McCall RTCH785C Stenmark Book Review:
Stenmark in his book, How to Relate Science and Religion, denigrates the positions of Scientific and Religious Expansionists, as well Scientific and Religious Restrictionists in dialogue directly with the biological sciences. In a counter proposal, Stenmark avers a construction of the Religion and Science dialogue that he titles a “Multidimensional Model”. Said Multidimensional Model entails four different levels, consisting of 1) a social dimension, 2) a teleological dimension, 3) an epistemic dimension, and 4) a theoretical dimension (xvi-xviii). I personally found his discussion regarding the epistemic level to be the most intellectually stimulating, and therefore will review that part of the Multidimensional Model the most.
Stenmark notes that both science and religion are social practices, and that therefore we should attempt to understand the socially pertinent structure of each. In fact, Stenmark challenges the popular notion that whereas theology is based upon prior authority, science is based upon strict empirical evidence. In so doing, he establishes the notion that both science and religion rely upon prior authority in nearly equitable terms (19-20).
Moreover, Stenmark acknowledges that both science and religion are teleologically governed by the goals of its practitioners in that science attempts to be predictive, whereas theology attempt to be existential (29). Science, then, attempts to understand the causes of things, whereas theology attempts to understand the meanings of things. However, both theology and science aim at truth (31). I affirm that the goals of both science and religion are practical and epistemic (ref. his discussion on pages33-35). In addition, I contend that the goals and practices of science and religion are of different kinds (ref. 36). Stenmark contends that the goals of science and academic theology are similarly in that they both attempt to address collective epistemic goals, personal epistemic goal, collective practical goals, and personal practical goals (43-44). Disagreement about the goals of both religion and science leads to problems about how to achieve these goals as well. So then, teleological distortion leads to methodological distortion, which in turn leads to epistemic distortion.
Third, Stenmark notes that both science and religion have epistemic objectives, and that these epistemic objectives need to be analyzed in order to appropriately engage in discourse between the two. Epistemology, in relation to theology and science, is the attempt to understand how belief originates and is regulated within the two disciplines, and what, if any, value said discovery has in relation to humanity’s other concerns (ref. 52). Although science is generally considered the paradigm of rationality, both science and religion are descriptive and normative. It is unfortunate that religion has been caricatured as being inferior to science regarding its internal cohesion, comprehensiveness, fruitfulness, and explanatory power. Whereas science (and more so scientism) adheres to a strict empirically-based evidentialism, it is posited that religion does not (contrary to the evidence, I assert). In contrast, many untested hypotheses (though they are called ‘theories’) in science, particularly evolutionary biology, are based upon little, if any, hard evidence, and are the conjecture of human minds instead (cf. 57). However, if one would follow this line of thinking to its logical conclusion, Stenmark notes, people would be proverbially frozen in fear, for people do not have the time to analyze every single presupposition with which they act in everyday life (cf. 92-93).
Moreover, Stenmark acknowledges that contrary to scientism, and in affirmation of Phillip Clayton, that the Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) often adds credence to religious postulations over and above scientific ones (cf. 61). In a tragic observation, Stenmark states that [contrary to popular perception] “scientists seem never to reject a theory no matter how many anomalies there are unless they have a better theory to put in its place” (68). Must religious believers treat there belief in God as a hypothesis? Stenmark emphatically states no, “because for many of them this belief is directly experientially grounded” (78). So then, religious rationality resembles everyday rationality more than scientific rationality does (cf. 103). Indeed, one is logically founded to continue to believe that which they do until there is a specific and special reason to no longer do so (104). Moreover, we should “require stronger reasons for giving up something we believe which has greater depth of concern in our belief-world than for giving up something which plays a more peripheral role” (106). It must be noted that theological/religious rationality is a different breed of animal than is scientific rationality, for the former is an “agent-rationality”, whereas the later is a “spectator-rationality” (111). A belief in religion is rational insomuch as it is justified and has explanatory power. So then, religion exhibits a rationality that overlaps with ands is informed by scientific rationality (114). There are, according to Stenmark, several different reasons of conflict concerning the relation between rationality in science and rationality in religion/theology. 1) There are conflicting concepts of rationality, 2) there are different epistemic norms for religion/theology and science, 3) there are different ideas of the applicability of those epistemic norms in reference to rationality, and 4) there are different types of evidence accepted between religion/theology and science (116-117).
The fourth dimension of the multidimensional model posited by Stenmark concerns the subject matter of both science and religion, and therefore is referred to as the theoretical dimension. Stenmark asks if theology/religion and the natural sciences have the same, overlapping (i.e. “similar”), or completely different subject matters (137). It appears apparent that I support the notion that theology/religion and the natural sciences have overlapping subject matters.
Whereas evolutionary “biology alone cannot establish that the universe and humans are not here for a reason…. ‘evolutionary theory can in conjunction with an extra-scientific or a philosophical claim” can undermine religious belief (163). Stenmark now avers what is (probably) the most controversial claim found within this text: that God did not necessarily have homosapiens in mind when he created the world (163). In defense of this assertion, Stenmark relates an instrumental concept: that he and his wife did not necessarily have their specific child in mind when they decided to have a child, but merely progeny instead. Viewed in this way, Stenmark notes that God could have conscious, sentient, free, and self-aware beings in mind when he created the cosmos (through the kenosis of the Spirit into creation, I might add). This development of such species was God’s goal, Stenmark states, and not necessarily the human species as per se. It seems to be compatible with theism, Stenmark posits in view of this analogy, that our existence is due to chance (166). With this assertion by Stenmark, I am immediately drawn (much like him) to what has been referred to as Molinism, or middle-knowledge theory (which I was first introduced to by a systematic theologian at New Orleans Baptist Seminary in 2001, who is a proponent of the same, note).
Stenmark’s overall contention throughout said book is that everything one can learn in one area of life from another area of life that can improve cognitive discourse could— and should— be taken into consideration by rational people. Thus, there should not be an apriori exclusion of epistemologies or methodologies between science and religion. In contrast, there should be an explicit overlap between the two (xvii). He concludes that there are in actuality 5 different perspectives of the relationship between science and theology/religion: 1)the Monist view (comprised of the subset conflict or harmony), 2) the Contact view (comprised of the subset integration or dialogue), 3) the Independence view, 4) the Complete Scientific Expansionist view, and 5) the Complete Religious Expansionist view (259).