Science and Two Ethical Systems: Buddhist and Christian

Buddhist ethics and science
In his brilliant book, Morals Not Knowledge, John Evans has argued that 

“Religion and science are the two great ways of understanding the world, but by understanding I mean the relationships between humans in the world and the relationship between humans and nature. These are stuff of morality….” John Evans

Even more, Evans asserts when conflict between the two occur, the lion’s share happens at the level of “morals, not knowledge” (and thus the title of the book).

This conflict obviously rears its head for many with "God or evolution." Since that's often true in our country, where Christianity is the dominant religion, what about Buddhists? The simple answer: they don’t carry this burden, partly because they don't believe in a Creator God. 81% of American Buddhists accept evolution. Pew Research states quite simply, 

“Many Buddhists see no inherent conflict between their religious teachings and evolutionary theory. Indeed, according to some Buddhist thinkers, certain aspects of Darwin’s theory are consistent with some of the religion’s core teachings, such as the notion that all life is impermanent.” Pew Report

I mention this because if one begins with the connection of all sentient life, like Buddhism does, then it’s not hard to links to evolutionary thought. In fact, the Buddhist scholar Inoue Enryo argued that Buddhism can embrace evolutionary thought because it holds to “no sharp distinction between humans and animals as Christians claim….” 

Moreover, it’s therefore no grand step to the Buddhist commitment to ahimsa, or non-violence, for all sentient beings. This, of course, can come into conflict with scientific research, especially animal testing. In their research collected in the book, Science and Secularity, Elaine Howard Ecklund and her colleagues quoted a Taiwanese biologist commenting, “Buddhism is about not killing.” 

Christian ethics and science
Recently, when I was talking with a pastor who heads a Hispanic Christian ministry, he told me this, “Many Latinos drive trucks. And, in the next ten years, those jobs will be lost to Artificial Intelligence. I want to encourage my flock to be creating AI.” The effects of technology and science often displace jobs, and so we arrive at justice, one of the ethical foundations of Christianity (which it, of course, adapts from its Jewish roots).

Many believers see Christianity, like many other religions do, as a way of life, not ultimately intellectual content. Again to draw from Evans, “Evolution versus creation,” for example, isn’t ultimately about doctrine, in this view, but about the implications for ethics. Does the theory of natural selection lead us to see all people as simply the products of blind, undirected processes? Not really, as I've posted before, but that's where the conflict starts.

Among other insights from her social scientific research, Ecklund has similarly highlighted that Christians are particularly drawn to sciences that involve healing—i.e., ethical action in the world that reduces suffering. In her book Why Science and Faith Need Each Other, Ecklund observes that Christians and non-Christians both express “a great deal of confidence in medicine.” This correlates with a focus on Jesus, who is reported in the Gospels to be a healer. As Ecklund observes,

"Jesus’s ministry on earth involved touching those whom others would not touch, healing those whom others thought were beyond healing. Christians holding this theological view can see medical technologies as created by God for us to use to relieve our suffering and the suffering of others." Elaine Howard Ecklund

Philip Clayton has highlighted stem cell research, warfare technology, CRISPR gene editing, and he reserves his attention for global climate and sets Christianity within the “three Abrahamic faiths [which] go back… to the Book of Genesis, which calls believers to cultivate care for the earth.” Nature for them is “a creation of God and therefore a thing of great value.” This indeed leads to ethical action not simply for other humans, but for the Earth.

The Problem Presented by the View on the Street

John H. Evans

One of the most important articles I’ve read in science and religion comes from the pen of the UC San Diego sociologist, John H. Evans. Its title: “The View On the Street” (in the book, The Warfare Between Science and Religion: The Idea That Wouldn't Die).

Evans notes that most treatments of science and religion focus on the epistemic conflict—that is, how we arrive at knowledge about the natural world? How do we assess the truth claims that religion and science present?

As quick and dirty research to assess Evans’s claim, I googled “science and religion” and found this article in the top five from the American Humanist Association, “the War Between Science and Religion Over?”

“It appears to be a widely accepted opinion in America that the long conflict between science and religion is at an end. It is often assumed that science and religion are two nonconflicting bodies of knowledge, equally valuable complementary paths leading toward an ultimate understanding of the world and our place in it. The conflicts of the past are said to be due to excessive zeal and misunderstanding on both sides. Peaceful coexistence and even a measure of syncretism are assumed to be possible as long as each concedes to the other’s authority in their separate worlds of knowledge: that of matter and facts for science, and that of the spirit and values for religion.”

Here I’ll insert that it comforts me to hear that the long-standing putative conflict, part of our national consciousness, is decreasing. And the top hit in my Google search was an excellent, short article from UC Berkeley, “Science and Religion: Reconcilable Differences.”

That is not, however, the conclusion of the these two writers from the American Humanist Association.

