Relationship between religion and science

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Science and Religion are portrayed to be in harmony in the Tiffany window "Education" (1890).

The relationship between religion and science takes many forms as the two fields are both extremely broad. They typically employ different methods and address different questions. The scientific method relies on an objective approach to measure, calculate, and describe the natural/physical/material universe. Religious methods are typically more subjective (or intersubjective in community), relying on varying notions of authority, through revelation, intuition, belief in the supernatural, individual experience, reason (but more in a philosophical than a scientific sense) observations about life or the universe or a combination of these to understand the universe. Science attempts to answer the "how" and "what" questions of observable and verifiable phenomena; religion attempts to answer the "why" questions of value, morals and spirituality. However, some science also attempts to explain such "why" questions, and some religious authority also extends to "how" and "what" questions regarding the natural world, creating the potential for conflict.

Overview

Historically, science has had a complex relationship with religion; religious doctrines and motivations have sometimes influenced scientific development, while scientific knowledge has had effects on religious beliefs. A common modern view, described by Stephen Jay Gould as "non-overlapping magisteria" (NOMA), is that science and religion deal with fundamentally separate aspects of human experience and so, when each stays within its own domain, they co-exist peacefully.[1] Another view known as the conflict thesis, which has fallen from favor amongst historians but retains popular appeal, holds that science and religion inevitably compete for authority over the nature of reality, so that religion has been gradually losing a war with science as scientific explanations become more powerful and widespread. This view was popularized in the 19th century by John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White. However, neither of these views adequately accounts for the variety of interactions between science and religion (both historically and today), ranging from antagonism to separation to close collaboration.[2]

The kinds of interactions that might arise between science and religion have been classified by John Polkinghorne FRS [3] as:

  1. Conflict when either discipline threatens to take over the legitimate concerns of the other
  2. Independence treating each as quite separate realms of enquiry.
  3. Dialogue suggesting that each field has things to say to each other about phenomena in which their interests overlap.
  4. Integration aiming to unify both fields into a single discourse.

Polkinghorne further suggests that 3 and 4 can be classified in terms of:

a. Consonance The two fields retain due autonomies, but the statements they make must be capable of appropriate reconciliation with each other without strain

b. Assimilation An attempt at the maximum possible conceptual meeting. Neither is absorbed totally by the other, but they are brought closely together.

The attitudes of religion towards science

Science, and particularly geometry and astronomy, was linked directly to the divine for most medieval scholars. The compass in this 13th century manuscript is a symbol of creation.

Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all developed many centuries prior to the modern era; their classical works show an appreciation of the natural world, but most of them express little or no interest in any systematic investigation of it for its own sake. However, Buddhism's investigation of Dharma precludes the use of numerous non-systematic methods and sources, including authority, common sense, opinions, tradition, and scripture.[4]. Some early historical scientific texts have been preserved by religious groups, notably Islam collected scientific texts originating in various countries and Christianity brought them to Europe during the renaissance.

Historical Judeo-Christian-Islamic view

In the Medieval era some leading thinkers in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, undertook a project of synthesis between religion, philosophy, and natural sciences. For example, the Jewish philosopher Maimonides, like the Christian philosopher Augustine of Hippo, held that if religious teachings were found to contradict certain direct observations about the natural world, then it would be obligatory to reinterpret religious texts to match the known facts. The best knowledge of the cosmos was seen as an important part of arriving at a better understanding of the Bible.

This approach has continued down to the present day; Henry Drummond, for example, was a 19th century Scot who wrote many articles, some of which drew on scientific knowledge to tease out and illustrate Christian ideas.

By the 1400s, however, scientific methods were being applied to domains such as planetary orbits, with results which threatened the church's sacred dogma and a literal reading of scripture. Christianity asserted religious certainty at the expense of scientific knowledge, by giving more explicit sanction to officially correct views of nature and scripture. Similar developments occurred in other religions. This approach, while it tended to temporarily stablize doctrine, was also inclined toward making philosophical and scientific orthodoxy less open to correction, as accepted philosophy became the religiously sanctioned science. Observation and theory became subordinate to dogma. Islam took an even harder line, canonizing Medieval science and effectively bringing an end to further scientific advance in the Muslim world. In Europe, scientists and scholars of the Enlightenment responded to such restrictions with increasing scepticism.

Religious fundamentalism and scientific enlightenment

The phenomenon of religious fundamentalism, especially Protestant, Christian fundamentalism which has arisen predominantly in the United States, has been characterized by some historians as originating in the reaction of the conservative Enlightenment against the liberal Enlightenment. In these terms, the scientific community is entirely committed to the skeptical Enlightenment, and has incorporated, into its understanding of the scientific method, an antipathy toward all interference of religion at any point of the scientific enterprise, and especially in the development of theory. While many popularizers of science rely heavily on religious allusions and metaphors in their books and articles, there is absolutely no orthodoxy in such matters, other than the literary value of eclecticism, and the dictates of the marketplace. Typically, fundamentalists are considerably less open to compromise and harmonization schemes than their forebears. They are far more inclined to make strict identification between religiously sanctioned science, and religious orthodoxy; and yet, they share with their early Enlightenment forebears the same optimism that religion is ultimately in harmony with "true" science. They typically favor a cautious empiricism over imaginative and probabilistic theories[citation needed]. This is reflected also in their historical-grammatical approach to scripture and tradition, which is increasingly viewed as a source of scientific, as well as religious, certainty. Most significantly, they are openly hostile to the scientific community as a whole, and to what they call "scientific materialism".

