Missed Opportunities in Dialogue between Psychology and Religion

In the Middle Ages, studies of the natural world, human behavior and theology were part of an interwoven body of knowledge. However, in modern times an increasing divide has separated science and religion. A careful review suggests that currents and accidents in intellectual and social history have served to unnecessarily foreclose lines of thought that might lead to rapprochement of religion with science, including psychology. Developments in Western views of epistemology and the philosophy of science have been a major factor in this estrangement. In the early modern period, flexible views of science (e.g. Bacon) were replaced by doctrinaire formulations emphasizing quantitative methodologies. Especially important was the development of positivism, which opened the door to a reductionistic naturalism that intended not only to reduce dialogue with religion but also to replace it with science. Within psychology, Freud and other early psychologists were eager to establish psychology as a "real" science and enthusiastically embraced the positivist perspective and rejected possible alternatives. Although this positivist approach is philosophically untenable, it continues to dominate psychology and obstruct dialogue between science and religion as well as progress in psychology as a whole. A return to a broader and more modest conception of science is warranted. ********** For many years, a number of scientific fields including psychology have taken an ambivalent or even hostile stance toward religion, especially Christianity. Recently, however, there has been at least a superficial change in this position. The past few years have seen an explosion in literature related to religion and science (e.g. Barbour, 1997; Russell, 2003;), As Reber (this issue) has noted, psychology has an especially pressing need for dialogue with religion, and contemporary work by theologians suggests that they also see a need to converse (e.g. Loder, 1998; Pannenberg, 1985; Ulanov, 2001). Yet there remains a hesitancy that is partly driven by professional concerns that religion and science are incompatible (Drees, 1999, p. 2). Conversations between disciplines can proceed in different ways, the most substantive of which is integration. Gorsuch (2002a) defines integration as "when two or more disciplines are jointly brought to bear on the same issue so that decisions about that issue reflect the contributions of both disciplines" (p. 6). Integration requires two things: a positive attitude between two disciplines, and the identification of particular problems for conversation (Gorsuch, 2002a, p. 19). In this view, since psychology and religion share many interests, difficulties about integration must lie in the attitudes of each towards the other--in other words, the issue is a problem of mutual understanding. For Richardson (this issue), hermeneutic dialogue may provide the most fruitful model for overcoming these barriers and providing a non-assimilative approach to integration (Nelson & Slife, this issue). From a historical perspective, negative attitudes between science and religion are a relatively recent development. This article will argue that negative attitudes are not inevitable, but are partly a product of outdated ways of thinking that continue to influence us. CONCEPTUAL STRUCTURES The history of science and religion is largely a history of ideas, so we need to begin by looking at some key philosophical presuppositions that have affected their relationship. In modern science and psychology, these typically include ontological assumptions of materialism and naturalism, which in turn are related to epistemological attitudes toward science and non-science inquiry that can lead to the problem of scientism. Materialism Materialism is an old ontological category, going back to pre-Socratic philosophers like Democritus who saw the world as consisting exclusively of material entities. …