THE ATHENS/JERUSALEM TEMPLATE AND THE TECHNO‐SECULARISM THESIS—KICKING THE CAN DOWN THE ROAD

Abstract. The publication of my article “Athens, Jerusalem, and the Arrival of Techno‐secularism” (2005) in Zygon was followed by twenty‐one responses, most of them critical. In this essay I reply by clarifying the earlier one, separating out its two major theses: the Athens/Jerusalem template and the techno‐secularism thesis. The Athens/Jerusalem template is a typology that provides a historical basis for understanding why religion/science conflicts persist by showing that the contrasts between intellectual knowledge and revealed knowledge are permanent features of Western cultural history. Postmodern criticisms often have a negative edge, rejecting “canonical” accounts but not presenting alternative explanations. Historical context is helpful in understanding religion/science conflicts, which continue to exist. The present cultural situation is that technology is replacing religion—and science—as the dominant condition and theory of our culture. Evidence for the techno‐secularism thesis can be seen in the nature of electronic entertainment, which invades the silence required for religious contemplation and obscures the scientific laws that are the basis for the new technology.     

“RELIGION AND SCIENCE” AS ADVOCACY OF SCIENCE AND AS RELIGION VERSUS RELIGION

Abstract. “Religion and science” often is understood as being about the relationship between two given enterprises, religion and science. I argue that it is more accurate to understand religion and science in different contexts differently. (1) It serves as apologetics for science in a religious environment. As apologetics for technology the role of religion‐and‐science is more ambivalent, as competing and contrary responses to modern technology find articulation in religious terms. (2) In the political context of the modern university, some invoke religion‐and‐science in arguing for a place of theology alongside the sciences. In this context, secular studies of religion are a major challenge, which is hardly addressed. (3) Within the religious communities, religion‐and‐science is a battleground between revisionist and traditionalist ways of understanding religion.     

BEYOND BARBOUR OR BACK TO BASICS? THE FUTURE OF SCIENCE‐AND‐RELIGION AND THE QUEST FOR UNITY

Reflecting on the future of the field of science‐and‐religion, I focus on three aspects. First, I describe the history of the religion‐and‐science dialogue and argue that the emergence of the field was largely contingent on social‐cultural factors in Western theology, especially in the United States. Next, I focus on the enormous influence of science on Western society and on what I call cultural scientism, which influences discussions in science‐and‐religion, especially how theological notions are taken up. I illustrate by sketching the way divine action has been studied in science‐and‐religion. The divine‐action debates may seem irrelevant to theologians because the way divine action is dealt with in science‐and‐religion is theologically problematic. Finally, I analyze the quest for integration and unity of science and religion that underlies much of the contemporary field of science‐and‐religion and was stimulated particularly by the efforts of Ian Barbour. I argue that his quest echoes the logical positivist vision of unification and has a strong bias toward science as the sole source of rationality, which does not take theology fully seriously.     

ATHENS,JERUSALEM, AND THE ARRIVAL OF TECHNO‐SECULARISM

Abstract. Western civilization historically has tried to balance secular knowledge with revealed religion. Science is the modern world's version of secular knowledge and resists the kind of integration achieved by Augustine and Aquinas. Managing the conflict between religion and evolution by containing them in separate “frames,” as Stephen J. Gould suggested, does not resolve the issue. Science may have displaced religion from the public square, but the traditional science‐religion conflict has become threadbare in intellectual terms. Scientific theories have become increasingly abstract, and science has been attacked from the left as a source of objective knowledge. However, technology, not science, has displaced religious belief, a phenomenon I call techno‐secularism. Robert Coles's suggestion that secularism is a form of doubt inevitably attached to religious belief, and William James's reduction of religious experiences to psychological states, evaluating them according to their “cash value,” are unhelpful. Technology enables us to remake our environment according to our wishes and has become a kind of magic that replaces not just revealed religion but also theoretical science. Techno‐secularism has an ethical vision that focuses on healthful living, self‐fulfillment, and avoiding the struggles of human life and the inevitability of death.     

