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‘Is theology a science?’ Paul Feyerabend's anarchic epistemology as challenge test to T. F. Torrance's scientific theology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2011

David Munchin
David Munchin*
Affiliation:
The Rectory, 2 Ottway Walk, Welwyn, Herts AL6 9AS, [email protected]
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Abstract

To answer in the affirmative Barth's question ‘Is theology a science? is to acknowledge both that such a question has a history and that the predicate ‘scientific’ is a contested one. T. F. Torrance in Theological Science and subsequent publications, seeks to proceed with a minimalist conception of science, as a study whose methods are directed by ‘faithfulness to object’. Paul Feyerabend, in Against Method and subsequent publications, contends that such a minimalism amounts to an admission that there is no such thing as ‘the scientific method’, and that therefore the predicate ‘scientific’ lacks coherence and substance. According to Feyerabend, philosophers like Michael Polanyi (an important influence upon Torrance) are simply not bold enough to see their work through to the radical conclusions which it demands and he provides. For Feyerabend, science's reference to qualities such as ‘objectivity’ and ‘rationality’ are simply a smoke-screen for decisively influential vested interests of power and wealth – it is these which ultimately determine what we mean by science, and these which therefore must be unmasked in the cause of humanism. However, in the course of this dialogue we reveal that Feyerabend is too careless a thinker, given to rushing prematurely and too willingly to unwarranted and simplistic dichotomies. Thus Torrance's notion of the ‘scientific’ emerges intact, but not without Feyerabend's stimulating challenge raising important questions, not least to theology as a science. For here, above all, ‘human’ factors are likely unduly to influence scientific knowledge. Thus Feyerabend also points to areas where Torrance's project needs further development and closer scrutiny.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 64 , Issue 4 , November 2011 , pp. 439 - 455
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2011

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References

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9 There is, for instance, only a single entry in the preacher's index of the Church Dogmatics for natural science (CD III/2, pp. 79ff.); McGrath also cites Barth's refusal to join the ‘Göttingen conversations’ in 1931 (T. F. Torrance: An Intellectual Biography, p. 197).

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