METHODOLOGY IN SCIENCE AND RELIGION: A REPLY TO CRITICS

Debates about methodology have been central to the emergence of the “field of science of religion.” Two questions that have motivated scholars in that field over the past half century: “is it theoretically justifiable to bring scientific and religious beliefs into dialogue?” and “can theology be rational in the same way as science?” This article responds to commentary on Against Methodology: Recent Debates on Rationality and Theology, a book which critically examines three major methodologists of recent years: Nancey Murphy, Alister McGrath, and J. Wentzel van Huyssteen. Themes raised in the commentary include the status of realism and truth in science, the unity of science, the adequacy of the term “critical realism,” proper ways of seeking legitimacy for an academic discipline, and new directions for the field of science and religion.     

THREE FLIES IN THE OINTMENT: A REPLY TO ARVEY AND MOSSHOLDER

Significant legal, practical, and statistical issues regarding the use of the Arvey and Mossholder (1977) procedure for determining similarities and differences among jobs are discussed. On the basis of these issues the authors recommend against using this procedure.     

BELIEF AND PRETENSE: A REPLY TO GENDLER

Abstract: In cases of imaginative contagion, imagining something has doxastic or doxastic‐like consequences. In this reply to Tamar Szabó Gendler's article in this collection, I investigate what the philosophical consequences of these cases could be. I argue (i) that imaginative contagion has consequences for how we should understand the nature of imagination and (ii) that imaginative contagion has consequences for our understanding of what belief‐forming mechanisms there are. Along the way, I make some remarks about what the consequences of the contagion cases are for the relation between knowledge and imagination.     

RESCUE AND RECOVERY AS A THEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE,AND A KEY TO MORALITY IN EXTRATERRESTRIAL SPECIES

New theological understanding can emerge with the advancement of scientific knowledge and the use of new concepts, or older concepts in new ways. Here, the authors present a proposal to extend the concept of “rescue and recovery” found in the United Nations Law of the High Seas, off-world and within a broader purview of other intelligent and self-aware species that humans may someday encounter. The notion of a morality that extends to off-world species is not new, but in this analysis, rescue and recovery become an imperative when any intelligent and self-aware species is in harm's way. Rescue and recovery encompass a necessary action component except perhaps in those cases where rescuers are in danger. The authors explore three biblical examples of rescue and recovery to derive a fundamental meaning of the concept.     

MORALITY AND NATURE: EVOLUTIONARY CHALLENGES TO CHRISTIAN ETHICS

Christian ethics accentuates in manifold ways the unique character of human nature. Personalists believe that the mind is never reducible to material and physical substance. The human person is presented as the supreme principle, based on arguments referring to free‐willed actions, the immateriality of both the divine spirit and the reflexive capacity, intersubjectivity and self‐consciousness. But since Darwin, evolutionary biology slowly instructs us that morality roots in dispositions that are programmed by evolution into our nature. Historically, Thomas Huxley, “Darwin's bulldog,” agreed with Darwin on almost everything, except for his gradualist position on moral behavior. Huxley's “saltationism” has recently been characterized by Frans de Waal as “a veneer theory of morality.” Does this mark the end of a period of presenting morality as only the fruit of socialization processes (nurture) and as having nothing in common with nature? Does it necessarily imply a corrosion of personalist views on the human being or do Christian ethics have to become familiar again with their ancient roots?