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Essay Review

Religion as a Cause in Scientific Research

MATTHEW STANLEY, Practical Mystic: Religion, Science, and A. S. Eddington.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. x � 313 pp. $37.50. ISBN-13 978-0-

226-77097-0.

REVIEWED BY

JASON M. RAMPELT, The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion,

St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge CB3 0BN, UK

‘What therefore of Athens and Jerusalem, what of the Academy and the Church?’

For Tertullian, these were conjunctions of irreconcilable opposites. Although

Aristotelian philosophy enjoyed the hearty approval of the scholastics in the high

Middle Ages, the Reformation prided biblical exegesis above philosophical acumen,

with the less educated strands of Protestantism reviving Tertullian’s simplistic

dichotomy. Some would now place science in the place of Athens, taking it not

merely as a professional occupation, but a dominant cultural paradigm. For some

religionists, it evokes suspicion as a foreign source of authority. So, while Huxley,

Draper, and White usually get the credit for the science and religion conflict thesis,

religion itself has perhaps been the one with a chip on its shoulder.1 At the very

least, advocates on both sides are equally culpable. These attitudes never cease to find

new life in each decade (Jacques Monod, Francis Crick, Carl Sagan) despite the fact

that their ideological bases are consistently undermined by the simple observation

that numerous successful scientists have been, and continue to be, devout religious

persons.

Historians of science take it as a commonplace that ‘science and religion’ is a

poorly formed concept. (Which religion? Which of the sciences?) But if the pair is

allowed, there are still few grounds for opposing them. It is easy to see how one

would be led to believe that there is a conflict if the only information before them

were examples where scientific ideas destroyed religious ones (the immortality of the

soul, Transubstantiation, physical resurrection, etc.). It has been less common to

have examples of the doubly opposite case, that is, where science has not destroyed

religion, but instead religion assisted in the growth of science. Larger narratives, such

as those offered by Hooykaas and Harrison, make this point, though a historian of

science may object that a religious zeitgeist, even if adequately shown to harbor

1 John William Draper, History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science (1875); Andrew DicksonWhite, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896).

Annals of Science ISSN 0003-3790 print/ISSN 1464-505X online # 2010 Taylor & Francishttp://www.tandf.co.uk/journals

DOI: 10.1080/00033790902730644

ANNALS OF SCIENCE,

Vol. 67, No. 1, January 2010, 121�130

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scientific enquiry, is still short of counting as a cause within it.2 Yet, this objection

can be met, particularly within biographical work on religious scientists. A biography

eliminates the problem of generality in ‘science and religion’, offering the

opportunity to discover identifiable causal relations between the scientist’s particular

research projects and their particular religious beliefs. Practical Mystic is a very

recent example of this kind of historical work. Such causal connections are not

always immediately visible, nor is the scientist always aware of them. Yet, if we take it

for granted that human thought is integrated, not entirely separable into distinct

domains such as ‘scientific thinking’ and ‘religious thinking’, then we should not be

too surprised that such causal connections exist, and are even a regular part of

scientific enquiry. This is a working assumption in Matthew Stanley’s new book and

will be addressed in more detail at the end of this review. Before addressing his book,

it will be worth while to examine several kinds of such causal connections.

A ‘cause’ in scientific terms is a specific relation between physical entities. It

answers the question why among physical events. Although not as common to

historical writing, it is no less appropriate to speak of causes of historical events. The

term might feel awkward because it suggests more certainty to a claim about past

events than one might be willing to grant. However, if we remember that modern

science is inductive, not deductive, any conclusion about natural causes is derived

empirically, and also subject to revision. History is carried out in a similar way,

drawing conclusions from evidence. It is true that historians cannot control

conditions and isolate variables in the same way that scientists can, but that does

not change the fact that it is nevertheless causes that the historian hopes to find. So,

if historical causes are understood with an appropriate empirical qualification, there

is no harm in using the term here.The most common way in which it is thought that religion has direct bearing on

scientific research may be expressed in the following general form:

(1?) Religion is a cause in scientific research by encouraging religious scientists

to generate scientific theories and practices which contradict or eliminate ones

which are thought to threaten religious beliefs, doctrines, or practices.

