Relationship between religion and science

Science and Religion are portrayed to be in harmony in the Tiffany window Education (1890).

The relationship between religion and science takes many forms as the two fields are both broad. While some scholars assert that they are independent and rely on entirely different and incomparable methods (e.g., cf. scientific method and prayer), others assert that there are significant parallels in method and purpose (both being pursuits of truth), though they do address different questions: religion focuses on meaning, science on the natural world. Though religion has components that have no counterpart in science, there are scholars such as Michael Polanyi who have argued that both involve a moral commitment.

Historically, science has had a complex relationship with religion; religious doctrines and motivations have sometimes influenced scientific development, while scientific knowledge has had effects on religious beliefs.

Perspectives on the relationship between religion and science

Medieval artistic illustration of the spherical Earth in a 14th century copy of L'Image du monde (ca. 1246).

The kinds of interactions that might arise between science and religion have been classified by John Polkinghorne FRS as:

1. Conflict when either discipline threatens to take over the legitimate concerns of the other
   • For example, John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White's conflict thesis
2. Independence treating each as quite separate realms of enquiry.
   • For example, Steven Jay Gould's NOMA
3. Dialogue suggesting that each field has things to say to each other about phenomena in which their interests overlap.
   • For example, the religion-and-science dialogue found within the Religion and science community
4. Integration aiming to unify both fields into a single discourse.
   • For example, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's Omega point and Ian Barbour's sympathy towards process philosophy/process theology

This typology is similar to ones found in Ian Barbour and John Haught . More typologies that categorize this relationship can be found among the works of other science and religion scholars such as Arthur Peacocke

Current scholarship

Today studies on this relationship can be found in such journals as Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science, Theology and Science, American Journal of Physics, and even in Science

Two views: conflict thesis and dialogue

The conflict thesis view was popularized in the 19th century by John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White. Most contemporary historians of science now reject it, considering that the conflict thesis has been superseded by subsequent historical research,:

"Although popular images of controversy continue to exemplify the supposed hostility of Christianity to new scientific theories, studies have shown that Christianity has often nurtured and encouraged scientific endeavour, while at other times the two have co-existed without either tension or attempts at harmonization. If Galileo and the Scopes trial come to mind as examples of conflict, they were the exceptions rather than the rule."

--Gary Ferngren, Science & Religion, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002

Many well-known historical figures who influenced Western science considered themselves Christian such as Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Boyle.

A degree of concord between science and religion can be seen in religious belief and empirical science. The belief that God created the world and therefore humans, can lead to the view that he arranged for humans to know the world. This is underwritten by the doctrine of imago dei. In the words of Thomas Aquinas, "Since human beings are said to be in the image of God in virtue of their having a nature that includes an intellect, such a nature is most in the image of God in virtue of being most able to imitate God".

Today, much of the scholarship in which the conflict thesis was based is considered to be inaccurate. For instance, a claim that was first propagated in the same period that originated the conflict thesis is the supposition that the Catholic Church from the Middle Ages believed that the Earth was flat, and that only science, freed from religious dogma, had shown that it was round. This claim was mistaken, as the contemporary historians of science David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers write: "there was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who did not acknowledge [Earth's] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference."

Independence

A modern view, described by Stephen Jay Gould as "non-overlapping magisteria" (NOMA), is that science and religion deal with fundamentally separate aspects of human experience and so, when each stays within its own domain, they co-exist peacefully. Gould's view can also be seen as an attitude of neglect towards religion. It has been compared with a similar attitude of neglect towards evolutionary science, which has been seen in the works of theologians Karl Barth (who fails to mention evolution in his major work Church Dogmatics), Emil Brunner, and Hans Kung (whose Theology for the Third Millennium (1988) has a chapter on the relationship between religion and science yet never mentions evolution).

