The opposing views on science and religion - Essay Example

(YOUR (THE The Opposing Views on Science and Religion In the fourth chapter of Martin C. Albl’s book, Reason, Faith, and Tradition-Explorations in Catholic Theology, the principles on the approach for science and faith that I find most relevant are the following: 1. “.science and religion each have their own separate realms of expertise, and thus their own autonomy. "Each should possess its own principles, its pattern of procedures, its diversities of interpretation and its own conclusions.

" The mistake of Galileo's judges was to make a judgement outside of their realm of competence”; and 2. “Theological truth and scientific truth can never contradict one another. If they do seem to contradict, it is because either the scientists. or the theologians. have strayed out of their realm of competence.” (Albl 95) It is with these principles that I find that science and faith, instead of constantly bickering with their respective doctrines, should work separately and independently, thus creating concepts of choices for mankind’s preferred beliefs.

The mentioned principles are actually interrelated with one another. The first one implies that science and religion have their own precepts that, if tampered upon by the other, inevitable clashes would be produced because of their contradicting points of view about the natural world. The second principle further solidifies the pretext set by the first. It implies that contradiction should never be created out of the two independent fields and if such event happens, a deliberate breach in their respective intellectual precepts and faculties would occur.

I find both principles relevant because they set the boundaries for the imminent conflict between the scientific and the religious sectors. Conflict will only be produced if and only if one side tries to penetrate the border of the other thus, undermining his or her intellectual faculties. Studying the set of principles presented by the respective fields, it can be said that the rational domain of science destroys the sacramental beliefs of the religious world. In a sense, logic and the use of physical sciences overrule the sacred doctrines about God’s creation and existence.

The principles that I have chosen are important because they try to point out that science and religion will never get along unless one concedes to the other. It establishes the fact that respect for each other’s beliefs and doctrines should be propagated in order to avoid conflict. The significance of the principles above had been given justice through the author’s example about Galileo’s case where the clash of science and religion had resulted into a huge and long debate - a debate of which Pope John Paul II had settled through a commission in 1979 where findings in the investigation of Galileo’s affair had created the fact that, indeed, respect for both field’s doctrines and teachings should begin to exist (Albl 79).

The discourse about science and faith is also discussed in the first chapter of Robert Imperato’s book, Christian Footings. The said chapter deals with Teilhard de Chardin proposal on the creation theory as opposed to the Non-overlapping Magisteria (NOMA) of Stephen Jay Gould (Imperato 5-19). Gould argues that NOMA presents independent domains between science and religion. According to him, science is independently concerned with the empirical realm of explaining the ways of the natural world while religion is exclusively concerned with the understanding of the meaning of life and moral values.

With such distinctions, science should never dwell on the matters of life and morality and religion should never attempt to claim the reason of explaining the natural world (Morelli). Dominating comments on the concept of NOMA shows that Gould is too simplistic in his arguments which created a division between science and religion (Paulson). Some argue that science and faith always cross each other’s line in order to create a common ground, as what Teilhard de Chardin proposes. Teilhard suggests that there is equilibrium between both fields; that the scientific evolution from inanimate objects up to the creation of man is subtly intervened by the doctrines of faith.

Teilhard explains that mankind is not the endpoint of evolution, but the unity thereof in a single Divine Christ-consciousness is the ultimate point, the “Omega Point” (Imperato 5-19). Indeed, Teilhard would not be a good example of the concept NOMA because Teilhard’s teachings about the common ground between science and religion are completely opposed to the doctrines of Gould’s principle. The “Omega Point” and NOMA contradict one another. The relations of both concepts are on the opposite poles of the spectrum.

Teilhard would be a negative example of NOMA because his core belief in the common ground between science and religion destroys the doctrines of the non-overlapping aspects mentioned in NOMA. Teilhard’s “Omega Point” and Gould’s NOMA are simply opposite notions of the discourse between science and faith. Works Cited Albl, Martin C. Reason, Faith, and Tradition-Explorations in Catholic Theology. New Hampshire: Anselm Academic Press, 2009. Print. Imperato, Robert. Christian Footings. Maryland: University Press of America, 2009. Print. Morelli, Fr. George. “The Laws Of Nature Are Also The Laws Of God - Evolution: A Psychospiritual Reflection”.

Orthodoxy Today.org. Web. 27 March 2011. Paulson, Steve. “The Atheist Delusion”. Salon.com., 18 December 2007. Web. 27 March 2011.