The World of Religions No. 39, January-February 2010 —
Nearly four centuries after Galileo's condemnation, the public debate on the subject of science and religion still seems polarized by two extremes. On the one hand, the creationist delusion, which seeks to deny certain inescapable achievements of science, in the name of a fundamentalist reading of the Bible. On the other, the media coverage of works by certain scientists, such as Richard Dawkins ( The End of God , Robert Laffont, 2008), who seek to prove the non-existence of God using scientific arguments. However, these positions are fairly marginal in both camps. In the West, a large majority of believers accept the legitimacy of science and most scientists affirm that science will never be able to prove the existence or non-existence of God. Basically, and to borrow an expression from Galileo himself, it is accepted that science and religion respond to two questions of a radically different order, which cannot come into conflict: "The intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach us how we must go to heaven, and not how heaven is." In the 18th century, Kant recalled the distinction between faith and reason, and the impossibility for pure reason to answer the question of the existence of God. Born in the second half of the 19th century, scientism nevertheless became a true "religion of reason," repeatedly announcing the death of God thanks to the victories of science. Richard Dawkins is one of its latest avatars. Creationism was also born in the second half of the 19th century, in reaction to the Darwinian theory of evolution. Its fundamentalist biblical version was succeeded by a much softer version, which admits the theory of evolution, but which intends to prove the existence of God through science through the theory of intelligent design . A more audible thesis, but which falls back into the rut of confusion between scientific and religious approaches.
If we accept this distinction of knowledge, which seems to me to be a fundamental achievement of philosophical thought, must we therefore affirm that there is no possible dialogue between science and religion? And more broadly, between a scientific vision and a spiritual conception of man and the world?
This issue's dossier gives voice to internationally renowned scientists who are calling for such a dialogue. Indeed, it is not so much religious people as scientists who are increasingly advocating a new dialogue between science and spirituality. This is largely due to the evolution of science itself over the last century. Starting with the study of the infinitely small (subatomic world), the theories of quantum mechanics have shown that material reality is much more complex, profound, and mysterious than could be imagined according to the models of classical physics inherited from Newton. At the other extreme, that of the infinitely large, discoveries in astrophysics on the origins of the universe, and in particular the Big Bang theory, have swept away the theories of an eternal and static universe, on which many scientists relied to assert the impossibility of a creative principle. To a lesser extent, research on the evolution of life and on consciousness today tends to relativize the scientistic visions of "chance that explains everything" and "neuronal man." In the first part of this dossier, scientists share both the facts—what has changed in science over the past century—and their own philosophical opinions: why science and spirituality can dialogue fruitfully while respecting their respective methods. Going even further, other researchers, including two Nobel laureates, then provide their own testimony as scientists and believers, and explain the reasons why they think that science and religion, far from opposing each other, tend to converge. The third part of the dossier gives the floor to philosophers: what do they think of this new scientific paradigm and the discourse of these researchers who advocate a new dialogue, or even a convergence, between science and spirituality? What are the perspectives and methodological limits of such a dialogue? Beyond sterile and emotional polemics, or, conversely, superficial rapprochements, here are questions and debates which seem to me essential to a better understanding of the world and of ourselves.