On the other hand,
"In the first place, a purely materialistic conception of man cannot account for the human power of reason itself. If we are just “a pack of neurons,” in the words of Sir Francis Crick, if our mental life is nothing but electrical impulses in our nervous system, then one cannot explain the realm of abstract concepts, including those of theoretical science. Nor can one explain the human mind’s openness to truth, which is the foundation of all science. As Chesterton observed, the materialist cannot explain “why anything should go right, even observation and deduction. Why good logic should not be as misleading as bad logic, if they are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape.” Scientific materialism exalts human reason, but cannot account for human reason.
Nor can materialism account for many other aspects of the human mind, such as consciousness, free will, and the very existence of a unitary self. In a purely material world such things cannot exist. Matter cannot be free. Matter cannot have a self. The materialist is thus driven to deny empirical facts–not the facts in front of his eyes, but, as it were, the facts behind his eyes: facts about his own mental life. He calls them illusions, or redefines them to be what they are not. In lowering himself to the level of the animal or the machine, the materialist ultimately denies his own status as a rational being, by reducing all his mental operations to instinct and programming."
The above comes from a mainstream current scientist, Stephen Barr, who was asked
“How do you reconcile faith and science in your life?”
Here is his answer:
“The word “reconcile” is wrong here. It suggests that there is a conflict that has to be resolved. I have never felt there to be such a conflict; rather, science and the Catholic faith have always seemed to me profoundly in harmony. Both involve a conviction that the world makes sense and that everything fits together in some coherent way. Physics gives us a wonderfully coherent picture of the physical world, the world of sensible and measurable things. The Catholic faith gives us a wonderfully coherent view of reality as a whole. Science is based on faith in the power of human reason to understand the world. The Catholic faith tells us that the world is the product of eternal Reason, the Logos of God.”
Barr reasons both scientifically and theologically.
He accepts evolution - even of humans - and sees it compatible with his Catholic faith, but he is a physicist. For those interested in how modern physics might relate to philosophy and theology when it comes to the mind and spirit, see these from Barr:
bigquestionsonline.com/2012/07/10/does-quantum-physics-make-easier-believe-god/
and
firstthings.com/article/2007/03/faith-and-quantum-theory
One more quote from Barr:
"The materialist imagines that a religious mystery is something too dark to be seen. But, as G. K. Chesterton noted, it is really something too bright to be seen, like the sun. As Scripture tells us, God “dwells in unapproachable light.” The mystery is not impenetrable to intellect or unintelligible in itself ; rather, it is not fully intelligible to us . And reason itself tells us that there must be such mysteries. For the nature of God is infinite, and therefore not proportionate to our finite minds. The mysteries of the faith primarily concern the nature of God, or they concern man in his relationship to God and as the image of God. They concern, that is, what is infinite or touches upon the infinite. Consequently, religious mystery hardly concerns, if it concerns at all, the matters studied by the physicist, chemist, or botanist. The things they study are quite finite in their natures and therefore quite proportionate to the human intellect. That is why there is nothing in Jewish or Christian belief that implies or suggests any limit to what human beings can understand about the structure of the physical world. Although the writings of scientific materialists are filled with hostility toward religious mystery, in fact religious mystery has never acted as a brake upon scientific progress.
This brings us back to the question of supernaturalism and its proper place. Supernaturalism is out of place in physics, astronomy, chemistry, or botany. However, it is necessary in anything that touches upon the nature of man, for man is made in the image of God. I have noted that biblical religion opposed the supernaturalism of the ancient pagan. In doing so, it clearly served the cause of reason. In our time, biblical religion serves the cause of reason just as much by opposing the absolute naturalism of the modern materialist. Where the ancient pagan went wrong is in seeing the supernatural everywhere in the world around him. Where the modern materialist goes wrong is in failing to see that which goes beyond physical nature in himself. By extending naturalism even to his own mind and soul, the materialist ends up sliding into his own morass of irrationalism and superstition…"
This last quoted passage is from
firstthings.com/article/2003/03/retelling-the-story-of-science
