life-giving power, to be weaned from the promise of kings;
• To perceive and experience the world differently, apart from the royal
  ideology and slogan;
• To watch, expect and participate in the shift of power which the gospel
  works in the world…
• To be present, as we are able, with the communities from below who treasure
  subversive narratives, who know differently…
• To participate in the transformation to a more excellent way in which our
  wars may turn to feasts, our killing becomes feeding[15]

What then are the implications of Brueggemann’s work for understanding the relationship between theology and science? Brueggemann proposes that “our evangelical infrastructure…will in the first instance not seek to accommodate scientific learning, but will make its own statement about the character and quality of the world.”[16] This could be taken as an essential summary of the thesis of this essay. For anyone who takes the radically counter-ideological thrust of the biblical metanarrative seriously, it seems difficult to hold that there will ever be a comfortable relationship between theology and science.[17] As Brueggemann states concisely, “Israel’s elemental suspicion regularly notices that what appears to be rational is in fact interested, that what appears to be objective is in fact self-serving.”[18] The counter-world articulated through the prophetic epistemology can never be easily amenable to the dominant rationality of kings and empires. “Israel’s alternative memory notices that what passes for public discourse is in fact a new sectarian proposal of an ideological kind.”[19] As such I submit that theology must not approach science in an attempt to show that it has ‘scientific’ validity. Such an approach ignores the ideological roots of science that are decidedly anthropocentric and commissioned by the powers of the dominant empire.

Some will doubtless object that such a view is nothing more than fideism and sectarianism.[20] This objection is self-refuting however in that it fails to recognize the inherent fideistic and sectarian characteristics of the scientific tradition itself. Descartes’ proclamation of cogito ergo sum is not a statement of objective fact, but of fideism. So also were the canons of Baconian science, Newtonian physics and Einstein’s theory of relativity (which is not to say that all of these are false or equally false, only that they came about through creativity and faith, not disinterested rational analysis). As Polanyi and Khun have shown, all acts of knowing, scientific or otherwise depend on the fiduciary structure, or paradigm through which the knower sees and reasons. To the extent that theology fails to recognize the inherently fideistic and particular dimensions of science, it will simply be giving a foreign and often incommensurate system of belief a monopoly over what counts as admissible truths in the public arena. This argument has been made at length by noted missiologist, Lesslie Newbigin whose substantial work on pluralism had achieved much attention. It is to his work that I turn now.

———————————————————–

[1] This idea is prevalent throughout Brueggemann’s writings. See for example Interpretation and Obedience: From Faithful Reading to Faithful Living (Minneapolis: Fortress 1991), 35-39, 54-56; Texts that Linger, Words that Explode: Listening to Prophetic Voices (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000), 41-44.

[2] Brueggemann, Texts Under Negotiation, 13.

[3] Brueggemann, Texts Under Negotiation, 15.

[4] Brueggemann, Texts Under Negotiation, 14.

[5] Brueggemann, Texts Under Negotiation, 15.

[6] In discussing the Exodus, or any other event depicted in the Bible a distinction must be made between the event itself (to which there is no access) and the imaginative, theological-ideological interpretation of that event. The biblical text itself is one such interpretation and the investigations of higher critics is simply another. On this point see Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997), 102-105, 726-729; see also John H. Sailhamer, Old Testament Theology: A Canonical Approach (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 36-85.

[7] It should be noted that these same criticisms of higher criticism could also be made against the evangelical doctrine of the historical-grammatical hermeneutic. Both attempt to get ‘behind the text’ to the ‘actual event’ so as to support a particular ideological-theological perspective that is not that of the biblical text itself. On this point, see Brueggemann, Texts Under Negotiation, 64-67; see also Murphy, Anglo-American Postmodernity, 87-129.

[8] See Brueggemann, Texts Under Negotiation, 26-56 for a description of the idea of a “counterworld.”

[9] Brueggemann, Abiding Astonishment: Psalms, Modernity and the Making of History (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1991), 28; see also Texts that Linger, 73-87 for an excellent account of the different imperial “worlds” (Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia) with which Israel had to contend throughout its narrative history.

