Gregory R. Peterson is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion at South Dakota
State University and Program Coordinator of the Philosophy and Religion Department,
Box 504 Scobey 336, SDSU, Brookings, SD 57007; e-mail greg.peterson@sdstate.
edu.
THEOLOGY AND THE SCIENCE WARS:
WHO OWNS HUMAN NATURE?
by Gregory R. Peterson
Abstract. Lluís Oviedo examines in his article the current conflict
over human nature and the role of the sciences in the debate,
suggesting that there may be a role for theology to play as well. In
this essay I examine and respond to some aspects of Oviedo’s article
and suggest that the nature of the conflict needs to be nuanced to
understand it as a conflict not between scientific and philosophical/
social-scientific views of human nature but among scientists, social
scientists, and philosophers over the role of science in thinking about
human nature. I analyze some of the obstacles for theology’s becoming
involved and propose that thinking about what are distinctively
theological questions as opposed to scientific ones may be an appropriate
starting point.
Keywords: biocognitivism; cognitive science of religion; Lluís
Oviedo; science wars.
Lluís Oviedo (2006) suggests that the ongoing debate between humanists
and science advocates over the status of science generally and claims about
human nature specifically provides an opportunity for theology. He asserts
that theology currently suffers from a double alienation, spurned both
by humanists and scientists and considered, if at all, only as a datum to be
explained. Yet, humanists and science advocates cannot reconcile their
views on human nature, suggesting that an alternative perspective is needed.
Oviedo suggests that theology can provide this needed alternative perspective
and so can once again become a party to academic discourse, albeit
with some reservations concerning what may have to be given up to do so.
[Zygon, vol. 41, no. 4 (December 2006).]
© 2006 by the Joint Publication Board of Zygon. ISSN 0591-2385
853
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In many respects, I find Oviedo’s analysis and conclusion congenial to
my own perspective on these issues. My goal here, therefore, is to elaborate
on some of the points that Oviedo raises and, in particular, to argue
that if theology is going to become successfully engaged in the way that
Oviedo suggests, theologians must start from a broader base of assumptions
than is usually the case. At stake is not simply whether theology can
be said to be intellectually respectable but whether and in what way theology
should have a place in the university.
WHO IS DIVIDED FROM WHOM?
On Oviedo’s analysis, an important divide has occurred between scientists
and scholars in the humanities (hereafter humanists) over important questions
of anthropology. Of concern among the humanists is the picture of
human nature that is being drawn from the biological sciences, especially
the fields of genetics, evolutionary biology, and the cognitive sciences. On
this picture, human beings are understood to be one of the many parts of
the natural world and, as such, of no particular importance. Genetics and
evolutionary biology together suggest that the ultimate motivations of
human behavior do not lie so much in the realm of rational choice as in
the necessity of biological survival. The human mind is understood as a
sophisticated information processor, different from a robot only in the
particular way that this processing is implemented in the wetware of the
brain. The proponents of this view, looking toward the future, envision a
day when mind and machine merge, or when genetic technologies allow
us to extend or even transform our humanity, perhaps even granting a very
physical form of immortality. At least, so the usual argument goes (a particularly
obvious example is Kurzweil 1999).
The humanists whom Oviedo cites are a diverse bunch, ranging from
Mikael Stenmark and Francis Fukuyama to Jürgen Habermas and John
Dupré. Nevertheless, Oviedo observes, these thinkers seem united in their
opposition to the picture just outlined, what might be called the biocognitive
view. In works such as the ones that Oviedo mentions, it is typical to
claim that the biocognitive view is guilty of both scientism and reductionism,
as findings from the sciences are extended into universal descriptions
of, and perhaps prescriptions for, human nature. This view is reductive
because the richness of human experience is either explained simply in
terms of information processing or evolutionary survival or, if the particular
experiences do not fit one of these models, simply explained away as
nonexistent or at best epiphenomenal. For these thinkers, it may be argued,
at stake are the very distinctive qualities that make us truly human,
in particular the categories of rationality, freedom, and purposiveness that
provide the foundations of how we live our lives. In rejecting the biocognitive
view, these critics are defending a version of what might be called
Gregory R. Peterson 855
the received view: that human beings are in some important, irreducible
way different from the rest of the natural world, that there is more to being
human than being matter in motion, and that whatever process of evolution
did take place, that process is not determinative for who we are.
