Yes, I’m a scientist. Yes, I go to church.
Recently, I was exchanging pleasantries with a colleague when the topic of weekend plans came up. “Are you doing anything fun this weekend?” she asked. I told her yes, I had plans to go to Saturday night trivia with some friends from church.
“Oh, wow!” she blurted, immediately catching herself and fumbling sheepishly for a save. I chuckled. She didn’t have to say it; the familiar question in her eyes spoke for itself.
You’re a scientist who goes to church?
It’s hardly the first time I’ve been met with confusion. Usually, I throw the person a lifeline: haha yeah, it’s a Unitarian church so it’s basically not even a real religion and we just get together and sing songs! What about you, weekend plans?
This time, though, I choked back all of those instinctual qualifications. It no longer felt right to call my faith anything less than what it is, and in doing so to perpetuate the misconception that one simply cannot believe in hard science and in the existence of God.
The relationship between science and spirituality, naturally, is a long and storied one. Long before the Judaeo-Christian conception of an all-powerful, benevolent deity, humans looked to the sky. We saw thunder, lightning, earthquakes and monsoons, droughts and floods, and the majesty of animals. Without a scientific framework with which to understand these phenomena, these early humans devised their own explanations: a plague strikes because the spirits are angry; a bountiful harvest is a blessing from the gods. In every corner of the globe, human societies independently constructed their unique respective faiths. Some relied on deities; some, on ancestral spirits. One thing that was common, though, was the desire to explain the unexplainable.
Centuries passed, and major world religions rose. By the 1500’s, Christianity had risen to power in Europe, dictating the rules of government, propriety, and behavior. But at the same time, a new movement of scientific inquiry had begun to take hold. Its founders sought to explain the physical universe not in terms of the whims of the gods, but rather in terms of the tangible. And in doing so, they instantly became enemies of the Church.
In the eyes of religious leaders, scientists were trying to replace religion — to play God. Rooted in tradition, the Church’s principles were rigid, and any attempt to bend them constituted heresy. And so began a long history of scientists being persecuted, arrested, banned, or even killed for speaking out against dated notions of the universe.
Given the events of the sixteenth century, the enmity between science and religion is unsurprising, if not inevitable. As Christians grew increasingly steadfast in their rejection of evolution, scientists became increasingly cynical in their views of the Church. The conflict that began all those centuries ago has bled down through the ages, perpetuating the idea that science and religion are not only separate, but antagonistic. One must believe either in the version of history laid out in the Bible or in the version detailed by geologists and evolutionary biologists. Quantum physics supports the big bang theory — thus, no physicist can reasonably hold stock in intelligent design.
To scientists subscribing to this viewpoint: more power to you! After all, a principle of Unitarianism is that your experience of the divine is true. If you are comfortable with strictly textbook explanations of the origin of life, then by no means am I here to tell you that you are wrong. I repeat: I am not here to tell you that your concept of the universe is wrong.
Instead, I’m here to offer the perspective that finally allowed me to be comfortable with my own faith:
The idea that science and religion are mutually exclusive is founded in the principles of a rigid, inflexible church that existed hundreds of years ago. The antagonism between the two belief systems only began because the church was so unwilling to bend to fit new ideas. Later, as science became more mainstream and advanced, this stubbornness just happened to stick. Scientists became jaded, and we rejected all things spiritual.
The fact is, though, the church that was once so closed to new perspectives is not the church we see today. Granted, there are still extremists who subscribe to the very literal principles of religion. But the God concept itself — the idea that there is something greater than ourselves, some architect of the universe — is not negated by science, but enhanced by it.
Science is more than a process or a series of experiments. It’s more than the scientific method, more than any procedure or investigation. Science is an attitude, marked first and foremost by humility. Humility requires the investigator to recognize that there are things that they do not know — that they cannot know — and that therefore, their hypotheses may be wrong. A well-trained scientist does not set out to prove a hypothesis, but rather to investigate it, judge its validity, and adjust it accordingly.
As far as theoretical physics has come, any self-respecting scientist must recognize that there are still unanswered questions about the fundamentals of the universe: Why do we exist? What is consciousness? Are we alone?
I feel the need to reiterate, once more, that if you (the reader) believe that science is the only gospel — that it will one day answer all these questions within the secular framework — I absolutely respect that. What follows is simply the result of my personal grappling with unanswered questions.
There is so much that we still do not understand. The scientific attitude encourages — nay, requires — us to recognize that. Why, then, can the bulk of unacquired knowledge not include the supernatural? Why is it so unfeasible that the Big Bang, formation of the universe, and evolution of life are not random events, but were instrumented by something greater? Science and religion are not mutually exclusive; rather, they are complementary. By recognizing that there is still so much to be learned, I am able to accept the premise that there is something bigger. And it’s not just a premise that I can objectively accept — frankly, it is a premise that I like.
Because, when it comes down to it, the universe is beautiful — elegant, as Brian Greene so astutely phrased it. Life as we know it is the product of a series of stunning coincidences that allowed us as a species to survive on this rock in this corner of the universe. And to me, that universe is too beautiful to have happened by chance. The brilliance of natural selection; the delicate balances between species; hell, the colors of a sunrise — all of those things are integral to my belief in science, but also enhance my belief in God. To me, science is a way of exploring the universe, and in doing so, of learning the ways of God.
Perhaps one day there will be some unifying theory, some grand schema in which religion and inquiry can peacefully coexist. In the meantime, I’ll keep on asking questions — and I’ll keep on going to church on Sunday mornings.
