Nature, Reality, and the Sacred

Book excerpt: Two partial apprehensions of nature vied for dominance in the past century: religious (void of any influence from science) and scientific (unable to admit any reality, beyond the empirical). Both views have led to the exploitation of nature -- and the scientific may prove even more devastating. The fault, Gilkey argues, lies not in the scientific knowledge of nature but in the assumed philosophy of science that accompanies most scientific and technological practice. Scientific knowing needs to be critiqued and brought into relationship with other complementary ways of knowing.