Parallels in method

Many language philosophers (e.g., Ludwig Wittgenstein) and religious existentialists (e.g., neo-orthodoxy) accepted Ian Barbour and John Polkinghorne's type II categorization of Independence. On the other hand, many philosophers of science have thought otherwise. Thomas S. Kuhn asserts that science is made up of paradigms that arise from cultural traditions, which is similar to the secular perspective on religion. Michael Polanyi asserts that it's merely a commitment to universality that protects against subjectivity and has nothing at all to do with personal detachment as found in many conceptions of the scientific method. Polayni further asserts that all knowledge is personal and therefore the scientist must be performing a very personal if not necessarily subjective role when doing science. Polanyi adds that the scientist often merely follows intuitions of "intellectual beauty, symmetry, and 'empirical agreement'". Polayni holds that science requires moral commitments similar to those found in religion. Two physicists Charles A. Coulson and Harold K. Schilling both claim that "the methods of science and religion have much in common." Schilling asserts that both fields--science and religion--have "a threefold structure--of experience, theoretical interpretation, and practical application." Coulson asserts that science like religion "advances by creative imagination" and not by "mere collecting of facts," while stating that religion should and does "involve critical reflection on experience not unlike that which goes on in science." Religious language and scientific language also show parallels (cf. Rhetoric of science).

Influence of a biblical world view on early modern science

In The Scientific Revolution: A Historiographical Inquiry historian of science H. Floris Cohen presents scholarship arguing for a Biblical influence on the early development of modern science. While Cohen states that most scholars reject crude articulations of the conflict thesis, such as Andrew D. White's, he also states that milder versions of this thesis still hold some sway. This is because "it remains an incontrovertible fact of history that, to say the least, the new science was accorded a less than enthusiastic acclaim by many religious authorities at the time." Cohen therefore considers it paradoxical "that the rise of early modern science was due at least in part to developments in Christian thought — in particular, to certain aspects of Protestantism" (a thesis first developed as what is now known as the Merton thesis).

Cohen presents Dutch historian R. Hooykaas' argument that a Biblical world-view holds all the necessary antidotes for the hubris of Greek rationalism: a respect for manual labour, leading to experimentation and a greater level of empiricism and a supreme God that left nature "de-deified" and open to emulation and manipulation. This argument gives support to the idea that the rise of early modern science was due to a unique combination of Greek and biblical thought. Cohen summarises Hooykaas' conclusion as attributing the rise of modern science to the combination of the "Greek powers of abstract reasoning and of thinking up idealized constructions" in combination with "the biblical humility toward accepting the facts of nature as they are, combined with a view of man as fitted out by God with the power to take nature on".

Cohen also notes that "[Richard S.] Westfall brought out the ultimate paradox" in stating:

Despite the natural piety of the virtuosi [English 17th-century scientists], the skepticism of the Enlightenment was already present in embryo among them. To be sure, their piety kept it in check, but they were unable to banish it. ... They wrote to refute atheism, but where were the atheists? The virtuosi nourished the atheists within their own minds.

The attitudes of religion towards science

Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all developed many centuries prior to the modern era; their classical works show an appreciation of the natural world, but most of them express little or no interest in any systematic investigation of it for its own sake.

"Many scientists seem on a crusade to run down human worth, because they think this will destroy the arrogance that leads to religious intolerance. But it also makes science soulless. Much of the antiscience mood in the country [U.S.] today stems from the perception that by venerating meaninglessness, science has become inhuman." -Alan Dressler, an astronomer at the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution in Pasadena, California

Historical Judeo-Christian-Islamic view

Science, and particularly geometry and astronomy, was linked directly to the divine for most medieval scholars. The compass in this 13th century manuscript is a symbol of creation.

In the Medieval era, some leading thinkers in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, undertook a project of synthesis between religion, philosophy, and natural sciences. For example, the Islamic philosopher Averroes, the Jewish philosopher Maimonides, and the Christian philosopher Augustine of Hippo, held that if religious teachings were found to contradict certain direct observations about the natural world, then it would be obligatory to re-evaluate either the interpretation of the scientific facts or the understanding of the scriptures. The best knowledge of the cosmos was seen as an important part of arriving at a better understanding of the Bible, but not yet equal with the authority of the Bible.

This approach has continued down to the present day; Henry Drummond, for example, was a 19th century Scot who wrote many articles, some of which drew on scientific knowledge to tease out and illustrate Christian ideas.

From the 11th century, however, scientific methods were being applied by both Muslim scientists and Christian scientists to domains such as optics and planetary orbits, with results which threatened the Church's sacred dogma. Christianity asserted religious certainty at the expense of scientific knowledge, by giving more explicit sanction to officially correct views of nature and scripture. Similar developments occurred in other religions. This approach, while it tended to temporarily stabilize doctrine, was also inclined toward making philosophical and scientific orthodoxy less open to correction, as accepted philosophy became the religiously sanctioned science. Observation and theory became subordinate to dogma. In Europe, scientists and scholars of the Enlightenment responded to such restrictions with increasing skepticism.