[10] Brueggemann, Abiding Astonishment, 43.

[11] Brueggemann, Interpretation and Obedience, 35.

[12] On this point see Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes (New York: Random House, 1973); The Technological Society (New York: Vintage Books, 1964); see also Middleton and Walsh, Truth is Stranger, 20-22.

[13] Perhaps one of the archetypal paradigm shifts.

[14] Brueggemann, Interpretation and Obedience, 31.

[15] Brueggemann, Interpretation and Obedience, 38-39.

[16] Brueggemann, Texts Under Negotiation, 33.

[17] On this point see Middleton and Walsh, Truth is Stranger, 87-107.

[18] Brueggemann, Interpretation and Obedience, 54.

[19] Brueggemann, Interpretation and Obedience, 54.

[20] On the issue of sectarianism, see Brueggemann, Interpretation and Obedience, 41-65.

III. Scientists Deconstructing Science: The Poetic Imagination of ‘Objectivity’ (Part 2)

2. Thomas Kuhn: Paradigm Shifts and the Priority of Worldview

If Polanyi is responsible for laying the foundation of a new understanding of science, Thomas Kuhn must be recognized as the most influential voice to extend and articulate this new understanding of the nature of scientific progress and inquiry. Kuhn’s book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions exploded onto the contemporary scene in 1962. As David Naugle puts the matter, ”The damage reports or victory pronouncements, depending on your perspective, are still coming in. Kuhn’s concept of scientific revolutions as paradigm shifts has been remarkably influential (as well as controversial), being nothing less than a frontal attack on the traditional understanding of the authority, rationality and indeed the very nature of modern science.”[1]

It should be noted from the outset that Kuhn seems to be implicitly dependent on Polanyi’s work for much of his articulation of the nature of science, particularly Polanyi’s development of the role of tradition and community in scientific understanding and practice.[2] Kuhn however goes on to describe at greater length the nature of scientific discovery, exploring how scientific revolutions actually take place in the history of science. Contrary to the standard assumption of modern science that scientific discovery consists in the steady accumulation of data, Kuhn argues powerfully that scientific discoveries emerge through the shifting of paradigms or worldviews.[3] Scientific discovery takes place through one paradigm overtaking another as the dominant scientific way of looking at the world. Throughout his treatment Kuhn extensively traces this phenomenon historically through examining scientific revolutions such as the shift from Newtonian to Einsteinian physics and the shift from Aristotelian theories of motion to Galileo to Copernicus. This phenomenon is entirely contrary to the ‘science as accumulation’ view. As Kuhn points out, “Cumulative acquisition of unanticipated novelties proves to be an almost non-existent exception to the rule of scientific development. The man who takes historic fact seriously must suspect that science does not tend toward the ideal that our image of cumulativeness has suggested.” [4]

Over-against the standard view of science as the progressive accumulation of knowledge, Kuhn shows through both historical and philosophical argument that scientific advancements take place through the ascendance of new paradigms of scientific inquiry, which recognize inherent anomalies and crises in the previous paradigm and offer new and preferable prospects for scientific inquiry if adopted. “Confronted with anomaly or with crisis, scientists take a different attitude toward existing paradigms, and the nature of their research changes accordingly.”[5]

Moreover, paradigms are not simply ways of interpreting the world according to Kuhn, but function much more as lenses through which the scientist observes the world. “Rather than being an interpreter, the scientist who embraces a new paradigm is like the man wearing inverting lenses. Confronting the same constellation of objects as before and knowing that he does so, he nevertheless finds them transformed through and through in many of their details.”[6] Thus, paradigms do not function actively so much as tacitly (Kuhn borrows Polanyi’s phrase on this point[7]). Paradigms are not ways of interpreting so much as ways of seeing. Interpretation is a central aspect of exploring a paradigm, but it is not technically possible to interpret a paradigm. The interpretive enterprise is key,

