“The popular image is of science
and religion in conflict or
in warfare – atheistic scientists
on the one hand and creationists
or biblical literalists on the
other, but what about the people
in between who believe in God
and evolution or who see
evolution as God’s way of creating?”

Barbour, Religion and Science

Introduction
During the centuries, people asked themselves same questions. What is the purpose of human existence? How was our life created? What happens to us after death? Can human reactions, thoughts and feelings be reduced to the simple reactions of the mind? What is the role of Soul in our life? Can theology and science coexist?
Till the present day we don’t have exact answers to these questions but they still make curious.
Science and religion seem to have nothing or very little in common. Science is a precise disciple, which relies on precise knowledge and facts. Religion is a system of beliefs, mostly based on the blind following some ideas, taking them for granted. Religion doesn’t let any hesitation and demands a blind faith and obedience. Science believes nothing without proofs and makes any conclusions only based on the experience. It seems like there is nothing in common between these two so different spheres of human existence, but we can find one similarity, which unites them. They both try to find the answers to the ontological questions of our existence. Though using diametrically opposed approaches, both – science and religion try to give the answers to the main question of human existence. They have much more in common, than we can imagine. Correlation between science and religions was very different during the different periods of human history, but in my paper I would like to focus on the points, which unite them and prove their common origins. I also would like to underline the great impact religion had on the development of difference sciences.
The Impact of Religion on the development of Science
In his book “Science and Religion”, Ian Barbour gives in depth study of the correlation between religion and science during the human history. He proves that many scientists of different centuries addressed religion and many sciences originate from religion or rely on it.
Barbour defines four major types of correlation between religions and science. First type of correlation he defines as conflict. Such scientists as Galileo, Darwin, Dawkins and the representatives of Young Earth Creationism opposed science and religion, regarding them as two opposing system of beliefs, one of which was obligatory wrong. In their case they left all the rights for the science, calling it the only justified possessor of all human knowledge and experience. The Middle age confrontation between art, science and religion reflects this type of correlation best of all. This conflict correlation is “represented by fundamentalists and scientific materialists.” (Barbour, 26).
Another type of correlation between science and religion can be defined as independent. In this type of relationship scientists and religious figures focus on the same ontological questions but don’t correlate with each other and don’t use each other’s experience. In this approach religion and science use different language to talk to people and appeal to different sets of values. Stephen Jay Gold can be regarded as an example of independent scientists. Correlation in the form of a dialog describes a position, when scientists address questions they can not answer and which belong to the system of religion. Tendencies of the modern world to integration is reflected in the social, political and cultural processes. This tendency is also reflected in the forth approach, which presents the integration of religion and science in the attempt to find the answers for the ontological questions. In such a correlation there is no competition, no confrontation and science and religion illuminate and supplement each other. All those, who hold these views are looking for the possible ways of integration of both –religion and science in a composite view of the world.
I share Barbour’s opinion, that dialog and integration are the most preferable way both – scientists and religions figures can benefit from. The more we learn, the more similarities we find between these different aspects of human life. Science, which presents rational, materialistic aspect can be naturally supplemented by idealism and faith of religion. All the humans are an integration of body and spirit and same integration in our cognitive process can be achieved through the integration of religion and science. Barbour states in one the chapters, that “most scientists today do not accept either body/soul or brain/mind dualism, though these ideas can still be defended on theological or philosophical rather than scientific grounds.” (Barbour, 105).
Taoism is one Eastern philosophy which has elements that mirror certain findings of modern physics and so which brings into question the supremacy of the Western way of knowing (Capra, 58).
A major tool, which pushed the development of sciences in ancient Greece was religion. Religious questions made the seekers to look for the possible means to understand the behavior of physical objects. It’s difficult to overestimate the contributions to the development of the world science made by the Greeks. Pythagoras, one of the best known mathematicians of the world as a deeply spiritual person and started his researches in order to prove the divine origin of numbers, considering them to be “the essence of reality” (David Tame, 159). Intellectual interaction between ancient Greeks and Indians benefited the development of sciences for both nations. By the 6th C. A.D, with the help of ancient Greek and Indian texts, and through their own ingenuity, Indian astronomers made significant discoveries about planetary motion. An Indian astronomer – Aryabhata, was to become the first to describe the earth as a sphere that rotated on its own axis. Same as in Greece, all scientific researches in India had a religious background. They all were supplements to the theological explanation of the Universe (Dutt, 36).
