Pericope of the Week: Barbour's Issues in Science and Religion

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Ian G. Barbour's ground-breaking Issues in Science and Religion (Harper and Row). When I first read it in college in the early 1980s, it was a Godsend, since it opened for me a new way of positively relating commonly-held conclusions in the natural sciences to my own developing theological understanding of the Christian faith. Since then I have regularly made use of it in courses I teach on theology and the sciences. Not only does the book present a clear and systematic overview of the development of scientific knowledge and the philosophy of science (through the early 1960s), it provides penetrating analysis of various theological and philosophical positions one could hold in relation to those scientific developments. Barbour's own defense of what he called "critical realism" has continued to shape my own approach toward relating the sciences and theology.

For Barbour, who earned both a Ph.D. in physics (U. of Chicago) and a B.Div. in theology (Yale), scientific theories do not provide a photographic representation of the world ("classical realism"), nor are they merely calculative devices ("instrumentalism") or purely mental representations of reality ("idealism"). Instead, they provide partial, abstract but referential knowledge of aspects of the world, knowledge which is always subject to revision. Moreover, scientific theories involve human creativity and imagination (not just "facts," detached objectivity, and "pure reasoning"), and they are expressed through the use of metaphors (open-ended analogies) and models (systematically-developed metaphors). In these ways and others, science is similar to theology.

Ian Barbour (1923-2013)

Barbour also emphasized the hermeneutical and social-historical character of the actual "doing" of science. Data is always "theory-laden" and guided by (often unquestioned) metaphysical presuppositions about "nature." Scientific rationality is never purely "objective" but always "inter-subjective," temporal, historical, social, and communal.  Nevertheless, according to Barbour's version of "critical realism," the key criterion for a valid scientific theory is its agreement with actual data from nature. In other words, "truth is out there," in need of discovery, analysis, and explanation. While the internal coherence of a scientific theory is also important, a valid theory must correspond to reality, and it must prove itself useful in leading to new knowledge, e.g., more exact explanations of physical data.

According to Barbour:

Critical realism acknowledges the indirectness of reference and the realistic intent of language as used in the scientific community. It can point to both the extraordinary abstract character of theoretical physics and the necessity of experimental observation which distinguishes it from pure mathematics. It recognizes that no theory is an exact description of the world, and that the world is such as to bear interpretation in some ways and not in others. It affirms the role of mental construction and imaginative activity in the formation of theories, and it asserts that some constructs agree with observations better than others only because events have an objective pattern. (172) 

Theology, too, should operate from within the perspective of "critical realism." Theologians also need to recognize the limits of human knowing and the challenges in interpreting that which they study, e.g., biblical texts, human experience, religious traditions and practices, etc. Important here is recognizing the hermeneutical, historical, and sociological nature of theological understanding--and the important role that myths, analogies, metaphors, and models play in theological understanding of the world. Here, too, theology is similar to methods in the sciences. Both sets of disciplines organize their experiences and observations through these linguistic devices.

To be sure, Barbour also acknowledged important differences between the sciences and theology. For example, the latter speaks about claims to divine revelation, is more explicitly "self-involved" and existentially-committed, and is more attuned to non-cognitive goals, such as the fostering of religious faith, worship, obedience, service to others, etc. But despite these important differences, the contrasts between theology and the sciences are not as absolute as many think, both fifty years ago and still today.

We have argued that science, on the one hand, is a more human enterprise than is usually assumed, and that there is a "spectrum" of degrees and types of personal involvement in various fields of inquiry. Religion, for its part, presupposes cognitive assertions which are subject to critical evaluation. Such evaluation does not yield conclusions with the reliability of scientific results, to be sure, but we have argued that some of the same criteria are applicable; one's beliefs must be as coherent, comprehensive, and adequate to experience as alternative world-views. Reason is fulfilled, not abrogated, by revelation; reflective inquiry can coexist with religious commitment. Furthermore, we have defended the legitimacy of the wider search for coherence and synthesis which leads to a concern for metaphysics; the compartmentalization of thought thwarts the quest for unity. The critical realist cannot remain content with a plurality of unrelated languages; but at the same time he will recognize the limitations of all human concepts and the dangers of grandiose claims on behalf of any neat metaphysical system. The theologian, in turn, should be unwilling to settle for a solution that makes the gospel immune from attack at the cost of isolating it from contemporary intellectual life, or of destroying bridges of communication between theology and "secular culture." (268-269)

Murphy's Review of "In Christ All Things Hold Together"

Just about a year ago, right around the time that Pr. Terry Forke, an LCMS pastor and district president in Montana, was preparing to file a formal charge against me for "teaching false doctrine" with respect to "six-day creationism" and evolution (cf. esp. "The Scandal of the LCMS Mind" here; and "Talking Points about Doctrinal Authority in the LCMS" here), the Synod's Commission on Theology and Church Relations (CTCR) published its own study of "the intersection of science and Christian theology." I had planned to review this 139-page document last summer, but my expulsion from the clergy roster of the Synod in July interfered with that plan. After I had returned from Germany that month, I really wasn't in the mood to devote any time to such a problematic study of theology and science.