In the public eye, this definition captures everything from flood geology and anti-

physicalist philosophies of science, to political lobbies to remove embryonic stem

cells from labs. This is, however, a superficial understanding of the role of religion in

the scientific sphere, though religious people have done their share to reinforce such

thinking. This viewpoint is so prevalent partly because the media profits more from

conflict, and partly because it intuits a deeper issue to which we will turn later on.

Historically speaking, there are actually at least three significant ways in which

religion is a cause in scientific research, of which (1?) is really only a special case,

hence the mark to indicate its subordinate nature. The more general class into which

(1?) fits is:

(1) Religion is a cause in scientific research by directing or informing the

scientist’s choice of discipline, topic of research, ‘school’, or models or theories.

2 Reijer Hooykaas, Religion and the Rise of Modern Science (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press,1972); Peter Harrison, The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science (Cambridge, 1998). That isnot to say that Hooykaas and Harrison limit themselves only to discussing such a zeitgeist, since theyactually do speak of causes in the sense which will be described below.

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Thus, it is easy to see how (1?) is merely an instance of (1). Some self-consciously

religious scientists, reflecting on how their religion might affect their science have

gone along with the facile view of (1?), uninstructed about the more general reality of

(1) already active in their own work, though not necessarily obvious to them. So, for

example, a Christian chemical engineer may at first think that his work is made

Christian by always insisting to his colleagues that underground oil deposits were not

actually formed on the scale of millions of years, or refusing to work on Sundays.

Instead of, or in addition to, employing cause (1?), he could see his faith as a cause in

his work by motivating him to develop chemical processes with lower environmental

impact, or that can be interrupted for a day of rest. Even in the seventeenth century,

Robert Boyle was aware of the difference between (1) and (1?). At that time, judging

by Boyle’s response, some thought that experimental and empirical research of nature

entailed a commitment to atheistic materialism. In Boyle’s book The Christian

Virtuoso (1690), he dispelled this simplistic viewpoint which might otherwise have

turned Christians away from engaging in natural philosophical enquiry. Rather, in

Boyle’s view, such investigations were perfectly appropriate for the Christian, opening

new opportunities for doxology as he unveils the mystery and glory of God’s creative

acts in nature.There are many examples of religion causing the scientist to choose his profession

or direction of research. Leibniz thought a unified science would bring together the

divided churches of the German states, and consequently constructed a physics

combining elements of the old and new philosophies. Geology has had more than its

share: Jean-Andre de Luc in the eighteenth century, Adam Sedgwick in the

nineteenth, and George McCready Price in the twentieth.3 This discipline, with

biology, has suffered from the highly polemical religious motivations on the order of

(1?), for the superficial contradictions with biblical claims. (Mathematics usually

escapes these difficulties and has perhaps been a scientific haven for the more irenic

personalities among religious scientists.) Edward Williams Morley, better known for

his experimental prowess in the Michelson�Morley experiments had actually built his

research career on careful weighing of oxygen and hydrogen gases as an analytical

chemist. For him, this began with a theological interest in a kind of early ‘fine-tuning’

argument about the physical properties of water necessary to sustain life on earth.4

Even Tycho Brahe, although not known for any religious sensibility like his

contemporary Johannes Kepler, at least had enough religio-political sense to adopt

a model of celestial mechanics that straddled the demands of the church and the

latest astronomical observations.

Religion also acts as a cause in science in the actual technical aspects of scientific

research. The first of these may be expressed in the following way:

(2) Religion is a cause in scientific research by providing, altering, or suggesting

specific methods of investigation.

