C. Further Developments in Methodology: Pannenberg, Murphy, Clayton
According to Wolfhart Pannenberg,the defense of the truth of Christianity since the thirteenth century has been
intimately tied to the claim that theology is a science (Wissenschaft).
In the contemporary context, Pannenberg first uses Popper to challenge the
logical positivists characterization of science. He then adopts Poppers view
that scientific theories are revisable hypotheses and applies it to theology as
well, though he ultimately rejects Popperian falsificationism. Instead he
argues that theories in the natural and human sciences are to be judged by the
criteria of coherence, parsimony, and accuracy. Pannenberg then draws on
Stephen Toulmin, for whom theories in history, science, and hermeneutics serve
as explanations by placing facts in a broader context. For theology, the
explanatory context becomes the whole of reality, including the future. The
resurrection of Jesus plays a pivotal role in Pannenbergs methodology by
proleptical revealing the future as eschaton. Pannenberg then developed a
criterion for acceptability of both theological and scientific theories: the
most adequate theory is the one that can incorporate its competitors.
Conflicting religious traditions can thus be judged by their ability both to
conceive of the whole of reality as it is proleptically revealed and to provide
an explanation which more fully incorporates all that we know of it than do
other traditions.
In 1990, Nancey Murphy criticized Pannenbergs methodology,
claiming that Pannenberg cannot answer the Humean challenge to theological
rationality. Humes
point of view is incommensurable with Pannenbergs, and thus cannot be
incorporated into Pannenbergs system, as Pannenbergs own methodology
requires. As a more adequate alternative she recommended the adoption of Imre
Lakatoss methodology of scientific research programs, with its central core
and surrounding belt of auxiliary hypotheses. According to Lakatos, we should
judge the relative progress or degeneration of such research programs on the
basis of their ability to predict and corroborate novel facts.Murphy then offers a crucial modification of Lakatos conception of novel
facts: A fact is novel if it is one not used in the construction of the
theory T that it is taken to confirm... (that is) one whose existence,
relevance to T, or interpretability in light of T is first documented after T
is proposed. This
modification allows Murphy to apply Lakatoss methodology to theology, to decide
rationally which theological research programs are empirically progressive, and
thus to complete the argument for the scientific status of theology.
Philip Clayton has also advocated the theological
appropriation of Lakatosian methodology.Clayton views explanation as the key concept embracing both the natural and
social sciences and, ultimately, theology --- one with sufficient diversity to
span vastly differing disciplines while retaining an underlying unity. Here the
revisionist, contextualist, and historicist arguments in recent philosophy of
science become crucial. In the natural sciences, where one interprets physical
data, the truth of an explanation is pivotal. In the social sciences, however,
where one interprets both physical data and the experience of actor-subjects
(i.e., the double hermeneutic), explanation means understanding (Verstehen).
Theological explanations, then, are subject to validation not by
verificationist / foundationalist standards, but by intersubjective testability
and universalizability, as performed by the disciplinary community. Clayton
supports his case by relying on the discovery / justification distinction:
religious claims can be truthful even if their sources are in social, and not
just physical, data. The key, though, is Lakatos requirement that a previously
specified set of criteria is held by the community by which competing
explanatory hypotheses can be assessed, including the stipulation of novel
facts.
Over the past decade, Murphy and Clayton have offered
important critiques of their corresponding positions which have further
revealed the layers of complexity that underlie theological rationality.Meanwhile, Murphys approach has been implemented in discussions of theological
anthropology by Philip Hefner,pragmatic evaluation of religion by Karl Peters,and the theological implications of cosmology in my workI believe that further pursuit of the suggestions by both Murphy and Clayton is
an extremely important task at the frontiers of theology and science today.
Contributed by: Dr. Robert Russell
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