But the interpretive enterprise…can only articulate a paradigm, not correct
it. Paradigms are not corrigible by modern science at all. Instead,
as we have already seen, normal science ultimately leads only to the recognition
of anomalies and to crises. And these are terminated, not by deliberation
and interpretation, but by a relatively sudden and unstructured event like the
gestalt switch. Scientists then often speak of the ‘scales falling from
the eyes’ or of ‘the lightning flash’ that ‘inundates’ a previously obscure
puzzle, enabling its components to be seen in a new way that for the first time
permits its solution.[8]

Thus, Kuhn argues that scientific revolutions are not the result of objective reasoning and rationally adjudicating between different pieces of data, but rather the ascendancy of new paradigms that come to prominence through the conversion of scientists from the old paradigms to the new. The vocabulary of conversion is central for Kuhn (and for the Christian!). “The transfer of allegiance from paradigm to paradigm is a conversion experience that cannot be forced”[9] declares Kuhn. “Conversions will occur a few at a time until, after the last holdouts have died, the whole profession will again be practicing under a single, but now different, paradigm.”[10] The fact that scientific discovery and knowledge is ultimately dependent not on objective data, but on paradigms through which all data is seen means that faith has primacy in all knowing. This faith is necessary because long established and largely functional paradigms are difficult things to dispense with. The scientist must “have faith that the new paradigm will succeed with the many large problems that confront it, knowing only that the older paradigm has failed in a few. As decision of that kind can only be made on faith.”[11]

It is important to note that for Kuhn this faith is not groundless. Rather it is grounded in the conviction of the scientist that the new paradigm has good hope of being the one that best views reality, having both personal and aesthetic appeal.[12] However, ultimately the faith of scientists in the new paradigm is best established through the faithful and fruitful scientific life and practice that emerges in the scientific communities committed to the new paradigm. The acceptance of a new paradigm cannot of course be based on empirical facts or rational reasons because paradigms that govern how facts and reasons are seen and understood are prior to any rational or empirical investigation. Thus paradigms can ultimately be accepted only on faith that is grounded in the personal, aesthetic and conceptual appeal of the paradigm and whether or not it is persuasively articulated and embodied by the scientific communities already practicing the paradigm. There are clearly significant continuities between this understanding of paradigm-conversion and the Christian understanding of conversion and entrance into the Christian community.
/>Kuhn’s seminal work holds many implications for theology. His erudite argument that all forms of scientific reasoning are governed by paradigms and that scientific revolutions occur only when paradigms shift is extremely persuasive. Many have objected that Kuhn’s view of the nature of scientific enquiry leads to relativism and antirealism. Naugle notes that many have argued that “Kuhnian paradigms are incommensurable, relative, arational and antirealist.”[13] Kuhn denies that his position entails relativism in the postscript to the second edition of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.[14] Moreover, even if such charges are correct, that does not mean that Kuhn’s view is wrong. Such criticisms do not actually engage with the substance of Kuhn’s argument and as such constitute a poor objection.

In the end, it seems impossible to avoid the force of Kuhn’s argument. The fact of paradigms that at least partially determine how we see and understand the world is almost unanimously undeniable in contemorary philosophy and theology. For those that fear that Kuhn’s argument will lead to relativism and antirealism, there are numerous ways to avoid such implications while recognizing the force of Kuhn’s case. This is especially possible when Kuhn’s dependence on the work of Polanyi is recognized. Polanyi’s commitment to both the situatedness of the scientist and the reality of a genuinely “other” reality that is engaged with in the process of knowing undergirds a reading of Kuhn’s doctrine of the paradigm that is able to avoid such difficulties. In contrast to the reading of Kuhn’s doctrine of paradigms as incommensurable, relative, arational and antirealist, a properly theological reading of Kuhn will yield an understanding of paradigms that is better termed as semi-commensurable, situated, supra-rational and eschatologically realist.

