The apodictic method and the dialogue between theology and science (II)

Many present day scientists think that religion can never come to terms with science. In sharp contrast with this widespread opinion, the authors of this paper consider that, historically, scientific reasoning and religious belief joined hands in their effort to investigate and understand reality. In fact, the present-day divorce between science and religion is nothing else than the final outcome of a gradual, long-term, and deliberately assumed process of the secularization of science. However, especially during the last decades, we have all been equally confronted with the advance of a new concern that some contemporary scientists have, namely reviewing the sphere of problems specific to the domains of investigation in which they are involved while now facing themes that are usually addressed by theological thought. It can be said that this recent development is being captured by an emerging new field of investigation within the modern scientific epistemology, Science and Religion. Against this background, the purpose of this paper is threefold: firstly, to briefly emphasize that one of the defining dimensions of the science and religion dialogue is given by the discontinuity relationship in which the knowledge acquired through scientific reason is placed in relation to the divinely revealed one; secondly, to argue that another defining dimension of the dialogue consists in the hierarchical harmony relationship that mediates the encounter between the two, thus transgressing the discontinuity and making the theology-science dialogue possible and viable; and thirdly to advocate the idea that the apodictic method (based on antinomic logic) can successfully structure such a dialogue. The paper is divided into two parts: the first one addresses the problem of truth in theology and science with particular focus on the antinomic logic, while the second part aims to illustrate how the apodictic method (based on antinomic logic) effectively implements together-workingness between scientific analysis and theological teaching by applying it to the field of economic science, namely the theory of rational behavior, with reference to the issue of wealth and poverty.