Still another challenge for Western religion in our age of science involves finding a basis for religious assertions. The problem is especially pronounced in Western Christianity. As it narrowed its focus over the past few centuries more and more to the human realm, it has tried to ground its religious claims primarily in the inner life of the person. We see the consequence of this change in our tendency in the U.S. today to see religious beliefs as being one’s individual opinions or chosen values (in contrast to science’s dealing with factual truths about the world).
But we might well ask if such an arrangement is theologically adequate: Is there not some need for Christianity to find ways to ground Christian assertions in our knowledge of the world, rather than leaving them “suspended somewhat perilously in mid-air,” as the theologian John Macquarrie so beautifully put it? Otherwise, religious claims can become whatever opinion an individual chooses to make them.
1. John Macquarrie. Thinking about God. New York: Harper & Row, 1975. p. 133.
