FAITH AND SCIENCE ARE NOT EXCLUSIVE

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Faith and science are not exclusive

Philosophy of religion is a very popular subject at advanced level.

The syllabus involves some of the traditional arguments as well as more recent ones – for the existence of God formulated by such theologians as St Anselm and St Thomas Aquinas and counter-arguments by such renowned thinkers as the classic empiricist David Hume.

It is certainly a very worthwhile undertaking for students.

At every twist and turn they are involved in a profoundly thoughtful debate, one in which they will try to argue that perhaps one side may be shown to carry more weight than the other.

To provide sound foundations for the undertaking it is necessary to become familiar with two schools of thought with respect to examining propositions in order to verify their meaningfulness – rationalism and empiricism.

The former concerns itself with the sort of truths arrived at by way of sort of mathematical proof (a priori), the latter those using the scientific method (a posteriori) with its emphasis on experience.Just to offer a taste of argument and stir things up somewhat. Think of yourself – don't try it – standing between railway lines and staring down the track.

Your experience, by way of the senses, would clearly demonstrate that the two lines meet.

Rationalism, in terms of mathematical proof, would perhaps win the day in arguing that, by definition, parallel lines never meet.

It was Rene Descartes in particular – theist, philosopher and mathematician – who argued in this sort of way to show that experience could be somewhat flawed.

Some years ago a Jesuit priest explained to me how for him the teaching of physics involved both himself and his students in something of a spiritual and aesthetic exercise since, as they tried to unearth the mysteries of the universe, the whole process invoked such feelings of awe and wonder.

At the same time, he was careful to argue the limitations of influencing the spiritual development of pupils by way of teaching religious education, maintaining that "religion is something caught" by way of example, "rather than taught".

Most certainly the Jesus of the gospels was teacher, preacher and, more significantly, regarding the latter comment, healer.

In the universities many dons teaching science are also theists, some members of the various faith communities of this country.

Further, I seem to recall reading about a leading scientist, maintaining with some humility, that science strictly speaking seeks to show that a particular theory has escaped disproof rather than attempting to prove anything with concrete certainty.

Personally, I don't recognise the estrangement between science and religion today, though I can quite understand how it arose in past centuries.

The Roman Catholic Church, for instance, in its initial condemnation of Galileo – in Cardinal Newman's words – forsook truth at the expense of authority and it seems that Charles Darwin largely upset the biblical fundamentalists with his theory of evolution.

David Abbott, Stoke Golding