Because there is nothing measurable or detectable about the soul. Philosophers speculated about "soul" long before there was science.
Do all truths start off as a "theological concept", until science gives it the green light?
No. Many truths are never part of science, but we consider them truths. Some truths start off as science and are never theological. Atoms for example.
I realize science deals only with things that can be detected and quantified by their instruments, but where does that leave God?
Science is agnostic as far as God is concerned. Stephen Gould summed it up:
" To say it for all my colleageues and for the umpteenth millionth time (from college bull sessions to learned treatises): science simply cannot (by its legitimate methods) adjudicate the issue of God's possible superintendence of nature. We neither affirm nor deny it; we simply can't comment on it as scientists." SJ Gould, Impeaching a self-appointed judge. Scientific American, 267:79-80, July 1992.
There are a couple of reasons for this. Science does not only deal with things that can be detected "by their instruments". Instead,
all evidence is personal experience: what we see, hear, touch, smell, taste, or feel emotionally. Science can and does deal with the last, and emotions are things that we usually don't take the time or effort to detect by CAT scan.
But most importantly, science limits itself to evidence (personal experience)
that is the same for everyone under approximately the same circumstances. This is called "intersubjective". The personal experience of God -- whether in scripture or by individuals -- is not intersubjective. You and I cannot go to the Red Sea, raise our arms in the air, call upon God, and have the waters part. The experience of the Hebrews during the Exodus is
not intersubjective. Therefore it is not part of science. Paul's experience of the risen Christ is not intersubjective. People today report experience of God, but it is not intersubjective.
Standing at the [lab] door and knocking?
Not exactly. God doesn't have to be validated by science, does He?
AV, there are a couple of ways to look at science's agnosticism.
First, and the way Christians look at it, is that God has 2 books: scripture and Creation. Science reads the book of Creation. Thus, everything science finds tells us
how God created. Sometimes it may also tell us other things about God.
Second, people can try to sneak God into science by the back door. They can propose a
material method by which God works. Science can then test the material method. Creationism is one way to try to sneak God into science by the back door. Creationism says God created
by manufacturing humans and other species, or parts of them, or other things, in their present form. Science then looks to see if these things were indeed manufactured in their present form. Flood Geology proposed that God caused a world-wide flood, and then the
flood caused geological features. The flood was the material method.
The problem with doing that is that science
only tests the
material cause. So what happens when the material cause is shown to be wrong or not have happened? Do you conclude that God does not exist? Many people do, which is why they are so threatened by the falsification of creationism (evolution). But really,
God was never tested. Only the material method was tested. God could create another way. And did.
