Science and Religion
By
Lloyd Brown
March 13, 2008
Introduction
Is there any relationship between science and religion? Do they have anything in common? Are their purposes different? Are they in conflict? Does one have any impact on the other? Is there any harmony between them?
There are those who declare that scientists and theologians inhabit two different realms and never the twain shall meet. Scientists, they say, are detached observers of the world and concern themselves with evidence, experimentation, and objectivity. They confine their study to the physical world, and proceed with detachment to discover causal connections between events and objects in nature. The language of science is propositional and mathematical, the purpose of which is to communicate what the world is like.
Theologians, on the other hand, are said to depend on faith and revelation for their knowledge. Knowledge for them is personal and subjective. Their concern is mainly with awe and mystery, with meaning and purpose both in the universe and in our lives. The scientist asks, what are the facts? How did the world begin? What is the nature of the Big Bang? The theologian asks, Why? Why is there a world at all? Why is it orderly and intelligible? The stance of the theologian is one of engagement rather than detachment. He/she focuses on unique experiences rather than general laws, on the inner life rather than repeatable data. The language of theology is closer to poetry than to mathematics, depending largely on symbol and metaphor.
Even this brief and general description of religion and science is useful because it calls attention to the distinctive aspects of both and helps us understand what each contributes to our understanding. It also reminds us that neither gives us a complete understanding of life. Science has been successful in describing the nature of the world, and in doing so has made great contributions to health, technology, and industry. However, it says nothing about how we should live in the world. It is silent about love, kindness, and hope. Religion and science take a different stance toward the world. To science the world is an It, something to be used, manipulated and analyzed. In religion the world is sacred, a Thou, something to be encountered, something with which we establish a relationship and which we experience. Religion, as religion, encounters problems when it makes dogmatic statements about subjects that are the domain of science such as the age of the universe. Similarly, science, as science, cannot give us any particular insight into the nature of God, because it is outside its domain. The existence or non-existence of God cannot be proven by science. Therefore, the pronouncements of scientists on the subject are not scientific statements, and as such carry no special weight.
However, I think the distinction between religion and science as described above are not nearly as sharp and definitive as some writers suggest. This is so because a new paradigm of science has superseded the old paradigm. The old one, the classical Newtonian model, showed the world to be a designed mechanism operating according to deterministic laws. Like any machine, it was regarded as a collection of autonomous parts, each external to the other. The new twentieth century model portrays the world as a living organism, with an emphasis on relatedness and holism, with each element an organic part of the whole. In the rest of this paper I shall make references to the new paradigm to show that while religion and science are independent, there are points of contact between them. The first to be discussed is faith.
Faith
Critics of religion, Richard Dawkins for example, argue that faith is irrational and is a characteristic of religion only. They seem unaware that faith is a necessary part of science. Scientists must have faith in the intelligibility of the world if science is to function. D’Souza (2007, 93) makes the same claim: “Without the…belief that we live in an ordered universe, modern science is impossible.” He further adds that “Science also relies on the equally unsupported belief that the rationality of the universe is mirrored in the rationality of our human minds.” In other words, scientists have faith in the rationality of the universe and the human mind and the consonance between them before they even start their experiments. That is, they (some of them) argue that that there is a living mind deep in the very nature of the universe; and when we apply our minds to it, it yields understanding as if mind were speaking to mind. Einstein also confesses that because our knowledge of the laws of nature is imperfect our belief in the existence of these laws “rests on a sort of faith.” He continues that those seriously involved in the study of science become convinced “that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe—a spirit vastly superior to that of man.” He concludes “the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort.” (Dukas and Hoffmann, 1981, 32-33)
Capra (1991, 24) also argues that faith is a part of science. He says that “every leap into novelty, every discovery is an intuitive leap.” And every intuitive leap is an act of faith. All scientists learn to trust this intuitive leap to take them in the desired direction. Capra says they have an insight, early in the discovery process, which they cannot formulate. Perhaps science faith is more intellectual than religious faith which is existential and related to morality and ultimate meaning. However, there is a common element in both. That common element is openness to the discovery of new meanings (Liderbach, (1989, 120-121). In science it may be the anticipated meanings of quantum mechanics before they can be expressed. In religion it may be openness to new perspectives, some of them counter intuitive. For example, secular society operates on the proposition that victory lies in strength. However, the Christian message, symbolized by the cross, is that victory lies in surrender and sacrifice. To call attention to the presence of faith in both science and religion is not meant to conflate the two or to try to undermine their independence as disciplines. It is rather to show that those scientists who denigrate faith, Dawkins calls it a virus, and claims that science is free of it, should rethink their positions and put a check on their arrogance. It is also to remind those who are intimidated by Dawkins’ argument that his case is weaker than they think.
