The Territories of Science and Religion

by Peter Harrison

The conflict between science and religion seems indelible even eternal Surely two such divergent views of the universe have always been in fierce opposition Actually that s not the case says Peter Harrison our very concepts of science and religion are relatively recent emerging only in the past three hundred years and it is those very categories rather than their underlying concepts that constrain our understanding of how the formal study of nature relates to the religious life In The Territories of Science and Religion Harrison dismantles what we think we know about the two categories then puts it all back together again in a provocative productive new way By tracing the history of these concepts for the first time in parallel he illuminates alternative boundaries and little known relations between them thereby making it possible for us to learn from their true history and see other possible ways that scientific study and the religious life might relate to influence and mutually enrich each other A tour de force by a distinguished scholar working at the height of his powers The Territories of Science and Religion promises to forever alter the way we think about these fundamental pillars of human life and experience

Genres: History, Science, Religion, Philosophy, History Of Science, Nonfiction, Theology

Hardcover

First published March 2, 2015

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Reviews

[James Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Needs to be read by everyone in the "science-and-religion" conversation. Watch for my review in the LA Review of Books.

[Roger Neyman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book on sourcing why science and religion have the relationship they have today. Harrison's historical perspective is invaluable in understanding the how modern science and modern religion have shaped each other. It's weakness is that it fails to dig deeper into a more philosophical framework to explore the potential of the relationship, and the scope for each, and so leaves us with the view that the current relationship of conflict is more-or-less the permanent state of affairs. Harrison is, because he is too trapped by his historical framework of analysis, too dismissive of the possibility of harmony, dialog and integration (and hence of many of Barbour's categories). Still, that weakness is based on the books greatest strength. He covers some of the same territory that Charles Taylor does in A Secular Age but far more succinctly.

[Joseph Yue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thorough.

In this small book with mere 200 pages, Harrison has somehow managed to pack in 10 million yottabytes of condensed information, with which he painted a clear picture of how on earth have we arrived at the conclusion that 'science' and 'religion' are in perpetual conflicts. The answer is simply that there is no such thing as 'science', nor is there any 'religion', as popularly conceived - that is, neither real science nor genuine religion is a collection of propositions and statements. But when they are treated as such, conflicts naturally emerged out of thin air. Talking about the conflict between 'science' and 'religion', therefore, is akin to talking about the warfare between elves and dwarves - it relies on the distortion, misinterpretation, and reification of the two irreducibly complex concepts into something simple and ideological, something exist per se out of their proper contexts.

[Derrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

A culmination of Harrison's three prior monographs (all from Cambridge University Press), this book based on Harrison's 2011 Gifford Lectures is without doubt or argument one of the most important books published on the history of science and religion in the last twenty years. It is even more than that, however, as Harrison is also conversant with major theories of secularization and its relationship to religion and theology (in particular he dialogues with the works of Charles Taylor, Michael Allan Gillespie, and Louis Dupre). Get it. Read it.

[Calvin Fletcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant book and very well researched. I finished this book with a completely different outlook on the narrative given about scientific development and the so-called "conflict" between science and religion, however one chooses to classify and define those terms. Highly recommended to someone interested in the role theology had to play in the development of science and apologetics. Regardless of what "side" you are on I am certain you will find some of your opinions challenged and changed. Great read.

[Christina “6 word reviewer” Lake]

Provocatively challenges preconceptions behind 'science wars.'

[Mz · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://bookpress.gr/kritikes/idees/1...

[Anthony · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fresh perspective on the science vs. religion debate--a debate that is over two centuries old. The author traces the two terms back to their critical points of popularization. For "religion," that is around the time of the Protestant Reformation, where many versions of Christianity began building their own followings. "Science" comes later, after several iterations of disciplines of empirical study including natural theology, natural philosophy and natural science.

The big idea that Harrison has is that "religion" and "science" as we now know them are the result of shifting ideals that have become dichotomized as a result of changing contexts of values. I might also add that this dichotomy is also the result of the evolution of the formal scientific approach rooted in European events. Harrison seems to imply that the critical period of this separation is from the dawn of the Renaissance, through the Enlightenment, and solidified with the popularization of Darwin.

