Science Council Gets it Right: Theology Included in Re-Definition of Science

The Science Council, a UK-based organization of science professionals, has recently redefined the term "science".  This has been a long time in coming, and I hope that this is the first of many organizations to attempt similar corrections to this word's currently impoverished denotation.  In particular, because theology is a science long neglected by the broader scientific world

It's not malapropism.  You just didn't know the entire definition.  Theology is a science.

Nowadays, the commonest definition of the term restricts science to those which are properly called natural sciences.  Simply because this definition is the most common, however, doesn't mean that it is the only acceptable one.

As with the term theology, we will begin with etymology.  Science comes from the Latin noun "scientia", a word meaning "knowledge.  That's right, knowledge; they didn't make a distinction between "empirical knowledge" or "theoretical knowledge" in the term.  This was because mathematics, philosophy, religion, and any of the other means of learning about the world were viewed as true, valid knowledge.  Take Pythagoras for example.  He was an ancient Greek philosopher who sought to understand the cosmos through mathematics.

Just think, if his esoteric philosophical school didn't exist, then we wouldn't have had his theorem or Scarecrow's memorable line:

 

But I digress.  What I mean is that the definition of science underwent subdivision, most likely during the 16th and 17th century.  At this time, thinkers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and others were discovering new objective laws at work in the world.  The entire worldview was changing; rather than viewing the world as a great interconnected organism, scientists began thinking of it in more mechanical terms.  Thus, "science" gradually referred more to understanding the objective cogs of the machine, apart from any religious or philosophical methodology.  

Of course, natural science still relies upon a theoretical method, but only as a guide to the empirical investigation.  Rather than developing theoretical systems, natural sciences rely upon experiments.  Therein lies the distinction between natural sciences and those like theology, or formal sciences.

Formal sciences rely primarily upon a priori facts and logical systems.  In other words, they start from foundational assumptions and reason their way to derived principles.  This is true for theology proper.  For example:

Assumption 1:  Divinity/Divinities exist.

Assumption 2:  Divinity/Divinities is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent.

Premise 1:  Divinity/Divinities are incorporeal, for otherwise they could not be omnipresent.

Premise 2:  Divinities who are incorporeal and share the same essential qualities have no distinction.

Conclusion:  There is only one Divinity.

Granted, this is not original.  Ancient Greeks came up with this.  However, this is theology/philosophy.  They are both formal sciences and share the same method:  they rely upon postulates and reason in order to create theoretical systems.  Postulates are not infallible; they are simply foundational assumptions for the system.  They can be questioned or restated at any time.  

Now you know.  And knowing is half the battle.