Mystery
I find the world of the new science, like the world portrayed by religion, to be a place of mystery. This is probably what Davies (1986, ix) was thinking when he said that “in my opinion science offers a surer path to God than religion.” Einstein also, in great humility, acknowledges the mystery of the universe. In a letter to his friend Dr. Otto Juliusburger he states, “we never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery in which we are born.” (Dukas and Hoffmann, 1981, 82) Mehdi Golshani, a distinguished professor of physics, sums up his view of the new science with these words: “Cosmology and the quantum physics have taught us about the immense mystery of the world.” (In Richardson and Slack, 2001, 125)
What are these scientists referring to when they talk of mystery with respect to science? In the mechanistic world atoms are hard, indestructible balls, resembling miniature billiard balls. However, as physicists have probed deeper into nature they have discovered a world that is beyond our direct sensory perception. Apparently, solid particles are no longer solid. Davies (1986, 103) says that an atom only materializes when you look for it, and “In the absence of an observation the atom is a ghost.” Capra (1988, 72) says, in discussing Einstein’s formula E=mc2 ,that “mass is nothing but a form of energy.” Owens (1983, 86) quotes Heisenberg as saying that atoms are not real, because they are not made up of things. They are instead “the sheerest mathematical Platonic forms.” Furthermore, subatomic particles and light both have a dual aspect. Depending on how we look at them, they appear sometimes as particles (quanta, from which quantum mechanics gets its name) and sometimes as waves. This is indeed a very strange world and it appears that the deeper we go into it the more we become detached from the commonsense world of everyday experience. This paradox reminds us of, and may help us to express, the Christian paradox—Jesus as God and man, divine and human.
Liderbach (1989, 85) calls attention to another astonishing characteristic of subatomic particles which he refers to as “tunneling”. Tunneling, he says, describes the escape of particles through a wall which is thought to be impenetrable. Perhaps Liderbach is referring to neutrinos. They are, says Gregory (1990, 121-122), massless, invisible particles that can pass through matter almost as if it didn’t exist! Those who believe in these invisible particles should have no trouble believing in ghosts!
The physical world, then, as Liderbach (1989, 87) observes, seems to be “made up fundamentally of non-substantial presences.” He concludes that to assert that there is a non-empirically based Presence of the Kingdom of God in the world is no more radical than to claim in science that the world is made up of non-substantial presences. Polkinghorne (1998, 44) argues that entities such as quarks, gluons, and neutrinos, though unseen and unseeable, warrant our belief because their existence “provides the basis for understanding what is happening.” He makes the same claim for the unseen Presence of God in the world. Both God and neutrinos may be unseen, but they nevertheless “bear some relation to the actuality of the world,” and make aspects of experience intelligible. The subatomic world of new physics, then, like the one portrayed in religion is a veiled, unpicturable, hidden reality.
Wholeness
The world of new science, like the world of religion, is one characterized by wholeness. Bohm (1985, 148) recognizes this desire for wholeness. He says that we have an “urge toward wholeness which expressed itself in religion and in science.”
First consider religion. The believer in God is also a believer in the interconnectedness of things: The new statement of faith (2006) of the United Church of Canada says that “all parts of creation…are related.” Religion presupposes God as the ultimate ground of all being out of which all things emerge. Scripture connects God and nature by showing us that the world is filled with the glory of God (Psalm 19), and tells us that God speaks to Moses out of a burning bush. This wholeness is in evidence in Jesus’ claim that “I and my father are one.” St Paul in his letter to the Ephesians also emphasizes it: “There is one body and one spirit…There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism; there is one Lord and Father of all mankind.” (Chapter 4, v 4-6) At the Last Supper Jesus emphasized the unity of the spiritual and the physical when he took the bread and the wine and said “This is my body broken for you,” and “This is my blood shed for you.” The Trinity is also a symbol of wholeness. It is not about parts, about separate persons, but about relationships, about a unity of three in one, each existing in and for each other. In the Christian religion the church, while made up of individuals, is a community, a communion, the body of Christ.
