Marian said she did not see how science could help us to religious knowledge. But it turns out that she has read no science at all, save what she was taught in school.
Ruth said that science was the enemy of religion, that two things seeking in a different way could not possibly both reach the truth; that science might tell us of material facts, but could not possibly give us the divine truth.
I asked: “Are you sure material truth is not divine truth?”
Then I said that I myself thought science was the servant of religion, that it was valuable only in so far as it helped us to a knowledge of life—divine and whole—(I said aside to Ruth) and that I did think it helped us so. It gave us a sense of unity, of our relation with the whole world, because we knew that the same law moved us and the stars.
“Now,” I went on, “Marian mentioned the other day that she had heard people say they were too educated to need religion. They meant they knew too much science. Can science replace religion?”
They all said no.
They saw at once that behind every science was the mystery, the unexplained, and that every scientist must begin with a philosophy.
I said: “I have heard people say that science disproves immortality.”
Virginia answered: “It does not disprove immortality. It proves, indeed, that nothing ever is destroyed.”
“Do you think,” I asked, “that there is such a thing as absolute religious knowledge?”