Guiding Question: What questions remain unaddressed by science?
With the advent of modern science, there seems to
have been as well a resurrection of the debate concerning faith, and what
we exactly mean by "faith." If faith still means "trust," then is what
we trust that which we have faith in? The problem arises of whether we
truly trust science, technology, or even the social sciences, as the balm
for all the existential questions that haunt the human soul? It seems that
along with our quest for knowledge through reason there is as well a deep
seated longing for meaning in human experience and a desire for a deeper
sense of belonging to the integrity of life itself. The empirical sciences
have revealed for us patterns of evolution, biochemistry, and geology that
upon their first introduction inspired great debate within the religious
and scientific communities, although they did not seem to be such controversial
issues to those, like Darwin or Galileo, who bequeathed these new observations
and insights to the human community. Many, if not the majority, of the
influential men of science were as well men of faith, and of course this
has held true into contemporary times as popularly noted in Einstein’s
famous statement that he "wanted to read the mind of God." In this sense
Einstein’s desire is not different from that of Augustine through Descartes
and Nicholas of Cusa, nor from Aristotle’s directive that the capacity
for reason lead directly to the capacity for wonder. Faith can inspire
reason, even if reason alone cannot resolve the problems of our most basic
existential doubts, and the popular controversies between some of the findings
of science and those of orthodoxy in religion may be far more debates over
interpretation of findings than they are of metaphysical wonder. Indeed,
many of the pioneers of contemporary physics have found in their analyses
parallel structures in Hinduism, Buddhism and other Oriental religions,
as well as ontological parallels in Islam and Judeo-Christianity. These
parallels, however, are based on interpretation rather than the limited
conclusions that can be formed on the bases of reason alone, for the crisis
between faith and reason is not as much one pertaining to their findings,
but rather to what these findings might mean. Indeed since the time of
Descartes, Locke and Hume, issues over reason have been concerned more
with method than meaning, and the controversies over the meaning of what
we know has lead many directly into domains of metaphysical contemplation.
The debate over meaning is one of the implications of our
findings? To what degree are we morally responsible agents within an
increasingly complex universe? And how are we to act and conclude upon
our knowledge in a rational way that inspires our faith in ourselves as
well as establishes our integrity in our relationship to the cosmos? The
dialogue between faith and reason has become one partially between doubt
and trust, as well as the search for meaning in human experience. Without
faith, we may always be plagued with doubts about the perilous roads down
which reason alone may lead us. It may be that in the future, rather than
faith and reason being cast as antagonists in this drama, they turn out
to be each other’s greatest allies. We find these working in harmony to
aide Sir Bors when he makes difficult decisions. Bors is not in any
way a Messiah who is confidently moving along a predetermined path.
Like ours, Bors' successes are dependent the wisdom of his own decisions
based on a combination of his convictions (faith), reasoning and a sincere
(and ethical) concern for others. These qualities seem to combine to give
Bors the wisdom to make the decisions which make him successful despite
his "spotted" past.
Required Reading: "Week 8" in the Study Guide; The Quest of the Holy Grail, pp. 175-207. Bertrand Russell: Why I am not a Christian; Stephen Hawking: the final chapter of A Brief History of Time; Albert Einstein: Ideas and Opinions.
Homework:
Make a list of questions you consider unaddressed by science.
Post these in this week's conference. The class will choose four
of the questions accumulated and four new conferences will be constructed
to discuss each of the four.
(Note: Sections of the Study Guide for Week 8 are paraphrases or excerpts from a manuscript by Laurence L. Murphy and Dominick A. Iorio, both of whom are amongst the Authors of the general MAPS Curriculum.)