It's been ages since our last post here on the blog. The simple explanation is that we can't find the time. Between work  and preparing for the baby, including being kicked by him all day long, we just cannot get ourselves to write anything interesting on here.


Alas, I thought I'd let you know that we have no been washed off into the Pacific - everything is well, the baby is doing alright, as is the mom. Em has a few problems sleeping, because her hips hurt. We have decided that Hollywood never really depicts pregnancy the way it really works. It's always made out to be the glowing happy time for everyone around. Well, that is perhaps true for the dads, but the moms are basically uncomfortable for a good part of nine months. Emily insist that I should take the baby for some time, but then we get into arguments whether that would be healthy for the kid. I am sure I have seen some research somewhere that clearly demonstrated that switching the baby prior to birth from mother to father is unhealthy.


Be that as it may, I am currently writing the "method" chapter to my dissertation, which turns out a wee-bit more complicated than anticipated. of course I could simply write the thing down and be done with it, but the problem is that I am swimming against the common current in the field (theology and science) not only with the thesis of the work, but also with my "method." Hence, I have to be rather careful to explain myself clearly and answer most of the tricky questions I can anticipate from those who don't quite see the need to follow me into the world of Continental philosophy.


Contemporary theology and science is largely an Anglo-American project, and in that context the methodological starting point is epistemological in nature. Ernan McMullin has brought this programmatic focus to the point. In his 1981 landmark essay “How Should Cosmology Relate To Theology?” he writes: “The question of how science and religion should interrelate (…) is primarily an epistemological one about how two different sorts of claims to knowledge are to be related.” Following the Augustinian metaphysical axiom that truth cannot contradict truth, McMullin contends that regardless of the methodological differences consonance between the respective claims made by both disciplines is both possible and necessary. If theological doctrines conflict with scientific theories, the argument goes, either both or one of them must be fundamentally flawed and an adjustment to the interpretation of the pertinent data is warranted. The main aim of the dialogue is, therefore, to find areas of seeming dissonance, establish the exact nature of the incompatibility, and propose a solution that takes the claims from both disciplines seriously.


That seems convincing enough, but I nevertheless wonder if the underlying premise of McMullin’s rule is altogether adequate. Simply stated, the problem is that religion is much more than merely an epistemological attempt at generating knowledge statements. As Willem Drees observes, religion is a way of life rather than a theory about reality. I believe this to be an important point that is only too often undervalued in contemporary religion and science. Of course religion, and in particular theology as the systematic and scientific reflection on faith, advances claims in a language that for all intents and purposes - as Ian Barbour puts it -  “possesses cognitive functions.” But ultimately, a lived religion is an existential commitment that seeks transformation toward a life in ever-closer, increasingly conscious relationship with the divine and in the hope of union with God (visio beatifica) as that life’s supernatural end. From this perspective, then, the purpose of relating religion and science is to deepen one’s devotion through integrating religious understanding and scientific explanation into an interpretation of human existence in the world in relationship with God. The question is whether establishing consonance between theological and scientific cognitive claims can achieve as much. I seriously doubt it, even though I am convinced that it can be play an important role in the process.


I argue instead that the way religion and science helps to create such an interpretation of human being in the world is best viewed through the lens of philosophical hermeneutics. Unlike traditional hermeneutics, which concerned itself exclusively with text interpretation, philosophical hermeneutics has a more universal approach that refers to the interpretation of virtually all human experiences, including those of natural phenomena. Paul Ricoeur describes the central tenet of philosophical hermeneutics as the subordination of epistemology to ontology, where understanding is no longer a simple mode of knowing, but rather “a way of being and of relating to beings and to being.” Understanding, then, is about meaning making and about applying this meaning to one’s being in the world. Knowledge, on the other hand, is understanding as intellectual grasp, where the abstraction of observed events allows to explain phenomena and their relationships to other phenomena. I may be able to explain time in astronomical terms, and also how time keeping can be achieved by means of a wrist watch (including all the mechanical details), but that does not mean that I understand what it means to exist as a finite being in time. That being so, a hermeneutics of religion and science as I want to advance it must aim at new understanding not as a more comprehensive explanation of reality, but as new and in the end transformative meaning of human being in relationship with God.


So far, so good. Needless to say, before I can go ahead any further and dish out to the reader what crazy way I want to take, I have to carefully analyze why it is that I do not think the epistemological approach works. That's what I am working on right now.


The originator of modern philosophical hermeneutics was Hans-Georg Gadamer. Check out this interview with him:

Well, so much for my work. I obviously can't speak for Em, although only so much: One of Em's ideas has been chosen by the powers the be at Intuit to be developed into a product, so she is working on that quite a bit. Man, I am terribly proud of her and simply at awe how cool she pulls stuff like that off! Amazing...


And just in case you haven't seen our little boy, check him out:

So much from me. Apologies again for the long silence and stay tuned, unless of course philosophy, theology and science bores you or you already know what is going on in our lives.


Oli