As promised, I am going to review many of the answers provided by the Templeton Foundation experts. For my first review, I decided to take a look at Christoph Cardinal Schonborn’s response to the question, “Does science make belief in God obsolete?” His answer started with “No and yes”. His overall response shows a healthy appreciation for science, but he seems to posit God, without explanation and with a disregard for Occam’s Razor, several times. I also find it noteworthy that he only ‘side references’ the Bible (mentions a still small voice, at one point).
Schonborn is also the editor of the “The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church”. The book description is as follows:
“Catholics’ hunger for the faith continues to grow. Pope Benedict XVI gives the Church the “food” that is seeks in the 598 questions and answers in the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This 200-page volume offers a quick synopsis of the essential contents of the faith as promulgated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Like the 1992 Catechism, the Compendium has a four-part structure, and includes a section on common prayers and Catholic doctrinal formulas. Because of the question-and-answer format, catechetical leaders-parents, pastors, teachers, principals, and catechists-have a unique opportunity to dialogue with the faithful, and reinvigorate the Church’s ongoing mission of evangelization and catechesis. Individuals can come “to know the unfathomable riches of the salvific mystery of Jesus Christ” by reading, using, and memorizing parts of the Compendium of the Catechism. An essential tool for youth and young adults, the Compendium is the perfect companion to a youth or young adult’s Bible, spiritual reading, or textbook… “The sacred images, with their beauty, are also a proclamation of the Gospel and express the splendor of the Catholic truth,” explained Pope Benedict XVI.”
Just some food for thought, regarding his deep involvement with the Catholic Church, that we can keep in mind while reading his response.
Now on to my review:
“No, as a matter of reason and truth. The knowledge we have gained through modern science makes belief in an Intelligence behind the cosmos more reasonable than ever”.
First of all, God didn’t start out as this loving intelligence behind the universe, ok? Let’s be really sure to first say, “Man, religions sure did screw up the idea of ‘possible Gods’, didn’t they? Take the God many of us knew, growing up. This God smited people on a whim. He drowned whole armies. In fact, he was so vengeful, he drowned almost all of creation. The early Gods certainly reflective of the humans that populated a given area, and were absolutely hamstrung by their ignorance. That human sacrifice scene from ‘Apocolypto’ reflected the GOD construct in that society. Imagine not knowing what eclipses were? Imagine the year 3008. What are the “eclipses of 2008″?
Now we understand and more accurately see finer and finer causation. Does that mean that God is more likely? Well, no God WE KNOW OF?! Our Gods turns people into salt. Our Gods created Earth a couple thousand years ago. Our Gods needs almost constant ego-stroking. Our gods are small gods, not unlike the god that have long since gone extinct. The Catholic God, Archbishop, is a small god, and a historically cross pollinated one, at that (although I have to give Catholicism credit, they’ve avoided the literal Bible like the plague it is).
“Yes, as a matter of mood, sensibility, and sentiment. Not science itself but a reductive “scientific mentality” that often accompanies it, along with the power, control, comfort, and convenience provided by modern technology, has helped to push the concept of God into the hazy twilight of agnosticism.”
Notice the symbolism there. “Hazy twilight” – sounds scary! But what is he saying? The idea of God really isn’t doing very well, in the competitive marketplace of ideas? People are less dependent, psychologically, on pure ‘beliefs’ to get them through the day? What point is he making? Technology is evil?
“Superficially it may seem that the advances of science have made God obsolete by providing natural explanations for phenomena that were once thought to be the result of direct divine activity—the so-called “God of the gaps.” But this advance has been the completion of a program of purification from superstition begun thousands of years ago by Athens and Jerusalem, by a handful of Greek sages and by the people of Israel, who “de-divinized” Nature to a degree unparalleled in the ancient world. Summarizing an established tradition 750 years ago, St. Thomas Aquinas taught that the wise governor ordinarily governs by delegation to competent subordinates. In the case of Nature, God’s ordinary providence governs by means of the regularities (“laws”) built into the natures of created things.”
That last bit is interesting to me. Where is this information about Nature as God’s laws being enacted coming from again? Certainly not from the Bible, right? So since that wasn’t the original conception of God, then this info he is spouting is either information supposedly passed from God to the Pope (as a sort of editorial process. Think of the Pope as white-out), and then down to Schonborn (assistant to the Regional Editor), or this is just his own theory, right? How does his God not reflect the “god of the gaps”.
“Although the scientific program that gives rise to this mentality has been quite successful in explaining the material basis for holistic realities, and in allowing us to manipulate natural things to our advantage by altering the configuration of their parts, it fails to grasp the reality of natural things themselves.”
