Faith or Fact?

by Alex Butler

Throughout history, both religion and science have been a huge part of the human ability to understand truth. In Europe, during the scientific revolution and enlightenment, the church had a lot of power and beliefs that disapproved new discoveries in science. This aroused questions along the lines of 'what criteria can we go by that will help us to define what is truth?' There are different views that came about during this time period that still have people in conflict today. Deism is one of those different views that some people looked at and started to think about, starting during the Scientific Revolution. It helped to clarify thoughts for some people and helped them to define their own truth. From the Renaissance through the Reformation, Scientific Revolution, and a lot of the Enlightenment, many religious leaders thought that religious and scientific views could exist together and actually benefit each other.

During the late half of the Enlightenment the church started to lose their control over education. With the new science, it brought science and religion into a conflict that continues still today. Humanism at the time was also developing as both religious and scientific and sometimes showed how the two ideas could help each other. The humanists are actually some of the first people to look at both scientific and religious ideas and would also sometimes put them together to make ideas that would be acceptable to many more people.

The Scientific Revolution was a period of time in which there was a lot of scientific discovery, development and improvement. It was also a time in which science developed its connection with religion because there was questioning about the traditional religious views of the Universe as well as the understanding of the Bible. What could possibly be the biggest part of the Scientific Revolution is the creation of a more 'accurate' view of the universe. The Geocentric theory was challenged by the new Copernican System, which stated that the sun was the center of the universe. The church's view was of the Earth being the center of the universe which in turn questioned God's role in creation. At this time the Catholic church thought it was a crime to stand for this system of thinking and so, when Galileo backed Copernicus' discoveries, the church decided to put him on trial. Galileo went on to defend himself saying "(the church leaders) have failed to understand (the bible) properly" and they "had a greater fondness for their own opinions than for truth." In saying this, Galileo made another conflict for the church and and science which was how to interpret the Bible. He also suggested that the Bible, although the things that it taught were still correct, should be interpreted more symbolically. Which, if this were true and the Bible were more symbolic than literal, the many religious institutions of the time would have to make many, many changes to their beliefs. The Scientific Revolution was important to science and the church because it developed and uncovered information about the universe and a rational approach towards the scriptures.

The Enlightenment grew through the rational approach set by the Scientific Revolution. This also meant that religion was challenged immensely. Rationality went against recognizing superstition, and miracles, without proof. In his book An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume discusses miracles. He describes them as "violations of the laws of nature". He basically says that a person has to decide if it is more likely for the miracle to have occurred, or for the person who says to have witnessed the miracle to be wrong; whichever is more likely to be accepted as a fact. This challenges the base of very many religious beliefs by implying that both biblical and contemporary miracles may not have occurred.

Many thoughts of new rationality showed in the development of Deism. Deists were not atheists. They simply said that everything and anything in the universe had its own rational laws given by God which humans could understand using their own reason. This meant to them that the ways both the human and physical worlds worked could be understood by humans when they used their reasoning. What this means is that the ways in which the world (human and physical) could be comprehended was separated from religious thoughts. John Locke thought that people should use nature, their senses, and reason to establish their true knowledge of God. Thomas Paine showed his views on this in his book Of the Religion of Deism Compared with the Christian Religion. He starts by saying that all religious members are deists and then goes on to say "The Deist needs none of those tricks and shows called miracles to confirm his faith, for what can be a greater miracle than the creation itself, and his own existence". What he says in this is that all religious people can be reassured to the truth of God by their own existence.

When we move on to science and religion and the conflicts we have today we see that one of the biggest issues happening right now is stem cell research. Many researchers are saying that a lot of very effective medical treatments can be understood through cloning stem cells. The reason for this is because stem cells can be made to copy specific human tissues. The cells offer a possible renewable source for replacement cells and tissue to treat a numerous amount of diseases and disabilities which include Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. There are many, many sections of medicine that this will help.

On the American Catholic website, the Catholic Church describes why they are against stem cell research by saying this 'The Catholic Church is against embryonic stem cell research because it involves the destruction of human embryos. Pope John Paul II said embryonic stem cell research is related to abortion, euthanasia and other attacks on human life'. The controversy surrounding this is similar to that of abortion because the stem cells are gained from destroyed embryos. There is another possibility that cell lines could be developed using cloned embryos, which raises many concerns and controversy that also has to do with human cloning. The biggest opponent of this research is the Catholic church (although many individual Catholics do not have the same view). The official Catholic position is opposed to in vitro fertilization as well because it is 'unnatural' and it results in the production of embryos that are not used.

As long as there are new scientific discoveries being made, there are going to be conflicts and controversy with religion. Between fact and faith. More along the lines of having faith in someone or something would be color. A color to one person could be different from that of another person. Someone could have something wrong with them physically and not see 'true' colors, or colors as they really are. These people need to have faith in other people to know and understand what a (certain) color is. Evidence and proof are the base of where some people put 'fact' and 'truth'. Although many people put faith in scientists and professionals that they know what they are doing and they know how to do their job. These people also put faith in these scientists that they know the 'truth' and are displaying 'facts'.

There are both similarities and differences between the conflicts of these two time periods. During the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment period, it seemed to be that science would keep challenging the church and, in effect, the bible and the faith of the religious people. There were huge discoveries in science that would go against the church and the church would have to defend itself. In the current world, the church is especially concerned with ethics and what is morally right in science and especially in the (human)n and (physical) world. It seems today that the church and religion go against new scientific discoveries and now science has to defend itself against the church.

Although there are many ways to understand and comprehend the universe as well as both the human and physical world, deism seems to be a good thinking process to bring some of science as well as religion into one. Deism focuses on bringing reason into a thought process instead of focusing only on belief and 'miracles'. Belief is still in ones thinking about the universe, but reason helps possibly clarify that enough to have a legitimate thought based on other things in the universe.

The ongoing disputes and controversies between science and religion will never completely cease. As long as there are two kinds of people and two different opinions in the world there are going to be conflicts between different beliefs in science and the church or religion.