Why Science&Religion?
Blaise Pascal: (a lot of) science leads (back) to God?!
Introduction
This blog contains various topics that are interesting in one way or another from both the perspective of (natural) science and that of catholicism (and/or christianity/religion in general). In this post we're going to tackle the fundamental question: why do we care whether such themes exist or not? Why are they important? What does such a thematic overlap offer science and religion that they themselves do not have, in other words, what do they have to offer each other? Otherwise, we might as well leave science to the scientists (and those interested in science) and religion to the believers (and theologians), and that would be the end of the story.
Separated worlds?
Many people see it this way: (natural) science and religion have nothing to offer each other (at least nothing that matters), they have Non-Overlapping MAgisteria (as the biologist Stephen Jay Gould called it), they are 'conveniently' separated; equivalently, religion should limit itself to spiritual matters (to “how to go to heaven, not to how the heavens go” as Galileo Galilei once famously remarked) and leave everything else to science. Yes, once God could fill the holes in our scientific knowledge, but those are rapidly disappearing. And so religion has not really any relevance to people's everyday (material!) lives; thus people turn to science for answers on the meaning of life as well: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_of_life or en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Greatest_Story_Ever_Told%E2%80%94So_Far or amp.theguardian.com/science/blog/2010/mar/05/meaning-life-evolution-universe It is certainly true that faith provides meaning and direction in life (our pursuit of happiness) and thus answers a different kind of question than science. In doing that, however, it is anything but indifferent to the material world of which we are a part; see the crucial importance of the historical, physical Resurrection of Jesus for christianity?! [NB GK Chesterton has a beautiful statement about this (as well): “A mystical materialism has marked Christianity from its birth; its true soul was a Body; among the stoic philosophers and oriental denials that were her first opponents, she fought fiercely and specifically for a supernatural freedom to cure concrete diseases with concrete substances.”]
It also happens among religious scientists that they see their (professional) science as completely separated from their (personal) faith. This may then contribute to the view that science is intrinsically atheistic (and this is more than a-religious!), in other words, that (natural) science and religion are (complete) opposites [NB such as objective vs. subjective, rational vs. irrational, egalitarian vs. authoritarian, explanatory vs. dogmatic, consensus vs. division].
However, both the practice of faith and the scientific quest are man-made: the search for the truth, with the help of experiences and our mind, whereby we are not able to figure everything out on our own and can rely on the results of others, which leads to both consensus and disagreements about unavoidable interpretations given the complexity of the world and our lives.
Viewed in this way, faith and science are actually quite similar, they just concern themselves with different aspects and in a somewhat different way. Yes, a big difference is that faith is mainly based on revelation and considers (also) what is not directly tangible while science bases itself mainly on observations of concrete stuff. However, also in science authority is important, anybody only contributes a little and must accept most of the results from others; and do logic thinking (is it believable?) and observation (what does it produce in your own or someone else's life?) in faith not also have an important place?
Preconditions
The blog post titled Catholic Civilization even argues (using results from respected historians) that “(modern, exact) science was born of christianity” (as prof Stanley Jaki put it). The post titled Great Catholic Scientists further illustrates the religious origins of (natural) science by listing many fundamental contributions to it by churchmen such as Robert Grosseteste and St Albertus Magnus.
Christianity (catholicism) provides, to begin with, the correct view of our world as created by a transcendental Creator: it is objective, well-structured, understandable, non-necessary and has reliable laws of nature. This not only allows science to exist, but it also has been able to emerge and flourish (mark the distinction). First, St Thomas Aquinas had to purify existing (Greek) thinking to make it useful, no mean feat!
Furthermore, the catholic church has actively built up crucial elements of civilization, such as agriculture, economy, (international) law, art, charity and morality (according to prof Thomas E. Woods, among others). This was the right kind of society (now simply known as 'the West') that could function as a breeding bed for science, a 'greenhouse' in which it has flourished [NB speaking of greenhouses, Pope Francis is now the foremost moral authority in combating the (human contribution to) climate change].
Third, the Bible contains theological motivations to practice science (such as “God has ordered all things according to measure, number, and weight” Wisd 11:21, “God was revealed to us in the things He created” Rom 1:20 "The heavens unfold the glory of God; the expanse saith, 'I come from his hands'" Ps 19:2). That means one can learn something about God Himself by studying His creation, right? That is why the catholic church has also promoted science at the institutional level. This was most evident in the active support of the nascent university system, such as guaranteeing its independence and awarding it universal degrees; two crucial elements that have contributed to the success of universities.
