Science and Religion Face to Face: Complementary or Opposing? Or Neither?

In the search of knowledge, there seems to be two basic approaches to the existence: science and religion. Almost everyone has a view for these two concepts; however, science-religion conflict is a sensitive issue to have certain and stable point of view. In other words, people should not be fast to have assured judgments to evaluate science from the standpoint of religion or vice versa. Otherwise, it is a matter of time for a believer as well as for a scientist to become a bigot. Accordingly, being prejudiced definitely obstructs people on their way for reliable knowledge. To avoid this, a broad analysis by considering the distinctive domain and historical process of science and that of religion is a must.

First of all, even though religion and science are claimed to have the same focus but different perspectives, their divergence lays in a deeper truth; that is, they even do not aim attention at exactly the same issues. It means their domains exclude each other. While science is interested in objects which it can define, observe and theorize precisely, religion values the “subject”, which it can reach through completely different methods from that of science. Actually, different kinds of knowledge should be defined to get beneath the surface in this differentiation. First, there is data which we can obtain with our sensations. These data are obtained through experiments and observations from the physical world. This knowledge is falsifiable, objective and open to change. To illustrate, gravitation law is observable and measurable by everyone, and prone to change when it contradicts with other strong evidences. Skepticism is a tool to reach this kind of data, and there is not an ultimate theory that can become a dogma.

The second kind of knowledge is the one that is obtained through personal experiences. For instance, people can perceive colors only by looking at and directly experiencing them. It is not proper to define colors between certain wavelengths for gaining this second kind of knowledge. Wavelengths are not the experiences, they are definitions. In the same way, time can be measured by devices, though what devices measure does not directly correspond to mankind’s sense of time. Science takes the first kind of knowledge as a basis, and develops methodologies to gather this kind of information. Science is skeptic and agnostic where it faces with questions that are not explainable by its methods. There is a concept called “Occam’s razor”, which is a tool to choose the simplest hypothesis to explain an event. Because the simplest hypothesis is the one which is formed by using sensations, science does not deal with the further. The further is the cut part by Occam’s razor and cannot be known. In the explanation of natural events, God’s hand is a meaningless and unnecessary claim to accept for science. This is not testable and falsifiable. There is a “demarcation” between the religious dogmas and scientific attitude. Nevertheless, science’s rejection of spirit, the inner existence of the objects, is criticized by mystics. They claim there are different methods to reach the knowledge of spirit: meditations (which can be extended as alternative ways for worshipping).

Their claim can be categorized in the second type of knowledge. One of the people who criticizes science’s attitude is a spiritual leader named Osho. He (2009) explains that:
The conflict appears from the fact that the scientist does not believe that there is anything inner. His whole training and education makes him trust only objects which he can observe, analyze. His mind is object-oriented, and subjectivity is not an object. Because of this prejudice, he gets confused. And this prejudice can disappear very simply, if he hypothetically accepts that if there are things outside, it is scientific to accept that there must be things which are inner, because in existence, everything is polarized by its opposite. The outer can exist only if there is an inner. Denying the inner is an unscientific attitude.

Some may claim that religion sometimes interferes in the region of science, that is, it has assertions about the physical world. For example, some sacred texts claim that the Earth is at the center of the universe. Indeed, it does not really conflicts with science, because there is a considerable amount of people who argue that the meaning of the sacred texts do not lay on the surface. It may have abstract and metaphoric meanings for the people who are able to read between the lines. Sure, science carries on its debates with the ones who literally mean that the Earth is at the center of the universe (it will be mentioned in detail in the next parts of the essay). In addition, in this issue of conflict, Good (2005) argues that “science deals with the natural world and religion with the supernatural, and because these domains do not overlap, so the argument goes, there is really no conflict (p. 30). All these debates result from the fact that there is a clear distinction between religion and science’s meaning of existence. They both talk about different existences. Indeed, no theory can be judged with the criteria of another theory absolutely; therefore, trying to refute the existence of god by scientific attitudes is an ineffective act. Similarly, trying to prove God by using the methods of science is a totally meaningless behavior. Nevertheless, in their fight against the rejection of the creation by science, creationists have come up with an idea called intelligent design.

