When Science Meets Religion

Ian G. Barbour

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780062273772
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion & Science

The Definitive Introduction To

The Relationship Between

Religion And Science

? In The Beginning: Why Did the Big Bang Occur?

? Quantum Physics: A Challenge to Our Assumptions About Reality?

? Darwin And Genesis: Is Evolution God?s Way of Creating?

? Human Nature: Are We Determined by Our Genes?

? God And Nature: Can God Act in a Law-Bound World?

Over the centuries and into the new millennium, scientists, theologians, and the general public have shared many questions about the implications of scientific discoveries for religious faith. Nuclear physicist and theologian Ian Barbour, winner of the 1999 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion for his pioneering role in advancing the study of religion and science, presents a clear, contemporary introduction to the essential issues, ideas, and solutions in the relationship between religion and science. In simple, straightforward language, Barbour explores the fascinating topics that illuminate the critical encounter of the spiritual and quantitative dimensions of life.

Chapter One

Four Views of Science and Religion

This chapter describes four types of relationship between science and religion: Conflict, Independence, Dialogue, and Integration. Each type has several variants that differ significantly, but the variants have features in common that allow them to be grouped together. The applicability of this fourfold typology to particular scientific disciplines is explored in subsequent chapters.

Let me first describe two historical cases often cited as examples of Conflict. In both cases the historical record reveals a more complex relationship. The first is the trial of Galileo in 1633. Galileo advocated the new Copernican theory in which the earth and the planets revolve in orbits around the sun, rather than the accepted Ptolemaic theory in which the sun and planets revolve in orbits around the earth. One factor that contributed to the condemnation of Galileo was the authority of Aristotle, whose scientific writings, including those supporting Ptolemaic astronomy, had been greatly admired in Europe since the twelfth century. Another issue was the authority of scripture, especially the passages that implied that the earth is the center of the cosmos. But in the end the crucial factor was his challenge to the authority of the church.

In the centuries before Galileo a variety of views of scripture had been advanced. In the fourth century, Augustine (whom Galileo quoted) had said that when there appears to be a conflict between demonstrated knowledge and a literal reading of the Bible, scripture should be interpreted metaphorically. In commenting on the first chapter of Genesis, Augustine had said that the Holy Spirit was not concerned about “the form and shape of the heavens” and “did not wish to teach men things not relevant to their salvation.” Medieval writers acknowledged diverse literary forms and levels of truth in scripture, and they offered symbolic or allegorical interpretations of many problematic passages. Galileo himself quoted a cardinal of his own day: “The intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes.” This aspect of Galileo’s thought could be taken as an example of the Independence thesis, which distinguishes scientific from theological assertions. On astronomical questions, he said, the writers of the Bible had to “accommodate themselves to the capacity of the common people” by using “the common mode of speech” of their times. He held that we can learn from two sources, the Book of Nature and the Book of Scripture—both of which come from God and therefore cannot conflict with each other.

But Galileo introduced a qualification that opened the door to Conflict. He said that we should accept a literal interpretation of scripture unless a scientific theory that conflicts with it can be irrefutably demonstrated. He overstated the scientific certainty he could provide at a time when there was still considerable disagreement among astronomers. Moreover, the Catholic hierarchy felt under threat from the Protestant Reformation and was eager to reassert its authority. Some of the cardinals were sympathetic to Galileo’s views, but the pope and several politically powerful cardinals were not. So he was finally condemned as much for disobeying the church as for questioning biblical literalism.1

The second case often cited as an example of Conflict is the debate over Darwin’s theory of evolution in the nineteenth century. Some scientists and some religious leaders did indeed hold that evolution and religious beliefs are incompatible, but many in both groups did not. Three issues were at stake.2

1. A Challenge to Biblical Literalism. A long period of evolutionary change conflicts with the seven days of creation in Genesis. Some theologians of Darwin’s day defended biblical inerrancy and rejected all forms of evolution, but they were in the minority. Most theological conservatives accepted symbolic rather than literal interpretations of these biblical passages and reluctantly accepted evolution, though they often insisted on the special creation of the human soul. The liberals, on the other hand, welcomed the advance of science and said that evolution was consistent with their optimistic view of historical progress. They were soon speaking of evolution as God’s way of creating, which could be considered a version of what I have called Integration. They were also sympathetic to the work of biblical scholars who were studying evidence of the influence of the cultural and cosmological assumptions of the ancient Near East in the writings of biblical authors.

