Four Causes

In the January 2007 issue of First Things, David B. Hart reviews a book about religion by Daniel Dennett.
Hart criticizes Dennett's approach to understanding religion.
As part of his criticism, Hart writes:

The marvelous strength and fecundity of modern science is the result of the ascetical rigor which with it limits the scope of its inquiries. In the terms of Aristotle's fourfold scheme of causality, science as we understand it now concerns itself solely with efficient and material causes while leaving the questions of formal and final causes unaddressed. Its aim is the scrupulous reconstruction of how things and events are generated or unfold, not speculation on why things become what they are or on the purpose of their existence.

For more about these causes, see
Aristotle's fourfold scheme of causality at Wikipedia.