I call this the received view simply because it inherits much of the dominant
tradition of thinking in the Western philosophical tradition. We
easily find this sense of human distinctiveness, purpose, and rationality at
the roots of the modern era in the writings of René Descartes and, later, in
a different key in Immanuel Kant. We find it too in Friedrich Nietzsche,
Martin Heidegger, and the existentialist movement, despite the extent to
which they moved away from the earlier tradition. We find it in the roots
of twentieth-century social science, with its emphasis on environmental
influence and its rejection of biological and evolutionary models for explanations
of human nature and behavior. If we probe further, we can trace
the received view’s religious roots, especially in the Christian doctrine of
the image of God, which historically has been used to explain how, despite
our very materiality, we nevertheless share in the being and likeness of God.
In noting this divide, Oviedo suggests that it is part of the wider conflict
that has become known as the “science wars,” the dispute especially between
scientists and postmodern critics of science (located usually in the
field of science studies) over the status and significance of scientific truth
claims (Sokal 1998). At stake is not only how we interpret claims about
human nature but also more general issues of how we view the universe
and science’s role in that view.
Although Oviedo’s observations are correct as far as they go, it is worth
considering further the actual parties involved in the debate. The assumption
that the advocates of the biocognitive view are scientists and its opponents
all humanists is far from universally true. In the case of the humanists,
we find an important divide, for much of the reason that the biocognitive
view has become increasingly influential is precisely because it has been
promulgated and popularized by scholars in the humanities and the social
sciences. Within Anglo-American philosophy, especially philosophy of
mind, this is particularly obvious, as the impact of the sciences in the analytic
tradition has long been felt. Daniel Dennett (1991; 1995; 2006) is
perhaps the most prominent and familiar voice in American philosophy
arguing for a biocognitive approach, but he is by no means the only one.
Indeed, it would not be a gross exaggeration to say that in the AngloAmerican
philosophy of mind the primary question is not whether the
biocognitive approach is correct but which version of it is correct. In ethics,
for instance, consideration of Darwin, if not yet the cognitive sciences,
has received renewed consideration (Rachels 1998; Singer 2000). It is
important to note that much of the ruckus over evolutionary psychology is
occurring precisely because it is being pushed not simply by biologists but
also by psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists. The text that put
856 Zygon
evolutionary psychology on the map, The Adapted Mind (1992), was edited
by two anthropologists (Jerome Barkow and John Tooby) and a psychologist
(Leda Cosmides). Similarly, many of the primary scholars in the cognitive
science of religion hearken from the social sciences and, in the case
of E.Thomas Lawson, from religious studies (Lawson and McCauley 1993).
Similar divisions exist among scientists, although they are not always so
obvious or clear-cut. It is certainly the case that many of the best-known
advocates of a biocognitive view of human nature are themselves scientists.
Richard Dawkins and E. O. Wilson, the primary founders of sociobiology
as a field in the 1970s, have both been tireless promoters of an evolutionary
view of the type that the humanists whom Oviedo cites are most concerned
with (Dawkins [1976] 1989; Wilson 1978). Yet, not all scientists
take Dawkins’s andWilson’s view, as Oviedo’s citation of the work of Stephen
Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin indicates. Less clear is how diverse the
scientific community actually is on these issues. Most scientists do not
write outside of their narrow specialty, and while there may be good reason
to suppose that Dawkins’s and Wilson’s views are widely shared by their
fellow scientists, there is little to go on. Indeed, it might be supposed that
participants in different fields of science will view these issues somewhat
differently and that disciplinary perspectives may play more important roles
in thinking about these broader claims than is generally recognized.
I do not think that this observation contradicts Oviedo’s description,
but it is important to emphasize that the conflict over anthropology is
more than a conflict between scientists and humanists. Indeed, it might
be fairer to say that the main argument is over not science but the interpretation
of science, especially findings in the biological sciences, for the wider
purposes of worldviews and values. Many of the data produced, for instance,
by evolutionary psychologists are good data. Typically, the dispute
lies in the interpretation of the data, in particular whether the evolutionary
factors that evolutionary psychologists cite are either necessary or sufficient
for the correlations that are observed. A similar point can be made
with respect to cognitive neuroscience, where computational models of
the mind/brain are dominant. Within the field, these computational models
certainly work; they provide insights, means of generating predictions and
assessing brain imaging and behavior correlations, and so forth. The primary
dispute arises when the computational model is taken to be sufficient
for understanding human cognition and personhood.
