Chicago Studies Summer 2018

Why Theologians Practicing Professional Science Succeed

By Fr. John Kartje, Ph.D., S.T.D. In 1988, Pope John Paul II wrote an influential letter to the Director of the Vatican Observatory, Fr. George Coyne, SJ, pointing out the proper spheres of influence for religion and science: To be more specific both, religion and science must preserve their own autonomy and their distinctiveness. Religion is not founded on science nor is science an extension of religion. Each should possess its own principles, its pattern of procedures, its diversities of interpretation and its own conclusions…While each can and should support the other as distinct dimensions of a common human culture, neither ought to assume that it forms a necessary premise for the other. 1 All would-be scientists who are in fact proponents of what Christian Smith labels “imperialistic scientism” would do well to heed the Pope’s distinctions.

In his fine lecture, Smith underscores the fundamental irony of those scientists who ignorantly (or arrogantly) pontificate on matters of metaphysics or theology about which they have little competency: their very statements belie a methodology that evinces poor scientific rigor and integrity. Statements such as those he cites from Weinberg, Harari, and Wilson regarding the validity of beliefs about the existence of God or the practice of religion are often blithely made without demonstrating a firm grasp of foundational knowledge in the field. Neither do such authors provide the support of empirical evidence or carefully reasoned arguments. This reflects scientific carelessness and lack of discipline which would never pass muster in a refereed science journal if the same methodology were applied to reach a sweeping conclusion about the physical or biological sciences.

Furthermore, even if greater care and discipline were exercised, the exclusive application of empirical methods to draw conclusions regarding the physically transcendent realities of which theology and metaphysics treat represents, as Smith notes, a violation of the scope of reference to which the sciences are limited. In fact, within the sciences themselves, the erroneous assumption that the techniques of one discipline automatically translate to another is to be avoided in the strongest terms. For example, one would never attempt to apply Newtonian physics to describe the motion of a single molecule between two neurons in the brain. 2 Once again, the scientists Smith highlights are not only bad at theology, but (at least in these matters) bad at science qua science.

Finally, Smith’s most perceptive (and damaging) point is the recognition that many of these practitioners of “imperialistic scientism” are ultimately driven not by a desire for objective accuracy but rather by a personal resistance to faith and religion per se. Such resistance can be grounded, for example, in a fear of violence wielded in the name of religious fanaticism or in the apparent absurdity of how a loving God could possibly permit the existence of evil. To be sure, these issues must be squarely faced by any self-consistent theology, but their challenging nature does not justify an a priori certitude that the divine must be reduced to an unfounded mythology.

As with the other points noted above, scientism fails here precisely because it is bad science (even before it is bad theology). One of the worst errors a scientist can commit is to be unaware of (or to turn a blind eye toward) his personal biases, prejudices, or compromised perspective. While no one can see themselves with perfect objectivity, science has developed powerful methods for ferreting out and exposing biases within the investigator. If a scientist neglects to exercise such self-examination when exploring theology or religion, he is a poor practitioner of the scientific method, his poor theology notwithstanding.

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