3 Martin J.S. Rudwick, Bursting the Limits of Time: The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age ofRevolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 150�58; John Brooke and Geoffrey Cantor,Reconstructing Nature: The Engagement of Science and Religion (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1998), 270�74;Ronald L. Numbers, The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific Creationism (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1992), Ch. 5.

4 Edward Williams Morley, ‘Natural Theology: Theory of Heat’, Bibliotheca Sacra, 24, no. 4 (October1867): 652�80. Morley does not seem to have been aware of Josiah Cooke, Religion and Chemistry; Or,Proofs of God’s Plan in the Atmosphere and Its Elements (New York: Charles Scribner, 1864).

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One obvious instance in recent news is research surrounding stem cells. With

embryonic stem cells considered taboo by some, even formally denied federal funding

in the United States (as of 2008), and otherwise regulated in the EU, some scientists

have been motivated to develop cell lines from sources other than early embryos. Thus,

religion has been a stimulus to scientific creativity as new approaches are developed to

avoid using embryonic stem cells. But even from the earliest stages of self-conscious

empirical investigation of nature, religion has been a basis of the empirical method.

Francis Bacon, conditioned by a Calvinistic doctrine of sin which understood humans

as corrupted and fallible, promoted empirical investigations of nature as the proper

corrective. As Peter Harrison explains, ‘we find in Bacon an emphasis on a new

philosophical regimen that consists of externally imposed methodological con-

straints’. These are, ‘reliance upon experimentation, the accumulation of organized

sets of observations (‘natural and experimental’, as Bacon calls them), and guided

communal endeavour’. The Fall also affected the physical world more broadly and, in

Bacon’s view, required manipulation in order to be understood.5 Theologically, Robert

Boyle was a voluntarist, believing that God was both free and able to do what he willed

in creating and sustaining the universe. The consequence for natural philosophy was

an instrumentalist one as the virtuoso stood before a potentially incomprehensible

world, doing his best to explain nature with one theory or another.6

In an even more subtle way, religion plays an important role in providing

substantial conceptual models for developments in science:

(3) Religion is a cause in scientific research by donating its discourse and

categories, not merely about the physical world, but about its own cultic affairs.

Scholastic Aristotelian physics was for a long time under the constraint of Tran-

substantiation. Ironically, the consequent Thomistic emphasis on the Aristotelian

category quantitas, necessary for his articulation of the physics of the doctrine, paved

the way for subsequent consideration of the world in a more materialist sense.

Geoffrey Cantor, in his biography of Michael Faraday incorporates all three types of

religious causes in Faraday’s research. Of this third sort, the highly biblicist

hermeneutic and basic trust in the perspicuity of Scripture advocated by the

Sandemanian sect of which Faraday was a part formed the basis of his commitment

to first-hand empirical science. Further, ‘just as the Sandemanians sought to

understand every word in the Bible without introducing distortions of human origin,

so Faraday aimed to comprehend God’s other book with integrity and without giving

reign to imagination and prejudice’. Interestingly, this led to a distrust of

mathematical symbolism which seemed to Faraday to obscure what should be made

plain in scientific enquiry.7 Crosbie Smith suggests that the Presbyterian theology of

James Watt and James and William Thomson shaped their conception of steam

engine and water turbine design and building. Here, a view of man and the cosmos as

deteriorating in its fallen state is countered by self-conscious reduction of waste,

applicable both in moral reform and engineering.8

5 Peter Harrison, The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science (Cambridge, 2007), 179�80.6 Jan W. Wojcik, Robert Boyle and the Limits of Reason (Cambridge, 1997), 180.7 Geoffrey Cantor, Michael Faraday: Sandemanian and Scientist. A Study of Science and Religion in the

Nineteenth Century (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1991), 196�201, 215�20.8 Crosbie Smith, The Science of Energy: A Cultural History of Energy Physics in Victorian Britain

(London: The Athlone Press, 1998), Chs. 2�3.

