Science and Religion II

Don: We have been discussing the relationship between things of the body, which I will call science, and things of the spirit, which I will call faith or religion. In linking forgiveness (a thing of the spirit) with healing (a thing of the body), Jesus is simply recognizing the worldview of the time. Illness had long been associated with sin, with separation from god. Jesus was simply trying to operate his ministry within that worldview.

Ancient man, in the absence of science, thought god caused everything. We now have a scientific basis to understand and even control much of the natural world, and we can see that we will control more and more of it as our science advances. According to the “god of the gaps” theory, this means that god will eventually be squeezed out of having anything to do with the world—science will explain and control everything.

Science is based upon verifiable and measurable data, upon testable hypotheses. A problem is that as time and science advances, as more data are accumulated, then hypotheses that once tested “true” often fail to hold true. Science involves a continuous modification of view and understanding. Faith, on the other hand, is founded (says the skeptic) on bad or no data. It is not testable, and cannot therefore be held to be true in any sense.

The believer does not need data, does not need observation and measurement. The truth is “felt” as something indefinable yet real. The Quakers called it the inner light—a higher power. What does science have to say about this?

Galatians 5:22-23 says “… the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” In other words, neither manmade law nor natural law (science) can regulate these spirit-based attributes of Wo/Man.

What should we expect from science and religion? Do we do each a disservice when we seek to superimpose or interface them? Michael has suggested that faith stage 2 [see previous discussions on the Stages of Faith—Ed.] tries to link the two, while stage three separates them completely, and stage 4 seeks to reconcile them in some way.

What will things be like a thousand years from now, with a further thousand years of scientific advance and a much richer understanding of our world and our universe? What then will be the role of god, of faith, of spirit, to people one thousand years hence?

David: I don’t think that science informs the spirit in any way whatsoever. My belief, and my experience, is that faith and spirit exist inside everyone who is ever born, has been born, or will be born. They existed before science, they exist today, and they will exist in the future, independent of scientific progress. The Galatians quote nails it.

Michael posited that there is some scientific understanding of the attributes of spirit. For example, there is species survival benefit in the love of a mother for her child, which reduces love to something much less noble than we tend to think of it as. I do not dispute that there may be a scientific aspect to love, but to me it does not adequately explain the neighborly love that causes people to sacrifice their lives for total strangers.

I think that neither science nor religion has anything to say to the other. Science helps us to understand physics and it helps to reduce metaphysics to physics, but there are some mysteries, such as love, that are irreducible to data and impervious to scientific method.

Charles: Perhaps we can get to a point where we not only accept but embrace the coexistence of science and faith. The value of science is in recognizing limitations. We can understand “x” temporarily, through science; but science does not allow us to go beyond the scientific understanding of the day other than through scientific advance. Science is concerned with impermanence and change. Spirit is concerned with the non-timebound, the everlasting; with the permanent, non-material, formless world beyond.

If science would explicitly accept that its essence is the impermanence of form, and religion would accept that its essence is the permanence of the formless, then the two can coexist.

Harry: Can religion borrow from science a way to test its “immutable” truths? Religious truths—by which I mean dogmatic truths, scriptures, the bible—evolve and change also. They do not affect the ultimate truths we all carry within us with the inner light, but to the extent they are touted as immutable then they are open to exposure, by science, as mutable and impermanent. Religion can put its dogmas to scientific test without risk to faith. The risk (which is not a risk) would be that religion itself might have to change.

Michael: We can have faith in anything. It is a very broad term. Perhaps we need to be more specific about what we mean by faith.

David: I agree with Harry that science could help enlighten and change organized religion, but I don’t think it can help enlighten us about the spirit. The churches and the major religions need to understand and accept that their dogmas are mutable even through their fundamental spiritual truths are not.

This is not to say that an individual cannot evolve in terms of spiritual understanding, or that religion cannot offer support for them. Monasteries that promote silence and meditation are one method. But the churches are not out there pushing monasticism from the pulpit! They would rather support stage 2 believers, whose faith tends to be in the dogma rather than in the spiritual quest. They think they have arrived, and the churches do little to disabuse them of this dangerous notion.

