Shall the confrontation and divergence of science and religion conserve in the close or far future?

1. The post-secular convergence of
science and religion
A philosophical prognosis

2. Vasil Penchev
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences:
Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge:
Dept. of Logical Systems and Models
vasildinev@gmail.com
“Religion in a Secular Society. Challenges and Perspectives”
International conference
June 19-20, 2017
“Ovidius” University of Constanta (Romania)

3. Prehistory and background

4. Religion vs. science: history
• The outbreak of science in the modern age in West
Europe was accompanied by the most violent
confrontation of religion (first of all, catholic Christianity
in Europe) and science
oThe latter wanted emancipation and freedom
• Two significant events, both stake of Giordano Bruno
and forced renunciation of Galileo, symbolize that fight
and liberation

5. Science vs. religion: principles
• Furthermore, almost all principles of science and religion
contradict to each other:
o For example:
• Causality versus supernatural miracles
o Doubt, skepticism and criticism versus belief
• Experience and experiments versus authority and mana
o Many scientific tractata versus one Bible
• Tradition versus development
o Etc. and etc.

6. Science vs religion: the picture of the world
• Each of them built an own picture of the world,
absolutely inconsistent to the other
o The methods or approaches of the one refuted the
contribution of the other fundamentally
• Nonetheless, both managed to dominate society and
people, the separated human beings

7. My motivation

8. About me …
• Anyway, I am a scientist rather than a theologian and my
viewpoint will be from the science
o However, I hope a dialog with theologians
• I do not belong to that large group of scientists tended to
reject religion initially and fundamentally as wrong, false,
misleading, and primitive
o Nevertheless, I self-determine myself as an atheist

9. Science and religion
• I think both science and religion are two great achievements
of humankind, though
o They might join and unify their efforts and approaches in a
whole much bigger than the sum separately
• To take place that, they should overcome the age-old
hostility and mutual misunderstanding
o I intend my presentation as a quite, quite modest and
humble gesture in that direction

10. The position of philosophy in
that conflict

11. The intermediate position of philosophy
• Philosophy maintained, supported, and kept a more or less neutral
position
o A few parts of it were closer to religion (e.g. the so-called
continental philosophy nowadays), others to science (e.g. analytical
one)
• In thus, it was that “neutral state”, where “peaceful talks” could
have taken place anyway
o Philosophy is strongly interested in that peace treaty and future
cooperation for its role and importance would increase sharply as
the field of dialog, mutual understanding, translation, and
reinterpretation for science and religion

12. Problem

13. Problem
Shall the confrontation and divergence of
science and religion conserve in the close or
far future?

14. Theses

15. Theses: 1 Science and religion
• The real emancipation and liberation of science nowadays tends to
the dialog of science and religion
o Both contain elements and doctrines (theories in science) allowing
of reconciliation and joint efforts for a common and much more
generalized viewpoint to the world
• Those propensities activate and develop the corresponding
doctrines and theories and deactivate the rest, especially in religion
o So, whether religion or science influences or even conditions the
change of the other
• Ecumenism and the unification of religions can be extended even to
scientific atheism

16. Theses: 2 Post-secularization
• Post-secularization can be defined as the historic period in
which the secular views are emancipated and liberated
absolutely.
o They are equal to any religious ones, without claiming any
superiority or monopole of truth
• Particularly, science and religion, both being able to be
considered as post-secular as far as both belong to that
historic period, tend to converge

17. Prognosis on that convergence from
the viewpoint of philosophy

18. About a “peace treaty” of science and religion
• The option of “peace treaty” of science and religion seems
possible at last, in the global and more and more globalizing
world obeying informational technologies and thus
information
o Information, being a scientific concept, can be reinterpreted
as the “spirit” or as a fundamental spiritual element
underlying the material world studied by science

19. About a “separate peace treaty” within
philosophy
• Philosophy can assist that process in many ways, one of
them would be a small or “separate peace treaty” of the
continental and analytic philosophy
o It would increase its role of mediator for the
confrontation of science and religion to be overcome in
the close or far future

20. An example: the instructions of Feynman’s
pathways interpretation of quantum
mechanics for philosophy

21. Feynman’s interpretation of quantum
mechanics
• Quantum mechanics was forced to resolve the problem of
how to describe uniformly both discrete and continuous
motion. Its mathematical formalism is the separable complex
Hilbert space
o Feynman suggested an equivalent interpretation
generalizing the discrete motion as if in all possible
trajectories, each of which with different probability

22. Hodology
• Hodology is the defined as the research of pathways in
a broad, abstract and generalized sense
o For example, it may include counterfactual analysis, e.g. in
history or comparative analysis of different approaches to
a shared aim
• One may generalize Feynman’s interpretation
“hodologically” as a formalized methodology for hodology
o After that, the equivalence of the jump-like insight inherent
for religious cognition and the continuous and causal
method of science can be seen in turn as similar to
Feynman’s approach generalized hodologically now

23. Religious cognition by means of scientific
cognition
• Then, the cognition by religious experience can be both
justified by, and decomposed into a fan distribution of
alternative scientific theories or disciplines
inconsistent, irrelevant or contradictory to each other
o Each of them would represent the religious cognition
only probably, in a single “hodos”, pathway, but
achievable by a reliable and causal method repeatable
by many others

24. Religion cognition and practices
• On the contrary, religious cognition is fundamentally
random.
o It cannot be linked to any definite method and even to any
certain religion
• The origin of different religions or religious practices should
be searched for in different traditions and societies
representing in turn different religious pathways rather than
in the essence of religious cognition by itself

25. A philosophical idea about theology
as a rigorous science
• One may generalize Husserl’s idea about “philosophy as a
rigorous science” on his “phenomenon” identifying form and
content, to religious cognition defined consistently and linked
to science
o In fact, philosophy would coincide with theology after form
and content are identified to each other
• “Philosophy as a rigorous science” is theology in essence
o Spiritual reality researched by theology is therefore that realm
which may be defined philosophically by the identification of
form and content, or as Husserl’s “phenomenology”

26. Conclusions

27. Conclusions:
• Post-secularization: science and religion are equal
o Convergence of science and religion: they might share aims
and approaches as well as assist each other
• Philosophy as a mediator: it may facilitate the mutual
understanding and interpretation of science and religion
o Generalizing Husserl’s idea about philosophy to “theology as
a rigorous science”
• Extending the unification of religions to science: it can
include even scientific atheism

28. Vă mulțumesc pentru atenție!
Salut întrebările!