In observing that much of the debate over the significance of biological
science for anthropology concerns the interpretation of science, I am not
saying that no one interpretation is better than another. Clearly, there are
good interpretations and bad ones. But recognizing the role of interpretation
in the debate suggests that it is not simply a debate about science. It
is about philosophical and religious worldviews and the extent to which
science should play a role in that worldview formulation.
Gregory R. Peterson 857
THE DEVIL OR THE DEEP BLUE SEA?
If Oviedo’s analysis is correct, it seems that theologians have two choices to
make. The first is whether to become involved in this debate at all. In
denoting the opponents of the biocognitive view as “humanists,” Oviedo
seems to mean primarily that the opponents are scholars in the fields of the
humanities, or at least the humanities and the social sciences. But he seems
to mean more than this: that most of the humanists of whom he is speaking
are already nonreligious or even antireligious in their outlook. Indeed,
it may be argued that this is what makes the debate, at least for the theological
outsider, so fascinating: for once the opposition to science (so to
speak) is not specifically religious in character. Many of the voices involved
in the so-called science wars are secular (that is, nonreligious), and
their objections to the biocognitive view have little to with the status of
religious claims or religious communities. Although Oviedo emphasizes
the differences between these secular voices and theologians engaged with
the sciences, there also are important overlaps, especially with regard to the
claims of sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists, which often are
treated to the same withering criticism by theologians as by the secular
critics (see, for exaample, Haught 2003).
Oviedo suggests, with some reservations, that this divide provides an
opportunity for theology, allowing it to become engaged in the intellectual
life of Western civilization in a way that it has not been able to do for some
time. Given the difference in secular viewpoints, perhaps there is an opening
once again for theology, long held in academic disrepute, to resume its
formative role in intellectual discourse. The only question is, which side
to choose?
Theologians, it would seem, endorse the biocognitive view at their own
risk. To side with this view would seemingly be to side with the devil.
After all, many of the values that secularists are defending against the advocates
of the biocognitive view—values of rational autonomy, of moral
agency and worth, of dignity and purpose—are values that traditionally
are part of the theological vocabulary. Theologians who take this approach
would run the risk of endangering their own discipline, because the biocognitive
view seeks to swallow up not only the received view of anthropology
but religion as well, a point made explicit early on by Wilson (1978)
and now pursued eagerly in the new field of cognitive science of religion.
To side with the humanist critics, however, runs the danger of sailing
theologians into the deep blue sea of antiscience rhetoric and reactionary
thinking. While it would be a mistake for theologians to buy into the
entirety of the biocognitive view as described, it nevertheless may be argued
that there is much in the biocognitive view that is right or, at the very
least, worthy of serious consideration. This indeed has been the argument
of many theologians, including myself (see Peterson 2002), who have been
858 Zygon
strongly engaged with the sciences. The strength of scientific claims and
scientific reasoning is such that, despite many theologians’ wish to the
contrary, it can no longer be ignored. Rather, theologians must engage
seriously with the sciences, even if it sometimes requires a revision of longheld
doctrines that have been important to the tradition.
But perhaps theologians need not side with either view. Theological
approaches may present a third option, a means of bridging the gap between
the biocognitive and the received view. This seems to be the drift of
Oviedo’s conclusion: that theology once again has a special role to play
precisely because of the unique resources that it brings to the table—not
least, as Oviedo observes, its ability to stand from the perspective of the
whole in a way that allows critiques of the misplaced concreteness of both
the biocognitivists and their opponents.
There is only one problem, which Oviedo notes: that the presence of
theologians may not be particularly welcomed by either side. For the advocates
of the biocognitive view, the reason stems at least partly from the
perceived conflict between religion and science. This is certainly the case
for Dawkins, who has made the discrediting of religion in the name of
science a central goal of his popular writing (1996; 2004). There are also
broader reasons, which Oviedo does not address but which loom large for
any involvement of theology. Two of these are particularly noteworthy.
