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TRUTH IN SCIENCE AND RELIGION
Lecture at the national Dialogue Australasia colloquium
Adelaide - April 2004
1) HISTORY
-------------In any discussion of the relationship between science and religion, two key conflict moments stand out:
a) The Trial of Galileo
------------------------This is often seen as the classic clash between science and religion. Religion and science had, up to
Copernicus, been seen as compatible. Indeed at the time of St. Thomas Aquinas, Theology was described as
the Queen of the Sciences. Aristotle’s understanding of the cosmos and the place of humans within this was
largely accepted by Church and science just as, following St. Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle provided the
intellectual foundation of Christian morality. It was a time when there was little doubt and people lived in a
secure framework where the teaching of the Church and of science were fully compatible. The earth was the
centre of the universe and the stars and sun revolved round this fixed unmovable centre. Copernicus and
Galileo’s observation challenged this whole framework as the earth was seen to move round the sun. This was
a challenge not just to science but, more significantly, to the truth claims made by the Church. The clash was
so significant because the Church’s teaching role was undermined. The Church had nailed its colours to the
mast as the authority of scripture was seen as being at stake. The Church linked its authority to the Bible Joshua had commanded the sun to stand still and the psalmist says that God fixed the earth immovable. The
stakes were high and Galileo was fortunate to only have been sentenced to house arrest and not to have been
burnt. Nevertheless although it took a long time for Galileo’s views to be generally accepted, it was clear that
science was right and the church was wrong. The authority of religion was perceived to be severely
undermined.
b) Darwin
-----------Darwin did not discover evolution - French philosophers and writers a hundred years before him were clear
that evolution took place. What Darwin discovered was the mechanism by which evolution occurred - this was
natural selection. What was so devastating about natural selection was that this provided a mechanism for
human beings to have evolved without the intervention of God. Previously, Paley’s design argument 1 and the
general wonder at the universe seemed to point to God - even the discoveries of science and the wonders of
the natural world seemed to further confirm the design of the universe by God. Darwin showed that,
seemingly, the natural world could evolve without God. What was even more significant was that the Genesis
creation story portrayed human beings as the crown of creation - and of a distinct order from the whole of the
rest of creation. Evolution denied this and saw human beings as highly evolved animals. Again the authority
of the Church and scripture was undermined and both protestants and Catholics found their basic beliefs
challenged.
These two challenges by science to religion are the classic and best known ones - although there have been
many other challenges including that by Giordano Bruno who was born in 1548 and became a Dominican
monk. On February 17, 1600, Bruno was led to Campo de Fiori, where he was burned at the stake, amongst
the crowds visiting Rome for the Jubilee Year. It is not clear precisely why he was condemned 2 - possibly
because he affirmed the Copernican system and was willing to think for himself using science as a guide.
Galileo and Darwin were, therefore, by no means alone.
However the problem with both these challenges in terms of the present day debate is to be clear what
‘religion’ means. In the case of the Galileo conflict, ‘religion’ was seen in terms of the authority of the Church
and the literal reading of scripture. The same, broadly, applied in the case of Darwin. However it is one thing
to challenge the authority of the Church on particular teachings and it is quite another to challenge the
fundamental matters of religion which, in the case of Christianity, includes the existing of God, the status of
Jesus as the incarnate Word of God and the idea of life after death. It is perfectly possible for the
Church’s teaching to be mistaken in particular areas and yet the fundamentals of the Christian
story to still be true. This is, of course, the position adopted by the Catholic and Protestant Churches and
by most major theologians today.
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Of course the Church was wrong to condemn Galileo;
of course the earth is not at the centre of the universe;
William Paley, Archdeacon of Carlisle, argued that if one was crossing a heath and came across a rock one might conclude
that it had come there by chance. If, however, one found a watch with all its cogs and wheels then, even if one did not
know its purpose, one would conclude that it must have had a designer. The universe, Paley argued, is like a great watch it is incredibly intricate and complex and carries all the marks of design. This, therefore, points to a designer, namely God.
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After hearing the judgment of the Inquisition who examined him, Bruno is quoted as saying "Perchance your fear in
passing judgment on me is greater than mine in receiving it."
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of course (most would accept) evolution is true (even though it has not yet been totally proven).
God today is held to work through evolution and to set up the mechanisms through which human beings
evolved. In fact the more we understand of the incredible complexity of the universe, of the billions of
galaxies and the billions of stars within each galaxy, the more God as a great ordering principle may seem
plausible.
Whilst, therefore, the Galileo and Darwin debates were significant, they are not particularly relevant today.
Today we need to look at the basis of truth claims in science and religion and to see how these are related.
2) TRUTH IN SCIENCE
-------------------------Science is founded on the empirical method started by Aristotle - in other words on the claim that,
through careful study and observation, human beings can come to understand the universe in which they live
and their part in it. This empirical method has served humanity very well. We have developed transport and
communication links, improved the food supply, overcome diseases and made life easier and more pleasant
for much of the human population. Religion, by contrast, does not seem to have advanced at all - the insights
of philosophers and theologians are, arguably, no more profound than those of the great writers of previous
generations and, for many, we have lost much of the wisdom that was found amongst the Greeks. Small
wonder, therefore, that truth claims by religion tend to be increasingly dismissed whilst scientists are often
regarded as the new, trusted, authority figures.
