Assimilation, Accommodation and Appropriation: Three attitudes to truth in science and religion

This article addresses the relationship between experience and belief, focusing on the role of science in the debate between secular Humanism and Christianity. It suggests that the possibility of appropriating experience to belief – taking action to bring experience into line with belief – distinguishes spiritual belief from systematic belief (in which the object is independent of beliefs about it); but that the boundary between these two forms of belief is itself a matter of (metaphysical) belief. Understanding science and religion, Humanism and Christianity in relationship to systematic and spiritual belief-structures helps to bring clarity to the debate.