When Science Meets Religion (part 1)

I recently watched a meme go around comparing science and religion. Science, it claimed, is in a continual process of progressing, taking in new information and revising its positions. Religion, by contrast, seeks to freeze time in place.

It was meant to provoke, of course. But I’ll admit the implied critique got in my head a little as a pastor who also loves reading about breakthroughs in quantum physics or DNA research. To what extent is this criticism valid? Should religion work like science in its quest for constant advancement? Why or why not?   

Pondering these questions, a number of thoughts have occurred to me about the relationship between religion and science, what they share, and in what ways they are crucially different.

1. It makes sense that science and religion are often discussed together, as both are quests to know deep truths about the nature of reality. Although it is rarely acknowledged, both are also premised on some key elements of faith, “givens” that cannot be proved. Science must assume some level of correspondence between the data that our senses can measure and reality itself. Scientists must also choose what they accept as evidence and how much evidence is required to constitute knowledge. (Side note—Personal Knowledge by philosopher Michael Polanyi, which explores this point in depth, is a challenging read but well-worth the effort for anyone interested in the underpinnings of science.)  

2. Since the enlightenment there has been a widespread feeling in western culture that science and religion are in competition. But there is no reason that this must be the case. The nose and the ears provide quite different forms of data. But we do not assume there is any natural competition between them. Their different sensory receptors are simply tuned to provide different kinds of information about reality. Both can and should be celebrated. Neither displaces the other’s role.

Of course, there may be instances when two senses perceive what appears to be contradictory data. This opens the possibility that one may be wrong, misunderstanding what it perceives. Or perhaps we simply do not yet have the understanding necessary to resolve the apparent contradiction. A situation like that calls for humility, but it does not invalidate either tool of perception. Both science and religion can make wrong judgments on the available evidence without diminishing the value of either enterprise.

3. If all truth is God’s truth—in other words, if there is only one Reality that both science and religion explore in their own way—it seems reasonable to expect that they should have something to say to each other. This used to be assumed. Much early science was done by Christians who believed they were learning something of the ways of God. But this link has been broken on both sides, by scientific skepticism of religion and by religious fear of science.

It seems to me a worthy—even essential—project to bring these forms of knowledge back into conversation with each other. Learning that the earth revolves around the sun did not destroy Christian orthodoxy, but it did encourage us to think less egotistically about our place in the universe. Similarly accepting scientific evidence for the role of evolutionary process does not inherently threaten belief in a Creator or that humans are made in the image of God. However, it does add nuance to the portrait of a God who is interested in process, not just in final results. It also invites greater respect for our fellow created beings who were formed with us from common dust.

On the other side, major developments in life extension technology and in artificial intelligence illustrate how religion can and must impact science. How we perceive what we are building, how we understand the nature of humanity itself, what we accept as value structures that allow us to create without self-annihilating—all these are deeply religious matters. Forsaking religion in theory, in practice many scientists are being forced to reinvent it to answer unavoidable questions that are baked into their work. The hubris of unlimited scientistic advancement without carefully tuned religious insight is perhaps the greatest threat now facing humanity. The tree of scientific knowledge may well be one to kill us, if its fruit is consumed in isolation from divine wisdom and from the humility that comes from an accurate understanding of our true, dependent human position.

All this to say—young Jesus-followers out there, please consider going into science and helping the church weave back together a full, robust fabric of truth!

(Stay tuned for part 2, next week, where I’m address more directly the question of whether religion can or should “advance”)