At the end of November last year I wrote this paper for a writing class at Gutenberg College. I figured I could put it up on the site, in case anyone reads this, so some discussion can start happening. The goal was to write the paper and sound like C.S. Lewis by using his style. Anyway... here it is.
Is There a War Between Science and Religion?
In his paper The New War Between Science and Religion, Professor Singham maintains the following positions: (1) That there are two camps in a new intellectual war, one being true scientists who reject all things religious and the other called accommodationists who seek to find common ground between the Scientific worldview and religious worldviews; (2) that these two worldviews -- science and religion -- are completely incompatible; (3) that religion holds no mysteries that science will not eventually be able to solve; and therefore(4) that science will eventually discover everything there is to know about reality and therefore win the war; (5) that no beliefs should be exempt from scrutiny simply because many people have held them for a long time; and (6) that if religion does allow itself to be scrutinized it will be shown for the charlatan it is. In conclusion Professor Singham sees a new war beginning in which science stands on one front and everyone else who does not whole heartedly accept his science stands on the other, and his side has all of the weapons. All that is left for those opposing him is to wave their white flags and surrender to his side. While there may be a few points where Professor Singham and I agree, I must disagree with his assessment.
My disagreement with Professor Singham begins, I am afraid, at the threshold. I do not think that this war between ideas is anything new. There have been many attempts throughout history to reconcile two seemingly incompatible worldviews, especially within the areas of science and religion. The question of whether a religious person, especially a Christian, could hold Darwinian Evolution and Biblical Christianity to be true at the same time is quite old.
I do think that he does quite well to point out the obvious. He is correct in seeing that his view of science and Christian religion cannot mix and there are two worldviews that must do battle, however he fails to see where the real lines lie. He seems to believe that there is science and then there is everyone else. This is not accurate. The situation seems more complicated than a line drawn in the sand and two sides. There seems to me to be two lines drawn, with a buffer zone in between the two sides, inside which can be found all sorts of adulterations. This is where the accommodationists would fit in; they are not either side, but somewhere in the middle attempting to reconcile the two systems. The two lines run forever in parallel, never meeting, but at times drawing closer together and at other drawing farther apart.
Differing from Professor Singham about where the lines are drawn, I naturally cannot agree with him, when he claims that religion holds nothing that cannot be accessed by science. This is a point on which the two lines are most diametrically opposed to each other. To Professor Singham the world can be explained by the sciences. All events that have happened and will happen all occur according to the sciences. If one wishes to know about anything all one need do is apply the scientific method. This view has been called many things, he identifies it as “new atheism”, I will also refer to it as naturalism. Naturalism is a belief that all events have natural physical causes. The opposite view is that there are things that occur in this world that science alone cannot account for or explain. When these events happen we search for the cause not in the natural realm but in a supernatural realm.
An example of a place where the two views would differ is the virgin birth of Jesus. The naturalists would dismiss the claim that Mary conceived without a male spermatozoon. However, a Christian would take the birth of Jesus without a physical father as a fact and then look for a cause that could explain how such a thing could occur, namely in this instance the supernatural working of God. The naturalists are blind from the start and the Christian worldview is willing to consider the possibility of supernatural intervention. This is a point on which Professor Singham makes a grave mistake by claiming that
the powerful appeal of religion comes precisely from its claims that the deity intervenes in the physical world, in response to prayers and such, religious claims, too, fall well within the domain of science. The only deity that science can say nothing about is a deity who does nothing at all. Singham
Singham is wrong. Claims of religion do not fall within the realm of science, because religious events are those particular events which science cannot comprehend. Science works to make laws and rules by which it explains the world. C.S. Lewis explains and says
the laws of Nature [to a naturalist] are really like two and two making four. The idea of their being altered is as absurd as the idea of altering the laws of arithmetic. 73
If the world works like mathematics then everything is as the naturalists say, however, Lewis goes on and asks
Suppose you put sixpence into a drawer today, and sixpence into the same drawer tomorrow. Do the laws of arithmetic make it certain you’ll find a shillings’s worth there the day after? 73
The answer is that of course there will be a shilling there as long as no one has tampered with the drawer, which is the very point a Christian makes. The laws of nature that the naturalist holds in such high regards “all tell you what will happen provided there’s no interference” (73).
It can be argued that science can know about supposed super natural events because one can observe and record the events, but this is a shallow argument. Those who have recorded such events in the past have not been known as great scientists, for science is not concerned with such anomalies. No those who record such events are better named philosophers and historians, not scientists.
Professor Singham’s final points are that beliefs must allow scrutiny and that religion if it under goes such scrutiny would be revealed to be shallow and fake. I would agree with him on the first point. All beliefs should be up for scrutiny, both scientific and religious. I do not shun scrutiny but use it to temper my beliefs. I do disagree with his assertion that religion cannot weather the scrutiny. The problem with the war between the two worldviews is that neither one can easily talk to the other. Each has different initial assumptions about how the world works and both sides often each have separate meanings for their words also. To truly scrutinize each other they must meet on the field and square off, however this seems very unlikely.
In the end it seems that both sides will continually remain safe in their bunkers, popping their heads up long enough to throw jeers and insults at the other side, but never actually fighting. For real war to happen true scrutiny must take place. Each side must be willing to advance and meet for combat. Each side must be equipped and ready to combat each other and not talk past each other with their talking points. Each side must be ready and willing to admit when an injury has taken place. No one likes a black knight who does not admit defeat even when he is missing all of his limbs. A war is not about winning every single battle, however to have a successful campaign you must be will to go out and take hits and learn from them. If this can be done than both sides would be better off. It is a war; we should really begin to treat it like one again. One should pick a side and fight for it as long as it makes sense to do so. Do not stay in the middle between the two forces, unless you want to be torn apart by both sides.
