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Science and Religion

Sem. Jeremias F. Cusay Jr.
February 2019

I. Introduction

“It is well known that in the nineteenth century scientists and theologians came

into open conflict. It is often said nowadays that the conflict between religion and science

is a thing of the past. Science is said to have become less materialistic and hence more

favorable to theology, whereas theology has allegedly become more sophisticated and

thus less vulnerable to attack by science. Moreover, some scientists have tried to use the

theories of modern physics to support spiritual interpretation of the universe, whereas

among theologians there has been a withdrawal, in that most of them would no longer

wish to defend the literal truth of Biblical stories such as that of Adam and Eve or of

Noah’s Ark. Those who still hold that there is a conflict between religion and science are

quite commonly considered naïve and old fashioned.”1

The history of well-known conflicts were found between the Church and Galileo

and Darwin. In the case of Galileo “the Church did not want to accept that the earth was

not the centre of the universe. On the other hand, Darwin’s theory about evolution which

was against the creation written in the bible.”2 Though these problems were from the

past, there are still questions about the relationship between science and religion in this

present era. There are also arguments against religion that were imposed, such as “when

1
Paul Edwards, Ed, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (United States of America: Mcmillan Incorporation,
1967), 158.
2
Hubertus Gevinus Hubbeling, Principles of the Philosophy of Religion (Netherlands: Van Gorcum, Assen,
1987), 175.
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conservative believers object to the investigation of the space of the universe, for example

with the argument that if God wanted man to investigate space he would have created

him equipped with wings. Another argument in the 17th century against the use of

microscopes. If God wanted man to see in such a subtle way he would have equipped us

with the eyes of flies: Why has not man a microscopic eye?”3

Even though these arguments were being carved in history there are still minds

that remain to be in doubt and still have questions about the relationship between this

two. And because of this we will try to discuss more about science and religion, what are

their own flaws when it comes to their theory and if there is a way to reconcile both of

them.

II. When Science trumps Theism

“On 1968, at the very end of this year another much more positive event occurred
that electrified the world- the launch of Apollo 8. It was the first manned space-craft to orbit
the moon. Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders traveled through space for
three days that December, while the world held its breath. After commenting on their
experiences and on the starkness of the lunar landscape, they jointly read to the world the
first ten verses of Genesis 1. Shortly afterward, the famous American atheist Madalyn
Murray O’Hair filed suit against NASA for permitting this Christmas Eve reading the
Bible. She argued that U.S. astronauts, who are federal employees, should be banned from
public prayer in space.” 4

In that year, the conflict between non-believers and believers are starting to arise.

And not later on the twenty-first century, the radicals of science and faith divide and not

letting one another to be silenced.

3
Ibid., 175.
4
Francis Collins, The Language of God (United States of America: Free Press A Division of Simon and
Schuster Incorporation, 2006), 159.
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a). Atheism
These are the two forms of atheism: the strong and the weak atheism. Strong

atheism is the belief that God or gods do not exist. Weak atheism is like agnosticism,

whereby the disbelief in or the denial of the existence of God.

Atheism played a minor role in human history until the eighteenth century, with

the advent of the Enlightenment and the rise of materialism. But it was not just the

discovery of natural laws that opened the door to an atheistic perspective; after all, Sir

Isaac Newton was a firm believer in God, and wrote and published more works on

interpretation of the Bible than mathematics and physics.5

Additional fuel for the atheist perspective was the view of Sigmund Freud about

religion. Freud regarded God as an illusion.6 But even stronger support for atheist

perspective in the last 150 years has been seen to arise from Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Dismantling the ‘argument from design’ that had been such a powerful arrow in the

theist’s quiver.7

“Even stronger words have emanated from Richard Dawkins. From his book
entitled ‘Is Science a Religion?’ He stated these aggressive words ‘It is fashionable to wax
apocalyptic about the threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, "mad cow" disease, and
many others, but I think a case can be made that faith is one of the world's great evils,
comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.’ He added, ‘Given the dangers
of faith -- and considering the accomplishments of reason and observation in the activity
called science -- I find it ironic that, whenever I lecture publicly, there always seems to be
someone who comes forward and says, Of course, your science is just a religion like ours.
Fundamentally, science just comes down to faith, doesn't it?’” 8

5
Ibid., 162.
6
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud's_views_on_religion. Accessed on January 4, 2019.
7
Francis Collins, The Language of God, 162.
8
http://www.2think.org/Richard_Dawkins_Is_Science_A_Religion.shtml. Accessed on January 4, 2019.
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Dawkins emphasized that science is not religion and it does not come down to

faith. For Dawkins, science has the virtues of religion but it does not have any vices.