During the period of early Christianity, a lot of religious figures made big contributions to the philosophy of science. St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas made great contributions not only to theology, but also to a big number of other sciences. The eighth century became the period of ignorance and decline for Europe and the peak for the Islamic Civilization. Counting to Ancient Greek and Persian works, Arabs have made big step forward in the development of sciences. But everything they did, they dedicated to their God, as science and religion were indivisible in their minds. “That which is in conformity with science is also in conformity religion” (Nasr, 87).
The period of Renaissance became gave birth to many brilliant scholars. Such as Galileo, Kepler, Descartes. All they made essential contributions to the development of science, but all of them had to count on the opinion of the Church of the same time. Galileo, for example, spent a lot of time, looking for the Biblical proofs of his ideas about the sun-centered universe. He spent a lot of time, trying to persuade the people that his scientific discoveries didn’t contradict the Bible (Gingerich, O. The Galileo Affair, Scientific American, August, 1982).
Einstein also counted on religion in his scientific researches. “You will hardly find one among the profounder sort of scientific minds without a religious feeling of his own. His religious feeling takes the form of rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systemic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant refection. This feeling is the guiding principle of his life and work… It is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages… Religions without science is blind. Science without religion is lame.” ( Einstein, 257).
In reality, very often religion manages to give explanation to the questions science can’t explain or came close to only recently. I would say that science centers on separate details trying to follow from quotient to common through the experiment and tests but still fails to give answer to all questions. Here religious expositions can help.
“Theistic belief makes sense of [the existence of intelligent life] and a variety of other kinds of human experience even if it offers no conclusive proof.” (Barbour, 64).
Science counts on the external world, which surrounds us trying to get rational explanation of everything. Religion focuses in the inner processes, which happen inside of us and counts on intuition and insight.
But when we meet an ordinary person of the contemporary society and make some research, we will know most probably that he or she believes in God from the one side and admits the technical progress and scientific achievements from the other. This way we will get a strange conclusion. The difference of science and religions and abyss, which divides them for centuries, doesn’t exist in the minds of most of the people. Most of the people find balance between science and religion. Why can not it be achieved by wise theologians and scientists then?
Brightest scientists of the past, such as Einstein and Shrudinger came to this realization through the science. Einstein, for example, stated that the more he deepened into scientific research, the more he felt a godlike nature of everything he studies and its divine origin. I think nobody will argue that Einstein was not only one of the most prominent scientists of his time, but even went much further, passing ahead his time. We also know a lot of cases, when scientists got their prominent discoveries not by the method of trial and era, but intuitively and through insights. The list can be prolong and all the facts lead to one evident conclusion. In reality religion and science are not mutually exclusive. They can peacefully coexist and even more – help and support each other. All the separation we see can be explained by the trite human striving for power. From the ancient times people, who possessed knowledge about the world possessed love and worship of the other members of the society. From the ancient times these people were not politicians like in the contemporary society, but priests and other religious figures. It’s also known, that firstly sciences were developed by priests themselves as the main carriers of knowledge. “Solar and lunar eclipses were predicted. The floods of the Nile were predicted by the priests, using an early warning system. Similar developments are claimed for the same period, or shortly after that, in China and in the Indo-Pak subcontinent.” (Quadir). Priests possessed all secret knowledge and passed them from one generation to another and naturally felt competition from the side of the scientists, when first disciples were developed independently from the church. In reality they had nothing to share but the power to posses the attention and love of people. Science, religion and mythology have same roots and same origins. All they appeared as an attempt of the people to give explanations to the phenomena and events, which surrounded them.
