RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY, AND SCIENCE

Ronald J. Glossop

I. Introduction.
A. When addressing big topics like religion, philosophy, and science, in a short sermon like this, one must necessarily over-generalize.
B. In the whole of human history there are obviously many different religions & religious leaders, many different philosophies & philosophers, and many different sciences & scientists, so it would be difficult to say anything that is strictly true of them all.
C. Nevertheless, I think that it is useful to look at these three aspects of human culture in a general way in order to conceptualize "the big picture" of what role each of them tends to play in society and how they tend to be related to one another.
D. This investigation can also help us to see whether there is some inherent conflict between religion and science and to understand how Unitarian-Universalism is basically different from traditional religions.

II. What can we say about religion in general, realizing that our own Unitarian-Universalist religion is different from the usual notion of what a religion is.
A. Virtually every society, and especially more primitive ones, has some kind of religion, and occupationally, religion has included shamans, priests, magicians, teachers, mystics, artists, and prophets.
B. Religion tends to deal with both (1) humanity's relation to Nature and (2) the relation of humans to each other.
C. The relation of humanity to Nature may be focused on an appreciation of the beauty of nature, in which case art will be a prominent feature in the religion. One will find a close association with the visual arts (including sculpture, architecture, paintings, tapestries) and with music, both vocal and instrumental.
D. The relation of humanity to Nature also may be focused on the awesome power of nature as observed in a thunderstorm or the eruption of a volcano or a flood or a forest fire. Here one is likely to find a fearsomeness in religion and a consequent reliance on magical rites of sacrifice or on penitential prayer in order to try to manipulate or propitiate those apparently supernatural powers at work in nature.
E. Recognizing the power of nature and the simultaneous puniness and powerlessness of humans can also lead to a great concern about death, that ultimate end when individuals are totally overwhelmed by a seemingly indifferent Nature. The thought arises that it may somehow be possible to avoid death. If avoiding that ultimate fate is possible, the secret of how to do it must certainly be important. Many traditional religions claim to have acquired this secret and to have the power to make it available to their believers.
F. In its second concern, the relation of humans to one another, religion often gets focused on the need to obey those in authority and to refrain from harming others in the community. Thus religious leaders traditionally cooperate with political leaders, promoting the welfare of those in power while simultaneously preserving order in the society. Here we see how religion gets put into the service of morality and social stability.
G. At the same time some religious figures are mystics and ascetics who want to withdraw from society in order to get connected with the ultimate reality as they conceive it.
H. Religions typically focus on the acceptance of particular doctrines or beliefs put forth by some authority and obedience to traditional practices. Religions usually promote belief in miraculous phenomena, in supernatural power through prayer or other devices to deal with critical personal or social problems, and in some form of life-after-death.

III. Philosophy, the quest for wisdom, both in the history of society and in the development of individuals, often begins as a critique of traditional religion, especially when that religion is dogmatic, intolerant, or too obviously contrary to the common knowledge of the day.

A. Thus philosophy, addressing itself to the two main concerns of religion, usually deals both (1) with humanity's relation to nature (which in philosophy is called "metaphysics") and (2) with the relation of humans to each other in society (which in philosophy is called "moral" or "normative inquiry"). Recognizing these two kinds of concerns, the famous Athenian philosopher Aristotle distinguished between "theoretical wisdom" (knowing what is true, what reality is really like) and "practical wisdom" (knowing what is good, what ought to be, both for individuals and for the community as a whole).
B. But philosophers, in contrast to religious personalities, are often viewed as standing in opposition to traditional beliefs and to the existing social structure.
C. Philosophers aim to get their views accepted by using arguments and appeals to reason rather than threats and appeals to authority, tradition, or force.
1. Because philosophers use arguments to defend their views, they have developed a new discipline unknown to religion, namely, logic (the evaluation of different kinds of reasoning).
2. Another new discipline developed by philosophers is "epistemology," or "theory of knowledge" which is the investigation of how one can come to know what one claims to know. For example, can we gain any knowledge except through sense experiences and inferences checked against sense experiences? Is it even possible for humans to gain knowledge through "intuition" or through "revelation"? How can the claim that one just knows something be legitimately supported or justified?
D. A persistent problem for philosophy is the tendency for most people to just accept what someone else, possibly a famous philosopher, says rather than to think for themselves.
E. Religion and philosophy often come into direct conflict with each other because they tend to address the same kinds of metaphysical and moral issues but from very different points of view. Most religions start from some not-to-be-questioned base, some written authority or some tradition or some hierarchical organization while for philosophy everything is open to question and the final basis of judgment is one's own understanding and reasoning.
F. To put it another way, the method used in traditional religion to decide issues is appeal to some authority or tradition while the method used in philosophy is what is called "the dialectical method," that is, that one just continues to consider the arguments that can be advanced for a viewpoint and the arguments that can be used against that viewpoint. Everyone considers all the arguments and each person comes to their own conclusion, always realizing that further arguments can still be presented in the future.