Science is based on facts which is verifiable in evidence. Religious lacks evidence,

therefore, science is more believable than religion. People who are under religion must

have enough faith but why is it that there is a name the Doubting Thomas?

The major and inescapable flaw of Dawkins’ claim that science demands atheism

is that it goes beyond the evidence. If God is outside of nature, then science can neither

prove nor disprove His existence.9

b). Agnosticism

The term ‘agnosticism’ itself was coined by Professor T.H. Huxley at a meeting of

the Metaphysical Society in 1876. For Huxley, agnosticism was a position which rejected

the knowledge claims of both "strong" atheism and traditional theism. More importantly,

though, agnosticism for him was a method of doing things. Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-

1895) was an English natural scientist and author who became widely known as

"Darwin's Bulldog" because of his fierce and uncompromising defense of Darwin's theory

of evolution and natural selection.

Huxley would later become famous again for coining the term agnosticism. In 1889

he wrote in Agnosticism: ‘Agnosticism is not a creed but a method, the essence of which

lies in the vigorous application of a single principle ...Positively the principle may be

9
Francis Collins, The Language of God, 165.
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expressed as in matters of intellect, do not pretend conclusions are certain that are not

demonstrated or demonstrable.’”10

An agnostic, then, is one who would say that the knowledge of God’s existence

simply cannot be achieved. Like atheism, there are strong and weak agnosticism. Strong

agnosticism indicates that the humankind will never know that God exists, whereas the

weak agnosticism simply says, maybe ‘Not now.’11

III. When Theism Trumps Science

“Creationists present themselves as the true bearers and present-day

representatives of authentic traditional Christianity, but historically speaking this is simply
not true. The Bible has a major place in the life of any Christian, but it is not the case that
the Bible taken literally has always had a major place in the lives or theology of Christians.
Tradition, the teachings and authority of the Church, has always had main status for
Catholics, and natural religion—approaching God through reason and argument—has long
had an honored place for both Catholics and Protestants. Catholics, especially dating back
to Saint Augustine (354–430), and even to earlier thinkers like Origen (c. 185–254), have
always recognized that at times the Bible needs to be taken metaphorically or allegorically.
Augustine was particularly sensitive to this need, because for many years as a young man
he was a Manichean and hence denied the authenticity and relevance of the Old
Testament for salvation. When he became a Christian he knew full well the problems of
Genesis and hence was eager to help his fellow believers avoid the traps of literalism.”12

Creationism argues that God is involved in the creation of the universe with His

active divine power. They interpreted the Bible literally but this does not mean that they

are truly the bearers of truth when it comes to religion especially in Christianity.

10
https://www.thoughtco.com/agnosticism-and-thomas-henry-huxley-248044. Accessed on January 4,
2019.
11
Francis Collins, The Language of God, 168.
12
https://www.encyclopedia.com/science-and-technology/biology-and-genetics/biology-
general/creationism. Accessed on January 4, 2019.
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a). Young Earth Creationism

When most people hear the word "creationism," they probably think of the variety

called Young Earth Creationism (YEC). Young Earth Creationists adopt a method of

Biblical interpretation which requires that the earth be no more than 10,000 years old, and

that the six days of creation described in Genesis each lasted for 24 hours. Young Earth

Creationists believe that the origin of the earth, the universe, and various forms of life,

etc., are all instances of special creation.13

“Young Earth Creationism advocates also believes that all species were created by

individual acts of divine creation, and that Adam and Eve were historical figures created

by God from dust in the Garden of Eden, and not descended from other creatures.14

Evolution has different scales: micro-evolution and macroevolution. Micro-

evolution refers to changes in the gene within the species that can occur by variation and

natural selection while macro-evolution refers to the process where one species can

evolve into another kind of specie. YEC accepted the micro-evolution and rejected the

macro-evolution.
“Young Earth Creationist argue that perceived gaps in the fossil record
demonstrate the fallacy of Darwin’s Theory. In the 1960’s, the YEC movement was further
crystallized by the publication of the Genesis flood subsequent writings of members of the
institute for Creation Research, founder by the late Henry Morris.” 15

YEC claims that the earth is less than ten thousand years old and it is reshaped by

the global flood. If one specie needs to evolve and to be fully developed it really needs

time but the earth is young, therefore, evolution is not real. Darwin discovered the fossils

13
https://ncse.com/library-resource/young-earth-creationism. Accessed on December 18, 2018.
14
Francis Collins, The Language of God, 172.
15
Ibid.,172.
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because of the flood described in Genesis 6-9, and the flood only lasts for few weeks,

therefore the fossils were not deposited over hundred millions of years. Overall, the YEC

is just saying that evolution is a big lie. However, this YEC has made a big mistake for

putting God as an inserter in their scientific theory.

