Stenmark, How to Relate Science & Religion

A book review of  Mikael Stenmark, How to Relate Science and Religion (Eerdmans, 2004).

This is one of those books where the reader has to want to read it in order to get through it.  Stenmark is a philosopher, and he writes like one—well, to be fair, better than many but still like a philosopher.  The prose is sometimes ponderous and in places requires multiple readings.  The author also backtracks a good deal as he seeks to make each argument logical and linked to what has gone before and what will come next. More largely, the author constantly walks through lines of reasoning, presenting multiple options for each question he considers, and then seeks to arrive at the logical best response for each question.  It gets tedious after awhile.  I personally found the book disappointing in one important sense.  Having waded through it all, I still don't know how Stenmark himself relates science and religion.  He tells us something of the theory about how the two ought to relate to each other, but he himself doesn't take the next step and actually do some relating himself.

That being said, How to Relate Science & Religion contains important points that make it worth the time if the reader is willing to do some of the work involved in getting to the points.  Central to his presentation is Stenmark's observation that the relationship between science and religion is complex and multi-faceted.  It involves several dimensions, and the two can have different relationships in different dimensions.  The relationship also changes over time.  Further complicating the relationship is the fact that science and religion are pluralistic entities in themselves, representing a variety of communities and approaches.  Once we begin to poke at the "nature of science" and especially at the "nature of religion" we find a wide variety of approaches, understandings, and even values.

Now, one knows that religion is incredibly pluralistic to the extent that we wonder if the word actually names anything at all.  Where Stenmark is particularly helpful is in emphasizing that science also is pluralistic.  He repeatedly points to weaknesses in the arguments of the anti-theist critics of religion who generally fail to take the pluralistic, mundane, and sometimes highly contested nature of science into account as they attack theism.  They also largely ignore the same pluralistic nature of religion.

Near the end of the book, the author does present a set of three matrices (pages 248-249) showing: (1) the approach that has traditionally been taken in the debate between religions and science; (2) an alternative proposed by those who take an ideological approach to the debate; and (3) his own more nuanced approach.  Now, my guess is that Stenmark would respond that his goal was to describe these three approaches so that he does show us how to relate science and religion; to which, I respond that a fair amount of his painstaking march to the matrices could have been abridged so that he could show how he makes use of his own approach.  As is so often the case in the debate over religion and science, Stenmark talks the theory, as I said above, but he himself doesn't go on to the application stage.

Prof. Mikael Stenmark

In any event, Stenmark argues that we can take two fundamental approaches to the relationship between science and religion.  We can either claim that religion in particular and other worldviews or ideologies more generally have no place in the conduct of science.  This is the approach that contends that science and religion are "non-overlapping magisteria" (NOMA).  Or, again, we can claim that religion or another worldview should shape the whole scientific enterprise.  The author describes in some detail Christian, feminist, and Marxist advocates of what he terms a "worldview-partisan science" based on the theology or ideology of the given partisan.  He also thinks that in most ways the worldview-partisan approach is inescapable for science.  He makes a good case demonstrating that scientists are always influenced by one worldview or another, often some form of scientism or empirical realism.

Yet, in his own configuration, Stenmark concludes that in one crucial phase, the "justification phase," science should remain "worldview-neutral."  That is, scientists should put aside their theological or ideological agendas when it comes to conducting research itself.  They should not pre-judge research results and should be willing to adjust their concept of the truth accordingly.  I'm not sure that Stenmark really needed 269 pages to get to this point, but even so it seems to be a fairly arrived at and important conclusion: religion and other worldviews can contribute to deciding what research subjects to pursue, articulating those subjects, and in the application of the findings.  In the actual research, however, religion and other worldviews need to be put aside.

