The Future of the Science-Religion Dialogue and the Danger of Scientism

Abstract

In this essay I focus on some conditions of importance for the development of a fruitful sciencereligion dialogue; conditions that are not always recognized. One of them is that we must acknowledge much more explicitly that this world is much bigger than the world of science. There are many beliefs – besides religious ones – that we human beings hold which are not scientific beliefs, but which nevertheless are rational, justified, and might even constitute knowledge. It would be a fatal mistake to focus solely on science and religion in the science-religion dialogue and forget about the rest, because it would then be easy to convey the impression that religious belief is unique in being non-scientific, and to promote unintentionally a scientistic attitude or the hegemony of science.