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There are certain presuppositions about the ancient Scriptures known as the Bible that have unnecessarily gotten in the way of merging the best of scientific learning and religious intuition. Perhaps the first matter to resolve is the controversy between creationism and evolution. The simple fact is that the five-thousand-year-old story of Adam and Eve was born out of ancient Near Eastern mythology that was meant to convey so much more than the merely literal interpretation of the story, which is many ways makes nonsense of the profound symbolism and wisdom buried in the imagery. The realization that these colorful stories and their accompanying rituals were the very heartbeat of complex and sophisticated civilizations has led to numerous theories on the purpose, meaning, and value of what the Greeks came to identify as mythos ("the tale told"). With this definition, however, myth was reduced to the impotent state of imaginative fabrication, the pastime of simplistic, primitive minds. Yet the mythical dramas and festivals of Mesopotamian culture were concerned with realities whose depths are unfathomable. They were designed to exercise a vivid effect on the individual worshiper's experience. Myth was originally expressed in a religious atmosphere that sparked the manifestation of its true intent. A spiritual experience, one that impacted the receiver to the core of his or her being, was the fundamental purpose of the myth and its accompanying ceremonies. The consciousness of the cosmos so vibrant in the earliest mythic tales of humanity is unavailable to us unless we approach it, according to the noted scholar Stanley N. Kramer, "uncontaminated by the current scientific approach and analytic mentality, and therefore open and prone to profound cosmic insights which are veiled to modern thinking man with his inhibiting definitions and impassive, soulless logic." Christianity adopted the Torah (the Old Testament) in order to remain linked with its Jewish heritage and the messianic hopes of the "chosen people." Over the centuries, it seems to have completely forgotten about the teachings of the Talmud and the Kabbalah, which reveal the deep mysticism at the heart of these stories. For modern persons to assume that the tale of creation can only be understood from that one-dimensional perspective is to make a mockery of these revered writings. The Scriptures contain more than surface meaning or they wouldn’t deserve the name of Holy Scripture. Despite the witness of the great visionaries of Christianity, from Meister Eckhart to Thomas Merton, the general population (Christian or otherwise) has assumed this either/or mentality to the great detriment of the spiritual development of the species. In this century, some have come close to merging the best of these seemingly separate fields. The French priest-scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is perhaps the most shining example of this kind of holistic understanding. The fact is that the discoveries of quantum physics have opened new possibilities of looking at these ideas in a way that overcomes paradoxes and reveals a new unity between them. Both religious persons and scientists have been guilty of creating obstacles for this new perspective. The rigidity and ignorance sanctified by dogma in the religious world on the one hand and the shocking materialistic superficiality of the scientific community on the other — even among popular scientists like Carl Sagan — have kept the debate irresolvable. But we are living in a new time when those prejudicial boundaries can be crossed. Knowing that the atom can be split and reveal an entire universe of subatomic forces presents us with new scientific data proving that the cosmos is more mysterious and complex than we ever imagined. We have left behind the mechanistic ideas of Descartes for the world of wonder uncovered by people like Einstein, who stated, "The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms — this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness." Bridging this seemingly infinite chasm between science and religion has brought to life again the wisdom of Christian mystics like Jacob Boheme and William Blake, who saw eternity in a grain of sand. Now there is little excuse for disregarding the link between the two and the possibility of an entirely new grasp of the meaning of "God" and the purpose of life on Earth. The alchemists of old knew this centuries ago, as did the magi and astronomer-priests of earlier civilizations for whom all of creation was sacred. A mentality that would take us back to the Scopes trial of the first decades of this century is an anachronism in this age and can no longer be tolerated as an acceptable argument. Spirituality and religion are particularly concerned with reality, and when science tells us that reality is more multidimensional than our senses reveal, then we are beginning to find common ground. Until recently, this deeper understanding that united the two fields was hidden in the world of esotericism and metaphysics, a subculture rejected by both mainstream religion and science. Modern developments are erasing that difference, and we are finding physicists with faith and clergy delving into the latest scientific discoveries. From learning that the center of the expansion of the universe is everywhere, it is not a big leap to understanding the teachings asserting that Greater Mind and ultimate meaning are within each of us. When we begin to make those connections, we are on the threshold of personal transformation. In its wake come even greater knowledge and the unification of those two old enemies. This unification is a liberation for the human spirit, with the power to release us from the chains of old prejudices and lead us into a new day in which the interconnectedness of all things becomes part of our daily reality. True spiritual awakening then becomes possible, and the merging of science and religion may well lead to the evolution of humankind. Theodore J. Nottingham is a writer and an ordained minister. He can be reached at <http://tedn.hypermart.net/>. |
Most
of us have grown up hearing about the Scopes trial, the so-called
Monkey Trial made famous by the play and later the movie Inherit
the Wind. We know that in the Middle Ages, the Church repressed
the likes of Galileo and other early scientists of Western civilization.
Aggravated by the fundamentalism and bibliolatry of frontier
America, which was devoid of the rich legacy of the great spiritual
teachers of the past, it seems that the conflict between science
and religion has always been a given.