Stenmark thus makes a modest contribution to the debate over the relationship of science and religion in at least a couple of ways.  First, he reminds us that the whole question of that relationship is complex and that any helpful contribution to the debate needs to take into account those complexities.  He shows us that there are many more moving parts to the science versus religion debate than is usually acknowledged, and that much of the debate is based on a failure to take into account the complexities involved.  Second, he himself approaches the debate with a reasoned, temperate attitude.  He is clearly a man of faith himself, and there are points at which he criticizes the anti-theists especially for their rhetoric and their over-simplification of what is a complex issue.  He does so, however, without rancor or a judgmental tone.  Perhaps a third contribution that Stenmark makes is to inject an attitude of careful reflection, a reasoned approach that seeks to work through complexities rather than ignore them.  The sad fact is that contributions such as this will receive little attention on the larger stage while much less well reasoned, reflective "offerings" will get media attention precisely because they are long on rhetoric and controversy, if short on careful thought and balanced assessment.

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Apart from the general comments above,  I would like to respond to one line of reasoning in How to Relate Science and Religion, which exposes some of the difficulties the whole subject of science and religion poses for its protagonists.  There is, I think, a real sense in which the debate between theists and anti-theists is futile given the state of our ignorance concerning both the nature of the universe and of God.  We might just as well suspend the argument for some centuries or longer until we know what we're talking about.

On pages 164-166, Stenmark considers the argument put forward by some anti-theists that evolution all but proves that there is no divine providence guiding the development of the human race.  It clearly takes place in a random way, and there is no inherent reason to think that a God is directing the process.  If we started over, it would come out differently.  Quoting various authors, Stenmark counters that God could well have created the process of evolution without planning for a specific outcome, planning only for the emergence of intelligent life of one sort or another.  Indeed, Stenmark argues there is no reason to limit God's plan to a single planet.  He writes, "I see no reason why Christians (or Jews and Muslims, for that matter) should think that they are committed to believe that the creation of the Earth was essential for God's plans." (p. 166)  In other words, the apparently random nature of evolution does not in and of itself give us reason to think that it is not part of a larger divine plan.

That's fine.  It is pleasant speculation.  And that is all that it is.  Stenmark is correct in arguing that evolution does not give the anti-theist skeptics actual reasons for arguing against God.  While evolution operates randomly, it has direction and an underlying rationale such as could suggest some kind of higher guiding force, principle, or divine "person".  Or maybe not.  Either way, it is pure speculation—apart from an underlying faith.  For those without the faith, there is no reason to think that God is behind evolution.  With faith, there is every reason to believe so.  The anti-theists for all of their vaunted rationality have no more reason to think there is no God than do people of faith to think there is a God.  This is especially the case because most of the time most of the hardcore anti-theist writers spend most of their time attacking a fundamentalist version of God that functions as a convenient straw man for them to knock down.

In any event, Stenmark's line of thinking about God maybe having a plan for the emergence of some kind of intelligence somewhere in the universe is just so much idle speculation—and a waste of time.  Those who do not believe in God are surely not going to be persuaded, and those of us who do find it entirely reasonable to think that God seeded the Earth with life fully intending that humanity would arise.  As an analogy, when we plant tomato seeds we fully expect that we will get tomatoes.  If God is God, then it is hard to believe that God would not know what would come of this vast garden God has seeded with life.

As people of faith, we begin with what is rather than what might have been.  We are theistic realists.  The Earth is.  We are.  Experience and reason persuade us that the universe has a "ground of being" to which we can pin the label of God.  This ground of being in some sense relates to us such that we feel that it is a personal relationship (we would because we ourselves are persons).  Christians see and experience this ground of universal being in Jesus Christ.  Jews experience it ("him") in the sacred history of God's people and in the Torah.  Buddhists don't believe in a personal god of any kind, but they know this ground of being in the Dharma especially as reflected in the teachings of the Buddha.  And so forth.

We do not have a clue what this "ground of all being" actually is.  What plans does it have?  Does "it" even have plans?  We don't know.  All we know is that "something" Beyond us touches us in ways that we can experience and that we find reasonable.  Others don't, but that is neither here nor there for us.  So long as we believe that God created the universe, it is reasonable to also believe that God created the Earth, life on Earth, and us.  If God did this through evolution, then there is probably a good reason that "he" did so.  Maybe we are programmed into evolution and what seems random is not actually as random as it seems.  It only seems random because of our ignorance.  Or, maybe God is running this thing as an experiment and programmed into it some general parameters and then stood back to see what would come of the experiment.  We don't know.  How could we?