Non-fundamentalist religious views

In between these positions lies that of non-fundamentalist religious believers. A great many Christians and Jews still accept some or many traditional religious beliefs taught in their respective faith communities, but they no longer accept their tradition's teachings as unquestionable and infallible (indeed this is a basic tenet of mainstream Protestant Christian thought and of other faith perspectives open to dialogue with science). Liberal religious believers do believe in god(s), and believe that in some way their god(s) revealed their will to humanity. They differ from religious fundamentalists in that they accept that even if their religious texts were divinely inspired, they are also human documents which reflect the cultural and historic limitations and biases of their authors. Many support allegorical interpretations of Genesis. Such believers are often comfortable with the findings of archaeological and linguistic research and historical-critical study. They will often make use of literary and historical analysis of religious texts to understand how they developed, and to see how they might be applied in our own day. This approach developed among Protestant scholars in the 18th and 19th centuries, and is now to found among other Christians, Liberal Jewish communities and others.

Some religious approaches acknowledge the historical relationship between modern science and ancient doctrines. For example, John Paul II, leader of the Roman Catholic Church, in 1981 spoke of the relationship this way: "The Bible itself speaks to us of the origin of the universe and its make-up, not in order to provide us with a scientific treatise, but in order to state the correct relationships of man with God and with the universe. Sacred Scripture wishes simply to declare that the world was created by God, and in order to teach this truth it expresses itself in the terms of the cosmology in use at the time of the writer". This statement would reflect the views of many non-Catholic Christians as well. An example of this kind of thinking is Theistic evolution.

This understanding of the role of scripture in relation to science is captured by the phrase: "The intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go." Thomas Jay Oord said: "The Bible tells us how to find abundant life, not the details of how life became abundant."

Buddhism

In Buddhism, the Kalama Sutta precludes the use of numerous non-systematic methods and sources, including authority, common sense, opinions, tradition, and scripture.

Bahá'í view

Main article: Bahá'í Faith and science

A fundamental principle of the Bahá'í Faith is the harmony of religion and science. Bahá'í scripture asserts that true science and true religion can never be in conflict. `Abdu'l-Bahá, the son of the founder of the religion, stated that religion without science is superstition and that science without religion is materialism. He also admonished that true religion must conform to the conclusions of science.

The scientific community's perspective

The attitudes of scientists towards religion

In the 17th century founders of the Royal Society largely held conventional and orthodox religious views. One founder and its first president, Christopher Wren, whose scientific work was highly regarded by Sir Isaac Newton and Blaise Pascal and whose architectural work led to St Paul's Cathedral and fifty-two other churches, avoided religious enthusiasm in his adult life yet while at university wrote of another student's home

"Out of doors one might call it a terrestrial paradise; within, heaven itself...Why indeed should I not call so charming a spot heaven? A spot in which the piety and devotion of another age, put to flight by the impiety and crime of ours, have found sanctuary, in which the virtues are all not merely observed but cherished . . . in which holy mothers and maids singing divine songs, offering the pure incense of their prayers, reading, meditating and conversing of holy things, spend almost all day in the company of God and his angels."

. As an older man, Wren wrote that he spent his time in 'Meditations and Researches in holy Writ.' Another original member, Robert Boyle in 1690 wrote one of his last works, The Christian Virtuoso.

Among contemporary scientists--physicists and biologists--about 40% hold strong religious beliefs, which closely matched those of a similar 1916 poll. Prominent scientists advocating disbelief in religion include evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and Nobel prize winning physicist Stephen Weinberg. For a more complete list, see List of atheists (science and technology). Prominent scientists advocating belief include Nobel prize winning physicist Charles Townes and climateologist John T. Houghton. For a more complete list, see List of Christian thinkers in science.

According to a 1996 survey, belief in a god that is "in intellectual and affective communication with humankind" and belief in "personal immortality" are most popular among mathematicians and least popular among biologists. In total, about 60% of scientists in the United States expressed disbelief or doubt in such a god. This compared with 58% in 1914 and 67% in 1933. Among leading scientists defined as members of the National Academy of Sciences, 72.2% expressed disbelief and 93% expressed disbelief or doubt in the existence of a personal god in 1998.

