At a recent scientific conference in New York City, a student asked
one of the scientists participating in a panel discussion on science and
religion a provocative question. “Can you be a good scientist and
also believe in God?” The scientist, a Nobel laureate, quickly
responded: “Belief in the supernatural, especially belief in God, is
not only incompatible with good science, this kind of belief is damaging
to the well-being of the human race!” But disdain for religion is
far from universal among scientists. Francis Collins, who directs the U.S.
National Genome Research Institute and was head of the first team to map
the entire human genome, is an example of a highly visible and respected
scientist who also openly embraces a religious Christian faith. As
palliative care clinicians and researchers, we, as well as our patients,
are constantly confronted with this very dilemma: the age-old tension
between faith and reason, God and science.
Ever since science rose to prominence as an intellectual and moral
force in the 19th century, there has been a debate between two worldviews:
the scientific and the religious. Scientists like Darwin and Freud
proposed views of the origins of man and the nature of man that were
dramatically contrary to religious, and specifically biblical,
explanations of the creation of man and the nature of human morality.
Freud often referred to himself as “a materialist,” an
“atheist,” “a godless medical man,” “an
infidel,” and “an unbeliever.” Freud and Darwin set the
stage for what has been an ongoing battle between religion and science in
modern times.
The battle rages on today and is being intensified in the United
States right now by the current debate over the teaching of the Theory of
Evolution in U.S. classrooms. Darwin's Theory of Evolution states
that man evolved, over billions of years, from a single cell organism,
through a process of random genetic mutation and natural selection. This
process of natural selection caused gradual biological changes over time
leading to more and more complex life forms and culminating in man. The
Theory of Evolution conflicts with the biblical version of the creation of
man in very direct ways. Certainly one example of this is the age of the
earth, which, according to modern scientific evidence is measured in
billions of years rather than the approximately six thousand years, as
would be suggested by biblical account. “Creationists,” or
those who believe that the Bible describes the only accurate facts of the
creation of man and the world, have failed in their attempts to have their
belief in “Creationism” taught in U.S. public schools
alongside Darwin's Theory of Evolution. What has now taken the place
of “Creationism” in the debate over what should be taught in
science classes in schools is the “Theory of Intelligent
Design.” The Theory of Intelligent Design basically states that
Darwin's Theory of Evolution does not adequately explain either how
life originated or how extremely complex life forms emerged. An undefined
“intelligence” must therefore have been involved in the design
and creation of the world and of man and other living organisms.
Proponents of intelligent design point out that their theory does not
exclude the fact that evolution does take place and explains much of what
we have evidence for in support of evolution. Proponents of intelligent
design also point out that the “intelligence” that they
hypothesize to be behind the design of such complex creatures as man is
not necessarily God, in the biblical sense, but possibly some mysterious
force as yet not well defined (a force that some of us might refer to as
nature, for instance).
The Theory of Intelligent Design appeared to have the potential to be
a meeting point for the proponents of science and religion, but
interestingly, in the United States, the debate has resulted in greater
division between the two camps and a movement toward extremism. Scientists
view the Theory of Intelligent Design as the Trojan Horse of creationist
theory. Once intelligent design gets a foothold in the classroom,
creationism will soon follow. For the religious, the Theory of Intelligent
Design does not go far enough in defining the “intelligence”
behind intelligent design as God.
Freud responded to the question of the existence of God with a
resounding “No!” He felt that all beliefs in God and heaven
were projections of childish and infantile wishes for the protection and
authority provided in infancy by parents. The fulfillment of these
childish wishes resulted in a fantasy of a God and heaven and life after
death. For Freud, the very idea of an idealized “Superman” in
the sky was “so patently infantile and so foreign to reality that it
is painful to think that the majority of mortals will never rise above
this view of life.” In short, Freud called for man to
“Grow-up!” Freud called his worldview “scientific”
because of science's premise that knowledge comes only from empirical
research.
