_Conflict between the Two Ideas, commonly misunderstood as a Conflict
between Religion and Science._
In illustration of the mischief that has been wrought by the
Augustinian conception of Deity, we may cite the theological objections
urged against the Newtonian theory of gravitation and the Darwinian
theory of natural selection. Leibnitz, who as a mathematician but
little inferior to Newton himself might have been expected to be easily
convinced of the truth of the theory of gravitation, was nevertheless
deterred by theological scruples from accepting it. It appeared to him
that it substituted the action of physical forces for the direct action
of the Deity. Now the fallacy of this argument of Leibnitz is easy to
detect. It lies in a metaphysical misconception of the meaning of the
word "force." "Force" is implicitly regarded as a sort of entity or
dæmon which has a mode of action distinguishable from that of Deity;
otherwise it is meaningless to speak of substituting the one for the
other. But such a personification of "force" is a remnant of barbaric
thought, in no wise sanctioned by physical science. When astronomy
speaks of two planets as attracting each other with a "force" which
varies directly as their masses and inversely as the squares of their
distances apart, it simply uses the phrase as a convenient metaphor by
which to describe the manner in which the observed movements of the two
bodies occur. It explains that in presence of each other the two bodies
are observed to change their positions in a certain specified way,
and this is all that it means. This is all that a strictly scientific
hypothesis can possibly allege, and this is all that observation can
possibly prove. Whatever goes beyond this and imagines or asserts a
kind of "pull" between the two bodies, is not science, but metaphysics.
An atheistic metaphysics may imagine such a "pull," and may interpret
it as the action of something that is not Deity, but such a conclusion
can find no support in the scientific theorem, which is simply a
generalized description of phenomena. The general considerations
upon which the belief in the existence and direct action of Deity is
otherwise founded are in no wise disturbed by the establishment of any
such scientific theorem. We are still perfectly free to maintain that
it is the direct action of Deity which is manifested in the planetary
movements; having done nothing more with our Newtonian hypothesis than
to construct a happy formula for expressing the mode or order of the
manifestation. We may have learned something new concerning the manner
of divine action; we certainly have not "substituted" any other kind
of action for it. And what is thus obvious in this simple astronomical
example is equally true in principle in every case whatever in which
one set of phenomena is interpreted by reference to another set. In no
case whatever can science use the words "force" or "cause" except as
metaphorically descriptive of some observed or observable sequence of
phenomena. And consequently at no imaginable future time, so long as
the essential conditions of human thinking are maintained, can science
even attempt to substitute the action of any other power for the direct
action of Deity. The theological objection urged by Leibnitz against
Newton was repeated word for word by Agassiz in his comments upon
Darwin. He regarded it as a fatal objection to the Darwinian theory
that it appeared to substitute the action of physical forces for the
creative action of Deity. The fallacy here is precisely the same as in
Leibnitz's argument. Mr. Darwin has convinced us that the existence of
highly complicated organisms is the result of an infinitely diversified
aggregate of circumstances so minute as severally to seem trivial or
accidental; yet the consistent theist will always occupy an impregnable
position in maintaining that the entire series in each and every one of
its incidents is an immediate manifestation of the creative action of
God.
In this connection it is worth while to state explicitly what is the
true province of scientific explanation. Is it not obvious that since a
philosophical theism must regard divine power as the immediate source
of all phenomena alike, therefore science cannot properly explain any
particular group of phenomena by a direct reference to the action of
Deity? Such a reference is not an explanation, since it adds nothing
to our previous knowledge either of the phenomena or of the manner of
divine action. The business of science is simply to ascertain in what
manner phenomena coexist with each other or follow each other, and
the only kind of explanation with which it can properly deal is that
which refers one set of phenomena to another set. In pursuing this, its
legitimate business, science does not touch on the province of theology
in any way, and there is no conceivable occasion for any conflict
between the two. From this and the previous considerations taken
together it follows not only that such explanations as are contained
in the Newtonian and Darwinian theories are entirely consistent with
theism, but also that they are the only kind of explanations with
which science can properly concern itself at all. To say that complex
organisms were directly created by the Deity is to make an assertion
which, however true in a theistic sense, is utterly barren. It is of no
profit to theism, which must be taken for granted before the assertion
can be made; and it is of no profit to science, which must still ask
its question, "How?"[15]
We are now prepared to see that the theological objection urged
against the Newtonian and Darwinian theories has its roots in that
imperfect kind of theism which Augustine did so much to fasten
upon the western world. Obviously if Leibnitz and Agassiz had been
educated in that higher theism shared by Clement and Athanasius in
ancient times with Spinoza and Goethe in later days,--if they had been
accustomed to conceive of God as immanent in the universe and eternally
creative,--then the argument which they urged with so much feeling
would never have occurred to them. By no possibility could such an
argument have entered their minds. To conceive of "physical forces" as
powers of which the action could in any wise be "substituted" for the
action of Deity would in such case have been absolutely impossible.
Such a conception involves the idea of God as remote from the world
and acting upon it from outside. The whole notion of what theological
writers are fond of calling "secondary causes" involves such an idea
of God. The higher or Athanasian theism knows nothing of secondary
causes in a world where every event flows directly from the eternal
First Cause. It knows nothing of physical forces save as immediate
manifestations of the omnipresent creative power of God. In the
personification of physical forces, and the implied contrast between
their action and that of Deity, there is something very like a survival
of the habits of thought which characterized ancient polytheism.
