The critical realist approach to science, which usually entails inference to the best explanation ('IBE'), is now being widely used to defend the truth of theological claims on the same footing as defence of scientific claims.

I'm a bit uncomfortable with this claim. Anyone thought about this? I'd like to hear your opinion.


* * * * *

“On the one hand, critical realism should be contrasted with nonliteralist methods such as positivism and instrumentalism, because it recognizes that theories represent the real world. On the other hand, critical realism should be contrasted also with “naïve realism,” which invokes the correspondence theory of truth to presume a literal correspondence between one’s mental picture and the object to which this picture refers. Critical realism, in contrast, is nonliteral while still referential.”
- Ted Peters, ‘Theology and Natural Science’ in David E. Ford (Ed.) The Modern Theologians: An introduction to Christian theology in the Twentieth century (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), pp. 649-668, 656.

* * * * *

“the basic claim made by ... critical scientific realism is that it is the long-term success of a scientific theory that warrants the belief that ‘something like the entities and structure postulated by the theory actually exists.’ ”

"A formidable case for such a critical scientific realism as ‘a quite limited claim that purports to explain why certain ways of proceeding in science have worked out as well as they (contingently) have’ can, in my view, be mounted, based on the histories of, for example, geology, cell biology and chemistry. During the last two centuries, these sciences have progressively and continuously discovered hidden structures in the entities of the natural world that account causally for observed phenomena.”

“Critical realism recognizes that it is still only the aim of science to depict reality and that this allows gradations in acceptance of the ‘truth’ of scientific theories… . Critical realism recognizes that it is the aim of science to depict reality as best it may – and since this can be only an aim, the critical realist has to accept that this purpose may well be achieved by scientists with but varying degrees of success.”

- Arthur Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and Becoming – Natural, Divine and Human (Enlarged Edn., London: SCM Press, 1993), 12.

* * * * *

“I think that both science and theology aim to depict reality, that they both do so in metaphorical language with the use of models, and that their metaphors and models are revisable within the context of the continuous communities which have generated them.”

- Arthur Peacocke, Paths From Science Towards God: The End of all our Exploring (Oxford: Oneworld, 2001), p. 9.

* * * * *

“Critical realism recognizes that it is still only the aim of science to depict reality and that this allows gradations in acceptance of the ‘truth’ of scientific theories… . Critical realism recognizes that it is the aim of science to depict reality as best it may – and since this can be only an aim, the critical realist has to accept that this purpose may well be achieved by scientists with but varying degrees of success.”

"I urge that a critical realism is also the most appropriate and adequate philosophy concerning religious language and theological propositions. Critical realism in theology would maintain that theological concepts and models should be regarded as partial and inadequate, but necessary and, indeed, the only ways of referring to the reality that is named as ‘God’ and to God’s relation with humanity.”

“For theology, like science, also attempts to make inferences to the best explanation -- or, rather, it should be attempting to do so.”

“In spite of what the ‘cultured despisers’ of Christianity might say, there are ‘data’ available to the theological enterprise, just as there are to the scientific. These latter are constituted by the broad features of the entities, structures and processes that science is demonstrating as characteristic of the natural world. For theology, the ‘data’ are constituted by the well-winnowed traditions of the major world religions, among them Christianity which provides our principal source in the West of tested wisdom about how to refer to that which is encountered in those experiences initially dubbed as experiences of God.”

- - Arthur Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and Becoming – Natural, Divine and Human (Enlarged Edn., London: SCM Press, 1993), 12-18.

* * * * *

“Religions are a consequence of successive generations testing, correcting, confirming, extending, changing, the accumulating wisdoms of experience.’
– John Bowker, Licensed Insanities (Darton, Longman and Todd, London, 1987), p. 13.

Ok, I read the quotes but I still don't have a handle on it. Do I get a "participation" ribbon?

Originally posted by Seasanctuary

Ok, I read the quotes but I still don't have a handle on it. Do I get a "participation" ribbon?

Yeah. I guess you could google 'critical realism' and 'theology'. I haven't, but I'm guessing you'd get some of the flavour. If you're at all keen, that is.

Robyn Banks

P.S. Did I see a flash of you quoting me in your signature, before I pressed 'reply'? How flattering.
P.P.S. I wish I had a signature and avatar, but the moderators decided to take it away from me for expressing an opinion on it. Dem opinions. Cause trouble is what dey do.

Originally posted by Robyn Banks

The critical realist approach to science, which usually entails inference to the best explanation ('IBE'), is now being widely used to defend the truth of theological claims on the same footing as defence of scientific claims.

I'm a bit uncomfortable with this claim. Anyone thought about this? I'd like to hear your opinion.


“Religions are a consequence of successive generations testing, correcting, confirming, extending, changing, the accumulating wisdoms of experience.’
– John Bowker, Licensed Insanities (Darton, Longman and Todd, London, 1987), p. 13.

