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Science and Civilisation: The Critical Vision of Paulos Mar Gregorios Fr. Dr. K. M.
George
Principal, Orthodox Theological Seminary, Kottayam
Metropolitan Paulos Mar
Gregorios was the moderator of the famous conference on Faith, Science
and Future organized by the WCC at the MIT, Boston, USA in 1979. His
contribution to the debate between ‘science and religion’ left a deep
impression on the elite gathering of some of the best scientists and
theologians present there. Apart from his work
associated with the organizing and running of this conference Mar Gregorios
had always showed great critical concern for the project of science and
secularism. His interest in the nature of science was part of his overriding
quest to understand the nature of Reality. He recognized the key role played
by science and technology in shaping the category of ‘the secular’ and the
nature of Reality as perceived by the secular world view. He sought to
examine the roots of this issue in his brilliant works on, ‘Enlightenment East
and West’ and other writings. We give below, very briefly some aspects of the
critical position of Mar Gregorios in his own words with respect to the
nature of science and its perception of Reality. Children of Enlightenment: Mar Gregorios begins to
examine the philosophy of modern science with a critical look at the
foundations of the Enlightenment, the great “cultural - intellectual process
that emerged in Europe in the eighteenth century and is now spreading to the
rest of the world.1 The
two central elements of this process were the overthrow of the authority of
tradition and the enthronement of critical rationality in its place. Thus the
Enlightenment Movement actively promoted the abandoning of socially held dogmas
and beliefs in its quest for the rational, the universal and the readily
demonstrable.2 The Enlightenment movement
represented “the full flowering of Western civilization and its values and
orientations.’’ It is the source of modern western science and technology as
well as that of western concept and practice of the secular. Mar Gregorios thinks that
Enlightenment has entered its old age with the consequent loss of physical
vigour and an increase in wisdom, especially since the seventies of the 20th
century. But the three older children of the movement are alive, though not
quite well. The three children are modern science / technology, critical
rationality and the democratic institutions of government and decision making.
They, thinks Mar Gregorios, are much less dogmatic today than in their
earlier phase3.
Consequently, i) Science does not seem to claim any more that it is the only
way to knowledge and that all other knowledge are either false or nonsense.
2) Critical rationality of the individual is not any more absolute. It does
not claim to make sense of reality without reference to any tradition or
external reality, 3) Democratic institutions
do not seem to make any absolute claim that their decisions are the result
of a social contract that no one can question. Critiquing Critical Rationality “Science and technology,
the most treasured product of the European Enlightenment and western
civilisation”4
has been reinforcing the Enlightenment and vice versa for more than two
centuries. Mar Gregorios believes that going beyond the assumptions of
Enlightenment requires transcending science and technology. But why should
one transcend them? Mar Gregorios, in spite of his criticism of
Enlightenment rationality, positively appreciates the affirmation of the
human in that great western movement. He also has appreciation for the
great achievements of science and technology for the welfare of humanity
despite his criticism of the bondage of present scientific enterprise to industrial
- political - military vested interests. So why transcend? Modern science’s claim
that we can arrive at objective truth by following the
scientific method is not substantiated by our scientific experience. The
subject - object distinction is essential for scientific method. Although
this has produced some “operational truth” within certain limits, the
subject-object distinction and the notion of objective truth based on it do
not hold good at deeper levels of scientific experiment like for instance,
the level of sub-nuclear particle physics. Our traditional concepts of truth
and knowledge become meaningless here. Science’s critical rationality itself
can reveal the irrational and the ‘unreason’ within Reason at several points. Invoking philosophers of -
science and thinkers like Karl Popper and Wesley Salman, Kuhn and Feyeraband,
Heidegger and Hebermas. Mar Gregorios points out that the contemporary
science’s truth claim is conditioned by cultural, political and social parameters
of western civilization, and that other forms and modes of truth and
rationality are possible in cultures unaffected by the western mindset. The
