The Effects of Religious Language Methods on Scientific Realism - Benjamin Tabor-SRF Online Nov 2024

Описание: Short Paper 2: The Effects of Religious Language Methods on Scientific Realism
Benjamin Tabor, Talbot School of Theology

ABSTRACT: God’s interaction with the universe continues to be an important topic in the field of science and religion. While this topic is important, I will focus on how Richard Swinburne and Charles Hartshorne use their respective religious language methods to
state their claims about omnipresence and divine embodiment. Initially, I aim to prove that religious language methods are the foundation of their omnipresence views. Subsequently, I aim to prove that these language methods effect the validity of realistic
claims about scientific laws. In the first section, I will detail Swinburne’s univocal religious language method and how it leads him to object to the argument that the universe is God’s body. He concludes that such a suggestion possesses misleading notions about the
presence of God and His interaction with the universe. In the following section I will turn to Charles Hartshorne, whose employment of an analogical approach to religious language finds its foundation in his argument for Dipolar Theism. His omnipresence view contends that God is embodied by the universe, and that this reconciles questions of how His knowledge and power are immediate at any point in the universe. This will be followed by a final section which details the scientific and theological implications of using each language method, including potential effects on scientific realism and the place of God in explanations of scientific fact. This section will support Swinburne’s univocal language, arguing that his language method and objection to divine embodiment provides the least misleading notions about God’s involvement in scientific processes. In objection to Hartshorne, this final section will also argue that his panentheism leads to misleading notions about the character of God and His involvement in the universe. Ultimately, this paper will find that Swinburne’s method of religious language proves to be both the most helpful method for understanding the nature of God in the omnipresence debate and for determining a more coherent method of scientific realism.

Recorded at 'Peacocke @ 100 - Filling and Surrounding the World: Pan(en)theism in a Scientific Age' an online conference from the Science and Religion Forum - 27th - 28th November 2024

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