Steven Jay Gould memorably argued that Religion and Science are mutually exclusive domains of ideas, articulating the distinction as between ““Non-Overlapping Magesteria.” Dinesh D’Souza began his UCF debate with Christopher Hitchens by articulating this idea; physical science can tell us how, but can tell us nothing about why.
There are two issues that need to be unpacked here. D’Souza argues a pervasive line of thought, that physical science is necessarily silent on matters of teleology. I disagree, and so does Ramon Lopez, an atheistic Natural Law issues inherent in Gould’s argument. Religious narratives describe a dualist version of reality, a spiritual realm and a natural realm. The spiritual realm is the important one; from there, the Abrahamic God created space and time, human souls hang out before they’re born and after they die(depending on who you ask), etc. etc.
As I see it, there are two ways of looking at this dichotomy between physical and non-physical/spiritual/whatever:
1. Physical and Non-physical do not interact.
This is the position that I argue. Whatever other ‘planes’ of reality may be out there, they seem to be leaving us alone.
2. Physical and Non-physical do interact.
While I argue that this position is incorrect, I strongly believe that this is a necessary component of assertions of religious truth. Religion posits the existence of a human soul that yanks the physical matter of our brains around like a puppetmaster. Religion posits the existence of an anthropomorphic God that performs miracles here and there, occasionally revealing his will to a human being or two, exercising agency within the physical world.
From 2, it is clear that religion entails that non-physical things are causing physical events. Again, I argue that this is spurious, but the point is that such mechanisms would necessarily exist were a religious narrative true. If the mechanism exists in the physical world, then it is accessible by physical science, and sooner or later we’ll be able to use science to catch a glimpse of non-physical reality as it advances.
If you’re going to argue that said mechanisms are necessarily going to be forever beyond the reach of human science, then the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate how and why the idea of a mechanism that mediates physical-nonphysical reaction is in principle beyond the reach of human science. I’d argue that, if you’re religious and correct, then you stand to lose nothing by searching for this mechanism, unless you think that your jealous god will strike you with lightening for your insouciant quest to understand him. The quest for such a mechanism is, in my opinion, far more inspiring and captivating than scriptural hermeneutics, and far more likely to lead to relatively definitive conclusions/raise interesting arguments.
I’d argue that we have enough data to argue 1, but that’s an argument for another time. The point here is just that Science has been unduly limited in descriptions of its metaphysical utility, and that, through Science, a greater understanding of non-physical reality is truly possible.
