How We Believe, 2nd Ed.

by Michael Shermer

  As Popes go, John Paul II is relatively progressive in embracing science and its underpinnings of logic and empiricism. He is both broadly and deeply read, and sensitive to the relationship between faith and reason, religion and science. In his 1993 address he explained that “it is necessary to determine the proper sense of Scripture, while avoiding any unwarranted interpretations that make it say what it does not intend to say,” and in order to do so “the theologian must keep informed about the results achieved by the natural sciences.” His 1996 address, entitled Truth Cannot Contradict Truth, was written to update and revise Pope Pius XII’s 1950 Encyclical Humani Generis, in which Catholics were told that there is no conflict between reason and faith when dealing with the theory of evolution: “The Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from preexistent and living matter—for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God.” For Pius XII, however, evolution as a theory was still up in the air and could one day be proved false. Thus, while there had been no opposition to provisionally accepting evolution (of the body only), if it turned out wrong, Catholics have lost nothing:

  However, this must be done in such a way that the reasons for both opinions, that is, those favorable and those unfavorable to evolution, be weighted and judged with the necessary seriousness, moderation and measure … . Some however, rashly transgress this liberty of discussion, when they act as if the origin of the human body from pre-existing and living matter were already completely certain and proved by the facts which have been discovered up to now and by reasoning on those facts, and as if there were nothing in the sources of divine revelation which demands the greatest moderation and caution in this question.

  With this level of equivocation on the part of his predecessor, John Paul II felt it necessary to bring his over one billion followers up to date on the outcome of half a century of scientific research. The verdict is now in, the Pope explained in 1996, evolution happened:

  Today, almost half a century after the publication of the Encyclical, new knowledge has led to the recognition of more than one hypothesis in the theory of evolution. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory. [Note: John Paul II’s address was published on October 22, 1996, as a translation into English from French. In the November 19, 1996, edition of L’Osservatore Romano, the editor, Father Robert Dempsey, explained that the paper’s original translation was overly literal and that instead of “more than one hypothesis,” John Paul II’s intent was to say that the theory of evolution is “more than a hypothesis” (plus qu’une hypothèse, where the indefinite article une should be read as “a” not “one”).]

  John Paul II showed the depth of his reading in the evolutionary sciences by his awareness of the plurality of levels of evolutionary analysis: “And, to tell the truth, rather than the theory of evolution, we should speak of several theories of evolution. On the one hand, this plurality has to do with the different explanations advanced for the mechanism of evolution, and on the other, with the various philosophies on which it is based.” It is in these philosophies where the “Church’s Magisterium is directly concerned with the question of evolution, for it involves the conception of man: Revelation teaches us that he was created in the image and likeness of God.” Since “truth cannot contradict truth,” and since both the Bible and the theory of evolution are true, how does John Paul II reconcile the existence of body and soul? He finds a solution in Aristotle and Aquinas, in their belief that the body and soul are ontologically separate. Evolution created the body, God created the soul:

  With man, then, we find ourselves in the presence of an ontological difference, an ontological leap, one could say. However, does not the posing of such ontological discontinuity run counter to that physical continuity which seems to be the main thread of research into evolution in the field of physics and chemistry? Consideration of the method used in the various branches of knowledge makes it possible to reconcile two points of view which would seem irreconcilable. The sciences of observation describe and measure the multiple manifestations of life with increasing precision and correlate them with the time line. The moment of transition to the spiritual cannot be the object of this kind of observation, which nevertheless can discover at the experimental level a series of very valuable signs indicating what is specific to the human being. But the experience of metaphysical knowledge, of self-awareness and self-reflection, of moral conscience, freedom, or again, of aesthetic and religious experience, falls within the competence of philosophical analysis and reflection, while theology brings out its ultimate meaning according to the Creator’s plans.

  Catholics, says the Pope, can have faith and reason, religion and science.

  A THREE-TIERED MODEL OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE

  Implied (but not directly stated) in John Paul II’s address is his division of knowledge into types: empirical (science), reason (philosophy), and faith (religion). The Pope’s blending of these epistemologies places him squarely in the second tier of what is here proposed as a three-tiered model of the relationship between science and religion.

  1.

  Conflicting-Worlds Model. This “warfare” model of science and religion, in its modern incarnation dates back to the 1874 publication of John William Draper’s History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, and the 1896 publication of Andrew Dickson White’s A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, for three-quarters of a century considered the definitive histories of the relationship. In his preface Draper explained the difference between two ways of knowing: “Faith is in its nature unchangeable, stationary; Science is in its nature progressive; and eventually a divergence between them, impossible to conceal, must take place.” In his introduction, White explained that his book grew out of a lecture entitled “The Battlefields of Science,” that carried this unqualified thesis: “In all modern history, interference with science in the supposed interest of religion, no matter how conscientious such interference may have been, has resulted in the direst evils both to religion and to science, and … all untrammelled scientific investigation, no matter how dangerous to religion some of its stages may have seemed for the time to be, has invariably resulted in the highest good both of religion and of science.”

