The Compatibility of Science and Faith

How was the earth and the universe formed? How did we get here?

These questions were motivated this evening by the Torah portion of this Shabbat: Breshit, or Genesis, the creation story. A few moments ago, I read from Genesis chapter 1, verses 1 through 8, the biblical account of the first two days of creation. The entire first chapter of Genesis is faith's answer to these questions.

If you go to your favorite search engine on the internet, and type in “science and faith”, many articles point to the origins of the world as the starting point of the struggle. Ultimately, when contemplating creation, it seems we are urged to deal with issues of the compatibility of science and faith.

When we look to these questions, the answers form a cosmology. A cosmology is the metaphysical study of the origin and nature of the universe. With the story of creation, we learn how the earth came into being from nothing, and how God created humankind.

[Let me make a brief side note before we get too far in our discussion: Most cosmologies, for example, perhaps, from Greek mythology, also include a battle between the gods, for most powerful deity. Our cosmology does not. Rather, it begins with an assumption of God's omnipotence and immanence. For purposes of our discussion this evening, I too, will take the stance of Genesis, and assume our collective belief in God.]

As Genesis looks to how and why we got to be here, so too does science. Of course, the most popular and longest lasting theory is known as the Big Bang. This is science's cosmology.

As I am a rabbi and not a scientist, for this evening I will stick with a relatively simple explanation of the theory. At one time, likely about 13.7 billion years ago, the universe was filled with energy and was extremely hot. As the distances in the universe grew, the temperatures dropped and the forces of physics and elementary particles, such as hydrogen and helium atoms, were created. Over time, as the matter became more dense, gravity began to form the clumps of particles into clouds, stars and galaxies. And, as a result of these initial processes, over time, the earth, and the universe came into being.

As science continues to explore the origins of the world and the universe, different issues have arisen concerning the Big Bang Theory. Since 1918, it remains the most viable theory and continues to be refined through ongoing research.

Yet, we, as contemporary liberal Jews, seem to have little issues with these two cosmologies of science and faith. How is it that they are compatible?

Let us begin by looking at Saadia Gaon and Maimonides, both important commentators from the Middle Ages. Saadia Gaon argued that “ a biblical passage should not be interpreted literally if that made a passage mean something contrary to the sense of reason.” ( Tigay) Radical for its' time, Gaon purported that science, not biblical interpratation, should rule if necessary and provable.

Maimonides agreed with this principle, and when even a bit further: he insisted that the creation story as a whole was written metaphorically! “To Saadia and Maimonides, belief in the truth of the Bible does not require a denial of science, when the two seem to conflict. . . .

Harold Schulweis, a contemporary Conservative Rabbi and thinker, furthers our commentators ideas: he writes that science and faith actually don't coexist at all. He believes that they are in totally different realms, and serve different purposes. He writes in a sermon from 2002: “Science is concerned with facts. Torah is concerned with value. Science is concerned with "what is". The Torah is concerned with "what ought to be." History is concerned with "what was". Torah is concerned with "what should be".” In other words, it doesn't matter what science claims about the creation of the world, because Torah is about belief and moral values, and science is about provable facts.

Even before Schulweis, the early Reformers found science and faith compatible. In fact, when it was formally organized in the United States, and the first platform was written, in 1885, they wrote: “We recognize in the Bible the record of the consecration of the Jewish people to its mission as the priest of the one God, and value it as the most potent instrument of religious and moral instruction. We hold that the modern discoveries of scientific researches in the domain of nature and history are not antagonistic to the doctrines of Judaism, the Bible reflecting the primitive ideas of its own age, and at times clothing its conception of divine Providence and Justice dealing with men in miraculous narratives.”

The Reform Movement embraced the critical, also called at times scientific study, of the bible. They were open to modern thought and interpretation as a way to inform faith. This was strengthened when, in 1937, the movement again declared a series of principles. The tenet entitled “Nature of Judaism” reads, in part:

Judaism welcomes all truth, whether written in the pages of scripture or deciphered from the records of nature. The new discoveries of science, while replacing the older scientific views underlying our sacred literature, do not conflict with the essential spirit of religion as manifested in the consecration of man's will, heart and mind to the service of God and of humanity.

Each platform, while a reflection of the times that they were written, declare that both science and Torah are necessary. They serve different purposes. Torah, and our entire compendium of Jewish literature, is filled with prose and poetry; allegory and parable. . . it is a literature that reminds of moral and value, and importantly, of wonder and of our need for belief and faith. We know the Bible's writings are not based on empirical evidence, nor does it claim to be!

Science, on the other hand, as a pragmatic endeavor, seeks to remove the magic, and researches the mysteries of the world. With science, we move from wonder to fact. With the facts that we gather, we create and develop.

Together science and faith help us understand our world and the universe. We need the Torahs' description of the creation of the world, for through it, we develop our faith and our role in the ongoing creation of the world. We need science to know how and what is, to help us unlock the nuts and bolts of what is. And they each answer our fundamental questions-just in different ways. Science looks to the how; faith looks to the why. Together, with science and faith, we have a full picture of the world- miracles and inquiries; divine and factual; rational and irrational; wisdom and knowledge. We further creation of the world when we use science to heal; we repair the world when we use our faith to ease others' burdens.

In Genesis we learn that we are made in God's image. We also learn that we are stewards over the earth. Our mission is to further the ongoing creation of the world by continuing to unlock its mysteries. Together, science and faith: the mystical and the tangible, the divine and the ordered, will help us to unlock the mysteries of the world.

Home