Religion Hostile to Science?

DEFENSE

This is a gross caricature that itself exhibits hostility to religion.

There have been conflicts involving science and religion (e.g., the Galileo affair, the Scopes Monkey Trial). There are religious individuals who are hostile to science, but there also are scientifically oriented individuals who are hostile to religion. Looking down on something as “unscientific” displays hostility in the same way dismissing it as “irreligious” does.

The supporters of both religion and science are flawed human beings who are sometimes unjustly hostile, but this does not make the two fields intrinsically hostile to each other.

Religion is a diverse phenomenon. When one thinks of all the different religions in the world, all the diversity of viewpoint and attitude that can exist within a single religion, and all of the scientists who belong to different religions, it is a gross caricature to assert that religion is somehow fundamentally opposed to science.

Christianity, in particular, understands God as a divine lawgiver who embedded certain laws in nature. These laws can be investigated by humans, and it has been argued that this understanding has played an important role in the rise of modern science, in which many Christian scientists were prominent.

Religion, science, and philosophy each ask fundamental questions about the world, and sometimes the areas investigated by the three disciplines overlap. However, this does not make the three disciplines intrinsically hostile to each other.

From a Christian point of view, all truth is God’s truth, and he is glorified when humans use their divinely given intellects to discover what God has done, regardless of which field makes the discovery.

The Catholic attitude toward science is expressed in the Catechism:

The question about the origins of the world and of man has been the object of many scientific studies which have splendidly enriched our knowledge of the age and dimensions of the cosmos, the development of life forms and the appearance of man. These discoveries invite us to even greater admiration for the greatness of the Creator, prompting us to give him thanks for all his works and for the understanding and wisdom he gives to scholars and researchers (CCC 283).