I wrote a status on WhatsApp to this effect. Some of my contacts picked it up and could not understand why I would make such a statement. I believe the reason for that is based on the popular conceptualization of science and religion. Most people regard these two as different and believe they should never be mixed. To be honest, I understand why. It is a difficult task to try and reconcile the two. I am not a scientist, so I will not attempt to delve into the technicalities of science because I am grossly underqualified to speak about it. The last time I studied science was in high school. That tip-of-the-iceberg knowledge has most likely rusted now.
However, I am going to speak like a layman and be philosophical in my discussion. What did I mean by the statement, “Science is nested in religion”? I have spent quite some time thinking about science and religion. I started this exercise in university when I was a first-year student. I watched many debates on YouTube between scientists and religious thinkers. I was almost tempted to be an atheist myself, but I do not think I would have been a genuine atheist. Instead, I would have been someone who knows God exists but pretends as if He does not because he just wants unrestrained pleasure. God is troublesome; the moment you try to enjoy yourself, He comes along and tells you that you are sinning. He is not a fun God; He is a party pooper. Of course, only a shallow person subscribes to this idea, or as C.S. Lewis calls it, “boys’ philosophy.”
Now back to the main statement, let me give you this example to illustrate my point: ethics are not a scientific concept, yet we still hold them in high regard as a society, as we should, by the way. Ethics are real. For example, when a scientist presents the results of his experiment, he must be honest in his presentation. Now, is honesty a scientific concept? Clearly, it is not. It is rather a religious idea if you drill it down further. Someone might say, “You don’t need to be religious to be honest.” (That is not what I am saying, so please tell me something I don’t know.) Do you then see that, in essence, science depends on ethics? Otherwise, it would be a fruitless exercise. Why would we believe these people? What if they are deceiving us? But we believe them because we give them the benefit of the doubt that they are abiding by ethical values like honesty. So, science is nested within ethics.
Let me give you another example: when scientists embark on their scientific journey, most of the time, if not all, they do so to improve humans in terms of knowledge or technology. An obvious question to ask is, why are they doing that? Why the concern about humans? Is it not because they implicitly assume that improving humans is a good thing? Now, how do you explain that? Why do we regard the improvement of humans as good? Where do we get this idea? For example, we could instead focus on destroying humans. But we don’t, and rightly so. But the question still needs to be asked: why improve human life? Is it not because they are made in God’s image, and they have intrinsic value? As such, everything we do should be to improve humans instead of destroying them. Destroying them would essentially be showing God a middle finger, and that is not a wise thing to do.
Let me make this point clear: yes, I have given a religious response to these questions, but you do not need to be religious to understand this. Humans, you could say, know this intuitively—that destroying humans is wrong. I mean, we can feel it. That is why people get traumatized when they kill other humans; it is because there is something in them advocating against killing. That is what we normally refer to as conscience. But note that without a belief in God, we cannot really justify against taking a human life. There would be no framework against doing so. We cannot, in theory, justify that unless we invoke religion. Many people have tried to argue against this, but I believe this is an airtight argument, and sometimes entertaining counterarguments can just be reduced to intellectual gymnastics and a waste of time.
What I have just explained is what other religious thinkers would call vertical causation. This is a complicated idea and sometimes can be too abstract to understand. To give you an illustration of this idea, think of a company. Companies are hierarchical. Top management deals with strategic decisions and big ideas, e.g., where the company should be, what to invest in, and what to disinvest in, etc. Then there are employees. Employees implement these strategies on the ground. This is an example of vertical causation—management decides at the top, and employees implement at the bottom.
The same is true with science and any other human endeavors. You will always find this pattern. It is not clearly obvious unless you sit and think. For example, you could enter a company’s premises and meet a receptionist, and that receptionist treats you in a kindly manner. If you are a simple person, you may be tempted to conclude that the receptionist is a good person, and that is that. But you would be shocked to find out that her manager instructed her to behave in that manner to visitors, and kindness is enshrined in the values of the company that were developed by top management. I think that is where science is. Science concerns itself with the kindness of the receptionist and does not question it further. They think that the receptionist is just a kind person. They do not incorporate in their thinking that there is a head office where top management sits and instructs the receptionist to act in a certain manner. That is where religion sits. It sits at the top and causes everything else to follow suit. The moment you lose religion, you lose your moral compass, and that would trickle down to your life choices, etc. For example, science is no longer taken seriously in the West, especially in political arenas. Why? Because the West has gained the whole world but lost its soul. It no longer has a head office that instructs, and instructions trickle downstream to politics.
So, religion is much bigger than science—it is at an executive level, while science is at a ground employee level. It concerns itself with strategic issues, not operational issues. If the strategies are bad, so will be the operations. And that is what I meant when I said science is nested within religion. Science is a child of religion. Science is Adam naming the animals in the Garden of Eden and not giving a thought to where these animals come from. Science is man working the ground because God cursed him to do so the moment they sinned and lost their childlike state of nakedness. Of course, people who lack understanding of this meta-truth would be quick to mock. But like Christ said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
C.S. Lewis once recited this poem, which he wrote:
“They tell me, Lord, that when I pray,
Only one voice is heard;
That I am dreaming,
You are not there,
This whole thing is absurd.
Maybe they are right, Lord,
Maybe they are right.
Maybe there is only one voice that is heard.
But if there is only one voice that is heard,
Lord, it is not mine, it is Your voice.
I am not dreaming, You are the Dreamer,
And I am Your dream!”
The end.