This Month's Colloqium

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Faith and Science --  Opposition or Necessary Complementarity?

1. The Structure of Scientific Knowledge  

As scientific progress shows, our scientific knowledge is continuously expanding. We discover something new that either revises our present knowledge, for instance, that the basic components of matter are neither atoms nor electrons, neutrons, and protons, but quarks and gluons, or that which is newly discovered increases our knowledge, for instance, that chromosomes consist of huge DNA molecules. Present scientific knowledge is not a private matter, as was alchemy in the Middle Ages, but it is public knowledge. Any person at any place can obtain that knowledge by consulting the respective literature and conducting appropriate experiments. The fact that a + b = c can be checked out by everyone at any place. The reliability and truthfulness of science is furthered by the possibility that scientific experiments can be repeated as often as one wants. In experiments a certain phenomenon is isolated from the totality of phenomena, and it is investigated according to pre-established criteria. Experimental analysis, therefore, only examines partial aspects, the results of which are either correlated with the results of other partial aspects, or that are generalized. This means that scientific knowledge abstracts from the totality of reality. This kind of knowledge is focused  on the past, because it relates to something which already has occurred and not to that which is just in the becoming. Even if we turn our view to present phenomena, they are already past when we see them. They have already happened.

Scientific knowledge establishes no correlation between something present and something past or between something present and something future, but between something that is past and something else that is past, or in pragmatic projection between something that is past and something that still lies in the future. This becomes especially clear in astronomy. We observe the light of galaxies which has traveled  billions of years to come into our view and on account of this light we make assertions about the early stage of the universe. According to something which perhaps is already no longer existent, meaning the galaxy, we make assertions about something else which has already long passed, the early stage of our universe.  

In our investigations, we presuppose that all the presently valid laws, for instance the speed of light as the highest possible speed, are valid everywhere and at all times. If different laws had been valid somewhere in the universe at a vast distance from us and a long time ago, then we would not be able to make any assertions about the state and the origin of the universe. We must make certain assumptions which ultimately we cannot test. But even on earth we are not on safe ground concerning our discovery of reality. The transition from the assertion which we can prove by experiments: there are things or events of the condition A with the property B to the assertion all things or events of the condition A have the property B will never become true even if we had examined as many things or events as possible of that kind. At the most they become more certain. The transition from the past which in principle can be experienced and is closed to the future which is open, is always a risk. Even the announcement in a TV commercial "for risks and potential side effects please consult your physician or pharmacist" does not eliminate the restriction that these experts can only point to possible consequences. But they cannot tell us what really will happen.  

With many occurrences we can assume that the possibility for events other than those which we have so far observed is virtually zero. Even tomorrow the sun will rise in the East and the next winter will certainly come, even if it will be a mild one. But we are only definitely certain when these assertions about the future have become past and have shown their truthfulness. When TV commercials alert us to certain risks, we encounter another uncertainty factor. Each individual, because of its individuality, will react differently to a drug. Therefore no prognosis, however carefully it is established, works one hundred percent. There can always be deviations. In the scientific technological realm we must live with the risk that our prognoses are uncertain or even wrong. True knowledge can only be obtained with regard to the past, and there again within certain limits. Yet what is the structure of Christian knowledge? Is this area not even more imprecise and problematic?  

2. The Structure of Christian Knowledge  

Christian knowledge is the knowledge of God who has shown himself in Jesus Christ. While in scientific knowledge God does not enter the picture, because we do not thematize God and his activities, Christian knowledge intentionally turns towards God and his activities. Yet Christian knowledge does not focus on faith while scientific knowledge turns to reality, but both modes of knowledge relate to the one reality, the world which can be experienced by us. Therefore Wolfhart Pannenberg writes in his Theology and Philosophy of Science: "As a science of God Christian theology does not have a different object matter which can be demarcated and isolated from other areas. While it treats everything which it investigates under the special viewpoint of the reality of God, it is not a  positive science. The question about God as the all-determining reality pertains to all of reality." While Christian theology is subdivided into different fields such as practical theology, New Testament theology, and systematic theology, it does not confine itself in these partial disciplines to different segments of reality, but wants to comprehend all of reality.  

