This is the second part of a series of brief (lightly edited!) blog posts meant to answer some questions recently received from a thoughtful student at a secular college. The target audience is a strong religious believer.
In the first part of the series, I argued that both our understanding of religious and scientific knowledge need to be held provisionally.
As a Platonist and a Christian, I am all too aware that my views are in the “tradition of” and are not just Plato’s or Christ’s! In the same way, like many philosophers, I use “Darwinist” as a term to describe those whose general worldview flows from the work of Charles Darwin, the way a modern Platonist’s flow from Plato. Darwinists have changed their minds and “made progress” (from their point of view) since the days of Darwin . . . as have Christians and even Platonists!
In this second part, I make some simple suggestions to a religious person about how to form a rational belief system with some advice on how not to do so! My assumption is that nobody wants a philosophy of science that (to paraphrase Chesterton) is “what the best scientists tell us” (whatever that is this year) while failing as metaphysics or in terms of personal psychology.
Everyone knows (I hope) that theology is “theory and value laden.” I hope everyone knows the same thing about science. No idea formation takes place in an ideological “clean room.”
The Web of Belief
Ideas about creation, Darwinism, and God often deeply impact people’s view of themselves and the world. This true for both the secularist and the Christian.
I will assume that the “examined life” of Socrates and Jesus Christ is the good life. People should follow the argument where it leads, but we also have to acknowledge that arguments take place in a context of many ideas.
We can rarely isolate one idea (”my philosophy of science”) from all our other ideas.
Most humans have certain core beliefs that they hardly ever call into question . . . even to consider doing so unbalances them. Under certain circumstances these core assumptions must be called into question by rational humans, but then such persons face a great epistemological crisis. Such inner turmoil is fortunately rare, but any rational person must acknowledge it is possible.
Imagine a child who discovers that his parents do not love him. His self-identity is attacked right to the very core of his being. If he survives such a trauma, it will still deeply scar him for the rest of his life. If the truth is bad news, then it must be embraced, but nobody needs to rush to believe bad news either.
People are right to be conservative about changing such beliefs. To change them lightly is foolish, but sometimes it is necessary.
Of course not all beliefs are so deep or important
Many beliefs are “secondary” in nature and these secondary ideas can be more easily challenged than foundational ones.
Secondary beliefs are not so central to personal identity as “core” or foundational beliefs. Along with these are certain even less central beliefs– external beliefs that change very easily (I shall call these tertiary beliefs).
My love for the Green Bay Packers is not, hopefully, nearly as deep as my love for my children! The first love is tertiary (much as I hate to admit it) while the second belief is at least secondary.
There are strands of interconnecting beliefs in all of us and it is important to keep their relative importance in mind.
Too often some people, even rational religious folk, view all their beliefs as equally important. They hold a particular interpretation of Genesis with the same tenacity as they hold to the existence of God. Surely this is a mistake!
Perhaps an image might help make clear what I am suggesting.
Picture a spider web. There are some strands of the web that if broken cause little to happen to the web. The web’s integrity stays the same.
Other more central strands if broken cause the web to collapse. There are also strands that connect the web to the outside world. If those strands break, the web won’t collapse, but it will float away in the wind. The web needs both kinds of strand.
(This image of a world view was inspired by W.V. Quine. Of course, this is Quine-like language . . . and not Quine!)
A man’s view of the world can be pictured like this web.
There are central ideas that cause the web of belief to cohere. These ideas give a man an internally consistent image of self and the world. Coherence of these ideas is vital. A world-view with contradictory strands is inherently unstable.
The second important type of belief are the ideas that connect the man to the external world (which may include a physical and non-physical reality).
Science provides many (though not all) of the connecting strands of belief to the real world. As such it is an important tool in keeping men in contact with the real world that God made. No Christian theist can simply retreat from an attempt to explain his beliefs in the light of creation. Consistency is good, but it is not enough.
Humans with consistent world-views that have no connection to reality are usually found in asylums!
After all, a man (who is not Napoleon) might believe he was Napoleon, act like Napoleon with perfect consistency, but he still not be Napoleon in fact! However well thought out his internal views might be, he is not Napoleon. There’s no connection between the real world and his beliefs.
Such a connection to external reality is as important as the internal coherence of the view of the world.
Of course every complex view of reality has difficulties at both the level of coherence and in the connection to reality. Naturalism has such problems as does theism. Sometimes thoughtless people on both sides act as if everyone on the other side is a liar or a lunatic. Even more simple minded is to assume that an inability to answer a tertiary question (to the creationist “What is your Flood mechanism?” or to a Darwinist “How do explain fossil gap z?”)
