Alister E. McGrath
Oxford University
September 2019
Chapter 1 Science and Religion: Exploring a Relationship
Religion and science are two of the most significant and interesting cultural and intellectual forces in today's world. The field of science and religion, which this book aims to introduce, sets out to explore what these two conversation partners might learn from each other, and where they diverge. Many leading thinkers at the time of the Renaissance used the metaphor of the ‘God's Two Books’ as a way of visualizing this process of allowing both science and religious faith to illuminate reality. It was, many believed, both possible and important to read the ‘Book of Nature’ and the ‘Book of Scripture’ side by side and allow them to inform and enrich each other. Although the invention of the idea of a permanent warfare between science and religion in the late nineteenth century caused many to question this approach, the scholarly discrediting of this ‘warfare’ metanarrative, which was essentially complete by the opening of the twenty‐first century, has given rise to new interest in finding ways of reclaiming and reformulating this dialogue. As Albert Einstein famously remarked: ‘Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.’
Why Study Science and Religion?
Many people are drawn to study the relation of science and religion because it is interdisciplinary – in other words, it offers a richer and grander vision of our world and humanity than is possible for either of the dialogue partners on their own. Neither science nor religion can provide a total account of reality. Science does not answer every question that we might have about the world. Neither does religion. Yet, taken together, these can offer us a stereoscopic view of reality denied to those who limit themselves to one discipline's perspective.
The Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset is one of many to argue that human beings need more than the partial account of reality that science offers if they are to lead fulfilled lives. We need a ‘big picture’, an ‘integral idea of the universe’. Any philosophy of life, any way of thinking about the questions that really matter, according to Ortega, will thus end up going beyond science – not because there is anything wrong with science, but precisely because it is so focused and specific in its methods.
Scientific truth is characterized by its precision and the certainty of its predictions. But science achieves these admirable qualities at the cost of remaining on the level of secondary concerns, leaving ultimate and decisive questions untouched.
Albert Einstein made a similar point concerning the strengths and limits of the natural sciences, opening up the possibility of some form of dialogue or intellectual synergy to permit the crossing of intellectual frontiers in pursuit of new understandings.
The scientific method can teach us nothing else beyond how facts are related to, and conditioned by, each other. … Yet it is equally clear that knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be. One can have the clearest and most complete knowledge of what is, and yet not be able to deduce from that what should be the goal of our human aspirations.
The study of the interaction of religion and the natural sciences continues to be influenced by the ‘warfare’ model of the relation of science and religion, which leads some scientists and religious believers to see them as necessarily locked in mortal combat. Science and religion are thus at war with each other, and that war will continue until one of them is eradicated. Although this view tends to be associated particularly with dogmatic atheist scientists, such as Peter Atkins (born 1940) or Richard Dawkins (born 1941), it is also encountered among religious believers. Some fundamentalist Christians and Muslims, for example, see science as a threat to their faith. A good example of this can be found in the criticisms of evolution made by conservative Protestant Christians, who see it as undermining their interpretation of the biblical creation accounts.
We shall explore the origins of this ‘warfare’ model of the interaction between science and religion later in this work. Yet although it remains influential culturally, it is not seen by historians of science as being reliable or defensible, and is no longer taken seriously by historical scholarship. It is certainly true that there are tensions between science and religion; yet their relationship is far more complex than this. If anything, science now seems to be opening up religious questions, rather than closing them down or declaring them to be meaningless. Natural science is increasingly being recognized to throw up questions that point beyond itself and transcend its power to answer.
Commenting on the scientific search for the origins of the universe, the astronomer Robert Jastrow notes how modern science seems to end up asking precisely the same questions as those posed in earlier generations by religious thinkers.
It is not a matter of another year, another decade of work, another measurement, or another theory; at this moment, it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peaks; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.
Science and religion are, this work will suggest, able to engage in a meaningful dialogue about some of the great questions of life. Yet the term ‘dialogue’ is too easily understood as a cosy and uncritical conversation, often tending towards an agreeable yet unwarranted assimilation of ideas. That is not the view advocated in this work. This kind of dialogue needs to be robust and challenging, probing deep and potentially threatening questions concerning the authority and limits of each participant and discipline. A dialogue is characterized by what many now call ‘epistemic virtue’, requiring each participant to take the other seriously, attempting to identify its strengths and weaknesses, while at the same time being willing to learn from the other, and face up to its own limits and vulnerabilities.
The dialogue between science and religion sets out to ask whether, in what ways, and to what extents, these two conversation partners might learn from each other. Give the cultural importance of both science and religion, the exploration of how they relate to each other has the potential for both conflict and enrichment. Despite the risks to both sides, it remains profoundly worthwhile. Why? Three reasons are often given for this judgement.
1 Neither science nor religion can lay claim to give a total account of reality. It is certainly true that some on each side have offered grand visions of their discipline being able to answer every question about the nature of the universe and the meaning of life – as, for example, in Richard Dawkins's notion of ‘universal Darwinism’. These, however, are not regarded as representative by their peers. Nor is the notion of ‘non‐overlapping magisteria’, developed by writers such as the late Stephen Jay Gould. This envisages that science and religion occupy well‐defined domains or areas of competency, which do not overlap or intersect. No conversation is necessary – or possible.Science and religion are perhaps better thought of as operating at their own distinct levels, often reflecting on similar questions, yet answering them in different ways. There are indeed some scientists who declare they have displaced religion (evident in recent ‘scientific atheism’), just as there are religious activists who claim to have displaced science (evident in modern American ‘creationism’). Yet these are merely extreme positions in a spectrum of possibilities. Most would suggest that science does not – and cannot – answer every question that we might have about the world. Neither does religion. Yet taken together, they can offer a stereoscopic view of reality denied to those who limit themselves to one discipline's perspective on things. The science