Charles: If by “science” we mean exploration, contemplation, seeking, understanding, then it has some relevance. But if we mean applying to faith scientific rules and limits and testing, then we are setting up for failure. Science cannot be applied to the spiritual world, to the non-quantifiable, the immeasurable, the formless, the “I Am,” the “presence”, the consciousness—to god!

Don: Your thought that science being in the business of defining limits while spirit deals with the infinite is borne out by the well-known passage in 1 Corinthians 13:

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. … Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.

This contrasts the finite and impermanent nature of knowledge with the eternity of love.

Veronika: Science can never squeeze god out of the gaps. To do so would be tantamount to a second Fall. The first Fall occurred because Adam and Eve sought knowledge, and it was they (and us) who got squeezed out! Yet god gave us the tools—the brain—to seek knowledge, so why would he not support us in our search for scientific enlightenment? Advances in medicine help us as human beings to lead healthier, longer, and happier lives. A loving god wants that for us. Science is more sinister when scientists want to learn how to become god, how to create and manipulate ife, how to engineer immortality. I don’t think god wants us to do this. Our human desire for control is what drives it. That drive is an addiction, and like all addictions it will lead to a fall, and following the fall will come god’s grace.

Robin: Galatians 5:16-26 describes, inter-alia, characteristic of the spirit—of god himself; attributes that he would like us to emulate:

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.

Paul preface these remarks with (verse 14): For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

The things of the spirit are eternal, and we should be humble in the enormity of that eternity. Science is concerned with the things of the flesh, and it changes all the time. One day baby aspirin is in, next day it is out. We are told to lay babies to sleep on their tummies, then to lay them on their backs. Science and scientific knowledge change, god and his attributes do not.

Charles: The qualities that Robin has quoted are sought by all of us, even by the most rigorous scientist. But science does not answer them in these matters. I have struggled with the passage from John 14:2: “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.” Now, I think Jesus was pointing us to the accessibility of those qualities; we just need to open ourselves up to it, to knock on the door of the spirit. It is inside us, but we are distracted by the things of the non-spirit world, things that we can quantify and measure and understand and perceive through our senses.

David: I agree, but I think it is a mistake commonly made by religion that one must therefore explicitly recognize its version of “God”—Christian fundamentalists would say “You have to let Jesus into your life”—to understand and begin to acquire the attributes of the spirit. Access is denied to nobody, regardless of whether they profess or deny a given religious “faith.” I believe there are many humanists who are in fact in communion with their inner light but who would vigorously deny the religious concept of god. I agree that until one recognizes that inner light, that higher power, that spirit—however clandestinely—one will have no access to its attributes.

(To go off on a slight tangent: We just heard again that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. But how many of us love ourselves? Don’t some of us hate ourselves, at least sometimes? I’m just curious.)

Harry: Since the beginning of human history, humans have sought god, something greater than them that gives peace and hope and love. Most religions founded through the ages have found a god who does offer these things. The ones left standing in modern times war over whose god is the real god, and appeal to their respective scriptures. I think we could apply scientific method to assess these claims of representation and the accompanying dogmatic prescriptions for communion with these gods, without harming our actual relationship with god at all.

What scares people is to find error in their religious support structure. If I were to find out today that Jesus never rose from the dead, was married, and so on, it would make me extremely uncomfortable but it would not destroy my faith in god! Religion, and the gods it creates, is not god. Religion’s gods are measurable—their miracles are susceptible to scientific inquiry; the true god cannot be described, let alone measured.

Alice: When we are grounded in god, he does open our eyes, he does enlighten us. Good science should bring us closer to god, because it shows the greatness of god. Psalms says that the heavens declare the glory of god. Whatever is made in this world is god’s work.

Michael: Unquestioning zealotry in religion is as bad as unquestioning zealotry in science. It does not lead to the truth. Both require humility. Science, I have come to understand, ought not to be about a search of answers to really big questions but rather to rather small questions, whose value may be dubious! Big hypotheses are usually not testable.

Don: We will continue this discussion next week.

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P.S. from Harry: Don’t forget to check out and contribute your thoughts to our blog — The Interface!