Lehe - God, science, and religious diversity : a defense of theism

A Defense of Theism

Robert T. Lehe

I have been interested in the relation between religion and science since high school and in the problem of religious diversity since a college summer break I spent in Nagano, Japan, which included frequent visits to the great Zenkoji Temple. This book originates from several years of teaching a science and religion course at North Central College. The course was designed to satisfy a college requirement of an upper-level seminar that deals with intercultural issues, and so it includes an investigation of how different religions respond to modern science. The impulse to write this book came in part from a need for a textbook for the course that deals with some of the issues I wanted to examine, in a way that was both scientifically accurate and accessible to undergraduates and others interested in the relation between religion and science.

Two of the biggest obstacles to religious faith in the twenty-first century are the belief that religion is incompatible with science, and the problem of religious diversity with the apparently intractable disagreements between different religions about the nature of ultimate reality. Both issues arise from the contrast between the impressive success of science in giving us knowledge, and the apparent lack of rational means of justifying claims about any reality that is beyond the reach of science. Furthermore, the success of science extends even to the study of religion, and recent investigations seem to suggest that religion is a complex of phenomena that can be explained scientifically by anthropology and evolutionary psychology. This book addresses both of these challenges to faith and explores the relation between them. I argue that science and religion are not only compatible, but that some major, recent scientific discoveries support a theistic worldview. The diversity of religions is widely believed to undermine the credibility of religious belief because of the perpetual and intractable disagreements between different religions. I argue that one rational way to resolve disagreements between the claims of diverse religions is to assess their consistency with contemporary science. On this count I find theism superior to Buddhism, a major nontheistic religion, which has a rich tradition of rigorous engagement with science.

The Big Bang theory supports the proposition that the universe began to exist in the finite past. Recent valiant efforts by scientists to avoid the inference that the universe had a beginning or to find a satisfactory scientific explanation of the beginning of the universe have not succeeded in providing a more reasonable explanation than the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo . Recent discoveries that reveal an amazing degree of fine-tuning of the fundamental parameters of nature provide evidence that increases plausibility of belief that the universe was designed by a supremely intelligent creator. These scientific discoveries suggest that theism is better supported by contemporary scientific cosmology than the nontheistic metaphysical framework of Buddhism, with its commitment to an eternal, cyclical universe and the impossibility of a transcendent creator. The fact that theism is more harmonious with recent developments in scientific cosmology than nontheistic religions suggests that science can help us find ways of dealing with some of the disagreements between different religions.

This project could not have been completed without the help of friends and colleagues, to whom I owe huge debts of gratitude. Olin Joynton, Daniel Kolb, James Peters, and Marcia Lehe read early drafts of the manuscript and provided valuable feedback and suggestions for improvement. North Central College colleagues Paul Bloom, of the Physics Department, read and helped with the science chapters, and Brian Hoffert, of the East Asian Studies Program, provided feedback and suggestions on the Buddhism chapter. Physicist Jean Robert Lehe read a draft of the manuscript and provided much useful feedback about the scientific content. Former student and longtime friend Jonathan Matuzak proofread the manuscript and made numerous typo corrections and stylistic suggestions that improved the readability of the book. Former student Katelynn Moxon helped with proofreading. Thanks to North Central College for summer research grants to support the development of the science and religion course and the research for the book. Thanks to the journal Religious Studies for permission to republish my 2014 article, A Critique of Peter Byrnes Religious Pluralism, which constitutes a major part of chapter . Above all, special thanks to my wife, Marcia Lehe, without whose support and encouragement completion of the book would never have been possible, and whose editing, proofreading, and stylistic and substantive suggestions greatly improved the quality of the final product. Of course, I assume responsibility for whatever deficiencies remain.