Scientific truth and religious truth

Abstract

We show that the search for truth in religious faith proceeds along the same lines as in science. In both cases it is necessary to make use of the distinction, suggested by J. Ladrière, between the rational (which can be established by scientific procedures that are compelling) and the reasonable (which depends on judgment, on choice and wisdom). As a result, the confidence we have in religious truth can be shown to be of the same kind as that placed in scientific results, but at a different level of credibility. We have, in fact, in both cases three steps in the pursuit of truth:

• The setting of the philosophical axioms that are the foundations of knowledge, i. e. the fundamental postulates of science and the set of all religious dogmas.

• A rational and scientific analysis of human experience, allowing the improvement of scientific postulates as well as of religious dogmas. In the first case, the analysis gives a strong basis for such postulates and, in the second, the religious dogmas are at least not disproved.

• And finally a synthesis of the Theory of science and the Theology of religion.