I may still post such a review of it in the near future, but for now I'd like to draw attention to a fine online essay that analyzes it superbly. The essay's author is the Rev. Dr. George L. Murphy, who grew up in an LCMS congregation. In the late 1960s he joined a Slovak congregation, when the Slovak Church was in fellowship with the LCMS (but a few years before it became the non-geographical "Slovak District" in the latter). During several years when he lived "down under," he was a member of the Lutheran Church in Australia. After returning to the US to begin teaching at Luther College, he and his family joined the American Lutheran Church, which later was a key player in the formation of the ELCA. So he has been a member of five different Lutheran church bodies over the course of a few decades--something of a record, I would think!

Dr. George L. Murphy

Dr. Murphy received his Ph.D. in physics from John Hopkins University in 1972. His focus was on Einstein's theory of general relativity. After teaching and conducting research in physics for an apostolic number of years, he matriculated to Wartburg Seminary, where he received his theological education. Ordained in 1983, he has served Lutheran and Episcopal congregations. He has also written numerous articles and books on the interface between science and Christian theology (from a distinctly Lutheran perspective). Since getting to know him (mainly through his wonderful books on science and theology, but also through regular email communication with him), I like to think of him as our North-American version of John Polkinghorne (who earned his Ph.D. in mathematical physics before becoming an ordained Anglican clergyman). George's books and writings on "science and theology" continue to be important resources for me and the students who take my summer-semester course on the Christian doctrine of creation (a course that leads us to engage Christian-Lutheran theological understandings in relation to mainstream scientific theories about nature and other issues in the natural sciences). For more details about Dr. Murphy, go here and here.

What about his review of the CTCR's report, In Christ All Things Hold Together: The Intersection of Science and Christian Theology (St. Louis: CTCR, February 2015)?

After a brief introduction, Dr. Murphy highlights its few positive features:
(1) The report addresses an important topic, one that many churches tend to avoid;

(2) The report's criticisms of "scientism" and philosophical naturalism are generally "on target";

(3) The report is right to note how Christian theology (and specifically the Lutheran teaching about "vocation") can support scientific work.

These features aside, Dr. Murphy finds a lot more negative ones than positive:

(1) The report sets forth a problematic understanding of "natural theology"; (Here I actually disagree with Murphy's Barthian-tinged criticism, since I think there needs to be proper attention to questions about human experience that arise in what has traditionally been called "natural theology" before one can turn properly to address God's clearer response to that situation in Christ (the gospel!), i.e., to our human condition, to life under the divine law, to the deus absconditus--cf. my book, Fundamental Theology, pp. 129ff.)

(2) The report affirms a flawed understanding of "intelligent design"; (This is not surprising, since the report's principal author is Angus J. L. Menuge, a professor of philosophy at Concordia University, Wisconsin, and a proponent of ID theory. You can learn more about him here.)

(3) The report does not understand how scientists actually conduct their work according to standard principles of methodological naturalism;

(4) The report fails to draw upon any of the leading Christian theologians who are engaged in discussions about "science and theology." (I mention several of these, including George, in my chapter on "Christian Theology and the Sciences," Fundamental Theology, 433ff.) I would add that as far as I know, the leading scientists in the Concordia University System were not consulted in the process of writing this CTCR document. I know of several practicing scientists at Concordia, Portland, and elsewhere in the CUS who take issue with many statements in the report that belie a wrong understanding of how science is actually done.

(5) The report does not seriously engage the leading, mainstream scientific theories that it opposes (e.g., neo-Darwinian evolution; theistic evolution);

(6) The report supports six-day creationism, which is quite different from today's mainstream scientific understanding of a 13.7-billion-yr-old universe, a 4.5-billion-yr-old earth, a very long process of evolution in the very, very long natural history of the planet, etc. "How are scientists – and indeed any interested people – in the Missouri Synod supposed to deal with the massive array of data, connected by well tested theories, that astrophysicists, geologists, geophysicists, paleontologists, evolutionary biologists, geneticists and workers in other areas present in support of the current scientific picture of the world? No help is given with that." To me, this is the fatal flaw of the document.

