Science and Religious Truth
no matter how distorted, seeks for the highest and holiest known to man. Every religion is born out of and sustained by the desire for eternal survival. Believers value their religion above all other blessings. Every genuine follower holds his religion as the central and only unconditional necessity. To him religion is life in its deepest essence. Religion is the only way for persons to attain what they desire for this life and the next. Whatever is considered the most real, the highest, the truest kind of life is the content and subject of religion. In religion we assure ourselves of our unconditional and enduring existence.
Science and Religious Truth When confronted by life's deepest problems, science has often taken a stance that conflicts with the seriousness of these problems. This is unworthy of science itself. Science is often content to characterize these questions as important for lesser men and for the unsophisticated but of no significance to the scientific community.
This belief, however, is nothing but a proud and vain illusion. In no way do we wish to belittle the great accomplishments of modern science; it has made astounding discoveries and achievements. It has enriched and eased human existence immeasurably. We all gratefully enjoy the knowledge and power it has given us over nature. But although it may have a lot to offer our senses and our understanding, it leaves the heart unsatisfied. In the hour of suffering and in the face of death, what good comes from the conquest of nature, the blessings of civilization, the triumphs of science and the enjoyment of the arts?
What good does it do a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?
Science is mistaken if it passes by these serious problems of human life with an indifferent shrug. The consciousness of good and evil, the awareness of sin, righteousness and judgment, the accusations of
conscience, the fear of death and the need for reconciliation are just as real as matter and energy, as size and number. In fact, they are realities of tremendous import, for they rule the world and mankind, life and history. To act as if they don't exist betrays a lack of love for the truth. To look down on them with disdain betrays a lack of selfknowledge. And to dismiss them as outdated images and foolish delusions demonstrates an extensive superficiality. If science relegates all these awesome realities to the realm of dreams, we at least have the right to ask on what grounds it does so. We don't simply take science at its word.
If science asserts that there is no God, no good and no evil, no judgment and no punishment, no heaven or hell, then let it give us sufficient, incontrovertible proof. We should be absolutely sure of the truth of this denial—so sure that we can confidently live and die by it.
At stake is our irrevocable eternity, so we need firm, unshakable, divine certainty on this point. Therefore, in this connection a sharp, unsparing, unrelenting critique of science is appropriate. Science may say what it wills about guilt and punishment, death and the afterlife, but it cannot ask us to hang eternity on a flimsy spider web.
When our highest interests, our eternal weal or woe is at stake, we must be satisfied with nothing less than infallible, divine certainty.
There must be no room for doubt.
But it is not hard to see that science can never offer us such certainty.
Science may be right in rejecting a scepticism that elevates doubt into a new dogma, but no part of its vast area of research can yield us anything more than human and therefore fallible certainty. This is especially true when it ventures into the area of religious and ethical, philosophical and supersensible truth. For then it immediately finds itself at odds with the powerful testimony of the whole of humanity at all times and all places. Every human soul is beset by a restlessness that no scientific reasoning can remove. These ultimate questions arise in the hearts of both the learned and the unlearned.
The world's greatest geniuses have wrestled with them; philosophy