Science and Religion: Religiously Keeping Scientific Faith  

By T K Datta

Science and Religion: Religiously Keeping Scientific Faith  

Recent developments in science have brought about a dramatic change in our understanding of the cosmic landscape. We now realise that the universe is a constantly unfolding story. Against this backdrop, religion seems to be pitted against science.

In fact, it appears that science has made religion intellectually implausible. Many feel that science rules out the existence of a personal God. Others think that the theory of evolution makes the entire idea of divine providence and an ordered universe implausible.

Is religion really opposed to science? The answer, perhaps, lies in how one perceives the relationship between the two. According to an American theology professor, J F Haught, there are four different ways of describing this relationship.

The first way is the belief that science and religion are fundamentally opposed to each other. Many scientific thinkers believe that religion can never be reconciled with science because it cannot prove its ideas in a straightforward way, whereas science can.

Science always tests its hypotheses and theories against experience, whereas religious ideas seem to be experimentally unverifiable to an impartial witness. Even today, many believers in God resist the findings of astronomy, physics and biology.

The second way of viewing this relationship is that of contrast. Scientists and theologians who find no hostility between religion and science argue that each is valid in its own clearly defined sphere of inquiry; one should not judge religion by the standards of science.

The contrast approach tries to segregate the tasks of science and religion. Science examines the natural world empirically, while religion seeks an ultimate meaning which transcends the empirical.

Science is concerned with how things happen in nature, religion with why there is anything at all, rather than nothing. Science is about causes, religion about meaning.

The third way of understanding this relationship is the contact approach. It tries to establish meaningful interaction and dialogue between the two, inspired by the inherent human urge to discover the coherence of all ways of knowing. Advocates of the contact approach believe that scientific knowledge can broaden the horizon of religious faith.

Similarly, a religious perspective can strengthen scientific endeavour. The contact approach does not wish to prove God's existence by scientific means. It simply attempts to provide religious meaning to scientific discoveries.

Both science and theology have imprints of human construction . Scientific facts are invariably interpreted by us and are therefore, in some sense, our own constructs. The appreciation of our mind's capacity to grasp this real world is the common element that science has with theology.

The fourth way is the confirmation approach . It is a step beyond the contact approach. The advocates of this approach propose that religion is supportive of the entire scientific enterprise.

The religious claim, that the universe is a finite, coherent and ordered totality, nurtures the scientific quest for knowledge. In fact, science roots itself on a prior faith that the universe is a rationally ordered totality of things and that the human mind has the capacity to comprehend its structure. Science, no less than religion, is a quest for unified knowledge.

Religion exists because our trust on an ultimate ordered reality can fail due to constant erosion by tragedy. The central mission of religion is to maintain this trust. Science exists because of our fundamental longing for the desire to know. Religion, taken as a confirmation of the trust on limitless rationality of the real, will not obstruct; it will only promote the work of science.

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More from same author see: T K Datta

See also: Science and Religion, Faith and Belief, Spiritual Guidance, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)