"Let us be blunt. While it may appear open-minded, modest, and comforting to many, this conciliatory view is nonsense. Science and religion are diametrically opposed at their deepest philosophical levels.And, because the two worldviews make claims to the same intellectual territory— that of the origin of the universe and humankind’s relationship to it — conflict is inevitable.”

Please notice—which is easy because I bolded particular words and phrases—their authors’ emphasis on bodies of knowledge, deepest philosophical levels, and same intellectual territory.

And this is where I, as an academic in science and religion, live. But it has distorted my views. The public, according to Evans’s sociological research, simply doesn’t overly worry about systematic truth claims. Those who write about science and religion, however, represent an unusual frame for this discussion because we hold PhDs in academic fields. “In sociological terms, certainly every person with a PhD,” as Evans writes, “is a member of the social elite.” And he adds, “This elite reasoning can be described as an ‘ideology’ or ‘worldview.” And the work of elites resides in their ability to see whether their worldviews and ideologies are consistent. 

“But, the public has much less logical consistency than elites do. This is not an insult but a matter of sociological realism. The reason for the difference is that the only people who have the time and motivation to develop airtight, logically consistent beliefs all the way back to first principles are those rewarded for doing so. Academics are rewarded for this with tenure—analytic philosophers are an extreme case.” John H. Evans

And so the study of science and religion has gone askew. The problem is that we’ve taken one approach from a particularly limited perspective.

What to do next? Will this resolve the fight that the Humanists presented? For now—that is, for this entry—I’d like to let the problem sink in. 

I'd also like to know: What do you think? Is Evans right? I’m interested to hear your thoughts.

How to Relate Science and Religion in America? A Short Meditation

This post represents an excerpt from the book I'm currently writing on science and religion in our country.

I learned from the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre that 

A “living tradition” is  “an historically extended, socially embodied argument, and an argument precisely in part about the goods which constitute that tradition.” Alasdair MacIntryre

With that in mind, it remains worth discussing the traditions that constitute America, and particularly how science and religion contribute to this living tradition and its argument. A fair reading of American history demonstrates that our county has been at its best when we bring together these two cultural forces of science and religion. 

I have used the phrase “cultural forces," but why? It strikes me, having pored over the recent book by John H. Evans, Morals Not Knowledge: Recasting the Contemporary U.S. Conflict between Religion and Science, that science and religion’s conflicts consist more often or morality than a “systematic knowledge conflict.” True enough. (This exists in contradiction to Stephen Jay Gould’s remarks, “Morality is a subject for philosophers, theologians, students of the humanities, indeed for all thinking people. The answers will not be read passively from nature; they do not, and cannot, arise from the data of science. The factual state of the world does not teach us how we, with our powers for good and evil, should alter or preserve it in the most ethical manner.”) 

And this ethical conflict rears its head in the notorious case of evolution. As Whitcomb and Morris assert in their vastly influential 1961 creationist text The Genesis Flood, 

The morality of evolution, which assumes progress and achievement and “good” come about through such action as benefits the individual himself or the group of which he is a part, to the detriment of others, is most obviously anti-Christian.

When we read this, the cover is ripped off of a warfare between “creation” and “evolution” as solely cognitive.

And yet I am stepping back even further. I believe we are addressing what I’ve come to

see as the “dream of America.” In other words, what is this experiment of America (or "the American experiment") and what are the goods implicit in our common good? Who will be included? I’ve also been inspired by Columbia humanities professor Andrew Delbanco’s brilliant (and to my mind, underappreciated) reflection on our country, The Real American Dream: A Meditation on Hope, in which he argues—as the subtitle suggests, that our search for hope has fueled the American Dream. Delbanco offers a three-part typology through the first two hundred years with the Puritans, who grounded their hope in a covenant with God, the nineteenth century (broadly speaking), where Nation became our guiding light, and in the ending of the twentieth century, which focused our attention on Self. (Delbanco wrote The Real American Dream in 1999.) He found the final stage of this search for hope in the Self insubstantial.

      

The specifics of Delbanco’s argument are brilliant and brilliantly articulated, but my interest does not lie there. Instead, I have learned from him the importance of hope and even more a story and vision for what makes the good life, for what constitutes the American Dream. My rephrasing of that search as the “dream of America” is intended to demonstrate that our country’s yearning extends beyond financial mobility (as important as that is for the lower economic strata), to a gleaming vision for America as a concept and inspiration. 

I’ve mentioned above that MacIntyre above, and so I pose some questions: How are science and religion involved in an argument over the common good of America yesterday, today, and tomorrow? What is the experiment of America, and what are the goods implicit in our common good? Who will be included? Will it be only the voices or religious leaders? Or scientists? 

I'm not sure any generation has presented definitive answers to these questions, but I believe some are better than others. And that they have significant cultural implications for our country.