TECHNO‐SECULARISM AND “REVEALED RELIGION”: SOME PROBLEMS WITH CAIAZZA'S ANALYSIS

Abstract. Instead of focusing my remarks on John Caiazza's interesting and important thesis about the way in which modern technology is drastically secularizing our culture today, I examine the frame within which he sets out his thesis, a frame I regard as seriously flawed. Caiazza's argument is concerned with the broad range of religion/science/technology issues in today's world, but the only religion that he seems to take seriously is what he calls “revealed religion” (Christianity). His consideration of religion is thus narrow and cramped, and this makes it difficult to assess properly the significance of what he calls techno‐secularism. I suggest that employing a broader conception of religion would enable us to see more clearly what is really at stake in the rise of techno‐secularism. Instead of defining the issues in the polarizing terms of revealed religion versus secularity, I argue for a more integrative approach in which concepts are developed that can bring together and hold together major religious insights and themes with modern scientific thinking. If, for example, we give up the anthropomorphism of the traditional idea of God as creator and think of God as simply creativity, it becomes possible to integrate theological insights with current scientific thinking and to formulate the issues posed by the rise of techno‐secularism in a more illuminating way. This in turn should facilitate effective address of those issues.     

The Matter of Religion and Science: Response to Huston Smith

Huston Smith's Why Religion Matters is the culminating reflections of one of the most respected religion scholars of our day. In this work, Smith sees modern society to be in the midst of a spiritual crisis. According to Smith, this crisis has been brought about by the advance of science and the inroads into what Smith calls the traditional worldview. While Smith's work is of some importance, I believe that several of its fundamental claims are mistaken. Smith often does not accurately portray the content of science and frequently conflates the actual practice of science with philosophical scientism. Smith wrongly blames science alone for the decline of religion among Western elites. His claim that all religions can be equivocally described in terms of the traditional worldview is also problematic. Despite this, Smith does have a clear conception of what the issues are in the relation between science and religion. It is my hope that these issues will continue to be taken seriously.     

A DEFENSE OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION: REFLECTIONS ON PETER HARRISON'S “AFTER SCIENCE AND RELIGION” PROJECT

Recent scholars have called into question the categories “science” and “religion” because they bring metaphysical and theological assumptions that theologians should find problematic. The critique of the categories “science” and “religion” has above all been associated with Peter Harrison and his influential argument in The Territories of Science and Religion (2015). This article evaluates the philosophical conclusions that Harrison draws from his antiessentialist philosophy in the two volumes associated with his “After Science and Religion Project.” I argue that Harrison's project is too skeptical toward the categories “science” and “religion” and places too much emphasis on naturalism being incompatible with Christian theology. One can accept the lessons of antiessentialism—above all, how meanings of terms shift over time—and still use the terms “science” and “religion” in responsible ways. This article defends the basic impulse of most scholars in science and religion who promote dialogue and argues for a more moderate reading of the lesson of Territories.     

RETHINKING THE SECULAR: SCIENCE,TECHNOLOGY, AND RELIGION TODAY

Abstract. Contemporary tensions between science and religion cannot simply be seen as a manifestation of an eternal tension between reason and revelation. Instead, the modern secular, including science and technology, needs to be seen as a distinctive historical phenomenon, produced and still radically conditioned by the religious history of the West. Clashes between religion and science thus ought to be seen fundamentally as part of a dialogue that is internal to Western religious history. While largely agreeing with Caiazza's account of the “magical” understanding of technology, I suggest that this needs to be seen as part of a more fundamental drift in religion and culture away from canonical meanings to more “indexical,” pragmatic ones—but also that technology is still inflected by soteriological meanings that were coded into modern technology at its very inception in the early modern period. I conclude by arguing that a recognition of science and technology's grounding in Western religious history can make possible a more fundamental encounter with religion.     

WHAT IS “SECULAR”? TECHNO‐SECULARISM AND SPIRITUALITY

Abstract. I argue that there is no “roaring reality of rampant secularism” with “technological application as its chief agent,” as claimed by John Caiazza (2005). Two phenomena, techno‐religion and a spirituality of technology, suggest a different picture of reality: Technology may be an alternative spirituality rather than an ally of a secularism that makes “nutcrackers of the soul” out of people who should be “dancers” (Nietzsche). An analysis of secularism and its manifold causes indicates that secularism is a fruit of both science and religion. The secular is a companion of religion rather than its enemy. Hence, I recommend a heuristic instead of an ontological use of the concept of secularism. In a technological age, religion is changing rather than being displaced. These changes are illustrated by the increase of private religiosity, megachurches, and cyber‐spirituality. Energized by the tension between finitude and creativity, technology shares in the marks of spirituality (Philip Hefner) and in the potential for good and evil. In this situation, fundamentalism and dogmatism in religion, science, and technology are a greater threat than secularism.     

“THE PEOPLE OF THIS COUNTRY HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF EXPERTS”: IN DEFENSE OF THE “ELITES” OF THE SCIENCE‐AND‐RELIGION DEBATE

This article takes a critical stance on John H. Evans's 2018 book, Morals Not Knowledge: Recasting the Contemporary U.S. Conflict between Religion and Science. Highlighting the significance of the book for the science‐and‐religion debate, particularly the book's emphasis on moral questions over knowledge claims revealed in social‐scientific studies of the American public, I also suggest that the distinction between the “elites” of the academic science‐and‐religion field and the religious “public” is insufficiently drawn. I argue that various nuances should be taken into account concerning the portrayal of “elites,” nuances which potentially change the way that “conflict” between science and religion is envisaged, as well as the function of the field. Similarly, I examine the ways in which the book construes science and religion as distinct knowledge systems, and I suggest that, from a theological perspective—relevant for much academic activity in science and religion—there is value in seeing science and religion in terms of a single knowledge system. This perspective may not address the public's interest in moral questions directly—important as they are—but nevertheless it fulfils the academic function of advancing the frontiers of human knowledge and self‐understanding.     

FORTY YEARS LATER: WHAT HAVE WE ACCOMPLISHED?

Abstract. I examine the responses to John Caiazza's “Athens, Jerusalem, and the Arrival of Techno‐Secularism” as part of Zygon's forty‐year anniversary symposium. The responses reveal that issues of modernism and postmodernism are central to understanding the dynamic of the current science‐religion/theology dialogue and that the resistance of many of the participants to the influences of postmodernism is a sign not of its backwardness but rather of some of the weaknesses inherent in the postmodern project. This does not mean that the many insights of postmodernism should be rejected. Rather, the science‐religion/theology dialogue may be in an intellectually opportune place to construct successors to the worn label of postmodernism.     

ASSESSING THE FIELD OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION: ADVICE FROM THE NEXT GENERATION

The field of science and religion is undergoing a transition today requiring assessment of its past movements and identifying its future trajectories by the next generation of science and religion scholars. This essay provides such assessment and advice. To focus efforts on the past, I turn to Ian Barbour's own stock taking of the field some forty years ago in an essay entitled “Science and Religion Today” before giving some personal comments where I argue that much of the field has traditionally focused on the conversation between Christianity and the natural sciences. At present, however, we are beginning to see that the future of the conversation lies beyond the dialogue between the natural sciences and Christianity. I suggest that the future dialogue will and ought to expand in several directions: (1) into non‐Christian religions and theology, (2) into the human sciences, (3) into science and technology Studies, and (4) into the humanities more broadly.     

Religion/Technology, Not Theology/Science, as the Defining Dichotomy

Science and religion are incommensurable: one cannot use centimeters to measure volume. Science's proper cognate is theology. Science and theology are human activities that are basically conceptual (partly fallible) frameworks for explaining experience. Religion and technology, by contrast, involve and control or limit human practice and experience : they involve "sensate" reality—people and things. The study of the interaction of these four terms (or any two) must use the terms more precisely.
Science as practiced today has become scientism , another theology. Technology is, without any doubt, the world's most powerful and fastest growing religion.
Minor squabbles among theologies, including science, must continue, but it is the tensions between technology and the established religions that will define this century. Battles on three fronts are already clear: the environment, globalization, and economic gaps. But whole–person healing, the replacement for high–tech reductionist modern medicine, is the most significant, because it will undermine science, which has hitched its wagon to this falling star.
The end of fundamental science is upon us, because it has been so successful. Science will be increasingly applications–driven, and it will be judged by results. Here, it has met its nemesis in wholeperson healing that incorporates integrative medicine. Scientists must now reconsider their role in society. It will not be easy to accept a humbler position. Moreover, the vague allusions to spirituality by scientists need a more authentic commitment to praxis in lifestyle.     

The ecclesial dimension in the dialogue between theology and science

This article discusses the role of the science–religion dialogue in reaction to modern secularism, atheism and nihilism. It is argued that the only viable way for such a dialogue is along the lines of radical theological commitment implying the ecclesial dimension. It is carefully discussed as to how the ecclesial dimension can enter the dialogue. Ultimately it is concluded that the dialogue between science and theology explicates the para-eucharistic essence of science, thus reconciling it with theology in the sense of the commonality of their experiential origin in humanity made in the image of God.     