“Creationist Henry Morris, for one, has acknowledged the evidence for an
extremely old earth and universe, but has explained this discrepancy by saying that God
created the world with an “appearance of age,” perhaps as a test of our faith. In other words,
Morris and some other creationists hypothesize that God created a completely functioning
universe about 4000 BCE, complete with numerous characteristics of a much older system.
It appears old only because God had to create the world with some specific apparent age,
and a 4.56 billion year apparent age was chosen for reasons that we perhaps cannot
fathom.”16

It is simply means that God intentionally made all the radioactive decay clocks, all

the fossils, and all of the genome sequences and the universe look old to test our faith. If

this so, then is this the kind of God that the creationists of even other religions want to

worship? A God who is a cosmic trickster? A God who is a great deceiver? It is not the

science that suffers most here but the religion or faith itself. Therefore, this theory of the

YEC is a flawed theory after all.

IV. When Science needs Divine Help

“Intelligent design refers to a scientific research program as well as a community

of scientists, philosophers and other scholars who seek evidence of design in nature.”17

Intelligent Design holds the view that the universe and everything in it has a cause,

and it is best explained that the cause was an intelligent designer and not from the theory

of natural selection. But they never claim that this idea of an intelligent designer is taken

from a religious belief.

16
https://www.sciencemeetsreligion.org/blog/2011/01/is-god-a-great-deceiver-implications-of-creationist-
geology-and-astronomy/. Accessed on January 5, 2019.
17
https://intelligentdesign.org/whatisid/. Accessed on January 5, 2019.
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ID’s founder is Philip Johnson, a Christian lawyer at the University of California

at Berkeley, whose book Darwin on Trial first laid out the ID proposition. Those

arguments have been further expanded by Michael Behe, a biology professor whose book

Darwin’s Black Box elaborated the concept of irreducible complexity.18

The Intelligent Design has three propositions that questioned the theory of

evolution by Charles Darwin. The three propositions: First, Evolution promotes an

atheistic worldview and therefore must be resisted by believers in God. Second,

Evolution is fundamentally flawed, since it cannot account for the intricate the

complexity of the nature. Third, if Evolution cannot explain irreducible complexity, then

there must have been an intelligent designer. But they focus more in the second and third

proposition that speaks about the complexity of nature.

“When Behe the biochemist peers into the inner workings of the cell, he is amazed

and awed by the intricacies of the molecular machines that reside there.”19

Behe believed that an organ is composed of billions or trillions of cells. His example

is the human eye, a complex organ but his best example was the bacterial flagellum. This

flagellum of the bacteria serves as the “outboard motors” in order for the bacteria to swim,

more likely it is a propeller. The flagellum is consisting of thirty different proteins. Behe

argued that the thirty different proteins of the flagellum must all be active at the same

time, if one of the proteins is inactive the flagellum therefore, will never work and it will

never be used by the bacteria to swim. And Behe said that this will never be attain by the

process of evolution alone.

18
Francis Collins, The Language of God, 183.
19
Ibid., 185.
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Scientific Objection to Intelligent Design

“Darwin illustrated that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting
the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the
correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural
selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.”20

Darwin explained that simple organism has light sensitivity, which helps them

avoid predators and seek food. For example, flatworms possess a simple pigmented pit,

containing light-sensitive cells that provide some directionality to their ability to perceive

incoming photons. The Intelligent Design said that every being must be in complete

structure in order to work but this objection of Darwin have just said that being complete

in structure is not necessary. For example, the human eye is a complete structure which

has many parts and if one part is defected then it will cause blindness but in the case of

flatworms they do not have a complete eye, they have only light sensitivity which is only

a part of the complete eye but still these flatworms can perceive without everything that

compose an eye. And there is another example that can really trample down the whole

works of the ID.

