RELIGION AND SCIENTIFIC REASONING

MANY people are under the impression that religious truths cannot be proved scientifically. Religion infers truths from human experience, exactly as scientists deduce facts on the basis of logical reasoning.

In ancient times water was considered to be nothing more than plain water. But when the microscope was invented in the 19th century, and water closely examined, a wealth of life in the form of countless bacteria, was discovered. In the same way, we used to think that there were only as many stars in the sky as could be seen with the naked eye. But modern-day telescopes have led to the discovery of far more stars than can be seen with unaided human vision.


Religious creeds are based on belief in the unseen; that which cannot be directly observed or experienced, only inferred.

These two examples show the difference between ancient and modern times. Modern research has shown with certainty that there are many more realities beyond the world man could understand when he was limited to the sphere of simple observation. But these new discoveries so excited those who were making them that they made another claim — that reality is that which can be directly observed; that which we cannot experience or observe is mere hypothesis, and does not exist.

In the nineteenth century this claim was made with great enthusiasm. It was most damaging to religion. Religious creeds are based on belief in the unseen; that which cannot be directly observed or experienced. For this reason many people came to think of religion as hypothetical and unreal.

Modern research however, has completely changed this state of affairs. Advanced study has shown that there is more to life than meets the eye — many of the great realities of life lie beyond our comprehension at present.

According to Bertrand Russell, the British philosopher and logician, there are two forms of knowledge — knowledge of things and knowledge of truths. Only ‘things’ can be directly observed, ‘truths’ can only be understood by indirect observation, or, in other words, inference. The existence of light, gravity, magnetism and nuclear energy in the universe is an undisputed fact, but man cannot directly observe these things. He knows them only by their effects. Man discovers certain ‘things’ from which he infers the existence of ‘truths’.


Only ‘things’ can be directly observed; ‘truths’ can only be understood by inference.

This change in the concept of knowledge, which occurred in the twentieth century, changed the whole situation radically. Man was forced to accept the existence of things which he could not directly see and only indirectly experience. With this intellectual revolution the difference between seen and unseen reality disappeared. Invisible objects became as important as visible objects. Man was compelled to accept that indirect, or inferential argument, was academically and intellectually as sound as direct argument.

This change in the concept of knowledge has, in the present age, made divine reasoning truly scientific. For instance, the greatest argument for religion is what philosophers call the argument from design. Nineteenth century scholars, in their zeal, did not accept this reasoning. To them it was an inferential argument which could not be accepted academically. But in the present age this objection has been invalidated. Nowadays man is compelled to infer the existence of a designer of the universe from the existence of design in the universe, just as he accepts the theory of the flow of electrons from the movement of a wheel. Bertrand Russell throws some light on this matter. In the preface to his book ‘Why I Am Not A Christian’, he writes:

“I think all the great religions of the world — Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam and Communism — are both untrue and harmful. It is evident as a matter of logic that, since they disagree, not more than one of them can be true. With very few exceptions, the religion which a man accepts is that of the community in which he lives, which makes it obvious that the influence of environment is what has led him to accept the religion in question. It is true that scholastics invented what they professed to be logical arguments proving the existence of God, and that these arguments, or others of a similar tenor, have been accepted by many eminent philosophers, but the logic to which these traditional arguments appealed is of an antiquated Aristotelian sort which is now rejected by practically all logicians except such as are Catholics. There is one argument that is not purely logical. I mean the argument from design. This argument, however, was destroyed by Darwin; and in any case, could only be made logically acceptable at the cost of abandoning God’s omnipotence.

Apart from logical cogency, there is to me something a little odd about the ethical valuations of those who think that an omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent Deity, after preparing the ground by many millions of years of lifeless nebulae, would consider Himself adequately rewarded by the final emergence of Hitler and Stalin and the H-bomb.”


Scientific reasoning upholds the veracity of religious truths.

Russell offers the idea that the death and destruction perpetrated by man are grounds for rejecting an omnipotent and benevolent God. However, this death and destruction is a result of the misuse of the God-given freedom of man, rather than the direct intent of God’s plan. Considering this, the argument from design is logically acceptable. We can now look at Russell’s rejection of the argument keeping Darwin’s theory in mind.

Arguing the existence of a designer from design is a logically accepted scientific argument. It is the very argument which science uses to prove anything. The rejection of this argument would only be acceptable if Darwin’s theory was itself scientifically established. But scientific research has proved Darwinism to be mere hypothesis, rather than established scientific fact. Hence, the rejection of that argument on the basis of Darwinism is groundless.

Therefore we can say with certainty that the veracity of religious truths can be confirmed by scientific reasoning.