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When Judaism Meets Science
Posts Tagged ‘NOMA’
Exploring Einstein and Kaplan, God and Science
Influenced by the writings of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, the Mordecai M. Kaplan Center for Jewish Peoplehood is a trans-denominational organization which seeks to strengthen “each of the existing denominational movements” and have a positive effect “on the lives of individual Jews regardless of their levels of observance, or even, within limits, their theologies.” Towards that end, it hosts webinars which explore many aspects of the Jewish civilization, including the relationship of Judaism and science.
In January, 2022, the Mordecai M. Kaplan Center for Jewish Peoplehood invited Rabbi Michael M. Cohen and Roger L. Price, authors respectively of Einstein’s Rabbi and When Judaism Meets Science to discuss their books, the thoughts of Albert Einstein and Mordecai Kaplan, and other current issues involving science and Judaism. The entire program, which runs almost two hours, as well as biographical information about the authors and the chatroom log, can be found under Webinars on the main page of the Kaplan Center.
Enjoy!
The Rebbe Meets Einstein: A Dialogue
“The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go.” — Galileo Galilei
“There is no harmony between religion and science. When science was a child, religion sought to strangle it in the cradle. —R.G. Ingersoll
Introduction
When I was a resident in psychiatry over thirty-five years ago, one of my mentors said something that forever changed the way I thought about my profession. “In psychiatry,” he said, “you can do biology in the morning and theology in the afternoon.” My teacher was being a bit facetious, but on a deeper level, he meant what he said. I understood his message to be simply this: the problems of my patients could be understood and approached from both a “scientific” and a “religious” perspective, without fear of contradiction or inconsistency. Yes, I know—there are many critics of psychiatry who would challenge its “scientific” bona fides, but that is a debate that would take me far afield. Instead, I would like to use my teacher’s claim as a point of entry into a much broader question; namely, in what ways do science and religion differ, and in what sense do they have features in common?
This is hardly a new question, and I don’t claim to have any revolutionary new answers. But I hope that by distinguishing between the truth claims and the wisdom claims of these two realms—science and religion—I can make the case for a modified form of “compatibilism.” To do this, I will draw out the ancient Augustinian distinction between scientia and sapientia, whose meanings I will try to make clear presently. In addition, as an illustration of how this distinction may be helpful, I will present an imagined dialogue between two seminal figures in the realms of science and religion: Albert Einstein and Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as “the Rebbe.” What makes this dialogue different from the usual “Science vs. Religion” boxing match is the eclectic and nuanced positions of the two figures. For in an important sense, Albert Einstein was a deeply religious scientist–and the Rebbe, a deeply scientific theologian. read more
No More NOMA (Part II)
In previous posts (August 10 and 19, 2011), we have considered Stephen Jay Gould’s promotion of NOMA, the proposition that science and religion occupy two equally important but non-overlapping magisteria, or domains of authority. We have also considered how scientists have acted with respect to Gould’s promotion of NOMA. Yet if Gould and NOMA have some trouble on the science side of Gould’s aisle, it is nothing compared to what has been said or done on the other. read more