The Realms of Science and Religion

The Realms of Science and Religion By Dr. Joseph F. Merrill, Commissioner of Education L. D. S. Church (Conclusion) I SAID that modern science has had a profound influence on the religious ideas of our time. Science has demonstrated that we live in a world of law and order. In fact, all experimentation with nature is based upon this view — that under the same conditions nature always acts in the same way. This is called the orderliness of nature. So science shows God is not a whimsical being, nor is he a statical being. Change is found everywhere in nature. Dr. Millikin surmises that we are on the verge of discovering how suns are created and obliterated. Another thing the science of this gen- eration has done is to reveal to us a world and a universe more extensive, more mysterious, and more wonderful than man ever imagined before. The new physics has revealed a new wonder world. But what has all this to do with a sermon? Many of you are doubtless asking this question. As one reply, may I answer that, judged by modern practice, it would be very difficult to define a sermon other than as some kind of discourse given on Sunday. And this is Sunday. But seriously, I have a purpose in talking about these problems in science. Some students sometimes assume an unfriendly attitude toward religion and religious doctrines and assume that in the field of science there is definiteness and certainty, in contrast to the vague uncertainty and mere belief wh'ch they say are characteristic of the religious realm. Furthermore, these students are sometimes able to show wherein teachers of religion have changed their views and no longer stand for things once taught. Also they say religious teachers indulge in dogmatic assertions about things that are not true. Well, what about the scientists? In these matters can "pot call kettle black?" On these grounds does our irreligious student have any more cause to rail against teachers of religions than of science? But this line of talk is not constructive. I said once before, both scientists and religionists are probably more open-minded and more tolerant than they used to be. I think we will all admit there is need they should be. After all, man is finding out that he doesn't know very much. The more he delves into nature the more wonderful and mysterious be finds the situation. So the truly tolerant man and the man who is true to the real spirit of science must also be a very humble man.

THE REALMS OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION 1009 He does not have to delve very far before coming against the un- known and apparently unknowable. Suppose we find matter is made up of electricity. That docs not solve the riddle of electricity. The earth behaves as if it were a great magnet. But why this magnet- ism is as much a mystery today as ever. We know how to generate electric currents. But no man can explain why they are generated. So we find mystery and the unknown in every direction and on every hand. But so far as we go. so far as we know, there is a won- derful beauty and order in it all. Whether we look with unaided eyes, or with a microscope, or a telescope, we see the same matchless harmony everywhere. The "music of the spheres" is not mere poetic license, it is a fact of nature. But our young scientist wants to deal with certainties: matters of faith have no interest for him. Friends, I have briefly outlined a theory of atomic structure. I remarked that no one had ever seen an atom. The human mind finds it impossible to conceive of the minuteness of an atom, much less the minuteness of an electron, a constituent of an atom. Yet we speak of atoms and electrons as if we see them every day and know all about them. Is there any faith involved in all this? The wave theory of light says the sensation of yellow light is due to transverse waves in the ether, analogous in form to the waves that would travel along a clothes line if one end were fastened and the other moved rapidly up and down, except that the train of light waves would be infinitely more rapid moving up and down more than five hundred trillion times a second. Does it require any imagination to see these waves? But there is more yet. This train of waves is said to be transverse, that is, the wave travels longitudinally, while the wave-movement is up and down. Now a wave of this character, having the speed of light requires an ex tremely solid medium for its propagation. The luminiferous ether, filling all space, is said to be this solid medium. But the earth, the stars and all the heavenly bodies move through this medium without being slowed up in speed, without opposition. This requires that the medium shall be a perfect fluid. Now do you have any difficulty in picturing a medium that is at one and the same instant a perfect solid and a perfect fluid? Does science make any demands upon your credulity? A story runs that Sir Isaac Newton observed a falling apple and was thereby led to the discovery of the laws of gravitation. And gravitation explains the motion of the moon, earth, planets and other heavenly bodies in their course. But what explains gravitation? We know how the earth moves in its orbit around the sun, but do we know why it moves? The force existing between the sun and the earth that accounts for the orbital motion of the earth is enor-

