Scientific and Religious Approaches to Morality: An Alternative to Mutual Anathemas

Abstract

Many people today believe that scientific and religious approaches to morality are mutually incompatible. Militant secularists claim scientific backing for their claim that the evolution of morality discredits religious conceptions of ethics. Some of their opponents respond with unhelpful apologetics based on fundamentalist views of revelation. This article attempts to provide an alternative option. It argues that public discussion has been excessively influenced by polemics generated by the new atheists. Religious writers have too often resorted to overly simplistic arguments rooted in literalist approaches to the Bible and the religious traditions. More historically conscious methods can avoid implausible claims about both religion and science.

ZYGON @ 49: ALMOST HALF A CENTURY

“…Contributions are by Helen De Cruz and Yves De Maeseneer, Aku Visala, Olli‐Pekka Vainio, Johan De Smedt and Helen De Cruz, Tom Uytterhoeven, Johan De Tavernier, and Taede Smedes. This set, mostly by Belgian and Finnish authors, is different from the series on human nature we published last year, with contributions by Deane‐Drummond and Wason (), Pope (), Spezio (), Fergusson (), and various others. Those were mostly from the United Kingdom and the United States.…”

Morality and Nature: Evolutionary Challenges to Christian Ethics

“…We intend to investigate the evolutionary challenges to Christian ethics in order to move the discussion from mutual anathemas to a more nuanced and restrained engagement (Pope ). Taking seriously the outcome of evolutionary biology, Christian ethics has to accept its evidence for the underlying material biological conditions of human existence.…”

ZYGON: 49 YEARS YOUNG

“…Joshua Moritz, Ph.D. candidate at Berkeley, offers reflections upon animal suffering in the context of a theistic understanding of evolution. Another classic theme at the intersection of religious and scientific approaches has been morality, exemplified by “the golden rule” that one should treat others as one would like to be treated oneself (e.g., Pope ). In this issue, British graduate student Jonathan Goodman offers a fresh analysis of this topic.…”