Among student historians, there are people with different religious views. This is fantastic because the diversity of these views and respect for them are the main components of an open-minded society’s functioning. Moreover, this is the ground for independent scientific research. Nevertheless, by definition, diversity stands for disagreement, including disagreement on fundamental worldview issues.
The history of religion is an important part of learning history as a whole. I will try to show you that modern scientific views might and do come in a fundamental conflict regarding the religious views of some of the students. In this article, you will find reflections on the issue of the interaction between a professor and students who, in turn, have religious grounds not to acknowledge some contemporary historical approaches in ancient history, biblical studies, etc. These reflections are based upon the individual experience that I gained teaching at the History Department of V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. Those courses also included the history of religion as one of the topics.
Certainly, the reconciliation of the contradictions and inconsistencies between science and faith is the general tendency of modern methodology. In Eastern Europe, this is, to some extent, the consequence of the previous communist regime’s trials to combat religion based on the principles of “scientific atheism”. On a global scale, this is the manifestation of the post-modern critique of rationalism and post-colonial approaches towards the knowledge itself. For example, in the report to the Club of Rome, “Come On! Capitalism, Short-termism, Population and Destruction of the Planet” (2018), it is claimed that it is essential and possible to find a middle ground between religious and scientific methods of research.
Indeed, some religious statements frequently just cannot be rationally verified with historical scientific methods. The contemporary historical methodologist, professor at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Voitsekh Vzhosek, writes that ontology of the religious phenomena is conceptually incompatible with the problematic area of modern academic science. The researcher is talking about the inner inconsistency regarding the implication of the same dual approach “did happen\did not happen” for the characteristics of reality or unreality such as God, kindness, feudalism, table, Louis XIV, or Hamlet. Touching upon the issues of the understanding of miracles in the society of the Middle Ages, Vzhosek urges us to remember the “antinomical” nature of the Middle Ages folk consciousness and the irreducibility of the understanding of “existence” in it to the modern perception of the real.
Voitsekh Vzhosek thinks that the issues of the credibility of the religious experience, as well as belief in the miracle, should be looked at beyond historical research. He highlights that if historians of different beliefs insist on answering the question of reality or unreality of the miracles described in the sources, they will never find a middle ground regarding religion. Nonetheless, if they focus on the historical and cultural contexts of the past people’s belief in the miracle, they will manage to be in a fruitful professional dialogue.
One can agree that there are some research problems where, in solving them, there is a possibility (or sometimes even necessity) to “set aside” questions on the authenticity of the mystical experience and the reality of the miracles described in sources. This approach is relevant in the frames of the historical-anthropological socio-cultural research when a historian is engaged in the inner world of the past people, perception of themselves, and the world around them.
Frequently, people’s claims of contact with higher powers are not verified in their core. For instance, when Nikolai Motovilov is describing his experience of encountering something mystical during his conversation with Seraphim of Sarov, the historian does not have enough evidence to determine whether, in that case, one is dealing with psychological or mentally induced illusions, self-conscious deception, or genuine mystical experience. Besides, a secular researcher does not need to base their reasoning on the question of the type of ontological reality that stands by this claim. In this case, the only things that matter are how the imaginations of the supernatural functioned and how they were built into general sociocultural processes of the research epoch. One can see some affinity in this kind of approach with the phenomenological principle “epoché,” which foresees the suspension of judgment about the ontological validity of the phenomenon under investigation. It is also closely related to the principle proposed by Clifford Geertz for studying culture based on its own categories.
Providentialism is indisputable (and at the same time unproven). Rational explications of the historical processes can be easily incorporated into providential historical-philosophical concepts as an explanation on the lower level. It applies to both global explanatory schemes and local phenomena and processes. For example, the belief in the magical abilities of the African witchers to harm people at its core is fundamentally not refuted by the rational explanation of the reasoning for the harm. Here, it is applicable to cite Edward Evans-Pritchard’s observations about the belief in the witchcraft of the Azande people: “In Zandeland sometimes an old granary collapses… The Zande knows that the supports were undermined by termites and that people were sitting beneath the granary in order to escape the heat and glare of the sun. But he knows besides why these two events occurred at a precisely similar moment in time and space. It was due to the action of witchcraft”.
