Hi there! I am delighted to announce that the first Graduate Research Seminar of Hilary Term will be led by Donall McGinley from TCD, on ‘Can Science and Religion Meet Over Their Subject-Matter?: a look at the late mediaeval discussion’. Abstract: As is well known, natural science and religion were not considered natural enemies in the later Middle Ages, but do science and religion even have the same things as their subject-matter? This paper considers how science and religion were related in the Scholastic thought of the late 13th and early 14th centuries, and whether science can ever make contributions to religious knowledge. I will look at how sciences were distinguished from one another in Scholastic Aristotelianism, and at arguments for the necessity of supernatural knowledge from the insufficiency of Aristotelian science. I will consider whether natural science and theology can ever meet over subject-matter. Given that science is the study of natural causes, can science encroach on religion? I argue that finite effects (of the kinds found in the natural world and studied by science) can only warrant positing finite causes, and therefore there is no reason within natural science to posit an infinite cause (such as God). After discussing how some religious beliefs were defended using metaphysical demonstrations (e.g., the existence of God), and how other attempted demonstrations of religious beliefs were criticized (e.g., that the world had a temporal beginning), I consider whether natural sciences could ever be used to establish religious doctrines. I argue that only insofar as religions make scientific claims (that is, empirical claims about the natural world), do science and religion share a subject-matter. In making empirical claims these religious beliefs become testable by science. However, science cannot make contributions to knowledge concerning infinite beings or their effects (for finite effects do not require infinite causes.) The discussion draws on the work of John Duns Scotus, Thomas Aquinas and earlier Aristotelians. The group will meet on Tuesday the 20th, at 5:30 pm, in the Newman Building, Room D522, University College Dublin. Wine and other refreshments will be served. Please come along and support your peers. Best wishes, Z.
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 23:37:31 +0000
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