Religion in an Age of Science by Ian Barbour Part 1: Religion and the Methods of Science
Chapter 2: Models and Paradigms
I. The Structures of Science and Religion
2. Belief and Experience In Religion
The basic structure of religion is similar to that of science in some respects, though it differs at several crucial points. The data for a religious community consist of the distinctive experiences of individuals and the stories and rituals of a religious tradition. Let us start by considering religious experience, which is always interpreted by a set of concepts and beliefs. These concepts and beliefs are not the product of logical reasoning from the data; they result from acts of creative imagination in which, as in the scientific case, analogies and models are prominent (figure 2). Models are also drawn from the stories of a tradition and express the structural elements that recur in dynamic form in narratives. Models, in turn, lead to abstract concepts and articulated beliefs that are
systematically formalized as theological doctrines.
Religious experience/Story and
ritual……..Imagination/Analogies/Models………Concepts/Beliefs………..Beliefs influence experience and interpretation
Fig. 2 The Structure of Religion
The experiential testing of religious beliefs is problematic (so the downward arrow is shown as a
dashed line), though we will find that there are criteria for judging the adequacy of beliefs.
Moreover, there are no uninterpreted experiences, as there are no theory-free data in science.
Religious beliefs influence experience and the interpretation of traditional stories and rituals (the loop on the right of the diagram) -- an even stronger influence than that of scientific theories on data. Here, too, paradigms are extraordinarily resistant to change, and when paradigm shifts do occur a whole network of conceptual and methodological assumptions is altered. We will examine in turn each of these features of religious life and thought.
Six distinctive types of religious experience recur in a variety of traditions around the world.6 1. Numinous Experience of the Holy. Persons in many cultures have described a sense of awe and reverence, mystery and wonder, holiness and sacredness. Participants may experience a sense of otherness, confrontation, and encounter, or of being grasped and laid hold of. Here individuals typically express awareness of their dependence, finitude, limitation, and contingency. The
experience is often interpreted in terms of a personal model of the divine. This pattern is found in both Western and Eastern [Asian] religions but is more prominent in the West. It emphasizes a strong contrast between the finitude of the human and the transcendence of the divine.
2. Mystical Experience of Unity. Mystics in many traditions have spoken of the experience of the unity of all things, found in the depth of the individual soul and in the world of nature. Unity is achieved in the discipline of meditation and is characterized by joy, harmony, serenity, and peace.
In its extreme form the unity may be described as selflessness and loss of individuality and the joy as bliss or rapture. The experience is often correlated with impersonal models of the divine,
especially in Eastern traditions, though it occurs in the West with both personal and impersonal models. Here the unity rather than the separation of the human and divine is emphasized. The numinous and the mystical seem to be the most common types of religious experience around the world.
3. Transformative Experience of Reorientation. In the lives of some individuals, acknowledgment of guilt has been followed by the experience of forgiveness. Others have described a transition from brokenness and estrangement to wholeness and reconciliation. Some experience a healing of
internal divisions or a restoration of relationship with other persons. Such reorientation and
renewal, whether sudden or gradual, may lead to self-acceptance, liberation from self-centeredness, openness to new possibilities in one’s life, a greater sensitivity to other persons, or perhaps
dedication to a style of life based on radical trust and love. Such transformative experiences are prominent in the Christian tradition, but parallels are found in many traditions.
4. Courage in Facing Suffering and Death. Suffering, death, and transiency are universal human experiences, and responses to them are found in virtually every religious tradition. Meaninglessness is overcome when people view human existence in a wider context of meaning, beyond the life of the individual. Attitudes toward suffering and death are affected when trust replaces anxiety (in the West), or when detachment replaces the attachment that gives suffering and death their power over us (in the East). Such experiences can, of course, be described in psychological terms, but in
religious traditions they are understood in relation to a view of ultimate reality beyond the
individual.
5. Moral Experience of Obligation. Many people have felt moral demands overriding their own inclinations. Though the voice of conscience is in part the product of social conditioning, it may also lead persons to express judgment on their culture or moral outrage in the face of evil, even at the risk of death. Judgments of good and evil, right and wrong, are made in the light of one’s view of the nature of ultimate reality. Moral demands may be understood as the will of a God of justice and love or as a requirement for harmony with the cosmic process. In the West, prophetic protest against social injustice has been viewed as a response to God’s purposes.
6. Experience of Order and Creativity in the World. At the intellectual level, the presence of order and creativity in nature has served as the basis for inferring a divine source of order, beauty, and novelty (as in the classical argument from design). At the experiential level, people have responded to the world with reverence and appreciation, with gratitude for the gift of life, and with wonder that nature has a rational order intelligible to our minds. In the numinous tradition this is expressed as a dependence on a Creator who is the ground of order and creativity. In the mystical tradition it is more often articulated as dependence on a creative force immanent within nature.
Such experiences sometimes appear private and individual, but they occur in the context of a community. Experience is always affected by prior expectations and beliefs. The founders of new traditions started with inherited cultural assumptions, even if they challenged some of those assumptions. After their distinctive experiences, they evoked powerful responses among their followers. In subsequent generations, the experiences of individuals were subjected to a process of sorting and selecting within the ongoing community. The group affirmed some forms of experience and not others, and it set limits on acceptable beliefs -- though these limits have changed
historically and may allow for considerable reformulation. Most traditions ‘have included prophetic figures who criticized accepted ideas and practices, while those in priestly roles were more often dedicated to continuity and the preservation of the past. There have been periods of codification and institutionalization, and periods of reformation and change.
If the task of the theologian is systematic reflection on the life and thought of the religious community, this will include critical assessment according to particular criteria. I suggest that assessment of beliefs within a paradigm community can be undertaken with the same criteria listed above for scientific theories, though the criteria will have to be applied somewhat differently. (The questions of assessing the paradigms themselves and judging among religious traditions are taken up in the next chapter.)
1. Agreement with Data. Religious beliefs must provide a faithful rendition of the areas of experience that are taken by the community to be especially significant. I have argued that the primary data are individual religious experience and communal story and ritual. Here the data are much more theory-laden than in the case of science. We will have to examine the influence of beliefs on experience and on the interpretation of story and ritual.
2. Coherence. Consistency with other accepted beliefs ensures the continuity of a paradigm
tradition. The intersubjective judgment of the community provides protection against individualism and arbitrariness. But there is room for reformulation and reinterpretation, and the ideas of religious communities have indeed undergone considerable change throughout history. There are also close internal relationships among a ~t of religious beliefs.
3. Scope. Religious beliefs can be extended to interpret other kinds of human experience beyond the primary data, particularly other aspects of our personal and social lives. In a scientific age, they must also at least be consistent with the findings of science. Religious beliefs can contribute to a coherent world view and a comprehensive metaphysics.
4. Fertility. In the case of science, theories are judged partly by their promise for encouraging an ongoing research program, which is the central activity of science. Because religion involves a greater diversity of activities and serves some functions quite different from those of science, fertility here has many dimensions. At the personal level, religious beliefs can be judged by their power to effect personal transformation and the integration of personality. What are their effects on human character? Do they have the capacity to inspire and sustain compassion and create love? Are they relevant to urgent issues of our age, for example, environmental destruction and nuclear war?
Judgments on such questions will of course be paradigm-dependent, but they are an important part of the evaluation of religion as a way of life. These questions are explored later in this chapter.