Science and faith as complementary

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The whole point about complementarity is that we can combine two mutually exclusive models. Thus, Aquinas was right in his assertion that there is no fundamental incompatibility between the two. Yet, there is a “double truth”: one for faith and another for reason.

Although mutually exclusive, they are compatible under the aegis of complementarity. So the universe is double-sided, a worldview which coincides with how I have sketched the structure of the self, namely as bipartite. Thus, it is possible to combine two or more mutually exclusive models. They are made compatible in this way, since neither of them will suffice as sole explanatory model.

So we can combine Aquinas assertion that there is one Higher Truth, associated with God, with the doctrine of double truths. God’s universe is experienced either through the eyes of faith or science. There is one universe, but two models of it–both equally true.

There is also a “double truth” about Jesus. Science views Jesus Christ as an historical person–a mere human–namely the immensely gifted religious predicant and healer from Nazareth. The contributions of the scientific scholars are valuable. But according to faith, Jesus Christ is the person seated as the right side of the Father, from the beginning of time. The contributions from the theologians are valuable.

Both views are correct: (1) Jesus is a mere human (2) Jesus is God. These standpoints are mutually exclusive. Yet, they are combinable if we reason along lines of complementarity.

Mats Winther
 
(I shouldn’t have used the word “incompatible” in my earlier posting–I meant mutually exclusive.)
/Mats
 
MWin said:
The whole point about complementarity is that we can combine two mutually exclusive models. Thus, Aquinas was right in his assertion that there is no fundamental incompatibility between the two. Yet, there is a “double truth”: one for faith and another for reason.
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If one takes time to read post 59, one will find that the above assertion about double complementary truths was refuted by St.Thomas when he stipulated the conditions for true knowledge arising from* both* the material world and the spiritual world.
There is one truth, all truth, of which God is the author. Genesis 1: 1 and the* Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed* professed during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass on Sunday.
Both views are correct: (1) Jesus is a mere human (2) Jesus is God. These standpoints are mutually exclusive. Yet, they are combinable if we reason along lines of complementarity.
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In addition, the speculation of Jesus being a “mere human” is refuted by the Catholic teaching on the Hypostatic Union. Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, paragraphs 464 -478 plus the cross-references in the margins. One of the key points is that Christ’s human nature was assumed, not absorbed.
 
Here is a good article on the double truth doctrine:

evolvingthoughts.net/2009/06/the-doctrine-of-double-truth/

“The accommodation that the Catholic church has reached via Aquinas is that when no spiritual doctrine is at risk, one should always accept the truth of a scientifically successful theory (in the same manner that a scientist would, provisionally and according to empirical adequacy). When a spiritual doctrine is at risk, as when someone might claim that whatever “soul” refers to it evolved as a disposition of brains, then the doctrine takes priority, but in truth, the doctrine is reinterpreted so as not to conflict with the science.”
 
CHRISTINE77 said:
Here is a good article on the double truth doctrine:

evolvingthoughts.net/2009/06/the-doctrine-of-double-truth/

“The accommodation that the Catholic church has reached via Aquinas is that when no spiritual doctrine is at risk, one should always accept the truth of a scientifically successful theory (in the same manner that a scientist would, provisionally and according to empirical adequacy). When a spiritual doctrine is at risk, as when someone might claim that whatever “soul” refers to it evolved as a disposition of brains, then the doctrine takes priority, but in truth, the doctrine is reinterpreted so as not to conflict with the science.”
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Yes, the link is very informative. Thank you.

However, when the position of St. Thomas is truncated, the double truth speculation becomes part of the arsenal for the heresy of Modernism. This is occurring when certain individuals attempt to reinterpret particular Catholic doctrines so that they comport with contemporary scientific research papers.

I do credit this blog with its technical insight of the basic scientific (inductive) method.
The blog reads: "… one should always accept the truth of a scientifically successful theory (in the same manner that a scientist would, provisionally and according to empirical adequacy).
Because people rarely ask how and why, the essential concept of empirical adequacy is often shoved aside. It doesn’t fit into the sound bite.

