Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism (23 page)

I submit that the same goes for Simonian science and Christian belief. The evidence base for Simonian science (given weak MN) is part of the Christian’s evidence base, but only part of it. Hence the fact that Simonian science comes to conclusions incompatible with Christian belief doesn’t provide the believer with a defeater for her belief. For the Christian, Simonian science is like truncated physics.
Concede that from the point of view of the evidence base of Simonian science, constrained as it is by weak MN, Simonian science is indeed the way to go (and of course perhaps it isn’t): this need not give the Christian a defeater for those of her beliefs contradicted by Simonian science; for the evidence base of the latter is only part of her evidence base.

What we have here is really a special case of a topic long discussed in the history of Christian thought: the so-called problem of faith and reason. According to classical Christian belief, there are two sources of knowledge or rational opinion: faith and reason. Reason includes such faculties as perception, a priori intuition (whereby one knows truths of mathematics and truths of logic), memory, testimony (whereby one can learn from others), induction (whereby one can learn from experience) and perhaps others, such as Thomas Reid’s sympathy, whereby we know of the thoughts and feeling of other people. Perhaps there is also a moral sense, whereby we know something of what is right and wrong; perhaps there are still others. These faculties or sources of belief/knowledge are part of our created cognitive nature; every properly functioning human being has them. Of course there are substantial individual differences with respect to the acuity of the faculty in question is: for example, what may be child’s play for the gifted mathematician may be beyond the reach of the rest of us, and some people display an unusual ability to discern the thoughts and feelings of others.

Faith
, on the other hand, is a wholly different kettle of fish: according to the Christian tradition (including both Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin), faith is a special gift from God, not part of our ordinary epistemic equipment. Faith is a source of belief, a source that
goes beyond the faculties included in reason. It is not that the deliverances of faith are to be contrasted with
knowledge
; according to John Calvin, faith “is a firm and certain
knowledge
of God’s benevolence towards us.”
¹⁰
So a proposition I believe by faith can (at least according to followers of Calvin) nonetheless be something I know. But even if faith is a source of knowledge, it is still a source of knowledge distinct from reason. Of course it could be that a given proposition can be known both by faith and by reason; perhaps one of the deliverances of faith—for example, that Jesus arose from the dead—can also be shown to be very probable with respect to what one knows by way of reason.
¹¹
Indeed, perhaps this item of faith can be
known
by way of reason. But there are many of the deliverances of faith such that it is at least plausible to think that they cannot be known by way of reason.
¹²

This is not so far, of course, to say that there is
conflict
between faith and reason. Maybe there is and maybe there isn’t; but the mere fact that the deliverances of faith include propositions not among the deliverances of reason doesn’t show that there is such a conflict. In the same way, my knowing by way of testimony something that I don’t and can’t know by way of perception doesn’t show that there is a conflict between perception and testimony. You tell me you have a headache; I can’t learn this from perception; I therefore learn something by way of testimony that I couldn’t learn from perception; it doesn’t follow that there is conflict between the two. I remember where I was yesterday; I can’t determine that by way of a priori intuition; it doesn’t follow that there is conflict between memory and a priori intuition.

In other cases, however, there can be what we might call
weak
conflict. Consider again the case where I’m falsely accused of slashing your tires: I have the same evidence as the jurors for the proposition that I committed the crime (the testimony of the witnesses, my previous predilection for criminal behavior, et cetera), but I also remember that I was elsewhere at the time. In this case, therefore, with respect to the deliverances of the faculties involved in my apprehending the evidence the jurors have, the right thing to think is that I committed the crime; but my memory tells me differently. So here there is conflict between the deliverances of memory, on the one hand; and, on the other, the deliverances of testimony and whatever other faculties are involved in my (and the jurors) acquiring the evidence for my having committed the crime. But this is a
weak
conflict. That is because my acquiring the evidence for my having committed the crime (the same evidence as the jurors have for that proposition) doesn’t give me a defeater for my belief, based on memory, that in fact I didn’t commit the crime. It doesn’t give me a reason to give up that belief, or even to hold it less firmly.

Of course there
could be
a strong conflict here; it could be that the testimony of others was sufficiently strong to give me a defeater. If several unimpeachable witnesses claim to have seen me slashing your tires, I may have to conclude that my memory was somehow playing me tricks; rationality may require my giving up the belief that I was innocent. How
much
evidence of that sort would be required to give me a defeater? That’s a question without an answer; much would depend on the reliability of the witnesses, the question what I know or believe about whether my memory had ever before failed me in such drastic fashion, and so on. The point is only that sufficient evidence of that sort could give me a defeater for my belief that I was innocent, and where that does in fact happen, what we have is a strong conflict between memory and these other sources of belief.

Now return to Simonian science and Christian belief, and let’s suppose the scientific evidence base here is constrained by weak MN. Given this evidence base and the current evidence, perhaps the right thing to think is that human beings have indeed come to be by way of a process of evolution driven by natural selection working on random genetic mutation. Given that idea, and, as weak MN requires, setting aside the Christian claim that God has created human beings in his image, it might be that the most plausible thing to think, as with David Wilson, is that the mechanisms that produce religious belief in us are not truth aimed; they are not aimed at the production of beliefs that are true, but rather at the production of beliefs that conduce to some other end, such as securing the benefits of cooperation. Suppose that is the right thing to think from this point of view (I don’t say that it is): do I thereby get a defeater for my belief that in fact these mechanisms
are
truth-aimed? Clearly not. My evidence base contains the belief that God has created human beings in his image. I now learn that, given an evidence base that
doesn’t
contain that belief, the right thing to believe is that those mechanisms are not truth-aimed; but of course that doesn’t give me any reason at all to amend or reject my belief that in fact they are truth-aimed. It does not give me a defeater for that belief, or for the belief that God has created human beings with something like the
sensus divinitatis
of which John Calvin speaks, or the natural but confused knowledge of God of which Aquinas speaks. More generally, the fact that scientists come up with views like Wilson’s does not, just as such, offer a defeater for Christian belief. The conflict in question is superficial.