2. A Challenge to Human Dignity. In classical Christian thought, human beings were set apart from all other creatures, their unique status guaranteed by the immortality of the soul and the distinctiveness of human rationality and moral capacity. But in evolutionary theory humanity was treated as part of nature. No sharp line separated human and animal life, either in historical development or in present characteristics. Darwin and many of his successors stressed the similarities of human and animal behavior, though other biologists insisted on the distinctiveness of human language and culture. Copernican astronomy had demoted humanity from the center of the universe, and now Darwinian biology threatened human uniqueness in the order of nature. In Victorian England, many people saw the claim that we are “descended from apes” as a denial of the value of persons. “The survival of the fittest” seemed to undercut morality, especially when it was extrapolated into the social order to justify ruthless economic competition and colonialism.

3. A Challenge to Design. Within a static universe, the complex functioning of organisms and their harmonious adaptation to their surroundings offered a persuasive argument for an intelligent Designer. But Darwin showed that adaptation could be accounted for by an impersonal process of variation and natural selection. Darwin himself believed that God had designed the whole evolutionary process but not the detailed structures of particular organisms. “I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance…. I cannot think that the world as we see it is the result of chance; yet I cannot look at each separate thing as the result of Design.”3 At the end of his life, Darwin seems to have been more agnostic, but through most of his life he accepted a reformulated version of the argument from design—an example of natural theology that I discuss under the heading Integration.

But some scientists went further and rejected even this broader concept of design. T. H. Huxley asserted that humanity is the product of impersonal and purposeless forces. The philosophy of materialism found new adherents among scientists in England and in Germany. The zoologist Ernst Haeckel held that matter and force are the only ultimate reality, and evolution provides an all-embracing explanation. “With this single argument the mystery of the universe is explained, the Deity annulled, and a new era of infinite knowledge ushered in.”4 In these varied responses to Darwin one can find examples of most of the ways of relating science and religion that are evident in the twentieth century.

CONFLICT

The Conflict thesis was promoted late in the nineteenth century by two influential books, J. W. Draper’s History of the Conflict between Religion and Science and A. D. White’s A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom.5 Recent historians point out that the evidence they cited was highly selective and that alternative views of the relation between science and religion were widely held during the centuries these authors describe.6 Today the popular image of “the warfare of science and religion” is perpetuated by the media, for whom a controversy is more dramatic than the more subtle and discriminating positions between the extremes of scientific materialism and biblical literalism.

We could imagine a theological spectrum that would run as follows: naturalism (including materialism), pantheism, liberalism, neo-orthodoxy, traditionalism, conservatism, and biblical literalism (or fundamentalism). I have grouped the two extremes within the same category of Conflict—a pairing that may at first seem strange. I do this because scientific materialism and biblical literalism both claim that science and religion make rival literal statements about the same domain (the history of nature), so a person must choose between them. They agree in saying that a person cannot believe in both evolution and God. Each side gains adherents partly by its opposition to the other, and both use the rhetoric of warfare.

1. Scientific Materialism

Materialism is the assertion that matter is the fundamental reality in the universe. Materialism is a form of metaphysics (a set of claims concerning the most general characteristics and constituents of reality). Scientific materialism makes a second assertion: the scientific method is the only reliable path to knowledge. This is a form of epistemology (a set of claims concerning inquiry and the acquisition of knowledge). The two assertions are linked: if the only real entities are those with which science deals, then science is the only valid path to knowledge.

In addition, many forms of materialism express reductionism. Epistemological reductionism claims that the laws and theories of all the sciences are in principle reducible to the laws of physics and chemistry. Metaphysical reductionism claims that the component parts of any system determine its behavior. The materialist believes that all phenomena will eventually be explained in terms of the actions of material components, which are the only effective causes in the world. Analysis of the parts of any system has, of course, been immensely useful in science, but I will contend that the study of higher organizational levels in larger wholes is also essential.

Let us consider the assertion that the scientific method is the only reliable form of understanding. Science starts from reproducible public data. Theories are formulated as hypotheses that can be tested against experimental observations. Choices among theories are influenced by additional criteria of coherence, comprehensiveness, and fruitfulness in suggesting further research and applications. Religious beliefs are not acceptable, in this view, because religion lacks such public data, such experimental testing, and such criteria of evaluation. Science alone is objective, open-minded, universal, cumulative, and progressive. Religious traditions, by contrast, are said to be subjective, closed-minded, parochial, uncritical, and resistant to change. We will see that historians and philosophers of science have questioned this idealized portrayal of science, but many scientists accept it and think that it undermines the credibility of religious beliefs.

