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Some clergy are no more tolerant of scientists. A fellow researcher and
friend of Sandage's was told by a pastor, "Unless you accept and believe
that the Earth and universe are only 6,000 years old [as a literal reading
of the Bible implies], you cannot be a Christian." It is little wonder
that people of faith resent science: by reducing the miracle of life to
a series of biochemical reactions, by explaining Creation as a hiccup
in space-time, science seems to undermine belief, render existence meaningless
and rob the world of spiritual wonder.
But now "theology and science are entering into a new relationship,"
says physicist turned theologian Robert John Russell, who in 1981 founded
the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences at the Graduate Theological
Union in Berkeley. Rather than undercutting faith and a sense of the spiritual,
scientific discoveries are offering support for them, at least in the
minds of people of faith. Big-bang cosmology, for instance, once read
as leaving no room for a Creator, now implies to some scientists that
there is a design and purpose behind the universe. Evolution, say some
scientist-theologians, provides clues to the very nature of God. And chaos
theory, which describes such mundane processes as the patterns of weather
and the dripping of faucets, is being interpreted as opening a door for
God to act in the world.
From Georgetown to Berkeley, theologians who embrace science, and scientists
who cannot abide the spiritual emptiness of empiricism, are establishing
institutes integrating the two. Books like "Science and Theology: The
New Consonance" and "Belief in God in an Age of Science" are streaming
off the presses. A June symposium on "Science and the Spiritual Quest,"
organized by Russell's CTNS, drew more than 320 paying attendees and 33
speakers, and a PBS documentary on science and faith will air this fall.
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In 1977 Nobel physicist Steven Weinberg of the University of Texas sounded
a famous note of despair: the more the universe has become comprehensible
through cosmology, he wrote, the more it seems pointless. But now the
very science that "killed" God is, in the eyes of believers, restoring
faith.
Physicists have stumbled on signs that the cosmos is custom-made for
life and consciousness. It turns out that if the constants of nature —
unchanging numbers like the strength of gravity, the charge of an electron
and the mass of a proton — were the tiniest bit different, then atoms
would not hold together, stars would not burn and life would never have
made an appearance. "When you realize that the laws of nature must be
incredibly finely tuned to produce the universe we see," says John Polkinghorne,
who had a distinguished career as a physicist at Cambridge University
before becoming an Anglican priest in 1982, "that conspires to plant the
idea that the universe did not just happen, but that there must be a purpose
behind it."
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Charles Townes, who shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering
the principles of the laser, goes further: "Many have a feeling that somehow
intelligence must have been involved in the laws of the universe."
Although the very rationality of science often feels like an enemy of
the spiritual, here, too, a new reading can sustain rather than snuff
out belief. Ever since Isaac Newton, science has blared a clear message:
the world follows rules, rules that are fundamentally mathematical, rules
that humans can figure out. Humans invent abstract mathematics, basically
making it up out of their imaginations, yet math magically turns out to
describe the world. Greek mathematicians divided the circumference of
a circle by its diameter, for example, and got the number pi, 3.14159...
. Pi turns up in equations that describe subatomic particles, light and
other quantities that have no obvious connections to circles.
This points, says Polkinghorne, "to a very deep fact about the nature of
the universe," namely, that our minds, which invent mathematics,
conform to the reality of the cosmos. We are somehow tuned in to its truths.
Since pure thought can penetrate the universe's mysteries, "this seems to
be telling us that something about human consciousness is harmonious with
the mind of God," says Carl Feit, a cancer biologist at Yeshiva University
in New York and Talmudic scholar. |
An
Uneasy Truce
Throughout Western history, science and religion have been like siblings
- sometimes at loggerheads, sometimes on common ground.
800-1000
The Islamic Empire, where it is believed that astronomy and mathematics
provided a glimpse of God, is for centuries the only repository of many
ancient Greek and Egyptian texts.
