I work in the aerospace industry, and the company I work for manufactures a wide range of products for commercial and military applications, from Boeing to SpaceX. We have the ability to actually develop new alloys, and super alloys for high profile customers, besides hosting world class manufacturing capabilities. My role is unique. Because of my technical background in machining and industrial engineering, and my graduate work and experience in learning design and technology, I serve as the bridge between production and HR. I am tasked with developing and providing compensation structures and training for technical roles across North America, while supporting International sites as well. I work with a lot of very smart, very technical people all from different walks of life.
Last April I was walking out of an office at one of our sites in Southern California and I ran into both the controller and director of operations in the hall way. We got on the topic of school, one of them had a degree in metallurgy, and they asked me about my education, and I mentioned that I earned my first graduate degree from Purdue, and that I was actually working on a second at BIOLA. They asked me what I was studying at BIOLA since they knew it was a Christian school. I told them that I was working on a masters in Science & Religion. They both looked at me like I was crazy! One of them responded, "Those two go together like oil and water". It was late, and they were in a hurry to leave, and it was no time for me to lecture them on the history of science and religion, but I did comment in response that historically that hasn't been the case.
Modern science is a tool, a systematic method of investigating the natural world. A definition of science is hard to produce, but the nuts and bolts of science is concerned with testing ideas through repeatable and observable experimentation in order to provide the best explanation of natural phenomena. We need science, we depend upon it for nearly every area of our modern life, from the food we eat, to the healthcare we receive, to the weapons we develop and deploy in national defense. With all of this said, is science incompatible with religion? It can be argued that science was pioneered by men of deep religious conviction, and many of them thought that their scientific work was actually intertwined with their service to God, and historically there generally has been no conflict between science and religion.
Of course there are instances of clear tension, namely in light of the Copernican Revolution where the Catholic Church struggled to accept the heliocentric view of the cosmos, over what they considered to be a Scripture based geocentric model. But I would argue that this was for one, a debate between Christians, for Copernicas, Kepler and Galileo, developers and champions of heliocentrism, were all Christians, and it was the Roman Catholic Church that they were answering to. And two, while there may have been a conflict between scientists and religious leaders, this does not in turn mean that therefore there is a conflict between science and religion as two forms of human knowledge and experience. Galileo the scientist, who was also a Christian, found himself in a conflict with the Roman Catholic leaders, but this in no way ought to lead one to therefore conclude that "science" and "religion" were in conflict. Dr. John Bloom in commenting on Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler states, "Historians of science today concur that these early scientists' praise to God was not mere lip service to the cultural conventions of the times: these men were genuinely praising God for what they saw. Science, the study of nature, was truly acting as a handmaiden to draw people to worship God." (Bloom, The Natural Sciences: A Student's Guide, 2015, 40.)
Are science and religion in conflict? If the history of science has anything to say about this, it would tell us that it certainly doesn't have to be the case. While a modern culture committed to naturalism might see religion as something that is in conflict with science, it is worth noting that naturalism itself goes beyond science and steps into the world of philosophy, and itself can take on a very real appearance of religious commitment. Commitment to a cultural norm, commitment to the cultural power centers, and commitment to the men and women doing science, rather than science itself. For science standing on its own follows the evidence wherever it leads, and has nothing to say beyond the evidence. If the supernatural is by definition outside of the normal natural ordering of things, then naturally science would have nothing to say about it, and only when the scientist takes on the role of philosopher would he comment beyond the silence of science.
I do highly recommend Dr. Bloom's book that does a great job of exploring the natural sciences from the Christian intellectual tradition.
Rob
