Science and Religion - Templeton Essay

http://www.templeton-cambridge.org/fellows/2006

ESSAY FOR TEMPLETON CAMBRIDGE JOURNALISM FELLOWSHIP

Thirteen years ago Pope John Paul II expressed optimism for science and religion's happy co-existence. Speaking to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences he said that although they formed two realms of knowledge they: "Are not foreign to each other. They have points of contact."

His optimism was echoed in a book published in 1999 from the other side of the divide. In "Rocks Of Ages - Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life" scientist Stephen Jay Gould argued for the co-existence of what he termed the two non-overlapping magistera of science and faith.

"People of good will wish to see science and religion at peace," he said, "I do not see how they can be unified, or even synthesised under any common scheme of explanation or analysis, but I also do not understand why the two enterprises should experience any conflict."

Nevertheless, in 2005, things look less rosy. Science and religion seem to be in growing confrontation. And this is seen most sharply in the world's most developed nation.

Last year the U.S. Union of Concerned Scientists issued two reports accusing the Bush administration of distorting scientific fact in pursuit of policies on the environment, health, biomedical research and nuclear weapons.

His re-election prompted the scientific community to forecast increasing difficulties in this relationship. Likely areas of conflict are science education, climate change, stem-cell research, and renewable resources.

Why should this be? After all, US funding for the sciences grew significantly during the first Bush administration.

In part it is politics as usual. But a deeper cause is a more fundamental conflict about the constitutional principle of separation of church and state in an increasingly religious nation.

Many in the wider intellectual community see the deepening right-wing social revolution in the US as symptomatic of the growing influence of the religious right which challenges values which have shaped the intellectual landscape of the West since the Enlightenment.

These challenges find parallels in the developing fundamentalist impulse among other world religions and are further strengthened by post-modernist arguments presenting science and religion as belief systems of equal value.

At the heart of all this is a challenge to the scientific world view and its philosophical corollaries.

In the "Critique of Pure Reason" Kant offered seemingly conclusive refutations to both the ontological and cosmological arguments for the existence of God. Darwin meanwhile seemed to have nailed the lid on the "woefully anthropomorphic nature" of intelligent design in the natural realm.

In the 19th century the poet Matthew Arnold wrote in "Dover Beach" of the "melancholy long withdrawing roar …of the sea of faith". But where Nietszche once heralded the death of God and 20th century neuroscientists expected advancing brain science to bring about the parallel demise of the notion of the soul, that sea of faith is now in full flood again.

The post-Enlightenment world proved that, where faith and science can co-exist, the gains to humanity are immense. It led to a modern world shaped by a constantly evolving technology with, in the West, an intellectual climate where human inquiry could move forward within a moral and ethical framework increasingly unhampered by the constricts of religious power.

This decline of faith left a vacuum filled to some extent by the utopian visions of socialism which, in its fullest efflorescence, enslaved or perverted intellectual enquiry for political ends.

Where faith had offered moral structures and meaning and, especially, answers to eschatological questions, the new ideas of scientific socialist focused on the apparent realities of living in "this world". The absence of a deity was increasingly taken as a given.

Now the collapse of these 20th century utopian ambitions has seen the resurgence of values thought anachronistic - fervent nationalism and the reassertion of religious ideas as a way of explaining our lives.

But some things are irreversible. Technology has both created and revealed a world of increasing interconnectedness. The tsunami at Christmas symbolised this with tragic force. It revealed both the strengths and shortcomings of science, faith and politics.

Scientists can explain the mechanics of the Tsunami and explore ways of limiting the future impact of such events. And politicians know how to react in practical terms.

But it was left to spiritual leaders to help us all to make sense of the tragedy. But, with scientists and politicians, they too failed to answer the question asked by so many: Why?

When human agencies are the catalysts of the unspeakable - the Holocaust, 9/11 or Beslan - notions of evil are evoked. But religions fall mute in explaining natural catastrophes.

Most united in calls to look forward. The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams said that terrible events like this will shake faith, but Christians must focus on a passionate engagement with the lives that are left.

Britain's Chief Rabbi, Dr Jonathan Sacks, said asking why was pointless and that Judaism's priority was to inquire: "What should I do? How can I help?" He added: " We must put our efforts into saving life. We believe God needs our help to help those who suffer."

A leading British Hindu said it was a reminder that we exist to serve the world, not vice versa. "To blame God is infantile. It is about accepting personal responsibility and the truth which is that you are not the centre of the universe."

So how are the fundamental questions about who we are, why we exist and what things mean to be answered? Take for instance this question of almost childish simplicity. "Why is there something instead of nothing?"

The follow-up question is probably: "What is the purpose and meaning of creation?" The scientific community has no answers. Religion, in marked contrast, offers a seemingly simple explanation. "Because of God."

The argument flows into the realm of philosophy. The German thinker Friedrich Schelling asked: " Has creation a final purpose at all and if so why is it not attained immediately? Why does perfection not exist from the very beginning."

It reveals the deep gulf between those who seek to understand the nature and workings of our universe via scientific method and in humanist philosophical terms and those who believe the truth stands revealed already through the major religions.

Science abounds in theories about how our universe came to exist. But not why. Although the Big Bang is evidentially established, what preceded it? Science is seeking answers - a theory of everything with no loose ends. But it is an elusive and some say unattainable goal.

The cosmologist Stephen Hawking concluded in his best-selling book "A Brief History of Time" that if we succeed: "We shall all, philosophers, scientists and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would the ultimate triumph of human science - for then we would know the mind of God."

Since he wrote that 18 years ago, theoretical physics has moved into increasingly speculative areas with such ideas as string theory, dark matter and parallel universes. All require leaps of faith as large as that required by those who see the truth is revealed in holy text.

Novelist Salman Rushdie recently defined us as meaning-seeking organisms with a "God shaped hole" yearning to be filled. It is little wonder in the face of such bewildering scientific theories and a world of increasingly intractable difficulty that much of humanity has returned to the affirmations of faith.

But since disengagement with science is no longer an option, the troops of faith have entered a new redoubt of explanation - armed with ideas about intelligent design and the anthropic principle.

So can there then be a harmonious co-existence between resurgent faith and science as scientists enter the 'sacred realm" of experimenting with life itself. Stem cell research, cloning, genetic manipulation and chemical modification of behaviour bring religious and scientific imperatives into confrontation.

But there is another area where it is perhaps more crucial that such conflict be resolved. In a forthcoming book scientist Jared Diamond explores why societies collapse. He concludes that it is usually where tradition and ritual, cultural or religious, are allowed precedence over intelligent application of scientific knowledge.

Clear parallels can be drawn between the fate of vanished peoples like the Anasazi or the inhabitants of Easter Island with our now globalised culture. Are we the crown of creation, made in God's image, or a part of nature, a contingent species, that could be snuffed out by our own ignorance if we turn away from the accumulating evidence about the fragility of our sustaining ecosystem.

The Tsunami was not a man-made disaster but the mounting evidence suggests we are moving towards one that could be irreversibly catastrophic . The arguments now forming are between continuing our odyssey of seeking to understand via scientific inquiry or turning back to the comfort of faith. The challenge is achieving a compromise for our crowded and perilous times.