Religion and Science Part 1

Religion and Science.

by John Charlton Hardwick.

PREFACE

The chapters which follow are not intended as even a slight sketch of the history of Thought since the Renaissance. Their object is more modest, i.e. to ill.u.s.trate the thesis that mankind, being "incurably religious," insists (however hopeless the enterprise may sometimes seem) upon interpreting the universe spiritually.

Thus it is quite natural that only a few typical names should find their places here: and often no sufficient reason may appear for one being included rather than another. For instance, in the tenth chapter, T. H.

Green, F. H. Bradley, and A. J. Balfour are mentioned, while Martineau and the Cairds are pa.s.sed over. Needless to say, there was no doctrinal prejudice here. Again, in the fourth chapter, Pascal is dealt with at some length, but Boehme, an equally important thinker, is ignored. And so on.

I should like to acknowledge here my obligation to Dr. Mercer, Canon of Chester, for his advice upon books, especially with regard to material for the final chapters. Also to the Rev. H. D. A. Major, Princ.i.p.al of Ripon Hall, for suggestions about the general plan of the book; and to the Rev. E. Harvey (a mathematical graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, at present studying medicine) for valuable information about the present position of psychic research.

J. C. H.

ALTRINGHAM, _March 23rd, 1920_.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY. RELIGION AND SCIENCE

Numerous attempts to define religion have made it evident that religion is indefinable. We may, however, say this much about it, that religion is _an att.i.tude towards life_: a way of looking at existence. It is true that this definition is too wide, and includes things which are not religion--there are certain att.i.tudes to life which are definitely anti-religious--that of the materialist, for instance. However, it will serve a purpose, and we can improve upon it as we proceed. It is a mistake to put too much faith in definitions: at any rate it is better to have our definitions (if have them we must) too wide than too narrow.

Science is, fortunately, much easier to define. _Accurate and systematic knowledge_ is what we mean by science--knowledge about anything, provided that the facts are (so far as possible) accurately described and systematically cla.s.sified. Professor Karl Pearson, the highest authority on the principles of scientific method and theory, writes:

"The man who cla.s.sifies facts of any kind whatever, who sees their mutual relation and describes their sequences, is applying the scientific method and is a man of science. The facts may belong to the past history of mankind, to the social statistics of our great cities, to the atmosphere of the most distant stars, to the digestive organs of a worm, or to the life of a scarcely visible bacillus. It is not facts themselves which make science, but the method by which they are dealt with. The material of science is co-extensive with the whole physical universe, not only that universe as it now exists, but with its past history and the past history of all life therein. When every fact, every present or past phenomenon of that universe, every phase of present or past life therein, has been cla.s.sified, and co-ordinated with the rest, then the mission of science will be completed."[1]

Science, then, is systematic and accurate knowledge; and when we have systematic and accurate knowledge about everything there is to be known, the programme of science will be complete. This is only to say that the task it has set itself is one that will never end.

So much, then, for our definitions. Religion is "an att.i.tude to life": science is "systematic and accurate knowledge." How does the one affect the other? What are the relations between the two? That is the topic which will occupy our attention during the chapters that follow. To answer the question properly will involve a certain amount of acquaintance with the history of ideas. We must first put the preliminary question: How, as a matter of fact, have men's scientific ideas affected their religious ideas (or _vice versa_) in times past?

Having tried to answer this question, we shall be in a better position to approach the religious problem as it presents itself to-day.

Meanwhile a few remarks of a general character will not be out of place.

It is evident that "science" can hardly fail to affect "religion."

Systematised knowledge necessarily affects an individual's (or a society's) att.i.tude to life--either by broadening and elevating that att.i.tude, or by debasing it. Our knowledge, or what we believe to be such, tends to create certain preconceptions which make our minds hostile to certain beliefs or ideas. A man reared from his cradle on mechanical science will tend to regard miracles with suspicion; if he be logical (as he generally is not) freedom of the will, even in the most limited sense, will appear chimerical. Nor will his general att.i.tude to life remain unaffected by his views on these points.

Systematised knowledge may thus conceivably come into conflict with the presuppositions or the ideals of some particular religion. It is then that a "religious problem" arises. A religion indissolubly a.s.sociated with a geocentric conception of the universe would tend to become discredited as soon as that conception had been disposed of by "systematic knowledge." Science may even tend to produce an att.i.tude to life hostile not only to a particular religion but to _all_ religion. If materialism should ultimately be found to be consistent with systematic and accurate knowledge, it is difficult to see how any att.i.tude to life which could be appropriately described as "religion" could survive. The religious problem would then, at any rate, cease to trouble us. The religious apologists would be free to turn their attention to matters of more moment. But it is not only with the cessation of religion that the religious problem slumbers. There are certain happy periods when religion flourishes undisturbed by obstinate questionings. These cla.s.sical ages of religion exist when systematised knowledge seems to support the contemporary religious outlook--when science and religion speak with one voice. Such unanimity seems to us to-day too good to be possible, but that is only because our own age is exceptional--not because those happier ages were exceptional; they, in fact--if we trace history backwards--would seem rather to have been the rule.

