BARBOUR,IAN ON RELIGION AND THE METHODS OF SCIENCE - AN ASSESSMENT

Two aspects of Ian Barbour's position on the relation between religion and science are considered. First is his preference for comparing rel igions as a whole to scientific paradigms. It is suggested that the co ncept of a tradition as defined by Alasdair MacIntyre is more useful t han Thomas Kuhn's paradigm. Thus, the Christian tradition could be com pared to the Aristotelian or Newtonian scientific traditions. Within t raditions, both religious and scientific, we find schools with enough agreement on fundamentals to be designated research programs, as defin ed by Imre Lakatos; here fruitful comparisons between theology and sci ence are possible. Barbour's critical realism is intended as a comprom ise between highly rationalistic and sociological accounts of science. However, rationalism and sociology of science are answers to two diff erent sets of questions rather than extremes on a spectrum of answers to the same question. Thus, there is no middle position between them, and no compromise need be found.