My point is, all of this speculation is fine so far as it goes, but we should stop taking is so seriously.  A good deal of the debate concerning science and religion is just so much idle speculation.  It is ape chatter, we being the apes.  The best thing we can say for it is, it sells books.

The Fellowship of Presbyterians Meeting In Minneapolis: A Review of the Literature

On August 25-26, 2011, a group of somewhere between 1,900 and 2,000 conservative, evangelical pastors and lay leaders of the Presbyterian Church (USA) met in Minneapolis mostly to talk about the future.  After decades of often acrimonious debate and intense politicking on the issue of the ordination of homosexuals, the anti-gay wing of the church has finally lost the decisive votes in the battle.  The 219th General Assembly, meeting in Minneapolis in July, approved Amendment 10-A to the Form of Government, which amendment dropped the formal requirement that all those ordained to offices of the church must either be married in a traditional marriage or remain celibate.  The point of the old wording was explicitly to exclude homosexuals from ordination.  Subsequently, the required majority of presbyteries also voted in favor of Amendment 10-A, and it has now become part of the Form of Government.  Officially, nothing at all is said about the issue of homosexuality and ordination, and some claim, rather lamely, that "nothing has changed."  Evangelicals, however, feel that "everything has changed."  They now belong to a denomination that allows the ordination of homosexuals to the offices of teaching elder (clergy), elder, and deacon.  While there will still be battles to be fought in some of the presbyteries over this issue, the national battle is over.  No one seems to think otherwise.

The anti-gay faction finds it difficult to live with this loss.  The vocal leaders of the faction feel that the denomination's collective decision is unbiblical, unethical, and violates two thousand years of tradition.  They also feel that this vote is only the tip of the iceberg.  It offers only further proof that there is something fundamentally "wrong" with the PC(USA) that cannot be fixed.  They now realize that it is futile to go on fighting political and legislative battles.  Something new has to happen.

That something new may be the Fellowship of Presbyterians, a self-styled movement initiated by seven tall-steeple pastors who serve large churches mostly in the South and West.  It was the FOP that called for the Minneapolis meeting, which its organizers say was far larger than they had initially expected.  The question in Minneapolis was, what next?  I was not there and what follows is an analysis drawn from a variety of reports, comments, and evaluations by participants and reporters totaling 22 items dating from August 25th through early September, which were generated by the meeting.  The goal of this review is to pick out and comment on some of the major themes in this literature.

One thing rings true throughout the commentary on the Minneapolis meeting, namely that the evangelical wing itself is far from unified.  Some intend to stay in the PC(USA) whatever, some are going to leave whatever, but many are not sure exactly what to do.  Recognizing this diversity, the FOP organizers are proposing four evangelical alternatives.  They suggest that some will want to continue to witness in their presbyteries.  They feel "safe" in their current situation as is.  Some will want to organize separate presbyteries of like-minded evangelicals.  Some will want to form separate structures of ministry within their presbyteries.  Finally, some will opt out entirely.  In all of these cases, the FOP leadership aspires to create FOP to be a "new reformed body" (NRB), which can serve as a new denomination for some and an umbrella group for others.  It is even proposed that some PC(USA) churches might be affiliate members of one body and full members of the other.  It has to be said that the dominant public voice of the Minneapolis consultations was largely not in favor of choice one, that is to go on going on.  The clear preference was a greater or lesser degree of separation from PC(USA).

FOP adherents believe there is something seriously wrong with the denomination.  Many of them feel that it has lost its theological underpinnings and forsaken a consistent orthodox adherence to the Bible.  Frankly, the progressive wing of the church has taken over, and while the FOP leadership doesn't want to engage in name-calling and judgmental rhetoric, it is clear that they believe that the progressives are taking the church in a direction that is not faithful to Christ or scripture.  They blame the liberals for the statistical and spiritual decline of the denomination, referring repeatedly to the continuing loss of membership as a clear sign of failure—and a loss of God's favor.  The FOP wants to be, in contrast, a movement that is evangelical, orthodox, truly Reformed, and morally sound.  Its founders envision the fellowship as a "missional" movement that emphasizes the local church and developing local leadership.  They want to keep it from becoming centralized and bureaucratic, which is how they view PC(USA) today.