Is there even a superficial conflict? What, exactly, does science assert here, or more exactly, what does a scientist who proposes a Wilsonian claim assert? Or still more exactly, what is it that a scientist is entitled to assert here, assuming that in fact he has done everything properly? Is he asserting that in fact belief in God is not reality oriented? Or is he asserting something more like a conditional: from the scientific evidence base, this is the best way to look at the matter? This is the theory that has the best scientific credentials?
Given the scientific evidence base and the current evidence, this theory is the most acceptable, rational, sensible, warranted, or whatever? Analogy: you think you have an appointment with your hairdresser for Thursday; you call up to confirm it; the receptionist claims your appointment is for Friday; you protest, saying you are sure it is for Thursday (and Friday you’ll be out of town); she replies as follows: “well, all I can say is that the record here says it’s Friday.” She retreats from the claim that it is Friday to the claim that from a certain perspective it is clearly Friday.

There is some reason to think something similar goes on in the case of Simonian science. Consider again work in the scientific study of religion: the more careful books in this area begin by saying they aren’t addressing such questions as whether or not Christianity or theism is in fact true; they are instead simply engaging in an effort to see what there is to say about religion from a scientific perspective. Thus Scott Atran:

Religious beliefs and practices involve the very same cognitive and affective structures as nonreligious beliefs and practices—and no others—but in (more or less) systematically distinctive ways. From an evolutionary standpoint, these structures are, at least proximately, no different in origin and kind from the genetic instincts and mechanical processes that govern the life of other animals. Religious explanations of religion may or may not accept this account of proximate causes, but no faith-based account considers it to be the
whole
story. I do not intend to refute such nonscientific explanations of religion, nor do I pretend that they are morally worthless or intellectually unjustified. The chosen scientific perspective of this book is simply blind to them and can elucidate nothing about them—so far as I can see.
¹³

The suggestion is that there is such a thing as a scientific perspective, and that Atran’s book is written from that perspective; as such, says Atran, the book says nothing about the truth or falsehood of religious belief, because the scientific perspective is “blind” to these things. Atran isn’t claiming that his conclusions
are in fact correct, but rather that they are correct (or plausible or promising) from that “chosen scientific perspective.” Atran thinks his conclusions are correct, given the scientific evidence base and the current evidence. Whether these conclusions are also correct just as such will depend, among other things, upon whether the scientific perspective is, in this area, the right perspective and whether the scientific evidence base is the right evidence base. (Of course it might be the right evidence base in one area but not in another.) The Christian theist will think that it isn’t the right evidence base, because it is at best incomplete; it fails to include important elements of the Christian’s evidence base. But then the fact that competent work from the scientific perspective comes up with claims inconsistent with Christian belief isn’t, just as such anyway, a defeater for those beliefs; the scientific evidence base of the latter is only part of the Christian’s evidence base.

But isn’t this just a recipe for intellectual irresponsibility, for hanging on to beliefs in the teeth of the evidence? Can’t a Christian always say something like the above, no matter what proposed defeater presents itself? “Perhaps B (the proposed defeatee) is improbable or unlikely with respect to part of what I believe,” she says, “but it is certainly not improbable with respect to the totality of what I believe, that totality including, of course, B itself.” No, certainly not. If that were proper procedure, every prospective defeater could be turned aside and defeat would be impossible. The believer could always just say that his evidence base includes the challenged belief, and is therefore probable with respect to that evidence base (because entailed by it). But the fact is defeat is not impossible; it sometimes happens that I
do
acquire a defeater for a belief B I hold by learning that B is improbable on some proper subset of my evidence base. For example: according to Isaiah 41:9, God says, “I took you from the ends of the earth, from its farthest corners I called you. I said, ‘You are my servant’; I have chosen you and have not rejected you.” Now
suppose that, on the basis of this text, I’ve always believed R, the proposition that the earth is a rectangular solid with edges and corners (I have never encountered any of the evidence for the earth’s being round). Won’t I acquire a defeater for this belief when confronted with the scientific evidence against it—photographs of the earth from space, for example? The same goes for someone who holds pre-Copernican beliefs on the basis of such a text as “The earth stands fast; it shall not be moved” (Psalm 104:5). But then what is the difference? Why is there a defeater in these cases, but not in the case of Simonian science? How is it that you get a defeater in some cases of this sort, but not in others? What makes the difference?

Here’s an unhelpful answer: the one case conforms to the definition of rationality defeat, and the other one doesn’t. In the case of Simonian science, I learn that such science comes to conclusions inconsistent with Christian belief, and I also believe that Simonian science is good science; nevertheless I can rationally continue to hold Christian beliefs (although of course I can’t also accept those conclusions of Simonian science inconsistent with them). But I can’t rationally continue to believe R, once I see those photographs and realize that in fact they are photographs.
¹⁴
That’s
the difference.

Right; but can’t we do a little better than that? Think about the case where I believe, on the basis of that text from the Bible, that