Science, theology: no competition for truth?

Here's a tiny bit of payoff for the Book Benefactors who have helped me purchase books necessary for my studies. . .

As part of my on-going education in the field of philosophy of science, I attended two lectures yesterday--one in Italian, one in English--that reinforced a basic point of the discussion between scientists and believers:

The Christian debate is not with science or reason but with materialism; that is, our philosophical struggle is with the notion that the universe is simply material and that there is nothing about this material world that needs divinity, transcendence, ethical imperatives, or spiritual understanding.

The Christian faith is perfectly happy in the scientific world and the world of enlightening reason. The attempt by materialists to co-op reason for their exclusive use is illegitimate. There is a legitimate debate between science and theology as academic disciplines, but both use reason as an investigative tool.

Proper to their role as researchers into the material workings of the universe, scientists limit themselves to making claims that are demonstrable in the lab or with mathematics. When scientists overstep their proper roles and use their unique methods to make claims about the divine and how the divine interacts with the universe, they engage in pseudo-theology.

Proper to their roles as researchers into the spiritual workings of creation and God's Self-revelation, Catholic theologians limit themselves to making claims that are consistent with God's Self-revelation as understood and developed by the living Body of Christ, the Church. When Catholic theologians overstep their proper roles and use their unique methods to make claims about the how the material universe works, they engage in pseudo-science.

With reason as the common method between the two fields and each limiting themselves to the methods and conclusions proper to their goals, there is no reason why scientists and theologians have to be in competition.

That's the most common way of dividing up the work of science and theology.

A problem arises, however, when we think for a moment about this arrangement of exclusive spheres of investigation. Though it is certainly the case that scientists deal almost exclusively with the material fact and theologians with spiritual implications of faith, both scientists and theologians legitimately work outside their well-founded fields. Scientists often find themselves working with concepts and theories that go well beyond factual description (multi-dimensional universes). Theologians must admit that the spiritual implications of God's Self-revelation demand an adherence to a certain set of established material facts (laws of physics). Neither group deals only with the raw materials proper to their field. Scientists do more than measure. Theologians do more than pray.

Is there a way to understand the fundamental human need to explain the material universe and to make spiritual sense of it? What's common to both scientists and theologians is the pursuit of the truth, a consistent description of reality that accounts for all known phenomena and matches the really Real. Basic to this pursuit is the idea that though all facts are true but not all truths are factual. From the Catholic perspective there is no contradiction between the truths of faith and the truths of science because truth has a single source: God. From the scientific perspective this is controversial precisely because the notion of a transcendent Being called God is not verifiable (or falsifiable) as a fact of the material universe. Believers cannot fault scientists for asserting the non-existence of God given the limits of scientific inquiry. They are simply being consistent and honest investigators.

And yet, scientists frequently find themselves speculating on the existence of unobservable objects in order to make their theories about the material universe work, for example, quarks. Are quarks real? That is, do quarks really exist as a part of the material universe? Or, are they simply "theoretical objects" necessary to the consistency and intelligibility of a particular theory about how the universe operates?

Can we ask a similar question of theologians? Is God real? Or, is God a "theoretical object" necessary to the consistency and intelligibility of a particular theory about how human beings achieve and maintain spiritual/ethical enlightenment? The idea that theoretical objects are really real is called "realism." The idea that theoretical objects are simply postulated necessities in a theory is called "anti-realism." The most basic way of understanding this difference is to ask this question: is "reality" mind-independent or mind-dependent? This is a question about the degree to which the human mind's investigation into the real impinges on the real. Are we describing the world as it really is, or are we describing theories about how we see the world?*

Does it matter to scientists and theologians whether or not the objects of their respective investigations are real, i.e. really existing separate from theories about them? I believe that the answer to this question is: Yes, it matters a great deal!

And to expand on this answer I would propose that both scientists and theologians would benefit from a epistemological approach to truth called "critical realism."

And the rest is my license thesis. . .

*I should note here that anti-realists do not deny the existence of the material world. They do not argue that we are living in an illusion. They simply deny that the unobservable objects of our theories really exist. There are several versions of both realism and anti-realism, but my claim about anti-realism generally is a fair description.

Once again. . .Coffee Bowl Browsing!