Oh. Well, that’s quite a claim! And the solution to our failure to ‘grasp the reality of natural things themselves’ is to just pick a conception of God and start ‘believing’ in it? I mean, all the physical sciences, and all of the brain science, cognitive psychology, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, studies in consciousness, study of theology… these aren’t good enough attempts to grasp the reality of things? I think I’m seeing the “atheists just aren’t imaginative enough” assumption popping up here…
“The unlimited application of the “scientific mentality” is scientism, the philosophical claim that the scientific method and scientific explanations can grasp all of reality. For many, scientism is accompanied by agnosticism or atheism.”
Remember, being a ‘scientist’ (one who practices as though the philosophical claim of scientism holds water), may be only a descriptive word. Just like the word “atheist” is for so many folks. In doing their search for truth, their ruthless honesty with themselves about what input they can trust has led them to their descriptive stance.
“In terms of popular sentiment, however, scientism has not carried the day. Most people still intuitively cling to the notion that at least human nature and human experience are not reducible to what is scientifically knowable.”
Right. People are afraid of the study of consciousness. They don’t want to know too much about themselves. Cling is the key word.
“The increase in leisure and health brought about by our increasing mastery over Nature has not resulted, as the ancient sages supposed, in an increase in wisdom and the contemplation of the good, the true, and the beautiful. Instead, our technology-based leisure is more likely to result in quiet hedonism, consumerism, and mind-numbing mass entertainment.”
Just as others before him, this opinion displays his amazingly bleak outlook on the world and on the evolution of human morality & community building. The implicit fear of a possible ‘unknown reality’ that is exhibited in this short passage is really telling.
“While many still claim belief in God, the course of their lives reflects de facto agnosticism in which the “God hypothesis” is far from everyday experiences and priorities.”
And I thought agnosticism, especially in the face of fear, was admirable. 
Archbishop. Do you blame them for their de facto agnosticism? If so, why? The RELIGIOUS Gods are just not compelling enough! As the Archbishop of Vienna, you represent dogma that becomes less compelling each year, as humanity learns more and more in the fields of biology, physics, astronomy, the brain, history and childhood sexual abuse. If you want people to believe in God, you may have selected the wrong tool.
“In all our scientistic “knowledge” of the inner workings of things, and our technology-based comforts and distractions, there seems to be no place for the still, small voice of God. In that practical and existential sense, science and technology seem to have pushed belief in God toward obsolescence. Or have they?”
I still say that science and technology have NOT pushed the possibility of ‘some sort of God’ very significantly, but I would say that they have pushed the belief in traditional, religion-based Gods toward obsolescence through refuting actual, physical claims made via that God’s “chosen” religion.
“In our innermost being, we moderns remain unsatisfied. Sooner or later we face an existential crisis, and recognize in our lives something broken, disordered, in need of redemption. The fact that we can recognize disorder, brokenness, and sin means that they occur within a larger framework of order, beauty, and goodness, or else in principle we could not recognize them as such.”
I think it’s worth repeating that we don’t ‘recognize “disorder, brokenness and sin” in any way that is specifically tied to God. Humans do have great commonality in their morals, but those commonalities preceded religion, and have evolved DESPITE religion. Also, it seems that Christoph is implying God, due to our awareness of positive and negative input. In my opinion, this awareness in no way directly implies God (especially a Theistic god). Of course not.
“…the human soul, but its nature seeks something more, a deeper happiness, a lasting good.”
The use of the word soul, followed by a description of said soul, in this context, must be metaphorical or dogmatic. No?
“Consideration of the order and beauty in nature can lead us to a Something, the ‘god of the philosophers,’ but consideration of our incompleteness leads us beyond, in search of a Someone who is the Good of us all. Science will never make that quest obsolete.”
How is the consideration of our state of completeness outside the order and beauty in Nature? You can’t talk about conscious reflection as if it’s DEFINITELY a “spiritual” process. Unknown? Sure! But necessarily spiritual? Occam’s Razor much? We see consideration happening, in a physical way, in the brain, as a person reflects, and the way we see those processes in the brain is getting more acutely tuned every day. Why should we assert another ‘reality’, before really digging into how we process this one? Science is just scratching the surface of these questions, just getting into some of the brain, which is at the CORE of our biggest question. No, science cannot keep you from looking. Why would it want to make the quest for answers to ANY question, obsolete? That would be unscientific.
In my opinion, the ‘quest to find out’, is honestly not the face of belief. Not even close.
CCD,
Ben
Posted by ccdguy 
Posted by ccdguy 
Posted by ccdguy 