St. Thomas Aquinas was acutely aware of empirical adequacy because he was a keen observer of the material/physical environment. Empirical adequacy is essential if natural science exploration is to be conducted properly. Today, this same principle is applied to research papers offered for publication in the major peer-reviewed journals. “Methods and Materials” are key factors when evaluating a research paper.
 
grannymh said:
If one takes time to read post 59, one will find that the above assertion about double complementary truths was refuted by St.Thomas when he stipulated the conditions for true knowledge arising from* both* the material world and the spiritual world.
There is one truth, all truth, of which God is the author. Genesis 1: 1 and the* Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed* professed during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass on Sunday.

In addition, the speculation of Jesus being a “mere human” is refuted by the Catholic teaching on the Hypostatic Union. Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, paragraphs 464 -478 plus the cross-references in the margins. One of the key points is that Christ’s human nature was assumed, not absorbed.
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There is indeed one truth–but only to God. We mortals can only picture the universe through the application of two mutually exclusive models. The universe behaves as if there are two truths. But we know that there is only one universe, anyway, because neither model is sufficient in itself.

It is a hybrical notion that we are capable of knowing the one truth about God and his creation. It would imply that we are capable of being equally enlightened as God. But we cannot position ourselves above God and look down upon Him and his creation.

The hypostatic union of Christ’s nature is a complementarian union. Complementarity says that there is one phenomenon that comes to expression in two different ways, depending on the observer’s frame of reference. Complementarity in Christology is a plausible notion. Theologists have discussed it, since it rhymes with the dogma of the hypostatic union.

Mats Winther
 
MWin said:
There is indeed one truth–but only to God. We mortals can only picture the universe through the application of two mutually exclusive models. The universe behaves as if there are two truths. But we know that there is only one universe, anyway, because neither model is sufficient in itself.

Mats Winther
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Why does there need to be two ways of seeing things? Can’t faith and reason be combined when we are viewing the universe?
What do you mean when you say the universe behaves as if there were two truths?
 
CHRISTINE77 said:
Why does there need to be two ways of seeing things? Can’t faith and reason be combined when we are viewing the universe?
What do you mean when you say the universe behaves as if there were two truths?
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Evidently, faith and reason collide. In my scientific mode of being (I have a BA in physics) I don’t believe that there are any grounds for belief in angels or transcendental beings of any sort, that can invade my worldly reality and impact my life.

Yet, in my transcendental mode of being, into which I can enter with a little effort, I have no doubts that I am capable of experiencing the invasions of the transcendental autonomous will in my life. I have experienced so much of this kind through the channel of dreams. Yet, I will be unable to translate these experiences into scientific language and give evidence to them according to the rule of science, namely as replicable experiments.

On my homepage I discuss the complementarian perspective which allows us to abandon (1) the hegemonic standpoint, i.e., the fundamentalist perspective according to which there is only scientific truth or there is only religious truth. (2) It also allows us to abandon the unitive view according to which faith and science can exist in the same room, a notion that obviously doesn’t hold water:

"The complementarian perspective allows that the paradigmatic significance is maintained despite the fact that science and religion are regarded as relative, and not as absolute truths (i.e., as the one and only Weltanschauung). The biblical stories is a case in point, which can illustrate this doubleness. The creation story is not a dogma of the church. It is not to be regarded as incontrovertible truth. Comparatively, Christ’s nature as wholly human and wholly divine is dogma and absolute truth, but the biblical creation story is not. It is relative truth and thus it is malleable and changeable. The biblical stories about Jesus are also to be viewed as truth with reservations. After all, they do not coincide perfectly.

What are the historical facts about Jesus? It is evident from the bible that he took over the messianic movement of John the Baptist at the time when John was put in prison (Mark 1:14ff and Matthew 4:17ff). Jesus started his oeuvre by following in John’s footsteps. He baptized people and preached in John’s voice: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The disciples weren’t all poor and unknowledgeable fishermen. Several of them were already members of the movement, and many were well-to-do. With all likelihood, Peter and Andrew already belonged to the Baptist messianists. Many of Jesus’s disciples must already have been baptized and they probably had great insight into the scripture.

