Robert E.D. Clark: “Science and Christian Faith”

Robert E.D. Clark: “Science and Christian Faith,” trans. Huang Huo, Life Meaning Press

This odd little book was picked up secondhand on Kongfuzi, and it seems not to be a proper publication, because apart from the author, translator, and publisher, all other publication information, including the date of publication, is missing. The publisher is based in Hong Kong, but the book is in simplified Chinese. Even so, it comes from the renowned Catholic Fu Jen University, not from some ordinary street-preaching pamphlet, and it has a certain scholarly quality.

Page105 and following Let us list some of the ways faith enters into science: 1. Scientists must believe that there is a marked contrast between “truth” and “error”; they must also believe that they have a duty to seek out and accept truth.…………2. It is generally assumed that in all scientific research the universe must be approached with seriousness; the universe is not a nightmare or a prank.…………3. Science takes a rationalist philosophical stance (rather than an anti-religious one). That is, it assumes that everyone in the world experiences reality in basically the same way.…………4. Science presupposes the unity of nature.…………5. Most scientists believe that they can not only discover the truth of nature in order to understand the world, but also that their research work is always valuable; science never ends.…………6. One cannot construct a model of the universe by imagination alone.…………7. The researcher has definite expectations about his experimental results.…………8. It presupposes that there will not be a series of random occurrences emitted in nature.…………In addition to these general beliefs, there are also some more specific beliefs that often guide scientific researchers. They may believe that events and processes are connected in certain causal relationships; that nature is fundamentally simple; that the elegance and grace of theories are, to some extent, related to their truth; and that the truths about nature are ultimately expressed in mathematics.

Page145 In recent years people have discovered that, although a good religious background is usually necessary for cultivating scientists, the scientists themselves are not necessarily very devout. This seems once again to prove the close relationship between religion and science. In some respects, science seems to become a substitute for religion; one can obtain a certain fulfillment of religious sentiment through the study of science.

Page189 The Soviets feared that belief in hereditary factors would bolster the status of theology, and they kept repeating this point. Zhdanov publicly apologized to Stalin because he had once held “an anti-scientific view—that the origin of species comes from individual acts of creation, which in theory is nothing but cloaked clericalism.” The fact that the geneticist Mendel and Malthus were both clergymen was deliberately emphasized and used as proof that their doctrines were to some extent biased toward theology.////——This question is very interesting. The general trend is for anti-Darwinism to be closely linked with apologetics, but among the Soviets the line of thought seems to have been just the opposite: anti-Darwinism combined with anti-religion.

Pages216~217 Conclusion We have raised this question before: in this age when people claim that faith is unscientific or an outmoded technology, is faith still possible? We have found that conversion to Christian faith and religion is not only not opposed to science; on the contrary, it is just the opposite. The Bible asks us to make good use of our innate talents and intelligence, to bring our wisdom into play, in ways that are almost continuous with the effort we must devote to scientific research or to the pursuit of discovery and inspiration. Scientists and saints almost both bring their mental potential into play in the same way. Those who claim that science is an obstacle to Christianity fundamentally misunderstand both science and religion. They misunderstand science because they regard the development of science as merely adding fragmentary new knowledge onto existing knowledge, rather than seeing science as a creative exploration of the unknown. They also misunderstand religion because they mistakenly think that what religion requires is something we are unable to answer, which is entirely contrary to the teachings of the Bible. So long as we understand things correctly, there is no contradiction between science and Christianity; on the contrary, there is a close and mutually complementary relationship between the two.////——This passage sums up the essentials of the whole book. Note that the author’s line of thought is somewhat unusual: he does not discuss, for example, the relationship between theories such as evolution or cosmology and religious doctrine—one could say that he avoids many of the severe conflicts, and instead speaks only around the relationship between scientific research and innovation and religious faith. That is not of much relevance to the paper I am preparing, and I cannot fully agree with many of the author’s views.

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