A similar logic can also explain divine providence within the framework of monotheism. In this sense, religious belief in the claim that the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire was divine providence is in no way refuted by Bart Ehrman’s reflections about socio-cultural prerequisites of Christianity spreading in the first centuries CE.
In the examples described above, the supernatural, in the perception of the believers, affects earth processes through the unity of side effects. Voitsekh Vzhoseks’s opinion that the supernatural itself remains empirically elusive to secular science is fair enough. Therefore, to “set aside” the question of the reality of the supernatural beyond the framework of the research for a historian seems to be pretty logical. So here, a historian-believer and a historian-atheist will not be at odds with each other.
However, in some religious systems, there are descriptions of certain historical facts and processes that are principally essential for these systems. All the prehistory, reconstructed by contemporary scholars, opposes acceptable in many religious societies’ understanding of the first chapters of the Book of Genesis with its chronology, Adam’s descendants’ genealogy, the Flood, etc. Certainly, there are very worldwide allegorical interpretations of biblical texts in Christian theology, which allow us to correlate scriptures and modern scientific data. However, those attempts in the framework of the Christian paradigm are also made by purely theological counterarguments. For example, according to many theologians, the idea of concordance of the evolutionary interpretation of human history contradicts the words of the Apostle Paul about the appearance of death in the world as a result of the Fall (Rom.5:12). Analyzing the theological logic of this critique is none of our objectives. In this case, what only matters is the fact that there are theological interpretations of biblical texts, accepted by millions of people, that at their core contradict modern scientific data that are canon to secular historians.
The acknowledgment of biblical literalism regarding the first chapters of the Book of Genesis means the rejection of the whole Stone Age concept. In this way, accepted paradigms among secular historians inevitably clash with the historical image of the large believer groups. The fact that other believer groups do not differ on this issue with secular researchers does not change the overall situation.
There are views expressed by contemporary historians and archeologists in modern biblical studies that claim to have rational justification in the framework of the scientific methodology meanwhile fundamentally contradicting Jewish and Christian doctrine. The historicity of the Old Testament patriarchs, the conquest of the “Promised Land”, and the existence of the united monarchy of David and Solomon are questioned. For instance, Tel Aviv University archeology professor Ze’ev Herzog says: “The Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land in a military campaign and did not pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel… The god of Israel, Jehovah, had a female consort and that the early Israelite religion adopted monotheism only in the waning period of the monarchy and not at Mount Sinai”. Evaluation of the scientific validity of the ideas is not the objective of these reflections. What matters is this – within the scientific discourse, there are conclusions, possible to be reached, that principally contradict religious beliefs. In the frames of more contemporary theology, there are attempts to correlate biblical texts with modern scientific data with the help of the allegorical interpretation of the Scripture. Nonetheless, many Christians do not agree with this approach. The literal understanding of the Bible lies in the basics of the world perception of millions of believers.
The historical concepts of The Latter Day Saint movement (Mormons) fundamentally contradict modern scientific views on the history of pre-Columbian America.
Finally, a historian cannot simply disregard the conclusions drawn within the framework of cognitive religious studies, with its analysis of the emergence and transformation of religious ideas in the context of sociobiology and evolutionary biology. With this approach, it is quite difficult to find the place for the determination of any ontological reality behind religious experience.
Often in the sources that are considered to be divine scriptures for the believers, the manifestation of the supernatural, according to the logic of the sources themselves (in the religious traditions as well), is described as one that is verified as a fact alongside worldly events. For example, Christian historiosophy emphasizes the earthly aspects of Christ’s resurrection miracle. This is reflected in the reference in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed to Jesus Christ being crucified “under Pontius Pilate,” situating the event within the space and time of this world.