Dr. Murphy ends his review by identifying the core problem with the CTCR report, namely, its misguided understanding of the nature of biblical interpretation, an issue to which I have also drawn attention and which contributed, at least in part, to my being given the LCMS boot.

Neither of the two (!) creation accounts should be read as "straight historical narrative." That way of reading them does violence to their genres. Murphy: "And why not consider what we know with some certainty about the physical world and its processes" in deciding what "the plain meaning" of a biblical text is? "Pascal had some worthwhile comments about that in the Eighteenth Provincial Letter." Neither creation story should be read as "scientific accounts but as different types of texts that compliment such accounts."

Bottom line: "Perhaps instead we should pursue a parallel Luther drew between the Word of God made flesh — a male Jewish human in a particular cultural setting — and the Word of God written by humans in a culture with a certain level of understanding of the world. In inspiring the writers of the Genesis accounts, God apparently did not feel it necessary to correct what we now know to be an erroneous picture of the world."

The entire review by Dr. Murphy can be read here. It nicely complements the review essay that my friend, Dr. Robert Sylwester, emeritus professor of education at the University of Oregon, wrote last year. You can read Bob's critical analysis here.

I hope both essays receive wide and attentive readings in LCMS circles--and beyond.

Theological Echoes and Tensions in Bonhoeffer's Discipleship

According to some scholars, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount, which forms the larger first part of Discipleship, marks a break with the interpretation of it by most previous German Lutheran theologians.  For example, in the context of Martin Doblmeier’s film, Bonhoeffer, John De Gruchy states that German Lutherans have traditionally interpreted the Sermon on the Mount as an impossible ideal, whose sole purpose is to make people aware of their sinful condition, and that Bonhoeffer’s interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount presented a novel departure from this understanding. A similar assessment is offered by Friedrich Schlingensiepen, who states that Bonhoeffer interpreted the Sermon on the Mount in a way that was “contrary to the usual Lutheran interpretation.”  For Bonhoeffer, “the Sermon on the Mount was intended not only to lead human beings to the conviction that they are sinners who can be saved only through faith in the grace of God; even more, Jesus required consistent obedience from his followers. Anyone who claimed otherwise was preaching ‘cheap grace.’”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Bonhoeffer's closest friend and principal biographer, Eberhard Bethge, also concluded that Bonhoeffer had held “the conventional Lutheran harmless understanding” of the Sermon on the Mount at least through 1929.  At that time, Bonhoeffer accepted the notion that a literal interpretation of the Sermon “would turn it into a law, and that law had been abolished through Christ.”

By the early 1930s, however, according to Bethge, “Bonhoeffer was entering new ground and an altered intellectual climate in his emphasis on the concreteness of faith in his interpretation of earthly discipleship, and his location of the disciple within the boundaries of historical and local decisions, fraught as they were with visible inconsistencies.” This “emphasis,” Bethge stated, was “in contrast to the Reformation era.” That conclusion seems already to have been made by Bonhoeffer himself when he remarked to his former teacher, Reinhold Niebuhr (in a 1934 letter from London), that the Sermon on the Mount “must be understood differently from the Reformational understanding.”  Gerhard Krause interpreted this remark to mean that Bonhoeffer himself “directed” Discipleship “against the students of Luther.”  In other words (to cite Bethge again), Bonhoeffer directed the book against his own earlier “conventional harmless Lutheran” understanding of the Sermon.

While Bonhoeffer’s treatment of the Sermon on the Mount in Discipleship differs in tone and content from previous interpretations by Lutheran scholars, to claim that it marks a departure from “the usual Lutheran interpretation” can also be misleading, since it seems to ignore Bonhoeffer’s continuity with exegetical decisions taken by Martin Luther himself. Even after 1932, the year Bonhoeffer claimed to have become a Christian (which also entailed his adoption of a form of Christian pacifism), he seems to have underestimated the degree to which he still shared basic exegetical and theological insights of Luther on the Sermon on the Mount. Accordingly, Bonhoeffer’s interpretation of the Sermon was not really "new for Protestant churches," as Schlingensiepen claims and as Bonhoeffer’s own remark to Niebuhr suggests.  Instead, Bonhoeffer uncovered issues and concerns in the biblical texts that German Lutheran theologians had been ignoring, repressing, forgetting, and distorting—insights that nonetheless are present in Luther’s own exegesis and that of a few other important Lutheran scholars from the century before Bonhoeffer, especially August Tholuck, whose commentary on the Sermon on the Mount was one of Bonhoeffer’s principal resources.

For further analysis of continuities and discontinuities between Bonhoeffer's Discipleship and Luther's sermons on the Sermon (and Tholuck's commentary on it), click this link.

