Buddhism, Christianity, and Modern Science: A Response to Masao Abe

Abstract

����� ��� After number of years of teaching philosophy of science, a few years ago I took up the challenge of teaching philosophy of religion. As one might imagine, it has always seemed to me to be important that our religious convictions harmonize with our best scientific knowledge of how the world works, and this became a more interesting issue when the change in my teaching assignment brought me into contact with the work of Masao Abe, the eminent Japanese Buddhist scholar. His essay “Religion and Science in the Global Age—Their Essential Character and Mutual Relationship” (Abe 1985: 241‐248) challenged me to expand my thinking to consider not only how theistic religions such as Christianity relate to science, but also to consider how nontheistic religions, such as Buddhism, might fare when interacting with modern science. In his essay on religion and science Abe expressed his agreement with the thought of Keiji Nishitani in this way: 1. It is necessary for each religion to re-examine the basis of its world view. For any religion its world view is not like clothes that one can change whenever one pleases. A world view is to religion what water is to a fish. It is the indispensable condition through which religion can actually come into existence. Water is neither the life of the fish as such, nor its body, yet it is fundamentally linked to both. For a religion to change its world view is a matter no less fatal to it than for a fish to change from salt water to fresh. 2. What is even more crucial and important is that each religion re-examine and reinterpret that tradition’s understanding of God or the ‘ultimate’ and His or its relation to human beings and the world. With regard to this second point, Buddhism which is fundamentally non-theistic, is in a somewhat different situation from Christianity, which is basically theistic. (Abe 1985: 244‐245)