3. Conclusion: The Hermeneutic of Scientific Faith

At this point is should be clear that Polanyi and Kuhn offer much in the way of revolutionizing theological approaches to science. Both substantially refute the notion that science is an objective, disinterested, non-ideological discipline that holds a monopoly on facts. In contrast to such a modernist conception of science, Polanyi and Kuhn show that science is ultimately an intersubjective and situated discipline which is embodied in a community of practitioners bound by a common faith and sustained by a tradition.[15] Moreover, in addition to being an intersubjective, fiduciary, communal, and tradition-mediated discipline, science is also governed by presupposed paradigms (worldviews) which determine the nature of scientific inquiry and discovery.

In light of this understanding of science the standard evangelical responses to science must be reevaluated. The practice of seeking to show that Christian belief could conform to scientific reasoning was based on the conception of science as objective and disinterested that Polanyi and Kuhn have refuted. Such approaches ultimately are both theologically and scientifically bankrupt in that they are unable to account for the distinctive and in many cases incommensurate presuppositions of theology and science. In order to move beyond such approaches, it is necessary to return to the resources of Christian theology itself to see what resources it offers to facilitating a proper response to the challenge of science. It is to that task that I turn now.

[1] Naugle, Worldview, 196.

[2] See Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd Ed., (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 191-198; see also Alasdair MacIntyre’s explication of the relationship between Polanyi and Kuhn in “Epistemological Crises, Dramatic Narrative and Philosophy of Science,” in Why Narrative?: Readings in Narrative Theology, Stanley Hauerwas and L. Gregory Jones, eds. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 138-157. MacIntyre makes some fascinating criticisms of Kuhn’s view of scientific revolutions in that it does not sufficiently account for the narrative dimension of human rationality and inquiry. Such a criticism is, I think well founded. However, it does not diminish the substantial contribution of Kuhn’s notion of the paradigm.

[3] See Kuhn, Structure, 94-97.

[4] Kuhn, Structure, 96.

[5] Kuhn, Structure, 90.

[6] Kuhn, Structure, 122.

[7] See Kuhn, Structure, 191-198; see also Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966).

[8] Kuhn, Structure, 122.

[9] Kuhn, Structure, 151.

[10] Kuhn, Structure, 152.

[11] Kuhn, Structure, 158. One cannot help thinking here of the Jesus’ metaphor of new wine and new wineskins (Matt. 9:17).

[12] See Kuhn, Structure, 158-198.

[13] Naugle, Worldview, 205.

[14] See Kuhn, Structure, 205-207.

[15] MacIntyre would add that science presupposes a particular narrative identity as well. See above, n. 42.

III. Scientists Deconstructing Science: The Poetic Imagination of ‘Objectivity’ (Part 1)

It should now be apparent that any theological approach to science must attempt to move beyond the standard modernist account. The modernist account of science pictures it as an objective, universal discipline that operates impartially on the basis of the scientific method, which is a disinterested, non-ideological endeavor. Thus, scientific practice is the objective application of the scientific method and scientific discovery, the gradual progressive accumulation of scientific data.

It is this perspective of science as objective inquiry and steady accumulation of data that must be called into question. To engage in this question, I will enter into dialogue with two of the most prominent and influential philosophers of science of the twentieth century, Michael Polanyi and Thomas Kuhn. Their work offers a serious challenge to modernist understanding of science which is parallel to a proper theological critique of the modernist conception of science.

1. Michael Polanyi: Personal Knowledge and Ecclesial Science

As early as the 1940’s philosophers of science have been calling into question the modern, objectivist understanding of science. Perhaps no one has been more influential in this challenge than the Jewish Hungarian chemist-turned philosopher of science, Michael Polanyi.[1] Polanyi’s work radically calls into question the modernist ideal of scientific objectivity. Polanyi rather argues that science is inescapably value-laden, with every scientific claim involving personal commitment. In scientific knowing, like all forms of knowing, the knower is intimately involved in at all points. This is a direct challenge to the objectivist conception of science where the knower was required to disengage from the act of knowing in order to be ‘objective.’[2] According to Polanyi, the modernist ideal of the objective knower is simply an illusion. There is no detached, disinterested standpoint from which to look at the world ‘objectively.’ Rather, all knowing is perspectival and subjective – that is to say, it requires a knowing subject. That all knowing involves subjectivity by no means requires complete relativism or subjectivism. While some have accused Polanyi of subjectivism, such criticisms miss the mark. For Polanyi, the fact of the subjective, personal dimension of knowledge does not entail antirealism or relativism, rather it simply recognizes the seemingly self-evident point that the knowing subject can never be dismissed. As Polanyi points out,