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To most worshipers, a sense
of the divine as an unseen presence behind the visible world is all well
and good, but what they really yearn for is a God who acts in the world.
Some scientists see an opening for this sort of God at the level of quantum
or subatomic events. In this spooky realm, the behavior of particles is
unpredictable. In perhaps the most famous example, a radioactive element
might have a half-life of, say, one hour.Half-life means that half of the
atoms in a sample will decay in that time; half will not. But what if you
have only a single atom? Then, in an hour, it has a 50-50 chance of decaying.
And what if the experiment is arranged so that if the atom does decay, it
releases poison gas?
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1268-73
In writings on Aristotle's physical studies, Thomas Aquinas synthesizes
scientific inquiry with Christian thought. After him, medieval scientists
see their role as uncovering the divine plan.
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If you have a cat in the lab, will the cat be alive
or dead after the hour is up? Physicists have discovered that there is
no way to determine, even in principle, what the atom would do. Some theologian-scientists
see that decision point — will the atom decay or not? will the cat
live or die? — as one where God can act. "Quantum mechanics allows
us to think of special divine action," says Russell. Even better, since
few scientists abide miracles, God can act without violating the laws
of physics.
An even newer science, chaos theory, describes phenomena
like the weather and some chemical reactions whose exact outcomes cannot
be predicted. It could be, says Polkinghorne, that God selects which possibility
becomes reality. This divine action would not violate physical laws either.
Most scientists still park their faith, if they have
it, at the laboratory door. But just as belief can find inspiration in
science, so scientists can find inspiration in belief. Physicist Mehdi
Golshani of Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, drawing from the
Koran, believes that natural phenomena are "God's signs in the universe,"
and that studying them is almost a religious obligation. The Koran asks
humans to "travel in the earth, then see how He initiated the creation."
Research, Golshani says, "is a worship act, in that it reveals more of
the wonders of God's creation." The same strain runs through Judaism.
Carl Feit cites Maimonides, "who said that the only pathway to achieve
a love of God is by understanding the works of his hand, which is the
natural universe. Knowing how the universe functions is crucial to a religious
person because this is the world He created."
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1543
Copernicus publishes "De Revolutionibus." It concludes that
the earth revolves around the sun, challenging man's exalted place at
the center of God's plan of the universe.
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Feit is hardly alone. According to a study released
last year, 40 percent of American scientists believe in a personal God
— not merely an ineffable power and presence in the world, but a
deity to whom they can pray.
To Joel Primack, an astrophysicist at the University
of California, Santa Cruz, "practicing science [even] has a spiritual
goal" — namely, providing inspiration. it turns out, explains Primack,
that the largest size imaginable, the entire universe, is 10 with 29 zeros
after it (in centimeters). The smallest size describes the subatomic world,
and is 10 with 24 zeros (and a decimal) in front of it. Humans are right
in the middle. Does this return us to a privileged place? Primack doesn't
know, but he describes this as a "soul-satisfying cosmology."
Although skeptical scientists grumble that science
has no need of religion, forward-looking theologians think religion needs
science. Religion "is incapable of making its moral claims persuasive
or its spiritual comfort effective [unless] its cognitive claims" are
credible, argues physicist-theologian Russell.
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1633
Galileo is censured by the Inquisition for writing about and teaching
the Copernican system against papal orders. He's made to recant and is
placed under house arrest.
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Although upwards of 90 percent of Americans believe
in a personal God, fewer believe in a God who parts seas, or creates species
one by one. To make religions forged millenniums ago relevant in an age
of atoms and DNA, some theologians are "incorporat[ing] knowledge gained
from natural science into the formation of doctrinal beliefs," says Ted
Peters of Pacific Lutheran Seminary. Otherwise, says astronomer and Jesuit
priest William Stoeger, religion is in danger of being seen, by people
even minimally acquainted with science, "as an anachronism."