What are these personified forces but little gods who are supposed
to be invading the sacred domain of the ruler Zeus? When one speaks
of substituting the action of Gravitation for the direct action of
Deity, does there not hover somewhere in the dim background of the
conception a vague spectre of Gravitation in the guise of a rebellious
Titan? Doubtless it would not be easy to bring any one to acknowledge
such a charge, but the unseen and unacknowledged part of a fallacy
is just that which is most persistent and mischievous. It is not so
many generations, after all, since our ancestors were barbarians and
polytheists; and fragments of their barbaric thinking are continually
intruding unawares into the midst of our lately-acquired scientific
culture. In most philosophical discussions a great deal of loose
phraseology is used, in order to find the proper connotations of which
we must go back to primitive and untutored ages. Such is eminently the
case with the phrases in which the forces of nature are personified and
described as something else than manifestations of omnipresent Deity.
This subject is of such immense importance that I must illustrate
it from yet another point of view. We must observe the manner in
which, along with the progress of scientific discovery, theological
arguments have come to be permeated by the strange assumption that
the greater part of the universe is godless. Here again we must go
back for a moment to the primeval world and observe how behind every
physical phenomenon there were supposed to be quasi-human passions
and a quasi-human will. Now the phenomena which were first arranged
and systematized in men's thoughts, and thus made the subject of
something like scientific generalization, were the simplest, the
most accessible, and the most manageable phenomena; and from these
the conception of a quasi-human will soonest faded away. There are
savages who believe that hatchets and kettles have souls, but men
unquestionably outgrew such a belief as this long before they outgrew
the belief that there are ghost-like deities in the tempest, or in
the sun and moon. After many ages of culture, men ceased to regard
the familiar and regularly-recurring phenomena of nature as immediate
results of volition, and reserved this primeval explanation for
unusual or terrible phenomena, such as comets and eclipses, or famines
and plagues. As the result of these habits of thought, in course of
time, Nature seemed to be divided into two antithetical provinces. On
the one hand, there were the phenomena that occurred with a simple
regularity which seemed to exclude the idea of capricious volition;
and these were supposed to constitute the realm of natural law. On
the other hand, there were the complex and irregular phenomena in
which the presence of law could not so easily be detected; and these
were supposed to constitute the realm of immediate divine action.
This antithesis has forever haunted the minds of men imbued with the
lower or Augustinian theism; and such have made up the larger part of
the Christian world. It has tended to make the theologians hostile to
science and the men of science hostile to theology. For as scientific
generalization has steadily extended the region of natural law, the
region which theology has assigned to divine action has steadily
diminished. Every discovery in science has stripped off territory from
the latter province and added it to the former. Every such discovery
has accordingly been promulgated and established in the teeth of
bitter and violent opposition on the part of theologians. A desperate
fight it has been for some centuries, in which science has won every
disputed position, while theology, untaught by perennial defeat, still
valiantly defends the little corner that is left it. Still as of old
the ordinary theologian rests his case upon the assumption of disorder,
caprice, and miraculous interference with the course of nature. He
naively asks, "If plants and animals have been naturally originated,
if the world as a whole has been evolved and not manufactured, and if
human actions conform to law, what is there left for God to do? If not
formally repudiated, is he not thrust back into the past eternity, as
an ultimate source of things, which is postulated for form's sake, but
might as well, for all practical purposes, be omitted?"[16]
The scientific inquirer may reply that the difficulty is one which
theology has created for itself. It is certainly not science that has
relegated the creative activity of God to some nameless moment in the
bygone eternity and left him without occupation in the present world.
It is not science that is responsible for the mischievous distinction
between divine action and natural law. That distinction is historically
derived from a loose habit of philosophizing characteristic of ignorant
ages, and was bequeathed to modern times by the theology of the Latin
church. Small blame to the atheist who, starting upon such a basis,
thinks he can interpret the universe without the idea of God! He is but
doing as well as he knows how, with the materials given him. One has
only, however, to adopt the higher theism of Clement and Athanasius,
and this alleged antagonism between science and theology, by which so
many hearts have been saddened, so many minds darkened, vanishes at
once and forever. "Once really adopt the conception of an ever-present
God, without whom not a sparrow falls to the ground, and it becomes
self-evident that the law of gravitation is but an expression of a
particular mode of divine action. And what is thus true of one law
is true of all laws."[17] The thinker in whose mind divine action is
thus identified with orderly action, and to whom a really irregular
phenomenon would seem like a manifestation of sheer diabolism, foresees
in every possible extension of knowledge a fresh confirmation of his
faith in God. From his point of view there can be no antagonism between
our duty as inquirers and our duty as worshippers. To him no part
of the universe is godless. In the swaying to and fro of molecules
and the ceaseless pulsations of ether, in the secular shiftings of
planetary orbits, in the busy work of frost and raindrop, in the
mysterious sprouting of the seed, in the everlasting tale of death and
life renewed, in the dawning of the babe's intelligence, in the varied
deeds of men from age to age, he finds that which awakens the soul to
reverential awe; and each act of scientific explanation but reveals an
opening through which shines the glory of the Eternal Majesty.