Theology and Science

One cannot practice a science of the human subject without a philosophy of the human subject, and vice versa. As Althusser once said: “There is no such thing as a pure empirical analysis. Every analysis, even an empirical analysis, presupposes a minimum of theoretical references...” It can only reduce the totality to its parts, or state the totality in terms of the sum of the parts. Philosophy too, following Althusser, draws lines of demarcation within the whole, but these demarcations have no real substance. It is for this reason that philosophy is closer to the human subject than science tout court. Yet a philosophy uninformed by science is little more than fairy tales and hot air. This is why Althusser believes that philosophy is determined by science. It is its grounding substance so to speak. Where does theology fit into this? What is its relationship to science? Althusser is clear: theology is exploiter.

"Which means: the sciences are never seen for what they really are; their existence, their limits, their growing pains (baptized 'crises') or their mechanisms, as interpreted by the idealist categories of the most well-informed philosophies, are used from outside; they may be used crudely or subtly, but they are used to furnish arguments or guarantees for extra-scientific values that the philosophies in question objectively serve through their own practice, their 'questions' and their 'theories'. These 'values' pertain to practical ideologies, which play their own role in the social cohesion and social conflicts of class societies. "

Is this not exactly the case? Does theology not exploit science to serve its own values? Here one must be ruthless when confronting these intellectual imperialists. Is this not the Nazification of science? Perhaps this is also true for people like Dawkins and to a lesser degree Dennett. Science serves an ideological purpose, and as such, is “used from the outside". When theology functions this way, idealism has come to dominate materialism, or the empirical.

"[...] a subjective experience, or a feeling of conviction, can never justify a scientific statement, and within science it can play no part except that of an object of empirical (a psychological) inquiry. No matter how intense a feeling of conviction it may be, it can never justify a statement. Thus I can be utterly convinced of the truth of a statement; certain of the evidence of my perceptions; overwhelmed by the intensity of my experience: every doubt may seem to me absurd. But does this the slightest reason for science to accept my statement? [...] The answer is, ‘No’; and any other answer would be incompatible with the idea of scientific objectivity." Popper, Logic of Scientific Discovery.