  Both Draper and White presented simplified histories of the alleged war through such prominent events as the discovery of the earth’s sphericity, Galileo’s heresy trial, and the 1860 Huxley-Wilberforce debate over evolution. In our own century the most famous case study in the conflicting-worlds model is the 1925 Scopes trial, where the relationship was forced into a courtroom out of which a winner and loser emerged. The monument in front of the Rhea County Courthouse where the trial was held in Dayton, Tennessee, presents the case as a conflict, but gets the outcome wrong—Scopes was found guilty and fined $100 by the judge, allowing the Tennessee Supreme Court to overturn the conviction on the grounds that the jury, not the judge, should have imposed the fine. With that, there was no conviction to appeal, the case was over, and the anti-evolution law remained on the books until 1967. Never was the conflict model so evident in practice, and clearly distorting what really happened.

  Among the holders of the conflict model today are fundamentalist Christians and many creationists who reject, bend, shape, or distort science until it fits their theology. Mathematician and philosopher William Dembski, for example, is a fellow of the Discovery Institute’s Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture in Irving, Texas, where he argues that what believers need
to do is “rather than look for common ground on which all Christians can agree, propose a theory of creation that puts Christians in the strongest possible position to defeat the common enemy of creation, to wit, naturalism.” Since science is based on the philosophy of naturalism, it is the “common enemy” to be defeated; stronger fight’n words were never spoken.

  A roadside sign commemorating the Scopes trial. The 1925 trial is practically a monument to the conflicting-worlds model of religion and science.

  2.

  Same-Worlds Model. In the last couple of decades this position has become popular among mainstream theologians, religious leaders, and believing scientists, who have moved beyond the pugnacious conflicting-worlds model, and hope for an integrative conciliation. Religion and science, faith and reason, they argue, are two ways of examining the same reality. As modern science progresses to a greater understanding of the natural world, we are discovering that the wisdom of the ancients neatly matches the findings of modern scientists. Sometimes figuratively (as in day-age models where a biblical day represents a geological epoch), sometimes literally (where scientific findings are interpreted as supporting, point by point, biblical passages read nonmetaphorically), most residing on this tier are believers who work mightily to read into these ancient writings the findings of modern science, or to read into scientific theories biblical stories. The German theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg, and his scientific counterpart, the mathematical physicist Frank Tipler, meet at this level, arguing that theology and cosmology are rapidly converging into one sphere of knowledge. Two signs from the wall of the museum at the Institute for Creation Research in Santee, California, demonstrate the confusion implicit at this tier. In the first sign, creationists claim that “religion and science are not separate spheres of study,” and that “if both are true, they must agree.” The implication is that if they do not agree, one must be right and the other wrong—as explained at the end of the text where the science of evolution is rejected as another false religion along with atheism, pantheism, and humanism. In the second sign (next to the first on the wall), God’s existence is claimed to be “self-evident” and science can neither prove nor disprove God’s existence, the implication being that science and religion are separate spheres. Well, which is it? You cannot have it both ways.

  The Institute for Creation Research: A monument to confusion on the relationship between religion and science.

  John Paul II’s 1996 Truth Cannot Contradict Truth falls squarely in this tier as he argues here, and in his 1998 Fides et Ratio, that faith and reason can work together toward the same goal of understanding the universe and our place in it. At first blush that sounds reasonable, but as we shall see, trying to mesh these two radically divergent methods of understanding the world into one worldview does not work.

  3.

  Separate-Worlds Model. Residents on this tier are still in the minority in their belief that science and religion are neither in conflict nor in agreement, but, in Stephen Jay Gould’s apt phrase (adopted from the Pope’s 1996 address), are “nonoverlapping magisteria.” Science philosopher Michael Ruse agrees and notes: “If you want evolution plus souls, that is your option, and if you want evolution less souls, that is also your option. Either way, evolution is untouched … . More than this, together with the Pope, I believe that his tradition is right in feeling that evolution—even evolution through selection—is no barrier to faith. Were I a Catholic, I would positively welcome Darwin as an ally.” Anthropologist Eugenie Scott also believes the worlds of science and religion should be kept separate, especially in the classroom, for three very practical reasons: “Using the classroom to indoctrinate students to any belief or nonbelief is, first of all, a violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution’s establishment clause; second, it will be misleading to students who will have difficulty separating science as a way of knowing from personal philosophy; and third, it is bad strategy for anyone concerned about the public understanding of evolution.”