Dan Brown's One World Religion agenda

The painter of Obama-as-Christ gets it wrong. . .again

Everything you always wanted to know about apokatastasis

I've outlived Gerard Manley Hopkins. . .and you?

Dorothy's house is assimilated by the Borg

Pope John XXIII being funny. . .and speaking the Truth

Yea, I need a new laptop, but I don't need this one!

Fill it with a good bourbon and you've got a deal

Lots of good anti-religious quotes. . .most of which are true

Multi-tasking in a non-insectoid world

Classic philosophy texts podcast for your mental exercise

A multimedia presentation of Dante's The Divine Comedy

The games played in Alice of Wonderful

Why are there no Obama jokes? "The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny." --E. Abbey

A free on-line library. . .a million links to just about everything

DON"T FORGET! Join my minions. . .errrmmm. . .I mean, Followers! (Right side bar)

Verdict: guilty!

6th Week of Easter (T): Acts 16.22-34; John 16.5-11
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Convento SS. Domenico e Sisto, Roma

Christianity is the “one great curse, the one great inmost corruption...the one immortal blemish of mankind” (Hovey 3). Thus spake Friedrich Nietzsche, the prophet of the anti-Christ. The British theologian, Craig Hovey, notes that Nietzsche “loathed Christianity, especially Christian morality. He thought Christians were irrational, self-deceived, repressed, and arrogant; he took Christian morality to be pettily reactionary and positively fatal to life…”(3). Will the prosecutor of the Church in his closing argument before the judge of the world rest his case and demand a guilty verdict? Do we stand convicted by the evidence of human history—the thoughts, words, and deeds of our own hearts and minds? Are we guilty? We can point to the hospitals and orphanages we have built. Our prosecutor can point to the injuries we have caused and the orphans we have made. We can point to the spread of the Gospel in the New World, the souls we brought to Christ. Our prosecutor can show the jury our destruction of whole cultures in the pursuit of gold and slaves, all the souls we lost to our greed. We can point to our tireless efforts to relieve poverty, hunger, and suffering. Our prosecutor can bring evidence of the poverty, hunger, and suffering we have caused. Are we guilty? Before the judge of the world and a jury of our peers, how do we plea? What is our defense?

If Nietzsche were to serve as our defense attorney, he might argue that though we have certainly committed the crimes the prosecution charges us with, but that we should be found not-guilty by reason of insanity. If indeed the Church is cursed, if we are an “immortal blemish” as he claims, the slaves of a herd mentality, following our basest instincts and primitive impulses, then we are irrational, self-deceived, little more than animals doing what animals do. He could simply repeat our crimes and ask, “What sane Church would do these things?” Would the judge and jury buy this plea? Would they look at us with contempt but nonetheless find us not-guilty?

Before the bench of the judge of this world, we have an Advocate, an intercessor, one who pleas on our behalf. Nietzsche would argue our insanity and ask that we be found not guilty because of it; our true Advocate knows we are guilty and makes no excuses. Our true Advocate knows our crimes better than we do because he became those very crimes for us. He can do more than merely show evidence of our sins, he can give personal testimony to them. He became sin for us, so that sin might be put to death and we might have eternal life. He knows we are guilty and loves us anyway. He loves us all the way to his cross, and he is with us as we approach ours.

Is the Church “irrational, self-deceived, repressed, and arrogant”? Are we “pettily reactionary and positively fatal to life”? Yes, we can be. This is not who we are fundamentally. But we are certainly capable of truthfully pleading guilty to the charges. At our worst, we are worse than the unbelievers and those who would persecute us. At our best, we are Christ for the world. The Good News is that we never again have to be anything or anyone less than Christ. Never again are we compelled by irrational instinct or inordinate passion or selfish greed to commit a single sin, not one crime against God, our world, or one another. We are free. Free from all that would acquit us on the grounds of insanity; free from all that would excuse our crimes as animalistic and primitive. We are free to love, to show mercy, to build tighter and tighter bonds of friendship. We are free because we have been freed by the mercy of the One Who sits in judgment.

Hovey, Craig. Nietzsche and Theology. T&T Clark, 2008.

VERY close call

I'm very clumsy.

Turning from the sink last night I rammed my hip into my desk, spilling a bottle of water onto my closed laptop.