I am a fan of Arthur Peacocke to some extent, except he still has a few hooks lodged in his mouth from traditional theology. He is still a Christian theologian/scientist siting on the fence getting splinters in his butt trying to make sense of a changing world in conflict with traditional theology.

As a Baha'i I view Bowker's humanism in reverse. Divinely Revealed knowledge comes first and then humanity discovers the revealed religion as . . . 'a consequence of successive generations testing, correcting, confirming, extending, changing, the accumulating wisdoms of experience.’

Robyn,

after reading some of NT Right, I had a general idea of what critical realism is. What you've posted here fills in more of the blanks.

What I find very interesting is the place metaphor plays in critical realism. I think that's great. I'm influenced somewhat by two authors, George Lackoff and Mark Johnson on dissolving the boundaries of literal language and metaphorical language (well that's one way to look at it). Previously metaphors where viewed as abberations and elaborations that need to be translated into literal statements before they communicate truth. But the fact of the matter is almost all of our language in almost all aspects of life are rife with metaphor and metaphor is in fact critical for structuring our conceptions from very complex ones to basic everyday ways of communication. Just look at the metaphors in my first statement: What I find very interesting is the place metaphor plays in critical realism.

Metaphors are deeply embedded in our basic everyday language that we would normally take to be literal.

So I see critical realism as taking a step in the right direction linguistically in terms of how we communicate and understand.

which usually entails inference to the best explanation

There'd be an interesting interplay between the subjective and the objective here. What one deams to be the best is not what someone else would deem best. But then again, some things are objectively better than others.



shunyadragon,

He is still a Christian theologian/scientist siting on the fence getting splinters in his butt trying to make sense of a changing world in conflict with traditional theology.

[slightly off topic, but we are talking about epistemic progress] the Christians who truely values orthodoxy (and have a decent understanding of it at the same time) realize the value of theological novelty as there is no one point in church history when one can finally say "ah, now God has taught the church everything she needs to know". And those who truely value progress understand the need for orthodoxy, because if there is never an understanding upon which we build, there is never something from which we could say that we have progressed from and/or with. But if you finally have found the truth, perhaps we can now start to progress from the foundation of orthodoxy you have laid down! But I would rather be more optomistic in that we have progressed for two thousand years...and also from plenty of time before hand.

Originally posted by geebob

I'm influenced somewhat by two authors, George Lackoff and Mark Johnson on dissolving the boundaries of literal language and metaphorical language (well that's one way to look at it). Previously metaphors where viewed as abberations and elaborations that need to be translated into literal statements before they communicate truth. But the fact of the matter is almost all of our language in almost all aspects of life are rife with metaphor and metaphor is in fact critical for structuring our conceptions from very complex ones to basic everyday ways of communication. Just look at the metaphors in my first statement: What I find very interesting is the place metaphor plays in critical realism.

Metaphors are deeply embedded in our basic everyday language that we would normally take to be literal.

So I see critical realism as taking a step in the right direction linguistically in terms of how we communicate and understand.

In science: “Recognition of the metaphorical nature of scientific language entails an acceptance of its revisability in seeking to explore a world only partially and imperfectly understood – and whose ultimate reality is bound to be elusive since we ourselves are structures in the selfsame world we study.”

In theology: “Theology also employs models that may be similarly classified. I urge that a critical realism is also the most appropriate and adequate philosophy concerning religious language and theological propositions. Critical realism in theology would maintain that theological concepts and models should be regarded as partial and inadequate, but necessary and, indeed, the only ways of referring to the reality that is named as ‘God’ and to God’s relation with humanity.”

- Arthur Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and Becoming – Natural, Divine and Human (Enlarged Edn., London: SCM Press, 1993), 14.

Originally posted by geebob

[slightly off topic, but we are talking about epistemic progress] the Christians who truely values orthodoxy (and have a decent understanding of it at the same time) realize the value of theological novelty as there is no one point in church history when one can finally say "ah, now God has taught the church everything she needs to know". And those who truely value progress understand the need for orthodoxy, because if there is never an understanding upon which we build, there is never something from which we could say that we have progressed from and/or with. But if you finally have found the truth, perhaps we can now start to progress from the foundation of orthodoxy you have laid down! But I would rather be more optomistic in that we have progressed for two thousand years...and also from plenty of time before hand.

“theology has been most creative and long-lasting when it has responded most positively to the challenges of its times, as when the Cappadocian Fathers used Greek philosophy to express the categories of Christian theology and when St Thomas Aquinas faced up to and triumphantly utilized the then overwhelming intellectual resources of Aristotelianism to reshape that same theology into a form that endured for centuries.”
- Arthur Peacocke, Theology for a Scientific Age: Being and Becoming – Natural, Divine and Human (Enlarged Edn., London: SCM Press, 1993), 7.

Shalom.