The fundamentalist approach to modernity has also been adopted by the Islamic movements among Sunni and Shi'a Muslims across the world, and by some Orthodox Jews. For example, an Enlightenment view of the cosmos is accepted as fact, and read back into ancient texts and traditions, as though they were originally intended to be read this way. Fundamentalists often make claims that issues of modern interest, such as psychology, nutrition, genetics, physics and space travel, are spoken to directly by their ancient traditions, "foretold", in a sense, by their religion's sacred texts. For example, some Jewish fundamentalists and Muslims claim that quantum mechanics and relativity were predicted in the Torah or Qur'an, respectively.

In response to the freethought encouraged by Enlightenment thinkers over the last two centuries, many people have left organized religion altogether[citation needed]. Many people became atheists and agnostics, with no formal affiliation with any religious organization. Many others joined Secular Humanism or the Society for Ethical Culture: non-religious organizations that have a social role similar to that which religion often plays; others joined non-creedal religious organizations, such as Unitarian Universalism. People in these groups no longer accept any religious doctrine or perspective which rests solely on dogmatic authority.

Non-fundamentalist religious views

In between these positions lies that of non-fundamentalist religious believers. A great many Christians and Jews still accept some or many traditional religious beliefs taught in their respective faith communities, but they no longer accept their tradition's teachings as unquestionable and infallible. Liberal religious believers do believe in gods, and believe that in some way their god(s) revealed their will to humanity. They differ with religious fundamentalists in that they accept that the Bible and other religious documents were written by people, and that these books reflect the cultural and historic limitations and biases of their authors. Thus, liberal religious believers are often comfortable with the findings of archaeological and linguistic research and critical textual study. Some liberal religious believers, such as Conservative Jews, make use of literary and historical analysis of religious texts to understand how they developed, and to see how they might be applied in our own day. Liberal religious Jewish communities include Reform Judaism and Conservative Judaism.

Some religious approaches acknowledge the historical relationship between modern science and ancient doctrines. For example, John Paul II, leader of the Roman Catholic Church, in 1981 spoke of the relationship this way: "The Bible itself speaks to us of the origin of the universe and its make-up, not in order to provide us with a scientific treatise, but in order to state the correct relationships of man with God and with the universe. Sacred Scripture wishes simply to declare that the world was created by God, and in order to teach this truth it expresses itself in the terms of the cosmology in use at the time of the writer." [5]

Bahá'í view

In the Bahá'í Faith, the harmony of science and religion is a central tenet.[6] The principle states that that truth is one, and therefore true science and true religion must be in harmony, thus rejecting the view that science and religion are in conflict.[6] `Abdu'l-Bahá, the son of the founder of the religion, asserted that science and religion cannot be opposed because they are aspects of the same truth; he also affirmed that reasoning powers are required to understand the truths of religion and that religious teachings which are at variance with science should not be accepted; he explained that religion has to be reasonable since God endowed humankind with reason so that they can discover truth.[7] Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith, described science and religion as "the two most potent forces in human life."[8]

Science and religion, in the Bahá'í writings, are compared to the two wings of a bird upon which a person's intelligence can increase, and upon which a person's soul can progress. Furthermore, the Bahá'í writings state that science without religion would lead to a person becoming totally materialistic, and religion without science would lead to a person falling into superstitious practices.[6]

Hindu view

Proponents of Hinduism claim that Hinduism is not afraid of scientific explorations, nor of the technological progress of mankind.[weasel words] According to them, there is a comprehensive scope and opportunity for Hinduism to mold itself according to the demands and aspirations of the modern world; it has the ability to align itself with both science and spiritualism.[weasel words] This religion uses some modern examples to explain its ancient theories and reinforce its own beliefs.[citation needed] For example, some Hindu thinkers have used the terminology of quantum physics to explain some basic concepts of Hinduism such as the Maya or the illusory and impermanent nature of our existence.[weasel words]

The attitudes of scientists towards religion

Scientists have many different views of religious belief:

  • some scientists consider science and religion mutually exclusive;
  • some believe that scientific and religious belief are independent of one another;
  • some believe that science and religion can and should be united or "reunited";
  • some believe that science and religion both attempt to accomplish the same thing: inform people's understanding of the natural world;
  • some believe that religious beliefs are a natural phenomenon, and as such they can be studied and explained in a scientific way.

According to a recent survey, belief in a god that is "in intellectual and affective communication with humankind" and belief in "personal immortality" are most popular among mathematicians and least popular among biologists. In total, about 60% of scientists in the United States expressed disbelief or doubt in the existence of deities in 1996. This percentage has been fairly stable over the last 100 years. Among leading scientists defined as members of the National Academy of Sciences, 93% expressed disbelief or doubt in the existence of a personal god in 1998.[9]

The phrasing of the question can be criticized as presenting an overly narrow definition of god. Furthermore, the survey among NAS scientists was conducted via mail and had a low and perhaps statistically biased return rate of 50%.

