Science and religion are compatible, and here’s the fourth reason: science and faith are actually besties.
In case you missed it, here’s the third reason. Don’t worry though, each stands alone just fine.
Faith and science need each other. I’ll admit, from a traditional perspective on faith, it sounds zanier than Qanon. With a teensy redefinition, though, it becomes not only plausible, but fundamentally true. Allow me to explain.
Since I noticed religion and science operate with almost entirely separate languages, I set about establishing acceptable definitions for traditionally mystical, ill-defined terms used in the framework of religion. Faith previously defined as trust in holy words that tell you to believe them because they tell you to believe them can, within a new lexicon, be appreciated as trust in subjective evidence.
Faith defined as trust in subjective evidence serves to clarify some otherwise frustrating habits religious adherents tend to adopt when materialists, rationalists, and atheists ask them the toughest question: “why do you believe in God?”
Answers commonly range from anecdotes to “because I have felt His presence.” Curious dissenters stymied by such replies fail to understand why such replies could even constitute anything remotely resembling evidence. How could they? Religious and materialist people, who have never had common linguistic grounds on which to stand when discussing such nebulous concepts, are doomed to eternal disconnection.
Characterizing faith as subjective evidence redefines what constitutes evidence, and places spiritual conversation firmly within the realm of the “soft” sciences: psychology, sociology, and anthropology, all of which have traditionally accepted anecdotal evidence as a necessary form of evidence since their conceptions. This forces even the staunchest of materialists to acknowledge the existence of a subjective, metaphysical realm, even if they choose to still regard it as “inferior” to an objective, material realm.
However, even sciences as “hard” as neurology need subjective evidence to operate. Doctors diagnosing neuropathic pain as a rule consider both sorts of evidence: subjective and objective. The subjective evidence is the pain the patient reports. It’s necessary to determine which tests the provider should run, which in turn provide objective evidence. Dismissing the first and respecting the second would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater, especially in instances of neuropathic pain like trigeminal neuralgia or sciatica.
Pain exists in the metaphysical (read: mental) realm. It‘s inherently subjective, same as love, and will always be crucial in decisions of all kinds, from diagnoses to legislation. According to my definition, anyone who trusts such subjective evidence has faith.
Yet the importance of a subjective realm doesn’t prove religion is crucial to science. It merely allows acknowledgement of the existence of metaphysical things like pain and love. Why, then, should faith in God be necessary for science?
It’s necessary for psychology for the same reason trust in evolution is necessary for the understanding of biology. Science likes reasons, and it’s oddly silent on the historical origins of metaphysical things like love and pain. Of course these things can be explained from a game theory perspective as necessary for survival, from a genetic or pharmacological perspective as having evolved from the interactions between receptors and ligands, and from a neurological perspective as having resulted from activation of the limbic system.
From an evolutionary psychological perspective, romantic love comes from the evolutionarily brand-new result of hormonal adaptations facilitating pair-bonding that increases the likelihood a male will stick around to help raise a family, thereby increasing infant survival rates. This developed due to the greatly lengthened childhood that comes with big brains.
From a neurological perspective, love comes from an interaction between the caudate nucleus and the tegmentum. In lovers, just as in gamblers and cocaine addicts, the tegmentum sends dopamine to the caudate nucleus, the “reward center” of the brain. During breakups, lovers’ brains light up in a region called the insula, which is also activated during physical pain.
From a purely psychological perspective, the fullest form of love comes from a relatively equal intersection of 3 factors: intimacy, passion, and commitment. This idea stems from the Triangular Theory of Love, first described by psychologist Dr. Robert Sternberg in 1986.
These explanations are perfect for explaining the physical origins of the metaphysical product, and even in the last one, the phenomenological origin of the metaphysical object that is love. Each perspective draws us inexorably toward the truth. Each is satisfying in its own vein. Yet despite their practicality, a comprehensive approach still finds much to be desired.
If two worlds exist, the physical and the metaphysical, the objective and the subjective, psychology is typically careful to ground itself in the objective even when analyzing subjective material. Conversely, poetry naturally lives and dies in the subjective realm. Neither is sufficient alone for a deep understanding of any subjective material. Join me for a ride in an unusual analogy, and decide for yourself if it rings true.