The first is the question of religious diversity. When Oviedo argues for
theology to become involved, he clearly means Christian, and perhaps more
specifically Roman Catholic, theology. Secularists, whether in the sciences
or humanities, often are aware of the diversity of religious traditions and
the consequent diversity of theologies (Muslim, Hindu, Jewish) that follow.
Particularly for secularized scientists, one of the great virtues of science
is its apparently universal scope, practicable by Indians, Chinese, and
Argentinians as well as by Americans and Germans. If theology is going to
be taken as an entrant into these debates, it must be up front about the
diversity question as well as able to respond appropriately to it.
A second problem is the issue, real or perceived, of religious intolerance
and violence. It is striking how frequently the specter of religious intolerance
is used as a means of discrediting religion altogether. We may expect
that this criticism would be emphasized by humanities scholars who are
steeped in history and more than aware of the many awful things that have
been done in the name of religion, but it is used with surprising frequency
by antireligious scientists as well. The rise of various forms of fundamentalism
in recent years has not helped matters. The question of religious
intolerance and violence may seem a long way from supporting a significant
theological engagement of the relation of sciences and human nature,
because most theologians take for granted that the forms of religion associated
with these extremes are discredited and so are barely brought to mind
when engagement with scientists and other humanities scholars occurs.
Gregory R. Peterson 859
Unfortunately, this is not nearly as widely shared a perception as it ought
to be. On this issue, modern theology retains a guilt by association for
many secular-minded scholars, to the extent that the kind of role that
Oviedo envisions for theology is made more problematic.
Both of these issues, however, are preliminary. The real question is what
exactly theology has to offer. If it is simply assumed by the secularists that
theology has no intellectual standing, how does the engagement begin?
What, in fact, does theology bring to the table that would be worth con-
sidering?
THE QUESTION OF THE WHOLE
That Oviedo is well aware of this question is indicated by his description
and analysis of the work of sociologist Niklas Luhmann. Luhmann’s analysis
of theology consigns it to the “shadow lands” in no small part because it
does not have the kind of cognitive content that allows it to operate out in
the open and on the same ground with the sciences. The thesis is familiar
to theologians and, often enough, actively embraced. In addition, Oviedo
considers several possible lines of approach, from endorsing some form of
systems theory to engaging the strengths and weaknesses of the work of
Nancey Murphy and John Milbanks.
I would suggest a slightly different starting point. Instead of beginning
with the question of what method would be the most promising for theology,
it may be better to begin by considering what questions are distinctively
theological ones. There are several reasons to do this. Traditionally,
the domain of theology has often been understood as the domain of Godtalk,
and so presumably what theology uniquely brings to the table is the
knowledge of God’s will and activities in the cosmos. The problem is that
for many secularists this is a nonstarter, because they do not share the
theologians’ prior commitments about God. Additionally, such an accounting
of theology fails to take stock of today’s radical religious pluralism.
Not only can we speak of nontheistic “theologies” from a Buddhist or
Hindu perspective, but even within the Western intellectual tradition the
term God has become quite elastic—used equally by John Polkinghorne
(1996) to speak of the more traditional divine personal agent and by Gordon
Kaufman (1993) to speak of the “serendipitous creativity” in the evolutionary
process. As a result, the automatic privileging of one perspective
becomes problematic. What can be argued to be distinctive about theology
as a discipline are the questions that it asks and the way that these
questions are related to a holistic framework. Questions about the ultimate
nature of the universe, the distinction (if one exists) between the
natural and the supernatural, the possibility of transcendence, and human
and cosmic ultimate purpose and direction are distinctly theological questions.
Theology speaks of ultimacy in a way that the sciences do not, and
860 Zygon
this point is key to understanding the role that theology may play in questions
about human nature. In speaking of human nature, the task of theology
is not to directly compete with, for instance, neuroscience and
behavioral genetics. Rather, its task is to question neuroscientific and genetic
models of human personhood and ask to what extent they are sufficient
and in what ways they are deficient when we come to the profound
questions of value or purpose.
