On “Losing my religion”….

I am a mandolin player. Or perhaps more accurately I should say that I play the mandolin. On this side of the Anglo-Saxon Atlantic, mandolin playing is mainly limited to folk music, although across the Chanel it has long been known as a classical instrument (Vivaldi wrote at least two mandolin concertos). In the US the mandolin has a long and treasured place in country and bluegrass music. But as far as I know there is only one rock/pop mandolin riff that is widely known. Back in the ‘90’s R.E.M. had a hit with the song “Losing My Religion” which starts with it. The song and the accompanying video went on to win multiple awards. You might think that the song had something to do with religion. Perhaps a celebratory atheistic anthem of its newly recognised irrelevance or a wistful retrospective of a now forgotten childhood heritage. But apparently not. R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe who wrote the lyric has said that it was actually about unrequited love: “..what I was pulling from was being the shy wallflower who hangs back at the party or at the dance and doesn’t go up to the person that you’re madly in love with and say ‘I’ve kind of got a crush on you, how do you feel about me?’”. Doesn’t take away from the brilliant mandolin riff of course. In any case it turns out religion isn't quite what you might think.

That’s interesting because it often isn’t. The meanings given to the word have changed over time, as often happens. And even if there really is a thing being labelled (in the sense that we also give names to non-things like purple spotted unicorns) this is also likely to change through time and and over space (i.e. being different in different places and spaces). So it is sometimes genuinely difficult to know what is meant when we talk (or even sing) about religion, lost or otherwise. There is nothing new or unique in this; try looking up the etymological history of “nice” – you’ll be surprised. Even broad categories used to identify obvious and necessary boundaries turn out in some important cases to be recent innovations that are neither obvious nor necessary. The rhetorical drawing of contrasts is therefore also tricky. The idea that the categories of “natural” and “supernatural” have always been with us, and we’ve always been clear about what these categories are, crops up in many debates. Indeed it is the supernatural, as distinct from religion or God, that was Dawkins’ main target in “The God Delusion”. He clearly thought he knew what he meant, and that his readers did too.

But the categories of natural and supernatural are relatively recent. And around them there has been more than a little myth-making particularly once they transformed into “-isms” claimed to competing with each other. This particular framing (although not the words themselves) appeared late on in the 19^th century promoted by, among others, T.H. Huxley. Huxley and his ilk then read these categories back into history. Promising (in their terms) pre-Socratic philosophers were identified as being early stalwarts taking their plucky stance against surrounding supernatural beliefs and religious practices. A line of heroes was then traced through that most influential of ancient philosophers, Aristotle. And so down to contemporary debates where science, rationality and naturalism were pitted against religion, faith and supernaturalism, with the implication that we all know which side of the line we (and the intellectual greats of the past) must stand. Except it was never thus and is not so now.

The Greek philosophers, of all schools and stages, were clear that the divine was involved with all aspects of human life and thought, whether for good or ill. For them, “natural” inevitably implied, among other things, divine activity. And Greek science (a much wider activity than what is meant in English by the word today) showed little sign of progress or development away from such notions. Arguably it was actually the rise of Christianity which in some of its forms began to remove the divine from many of the areas of life it was formerly thought to inhabit. Many of the innovators who began to give science the form it has today, from Bacon on, made no great distinction between their thinking as scientists (not a word they would have understood in our sense) and theological thinking. Investigating the world with the tools available was an investigation of the works of God. The success of science  was, to many, not the success of naturalism in the face of supernatural resistance, but actually progress in illuminating and understanding the works of the Creator. No contest here. But something does thereafter seem to have been lost.

A broadly Biblical understanding of everything there was and is was what led to (or at least was the context of) the development of science as we know it today. But a catastrophic narrowing of science seems to have taken place, particularly as it became professionalised and institutionalised. The historian Peter Harrison recently put it like this “Whereas the sciences are sometimes said to be based in curiosity, from the mid-twentieth century that curiously rarely extended to fundamental questions about the metaphysical foundations of science or the intelligibility of the natural world” (Some New World, p328). As a matter of history those “metaphysical” foundations were thought to be Biblical by the majority of the practitioners from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. It was Huxley and others, relatively recently, who set up various false antitheses. And they were then highly successful in evangelising for this particular view of our intellectual and scientific history. Once constructed in their terms, loosing the supernatural, indeed losing religion, was not the loss of anything of value. Indeed, it was seen as a necessary and progressive step.

