Note - I write a column for the Shelbyville, Kentucky newspaper, the Sentinel-News, every other Friday. On June 3rd, the Sentinel began publication of a series of columns about belief and unbelief, written by myself and a member of our community, who is an atheist. I thought it would be an interesting conversation and I appreciate the Sentinel-News and my co-author for participating. For the privacy of the other person I am not including their name in the columns as I publish them each week on this site. Even though the person has publicly agreed to have them published in the Sentinel-News, I am not assuming they want their columns or name published on this site.
Tell me one last thing, said Harry. Is
this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?
Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry,
but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?
From Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Cogito, ergo sum, (I think, therefore I am)
René Descartes
Several years ago
I read the book God, The Failed
Hypothesis, by the late Victor Stenger. Stenger, who struck me as a second
or third tier writer among the new atheists, was fond of offering the saying
that absence of evidence is evidence of
absence. I imagine he was very proud of that phrase and felt it was quite
the demolishing argument against faith and anything in the realm of religious
spirituality, but it made the mistake of assuming that science is the sole
arbiter of reality as well as missing the point of what constitutes evidence. Claiming,
for instance, that absence of evidence is
evidence of absence, actually says more about the limitations of science
and the scientific method than it does of faith. Applying science to faith is a
bit like taking a Rembrandt painting into a lab to determine why it is a great
piece of art. Some concepts are far too abstract for science, and a lab is not
the place for dealing with abstractions.
The question of
evidence is very much tied into an understanding of the nature of reality, and
philosophers help us to understand that reality can be a tricky substance to
nail down. While Descartes’ famous declaration might prove that we are sentient
and therefore existent beings tied to reality, any confidence in our perception
of reality, and therefore evidence, might well be mistaken. Our minds, which
are the filters through which we perceive reality, can be quite the deceptive
creatures. In fact, just because something is perceived by our minds as reality
does not mean it can be trusted to be reality, so can we trust our minds to
tell us what is true, even when supported by science?
In this column, as
Ms. Allewalt and I deal with the relationship of faith and science, I would
posit the claim that the two are not mutually exclusive, as is often asserted
by those on the side of atheism. While they are not exclusive, however, they
are different. Science, by its very nature, is materialistic in its approach;
that is, it deals with the senses, the things that can be seen, touched, and
measured in a concrete, material way (known as scientific, or materialistic,
reductionism). Because science begins with a demand for empirical proof, it can
be understood why some might believe it is incompatible with faith. Practicing
the scientific method is often viewed as meaning one must think exclusively as
an empiricist, thus rendering faith and science about as compatible as oil and
water. Faith, however, while not rejecting empiricism, reminds us of the need
for something deeper, because faith affirms that the universe and life are more
than what we find in the material and it recognizes a deeper layer to all of
existence, a layer that does not fit under the microscope of science.
Both faith and
science ask many questions, but they are different questions, and they are
questions that, taken together, provide a more complete picture of life and the
universe. Science is a study in the how,
while faith offers an explanation in the why.
Science can answer the how, but not
the why, at least not on a
philosophical or spiritual level. Science seeks to understand the principles
that guide the operation of our universe, while faith seeks to understand our
place within that universe and the broader questions of meaning and purpose. Religion,
for its part, does not function on blind
faith, as it is often accused, but recognizes that there is more to life
and our universe than a materialistic reductionism. This does not mean there is
a problem with either religion or science; it simply means they operate in two
very different realms, but taken together can give us a greater sense of the
whole of all things.
The crude and
offensive stereotype of religion as a relic of a pre-scientific age
notwithstanding, faith and science have long gone hand in hand. I am obviously
well aware of the Catholic Church and Galileo and the misguided proclamations
of religious fundamentalists about science, but those are not representative at
all of the ways in which faith and science have often worked hand in hand. For
many believers, such as Francis Collins (Director of the National Institutes of
Health and former Director of the Human Genome Project), scientific work
becomes an expression of faith. For believers such as Collins, religion is not
anti-science and science is not anti-religion. Science is a tool, and one that
can function just as well when utilized by people of faith. It is only those
out to advance their own ideologies either against faith or in support of a
fundamentalist faith that would make such a claim to the contrary.
Even in the realm
of scientific reductionism, however, we find that no one reduces life simply to
the level of what can be tested in a laboratory. Everyone recognizes that life
is much more than the sum of its physical parts; it also includes the
metaphysical components, and the ultimate evidence of this is our recognition
of the existence of love. To me, the ultimate evidence of transcendence, and
thus faith, is that of love. In a universe built upon scientific reductionism
love cannot exist, because love cannot be reduced to such a level. Love is a
transcendent quality, something that takes place in the brain but possesses a
quality that takes us into the realm beyond, into the spiritual. Otherwise,
what we call love would amount to little more than a feeling of pleasure
generated by some chemicals in the brain and neural activity or, perhaps,
biological determinism. Love is a transcendent, spiritual quality, and it is
one that points to something equally transcendent that is the underlying force
of our universe, and I believe that is God.
No comments:
Post a Comment