What of science? The new science, as we have already observed, reveals a new view of the world. At a deep level it reveals the world as an undivided wholeness. Capra (1988, 78-79) says that “As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any isolated ‘basic building g blocks’, but rather appears as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of the whole.” For example, when observing sub-atomic particles it is not possible to separate the observer from what is observed. When scientists study photons, they direct a stream of light on them. In other words, they direct a stream of photons at other photons thus distorting the results. This means that the observer is no longer detached from what he/she observes. The objectivity of the observer is destroyed because he/she by the very process of the study has influenced the results. The claim, then, that quantum science, unlike religion, is completely objective is undermined.
Furthermore, as we have already observed, Einstein claims that matter and energy are a unity. He also posits that space and time are not distinct from each other. He says that there is no such thing as time and space independent of each other. There is only space-time, “a continuum which extends to every part of the universe.” (Liderbach, 1989, 21)
Polkinghorne (1998, 28), and other scientists, have pointed out a peculiarity of subatomic particles that suggests wholeness. Apparently two particles which have interacted with each other will influence each other, however far they are separated. They seem to stay in contact through space and time, behaving as one particle instead of two. It reminds us of the non-locality of prayer where the one praying and the one being prayed for become almost as one whatever the distance between them. One thinks too of the communication between twins who, though they have been separated from birth, make similar choices in their lives. Barbara Brown Taylor (2000, 65-66) says that such phenomena occur “because they belong to the unbroken wholeness of the universe.” She further connects this unbroken wholeness to the metaphor of the church as Christ’s body, which shows that we are more than a collection of parts. She concludes that in communion we are translated “into the mind of Christ”.
Bohm (1987, 148) speaks of a basic reality which he says is “an unbroken wholeness.” This unbroken wholeness he calls the “implicate order” out of which the “explicate order”, the phenomenal, tangible world, emerges. He describes it in a language that is very familiar to theologians--“the ground of all being.” Astonishingly, he concludes that this ground of all being is “permeated with a supreme intelligence that is creative.” This sounds much like, though I wouldn’t want to equate them, the Christian idea of God, the underlying reality that creates and is still creating. In fact, Brian Josephson, (in The Reach of the Mind, 1985, 150) winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize in physics, suggests that science should entertain “the possibility of God or mind which can be taken as an implicate order in the evolving universe.” In other words, both Bohm and Josephson seem to hold that nature is unfolded out of a great mystery, and they commit themselves to discovering the truth about this mystery, a truth larger than themselves. Does this not remind us of the Christian’s search for the truth about God? In both cases the truth seems to be receding, beckoning the seeker to follow. The thing sought may be different, but the commitment, the conviction, and the striving are similar in both cases.
Origins
Does recent science undermine the Christian view of creation? The recent theory of cosmology attributes the origin of the universe to the Big Bang. Boslough (1985, 75) describes this origin in this way:
Into a void, so absolute as to mock any human concept of emptiness, appeared a single point of new potential. And at the very instant of its creation, this point, bearing all matter, all dimension, all energy, and all time, burst out, spewing forth its contents.
Many Christian theologians were delighted with this theory of the Big bang. Unlike the Steady State theory, for example, which held that the universe was eternal, and therefore eliminated the need for God, the Big Bang theory showed that the universe had a beginning. And even scientists allowed that it at least it suggested the possibility of a creator. It seemed as if the story of the Big Bang confirmed the story of Genesis! For like the Big Bang, Genesis insists that the universe came into existence at an instant in time and out of nothing.
