This article discusses the different ways in which science and religion pursue truth and the resulting conflicts. It examines the relationship between science and religion through three main perspectives and discusses whether religion still has value in the modern world.
Science and religion. These are two topics that seem to go hand in hand, yet they are constantly discussed together. While the ways in which science seeks to understand the world and religion seeks truth are seemingly very different, both disciplines ultimately have a common goal: to explore the truth of this world. However, the fundamentally different ways in which they seek to reach that goal often pit them against each other. Visit any bookstore of any size and you’ll find books written by scientists that critique religion, or books written by religious people that critique science. In particular, the debate over evolution is one of the most prominent examples of the conflict between science and religion. This is an example of how strongly science and religion are conscious of each other, considering that there are very few books on the humanities written by pastors or books on the arts written by physicists.
The question of the relationship between science and religion is not just a modern one. Even the greatest scientists of the early 20th century seriously debated the issue. Heisenberg’s ‘First Dialogues on Natural Science and Religion’ in The Part and the Whole discusses discussions of religion among scientists such as Heisenberg, Pauli, Dirichlet, and Bohr. The views on religion of Einstein and Max Planck are also presented in this book. Interestingly, their views are still considered representative of the relationship between science and religion today. There are three main views covered in this book: the view that God is the central order of the world, the view that science and religion are not contradictory because they cover different areas, and the view that religion is false and should disappear in the age of science. Let’s take a closer look at each of these perspectives.
The first view stems from the connection between scientific discoveries and the existence of God. The discussion in the book began when a scientist commented on Einstein’s references to God. Indeed, Einstein seems to have made frequent references to God, including his famous statement that ‘God does not play dice.’ But the God he was referring to was not God in the Jewish sense; it was a metaphor for the underlying order of the world that he was seeking. This was also discussed by Pauli and Bohr. This idea often leads from a belief in the existence of a central principle in the world to a conviction of the existence of God.
This view is also related to philosophical thinking that considers God to be the ‘first cause’ of all phenomena. From the common sense perspective that everything we know has a cause, this view seems reasonable, but when we encounter a first cause that we can no longer explore, calling it ‘God’ can be misleading. Pauli criticises this view, warning that it can limit the direction of scientific enquiry to certain beliefs.
The second view is that science and religion are not contradictory because they deal with different areas. Max Planck is a prominent representative of this view, arguing that science deals with the objective material world and religion deals with the world of values and the soul, so there is no reason for them to conflict. This position is sometimes supported by modern Roman Catholics and scholars such as biologist Stephen Jay Gould. However, this position can be questioned. Religions attempt to explain the objective world, such as this world, human origins, and life after death, and historically, people have accepted them as true. Even in modern times, some religions conflict with the objective facts described by science, and there is still a reluctance to accept them.
The argument that science and religion are separate realms may not be convincing to scientists. In fact, a 1998 study by Larson and Witham found that the more accomplished scientists were significantly less likely to believe in God. The inverse relationship between scientific knowledge and religious belief can be interpreted as evidence that science and religion are not independent. The fact that scientific enquiry can influence religious beliefs suggests that the relationship between science and religion is not simply two separate domains.
The third view is that religion is false and should disappear as science advances. Paul Dire argues that in the past, religion was used as a tool to explain how the world worked that science could not, but in the modern era, religion is false and at risk of being abused. This view is in line with the arguments made in Richard Dawkins’ book The God Who Made Us. Both Dawkins and Dire take the position that rationality and reason alone can provide the correct explanation for the world, and that religion should disappear.
But too much faith in rationalism can also be dangerous. In the same way that religion does not provide the complete truth about the world, there is no such thing as perfect rationality. Believing that everything must be rational can be another form of blind faith. The attitude of rejecting any explanation other than rationality for a subject that cannot be explained rationally can be a violent attitude that makes reason the new god.
So where should we stand between science and religion? There is no reason to accept anything other than science as true, at least when it comes to factual explanations of the world. Reason is the most universally acceptable means of understanding, and the truths that emerge from scientific analysis are truths that apply equally to everyone. Recognising the limitations of science is not enough to justify the need for religion to fill the void.
However, at the level of individual perception, there is no reason for everyone to follow a scientific framework. The truth that science offers is only one explanation of nature, and it is not a complete explanation, so we are free to look at the world through a poetic, philosophical, or religious lens. Religion still offers us a unique perspective, and it has the power to inspire us to search for our own truth.
Religion can still be meaningful in the scientific age in that religious explanations can be taken in a variety of ways that can be deeply involved in an individual’s life, not just in the world of values. For example, the Buddhist idea of reincarnation can be taken as a parable, but it can also be seen as a concept that explains the truth of human existence on a deeper level. In this sense, religion still has an important role to play, as it can fill in the gaps that science cannot explain and can enrich our spirituality.
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