The problem is that we are now living with the consequences of this loss of “who knows what”. And it actually turns out that the most serious consequences are not for religion (in the modern sense) as much for science, politics and culture. Religion appears to be going from strength to strength all over the world. But particularly in Western Europe and the US, wistful noises are now being made in the oddest of corners for what has been lost. And science itself seems particularly to be suffering. 

So if you thought REM was celebrating the loss of religion in the sense of losing the religious, think again. And even if you had been right, it would probably not be something worth celebrating.

Science + theology?

A while ago I took to thinking about the area of study in which I am now engaged (theology), and also the area in which I had previously been professionally occupied (science). I suppose I conceived of these as two largely separable and separate fields. Sitting next to each other in the intellectual landscape, I suppose I would have expected to find a fairly well defined boundary between them. But because I am a realist (technically a critical realist), committed to a single , overarching and knowable reality outside of me, I would expect the boundary to be a fuzzy one, allowing friendly contact and interchange. If both represent valid pursuits, then they both deal with the same reality, although from different perspectives, using different tools. They are neither enemies or rivals. Admittedly, few scientists spend much time in properly theological reflection (except the ones who do), and there are probably more than a few who would deny theology any validity at all. But that has more to do with weaknesses in the education of scientists (at least in the Anglo Saxon world) than with any real problem with theology as a discipline. It has its problems of course, but validity is not one of them. However, it turns out that there may be a bigger overlap between theology and science than I had suspected.

I was alerted to this by having to critique a paper published in the Journal of Empirical Theology. Can there be such a thing I wondered. If theology is the study of an ineffable and inapproachable God, then it seems unlikely that empirical methods will have much traction. I am rather assuming that there are theologians (Barth perhaps?) who argue that when it comes to knowing anything about God, what is required is revelation not scientific experimentation. And while God’s self-revelation can be examined, debated and understood (and misunderstood), this is not a task that the methods of the natural sciences will be much help with. But theology (rather like science) is really not one single institution or discipline, with a single object of study from a single standpoint and a single set of tools. Given that things are believed about God (and indeed gods) by people, there are reasons for studying these beliefs, the people who hold them, and perhaps thereby discover things  about the God in whom they believe. In general, those who study people develop interests in the beliefs people have. So it is no surprise that tools have been developed to study such things, and some of these are thoroughly empirical.

Obvious examples are found in social and cognitive psychology, where many of the classic approaches found in other branches of the natural sciences, are used to study things like beliefs. The general approach can often be couched in classic hypothesis-driven terms (observation-hypothesis-prediction-test), using standard instruments and testing strategies to get at what is going on in people’s minds (or at least inside their heads). Religious ideas and beliefs might simply be seen as a subset of beliefs and ideas, examinable using exactly the same techniques. This is not a new idea; that religious belief was nothing special is a view that Scottish arch-sceptic and empiricist David Hume would have agreed with. Such investigations, undertaken from a standpoint of “methodological naturalism” generate explanations for the phenomena under investigation that do not invoke God, any more that I would have invoked His activity to explain the eye movement phenomena that I used to study. But then this doesn’t really sound like any kind of theology. And indeed it isn’t – it’s psychology.

As an aside, as a Christian believer, while I did not invoke the actions of God to explain the things I was investigating, I was well aware that He was not remote. He was as present in my lab as anywhere else; I am a Christian not a Deist. I was always quite comfortable with the belief that underpinning everything I did, indeed underpinning my very existence as well as that of the universe, was God’s power (revealed by writer of the New Testament letter to the Hebrews; Heb 1:3). But my job was to find immediate and natural explanations for what I was investigating, based on natural rather than supernatural mechanisms. My hypotheses were couched in terms of these natural mechanisms, and these were what my experiments tested, and what my theories invoked. But God and natural explanations are neither contradictory or mutually exclusive. They are different, and pertain to different levels of reality. But this poses a conundrum. I assume that there is an explanation that connects the power and working of the God who is spirit with the existence and maintenance of this universe which is material. I have no idea what it is, and my gut feeling is that even if God had revealed it I would not be capable of understanding it.