Science cannot prove the existence of God, let alone
spy him at the end of a telescope. But to some believers, learning about
the universe offers clues about what God might be like. As W. Mark Richardson
of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences says, "Science may
not serve as an eyewitness of God the creator, but it can serve as a character
witness." One place to get a glimpse of God's character, ironically, is
in the workings of evolution. Arthur Peacocke, a biochemist who became
a priest in the Church of England in 1971, has no quarrel with evolution.
To the contrary: he finds in it signs of God's nature. He infers, from
evolution, that God has chosen to limit his omnipotence and omniscience.
In other words, it is the appearance of chance mutations, and the Darwinian
laws of natural selection acting on this "variation," that bring about
the diversity of life on Earth. This process suggests a divine humility,
a God who acts selflessly for the good of creation, says theologian John
Haught, who founded the Georgetown (University) Center for the Study of
Science and Religion. He calls this a "humble retreat on God's part":
much as a loving parent lets a child be, and become, freely and without
interference, so does God let creation make itself.
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1687
Isaac Newton's gravitational theory, published in the "Principia," completes
the mechanistic vision of the cosmos. Newton leaves in a sliver of God
- as the "first cause" of the universe.
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It would be an exaggeration to say that such sophisticated
theological thinking is remaking religion at the level of the local parish,
mosque or synagogue. But some of these ideas do resonate with ordinary
worshipers and clergy. For Billy Crockett, president of Walking Angel
Records in Dallas, the discoveries of quantum mechanics that he reads
about in the paper reinforce his faith that "there is a lot of mystery
in the nature of things." For other believers, an appreciation of science
deepens faith. "Science produces in me a tremendous awe," says Sister
Mary White of the Benedictine Meditation Center in St. Paul, Minn. "Science
and spirituality have a common quest, which is a quest for truth." And
if science has not yet influenced religious thought and practice at the
grass-roots level very much, just wait, says Ted Peters of CTNS. Much
as feminism sneaked up on churches and is now shaping the liturgy, he
predicts, "in 10 years science will be a major factor in how many ordinary
religious people think."
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Charles
Townes
PHYSICIST
AND CHRISTIAN
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He shared the 1964 Nobel Prize
in Physics for discovering the principles that underlie the laser.
-As a religious person, I strongly sense the presence and actions
of a creative being far beyond myself and yet always personal and
close by," he says. Now at the University of California, Berkeley,
Townes believes that recent discoveries in cosmology reveal "a universe
that fit s religious views" - specifically, that "somehow intelligence
must have been involved in the laws of the universe." |
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1802
In "Research on the Organization of Living Bodies," the chevalier Lamarck
posits an evolutionary view of animal species - contradicting the idea
that God created them in immutable, constant form.
1842
Richard Owen determines that recently found fossils belong to an extinct
animal group he calls dinosaurs. Some see further evidence of mutating
species, others the effects of Noah's flood.
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Not everyone believes that's such a hot idea. "Science is a method, not
a body of knowledge," says Michael Shermer, a director of the Skeptics
Society, which debunks claims of the paranormal. "It can have nothing
to say either way about whether there is a God. These are two such different
things, it would be like using baseball stats to prove a point in football."
Another red flag is that adherents of different faiths — like the
Orthodox Jews, Anglicans, Quakers, Catholics and Muslims who spoke at
the June conference in Berkeley — tend to find, in science. confirmation
of what their particular religion has already taught them.
Take the difficult Christian concept of Jesus as both fully divine and
fully human. It turns out that this duality has a parallel in quantum
physics. In the early years of this century, physicists discovered that
entities thought of as particles, like electrons, can also act as waves.
And light, considered a wave, can in some experiments act like a barrage
of particles. The orthodox interpretation of this strange situation is
that light is, simultaneously, wave and particle. Electrons are, simultaneously,
waves and particles. Which aspect of light one sees, which face an electron
turns to a human observer, varies with the circumstances. So, too, with
Jesus, suggests physicist F. Russell Stannard of England's Open University.
