SCIENTIFIC AND ETHICAL ELEMENTS IN RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS
[1154]. It is remarked above[2103] that the sphere of religion is wholly distinct from that of science (including philosophy and art) and from that of constructive ethics (the determination of rules of conduct), while it is true that the three, being coexistent and original departments of human nature, must influence one another, and must tend to coalesce and be fused into a unitary conception of life. This process goes on in different degrees in different times and places, sometimes one department of thought getting the upper hand and sometimes another, but we cannot suppose that it ever ceases entirely. The relation between religion and its two companions may become clear from a brief survey of the facts given by historical records, this term being used to include all trustworthy sources of information.
The Scientific Element
[1155]. Man is bound by his constitution to inquire into the nature of things, to seek for the facts of the world, including the human soul. This search is made by both religion and science, but their procedures are somewhat different. Religion demands only the fact of an ultimate moral ground of the world; science observes all phenomena and endeavors to connect and organize them by a thread of natural causation or invariable sequence; religion looks behind phenomena to what it regards as its source. This source is reached by some process of reasoning, either by acceptance, on grounds held to be satisfactory, of a divine revelation, or by inference from the facts of the world (as the presence of design or of moral order); but, when it is reached, all other facts of science are treated as irrelevant. If, then, science confines itself to the observation of sequences, the relation between the two cannot be one of permanent hostility, since their material is not the same. They clash when an old nonreligious belief, adopted by religion, is confronted by an antagonistic scientific discovery; the first result is a protest, but the mind demands harmony, and religion always ends by accepting a well-attested scientific conclusion,[2104] and bringing it into harmony with its fundamental beliefs.
[1156]. Certain phases in the relations between religion and science may be distinguished, but an earlier or cruder phase may continue to exist alongside of a later and higher one. There is first the time when science based on a recognition of natural laws does not exist. The existing science is then one of imagination, the fanciful application of crude observations to the explanation of all phenomena. The verae causae are supernatural agencies—science and religion are one. Explanations of phenomena take the form of what we call myths, what the people of the time regard as true histories. There is no place for the conception of miracle; the supernatural agents are all-powerful, one thing is no harder than another, nothing is strange or inexplicable. There is a crude conception of the unity of God and the world.
[1157]. The period of the rise and decline of the great national religions and the rise of monotheistic cults (along with which may be included Confucianism and Buddhism) is characterized by a great development of philosophy (in China, India, and Greece) and a beginning of scientific research properly so called (especially in astronomy, physics, medicine, and chemistry, in Greece and by the Moslems of Persia). There is a revolt against the older conception of unity. Deities are highly personalized, stand outside of the world, and intervene in human affairs at crises. It is the age of miracles—supernatural Powers, by reason of their intimate social relations with their respective communities, are expected to come to their aid in all important matters, and, for most persons, there is no difficulty in holding that they are able to change the course of nature, which is not regarded as being absolutely fixed. In certain philosophical circles, however, this view is rejected, and nature, with its laws, is conceived of as a separate and independent existence, accompanied or not by gods. Science begins to define the nature of deities, and to limit the sphere of their practical activities—this is a precursor of the fall of the old divinities. The old myths are retained, but they are purified, humanized, and allegorized, and in some cases applied, to new persons and events, according to changes in religious construction.
[1158]. The next phase is the recognition by science of the absolute domination of natural law in the world of phenomena. Religion, when it accepts this view, holds fast to the belief in the ultimate personal moral Force, and conceives of this Force as working and expressing and manifesting itself only in phenomena in accordance with natural law—that is, this law is regarded as the expression of the divine will. Science is thus given liberty to investigate phenomena to the fullest extent, and religion is freed from the incumbrance of physical, psychological, and metaphysical theories; the spheres of the two are sharply defined and kept separate. Such a conception is held to differ from "naturalism" or "materialism" in that it recognizes a Power distinct from matter—to differ from what has been called "humanism" (which makes man the sole power in the world), or from positivism (which regards man as the only worthy object of worship), in that it ascribes to the will and activity of divine spirit the high position of humanity as the center and explanation of the life of the world—to differ from pantheism in that for it God is a personal being who enters into relations with a free humanity—and to differ from agnosticism in that it holds that God may be known from his works.
[1159]. Whatever difficulties may attach to this conception are regarded by its adherents as not insuperable. In all religious systems except Buddhism and Positivism the personality of the ultimate ground of the world is looked on as a necessary datum. In the view under consideration it is held that God exists for the world in which he expresses himself, as the world exists for him, its source and end. The world, with all its parts and incidents, is conceived of as a sacred thing, consecrated to God, and ever striving to realize him in itself, and itself in him. Under the guidance of exacter scientific thought the old crude idea of the unity of the divine and the world is thus transformed into the idea of a unity of will and work. In this conception there is no place for myths, and no need is felt for miracles: histories of the external world and of human society are held to rest on observation of facts, and generally the possibility of miracles is not denied, but they are regarded as unnecessary and improbable—they are thought unnecessary because the conception of the divine character and the religious life are not supposed to be dependent on them, and they are thought improbable because they are held to be not supported by experience. This is the attitude of those persons who accept the conclusions of science; there is, however, great difference of opinion in the religious world on this point.[2105]
[1160]. Certain scientific and philosophical positions discard religion as a department of human life. When it is held that man knows nothing and can know nothing but phenomena, or when, if something is assumed behind phenomena, it is regarded as too vague to enter into personal relations with men, religion as a force in life becomes impossible. In these cases the two conceptions must stand side by side as enemies till one or the other is proved, to the satisfaction of men, to be untenable. Meanwhile it appears that one result of scientific investigations has been to delimitate religion by making it clear that, while it belongs as an influence to all life, it cannot include scientific theories as a part of its content—a result that cannot be otherwise than favorable to its development.