The relationships between the proponents of science and faith as the preferred means of ascertaining fundamental truths have often been unquiet. This is not surprising given the diverse starting points of the two camps, but perceptions have not always been cast in terms of polar opposites. The debate has gone on for centuries, but with particular intensity since the days of Darwin and has been amplified by certain personality types. But within this rather testing relationship considerable opportunities exist to identify, if not always common ground, then common uncertainties and possibilities for mutual enrichment and depth of insight.
Here I shall attempt to draw some parallels between scientific and faith based approaches on important issues and bring out some essential, but possibly overlooked, similarities in as yet unresolved or problematic areas. In describing a particular tension, ambiguity or dilemma in the realm of either science or faith, I am not attempting to deduce a conclusion or necessary consequence for the other, but rather am looking for corresponding circumstances.
In modern times every new generation needs to reconsider this important relationship and find out how they may live thoughtfully and with meaning. And in seeking to do this with open minds, they should not disregard the wisdom of foregoing generations that has sustained western society for centuries.
In these days of challenge, confrontation and the pursuit of self interest and gratification, when people have often become the servants of their theories and the tools of their tools, the decisive question remains: "In what way is humankind related to the cosmos?" For human beings cannot escape mortality, nor can we avoid the ineffable in a life unaware of that which is beyond.
There has rightly been condemnation of the needless aggression that has now become common in the broadcast media and in articles and debates. Many public statements seem to be on what issues divide science and faith - or what is seen to be divisive - rather than on what could be useful and potentially revealing interactions between them and what may indeed be mutually supportive contributions - as if a common purpose was undesirable.
In science as a whole, when there is an apparent conflict in the currently understood laws of physics – such as that which presently exists between quantum mechanics in the realm of the extremely small and general relativity in the realm of the very large – this is taken to mean the failure to grasp a deeper truth.
This may also be the case when the tenets of faith and the propositions of science appear, at a point in time, to be irreconcilable. Sometimes, as theories are superseded or received texts are understood in a modern context, the tension will be lessened. All is far from being settled: "Judge not the play before the play be done" (Davies). And reconciliation can also be a matter of perspective as well as time.
Take as an extreme example the question of miracles. If a miracle is claimed, is this to be considered as an affront to science (as presently understood) or should it be seen as a possible instance of science yet to come or even, as Rosenstock-Huessy expressed it, could we interpret a demonstrated miracle, if such can be found, as being the natural law of a unique event? With a sufficiently broad view of what we understand by ‘the cosmos’ nothing that occurs, by whatever means, is outside of the natural law.
And as another testing example, consider the mental picture that is held of a supreme entity. If it is more comfortable to the mathematical mind, could not God be thought of as the set of all superior possibilities as Jung proposed?
Profound truth lies awaiting, to which each manner of approach, science or faith, discovery or revelation (which, it is important to note, is not static as to interpretation) has by its nature only partial access. Each should not disregard the other albeit that their relationship is at times particularly awkward.
The tension can, however, be productive and opportunities can come forward as a result. In fact, to modify a metaphor from Rose, the relationship between faith and science is a dance, "...an interplay between the given and the found, the subjective and the objective, the mind directing and the directed mind."
The cosmos, aka creation, holds a great truth towards which faith as well as scientific enquiry represents a pathway and gives motivation. Each may benefit from the insights of the other. For example, it has recently been suggested that humanity may be nearing the limits of the knowledge that can be acquired through scientific means. This would, no doubt, be due to the exquisite complexity of the universe and our capacity to understand it. To this might be added the amount of knowledge, perhaps not finite, that there is to be understood.
There are other aspects to this too. For example it was suggested that the Higgs Boson, sensationally described by the media as the 'God Particle' and found by scientists using the accelerator at CERN, could be able to 'avoid' being found. An academic paper argued to this effect, due to the nature of time at quantum levels. This suggestion at the time it was offered, was shown at least to be consistent with quantum theory as currently understood.
All this may be an unduly cautious assessment, but the modesty is welcome and the accelerating advance of fundamental, rather than applied scientific knowledge should, to employ an older phrase, not be taken as ‘God-given’.
And theories about the universe and its origins, however attractive to some minds, may forever remain just that - theories. For instance the current M theory which seeks unification of quantum and relativistic physics while apparently testable in principle, would, it has been said, require equipment ‘the size of a galaxy’ in order to conduct the tests. If this is so, theories such as this therefore have something in common with revelation - it is simply that the source of illumination is via a different, or at least a less direct process.
