The Beautiful Marriage of Science and Spirituality

It never made sense to me. 

As someone who has had a spiritual bent all my life, the supposed conflict between science and religion always puzzled me. How could religion ignore the clear evidence of science? How could science claim to be the sole source of truth? Both areas seemed to shed light on my search for answers to the big questions of life—who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going?

I view faith and reason as two sides of the same coin. To reject either is like shutting one eye while gazing at a beautiful sunset—you’re not getting the full picture. 

This perspective was wonderfully summarized by author and teacher Richard Rohr in a recent Daily Meditation from his Center for Action and Contemplation. I hope it helps you on your journey toward Becoming Yourself. 

RICHARD ROHR:

The common scientific method relies on hypothesis, experiment, trial, and error. We might call this “practice” or “practices”! Yes, much of science is limited to the materialistic level, but at least the method is more open-ended and sincere than that of the many religious people who do no living experiments with faith, hope, and love, but just hang on to quotes and doctrines.  

Under normal circumstances, most scientists are willing to move forward with some degree of not-knowing; in fact, this is what calls them forward and motivates them. Every new discovery is affirmed while openness to new evidence that would tweak or even change the previous “belief” is maintained. In contrast, many religious people insist upon complete “knowing” at the beginning and being certain every step of the way. It actually keeps them more “rational,” “fact-based,” and controlling than the scientists. This is the dead end of most fundamentalist religion, and why it cannot deal with thorny issues in any creative or compassionate way. Law reigns and discernment is unnecessary. 

The scientific mind has come up with what seem like beliefs: for example, explanations of dark matter, black holes, chaos theory, fractals (the part replicates the whole), string theory, dark energy, neutrinos (light inside of the entire universe even where it appears to be dark), and atomic theory itself. Scientists investigate and teach on things like electromagnetism, radioactivity, field theory, and various organisms such as viruses and bacteria before they can actually “prove” they exist. They know them first by their effects, or the evidence, and then work backward to verify their existence. 

Even though the entire world has been captivated by the strict cause-and-effect worldview of Newtonian physics for several centuries, such immediately verifiable physics has finally yielded to quantum physics. While it isn’t directly visible to the ordinary observer, it ends up explaining much more—without needing to throw out the other. True transcendence always includes! 

It feels as if there are some scientists of each age who are brilliant, seemingly “right,” but also tentative—which creates a practical humility that we often do not see in clergy and “true believers.” A great scientist builds on a perpetual “beginner’s mind.” Many scientists believe in the reality of things that are invisible, and thus the active reality of a “spiritual” world, more than do many believers. Thus, although they might be “materialists,” they actually have the material world defined with an openness to a “spirit” that they themselves often cannot understand. Is this not “faith”? 

Maybe this is all summed up in these words of Saint John Paul II: “Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish.” [1] So let’s walk forward with wide and rich sight! 

As shared in the Dec 3, 2024 Daily Meditation from the Center for Action and Contemplation (cac.org). [1] John Paul II to George V. Coyne, SJ, Director of the Vatican Observatory, June 1, 1988. Adapted from Richard Rohr, introduction to ONEING 2, no. 2, Evidence (Fall 2014): 13–14. Available in print and PDF download.