Who understands the ocean best: visitors at an aquarium, the creatures within, or marine biologists who dare to immerse themselves in the other world and arrive at subjective conclusions based on both impersonal physical and personal metaphysical evidence?
Subjective evidence is drawn upon to form hypotheses, which in turn yield objective evidence through experimentation, which in turn yield more hypotheses based on clues, hunches, and opinions. Because it appears subjective and objective evidence rely on one another for an eternal cyclical dance, and that both are necessary for maximal understanding, let’s look closer at the importance of the oft-underestimated partner of objective evidence. Let’s turn now to a psychologist who ventured farther into the metaphysical realm than anyone previously had.
Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) sought subjective explanations for subjective phenomena such as fear, laughter, and love. A psychonautical pioneer, he dove deep into the metaphysical realm and returned with scientific descriptions of the metaphysical sources of said phenomena: archetypes. Jung defined archetypes as patterns that repeat themselves in the collective unconscious of human beings. They have since been understood by Jungian psychologists as the metaphysical evolutionary progenitors of such phenomena. They’re crucial for the operation of at least one branch of psychology, and their existence is based on purely subjective evidence.
God can be defined as the archetype of love.
This supports my argument that science needs faith, and Jungian psychology is a prime example. Furthermore, however, this also represents support for the converse: faith needs science. Let’s dive even further into this, shall we?
All faiths operate with some version of “sin,” aka “missing the mark,” something to be avoided. If anyone is to make an enemy of sin or some analogous concept, they must know thine enemy. Fair enough?
In order to understand sin, one must view it for what it is: many things, including a psychological phenomenon. When sin is approached from a psychological perspective, it can be understood systematically, thoroughly, and from a variety of perspectives. This variety of perspectives can bring readers of both religious and psychological material light-years closer to the truth about sin, and therefore to its defeat. For example: understanding the science of addiction is inherently helpful to the inner jihad against it.
Therefore, since every religious battle-plan would benefit from an understanding of psychology, it follows that logically, all religious people should study at least that branch of science. Just as it’s nearly impossible to derive the meaning of just one Bible verse out of context, though, it could prove nearly impossible to understand psychology without at least a shallow understanding of statistics and sociology if not evolution and biology, and maybe neuroscience too if you want to get freaky.
An even more basic argument that science needs faith is that genetics and evolution wouldn’t be near where they are without Gregor Mendel, the monk who bred thousands of pea plants. While it’s true there pretty much wasn’t anyone else around to do the job, there’s no denying the motivation offered by threat of hellfire and promise of eternal bliss.
This is not to say that every scientist needs religion, or that every religious person needs science. Research works fine without prayer and plenty of religions seem to do well without the faintest trace of science. This is simply to say they work synergistically when combined, with one exception: dogmatism. It can seem to gunk up the whole machine I’ve constructed above, but it’s really all right. I’ve got a quote by William James that should unstick the entire apparatus if applied with care.
By confronting spontaneous religious constructions with the results of natural science, philosophy can illuminate doctrines that are now known to be scientifically absurd or incongruous. Sifting out in this way unworthy formulations, she can leave a residual of conceptions that at least are possible. — Dr. William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience
There you have it. Logic and faith are not only compatible, they’re practically ketchup and mustard, or at least mayonnaise. Go, you scientists, enjoy the divine bliss of volunteer choirs taking a stab at hymns written in the 18th century, or if you like to live on the edge, anytime since. Go, you acolytes, enjoy the sweet musk of the predictive insight of real science. All you who developed chronic insomnia from ruminating over the apparent incongruity of scientific and religious principles, be at peace.
A simple word of caution: don’t any of you get FOMO about all the scripture you could have read by now or the polymerase chain reactions you could have run by now. It’s not worth it. Your unique path has provided you uniquely valuable insights, if only we can see that theists and atheists can and should talk. Reach out and make a friend who believes something you don’t. I triple dog dare you to hold a civil conversation and see if you don’t arrive at a truth you’d never have otherwise realized.
