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Articles
Section
> Scientific Argument about God and Faith by
Soner Uguz Scientific
Argument about God and Faith: Religion or faith is related to things like the existence of God, something intangible and unobservable. Whereas non-religious things like the sun has a tangible and observable existence. Therefore, it came to be regarded that direct argument is possible for establishing non-religious things, only. Whereas, it is only indirect or inferential argument which can be employed to prove religious propositions. Due to this difference, it was believed that rational argument was possible only in non-religious matters. So far as religious matters were concerned rational argument was not applicable at all. That is to say, that it was only in non-religious area that primary rationalism was possible, in religion only secondary rationalism was applicable. In the past, whenever any argument was applied to faith, it was, according to Aristotelian logic. Practically it used to be indirect rather than direct argument. The modern critics, therefore, ignored such arguments as unworthy of consideration. So the situation continued to prevail that religion was not worthy of being paid any attention by a rational person. This state of affairs presented a challenge not only to other religions but to Islam as well. About five hundred years ago, with the emergence of modern science this state of affairs did not change. All the scientists in the wake of the Renaissance believe that matter was something solid which could be observed. Newton had even formed a theory about light that it consisted of tiny corpuscles. To all the scientists of this age the entire material world was observable. As such, it was possible to apply direct argument for the explanation of material things. Similarly, even after the emergence of modern science this state of affairs prevailed. It continued to be believed that argument, which is applied to apparently tangible things, was not possible to apply in the case of religion. But at the turn of the twentieth century specifically after the First World War this state of affairs changed completely. The ancient scientists had believed that matter, in the last analysis was composed of atoms. And atom, though very tiny, but was a piece of solid matter. But with the breaking of the atom in the twentieth century all the popular scientific concepts underwent a sea change. The theories about faith and reason seemed relevant only up till science was confined to the macrocosmic level. Afterwards when science made advance and entered microcosmic level, science underwent a revolution, and the method of argument too changed along with it. So far science was based on the proposition that all the things it believes in, like atom, can be explained directly. But when the atom, the smallest part of an element exploded then it was revealed that atom was not a material component, instead, it was another name for unobservable waves of electron. This discovery entailed that a scientist could see only the effect of a thing and not the thing itself. For instance, the atom after changing into waves is running into the wire in the form of electric current yet this event is not observable to any scientist. But when such an event produces an effect, for instance, it lights up the bulb or puts the motor in motion, and then this effect comes into a scientist's observation. Similarly the waves emitting from an x-ray machine, are not observable to a scientist but when these waves produce the image of a human body on a plate then this image becomes observable to a scientist. Now the question arose as to what stand a scientist must take? Should he believe only in tangible effect or that intangible thing as well, which produced that effect. Since the scientist was bound to believe in the tangible effect, so he was compelled to believe in the intangible cause (of that effect). Here the scientist felt that direct argument could be applied to the tangible effect but it was not possible at all to apply direct argument on the intangible cause. The most important of all the changes brought about by this new development in this world of science was that it was admitted in the scientific circles that inferential argument was as valid as direct argument. That is, if a cause shows continuous effect then the existence of this intangible cause will be accepted as a fact just as the existence of tangible effect is accepted as a proved fact. In modern times all the concepts of science held to be established concept have been proven by this very logic. After reaching this extent of rational argument the difference between religious argument and scientific argument no longer exists. Earlier, the problem was that religious realities could be proved only by indirect argument, for instance, the existence of God as a designer (cause) was proved by design (effect) now the same method of argument has generally been held as valid argument in science as well. There are numerous meaningful things in the universe which are brought to the knowledge of human beings, of which no explanation is possible except to believe in a meaningful cause, that is God, to believe these meaningful things. The truth is that without believing in God the universe remains as unexplainable as the entire mechanism of light and motion becomes unexplainable without believing in electric waves. Thus, the option one has to make is not between the universe without God and the universe with God. Rather, the option actually is between the universe with God or no universe at all. Since we cannot, for obvious reasons, opt for the later proposition, we are, in fact, left with no other option except the former, that is, the universe with God. In view of the recent advancement in scientific reasoning, a true faith has proved to be as rational as any other scientific theory. Reason and faith are now standing on the same ground. In fact, no one can legitimately reject faith as something irrational, unless one is ready to reject the rationality of the scientific theories as well. For, all the modern scientific theories are accepted as proven theories by the same rational criterion by which a matter of faith would be equally proven true. After the river of knowledge has reached this advanced stage, there has remained no logical difference between the two.
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