Science and Religion

Modern man has developed a mania for being scientific. Almost every con­temporary philosophy borrows the terms of science in order to secure its prestige in support of its theories. A credulous public will believe almost anything if it is taught in the name of science.

Science has indeed provided modern man with phenomenal material benefits. Scientism nonetheless has spawned some dogmatic pseudoscientific philosophies that have cursed this modern age with the apparent contradiction of science and re­ligion. But the assumptions of philosophi­cal scientism are no more to be accepted as scientific facts than are the philosophical religious speculations of human thinking to be accorded the status of divine revela­tion. Both are only human theories.

It is only a pseudoscientific philosophy that is in conflict with true religion. Like­wise, it is only a false religion that is in conflict with true science. Theological truth and scientific truth are in agreement.

God Himself is the great scientist of the universe and is the author of all true sci­ence, having established the laws upon which scientific data are based. Both science and religion have their legitimate fields. Science cannot safely ignore the fact that human problems are basically spiritual problems.

Science can describe the facts of nature but it cannot interpret their spiritual meaning. Interpretation belongs to reli­gion. Scientific fact and data describe the observable functions of the universe. Re­ligion interprets them. Religious interpreta­tion has its origin either in human specu­lation or in divine revelation. Edward LeRoy Long has observed: "The bound­aries of science constitute the frontiers of religion."

Conflicting interpretations

The evolutionary hypothesis is a theolog­ical interpretation of scientific observa­tions. The creationist also has his interpre­tation of these same scientific facts. In both instances the discoveries and findings of science are recognized, but the sources of the interpretations are different.

The evolutionary hypothesis has its ori­gin in human thinking. The doctrine of creation has its origin in divine revelation.

The one is an expression of belief in man's inherent powers of progressive evolution, the other is a profession of faith in divine creation.

The creationist believes that the mean­ing of certain scientific facts are not clear without the interpretation of divine reve­lation, and that unenlightened human wis­dom is not capable of accurate discrimina­tion between scientific truth and pseudo­scientific error.

Not only does the creationist hold that scientific facts are fully in harmony with his monotheistic faith in one divine, con­trolling, rational, and personal God who created and sustains the universe, but he also holds that only those scientists who be­lieve in a personal creator can intelligently relate the findings of science to reality. Obviously the interpretations of divine rev­elation go beyond that of scientific data and human experience.

Both the actual content of science and the meaningful content of religion are nec­essary for man to comprehend the whole of life. Science limited to the area of descrip­tion may list what can be done in the world of man's environment, but it cannot tell what ought to be done in the world of man's moral and spiritual relationship with his God and his fellow men.

Character comes with the interpretation of reality, and such interpretation is of a religious nature. For example, one cannot measure behavior by statistics or deter­mine the value of right or wrong by analy­sis in the test tube of the laboratory. The facts of the case are, however, that although life's "cans" are important, life's "oughts" are more important. To know God, and not scientific know-how, is the secret of living.

Progress or Redemption

Events of this modern age declare in actual world happenings in the context of human tragedy that progressive evolution is an illusion. Only redemptive grace can salvage civilization from disaster.

The hypothesis of progressive evolution is a theory of self-salvation. Each mutation was supposed to make man the superani­mal more fit for a godlike utopia. Prefer­ring the animal-man evolution to the Cre­ator-creature relationship, scientism made the theory of progressive evolution an ar­dent religious belief and proceeded to wor­ship it. Criticism was declared unscientific.

Thus the evolutionary theory became in essence a doctrine of self-worship. It was indeed a revolt against the religious dog­matism of previous centuries, but it fell into the fatal error of attempting to sup­plant ecclesiastical imperialism with an equally dogmatic belief in scientism. The evolutionist made the mistake of more or less deifying his own philosophical specula­tions instead of humbly examining them in the light of both true scientific fact and divine revelation. Scientism has no more right to dogmatize Darwin's theory than had the medieval church to dogmatize the theory of purgatory or the practice of in­dulgences.

Many material blessings provided by sci­ence have changed the external character of our environment, but only God, through the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, can impart the spiritual blessings that can change the internal character and nature of men. It is not enough for science to change the world outside of us. We ourselves need God to change the inside of our nature.

Internal motives have more to do with the future welfare of man than external factors. Divine redemption, by which men are changed and renewed, is the very es­sence of true progress, and scientific prog­ress of itself can never be made a substitute for redemption.

It is just here that modern man has misused science in making it the criterion by which he has sought to interpret the meaning of life. Since science is a study de­veloped by created beings, it cannot of it­self fully understand or comprehend the Creator, His activities, or the meaning of His acts. All science is dependent upon God's created laws. This very fact exposes the folly of any evolutionary concept in which God is excluded.

Redemption is more ultimate than sci­ence. It is the absolute essential for the survival of man. Whatever genuine prog­ress is made in the future welfare of our civilization, and the peace and happiness of its peoples, will be made to the extent in which men understand that the regenera­tion of the heart is the fundamental con­dition of all true progress. Never has man known a greater need of the redemptive solution to human problems.

The Bible is God's self-discloser, and all the discoveries of man to date that have any bearing on the subject have attested to the reality of its historical background.

In all man's research in the scientific field man has never established a scientific fact that has proved to be contrary to divine revelation. Doubtless the prime reason why men are loath to accept the Biblical inter­pretation of this life's beginning, meaning, and destination as set forth in the gospel story, is that a Biblical revelation of God and His plan of redemption robs man of self-salvation as the result of his own genius.

Misinterpretation of Science and Religion

We must never make the mistake of con­fusing the faith of scientism with the facts of science. Men can build false philoso­phies of scientism upon the misinterpreta­tion of science even as man can build false religious philosophies upon the misin­terpretation of Scripture. But neither the facts of science nor the facts of God are altered by such false philosophies.

The essence of pseudoscience is the be­lief that science itself is wholly adequate to fully meet the needs of men. Its sole dependence is upon human wisdom. Pseu­doscience as such, instead of being an im­partial search for truth, becomes an ar­bitrary decision to accept as true only what can be verified by science. Only the most naive accept all the hypotheses of science as absolutely reliable. Modern science is more than a tabulation of natural laws. It is also a collection of human interpretations of their significance and meaning.

To make science the absolute criterion of truth is to by-pass completely the divine revelation and man's hope of salvation by the power and intervention of God. This is why the creationist cannot agree to the idolatrous worship of scientism and the cult of techniques any more than he can accept the proud arrogance of a church that op­poses either true scientific or Biblical fact.

Religious resources are needed to cope with stark realities of scientific skills. Sci­entific progress, therefore, can never be made a substitute for divine redemption, and if man does not give the worship of his God the supreme place in his life, he inevi­tably substitutes materialistic gods of his own making.

It is God, however, and not the scientist who is the final arbiter of truth. Modern man must be made more aware of the im­perative realities of the interpretation of life as given by divine revelation, lest he succumb to an idolatrous worship of sci­ence. The truly enlightened man neither denies science its rightful place nor allows it to usurp the place of religion.

The crowning folly of the devotees of scientism is to make science a new messiah created by man's own genius and to pro­claim the philosophy: "Fear man, and give glory to him; for the hour of his achieve­ment has come." It is this fact that makes the urgent appeal of the apocalyptic mes­sage of Revelation 14:7 so much needed today. Its summons to "Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judg­ment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth," is a message calcu­lated to give modern man the proper per­spective with regard to both science and redemption. 

J. A. B