Although Oviedo has phrased it differently, this seems to be at least one
possibility that he envisions for theology: that theology can play a role of
critique and that there are criticisms to be made of the biocognitive view
from a theological standpoint on questions of human nature and, perhaps
especially, research into consciousness. Interestingly, although theology
will inevitably side with the critics in the humanities on at least some issues
with the biocognitive view, the claim that theology takes the standpoint of
the whole may be more acceptable to scientists than to humanities scholars,
simply because the notion of a whole, of a universal or universalizing
metaphysic, has become anathema to many influenced by various strands
of postmodern and deconstructionist thought. Although these concerns
are serious and need to be addressed carefully, I do not think they are
insurmountable, and it is perhaps on these questions of the whole and the
correlative claims to completeness where the dialogue should begin.
Claiming that there are distinctly theological questions is profoundly
important to the continued viability of theology as an intellectual enterprise
and vital to theology’s standing in the debates about human nature.
To put this in a different way, is there a place for theology in the university?
In European countries, there may exist theological faculties within statesponsored
universities, but it may be argued that this is due very much to
historical legacy, and there are not a few who would like to see that legacy
done away with. In the United States, with its official separation of church
and state, the situation is quite different. Public universities in the United
States do not have departments of theology, and many do not even have
departments of religion or religious studies. So, if there are distinctly theological
questions, does that mean there is a place for theology in the university
after all? Perhaps it does.
This point is also relevant for consideration of the new field of cognitive
science of religion, which Oviedo considers as posing a possible problem
for theology’s entry into the human nature debate. As a nascent scientific
field, the cognitive science of religion seeks to explore the biological, largely
evolutionary and cognitive-structural, roots of religion. Many scholars in
the field understand that these biological explanations will also be exhaustive
and consequently reductive, that is, showing that religion is nothing
but a result of biological pressures and therefore, in the words of Pascal
Boyer, an “airy nothing” that has no proper domain and whose claims can
be safely dismissed (Boyer 2001, 330).
Gregory R. Peterson 861
Although the cognitive science of religion needs to be taken seriously,
more than many theologians have to date, I would suggest that for the
most part it does not much change the character of the conversation.
Currently, the cognitive science of religion is a curious pastiche of cognitive
psychology, evolutionary psychology, and a revival of Claude LéviStrauss’
structuralism ([1983] 1969). While some of the work that has
come out of the field has been both insightful and provocative, it remains
hampered by the same kind of grandiose claims and sweeping generalizations
that affects evolutionary psychology, although a future integration
with a cognitive neuroscience of religion may correct some of these deficiencies.
A good argument can certainly be made from scientific data that
broad areas of human behavior have a genetic influence and that human
cognition, including religious cognition, has correlating brain activity. To
claim, however, as some advocates of the cognitive science of religion do,
that such findings discredit all religious claims is simply to commit the
genetic fallacy writ large. The intellectual territory may need to be rearranged,
but theology will persevere, not least because whatever the findings
of the cognitive science of religion may be, the distinctly theological
questions that all human beings ask will remain.
BETWEEN IS AND OUGHT
Starting from the standpoint of theological questions is, in some respects,
very different from the specifically Christian and perhaps confessional framework
that Oviedo probably has in mind. But I suggest emphasizing the
distinctly theological questions with regard to anthropology as a starting
point, not as an ending point, a way to recognize the pluralism of views
both within and outside of theology. In the end, the kinds of worldviews
that are practicable for living are the kinds that have significant content
and make significant claims about how the world operates. In this space
we find room for involvement of the great theological traditions of the
world. It is this connection between content and practice, perhaps, that
makes theology unique among disciplines. The sciences, as David Hume
would remind us, tell us how the world is but nothing about how it ought
to be. Inheriting this very modern distinction, a primary legacy of philosophical
ethics has been to try to tell us how the world ought to be without
having to rely on claims about how the world is. Perhaps connecting the is
and the ought is the vital task remaining to theology, and it is why the
questions of anthropology now being so heatedly discussed have such an
important, if sometimes tacit, theological component. To make claims
about human nature is, almost inevitably, also to make claims about what
humans ought to be and are capable of doing. In scientific discourse, this
point can easily be overlooked, since in science it is not the ethical implications
that count but, at least in principle, only the empirical data. Claims
862 Zygon
made on behalf of science, however, are not neutral in the way that we
would sometimes like to believe, and in claims about human nature, personal
motives and ideology can easily be seen to play at least a tacit role in
what is then pronounced as scientific truth. As a result, part of the job of
the theologian is to disentangle these claims, evaluate them, and then assess
how they reflect on human hopes and aspirations.
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