Drained the water. Wiped the mess up. And tried to power up the 'puter.

Nothing.

Setting it on its edge to drain the water, I started praying that there would be no permanent damage.

Overnight, I directed my small desktop fan on the keyboard in the hope of drying any remaining water.

This morning. . .with a prayer. . .I pushed the power button. All the little green lights flashed and she booted up! So far, there's no evidence of damage.

Deo gratis! Let's pray, please, that it stays that way. . .

Caricature of a U.S. President

B.O.'s Notre Dame speech was pretty boring. The best parts were quotes from far better orators/writers.

I thought there was one particularly hilarious paragraph:

"Understand - I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. No matter how much we may want to fudge it - indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory - the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature. Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words."

OK. . .this from a guy whose Department of Homeland Security issues a report labeling pro-life activists "domestic terrorists"! Here's a suggestion: show us how serious you are, B.O.: fire Napolitano. She should be fired for incompetence anyway, but now that you've decided that caricaturing pro-life supporters is something we should never do--fire her for violating policy. Let's watch to see if he tells the abortion-pushers to stop demonizing the pro-life movement in the future.

And, of course, the leftist appeal to be "open-minded" is really just a case of special pleading to agree with them. Since, by their own definition, they are paragons of open-mindedness, it's the rest of us rubes who must be closed-minded.

And I will never again open my heart or my mind to the idea that killing a child is a Good Thing.

P.S. Someone asked me recently if there is anything B.O. could say that I wouldn't find offensive. I said, "Sure! He could say, 'It is with great sadness that I resign the Office of the Presidency of the United States, effective immediately.'"

Heaven thru Mississippi eyes

This is what Heaven looks like to an over-educated, home-sick redneck priest living in Rome!

My thanks to my most generous Book Benefactor, N.M., for making the purchase of this little piece of southern heaven possible. N., if I had a Jack Daniel's and Coke right now, I'd toast you.

Side note: I first heard of my fellow Mississippian, Larry Brown, while teaching English in China. I tuned into V.O.A. one afternoon and heard his beautiful southern accent twanging out over the airwaves and nearly cried. I taught one of his novels, Dirty Work, to my literature students when I got back to the U.S.

Another local boy made good: Barry Hannah. I had the great privilege of taking Barry's first creative writing class at Ole Miss in 1989. What I wouldn't do to be in a creative writing MFA program right now. . .ah well. . .

Using Notre Shame vs. the Obamanation

This is a fantastic idea. . .

"President Obama speaks at the University of Notre Dame on Sunday. What happens on Monday?"

Let's use the publicity of the Notre Shame scandal to raise money for N.D.'s pro-life activities:

The Monday Project!

Literary Snob Turns Redneck for $7

I'll stand toe-to-toe with the snobbish European elite in a battle of literary tastes. I only read the best poetry and the best fiction. If the author isn't on his/her way to a Pultizer, a PEN/Faulkner, a Man Booker, or a Nobel, I don't read it.

Movies, on the other hand, are an entirely different story. My blue-blood literary elitism turns decidedly Mississippi-redneck when I shuck out $7 at the local Malco.

I have three criteria for movies I will pay to see:

Anything with aliens (the outer-space kind not the illegal kind)
Anything with lots of explosions
Anything with lots of exploding aliens.

I may need to add a fourth criterion: anything with giant octopi fighting giant sharks.

This I can't wait to see!

Mission accomplished

Mission accomplished!

I brought all of the intentions I received before the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament this afternoon.

My thanks to all of you who promised to remember me in your prayers. Keep it up! Serious work on the prayer books is underway.

God bless, Fr. Philip, OP

We're becoming more pro-life!

Excellent news for the human race!

Gallup reports that for the first time in years more Americans are identifying themselves as pro-life rather than pro-abortion.

I wonder if the media will report that The Obamessiah is "out of touch with the American mainstream."

Naw.

It's time for. . .Coffee Bowl Browsing!

Mark Shea spanks Dan Brown anti-Catholic bigotry. . .keep this handy for that blow-hard anti-papist uncle who shows up at summer family reunions

Several jokes about Jebbies, Dominicans, and other religious orders

Interview with an exorcist, Fr. Amorth

An e-breviary

Lay "blessings" at communion are a no-no

Demonic attack!