So the Gospels have downplayed John the Baptist’s role and the intellectual level of the disciples. In our scientific age we regard this as a deviation from the truth. But, in fact, the Gospels relate the deeper truth, and thus they give the true picture. If Jesus had been portrayed as second to John, it would have given us a completely fallacious picture. Jesus was second to nobody, not even the emperor of Rome. That’s why we are told that Jesus built his own movement and that he had called his disciples from the unsophisticated and unknowledgeable people. It is truthful to portray the disciples as novices, since they had not yet heard the Gospel of joy. As long as people haven’t assimilated the teaching of Jesus Christ, they all remain at the stage of the novice.

[The] authors of the Gospels corrected the historical facts and conveyed the real truth, which includes the real moral proportions. Paradoxically, these “improvements” make the Gospels appear authentic, since only real events need to be improved upon."

Mats Winther
 
MWin said:
There is indeed one truth–but only to God. We mortals can only picture the universe through the application of two mutually exclusive models. The universe behaves as if there are two truths. But we know that there is only one universe, anyway, because neither model is sufficient in itself.

It is a hybrical notion that we are capable of knowing the one truth about God and his creation. It would imply that we are capable of being equally enlightened as God. But we cannot position ourselves above God and look down upon Him and his creation.

The hypostatic union of Christ’s nature is a complementarian union. Complementarity says that there is one phenomenon that comes to expression in two different ways, depending on the observer’s frame of reference. Complementarity in Christology is a plausible notion. Theologists have discussed it, since it rhymes with the dogma of the hypostatic union.

Mats Winther
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My position on knowledge obtained from science and knowledge obtained from Divine Revelation starts with God as the Maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. Yes, I realize that starting with God is difficult especially for those of us who depend on our material/physical environment as our basic, comprehensive source of knowledge about human life.
 
MWin said:
Rushton, J.P. (1999). Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective (Abridged Edition). Transaction Publishers.
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Can you cite the studies that demonstrate your point?

I don’t have access to the paper you cited. But you can tell us how the studies were done, what control groups were used, whether it was randomized sufficiently, etc etc etc.
 
MWin said:
Evidently, faith and reason collide. In my scientific mode of being (I have a BA in physics) I don’t believe that there are any grounds for belief in angels or transcendental beings of any sort, that can invade my worldly reality and impact my life.

Yet, in my transcendental mode of being, into which I can enter with a little effort, I have no doubts that I am capable of experiencing the invasions of the transcendental autonomous will in my life. I have experienced so much of this kind through the channel of dreams. Yet, I will be unable to translate these experiences into scientific language and give evidence to them according to the rule of science, namely as replicable experiments.

On my homepage I discuss the complementarian perspective which allows us to abandon (1) the hegemonic standpoint, i.e., the fundamentalist perspective according to which there is only scientific truth or there is only religious truth. (2) It also allows us to abandon the unitive view according to which faith and science can exist in the same room, a notion that obviously doesn’t hold water:

"The complementarian perspective allows that the paradigmatic significance is maintained despite the fact that science and religion are regarded as relative, and not as absolute truths (i.e., as the one and only Weltanschauung). The biblical stories is a case in point, which can illustrate this doubleness. The creation story is not a dogma of the church. It is not to be regarded as incontrovertible truth. Comparatively, Christ’s nature as wholly human and wholly divine is dogma and absolute truth, but the biblical creation story is not. It is relative truth and thus it is malleable and changeable. The biblical stories about Jesus are also to be viewed as truth with reservations. After all, they do not coincide perfectly.

What are the historical facts about Jesus? It is evident from the bible that he took over the messianic movement of John the Baptist at the time when John was put in prison (Mark 1:14ff and Matthew 4:17ff). Jesus started his oeuvre by following in John’s footsteps. He baptized people and preached in John’s voice: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The disciples weren’t all poor and unknowledgeable fishermen. Several of them were already members of the movement, and many were well-to-do. With all likelihood, Peter and Andrew already belonged to the Baptist messianists. Many of Jesus’s disciples must already have been baptized and they probably had great insight into the scripture.

So the Gospels have downplayed John the Baptist’s role and the intellectual level of the disciples. In our scientific age we regard this as a deviation from the truth. But, in fact, the Gospels relate the deeper truth, and thus they give the true picture. If Jesus had been portrayed as second to John, it would have given us a completely fallacious picture. Jesus was second to nobody, not even the emperor of Rome. That’s why we are told that Jesus built his own movement and that he had called his disciples from the unsophisticated and unknowledgeable people. It is truthful to portray the disciples as novices, since they had not yet heard the Gospel of joy. As long as people haven’t assimilated the teaching of Jesus Christ, they all remain at the stage of the novice.

