Rector’s Reflections
Wednesday 24th July 2024
Does there need to be a conflict between Science and Christianity?
We have seen that one of the reasons why people can have different views on the relationship between Science and Christianity is because people hold different views on the nature of Science, whether considered as an area of study or as a distinct methodology. Another reason is that people have different views on how God relates to the physical world. I am using the phrase “the physical world” as a shorthand to describe the world all around us, from the tiniest subatomic particle to the Universe as a whole. The “physical world” in this sense includes ourselves as human beings.
One view is that God is absent from the physical world. Some might say that God is responsible for getting the whole thing started in the first place, or for drawing up the plans. But once the physical world has come into being, God stands on the sideline and doesn’t get involved. In this theory, God is outside the physical world. If we assume that Scientists limit their attention to the study of the physical world, the concept of God is therefore irrelevant to the work of Science. God doesn’t get involved in the physical world, and so Scientists don’t have to bother about Him. The flip side of this is that it also means that Theologians do not have to bother about Science , as according to this approach, Science and Theology inhabit separate spheres. If Scientists and Theologians keep to their separate disciplines, there is no need for any conflict to arise. However, conflict can arise if Scientists trespass into the territory of the Theologians, and if Theologians trespass into the territory of the Scientists.
But is there really a fixed and insurmountable wall between the physical world studied by Scientists, and the world of God, studied by Theologians? Some would argue that while this wall exists, there are times and places where it breaks down, and therefore it is both permissible and useful for Scientists and Theologians to clamber over it and explore each other’s territory. In other words, generally Scientists stick to the physical world and Theologians stick to writing about God. But there are sometimes occasions when Scientists and Theologians can usefully speak to one another, and even work together. For example, what does it mean for an organism to be “alive” or “dead”? When does “life” begin? Is it helpful to describe an unexpected and apparently inexplicable event as a “miracle”? Are there events and areas of activity which traditional Science cannot explain? Can a belief in God provide a satisfactory explanation for something which Science cannot explain? This approach is sometimes called the “God of the Gaps”: consideration of God is usually completely irrelevant when it comes to understanding the physical world, but there are “gaps” in our Scientific understanding, and in these situations, we can usefully bring in the Theologians to help us to understand what might be going on.
But there are also those who would argue that the wall between God and the physical world is so permeable as to be practically non-existent. In other words, God is at work in the physical world, and that what Scientists do is to explore and describe what God is up to in God’s world. Scientists use Scientific language, and Theologians use Theological language, but they’re talking about the same things. This is an interesting and fruitful approach, but it can be rather controversial. Many a Scientist would be bemused or annoyed to be told that they are basically doing Theology. Similarly, many a Theologian would say that this reduces the study of God to the study of God’s world, and turns Theologians into would-be Scientists.
The idea that God is at work in the physical world is sometimes called “Natural Theology”. It is based on the theory that God has two “books” of revelation: the Book of the Bible and the Book of Nature. Natural Theology has fallen out of favour over the last century or so, but there has been a bit of a revival in recent years. However, Natural Theology remains largely marginal to the majority of Christian Theology – which, in my opinion, is a great pity. Why is it marginal? For two main reasons. Most non-Scientists have very little understanding of the nature of Science, and many perhaps most people who do Theology have come from an Arts rather than a Science background. The other reason is that Natural Theology challenges the fundamental principles of contemporary Theology as it is practiced in Church and academic circles: in the Protestant tradition, Theology is basically seen as study of the Bible and in the Roman Catholic Church, Theology is basically the study of the authority of the Church. If Protestants and Catholics were to embrace the potential of Natural Theology, they have would have to let the Scientists into their closed worlds. This would challenge existing power structures within the Church and the academic world. It would unsettle existing hierarchies, and it might also undermine some of the assumptions underlying theological systems based on the authority of the Bible or the authority of the Church.
The mention of the authority of the Bible introduces a third reason why people can have different views on the relationship between Science and Christianity. We shall look at this in tomorrow’s reflections.