How does science progress? Not by steady, incremental discoveries. Indeed often science advances
by past theories being proved to be false. The falsificationist approach to truth in science holds that what is
true in science are those claims that have not yet been falsified. This, it is held, is simply what scientific truth
is. Science advances by previous theories being shown to be false. Science has a constant list of theories that
have been shown to be false. If religion is convicted of making mistakes (as it has), science has made far
more. One scientific theory is continuously being replaced by another.
The certainties of one generation of scientists are often seen to be outmoded ideas when viewed from the
perspective of a later generation. Nor does science develop steadily - Thomas Kuhn pointed out the
importance of ‘paradigm shifts’ when whole shifts of paradigm take place - almost like a religious conversion
experience. As Kuhn said:
‘If anomalies become serious and numerous, a scientist will sense a crisis for the paradigm. Typically they will
begin to lose faith and then to consider alternatives. They do not renounce the paradigm that has led them
into crisis.’ 3
‘The scientist in crisis will continually try to generate speculative theories that, if successful, may disclose the
road to a new paradigm’4
‘A new paradigm emerges all at once, sometimes in the middle of the night, in the mind of a man deeply
immersed in crisis.5
‘When making the revolutionary change from one paradigm to another, scientists often speak of ‘the scales
falling from the eyes’6
‘The conversion experience that I (Kuhn) have likened to a gestalt switch remains, therefore, at the heart of
the revolutionary process.’7
Most scientific breakthroughs do not come from logic but from intuitions. Einstein said that his theory of
relativity arose from imagining riding on a beam of light. Kekule, the leading chemist, realised that benzene is
a ring-like structure through his famous dream of a snake holding its own tail. The crude, popular notion of
the certainties of empirical science are very crude representations of the reality.
Naïve inductionism is the way most non-scientists think science works – this holds that there are careful
observations and general rules are framed based on these observations (this was Aristotle’s view). However
this is simply wrong. Observations are not neutral. What is seen depends on the framework belief that is in
place. ‘Seeing’ is not theory-neutral. Michael Polanyi gives the example of a medical student looking at an xray. At first the student is puzzled – he can see nothing of what the experts claim to see. Over weeks of
study, a tentative understanding will begin to dawn. He will forget the ribs and see the lungs. Eventually, if he
perseveres long enough, a rich range of detail will emerge for him that was not present at the beginning.
Some tribal cultures have been demonstrated to be unable to see in 3-dimensional terms. Observation
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Thomas Kuhn ‘The Structure of scientific revolution’ p. 77
op. cit p. 87
op. cit p. 90
op. cit p. 122
op. cit p. 204
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statements are always made based on prior theories - they are not neutral. This is going to be important for
my argument today. A person needs to be trained to see what is there.
Richard Dawkins is possibly the most influential single scientist who rejects religion as primitive nonsense. He
is a Darwinian biologist and Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford. Dawkins rejects
religion root and branch. He considers religious people to be inadequate and to do violence to young people.
In a recent lecture he said that - and I quote:
“The doctrine of hell is even more damaging psychologically to children than the child abuse for which priests
are more usually known”
Dawkins is fiercely critical of religion for accepting things on the basis of trust in authority or trust in some
ancient text and he points out that this is the reverse of the way science behaves. You do not find - and again
I quote - “Professor Hawkins promulgating a doctrine that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs which is binding on
all loyal Hawkinsians.” Science demands evidence and argument and scientists are only listened to because
they can prove what they claim and, even if they are making conjectures, they can point to the evidence
which would prove these claims to be true if this evidence was to be available. Scientists are also generally
willing to accept the error of their theories if evidence can be provided. Religious people by contrast, Dawkins
argues, assert their truth claims in a strident voice, will not listen to those who question their views and seek
to impose their truths on others by coercion or by educating people to think like their parents.
I confess that, although I find it hard to warm to Dawkins as an individual when I have shared a platform with
him, I do think he has significant and important arguments that need to be taken seriously - although I
cannot do this today1. However the key point I want to bring out is that Dawkins - and many scientists
today - are closet verificatonists.
We all know what a closet homosexual is - a homosexual who does not declare himself as such. Closet
homosexuals in positions of power are quite common and groups such as OUTRAGE ‘out’ such figures within
the ranks of politicians and the clergy. However much more common are closet verificationists - these are
people who take a verificationist approach to truth claims without actually disclosing that this is their position.
Verificationism derived from David Hume and A. J. Ayer and basically maintains that any statement that
cannot be verified empirically is meaningless.
Hume put his point with considerable eloquence:
“When we run over libraries... if we take in our hand any volume of divinity.... let us ask, ‘Does it contain any
abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?’ No ‘Does it contain and experimental reasoning
concerning matter of fact and existence?’ No. Commit it to the flames then for it can contain nothing not
sophistry and illusion.” (David Hume. Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding)
The Logical POSITIVISTS agreed with this maintaining that analytic statements were necessarily true because
of the way words were used and any other statement, if it was to be meaningful, had to be capable of
verification. A.J. Ayer put the verificationist challenge like this:
“The criterion which we use to test the genuineness of apparent statements of fact is the criterion of
verifiability. We say that a sentence is factually significant to any given person if, and only if, he knows
how to verify the proposition which it purports to describe - that is, if he knows what observations
would lead him, under certain conditions, to accept the proposition as being true or reject it as being
false.”
