Faith Versus Fact : Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible (9780698195516) (12 page)

My claim is this: science and religion are incompatible because they have different methods for getting knowledge about reality, have different ways of assessing the reliability of that knowledge, and, in the end, arrive at conflicting conclusions about the universe. “Knowledge” acquired by religion is at odds not only with scientific knowledge, but also with knowledge professed by other religions. In the end, religion's methods, unlike those of science, are useless for understanding reality. This form of incompatibility is the one expressed—albeit more humorously—by the science writer Natalie Angier in the quote that heads this chapter.

One might argue, using the dictionary definition, that religion and science are actually compatible because they are “consistent” in one respect: science's realm involves facts about the universe, while that of religion is supposedly limited to morals, meaning, and purpose. In other words, they are compatible because they are complementary. I will argue in the next chapter that this idea, made famous by Stephen Jay Gould, fails on two
counts: religion
also
deals with facts about the universe, and even if religion claims to deal with the “big questions” about human purpose and value, so do other fields, like secular philosophy, that don't use the concept of a god.

Clearly, religions that don't make existence claims, like Taoism, Confucianism, and pantheism, aren't incompatible in the way I describe. But theistic faiths, those that posit God's intervention in the world, conflict with science on three levels: methodology, outcomes, and philosophy.

Looking at methodology, I claim that the difference between science and religion can be summarized in how their adherents answer the question “How would I know if I was wrong
?
”

The difference in methods yields a difference in outcomes. Because the ways that science and religion come to understand reality are at odds, they are expected to produce different outcomes: different “facts.” To the extent that scientific facts contravene religious doctrines, this creates incompatibilities.

Finally, the first two incompatibilities lead to the third: a disparity in philosophy. Science has learned through experience that assuming the existence of gods and divine intervention has been of no value in helping us understand the universe. This has led to the working assumption—some might call it a “philosophy”—that supernatural beings can be
provisionally seen as nonexistent.
I'll take up these issues in order.

The different methods that science and religion use to ascertain their “truths” couldn't be clearer. Science comprises an exquisitely refined set of tools designed to find out what is real and to prevent confirmation bias. Science prizes doubt and iconoclasm, rejects absolute authority, and relies on testing one's ideas with experiments and observations of nature. Its sine qua non
is evidence—evidence that can be inspected and adjudicated by any trained and rational observer. And it depends largely on falsification. Nearly every scientific truth comes with an implicit rider: “Evidence X would show this to be wrong.”

Religion begins with beliefs based not on observation, but on revelation,
authority (often that of scripture), and dogma. Most people acquire their faith when young via indoctrination by parents, teachers, or peers, so that religious “truths” depend heavily on who spawned you and where you grew up. Beliefs instilled in this way are then undergirded with defenses that make them resistant to falsification. While some religious people do struggle with their beliefs, doubt is not an inherent part of belief, nor is it especially prized. No honors accrue to the Southern Baptist who points out that while there is plenty of evidence for evolution, there is none for the creation story of Genesis.

Some religious claims are untestable because they involve knowing about the irrecoverable past. There is almost no way to show, for instance, that Jesus was the son of God, that Allah dictated the Quran to Muhammad, or that the souls of Buddhists are reincarnated in other humans or animals. (There could, however, be at least some evidence for such claims, such as concordant eyewitness accounts of the miracles that supposedly accompanied Jesus's Crucifixion, including the darkness at noon, the rending of the Temple's curtain, the earthquakes, and the rising of saints from their graves. Unfortunately, the many historians of the time have failed to report these phenomena.) What science
can
do is point out the absence of evidence for such claims, taking them off the table until some hint of evidence arrives. When scientists don't know something, like the nature of the mysterious “dark matter” that fills the universe, we don't pretend to understand it based on “other ways of knowing” that don't involve science. There is tantalizing evidence for dark matter, but we won't claim to know what it is until we have hard evidence. That is precisely the opposite of how the faithful approach their own claims of truth.

