The Philosophical Method, the Scientific Method, and Theology

So, for the longest time Ive thought that theology was basically
philosophical, and didnt really see the difference between them,
despite a number of people saying that I was wrong and that
theology wasnt philosophy. So, now, let me clarify: I think that
theology uses the philosophical method, and as such doesnt use
the scientific method. The philosphical method is quite different
than the scientific method, which explains why a lot of scientist
dont really get either.
So, how does that differ from the scientific method?
through the points in order:

Lets go

1) Science works with things, with objects. Philosophy works with

concepts.
Now, a lot of the time these are mostly
interchangeable, which is why people dont really notice this
difference. But philosophy is conceptual analysis, while science is
object analysis. They aim at two compeltely different types of
ends.
2) Science has to be grounded in the empirical and empirical
observations to achieve its end. Philosophy has to be grounded in
reasoning to achieve its end. Both can use either, but philosophy
accepts propositions that are not ultimately grounded in empirical
observation and science doesnt. Philosophy accepts that you can
find out interesting things with pure reasoning and science
doesnt.

3) Philosophy deals with things that have to work in all cases,

whether inside or outside of the real world; science doesnt care
about anything outside of the real world.
4) Philosophy uses thought experiments and modal logic that
dont have to be real world situations to do its work. Science
always has to look at the real world to do its work. In fact,
philosophy wants to take things out of the real world to effectively
examine their concepts while science wants to situate things as
much as possible in the relevant real-world situations to do its
work.
Note that the philosophical method doesnt have to ignore
completely empirical data or the results of science. You can even
naturalize ie make scientific parts of philosophy if it helps or
if thats the best way to do it. In fact, science was born from
natural philosophy because people discovered that the scientific
method really did work best there. But ultimately, philosophy has
a different though still important goal than science, and thus
has different methods. Thus, good philosophy will naturalize only
as far as it needs to to be able to properly analyze the concepts.
This also doesnt make philosophy necessarily impractical. All
category judgements are philosophical because they involve
determining what a category ought to contain regardless of what
we think it does. This is determining, for example, the concept of
a mammal as opposed to simply talking about mammals directly.
Why are whales mammals and not fish? If were going to appeal
to natural kinds, we have to know what properties make up the
concept mammal and the concept fish to make that
determination. Otherwise, all were left with is a pragmatic
decision thats subjectively determined by everyone based on
what they think is the best way to classify. Thus, general

classifications at least ought to be relying on conceptual analysis

to work.
Another example is, in my opinion, morality. To me, once we
know what the concept of morality means then we can go out and
decide how to determine what moral rules if any we should
follow. This is independent of what people think is moral; they
may well be wrong. Only by analyzing the concept can we really
determine what morality is, even if we end up determining that it
really is just what people think it is.
Ultimately, the only thing scientific that even comes close to
being the same as the philosophical method is
theoretical
physics, and we can note from that that:
1) They are the only area that really uses anything like thought
experiments, although at a far more concrete and much more
elementary level than philosophy (see Schroedingers Cat).
2) Theoretical physicists get a lot of the same complaints tossed
at them as is tossed at philosophy/theology, specifically about
what empirical data there exists to validate their theory and how
they plan to test it. They also complain about the experimental
focus
of
experimental
physicists
as
much
as
philosophers/theologicans do.
So, does theology use the philosophical method? Well, it seems
quite reasonable to say that it does. Most of the time, it is aiming
at examining and defining the concept of God and cares less
about the specific details or specific existence claims. It accepts
that you dont need empirical data to ground a belief or a theory.
It uses thought experiments, modal logic, and pure analytical

arguments to make its case. It does use some empirical data, but
it doesnt place the importance on it that science does.
Okay, so its using the philosophical method. Should it? Some
might argue that since its trying to establish the existence of
something, thats the balliwick of science. However, the reply to
that is two-fold:
1) The concept God is so poorly defined as a concept that
science cant even hope to get started talking about it.
2) Its quite possible that God is a concept that can be proved
without appealing to the empirical, and possibly that as a concept
it cannot be proved by appealing to the empirical.
Anything supernatural has this issue, since we havent
conceptualized it well-enough to know how to test it scientifically.
This applies specifically to the oft-cited prayer experiments,
which didnt take into account at all any of the conditions where
prayer might be said to work, and worked with an extremely
shallow view of prayer. Ghosts, telepathy, and telekinesis also fit
into these cateogories.
These would suggest that, at least for now, the philosophical
method is the appropriate way to analyze God, and thats what
theology is doing. Thus, if scientists want to criticize its method,
they have to criticize the philosophical method.
Which, since that method produced science, is not a method they
want to discredit.