The
relationship between religion and science has been the subject of numerous
controversies throughout the last millennium. While atheists have been using
scientific discoveries in their attempt to contradict the Bible, the Christians
have been trying to prove that religion and science are in fact compatible,
that they complete one another and even emerge one from the other.
But
faith and science are incompatible.
There are too many differences between the two, between their purpose and their
methods to allow us to think otherwise. It is true that they both focus on the
world as we know it and its origins, they both aim to offer information and explain
evolution, but they do it from completely different perspectives and using
different methods which, quite often, exclude one another.
The Christian Perspective
For
Christianity, proving the compatibility between science and religion would mean
breaking down most atheist arguments and gaining credibility and authority in
front of Christians around the world, but also in front of other religions, it
would mean consolidating its position and fighting all arguments contradicting the
Creation as it is presented by the Bible, God’s role in it and the authenticity
and accuracy of the Bible text in general.
Throughout
time, many thinkers tried to support this compatibility with arguments and
examples, the most prominent being that the first scientists were in fact,
religious men, friars or priests, and that the Bible actually encourages
Christians to observe and analyze, to look for explanations and get to know the
world around them and, through it, God.
St. Augustine was perhaps the first one
to foresee the danger science represents for religion, warning that it is vital
for Christians to know the Bible and to understand it, to know how to interpret
it, in order to be able to fight the arguments of non-Christians: "Many
non-Christians are well versed in natural knowledge, so they can detect vast
ignorance in such a Christian and laugh it to scorn"[1].
In his opinion, knowledge is not
an end in itself, but an indispensable mean to other ends and religion’s handmaiden.
He was also the one to explain that the teachings of the Bible should not be
taken literally, but rather considered metaphors, especially when they
contradict science and reason. Thus, the creation days were not actual days,
but metaphors for the actual time periods, presented as such in order to be
easily understood. [2]
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Thomas Aquinas, on the other hand, considered theology a
science and faith and reason the main tools in processing the information it
offers. He believed they were both necessary in getting to know God. According
to him, studying nature means studying God, as God reveals himself through
nature. He also underlined the difference between “creation” and “change”,
suggesting that religion studies the former, while natural sciences study the
latter.
William
E. Carroll was the one to approach the relationship between science and
religion directly, tracing the alleged incompatibility back to the origins of
the universe and explaining that there is no contradiction between them, but
rather a difference of approach thanks to which they complete one another.
While
science focuses on “how” and “when” the world was created, religion is more
concerned with the purpose of the creation, the “why”. He turns to the ideas of
his predecessors to explain the principle of causality and why the Big Bang
theory is not valid, or it only becomes valid by accepting the role of God.
Matter cannot emerge out of nothing, no matter the conditions in which this is
supposed to have happened, but God can be the cause, the origin of that
something from which everything developed.
The Incompatibility between Religion and Science
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The most eloquent arguments to sustain that religion and science are
incompatible, or, to be more precise, they have irreconcilable worldviews, were
brought by Jerry A. Coyne in
“Science and Religion Aren’t Friends”.
He argues that the few examples of religious
men who also embraced science are not enough to prove the compatibility between
the two and agrees with Richard Feynman in that science, through its methods,
helps us distinguish the truth, while religion represents, at least for its
followers, what they want to be true.
He also explains, and agrees with Stephen
Hawking in this, that, while science improves our lives, helps us know and
master the world, it works, religion only brings some solace, but has no
comparable beneficial impact. The world does not need God or religion to exist.
According
to him, “Science and faith are
fundamentally incompatible, and for precisely the same reason that
irrationality and rationality are incompatible. They are different forms of
inquiry, with only one, science, equipped to find real truth. And while they
may have a dialogue, it’s not a constructive one. Science helps religion only
by disproving its claims, while religion has nothing to add to science”.
Putting all arguments together, the truth seems to lie, as usual,
somewhere in the middle. While science and religion do not and should not
exclude one another, their incompatibility cannot be denied, simply because God
cannot be known through the empiric studies characteristic to science.