1010 IMPROVEMENT ERA mous, there is a tremendous pull between them. Is the earth tied to the sun? Can a pull be executed through a fluid medium, such as the ether must be, in order that the earth shall move through it without resistance? My friends, the reason why an apple falls is a profound enigma. Perhaps there is nothing more mysterious in all the world. Explain? What can science explain? We answer little, but very little of the ultimate nature of things. But the more science has to teach, the more wonderful, the more inexplicable we find na- ture to be. Does religion tax your faith and imagination? Science taxes mine every whit as much as does religion. And, as I see, the greatest tax of all on the imagination, the greatest possible demand on credulity, is the assumption that there is no God, to me a perfectly impossible assumption. Even had I no faith in Deity in my boy- hood, as I think of it, I must believe that the little study of science that I have since made would have driven me irresistibly to a be- lief in God. But let us turn now to another phase of our theme. We speak of certainties in science. Are there no corresponding certitudes in religion? Is religion a field of belief only? The discussion of this phase of the theme is so well done by Professor Dinsmore of Yale University in his little book entitled Religious Certitudes in an Age of Science that I offer no apology for quoting and paraphras- ing very freely from the last chapter in this book. Discussing "what we know and what we believe," Professor Dinsmore says: "In the day of her bigotry the church asserted infallible knowledge in many departments of interest, discrediting science as a black art, the craft of the Devil." But human nature is the same in the laboratory as in the pulpit, and many scientists today are as bigoted as was ever a medieval monk. With many of them what they do not know is not knowledge. So prevalent is the tendency of affirm that life in all its multitudinous activities — its moral ideals, its poetry, its soul-hunger — can be ex- plained by a materialistic philosophy that Sir Oliver Lodge a few years ago, in a presidential address delivered before the British Asso- ciation, thought fit to say to his fellow-scientists: "It is my function to remind you and myself that our studies do not exhaust the universe, and if we dogmatize in the opposite direction and say that we can reduce everything to physics and chemistry, we gibbet ourselves as ludicrously narrow pedants, and are falling short of the richness of our human birthright. Scientists, not a few, have still to learn that the faculties and the methods they employ are not the only road to genuine knowledge. * * * 'Humbug is humbug,' wrote William James, 'even though it bear a scientific name.' Yet many men, both in science and out of it, who

THE REALMS OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION 1011 are neither narrow-minded nor materialistic, are inclined to con- fine the word 'knowledge' to the sphere of the sciences. * * * "We claim that the difference between the results of scientific experimentation and religious experience is but the difference be- tween two different kinds of knowledge, each resting on faith, each established on experimentation after its own kind. Science uses the perceptive and the distinctively intellectual faculties in her opera- tions; religion assumes that the heart has reasons as well as the in- tellect, that conscience is a doorway into reality, that the imagina- tion and the will are also pathways to truth. Religion employs a larger portion of human nature in the discovery of truth than does science, and she believes that she touches a wider environment. * * * "Knowledge is to have assurance upon proper evidence that one's mental apprehensions agree with reality. Subjectively there is certainty, objectively there is reality; the connecting link is proper evidence that the thought tallies with the thing. "The conviction we are seeking to establish is that religious experience creates a joyous certitude in the breasts of the faithful, the certitude of the individual is repeated in a countless multitude and issues in characters which have all the credentials of truth. "These multiplied experiences, these substantial and radiant characters, constitute proper evidence that the inner conviction is not entirely alien to the outer reality. Therefore the saints as well as the scientists are able to say: 'We know.' "Let us ask to what degree science has knowledge. She begins with an act of faith, faith in the general trustworthiness of the sense perceptions, faith in those mental powers which go beyond sense ob- servation into the region where things are intellectually discerned, faith in an external world that is dependable and capable of inter- pretation. By precise observation, experiment, and careful deduc- tion she builds up a body of fact and truth which she calls knowl- edge, and rightly so. But it is knowledge of a limited kind, knowledge of phenomena and of modes of behavior, not of meanings, not of ultimate realities. She uses only those aspects of reality which she needs in her work. The laws of nature, as science de- scribes them, represent, but are not identical with, the laws of nature as they really are. She takes only those serviceable features of phenomena which she can employ for her purposes. But her results are substantial enough, and constitute a body of facts and laws suf- ficiently valid to sustain our houses, our factories, our civilization. "But the scientist does not cover the whole of life with his method, or with his knowledge. The poet, the musician, the prophet have other fields of interest; they live in a world as real as his, a world with its actualities perceived by faculties which he does not

1012 IMPROVEMENT ERA use, but which they are confident yield valid knowledge. They deal not so much with facts as with values and forces, which are spiritually discerned, which are established in confidence, not by experiment, but by experience. We are all aware of this world which is above sense phenomena. We are as certain of the value of poetry as we are of Ford cars. The sighs of love have shaken men as perceptibly as the winds of heaven. * * * A transforming power issues from the holiness of Jesus which is as indisputable as a volt of electricity. We are as sure of this realm of spiritual values and forces as of the earth beneath our feet. The power of character is as much a part of the nature of things as dynamite and can be equally verified. Buddha, Confucius, Christ founded world civil- izations, and the spiritual and moral energies they released are as truly a part of the world order as the Mississippi or the Amazon. "Spontaneously and habitually we use the word knowledge in connection with these aesthetic and ethical experiences. * ■ * "Most men cannot be persuaded that man can know so much about material things and so little regarding the things which con- cern him most. They cannot believe that this infinitely rich uni- verse has such abundant satisfaction for their physical needs, and nothing for their deepest spiritual necessities. Therefore, with the yearning of a pilgrim for his distant home, they turn to the mystery from which they emerged, and whose awful shadow encloses their lives, to find a refuge in the day of trouble, explanation of the mean- ing of life, and re-enforcement to meet the difficulties of the journey. "Men need God, they trust him, they seek to learn his will and obey him. The steps one takes in solving his religious problems are much the same as those he takes in solving his scientific problems. In science we trust our sense perceptions and the conclusions of our intellect. In religion we trust our spiritual intuitions and the validity of the claims of our moral and emotional natures. Religious faith is our reason for acting bravely in the presence of life's gravest problems. It is a valor of soul which makes us commit the highest in ourselves to what we believe is the Highest in the universe. "Now this faith upon which our religion is founded is as bold, as rational, and as comprehensive as any scientific generalization. Will it stand the test of experience? Can this faith prove its truth by its effects upon life? "If one man tries it out and finds that it will work, he will have an inner certitude of its truth. He will say, 'I believe.' If he finds that his experience has been repeated in ten thousand lives which have followed the same procedure then he will exclaim, 'We know!' Know, not all about God, but know God to the extent that He comes into human experience, know Him as a reality be