If theology is all-encompassing, is there not the danger that it becomes superficial, that it is prone to dilettantism? This danger indeed arises if Christians address certain issues without sufficient background knowledge, as it has occasionally happened with regard to genetic manipulation. Yet normally there is no transgressing one's competency, since theological reflection only brings together that which basically belongs together, namely God as the all-determining reality and our own reality, or simply God and world.  

Ever since Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) declared God to be a projection of human desires, people have questioned whether we still can seriously talk about God? There exists a possibility if, unlike Feuerbach, we do not start with humanity but with the God who disclosed himself in human history. Since our present topic is Christian knowledge, we also will not search through the history of religions, but will primarily focus on God's self-disclosure in Judeo-Christian history. This disclosive history culminates in God's self-disclosure in Jesus Christ. In contrast to scientific knowledge gained through experiments, we confront here a knowledge that is historically verified. This verification can be checked by any person at any place. Yet since it is historical, namely contingent and therefore unique, we cannot repeat the self-disclosure as we would repeat a laboratory experiment. But we can analyze and interpret it; though we cannot redo history to determine whether the event A in a second and a third trial also eventuates into B.

It is also important to consider another factor of the historical dimension. We cannot detach ourselves from it but are drawn into it. Since God as the all-determining reality impinges on all reality, we cannot assume a neutral position over against that reality, but must take a stand, which means to accept it or to reject it. While in scientific knowledge the premises are tacitly accepted, Christian knowledge challenges us to a much higher degree to take a stand. Here the decisive question of what we think of religion is posed. If we accept God as the all-determining reality, then reality does not dissolve into a quagmire of information that can hardly be mastered. Rather God becomes the integrating figure of all reality that holds everything together.  

The world is then not just nature, but is understood in its relation to God as creation. Creation is more than a Big Bang suggesting that God once determined initial conditions and since then the cosmos unfolds itself in its own way. Creation means creating at the beginning, conserving in the present, and completing in the future. On account of God's self-disclosure as reflected in the Old Testament, the Christian faith does not talk about a Big Bang. God created the world in the beginning. Because of the same reflection, the Christian faith does not confine creation to the origin of the universe and the evolution of life. With the American author John Fiske (1841-1901) (Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, 1874) we can admit that "evolution is the way in which God works with nature." The Christian faith also does not talk about a collapsing universe at the end, namely that the expansion of the universe would reverse to a contraction. It also does not state that after a slow, but continuous aging process, the cosmos will eventually be adrift without life. The Christian faith talks about a completion in a new creation. This is proleptically anticipated in the resurrection of Jesus Christ to new life.  

In opposition to the prognoses of the sciences, Christian theology asserts God's new creation. This assertion is founded in the destiny of Jesus in which he anticipated this new creation proleptically and in which Christians in whatever incomplete form already participate. Both the reflection of God's self-disclosure as documented in the Old Testament and the life and destiny of Jesus, including his claim of authority to represent God, can be examined in the biblical documents. The final verification of God as the all-determining reality and the new creation promised by him through Christ, cannot be conducted in the present. Similar to the natural sciences, the Christian faith can only talk about a preliminary verification and like these it must wait for an eschatological verification of everything that can be known. The Christian faith is no blind or stubborn faith maintained contrary to all evidence. Having faith means to trust that that which has shown itself in the Judeo-Christian history of revelation will logically come to its conclusion. In a similar way, the scientist hopes that present knowledge will not be superseded but find its continuous and final verification. In some ways Christian knowledge and scientific knowledge parallel each other.  

3. Mutuality of faith and knowledge  

Scientific knowledge only occurs in fragments since particular phenomena are investigated which then are correlated with other phenomena. Furthermore it is partial because in principle  God as the all-determining reality is excluded. Here theology offers the total reality as a correlative frame to integrate particular phenomena. This contribution is significant, because only from the total contextual frame can an individual object or event be understood. In analogy, we might think of medicine. For a long time treatment was focused on individual phenomena, for instance on an ulcer or an irregular heartbeat. In treating these phenomena, one neglected that they were only expressive of a more comprehensive disturbance of the whole person. Only through comprehensive treatment did the sick person come onto focus, and thereby also the primary causes for the ulcer or the irregular heartbeat.

