Recently, I had an intelligent conversation with a group of friends. And the topic of science and religion came up. (How I love talking religion with intelligent people of Catholic backgrounds!) One of my friends has a background in science, and about ten years ago, he found that Catholicism didn't really work for him anymore—but he still believes in some sort of higher power. Sort of similar to my own problem—but with science, rather than with literature and other philosophies. My friend asked me what I believe, and I had to say with all honesty that I don't know............ and that is my belief. Knowledge is limited, and all things cannot be known definitely or absolutely. Compare that with the fact that as children, my friend and I were both probably taught to believe in things definitely and absolutely—to look at the world as something concrete and factual rather than as something fluid, transmutable, and varied according to perspective—and also even to suppose that all things can be observed, measured, and quantified, without any regard to the outlook, beliefs, and assumptions of the observer and quantifier—and we can see where all this conflict and confusion in our own two perspectives, and in our whole civilization, have come from as we have been exposed to new and different ideas and to new and different possibilities and passions within ourselves.
In our discussion, I took the position that science and religion do not have to conflict. It's a rather unconventional position nowadays, and my friend, with his background in science, was reasonably puzzled by the way I was able to say it so nonchalantly, as if it were an easy conclusion. My first argument was my observation (many years old at this point) that I have known many religious people in the maths and sciences (and also a few atheists), but I have known many more lapsed Christians, disillusioned artists, and bleak, scoffing skeptics in my own branch, the humanities. While I do not have a background in the sciences, I have a pretty strong foundation in a variety of religions, so I think I can speak fairly competently on the subject—if not as a religious person then as student of comparative religious literature.
First of all, I want to stress that I think the problem essentially has three components:
First of all, I want to stress that I think the problem essentially has three components:
1) science versus religion in general,
2) science versus the Bible in particular, and
3) the ethics of science vs. the ethics of religion.
For a discussion of science versus religion in general, I am going to drop an N-word dreaded by so many Christians: Nietzsche. I refer the reader to this philosopher's first work, The Birth of Tragedy. His contrast of the mythology of Aeschylus and Sophocles with the rationalism of Socrates and Euripides provides a stronger argument for the gulf between science and religion than I can provide here. And I simply will not go into a discussion of ethics: that is to say, a discussion of right and wrong. I have always had a penchant for seeing both sides of an issue when I hear them argued, and I have a hard time drawing conclusions, so I usually prefer to avoid controversial subjects. There are certain things that are right and certain things that are wrong. But it is those gray areas where things get tricky. I am going to work on the second and narrower question because I think I can contribute a partial answer to this problem.
While I cannot speak for the Protestant churches, the Catholic Church has a very long history of traditions, theology, and councils and is very clear on what its followers are supposed to believe. There are two beliefs that I find particularly relevant to this issue:
While I cannot speak for the Protestant churches, the Catholic Church has a very long history of traditions, theology, and councils and is very clear on what its followers are supposed to believe. There are two beliefs that I find particularly relevant to this issue:
1) the belief that Jesus Christ has two natures, human and divine; and
2) the belief that the Bible is the Word of God.
Let's examine these ideas more closely. Jesus Christ has two natures. In other words, Catholics believe that Jesus Christ is God and Man at the same time. This is the meaning of the mystery of the Incarnation and of the Gospel of John (1:14): verbum caro factum est—"the Word was made flesh." As a mortal man and part of the physical creation, Jesus is the son of God. As a work of art is the "child" of the artist, all creation is the child of God, and no less, Jesus the man as such is a child of God. As God, however, Jesus Christ is also the second person of the Trinity; he is not only the son of God but is also God in a mysterious aspect known as the Son. A close parallel would be the Indian Rama, who is a human but is also simultaneously the divine Vishnu. This belief is, I think, not exclusively Catholic, either. Belief in the simultaneous divinity and mortality of Christ is what makes a Christian a Christian, distinct from Muslims, Jews, and others who believe only in the mortality of Jesus, and distinct also from Monophysites and some Gnostics who believed only in the divinity or spiritual nature of Christ. This belief is, and is supposed to be, shared by all Christians, including Orthodox and Protestants.