Logical POSITIVISTS reject all talk about God as there is no way of verifying any theistic statement. For
instance ‘God exists’; ‘God loves me’ or ‘Jesus rose from the dead’ are meaningless statements as there is no
way at all these statements could be verified. A. J. Ayer compares the meaning of religious statements with
apparent nonsense - e.g.:
“Suppose I suggest ‘There is a drogulus over there’, and you say ‘What?’ and I say ‘drogulus’ and you say
‘What’s a drogulus?’ Well I say ‘I can’t describe what a drogulus is, because its not the sort of thing you can
see or touch, it has no physical effects of any kind, but it’s a disembodied being.’ And you say ‘Well how am I
to tell if it’s there or not?’ and I say ‘There’s no way of telling. Everything’s just the same whether it’s there or
it’s not there. But the fact is it’s there. There’s a drogulus standing behind you, spiritually behind you.’ Does
that make sense?”
Religious statements such as ‘God exists’ are therefore not false but meaningless - they are meaningless as
no empirical evidence can be provided for them. Dawkins is a verificationist as he demands empirical
evidence for any statement to be meaningful - he is a closet verificationist as, perhaps because he is not a
philosopher, he nowhere makes clear that this is his position.
If verificationism is correct, then Dawkins’ position has much to commend it. But it is highly debatable if it is
right. Poetry, for instance, might be regarded as meaningless, so might the language of love and moral
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obligation. Indeed it is hard to see what Dawkins can say about love or moral obligation other than these
being tools to foster the survival of the species and means for the common gene pool to be successfully
preserved. Of course, there are some who argue that this is all that morality it - but this is, at the least, a
debatable position.
The crude idea that scientific statements are true if they can be empirically verified beed to be resisted - it is
nothing like as simple as that.
One of the most influential approaches to truth in science is that put forward by Larry Laudan 8 who holds to
what he terms a pragmatic view of science Laudan rejects the idea that scientific progress is about providing
a more and more true view of the universe - instead the aim of science is to solve problems, to provide
theories that work. Science aims to solve two sorts of problems - empirical and conceptual problems. Laudan
sets out dozens of theories in the history of science that explained facts, predicted new test results,
accurately described various phenomena but were later found to be false. Science is, Laudan argues, a
rational discipline because it solves problems, it does not solve problems because it is a rational discipline.
This is by no means the only way of understanding the scientific endeavour. The Philosophy of Science is an
important field in its own right with many complexities and there are many theories about the nature of truth
in science9 which I do not have time to explore today. Whatever theory is accepted, there will be those who
disagree with it and the important point for our young people is to resist the idea that truth in science is a
simple matter - it isn’t.
3) NON-OVERLAPPING MAGISTERIA
------------------------------------------The late Stephen Jay Gould, described himself as a Jewish agnostic in Natural History (March 1997) and
argued that science and religion do not, or need not, conflict. Gould argued that science and religion are not
in a perpetual conflict. He blamed the idea of conflict on the nineteenth century American Professor of
science, John William Draper, in A History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science (1874), and the
Cornell historian and first president, Andrew Dickson White, in A History of the Warfare of Science with
Theology in Christendom (1896) for starting the unnecessary conflict.
“Science and religion are not in conflict, for their teachings occupy distinctly different domains
— I believe, with all my heart, in a respectful, even loving concordat.”
When it makes claims in the scientific domain, religion generates tensions between science and religion.
Gould seems to envisage religion as one writer put it “as a philosophical theism free of superstitions, or as a
secular humanism grounded on ethical norms”.
Gould argued that Science and religion each have their own domain, school of knowledge or
‘magisteria’ over which each one presides as the appropriate source of wisdom. There are other
magisteria like art and music. Science deals with the empirical universe whilst religion’s magisteria deals with
the search for ethical values. These different magisteria do not overlap but they need to keep to their own
areas. Gould arrives at the acronym NOMA standing for Non-Overlapping Magisteria.
NOMA is a simple, humane, rational, and altogether conventional argument for mutual
respect, based on non-overlapping subject matter, between two components of wisdom in a
full human life: our drive to understand the factual character of nature (the magisterium of
science), and our need to define meaning in our lives and a moral basis for our actions (the
magisterium of religion).
The net of science covers the empirical universe: what is it made of (fact) and why does it
work this way (theory). The net of religion extends over questions of moral meaning and
value. (Stephen Jay Gould, Rocks of Ages).
