CPHL709: Religion, Science

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CPHL709 Religion, Science Philosophy I

• Historical Overview

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• 0. Medieval Period
• Popularly thought of as Dark Ages, but really
  prepared the ground for the Scientific Revolution
  of 16th-17th centuries
• Translation of Aristotle into Latin
• Establishment of great European Universities
  (though focus was not on the natural sciences,
  originally)
• Emergence of theologian-natural philosophers
  (e.g. Henry of Lagnestein) who saw study of
  nature as theologically legitimate activity -
  study of works and wonders of God
• Development of sophisticated ways of interpreting
  the Bible non-literally laid ground for
  compatibility of religion with growing scientific
  accounts of the world

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• 1. The Copernican Revolution
• geocentrism The view that earth is at centre of
  the universe, and all heavenly bodies rotate
  around the earth in perfect circles. (associated
  with Ptolemy, 2nd Century, Egypt)
• Copernicus (1473-1543) defended heliocentrism.
  He argued that the apparent motion of stars and
  planets is due to motion of earth (rotation on
  axis, and rotation around sun)
• Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) refined Copernican
  theory with introduction of elliptical orbits.

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• Conflict The geocentric model was accepted by
  theologians throughout the medieval period, and
  seemed to fit well with the Genesis worldview.
• One solution Calvinist Accommodationist
  approach Revelation comes to people in a form
  they will understand - we must understand
  Biblical revelation as intended for a
  scientifically unsophisticated audience.
• The main topic of Biblical revelation is the
  salvational message of Jesus Christ for humanity.
  The bible was never intended as a scientific
  treatise.

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• 2. The Newtonian Revolution
• Newtons essential contribution was the
  demonstration of the universality of science
  that the entire cosmos - the heavens and
  earth, so to speak - operates according to
  the same basic laws.
• All objects great and small, earthly and
  heavenly, behave according to the same few
  principles of motion.
• The Mechanistic worldview the universe is like
  a big machine, regulated by the laws of motion.
• Things dont just happen by chance rather, they
  occur in an orderly, in principle predictable
  manner.

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• Newtonian Mechanism can motivate a variety of
  religious responses. A couple of prominent ones
• Deism An appealing religious alternative in the
  age of Newton Belief that God is the designer
  and creator of the universe, but is not
  continually, personally involved with it. God is
  an aloof architect who creates a law-governed
  universe that runs on its own.
• Atheism Since the universe is a self-contained,
  self-sustaining entity whose nature can be
  understood without reference to God, why retain
  belief in God?
• I have no need of that hypothesis.
• -attributed to LaPlace, but probably
• apocryphal)

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• 3. The Darwinian Revolution
• According to the literal Genesis picture of
  humanity, we were created directly by God, after
  all other species, as the culmination of Gods
  creative efforts.
• According to Darwinian theory, we share a common
  ancestry with all life on Earth, having evolved
  very slowly, through a blind natural process.
• Evolution presupposes Deep Time - that the
  Universe is exponentially older (13.7 billion
  years, by current calculations) than the literal
  Biblical view (perhaps 6,000 years old) would
  have it, and humans have not existed for most of
  that time.

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• Notice the decentering effects that each of
  the three scientific revolutions has on our place
  in the cosmos
• 1. Copernican Revolution
• Earth and thus humans are physically peripheral,
  not central in the universe.
• 2. Newtonian Revolution
• The earth and life on it are not physically
  special in any deep way they obey the same
  mechanistic laws that govern all of the universe.
• 3. Darwinian Revolution
• Humans share a common ancestry with all life on
  earth.
• We are temporally off-centre - we come into
  existence very late in the history of the universe