First Principles, Certainty, and Uncertainty: Unburdening Ourselves of the Science–Religion Conflict
摘要
This chapter intervenes in contemporary Islam and science discourse by examining modern science through the epistemological lens of the Sunnī kalām tradition, with particular attention to the nature of scientific reasoning. It advances a kalām-based framework that enables scientists, educators, and theologians to engage more authentically with modern science while remaining rooted in the Islamic intellectual tradition. The chapter begins by defining knowledge, then develops the concepts of certainty, demonstrative reasoning, and the classification of propositions, culminating in an epistemological framework for navigating perceived conflicts between Islam and science. It argues that, within the Sunnī kalām epistemology, conflict does not arise between science and religion as domains of knowledge, but rather between specific types of propositions, namely, those that are conclusively certain and those that are merely presumptive. Since not all truth claims possess equal epistemological weight, and since conclusively certain claims are governed by the principle of non-contradiction, there can be, in principle, no genuine conflict between scientific and religious truths. This framework relieves scholars and educators of the burden of the conflict thesis and opens space for a more integrated, multidisciplinary inquiry into human nature and the cosmos.