Why Religion & Science Are Compatible

Image Credit: The Odyssey Online 

Over the last several years, the relationship between religion and science has grown more adversarial. Lately it’s become especially polarized, and I’ve often pondered why. I was recently listening to talk by Manly P. Hall, wherein he talked about the relationship between Darwinism and creationism. Hall didn’t believe that science should be at war with religion—a sentiment echoed by the Catholic Church for many generations, and upheld by our current Pope. I cannot say that I have been particularly kind to religion in this regard, but the talk I listened to bent my ear in a new way…

In the forefront of my mind was global warming and how the scientific community has spoken at length about the realities facing our world. The time is ripe for us to do something about it. Global warming is a real danger to us, and I’m here to tell you—yes you!—Christian, Muslim, Jew, or Buddhist, or any other person for that matter: there is a philosophical basis for uniting the science of global warming with the religious ideals. They are not opposed. 

 If you are religious, global warming should be important to you. 

We are stewards of the earth as people, but also, or even especially as children of God. If we believe that God granted us this earth we should also be invested in taking care of it. If you believe that God makes miracles, what about you? Are we not ALL miracles in God’s eyes? Could it be that we the people we have waited for? If God gave us the ability to discover and reason through science, isn’t science, therefore, another form of divine intervention?

For some, it may be a radical suggestion. I know some people believe God will help save us from catastrophe (like global warming) but if He endowed us with our own answers and the ability to fix this ourselves, isn’t that the same thing? Wouldn’t that be His will as well? If you put your faith in God, doesn’t he also put his faith in you, and for that matter, our fellow men and women? And if that is the case, cannot we not put our faith in science meant to help the world?

Something my mother used to say to me when I was a child was, “Science can give us a lot of answers, but there are always mysteries.” Indeed, we live in a mysterious world, and the older I get, the more mysterious it seems. Hall speaks about how neither science nor religion can fully answer this question: how-- and more importantly WHY-- did we come to be as a human species? Both can speculate, and both can guess. But these are only hypotheses. Will there be such time when we can truly come to know our purpose as human beings (either through religion and/or science?) I don’t know. One thing that I know for certain is I hope my children and grandchildren are here to see it if indeed we ever can.

If we want the answers to our true purpose, we may have to survive a few more thousand years—and in order to do that, we may have to place our faith in one another. That is so say, perhaps religion and science only work when they are seen as two keys to the same door—one cannot fully realize itself without the other in that way that we can make intellectual decisions, but the heart accounts for a lot as well. Or, as my friend Derek Dutton says, "Science and religion are completely compatible, but mutually exclusive. Don't use religion to explain science and don't use science to deny religion."

Science doesn’t have to deny religion and religion doesn’t have to deny science. Maybe the best question we can ask ourselves is whether either one is ultimately bringing about benevolent outcomes. If I ask myself whether or not the things we could do to help our planet’s temperature regulate are good for humanity, I have to conclude, “yes.” And if that prolongs life here on earth, I have to assume that’s good for religion as well.

What do you think?