Without getting into too many of the details, Aquinas's marriage of the Aristotelian virtues with Christianity clarify the good that give birth to the enlightened ideas of post-Renaissance philosophers. With this sort of virtue, new schools of thought are built. Some of the inward-looking theology gives way to more outward-looking theology, and examining the creatures and objects in the world become a method of cultivating virtue--the crux always remains developing good character. Nothing is purely objective and detached from the moral development of the individual, and it remains this way for a while. Cultivating character, or virtue, is the aim of all study, from the construction of the first formal universities up through the late stages of the Enlightenment. Nothing changes so drastically--there is no "revolution"--but the moral mind of humankind evolves through stages of inward-looking developments of virtue to outward-looking developments of virtue.

The Reformation sets the stage with varying sects personalizing their ideas of Christianity with the help of the first printed Bibles. This, by chance, turns the concept of Christianity into a more multi-faceted world of many "religions," and Christianity, now made plural, can take the mantle of "the religion" when compared to the Buddhisms and Islams of the rest of the world. With this, progress turns from a "pilgrim's progress" to a societal progress. This brings to mind Max Weber's "Protestant work ethic," where the Protestant individual internalizes a belief of "a calling" and transcendence through work here on earth. Also, a utilitarian ethic is spelled out and duty to one's neighbor begins to be replaced with a much larger unit.

Harrison gets into a lot of historical nuance, but it is worth reading and mulling over the history of ideas, especially two big ideas that have such larger implications. The drift of separation between science and religion often makes for a heated debate that goes nowhere. With this historical reference, Harrison provides new starting points that are not clouded by popular ideas or pundits. Everything comes from somewhere, and like humans and apes have a common ancestor, so do science and religion. They are two ideas that have evolved far enough apart that now they seem like two different species competing for the same thing, that can only be at war with each other. Harrison spells out how this story cannot be further from the truth, and that the truth is the result of ideas evolved over time.

[Ben McFarland · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent history of the words "science" and "religion." The way we use them today is not more than a couple hundred years old, yet we constantly talk as if science and religion were always around in the way that we think of them. They. Were. Not. Peter Harrison shows how the ancients thought differently from us, and how and why it changed to the concepts we have today, as the verbal maplines were redrawn. This kind of study across cultures and nations is immensely valuable, and Harrison brings out the value and application to our current seeming standoffs over these terms. What struck me most on this reading is how "scientists" were deliberately created by secondary scientists like Huxley and Spencer, not through intellectual need so much as through political maneuvering and propagandizing. I don't use that last word lightly, but there's no other word for what Huxley and company did to Darwin's legacy, and how the Galileo story was distorted into the dark parable that scientists repeat today. (Don't get me started on Bruno.) Harrison writes in an easily accessible mode, because it seems that much of what he describes is at least known as open for debate among historians, but people outside of history, especially scientists, keep repeating the same old stories using the same old words. We need to both recover the old meanings and forge new ones. As a chemist who wants to do natural history, this book is especially encouraging, because it helps explain why natural history is no longer in vogue -- and how, perhaps, it can be again.

[Jerrid Kruse · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book tracks the development of the constructs of science and religion from the time of Aristotle, but focuses on the reformation/scientific revolution time period into the 1800’s and focuses on Christianity. The book explains how moral and critical thinking virtues originally supported each other and through societal changes (e.g., printing press) both became increasingly objectified. That is, rather than internal virtues to be developed in the individual, religion and science emerged as external sets of propositions. This led to the professionalization of science and the fracturing of religion. The author argues, using historical texts and language analysis, that the constructs religion and science as external to the individual really didn’t exist until the 1700s and 1800s respectively. This means the historical conflict between the two was exaggerated and even manufactured to an extent. As the two emerged they drew upon each other (e.g., natural theology), but eventually diverged into the discrete entities we know today.

I’ve oversimplified the author’s argument and there are many examples and details to support the overall argument. In the epilogue, the author makes compelling arguments against the new atheists, recognizing the moral stories embedded within their arguments and the limitations of science as absolute truth.

