Martin Luther King, Jr. makes a point that has been forgotten by some of his political heirs:
Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values.The two are not rivals. They are complementary. Science keeps religion from sinking into the valley of crippling irrationalism and paralyzing obscurantism. Religion prevents science from falling into the marsh of obsolete materialism and moral nihilism.
Via the Hairpin.
January 17th, 2012 | 1:21 pm
“Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values.”
Rubbish. Christianity is based, primarily, on these FACTS: Jesus existed; he is the Son of God; he lived a perfect life; he was crucified; he died; he was buried; he rose again.
If any of these truth claims turns out not to be a fact, then Christianity is a wicked lie.
I would expect to find the long discredited fact-value dichotomy pushed on some village atheist site, not on FT. I am disappointed.
January 17th, 2012 | 1:45 pm
Barry: The terms MLK uses don’t bear scrutiny, but that doesn’t alter the soundness of his basic point.
January 17th, 2012 | 1:58 pm
FACTS: Jesus existed; he is the Son of God; he lived a perfect life; he was crucified; he died; he was buried; he rose again.
It might help to say “empirical matters” (which is no doubt what MLK meant) instead of “facts.” Existing, being crucified, dying, and being buried are empirical. Being the Son of God and living a perfect life are not. When there is a conflict between science and religion, it is (it seems to me) when religion makes a pronouncement on an empirical matter (e.g., the earth is 6,000 years old; the sun revolves around the earth).
Christianity does indeed depend on certain events that, if indeed they occurred, are historical facts, and if they did not occur, Christianity loses some of its foundations. The problem here is that after 2,000 years, it is impossible to prove something like, say, the resurrection as a historical fact. And it it seems to me few Christian apologists spend significant time trying to “prove” the resurrection. It might fall into the realm of historical fact (depending on your theory of history), but it is something generally accepted on faith.
January 17th, 2012 | 2:02 pm
I am no doubt mangling this, but I saw a quote recently to the effect that it is belief in Jesus that makes the resurrection credible, not belief in the resurrection that makes Jesus credible. I will try to track it down.
January 17th, 2012 | 3:46 pm
It’s worth noting that he qualifies that statement with “mainly.” Meaning he explicitly leaves room for the factual claims of Christianity.
January 17th, 2012 | 5:33 pm
Matthew Schmitz
No, I don’t concede his basic point. MLK’s statement is only an earlier version of Stephen Jay Gould’s “NOMA” (non-overlapping magisteria) in which atheist Gould said to believers, “Tell you what; science will take all of reality and you religious yahoos can take everything else.” Christianity does not give us wisdom; it doesn’t even give us ethics. It gives us Christ.
David Nickol,
“Empirical matter” or “fact,” it does not matter what you call it. Christianity stands or falls on the resurrection. Paul said that he preached nothing but Christ and him crucified and that if Christ is not risen our faith is in vain and we are still in our sin.
“The problem here is that after 2,000 years, it is impossible to prove something like, say, the resurrection.”
Well, it depends on what you are willing to accept for proof. If you are willing to accept the overwhelming historical record, including hundreds of eyewitnesses, then yes the resurrection can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. If you insist upon apodictic certainty, then no it cannot be proved.
“It might fall into the realm of historical fact (depending on your theory of history), but it is something generally accepted on faith.”
Yes, if by “faith” you mean a reasoned conclusion based upon overwhelming evidence, but that is an odd way to use the word.
“belief in Jesus that makes the resurrection credible, not belief in the resurrection that makes Jesus credible”
That’s not what Jesus said about his own resurrection. He said the resurrection would be a sign for his followers that the things he said were true.
January 17th, 2012 | 6:55 pm
“Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values.”
Today’s science attempts to deal with values.
It claims the power to determine which ways of living are better than others – by using terms such as “normal” or “healthy” to legitimize left-wing values, and by using metaphors of disease to delegitimize right wing values.
The “science” that deals with fact is not what today’s scientific community practices. This conflation – the blurring of the lines between humanist belief and values vs. scientific “fact” – is their key to getting around the pesky little restrictions that are supposed to prevent one religion from denying the rights of others.
“It’s not a religion because religions are merely belief while what we’re dealing with is the truth” – the “myth of mythlessness”.
But today’s science (religious science) purports to be able to answer all the great religious questions:
- where we come from and why
- where we are or should be going and why
- who we are and why
- what matters, what doesn’t, and why
- how we should and should not behave
- what our goals should be
- what our purpose is
- how we relate to the universe around us
Note that all of the above are ultimately questions that cannot be answered unless you make faith-based assumptions first.