Christian theology, before Copernicus, claimed that the earth was the fixed center of God’s creation. However, when Copernicus showed that the earth moved around the sun instead of the other way around, the earth and humans lost their central focus. The result was turmoil in the Christian church. Tarnas (1991, 253) observes that Copernicanism posed a threat “to the entire Christian framework of cosmology, theology, and morality.” It also led to much suppression of the new scientific views and scientists such as Copernicus and Galileo. However, modern scientists have developed a new theory that once again restores human life to its former central place. The theory is called the Anthropic Principle. This principle, in general, states that the universe is so fine-tuned for life that it could not have happened by chance, that it must have been created by a supreme intelligence for the purpose of human habitation. Though the Anthropic Principle is widely accepted among scientists, not all of them accept the religious explanation. Boslough (1985, 109) quotes Hawking as saying: “I think there are clearly religious implications whenever you start to discuss the origins of the universe….But I think most scientists prefer to shy away from the religious side of it.” However, not all of them do. Davies (1986, 189), though doubtful that the hypothesis can be tested, admits the possibility: “It is hard to resist the impression that the present structure of the universe…has been rather carefully thought out.” Polkinghorne (1998, 11), a theoretical physicist turned theologian, is less tentative. He states that “the endowment of matter with anthropic potentiality…is a creative act of a specially divine character.”
By
Lloyd Brown
March 13, 2008
Introduction
Is there any relationship between science and religion? Do they have anything in common? Are their purposes different? Are they in conflict? Does one have any impact on the other? Is there any harmony between them?
There are those who declare that scientists and theologians inhabit two different realms and never the twain shall meet. Scientists, they say, are detached observers of the world and concern themselves with evidence, experimentation, and objectivity. They confine their study to the physical world, and proceed with detachment to discover causal connections between events and objects in nature. The language of science is propositional and mathematical, the purpose of which is to communicate what the world is like.
Theologians, on the other hand, are said to depend on faith and revelation for their knowledge. Knowledge for them is personal and subjective. Their concern is mainly with awe and mystery, with meaning and purpose both in the universe and in our lives. The scientist asks, what are the facts? How did the world begin? What is the nature of the Big Bang? The theologian asks, Why? Why is there a world at all? Why is it orderly and intelligible? The stance of the theologian is one of engagement rather than detachment. He/she focuses on unique experiences rather than general laws, on the inner life rather than repeatable data. The language of theology is closer to poetry than to mathematics, depending largely on symbol and metaphor.
Even this brief and general description of religion and science is useful because it calls attention to the distinctive aspects of both and helps us understand what each contributes to our understanding. It also reminds us that neither gives us a complete understanding of life. Science has been successful in describing the nature of the world, and in doing so has made great contributions to health, technology, and industry. However, it says nothing about how we should live in the world. It is silent about love, kindness, and hope. Religion and science take a different stance toward the world. To science the world is an It, something to be used, manipulated and analyzed. In religion the world is sacred, a Thou, something to be encountered, something with which we establish a relationship and which we experience. Religion, as religion, encounters problems when it makes dogmatic statements about subjects that are the domain of science such as the age of the universe. Similarly, science, as science, cannot give us any particular insight into the nature of God, because it is outside its domain. The existence or non-existence of God cannot be proven by science. Therefore, the pronouncements of scientists on the subject are not scientific statements, and as such carry no special weight.
However, I think the distinction between religion and science as described above are not nearly as sharp and definitive as some writers suggest. This is so because a new paradigm of science has superseded the old paradigm. The old one, the classical Newtonian model, showed the world to be a designed mechanism operating according to deterministic laws. Like any machine, it was regarded as a collection of autonomous parts, each external to the other. The new twentieth century model portrays the world as a living organism, with an emphasis on relatedness and holism, with each element an organic part of the whole. In the rest of this paper I shall make references to the new paradigm to show that while religion and science are independent, there are points of contact between them. The first to be discussed is faith.
