Science and Religion: Conflict and Triumph (Wk8)
The idea of a conflict between the two begins in the C19 with the works of Draper
and White. Draper emphasised the incompatibility of Catholicism and science while
White was interested in the warfare between science and theology, which he saw as
the fault of dogmatic religion. He collected evidence of the interference of religion in
science and saw direct evidence of this in both science and religion. White was
president of Cornell University and saw the university as an “asylum for science”
with no religious element to selection or to the general culture. The introduction of
Darwin’s Origin of Species led to greater divisions between science and religion. But
the idea of an absolute split between the two is exaggerated. Many books maintained
the idea of a harmony between the two, supporting a C17 rationale of the relationship
between science and religion. Many authors however had vested interests in wanting
to prove the compatibility between science and religion, consequently care was, and
is, needed in choosing between the two arguments in order to avoid polarisation.
C17 scientists were deeply religious. Robert Boyle was a born again Christian who
saw science as integral to religion. He compared scientists to priests, seeing both as
searching for evidence of God and science as linked to, if not inspired by, religion.
The vast majority of people maintained a conviction in the absolute power of God.
Mechanical philosophy was based on the need for an intelligent power and the limits
to human knowledge were linked to a distinctly theological outlook. The presumption
was that humans strive to know everything. This profound religious commitment was
bounded by the distinction between natural philosophy and religion, Boyle going so
far as to separate his books into two separate groups, writing as a philosopher, and not
a Christian, in his philosophy books in an attempt to demarcate separate spheres.
Bacon was concerned over the possible corruption of the study of nature by confusion
with the study of theology and the dangers within this to both fields. Galileo saw the
Bible as an unreliable source for many physical matters. He regarded physics as an
appropriate means of interpreting the Bible, in effect subordinating the Bible to
science, while hoping to maintain the two as separate. Thomas Spratt (historian of the
Royal Society regarded experiments as purely empirical and so having no need for a
religious element. His latitudinarian attitude was in line with much of the thinking of
the time as to nature and the range and wonder of Gods works. The segregation of
religion and science was necessary for the harmony of the two. This was not an antireligious attitude but the increasing segregation led to an increased opportunity for
science to develop along a separate route.
This idea of harmony was mainly in evidence in the late C17, but there was an
increasing sense that some incompatibility remained. It was this that influenced
scientific attitudes, in that it tempered ideas through fear that they might be
considered as irreligious and led to concern with respect to the comments of others.
Boyle considered himself a “naturalist without being an atheist” and saw no conflict
between science and religion. These ideas had their foundation in the works of
Epicurus and Lucretius who had a mechanical view of the World in which gods
played no part. The failure of Gassendi to successfully rehabilitate the atomism of
Epicurus was also a failure to separate the moral elements of religion. Similarly
Pomponazzi failed to remove the religious element with regard to how
Aristotelianism was perceived. Was nature self-sustaining as he and Aristotle had
suggested or was there a need to invoke the hand of God. The question was whether
nature was a system that ran itself? This idea was attacked by Boyle who saw a need
to argue for a role for God. Hobbes Leviathan (1651) was seen as a cynical view of
society and associated with the mechanical view of nature. This led to an inevitable
conflict between Hobbes and Boyle who wanted to represent the idea of both the
church and science and who’s subsequent attacks on Hobbes were on purely religious
grounds in the hope of containing Hobbes influence on others. Hobbes cynical view
followed in the tradition of Machiavelli. The origins of modern atheism have more to
do with politics than science in that the challenge to religion is from a social rather
than a scientific perspective.
The growth of educated scepticism, with science playing a positive role in religion,
was a true belief rather than a ploy to gain acceptance. It saw the movement of
science from defensive to offensive with regard to the attitudes between science and
religion, with science able to contribute to the theistic consensus with the idea that the
evidence of nature was irresistible with respect to the idea of an intelligent creator.
Bentley made use of science to show the influence of God in Newton’s Principia and
the use of the concept of force – as both quantifiable, non-mechanical and above the
mechanical ideas of the universe – as divine. Similar arguments were proposed by
William Derham with regard to the physiology of plants and animals. John Ray wrote
one of the most popular science books of the period in which he argued that the deity
was obvious in the function of all thins and in their inter-relationship in the universe.
These ideas have considerable staying power and are prevalent today. C18 scientific
studies related to religion made people more religious by showing them the wonder of
nature and therefore the wonder of God. Science was religions best support by
promoting the idea of harmony. Both Boyle and Ray saw complete compatibility
between science and religion. Where then did the growth of atheism come from and
what was the relationship between science and religion in places other than England?