Science & Religion IV

Don: It seems from our discussion so far that science and religion can only be reconciled if we accept that god underwrites both; that he wrote both the bible and the so-called Book of Nature, as the first verse of Psalm 19 implies:

The heavens are telling of the glory of God;
And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.

The notions that science and religion either form an integrated whole or are mutually exclusive are generally held to be either bad science or bad religion or both. As a woodworker, Jesus was a scientist of sorts; certainly, he would have relied on scientific and material principles to build boats, even if he could walk on water. In other words, in his own life and ministry, Jesus rendered unto Caesar and god that which was theirs respectively, all the while insisting that his kingdom was not of this world and telling us to seek it inside ourselves. Thus he brought together the natural and the supernatural, science and religion.

Scripture suggests that science was a gift from god. At the conclusion of the creation, god gave Man the opportunity to “name the animals.” Genesis 2:19:

Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.

The naming and the classification of the natural world—taxonomy—is fundamental to science. But god went further by establishing a second principle of science, in Genesis 1:28-30:

God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so.

God not only called upon man to classify nature—to study it—but also to apply it, to put it to use. Science—the subjugation of the natural world in our service and to our profit, from agriculture and animal husbandry to electricity and jet travel—is a gift from god.

The irony, and the paradox of science, is that although man can control nature, he cannot control himself—he cannot control his tongue. James 3:5-8:

So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell. For every species of beasts and birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by the human race. But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison.

This can be observed in the kinds of science that end up becoming operational: The atomic bomb is harmless in its silo but deadly when activated by man’s wilfulness. Thus arises the notion held by some that science is evil is because man sometimes abuses the gift through his willfulness and pride.

The bible considers science to be a gift of god and under the control of god or of men dependent on god. The tree of knowledge of good and evil is not, it must be noted, the “tree of knowledge” as some tend to shorten it; therefore, it can be concluded that god was not against our having knowledge—he was only against our having knowledge of good and evil. For as long as Man lived under the governance of the Garden of Eden then the acquisition of knowledge through the study and application of science seems not to have been a problem. But in Genesis 3, we see that Man’s goal changed. He wanted to become like god, knowing good and evil, and it is this that seems to have started the division between science and faith.

Is this just too fanciful an interpretation? Or is there another way to account for the division? Jeremiah 17:5-6:

Thus says the LORD, “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind
And makes flesh his strength,
And whose heart turns away from the LORD.

“For he will be like a bush in the desert
And will not see when prosperity comes,
But will live in stony wastes in the wilderness,
A land of salt without inhabitant.

Or does the problem lie partly in the idea that science apart from god brings reverence to science? Is it not difficult to resist the modern worldview with which we are surrounded as we grow?

Kiran: Science has been practiced since ancient times. It began long before the Enlightenment. In India, Ayurvedic medicine has been studied and practiced through scientific observation for millennia.

David: Perhaps “observation” is what can unify science and religion. I don’t think science demands rejection of the supernatural (though some scientists might.) It demands skepticism of everything, natural or supernatural, for sure. Nothing is ever proven; science deals in probabilities, not certainties—not “Truth.” Instead of demanding the blind acceptance of its own self-declared Truth, religion could take a leaf out of the book of science and demand observation and method to test the validity and reliability of its claims. Religions and religious individuals have done so on the past. Meditation is one method to observe god, the supernatural. But I confess it is a stretch to liken meditation to objective experimentation and observation, and I am still of the belief that Gould was right and that science and religion are separate magisteria. It’s not that they are oppositional; it’s just that they can and do co-exist without needing to interact.

Charles: The physical universe comprises a vanishingly small fraction of the whole. The forms that comprise it are conditional, time-bound and ultimately subject to decay. In my opinion it is not a co-incidence that most of the physical universe, from cosmos to human to atom consists of essentially empty space. Through science, man understands the natural laws governing this physical reality. I believe the intellectual tools needed to discover those laws are ultimately God-given and distinguish the human race from other sentient life forms. In contrast, the world of the spirit is unconditional, supernatural, eternal and transcendent. It is in this domain that “consciousness”, “presence” and “I am” exist along with other the spiritual gifts of happiness, peace, love and joy.

