Independent Schools Religious Studies Association

Contents

John Keast’s address to ISRSA on Assessment in RE  
  

Eamon Duffy on the future of Theology and Religious Studies  
  

Common mistakes in the teaching of Hinduism  
  

Advice to new RE teachers  
  

Thoughts on RE by a Headmaster  
  

Philosophy of Religion and Christian ethics  
  

Letters   
  

Articles from earlier issues   

Science, Religion and Human Nature  

Guide to Websites  

Narrative Criticism in the Classroom

Membership   
  

How ISRSA began   
  

ISRE Syllabus  
  

The aims of ISRSA  
  
  

Start page   
  

These generally take a 'nothing but’ form. Sociobiology tends to see human beings as nothing but survival machines for their genes. Artificial Intelligence tends to see the human mind as nothing but a computer programme. Neuropsychology tends to see people as just ‘bundles of neurones’- as Francis Crick put it.   

There is nothing in Christian belief to stand in the way of the scientific study of human beings. Neither is there any problem in recognising that human beings are part of the natural world from which we have evolved, and that our remarkable, higher form of consciousness is grounded in the physical brain.   

However, Christians would also want to claim that our higher properties are real and important. We are spiritual as well as natural creatures, and as such stand at the ‘hinge’ of creation. I see it as central to God’s creative purpose that creatures such as ourselves should evolve to be capable of forming a spiritual relationship with him.   

It is an inherent part of scientific method that it should attempt to explain higher level phenomena in terms of lower-level ones as far as possible. That is methodological reductionism. It is usually a fruitful path for science to pursue. However, it is seldom completely successful, and there is no reason to assume in advance that it will be. That assumption of complete success is what distinguishes strong reductionism from methodological reductionism.   

To be specific, it is perfectly sensible for scientists to try to explain how human consciousness arises from the physical brain. I assume that they will have a measure of success in that. However, there is nothing in science to support the belief that they will be completely successful. That leaves Crick’s claim that we are just ‘bundles of neurones’ as wholly unconvincing.   

One of the intriguing things here is how an alliance has formed between atheism and strong reductionism. However, there are formal similarities between the arguments advanced in the two cases.   

Strong neuropsychological reductionists like Crick look at our two languages, one about mind, the other about the physical brain, and suggest we can drop the first. They think that it is going to be possible to explain thought processes in terms of the physical brain so completely that it will be redundant to talk about the mind as well.   

In a similar way there is a religious language about the world as well as the natural language of the experimental sciences. Atheists want to eliminate the religious perspective and reduce everything to natural process. The formal similarity between materialism and atheism is so close that it is not surprising that they appeal to the same people.   

However, there is no reason to think that science will be able to explain everything about human beings in physical terms, and so prove that we are just bundles of ‘neurones’. So, this bold and over-confident scientific programme gives no support to the parallel idea that we can explain everything about creation in natural terms, and that there is no place for God.   

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