Jacques Le Goff noted that the perception of the Medieval people about something magnificent is “characterized by the presence of something that not simply goes beyond nature but contradicts the natural order entirely”. The concept of conceptual incompatibility (and therefore conflictlessness) of the religious and daily truth does not work with the investigation of the modern phenomena of spiritual life. Kim Knibbe and André Droogers have convincingly demonstrated this in their research on the activities of the Dutch healing medium Jomanda. The Orthodox tradition also includes the perception of miracles as manifestations of God’s presence in this world, often occurring in empirically observable phenomena that defy the natural order. The Great Canon of St Andrew, Bishop of Crete (6th–7th century) includes the following words: “When God so wills, the natural order is overcome; for He does whatever He wishes”. Thus, traditionally minded believers view a miracle as God’s disruption of the natural order existing in the world. With such an understanding of miracles, secular researchers cannot demarcate based on an ontological incommensurability between miracles and worldly phenomena.
Michael Cantrell rightly observes that in the world of a believer, there is no difference between sacred and secular spheres of reality, where the sacred is considered to be present in another universe. Also, Michael mentions that to a believer something sacred represents the quality of the world, human experience in nature, and history.
This causes a fundamental question: what is the interaction supposed to look like between a student-believer and a professor who gives lectures and workshops in the frameworks of which modern scientific data contradicts principles with the religious beliefs of the student?
In our opinion, verified by the experience of teaching, this kind of meeting might be fruitful for both sides. The contradictions in this case might be a reason for the advanced conversation about the nature of rationality as it is. As a result of the interaction, the student might not change their religious beliefs but can gain a deeper understanding of modern scientific tendencies and fundamental principles of historical knowledge.
A student should be granted a conscious anti-intellectualism. Learning a discipline that contradicts their own beliefs at the level of contemporary scientific consensus, a student should comprehend intellectual reasoning for those conclusions with which they do not agree because of their experience with religion. Meanwhile, there is no need to demand a full agreement upon the ontological value of these types of conclusions. Leszek Kołakowski says that for a devotee of mythical realities, the arguments raised against myths do not mean much, since the legitimacy of the argument itself is based on an exceptional trust in practical values. However, the realization of the inner logic of these arguments has to become the mutual area on which the studying process is based.
Moreover, the contradictions between the conclusions of the modern science and the religious beliefs of a student might become a reason for the discussion of profound epistemological issues. In contemporary epistemology, the correspondence theory of scientific truth that understands this truth as the reflection of reality is a subject of serious criticism. In the framework of Thomas Kuhn’s theory of “the Scientific Revolutions”, scientific truth is more of a model that, from the perspective of the scientific community, explains well-known facts nowadays. As the set of facts changes, the paradigm will be discarded.
Thus, relying on the theory of scientific revolutions, a believer may acknowledge that the rational arguments support a version that contradicts the religious tradition (for example, the one about the origin of humanity). Nonetheless, this kind of conclusion will not be interpreted as some kind of timeless truth image but as a confirmation of the currently dominant paradigm. Based on the premise that the paradigm itself will inevitably change, a believer has good intellectual reasons not to consider this conclusion as a reflection of absolute truth and, accordingly, a contradiction to their religious views. For example, by recognizing the contradictions between young-earth creationism and modern geological data, one can remain in the position of biblical fundamentalism. The religious paradigm, from the point of view of the believer, reflects unchanging truth, while scientific truth is constantly changing. Therefore, any alignment between the two is merely coincidental and, by no means, an argument against religious faith.
This approach does not contradict the concept of Imre Lakatos, one of the most famous critics of Thomas Kuhn. When Kuhn is explaining the voice of the new paradigm mostly through non-scientific factors, Lakatos is seeking to demonstrate rational reasons for the success of a particular paradigm (Lakatos referred to them as research programs). However, meanwhile, he rejects the primitive cumulativeness in understanding the scientific progress, also, he did not attribute an ontological status to the scientific truth.