Scientific study of religion

Scientific studies have been done on religiosity as a social or psychological phenomenon. These include studies on the correlation between religiosity and intelligence (often IQ, but also other factors). A recent study on serotonin levels and religiosity[10] suggests a correlation between low serotonin levels and intense religious experiences. Also of popular interest are the studies regarding prayer and medicine, in particular whether there is any causal or correlative link between spiritual supplication and improvement of health. The most recent studies do not find such a connection, but research continues.

Some historians, philosophers and scientists hope that the theory of memetics, reminiscent of the theory of genetics, will allow the modeling of the evolution of human culture, including philosophy and religion. Daniel Dennett's book Breaking the Spell attempts to begin such an analysis of modern religions. The idea that evolutionary processes are responsible for the development of human culture and religion is not particularly controversial among scientist; however, memetics itself has produced few new results to date and many fear that it draws too heavily on models from genetics which do not apply to culture.

Philosophy of science weighs in

Since the era of logical positivism, the philosophy of science has shifted away from scientific realism towards instrumentalism and confirmation holism, both of which weigh in significantly on the relationship of science and religion.

Instrumentalism postulates that concepts and theories are merely useful instruments whose worth is measured not by whether the concepts and theories are true or false (or correctly depict reality), but by how effective they are in explaining and predicting phenomena. As such, religion plays little or no role.

Confirmation holism instead focuses upon avoiding dangerous confirmation bias effects, which scientists are supposed to avoid, but which are present in some religious arguments.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Stephen Jay Gould. Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the fullness of life. Ballantine Books, 1999.
  2. ^ Gary Ferngren (editor). Science & Religion: A Historical Introduction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8018-7038-0
  3. ^ John Polkinghorne Science and Theology SPCK/Fortress Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8006-3153-6 pp20-22, following Ian Barbour
  4. ^ Kalama Sutta
  5. ^ Pope John Paul II, 3 October 1981 to the Pontifical Academy of Science, "Cosmology and Fundamental Physics"
  6. ^ a b c Esslemont, J.E. (1980). Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era (5th ed. ed.). Wilmette, Illinois, USA: Bahá'í Publishing Trust. ISBN 0877431604. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
  7. ^ `Abdu'l-Bahá (1982) [1912]. The Promulgation of Universal Peace (Hardcover ed.). Wilmette, Illinois, USA: Bahá'í Publishing Trust. ISBN 0877431728.
  8. ^ Effendi, Shoghi (1938). The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh. Wilmette, Illinois, USA: Bahá'í Publishing Trust. ISBN 0877432317.
  9. ^ Larson and Witham, 1998 "Leading Scientists Still Reject God"
  10. ^ Dr. Lars Farde Ph.D, professor of psychiatry at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden 2003, the study and a vulgarized article

References

  • Barbour, Ian. When Science Meets Religion. SanFrancisco: Harper, 2000.
  • Barbour, Ian. Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues. SanFrancisco: Harper, 1997. ISBN 0-06-060938-9
  • Drummond, Henry. Natural Law in the Spiritual World. London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 29th Edition, 1890 [1]
  • Haught, John F. Science & Religion: From Conflict to Conversation. Paulist Press, 1995. ISBN 0-8091-3606-6
  • Larson, Edward J. and Larry Witham. "Leading scientists still reject God," Nature, Vol. 394, No. 6691 (1998), p. 313. online version
  • Einstein on Religion and Science from Ideas and Opinions (1954), Crown Publishers, ISBN 0-517-00393-7

Additional reading

  • Brooke, John H., Margaret Osler, and Jitse M. van der Meer, editors. "Science in Theistic Contexts: Cognitive Dimensions," Osiris, 2nd ser., vol. 16(2001), ISBN 0-226-07565-6.
  • Haisch, Bernard. The God Theory: Universes, Zero-point Fields, and What's Behind It All (Preface), Red Wheel/Weiser, 2006, ISBN 1-57863-374-5
  • Oord,Thomas Jay - Science of Love: The Wisdom of Well-Being, Templeton, 2003, ISBN 1-932031-70-7
  • Richardson, Mark - Wesley Wildman (ed.), Religion & Science: History, Method, Dialogue, Routledge, 1996, ISBN 0-415-91667-4
  • Van Huyssteen, J. Wentzel (editor), Encyclopedia of Science and Religion, MacMillan, 2003, ISBN 0-02-865704-7
  • Wilber, Ken, The Marriage of Sense and Soul : Integrating Science and Religion, Broadway; Reprint edition, 1999, ISBN 0-7679-0343-9
  • Walsh, James J., The Popes and Science; the History of the Papal Relations to Science During the Middle Ages and Down to Our Own Time, Kessinger Publishing, 1908, reprinted 2003. ISBN 0-7661-3646-9 from WorldCat [2] Review excerpts:
  • John Polkinghorne, Science and Theology SPCK/Fortress Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8006-3153-6

External links

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