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Science + Tech
Science and Faith at Odds?
by
Alister McGrath
So far, so good. Now let’s look at another question. “What is the meaning of life?” This is clearly an important question! But can science answer it? Dawkins’ answer is that science discloses no meaning to life — and therefore that
there is no meaning to life
. But is he right? Let’s look at some wise words written by Peter Medawar (1915-87), one of Oxford’s most brilliant scientists, who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on immunology. In a book published towards the end of his life entitled The Limits of Science, Medawar reflected on the question of how the scope of science was limited by the nature of reality. Emphasising that “science is incomparably the most successful enterprise human beings have ever engaged upon,” he distinguishes between questions about the organization and structure of the material universe and what he calls “transcendent” questions, which have to be answered by religion and metaphysics.
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For Medawar, as for most scientists, science cannot tell us whether there is a God. It cannot tell us why we are here (although it may have some very interesting insights about how that happened). When it comes to questions of meaning, purpose, and value, science is blind. And that is no criticism of science. It is simply about recognizing and respecting its limits. Dawkins is not typical of science at this point, as most scientists are aware of the limits of their discipline and see no problems in seeking answers elsewhere when it comes to the really big issues of life.
Dawkins’
God Delusion
was published in 2006. In that same year, some other notable books were published by leading research scientists. Owen Gingerich, professor of astronomy at Harvard, published his
God’s Universe
;
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Francis Collins, director of the famous Human Genome Project, came out with The Language of God.
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Both of these top scientists argued passionately and persuasively that their Christian faith gave them a way of making sense of the world, which resonated strongly with their scientific careers and research. It was, they argued, deeply satisfying intellectually. Now this doesn’t resonate with Dawkins’ somewhat simplistic take on things at all. But it does make the fundamental point that thinking people can be both outstanding research scientists, enjoying the respect and admiration of their peers, while believing in God.
Belief in God is not irrational, but possesses its own distinct and robust rationality. It represents a superb way of making sense of things. As C. S. Lewis so eloquently put it, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen — not only because I see it, but because by it, I see everything else.”
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To use the language of philosophy, God is the “best explanation” of the way things are. We can’t prove that God is there, any more than an atheist can prove that there is no God. But all of us, whether Christians or atheists, base our lives on at least some fundamental beliefs that we know we cannot prove. That’s just the way things are.
Against Dawkins’s exaggerations of the capacity of science, I would suggest that science concerns itself mostly with building coherent patterns of explanation, and rather little with rigorous “proof.” Very often, science has to content itself with positing the best explanation of a set of observations, rather than speaking of these observations “proving” their theories. Charles Darwin, for example, always held that his theory of evolution was the best explanation of what he observed in the natural world, but never believed that he had “proved” it was correct. It is perfectly possible to believe something is right without being able to prove it decisively — whether we are talking about science or belief in God.
This is one of the many points made in the famous essay “The Will to Believe” (1897) by the celebrated Harvard psychologist William James (1842-1910). James argued that human beings all need “working hypotheses” to make sense of our experience of the world. These “working hypotheses” often lie beyond total proof, yet are accepted and acted upon because they are found to offer reliable and satisfying standpoints from which to engage the real world. Whether the movement is religious or political, philosophical or artistic, a group of ideas or beliefs, are affirmed to be, in the first place, true and in the second place, important. Thinking people need to construct and inhabit mental worlds, from which they discern ordering and patterns within experience, and make at least some sense of its riddles and enigmas. As the philosopher Michael Polanyi (1891-1976) put it, a framework of beliefs enables us to hear a tune, where otherwise we would only hear a noise. And every worldview, every system of beliefs — whether Christian, atheist, political, or social — embeds beliefs that simply cannot be proved. We may have good reasons for believing them (in other words, they are warranted); but they are not proven. This applies to Richard Dawkins’ atheism as much as it does to my Christianity.
So why are so many scientists religious? Why is Dawkins so wrong in suggesting that all real scientists are atheists, or demanding that scientists ought to be atheists? The obvious and most intellectually satisfying explanation of this is not difficult to identity. It is well known that the natural world is conceptually malleable. It can be interpreted, without any loss of intellectual integrity, in a number of different ways. Some “read” or “interpret” nature in an atheist way. Others “read” it in a deistic way, seeing it as pointing to a creator divinity, who is no longer involved in its affairs. God winds up the clock, then leaves it to work on its own. Others take a more specifically Christian view, believing in a God who both creates and sustains. Others take a more spiritualized view, speaking more vaguely of some “life force.”
The point is simple: nature is open to many legitimate interpretations. It can be interpreted in atheist, deist, theist, and many other ways — but it does not demand to be interpreted in any of these. One can be a “real” scientist without being committed to any specific religious, spiritual, or anti-religious view of the world. This, I may add, is the view of most scientists I speak to, including those who self-define as atheists. Unlike Dawkins, they can understand perfectly well why some of their colleagues adopt a Christian view of the world. They may not agree with that approach, but they’re prepared to respect it.
EVANGELICAL WARINESS
On the other side of this issue, there is no doubt that some Christians are puzzled by the natural sciences, especially evolutionary biology. This is particularly the case for evangelicals, who often feel quite defensive about the natural sciences. Their posture partly reflects the lingering aftermath of difficult historical controversies and current concerns about tendencies within the sciences that seem to threaten the essence of the Christian gospel. Whereas Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and mainline Protestantism have often found conceptual space and theological strategies to accommodate the sciences, evangelicalism generally remains wary of them, particularly in the United States. Although many evangelicals adopt a positive attitude towards science, significant concerns about issues of biblical interpretation and reductionism remain widespread within the movement, especially at the grassroots level.
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Comments
Stanley McKeown
Do you belive that ' the dead believers will be recurrected' and with the 'believers' will fly up into the sky to meet Jesus/Immanuel/Son of God/Son of Man/Saviour etc. (or whatever title you confer) and that the 'unbelievers' will be left behind.
Yes or no.
Simple scientific question.
Simple christian question.
Simple religious question.
Comments are now closed
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