Faith
Critics of religion, Richard Dawkins for example, argue that faith is irrational and is a characteristic of religion only. They seem unaware that faith is a necessary part of science. Scientists must have faith in the intelligibility of the world if science is to function. D’Souza (2007, 93) makes the same claim: “Without the…belief that we live in an ordered universe, modern science is impossible.” He further adds that “Science also relies on the equally unsupported belief that the rationality of the universe is mirrored in the rationality of our human minds.” In other words, scientists have faith in the rationality of the universe and the human mind and the consonance between them before they even start their experiments. That is, they (some of them) argue that that there is a living mind deep in the very nature of the universe; and when we apply our minds to it, it yields understanding as if mind were speaking to mind. Einstein also confesses that because our knowledge of the laws of nature is imperfect our belief in the existence of these laws “rests on a sort of faith.” He continues that those seriously involved in the study of science become convinced “that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe—a spirit vastly superior to that of man.” He concludes “the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort.” (Dukas and Hoffmann, 1981, 32-33)
Capra (1991, 24) also argues that faith is a part of science. He says that “every leap into novelty, every discovery is an intuitive leap.” And every intuitive leap is an act of faith. All scientists learn to trust this intuitive leap to take them in the desired direction. Capra says they have an insight, early in the discovery process, which they cannot formulate. Perhaps science faith is more intellectual than religious faith which is existential and related to morality and ultimate meaning. However, there is a common element in both. That common element is openness to the discovery of new meanings (Liderbach, (1989, 120-121). In science it may be the anticipated meanings of quantum mechanics before they can be expressed. In religion it may be openness to new perspectives, some of them counter intuitive. For example, secular society operates on the proposition that victory lies in strength. However, the Christian message, symbolized by the cross, is that victory lies in surrender and sacrifice. To call attention to the presence of faith in both science and religion is not meant to conflate the two or to try to undermine their independence as disciplines. It is rather to show that those scientists who denigrate faith, Dawkins calls it a virus, and claims that science is free of it, should rethink their positions and put a check on their arrogance. It is also to remind those who are intimidated by Dawkins’ argument that his case is weaker than they think.
Mystery
I find the world of the new science, like the world portrayed by religion, to be a place of mystery. This is probably what Davies (1986, ix) was thinking when he said that “in my opinion science offers a surer path to God than religion.” Einstein also, in great humility, acknowledges the mystery of the universe. In a letter to his friend Dr. Otto Juliusburger he states, “we never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery in which we are born.” (Dukas and Hoffmann, 1981, 82) Mehdi Golshani, a distinguished professor of physics, sums up his view of the new science with these words: “Cosmology and the quantum physics have taught us about the immense mystery of the world.” (In Richardson and Slack, 2001, 125)
What are these scientists referring to when they talk of mystery with respect to science? In the mechanistic world atoms are hard, indestructible balls, resembling miniature billiard balls. However, as physicists have probed deeper into nature they have discovered a world that is beyond our direct sensory perception. Apparently, solid particles are no longer solid. Davies (1986, 103) says that an atom only materializes when you look for it, and “In the absence of an observation the atom is a ghost.” Capra (1988, 72) says, in discussing Einstein’s formula E=mc2 ,that “mass is nothing but a form of energy.” Owens (1983, 86) quotes Heisenberg as saying that atoms are not real, because they are not made up of things. They are instead “the sheerest mathematical Platonic forms.” Furthermore, subatomic particles and light both have a dual aspect. Depending on how we look at them, they appear sometimes as particles (quanta, from which quantum mechanics gets its name) and sometimes as waves. This is indeed a very strange world and it appears that the deeper we go into it the more we become detached from the commonsense world of everyday experience. This paradox reminds us of, and may help us to express, the Christian paradox—Jesus as God and man, divine and human.
Liderbach (1989, 85) calls attention to another astonishing characteristic of subatomic particles which he refers to as “tunneling”. Tunneling, he says, describes the escape of particles through a wall which is thought to be impenetrable. Perhaps Liderbach is referring to neutrinos. They are, says Gregory (1990, 121-122), massless, invisible particles that can pass through matter almost as if it didn’t exist! Those who believe in these invisible particles should have no trouble believing in ghosts!
The physical world, then, as Liderbach (1989, 87) observes, seems to be “made up fundamentally of non-substantial presences.” He concludes that to assert that there is a non-empirically based Presence of the Kingdom of God in the world is no more radical than to claim in science that the world is made up of non-substantial presences. Polkinghorne (1998, 44) argues that entities such as quarks, gluons, and neutrinos, though unseen and unseeable, warrant our belief because their existence “provides the basis for understanding what is happening.” He makes the same claim for the unseen Presence of God in the world. Both God and neutrinos may be unseen, but they nevertheless “bear some relation to the actuality of the world,” and make aspects of experience intelligible. The subatomic world of new physics, then, like the one portrayed in religion is a veiled, unpicturable, hidden reality.