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

really impressive book, but I’m split on how I feel about it. Harrison is convincing in a lot of ways, and then there are some I'm not so sure on. How complete was the abstraction and consolidation of Christian belief into the affirmation of propositions? For whom was that true? Even reciting creeds and confessions—phenomenologically, ontologically, intellectually—involves more than merely checking off boxes of what you’re saying/assenting to/trying to live into. He also seems to suggest, repeatedly, that in the absence of the modern category of religion and its attendant rejection of Aristotelian virtues, Augustine and Eusebius, among other early Christians, held a surprisingly wide soteriology, i.e., that salvation was happening beyond the church. That’s a fascinating claim I want to explore in more depth, but that on its face, would at the very least surprise me.

Harrison doesn't evade the typical potholes of intellectual history, but he's a lot more careful not to overstate his case than he was in his published (and influential) dissertation in 1990.

Despite all of these potential issues, Harrison is really adept at telling the part of the story of the emergence of modern religion and modern science that he tells. The whole science vs. religion thing is basically a specious myth.

[Rick Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Territories of Science and Religion by Peter Harrison

Peter Harrison, a Historian of Science.

He says, 'religio' refers to devotion and prayer, more understood in Aristotelian Sciences [pre-17th century] & 'scientia' is intellectual virtue.

Harrison borrows from Aquinas saying, 'religio' and 'scientia' are personal attributes.

For Aquinas, three virtues:

a) understanding (intellectus),
b) science (scientia)
c) wisdom (sapientia)

Understanding -- understanding, was to do with grasping first principles.

Scientia -- science, with the derivation of truths from those first principles.

To make progress in science is not to add body of knowledge.
To draw, better "scientific" conclusion from general premises.

Wisdom -- wisdom is with the grasp of the highest causes, including the first cause, God

Harrison displays, religio and scientia, lied in the relation of the interior and exterior elements.

Science is an intellectual habit; religion, like the other virtues, is a moral habit.

Harrison shows, Science and Religion became separate categories from 18th century.

If that is so, entire discourse on this topic, seems to have gone awry.

I admire, how Harrison is able to compress so much information in 200 pages.
And, His Exhaustive References


Deus Vult,
Gottfried

[Oghenovo Obrimah · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are looking for an insightful expose on history of religion and science, particularly interactions between the two spheres, this book does an excellent job. I for one was extremely surprised that ancient Christian philosophers and non-Christian Greek philosophers were in agreement with respect to their views of religion and science. It is fact then that any applications of Greek philosophy towards validation of atheism lack any credibility whatsoever. Highly recommend.

[Samuel Sadler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book ws so engaging I read it in one day. A very telling account of the etymologies of scientia and religio, and the way these terms developed with and shaped western tradition. Harrison shows how conflicts between "science" and "religion" can only accurately describe events of from the last century or so. This book is particularly worth considering for educators, as it provides insights which can lead to a more inter-disciplinary approach to education.

[Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book largely covers the same content as John Hedley Brooke's 'Science and Religion some Historical Perspectives', which offers more detail. However, the conclusion that this book advances is interesting and has prompted some good further discussion. In addition the book is less dense than Brookes treatement of these issues so suitable for introductory readers.

[Wyatt Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant historical study regarding the concepts of science and religion. Must read, especially because makes much sense out of the current way in which we conceive of these two disciplines. It’s also dialled into primary sources, adding a layer of authority to it.

[Marsha Altman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for class

[Rod · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much needed and is exceptionally researched.

Compelling evidence that calls out the mythological conflict between the relatively modern categories of religion and science. Harrison's project is well indexed and thought out. It provides a much needed voice in the ongoing struggle to correct long held false assumptions about the history of Christianity's relationship with science.

[Aliza Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

A true "academic" read. Sometimes tough to understand and the author makes some assumptions that the reader has a clear understanding of history. However, the book is to the point and very engaging. I believe that it can be read and enjoyed by anyone.

[Richard Gunton · Rating 5 out of 5]

My review: http://www.thinkfaith.net/fisch/blog/...

[Dan Griswold · Rating 3 out of 5]

An impressive work of scholarship. It was a bit too abstract in its argumentation and lacked a strong, useful conclusion.