problem according to Mar Gregorios is that the light of the western
Enlightenment has been too bright that it obscures all other lights in the
sky and thus positively distorts the world we see in that light. Dogmas of Science Re-examined In order to unveil
“Reason’s Unreason” in the Enlightenment, Mar Gregorios critically reviews
ten assumptions of the modern western scientific enterprise and its
principle of critical rationality:5 1. Naive
realism assumes that there are subjects and objects and that the subjects
can know the objects as they are. According to this view, what cannot be
known is not real or non - existent. Enlightenment rationality has no notion
of transcendent knowledge that overcomes the opposition between the knower,
the known and the knowledge. 2. Truth is essentially an
ongoing quest, and not a concept, idea or proposition as understood in the
Enlightenment. Truth is what is, not what is stated. A valid proposition
about truth can be a help in the quest, but is itself not the object of the
quest. 3. Language is understood as the
primary and the most important means of communication. However, any
absolutisation of the linguistic or literary communication as the only means
of communicating truth is to be questioned. Non-verbal forms of conveying
truth is as important as the linguistic one. Enlightenment has
overplayed the roles of language and conscious mind. Symbol, myth and ritual
have been qualified as irrational by Reason. This is now being thoroughly
reviewed. 4. Epistemology or theory
of knowledge has been used in modern scientific disciplines as the guarantor
of truthfulness. All forms of “scientific’ thinking begins with the critical
examination of the questions how do we know? No role of religion or scripture
or other external authority is recognised in scientific epistemology. But it
has failed to guarantee truth. Except for some operational purposes, the
scientific knowledge yielded by epistemology remains unproved. 5. Conscious reason is
understood by the Enlightenment as the instrument of knowing. But there are
other ways and levels of knowing like the one we receive through meditation. 6. Scientific explanation of anything heavily
depends on the principle of causation. But in non-western religions like
Buddhism, there are different logical
ways of explaining reality without idolising causality. The famous Jungian
“synchronicity” is an example from the west itself. 7. Enlightenment considers
measurement based science as a way to precise knowledge. But measurement is
possible only within a limited time-space entity. Ways of knowing reality
that cannot be measured by scientific reason exist in our world. 8. One of the unexamined
assumptions of modern science is that the universe exists in itself and by
itself. In this assumption, God is an unnecessary hypothesis. But theoritical
insights into such things like Multiple Possibility Universe dark matter and
other cosmic phenomena raise a big question here. Non-western and so-called
primitive cultures have produced better models to understand the reality of
the universe. 9. Time and space are
considered as given in our modern science. But the ancient question whether
they exist independent of our consciousness or whether they are just
products of our mind is gaining currency in scientific circles. European
secularism will falter once we recognize in our logic the contingency of the
time-space reality and its transcendent dimension. 10. Modern European
rationality conceives the linear character of evolution, development and
progress as axiomatic. This has absolutised our present
western mind-set and the reality it conceives as final. Alternate visions of
change and progress coming from other cultural settings radically question
the progressist notion of history and time-space reality. Mar Gregorios hopefully
looks ahead for a new form of civilization radically different from the contemporary
dominant western model. The new civilization will mean learning other ways
of knowing, related to art and poetry, to intuition and imagination, but perhaps
also to faith, hope and love, to rite and ritual, to religion and the
mystical experience.’’6 A major
question Mar Gregorios attempts to tackle is whether critical rationality,
the essence of Modern European Enlightenment can be conceptually reconciled
and related with the transcendental or mystical experience of ‘religious
enlightenment’, fundamental to Indian identity.” 7 This, according to him, is
the key to the dialogue between science and religion. References 1. Paulos Mar Gregorios. Enlightenment
East and West. Indian Institute of Advanced study. 1989, Shimla. p. III. 2. Ibid.. 3. Ibid.. p. 58 4. P. Mar Gregorios. A Light too Bright:
The Enlightenment Today, State University of NewYork Press. 1992, p.131. 5. Ibid., p. 148 f. 6. Ibid., p. 113. 7. Mar Gregorios, Enlightenment.
op. cit. p. VIII. (To be continued) (From: Sahayatra, Nov. – Dec.
2004) |