Most of Carl Sagan’s book (and television series) Cosmos is devoted to a fascinating presentation of the discoveries of modern astronomy, but at intervals Sagan interjects his own philosophical commentary. He says that the universe is eternal or else its source is simply unknowable. He attacks Christian ideas of God at a number of points, arguing that mystical and authoritarian claims threaten the ultimacy of the scientific method, which he says is “universally applicable.” Nature (which he capitalizes in the book) replaces God as the object of reverence. Sagan expresses great awe at the beauty, vastness, and interrelatedness of the cosmos.7 In the television series he sits at an instrument panel from which he shows us the wonders of the universe. He is a new kind of high priest, not only revealing the mysteries to us but telling us how we should live. We can be grateful for Sagan’s educational skills in bringing the findings of astronomy to a wider public, and for his great ethical sensitivity and deep concern for world peace and environmental preservation. But perhaps we should question his unlimited confidence in the scientific method, on which he says we should rely to bring in the age of peace and justice.

In Sagan’s novel Contact and the 1997 film based on it, the scientific heroine detects radio signals from outer space and from them she decodes the plans for a huge machine for space travel. The machine is built, and with the help of spacetime changes in black holes, she makes a brief trip to the center of the galaxy. The novel and the film convey Sagan’s sense of awe at the beauty and mystery of the universe and his commitment to science and discovery. In the novel a scientist who is asked if he has ever had a transforming religious experience replies that he did when he first understood gravitation, relativity, and other theories, but “never apart from science.”8 Institutional religion, by contrast, is represented by such dubious figures as fundamentalist protesters who think all space travel is the work of the devil and a handsome TV evangelist who is more open to science but has no formal education past grade school.

Much of Sagan’s recent book, A Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, is devoted to refuting pseudo-science, especially astrology and claims of alien visitors and unidentified flying objects (UFOs). But many chapters are given to attacking religion, usually in its popular and superstitious forms. Sagan offers long accounts of belief in demons and witches in earlier centuries and faith healers and psychics today. But apart from one brief comment, he nowhere considers the writings of well-informed, university-based theologians who might be the intellectual counterparts of the scientists he admires.9 Clearly Sagan sees science and religion as rivals, and he puts his faith and hope in the former.

As another example, consider the writing of the sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson. He traces the genetic and evolutionary origins of social behavior in insects, animals, and humans. He asks how self-sacrificial behavior could arise and persist among social insects such as ants if their individual reproductive future is thereby sacrificed. Wilson shows that such “altruistic” behavior enhances the survival of close relatives who share many of their genes (in an ant colony, for example). He believes that all human behavior can be reduced to and explained by its biological origins and present genetic structure. “It may not be too much to say that sociology and the other social sciences, as well as the humanities, are the last branches of biology” to be included in evolutionary theory.10 The mind will be explained as “an epiphenomenon of the neural machinery of the brain.”

Wilson holds that religious practices were a useful survival mechanism in humanity’s earlier history because they contributed to group cohesion. But he says that the power of religion will be gone forever when religion is explained as a product of evolution; it will be replaced by “a philosophy of scientific materialism.”11 I would reply that if Wilson were consistent, he would have to say that the power of science will also be undermined when it is explained as a product of evolution. Do evolutionary origins really have anything to do with the legitimacy of either field? While Wilson has made an important contribution to our understanding of genetic constraints on human behavior, I suggest that he has elevated sociobiology into an all-encompassing explanation, leaving no room for the role of other facets of human life and experience. We will consider his views further in Chapters 5 and 6. Other examples of scientific materialism include the writings of Steven Weinberg (Chapter 2), Daniel Dennett (Chapters 4 and 5), Richard Dawkins (Chapters 4 and 6), Francis Crick (Chapter 5), and Peter Atkins (Chapter 6).

As I see it, these authors have failed to distinguish between scientific and philosophical questions. Scientists, in their popular writings, tend to invoke the authority of science for ideas that are not really part of science itself. Theism and materialism are alternative belief systems, each claiming to encompass all reality. In their epistemology...