“The bacterial flagellum and the virulence-associated injectisome are complex,
structurally related nanomachines that bacteria use for locomotion or the translocation of
virulence factors into eukaryotic host cells. The assembly of both structures and the transfer
of extracellular proteins is mediated by a unique, multicomponent transport apparatus, the
type III secretion system.” 21

The bacterial flagellum and the type III secretory apparatus are two different when

it comes to their essence but they have the comparison of proteins. The flagellum in the

bacteria is composed of thirty proteins and one must not be inactive while the type III

secretory apparatus maybe has less thirty proteins but still they are much more alike but

20
https://carm.org/charles-darwin-on-the-human-eye. Accessed on January 8, 2019.
21
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20926516. Accessed on January 8, 2019.
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the essence of type III secretory apparatus essence is to inject toxins to the other bacteria

and it provides as clear as the “survival of the fittest.” It only means that there is no

necessity to be in a complete status in order to function as what you are even a mouse trap

is reduced by parts still it can be used in different ways, for example it can be a clip without

other parts. Therefore, the difference between bacterial flagellum and type III secretory

apparatus is sufficient to critic the claim of the Intelligent Design.

Theological Objection to Intelligent Design

“Scientifically, ID fails to hold up, providing neither an opportunity for

experimental validation nor a robust foundation for its primary claim of irreducible
complexity. ID also fails in a way that should be more of concern to the believer than to the
hard-nosed scientist. ID is the ‘God of the gaps’ theory, inserting a supposition of the need
for supernatural intervention in places that its proponents claim science cannot explain.” 22

It simply shows that ID theory is just using God as a tool ready to be inserted in an

experiment that can never be true without Him. Their science is lacking of some facts that

is why they needed God in order to support the theory that they are trying to make. And

this serves as a risk for they discredit the faith. A believer who stands in awe of the almost

unimaginable intelligence and creative genius God, this is a very unsatisfactory image.

22
Francis Collins, The Language of God, 193.
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V. Science and Faith in Harmony

Theistic Evolution

Theistic evolution is the effort to reconcile Darwin’s theory of undirected

evolution with belief in God in general and Christian theology in particular.

Analogous terms to theistic evolution include “evolutionary creation,” “fully gifted

creation,” and “biologos.”23 Why named Biologos?

This word was coined by Francis S. Collins who agreed that theistic evolution

is the key to reconcile science and faith. Theistic evolution as Bios through Logos, or

simply Biologos. This will recognize by the scholars bios as the Greek word for ‘life’

and logos as Greek for ‘word’. For many believers the Word is synonymous with

God as the Gospel of John stated “In the beginning was the Word, and Word was

with God and the Word was God.” (John 1:1). Biologos expresses the belief that God

is the source of all life. According to Collins there are many subtle variants of theistic

evolution, but the typical version rests upon the following:

1. The universe came into being out of nothingness, approximately 14 billion

years ago.

2. Despite massive improbabilities, the properties of the universe appear to

have been precisely turned for life.

3. While the precise mechanism of the origin of life on earth remains

unknown, once life arose, the process of evolution and natural selection

permitted the development of biological diversity and complexity over

long periods of time.

4. Once evolution got underway, no special supernatural intervention was

required.

23
https://www.discovery.org/a/10121/. Accessed on January 9, 2019.
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5. Humans are part of this process, sharing a common ancestor with the

great apes.

6. But humans are also unique in ways that defy evolutionary explanation

and point to our spiritual nature. This includes the existence of the Moral

Law (Knowledge of right and wrong) and the search for God that

characterizes all human cultures throughout history.

If one accepts these six premises, then an entirely plausible, intellectually

satisfying, logically consistent emerges: God, who is not limited in space or time,

created the universe and established natural laws that govern us.

God filled this universe with all living things, through the elegant mechanism

of evolution He created microbes, plants and animals.24 The best thing that God did

is, He intentionally chose the same mechanism to create special creatures, who are

humans. Humans are special creatures because they are endowed of intellect and

will, they are also guided by the moral law, the knowledge of right and wrong which

brings them to seek and desire fellowship with God.

This view is entirely compatible with everything that science teaches us about

natural world. It is also entirely compatible with the great monotheistic religions of the

world. The theistic evolution perspective cannot of course prove that God is real, as no

logical argument can fully achieve that. But this synthesis has provided for legions of

scientist-believers a satisfying, consistent enriching perspective that allows both scientific

and spiritual worldviews to coexist happily within us.25

24
Francis Collins, The Language of God, 200.
25
Ibid., 201.