I was able to enjoy one of my favorite films tonight with two great individuals. As we all sat there watching it, each seeming to hold a unique position on the spectrum of belief, I thought to myself about what has been on my mind for the last four weeks. Faith and science, belief and reason, religion and naturalism. Where does a scientific person go to answer questions of faith, of belief without evidence? Where does a spiritual person go to answer questions of reason, of a universe explained by natural law? Somehow, to me, it is almost an ironic question. Although I have not looked at it this way for long I think a possible appropriate view is…look to each other.It’s not a weakness in a scientific person, I believe, to look for meaning through person experience. I also don’t think it’s a weakness in a spiritual person to look for answers outside belief and faith. Science has done a wonderful job advancing humanity through discoveries, inventions, technologies and measured, reasonable methods. Spirituality, I must also agree, has done the same through its discoveries of human potential, inventions of values and principles, psychological developments and a humble, faithful pursuit of the truth. Now science is not always objective and spirituality is not always humble, science has created nuclear bombs and spirituality has morally justified their use, but all in all I think they stand together in a position to help one another as easily as they can hurt one another.
I don’t know all the answers, and maybe that doesn’t matter, but I do know that things happen in my life that I can’t explain through science, as much as that scares me and comforts me at the same time. Sometimes I have insight I can’t understand, thoughts I can’t imagine I created and experiences that happen too regularly to be coincidence. I see things go on, read things around me, listen, speak, interact and feel things happen that all go together and I run myself ragged trying to explain it all away. It would be easier, wouldn’t it, just to know why it all happened and explain how it all could be understood easily through a reasonable method? At this point in my life I answer “no”. I answer “no” not because I don’t support science or the scientific, reasonable method of searching for truth through the observable natural universe. I answer “no” because I will not yet believe that is the only way we can know. I don’t know much, but as far as the spectrum goes, from faith & belief to science & reason, I am in the middle.
