Science and Religion: Models of Interaction

What are the three models about the relationship between religion and science outlined by Dr Murray, and which did he defend?

Modern studies of the relationship between religion and science can be dated back to a seminal work by Ian Barbour, Issues in Science and Religion, first published in 1966. When we look at the questions of "What is religion? What is science? How can they interact?", Barbour devised a four-fold paradigm of consideration.

According to Barbour's paradigm model, the first way in which science and religion might interact is conflict, or opposition, that science and religion are, in a sense, in competition with each other over the same theoretical territory. Therefore, one must be right, and the other wrong.

Barbour's second way is independence, the view that science and religion are both important, and both have important things to say, but they operate in fundamentally different territories. Stephen Jay Gould is an exponent of this view, and described ‘non-overlapping magisteria’ (NOMA), wherein science explores how the world works––its physical and biological processes, while religion explores values, meaning, and existential quandaries. In other words, science deals with ‘how’ and religion looks at ‘why’.

Barbour's third way of possible interaction is dialogue. This view understands that the sciences are valuable in informing religion, and reciprocally, religion informs the way in which scientists explore science.

The fourth way in which science and religion can interact, according to Barbour, is integration, wherein it should be possible for insights from both disciplines of science and religion to be united, in a way to generate what he calls an ‘inclusive metaphysics’.

According to Dr. Murray, there are 3 models of intersection for science and religion, and they are that science and religion (1) conflict in principle, (2) cannot conflict in principle, and (3) may or may not conflict depending on what religion claims and science affirms. Furthermore, Dr. Murray argues for this 3rd model, that science and religion may or may not conflict.

It seems to me that Dr. Murray finally presents a way through the quagmire, away from the long-held notion that science and religion are on such disparate ends of things that they must forever be opposed to one another. It is too easy to polarize religion and science, creating a false dichotomy. While we are more comfortable categorizing things as either right or wrong,  and while this might appear to make it easier to solve complex issues, I do not believe it serves either religion or science to do so, much less humanity.

Regardless of whether we follow Barbour's paradigm or Dr. Murray's three models, the starting place must be that of defining what one means by the terms science and religion.

Dr. Murray provides as a starting point a very minimalistic definition of science, that it is "the collective judgement of professional scholars who aim to explain the workings of the natural world through empirically testable theories." He notes that he is not defining science as a practice or discipline, but rather as a set of claims made by a certain sort of scholar who is engaging in specific kinds of work of a scientific nature. He maintains this definition as the foundational base one which we can then build a framework for thinking about the ways that science and religion intersect.

Dr. Murray goes further yet, and presents a framework wherein science and religion can hold comfortable places together when what is different between them are the more simple matters of aims and methods.

Clearly, throughout history including the present time, the ways in which science and religion interact are varied and complex. Dr. Murray has not only argued reasonably and successfully for the model which embraces that religion and science may or may not conflict depending on what religion claims and science affirms, but he has done so by establishing a solid framework of viewing these two not as competitors, but rather as each having different aims and methods to accomplish their aims.

In this way, science and religion can inform each other without devolving into an overly simplistic polarization of opposing forces.