German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche famously declared in the late nineteenth century that “God
is dead”, arguing that with the Enlightenment “we have killed him”. He wasn’t the first to remark
on the tension between religious concepts and scientific advancement, but this phrase has lived
on. The debate about whether God is “dead” or not remains just as controversial and potent today.
This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question: has science killed God?
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Religion’s role in the world has changed dramatically in modern times. From the 1800s on,
the separation of church and state became a core principle in many countries. Today,
about one out of ten people around the world identify as atheists;
a further two describe themselves as “not religious”. According to polls,
even believers tend to rank God and religion as less important in their lives than they did
ten years ago. Many also adhere to a much more relaxed moral code than in the past, in particular
regarding issues such as cohabitation, sexual orientation, and attendance of places of worship.
However, even the meaning of Nietzsche’s statement is still hotly debated. Death of God theologians,
such as the late Thomas J. J. Altizer, have argued that God really DID die at some point in the past.
Most scholars agree however that Nietzsche’s statement is a metaphoric reference to the way
science has eclipsed religion, explaining ever more of the universe without appealing to a
traditional deity. According to this view, God has increasingly become a “god of the gaps” in
our scientific knowledge - gaps that narrow with every new discovery. But, are science and religion
really at odds? Is it truly so black-and-white? Well, the issue is complex.
One of the famous conflicts between religion and science occurred in the Renaissance with
the Copernican Revolution. In 1543, astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus published his discovery
that the Earth revolved around the Sun, rather than vice versa. This contradicted
the Catholic Church’s support for geocentrism, based on scripture,
and the comforting view that as God’s special creation, man - and therefore the Earth - lay at
the centre of the universe. The conflict reached a head when Italian polymath Galileo Galilei
arrived at the same conclusion in 1610, resulting in his condemnation by the Church. However, it’s
important to note that neither Copernicus, nor Galileo, thought that heliocentrism disproved God;
both were religious, and saw themselves as studying a universe that God had designed.
A new battleground that challenged the notion of “design” emerged in the 19th century,
when Charles Darwin published “On the Origin of Species” in 1859. Darwin’s groundbreaking work,
the result of travels around the world, put forward the Theory of Evolution, which remains
a battleground for science and religion to this day. But when Darwin first conceived
the theory in the 1930s, he didn’t necessarily think that it disproved the existence of God,
or that evolution couldn’t have been designed by a divine creator. A more serious crisis of
faith actually came from the death of his 9-year-old daughter Annie in 1851,
when he struggled to reconcile the tragedy with the idea of an all-powerful, all-loving creator.
Nonetheless, the Theory of Evolution was still taken as an attack on the Bible,
which professes that God made mankind in His own image; the idea that humans weren’t placed on
Earth more or less as we are now contradicts the words of Genesis, at least if taken literally.
The debate around evolution and creation continued into the 20th century; in 1925, John Scopes,
a high school teacher in Tennessee, was accused of teaching evolution in a public school contrary to
state law. The Scopes Trial – or “Monkey Trial” – was highly publicized and exposed a rift between
fundamentalist and modernist Christians, i.e., Christians who believe science doesn’t contradict
the Bible and Christians who take the Bible literally. However, strong arguments from Clarence
Darrow, counsel for the defendant, didn’t convince the jury, which gave Scopes a guilty verdict.
Even today, many fundamentalist Christians, driven by belief in the literalness of scripture,
still have a bone to pick with areas of science like evolution, paleontology, or cosmology.
There are many more parts of modern life that might not be in line with a fundamentalist belief
system - like modern medicine. While they’re in the minority, there are Christian sects out
there that oppose life-saving medical treatment, viewing it as a perversion of the natural order;
after all, God made that person get sick for a reason, and we shouldn’t interfere with God’s
will (or so they say). It’s argued that faith in God, not religion, should get people through
serious illness or injury rather than medical treatment from doctors. On these grounds,
anything from organ transplants to vaccinations to painkillers have been denied to, or by, patients.
But of course, any tension between medicine and theism isn’t fundamental either.
The “Golden Rule”, a core tenet in most religions and everyday life, says you should treat others
as you wish to be treated. Doesn’t that entail doctors doing their best to save lives? Thinking
of it that way, it’s just as easy to imagine that God provided humanity with the tools to develop
medicine and save lives, and that perhaps making somebody sick doesn’t mean that God wants them
to die. Besides, if God is “all-powerful”, and He truly wants somebody’s life to end,
no amount of medical treatment could thwart that. There are plenty of doctors who believe in God,
and most believers gladly accept their care. There is another side to every debate, however,
and just as religious texts and authorities are sometimes used to counter scientific theories,
so are scientific advancements occasionally deployed to “disprove” belief in God. Evolutionary
biologist Richard Dawkins, perhaps the world’s most famous atheist, has argued that religious
faith flies in the face of contradictory evidence and is a “delusion”. Dawkins has been particularly
critical of creationism and arguments from design, contending that evolution, not God,
accounts for the appearance of deliberate design in nature. Regardless, intelligent
design does still have dedicated proponents, including those who look more broadly at the
fundamental physical constants of the universe, which, they argue, are “fine-tuned” for life.
So far, no one has “proven” that God doesn’t exist. Of course, it’s notoriously difficult
to prove a negative - especially a negative as metaphysical and cosmic as the existence of a
deity. Proving a negative requires showing that there can’t be a God, or pointing to evidence
of God’s absence - a difficult task when it comes to conceptions of God that don’t involve direct,
supernatural intervention. Even for smaller questions, proving a negative can be impossible,
just on practical grounds. To pick a random example, imagine trying to prove,
with total certainty, that mermaids don’t exist in Earth’s oceans. It would require you to explore
every organism in every nook and cranny of the sea - an impossible undertaking.
An atheist might like to counter, however, that in philosophy, the burden of proof rests on the
person who makes the initial claim – in this case, with those who assert that God exists.
Of course, believers faced with the demand to provide evidence for their claim often
argue that this misses the point - evoking the concept of faith. Whereas rationality is based
on facts and evidence, faith is often defined as belief inspired by revelation or authority
without evidence, or at least without proof. Certainly, having faith that there is a creator
who loves you and wants what’s best for you is a major part of religious thinking - and
probably a key reason why atheists are still vastly outnumbered by theists.
There are also larger questions that science has yet to answer. For example:
How did life arise? What caused the Big Bang? Why is there something rather than nothing? Sure,
for some of our big questions, it may just be a matter of time before we have answers.
Or, in some cases, we may be asking the wrong questions altogether.
But other answers may never come - especially not in our lifetimes.
While scientific theories have replaced supernatural, or spiritual explanations
in many areas, they don’t disprove the existence of God. With science advancing at a faster pace
than ever before, and the vast majority of people still looking to religion for answers,
it’s clear that people have found ways to reconcile them in their lives.
While religion has experienced a global decline, it will live on,
at least for the foreseeable future - and maybe forever. And that’s why,
although science has challenged many traditional religious beliefs, it hasn’t killed God.
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