“War.” “Conflict.” “Battle.” “Fighting.” These words are the mainstays of our contemporary TV, radio, and newspaper diet. The vocabulary of warfare and conflict seems to pop out of reporters’ word processors automatically, ready to grab readers’ attention. It does not matter whether the news story is about an event overseas or in our own city, whether it involves politics or interpersonal relations. Conflict is the prevalent imagery....
The metaphors of “war” and “conflict” are also those most frequently used by today’s media in its presentation of issues involving the relationship between religion and science. The media often state or assume that religion and science have been primarily in conflict during their joint histories. The image often put forward by purveyors of this “warfare” model is that of science continuously advancing using reason, while religion, in opposition, insists on unquestioning adherence to beliefs, even if they are naive or ignorant....
The “Warfare” Model Not Tenable
There is a big problem, however, with that common “warfare” or “conflict” depiction. As one contemporary historian of science, Lawrence Principe, explains:
Serious modern historians of science have unanimously dismissed the warfare model as an adequate historical description. 1
The warfare-or-truce imagery is also misleading because it suggests that the primary challenge for religious believers is to “surrender” to science. That is, to accept science’s findings (particularly the theory of evolution), the assumption being that religion usually resisted such findings. However, many religious believers found ways to accept the theory of evolution long ago.... Moreover, there are many easily overlooked matters that followers of a faith-tradition need to address even after accepting the findings of science. And so, even the imagery of “surrender” or signing a “truce” is inadequate.
Historians of science tell us that the word which best describes the interrelationships between religion and science is not “conflict” but “complexity.” As the two leading historians of science David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers explain:
Historical investigation ... has revealed a rich and varied interaction between science and Christianity.... Most important, we will see [in studying history] that influence has flowed in both directions, that Christianity and science alike have been profoundly shaped by their relations with each other. 2
This complexity, rather than black-and-white warfare, continues even today. Even though debates in the U.S. continue over evolution in public-school textbooks, the relationships between religion and science as a whole are more intricate. Just to begin with, even Christians who are anti-evolutionists accept science in other forms, such as modern medical knowledge and technological knowledge about how automobile engines operate....
A More Flexible Metaphor
Metaphors matter. Our choice of metaphors to describe any complex phenomenon shapes which aspects we see and which we do not see. We need a new metaphor, therefore, if we are going to be guided by the conclusion of historians of science that complexity, not warfare, has been the primary characteristic of religion-science relationships. We need a new metaphor not only to clarify their historical relationships but also to make our lives of faith relevant to our modern scientific age.
Although other metaphors might be examined, I propose the image of wrestling brothers.... The metaphor of brothers who have sometimes wrestled has the advantage of being flexible in order to depict such variety.
Whereas the “warfare” metaphor suggests only a conflict until the point of death or surrender, the wrestling-brothers metaphor can open us to recognizing different kinds of interactions. In the real world, brothers do not wrestle just as a way of competing (much less wrestle with the aim of destroying). Brothers might wrestle as a way of figuring out their individual abilities and identities. Or they might wrestle just for the fun of it, in the way academic colleagues sometimes debate issues just for intellectual enjoyment....
Dictionaries recognize such flexibility in the way we use the word “wrestle.” They offer such synonyms as “to contend with,” “to struggle,” “grapple,” “strive,” “joust.” Even the playful “tussle.” That is the very mixture of words needed to describe the multiplicity of religion-science interactions that historians of science have uncovered. That mixture of words also better describes today’s religion-science interplay: Christians and other religious people struggle with how to understand God’s presence in a world described so much by science. We contend with ethical questions about genetic cloning and other technologies. We grapple with how to make our religions’ best values relevant to a scientific age.
The wrestling-brothers metaphor points us to another significant matter:... The enterprises of religion and science are intimate at their origins. Modern science, which has its origins in 17th-century Europe, grew out of a predominantly Christian culture. It even has elements of Christian thought as some of its assumptions about the orderliness of the world and the ability of human reason to comprehend it. Religion and science have, so to speak, some “genes” and life-experiences in common....
Another inadequacy of the warfare-conflict imagery is that it does not allow for a depiction of much growth in the two parties. But both religion and science have changed over the course of centuries. Some of those changes—in both religion and science—lie at the root our of current complexities in relating the two enterprises.... In contrast with warfare imagery, which does not suggest inner growth in the very human enterprises of religion and science, the wrestling-brothers metaphor invites it....
This book reflects and draws upon the renewed discussions between theologians, philosophers, and scientists over the past few decades. It grapples with science’s implications for religion and spirituality.
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This book does not aim to provide you all the “answers.” (As if there could be such a pre-packaged commodity on so broad a subject—one that impinges upon values, faith, and sense of meaning.) But this book will reveal to you the lay of the land. It will tell you about paths some travelers before you have taken. It will warn you of stumbling blocks. It will suggest some more productive routes. And it will raise questions for you to explore with your own thoughts, feelings, and life.
1. Lawrence Principe. Quoted in Joshua M. Moritz. Considering God’s Works, “Lecture 4: The War that Never Was—Exploding the Myth of the Historical Conflict Between Christianity and Science.” Available through Scientists in Congregations. https://vimeo.com/77023999. (emphasis added)
2. David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers. “Beyond War and Peace: A Reappraisal of the Encounter Between Christianity and Science.” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 39.3 (9/1987): pp. 140-149.
2. David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers. “Beyond War and Peace: A Reappraisal of the Encounter Between Christianity and Science.” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 39.3 (9/1987): pp. 140-149.