Word of God or Dialog with Science? Overcoming a False Dilemma Through Missional Encounter

Abstract : Why would a theology grounded in God's word engage with the sciences? After laying out two alternative approaches to revelation—constructive theology (general revelation) and Logos theology (special revelation)—I advocate an evangel theology grounded in mission, worship and the gospel of Jesus Christ. This approach engages both culture (including science and technology) and God's word from a critical missional basis. An evangel theology engages the sciences through apologetics, cultural critique, hermeneutics, and the cooperative task of developing a Christian worldview.     

Science and Religion: Ten Models of War,Truce, and Partnership

Public discourse today continues to propagate the simplistic idea that science and religion are engaged in a hopelessly unwinnable war. This is misleading. Science and religion interact at so many different junctures and in so many different ways that any simple generalization misguides us. This essay provides an updated inventory of ten popular conceptual models for relating science and theology, when theology is understood as rational reflection on religion. Four influential models assume that a war is taking place: (1) scientism; (2) scientific imperialism; (3) theological authoritarianism; and (4) the evolution controversy. Six additional preferred models assume a truce or even more, a partnership: (5) the Two Books; (6) the Two Languages; (7) ethical alliance; (8) dialogue accompanied by creative mutual interaction; (9) naturalism; and (10) theology of nature. Special attention will be given to creative mutual interaction within a framework of a theology of nature.     

RECONNECTING SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALITY: TOWARD OVERCOMING A TABOO

Abstract. We argue that reconnecting science and spirituality yields the best rational understanding of the world. Spirituality is seen as the core of many religions. Distinctions are drawn between science and scientism and between spirituality and religion. A historical analysis provides a partial explanation of scientists' aversion to religion. A thought experiment illustrates that spirituality could not only be a legitimate research topic of science but also inform science by offering certain insights. Specifically, science could and should more freely study spirituality in its beneficial impact on individuals' attempts to attain personal wholeness, overcome substance abuse, achieve a more communal society, and safeguard the environment.     

A REPLY TO ANNE KULL,EDUARDO CRUZ,AND MICHAEL DeLASHMUTT

In my reply to the essays by Anne Kull, Eduardo Cruz, and Michael DeLashmutt, I turn first to Cruz's charge that my use of “the sacred” is at odds with a growing religious studies mainstream that understands religion in secular terms. I suggest that this latter approach has its own problems, deriving partly from its neglect of the political, constructed nature of the category of “religion.” Second, in relation to Cruz's suggestion that my lack of attention to explanation compromises my claim to be social scientific, I defend a broader understanding of the human sciences and explore the relationships between understanding, critique, and history, and between sociology and theology. Third, reflecting on DeLashmutt's suggestion that I neglect the way that technical invention provides a glimpse of divine creativity, and the myth making that goes on around technology in vehicles such as science fiction, I argue that such issues have to be approached in a radically historical way. I conclude by identifying three challenges: to explore more deeply how technological objects form part of human being‐in‐the‐world, to show how my approach might offer practical resources for assessing technological and environmental developments, and to expand my analysis to include non‐Western religious traditions.     

TECHNO‐SECULARISM,RELIGION, AND THE CREATED CO‐CREATOR

Abstract. I take up the challenge posed by John Caiazza (2005) to face down the religiously vacuous ethics of techno‐secularism. Techno‐secularism is not enough for human fulfillment let alone human flowering. Yet, communities of faith based on the Bible have a positive responsibility to employ science and technology toward divinely appointed ends. We should study God's world through science and press technology into the service of transforming our world and our selves in light of our vision of God's promised new creation. This warrants invocation of the concept of the human being as the created co‐creator developed in the theology of Philip Hefner.     

A SCIENTIFIC BUDDHISM?

This essay endorses the argument of Donald Lopez's Buddhism and Science and shows how the general thesis of the book is consonant with other historical work on the “discovery” of Buddhism and on the emergence of Western conceptions of religion. It asks whether one of the key claims of Buddhism and Science—that Buddhism pays a price for its flirtation with the modern sciences—might be applicable to science‐and‐religion discussions more generally.