A Hammarskjöld Pericope for Christmas Eve

In Thy wind--in Thy light--

How insignificant is everything else, how small are we--and how happy in that which alone is great.

12.24.57

Nineteenth-Century Lutheran Theologians

This past week I learned that a new book I've edited has been published: Nineteenth-Century Lutheran Theologians, Refo500 Academic Series 31 (Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016).

To give you some idea of the scope of its contents, here is a list of the theologians treated in the book (and the authors who wrote about them):


Friedrich Schleiermacher (Christine Helmer; Northwestern University)

Georg Hegel (Mark Mattes; Grand View University, Des Moines)

F. C. Baur (Mark Seifried; Concordia Seminary, St. Louis)

J. T. Beck (Roy Harrisville Sr.; Luther Seminary, St. Paul [emeritus])

Adolf von Harless (Lutz Mohaupt; University of Hamburg [emeritus])


Nikolai F. S. Grundtvig (Anders Holm; University of Copenhagen)

W. Loehe (David Ratke; Lenoir-Rhyne University)

J. C. K. von Hofmann (yours truly)

Gottfried Thomasius (Hans Schwarz; University of Regensburg [emeritus])

C. F. W. Walther  (Christoph Barnbrock; Theological Hochschule Oberuersel)

S. Kierkegaard (Carl Hughes; Texas Lutheran University)

Theodosius Harnack (Christoffer Grundmann, Valparaiso University)

Albrecht Ritschl (Darrell Jodock; Gustavus Adolphus [emeritus])

C. P. Krauth (Mark Oldenburg; Gettysburg Seminary)

Martin Kaehler (Carl Braaten; Lutheran School of Theology, Chicago [emeritus])

Nathan Soederblom (Dietz Lange; University of Goettingen)


Here is an excerpt from the introduction:

This is a book about Lutheran theology in the “long nineteenth century,” that period between the political revolutions of the late eighteenth century and the end of the First World War. With respect to the history of Protestant theology, this era began with the publication of Schleiermacher’s Speeches (1799), written in the wake of Kant’s critical philosophy, and it ended with the rise of Dialectical Theology, which was inaugurated by Karl Barth’s commentary on Romans (1919) and directed against the liberal Protestant tradition begun by Kant, Schleiermacher, and Hegel. The end of nineteenth-century Protestant theology could also be tied to the beginnings of the modern Ecumenical Movement, which gained momentum in the aftermath of “the Great War,” largely through the efforts of Nathan Söderblom (1866–1931), who is the focus of book’s final chapter.

The book thus provides an introduction to fifteen Lutherans and one Reformed theologian who were active in this period. The one Reformed figure, Schleiermacher, has been so influential upon the development of Protestant theology, including its Lutheran stream, that his life and work are the focus of the initial chapter. Following the format of the essays in the companion volume on twentieth-century figures, each essay here covers the life, teachings, and abiding legacy of a given thinker. The goal of the authors has not been merely to identify how a specific individual was important in his own time and place, but to indicate why aspects of that person’s thinking might have a continuing significance for contemporary theological reflection. Hopefully readers of the book will gain deeper insight into our current theological milieu through an examination of these key figures who were active in the immediate wake of the Enlightenment and at a time when many Europeans were beginning to move beyond Christianity in search of other alternatives.

The project as a whole was initiated by the journal Lutheran Quarterly and carried forward through conversations with Jörg Persch of Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, “in order to determine how our recent past can help us shape our bearings in a new century.” Earlier versions of six of the essays (Schleiermacher, Hegel, Thomasius, Hofmann, Kähler, and Söderblom) were originally published
in Lutheran Quarterly. In addition to Schleiermacher—who, along with Kant and Hegel, has to be included among those who have had the greatest influence upon the development of modern intellectual history—the thinkers who are examined here are ones who saw themselves as working within the Lutheran-Protestant tradition of theology. Nevertheless, the reader will quickly notice the remarkable differences among these individuals in how they understood Christian doctrine and applied it to their world.

Twelve of the theologians presented here were Germans (one of whom became a U.S. citizen), two were Danish, one was Swedish, and one was American. Given the path-breaking significance of German theology in this century, one should not be surprised by the large number of chapters devoted to this tradition. No other English text provides as in-depth an examination of these key figures and
the implications of their theology for contemporary discussion. These are theologians who deserve to be better understood than they typically are, especially among English-speaking scholars. Each of the essays attempts to present its object in a new light and to show how that person not only gave shape to Lutheran theology at that time but also furthered the course of Christian thought itself.

For more information on the book, click on this link here.