  To clarify further the similarities and differences among these three tiers, it might be useful to make a distinction between the two primary purposes of religion and belief in God: (1) an explanation for the natural world in the form of cosmogony myths, and (2) a guide to human life and an institution for social cohesiveness in the form of morality myths. Clearly, modern cosmology has displaced ancient cosmogonies in the minds of all but a tiny handful of young-earth creationists. Most believers have now abandoned the six-thousand-year-old young-earth model in favor of one that more closely parallels the tenets of deep geological time. This process of displacement has been under way for the past four centuries and continues to this day, with a few holdouts from the same-worlds tier struggling to squeeze the square peg of science into the round hole of religion. Evolutionary biology and the study of the chemical origins of life have also paved new roads into the ancient question of life’s origination, to the point where these types of religious myths are now obsolete. And, most dramatically, modern cosmology has presented us with theories so unlike anything described in any ancient myths (black holes, wormholes, quantum foam, inflationary cosmology), that a separate-worlds model really is the only viable alternative.

  The distinction may not be so clear as we move into the human realm, but it is there nonetheless (at least for now). Although some progress has been made since the Enlightenment to ground moral values in nonreligious, metaphysical concepts such as “rights,” and to construct a secular system by which one can live a meaningful and moral life without any belief in God, we are a long way from finding agreement among scientists and philosophers about whether, say, abortion is moral or immoral; whether lying is permissible in certain circumstances; whether we have free will or are determined; how to operationally define good and evil, especially about such subjective matters as meaning and purpose of human existence. Scientists have opinions on these questions, of course, but there is no consensus (and considerable disagreement) among them, to such an extent that these matters are rarely even dealt with in the scientific literature, let alone agreed upon. But the best reason to keep science and religion separate is because they employ radically different methods. Science is not a “thing,” but a “process”—more than a body of knowledge, science is a method for obtaining answers to questions about the natural world. Religion, in its second mode, deals with matters about which science has little to say.

  To that end, the separate-worlds model is better for science because religion, by definition, deals with subjects beyond our scope and practice. But the separate-worlds model is also better for religion because science is constantly changing and thus it is dangerous to attach religious doctrines to scientific theories, which may go out of date in a matter of years. If Stephen Hawking’s no-boundary universe is true, for example, then there is no beginning, no end, and no need for a creator. Catholic cleric and professional astronomer Guy Consolmagno, a scientist at the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope in the high desert of southeast Arizona, summarized this position well when he explained why he believes in God: “It’s not because of the beauty or symmetry or design of the universe that I see in my science, even though all of those things can lead me to appreciate the God I already believe in. It’s not because some particular scientific theory is true or false, but because truth and falseness themselves are important. And because, the last time I asked God if he existed, His reply was, ‘Last time I looked, I did.’” Faith, not reason, religion, not science, is the proper domain of God’s existence.

  FIDES ET RATIO

  Two years after his 1996 address on evolution, John Paul II released his thirteenth Encyclical Letter—Fides et Ratio of the Supreme Pontiff to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Relationship between Faith and Reason. Coming in at no less than 35,000 words, divided into 7 chapters and 108 numbered subchapters, and featuring a weighty 132 scholarly endnotes, it was a significant expansion of his commentary on evolution. By any standards Fides et Ratio is an impressive work of scholarshi
p. It begins poetically: “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.” Faith and reason, the Pope points out, both must be employed in addressing the most fundamental questions about human existence: “Who am I? Where have I come from and where am I going? What is there after this life?”

  To answer these questions, to become “ever more human,” we begin with philosophy, “one of noblest of human tasks.” Philosophers employ logic and reason to yield “genuine systems of thought” as well as “a body of knowledge which may be judged a kind of spiritual heritage of humanity.” That heritage can be seen in “certain fundamental moral norms which are shared by all,” and thus “the Church cannot but set great value upon reason’s drive to attain goals which render people’s lives ever more worthy.” However, “the positive results achieved must not obscure the fact that reason, in its one-sided concern to investigate human subjectivity, seems to have forgotten that men and women are always called to direct their steps towards a truth which transcends them,” giving rise “to different forms of agnosticism and relativism which have led philosophical research to lose its way in the shifting sands of widespread scepticism.” John Paul II then launches an attack on “undifferentiated pluralism” where “all positions are equally valid, which is one of today’s most widespread symptoms of the lack of confidence in truth.”