Book Response:

Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues

by Ian Barbour

3-3-00
by Matt Landreman

Ian Barbour's Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues is very different from Polkinhorne's Faith of a Physicist. Both men are scientists who are knowledgeable in theology, but Barbour's book is much more appropriate for my project of the semester. The Swarthmore alum manages to walk the fine line between giving an even-handed presentation of differing view on the subject, while at the same time letting us know his personal opinion. Barbour sets out to find exactly where science and religion differ and where their methods are actually the same.

Barbour talks explicitly about an idea I picked up inferentially from Polkinghorne. People really do see "religious experience" as a perception just as real as sight or hearing. It was quite telling that Barbour did not even discuss the possibility of such perception being mistaken. It was simply a fact of life that everyone feels this feeling - whatever it is - and so we take the logical next step by interpreting what we perceive. I am still extremely confused just what a "religious experience" is.

Barbour spells out a number of common feelings that fall into this category. Included are feelings of "being grasped and taken hold of" and mystical sensations of the unity of all things. Two things confuse me here. First, I cannot identify anything I have felt as being described by the above phrases. I simply do not understand what they mean. A story helps explain how I feel: a boy is raised without ever hearing mention of the word 'blue.' Obviously he does see blue, but the word 'blue' means nothing to him. What he needs is for someone to say "Blue is the color of the sky." I hope someone can give me the religious analog of this description.

Secondly, suppose this problem were surmounted. We are then confronted with a choice: either the scientific materialist description of the world is wrong, or else there is something going on in the universe which is totally unlike any other process science can describe. Is it the theory or the data that is wrong? It seems to me that since science has demonstrated so much success in describing the world, as evidenced by today's amazing technology, that the data is more likely to be the culprit. Our experiences are probably deceiving us. I am not against a revision of theory when the theory cannot be made to fit the data, but I have trouble believing that such flimsy evidence as human feeling is enough to justify such a fundamental revision in the scientific view of the world.

While Barbour's book has confused me in this sense, at least it also points to the next place to investigate. Barbour lists a number of authors who have written books exclusively on religious experience, in particular Ninian Smart. I hope some reading in this area might help me understand to what "religious experience" refers.

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