Science and Faith

When Pierre-Simon LaPlace responded to the Emperor Napoleon’s observation that nowhere was there a reference to God in the former’s book, Celestial Mechanics, by saying, “I have no need for that hypothesis,” he perhaps said more than even he knew.

A hypothesis is a proposed explanation for something. In science, the term “phenomenom” replaces the word “something”, and hypotheses are subject to change based on testing. They may even be discarded if they do not adequately explain how facts (stubborn things that they are) hang together.

LaPlace was well aware that religion, in the form of European Christianity, would be attacking his work. Agents of the Church probably hoped that by bringing his omission to the notice of the Emperor, it would nip what they thought was his assault on their primacy in the bud. But Napoleon, who had risen to his position by applying scientific hypotheses to the tactics of warfare, was simply amused by the whole flap.

What is less amusing is that the battles between science and faith continue, with no small amount of vitriol expended and blood  spilled by the latter in order to check the influence of the former. Religious bodies, with the possible exception of Buddhism and medieval Islam, interpret the advances of science via the scientific method as assaults on their version of events. Or, as devotees of science might put it, attacks on or outright dismissals of religion’s hypotheses.

I find this exchange of antipathies disheartening, since even as a metaphysically oriented human being I have been grateful for the beneficence science has brought me, rather more blessing than if I had relied solely on prayer. I am more than a little worried, though, about tinkering with the atom and genetic engineering. I fret that scientists have to endure pressure to spin data to meet political and corporate goals and objectives, which ironically, pastors find they have to do daily in order to keep their jobs. I would hope that, despite the bull headed and atrocious acts of religious people of the past in opposition to people of science, I might be able to converse with my more physics oriented friends in meaningful ways.

A reasonable approach might be to revisit what religion views as doctrine and dogma and reconsider them as hypotheses, and to submit them to rigorous testing to see how they square with the facts of living. One of my favorite hymns, The Church of Christ in Every Age includes a verse which encourages just that: “(The Church) must claim and test its heritage”, later reminding it to do so “in all humility”.

The willingness to learn from scientific method, so far only expressed by religious types in the person of the Dalai Lama, would go a long way to opening up the conversation between scientist and theologian, and end this charade of religion that is all for a cure for cancer but violently opposed to evolution.

Admittedly, some doctrines and dogmas (hypotheses), such as the Virgin Birth, the Atonement and maybe the physical resurrection of Jesus, will lose their charm under scrutiny and will have to be abandoned, or at least modified. Others, such as the Creedal statements, might be loosed of their chains of myopia and engender further questions on the interplay between matter and energy – and spirit. As the scientific community must constantly revise its textbooks to reflect new findings and fresh data, Christians may have to jettison a terrible book such as Revelation from the canon, and replace it with Martin Luther King’s, I Have a Dream speech as more fitting conclusion to the Bible.

We of the faith community might even gain a greater understanding on how a nasty little local desert deity named Yahweh evolved into Great Mystery whose chief aim is to allow the rare phenomenon of love have a chance in a tooth and claw universe. It would be a miracle on a par with the splitting of the atom, or a quantum leap if you will, if religion morphed from being a plague on the planet to an instrument of healing for the earth and its creatures.