NOMA says that science deals with facts, religion with morality. The first focuses on what is the case,
the latter on what ought to be the case There is a well known philosophic principle deriving from G.E. Moore
which states that ‘you cannot get an ought from an is’. In other words one cannot derive from the ways
things are, they way they ought to be. Gould therefore maintains that science cannot tell us about the arena
of morality and religion - science has nothing to say in these areas. Gould describes this by saying:
“We (science) get the age of rocks, and religion retains the rock of ages. We study how the heavens go, and
they determine how to go to heaven.” 2
Science and Reality ed. James T. Cushing, C.F. Delaney and Gary Gutting (University of Notre Dame Press 1984 pps 83 105; Science and Values: Progress and its problems: Towards a Theory of Scientific Growth (University of California Press,
1977)
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including rational realism; nonrational realism; constructive empiricism; phenomenalism and operationalism;
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Central to Gould’s argument is that religion should not extend into the scientific world - and it is here that
problems arise with his claim. If religion wishes to make claims about the origin of the universe, about God
acting in the universe in response to prayer or by way of miracle, then this seems to intrude into the scientific
realm. If, of course, religious claims are just poetic expressions and not factual claims, then the magisterial
would remain distinct, but many religious believers want to regard these as factual claims.
Charles Darwin, wrote:
“I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog
might as well speculate on the mind of Newton.”
Darwin went into a state close to despair when his young daughter died and this led him to “understood the
difference between factual questions with universal answers under the magisterium of science and moral
issues that each person must resolve for himself”. However this does not point to God and, indeed, Darwin
himself rejected the Christianity of his father, an Anglican clergyman, in which he was brought up.
NOMA is an apparently attractive approach to many religious people as it seems to render the religious realm
immune from criticism by science. In our school classrooms the RE department can tell the science
department to ‘keep to your own patch and we will keep to ours’ but, however attractive this is, the
weaknesses of the approach outweigh its apparent strengths. It buys security from the security of science at
the price of making religious claims largely irrelevant to the world in which we live.
4) WHAT CAN SCIENTIFIC TRUTH EXPLAIN?
----------------------------------------------------Imagine for a moment that you are a neuroscientist concerned with mapping and understanding how the
human brain works. You have access to the latest scanners and the latest research on the functioning of brain
waves. You know which areas of the brain are active when particular actions are undertaken and can even
isolate the areas of the brain where there is electrical activity when thinking a particular thought. Imagine
that neuroscience develops so far that we can map the precise areas of the brain that are active in the
following situations:
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Imagining the sunset from the beach at Darwin
Visualising my mother who has been dead for thirty years
Looking at the face of the car driver behind you when you are next at the traffic lights
Raising your arm to pick up a beer.
Assume that we can map precisely those areas of brain activity in each of these situations - would
that have explained everything? There is a real way in which it would have explained very little. It would
not explain why I was drinking a beer or why I was thinking of my dead mother or even why I chose to dwell
on a sunset from a beach when I have seen many other sunsets in the past. Science seems to explain so
much but it cannot even begin to explain how I can raise my arm.
What is the physical world? One answer is the world around us - this lot that we can see and touch and
feel. I want to reject this. So what is the physical world? It might be defined as the world in so far as it
exists for physics10. If this is right, then it is a significant answer. Science can study brain waves and
material states but there are still things that cannot be studied by physical means. You do not have to be a
dualist to say this11. Physics cannot tell us about beauty or morality or about the widespread religious impetus
which is found across the world. The world may not be totally accessible to physics. There are things
that the material world contains that physics cannot tell us about. The consequence of this is that
here is no conclusive evidence to sort out by physical means questions like immortality or the existence of
God - indeed it is not a question of lack of evidence but that scientific evidence is the wrong type of
evidence.. This does not mean that these questions are not real questions nor that there is not a truth at
stake - but science cannot answer them. Scientists who are verificationists would simply say that there are no
such truths, but this is far too simplistic.
If we say that neuroscience is the science of my brain so far as it is accessible to physics, we can
still say that our thoughts are the functions of our brain, but they are not the sort of things that physics can
access or tell us about. There may well be properties of my brain that science cannot access. The mistake
some scientists make is to assert (and it is an assertion) that science can explain everything - and it cannot.
There is no need for theology to question any aspect of science.
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This is the definition given by Dr. Gerard Hughes SJ, Master of Campion Hall, Oxford
Plato was the classical dualist maintaining that human beings are made by of body and soul. On this view, the soul is
inaccessible to science as it is not a material being. This is not what is being argued here however. The claim here is that
there are aspects of the one reality that science cannot access - not that there has to be a spiritual realm and science can
access everything but this realm.
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Take the case of meditation - the search for stillness in a world which is increasingly frenetic. Stillness and
silence is the fifth of the Five Strand approach to Religious and Values education which some of our schools
are using. It seeks to provide space for young people to attentively experience stillness and silence when, to
many, these are alien notions. William Johnson was a Jesuit working in Japan about forty years ago working
on prayer in different religious traditions. He carried out a series of detailed experiments measuring brain
waves of people from different religious traditions in deep meditative states12. He was able to isolate the
particular areas of the brain that were operational - and those that were not - when these meditative states
were reached. Go to an Ashram or a monastery and you will be taught how to meditate. If, therefore, it is
possible to produce these brain states to order, does this not show that these are not experiences of God. In
order to examine this, ask yourself what brain states explain. They explain that certain forms of brain activity
are associated with particular states - but this really does not tell us much.
