ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relationship between the God question (“Is there a God?”) and the Science question (“What is science and what are the boundaries, if any, of its jurisdiction?”). The author claims that if we answer the science question correctly, we will be able to answer the God question correctly. How should we understand science? It is at bottom the human capacity to reason, and to reason not just or even mostly at the individual level but collectively and generationally. If we understand reason to be collectively exercised generationally and with intersubjective testing and transmission of the results of reasoning; and if we understand that reasoning cannot simply be a cognitive exercise, that it must involve experiment and demonstration; then (1) reason is a key to human adaptation and survival, and (2) its jurisdiction has no boundaries. We are free to reason our way through any and all problems of the human condition. This is a general claim that does not apply automatically to institutionalized Science and certainly not to scientism. All critical students of religion have an obligation to let people know what we are up to and to support the solidarity efforts of our existing and emerging thought collectives. The author uses “Science” to refer to the modern institution of science, and “science” to refer to the systematized methods of the general human capacity to reason.
