Voices of Faith: Are science and religion adversaries or allies?

Fountain pen writing Faith
Fountain pen writing Faith

For the better part of the last century, science and religion have had a rocky relationship. The source of their tension, which has intensified in recent years, can be traced to the Enlightenment.

From the 16th to 19th centuries, an explosion of scientific discoveries convinced thinkers that the cosmos was a grand machine that could be analyzed without reference to its designer. By the 20th century, the overwhelming success of science in modern medicine and technology strengthened the conviction that the universe was a self-contained mechanism.

Although trust in the explanatory power of science soared, faith and religion were allowed a voice, as long as that voice was restricted to man's spiritual needs. The late Stephen Jay Gould called this bifurcated view "non-overlapping magisteria," or NOMA. Today, naturalistic science and NOMA are reigning paradigms in the scientific establishment. But for the pioneers of science, the study of nature was inextricably linked to nature's God.

Consider Sir Isaac Newton, whose laws of motion and gravity led to the notion that the universe was a giant "clock-work," operating autonomously according to inwrought universal laws. For some, the clockwork universe allowed for a Creator but not a Tinkerer. For others, it allowed for neither. For many, it led to brimming confidence in science as a wellspring of knowledge that would enable man to harness and manipulate nature.

It is a great irony that Newton's theories became the foundation of scientific materialism - a worldview that excludes, a priori, any supranatural causation. Newton was a devoted Christian who was motivated, in part, by a desire to prove the existence of God through the design of creation.

Against those who were eager to embrace the machine model, Newton warned: "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."

This was no "God-of-the-Gaps" argument from ignorance but rather a design inference from evidence. Although Newton has been co-opted by the scientific materialists, in truth, he was a forerunner of the Intelligent Design movement.

In his footsteps followed men like John Dalton, Andre Ampere, Georg Ohm, Michael Faraday, Louis Pasteur, William Kelvin, Gregor Mendel and George Washington Carver - all men of faith whose achievements were based on the belief in a universe made intelligible to intelligent beings by an intelligence outside of it.

Scientists in the truest sense of the word, they were investigators who doggedly followed the evidence wherever it led, approaching the gaps of understanding not with "God did it!" resignation but with "God created it" expectation.

Every scientist, whether he realizes it or not, stands on the shoulders of these giants.

This column is an excerpt from Regis Nicoll's "Why There Is a God and Why It Matters." He is the lay pastor of Hamilton Anglican Fellowship.

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