Prospects for the Field of Science and Religion: An Octopus View

Abstract

The organic unity between the head and the vital arms of the octopus is proposed as a metaphor for science and religion as an academic field. While the specific object of the field is to pursue second‐order reflections on existing and possible relations between sciences and religions, it is argued that several aspects of realism and normativity are constitutive to the field. The vital arms of the field are related to engagements with distinctive scientific theories, specialized philosophy of science, representative theological proposals, and the input from the study of world religions.

The “Relation” Between Science and Religion in the Pluralistic Landscape of Today's World

“…Taking science and religion as a disciplinary field, Niels H. Gregersen suggests that its object of research is the relations between science and religion in historical and contemporary contexts . (Gregersen , 420). While this may sound like common sense and not difficult to accept as a starting point for further inquiry, his next assertion goes beyond Peterson's emphasis on the cognitive dimensions and may circumvent the complexities of the relations and, as such, radically shrink the possibilities for exploring them.…”

“…While this may sound like common sense and not difficult to accept as a starting point for further inquiry, his next assertion goes beyond Peterson's emphasis on the cognitive dimensions and may circumvent the complexities of the relations and, as such, radically shrink the possibilities for exploring them. “It seems to me that the programs within science and religion need to be committed to some form of metaphysical realism, that is that the world exists regardless of the observer, and consists of a variety of mind‐independent entities or objective relations (including also the observer's interpretations)” (Gregersen , 423).…”

“…This seems to be too quickly reducing both enterprises to their cognitive contents or beliefs: science to scientific theories and religion to theological views. Gregersen may acknowledge other, noncognitive dimensions of science, such as practices (of the practitioners or communities of practitioners in both fields), but those seem to lie at the very margin, and study of them is simply one of the arms of the science‐and‐religion octopus (and Gregersen is actually not sure what such studies would contribute to the discourse) (Gregersen , 427–28). I will later provide an illustration about the importance of looking at such practices in the relation between (practitioners of) science and religion; in certain contexts, it may be even more important and consequential to focus on the practices than the cognitive truths taken here as normative goals.…”

Scholars, Amateurs, and Artists as Partners for the Future of Religion and Science

“…These emphases occur in part because theologians and philosophers are overrepresented among people who characterize the field. As Karl Peters and Niels Gregersen acknowledge, the field looks different depending on where one comes from; scholars often focus their description of the field on their own subject of study (Gregersen , 425; Peters , 44). Thus, it should not be surprising that philosophical and theological analyses are consistently registered as dominant or privileged in the field and that predictions for the field's future often pay less attention to the social sciences and religious studies perspectives than theology and philosophy.…”

“…For example, in Neils Henrik Gregersen's article “Prospects for the Field of Science and Religion: An Octopus View,” he devotes three paragraphs to the theological and religious studies branches of the field, three to the scientific, two to the philosophical, and one very general paragraph to all of the cultural and social scientific perspectives (Gregersen ). Notably, his reflections on theology and religious studies are dominated by ideas of the various religions rather than their rituals, material culture, history, linguistics, or religious experiences.…”