Revelations are varied in character and can develop significantly in their interpretation and implications, but it can be argued that the major faith traditions themselves do not, at the deepest level, conflict with each other. This is paralleled by Chomsky’s argument that, surprisingly so when considered at the surface, the deep structure of all human languages is essentially the same. The principal faiths share common ground, particularly in terms of morality, and contain essential values that society abandons at its peril.
Fundamentalists aside, there is no religious thinker of standing today who would totally disregard objective evidence. To set alongside this, scientific analysis does not exist in a vacuum of belief. After Tocqueville it can be said that "there is no philosopher in the world so great that he believes a million things on the faith of other people and accepts a great many more truths than he demonstrates".
The pity of the present attitudes is that so often, as Schopenhauer expressed it: "Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world." A greater degree of modesty would be becoming too in certain quarters. For, in Shakespeare's words: "In nature’s infinite book of secrecy, a little can I read."
As expressed by Gudder, the modern scientist has discovered that what he is studying is not the world of phenomena, but the webs that are spun by the mind to hold these phenomena together. And according to Heisenberg, natural science does not simply describe and explain nature; it is part of the interplay between nature and ourselves. And human beings of course possess a sensitive as well as a cogitative component to our nature to which faith may sometimes have the more ready access.
The faiths see themselves as being responsible for the moral, pastoral and spiritual welfare of those to whom they minister. These are humanising functions in a world where aggressive atheism has come to supplant the benign and tolerant secularity that was predominant for so long and which, in representative government, secures the place of both major and minor faiths and allows them, as well as science, to flourish. We also live in a world that has been experiencing the spread of fashionable superstitions that, along with fundamentalism, represent misdirections of religious feeling.
For their part, people of faith should be more aware of the achievements of modern science beyond the medicine from which they benefit and the consumer technology with which they are deluged and in parallel, today's scientists should be sure that they know more of what religion understands in its modern forms.
This is because broadly based knowledge and understanding are very important to achieving productive joint perspectives. Indeed those who know only their own side of the case will know insufficient of that and will be confined by very limited vision. As Francis Bacon expressed it: "They are ill discoverers who think there is no land when they can see nothing but sea."
Without this breadth of vision, when we hear the strident assertions of aggressive atheism, what can be discerned? Logic, usually present at least in some degree, worrying away at a selection of evidence and as Wells expressed it ‘Using the clumsy forceps of the mind and so cracking the truth.’ Wisdom and understanding are much broader entities and encompass emotional intelligence giving weight to feelings and intuition for things that may transpire to be formally unknowable.
The result of lack of breadth is a sterile rationality - a wilderness wrought by naked reason and a landscape of desolate dissatisfaction. It is not just meaningfulness and a sense of purpose that are absent in such a desert, but also a sense of goodness and an awareness of worth. As Tennyson put it "Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers."
More is required than this. Following Tolstoy: ‘The highest wisdom has but one science - the science of the whole - the science of explaining the whole creation and mankind’s place in it.’ And as Carl Jung expressed it "Man positively needs general ideas and convictions that will give a meaning to his life and enable him to find a place for himself in the Universe."
We should be aware that in this noble quest, absolute clarity should not be expected today in contrast to the certainties that were expressed in ages past. Nor should we expect the production of perfectly formed theories of everything. As Thomas a Kempis said "All perfection in this life is accompanied by a measure of imperfection, and all our knowledge contains an element of obscurity."
But faith, in its own interest, must take account of the methods and the findings of science - provisional though these may be at any given time. In its turn, some of the qualities of faith can benefit to the scientific mind. For example modesty, reverence for nature and devoutness of temper are assets, as is an encompassing frame of reference that extends beyond the immediate.
Indeed, even the process of prayer can be valuable to people with little or no conventional faith. This is so since, at the very least, the process of preparing to pray represents a helpful gathering of the self, and in providing a release from the urgencies of the moment, allows greater depth of focus on a point beyond the self.
The prayers of believers and the equivalent meditations of non-believers alike will be as beneficial to the individual as they are sincere. And there are common states of mind that are not widely realised and of which we should also take note. As the philosopher and psychologist William James declared over a hundred years ago "A scientist has no creed, but his temper is devout."
People oriented to faith, those of a predominantly scientific disposition (these are not mutually exclusive groups) and indeed the majority of people tend to take a world view that appeals to their inner sense of ‘the fitness of things'. Deductive reason clearly has a major role here, but so also does faith and we should note that fitness and purpose are kindred conceptions.