Jesus is not to be seen as really God in human guise, or as really
human but acting divine, says Stannard: "He was fully both." Finding
these parallels may make some people feel, says Polkinghorne, "that this
is not just some deeply weird Christian idea."
Jews aren't likely to make the same leap. And someone
who is not already a believer will not join the faithful because of quantum
mechanics; conversely, someone in whom science raises no doubts about
faith probably isn't even listening. But to people in the middle, for
whom science raises questions about religion, these new concordances can
deepen a faith already present. As Feit says, "I don't think that by studying
science you will be forced to conclude that there must be a God. But if
you have already found God, then you can say, from understanding science,
'Ah, I see what God has done in the world'."
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William
Stoeger ASTRONOMER
AND JESUIT PRIEST
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Stoeger, who joined the Jesuits
at 17, now teaches at the University of Arizona and is a member of
the Vatican Observatory. "I did have one conflict between science
and religion, in sixth or seventh grade," he says. "I got a book on
paleontology from my uncle Don, so I read it only at night when no-one
else was around. This conflict [between evolution and Genesis] was
wonderfully resolved in high school, Stoeger says, when a priest showed
him that the Bible could be read metaphorically. |
In one sense, science and religion will never be truly
reconciled. Perhaps they shouldn't be. The default setting of science
is eternal doubt; the core of religion is faith. Yet profoundly religious
people and great scientists are both driven to understand the world. Once,
science and religion were viewed as two fundamentally different, even
antagonistic, ways of pursuing that quest, and science stood accused of
smother: smothering faith and killing God. Now, it may strengthen belief.
And although it cannot prove God's existence, science might whisper to
believers where to seek the divine.
With MARIAN WESTLEY
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1859
in "Origin of Species," Charles Darwin concludes that species evolve and
that change is driven by variations in offspring that are either favored
or eliminated in the struggle for survival.
1871
Darwin publishes "The Descent of Man," in which he undermines the Biblical
doctrine that humans are a divine creation. Instead, he argues, mankind
evolved from apes.
1905
John William Strutt determines the age of a rock: 2 billion years, officially
disproving James Ussher's 1650 assertion that, according to Genesis, the
universe was created on Oct. 22,4004 B.C.
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S.
Jocelyn Bell
Burnell
ASTRONOMER
AND
QUAKER
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For some scholars, there are
limits to the consilience of research and faith. Bell Burnell, discoverer
of the spinning stars called pulsars, is active in the Religious Society
of Friends. She wills herself to accept Christian theology. she says,
because the absence of belief is too lonely and frightening a prospect.
But she keeps her beliefs separate from her astronomy work at England's
Open University. "Would I do science differently if I weren't a Quaker?"
she asks. I don't think so." |
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1916
Albert Einstein's groundbreaking theories of relativity reject Newton's
carefully ordered universe. "Science without religion is lame. Religion
without science is blind," he later says.
1925
John Scopes, a high-school teacher in Tennessee, is indicted for teaching
evolutionary theory. Scopes - along with Darwinism itself- is put on trial
and convicted.
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JOHN
POLKINGHORNE
PHYSICIST
TURNED PRIEST
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After a distinguished career
in particle physics, Polkinghorne was ordained an Anglican priest
in 1982. "For me," he explains, the fundamental component of belief
in God "is that there is a mind and a purpose behind the universe."
He sees hints of that divine presence in how abstract mathematics
can penetrate the universe's secrets, which suggests that a rational
mind created the world. As for purpose, he sees it in how nature is
fine-tuned to allow life and consciousness to emerge. |
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1948
George Gamow coins the term "big bang" to describe the theory that the
universe began in a primeval explosion. An instantaneous creation leaves
open the idea of a creator.
1965
Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson find that space is filled with background
radiation, a discovery supporting the big-bang model. In 1989, the COBE
satellite makes an image of this radiation.
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1992
Pope John Paul II apologizes for the Roman Catholic Church's condemnation
of Galileo. Four years later, he endorses evolution as part of God's master
plan.
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