THE REALMS OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION 1013 cause He produces real effects. For surely virtues of highest worth are not nurtured on what is entirely illusion. "But religious faith sweeps farther and higher than such expe- riences. It postulates a divine benignity which cares for the indivi- dual, and works with boundless grace even through the wrath and error of the world. Men in vast numbers have actually ventured everything on the hypothesis that in living a life of love they were reproducing in a measure the divine nature, and they have not been put to confusion. If their faith were vain, then when they took the leap they would have fallen into vacuity, but their concurrent testi- mony has been that they found a Rock beneath their feet. If this faith in a Divine Providence were a delusion, then the men who came under its baleful influence would have deformed and brittle char- acters. On the contrary theirs are the most firm-fibered and lustrous characters the world has produced. Those who have sent the roots of their being down most deeply into the faith of a divine love have been the most revered men in history. "Religious faith would have vanished from the world long ago, if it had put one out of joint with the nature of things. If no help had ever come from the unseen, the impulse to pray would long ago have died out. The saints may be confused and confusing in their speech about religion, but with unanimity they report the same experience. Christians sing in twentieth century America psalms which were written in Asia three thousand years ago. Catholics and Protestants use the same prayers and the same hymns. Their creeds differ, but they touch the same reality, and experience the same peace and spiritual liberty. "What I wish to claim is this: Science does not have knowl- edge, and religion simply faith. The lover, the artist, the musician, know; so does the saint. Religion has always used the word 'knowl- edge' freely and always will, because no lesser term expresses her experiences. Both science and religion begin with an act of faith. Both reach results. Those of science are sufficiently verified for a man to base his actions and his civilization upon them. Those of religion are so tested that one can build his whole life upon them with ever increasing satisfaction both to his mind and to his soul. "But scientific knowledge is independent of the personal equa- tion. A murderer can perform a chemical experiment as well as a saint. Religion on the other hand, is more personal. Its knowledge is conditional on character. Only the pure in heart can see God; only the unselfish and obedient can realize His love. * * * "But religious knowledge is superior to scientific. Science deals with the world out there beyond us. It knows only symbols of reality which ar? interpreted to the consciousness through the senses.

1014 IMPROVEMENT ERA But when we deal with what takes place in our own inner nature, we send the shaft down deeper into reality. There, if anywhere, we surprise reality unveiled. 'By being religious,' says Professor James, 'we establish ourselves in the possession of ultimate reality at the only point at which reality has been given us to guard.' "Knowledge is religion's normal word. Without it her Scrip- tures are tame, her teachings ineffectual, and her promises pallid. 'If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teachers;' 'Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.' 'This is life eternal to know thee, the only living and true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.' 'Every one therefore which heareth these words of mine, and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man which built his house upon the rock.' Religion is indeed con- ceived in faith, but, 'The steps of faith fall on a seeming void, and find the rock beneath.' And now in conclusion may I be pardoned a word of personal testimony? I am persuaded to give it only because it fits so aptly with what I have just read. Away back in early adulthood, as a boy of nineteen, I had a blessed experience that I never can forget as long as memory and reason shall last. Between ten and eleven o'clock one August night I was engaged in most earnest and devout prayer, when suddenly in reply there came to me a wonderful spiritual mani- festation. From that moment until this, I too have always been able to say truthfully, "I know." Warning Against Losing Old Faiths "The immensity of possible discovery contrasts with our feebleness in putting it into words. For that reason never throw away hastily any old faith or traditions because of some dogma of science: do not run foul of conventions merely because you do not see the good of them. "The problems do not get easier as the world grows older. The extraordinary multiplicity of plants and animals is astounding. What an imagination the Creator must have had! Our growth of knowledge of the planetary system shows that every- thing is governed by one system of law. "Real existence is a much wider thing than terrestrial existence. We are mistaken in believing that life can exist only for material bodies. It can exist, perhaps better, with immaterial things. "There are many persons who formerly lived on this planet and who still hover close to us. They retain many of the attributes that they once had here. The dead are not dead, but alive. They have bodies, but not of matter, what I may call spiritual bodies. They are clothed, but not with material clothing. "Mankind came on to the earth very recently, so its corporate blunders are the mistakes of infancy. Our squabbles are like those of children in a nursery but they are deadly and I hope we will have no more of them. They tend to destroy civiliza- tion."— Sir Oliver Lodge.