Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2000 13:16:08 +1000
From: Brad Shipway <bshipway-AT-scu.edu.au>
Subject: BHA: Explanatory power and faith?


Hello Tobin, and Doug (in his absence)
I have been alternatively chuckling and head scratching over the last week
or so listening to all that has gone on. Certainly better than any video
game. The playstation lays silent…

This idea of faith and religious belief and whether it is the same "type"
of knowledge as the scientific kind has got me wondering…

>From Tobin:
>Agreed.  And as you allude later, the meaning of "faith" is various and
>complex.  I think the sort of faith that Archer discusses -- the acceptance
>of a contradiction as one of God's mysteries -- is quite distinct from the
>sort of faith you consider here.

In ThCR (the longer I look at both strands, the disparity in explanatory
detail between the two seems to make it a "stretch" to endow Th with the
CR), the "principle of complementarity" is invoked, which seems to have
originated with Niels Bohr. I think the idea is basically one of "a+b to
explain x; where a+b are mutually exclusive". The example used is that of
the wave/particle theory of light. Both explaining concepts conflict with
one another (i.e. particles don't act like waves), but to take away one of
the conflicting concepts would impoverish our understanding of the concept
being explained (x). So, in order to have the best understanding we can of
the nature of light at this point in time, we have to "live with" this
tension in the explanation of it. 

Some theologians look at religious faith as an example of the principle of
complementarity, e.g. in western Christianity, we are expected to believe
that Jesus is fully man, but also fully God. But these two concepts are
contradictory. However, to remove one would diminish the understanding of
the overarching (western) concept of "god".

Using this principle of complimentarity, could we not then take Tobin's
statement "the acceptance of a contradiction as one of God's mysteries"  -
and substitute "science's" for "God's" as well? Do we do the same thing in
science?

The question of "why bad things happen to good people?" was raised, which
as I understand it is an operationalisation of the contradiction of the
mercy and justice of God, which could again be seen as a case of
complimentarity. It seems that the tradeoffs we make in science, living
with theories that have conflicting subsets to gain a greater understanding
of the whole are the same ones theists make in determining their faith. 
This is why I agree with Doug when he says:

>So science and
>judgmental rationality can be applied to God. It does not follow from the
>inconclusiveness of the evidence that there is no evidence to be
>considered.
>
>So my point was only this:  To the extent that theists (and atheists)
>attend to such evidence -- both for and against, they are applying
>judgmental rationality to God and, hence, being scientifically critical
>about their beliefs.

Is there a place where I can get a Bhaskarian take on something like the
principle of complimentarity? 

Cheers,
Brad.

Brad Shipway 
Southern Cross University
Lismore, NSW, 2480
Australia




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