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Two-Realms Arguments

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Part of the book series: Library of Philosophy and Religion

Abstract

Many of those who believe that natural science has no bearing on theology would consider that the instrumentalist arguments are over-subtle and fail to get to the heart of the matter. The simple and direct reason for the irrelevance of science to theology, many would say, is that they deal with entirely different ‘areas’ or ‘realms’, so that science has nothing to do with what religion is about.

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Notes

  1. Cf. Peter Alexander, ‘Complementary Descriptions’, Mind, LXV (1956), p. 164.

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  2. W.T. Stace, Time and Eternity ( Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952 ), p. 79.

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  3. Karl Heim, Christian Faith and Natural Science (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1957); The Transformation of the Scientific World View (New York: Harper, 1953); The World: Its Creation and Consummation ( Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1962 ).

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  4. For this story see Loren Eiseley, Darwin’s Century (Garden City, New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1961), ch. IX.

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  5. See D.M. MacKay, ‘Complementary Descriptions’, Mind, LXVI (1957), pp. 390–4; ‘Complementarity II’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, supp. vol. XXXII (1958), pp. 105–22; ‘ “Complementarity” in Scientific and Theological Thinking’, Zygon, IX (1974), pp. 225–44.

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  6. See Alexander (op. cit. note 1) and Hugo Adam Bedau, ‘Complementarity and the Relation between Science and Religion’, Zygon IX (1974), pp. 202–24.

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© 1976 William Harvey Austin

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Austin, W.H. (1976). Two-Realms Arguments. In: The Relevance of Natural Science to Theology. Library of Philosophy and Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02690-6_4

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