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Have we thereby ruled out the idea that meditation can, for some, put them in touch with God whilst
for others it can convey a sense of peace? Not at all.
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Does it then make God irrelevant to the mystical life? How could it?
Of course we have brains and of course we have brain waves that operate when we think but that does get
near telling us whether, in certain states, we are in some way in contact with the Divine.
I have already referred to Michael Polyani arguing that in many fields a person has to be trained to learn
to notice things that are there:
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An ultra-sound scan of a pregnant woman will tell you almost nothing but to a trained operator it can
tell a very great deal.
A conductor of a large orchestra can tell precisely which instrument is slightly out of pitch but most of
the rest of us would not even notice.
A football manager can spot weaknesses in the team which most of us could not identify. Similar
training is required in the religious field.
To tell whether an experience in meditation has to do with God or not is never going to be decided by the
scientist but the trained spiritual director or theologian may have much clearer ideas based on his or her
experience. If there are reasons to believe that there is a God (and this would take us into Philosophy of
Religion and is considerably outside the aim of this lecture13) then to say that God communicates with some
people is far from impossible - that there will be brain waves involved in this communication is inevitable but
the neuroscientist will not be able to tell us whether the brain waves have anything to do with God or not.
The fact that you have to develop your skills and knowledge to notice things does not prove that the thing
isn’t there. Similarly the fact that one has to learn to meditate does not mean that God is not sometimes
experienced in meditation and stillness. The experience of God may, however, be more like my experiencing
the presence of a close friend than my feeling a pain.
Gerard Hughes SJ argues that we are sophisticated animals - animals that can think and understand. He
rejects the dualist idea of human beings as having two substances - a soul and a body and affirms the
Aristotelian view of the unity of a human being which has been most influential with mainstream Christian
thought for the last two thousand years14. However to explain the complexity of what it is to be human needs
the language of science, of philosophy and theology and perhaps also, I would add, psychology.
Unless one is a determinist and holds that every event is totally determined by preceding states of affairs (as
if we were puppets) then there is an area of freedom that the neurologist will be unable to explain. Science
can explain much, but whatever explanation science offers is only going to be a partial explanation. For any
situation, we need a broader variety of explanations of the same phenomenon - theological explanations,
philosophical explanations, psychological explanations and scientific explanations. It is not that these
explanations are of different realms as the NOMA principle argues but that different types of explanation are
required in order to explain a single state of affairs. Science cannot provide the total explanation that is
needed.
When science is no longer open to theological or philosophical explanations, there is a real sense in which it
may only partially be able to comprehend reality. As Einstein puts it:
“Religion without science is blind
Science without religion is lame”
‘Silent music - the science of meditation’
The case for and against God is dealt with in ‘The Thinkers Guide to God’ published in Australia by Mediacom (2004) by
Peter Vardy and Julie Arliss
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Christians have all affirmed the resurrection of the body, not a disembodied survival of death although in the middle ages
in the Catholic Christian tradition it was held that there was a time between death and the Last Judgement when souls
survived without bodies. A new body was given when the Last Judgement took place.
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I am not arguing against any aspect of scientific endeavour - indeed the search for understanding which
science provides is absolutely central. What I am, however, arguing is that scientific truths alone
cannot provide all the answers that are needed about the nature of reality nor about what it is to
be human and that theological and philosophical explanations are also required. Good theology
should not contradict science and good science should not contradict sound theology - when either side
tramples on the other, it diminishes the overall search for truth. Theology can provide explanations in areas
where science falls silent and this will not simply be in areas like God, life after death15, morality and
aesthetics.
To justify this I want to draw on a number of themes dealt with in the new book I have authored with a
colleague of mine - The Thinker’s Guide to God.
5) THEOLOGY PROVIDING EXPLANATIONS WHERE SCIENCE FALLS SILENT
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------There are two areas, amongst others, where scientific explanations are either absent or would seem to make
the idea of an intelligence behind the universe which some call God plausible.
1) The Origin of the Universe
The Big Bang, it is suggested, was an initial singularity which exploded at a rate faster than the speed of light.
Nuclear explosions took place giving rise to concentrations of hydrogen and helium and some of the lithium
found in inter-stellar space. After about 300 000 years, the initial fireball dropped to a temperature a little
below the present temperature of the sun allowing electrons to form orbits rounds atoms and releasing
photons or light. The Big Bang theory first came to prominence as the initial explosion can today be measured
as background radiation at microwave frequencies equivalent to a temperature of about 2.7 kelvin. 3
The big bang theory appears to explain a great deal, but recent observations also cast doubt on it:
1. The Hubble Space telescope has been measuring distances to other galaxies and these observations
suggest that the universe is much younger than the big bang theory implies. This is because the
universe is expanding much faster than previously assumed –this implies a cosmic age of as little as
eight billion years’ - about half the current estimate. On the other side, other data indicates that
certain stars are at least 14 billion years old’.
2. Big Bang theorists maintain that the initial explosion was extremely smooth - this is based on the
uniformity of the background radiation left behind. However Margaret Geller, John Huchra and others
at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophy’ have found a great wall of galaxies about 500 million
lights years in length across the northern sky. These seems difficult to explain based on a uniform
big-bang.