Such is the personal participation of the knowing in all acts of understanding.
But this does not make our understanding subjective. Comprehension is neither an
arbitrary act nor a passive experience, but a responsible act claiming universal
validity. Such knowing is indeed objective in the sense of establishing contact
with a hidden reality; a contact that is defined as the condition for
anticipating an independent range of yet unknown (and perhaps yet inconceivable)
true implications.[3]

Thus, Polanyi’s recognition of the personal and subjective does not entail relativism or antirealism, but rather simply chastens science (and indeed all modes of inquiry that claim objectivity), forcing it to recognize its proper and limited nature. All acts of knowing are inextricably value-laden, theory-laden and must to some extent rely on uncritical assumptions without which no form of understanding would be possible. The modern objectivist ideal of the detached knower is, Polanyi argues, simply a myth.

It goes without saying that no one – scientists included – looks at the universe
this way, whatever lip-service is given to ‘objectivity.’ Nor should this
surprise us. For, as human beings, we must inevitably see the universe from a
centre lying within ourselves and speak about it in terms of a human language
shaped by the exigencies of human intercourse. Any attempt rigorously to
eliminate our human perspective from our picture of the world must lead to
absurdity.[4]

Polanyi goes on to engage in a rigorous examination of the actual practice and nature of science to determine a proper understanding. Science cannot be understood as a disinterested, value-free, objective form of detached reasoning. Rather it always involves the personal commitment of the knower to the object known. Thus, science has an inescapably moral dimension. This is based on the fact that in the end all scientific theorizing is subject to the personal interpretation of the scientist. “Viewed from the outside as we described him the scientist may appear as a mere truth-finding machine steered by intuitive sensitivity. But this view takes not account of the curious fact that he is himself the ultimate judge of what he accepts as true.”[5] Thus, the act of scientific knowing inescapably involves the conscience of the scientist. Therefore there is, “the presence of a moral element in the foundation of science.”[6]

What then, is this moral base that undergirds the practice of science and the scientific community’s adherence to scientific ideals? At this point, a proper understanding of tradition and community become indispensable for understanding the nature of science, as Polanyi argues. As Alasdair MacIntyre has demonstrated at great length, it is virtually irrefutable that communities and traditions are the carriers of ethics and rationality.[7] Polanyi would heartily approve this recommendation. The moral and rational basis for scientific reasoning is founded ultimately in the scientific community, the members of which are bound by a common tradition.[8] The fact of the role of community and tradition in the nature and practice of science is made explicitly clear in Polanyi’s work. No one is born a scientist. Rather, one becomes a scientist through a process of training in which the student submits uncritically and trustingly to the tutelage of the teacher. “The naturalistic view held by scientists and other modern men to-day has its origin in their primary education.”[9] Polanyi goes on to argue that,

this training can be supplemented by precept, but the imitative practice must
always remain its main principle. The same is true of the process by which the
elements of the higher arts are assimilated. Painting, music, etc., can be
learned, only by practice, guided by intelligent imagination. And this applies
to the art of scientific discovery.[10]

Thus, Polanyi argues, the practice and survival of science depends on the scientific community and students who can be persuaded to enter into that community, apprenticing themselves to scientific practitioners so as to learn the doctrines and practice of the scientific tradition. In a very real sense, then the continued existence of science is predicated on s
tudents of science who do not commit themselves to thinking ‘objectively.’ The students of science must simply submit to the process of indoctrination in scientific doctrine and practice in faith that their teachers are not deceiving them. If they were to ‘question everything’ as the objective knower must, then no learning could actually take place and the scientific tradition would cease to exist.