Man has pondered this apparent existential paradox for millennia. In reality there is no paradox; only the ultimate recognition of the limitations, impermanence and ultimate temporal insignificance of conditional physical reality when compared to the possibilities, transcendence and potential eternal significance of unconditional spiritual reality. Ultimately, I believe the transparent co-existence of these realities, and the realization of physical impermanence lead man to contemplate Jesus’ example of humility, suffering and surrender of the will of the ego to the will of a higher power as the ultimate path to transcendence.

Chris: Jeremiah 17 told us that the man who trusts in man is cursed. Science is based on skepticism. Skepticism is a trait of man, not of god. Science should be based on the foundation of god, if we accept that god gave us science.

Kiran: The problem is that scientific people are skeptical of origin claims. I am often asked to explain the evolutionary significance of some claimed scientific advance in my field of microbiology. The question practically makes a religion out of Darwinism. It’s not a necessary question, and without it, science and religion could coexist very well.

Robin: A few days ago I got involved in a blog discussion involving atheists and agnostics and Christians, who ridiculed the others for their doubts and beliefs,rather than trying to discuss the issues nicely. I submitted a post to challenge this approach, while identifying myself as a Christian. I was then subjected to a barrage of cruel posts from atheists being just as nasty and judgmental as the Christians had been to them. There was no interest in a real exchange of views.

Jay: Last week we talked about rendering unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, etc. We see now through science, as well as through Genesis, that Caesar and his world are insignificant compared to god’s realm—which in the Garden included both the material and the immaterial, the spiritual and the scientific, the sacred and the profane. Even so, on the face of it, Caesar’s space seems to be growing exponentially while God’s space is shrinking. See how far medicine has come, for instance: Getting sick is no longer the death sentence, the divine intervention, it was before modern medicine came along.

It seems to me we must recognize that the content of God’s realm is utterly and totally different: It is a realm filled with infinite love and forgiveness and grace and all the other attributes of the kingdoms of heaven that we have discussed. It is infinitely bigger than the material universe and cannot be measured. If we recognize the fundamental differences between Caesar’s finite, formed, material universe and god’s infinite, formless and spiritual realm, then we can render unto each of them what is theirs accordingly, without any conflict unless it is of our personal choosing.

God’s ways are not our ways. They are not to be comprehended by us. The more we understand the universe through science, the more we may think we know god, but that is the problem: We don’t know god, but thinking we do leads us away from the spiritual path to him.

Ada: We also tend to think that our scientific ability to deal with ever-greater complexity is a godlike power; yet god shows his power in the most simple ways. In medicine, for instance, we are learning that the humble dandelion may hold cures that our best biochemists have been unable to emulate.

Charles: I believe the two realms were planned to coexist and that the scientific pathway we are taking will eventually lead to the realization that god does exist and is not inconsistent with science and the material world.

David: The dilemma is that science may soon have, or thinks it will have, the answer to what lies in the vast percentage of the universe we cannot see even though we know, by mathematical inference, that it exists. Dark matter and dark energy are the leading hypotheses, though again exactly what they are is unknown. So I think we need to be careful about implying that this identified and measured space is where we will find god. If we believe he is there but then discover just new, albeit “dark,” physical phenomena in it, then we are laying ourselves open to more disappointment and doubt.

Don: Next week I would like us to consider what science may have to contribute to religion, to things of the spirit; and vice versa. Both claim integrity and honesty to their approach to seeking truth, yet the product is utterly divergent: The scientist must, as a matter of honesty and integrity, be prepared continually to change her viewpoint with regard to what is true as ever more and newer data dictate; whereas the religionist must, as a matter of honesty and integrity, entrench himself in an immutable view of what is true. This has led to one side developing tools to help in the search for truth, while the other has no such tools, thinking they are not necessary. Does it have to be this way?

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