Concerns
To consider (natural) science as intrinsically atheistic could therefore entail the danger of cutting one's own lifeline, or at least that science could lose its way due to a lack of proper guidance. Worrying signs are already visible in the increased commercialization of science, or the fruitless speculations on 'Theories of Everything' (Quantum Gravity?! NB there are good arguments that such a theory, if it exists, would yield no discernible difference from General Relativity, see another blog post), 'Many Worlds' or 'Multiversa'; those are imperceptible i.e. unscientific concepts based on thought alone. Nowadays it sometimes seems like a recommendation if a 'scientific' idea goes against common sense or even has pantheistic features, although this threatens the foundations of science [NB science assumes natural laws (not the natural law of conscience!), which excludes divine 'indwelling' (the opposite of a transcendent Creator)]. Since there can be no science without logic, it is interesting that the post titled "the Mother of all proofs of God" argues that the One, Transcendental God is even the foundation of logic [NB reasoning logically about the concepts of the finite vs. the infinite finds its fulfillment in the existence of God. So God not only created logic (like the laws of nature) but without God logic would become arbitrary!?].
Limitations
Science has moreover unavoidable limitations, both practical as more fundamental ones: in how far is a specific scientific claim actually testable, its object controllable (->astronomy?!), the situation repeatable or even observable? A good example is the "Big Bang": available as input are light and/or other radiation from stars which is currently arriving at Earth. From this, inferences are made about the existence of other places long ago without any hope of verification by visiting or observing them themselves. [NB more specifically, a redshift has been observed for most of the stars and that seems to correlate with the distance to the star; this is interpreted as universal expansion and extrapolation of it back in time diverges after about 14 billion years, hence the name 'Big Bang'. In addition, the universe appears to have a very specific isotropic temperature of about 4 K (the 'Cosmic Microwave Background') which is seen as confirmation of the Big Bang although it is strictly not compatible with universal expansion, hence the additional speculation about 'Inflation']
The case is similar for historical things in general; observations are extrapolated but the validity of that is a fundamental assumption. To illustrate this, imagine a hanging rope which you can only partly see. How far can you extrapolate the trajectory of the rope using classical mechanics? To the point where it is attached or otherwise affected; the place where the extrapolation intrinsically fails indicates only a maximum.
And so it is more fitting to talk about the scienceS and be aware of each’s limitations as any scientific result is necessarily preliminary to a greater or lesser extent. Note moreover that within science there is often a lot of discussion (as it should be) but that generally only the majority view is communicated to the public.
Besides everything mentioned already, there's the human factor; as in every human endeavour, all-too-human reasons can factor into scientific claims as well. We are psychologically inclined to reject what is contrary to our worldview (the more so when it's important to our lives). The Romans called this pathos, with logos (logic) and ethos (authority) the three main types of arguments to apply to convince people like for example the orator Cicero knew so well. Even things far away and/or long ago can be important to us here and now when they relate to our personal identity and well-being (e.g. heliocentrism and/or evolution?!). Where faith is concerned such a thing is not surprising, but as science is understood to be purely rational, there it is easily overlooked.
This brings us of the geocentrism–heliocentrism controversy of the 17th century in which Galileo Galilei took a central place. The general impression is that Galileo was right on the basis of clear scientific evidence and thus that the church condemned (perhaps even tortured) him based on their interpretation of the Bible alone. However, Galileo did not have the evidence he claimed to have (the tides are no support for heliocentrism!) and he was mainly convicted for overstepping his boundaries: spreading his opinion as fact, demanding a reinterpretation of the Bible and insulting his good friend the Pope. Although he was placed under house arrest, he continued to be treated honourably (e.g. receiving a pension from the Vatican until his death) and remained a faithful catholic (see e.g. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair). So not really the icon of the rebellious rational scientist against the stranglehold of irrational religion. . .
