A MATTER OF FAITH

Chapter 1   

The Nature of the Problem

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men. ~ Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968), Strength to Love, 1963

I would like to say a few words about how and why this book came to be written.  Today, and for many decades, we have all witnessed the controversy over religion and science.  There exists an apparent conflict between the believers in religion and the believers in science.  Creationists battle with evolution advocates and cosmologists over how it all began.   Biologists and medical science experts, and many others, find the resurrection of Jesus to be unbelievable and contradicted by their “scientific knowledge.”  Astronomers are incredulous at the story about a day when the Sun stood still at the command of Joshua.  The list of conflicts is long. It is not my intent to try to resolve, explain away, or try to remove all of these conflicts.  They are real.  Many fruitless attempts to explain them away have been made by others.  Another such effort would probably serve no purpose.  But, I would like to present another viewpoint to be considered.   I have lived many years in both camps, so I do have some thoughts about science and religion that I would like to share with the reader.

This conflict has a long history.  St. Augustine wrote about the problem in 400AD.  In the seventeenth century Galileo wrote about the problem, and suffered personally because of his beliefs.  Galileo was in fact a devout Catholic and a friend of the Pope, as well as an eminent scientist.  In the history of science, from Roman times to the present, we find many other Catholic scientists; the long list includes many founders of modern science such as Nicholas Copernicus and Roger and Francis Bacon as well as Galileo. We will survey some of this history in this book to put a proper perspective on the subject.

So, despite this on-going conflict, there have been, and still are, scientists who are also religious persons: Christians, Jews, Muslims and others.  There are also scientists who seem to be violently opposed to religion in all of its forms.  There are some who should be classified as agnostics, some are atheists, and there are some who believe in God, but not the Christian God, with the associated Jewish or Christian religious practices.  Opinions and statements about religion put forth by various scientists, both past and present, will be included in this book.  It is very important to understand not all scientists are atheists or anti-religion, and not all religious leaders are anti-science.  It is also important to understand that the term “scientific knowledge” is often used in public discussions to describe ideas and opinions that are not universally accepted as scientific fact by all scientists and science philosophers.  There will be more discussion of this fact later.

It is also true that many clergy, seminary professors and other religious leaders have a good understanding of science and do not try to dispute well-established scientific facts and theories as they are discovered.  We all agree the earth revolves around the Sun and the earth is not flat.  Religious beliefs that cannot stand up to the truth about the natural world around us are indeed questionable.

Formats

Softcover

£12.49

£8.10

Softcover

£8.10