They are as ultimately unprovable as the existence or absence of God.
Yet science today refuses to recognize (let alone honor) the limit between what it is capable of speaking meaningfully about, vs. what is inherently beyond its limits.
It deals with the problem by merely building scientific-sounding constructs with the assumptions, the leaps of faith, hidden in the model.
There can be no “study” purporting to show whether X group is happier or more well adjusted than Y group that does not rely on someone, somewhere, sneaking in a personal opinion or three: what constitutes “happy”? What constitutes “well adjusted”? What matters in life, and what is irrelevant?
January 17th, 2012 | 10:17 pm
If you are willing to accept the overwhelming historical record, including hundreds of eyewitnesses, then yes the resurrection can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
Barry Arrington,
But we do not have the testimony of hundreds of eyewitnesses. We have testimony from a very small number of men that there were hundreds of eyewitnesses, and it is difficult or impossible to reconcile different accounts with one another. The independent testimony of 200 or 500 people (it varies from one account to another) would indeed be powerful. But the testimony of two people that Jesus appeared to 500 people (according to Paul) or 200 people (according to Luke) is of far less value than the actual testimony of hundreds of people.
It is also not clear exactly what Paul saw when he says he saw the risen Lord. Did he see the risen Jesus as a bodily apparition, or did he see a blinding light? So exactly what he understands to be the experience of seeing the risen Jesus is not clear (at least to me).
January 17th, 2012 | 10:25 pm
Yet science today refuses to recognize (let alone honor) the limit between what it is capable of speaking meaningfully about, vs. what is inherently beyond its limits.
Blake,
Can you point to this “science” you are characterizing? Are you speaking of science itself? Or all scientists? Or some scientists?
January 17th, 2012 | 11:18 pm
David Nickol: “But we do not have the testimony of hundreds of eyewitnesses.”
I never said we have the testimony of hundreds of eyewitnesses. I said the record states there were hundreds of eyewitnesses. That record, which was written during the living memory of those who saw the events in question, is the only record we have, and there is no good reason to disregard it. A person may choose not to believe it, but it fits very well with all of the other evidence, about which volumes have been filled. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the most well documented events of antiquity.
But perhaps you are one of those people who believe the disciples willingly went to their gruesome deaths when all they had to do to avoid the agony was recant a wicked fable they knew to be a lie. Odd ducks those disciples. Dr. Johnson was quite write; martyrdom is the measure of truth.
January 17th, 2012 | 11:54 pm
[...] Faith, science and a liberal icon. [...]
January 18th, 2012 | 11:28 am
“But we do not have the testimony of hundreds of eyewitnesses.”
Actually David, we have the testimony not of hundreds, but thousands of eyewitnesses to the Risen Christ and the continued life of the Virgin Mary.
Saints (and others) throughout the past two thousand years have continued to have encounters with the Risen Christ. The same is to be said of the “Apparitions” of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Literally thousands of the Near Death Experiences (NDEs) recorded by scientists over the last few decades also include encounters with Christ–many all the more compelling for the fact that individual was atheist or non-Christian before the NDE, but converted to Christianity after the experience.
To those that say we have no proof of Christ or God, a Gospel statement of Christ’s needs to be spoken, “Those with eyes should see. Those with ears should hear.”
January 18th, 2012 | 5:35 pm
David, I can’t speak for Blake, but I think you have to make a distinction between science and Scientism. Science is nothing more or less than a method for investigating empirical reality, i.e. that part of reality that can be measured, tested, falsified. It makes no pretension to be anything else. Scientism is an ideology that maintains that the part of reality science investigates is all of and the only reality, that there is nothing that science cannot explain and that claims to any reality or part of reality beyond the scientific are superstition, delusion, and wishful thinking. It seems to me it was Scientism Blake was attacking, though of course, he can correct me if I’m wrong.
January 18th, 2012 | 5:46 pm
To correct a bit of unintentional dumbth in my last comment: I realize no part of reality can be falsified, I meant that part of reality hypotheses about which can be decisively falsified.
January 20th, 2012 | 8:34 am
It seems to me it was Scientism Blake was attacking, though of course, he can correct me if I’m wrong.
Actually I think it would be more accurate to say that I am attacking the “scientific community” (as they call themselves) for not defending their boundaries.
If you are part of a “community”, and you have people who speak on behalf of the community, then you have to watch what that community says, and also what it fails to say.
Call it reputation, goodwill, trust, cultural credit, or “political capital” – whatever it is, there is no way for any community to let people exploit and misuse it without also depleting that community’s pool of the stuff.
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