Since today the question assumes more and more urgency, whether we should and are allowed to translate our knowledge into action, we should not make the correlative frame of reference too narrow in looking for an appropriate answer. It should include the whole of reality. Therefore the relation to God offered in Christian knowledge is no option that we could neglect without adverse consequences. It provides the correlative frame of reference in which our scientific knowledge must be placed if we do not want to absolutize in an ideological way a partial understanding of reality.  

Nature must be recognized again as creation and not only as something which we can use as we like. It is something that is intimately connected with God as its creator. If we worship nature, for instance, than we end up in  idolatry. The result is an ideology because we attribute to  nature a value which it should not be accorded, given our Christian knowledge. When we understand nature as creation, however, our respect for nature is transferred to God the creator who stands behind nature as its origin and conserver. It is no accident that with regard to creation we usually think about preservation, while with the concept of nature we often imply use and exploitation.  

Yet what does science give to theology and how does Christian knowledge benefit from scientific knowledge? Similar to scientific knowledge being threatened by godlessness, Christian knowledge is often threatened by a flight from the world. Christian knowledge is concerned with beginning and end, with creation and salvation. Yet we tend to forget that we are not redeemed from creation, but that in salvation we expect the completion of creation. Scientific knowledge points to the Christian faith's necessary relation with the world and with the different segments of reality. As God's self-disclosure occurred in space and time, in our history, so too scientific knowledge reminds us that Christian knowledge is empty without scientific details. One cannot talk about creation without talking about nature. Faith and knowledge are not separate entities that would have nothing to do with each other. Scientific knowledge searches the observable phenomena of the world including that which can be researched scientifically in the historic phenomenon of God's self-disclosure. This means that Science provides us with the structures of the observable world, while theology interprets these structures from the perspective of God's self-disclosure and, so to speak, affirms the reality of these phenomena in relating them to God as the all-determining reality. Theology endows them with a meaning which we cannot give them in pointing alone to the beginning and completion of these phenomena. It also witnesses to the unfathomableness of God in whom these phenomena have their ultimate ground of being. Christian knowledge does not influence the results of scientific research, but interprets them. We need not be afraid that we must abandon our Christian knowledge if we open ourselves to scientific knowledge or vice versa. Problems only arise if one or the other is absolutized. For the Christian faith, science does not destroy the mystery of God's activity. To the contrary, in each new result of research the richness of God's creative activity is exemplified. When one begins with a Christian knowledge of God, the phenomena of the world mirror the glory of God and oblige the scientists to reverence toward the world as God's creation. The responsible use of the goods of creation in the face of God and the thankfulness and the joy over these goods is our appropriate reaction.  

Yet we should not conclude that the Christian faith amends, deepens, or elevates the scientific results, or that it is even possible that we conclude from these results God's existence and his activity in creation. Since God is, in principle, excluded from scientific knowledge, science can neither prove nor deny God. If we try to nevertheless, we transgress a methodological boundary and scientific knowledge becomes transformed into an ideology. Similarly, it is impossible that the Christian faith would correct scientific knowledge even if this, in times past, has been attempted. Scientific knowledge is knowledge founded on the principles of the sciences in the same way as Christian knowledge is knowledge founded on the presupposition of God's self-disclosure culminated in Jesus Christ. In so far as we arrive at true knowledge, it would be a contradiction in itself if we would attempt to change its truth content. Since scientists and Christians live in one and the same world, that which we claim based on the Christian faith and that which is provable through the sciences must be related to the one reality in which we live. This reality is experienced on the one side as nature and recognized on the other as creation. The knowledge of nature provides our world with specificity as shown in the details which science brings to light. Yet its recognition as creation shows the historical frame in which these details come to stand. Scientific knowledge gives us access to the peculiarities of nature, while Christian knowledge shows us to whom this world owes its existence and in which direction its journey goes.