In the end, religious investigations of “truth,” unlike those of science, are deeply dependent on confirmation bias. You start with what you were taught to believe, or what you want to believe, and then accept only those facts that support your prejudices. This is the basis for the theological practice of “apologetics,” designed to defend religion against counterarguments and disconfirming evidence. The fact of evolution, for instance, was once seen by many as strong evidence against God. As we'll see, apologists have now decided that it is exactly what we'd expect from a good creator, who would, of course, allow life to blossom gradually instead of producing a boring and
static
creation ex nihilo. In contrast, science has no apologetics, for we test our conclusions by
trying
to find counterevidence.

The difference in methodology between science and faith involves several opposing practices and attitudes.

Faith

The most important component of the incompatibility between science and religion is religion's dependence on faith, a word defined in the New Testament as “
the substance of things hoped for
, the evidence of things not seen.”
The philosopher Walter Kaufmann characterized it as “
intense, usually confident, belief
that is not based on evidence sufficient to command assent from every reasonable person.”
Because Kaufmann was an atheist, we might seek a more neutral definition by going again to the
Oxford English Dictionary,
which gives this “theological” definition of faith:

Belief in and acceptance of the doctrines of a religion, typically involving belief in a god or gods and in the authenticity of divine revelation. Also (
Theol.
): the capacity to spiritually apprehend divine truths, or realities beyond the limits of perception or of logical proof, viewed either as a faculty of the human soul, or as the result of divine illumination.

Note that what promote acceptance of religious doctrine are revelation, “divine illumination,” and spiritual apprehension, leading to acceptance of “realities beyond the limits of perception or of logical proof.” This is in fact quite similar to Kaufmann's definition, for surely the apprehension of truths that lie beyond normal perception and logic are
not
sufficient to convince most people.

Theologians intensely dislike the definition of faith as belief without—or in the face of—evidence, for that practice sounds irrational. But it surely is, as is any system that requires supporting a priori
beliefs without good evidence. In religion, but not science, that kind of faith is seen as a virtue.

If you doubt the claim of my Lutheran debate opponent that faith is a virtue (and the concordant implication that reason is overrated), you can find ample evidence in the works of Christianity, both scriptural and
exegetical. Doubting Thomas, who insisted on thrusting his hands into Christ's wounds, was seen as misguided: as Jesus remarked, “
blessed are they that have not seen
, and yet have believed.”
Paul and the early church fathers and theologians were unrelenting in their attacks on reason, a doctrine encapsulated in
fideism
, the view that faith and reason are not only incompatible, but also mutually hostile, and that religious belief must be justified by faith alone. Fideism embodies the incompatibility—nay, the war—between science and religion, and is embodied in these two passages, the first from the New Testament and the second from Tertullian (Kierkegaard had similar sentiments):

But the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

The Son of God died
: it is immediately credible—because it is silly. He was buried, and rose again: it is certain—because it is impossible.

It might seem bizarre to believe in something
because
it is absurd, but it makes a kind of sense: faith is required for belief only when you lack good reasons for that belief. Fideism sometimes reaches Orwellian proportions, as it did with Saint Ignatius Loyola:

To be right in everything
, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it, believing that between Christ our Lord, the Bridegroom, and the Church, His Bride, there is the same Spirit which governs and directs us for the salvation of our souls.

The view of freethought and curiosity as inferior to faith and religious authority continues today. Although Pope Francis is celebrated for bringing a new spirit of tolerance and modernity to the Vatican, in November 2013 he denigrated the “spirit of curiosity” in a homily at Mass:

The spirit of curiosity is not a good spirit
. It is the spirit of dispersion, of distancing oneself from God, the spirit of talking too much. . . . [And
Jesus also] tells us something interesting: this spirit of curiosity, which is worldly, leads us to confusion. . . . The Kingdom of God is among us. . . . [Do not] seek strange things, [do not] seek novelties with this worldly curiosity. Let us allow the Spirit to lead us forward in that wisdom, which is like a soft breeze. This is the Spirit of the Kingdom of God, of which Jesus speaks. So be it.

