Raphael Sassower and Jeffrey Scholes⁠University of Colorado

“ Religion and science, at first glance, may seem like odd bedfellows. Very few scientific papers investigate what the afterlife looks like and very few sermons from the pulpit describe how our immune system works. Yet when scientists claim to be able to describe all of reality or advocates of religion demand a say in the writing of science textbooks, it seems that one is encroaching on, perhaps hoping to overtake the other’s discursive territory. ”

“ For purposes of this paper, we define religion in broad terms as a set of beliefs and practices oriented towards a transcendence that guides a way of life and structures a worldview. More specifically, we refer primarily to a monotheistic-religious worldview that still pervades the West, as the lion’s share of work done on the relationship between religion and science has assumed a single divine creator. ”

“ Whether it is the imagination that is necessary for theoretical physicists to hypothesize or the belief required to trust the outcome of a yet-to-bedetermined experiment, defenders of this view classify these aspects of science as reliant upon unseen, unproven things or on that which our religious nature provides. ”

“ For instance, when Albert Einstein is quoted as saying “God does not play dice with the universe,” there is no suggestion that he is speaking religiously or that he no longer speaks as a scientist. Nor is there a suggestion that the allusion to God is accidental, out of character, or improper, against one who may say either you are a scientist or a religionist, but you cannot be both! ”

“ Despite these postmodern moves, one need look no further than to recent debates over teaching Creationism in public schools to realize that debates between religion and science rage today as if lives depended on the outcome. This kind of seriousness belies the relegation of both to mere discourses in a culture that does the same with religion and sports, for example, or market forces and religious institutions. ”

“ In a separation account of religion and science, the approaches employed by each are seen to be parallel or so distinct from each other that they hardly matter to the other. While the objects of inquiry and methods to understand them are different, they do not undermine each other. In fact, they are deemed independent enough to ignore each other completely. Where science studies the physical world and employs an empirical method to understand it, religion studies transcendent or metaphysical realities and employs a faith-based methodology to discern truth (Barbour: 78) . ”

“ We all live in the same culture and as such hear the conflicting claims of religion and science: they may be separate conceptually or even in their respective approaches and practices, but their discursive pronouncements are shared in the cultural marketplace of ideas, where consumers of all walks of life encounter their differences as mutual challenges rather than unrelated sets of claims. In other words, the separation view is predicated on an ideal realm of science and an ideal realm of religion and therefore, they can be separated in an ideal world. ”

“ If religion is innate, perhaps it reveals the image of God in all of us, so some theists could say. If religion is innate because of its advantageous properties that helped humans to succeed in the “survival of the fittest,” then it is science that has provided the evidence, not the Bible or divine revelation. ”

“ Many scientists cringe at the suggestion of the limits of the scientific method which religion is often called on to surpass. If science has yet to explain all of reality, it is merely a matter of time, so many scientists argue. An undiscovered fundamental principle of physical reality or holes in an otherwise efficacious theory should never prompt one to look outside the natural world for a complement. ”

“ With the onset of Religious Studies and the creation of religion as a practical and conceptual object, categories were also established that separated (perhaps artificially so) the world into two spheres: the religious and the secular; the sacred and the profane. The political issue at stake involves these very classifications: Who determines where the sacred ends and the profane begins? What gets classified where? Who has the power to relegate one practice into this or that domain? ”

“ In the real world, scientific discourse has always already been “infected” with a religious discourse and vice-versa as both discourses are reliant upon the cultural norms and forces, specifically that which capitalism generates, to express themselves. Indeed, the postsecular perspective accounts for culture, which means that it brooks no such separation between any sets of discourses, be it religion and science or other sets. It is to alternative, interaction views that are more realistic in a postsecular world that we now turn. ”

“ With the rise of modern science occurring long after Aquinas articulated his synthesis, most often the findings of scientists, using reason to understand empirical evidence, are given tremendous authority and only when they reach limits, does religion step in to transcend these limits. For instance, astrophysicists are able to trace the history of the universe back to a Big Bang, but none have been able to explain its initial cause and as such remain silent on the subject. ”

“ This group positions religion as a more essential facet of human life than the first group in that religious expressions are less of a haphazard by-product and more of a crucial instrument that ensures the existence of humanity. ”

“ Whereas scientific claims are open to change depending on empirical evidence, religious claims endure insofar as they are based on revelations consonant with sacred texts, teachings, and experience. This is not to say that scientists cannot appeal to faith and believers cannot appeal to reason in their understandings of the world. ”

“ Any and all conceptual terms used in one discourse can be easily found in the other, regardless of variation in meaning and application. That concepts typically thought of as existing only in one domain can be appropriated in another domain is not simply a linguistic move: the interpenetration of these concepts between religion and science gestures towards epistemological relationship between the two as well. ”

“ Here, religion is displaced (Pat Robertson’s analysis aside) by science in one area while science is displaced by religion in another. Both remain intact and mutually reinforce each other without one taking all the credit for the recovery. ”