Nevertheless the Big Bang theory still seems the most plausible explanation for the origin of the Universe.
What is extraordinary, however, about the Big Bang is that for any stars and galaxies to form, the initial
explosion had to occur within incredibly tight limits. If the initial explosive force of the Big Bang had been a
tiny fraction less then the Universe would have collapsed in on itself in a comparatively short period of time –
certainly before stars could form. If the initial explosive force had been a tiny fraction then, again, no stars
could form. What is more, the elements making up the Big Bang had to be in such a fine balance that even
the slightest deviation would have prevented the nuclear fires that cause stars to give off heat and, therefore,
planets to have any chance of developing life. All these factors have to be incredibly balanced and the
chances of them being present in just the right balance are correspondingly astronomically small. There are
only two ways to explain this:
1. That there are an infinite number of universes and this universe just happens to be the one, out of
the infinite number that exist, where stars can form and where life can be possible. A number of
scientists take this view but this is no evidence for it in that, as Professor Stannard points out, it is
not possible to provide evidence of alternative universes other than the one we inhabit. The claim to
there being alternative universes is, then, a faith claim – it is not a scientific claim.
2. To claim that there is an intelligence that brings about the precise conditions necessary for stars,
planets and the universe itself to form to provide the conditions necessary for life. This intelligence, of
course, is the God claimed to exist by Christians, Muslims and Jews.
The situation today, therefore, is that far from God being a far fetched hypothesis put forward by religious
believers who fail to engage with science, the existence of an intelligent design for the universe is highly
persuasive and, if it is held not to be, then an alternative explanation is required which philosophy and not
science is more likely to supply.
2) Conditions necessary for life to evolve
See the discussion on Quantum Consciousness and the possibility this opens up for talk of life after death and the idea of
a soul surviving the body in ‘The Thinkers Guide to God’
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Let us say that we take a purely scientific explanation for life coming about and evolving on earth and argue
that natural selection and evolution can provide this explanation. This may well be the case, but this leaves
open wider questions which science does not address. First there is the issue of why evolution and natural
selection exists at all. If these are as effective as many claim, then why does such a sophisticated
arrangement exist at all? It is one thing to argue, as the previous section did, that the conditions needed for
the universe to form have to be incredibly precise and are thus incredibly unlikely in the absence of a guiding
intelligence, but even more unlikely (if that is possible) is the existence of the forces necessary for life to
form.
One group of scientists, under the leadership of James Lovelock, have put forward the GAIA hypothesis (the
name ‘Gaia’ comes from the Greek earth-goddess of that name) which sees the world as a single entity and
makes the extraordinary claims that Gaia herself manipulates and engineers the conditions necessary for life.
The words ‘manipulates’ and ‘engineers’ represent a quite remarkable claim. This maintains that planet earth,
Gaia herself, is engaged in planetary engineering to foster the conditions necessary for life. Clearly scientific
argument is needed to support this.
Life first appeared on Earth more than three hundred million years ago yet in this time the Earth’s climate has
changed very little. The chemical composition of the seas and the atmosphere runs quite against what we
would expect. Lovelock argues that the atmosphere is a biological construction – a living system engineered
to maintain a chosen environment. The whole is maintained at an equilibrium from which even a tiny
departure could have disastrous consequences for life. This is the reverse of randomness – the chosen
environment is maintained within very tight limits to provide the ideal conditions necessary for life and the
Gaia scientists maintain that these conditions are the result of manipulation and engineering. Instead of
Nature being seen as a primitive force that needs to be subdued, Gaia should be seen as a complex entity
involving biosphere, atmosphere, oceans and soil - a living organism, maintaining and sustaining itself.
Lovelock claims that evidence of the work of Gaia in other planets than earth would be where entropy is
reversed. Entropy is based on the second law of thermodynamic4 and sees the universe gradually moving to a
state of equilibrium where the all heat dies out and complexity declines. On earth exactly the reverse is
happening and this can only occur, according to the Gaia scientists, because planetary engineering is taking
place. James Lovelock cites a whole series of factors that provide evidence for this planetary manipulation
and engineering5.
We have no more than partial answers and do not understand the processes but there seems no doubt that
the processes are happening. Gaia is engineering the earth to maintain its suitability for life the processes it is
using are as yet barely understood, but we now know they are there. As Lovelock says:
“The keynote, then, of this argument is that just as sand-castles are almost certainly not accidental
consequences of natural but non-living processes like wind or waves, neither are the chemical changes in the
composition of the Earth’s surface and atmosphere which make the lighting of fires possible. ........how does
it help us to recognize the existence of Gaia? My answer is that where these profound disequilibria are global
in extent, like the presence of oxygen and methane in the air or wood on the ground, then we have caught a
glimpse of something global in size which is able to sustain and keep constant a highly improbable distribution
of molecules.” (p. 35)
If Lovelock and the Gaia scientists are right, then this world is not a random event. The earth, Gaia herself, is
manipulating and engineering the conditions necessary for life to emerge and to sustain and develop life once
it does emerge.