Primitive man, it would seem, was troubled by no discords of the kind which disturb our peace. His systematic knowledge--such as it was--was entirely in accord with his religion, the two were, in fact, in his case practically one. His science _was_ his religion. It may not have been very sound science, nor very elevated religion, but it served his purpose admirably. He was too busy with the struggle for survival to indulge in speculation. His religion was severely practical, and he was faithful to it because experience seemed to indicate that it paid.

But the Stone Age hardly deserves (in spite of its freedom from religious difficulties) to be described as one of the cla.s.sical ages of religion; absence of struggle does not necessarily mean richness of life. There are ages which better deserve that appellation. There are times when all existing culture--even of a high level--is closely a.s.sociated with the current religion, endorses its ideals, sanctions its hopes, puts the stamp of finality upon its faith. Such an age cannot perhaps hope to be permanent; for life means movement, and movement upsets equilibrium, and human knowledge tends to increase faster than the human mind can adapt itself to it or digest it. But such ages are looked back upon with regret when they are past, they shed a golden radiance over history, their tradition lingers, they even leave behind them monuments of art and literature which are the wonder, and the inimitable models, of succeeding generations.

Such an epoch was that which left to us our Gothic cathedrals. These are the creation of one of those cla.s.sic ages "when all existing culture is cast or bent in obedience to the religious idea." When scientist, scholar and ecclesiastic spoke with one voice and listened to one message; when prince and peasant worshipped together the same divinities; when to be outside the religious community was to be cut off from the brotherhood of mankind. "The Church" was then co-extensive with civilisation: those without the fold were barbarians, hardly worthy of the name of man.

That time of splendid harmony, however, is now past; no lamentations will restore it. We have reached another world.

But it need not remain only a memory; it ought also to serve as an inspiration. The conditions of affairs during the cla.s.sic ages of religion, however impossible at the moment, must remain our ideal. Head and heart must some day speak again with one voice, our hopes and beliefs must be consistent with our knowledge. Science must sanction that att.i.tude towards existence which our highest instincts dictate.

It is only too likely that this consummation is yet distant. Yet even if our generation has to reconcile itself to spiritual and moral discord, it should never overlook the existence of a happier ideal, and even the possibility of its fulfilment. Fortunately for the interests of religion, men feel they _must_ effect some kind of a reconciliation between the opposing demands which proceed from different sides of their nature. Each for himself tries to approximate science and religion, and the struggle to do this creates in each individual spiritual life.

Tension sometimes creates light, and struggle engenders life. So long as there are men sufficiently _interested_ in religion to ask for a solution of its problems, religion will remain superior to the disintegration towards which all discord, if unchecked, proceeds.

It is sometimes said that the religious harmony of the Middle Ages, of which we have spoken, having been due to imperfect knowledge, is never likely to repeat itself, unless we sink back into the ignorance of barbarism: and (it is urged) we know too much to be at peace. Having tasted of the fruits of knowledge, the human race is cast forth from its Paradise. This view is unduly pessimistic. There is no valid reason for excluding the possibility that our knowledge of reality and those ideal hopes which const.i.tute our religion may actually coincide. Religion and science, approaching the problem of existence from contrary directions, may independently arrive at an identical solution. That the two actually do attack the enigma from different sides has led many people to regard the two as hostile forces. Such is not the case. Religion and science regard reality from different angles, but it is the same reality that is the object of their vision, and the goal of their search.

Religion looks at existence as a whole, and attempts to determine its meaning and value for mankind. Religion, we may say, stands at the centre of existence, and regards reality from a central position.

The province of science, on the other hand, is not to take so wide a survey, but to gain knowledge piece-meal: to locate points inductively, and thus to plot out the curve which we believe existence const.i.tutes.

If the _loci_, as they are successively fixed, seem to indicate that the curve is identical with the circle which religion has already intuitively postulated, the problem of existence would have been solved.

Science and religion working by different methods would have described the same circle. When science has completed its circle, its centre may be found to stand just at the point where religion has always confidently declared it to be. Knowledge and faith will then, and not till then, be one.

CHAPTER II

THE DISSOLUTION OF THE OLD SYNTHESIS

We have seen that there are cla.s.sic religious periods when faith and knowledge have seemed to approximate to one another. The Middle Ages in Europe const.i.tuted such a period; no "Religion _v._ Science" controversy could then be said to exist; the best scientific knowledge of the time seemed to sanction the popular religious notions. Learned and lay thought in the same terms; the wolf lay down with the lamb.

THE OLD WORLD-SCHEME.--It is important to grasp the main features of a world-scheme which as late as the fifteenth century pa.s.sed everywhere without criticism.

