overwhelming, his most serious opponents were part of the scientific establishment of his
day, and many of his defenders were clergy (Midgley 1985, 10–12).
Isolation
A second position, extremely popular among theologians and scientists for much of the
twentieth century, conceives of the proper (if not actual) relationship of science to
religion as one of isolation. According to this view, science and religion
end p.274
never conflict so long as each is properly conducted (Midgley 1985, 13). Of course, any
conception of science and religion that effectively makes conflict impossible will in all
likelihood preclude fruitful interaction as well, hence the appropriateness of the term
“isolation” as a name for this view.
Arguments in support of this view are diverse, but they all involve an attempt to carve out
separate domains for science and religion within which each has authority. For example,
according to the well-known geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky, “Science and religion
deal with different aspects of existence. If one dares to overschematize for the sake of
clarity, one may say that these are the aspect of fact and the aspect of meaning” (1971,
96). Of course, this raises the question of the meaning of “meaning.” Mary Midgley,
interpreting Dobzhansky, associates it with the way facts connect to form “world
pictures” (1985, 13–14). Stephen Jay Gould, an advocate of the isolation view, narrows
Dobzhansky's “aspect of fact” to facts about “the empirical constitution of the universe”
and includes “ethical values” in the domain of religion (2001, 500). Others who would
want to explicitly allow for theological facts recognize the expertise of scientists on
factual questions concerning the natural world while deferring to theologians on factual
questions concerning God or the supernatural. None of these suggestions, however,
successfully drives an absolute wedge between science and theology. World pictures will
inevitably influence what one takes the facts to be. Values, even if they cannot simply be
“read off” nature, nevertheless depend on natural facts. And by definition a supernatural
and theistic God can and does affect nature.
This is not to say that no conception of religion or science effectively isolates the two
activities. For example, if Paul Tillich is right that God is not a supreme being or any
other kind of being (and so is not limited by the condition of existence!) but rather is
being-itself, then he may also be right that science can neither confirm nor disconfirm
“the truth of faith” because “scientific truth and the truth of faith do not belong to the
same dimension of meaning” (1957, 81). But others will insist that Tillich distorts
religion or that he takes the idea of God's transcendence to an absurd extreme. Another
way to isolate both science and religion is to defend an extreme antirealist position about
science. Most scientists and many others will, however, reject such a portrayal of science,
and most religious believers will see a wolf in sheep's clothing if such a portrayal implies
an equally extreme antirealist position about theology. (For another conception of
religion that could be used to support isolationism, see “Wittgensteinianism: Logic,
Reality, and God” in this volume.)