Wholeness
The world of new science, like the world of religion, is one characterized by wholeness. Bohm (1985, 148) recognizes this desire for wholeness. He says that we have an “urge toward wholeness which expressed itself in religion and in science.”
First consider religion. The believer in God is also a believer in the interconnectedness of things: The new statement of faith (2006) of the United Church of Canada says that “all parts of creation…are related.” Religion presupposes God as the ultimate ground of all being out of which all things emerge. Scripture connects God and nature by showing us that the world is filled with the glory of God (Psalm 19), and tells us that God speaks to Moses out of a burning bush. This wholeness is in evidence in Jesus’ claim that “I and my father are one.” St Paul in his letter to the Ephesians also emphasizes it: “There is one body and one spirit…There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism; there is one Lord and Father of all mankind.” (Chapter 4, v 4-6) At the Last Supper Jesus emphasized the unity of the spiritual and the physical when he took the bread and the wine and said “This is my body broken for you,” and “This is my blood shed for you.” The Trinity is also a symbol of wholeness. It is not about parts, about separate persons, but about relationships, about a unity of three in one, each existing in and for each other. In the Christian religion the church, while made up of individuals, is a community, a communion, the body of Christ.
What of science? The new science, as we have already observed, reveals a new view of the world. At a deep level it reveals the world as an undivided wholeness. Capra (1988, 78-79) says that “As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any isolated ‘basic building g blocks’, but rather appears as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of the whole.” For example, when observing sub-atomic particles it is not possible to separate the observer from what is observed. When scientists study photons, they direct a stream of light on them. In other words, they direct a stream of photons at other photons thus distorting the results. This means that the observer is no longer detached from what he/she observes. The objectivity of the observer is destroyed because he/she by the very process of the study has influenced the results. The claim, then, that quantum science, unlike religion, is completely objective is undermined.
Furthermore, as we have already observed, Einstein claims that matter and energy are a unity. He also posits that space and time are not distinct from each other. He says that there is no such thing as time and space independent of each other. There is only space-time, “a continuum which extends to every part of the universe.” (Liderbach, 1989, 21)
Polkinghorne (1998, 28), and other scientists, have pointed out a peculiarity of subatomic particles that suggests wholeness. Apparently two particles which have interacted with each other will influence each other, however far they are separated. They seem to stay in contact through space and time, behaving as one particle instead of two. It reminds us of the non-locality of prayer where the one praying and the one being prayed for become almost as one whatever the distance between them. One thinks too of the communication between twins who, though they have been separated from birth, make similar choices in their lives. Barbara Brown Taylor (2000, 65-66) says that such phenomena occur “because they belong to the unbroken wholeness of the universe.” She further connects this unbroken wholeness to the metaphor of the church as Christ’s body, which shows that we are more than a collection of parts. She concludes that in communion we are translated “into the mind of Christ”.
Bohm (1987, 148) speaks of a basic reality which he says is “an unbroken wholeness.” This unbroken wholeness he calls the “implicate order” out of which the “explicate order”, the phenomenal, tangible world, emerges. He describes it in a language that is very familiar to theologians--“the ground of all being.” Astonishingly, he concludes that this ground of all being is “permeated with a supreme intelligence that is creative.” This sounds much like, though I wouldn’t want to equate them, the Christian idea of God, the underlying reality that creates and is still creating. In fact, Brian Josephson, (in The Reach of the Mind, 1985, 150) winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize in physics, suggests that science should entertain “the possibility of God or mind which can be taken as an implicate order in the evolving universe.” In other words, both Bohm and Josephson seem to hold that nature is unfolded out of a great mystery, and they commit themselves to discovering the truth about this mystery, a truth larger than themselves. Does this not remind us of the Christian’s search for the truth about God? In both cases the truth seems to be receding, beckoning the seeker to follow. The thing sought may be different, but the commitment, the conviction, and the striving are similar in both cases.
