SCIENCE AND RELIGION

The modern scientific psyche in its quest for answers finds its archetype in the Royal Society. Founded in 1660, the Society met regularly to witness experiments and discuss scientific topics, publishing the fruit of their inquiries to much acclaim. An example is Robert Hooke’s ‛Micrographia’ a wonderfully illustrated book that combines observations of the natural world with methods of their investigation. The pattern is one upon which today’s academic establishments have built and defined themselves.

The Royal Society was born in an era scarred by the turmoil of the English Civil War (1642–1651) – and so the Society’s motto Nullius in verba is fitting for the age. The Society’s website explains:

‛Nullius in verba’ roughly translates as ‛take nobody’s word for it’. It is an expression of the determination of Fellows [of the Royal Society] to withstand the domination of authority and to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment.

It is a spirit of inquiry still strong in the elite universities of Oxford and Cambridge which, with similar indifference to rank and hierarchy, have set their course to advance the frontiers of science. Boundaries and limits are those areas in which research is most concentrated. The impenetrable and difficult terrain of the undiscovered country are where the answers lie. (At one time both Cambridge and Oxford were explicitly Christian schools, but religion has long since been replaced as the engine of discovery.)

The scientist may believe he will ultimately come to the truth, but he cannot have faith that his theory is the best explanation. Authority alone is not a sufficient basis for certainty; the truth must be determined by experiment. And to uncover the facts the scientist must exercise doubt – for doubt is the driving force.

Richard Feynman, the Nobel Prize winning physicist, explains:

I believe, although I have no direct statistics, that more than half of the scientists do not believe in their father’s God. . . . Why? . . . There are two sources of difficulty that the young man [the scientist] . . . would have, I think, when he studies science. The first is that he learns to doubt, that it is necessary to doubt, that it is valuable to doubt. So he begins to question everything. The question that might have been before, ‛Is there a God or isn’t there a God?’ changes to the question ‛How sure am I that there is a God?’

Feynman further points out that the second source of difficulty for the scientist arises out of the conflict between facts that he learns from science and the explanations offered by revealed religion.

From the scientist’s position of doubt, and the contemplation of all that modern science has proven to be true the size and age of the universe, the nature and development of life on earth, and the ephemeral nature of the tiny atoms of which it is all made the God of his father’s church ‘isn’t big enough’.

For the religious, the journey begins from the opposite end of the spectrum – the standpoint of certainty.

‘He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him’ (Heb.11:6; KJV). Once this fundamental truth is grasped that God is good and trustworthy the Christian advances in knowledge of the Creator and His plan. This type of faith is unfathomable to pure Science, which maintains it is heresy to hold onto adamant certainty in the face of conflicting material evidence. – Selected

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2016 ukbiblestudents.co.uk

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