When the above two arguments are put together:
1. The sheer improbability of the precise composition of the singularity represented by the Big
Bang and
2. The Gaia hypothesis claiming that there are mechanisms at work to enable life to evolve)
then a purely scientific analysis seems to be not just inadequate, not just increasingly improbable
but simply wrong. There are processes in place that demand an explanation. What is the origin of these
processes? Why do they exist at all? Religious believers, of course, will be able to point to the activity of God
but for those who reject God it is far more difficult as there is no obvious explanation of why these forces
should be in place or even exist.
6) SCIENCE AND RELIGION - SEEKING TRUTH TOGETHER
------------------------------------------------------------------Science has increasing difficulty claiming that it is based on straightforward empirical principles. The more we
understand the nature of the universe, the stranger it is - particularly at the quantum level. When dealing
with quantum science, direct observation is impossible and theories needs to be made and projections
developed which are far from easy to prove. Indeed the nature of quantum theory is that observation
changes the states observed so the idea of disinterested observation becomes impossible.
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To defend religious claims to truth without retreating behind the NOMA principle, I would like to draw on an
early 19th century book called THE FLATLANDERS. Imagine a two dimensional world. Everyone who lived
there was in two dimensions. The were triangles and squares, pentagons, octogons, etc.. There was also a
social hierarchy - the nearest shapes came to a circle the higher up the social scale they were considered to
be. In this flatland world there was no idea of height as, obviously, height would be a third dimension and the
inhabitants of this world only knew of two dimensions. A sphere comes into this two dimensional world and,
obviously, the inhabitants of this world are unable to comprehend what it is. They are only aware of the
sphere as a single point intersecting this world - the point had no length and depth so was almost invisible.
The whole science of their world was based on two dimensions and since a point has no dimensions they were
unable to comprehend it. The point could obviously move around the two dimensional world, but no-one in
this world could understand how, nor the immensity of the sphere, represented as it was by only the point in
the two dimensional world.
Quantum theory has shown that the world in which we live is far stranger and far more complex than most of
us suppose and that far from there being only three or four dimensions, there are at least nine and perhaps
many more. Objects that appear solid are not - there are vast areas of open space within what appear to us
to be solid and impenetrable. Scientists have to use the language of paradox and contradiction to come close
to expressing the reality of the quantum world. Light is a wave but also particles but then light is neither a
wave nor is it particles. The observer affects any observation so it is impossible to have a state of affairs that
is not affected by the observation (as Schroedinger’s cat made clear).
We are like Flatlanders. Some have, over the centuries, pointed to a transcendent aspect of our two
dimensional existence. Some have claimed to experience a reality that transcends the world in which we live,
but our fellows within the two dimensional world say that they are mad or deluded. If we are going to
persuade others to take their truth claims seriously, then we have to find convincing reasons and that means
appealing to data that can best be explained by a religious dimension on life.
7) TRUTH IN THE CURRICULUM
---------------------------------------I have sought to argue here that science and religion are allies and not enemies. Both seek to show truth both contribute to that to which Aristotle aspired - a truthful understanding of the human condition and our
place in the universe. Science should not threaten religion and theology should provide explanations that
science cannot. It is not that they have non-overlapping magisterial - it is rather that scientific, psychological,
theological and philosophical explanations are required to enable us to understand both the cosmos and what
it is to be human.
We cannot understand the truth of what it is to live a fulfilled human life by studying neuroscience nor any
other form of medicine. However good our scientific explanations we will never be able to understand what it
is to live a fulfilled human life through science. This is not because of the inadequacy of our science but
because this is not the sort of explanation which science can, in principle, answer.
In our curriculum then, we should be doing all we can to foster the very best science, but we should not give
in to the closet verificationists who seek to persuade young people that scientific truth is the only truth. It is
not. Even the nature of scientific truth claims are far from clear. Scientists need increasingly to come out of
their trenches and to recognise that there is much that science cannot explain and that philosophy and
theology have roles to play in the Aristotelian search for a truthful understanding of the universe in which we
live and the nature of the human animals that we are. Theologians need to be less frightened of science and
to recognise that scientists and religious people are engaged in a joint endeavour. They are partners not
enemies.
Dr. Peter Vardy
Vice-Principal
Heythrop College
University of London
‘The Thinkers Guide to Evil’ and ‘The Thinkers Guide to God’ are published in
Australia by Mediacom, in England by John Hunt Publishing and in the United
States by O-Books.
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A Larger View
Walt Whitman
When I heard the learn’d astronomer
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
Some of his arguments are tackled in ‘The Thinkers Guide to God’ 2003 by Peter Vardy and Julie Arliss published in Australia by MediaCom.
‘Rock of Ages’ is a metaphor for God from Isaiah 26:4.
The kelvin scale begins at absolute zero and this temperature is equivalent to -273.16 degrees centigrade.
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Thermodynamics is the study of heat and temperature in relation to the mechanical power produced. The difference between heat and temperature is that
heat is a form of energy and temperature is the measure of hotness. The first law of Thermodynamics states that if an interaction occurs between two bodies,
then energy is neither created or destroyed. The heat absorbed by one body is equal to the sum of the increase in internal energy and the work done by the
body. The law also states that it is possible to convert all work into thermal change such as heat.