This is a strange attitude given that the Vatican has an astronomical observatory run by priests, complete with a large telescope.

The abnegation of reason is not unique to Catholicism. Martin Luther, for instance, was famous for his many vehement claims that reason was incompatible with Christianity itself. Here are but two:

For reason is the greatest enemy
that faith has: it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but—more frequently than not—struggles against the Divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.

There is on earth among all dangers
no more dangerous thing than a richly endowed and adroit reason. . . . Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed.

Believers have a response to the accusation of discerning truth by faith alone. It's the
tu quoque
gambit, which goes something like this: “Well, scientists have faith too: faith in the results produced by other scientists, faith in the empiricism and reason that yield those results, and faith in the idea that it's good to find out more about the universe.” We can restate this more simply as: “In these ways, science is just as bad as religion.” As we'll see in chapter 4, this claim is false because the meaning of “faith” differs between religious and conventional use.

Authority as the Arbiter of Truth

The dependence on authority is an important difference between science and faith. In many religions, either church dogma or theologians are the final arbiters of truth, and while the flock may deviate from church doctrine,
they are not free to concoct their own. “Blasphemy” and “heresy” are terms of religion, not science. A Catholic who rejects the Trinity, for instance, has no power to sway the Vatican's interpretation, and may in fact be excommunicated.
The Lutheran theologian whom I debated
in Charleston abides by a “confession of faith,” which includes three creeds (including the Nicene Creed) as well as the Book of Concord, a compilation of writings by Luther and others. Newly ordained ministers of the liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, for instance, must swear to uphold and promulgate the tenets of that confession, which include the reality of original sin, the virginity of Mary, the Resurrection of Christ, the prerequisite of baptism for gaining eternal life, and the truths of salvation in heaven and eternal punishment in hell.

Now imagine if science worked that way. Upon getting my Ph.D. in evolutionary biology, I'd have to lay my hand on the
Origin of Species
and swear fealty to Darwin and his ideas. The idea is laughable, for such unbending adherence would quickly put an end to scientific progress. Neither scientific texts nor scientists themselves are considered inerrant. Indeed, although I view the
Origin
to be the greatest science book of all time, it's wrong in many respects, including its errors about genetics and about my own area of research—ironically, the origin of species. If scientists were to swear to anything, it would be to abjure all authority in our search for truth.

True, scientists do have confidence (not faith) in some authorities, but only those authorities who have earned trust through a record of either making correct predictions or producing verified observations or experiments. This ethos is embodied in the Latin motto of London's Royal Society, the United Kingdom's most elite body of scientists, physicians, and engineers:
Nullius in verba
. Roughly translated, that means, “Don't take anyone's word.” The society notes that this is “
an expression of the determination
of Fellows to withstand the domination of authority and to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment.”

It's not widely appreciated that much religious dogma, especially in Christianity, wasn't even derived from scripture or revelation, but from a consensus of opinion designed to quell dissent within the church. The Council of Nicaea, for instance, was convened by Emperor Constantine in 325 to settle issues about the divinity of Jesus and the reality of the Trinity. Despite some
dissent, both issues were affirmed. In other words, issues of religious truth were settled
by vote.
The requirement for absolving sin through individual confession wasn't adopted by Catholics until the ninth century; the doctrine of papal infallibility was adopted by the First Vatican Council as late as 1870; and the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven, something debated for centuries, didn't become Catholic dogma until Pope Pius XII declared it so in 1950. And it was only in 2007 that Pope Benedict XVI, acting on the advice of a commission convened by his predecessor, declared that the souls of unbaptized babies could now go to heaven instead of lingering in limbo. Given the absence of new information that produced these changes, how can anybody seriously see this as a rational way to decide religious “truth”?