The father of it was Aristotle. His conception of the universe rested upon the plain contrast, which strikes the unsophisticated observer, between the unembarra.s.sed and regular movements of the heavenly bodies and the disordered agitations of sublunary things. Hence the heavenly region was eternal, and the region of earth transitory: yonder, the motions that take place are eternal and regular; here, motion and rest alternate, nothing "continueth in one stay."

At the centre of the universe stands Earth: hence we mount through three sublunary strata to the region of the celestial ether, which is purer as distance from the Earth increases.

These strata form three concentric "spheres" which, solid yet transparent (like crystal), revolve around the earth. The first contains the moon--like a fly in amber; the second, the sun; the third, the fixed stars; which last sphere is also the first of several successive heavens, the highest of which is the seat of Deity.

This Aristotelio-Ptolemaic system[2] formed a coherent framework for biblical world-notions. Here too, earth stands still while sun and stars revolve; here, too, the seat of Deity is the highest heaven. This was an universe where men could feel their feet on firm ground; their minds found rest in those simple and definite notions which make religious conceptions easy to understand and accept; their imaginations were not yet disturbed and disquieted by thoughts of s.p.a.ce and time without end and without beginning.

AQUINAS.--Such was the "world of nature," the theatre for that "world of grace" which Revelation spoke of, and which led eventually to the eternal "world of glory" in which the faithful should have their portion. _Natura_, _gratia_, _gloria_ was the ascending series (like another set of celestial spheres), and the whole economy was elaborated into a logical system, known to the historians of thought as Scholasticism: a philosophy which found its most perfect and memorable expression in Thomas Aquinas (1227-74), the _doctor angelicus_ of Catholic theology, canonised less than fifty years after his death. The _Summa Philosophica_, where Aquinas deals with the rational foundations of a Christian Theism, and the _Summa Theologica_, where he erects his elaborate structure of theology and ethics, together const.i.tute "one of the most magnificent monuments of the human intellect, dwarfing all other bodies of theology into insignificance."[3] In him the erudition of an epoch found its spokesman; he was the personification of an intellectual ideal. To his contemporaries he stood beyond the range of criticism. In the _Paradiso_ (x.8.2) it is St. Thomas who speaks in heaven.

Nevertheless, the Scholastic world-scheme, though based on "the evidence of the senses, the investigations of antiquity, and the authority of the Church," and though Aquinas had set the seal of finality upon it, was destined to gradual discredit and ultimate extinction.

DISINTEGRATION BEGINS.--It was open to attack on two sides. _Either_ observations or calculations might be brought forward, conflicting with it, or making another conception possible or probable: _Or_ the validity of conventional ideas of s.p.a.ce might be disputed.

The latter type of criticism was the first to occur. Nicholas Cusa.n.u.s (1401-1464), an inhabitant of the Low Countries, subsequently bishop and cardinal, developed unconventional notions about s.p.a.ce. He suggested that wherever man finds himself--on earth, sun, or star--he will always regard himself as standing at the centre of existence. There is, in fact, no point in the universe which might not appropriately be called its centre, and to say that the earth stands at the centre is only (what we should now call it) an anthropomorphism. So much for _place_; and similarly with _motion_. Here, too, there is no absolute standard to apply: motion may exist, but be unnoticed if there be no spot at absolute rest from which to take bearings.

"We are like a man in a boat sailing with the stream, who does not know that the water is flowing, and who cannot see the banks: how is he to discover whether the boat is moving?" Cusa.n.u.s, in fact, denies the fundamental Aristotelian dogma that the earth is the central point of the universe, because, on general grounds, there _can_ be no absolute central point. This gave a shock to the "geocentric theory" from which it never recovered.

Worse shocks, however, were to come. The name of the man who actually (as Luther complained) turned the world upside down, is notorious enough. Poles and Germans alike have claimed the nationality of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543); who, having been a student at Cracow and in Italy, became a prebendary in Frauenburg Cathedral.

THE NEW ASTRONOMY.--The general criticisms of Cusa.n.u.s were elaborated by Copernicus. The senses cannot inform us (when any motion takes place) _what_ it is that moves. It may be the thing perceived that moves, or the percipient--or both. And it would be _possible_ to account for the movements of celestial bodies by the supposition that it is the earth that moves, and not they. Copernicus' whole work consisted in the mathematical demonstration that this hypothesis could account for the phenomena as we observe them. In fact, when these demonstrations were eventually published (it was only on his death-bed that Copernicus received a copy of his book--and he had already lost consciousness) they were introduced by a discreet preface, which intimated that the whole thing might safely be regarded as a _jeu d'esprit_ on the part of an eccentric mathematician. And this editorial _caveto_, though written by another hand, preserved the Copernican theories from the notoriety that might otherwise have attended, and afterwards did attend, them.