종교와 과학의 관계에 대한 한국 개신교의 이해 : 일제 강점기를 중심으로

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the Korean protestant intellectuals' discourses on the relationship between science and religion during the Japanese colonial period. Modern secular rationalists criticized Christian belief system as a kind of superstition. Especially anti-Christianity and anti-religion movements by socialists became a fatal threat on the identity of protestantism as a religion. In response to such challenges, Protestant intellectuals produced four kinds of discourses on the relationship between science and religion. The first was a product of protestant modernists, who compared the relationship of science and religion to two wheels of a vehicle. This means that science and religion are two instruments of civilization, always supporting each other. The second was mainly produced by the theologically liberal camp, which gave a stress that religion ought to accept the scientific spirits. In their opinion, the conflicts between science and religion come from religion. Therefore religion, especially the conservative protestantism, should be rationalized in order to survive in the age of science. The third was produced by the fundamentalists, who judged that the conflicts between science and religion originate from the misplaced scientific inferences, not science itself. In other words, the war between science and religion comes from secular materialism, under the guise of science. Therefore they tried to reveal the intellectual violences of scientific imperialism, arguing that science itself need not be enemy. The last was produced by theological modernists and secular liberalists, who demand ed the complete separation of science and religion. They stressed that scientific language and religious language should be separated for the sake of the permanent peace between science and religion.