Therefore, science must be understood in the Augustinian sense of “faith in search of understanding.”[11] Moreover, it is not simply the students of science that must participate in the scientific tradition on the basis of faith, but all scientists. The continuation of science is predicated upon the scientific community’s continued assent of faith to unproven and unprovable assumptions about the nature of reality that legitimate the scientific agenda. As Polanyi states,

It would thus appear that when the premisses [sic] of science are held in common
by the scientific community each must subscribe to them by an act of devotion.
These premisses [sic] from not merely a guide to intuition, but also a guide to
conscience; they are not merely indicative, but also normative. The tradition of
science, it would seem, must be upheld as an unconditional demand if it is to be
upheld at all. It can be made use of by scientists only if they place themselves
at its service. It is a spiritual reality which stands over them and compels
their allegiance.[12]

Polanyi elsewhere argues,

We must now recognize belief once more as the source of all knowledge. Tacit
assent and intellectual passions, the sharing of an idiom and of a cultural
heritage, affiliation to a like-minded community: such are the impulses which
shape our vision of the nature of things on which we rely for our mastery of
things. No intelligence, however critical or original, can operate outside such
a fiduciary framework.[13]

Thus, science is not in fact an objective, value-free discipline, but is rather a tradition embodied in a community that is bound by a common faith in certain doctrines and ideals. The propagation of science is dependent on the conversion of persons to the scientific tradition of the basis of its attractiveness as a means of understanding and interpreting the world. Such a conversion to the scientific tradition is strikingly similar to the reception of a person into the Christian community. Polanyi describes the process of conversion to science (which he calls “emotional and moral surrender”[14]) in terms that are strikingly similar to Christian discipleship.

The first approach of the youthful mind to science is prompted by a love of science and a faith in its great significance which precedes any real understanding of it. This primary surrender to the intellectual authority of science is indispensable to any serious effort of assimilating science. As a next step the youth aspiring to become a scientist will have to accept the examples of great scientists, some living and many dead, and seek to derive from it an inspiration for his own future career. In many cases he will join a master and give him freely his admiration and trust.[15]

This understanding of conversion to science bear a striking resemblance to Christian discipleship in which the convert is drawn to Christianity through a love of God and Christ having great faith in their reality, prior to an in-depth understanding of those concepts. Moreover, the idea of exemplars to guide the new convert is certainly a very Christian idea, with its emphasis on the examples of the saints (Heb. 11). And of course the seeking out of a master in the faith to guide the new convert is also a distinct component of Christian discipleship.[16]

Moreover, ecclesial language seems to pervade Polanyi’s articulation of the nature of science. Science must ultimately be seen as a tradition embodied in a community of committed practitioners bound by a common faith. The scientific tradition is, on Polanyi’s reading inescapably ecclesial in nature. This should give us pause when we begin to examine how theology should engage science. If science and scientific inquiry is best understood, not as an objective disinterested discipline undertaken by enlightened individuals, but rather the commitment of a particular community to a specific faith and practice, then the form of dialogue between theology and science should look much different that the standard evangelical responses to science which have simply sought to make theology and science amenable bedfellows. Given the moral, fiduciary, ecclesial and ultimately spiritual and religious elements of the nature and practice of science, I would propose that dialogue between theology and science should be seen and practiced in much the same way as inter-traditional dialogue rather than inter-disciplinary dialogue. This distinction will prove crucial later. The common assumption in regard to the question of ‘science and theology’ has been that the nature of the relationship is one between different abstract, disembodied disciplines, rather than between different embodied traditions.[17]

The implications of this proposal are many, but prior to spelling out such implications, it is necessary to further deconstruct the modern objectivist conception of science. Polanyi’s work has gone a long way toward refuting the notion that science is a disinterested, objective application of the scientific method. However, another central element to the modernist conception of science is that science is the continual, gradual accumulation of data through the implementation of scientific methodology. This idea of gradual scientific progress is another key element of the modernist conception of science that needs to be deconstructed prior to articulating a proper theological perspective on science. Thomas Kuhn’s groundbreaking work on the nature of scientific revolutions offers extensive resources toward just such a construction of a proper understanding of the scientific tradition. It is his work that will occupy us in the next section.

