ABSTRACT
Books, conferences and lectures on ‘religion and science’ do not always have the same purpose. At least three roles can be discerned: ‘religion and science’ is apologetics, it is ammunition in the competition for authority within religious traditions and it plays a role in alleviating individual discomfort at the scientific image of the world. Engaging in apologetics is not a bad thing. I too engage in apologetics,
explaining and justifying to relative outsiders what I think and do. I am also involved in intra-religious argument, drawing on science to plead for particular views. And I reflect upon science because I hold that important aspects of human life, such as morality and rationality, need to be understood in the context of a worldview inspired by science. My work is not exempt from the analysis that follows. Apologetics is the quest to justify a particular belief or practice to others,
and more particularly to outsiders. We will see that ‘religion and science’ might serve as apologetics for religion in a secular environment, but even more as apologetics for science among those who consider evolution and other scientific insights threatening to their beliefs and ways of living. Ideas are presented also to insiders, to fellow believers within the same
religious tradition. If one’s beliefs are in line with modern science they are legitimate, and thus one gains authority relative to a colleague, whose views are outdated or superstitious. Arguments in ‘religion and science’ are not blanket endorsements of religion in general, but rather serve particular religious positions, and thus serve as ammunition in disputes among believers. This has been true of the Galileo case, it is typical of disputes on evolution and design, and it holds for the way the Dalai Lama reaches out to modern science, to mention some of the cases we will return to. ‘Religion and science’ is in this context ‘religion versus religion’, one view versus another. Who is to speak for the Church? Who represents the genuine tradition? That is again and again in dispute. A third function of ‘religion and science’ might be primarily individual, to
resolve discomfort. If we are told that we are nothing but neurons, or genes, or molecules in motion, it seems that free will, identity, and morality are gone.
A scientific understanding of reality seems to conflict with our common-sense understanding of the world and of ourselves. Reductionism seems the bad guy here. However, below I will argue that reductionism is not that problematical. If appropriately understood, reductionism is a form of holism!