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These three ways in which religion may act as a cause in scientific research are not

entirely distinct, and it is easy to see how in some cases there are clear overlapping

boundaries. However, even just spelling them out as such is useful, since it shows

which debates in ‘science and religion’ only move on the surface, and which

discussions are more at the heart of the matter. It should also be noted that when

such causes are identified, they are not to be taken as necessary causes; that is, simply

because a particular scientist in one instance made use of their theology in a

particular way in their science does not mean that every one of that theological

confession, or working in that scientific discipline would necessarily do things the

same way. Yet, Crosbie Smith’s case of Watt, the Thomson brothers, and others

shows that it is at least possible that there be such similarities.9 Areas (2) and (3) of

religious causes in scientific activity are certainly the most difficult to identify and

easier to contest, but are the most valuable from a historical and philosophical

perspective. These three areas are not meant to be exhaustive*historians may yet

find other interesting connections*but they do reflect what has been done so far by

historians of science. Considering all three of these areas provides a richer picture, as

well as helping to guard against the overly simplistic misrepresentations brought

about by resting merely with (1?). Probing these more subtle connections has the

potential of a much deeper insight not merely into popular questions of science

and religion, but human activity in general. Matthew Stanley’s new book, Practical

Mystic: Religion, Science, and A. S. Eddington is a good example of how this can

be done.

First, the scholarly standard of this book is very high: all of the available

published and manuscript sources have been consulted and carefully weighed,

although not thrown upon the reader as a heavy burden. The book remains short and

disciplined, presenting the most relevant material in a clear and orderly fashion.

Second, the limited scope of the book is its greatest advantage. Stanley admits that

this is not a comprehensive biography of Eddington. Nor is it, one should add, a

technical analysis of his mathematics and physics, a project not yet attempted by

anyone. Eddington’s own books and research papers themselves are fairly easy to

follow, with some notable exceptions. What has been lacking is a thorough

examination of his personal life. Stanley’s biography fills that gap, providing the

social, political but especially the religious context of Eddington’s life. Right from

the start, Stanley is straightforward in his claim that Eddington’s Quaker religion is

the single most important factor in understanding his scientific career. Third, and of

greatest concern for the purpose of this extended review, Stanley considers the

twentieth-century Quaker astronomer and astrophysicist from the perspective of all

three causes which have been outlined above. Though he does not structure the book

in this way, employing these causes as a framework here helps to bring out some of

the best points of the book.Cause (1): Chapters 1 and 3 both show how Eddington’s Quaker ideas motivated

his choice of a scientific career and choice of research projects within that career.

Stanley begins the story in 1895, describing the ‘Quaker Renaissance’ which took a

turn from its Victorian evangelical emphases to a more self-conscious engagement

with the modern world. Under the leadership of John William Graham, Quakers

9 Geoffrey Cantor attempts to stretch ideologies across communities in Quakers, Jews, and Science:Religious Responses to Modernity and the Sciences in Britain, 1650�1900 (Oxford, 2005).

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were urged to face the modern world with their re-formed distinctives of mysticism,

pacifism and social action. In addition, Graham encouraged Quakers to take up

professions in the sciences. Eddington was raised in this spirit as he attended Owens

College, under Graham’s leadership, shortly after the 1895 Manchester meeting

where this new programme was hammered out. These new emphases were not to the

exclusion of the traditional themes of Quaker life such as the Inner Light and

centrality of experience. Rather, mysticism, pacifism and social action were promoted

as extensions of these very core principles. Chapter 1 follows Eddington’s life from

Owens College, to Cambridge, through his first career steps as an astronomer in

Greenwich, and then back to Cambridge where he spent the remainder of his life,

both working at the observatory and worshipping at the Jesus Lane Meeting House.

There we learn about the environment which encouraged Eddington to pursue a

career in science, and the values that he carried forth into it.