Freud also predicted that as the masses of people become more
educated, they would turn away from “the fairy tales of
religion.” Paradoxically, the opposite has happened. We now live in
a world that is more educated than ever, yet religious belief and belief
in God is at an all time high. Some 85% of people believe in God, and very
high percentages of people identify themselves as religious and people of
faith. Although many are religious, there is some diversity in how North
Americans feel about the coexistence of science and God. Sixty-four
percent of people in a U.S. poll said that they believe
“creationism” should be taught alongside
“evolution,” and 48% said they believed in evolution and
natural selection. North Americans believe that students in school should
understand and be exposed to the “controversies.”
C.S. Lewis, the great English novelist and philosopher, started his
life as an atheist, but later became a “theist,” a devout
Catholic believer in God. Lewis, like the proponents of intelligent
design, looked at the world and was overwhelmed by its complexity and
miraculousness. He asserted that the universe was filled with
“signposts” like the “starry heavens above and the moral
laws within” to paraphrase Immanuel Kant, all pointing with
unmistakable clarity to the “Intelligence” that must have
created the universe. Lewis called for man to “Wake up!” to
the evidence of God's existence in the beauty that surrounds us. Like
the proponents of intelligent design, Lewis would have looked at the
complexity of the design of the human eye or the intricate cascade of the
more than 20 proteins necessary for blood clotting to function normally as
examples of the complexity of the human organism. For Lewis, this
inevitably suggests the hand of an “intelligence” involved in
a purposeful design rather than the result of billions of random genetic
mutations shaped by natural selection.
Lewis was clear that the intelligent designer was the God of the
Bible. He was also clear that the source of knowledge or fact was not
limited to empirical research, but rather that knowledge also came from
“revelation” and “experience,” the type of
experience or revelation one may have when holding their newborn infant
for the first time. We can come to know “truths” or
“facts” through these experiences that are as valid as the
facts of empirical research or science. Lewis also pointed out that
Freud's description of belief in God as a childish example of
“wish fulfillment” was not a valid argument against the
existence of God or heaven. Lewis points out that human beings rarely
“wish” for things that don't exist. We are born with a
wish or instinct for thirst and there is water, hunger and there is food,
fatigue and there is sleep, libido and there is sex. Therefore the
universal wish for God and a heaven may in fact be present in all of us
because it too exists.
What does this all mean for those of us who are struggling with the
human condition, those of us who live with chronic or life-threatening
illness, those who love someone who is facing such a threat, and those of
us whose role it is to care for or heal those who are suffering? As a
scientist and as a palliative care physician, I am all too familiar with
the limitations and shortcomings of science and medicine. What is
scientific fact one day is determined to be incorrect the next. A
prognosis of 3 months to live with advanced pancreatic cancer unexpectedly
results in 9 months of waiting for death. Both physician scientists and
patients must admit to the fact that uncertainty and mystery are present
in the paths we travel during the course of an illness and during the
course of life.
As palliative care physicians we are often in the position of staring,
along with our patients, into the mysterious abyss of life's most
unanswerable and unknowable existential questions. How can any of us not
marvel at the complexity of the human organism? How can we hold our
children in our arms and not have some sense of the miracle that is life.
But what about science? Can we merely ignore what science has to say about
the material world?
Perhaps we should turn to Albert Einstein for some final clarifying
words. Einstein wrote, “Science without religion is lame, religion
without science is blind.” In developing the theory of relativity,
Einstein realized that the equations he developed led to the conclusion
that the universe had a beginning. He didn't like the idea of a
beginning, because he thought one would have to conclude that the universe
was created by God. So, he added a cosmological constant to the equation
to attempt to get rid of the beginning. He said this was one of the worst
mistakes of his life. Of course, the results of Hubble's experiments
confirmed that the universe was expanding and had a beginning at
some point in the past. So, Einstein became a believer in an impersonal
creator God: “I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in
the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with
the fates and actions of human beings.” As perhaps the most
well-known scientist of all time, Einstein found a way to believe in both
God and science. Perhaps he did not believe in a “personal”
God or a Biblical God, but the facts of science led him to the inevitable
conclusion that both God and science must coexist.
What conclusions can we draw from all of this? We will obviously all
draw very personal and individual conclusions. I know that I am a
scientist and a palliative care physician who is in awe of the material
world but I am also a human being who will continue to wonder and explore
what lies within, without, and beyond.