[1]For a brief introduction to Polanyi, see David K. Naugle, Worldview: The History of a Concept (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 188ff.

[2] See Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), vii-viii, 3-6.

[3] Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, vii-viii.

[4] Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, 3.

[5] Polanyi, Science, Faith and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946), 38.

[6] Polanyi, Science, Faith and Society, 41.

[7] See MacIntyre, After Virtue, 218-225. In many ways the theological analogue of MacIntyre has been Stanley Hauerwas.

[8] See Polanyi, Science, Faith and Society, 52.

[9] Polanyi, Science, Faith and Society, 42.

[10] Polanyi, Science, Faith and Society, 43.

[11] See Polanyi, Science, Faith and Society, 45; Personal Knowledge, 264-268.

[12] Polanyi, Science, Faith and Society, 54.

[13] Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, 266.

[14] Polanyi, Science, Faith and Society, 55.

[15] Polanyi, Science, Faith and Society, 55.

[16] For such an account of discipleship, see Stanley Hauerwas, After Christendom?: How the Church is to Behave if Freedom, Justice and a Christian Nation are Bad Ideas (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991), 93-111.

[17] See for example J. Wentzel van Huyssteen, The Shaping of Rationality: Toward Interdisciplinarity in Theology and Science (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999). Notwithstanding a many helpful observations, van Huyssteen consistently assumes that ‘theology’ and ‘science’ designate disciplines which must be harmonized rather than different socially embodied traditions that may or may not be entirely commensurate with one another. Van Huyssteen rightly notes that science should not occupy a place of epistemic privilege in relation to theology, but he does not adequately account for the embodied character of both the scientific and Christian traditions.

II. Outdoing the Scientists: The Love Affair of Evangelicalism and Modern Science

Theology and science in the modern world have not seemingly had a happy coexistence. Issues of ‘creation v. evolution’ have cast the relationship between evangelicalism and science into a light that seems clearly to be one of contention. Thus, it seems hardly appropriate to claim that the evangelical relationship with modern science has been a “love affair.”[1] Nevertheless, I contend that, despite the different conclusions regarding the origin of the universe, evangelical theology has enthusiastically adopted the same canons of scientific reasoning that their Darwinist opponents claim. To that end a brief overview and evaluation of some of the most nuanced theological approaches to relating theology and science is needed.

—————————————-
[1] On this point see George M. Marsden, Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 122-152.

[2] For his paradigmatic treatment of this issue, see Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993).

[3] Johnson, Darwin on Trial, 14.

[4] On this point see Phillip D. Kenneson, “There’s No Such Thing as Objective Truth, and It’s a Good Thing Too,” in Phillips and Okholm, eds., Christian Apologetics in the Postmodern World, 156-170.

[5] See for example, William Dembski and James Kushiner, eds., Signs of Intelligence: Understanding Intelligent Design (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2001).

[6] In fact, Johnson has jumped fully onto the ID bandwagon. See

[7] Dembski, Intelligent Design, 105-109.

[8] Dembski, Intelligent Design, 13.

[9] The subtitle of Dembski’s book.

[10] Dembski, Intelligent Design, 187.

[11] Indeed, Dembski never engages postmodern criticisms in any significant way throughout his book. His mentions of postmodernism typically consist of mere assertions that postmo
dernity has not really had any major impact. He touts ID as being “premodern” (Intelligent Design, 44-48), but that way of putting the matter is anachronistic and overlooks the radical dependence of the ID project on forms of scientific reasoning that are distinctly modernistic. Despite such claims, there seems to be no way for Dembski to persuasively deny that his use of mathematics and information theory is dependent on Enlightenment forms of scientific reasoning and epistemology.

[12] On the issue of the “interpretedness” of all forms of human activity and knowing, see James K.A. Smith, The Fall of Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations of a Creational Hermeneutic (Downers Grover: InterVarsity Press, 2000).

[13] On the issue of the noetic effects of sin, see Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 199-240.

[14] See Middleton and. Walsh, Truth is Stranger than it Used to Be, 20-27.