This fails to acknowledge how complex reality is and how hard it is to make sense of it. Provisionally, I think it best to assume reality contains both a material and a non-material (”spiritual”) dimension. This is a central assumption of my belief system. There are secondary (and tertiary!) assumptions that flow from it.
I do not expect my view of the world to be totally secure or utterly coherent. I must challenge every notion . . . including central ones. In the meantime, it is appropriate to be conservative about big changes. Is my theism working in general? Can I make sense of science and all of reality (including spiritual reality) in a way that is satisfying and does not cut off or avoid any questions?
Am I living the examined life? As long as the answer continues to be “yes,” the Christian is free to examine tertiary ideas that seem implausible at first glance (but flow from more important ideas) that he would otherwise reject.
There will be no rest from the work (and joy!) of philosophical labor this side of paradise!
A worldview will almost surely have some internal conflicts. It can be maintained if it can still function, but these challenges must be honestly and openly addressed. Our understanding of physical reality will also continue to change. We must make sure that our ideas remain connected to it through some plausible (likely) story about reality.
Of course, getting the big ideas right is most important. “Can natural causation plausibly be said to explain everything?” is a much more vital question to the religious believer than the existence or extent of the Flood.
A religious believer must examine the deepest metaphysical assumptions first. If they can be connected in a satisfying way to reality, many of the secondary (or tertiary) issues can be left as research problems.
Religion must never be used as an excuse or a short cut to cut off critical self-examination of assumptions. The Socratic examined life (the life of Aquinas or C.S. Lewis) is the good life . . . and religion is no short cut from it!
The suicide of the Heaven’s Gate cult is an example of religious thinking that was not self-critical.
There was no connection between what they believed and the real world. They assumed that they were about to lifted off the planet by aliens hiding behind a comet. The cultists even bought a telescope to look at the comet, but returned it when it failed to show them the “rescue ship.” Their beliefs were perfectly consistent. It might even have been interesting to listen to them. Sadly, they did not bother with empirical justification for their religious ideas. Their religious beliefs were immune to any reality check.
At best what might have been an implausible “low level” belief (in aliens) was elevated to the basis for making a central decision: taking one’s own life.
This failure to “keep thinking” is not just a problem for the “religious.” Secularists in the Soviet Union, Albania, and now North Korea have been equally blind to assumptions that ran contrary to reality. Their failure to examine their own assumptions cost the lives of millions of people.
Even some “traditional” Christians try to be satisfied by merely stating, “I know in my heart that my beliefs are true!” Personal experience is one important bit of evidence, but more is needed if major decisions are to be based on Christianity.
If traditional Christianity is true, it has to be true at the places where it makes connections with external (non-personal) reality.
When coming to the Bible, all these epistemological ideas are helpful.
Biblical Christianity makes certain claims about history and reality. Now, why do those matter? They matter because they are anchors. They are the places where the Bible makes predications about the “way things are.”
The central predications are the most important. In terms of history, the most important claim is that Jesus rose from the dead. The tomb was empty. In terms of non-physical reality, I think it is the assertion that there is a non-physical realm (the real of the spirit) and that it matters. If the Bible gets the “big ones” right, then it can (of course) be given more slack on the secondary issues.
If the tomb was empty, then many things are possible! If I have a soul, then there are important limits to naturalistic science.
Neither secularists or Christians should act as if every idea, implication, or interpretation of Sacred Scripture need have equal validity or plausibility.
One must note that one could disagree regarding the interpretation of Scripture regarding (let’s say) the extent of the Flood and still be rational in holding to the truth of Scripture (provisionally). A Christian may disagree about the extent of historical grounding that Scripture has, but still propose that there is some.
A problem may be in the theology laden interpretation of Scripture (and not in Scripture itself) just as the problems of science are rarely about “facts,” but the theory laden interpretation of those facts.
The problem person is the man who does not bother to find any external evidence for the Biblical narrative. Worse still is the man who believes there is none, but still claim to be a Christian.
This is a vital issue to traditional Christianity. It means that religion-science issues are important. They cannot be wished away. Luke chapter two begins with Augustus Caesar issuing a decree that all the world should be taxed. This decree went forth when Quirinius was governor of Syria. In purely theological terms, it is hard to think of anything less interesting with regard to the account of Christ’s birth, but it does place the Incarnation in space and time.
There is (of course) no external evidence that there ever was a stable, that there ever were wise men, or even that there ever was a virgin and a baby. How credible are those Christian testimonies? It will depend on how firmly connected they are to the real world in other areas. Was there a Caesar Augustus? Was there a Quirinius who was governor of Syria? Was there a Herod who was king in Jerusalem? Did Jesus actually live in a world like that described in the Gospels?