More and more people of science turn their eyes to religion in the search of the answers for the eternal ethical and moral questions. None of the sciences can provide all the answers to the eternal questions, but more and more religious doctrines, given as an afflatus find scientific proofs with the flow of time. Nowadays, physicians put forward an idea that Universe may have a vibratory nature and consist of light and vibrations, which compose all material objects of the world. Even not proved, this theory got a lot of followers, but these facts were put in the origin of oriental religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism many centuries ago.
Science and religion can not only coexist peacefully, but bring a lot of use by their integration. Barbour states, that “no disciple has all the answers” (Barbour, 79). Religion also lacks practical knowledge and evidences. Together they can create a strong tandem and bring much use. Theologians, for example, can help to answer difficult moral and ethical questions, which appear during their research. Scientists can turn to science to get the answers concerning human and God nature.
Science can make conclusions and build causal relationship. But still there are questions it fails to answer. It tells us a lot about the structure of Universe, its qualities and characteristics, but can not give the direct answer how it appeared. Physical constants, such as gravitation, posses the only possible meanings which made it possible for humans to exist. If any of physical constants have been even a slightly different, mankind wouldn’t look the way it does now. These are logical conclusions made by physicists, but neither physics nor any other science can give the answer to the question “why”. Science can not explain the reason of Universe appearance. The variant of lucky concatenation of circumstances is just a concept and can not have any scientific proves yet. Whether the people of science want or not, but sometimes they have to admit the limitation of science. By any means, it doesn’t demolish its meaning of course. It just makes necessary to pay attention to other spheres of life, such as religion, to my mind. Theologians state that they know the absolute truth and possess a higher understanding of things the science can’t explain. Theologians also state, that the Bible goes much further than presenting a set of rules and regulations for everyday life. It provides ontological knowledge about the creation of the Universe and also contains a lot of scientific knowledge. If we try to imagine a person who put afflatus down many centuries ago, we will probably be able to understand that he couldn’t express all the thought directly, as he wasn’t aware of many things described as they simply didn’t exist at that time. Scientists can lose very precious knowledge if they don’t stop treating the Bible or other secret texts as a set of folklore and mythological tales. In sacred texts, written long before the rise of since is hidden a lot of wisdom and knowledge, which could be very useful for modern scientists and even their successors.
Religion deepens inside the inner world of the person, counting on emotions. Science makes an attempt to quantify and structure the outside world and give rational explanations to everything. It’s not possible to say what’s more useful – science and religion. They are just different. We can not choose one of them, same as we can not choose one hand – either left or right. We need both to function normally and same can be referred to science and religion. We need the priceless religious heritage and newest technological advances and only their harmonic combination can provide harmonic human existence. There was no separation between them from the very beginning, it’s quite possible to reach consensus and understand now, when the years of progress made us wiser and more tolerant. I think this is quite possible if both sides – scientists and theologians will be looking for the ways to integration.
Conclusion
Sometimes it seems that scientists and theologians work and live in two different universes. They use different methods in their researches, count on different data and make different conclusions. Scientists count on experimentation, sweeping away all unverified and unproved concepts. Theologians recognize the existence of unexplainable and immeasurable in the world and use the category of intuitive knowledge or insight and faith. These two spheres of human existence were realized through different correlation during the human history, such as conflict, ignoring, dialog and integration. I agree with Ian Barbour that last approach called integration can be the most profitable for the whole mankind. Scientific approach is materialistic and rational. Religious one is irrational and spiritual. Their combination gives a perfect whole.

Bibliography
1. Miller, Kenneth, Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground between God and Evolution (HarperCollins, 1999).
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3. Bowler, Peter. The non-Darwinian revolution, 1992
4. Corsi, Pietro. Science and religion: Baden Powell and the Anglican debate, 1800-1860, Cambridge, 1988.
5. Moore, James. ‘Religion and science’, in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers eds., The Cambridge history of science, 6, Modern biological and earth sciences, Peter Bowler & John Pickstone eds., Cambridge, 2002.
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8. Qadir Asghar The Impact of Islam on Science (a talk presented at a conference on Dialogue of Cultures in the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany)
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Studies in the History of Science in India (Anthology edited by Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya)
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13. Einstein, A. Ideas and Pinions, London, Souvenir press, 1973
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15. Fritjof Capra The Tao of Physics, 1983

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