Furthermore, Catholiciscm teaches that the Bible is the Word of God revealed to man. Catholics believe in the concept of divine revelation. This means, more or less, that parts of the Bible were either written or spoken outright by God, while other parts were written by human beings who wrote what God wanted or willed them to write. Like the above, it is a belief shared not only by Catholics but also by Orthodox and Protestants. This is what accounts for the Bible's authority among its followers. This is why people care what the Bible says and believe we should live by it. This is also why, with the invention of the printing press, when people began to read the Bible for themselves, many broke away from the Catholic Church and formed their own (Protestant) churches—they perceived grave discrepancies between the original Gospels and the practices of the established Church of their time. The Bible has had and still has a very strong appeal to a very many people.
Now, I don't want to take an overly literal interpretation of the Bible. However, I have to point out that throughout the Gospels, Jesus constantly speaks to his disciples in parables. The parable of the prodigal son, the parables of the pearl of great price, of the mustard seed, of the wise and foolish maidens, of the three servants each given five talents, of the bad steward, of the servant with two masters, are but a few of the most famous parables that Jesus uses in the Bible.
What is a parable? A parable is a story in the form of a likeness or a metaphor, used to compare something the listener does not understand to something that he does understand. The comparisons are not exact, but there is a similarity. If I believe that Jesus Christ is God, and if my holy text tells me that he spoke in parables and metaphors, then I know that at one specific time the Word of God appeared in parable form. It should also be reasonable to conclude that the Word of God at large, including the Bible, is also a great story of comparison.
If Jesus, who is supposed to be God made flesh, speaks to his disciples in parables, why do we agonizingly treat the Bible as a literal, historical document? Why do we not also look at the Bible, which is supposed to be the Word of God, as another tremendous and moving parable? Such a conclusion does not negate the Bible. Rather, it may expand, supplement, and illuminate the Bible. But if we did so, we would have to revise our current, factually-oriented frame of mind to include a more psychological outlook. We would worry less about facts and hearken more closely to the truth of the stories. And we would be following a path potentially set forth in the Bible itself—namely listening for the meaning behind the story, rather than attempting to verify its historical accuracy. Nobody listens to the story of the prodigal son and then conducts an archeological expedition to determine whether or not there was an actual prodigal son, who he was, where he lived, and in what century. The story loses none of its potency in its present form. But we have archeological expeditions to search for the tomb of Jesus and his family. We have excavations inside the Basilicas of Saint Peter and of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome to determine if indeed the human remains there enshrined are the authentic bones of those two saints. Does this not miss the forest for the trees?
Indeed, our literalistic interpretation of literature is not confined to our understanding of the Bible, either. We also have numerous documentaries and research projects on the historicity of the Arthurian legend and still seek to answer whether or not there existed a Celtic chieftain by the name of Arthur. Even translator and scholar Robert Fitzgerald describes making a trek to Ithaca to compare that island's geography to the way it is described in Homer's Odyssey. This tendency is nothing modern, either: already in ancient Roman times, we find the poet Virgil identifying Homer's mysterious islands with locations within the territory of Italy; the city of Naples to this day is poetically referred to as Parthenopean, in homage to the Siren who is buried there. In our quests, we sift through so much of the myth—the part that really speaks to us—to look for a grain of truth. But which is more important: the single, microscopic flakes of pigment in the ceiling, or the awesome image of the Creation of Adam that makes the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel so awe-inspiring?
If we look at the Bible as a parable, it no longer matters if God created the world in six days in the sense of twenty-four earth hours times six. Why would we, who are so limited, think that God is infinite and all-powerful and assume that God created the whole vast universe so much larger than we are in time as we perceive it? Does the Bible itself not say, "One day is as a thousand years with the Lord, and a thousand years are as one day" (2 Peter 3:8)? It's that concrete, literal thinking at work again.
