SERMONS 

Mending Fences: Science and Religion as Allies

In a defense against the deep complexity of modern science, I have called myself an agnostic. I am drawn to trying to understand—but very quickly become intimidated. It never takes me very long to remember that I fulfilled my science requirement in college by taking “baby physics”—physics without the math. I did it backwards, taking calculus after I completed the baby physics. That calculus class, though, was the end of my formal education in science and math.

Most of the time I’m comfortable with my agnosticism. Like most people, I have no need to understand how or why my computer works. In that case, in fact, I have very little interest. When it comes to biology the questions are more interesting to me. And if I work hard I can manage a basic understanding.

But as scientists continue to uncover some of the mysteries of life, I see their discoveries as ever dimmer and distant. I’m appreciative. I’m impressed. But I make choices in my life which will keep me forever agnostic about many, many things scientific.

So when I see a flower, I rarely consider the smaller dimensions. I do sometimes consider bees and the butterflies—because relationships are so interesting to me. But when I think of them, I wonder at their flight. And I consider the meaning of a flower’s fleeting life. The delicacy of petal, the fragile beauty. The smell that moves me. I see the flower more as a poet than a scientist.

What is so difficult about living in a world with scientists and poets? Rationalists and Mystics? As the reading suggests, the scientist and the poet find beauty in distinct ways. So why would we not desire to experience all the beauty that’s possible? Why would we limit ourselves by rejecting science with its amazing ability to dissect and order things in our experience, or poetry which helps us comprehend and experience the mysteries that cannot be expressed by any other means?

The alienation of science and religion has evolved over the last several hundred years. Science is something of an adolescent, still finding itself as an independent discipline—only recently free of the authority of religion. And religion, the parent who somewhat reluctantly let go of her child, continues to struggle with the choices of her newly independent progeny.

So it should not surprise us that we continue to struggle with these relationships. There are some whose world shakes at every new scientific pronouncement. There are some who still desire unadulterated mythologies, some who conjure vast conspiracies to avoid the possibility of technology that permits travel in space. The scientific world view, though, the vast growth of our knowledge of ourselves and the universe has become the predominant view. The power of science to discover means by which our quality of life is so significantly improved is convincing to even the most reluctant twentieth century westerner.

And there are some on the other extreme of this divide, those who find it difficult (if not impossible) to value a religious world view. Some who consider religion to be a mass delusion. Some who confuse the motivation of ancient writers of scripture with the motivation of modern historians. Some who mistakenly believe that the purpose of religious narrative is to purport fact. Some who assume all religion must be about supernatural beliefs, taken on some kind of blind faith. Yet the search for meaning in our lives seems to be an unavoidable occupation. In the midst of shifting cosmologies, we still witness a vast majority of people finding solace and comfort in religious experience and understanding.

That we have not yet found a way to let science and religion live together peaceably is evidenced in many ways. Just this week we heard again political rumblings about the intersection of science and religion. The Superintendent of Georgia Schools, an elected official in that state, confirmed that the proposed curriculum for science for that state does not use the word “evolution.” Calling the word a “controversial buzz word” she explained that biological changes over time would be the way the curriculum would describe this particular scientific approach. What a mess!

Not a new mess, of course, as I was reminded this week in a paper Paul Conkin shared with me. It is a conflict, as he describes it, “between the story in Genesis (the most influential history ever written) and the story revealed in the rocks.” Paul’s careful thinking reveals that it may not be as simple a conflict as we imagine. And most definitely not finished. The shake-down is still in progress, as the curriculum board of Georgia reminds us.

Kathy Cox claims the high ground explaining that evolution hasn’t really been removed from the curriculum. She is trying to make the content of science palatable to those who continue to struggle with the inconsistencies between a literal interpretation of a powerful religious story and the story told by geologic evidence. By various means of argument, they isolate themselves from much of what modern science teaches.

Religious people who respect science and scientists who are religious have found various ways to bridge the perceived gap—still, though, there is mending that needs to be done for a mature and healthy relationship to prevail. This kind of relationship is necessary for each to benefit from the unique insights of the other. As liberal religious people it is tempting to buy into an argument for isolation. Asserting that to keep science true we must not muddy it with questions of meaning and value, and to keep religious pursuits honest we must not confuse it with facts. We run the risk of minimizing the potential of religious experience.

A few contemporary thinkers are resisting this isolationism and venturing into territory that still seems a little unlikely and certainly not fully chartered.