But back to empirical theology. There are models of belief and thought that originate within an avowedly theological context and use theological concepts. These are likely to be dependent, at least for the most part, on the revelation of God mentioned above. Empirical methods could, I suppose, be used to study such beliefs. But the methods themselves would have to be theologically informed, otherwise we’re simply back in the realms of psychology. This seems to be what goes on in what is called empirical theology. What I don’t quite understand is what it’s for. Mind you, that applies to a lot of science which is actually at its best when it is just about finding out stuff. It is only subsequently that it turns out that some of the stuff is useful or important or worth lots of money. There’s a lot of serendipity involved in even the hardest of hard sciences. There are contexts where finding how what and how people think is important. An example would be education where if you wanted to know whether a concept or belief was being adequately transmitted, then there are ways of finding this out in a rigorous manner. This is likely to be as useful in theological education as elsewhere. But is this really theology? Who’s to say. Defining disciplines is famously difficult. But I can conceive of investigating theological concepts and beliefs in a thoroughly scientific manner. Whether it ever is, is a different story.

“Blessed wonder and surprising delight…”

Maybe it’s just me, but I assume that there is a time in all our lives when the thought strikes us that we are nearer our death than our birth. Of course none of us can ever know when we reach this point, because that would require knowing when we were going to die. Fortunately, for most of us this is unknown, if not necessarily unknowable. Perhaps such thoughts only come when one reaches a certain stage in life when statistically, the law of averages being what it is, we think we are at, or are beyond that point. This was brought home to me recently when I received a couple of projections from my pension company (there’s a big clue!). Their actuaries had calculated that I (probably) had about twenty years of life left. But then what?

Here we have a problem. It is at this point that the evil twins of materialism and naturalism demand  a high price. Materialism is a creed and therefore it is something to be believed. It is not something that is necessarily true. It proclaims that the universe only consists of stuff that can be seen, touched, tasted, heard or smelled. Only matter exists and there is nothing else, nothing beneath and nothing above. Naturalism is the related belief that everything that is arises from natural causes, and therefore only natural explanations, that rule out a priori supernatural causes, are acceptable. Again, this is a belief. Many would hold that these two are the ruling beliefs of the age. And the problem is that even those of us who reject both of them are influenced by them.

Previous generations would have thought nothing of my "then what" question. Most would simply have spoken of heaven to come. Today we are patronizingly apt to claim that this was because they knew so much less than us, although they believed so much more. Now we know so much more, and consequently believe so much less. How easily their answer to “then what” is dismissed as just a form of superstitious wishful thinking. But this falls into two traps. The first is the chronological snobbery that C.S. Lewis defined as the “uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited”. The modern (or the postmodern, or post-postmodern) is inevitably right, the past is inevitably mistaken. Secondly, it leaves us ensnared in the trap of believing that somehow we no longer  believe. Certainly there are things that we no longer believe. But that is different. Materialism and naturalism are creeds that are believed. It’s not that we don’t believe, rather that we believe something different. We have ruled out all talk of heaven to come, not so much as unbelievable but as irrelevant.

But Christian believers, those who take seriously God’s self-revelation of His purposes in His Word, need to be a lot less coy about what we believe. It’s not that we believe and the naturalist and materialist don’t. We believe something different and need to be less shy about saying so. And perhaps there is no more important issue than our final destination and state. If it’s not up to much, we should be clear about it. If it is only just a little bit better than the alternatives, then that would be worth knowing. An informed choice can then be made about whether it can really supply the hope and comfort actually needed to offset the trouble we’re likely to face for being believers in it in the first place. But if it were to turn out that it is a prospect that is glorious and joyful (not words we’ve heard much in recent days), indeed if it were revealed to be full of “blessed wonder and surprising delight” then this is surely worth knowing too. A clear vision of such a state would surely be an important resource helping us in the here and now, as well as healing us in there and then.

In his book “Rejoice and Tremble”, Michael Reeves highlights some of the writing about heaven from the past, including some from Isaac Watts. Watts is perhaps best known today as a hymn writer; he wrote “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” and the Christmas carol “Joy to the World”. But he was also a non-conformist pastor, tutor, philosopher and logician, and wrote what became a standard textbook on logic (titled “Logic”!), published in 1724 and running to some twenty editions. It was widely used in universities such as Oxford and Yale, well into the nineteenth century. So he is not easily dismissed as an obscurantist medieval mystic. Indeed he was well aware of, and had respect for science. But he knew it had limits:

“What are the heights, and depths, and lengths, of human science, with all the boasted acquisitions of the brightest genius of mankind! Learning and science can measure the globe, can sound the depths of the sea, can compass the heavens, can mete out the distances of the sun and moon, and mark out the path of every twinkling star for many ages past, or ages to come; but they cannot acquaint us with the way of salvation from this long, this endless distress.”

