The Limits of Science and Religion (Some Jottings)

As much as I like to see them collaborating on key issues, I also admit that both science and religion have limits and cannot answer all questions.

As for science, it’s not clear to me that it can answer moral questions. As I’ve written in Mere Science and Christian Faith (page 141):

Science can inform, but not dictate ethics. 

We need to look to neuroscience to tell us whether, for example, the prefrontal cortex or the amygdala is "lighting up" and that can indicate whether emotions or rationality are in play as we make a decision. But that cannot, by itself, determine what decision to make.

Science is also always embedded in some metaphysics. The brilliant 20th century British astronomer Fred Hoyle was clear to state that he resisted big bang cosmology because it didn't fit with his materialistic metaphysics. And in general, the sciences do not have the capacity—without the help of philosophical reflection—to make statements about meaning and reality. Science studies the natural world and its relations. 

As the world-class physicist and Anglican priest John Polkinghorne commented, this is why science is so powerful.

John Polkinghorne

Science’s success has been purchased by the modesty of its explanatory ambition. It does not attempt to ask and answer every question that one might legitimately raise. Instead, it confines itself to investigating natural processes, attending to the question of how things happen. Other questions, such as those relating to meaning and purpose, are deliberately bracketed out. This scientific stance is taken simply as a methodological strategy with no implication that those other questions, of what one might call a “why” kind, are not fully meaningful and necessary to ask if complete understanding is to be attained.

Similarly, religious insights have their limits (which, I would distinguish, from God's insights, which are infinite). For one thing, every religious tradition assumes some scientific picture of the world and of the nature of reality. As the theologian Harold Nebelsick noted, "to ignore the discussion of today’s science is simply to discuss our faith in terms that are related to the science of the by-gone era.” We should read Genesis 1-3 as a description of God's creation, not as a scientific text. How would early readers grasp the subtleties of big bang cosmology and quantum physics embedded in the creation of the universe?

I'm not sure if this solves every conflict that looms between science and religion, but it could help.

I'll close this image: I love my cats, but when I sit down to read, I don't think they get what I'm doing (partly because they like to jump up and block the book from my sight).

Likewise, these's a great deal that lies beyond my reach intellectually. But I have faith in the God whose insights are way beyond my (or anyone else's) human understanding. 

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,”declares the Lord.“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9)