Religion and Science: Deconstructing a Modern Paradigm

by Rodney W. Tussing

Overview

This book explores some of the philosophical (epistemological) and theological precursors that made the transition from the pre-modern period to the modern possible, which was necessary for producing the categories of religion and science.  It will at the same time examine the foundational basis for these categories and challenge its validity. 

There was a time when the ideas of religion and science were considered complementary.  Theologians and the new ‘scientists’ viewed all truth as God’s truth and were engaged in the mutual pursuit of the same end.  But by the end of the nineteenth century, this relative harmony experienced an unparalleled breech that prevails to the present.  What were the causes of this breach?  How did the idea of religion end up as a distinct category separated from scientific inquiry and often considered at odds with it?   

The answers to these questions are in part due to an epistemological shift that took place in earlier centuries and subsequently paved the way for the nineteenth-century growth of naturalism (the philosophical perspective of modernity) to move into a dominant worldview.  The question of knowledge and how it was to be qualified as knowledge became the paramount question with which rising modernity would wrestle. This new worldview needed rational justification and that justification was to be found in its understanding of knowledge.  From the eighteenth century Enlightenment forward, the view that believed that it possessed knowledge and could demonstrate it, would prevail as the true light for human culture and, therefore, qualify it to define reality. 

The theistic worldview, through a series of epistemologically related intellectual revolutions, beginning most recently with the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation and extending through the early twentieth century, lost its exclusive position as the definer of reality for the Western world and was usurped by a naturalistic view.  The claim to rational superiority by the new naturalistic view was resounding and appeared to be decisive.  This work will challenge that claim by deconstructing this modern paradigm.  

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781732801813
Publisher:	Public Philosophy Press
Publication date:	02/22/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	250
File size:	189 KB

About the Author

Rod Tussing's work has been diverse and includes many years as a senior manager in the mechanical engineering / contracting industry, as well as being a small business owner and an adjunct college instructor. His formal education includes a BA degree in Literature and an MA degree in Religious Studies from Arizona State University; an MA degree in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. in Philosophical Theology from the University of Aberdeen in the UK. He has taught courses at Arizona State University, Grand Canyon University, Andrewes Hall (a Reformed Episcopal Seminary), and is currently teaching at Paradise Valley Community College. Courses Rod has taught include Philosophy, Ethics, Logic, Apologetics, World Religions, Philosophy of Religion, Introduction to Christianity, and Contemporary Western Religious Thought. His writing focus has been and continues to be on the application and understanding of natural theology through the intersection of philosophy and theology. Rod not only enjoys studying philosophy and theology but he and his wife delight in spending time with their children and grandchildren, as well as traveling to Western Europe and the UK to visit and reconnect with old friends.

Table of Contents

Preface 1

Acknowledgments 3

1.Introduction 4

1.1 A Modern Tension and Presuppositions 0

1.2 The Tension and Knowledge Claims 3

1.3 Explaining the Tension and Dichotomy 7

1.4 Thesis Explained 9

1.5 Clarifications 5

1.6 A Brief Sketch of the Project 31

2.Religion and Science – The Popular Paradigm 34

2.1 Two Categories of Belief 4

2.2 Category Tension 8

2.3 The Idea of Religion 45

2.4 Explanation, Presuppositions, and Privilege 6

 

2.5 Worldview Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

2.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

3.Philosophical Precursors to Modernity’s Making of Religion .70

3.1 From Pre-modern to Modern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

3.2 Epistemological Foundationalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

3.3 The Rise of Modernity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

3.4 John Locke and Evidentialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

3.5 Toward the Natural . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

3.6 No Access to the Transcendent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89

3.7 An Alternative Theism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93

3.8 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

4.The Modern Decline of Christian Theism and the Rise of Naturalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100

4.1 The Maturation of Naturalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

4.2 Christian Theism’s Response to Naturalism . . . . . . . . . 117

4.3 A Common Sense Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .121

4.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

5.A Critical Analysis of a Modern Paradigm . . . . . . . . . . .135

5.1 Deconstructing Modernity’s Foundational Epistemology . .137

5.2 The Rise of Coherentist Epistemology . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

5.3 Knowledge and Justification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .154

5.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

6.Reconstructing a Foundation for Knowledge . . . . . . . . .169

6.1 The Need for a Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

6.2 The Function of Reason . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .175

6.3 Certainty, Presuppositions, and Knowledge . . . . . . . . . 179

6.4 Assessing Naturalism’s Foundational Beliefs . . . . . . . . . 185

6.5 Worldview as a Conceptual Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . .191

6.6 Project Summary and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .198

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .215