Is Theology a Science?: The Nature of the Scientific Enterprise in the Scientific Theology of Thomas Forsyth Torrance and the Anarchic Epistemology of Paul Feyerabend

311 Pages·2011·1.4 MB·English

by  David Munchin

Is Theology a Science?
Studies in Systematic
Theology
Series Editors
Stephen Bevans S.V.D, Catholic Theological Union, Chicago
Miikka Ruokanen, University of Helsinki and
Nanjing Union Theological Seminary
Advisory Board
Wanda Deifelt, Luther College, Decorah (IA)
Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena (CA)
Jesse Mugambi, University of Nairobi, Nairobi
Rachel Zhu Xiaohong, Fudan University, Shanghai
VOLUME 7
Is Theology a Science?
The Nature of the Scientific Enterprise
in the Scientific Theology of
Thomas Forsyth Torrance
and the Anarchic Epistemology of
Paul Feyerabend
By
David Munchin
LEIDEN • BOSTON
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2011
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Munchin, David.
Is theology a science? : the nature of the scientific enterprise in the scientific theology of
Thomas Forsyth Torrance and the anarchic epistemology of Paul Feyerabend / by David
Munchin.
p. cm. -- (Studies in systematic theology ; v. 7)
Includes bibliographical references and (p. ) index.
ISBN 978-90-04-19459-5 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Religion and science. 2. Torrance,
Thomas F. (Thomas Forsyth), 1913-2007. 3. Theology--Methodology. 4. Feyerabend, Paul,
1924-1994. 5. Science--Philosophy. I. Title. II. Series.
BL240.3.M85 2011
201’.65--dc22
2011008582
ISSN 1876-1518
ISBN 978 90 04 19459 5
Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing,
IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
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For Ysmena

CONTENTS
Preface .........................................................................................................ix
Acknowledgements ...................................................................................xi
Chapter One Introduction: Context and History ................................1
Contextual Background on the Scientific Status
of Theology until Torrance ................................................................9
Barth and Natural Science ..................................................................13
Chapter Two Introducing the Dialogue Partners: Torrance
and Feyerabend ....................................................................................18
Thomas Forsyth Torrance ...................................................................18
Paul Feyerabend ...................................................................................20
Feyerabend as Critical Friend to Torrance .......................................36
Chapter Three Torrance: Theology Cohabiting with
Natural Science .....................................................................................50
The Theory of General Relativity .......................................................54
Quantum Physics .................................................................................60
Gödel’s Theorem ...................................................................................66
Conclusion ............................................................................................70
Chapter Four Torrance’s Proposal – A New Objectivity ..................75
A New Objectivity ................................................................................75
Similarities and Differences ................................................................84
Conclusion ..........................................................................................113
Chapter Five Feyerabend’s Challenge – ‘Knowledge without
Foundations’ .......................................................................................116
Theory and Observation: Counter-Inductivism, Theoretical
Pluralism and the Rejection of Empirical Cumulativism .........117
The Incommensurability Thesis .......................................................138
Against Method and Farewell to Reason ........................................143
Destination Relativism ......................................................................146
Voluntarism ........................................................................................148
viii contents
Chapter Six Two Excurses ..................................................................153
Hermeneutics and Science ................................................................153
Realism ................................................................................................186
Chapter Seven Coherence and Language ........................................205
Epistemic Coherence and Correspondence ...................................205
Religious and Scientific Language ...................................................209
Coherence in Theology and Scripture – Witnesses to
a Single Truth? ................................................................................213
Chapter Eight From Foundations to Spirals ....................................220
Enlightenment Foundationalism and Reductionism ....................220
Progressive Foundationalism and Ordered Strata .........................225
Fluid Axioms ......................................................................................227
Evident to the Senses – The Wrong Foundations ..........................234
Spirals and Iterations – The Search for a New Metaphor
of Knowledge ..................................................................................255
Conclusion ..........................................................................................261
Conclusion ..............................................................................................263
Bibliography ............................................................................................283
Index ........................................................................................................295
PREFACE
This book began life as doctoral thesis, and therefore is primarily a
work of academic scholarship. I am not however a professional aca-
demic but a parish priest in the Anglican Church, for whom at one
level, work such as this is a diversion, therapy and intellectual stimu-
lant. However at a more significant level, it is also an attempt – and
hopefully this is not too pretentious a claim – to think hard about the
intellectual challenges and resources of the Christian gospel, as part of
a ministry that is rooted in the day to day joys, trials and muddle of
people’s lives. It is fuelled by a belief that somewhat contrary to present
trends, any too permanent or deep divergence between Church and
University, will in the long term, only do damage to the standing of the
gospel, as well as marking a break in the tradition that numbered
thinkers and doctors among the saints. That is not to say that the
church will not have profound and searching questions to ask the
University – Barth for instance, would certainly have reserved that
right to the church – but it must do so as critical friend, and not as a
refuge of the disenfranchised, exempting itself from the call to an hon-
est and genuine dialogue. This is not simply because the church has
much to gain pragmatically from allying itself with scholarship, but for
the rather more important reason that ‘truth matters’, even if, as with
Feyerabend, we have to wrestle the concept of truth from ironic quote
marks. Truth matters not just in the University, but in all human lives –
pace Feyerabend, I believe that the search for truth and human flour-
ishing are ultimately coincident. The forces ranged against such a
search are in the ascendant – scholars are not wholly innocent, but
more to blame are the media, advertisers and politicians, who have
often found the truth uncomfortable and inconvenient. However,
neither has the church been innocent, as pressure grows to ‘package’
a ‘needs-and-wishes-answering’ faith in dangerously simplistic and
un-nuanced form.
Contemporary culture’s preference for simplistic and antithetical
disjunctions – fact and value, fact and opinion, faith and reason – is
deeply pervasive and damaging. This book is concerned with a further
dichotomy. “To assert that a person, or his idea, is ‘unscientific’ is the