And we should be clear that faith is not to be found in the suspension of reason but can represent a deeper aspect thereof. Worldly events frequently bring rationalisation rather than reason and such reason as is there deployed can be abused. There can also be a sterility to raw logic and its premises - and danger too, if used in isolation and taken to what appears to be an inevitable conclusion. And danger in both mental and physical forms also applies to religious fundamentalism.
Rather than supposedly inhabiting gaps left by the discoveries and the theoretical constructions of science, faith today should seek to encompass modernity but without being subservient or shackled to it. In this, while tradition should have a vote but not a veto, the philosophy of faiths can provide an overarching framework and a context of meaning valuable to individual people.
The subtle challenge for faith is how to be part of modernity without losing all that is worthwhile in cultural heritage. And there is nothing wrong with science seeking to 'know the mind of God' (which is described by Einstein as ‘subtle but not malicious’) as Professor Hawking put it in an earlier work.
When you listen to people of faith there is clearly abundant goodness, vision and practical involvement in society too. But in narrowing the gap with science the question needs to be addressed as to what is the evidential foundation of faith? What form does such objective support take and what are the various bases that people adopt for belief? To what extent can faith be said to be the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient evidence?
But is not a reconciliation of science with religion, and one faith with another, being sought rather late in the day? Because of their very nature desirable harmonisation of such major and apparently diverging standpoints will tend to be somewhat tardy. As the Chinese proverb has expressed it, the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.
The potential rewards are great, for science reveals, the arts, so important for holistic perceptions of the world, illuminate and faith can transcend. These pathways trodden by the devout-tempered scientist, the rational believer and the insightful poet should ideally converge towards an all-encompassing understanding.
What are the requirements for harmony? They could be described as warm decisions by the intellect, and the most rational decisions that the heart can take. Heart should indeed speak unto heart, mind unto mind and, perhaps most important of all, also heart unto mind.
The outcome should not be expected to be the finality of certainty, for uncertainty is present within the faiths in the form of mysteries and is inherent in nature and mathematics as quantum mechanics has ‘revealed’ – so to speak. As Einstein said "As far as the propositions of Mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
This concept of uncertainty extends to the realm of human society, as clearly expressed by Balfour that "Certitude is the child of custom, not reason." And we may also follow Emerson's view that: "Every mind has the choice between truth and repose. Take which you please; you can never have both."
The mathematician Kurt Godel also showed, in a proof of shattering import, that in any consistent logical system there exist formal propositions for which their truth or falsity cannot be established. In fact there are an infinite number of such propositions. And as if this were not enough, in the absence of a proof or a counter example, it can be shown that there is no test that can be applied to decide whether a particular proposition is decidable or not.
Although it is not a mathematical statement of the kind considered by Godel, we might speculate that the statement: "God exists” may be an undecidable proposition in either the positive or the negative within the realms of science and philosophy, so that the truth could arise only from revelation.
And what of apparently conflicting views arising from different faiths? There is, so to say, a quantum of solace to be found here too. You are free to believe that you are right, and in being right you can believe also that others may not be wrong.
How is it that these thoughts be held simultaneously? Consider a metaphor. We are seekers of enlightenment. The world itself is suffused in light, a light that is needed to secure illumination which should be, as said by the Quakers, 'from whatever quarter it may come' and to discern truth through all means of enquiry.
But what is the nature of light? Enter the world of quantum physics (and observe in this the sublime genius of the universe). We would be quite right in describing light as a particle - that is correct. And we would also be right to describe light as a wave - for that too is a correct description. Although they appear to conflict, neither of these descriptions is wrong, because light is, at the same time and dependent upon how it is observed, both a particle and a wave.
In our search for ultimate truth we observe the ineffable through the prisms of our beliefs as well as through the instruments and methods of our science and we perceive only 'through a glass darkly' with the imperfect minds of the unperfected beings that we are.
Indeed it may well be that full knowledge of the nature of reality will remain forever beyond the ability of human beings to ascertain for ourselves (although perhaps not beyond our ability to grasp if explained by sentient others). And such depth of comprehension may not be confined within the constraints of what we understand as scientific analysis. There may be a permanent and essential place for revelation and also, perhaps, for faith.
It is sometimes claimed by the more strident atheist commentators that human life has no purpose. But how dare this be presumed simply because, at present, necessary purposes cannot, in the opinion of some, clearly be discerned through scientific enquiry alone? Furthermore, nature has imbued human beings with the capacity to set our own purposes and it is important that we make use of this important capacity and the ability through its use to impart meaning. The cosmos need not be seen to have a ‘reason’ for producing this ability, this most graceful gift, but it is there nonetheless.
