Science, Philosophy, & Religion

"By wisdom the Lord laid the earth's foundations, by understanding he set the heavens in place; by his knowledge the deeps were divided, and the clouds let drop the dew." (Proverbs 3:19-20)

The constant theme of wisdom, knowledge and understanding greatly populates the books of Wisdom in the Bible. Almost as if not one of the elements can survive without the others. Is it possible for us to pursue all three in unison? Or does our society today not allow the unity of the these three?

Science is the pursuit of knowledge through experimentation. Philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom. Religion is the pursuit of truth and understanding. So in theory what Solomon is telling us in Proverbs is that Science, Philosophy and Religion should work hand in hand to explain the mysteries of the Cosmos to us. But for some reason those three do not work together today. Science refuses to consider the wisdom in philosophy or the truths in religion and attempts to work completely alone in order to explain life. Religion is reluctant to look at the developments of science and use that information to help better understand and pursue God. Philosophy is somewhat ignored by both Science and Religion as the pursuit of foolery. If we have come this far with such a warped view of the inner workings of these three, how much greater could our future be if we actually worked together?

A week ago I finished reading Dan Brown's 'Angels & Demons' and contrary to popular fears, the book had nothing to do with any kind of spiritual warfare but was instead a brilliant attempt by Mr. Brown's fictional genius to appeal to the world on issues of Science and Religion working in complement to each other. Now because I say this it does not mean that I approve or support what Dan Brown writes but merely that his overall agenda in this book had merit. Also a week ago, I went to see Ben Stein's documentary, Expelled. It was fascinating. The basis of the documentary was to point out the lack in the science community of exploratory theses in the area of intelligent design. It has been a pattern over the last several decades to completely ostracize anyone claiming they support a view of validity in intelligent design as if it could not possibly be genuine science. Ben Stein's point was that in an attempt to disprove intelligent design, modern day Darwinism has an overabundance of holes in the theory which cannot be reconciled to other areas of science. But instead of pursuing other alternatives to explain the phenomena in the area of intelligent design they continue to pursue "dead ends" in an attempt to cling to the theory. In my opinion the documentary did not take sides on the truth of the matter but only pointed out that perhaps the two should work together to come up with better solutions instead of both running into dead ends constantly, progressing nowhere.

We have been given truth in religion (obviously in my view that truth is contained within the pages of our bibles) and we have the tools to appropriately philosophize. Our scientific truths should then fit into the equation of Knowledge, Wisdom, and Truth. If you believe in God then you must believe his Word is truth and we know that science is also based on proven truths. If that is the case then they must agree. I think it is a great injustice to the world to constantly insist that science and religion do not belong together. They are both pursuits of truth and as such they should inevitably fuel each other in defining our understanding.

Science and Philosophy in the past have aided tremendously in helping us to better understand the Word of God. Anyone who regularly reads the bible can tell you that it is alive in context. Meanings and lessons in Scripture are constantly molding to the circumstances surrounding our lives. It is no secret that during the renaissance period the Church was extremely opposed to progressions in science. Why? Because it meant modifying views of a set belief system. But once these scientific truths were embraced we were allowed to see the truth of the Word take on a new dimension as well. If the Word is constantly being clarified by the presence and progression of science and philosophy then can you see the enormous handicap we create for ourselves in not combining these truths? The world of religion, science and philosophy are in a perpetual war of trying to disprove each other when instead they should be working in unison to find absolute truths.