Below I have provided a letter to the editor that I wrote to Normandale’s student newspaper (the Lion’s Roar) concerning the relationship between religion and science.
Dear Editor,
Although I empathized with many aspects of Zachary Psick’s opinion that appeared in the February 27th edition of the Lion’s Roar (“Free thought under fire in the classroom”), I ultimately put down the paper with a sense of intellectual dissatisfaction. As someone deeply committed to the Christian faith and to science, what bothered me most about Mr. Psick’s opinion was the common assumption it seemed to embrace that religion and science must conflict. This assumption often leads to the conclusion that either religious doctrine must be inaccurate (leading many to embrace atheism or agnosticism) or that science must be inaccurate (leading many to reject evolutionary theory).
There seem to be two major reasons why people believe religion and science must conflict. First, many people are unknowledgeable of religion and/or science. For example, many atheists and agnostics generally suggest that the Bible is full of problems, but admit they never actually have studied the Bible in any depth (if they have read it at all) and seem unlikely to understand it at a level that enables them to provide valid criticisms. For instance, many do not seem to understand that major sections of the Bible never were intended to convey historical or scientific truths (such as the creation accounts in the Book of Genesis), as Augustine suggested way before the modern debates about religion and evolution started. On the other hand, many suggest that evolutionary theory is full of problems, but admit that they never actually have studied the best evidence for evolution, thus also making them unlikely to understand well enough to be in a position to appropriately criticize. Second, the media has focused on times in which religious believers and scientists argue about how their perspectives conflict with each other. In contrast, I wonder how many people realize that Charles Darwin was a religious believer at the time he wrote “The Origin of Species.”
Many people may not realize that there are other ways of thinking that do not assume that religion and science conflict with each other. In fact, it is the formal position of the National Academy of Sciences that “religion and science are mutually exclusive realms of human thought whose presentation in the same context leads to misunderstanding of both scientific theory and religious belief.” To use an analogy, it may be helpful to think of religion and science as two different windows through which humans can examine a subject. Although sometimes they seem to offer differing accounts, they may just be examining a subject through a different level of analysis, with religion focusing more on questions of “why” (such as why the universe exists) and science focusing more on questions of “what” and “how” (such as what animals exist and how they have changed over time). Personally, I see no reason why there couldn’t be a God who created and sustains the laws of nature (including evolution), and that occasionally intervenes.
Although it can be somewhat anxiety-provoking at times, engaging in a serious and honest quest for what is true may be one of the most exciting parts of life. Encouraging and supporting this pursuit, I believe, is one of the core goals of a good liberal arts education. I hope that faculty (including myself) and students at Normandale are willing to mutually engage each other in this pursuit and that the ramifications of this reverberate throughout the rest of our lives. After all, it is the truth that shall set us free.