So, again, the question in Minneapolis was one of putting flesh on the bare bones of these hopes and dreams.  There was, however, one decision was not left to the folks meeting in August.  The FOP coordinating group had already decided to call what it labels a "constitutional convention" in January in Orlando, Florida.  The group has, it says, laid the legal groundwork for transforming the "empty warehouse" of FOP into a denomination.  The Orlando meeting is also a time when the FOP leaders can prepare overtures for the 2012 General Assembly, which meets in Pittsburgh.  The plan seems to be to create a dual structure for FOP, as a full denomination for some churches and a shadow denomination for others—to allow some evangelical churches to separate from PC(USA) entirely and others to live a separate life within the denomination.

For those of us who identify with the progressive wing of the Presbyterian Church, what do we make of all of this?

To be honest, if feels like more of the same 'ole, same 'ole.  The fundamental issue has always been that evangelicals invest themselves in their doctrines in a way that progressives do not, and there lies a chasm across which we do not seem able to communicate or even reach out to each other.  Each side is sincere (well, mostly) in their understanding of the faith, but as one FOP participant put it, both sides use the same words but they mean different things by them.  Our evangelical brothers and sisters cannot abide the fact that, as a rule, progressives don't believe in an exclusive gospel or that there is a set of essential doctrines upon which our salvation hinges.  Progressives tend to believe in a universal salvation, and evangelicals most certainly do not—as a rule.  As another participant put it, where liberals view homosexual ordination as a matter of liberation, conservatives mostly see it as caving in to the values of the world.  Evangelicals tend toward literal readings of the Bible; progressives do not.  The list of fundamental differences that apparently cannot be reconciled goes on and on.

If the history of the Presbyterian Church since the 1870s is any witness, these basic differences are not going to be reconciled in our generation any more than they have been in previous ones.  If anything, we're getting worse at compromise and reconciliation, not better.  In this regard, it is worth noting the different strategy these two wings of the church use to gain their ends.  Both want a more Christ-like church, according to their understanding of what that means.  Liberals tend to stick with the church, pushing and prodding it to change.  Since they don't believe in a "pure church" or that their salvation depends on a doctrinally correct church, they see no need to leave—unless, of course, they eventually get discouraged and give up on the church entirely.  Especially since the 1960s, evangelical Presbyterians have chosen a different strategy.  They reform the church by leaving it to establish (or join) purer, orthodox, "Bible-based" denominations.  Progressives stay.  Evangelicals leave.  Each side does so, seeking a more Christ-like church.

Now, to be fair, many evangelical Presbyterians have stayed with PC(USA) in hopes of its reformation as a more Christ-like denomination, and evidently many of those who attended the Minneapolis convention intend to stay now.  Some want to continue to witness to the larger denomination.  Some feel secure in their situations and see no need to leave.  But many others want, as stated above, some degree of separation from a denomination that they believe is in spiritual decline because it is becoming more and more liberal.  It is, thus, a waste of time for progressives and moderates to plea for church unity, because a goodly number of our evangelical sisters and brothers believe that there are some things more important than unity.  For them, calls for unity are little more than half-veiled demands to surrender.

All of this being the case, a progressive response could well start with a humble recognition that we have been just as ideological, just as intolerant, and just as insensitive as we think "they" have been.  No one is innocent here.  No one is without blame.  Then, as a denomination, it seems best that we say, "We want you to stay, but we will not build degrees of separation into our constitution."  That is, those who want separation need to find places outside of PC(USA) where they feel they can better serve Christ and go there—for their sakes and ours.  They and we will both be weaker, less able to serve Christ in the ways we believe best, if we try to build into our denominational structures separate but equal spaces (presbyteries, committees) for evangelicals.  Imagine the ongoing turf battles, the possibilities for misunderstanding and working against each other at cross purposes!  It is sad to say this, but given the fundamental and evidently irreconcilable differences between many of us, it is better to recognize that we can't live together peacefully in the same house and in spite of our common faith in Christ and need to separate (as we've been doing for decades anyway).