Darth Vader comes to Hitler's aid

I have no idea what this is. . .but it looks good!

"Why did the chicken cross the road?" Answered by philosophers (my fav: "To die. In the rain." --Hemingway)

45 Tips for a happier life

Compendium of Cracked Conspiracy Theories (some R-rated stuff here)

Funny philosopher tee-shirts (warning: lots of "insider" jokes)

Filled with awe at the wonder of the universe

One of my fav poems to teach: "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"

Poetry so bad, it's good!

Obamanomics in action

Why do non-conservatives exist?

Great political cartoon. . .it's amazing how one picture can explain things so clearly

Anti-terrorist training camp in Texas. . .I think I see some of my family there

Coulter vs. the Burqa-ed Bobble-heads of MSM Broadom

I love Ann Coulter!

Liberal Taliban Issues Fatwa Against Miss California (link)

[. . .]

From Jean-Paul Sartre, Pablo Picasso and Bertrand Russell, who treated women -- mostly their mistresses -- like dogs, to Teddy Kennedy and Bill Clinton in our own day, liberals are ferocious misogynists. They share Muslims' opinion of women, differing only to the extent that liberals also support a women's right to have an abortion and to perform lap dances.

You'd be better off in a real burqa than under the authority of a liberal American male.

I'm not sure we needed a psychological profile of Prejean to figure out why she holds the same position on gay marriage as: the president, the vice president, the secretary of state, Bill Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards and his mistress, and the vast majority of the American people.

But what is crying out for an explanation is why every bubble-head TV news anchorette from a nice, churchgoing red state ends up adopting the political views of Karl Marx.

From Katie Couric on CBS to Norah O'Donnell on MSNBC, the whole stable of TV anchorettes weirdly have the exact same politics as their liberal masters. It's the ideological burqa women are required to wear to work in the mainstream media. As with a conventional burqa, it enforces conformity and severely restricts the vision.

The only way to protect yourself is to do the liberal male's bidding, as the bubble-head anchorettes do, or stand on the rock of Christianity.

Now, another beautiful Christian has thrown off the liberal burqa, thereby inciting mass hysteria throughout the liberal establishment. Prejean doesn't care. She is blazing across the sky, as impotent nose-pickers jockey for a piece of her reflected light by hurling insults at her.

Watching even a few seconds of the MSM attack Carrie Prejean is an exercise is restraint. All of my old feminist anger rises to the surface in defense of women. The poisonous bile excreted by these people is demonic. How do people who label themselves "progressives" get away with these woman-hating screeds?

When I was in grad school, even the suggestion that a woman could be identifed solely on the basis of her body, her gender, her "role," her choices. . .any kind of parallel drawn between who a woman is and can be and any restriction or limit was attacked as hatred and denounced immediately as violence done to the humanity of women everywhere.

Watching the bobble-heads in the MSM these days--especially the women!--makes me want to dig around for my N.O.W. tee-shirts and charge the battery on my bullhorn. Who's holding these apes accountable?

Normally, that would be the job of the media and Professional Feminists. But they abandoned that duty when it became clear that defending women against the real dominance of men would mean attacking Democrat, President Bill Clinton. Thus, we see the depth and breadth of feminist outrage: as deep as a swift political calculation, as broad as their corrupt agenda to destroy us.

Pics from yesterday's Eucharistic Procession!

(L) Priests in procession. Typically, the OP's didn't know whether or not we should wear our cappas!

(R) Archbishop Burke and deacon














Happy, singing nuns! The Angelicum Choir. . .













Inside the Ss. Dominic and Sisto Church



Pics by Heralds of the Gospel

Truth-telling is a dangerous business

[NB. For the life of me, I can't finish this homily. Maybe it's b/c I don't feel well. . .for whatever reason. . .it's not complete. . .but I pray it touches someone out there who needs it.]