In Chapter 3, concerned with Eddington’s 1919 solar eclipse expedition, we see

how his international pacifism underwrote his interest in pursuing the project. The

First World War had divided Britain and Germany, not only politically, but

scientifically. Stanley shows the acrimony extended to major scientific personalities

as well as the general public, causing a complete cessation of scientific communica-

tion between the two countries. This meant that Einstein’s 1915 paper on General

Relativity was not carried into Britain in the usual way. However, Eddington

obtained the paper indirectly through Wilhelm de Sitter in 1917, and then wrote up a

summary in English in 1918, with enthusiastic support for the theory. In Eddington’s

mind, promoting Einstein’s theory was not only important for science, but to ‘heal

the wounds of war’. For this reason, according to Stanley, Eddington (with the

Astronomer Royal, Frank Dyson) planned the solar eclipse expedition to test general

relativity. An affirmative result for relativity would show the English world that

Germans were not brute animals, hopefully restoring friendly relations between the

two countries, both on a scientific level and a social and political one too.Cause (2): Not only were Eddington’s scientific interests and research questions

driven by religious motivates, but even his methods of investigation had a distinctly

Quaker flavour. Chapter 2 presents Eddington’s work on the internal structure of

stars, and how his astrophysical methods differed from his contemporary James Jeans.

Although Eddington’s book The Internal Constitution of the Stars achieved textbook

status in astrophysics, Jeans was critical of Eddington’s methods. Jeans himself

followed a more mathematico-deductive manner of proof in forming his equations for

star structure. Eddington’s work seemed to him to include far too many gratuitous

assumptions and lacked the necessary rigor for scientific work. But for Eddington,

scientific work was not a matter of strict proof, but a process of seeking after the truth,

forever more closely approximating to it. For this reason, some working assumptions

were not problematic for him. Stanley explains that Eddington’s heuristic approach

was a result of the more general Quaker attitude that religious life is a matter of

continual ‘seeking’, in contrast to the dogmatism of traditional Christianity. The

author might have added that these two approaches to mathematical proofs, inductive

versus deductive, are actually quite old, going back to the seventeenth century.10 The

important point for Stanley’s argument is not the uniqueness of the debate or

10 Katherine Hill, ‘Neither Ancient Nor Modern: Wallis and Barrow on the Composition of Continua.Part One: Mathematical Styles and the Composition of Continua’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society

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peculiarity of Eddington and Jean’s positions, but the reason for adopting the

particular method. Eddington’s stellar mathematics (whose effectiveness was not in

question) were intuitively justifiable because his Quaker worldview structured that

intuition.

Cause (3): Moving even more deeply into the role of Eddington’s Quakerism in

his scientific work, it is also evident that cause (3) is equally present. Chapter 5 covers

Eddington’s more philosophical reflection on relativity as it appeared in numerous

popular books, including his published Gifford Lectures of 1927, where his religious

principles come out into the open. In Stanley’s view, what made relativity plausible

was that it fitted the more basic Quaker reliance on experience. This makes sense if

we remember that Eddington’s understanding of Einsteinian relativity was a highly

instrumentalist one, an adaptation not innate to Einstein’s theory as he understood it.

Eddington saw in relativity (both general and special) that the world is not a function

of real essences, but one’s choice of a system of measurement. Measurements are not

absolute in the strictest sense, but a function of human experience in scientific

activity. Putting it more plainly, there is no measurement without a measurer and a

measuring stick. ‘As a Quaker, it was clear to him that experience was necessary for

properly understanding and advancing religion. As a scientist, it was clear to him

that relativity had shown that experience was also necessary for properly under-

standing physics’ (p. 189). In this example from Stanley’s book one can clearly see

how religion can in subtle ways structure the scientist’s thinking, providing a

discourse or model for thinking about scientific matters. Again, that is not to say that

relativity was in any way unique to Eddington, or that he did not receive important

elements of his own version of it from others. In fact, Stanley underestimates the

importance of Eddington’s early reading of Henri Poincare’s Science and Hypothesis