A survey conducted between 2005 and 2007 by Elaine Ecklund of University at Buffalo, The State University of New York and funded by the Templeton Foundation found that over 60% of natural and social science professors are atheists or agnostics. When asked whether they believed in God, nearly 34% answered "I do not believe in God" and about 30% answering "I do not know if there is a God and there is no way to find out," According to the same survey, "[m]any scientists see themselves as having a spirituality not attached to a particular religious tradition." In further analysis, published in 2007, Ecklund and Christopher Scheitle conclude that "the assumption that becoming a scientist necessarily leads to loss of religion is untenable" and that "[i]t appears that those from non-religious backgrounds disproportionately self-select into scientific professions. This may reflect the fact that there is tension between the religious tenets of some groups and the theories and methods of particular sciences and it contributes to the large number of non-religious scientists."

Prominent scientist Albert Einstein supported the compatibility of religion and science. In an article originally appearing in the New York Times Magazine in 1930, he wrote:

Accordingly, a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance and loftiness of those superpersonal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation. They exist with the same necessity and matter-of-factness as he himself. In this sense religion is the age-old endeavor of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals and constantly to strengthen and extend their effect. If one conceives of religion and science according to these definitions then a conflict between them appears impossible. For science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgments of all kinds remain necessary. Religion, on the other hand, deals only with evaluations of human thought and action: it cannot justifiably speak of facts and relationships between facts. According to this interpretation the well-known conflicts between religion and science in the past must all be ascribed to a misapprehension of the situation which has been described.

Scientific study of religion

See also: religious studies, psychology of religion, sociology of religion, development of religion, comparative religion, anthropology of religion, neurotheology, and theories of religion

Scientific studies have been done on religiosity as a social or psychological phenomenon. These include studies on the correlation between religiosity and intelligence (often IQ, but also other factors). A recent study on serotonin receptors and religiosity suggests a correlation between low density of serotonin receptors and intense religious experiences. Also of popular interest are the studies regarding prayer and medicine, in particular whether there is any causal or correlative link between spiritual supplication and improvement of health. Surveys by Gallup, the National Opinion Research Centre and the Pew Organisation conclude that spiritually committed people are twice as likely to report being "very happy" than the least religiously committed people. An analysis of over 200 social studies that "high religiousness predicts a rather lower risk of depression and drug abuse and fewer suicide attempts, and more reports of satisfaction with life and a sense of well-being" and a review of 498 studies published in peer-reviewed journals concluded that a large majority of these studies showed a positive correlation between religious commitment and higher levels of perceived well-being and self-esteem, and lower levels of hypertension, depression and clinical delinquency, Surveys suggest a strong link between faith and altruism. Studies by Keith Ward show that overall religion is a positive contributor to mental health. Michael Argyle and others claim that there is little or no evidence that religion ever causes mental disorders.

Some historians, philosophers and scientists hope that the theory of memetics, reminiscent of the theory of genetics, will allow the modeling of the evolution of human culture, including philosophy and religion. Daniel Dennett's book Breaking the Spell (2006) attempts to begin such an analysis of modern religions. The idea that evolutionary processes are involved in the development of human culture and religion is not particularly controversial among natural scientists, however other approaches based on social sciences such as anthropology, psychology, sociology and economics are more prevalent in academic use.

Attempts at reconciliation

Britain in the early 20th century

In Reconciling Science and Religion: The Debate in Early-twentieth-century Britain, historian of biology Peter J. Bowler argues that in contrast to the conflicts between science and religion in the U.S.in the 1920s (most famously the Scopes Trial), during this period Great Britain experienced a concerted effort at reconciliation, championed by intellectually conservative scientists, supported by liberal theologians but opposed by younger scientists and secularists and conservative Christians. These attempts at reconciliation fell apart in the 1930s due to increased social tensions, moves towards Neo-orthodox Theology and the acceptance of the modern evolutionary synthesis.