So it is interesting to read what Watts wrote about heaven. He certainly wrote about it in terms rarely encountered today:

“In heaven the blessed inhabitants ‘behold the majesty and greatness of God’ in such a light as fixes their thoughts in glorious wonder and the humblest adoration, and exalts them to the highest pleasure and praise.” (“The World to Come”, Vol I, 1811, p389)

“When … the soul, as it were, beholds God in these heights of transcendent majesty, it is overwhelmed with blessed wonder and surprising delight, even while it adores in most profound lowliness and self-abasement.” (p390)

So there you have it. According to Watts, I can look forward to being “overwhelmed with blessed wonder and surprising delight”. Clearly he could be just plain wrong. But what he wasn’t was stupid, and therefore should not be lightly dismissed. As an answer to “what then”, it’ll do me.

Back to that chasm....

The Nature Editorial that I was reflecting on recently, prompted other responses published in the correspondence section of the journal itself. Firstly, Frank Nicolas' letter simply pointed out that all scientists adopt a "methodological naturalism" when doing science, and basically welcomed the new openness that the Editorial discussed. What was perhaps more interesting were the comments on the letter. In one it was stated:

"Where it is not incomprehensible this is an empty piece of philosophical maundering which should, and doubtless will be, widely ignored". 

A second commented: "Religion is by definition not open towards science, given that it ignores evidence (or actually the absence of it)..."

I didn't find the letter incomprehensible, and the philosophy wasn't empty. It was a fair statement of an approach many of us take in the lab. Even those of us committed to the belief that underpinning each instant in time, and at each point in space, it's the power of God that keeps the universe in existence (Hebrews 1:3), don't invoke this power to explain the processes we study. And the explanations we come up with don't compete with Hebrews 1. I study (among other things) psychological processes reflected in eye movement behaviour. If I invoke a mechanism like "behavioural inhibition" to explain an experimental finding, it doesn't mean that I'm denying that neurons in the brainstem gaze generating network weren't involved. I'm just operating at a different level of explanation. And as I can't measure the "power of His Word" in the lab (and don't seek to), I would never invoke it in the paper I eventually write on what I've been investigating. It forms part of the background that gives rise to my beliefs, thoughts, behaviour and activity. I would claim we all have such background (metaphysical) beliefs. It's just that I'm explicit about it, and know when (and when not to) mention them.

So in the lab, I'm as much a methodological naturalist as the next scientist. The problem comes when folk start hinting, implying or claiming that natural explanations (those couched in terms of what we can see, taste, touch, smell, measure) are the only type of explanations that count. This, I think, lies behind the response to Frank's letter. It's a form of metaphysical naturalism which, to be fair, is the default position of many scientists. However, it, itself, is not science, it's a metaphysical position, and it brings with it a history and set of attitudes. If you claim that only natural explanations apply to everything, that's a statement of the same sort as God upholds everything by His powerful word. This doesn't mean that it's necessarily wrong (although clearly I believe that it is). But it is equally true that it's not necessarily right, even if lots of scientists say it, and even if lot's of them also think that it's the only way to approach science specifically and life more generally.

Those of us with a religious and philosophical turn of mind accept the difference between the methodological naturalism we adopt in the lab and our other beliefs. We're open to thinking about the interaction between the science we do in the lab, and the kind of intellectual procedures it involves, and our other beliefs and attitudes. I think about how science informs me about the world (the world that God made and sustains); I reflect on what it tells me about Him. I think about how Scripture applies to what I do in the lab. These are not contradictory processes, although they do occasionally result in a bit of tension. What's interesting about the second of the two comments above is the claim that "Religion is by definition not open towards science" - not by my definition mate! In fact this statement suggests to me a closed attitude toward insights that both philosophy and religion can offer to the scientist. And it suggests a blind spot about the writer's own philosophical presuppositions and commitments.  

And then there's the implication that somehow the scientist who is a believer can only be a believer by ignoring stuff. I've commented on issues around facts and faith elsewhere on this blog. Religious belief, at least in Christianity, is not irrational, it is the opposite. It's not about ignoring anything. You might not like the conclusions drawn from the evidence, but please don't claim that either evidence was not involved, that it was not weighed or that counter evidence was not considered.

It would appear that in the  minds of some then, there is indeed a chasm between science and religion. I invite the interested observer to investigate further to discover whether this is myth or reality; to be open to the evidence.