(p. 164). Poincare’s whole book is centred on the theme of human involvement in

measurement and thus the construction of space in their involvement, exactly the

point that Stanley is keen to emphasize about Eddington anyway.11

Chapter 4, is not concerned with causes, but the more plainly social side of

Eddington’s scientific life, an area where the role of Eddington’s Quakerism is more

obvious. In the latter part of WWI, when manpower on the front lines became an

increasing problem, Eddington’s exception from military service as an essential

university member began to be viewed as less important by the review board. He was

in real danger of being sent to battle. When he finally came before the tribunal, his

exemption as a scientist was about to be revoked, but Eddington claimed he was a

conscientious objector, quite common for a Quaker, and easily demonstrable from his

regular participation at the Cambridge meeting house. Yet, the tribunal would not

accept his conscientious objection because he had already had an exemption as a

scientist. Stanley concludes from this event that the ‘structure of the British

conscription scheme and, by extension, much of British society and government,

did not allow for the possibility of a religious scientist’ (p. 125). This claim fits into

the starting point of his Introduction which rejects the common assumption that

of London, 51 (1997): 13�22; Michael S. Mahoney, ‘Barrow’s Mathematics: Between Ancients andModerns’, in Mordechai Feingold (ed.), Before Newton: The Life and Times of Isaac Barrow (Cambridge,1990).

11 Arthur Stanley Eddington, Space Time and Gravitation: An Outline of the General Theory of Relativity(Cambridge, 1935), p. 9ff. See also ‘Jules Henri Poincare [Obituary]’, Monthly Notices of the RoyalAstronomical Society, 73, no. 4 (February 1913): 223�28.

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science and religion are antithetical*Eddington is a clear contrary instance. While

I am sympathetic to the need to continually emphasize the unjustifiable nature of this

false antithesis, I am not convinced that Eddington’s trial is a public statement of it.

It seems rather simply a matter of law. When Eddington said, ‘I am a conscientiousobjector’, the chairman responded, ‘That question is not before us’ (p. 146). It would

be an equally fair response if at a trial for automobile theft the defendant argued that

his wife left him and took all of his money. He may fairly raise that issue in suit

against his wife, but not this one. What Chapter 4 does reinforce is that Eddington

was unquestionably a faithful member of the Quakers in general, and the Quaker

Renaissance in particular.

While it is in some cases enough to simply note that Eddington was an

accomplished scientist and faithful religionist, Stanley wants to offer an analysis ofexactly how those two areas are even able to interact. The chapters of Practical

Mystic show that it is happening, but what is the answer to the question why? Stanley

suggests that science and religion have their point of contact in values, particularly

what he calls ‘valence values’. Imagine an atom, surrounded by a cloud of electrons.

Chemically, the electrons in outer orbitals have the ability to form bonds with other

atoms such that those electrons become a part of the adjoining atom. Likewise, a

given scientific discipline, in this case astronomy, has certain values. Quaker belief

and practice also has its own set of values. Some of these Quaker values may also findapplication in astronomy. Stanley has shown in his book that indeed they do. The

advantage of his explanation of the contact between science and religion is that it

recognizes the variations in the languages of different scientific disciplines as well as

different religions. This leads to a valuable remark about public debates over ‘science

and religion’.

It is important to remember that not all values are valence values. Science is

based on values, but not all of those necessarily have some link to other areas of

culture. Values can move back and forth between culture and science, but they

do not have to do so. Some values do not travel well . . . (p. 242)

By breaking down both religious and scientific activity into modular values, it is

therefore possible to understand how there might be meaningful interaction and

cross-fertilization of one to the other, without forcing a full-blown domination of one

over the other. Looking at things this way could help alleviate the tensions perceived

by those who view science and religion interactions along the lines of (1?).The valence values for Eddington are the old Quaker themes of the centrality of

experience and the ever ‘seeking’ anti-dogmatism, as well as the newly refashioned

values of the Quaker Renaissance: mysticism, pacifism, and social action. Each of the

chapters of Practical Mystic beautifully show how these values were at work in

various areas of Eddington’s astronomical work, most broadly conceived. Thus, we

are able to see not merely that scientists are meaningfully religious qua scientists, but

how or why.

