The science of God: Philosophy of science and the search for theological foundations

This dissertation analyses Nancey Murphy's attempt in her Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning to ground theology in the philosophy of science of Imre Lakatos. Murphy claims that theology since Hume has been in retreat because it has not kept pace with changing standards of rationality. In modern times the accepted standard of rationality is scientific reasoning. In order for theology to recover its place in academia, it must conform to this standard and become a science. Murphy claims that theology has been unable to become a science because there has been no adequate philosophy of science until Lakatos; only Lakatos's philosophy of science is capable of accurately assessing the scientific status of theology. Murphy reasons that if theology is methodologically the same as science, and if science is justified by Lakatos's methodology, then theology will be similarly justified. To illustrate her claims, Murphy examines the work of Wolfhart Pannenberg because he explicitly attempted to formulate a theology that synthesized the Christian tradition with scientific reasoning. Murphy concludes that Pannenberg's project failed because of his adherence to an inadequate philosophy of science. Murphy then sets out to show that theology can be methodologically the same as science by recasting a particular theology, the Roman Catholic Modernist movement, as a Lakatosian research program.;I set Murphy's modern project of justifying theology within the context of the faith-reason debate and the secularization of this debate by Descartes' quest for certainty. In a postmodern approach, I use arguments by Stephen Toulmin and Richard Rorty to explain how the Cartesian quest came about and why it should be abandoned. Lakatos's work is analyzed and shown to fail as an adequate philosophy of science. Since Lakatos fails, Murphy's corresponding attempt to justify theology fails also.;However, Murphy's treatment of the Modernist movement and her recasting of Pannenberg's theology as a scientific research program suggests a link between philosophy of science and philosophical hermeneutics. Using the insights of Gadamer and the early Heidegger, I propose a new hermeneutical method based on Lakatos's methodology along with suggestions for applying Lakatosian analysis to other types of discourse.