DAY 97
CHALLENGE
“The superiority of science to faith is shown by the fact that, in the last few centuries, most discoveries have been made by science, not faith.”
DEFENSE
It is a mistake to assume that a certain field is superior because it is currently experiencing a growth spurt.
Every field of study experiences more and less productive periods, but this does not show one field to be superior to another. To the extent that they reveal truth to us, they are all important, regardless of the rate of new discoveries being made in them.
Further, the fact that a field is presently experiencing growth does not mean this will continue indefinitely. Physicist Lee Smolin argues in The Trouble with Physics that physics has been experiencing a dry period for decades, with few new, fundamental discoveries to match previous ones. Similarly, in The End of Science, science writer John Horgan argues that science is approaching fundamental limits that will impede major new discoveries.
We will have to wait to see whether these difficulties can be over-come, but they serve as warnings that an indefinitely long, high rate of scientific discovery is not to be taken for granted.
Ultimately, it is a form of chronological snobbery to assume that a field is superior just because it is growing at the moment. What matters is whether it reveals truth to us, not its growth rate.
This is particularly true with respect to religion. If the Christian claim is true, then we already have the basic data we need to work with. The Faith has been “once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3), public revelation has ended, and the deposit of faith is closed (CCC 66). God may have chosen to give us this information before the rise of science because, unlike science, it concerns our eternal destiny and is therefore more essential for us to have.
However that may be, the Christian claim implies that we should not expect radical new discoveries regarding the Faith, but a gradual refinement of points as we better appreciate the data God has given us.
The present state of affairs is thus consistent with the Christian claim, and, regardless of their respective rates of growth, both science and faith make important contributions to humanity.