Werner Heisenberg

In part one `Abdu’l-Baha’s thinking about the essential harmony of science and religion set the theme for this series of posts.

Religion and science are the two wings upon which man’s intelligence can soar into the heights, with which the human soul can progress. It is not possible to fly with one wing alone! Should a man try to fly with the wing of religion alone he would quickly fall into the quagmire of superstition, whilst on the other hand, with the wing of science alone he would also make no progress, but fall into the despairing slough of materialism.[1]

For the purposes of this discussion, we can think about three broad perspectives on the relationship between science and religion:

religious fundamentalists – people who deny the validity of science based on their interpretation of their Faith
materialist fundamentalists – people who deny the validity of religion based on their beliefs
moderates – people who may or may not have a Faith, who accept the validity of both religion and science.

This diagram attempts to represent the relationship between these broad categories. The fundamentalists, on both sides, see each other’s worldviews as competing with their own, and therefore a threat to their belief systems. The energy they put into debunking the opposing position is probably in proportion to their perception of threat.

I believe the starkness of the fundamentalist view makes the moderates much more interesting. This group comprises probably the majority of people in the world and they will range from people with deep religious convictions to scientists and academics who are open-minded about religion. The thinking of those scientists who have an avowed Faith have credibility in both worlds. Here are some examples – a Muslim, Christian and a Bahá’í.

Fakhr al-Din al-Razi

Fakhr al-Din al-Razi was a Persian Sunni Muslim theologian, scientist, historian and philosopher. He was born in 1149 and died in 1209. His science was based on the Quran and he hypothesised about the existence of worlds, rather than a single world. He states:

It is established by evidence that there exists beyond the world a void without a terminal limit, and it is established as well by evidence that God Most High has power over all contingent beings. Therefore He the Most High has the power to create a thousand thousand worlds beyond this world such that each one of those worlds be bigger and more massive than this world as well as having the like of what this world has … The arguments of the philosophers for establishing that the world is one are weak, flimsy arguments founded upon feeble premises.[2]

If thinkers of this man’s calibre had been taken more seriously, the Europeans might not have laboured under the misconception that the world is flat for so long. My previous post mentioned some of the sciences Islam used including spherical geometry and spherical trigonometry, suggesting that they knew they were living on a sphere.

Werner Heisenberg remains a controversial figure. As a German scientist he was assisting the Nazis to develop an atomic bomb during World War II. He was awarded the 1932 Nobel prize for physics and established the uncertainty principle of quantum theory. Heisenberg was a Lutheran Christian. In 1973 he delivered a speech to the Catholic Academy of Bavaria entitled Scientific and Religious Truth.

In what follows, then, we shall first of all deal with the unassailability and value of scientific truth, and then with the much wider field of religion, of which – so far as the Christian religion is concerned – Guardini himself has so persuasively written; finally – and this will be the hardest part to formulate – we shall speak of the relationship of the two truths.[3]

Auguste Forel

Auguste Forel , born in Switzerland in 1848, was a Swiss myrmecologist, neuroanaotomist and psychiatrist. He was a co-founder of neuron theory and a pioneer of sexology. In his younger days he was an atheist and racist. In 1920 he joined the Bahá’í Faith. The principles of his new Faith aligned with his quest for social justice and world peace.

This is the true religion of human social good, without dogmas or priests, uniting all men on this small terrestrial globe of ours. I have become a Bahá’í. May this religion live and prosper for the good of mankind; this is my most ardent wish.[4]

Auguste Forel died in 1931. From 1978 to 2000, Forel was honoured by his country with his image on the 1000 franc banknote.[5]

These three men are just an example of people at the pinnacle of science who were able to reconcile religion and science. Alongside them are millions, ranging from career scientists, to science teachers, to those working with applied science in diverse fields, or simply thinkers that are interested in the world.

I have taught botany and soil science in tertiary education. Learning about the geology of the planet and the amazing complexity of soil and the intricate beauty and design of the natural world only served to enhance my Faith.