Interestingly, the proponents of the conflict view of religion and science, that religion is and has been an actual hindrance to the progress that science has brought us (see for example www.pewresearch.org/science/2015/10/22/perception-of-conflict-between-science-and-religion), can actually give very little concrete examples of conflicts, the just discussed controversy being the most prominent one. (Sometimes the burning at the stake of Giordano Bruno is mentioned but that only shows how desperate they are because Bruno in no way can be considered a respectable scientist; he was also burned for his heretical religious ideas)
Looking back, Galileo's conviction was an overreaction, influenced as well by the effects of the Reformation that swept through Europe. In 1616, almost a century after the beginning of the Reformation, heliocentrism had already been condemned on theological grounds. The sun as the center of the universe would be a strong argument for attributing divine qualities to it, as several people were doing at the time. Nowadays few people still realize that heliocentrism has died a slow (scientific) death. It was first discovered that the sun is just an ordinary star orbiting the center of our galaxy, which in its turn moves in the gravitational field of even larger clusters of stars. That means that no center of the universe can be identified at all, only a center of mass possibly exists. And then Einstein discovered that motion is not universal either. Just as we are free to choose our reference position (what to take as the center), we are also free to choose how this position changes over time (its movement). Specifically, according to the principle of relativity, it is just as possible to say that the sun revolves around the earth as it is to say that the earth revolves around the sun, it just depends on our perspective.
Implications
The earth as a Biblical perspective therefore is scientifically no problem, and this corresponds to common sense: how can one say to another 'your perspective is not correct'; moreover aren't we all located on earth?! Still, it was incorrect to interpret this as supporting geocentricity, to say that the earth offers an astronomically unique perspective in any way. Finding this out has been very helpful in keeping us humble, we don't occupy a special place in creation, at least not physically.
It also confirms that God does not impose himself on us, science cannot (directly) prove (or disprove) the perspective of the Bible, and so our freedom to believe or not (and the independence of science) is guaranteed. But that doesn't mean that faith and science are completely separated; so while respecting each other's freedom both can definitely benefit from listening to one another. If this had been realized in the time of Galileo, it would have prevented a lot of trouble for the catholic church, and who knows whether the principle of relativity might have been discovered several centuries earlier?! [NB Einstein's theory has been confirmed again recently by observing gravitational waves]
We can even speculate about (much) earlier investigations towards the wave-particle duality of matter, the heart of quantum mechanics, if the obvious contradiction between human free will and deterministic natural laws had been considered in the same way, and also the philosophical insufficiency of classical waves and particles. The wave-particle duality is a masterly integration of determinism and freedom that does not violate the existence of either. See also the post titled Quantum Free Will.
These lessons about the independence of religion and science, about not imposing one on another, but respecting each other's freedom, and the mutual benefit of listening to each other, can now be applied to the aforementioned Big Bang. Science is free to speculate about the origin of the universe and everything in it (including ourselves), to come up with seemingly naturalistic explanations. Yet it inevitably arrives at a moment of creation [NB the unity of the origin of the universe is additionally suggested by the isotropic thermal equilibrium of the universe]. Moreover, a gigantic fine-tuning of initial conditions is necessary (see the post title The Anthropic Principle). It is simply impossible to escape the fact that the 'Life, the Universe and Everything' [NB a central concept in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy;)] as far as it concerns us is very, very special, and that it needs to be like that for our (continuous) existence (cf. the previous discussion on God as the foundation of logic).
Conclusion
So, indirectly, science does indeed provide good arguments for our belief in God and His Revelation (Bible/tradition/church doctrine); still each man needs to decide individually on believing or not; science can help to gain more appreciation for our faith and to let it take root in us (make it more concrete). After all, man is a unity of body, soul and spirit (see also the blog post on the Soul); in order for the faith to really get into our hearts, it is not enough to hear or read about it, we need to touch, taste and/or smell it as well, to be physically confronted by it (and to put it into practice).
Catholicism offers extensive possibilities for this and emphasizes the theological value of matter [NB e.g. through the Theology of the Body; St Athanasius further emphasized that ”by the Incarnation, this material universe, that Jesus accepted as His own, subsequently is sanctified, purified and quickened” (cf. ”because God was in Christ and thus reconciled the world with Himself” 2 Cor 5:19)]. After all, it makes a big difference whether someone just says "I love you" or whether that person really shows it in a concrete/material way with flowers (or a ring?!). No words but deeds (as they say in Rotterdam;). And God has taken our physical existence seriously by becoming human for us Himself and thus making the ultimate Sacrifice. Also, the first and foremost commandment declares: "Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind," of which the practice of science is a prime example.
Science (studying creation) then teaches us concretely that God exists, is reliable, brilliant, not unnecessarily complicated, great, a unity in diversity, full of beauty and a miracle worker (see also the posts: la Milagrosa Guadalupana & God's Fingerprints). Above all, nature is capable of letting His immense Goodness and Love get to us better, perhaps even to give us a religious experience {:-)
search and you will find!
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