5th Sunday of Easter: Acts 9.26-31; 1 John 3.18-24; John 15.1-8
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Convento SS Domenico e Sisto, Roma

Truth-telling is a dangerous vocation. If you are called to tell the truth about those in power—to those with some power over you—it can be a deadly vocation. The stark clarity of the undisputed fact, the sharp focus of a truth told with a convicted tongue—these pierce the intended confusion of a lie, slice through the chaotic twists of nuance, obstruction, deceit, and expose the tumorous heart of falsehood: the drive, the compulsion to hate. Such a violent passion, based as it is on the desire to love, is not lightly angered. To stir up hatred with the white light of truth is an act of courage—knowing fear, you tell the truth nonetheless. And like a patient who bucks against the pain of surgery, or an animal caught in a trap that bites at its owner in blind fury, a liar cannot bear for long the furious pain that truth causes. He will bite back. Truth-telling is medicinal, liberating, and ultimately salvific for both the speaker and the hearer. But what must both have in order to benefit from the truth? What must be present in each for the truth to settle, flourish, and bear good fruit?

For the speaker, an honest tongue speaking without pretense. For the hearer, open ears ready to listen and obey. And we can even reverse that: a speaker with ears ready to listen and obey and a hearer ready to speak without pretense. The point being that there is no difference between hearing the truth spoken and speaking it yourself. There is no difference between speaking the truth and hearing it spoken. He Who is present in the hearing and the speaking is the same One who is Truth both spoken and heard. The lie derails the truth when the speaker pretends to speak something else and when the hearer pretends to hear something else. The only reason for derailing the truth is hatred. The hearer, the speaker wills evil for the spoken to and for the one who speaks. The branch is cut from the vine. The vine is cut from the root. The root is pulled from the ground. And the whole plant dies. How is this disaster avoided? The ground in which truth thrives must be firmer than our desire for truth. In other words, that which motivates our love for truth must be stronger than our awareness that truth is necessary. It is not enough that we long for truth. It must be the case that we die without it…and that we know this.

The truth will set you free. Not: the truth will make you happy. Not: the truth will please you. Not: the truth will confirm your prejudices. The truth will liberate you; set you free; release you from the lies of sin; show you the gates of divine obedience and dare you to open them; the truth will set you free and piss you off; you will be freed and angered…for no other reason than that your notion of freedom is so tiny, so limited, so restricted and cramped. Do you think “freedom” is about making choices? Or about “choosing options”? Really? Do you seriously believe that your freedom…your eternal freedom in the Word made Flesh is about picking A, B, or C? And having that choice honored as “just as good as any other”? Really? Is that the gospel? Is that what Christ died for?

Listen again: “You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you. Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me.” A branch cannot bear fruit on its own. How many branches have you seen floating out in space near a fruit tree? You cannot, I cannot, none of us can bear the truth of the faith floating out in space away from the branch, away from the Body. We must have as a core-foundational element of our very being a commitment to the gospel rooted in obedience, the Good News that transforms the world by its very declaration: the proclamation of Truth Himself.

What happens when the Word of Truth rings out over human history, over just one nation, one people, even just one person? A choice is made: live free in the truth, or die chained to a lie. If you choose life, you will flourish even as you are hounded, persecuted, and possibly killed. Your choice will enrage the worshipers of death. The chains they wear sparkle like jewelry in their eyes. They count their freedoms with the chain-links from the stake to the yank of the choke-collar. If you choose life and preach the good news of life in Christ, the death cultists will mark you as an enemy of liberty. And only the right to choose to kill is more sacred to them than the limitless absolutes of moral license. If you choose death, you too will flourish; you will flourish as a minister of death, preaching the gospel of moral rot, diseased reason, extolling death’s greatest act of mercy: the necessity of killing the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly for no other reason than that these bothersome accidents tend to cause the most unfortunate inconveniences to your standard of living. Having accepted that the death of another person is no real problem for your peace of mind, it is a simple thing for you to conclude that it is in fact much better that someone should die than it is for you to risk that even the shortest life might inconvenience you. When killing is the solution, no problem is too small. And since the last killing is much easier than the first one, it is simply better to get on with it.

Paul debated the Hellenists and they tried to kill him. This fact alone bore sufficient witness to the veracity of his ministry that the disciples in Jerusalem accepted him as an equal. The best testimony to Paul’s power as an apostle was given by his enemies.

[. . .]

Make a choice, people...the time is ripe...

For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.' Then they will answer and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?' He will answer them, 'Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.' And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."