Keith Ward, Big Questions in Science and Religion 9: Has Science Made Belief in God Obsolete?

A study of human history suggests that religious beliefs, like scientific beliefs, were much more naive and mistaken in very early human history than they are now. And they probably shared the moral ambiguity of all human activities, being used both to bolster the authority of religious charlatans and to motivate heroically virtuous action in tribal societies. It is, however, prejudice to assert that religion properly belonged to that era, whereas science did not. A more reasonable view is that both religion (reverence for the spiritual world) and science (understanding of the natural world) were in a undeveloped state in prehistory and in need of much further development..

Ward rightly points out that we do not in fact know that gods were invented in prehistory solely for the purpose of explaining natural phenomena. It is also possible that the natural phenomena were understood as pointers to an underlying reality beyond them. Ward writes (p.220), “On such an account, the “religious sense” would lie in a disposition to take finite things or events as signs, communications, or disclosures of an unseen deeper reality. It may be mistaken, but the mistake is not that of thinking the cause of thunder is an invisible man pushing the clouds together.”

Personally, I think that there is a sense in which there is nothing unnatural about human beings having sought explanations in personal terms for the things we find around us. Richard Dawkins rightly points out that, in the absence of Darwin’s alternative explanation, there was nothing inappropriate or illogical about reasoning that such things as the eye appear designed. As further evidence has amounted, those who are open to having their understanding changed and shaped by the evidence have been forced to view things differently. Perhaps, ultimately, the question boils down to whether, when the explanatory function of the “religious sense” ceases to be plausible, the appropriate response is to “secularize” our understanding of the phenomenon in question, or to simply reinterpret the religious understanding thereof. It may be that neither answer is appropriate to all situations. But while Ward is right to avoid the assumption that gods were concocted solely as explanations for natural phenomena that we now explain through science, it remains the case that gods have been and continue to be appealed to as explanations in this way, if not for the events themselves, for the pattern or coincidence of them. And to the extent that divine action is offered as a competing explanation to a scientific one, science does have the power to offer a more compelling alternative in many circumstances. But Ward does point out that, in the Hebrew Bible, there is no attempt to demonstrate the existence of God by inference from natural phenomena (p.223).

Ward rightly criticizes the explanation of religion in terms of memes, which he calls a “pseudoscience” (p.221). While it may be that ideas are transmitted in a fashion that parallels genetic evolution, it may well be that (as in the case of our vision and our mathematics) our ideas provided survival value because they were correct, beneficial or otherwise useful.

It takes some time before Ward finally turns to consider one explanation that is sometimes offered as an alternative to a theistic model of creation, namely the multiverse. Two key points he makes are (1) since “mathematical equations are conceived by minds” (p.234), if one is to posit an ultimate reality, there is nothing unreasonable about supposing it to be “mind-like”, and (2) if the choice is between “a huge number of universes, all of which exist for no particular reason” and a “Supreme Intelligence”, one may perhaps be excused for concluding that the latter is “the simpler and more rational hypothesis” (p.235).

His statement about the nature of religious truth is worth keeping in mind to instill humility in those of us who are religious believers: “Religion is truth-claiming, though the truth is particularly vague, polysemic, and hard to describe” (p.221). And finally his conclusion about this subject: “The problem of the multiverse is a complex and exciting one, and it places the God hypothesis firmly on the intellectual agenda. The God hypothesis seems to be at least as good as the available alternatives, though this consideration alone will not intellectually compel anyone to believe there is a God” (p.235). It is, of course, to be kept in mind that this sort of discussion is about something that necessarily exists and is “mind-like”, and not about the specific, highly personalized depiction of God in the Biblical or any other tradition.

Ward then goes on to discuss “fine tuning” (a subject to which my thoughts turned as I watched part of a documentary last night about the factors that may have caused Mars to lose its magnetic field, and as a result its atmosphere and its water).

Ward concludes this chapter by pointing out that science can help show the bankruptcy of such approaches to religion as “Biblical literalism”. But science is not by definition committed to metaphysical materialism (p.242). In short, then, science cannot be said to have rendered religion obsolete, but science has things to say to religion that can help it.

Let me give Ward the last words: “If religion is fully humanized and open to the critical methods and established truths of the sciences, and if science is used in the service of human welfare and the flourishing of all sentient beings, there can be a long and positive future for human life and for whatever forms of life may develop from it. That is only likely to occur if scientists and religious believers engage in a serious, sensitive, and inquiring conversation. For that to happen, both fundamentalist religion and fundamentalist atheism will have to be set aside, in favor of something more self-critical and humane. If that does happen, religion will not disappear, but it may, and it should, change” (pp.242-243).