포스트 코로나 시대의 신앙과 과학 그리고 라인홀드 니버의 기독교 현실주의

Abstract

This paper will concentrate on the relationship between science and faith in the post-corona age. The collision between science and religious values is not the focus, but the author will attempt to examine Christianity’s viewpoint on science through the theology of Reinhold Niebuhr. The perspective of Niebuhr is re-examined for the following three reasons. First, Niebuhr kept a distance from modern science and forbade overly optimistic views. This was done to practice caution against having excessive faith in Enlightenment reason and to emphasize the fundamental values of religion. Second, Niebuhr made clear which fundamental goals religion must pursue while keeping a distance from science. Not only did he clarify the purpose of science and religion, but he also helped to gain an understanding of the limitations of liberalism and fundamentalism. Third, Niebuhr provided the beginnings of a public theology from the perspective of Christian realism. There was no concept of science politics in Niebuhr’s time but Niebuhr’s perspective provided a key for understanding the role that science should play in the public domain. Such insights in Niebuhr’s thought can be expected to provide theological direction on how contemporary Christianity may approach science amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper’s limit is that it is concentrated on the issue of science as understood by Niebuhr in his theology, and therefore, issue of man and morality, political ethics, love and justice, public nature of Christianity, the vision of theology and Niebuhr’s theories on Christian dialectic which are the center of his theology, were not discussed in detail. It merely examines the relationship between science and religion in the post corona era from Niebuhr’s perspective.