Artykuł poświęcono krytycznej analizie kilka wybranych argumentów pojawiających się we współczesnej dyskusji dotyczącej interpretacji stwórczego działania Boga w świecie przyrody, rozpatrywanego w kontekście teorii ewolucji. W szczególności zwrócono uwagę na zastrzeżenia wobec tej teorii wysuwane przez niektórych przedstawicieli kreacjonizmu ujętego w ramy systemu metafizyki św. Tomasza, którzy nie widzą możliwości uzgodnienia ewolucji z teologiczną prawdą o stworzeniu świata przez Boga. Rozpatrzono również argumenty leżące u podstaw teorii inteligentnego projektu, która głosi, że oparta na przypadku ewolucja nie może w sposób adekwatny (...) wyjaśnić „nieredukowalnej złożoności” żywych organizmów, i że w związku z tym należy przyjąć, iż na przebieg procesów ewolucyjnych mają zasadniczy wpływ bezpośrednie działania Boga—Inteligentnego Projektanta. (shrink)

As a philosophy instructor, I strive to get my students to think critically about the subject matter. However, over the years I have encountered many students who seem to deliberately want to avoid thinking critically. I am talking particularly about some students in my “Science and Religion” course, who subscribe to scientific creationism and endorse anti–scientific beliefs which seem to be irrational. In this essay, I will offer reflections of my experiences from these classes, and argue that individuals who subscribe (...) to creationism exhibit a combination of epistemic vices that makes them prone to holding incorrect views. Employing Quassim Cassam’s framework on the epistemic vices of conspiracy theorists in his “Vice Epistemology”, I argue that the creationists’ beliefs can best be understood as resulting from similar vices. Subsequently, I move to consider the reasons why these students subscribe to creationism, using Katherine Dormandy’s analysis in her “Does Epistemic Humility Threaten Religious Beliefs?” as a springboard. Following Dormandy, I explore how epistemic vices lead to someone holding false —even irrational— beliefs. Finally, I will consider strategies in dealing with vice–charging the epistemically vicious students in a way that avoids the practical difficulties noted by Ian James Kidd in his “Charging Others with Epistemic Vice”. (shrink)

In the modern age, the confl ict between science and religion manifests itself in the debate between evolution and creation. If we adopt a creationist’s reading of the Qur’ān, we discover an interesting anomaly. Reading the Qur’ān literally does not necessarily provide the foundation of creationism. Creationists usually have in mind the concept of creatio ex nihilo, or ‘creation out of nothing’. However, in the Qur’ān, one of the words used for creation, khalaqnā, has the root khlq, which means ‘to (...) split’ or ‘to divide’. This root word may even apply to the biological process of cell division. Therefore, from a scientifi c perspective, using the word khlq to describe this physical process is not problematic. In addition, with close textual analysis of the Qur’ān, we realize that the word for creation ‘be’ does not truly describe the moment of creation, but rather that of ‘being’. The Qur’ān separates the notion of creation from being, which poses the question as to what the text constitutes as the ontological nature of the human being and the universe. Therefore, even if we do adopt a literal reading of the Qur’ān, we fi nd that it does not necessarily support a worldview that endorses creatio ex nihilo. (shrink)

According to a long-standing narrative of Western modernity science is one of the main drivers of secularization. Science is said to have generated challenges to core religious beliefs and to have provided an alternative, rational way of looking at the world. This narrative typically relies on progressive and teleological understandings of history, and commitment to some version of an ongoing struggle between science and religion. By way of contrast, recent theories of secularization, such as that of Charles Taylor, have suggested (...) that the role of science in secularization has been greatly exaggerated. This article also offers a critique of the standard “science causes secularization” story. But in contrast to other critiques of this kind, it suggests that science nonetheless has a significant role in secularization – one that can be maintained without a commitment to a crude progressivist history or a narrative of science-religion conflict. (shrink)

The lesson to be learned here is the principle of allowing the Bible to say what it wants to say and not impose our imperialistic agendas onto it; our exegesis ought to let the text speak and the chips fall where they may.