Who's afraid of the Big Bad Science?

For the last couple of days I've been reading Map of Bones by James Rollins, which is quite good. The central idea (so far - I'm about 1/3 of the way through) is that a secret society, hundreds of years old, has discovered a substance used in Bible times that has many startling properties. It's even been suggested that this substance may be responsible for what were termed "miracles" in the first century. I can't tell you more without spoilers, but that's enough for my purpose.

As is my tendency, I read the end of the book when I was about 1/4 of the way through. At the end, the author has a note that encourages gnosticism, a "religious" philosophy which essentially replaces the search for faith with the search for knowledge. It seems to me that through this book, Rollins is trying to work out for himself how the miracles of the Bible could have been a result of natural phenomena at work among a scientifically naive and religiously focused civilization. I don't get the sense that he is denying God in some form, just that he's gnostically inclined to take the "created then left alone to spin in space" idea. I can't speak for him, and I'm not claiming to have special insight into this thoughts. But that's how it all seems to me.

It made me think of scientists uncomfortable with the concept of unknowability and religious non-scientists uncomfortable with the idea of knowability. The scientists seem to believe that accepting that something may be unknowable is like an axe at the very root of science itself. The very idea must be beaten down until to express it is by definition evidence of ignorance. Some religious non-scientists seem to feel that the desire and effort to know as much as we can about our universe is an axe at the very root of faith in God, and must be denounced. I think they fear that science today is a modern Tower of Babel.

I think they both need therapy until they can let go of their fears.

As a scientist, I'm excited by all the things we know about the universe, and I think it's wonderful that we're learning more daily. I don't think there are any questions we can't ask, scientifically speaking, up to and including, "Is there a god?" I do object to the idea that believing there isn't a god, or supernatural force, is a necessary precursor to true science. I think it's legitimate to say we can't prove it using the scientific method, but to me a true, honest scientist would also say we can't disprove it that way either. The scientific approach would be to say, it's outside the purview of science. We'll deal with what we can know. Once you're outside the realm of fact and are constructing theory, the theory of a god is quite valid (although I won't go into why, right now). And I think the transition from "evidence points to the likelihood of a super/extra-natural force" to "that force is the God discussed in the Bible" is a theological question, not a scientific one in the sense that the scientific/experimental method can conclusively determine the answer. I do think it is a question that can be answered in the affirmative using clear logic and readily available physical evidence.

The other perspective - fear of science among the religious - is something I've never quite understood. If you believe, as I do, that the universe was created by an all-powerful being, then how can learning anything or everything about that universe in some way undermine that faith? I may at times be surprised by what I learn, but the surprise isn't because I doubt that God could do whatever it is that was discovered. The surprise comes from my own finite nature, which often can't conceive of the things God has done until I'm shown the evidence. My response is not, "Oh no!" It's "wow!!" There is no reason to fear knowing anything about the universe that God allows us to learn! As far as I know - and I think the Bible would have informed me - there isn't anything we are forbidden from knowing, as was the case with Adam and Eve (and we know how that turned out). So the problem with knowledge is not the knowing itself, but what we do with it and our intent in the doing. I don't believe the Tower of Babel was a problem because they were building a tall building - Chicago, New York, Tokyo would all be in dire trouble if that's the case. The problem with the Tower of Babel was the intent of the men of that time to set themselves on par with God. And he took care of the problem. I think likewise if we have problems resulting from our knowledge of the universe and what the things in it can do, it's going to be because we've put it to some arrogant, godless use.

That brings me back to the Map of Bones and James Rollins. In the story - as is common in stories dealing with religious relics of one sort or another - the bad guys are searching for the mysterious (but as we learn, actually scientifically knowable) substance because of what they can do with it - the power controlling it would give them. Although in Map the bad guys believe the substance's properties are naturally occurring, albeit complex to release, many other similar stories (like, say, Indiana Jones and the lost ark of the covenant) rely on a sense that religious relics carry their own power. That power originates with God, but somehow along the way became separate from him without dissipating. It's not an uncommon belief; that's exactly the core belief behind the Catholic obsession about dead saints' bones or supposed pieces of Jesus's cross or shroud or whatever. The physical things themselves are powerful, and can be used for the purposes of the person holding them, whether good or evil, separate from God's will. And thus the rush to save them from the hands of the evil people lest God's power be used for evil.

It makes a nice story, and naturally I love the "good vs evil" story line. But it does harm to the sense of the reality of God, just as the fear of science is evidence of a lack of faith in God. The ark of the covenant in the Old Testament had power because God resided in it. If God were not in it, it would have been just be a lovely bit of gold and wood. While God was in it, it would not be used against his will - it could not be used against his will. God is not a genie in a bottle to be captured and used. He never operates from a position of weakness. Even Christ's death was a voluntary submission to the God-given laws of nature for a higher purpose - it was not an involuntary submission to anything. And God is the source of all good, and nothing evil. So, if any relic or substance or chant has power that can be used for evil, it is by that very fact clearly not power from God. Could it be power from the devil? Possibly. I don't know how Satan works in this world, nor what tools he has at his disposal. I just know, unequivocally, that if something can be used for evil, it in that moment is not God's or from God.

That knowledge doesn't stop me from enjoying either Raiders of the Lost Ark or Map of Bones - it's all fantasy and "what if?" to me. I just wish a lot of Christians would ease up on their fear of science and bear down on their depth of faith in God's goodness in this world and out of it.