So it is that human beings can choose to eliminate poverty and disease, disseminate mercy and compassion, preserve the world, decide to work for justice and the relief of suffering in the face of what can be an otherwise arbitrary nature or ruthless economic and social frameworks determined by others. We can choose the acquisition of knowledge and, founded upon this, the gaining of wisdom. We can also choose harmony, the progression of the common good, the virtuous economy and the good society and through these desirable things, the resulting positive expectations of the future.
The tools of science generate knowledge but do not often supply the meaning needed by many people. Nor do they always produce convincing general conclusions. The widespread desire for meaning is itself a revealing condition. As Jung pointed out, meaning makes a great many things endurable - perhaps everything.
For greater insight and understanding we must expand our horizons beyond the indisputable towards the ineffable, to the far larger realm where intuition and the enlightenments of faith as well as science can draw down meaning, purpose and value.
By no means all scientists are atheists of course and in the West, where aggressive atheism, though small in the number of its adherents, is most common, the proponents of this desolate creed will nevertheless have absorbed and internalised the values embedded in the traditions of their societies for many centuries. Secure thereby in themselves, but what of those who come after?
The spiritual archaeology of this deep virtuous inheritance is to be found within us all and can be accessed. It is impossible to have grown up in this country, for example, without being steeped in moral values, values that did not incidentally - to employ a notable current conjecture - 'arise spontaneously out of nothing' and which were received and transmitted throughout the ages.
Many people grow up within the received and imperfectly transmitted faith of their forebears. But with the rebelliousness of youth, as with the confident exuberance of enquiring minds (and for some the seductive promises of earthly gratification) out rushes the water. Those who escape the swirl themselves tend never to quite escape the feeling that something of value went out with the dogmatic bathwater. So it may also be in the relationship between science and faith (and it is not simply people of faith who are capable of being dogmatic).
Science does not exist independently of those who conduct it and changes in outlook will occur over time and follow from changes at the individual level. But how may we proceed to retrieve that which was lost and how can harmony be restored? This will require, to employ a rather over-used word, a journey.
But this will be a journey for which there is no universally accepted map - or at least none that is sufficiently clear to all travellers. The individual's view of the way may shift, and do so more than once, but also many may find that there is yet that which is constant within themselves and which acts as a compass.
It is true that there are guides to be found en route, often presenting themselves as one, true and exclusive but like heroes, they can have a thousand faces. And in choosing one, if we so decide, we need not reject the wisdom of the others. As we have maintained, there are converging pathways.
The particularities of faith and the detailed outward observances - and of specialist theoretical views - should be seen as personal or the social practices of communities. It is a case of setting out - although the full route and what may await at the destination, should such be identifiable, may not be known.
And while the practice of conscious deliberation preceding serious action is to be commended most of the time, when approaching the ineffable infinite, as is known to certain faiths, there is something to be said for acting oneself into a new way of thinking. Of course this itself would be a conscious decision.
Reconciliation of faith with science or of faith with faith involves getting beneath literal surfaces to the heart of the matter. That is where an accord of faith and science and of self and that-which-is-beyond-self begins. Particularities in religious observance can be divisive but they are surface rather than depth; it is the wisdom within that is transcendent. All this is a foundation of sorts for faith just as the ineffable quanta make a foundation for the physical world.
A (return) journey of this nature may take unexpected directions but, in the words of the traditional folk song, as you "Rove out one morning right early" you may have an inspired encounter along the way - with one you may yet recognise.
Jung took the view that mankind, like the rest of creation, is God become concrete, hence perhaps Eddington's mystical metaphor: 'We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. We have devised profound theories, one after another, to account for its origin. At last we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint. And lo! It is our own."
And so it may transpire in increasingly needed and long overdue harmonious and fruitful re-encounters - science with faith, faith with faith, heart with heart. The joint goal of faith and science is the notion of unbroken wholeness.
Those engaging upon each means of enquiry and understanding should endeavour to retain genuine openness to discerning how the relationship between science and faith will develop. Above all, this relationship, as between the faiths themselves, should be one of magnanimity: greatness of heart and mind.
And this magnanimity should be sustained and at the forefront of our minds for this great journey may not be one that it is possible for human beings to complete - nature's book may indeed be of unimaginable complexity. And so, both for science and faith, in a wonderful poetic imagining by Alejandra Pizarnuk: "If the soul were to ask, ‘Is it still far?’ you must answer: ‘On the other side of the river, not this one, the one just beyond.’"
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