Scienctism and Religion

Last night my Men’s ministry meeting had a little discussion on religion and science. The debate went about as usual, spotting the problem of Darwinian Evolution, the ethical role religion plays in science (like in bioethics and weapons and stuff). The debate, to me anyway, was very straightforward with nothing new to add to the conversation. As I sat there, I almost predicted all the talking points among my fellow intellectuals and decided to remain silent as I really had nothing new to contribute. However, as my mind started to simmer in the issue, I realized that the debate between science and religion did not start with Darwin, but with Epicurus.

Epicurus was the first to believe that man was made of nothing more than atoms (smallest units of physical matter) and that man had no immortal soul. While stoic philosophers tended to speculate on this matter, they never really adhered to the philosophy and remained mostly theists. This belief that man is nothing more than matter plays a huge role in the debate between science and religion.

What science is not.

Science must first be stated by what it is not. It is not value free as many scientists want to claim. Even religious people, like those who sat around me, claimed that religion is about “Why” while science is more the “What and How”. However, the rules of praxeology do not permit any value free judgements. Famous economist, Ludwig von Mises, once stated that all human action is ration. Man is a creature who wishes to solve problems and uses means to accomplish some subjective end. This end in all action is never objective, but subjective to their taste, which means that all action has value. A scientist who studies medicine wants to cure people (or make money), a person studying meterology may want to figure out how the climate works (or make money), or even an astrophysicist may want to study the stars to see how far human knowledge can go with regard to space travel (or get famous because there really is no money in that). Jokes aside, we see that every time a scientist wants to start an experiment they are starting with their whole “being”, not some objective scientific ideal.

Now that we have determined that science is not value free, we must ask, “Why the war between science and religion?” Firstly, this statement itself is a slight of hand. There is no war between faith and reason. The question is loaded with preconceptions that one cannot both be into science and religion. As was pointed out in the discussion some of the greatest saints in the Orthodox Church were scientists like Basil the Great, Pantelemon, Cosmas, and Damian. St. Luke, the writer of one of the four Gospels, was a doctor. The myth of science v religion is nothing more than a ruse to distract from the real debate, sin v holiness.

Sin v Holiness in the Debate
Epicurus was a man who lived for pleasure. To live for pleasure meant that he believed he needed to break the back of religious ideals that could hinder his goal for self fulfillment. This does not mean he was a drunk or sexually active, in fact he was practically a monk in sobriety and chastity, however, he was one who believed that an organized faith would only get in the way of man seeking after pleasure in this life because they were willing to suffer for the promise of the next life. Frederick Nietzsche would echo this in his work “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” where he ties the belief that “God is dead” with the “Ubermench” or “Superman” who, by sheer act of will, will carve his own destiny off grave of a dead God. This is where sin and holiness differ.

Science is a convenient metaphysical belief that can be used as an excuse to support all kinds of behavior. Eugenics was an excuse to kill Jews, blacks, and other non desirables during the early 20th Century. A so called scietific approach to the sexual preferences makes the sins of homosexuality into a natural part of the world. However, the “natural” of scietific understanding is a value judgement. If it is natural, then it is good. However, coincide is natural, but that does not mean it is good for you to injest.

Not all natural actions are good because we live in a fallen world. In the words of St. Paul, “Man has exchanged what is natural with what is unnatural.” This means that ignoring the faith handed down to us from God has made man into something unnatural and science, while it can study the physical world, it cannot make man holy, which is his natural state. Science is incomplete without faith, but to be fair, faith can gain a lot of tools to help it along the way from science. That is my view.