References

• Barbour, Ian. When Science Meets Religion. SanFrancisco: Harper, 2000.
• Barbour, Ian. Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues. SanFrancisco: Harper, 1997. ISBN 0-06-060938-9
• Drummond, Henry. Natural Law in the Spiritual World. London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 29th Edition, 1890 [1]
• Haught, John F. Science & Religion: From Conflict to Conversation. Paulist Press, 1995. ISBN 0-8091-3606-6
• Larson, Edward J. and Larry Witham. "Scientists are still keeping the faith" Nature Vol. 386, pp. 435 - 436 (03 April 1997)
• Larson, Edward J. and Larry Witham. "Leading scientists still reject God," Nature, Vol. 394, No. 6691 (1998), p. 313. online version
• Einstein on Religion and Science from Ideas and Opinions (1954), Crown Publishers, ISBN 0-517-00393-7
• The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science Philip Clayton(ed.), Zachary Simpson(associate-ed.)--Hardcover 2006, paperback July 2008-Oxford University Press, 1023 pages

Additional reading

• Brooke, John H., Margaret Osler, and Jitse M. van der Meer, editors. "Science in Theistic Contexts: Cognitive Dimensions," Osiris, 2nd ser., vol. 16(2001), ISBN 0-226-07565-6.
• Haisch, Bernard. The God Theory: Universes, Zero-point Fields, and What's Behind It All (Preface), Red Wheel/Weiser, 2006, ISBN 1-57863-374-5
• Lenaers, Roger. Nebuchadnezzar's Dream or The End of a Medieval Catholic Church. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2007. ISBN 978-1-59333-583-0.
• Oord,Thomas Jay - Science of Love: The Wisdom of Well-Being, Templeton, 2003, ISBN 1-932031-70-7
• Richardson, Mark - Wesley Wildman (ed.), Religion & Science: History, Method, Dialogue, Routledge, 1996, ISBN 0-415-91667-4
• Van Huyssteen, J. Wentzel (editor), Encyclopedia of Science and Religion, MacMillan, 2003, ISBN 0-02-865704-7
• Wilber, Ken, The Marriage of Sense and Soul: Integrating Science and Religion, Broadway; Reprint edition, 1999, ISBN 0-7679-0343-9
• Walsh, James J., The Popes and Science; the History of the Papal Relations to Science During the Middle Ages and Down to Our Own Time, Kessinger Publishing, 1908, reprinted 2003. ISBN 0-7661-3646-9 from WorldCat [2] Review excerpts:
• John Polkinghorne, Science and Theology SPCK/Fortress Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8006-3153-6

See also

• Philosophy of Science
• Religious skepticism
• Conflict thesis
• Continuity thesis
• Deep ecology
• Faith and rationality
• Merton thesis
• Natural theology
• Theistic evolution
• Metaphysics

by tradition

• Bahá'í Faith and science
• Buddhism and science
• List of Christian thinkers in science
• Evolution and the Roman Catholic Church
• Islam and science

by region

• USA:
  • Creation-evolution controversy
  • Intelligent design
  • American Scientific Affiliation
  • Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences
  • Metanexus Institute
  • Templeton Foundation
• Science and religion in Czechia and Slovakia

External links

• Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion in the University of Oxford
• Religion and Science, Alvin Plantinga on Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Counterbalance.org: Science and Religion Project
• "Faith and Reason" – website about the historical relations between science and religion, PBS
• Is Science Killing the Soul? – Discussion with atheists Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker on Edge Foundation.
• Meaning of Life A collection of video interviews with prominent scientists about topics relating science and religion (requires WMV or RealMedia software)
• Religion and Science An article critical of the idea that religion and science occupy different realms of inquiry by Michael Ruse (with links to many other articles of the same theme), from Butterflies and Wheels.
• Science & Spirit magazine
• Clash in Cambridge: Science and religion seem as antagonistic as ever – by John Horgan, Scientific American, September 2005
• "Science at the Crossroads" – Dalai Lama address to the Society for Neuroscience, November 12, 2005
• Evolution, Naturalism, and Religion, Greg Graffin's CornellEvolutionProject.org
• How the Public Resolves Conflicts Between Faith and Science, David Masci, Pew Research Center
• Robert M. Young (1985). "Darwin's Metaphor: Nature's Place in Victorian Culture". Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 2007-08-31. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Zygon Journal of Religion and Science
• Science and Religion by Archbishop Luke of Crimea, an Eastern Orthodox perspective