Origins
Does recent science undermine the Christian view of creation? The recent theory of cosmology attributes the origin of the universe to the Big Bang. Boslough (1985, 75) describes this origin in this way:
Into a void, so absolute as to mock any human concept of emptiness, appeared a single point of new potential. And at the very instant of its creation, this point, bearing all matter, all dimension, all energy, and all time, burst out, spewing forth its contents.
Many Christian theologians were delighted with this theory of the Big bang. Unlike the Steady State theory, for example, which held that the universe was eternal, and therefore eliminated the need for God, the Big Bang theory showed that the universe had a beginning. And even scientists allowed that it at least it suggested the possibility of a creator. It seemed as if the story of the Big Bang confirmed the story of Genesis! For like the Big Bang, Genesis insists that the universe came into existence at an instant in time and out of nothing.
Christian theology, before Copernicus, claimed that the earth was the fixed center of God’s creation. However, when Copernicus showed that the earth moved around the sun instead of the other way around, the earth and humans lost their central focus. The result was turmoil in the Christian church. Tarnas (1991, 253) observes that Copernicanism posed a threat “to the entire Christian framework of cosmology, theology, and morality.” It also led to much suppression of the new scientific views and scientists such as Copernicus and Galileo. However, modern scientists have developed a new theory that once again restores human life to its former central place. The theory is called the Anthropic Principle. This principle, in general, states that the universe is so fine-tuned for life that it could not have happened by chance, that it must have been created by a supreme intelligence for the purpose of human habitation. Though the Anthropic Principle is widely accepted among scientists, not all of them accept the religious explanation. Boslough (1985, 109) quotes Hawking as saying: “I think there are clearly religious implications whenever you start to discuss the origins of the universe….But I think most scientists prefer to shy away from the religious side of it.” However, not all of them do. Davies (1986, 189), though doubtful that the hypothesis can be tested, admits the possibility: “It is hard to resist the impression that the present structure of the universe…has been rather carefully thought out.” Polkinghorne (1998, 11), a theoretical physicist turned theologian, is less tentative. He states that “the endowment of matter with anthropic potentiality…is a creative act of a specially divine character.”
It seems, then, that while there is some disagreement between science and religion about the explanation of the Anthropic Principle, the old rather vicious contradiction between them has faded.
Summary
Though science and religion differ widely in purpose and methodology, there seems to be some harmony between them. The following are the significant points of harmony discussed in this paper:
Both are characterized by faith.
Both approach the world as mystery, with wonder and awe.
Both are concerned with a hidden, invisible reality.
Both emphasize wholeness.
Both (though not all scientists) believe that there is another reality underlying the ordinary every day reality. To the Christian the underlying reality is God. To the scientist (e.g. Bohm) it is The Implicate Order or some variation of it.
Both are marked by the use of paradox.
Both have similar notions of the creation of the universe.
Both are committed to the search for truth.
Conclusion
The following are some conclusions that I draw from this brief study of science and religion:
1. The new science with its emphasis on mystery and the veiled, invisible world assumes a perspective similar to the one that Christians need to adopt to recognize the presence of God in the world. Why, after all, is the Presence of God not as real as the invisible world of sub-atomic particles?
2. Polkinghorne says that scientists accept the presence of the unseen entities such as quarks because they help explain what is happening in the world, and are thus related to actuality. Is it not just as reasonable to regard God, though invisible, in the same way?
3. The new science with its tolerance for paradox and its emphasis on wholeness may help Christians to appreciate the presence of both these qualities in such Christian rituals as Holy Communion.
4. Some writers, I am thinking in particular of Bishop John Shelby Spong, have tossed out theism because it seems to run counter to science as represented by Galileo and Newton. However, I believe that writers like Bishop Spong, might have been less likely to reject theism in order to appeal to the modern mind if they had been more acquainted with the new science, with its emphasis on mystery and wholeness.
5 Sometimes as Christians we may have doubts about the rationality of our beliefs--Jesus as human and divine, the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, immortality, the invisible God as the ground of being, the validity of prayer. However, if the claims of science discussed in this paper are rational, we should be able to claim with confidence that our religious claims are no less so.