[The] authors of the Gospels corrected the historical facts and conveyed the real truth, which includes the real moral proportions. Paradoxically, these “improvements” make the Gospels appear authentic, since only real events need to be improved upon."

Mats Winther
Click to expand...
Science seems to be a very accurate but limited way of looking at the universe, through human senses. If it can’t be measured by our human limitations, it is basically tossed out as not true. Or maybe there are mathematical proofs that transcend our senses - I’m not a scientist nor a mathematician so I don’t really know. Unfortunately, all that measuring, quantifying, and sorting seems to leave out the whole beauty of creation, and we can’t see the forest for the trees. As St. Paul said, while we are alive as humans, we see through a glass darkly, but after we die we will see face to face.

It is amazing what mankind has achieved through scientific knowledge, but God provided our minds and the materials. Reason can only go so far, faith is limitless.
 
PRmerger said:
Can you cite the studies that demonstrate your point?

I don’t have access to the paper you cited. But you can tell us how the studies were done, what control groups were used, whether it was randomized sufficiently, etc etc etc.
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There is a shortened edition of the book here:
psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/race_evolution_behavior.pdf

I don’t know if this extra abridged edition answers your questions. Rushton gave away the book for free, but since his death it has been removed from the Internet, it seems.

Please also read my article “Insights into the Race Issue”:
home7.swipnet.se/~w-73784/raceinsight.htm
/Mats
 
An example of the slant against Catholicism and academic ignorance and arrogance is given by Rodney Stark.

catholicleague.org/catholicism-and-science/
Catholicism and Science, by Rodney Stark (from Catalyst 9/2004)
Popular lore, movies, and children’s stories hold that in 1492 Christopher Columbus proved the world is round and in the process defeated years of dogged opposition from the Roman Catholic Church, which insisted that the earth is flat. As an example of such falsehood in A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, an influential reference by Andrew Dickson White, founder and first president of Cornell University, claimed that even after Columbus’ return “the Church by its highest authority solemnly stumbled and persisted in going astray.”

All educated persons of Columbus’ day, very much including the Roman Catholic prelates, knew the earth was round. The Venerable Bede (c. 673-735) taught that the world was round, as did Bishop Virgilius of Salzburg (c. 720-784), Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), and Thomas Aquinas (c. 1224-74). All four ended up saints. Sphere was the title of the most popular medieval textbook on astronomy, written by the English scholastic John of Sacrobosco (c. 1200-1256). It informed that not only the earth but all heavenly bodies are spherical.

“It is the consensus among contemporary historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science that real science arose only once: in Europe. It is instructive that China, Islam, India, ancient Greece, and Rome all had a highly developed alchemy. But only in Europe did alchemy develop into chemistry. By the same token, many societies developed elaborate systems of astrology, but only in Europe did astrology lead to astronomy. And these transformations took place at a time when folklore has it that a fanatical Christianity was imposing a general ignorance on Europe—the so-called Dark Ages.”

“The earlier technical innovations of Greco-Roman times, of Islam, of imperial China, let alone those of pre-historic times, do not constitute science and are better described as lore, skills, wisdom, techniques, crafts, technologies, engineering, learning, or simply knowledge.” (For the Glory of God, Rodney Stark, Princeton University Press, 2003, p 125).
 
Abu said:
An example of the slant against Catholicism and academic ignorance and arrogance is given by Rodney Stark.

catholicleague.org/catholicism-and-science/
Catholicism and Science, by Rodney Stark (from Catalyst 9/2004)
Popular lore, movies, and children’s stories hold that in 1492 Christopher Columbus proved the world is round and in the process defeated years of dogged opposition from the Roman Catholic Church, which insisted that the earth is flat. As an example of such falsehood in A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, an influential reference by Andrew Dickson White, founder and first president of Cornell University, claimed that even after Columbus’ return “the Church by its highest authority solemnly stumbled and persisted in going astray.”

