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Abstract
This article is intended to contribute to the debate about the nature of a Catholic philosophy of education by exploring the philosophical issues involved in the apparent conflict between scientific and religious knowledge claims. The claim that modern science has rendered religious truth claims unreasonable appears to be influential among students of secondary school age. The suggestion is made here that the thought of Bernard Lonergan can usefully be deployed to help students in this age group to explore the nature of scientific and religious knowledge claims in greater depth. The contribution which Lonergan’s philosophy can make to philosophy of education more generally is also indicated. Finally, the advantages of this approach for those involved in Catholic education are discussed.
Notes on Contributor
Timothy Walker has a background in both science and theology, and is interested in the relationship between science and religion, and how this might be explored in educational settings. He completed a PhD entitled, ‘Science, Religion and Education: Perspectives from Bernard Lonergan’ through Liverpool Hope University in 2015.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 What students lack is the ability to distinguish between different forms of knowledge and to evaluate knowledge claims. On one hand, they are not aware that science does not provide absolute certainty and that its scope is limited to the investigation of the natural world. On the other hand, they are unaware of the reasonableness of religious knowledge claims and that these can be complementary to scientific insights. In short, what students need is the chance to consider the nature of human knowledge and how it is acquired. They need a sound epistemology which can serve as a basis from which to explore the nature of both scientific and religious knowledge claims.
2 The term ‘critical realism’ encompasses a variety of philosophical views, but what they have in common is belief in a mind-independent reality which is not perceived directly through the senses, but is mediated through the action of the human mind (Shipway Citation2011, Location 244). The fact that critical realism has been usefully deployed in educational thought by thinkers such as Shipway, and has also been found to be an important concept for reconciling science and religion (for example, Polkinghorne Citation1998, 101–124) indicates its importance for the current discussion.
3 For Lonergan, self-transcendence does not only take people beyond themselves, it also seeks what is independent of the self. Judgements concern ‘not what appears to me, not what I imagine, not what I think, not what I wish, not what I would be inclined to say, not what seems to me, but what is so’ (Lonergan Citation1972, 104). In addition to this cognitive self-transcendence, there can also be moral self-transcendence. Questions can be asked about what is truly good (or bad) independent of someone thinking so. ‘Because we can ask such questions, and answer them, and live by the answers, we can effect in our living a moral self-transcendence’ (Lonergan Citation1972, 104). It may be that young people find such self-transcendence difficult if they are immersed in a society which prizes instant satisfaction and pleasure, and tends to discourage too much questioning about ultimate truth and goodness.
4 Religious conversion, in the context of Lonergan’s thought, does not simply mean moving from one religious group to another, but is a form of self-transcendence (along with cognitive and moral self-transcendence). It is fundamentally experiential: ‘Religious conversion is being grasped by ultimate concern. It is other-worldly falling in love. It is total and permanent self-surrender without conditions, qualifications, reservations … It is revealed in retrospect as an under-tow of existential consciousness, as a fated acceptance of a vocation to holiness, as perhaps an increasing simplicity and passivity in prayer’ (Lonergan Citation1972, 240–1). However, as noted in the text, religious conversion cannot be contrary to the demands of cognitive and moral self-transcendence. Robert Doran sums it up neatly: ‘[Religious conversion] is a process of ever deepening withdrawal from ignoring the realm of transcendence in which God is known and loved, and of ever deeper entrance into that realm’ (Doran Citation2011, 5).
5 Education from ‘below-upwards’ takes place through the cognitional processes of experiencing, understanding, judging and deciding; this will be concerned largely with intellectual development. Learning from ‘above-downwards’ can have a wider scope, as it involves taking account of the achievements of others, and helping students understand the thought and development of previous generations. Frederick Crowe has called these two ways of learning the two vector forces of education (see Crowe Citation1985, 1–29).
6 Rene Descartes (1596–1650), often referred to as the Father of Modern Philosophy, attempted to find foundations for knowledge by removing any beliefs which were open to doubt and searching for something which lies beyond all doubt. He came to the conclusion that the statement ‘I exist’ is impossible to doubt, and is therefore a certain basis on which to build knowledge. For more on Descartes see the Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy: http://www.iep.utm.edu/descarte/
7 Lonergan’s epistemology is irrevisable in the sense that it cannot be revised without using the very method one is trying to revise (i.e. the revision would have to involve experience, understanding and judgement).
8 It may be noted that such a pedagogical approach is not necessarily easy to achieve when one is working within an educational system in which one is under pressure to attain high exam grades to ensure that one’s school is ranked highly in educational league tables.
9 There is a variety of schemes currently available to enhance learning and teaching in schools, such as Accelerated Learning, Building Learning Power, Growth Mindsets, Learning to Learn and Philosophy for Children. No doubt all such programmes contain beneficial elements, but it is not always easy to judge what is good or less good in each one, or why one programme should be implemented rather than another.
10 Idealist and essentialist philosophies are associated with thinkers such as Kant. They hold that, while the human mind can impose an order on reality, it is actually not possible to know reality. In other words, human perception of reality is simply a mental construct. Such thinkers neglect the ability of humans to make judgements about the truth, or otherwise, of their ideas.
11 This ‘interiority’ is a key aspect of Lonergan’s thought. It is not sufficient simply to read his account of human knowing. One must become aware of these processes taking place in one’s own experience of knowing (i.e. I come to recognise myself as someone who has experiences, seeks to understand them, and makes judgements as to the veracity of my understanding).
12 In essence, the contingency argument for God’s existence states that if all things had only the possibility of existence, then it is possible that there could have been nothing in existence. However, something cannot come from nothing, so the existence of a necessary being (i.e. one who must exist by his very nature) must be posited. This necessary being is what people call God. A classical statement of this can be found in the Summa Theologica of St Thomas Aquinas (I, 2,3). It is the third of his famous five ways of arguing for the existence of God.
13 In a way which parallels the approach taken in this article, Polkinghorne notes that part of the reason for the success of science is that it has limited itself to the asking and answering of certain questions only. There is, therefore, a certain ‘incompleteness’ to science in the sense that the very practice of science raises metaquestions which science itself cannot answer (Polkinghorne Citation2011, 140–1).
14 The term ‘propaedeutic’ is used here to indicate that philosophy may help introduce someone to religious faith by helping to clear away some of the intellectual difficulties which people may have.