References
Bohm, David. Unfolding Meaning. London: Ark Paperbacks, 1987.
Boslough, John. Stephen Hawking’s Universe. New York: Avon Books, 1985.
Capra, Fritjof. The Tao of Physics. London: Fontana Paperbacks, 1988.
Capra, Fritjof and David Steindl-Rast. Belonging to the Universe. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991.
Davies, Paul. God and the New Physics. Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1986.
D’Souza, Dinesh. What’s So Great About Christianity. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2007.
Dukas, Helen and Banesh Hoffmann. Albert Einstein: The Human Side. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.
Golshani, Mehdi. “The Ladder to God,” 120-135. In Richardson, Mark and Gordy Slack (eds). Faith in Science. London: Routledge, 2001.
Gregory, Bruce. Inventing Reality: Physics as Language. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1990.
Josephson, Brian. In The Reach of the Mind: Nobel Prize Conversations. San Francisco: Saybrook Publishing Company, 1985.
Liderbach, Daniel. The Numinous Universe. New York: Paul;ist Press, 1989.
Owens, Virginia Stem. And the Trees Clap Their Hands. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Erdmans, Publishing Co., 1983.
Polkinghorne, John. Belief in God in an Age of Science. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.
Tarnas, Richard. The Passion of the Western Mind. New York: Harmony Books, 1991.
Taylor, Barbara Brown. The Luminous Web. Boston: Cowley Publications, 2000.
Conclusion
The following are some conclusions that I draw from this brief study of science and religion:
1. The new science with its emphasis on mystery and the veiled, invisible world assumes a perspective similar to the one that Christians need to adopt to recognize the presence of God in the world. Why, after all, is the Presence of God not as real as the invisible world of sub-atomic particles?
2. Polkinghorne says that scientists accept the presence of the unseen entities such as quarks because they help explain what is happening in the world, and are thus related to actuality. Is it not just as reasonable to regard God, though invisible, in the same way?
3. The new science with its tolerance for paradox and its emphasis on wholeness may help Christians to appreciate the presence of both these qualities in such Christian rituals as Holy Communion.
4. Some writers, I am thinking in particular of Bishop John Shelby Spong, have tossed out theism because it seems to run counter to science as represented by Galileo and Newton. However, I believe that writers like Bishop Spong, might have been less likely to reject theism in order to appeal to the modern mind if they had been more acquainted with the new science, with its emphasis on mystery and wholeness.
5 Sometimes as Christians we may have doubts about the rationality of our beliefs--Jesus as human and divine, the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, immortality, the invisible God as the ground of being, the validity of prayer. However, if the claims of science discussed in this paper are rational, we should be able to claim with confidence that our religious claims are no less so.
References
Bohm, David. Unfolding Meaning. London: Ark Paperbacks, 1987.
Boslough, John. Stephen Hawking’s Universe. New York: Avon Books, 1985.
Capra, Fritjof. The Tao of Physics. London: Fontana Paperbacks, 1988.
Capra, Fritjof and David Steindl-Rast. Belonging to the Universe. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991.
Davies, Paul. God and the New Physics. Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1986.
D’Souza, Dinesh. What’s So Great About Christianity. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2007.
Dukas, Helen and Banesh Hoffmann. Albert Einstein: The Human Side. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.
Golshani, Mehdi. “The Ladder to God,” 120-135. In Richardson, Mark and Gordy Slack (eds). Faith in Science. London: Routledge, 2001.
Gregory, Bruce. Inventing Reality: Physics as Language. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1990.
Josephson, Brian. In The Reach of the Mind: Nobel Prize Conversations. San Francisco: Saybrook Publishing Company, 1985.
Liderbach, Daniel. The Numinous Universe. New York: Paul;ist Press, 1989.
Owens, Virginia Stem. And the Trees Clap Their Hands. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Erdmans, Publishing Co., 1983.
Polkinghorne, John. Belief in God in an Age of Science. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.
Tarnas, Richard. The Passion of the Western Mind. New York: Harmony Books, 1991.
Taylor, Barbara Brown. The Luminous Web. Boston: Cowley Publications, 2000.
