Science and The Sacred - Beyond Creationism vs Evolution

Language shapes us. It defines the world and filters our reactions to experiences and ideas. Finding the right words can move history. Failing to find them can mean opportunities lost. In no domain is this tension more apparent than long, sad story of discussions of Science and Religion.

I thought long and hard about terminology when I started my book The Constant Fire on science and religion. I wanted to find words that could carry my own thinking beyond the usual, exhausted polarities so prevalent in the Creationism vs. Evolution debate. One of the first (and easiest) departures from convention was to eschew the word "Religion" for the more immediate and experiential "Spiritual Endeavor". Religion is often about institutions and all the power, politics and real estate that can imply. I was not interested in dogma, creeds or canon. Spiritual endeavor, in my reading, was about a personal response to the world that is ancient and universal, finding expression in art, poetry, science and the varied forms of religious life. But beyond this shift was a more difficult choice.

In spite of all the contentious public acrimony, examination of the long history of human culture shows that science and spiritual endeavor grow from a common root, a common aspiration to know what is true and what is real. The question then becomes what word embraces this taproot of longing? What word emerges in response to our most deeply felt experience of the world - the awe and wonder we feel seeing the crescent moon in the morning sky, catching the ravens swift arc overhead or hearing the perfect rhythm of rain water percolating through summer trees.

In my research I was looking for words that had a history and a resonance that could lift them above the particulars of any particular spiritual tradition. I am an atheist so terms like "God" and "the Divine" will not work for me or many of my scientific colleagues. But like many of those colleagues I respond to the world in ways that embrace the qualities of traditional religious feeling, even if that feeling comes through the lens of scientific practice. Thus I was looking for a word that spoke to the experience and aspiration underlying 50,000 years of cultural evolution. Given a sabbatical in the Religion and Classics Department's library, "the sacred" is where I landed. As readers of this blog have, no doubt, noticed it is a word the other members of this scientific group have found useful as well.

 

The wonderful thing about the word "sacred" is that it is not really tied to any of the world's current traditions. Lots of scientifically minded folks take issue with "the sacred" because, for them, it conjures up the dangers of supernaturalism, the enemies of science and religious intolerance. I understand their fear. Unless, however, you are a citizen of the Roman Empire the sacred is a word that no longer speaks to any particular living religion and be used broadly to define something quite universal.

According to the Encyclopedia of Religions, the Latin origins of "sacred" relate to "sacrum"—"what belonged to the gods or what was in their power." Its early usage related to Roman temples and their rites. In that context, the words sacrum and profanum have been frequently paired together.

The profanum was the space in front of the temple. It was the "outside" where you could sell your Grateful Dead T-shirts, sunglasses and hot dogs. The sacrum was the inside, and it was a very different kind of place: "A spot referred to as sacer, was either walled off or otherwise set apart." That definition makes for a compelling resonance.

The Sacred relates back to a specific location, a space and a time, set apart from the ordinary day-to-day happenings of life. The commerce, contest, and competition of the ordinary world occur outside in the profane. Inside, within the sacer, humans entered a realm of a different order. For the Romans, it was a realm of their divinities. For us it can be an experience that calls us out to see the world on its own terms. It is the moment when experience becomes luminous, lit up on its own. That is the space where science begins. We notice the world as it is on its own terms and we are moved to draw closer and ask more. That is also the moment when spiritual endeavor can begin, when an attempt to draw closer to the root of the personal experience is initiated.

"Humans entering a realm of a different order..."—I know that quite well, and I am sure many of you do too. I've felt it when I walked through the entry way of a Neolithic monument in Ireland that was aligned with the winter solstice, I've felt it when I walked into the Cathedral of St. John on 113th street in New York, and I've felt it as the giant Radio Telescopes came into view during a drive across the desert.

"A space and a time of a different order" — that seems like a useful expression of the role of science and spiritual endeavor in our lives and in our common culture. In the public discussion of these two great human efforts perhaps that is a new and better direction to take. It would certainly be better, be more enlivening, than being endlessly caught in the middle an old debate that no longer speaks to the issues and challenges we face.