Stanley has drawn a conclusion that we need to take farther. The weakness of

Stanley’s overarching assessment is that it leans heavily on the concept of ‘values’, aconcept that is underspecified. Getting clearer on values makes it possible not only to

understand the relation between science and religion, but also the internal workings

of the human person in general. He has shown in Eddington’s case that certain

Quaker values could be transported into his scientific discourse. That this is the case

does not need to be questioned. It is necessary, though, to return to the intuition

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which thinks that this should be difficult to prove, i.e. cause (1?). Values do not float

independently within us. This is substantiated by the fact that our values usually do

not change quickly; they are too rooted within numerous other aspects of our being.

Rather, values are bound to the discourses which make up our lives: e.g. family, land(geography or nationality), occupation, religion and others. On the face of it, there

seems to be an incommensurability between some of these discourses, especially in

the case of science and religion. Although the attention given to science and religion

as a pair has granted it independent status, the conjunction of the two is not a special

case since many of its problems are shared by the more general division observed by

C. P. Snow in his ‘Two Cultures’ (the sciences and the humanities). Stanley has shown

that some values do travel well across discourses. The reason this is true, however, is

not the accidental nature of values, but something more fundamental, as thegenerality of the problem suggests.

The point of contact of diverse discourses is ultimately within the person, not in

depersonalized or decontextualized values or some third discourse. This is one reason

why biographical research will continue to hold a prominent place in historical and

philosophical studies. Here we are at a loss, since, among the many discourses from

which to choose, there is no ‘personal’ discourse which articulates the relations

among all the others. To have such a comprehensive means of explanation would

indeed be the Grand Unification Theorem of the humanities. And while such a loftygoal (in physics) seems currently out of reach, it is nevertheless desirable, and there

are many ways in which we might attempt it. What is a person? How do we describe

ourselves as wholes with all of our diverse kinds of activity? Why is it that the evident

contradictions in our thoughts and behaviour are not necessarily debilitating?

Answers to these more basic questions would help explain how it is the case that

different discourses such as science and religion can be unified in the individual. Such

a line of enquiry is hardly new and is perhaps the most ancient of all. Although

imperfect as a candidate for a proposed personal discourse, religious discourse has infact come the closest.

Religion and metaphysics were deliberately removed from power in the

intellectual sphere during the modern period. The result is that we are hard-pressed

to explain how a person like Eddington makes sense. Religion may have been

removed from our explanations of natural and personal phenomena, but that has

neither removed the reality that people are informed by their religion nor filled the

explanatory gap left when it was taken away. Historical studies in science and religion

are reawakening us to the explanatory power and insight which consideration ofreligious discourse adds to our overall understanding of human nature. ‘Science and

Religion’ presents ‘hard cases’ in human thought and action and helps force the

question upon us.

So, will religion only help us to understand those who are religious in a

traditional way, that is, those who attach themselves to historic faiths? This question

cannot here be dealt with fully, but the short answer is, no. Even if a person does not

profess any particular faith, he nevertheless exhibits the religious traits of those who

are more explicitly religious. This may sound like an unjustified assertion, butconsider some rather ordinary ideas. Even without formal faith, notions such as

purpose, wisdom, justice, order, law, and universality do not cease to be relevant

operative terms in their lives; terms which are not very well defined without recourse

to explanations which sound very much like religion or metaphysics. Broadly

speaking, we are all religious, regardless of whether or not we like the language or the

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trappings. From this perspective it does not surprise us that we find religion in science

(or any other area of life). Religion is a deep part of the substance of who we are as

persons. In this respect, we should expect to find religion as a cause in scientific

research, even at the technical level, not just at the philosophical one. To discoverthese connections will require historians to understand theologies much better, not

only of historic faiths, but the ‘theologies’ of Enlightenment modernism.

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