Ken Wilber proposes a marriage between science and religion. He believes he can make a case for integrating our knowledge of science with our understanding of religion. He bemoans the disaster of modernity, the devastating effects of the age of reason and science on our humanity. Max Weber suggested that with modernity came “the disenchantment of the world.” Wilber acknowledges some disenchantment, but also lifts up what he calls the dignity of modernity. Who would go back? Who would sacrifice what we have gained? Who would sacrifice what we cannot yet imagine?

In his book, The Marriage of Sense and Soul: Integrating Science and Religion, Wilber declares his position as a mystic with sense. He is not willing to reduce either his sense or his soul to a category of the past. He writes:

Fact and meaning, truth and wisdom, science and religion. It is a strange and grotesque coexistence, with value-free science and value-laden religion, deeply distrustful of each other, aggressively attempting to colonize the same small planet. It is a clash of Titans, to be sure, yet neither seems strong enough to prevail decisively nor graceful enough to bow out altogether.

His proposal of marriage is long-winded. It requires considerable elaboration. I don’t have time or a clear enough grasp on his complex scheme to offer it to you here today. But I’m sympathetic with his desire. I share his respect of science and his attraction to wisdom of a different sort. He quotes Alfred North Whitehead (great process philosopher) who lamented that with scientific materialism (that is the scientific view which I find comparable to religious fundamentalism) reality becomes “a dull affair, soundless, scentless, colorless; merely the hurrying of material, endlessly, meaninglessly.”

Scientific materialism contends that everything can be reduced to a physical reality. There is nothing but the material. It is an understandable pitfall of the scientific method—which judges what is real merely by physical observation that must be replicable. I understand and respect the method. I am concerned, though, by the arrogance that asserts any method or conclusion as ultimate, final and complete. Surely, if we have learned anything in the last five or six hundred years of scientific exploration, it is that there are “endless awakenings [for us] in a universe of endless surprises.” (Marilyn Ferguson, cultural critic)

When we reduce science (or anything) in this way, we make it less than it is. Wilber suggests that too much of science reduces reality to an objective notion of truth which excludes any real sense of inner reality or interpersonal reality. He uses numerous terms to describe this: Truth, beauty, and goodness. Objectivity, subjectivity, intersubjectivity. The IT, the I, and the WE. Science, the arts, and morality.

The genius of our modern view (having “a modern view” is of course is a grossly oversimplistic possibility) is the differentiation of the spheres of science, the arts, and morality. It was a terrible disadvantage to have the three packaged under one power structure. However, as I’ve said, when there is complete dissociation or isolation of one from the other, each is diminished. And this kind of fragmented approach moves us ever farther away from an understanding of the whole of our experience and existence.

Like Wilbur, Holmes Rolston, III does not shy away from using science and religion in the same sentence. Rolston is a recent recipient of the Templeton Award for progress toward research or discoveries about spiritual realities. (Harry Ransom tipped me off about him.) Trained first in physics and mathematics, Rolston later received his PhD in Theology and Religious Studies. I listened this week to a recording of his lecture at a symposium entitled, “Genes, Gensis, and God.”

He made several points of interest to me. First he distinguishes between physics and biology and notes that “causal forces are the province of physics” while biology must examine not only causal forces but also the introduction of information, which is necessary for biological molecules to exist. This separates him from the materialists. He says matter and energy are not the sole components of reality. He observes that genetics is not the passing on of matter, but of something else, and he calls this information. Then, like any scientist with a religious bone in his body, this leads Rolston to the question of where that information comes from.

He expresses awe at the “marvelous endowment of matter with a propensity toward life.” He believes this is nothing short of divine creativity. And he believes information may be the location of divinity or God. Playing with Paul Tillich’s characterization of God as the Ground of Being, Rolston suggests God as the ground of Information. I’m sure this is an unfair characterization on my part, but it sounds a little like God as DNA. Or God in DNA?

For Rolston, mere matter/energy, mere causal forces are not the end of the story. In his acceptance speech for the Templeton Award, Rolston said, Science is never the end of the story, because science cannot tell humans what they most need to know: the meaning of life and how to value it.

Religion and science are tools we use to deepen our understanding of this Life. Both offer ways to truth and beauty. Both can bring healing. By isolating them from each other, we limit the possibilities of truth and beauty.

I believe religion and science only conflict when one or the other is too small. We must be vigilant against narrow categories and the arrogance of believing our understandings are complete. The history of science teaches us the importance of this. As do the greatest spiritual teachings