If we look at the Bible as a metaphor, the question of "creation out of dust and spittle" vs. "slow evolution out of dust and moisture by way of reptiles and primates" becomes less of an urgent conflict and more of a quibble in semantics. Some people are long-winded; some people are laconic. We have not departed from the same essential story. All we have is a variation of details: a long version, and a short version. The forty or so sentences of Genesis Chapters 1-2 are the short version. A college seminar in astrophysics and earth processes is the long one. Do you see? Within the context of established Christianity, we can find ways to reconcile some of the cosmology of science and religion.
But I have made my arguments largely from a logical, literal perspective. What we need is a more psychological, symbolic interpretation. The Bible has intrinsic value. But so does the Odyssey. And so does To Kill a Mockingbird. All art and all stories have an intrinsic, magnetic power. They should be allowed to speak for themselves in each generation and not have an interpretation stamped on them and passed unquestioned down the ages. To do so takes these stories—and their message—for granted. This is why many of us have left a church; We are not godless, but we are looking for something that we just cannot find in the traditional interpretation anymore. But stories will draw us back to them every time. And when we learn to look at the stories to find new meaning, all of a sudden, they become fresh again. That is the moment when the stories no longer just mean what they meant to our ancestors; they finally mean something to us.
Indeed, our literalistic interpretation of literature is not confined to our understanding of the Bible, either. We also have numerous documentaries and research projects on the historicity of the Arthurian legend and still seek to answer whether or not there existed a Celtic chieftain by the name of Arthur. Even translator and scholar Robert Fitzgerald describes making a trek to Ithaca to compare that island's geography to the way it is described in Homer's Odyssey. This tendency is nothing modern, either: already in ancient Roman times, we find the poet Virgil identifying Homer's mysterious islands with locations within the territory of Italy; the city of Naples to this day is poetically referred to as Parthenopean, in homage to the Siren who is buried there. In our quests, we sift through so much of the myth—the part that really speaks to us—to look for a grain of truth. But which is more important: the single, microscopic flakes of pigment in the ceiling, or the awesome image of the Creation of Adam that makes the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel so awe-inspiring?
If we look at the Bible as a parable, it no longer matters if God created the world in six days in the sense of twenty-four earth hours times six. Why would we, who are so limited, think that God is infinite and all-powerful and assume that God created the whole vast universe so much larger than we are in time as we perceive it? Does the Bible itself not say, "One day is as a thousand years with the Lord, and a thousand years are as one day" (2 Peter 3:8)? It's that concrete, literal thinking at work again.
If we look at the Bible as a metaphor, the question of "creation out of dust and spittle" vs. "slow evolution out of dust and moisture by way of reptiles and primates" becomes less of an urgent conflict and more of a quibble in semantics. Some people are long-winded; some people are laconic. We have not departed from the same essential story. All we have is a variation of details: a long version, and a short version. The forty or so sentences of Genesis Chapters 1-2 are the short version. A college seminar in astrophysics and earth processes is the long one. Do you see? Within the context of established Christianity, we can find ways to reconcile some of the cosmology of science and religion.
But I have made my arguments largely from a logical, literal perspective. What we need is a more psychological, symbolic interpretation. The Bible has intrinsic value. But so does the Odyssey. And so does To Kill a Mockingbird. All art and all stories have an intrinsic, magnetic power. They should be allowed to speak for themselves in each generation and not have an interpretation stamped on them and passed unquestioned down the ages. To do so takes these stories—and their message—for granted. This is why many of us have left a church; We are not godless, but we are looking for something that we just cannot find in the traditional interpretation anymore. But stories will draw us back to them every time. And when we learn to look at the stories to find new meaning, all of a sudden, they become fresh again. That is the moment when the stories no longer just mean what they meant to our ancestors; they finally mean something to us.