Stenger (2007) holds that the proponents of intelligent design proclaim that the complex design in nature can be scientifically shown, but this can be proved that this complexity cannot have arisen only by evolution (p. 54). Advocates of intelligent design say that when we look at the specific forms in the nature, their construction and behavior is extremely (irreducibly) complex. Therefore, they cannot only be a simple result of evolution. They also say that evolution does not exactly prove that God does not exist, God might have created the world and the mechanisms, and because God manipulates the nature, religionists do not have to reject scientific knowledge to support their assertions. The basic problem with this intelligent design theory is that science is not interested in the phenomena which it cannot observe or prove to exist. Science should not have an aim to prove that God exists or does not exist, this can cause bias. This is simply not their business, they are agnostic about this. Therefore, theory of intelligent design is not an expansion of religion into science; this is merely another kind of religious attitude. Science’s and religion’s domains still stay exclusive. By the same token, there are people who claim that there is a ‘coded’ hidden message in the sacred texts and this is possible to decode them by using scientific knowledge. While science uses skepticism as a tool to reach knowledge, religion aims God as an end. The misuse of both of these tools and ends results in the corruption of religion as well as of science. It is important to evaluate science and religion without any bias with sympathy toward any of them and again it is crucial to analyze them in their own reality. At this point, a good scientist can also be a believer, as far as he/she successfully concerns the distinction between his/her two distinct identities, being conscious about the characteristics of the different types of knowledge.

Secondly, the historical process of science and religion should be taken into consideration to comprehend their relation. When their chronologies are considered, it can be seen that they were integrated at first, and then they depart from each other with the enlightenment and French revolution. First, the relation of science and religion can be analyzed beginning with the middle ages. In these ages, science and religion were integrated. The compulsion of the churches was excessive in Europe and it held back the development of science apart from religion. Alchemy and witchcraft were popular, thus a few people believed in the power of these mystical traditions. Sexton (2008) states that “the legend of alchemy traces back almost 1500 years ago to Egyptian Arabs who swore by its mystical form of chemistry that promised to turn base metals into gold” (para. 1). What the alchemists were doing was a premature form of the science of chemistry, by adding some mysticism into this act. Alchemists were actually using scientific methods to create usable elixirs for people; they were experimenting and observing the effects of their work. It was supernatural for the audiences of the alchemist because he was adorning his work with the mysterious practices under the name of magical ceremony. Desjardin (2008) says that alchemists were using elements that is useful for human health and is not known by the traditional science until that age (para. 2). By the 14th and 15th century, the effects of Renaissance were obvious that intellectuals started to reject the oppression of churches. It was not a thorough deny of god, though it was a groundwork for the emergence of the Enlightenment. Copernicus lived in these ages and discovered significant truths about the world and the universe. He found out that Earth is not at the center of the universe, but only a planet orbiting around the Sun. His idea contradicted with the Bible saying that Jesus was sent to the center of the universe. Boisvert (2008) holds that this put humanity in an inferior and a less valuable position in the cosmos (p. 27). The belief that there is nothing special with the creation of world could had annoyed the religionists. Because he was afraid of the reaction of the church, he did not explain his discoveries until the last years of his life. In 16th and 17th century, a very important figure for the history of science was Galileo. He made influential studies by inventing telescope and he developed Copernicus’s works by developing a sun-centered theory. Because Galileo’s discoveries conflicted with the doctrines of Roman-Catholic church, he was sentenced to life-long imprisonment. This shows that despite of the emergence of Renaissance, it was not sufficient for science to announce its freedom depart from the religious thinking. By the 18th century, scientific revolution began to show its face; intellectuals began to value on rationalism and critical thinking as a result of the Enlightenment. Churches lost their power over public after the spread of scientific thinking all around the Europe. Enlightenment thinkers determined the basic scientific methodologies and started to develop theories to explain the natural events and existence.

