Looking back...
"Because a world without something greater than just science is quite disturbing to me..."
My cousin J in Edmonton (who is having a baby real soon by the way....YAY!) said:
"What happens when faith in gods or the study of higher powers becomes a science, itself? I'm sure at one point, it was assumed that human thought and behaviour was something beyond science, but you should know by now that it has very much turned into a science. (Some would say "reduced to a science," but I think that's a little narrowminded.)"
I'd like to hear from my friend Peter on this one.
Hugs,
Annie!
4 Comments:
thanks colleen, i'll definetely check that out!
hugs,
annie
oooh a challenge... I haven't visited in a while, so pardon the lateness...
I don't think faith in God can be reduced to a science. One of the reasons I am so opposed to the teaching of 'intelligent design' or any other variety of creationism in schools is because it is not falsifiable science. There are metaphysical premises that cannot be argued for using simple (or complex) scientific methods. Now this doesn't mean that there isn't a reasonable element to faith. You can gather evidence, put it together and come up with a conclusion that a particular faith is 'true' but you can't prove it. In other words, any reason you use to get to a particular faith conclusion must be inductive, not deductive. Science is inherently deductive. We observe, experiment, and test hypothesis, but we make no conclusions until it has been proven so. Up until that point, everything is mere hypothesis. With faith, you can observe, and can hypothesize, but you can't test these hypotheses. You can only infer a conclusion from it.
Is faith reasonable? I believe so. Is faith itself a science? No, I don't think so. To view faith entirely through a scientific lens is, I believe, to falsely understand the nature of faith.
If I may quote the bible, "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Science requires a certain level of certainty in a conclusion for that conclusion to be valid. Faith does not require the same level of certainty, but instead fills in the gaps that reason cannot provide.
To answer the question posed, when faith is reduced to a science, it loses its status as faith. To reduce God to science is to reduce God to a human construct, in the vein of Feuerbach and the rest of the anthropomorphics. Perhaps 'reduced' is too strong. I think that when the doing of faith becomes a science, it loses something mysterious, and it begina to lose its meaning as faith. One of my favorite quotes is by an old German hymnwriter, Tersteegen. He said: "Ein begriffener Gott ist kein Gott. A God comprehended is no God." The day my God is understood in a purely scientific fashion, the day I understand him completely is the day I stop believing in him. I don;t desire to worship a God that is able to fit inside my mind. No thanks.
As an asside, about a year ago, while J and I were sparring on my blog, I wrote a post explaining how I view epistemology as it incorporates faith. The post can be found here, and might shed some light on this question.
Hi Peter,
Thanks so much for replying. I absolutely agree with you. I'm sick and tired of having to analyze religions and faith. When it comes down to it, faith cannot be reduced to a science, because obviously that would counteract with the meaning of faith.
In society these days, we have to analyze our feelings and always give a long explanation as to why we feel a certain way towards something. I hate it when someone's supposed faith is used as a means to an end, and I also hate it when people have to put down others for "believing" or for having faith, thinking them ignorant. Sorry, its just that I'm having a certain episode such as this in my life with some people that are close to me.
Talk soon Pete!
:)
Annie
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