Understanding God through Faith and Science

The thing that surprises people the most about that quotation is its source. If you don’t recognize it, you undoubtedly think it is from some religious figure. Instead, it is from Isaac Newton’s Principia, the single most important work of science in the history of the world.

It is common folklore that there is a war between science and faith. Elaine Howard Ecklund, a sociologist at Rice University, has done extensive surveys of both scientists and religious communities about their views on one another. In Why Science and Faith Need Each Other, she attempts to bridge the gap by writing to Christians explaining, as her subtitle says, Eight Shared Values that Move Us Beyond Fear.

The fact that a book like this needs to be written at all is itself rather curious. Why do people believe there is a divide between science and faith? Why do many Christians struggle with the idea of exposing their children to the work of secular scientists? Why is there a suspicion about the study of the world designed, as Newton claims, by the universal ruler?

In large part the impression of the divide is fueled by people with a vested interest in perpetuating it. A mass media constantly seeking explosive content, will happily give airtime to people willing to wage a war between science and faith. With lucrative book contracts and speaking fees in sight, there is no lack of volunteers to play in this battle.

As Ecklund’s surveys show, however, the majority of both scientists and religious people do not believe that science and faith are incompatible. This is, without a doubt, the most important thing in the book. If you, like Isaac Newton, think science and faith can happily cohabitate, but you thought you were alone in thinking that, you will find a great deal of comfort in Ecklund’s work.

Ecklund wants to do more than simply note the range of views within religious and scientific communities, though. She wants to demonstrate that these two communities need each other. Ecklund explains her approach: “I see science and faith not just as sets of ideas but as groups of people.” This, then is not a theoretical exercise showing there is no incompatibility; it is more akin to trying to get the cliques in the school to mingle with one another.

Ecklund’s method is akin to standing at a flip chart and asking each group to toss out “values” which are important to the group. She gets eight of them and then proceeds to show that both groups share this value, or at least both groups should share this value. The values: Curiosity, Doubt, Humility, Creativity, Healing, Awe, Shalom, Gratitude. At its best, the method does provide some common ground. The universe is indeed jaw-droppingly amazing, and this fact breeds awe in both scientists who study it and Christians who worship the Creator of it. Both the scientific community and the religious communities could use a lot more humility when it comes to engaging in debate. We all could use more gratitude for both science and faith.

It is when the Ecklund’s method doesn’t work, though, that we being to see why the integration of science and faith really needs a firmer place on which to stand. The chapter on Creativity was jarring to say the least. It begins by noting that many churches have a hard time discussing infertility; if a church constantly emphasizes that children are a blessing from God, this can leave infertile couples feeling left out. The chapter then morphs into a discussion of how IVF (in-vitro fertilization) is a tool created by science to allow infertile couple to conceive. Many Christians find the methods used in IVF to be morally problematic since such procedures often result in the destruction of embryos.

This is a fantastic example of where science and faith meet. How does Ecklund address the matter? She explains her own struggles with infertility and then casually notes that her daughter, who has been frequently mentioned in the preceding pages, was born thanks to IVF. Now that she has personalized the issue, she leaves the reader is the odd situation of needing to feel churlish in order to argue there is a problem with IVF. Ecklund solves the problem by pointing to her survey evidence. Not all Christians think IVF is morally problematic. This is, to put it mildly, not a persuasive argument.

The IVF discussion should not have been surprising, though. Back in chapter 3, Ecklund directly addressed the most obvious point of tension between science and faith: the theory of evolution. If there is anything that needs to be addressed before we can hope to bridge the perceived divide between science and faith, this is it. Ecklund’s approach? She shows that many Christians believe that evolutionary theory contradicts the Bible. But, many Christians do not see such a conflict. That is the extent of Ecklund’s argument.

For whom is this book written? There is nothing in this book that would convince anyone who believes in the incompatibly of science and faith that the two things can be reconciled. Such an argument can be made, it just isn’t made here. Ecklund’s surveys turn up a number of people who attend churches where the war between science and faith is almost an article of faith. To think otherwise in a church like that can feel very lonely. Ecklund book is best seen as an encouraging word to a person like that, saying, “You are not alone.”

Not being alone, however, is not the same thing as being right. After all, if Christians disagree on whether science and faith can be integrated, they can’t all be right. Science and faith need each other for reasons far beyond the fact that both inspire awe and gratitude. Science and faith need each other because it is only through both that we have any hope of understanding the world. Faith needs science because there aren’t any religious texts out there that explain DNA or microorganisms or the properties of hydrogen. Science needs faith both to give it a moral grounding (is it OK to clone humans?) and, more importantly, to give us a basis for accepting that the world is indeed a rational and predictable place. Science and faith need each other because our minds have been constructed in a way that the search for Truth involves both. For that, we can thank the Lord God Pantokrator.