The second law of thermodynamics states that the reverse is not true. That is, all heat cannot be turned back into work. Energy will not be transferred from a
cooler body to a warmer one. This law was put forward by Sadi Carnot, who was trying to establish the most efficient engine possible. He observed that
although energy may be conserved during a physical change, some of the energy will be rendered unavailable for work. In developing his Carnot engine, he
calculated the upper limit of efficiency for a steam pump and proved that it was impossible to use 100% of the energy available. This became the basis for
the second law of thermodynamics.
The variable for the second law of thermodynamics is called entropy. Entropy in a mathematical sense can be defined as being equal to the energy change of
a system divided by the temperature of the system. All systems attempt to maximize their entropy. This means that they inevitably tend towards a simple
final state or equilibrium. Entropy always increases with time, but the reverse never occurs. This rule implies that decay is a universal trend in nature. In
attempting to reach their entropy, mountains and stars wear away and living organisms return to inorganic matter in death.
The essential characteristic of the universe is the one-directional passing of time. The universe is striving for its maximum entropy. Therefore, the
implication of the second law of thermodynamics is that the universe will eventually grow cold and die, much in the same way that a star eventually burns
out.
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AIR - OXYGEN
If there is less than 12% oxygen in the atmosphere then no fires could be lit. If there is more than 25% oxygen then fires would never go out – even damp
leaves will go on burning once a fire is started so the whole planet would burn. Unless oxygen is between 12 – 25% life would not be possible. Gaian
scientists argued that the planet Gaia has ‘designed’ the oxygen level to be as it is (21%) and alters the conditions necessary to sustain this. On Venus and
Mars there are only trace percentages of Oxygen – indications of worlds where Gaia does not operate. As Lovelock puts it:
“The chemical composition of the atmosphere bears no relation to the expectations of steady-state chemical equilibrium. The presence of methane, nitrous
oxide, and even nitrogen on our present oxidizing atmosphere represents violation of the rules of chemistry to be measured in tens of orders of magnitude.
Disequilibria on this scale suggest that the atmosphere is not merely a biological product, but more probably a biological construction; not living, but like a
cat’s fur, a bird’s feathers, or the paper of a wasp’s nest, an extension of a living system designed to maintain a chosen environment. Thus the atmospheric
concentration of gases such as oxygen and ammonia is found to be kept at an optimum value from which even small departures could have disastrous
consequences for life.” (James Lovelock ‘GAIA – A new look at planet earth’ p.9)
Sources of high potential, whether chemical or electrical, are dangerous. Oxygen is particularly hazardous. Our present atmosphere, with an oxygen level of
21 per cent, is at the safe upper limit for life. Even a small increase in concentration would greatly add to the danger of fires. The probability of a forest fire
being started by a lightning flash increases by 70 per cent for each 1 per cent rise in oxygen concentration above the present level. Above 25 per cent very
little of our present land vegetation could survive the raging conflagrations which would destroy tropical rain forests and arctic tundra alike. (‘Gaia: A new
look at life on earth’ p.65). What is more, this percentage has remained unchanged for hundreds of thousands of years and this is not an accident.
TEMPERATURE
The earth spins before the vast heat of the sun whose temperature has risen by 30% in 350 million years. Yet throughout this same period the overall
temperature of the Earth (in spite of ice ages in some places) has not varied by more than a few degrees and life has always been able to survive. Even the
ice ages only affected 30% of the planet. The Gaia scientists maintains that the planetary actively manages the temperature even though they are not yet
clear how this works. It could not have been a random process. If, for instance, methane had been produced to retain more heat, runaway heating would
have occurred which would have destroyed life. Darker plants absorb more heat and these may well have been present in the early days with gradual
change over the aeons to reflect more sunlight – thus regulating the temperature by reference to how much heat is absorbed.
SALT
If there is more than 6% salt in tissue, life is not possible. Even in brine pools (pools with very high salt contents) the forms of life have a watertight
membrane to keep the internal saline levels below 6%. For hundreds of millions of years rivers have poured over the land taking incredibly quantities of sale
into the sea (when this does not happen there are devastating effects as salt builds up and almost all plant life dies – as happens, for instance, in areas of
Australia where dams and irrigation schemes prevent water flowing to the sea). One would therefore have expected the level of salt in the sea to keep rising
inexorably so that life in the sea would become impossible – yet the reverse has happened. For 350 million years the percentage salt in the sea has been
3.4%. We know that salt is continually running off from rivers into the sea and being thrust up by undersea volcanoes. The percentage should have at least
doubled. It has not. So where does the salt go to? The amount of salt washed off the land every 80 million years is equal to the amount of salt in the sea now
– but the oceans have existed for well over twice as long as this. A means must exist for salt to be removed from the sea. The mechanisms that make this
happen are still unclear but Lovelock suggests the following:
1. The falling shells of tiny marine creatures act like a continual rain through the sea – these may take salt with them as they fall, just as dust is
removed from the air by rain.
2. Gaia itself may construct lagoons and ‘cordon off- parts of oceans which then dry out (thus removing huge quantities of salt).
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