These questions matter.
What should a Christian do when (for the moment) some Biblical account seems to fail this test?
As the web image demonstrates, not all Biblical notions need be of equal weight in a belief system.
The story of the Flood is important, but it is not of equal importance to the life of Christ. The life of Christ is central to the Christian faith in a way the ark story could never be.
If the story of the Christ does not cohere and connect to reality, then the Faith is doomed. On the other hand, one could be a Christian, without believing in the Flood, as C.S. Lewis did. So even the “young-earth” Christian should spend more time “working” on the New Testament accounts of Christ, than on the Genesis accounts of the Flood. Young-earth types can easily make common cause with those believers (like Lewis) who do not share our provisional wish to defend the historicity of the Flood account.
This same sort of intellectual ordering can be applied to issues within Genesis itself. If the believer has good reason to be a Christian apart from Genesis (in the person and work of Christ for example), then he can accept that somethings in Genesis (which are epistemologically less central) can safely be left for further research.
Genesis asserts that the cosmos is a cosmos (ordered) and a creation. Is this true? This is more central to the faith than the confusion of languages at Babel. This is not to say that Babel has no importance, just less importance. The first priority of believers (if they wish to remain believers) must be to establish the coherence and external reliability of the idea of “creation.”
Surely, this is the example given to us by such great Christian thinkers as Saint Thomas Aquinas.
Within the creation account itself, it is easy to see how such distinctions would benefit the community of believers. Defining what is meant by creation or design is more philosophically than knowing (for sure) the amount of time in which God created. One should, therefore, spend more time on the first issue rather than on the second. Of course, it is fine (and even intellectually interesting) to adopt a provisional hypothesis while working on these issues.
Paul Nelson and I discuss this more fully in our work (that I edited with J.P. Moreland): Three Views of Creation and Evolution. I also discuss some of my ideas regarding the tension between a plausible reading of Scripture and the most plausible (contemporary) interpretation of scientific evidence.
This type of epistemological advice to the believer has the added benefit of allowing for broader alliances on the part of the traditional Christian.
He easily make common cause with any one who agrees on “central” or “major external” strands of the Christian system.
He might put off disagreements on more minor, though important issues like the length of days in Genesis. They are less central to his worldview.
The web analogy makes another important point clear.
Some ideas gain their reason for rational acceptance from their dependence on other more supported ideas.
Some idea “A” may have strong external justification. A might strongly suggest (but not necessitate) idea “B,” though B has little external justification by itself.
A man might be justified in provisionally accepting B on the strength of A. Strong justification can buttress related ideas with weaker justification.
To give a practical religious example, one might believe in some Old Testament story based on the general reliability of other parts of Scripture. A Christian theist need not, therefore, develop an equally robust external justification for every belief he holds.
At this point some secularists might get a bit smug. They might point out that they have no “Genesis” problem, no holy book to harmonize with science. By ridding himself of religion, he has reduced the problems that could assault his web of belief.
This goes too far, however. It is not so bad (after all!) to have problems, if they come from solutions to other more central problems.
The Christian religion gives humanity an explanation for the existence of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty. A Christian knows why math works and simple answers are better than complex ones!
He has a basis for morality and a way to account for the existence of the internal sense of self (the “I”). He also has a means of salvation and does not have to “explain away” precious and life-changing religious experience. The secularist must deny every miracle, but the Christian can believe in any that seem supported by the evidence.
Christianity has problems . . . and very specific narrow forms of Christianity (like my own) which make more predictions and so have even more secondary (and tertiary) difficulties have more! The more we try to know (in all humility) the more humility we will gain as our predictions are checked by reality . . . but I think this intellectual risk taking in religion and science is the way progress is made.
This is not so bad (in my opinion) as the problems of the secularist.
My own beliefs sometimes conflict like two programs that will not run on my computer at the same time. This is not good and I am working hard to fix this. However I would not trade my problems philosophically and scientifically for those of a true secularist who must reduce everything (including ideas) to matter and energy or who must create his own morality. This appears to me to be an operating system level of difficulty!
Christianity has a general view of the world that accounts for why science works . . . it allows the cosmos to be a cosmos (ordered) in a deep sense. Secularism lacks the same strength.
Given Christianity’s remarkable “big picture” strengths it is reasonable, for the Christian to continue his quest for a harmony between the truths of science and the truth of religion. Both solve central problems in his worldview. Both can be made to generally cohere with each other. The coherence is strongest in those areas, like the life of Christ, where the most important beliefs are on the line. There are problem areas, but these occur at the edges or on the least important areas.
Tomorrow: What are the options for general approaches to the problem?