“ Agreeing that at times both discourses refer to the same aspects of reality allows for intellectual richness; agreeing that at times they refer to different parts of reality allows for a greater overall knowledge of reality as a whole; and agreeing that each has strengths over the other as well as blind spots where its respective view falls short is not an admission of failure but rather of maturity. It is for all these reasons that we find these attitudes more prevalent in contemporary cultures where science is celebrated and religion revered. ”

“ Alternatively, theistic religion offers an understanding of nature and humanity based on divine revelation and its interpretation, often expressed in sacred texts and reinforced through the beliefs and practices of particular faith traditions. Whether investigating God, the soul, miracles, morality, or immortality, religion offers descriptions and explanations of metaphysical or spiritual existence that are open to confirmation by religious authorities in particular spiritual communities, whether they be one’s own experience or that of another. ”

“ If we remain curious about multiple discourses and their potential contributions to our knowledge, and if we are willing to learn from each other without feeling threatened with damaging criticism or worse, eradication, then mutual ignorance is pointless and futile. ”

“ Early Christian theologians, drawing on issues already raised by the ancient Greek philosophers, wrestled with how faith and reason, earlier analogs of the terms religion and science used here, are to interact. Are they truly separate faculties with one putting the individual in relation to the divine and the other merely clarifying things of the fleshly, material world? ”

“ Moreover, instead of each discourse claiming to grasp reality either in conjunction or separately, the view of the innate religiousness of humanity disarms both discourses from any potential rivalry and shows a more specific way of their complementarity, though a foundational one. This variant of the relationship of religion and science also explains the fundamental motivation for and the eventual development of science over time (Fuller) . ”

“ Religious ideas are deemed historically, yet naively relevant, but fundamentally superstitious, figments of the imagination, and therefore dangerous in derailing human knowledge on its path to the truth. The danger is highlighted when religious zealots discredit scientifically proven ideas and ensure that young disciples continually mistrust science (as is the case with some extreme orthodox communities) because it will corrupt them. ”

“ Likewise, more fervent religious adherents argue for the sufficiency of faith to understand all of reality, though in the face of the authority of science, this position is difficult to maintain. Therefore, the complementarity view is typically employed by advocates of religion wishing to use the claim that science has limits to reintroduce a God/creator as a necessary supplement to what science has accomplished. ”

“ A strong variant of this view demands the complete subservience of the religious perspective on reality in the face of the emerging scientific one. Religious explanations are not simply to be supplanted, displaced, or ignored; they should not be regarded as having any value whatsoever when discussing the nature of an ordered reality, as everything that we know about reality is given by the phenomena that one observes and with which one interacts. ”

“ Scientific hypotheses are offered routinely before any empirical basis for them has been established just as scientific facts and the logic that arrived at them are needed by theologians as boundaries beyond which belief may be justified. ”

“ For example, perhaps one already assumes science has replaced religion, while another might consider religion and science equal partners. What underlies most of these attempts at constructing the relationship is an assumption about scientific materialism and biblical literalism as if they were wholly contained in their respective silos. ”

“ Drawing on the implications of these and other scientific developments, Friedrich Nietzsche’s proposal that “God is dead” in 1881 and the Logical Positivists’ claim in the 1920s that all metaphysical propositions have no role to play in the human understanding of the universe, the replacement of religion by science has moved into the wider culture by the twentieth-first century. ”

“ One, religion, however disdainful to some who are scientifically inclined, cannot be conveniently distilled out and excised from the human experience; therefore, claims of its irrational, dangerous, and especially misanthropic effects are severely undermined. ”

“ Giving full credit to the power of religious institutions that have provided comprehensive descriptions and explanations of the world for most of human history, this view relies on the history of authoritative views. For example, while it made sense to argue that God created and positioned the earth at the center of the universe and put humans in charge of his creation, more recent discoveries have superseded and replaced this view. ”

“ The scientific point of view given by those who argue that the existence of religion can be explained by evolution can be broken down into two general camps. The first group, represented most prominently by anthropologist Maurice Bloch, claims that religion is a byproduct of other brain functions that were needed to survive. In other words, religion did not develop as a needed adaptation on its own but flowed from established neural architecture that allowed for thinking about things that were not immediately present to our five senses. ”

“ If all phenomena are at a very basic level deterministic in the sense that every effect must have a cause (even if many) , it makes sense to search for natural laws that described subatomic and astronomical behavior. ”

“ Put differently, unlike the power moves displayed in the standard views, the postsecularist refuses all permanent hierarchies, acknowledging that one discourse may be more fruitful in this or that context but never is able to gain permanent ascendency. ”

“ If accepted, such descriptions and explanations serve likewise as the basis of our understanding of and, perhaps, the tools for intervention in the present and transcendent worlds. It should be noted here that unlike the scientific discourse, religious confirmation could be highly personal and subjective. ”

“ Instead, this approach is informed by cultural practices that are rhetorical and applied as well as contextualized within particular frameworks within which one can easily make a logical choice between contesting ideas and views. For example, if all medical interventions are proven futile, prayer and hope might elevate a patient’s spirit and induce an improvement in the immune system that may lead to partial or full recovery. ”

“ Two, if it is primarily evolutionary biologists that are providing the data that demonstrate this view, traditional ways of explaining and/or justifying religious belief and practice are similarly undermined. ”