All educated persons of Columbus’ day, very much including the Roman Catholic prelates, knew the earth was round. The Venerable Bede (c. 673-735) taught that the world was round, as did Bishop Virgilius of Salzburg (c. 720-784), Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), and Thomas Aquinas (c. 1224-74). All four ended up saints. Sphere was the title of the most popular medieval textbook on astronomy, written by the English scholastic John of Sacrobosco (c. 1200-1256). It informed that not only the earth but all heavenly bodies are spherical.

“It is the consensus among contemporary historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science that real science arose only once: in Europe. It is instructive that China, Islam, India, ancient Greece, and Rome all had a highly developed alchemy. But only in Europe did alchemy develop into chemistry. By the same token, many societies developed elaborate systems of astrology, but only in Europe did astrology lead to astronomy. And these transformations took place at a time when folklore has it that a fanatical Christianity was imposing a general ignorance on Europe—the so-called Dark Ages.”

“The earlier technical innovations of Greco-Roman times, of Islam, of imperial China, let alone those of pre-historic times, do not constitute science and are better described as lore, skills, wisdom, techniques, crafts, technologies, engineering, learning, or simply knowledge.” (For the Glory of God, Rodney Stark, Princeton University Press, 2003, p 125).
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Actually, Washington Irving was responsible for creating the myth that the world was perceived as flat prior to the discovery of the New World, in his biography about Christopher Columbus. Washington Irving was very popular in his time, and quite the story teller, (who was also responsible for the idea of St. Nick flying over the tree tops in a sled, and the Headless Horseman!)
 
CHRISTINE77 said:
Here is a good article on the double truth doctrine:

evolvingthoughts.net/2009/06/the-doctrine-of-double-truth/

“The accommodation that the Catholic church has reached via Aquinas is that when no spiritual doctrine is at risk, one should always accept the truth of a scientifically successful theory (in the same manner that a scientist would, provisionally and according to empirical adequacy). When a spiritual doctrine is at risk, as when someone might claim that whatever “soul” refers to it evolved as a disposition of brains, then the doctrine takes priority, but in truth, the doctrine is reinterpreted so as not to conflict with the science.”
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This is the true heart of the problem. When there is a conflict between science and religion - it being a truism that religion and science properly interpreted are in perfect harmony - it is always, necessarily assumed that the religion is the one that’s improperly interpreted.

When science contradicts the word of God, theologians rush to reinterpret it to fit with the reigning paradigms of the day, whether Aristotelian physics or neo-Darwinian evolution, and God’s infallible truth is corrupted by admixture with fallible philosophy, “vain…[leading astray] by the first principles of the world, instead of according to Christ”. The theologians never say to the scientists, “You are improperly interpreting your data, as careful exegesis and Christian tradition shows that I am properly interpreting mine: reinterpret your conclusions in light of God’s infallible truth.”
 
jc4751 said:
. . . .2. I’ve long railed against the notion of “scientism” or whatever term best fits. Science, by its nature, tends to encourage a neutral analysis of data to draw conclusions free of any personal influence or (name removed by moderator)ut (as an example, it’s drummed into the heads of all students to write their lab reports in third person – i.e. “10 mL of H2SO4 was added to the beaker.” – what? Did the acid add itself). The blatantly obvious conclusion is that this ignores “observer effect” (a point made by others, not just myself). So, a scientist trying to make a case for a value-free analysis of a social, economic, or moral situation is hardly doing so, but is just trying to mask a philosophical or ethical argument by an appeal to scientific authority.

2.5. I forget who said it, but “Science makes bad philosophy, religion makes bad science.” Trying to build an ethical and moral system around science has never worked out, from what I can tell. It does not fit a need that people have.
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I ran across an interesting passage on this point: the difference between ethical/philosophical analysis and scientific.

“‘In more than 700 operations, I rotated, reversed, added, subtracted, and scrambled the brain parts. I shuffled. I reshuffled. I sliced, lengthened, deviated, shortened, apposed, transposed, juxtaposed, and flipped. I sliced front to back with lengths of the spinal cord, of medulla, with other pieces of brain turned inside out. But nothing short of dispatching the brain to the slop bucket—nothing expunged feeling. (Pietsch (1972), p. 66)’
He is referring to salamanders.
There is no scientific reason not to do that sort of thing to us.”
[R.D. Laing, *The Voice of Experience: Experience, Science and Psychiatry. New York, New York: Penguin Books, 1982., pp. 22-3]
 
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