There is at least one thing, however, that I personally confess that I don't understand.  In the literature and reports coming out of Minneapolis, FOP's leaders repeatedly affirmed the ordination of women and the full and equal participation of women in the life of their churches.  What I don't understand is this: a number of passages in the Bible clearly, unequivocally deny woman that status.  Women are to be silent in the church and when they want to understand something they are to ask their husbands.  Yet, the FOP challenges homosexuality and the ordination of homosexuals because these things are "against the Bible."  So is ordaining women.  And, truth be told, the scriptural warrant against homosexuality is weaker, in spite of all of the claims otherwise.  The case against women is much stronger.  Yet, evangelicals who accept the ordination of women have fought a massive rearguard action against ordaining homosexuals.  It's as if there's something else going on here.

The emphasis in Minneapolis was on change, reform, new directions, and at least one document stated that FOP advocates "a radical change" in the way churches do business in the PC(USA) and/or in the proposed new reformed body.  One of FOP's leaders stated, by way of contrast, that the fellowship's proponents would have felt more at home in the old PCUSA of the 1950s than they do in the PC(USA) of today.  That is an astute observation, one that suggests that the "radical change" FOP proposes is retrograde change, change that would take the churches back in time to what is perceived to be a happier and more faithful time when Presbyterian churches grew almost as a matter of course.  Now, of course, no one in the FOP movement actually thinks that they can go back or that it would be a good thing to do so, but the truth is that FOP wants to create conditions either in or outside of the denomination that virtually deny the long, difficult debate over homosexuality ever took place.  They want to take the church back to the 1870s and erase the whole modernist-traditionalist controversy that has consumed Presbyterians lo these many generations.  The change they seek is radically retrograde, and the simple fact is that the majority of Presbyterian leaders today are not willing to go back.

It is also ironic that the FOP in its quest for change seems to be pursuing the same old tactic Presbyterians have used for decades now—revamp, reorganize, rethink, and reconfigure the structures of the church.  Change the structures.  Set up alternative structures with new titles, new manuals, and new ways of doing things.  So much of the constant restructuring the various Presbyterian denominations have gone through over the decades has been a waste of time and none of it has inspired more effective and faithful local church ministry.  One would think that the best course would be for those churches who are seeking new missional direction to just get on with it instead of going through all of this organization stuff again.  In the same manner, FOP plans to write a new statement of essentials, which will define clearly where it stands.  So, as traditionalists, why not simply go back and reaffirm the Westminster Confession of Faith and get on with being missional churches?

The point is that underneath the entirely sincere calls for significant change one detects virtually no change at all.

And that is sad.  In 2001, the 213th General Assembly established a "Theological Task Force on Peace,Unity,and Purity of the Church" with a mandate to develop and model a process for talking with each other across our theological differences. After five grueling, exciting years the task force of 20 individuals, representing all of the voices of the church, presented a final report, and members of the task force fanned out to presbyteries to sell it. One of them addressed a meeting of Lake Huron Presbytery, Michigan, while I was a member of that presbytery. He said that going into the process he had been a theological conservative and coming out of the process he remained a theological conservative, but with a difference. Over the course of long, intense discussions with progressive and homosexual Presbyterians, he came to understand that they "loved the Lord" just as much as he did.  In particular, he said that he had changed his mind about homosexuality and the ordination of homosexuals.  Behind the labels of "gay" and "homosexual" he discovered real people who professed a real faith.  But, what impressed me the most in his presentation was his sad observation that since his change of heart other conservatives had come to consider him a traitor.  He had sold out to the other side.  He lost friends as a result.

After going on 150 years of bickering and fighting in the Presbyterian Church, the sad thing is that we have learned nothing.  We continue to cripple the gospel with our divisions.  And the truth is that some of those who trumpet their faith the loudest and cling to their doctrinal and moral standards most tightly bear at least as much responsibility as anyone else, if not more, for our failure to learn.  FOP?  NRB? It is just the same 'ole, same 'ole.