The critique of Imre Lakatos’ concept by Paul Feyerabend could become the subject of a separate discussion. Within Feyerabend’s framework of methodological anarchism, the deliberate allowance of non-scientific (including religious) influences on the scientific process is beneficial if it leads to proliferation, that is, the multiplication of theories. The philosopher thinks that at the initial stage of a new theory’s development, there are usually no rational methodological reasons to claim the superiority of the new paradigm over the old one. Within this approach, there are naturally no methodological reasons to prohibit assumptions about the supernatural within the framework of scientific discourse. However, perhaps just as importantly, even the more rationalist concept of Imre Lakatos, with its emphasis on the defense of intellectualism, provides no basis for such a prohibition.
In this reflection, we do not aim to discuss the validity of Feyerabend’s methodological anarchism (we should note that there are pretty valid points to be for or against this kind of radical approach). Nor is it meaningful to require the students to align with the point of view that a professor considers to be more correct. Instead, the focus should be switched to stimulating students’ intellectual engagement and teaching them how to engage in dialogue. In this case, discussing the history of religion within the framework of debates in the philosophy of science will undoubtedly prove highly fruitful.
The contradictions between the scientific data and the personal faith of a student similarly can give ground for the discussion of the methodological atheism principle, which causes serious debates in contemporary social science. Suggested by the prolific American scholar of religion Peter Berger, the principle foresees that a researcher, regardless of their personal views on religion, must exclude questions about the truth of religious ideas from their scientific work and, importantly, refrain from invoking supernatural explanations as part of their analytical framework. Crucially, Peter Berger did not correlate methodological atheism with worldview-based atheism. As a devout Lutheran, he critically assessed what he described as the “quasi-scientific legitimization” of denying the transcendent. For Berger, excluding questions about the truth of religious experience aligned with his broader epistemological perspectives. In the introduction to his seminal work, “The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion”, Berger explains that he understands the term “world” in a phenomenological sense, setting aside questions about its ultimate ontological status. In justifying the principles of methodological atheism, Berger notes, “In all its manifestations, religion constitutes an immense projection of human meanings into the empty vastness of the universe—a projection, to be sure, which comes back as an alien reality to haunt its producers. Needless to say, it is impossible within the frame of reference of scientific theorizing to make any affirmations, positive or negative, about the ultimate ontological status of this alleged reality.”
Douglas Porpora observes that Peter Berger, developing the intellectual tradition of Immanuel Kant, differed in the scope of phenomena and noumena. While Kant suggested that the noumenal world exerts an influence on the phenomenal world, Berger considered these realms to be radically separate and ontologically independent. Based on this distinction, Berger argued that it is impossible within the framework of religious sociology to approach religious phenomena as something “true” or as having access to noumenal reality. Consequently, in the sociological context, Berger regarded religion as a “projection of human meanings into the empty space of the universe.”
It is also important to mention that the epistemological foundations of Peter Berger’s ideas are often becoming the subject of critique. Moreover, Ninian Smart and Douglas Porpora criticize the concept of methodological atheism, considering the principle of methodological agnosticism as more appropriate. For instance, Douglas Porpora thinks that a secular researcher has no reason to assume that the source messages about miracles are mere illusions. A researcher may well reach a conclusion that contradicts the religious views of the group under study. However, Porpora notes that such an evaluation should be an empirical conclusion, not an a priori disciplinary assumption, which as such will always remain without scientific justification or refutation.
Certainly, these conclusions are neither definitive nor final. Higher education in the humanities, firstly, aims not to instill specific ideas in students but to develop the skill of thinking. Speaking personally, I disagree with the radical postmodern critique of science and rationality. However, the situation of worldwide diversity, and rational doubts towards rationality itself, provoked by the possible contradiction between science and faith, deserves to be discussed calmly. Through these discussions, students will be able to grasp the profound foundation of historical knowledge and be taught to think deeply as well as with greater nuance. This is what you need to look forward to from a professional historian.
LITERATURE
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Translated into English by Anastasiia Simakova