1729.Science, Technology

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SCIENCE, TECIEWLOGY, RELIGION, AND THEOLOGY"" IThe first point I "Jant to make is to challenge the popular view that science and technology, on the one hand, and religion and theology, on the other, are simply two different approaches to the same problem, and therefore could be in genuine conflict with one another or, alternatively, could under certain circumstances be synthesized. I grant, of course, that mucll that has passed for science and theology has led to genuine conflict between them or, in other cases, to syntheses of one kind and another. But I believe it can be shown that, )hen sc

Le t me illustrate \vha t I mean. It is often supposed tha t the Judaic-Christian doctrine of the creation of the world and man by God has to do with the same kind of problem or question as is properly dealt with by natural science. Thus many persons have thought that acceptance of the hypothesis of organic evolution and of man's descent from less complex forms of life makes it impossible to accept the doctrine of creation-or, at least, requires one radically to reinterpret it, for example, along the familiar lines, "Some call it evolution/And others call it God." Hy view, hO'iJever, is that this supposition entails a ser ious .togica1 confus ion-a confus ion as serious as taking f igurat ive language literally (or vice versa!) or supposing, say, that the mathematical theory of numbers has some deep religious significance. The religious or theological doctrine of creation is really concerned to answer an altogether different kind of question from that which the special sciences are trying to answer. Ludwig Wittgenstein alluded to this in a famous statement in the Tractatus

*Remarks contributed to the Seminar in Science, Technology, and Lm'l, the School of La1;v, Southern Methodist University, February 16,1966.

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answer to the question which 'inevitably arises from the fact that it is.

If this view is correct, whatever the bearing on religion and theology of science and technology, it cannot entail the displacement of the fonller by the latter. Even the most radical Hcientific and technological change will not do away with man's fundamental religious question (unless, of course, it succeeds in doing away with man himself). On the contrary, such change can only make that question stand out ever more sharply and clearly, purified, as it were, of everything merely adventitious to it. The overall effect of scientific and technological change is not the displacement of religion and theology but their differentiation. l

One argument in support of this conclusion is worth briefly expanding. It is

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But now, in what sense, exactly, is it the differentiation of religion and theology, rather than their displacement, that science and technology tend to bring about? Here I would like to propose three theses by way of suggesting some of the main effects on religion and theology of modern scientific and technological developments. I should perhaps expla in that '\<7hat I sha11 mean by lire1igion and theo logy" in this connection is what may fairly be described as their classic forms as they have found expression in our Western cultural tradition. I am

ISee especially R. G. Collingwood, Faith and Reason: A Study of the Relations between Religion and Science (London: Ernest Benn, Ltd.,

3ienc<:~ and tbeology are mos t fully themse lves, they are d ifferent approaches to different problems, or, perhaps, similar approaches to different prcblcmsbut in any case, not approaches to the same problem, since they have to do with problems of quite different kinds. Logic~ilosophicus: "Not how the world is is the mystical, but rather that it is." The question answered by the hypothesis of evolution is precisely a question as to how the world is; the doctrine of creation, on the other hand, is an con~only recognized that the general effect of technology is to extend indefinitely the range of man's control of his natural environment (including man himself so far as he is a part of that environment); and in so-called developed nations such as our own many of the things that once Here quite beyond human powers nm" seem virtually certain to be realized, at least for the relatively few of us who share in the development. But it is only to a superficial view that the modern growth of technological control removes the essential insecurity of human existence and the corresponding need for some religious (or quasireligious) faith. In fact, it is arguable that our insecurity today is, if anything, far greater than in any previous age of human history. The price of growing technological mastery is the increasing interdependence of the ,.;ho 1c. hUi"c.ii comnJUni Ly dnd the p lacing of more and more of the conditions of life in the hands of that most undependable of all natural masters, man. Thus we have already reached the stage where the possibilities of everyone of liS, not to mention the continuation on this planet of life itself, depend on the wisdom and restraint, or the lack thereof, of a few fallible mortals such as ourselves. Clearly, technology destroys some dependencies, but just as clearly it also creates new ones. Moreover, all of us today are painfully aware that technologyor, at any rate, our usc of technology-has exacted the high price of gradually destroying a habitable human environment. 1928) . | assuming, of course, that these forms are neither the only nor necessarily the most adequate such forms, and that they are in any case only that-form~. As my first comment 1;vi11 have ind icated, I see the subs tance of religion and | theology, | as | distinct | from | their | forms, | to | lie | in | a | funda |

Schubert M. Ogden

What is the bearing of scientific and technological change on religion and theology, broadly construed?

Needless to say, this is a very large question to which I shall not pre tend to offer an answer. f'Iy purpose, instead, is s imply to open up a few perspectives from which we may reflect on the question in our subsequent discussion.