SCIENCE NEEDS RELIGION
Martin Camroux
It
was the French Revolution and they taking a priest, a lawyer and a
scientist out to execution by the guillotine. First it was the priest,
the guillotine shot down, and stopped an inch from his head, “It’s a
miracle he cried”. And they thought it might be true so they let him
go. Then the lawyer. Again the guillotine stopped an inch from his
head. “You can’t execute someone twice for the same crime, he said, and
they thought he might be right so they let him go. Then the scientist,
he looked and said “Stop. I think I can see the problems. There’s a jam
in the release mechanism”.
Science is about the desire to explain, understand, see how things work
and why. Science is one of the most glorious things that people ever
do. The question is how it relates to the world of faith?
The other day I came across this statement from Brother Consolmagno,
who works in a Vatican observatory and is curator of the Vatican
meteorite collection. He says a "destructive myth" had developed in
modern society that religion and science are competing ideologies. In
his view this is wrong "Religion needs science to keep it away from
superstition and keep it close to reality, to protect it from
creationism. And science needs religion in order to have a conscience,
to know that, just because something is possible, it may not be a good
thing."
That sounds to me really good sense. The discoveries of science have
transformed the world we live in. When I was first ordained I used to
write my sermons with pen and ink. Today I don't know what I would do
without a computer and look for information from web-sites all around.
When I was first ordained there was no real possible treatment for
people with glaucoma. Now there is amazing laser treatment.
Today we
can clone animals, genetically modify food, map the human genome. I was
reading this week about the possibility that stem cell research might
lead to the possibility of repairing a damaged heart. All this has been
an immense benefit to humankind. Because of it today most of us are in
better health and circumstances than any other generation of humankind.
Science too has opened up our understanding. In 1929 Edwin Hubble
proved that the universe is expanding fast. By the time this worship
service is over the universe will have expanded a quarter of a million
miles in all directions. The Hubble telescope was named after him, and
by 1990 the Hubble telescope was sending photographs back to the earth
revealing that vacant regions in the sky that formerly looked like
blurs of light were actually galaxies. We now estimate that there are
approximately 1,600 galaxies of stars for every one person on earth – utterly awesome.
No religious person ought to turn their back on the wonder of science
or the possibilities it gives. And when religion does it ends up
ignorant and sometimes dangerous. In Northern Nigeria the group they
call the Nigerian Taliban believe the earth is flat - which Socrates
knew to be untrue 2500 years. Christian creationists who believe
the world was created in 4000BC are little better. Religion needs
science to save us from ignorance and to shed light on the wonders of
the world God has created.
But then too science needs religion. Francis Collins, is one of the
worlds great scientists, for many years head of the Human Genome
project, he says this: “Science is not the only way of knowing. The
Spiritual worldview provides another way of finding truth”. Let me
illustrate. Think of music for a moment. What is music? From a
scientific point of view it is vibrations in the ear, impinging on the
eardrums and stimulating neural currents in the brain. It is also
beautiful, it can fill us with joy, move us to tears, fill us with
wonder. I remember a performance of Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius in
Winchester Cathedral. The beauty of the building fused with the glory
of the poetry and the wonder of the music
Praise to the holiest
in the heights
and
in the depth be praise
In
all his world’s most wonderful,
Most
sure in all his ways
I felt extraordinary wonder, glory, awe. On the manuscript Elgar
wrote the letters "A.M.D.G." "Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam/To the greater
glory of God". Such moment stake us to the very heart of our
humanity. The spiritual is not measurable by science but it is real.
Says Paul “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, gentleness and self-control”. Francis Collins again: “Science
alone is not enough to answer all the important questions”.
You can apply this surely to your own life. Just try this for size.
Science is my shepherd; I shall not want.
It maketh me to lie down in green pastures;
It leadeth me beside the still waters.
It restoreth my soul.
It guides me in the paths of righteousness for its names sake.
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil; for science is with me;
It's rod and its staff, they comfort me,
No, it won't do. No one can say that. That is not enough!
Science gives us huge gifts. But other things too matter. Love,
joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness– none of us can live without
these but they are fruits of the Spirit not of science.. Our lives
consist in our inner characters, our faith about life's meaning, the
quality of our relationships, how we love – these are spiritual
questions.
And then secondly it is only that science cannot give us all we need.
It is that science itself needs religion. Science has given us amazing
power. But science has given us problems and difficulties as well as
benefits. Drugs like thalidomide have had side effects we never
imagined. Our motors cars have contributed to global warming. Nuclear
power stations threaten to contaminate the sea. Genetically modifying
food may or may not be necessary to feed the human race but what if you
could genetically modify people, would you want to do that? And then
too science has invented mass destruction which could actually end all
human life. Science has given us immense power- the question is can we
learn to use it wisely? Albert Einstein put it like this: “It has
become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our
humanity”.
Listen again to Francis Collins: “It would be a mistake to leave these
decisions to the scientists. Their moral sense is in general no more or
less developed that that of other groups.. ethics grounded in faith can
provide a strength that might otherwise be lacking”.
Religion is about creating moral communities. Religion is here to
remind us that just because we can do something it doesn’t mean we
should. Religion is here to remind us that human beings do not live by
bread alone. This is what Einstein had in mind when he said:
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind".
Not all our religion of course is can help us here. As Harry Emerson
Fosdick used to say, “Some religion just litters up the premises”. But
then step into the gospels and listens to Christ speaking: every human
being is unique and valued by God, the point of life is service to
others, we are judged by how we treat the poor; life does not consist
in what we own but what we are. "Those who live by the sword, die by
the sword", "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the
children of God". That is the kind of religion which can give us the
kind of moral centre without which our science will be in vain.
One day in 1941 in the underground physical laboratories in Columbia
University just off Riverside Drive in New York one of the preliminary
experiments that led to the atomic bomb took place. It was a nervous
hour; they were not sure just what would happen. Perhaps everything
would blow up. By one of life's little ironies just across the street a
few hundred yards away a service was taking place at Riverside Church.
One the one side of the road there was the most momentous discovery of
physical power in all history getting started, on the other a Church
worshipping. A sceptical observer looming down that road at that moment
might I suppose have said that the future lay in the scientific
laboratory not in those who were looking back to a Galilean carpenter.
I wonder today if they would be so certain. What came out of that
physical laboratory turned out to demand ethical control. Unless what
was happening on both sides of that street can come together it going
to be a stark future for all of us. Science is only going to be a
blessing if we have the spiritual power to use it wisely.
It is going to be a difficult task. It will require patience, courage,
faith that hangs on when hope fades, if we are going to harness the
power of science for the purposes of life. It is going to take us all
and all there is in us. Don't stay on the side lines. No one has any
business on the side lines. Take hold somewhere, as in your own life in
the challenges around, in the church – of behalf of that great religion
of faith and character without whose incorporation in a new world order
our good life will not last.
Rev'd. Martin Camroux MA
Trinity Church, Sutton
(United Reformed/Methodist)
Cheam Road, Sutton, SM1 1DZ
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