IV. Science as we know it is a rather new phenomenon, just over 500 years old.
A. It is important to realize that "science" does NOT refer to any particular set of beliefs about Nature or anything else but rather to a method of testing beliefs. Scientists are those who use this experimental method and then share the results of their experimentation with others. It is important to realize that science must have this social dimension as well as the experiments conducted by individual scientists.
B. The conclusions reached by use of the scientific method at any particular historical moment can be modified or transformed by subsequent scientific experiments. For example, in the science of physics the widely accepted 19th century views of Isaac Newton had to be modified because of experiments whose results were more consistent with Einstein's Theory of Relativity.
C. Scientific method consists of developing theories or hypotheses about why certain events occur as they do and then conducting experiments to determine whether the events do in fact occur as the theory or hypothesis predicts they will. Even when the results occur as predicted it does not prove that theory or hypothesis is correct since those correct predictions could have been fortuitous. The theory becomes more likely to be true as further correct predictions are made and further predictions are correct, but it is always possible that the next experiment may show that the theory is not totally correct. Science progresses by proving that particular hunches or theories or hypotheses are wrong, that they fail to always successfully predict what will happen in a given kind of situation.

D. It is important to note that the scientific method can be used to test theories about what is or is not the case, that is, about factual questions, but it cannot be used to test questions about what ought to be.
1. This means that philosophical questions about moral or normative issues, about what ought to be, are never going to be able to be resolved by experimental means.
2. Even with regard to some abstract factual questions about what is possible and what is not possible, one may never be able to set up an experiment to resolve the issue. For example, how could one set up an experiment to determine whether an event can happen completely spontaneously, that is, without any kind of antecedent triggering event?
E. It seems that philosophy and science necessarily work together since the results of scientific experimentation always provide the kind of good reasons for believing one thing rather than another that philosophers are looking for. Philosophers are looking for good arguments, and results of the experiments done by the scientists can provide them.
F. But what about the relation between religion and science? Here the answer depends on what kind of assertions are being made by the religious advocate.
1. If claims are made which can be falsified by experimental evidence, then a conflict can result. For example, if a religionist denies that life forms on earth have evolved from simpler life forms to more complex ones, it seems that the scientist can show that that the claim of the religionist is false. In this kind of case, science and religion can come into direct conflict.
2. But if the issue is a moral one, for example, what kinds of policies the society ought to have with regard to allowing marriages between persons of the same sex, there is not going to be any kind of experiment to resolve the issue. Experiments may be able show the consequences of permitting such marriages and prohibiting them, but there will need to be some extra-scientific considerations to make the value judgment about what policy is good and what policy is bad.
3. Also there is a deeper tension between science & religion which must be mentioned. It has to do with naturalism and supernaturalism, with the scientific refusal to accept the possibility of miracles and the usual religious view that miracles can occur. For the scientist the possibility of miracles would undercut his scientific method, a method which assumes that the results of an experiment will not be affected by what the experimenter would like to have happen. If there are miracles, if the hopes of the experimenter can affect the results of experiments, the scientific method will no longer be trustworthy.
4. There are also some other opposing tendencies between science and religion. Science tries to be detached and uninfluenced by wishful thinking. Religion, on the other hand, is very much influenced by what it regards as helpful or harmful to human aspirations. It wants to believe that prayers can be answered, that in the end good will prevail over evil, and that death is not the end of human individuals. Indeed American philosopher William James observed in his Varieties of Religious Experience that "Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism."

IV. Conclusion.
A. As I mentioned at the beginning our Unitarian-Universalist religion is quite different from most traditional religions. That is because of our basic commitment to freedom of thought for each individual as opposed to the view of most traditional religions that there is some authority--some holy book or some holy institution--that has some truth that we must accept regardless of our own thinking.
B. In fact, in view of what I have said about religion, philosophy, and science, it seems to me that Unitarian-Universalism is a radically new kind of religion, a religion which in fact is the philosophical viewpoint institutionalized. This philosophical viewpoint also carries with it a natural affinity with science and the evolving knowledge derived from use of the experimental method.