By the flourish of scientific thinking, religion was forced to change and step back due to the obvious eligibility of science in explaining the outer world. For example, religionists stopped asserting their fallacies about astronomy and accepted the scientific findings of astronomy. It was not an immediate reform of religion, but it started a process that changes people’s comprehension of world, and also that of religion. As a result of critical thinking, Enlightenment intellectuals began to question the taken-for-granted information, customs and thinking styles. In this course of enlightening, French Revolution deeply impacted this ongoing process. All the ideas of the Enlightenment thinkers reached to public. Furthermore, freedom and rationalism became the most meritorious values. Roman-Catholic church lost its respect in public as the rationalist writer’s ideas became widely spread over the Europe. Actually, the prominent milestone of the scientific revolution is Darwin’s theory of evolution. An obvious conflict that cannot be denied emerged between religions and science. This theory was supported by so strong evidences that, the idea of evolution deeply affected nearly all scientific disciplines, including the disciplines that gain science status in 20th century such as psychology and sociology. Darwin’s theory basically argues that species evolve in long processes, and they might undergo a pattern of mutation that will cause them to differentiate from their origins. When they undergo this pattern, they may become compatible with their nature or fail to adapt. “Survival of the fittest” argument holds that only the ones who were able to adapt their new environments stay alive. The rest is eliminated by the mechanism of the natural selection. Indeed, Good (2005) says that Darwin started his researches as a believer and concluded in a total agnosticism (pp. 11-12). Darwin holds that human species whose origin comes from ape-like primates is just a part of evolution chain. Evolution theory suggests a thoroughly new way of explaining the existence and natural events. His philosopher contemporaries were, too, highly influenced by Darwin. In this fast change of mentality by the great impact of Darwinism; Nietzsche states his famous aphorism “God is dead”. Some experts attribute Nietzsche’s aphorism to the fact that Judeo-Christian morality can hardly find supporters who reject the light of science. Darwin’s theory has carried on influencing scientists from different disciplines till the present. In the 20th century, science has flourished and technology developed so fast that it cannot be compared to other centuries. In the beginning of the 20th century, a theory which shakes the basic principles of science has been developed: Quantum theory. Quantum theory observed that it is not possible to say exactly when or in what ways an atomic particle is going to alter its quantum form. That is, science is able to define no causal relation in the explanation of these particles’ behavior.

This observation struggled materialistic determinism which asserts that causal relations are the basis for every natural phenomenon. Paul Dirac says that “Questions about what decides whether the photon is to go through … or not and how it changes its direction … cannot be investigated by experiment and should be regarded as outside the domain of science” (as cited in Ward, 2008, p. 261). It means there is something outside the region of science who can only indirectly observe the acts of photons. In other words, their behaviors cannot be explained by causal relations. The behavior of photons can be mathematically calculated by probability theories. In the dimension of timelessness (in which believers claim that the God exists), no causal relations can be defined. This brings a question to the minds: is there a free will, or spirit, behind the behaviors of these natural events that is discovered by the help of Quantum theory? If merely the probabilities of their actions can be estimated, then can its actual cause be a divine spirit? These questions still have not been answered; however, at this point, some experts proclaim that the discovery of Quantum theory may create a common dimension both for religion and science. Quantum theory might be the only scientific theory which leaves an open door for religion to step in. In addition to physics, new scientific disciplines announced their independency from philosophy: psychology and sociology. Modern psychology has lots of research which prove that human sensations are not much reliable and can simply be deceived. There has been a general decrease in people’s trust in their perception and sensations. As a result of this decrease, a considerable amount of people started to believe that science cannot take us to the reliable knowledge because it only uses senses and experiments to reach it. While new-age religions have emerged due to the findings of science, old religious attitudes reformed because they were influenced by the strong evidences that science prove to exist about the realities of existence. Moreover, as sociologists study on the dynamics of societies, they found out that religion is an institution playing a significant role in the structure of society, its traditions and values. This decreased the trust in God because certain people who study sociology were able to see that religion is sometimes only a tool for the powerful to rule the society. All these mean that there has been a great interaction between religion and science beginning from the middle ages to the present. This interaction was an inspiration both for science and religion. To see how this inspiration has worked and define what really science and religion are, their chronological process should be definitely taken into consideration.

All in all, religion and science have been complementary as well as opposing to each other for centuries. Comprehension of their domains and historical processes is important, but what’s more important is to get rid of the prejudice when we want to learn what they really are. With bias in his/her mind and without an understanding of the difference between science and religion’s domains and their chronological interaction, a person can be neither a good scientist nor a true believer.

Please comment for further discussion. Thank you!