LET THERE BE LIGHT
Modern Cosmology and Kabbalah — A New Conversation Between Science and Religion
Howard Smith

CHAPTER ONE

RELIGION AND SCIENCE IN HARMONY

This is a book about modern scientific cosmology and the Jewish mystical tradition of the Kabbalah. Cosmology is the study of the universe as a whole, its creation, and its future evolution. The Kabbalah, “the Received,” is a Jewish mystical tradition that originated more than two thousand years ago and remains vigorous today; its earliest text, the Sefer Yetzirah, is an explicitly cosmological inquiry probing the inner workings of the Divine in the world. Modern cosmology and Kabbalah are complementary in essential ways, and I hope to persuade you that they serve to illustrate a much broader principle, the underlying harmony of science and religion.

There is a perceived division between our routine lives and our spiritual selves, one that has been accentuated by the pervasive, intrusive success of modern technology. To the extent that people don’t particularly understand either technology or science, this gap widens. Two approaches have predominated in recent struggles to harmonize these two facets of our existence. The first one, simply stated, argues that science and religion are separate but equal. The Bible is a source of ethical and religious inspiration, and science deals with an objective, quantitative modeling of physical phenomena. In the words of Galileo (originally expressed by Cesare Cardinal Baronio), the Bible tells us how to go to heaven, but not how the heavens go. George Lema?re, a Catholic priest and a pioneer of modern cosmology, put it more bluntly: “The idea that because they [the writers of the Bible] were right in their doctrine of immortality and salvation they must also be right on all other subjects is simply the fallacy of people who have an incomplete understanding of why the Bible was given to us at all.” Scientists commonly articulate this attitude, but to me it is disconcerting, because it formally segregates two elemental areas of our lives and imposes a dissonance that is awkward, uncomfortable, and, when you think about it, a priori peculiar. I also believe it is unnecessary.

The second approach, likewise stated simply, holds that the Bible and science are in agreement when one or the other is nudged, or interpreted, into conformity. Those who treat the scriptures literally argue that today’s scientific theories are conjectures: incorrect or incomplete theoretical models that are doomed to be forever “only models,” even if they improve. Literalists often take specific issue with models of the Creation, many of which we will be discussing later. Other proponents of conformance admit that science is probably correct, but they interpret the Bible broadly to find consistency, suggesting, for example, that people naturally lived longer before the time of Noah than they do now because the conditions on Earth were different, changing for the worse after the Flood. Both of these alternatives are, at least to me, ad hoc at best and apologetic at worst.

Over the past twenty years or so, an active group of Christian theologians with strong backgrounds in science have attempted to classify and analyze the various ways in which people can integrate science and religion. Ian Barbour, Arthur Peacocke, and Sir John Polkinghorne, for example, look beyond what Barbour terms the “independent” or the “conflicting” attitudes I just mentioned to interactions characterized by respectful dialogue and a sharing of ideas. It is relatively easy, according to Polkinghorne, for people to develop what he calls a “Deistic” view of the universe, in which an appreciation of its scientific wonders and mysteries inspires a spiritual awareness, with or without a sense of some larger purpose. But they feel, as I do, that this is insufficient, and one of their aims has been to find ways to integrate the role of a personal God into a scientific worldview.

Efforts to harmonize religion and science are typically undertaken by people who are religious, while nonreligious scientists rarely even wonder about the matter; it is simply not that important to them. This book, for example, is my attempt to work through issues that many religious people find profoundly significant. One important motivation for the religious, it seems to me, is a nagging concern that if scripture is true about some things, then it ought to be “true” about all things, including its descriptions of the natural world. There is, of course, a different worry, too: if scripture is wrong about some things, perhaps it is also wrong about others. How can it be Divine? Some religious-minded people seek reconciliation with science not necessarily to gain new insights into the real workings of God’s world, but rather to reinforce or even justify a belief in other matters, such as a promise of redemption, the moral commandments, or an assurance that our lives have meaning. As the modern Christian astronomer and fundamentalist Hugh Ross puts it, “Many [believers] fear that believing in a billions-of-years-old Earth and universe means they must accept a multimillion-year history for the human species” or, even worse, a universe without any need for God. People feel threatened. It perhaps goes without saying that underlying these struggles for reconciliation, and exacerbating some of their current political controversy, is people’s presumptive faith in the accuracy of science.

A search for spiritual harmony should be motivated by nobler feelings than those of being threatened, sentiments that can lead to spiritually debilitating, parochial, or needlessly defensive views. A search for truth and meaning should not presuppose its answers, either scientific or scriptural, and humility, at least to me, dictates an awareness that one does not yet fully understand the natural world or the biblical texts. We should seek in order to find and inquire in order to learn and grow. I write about the harmony of religion and science not because I feel under siege, but because I want to understand — and there is more, much more, to understand. Consider the invigorating words of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865?1935), the chief rabbi in Israel prior to the establishment of the Israeli state: “We should not immediately refute any [scientific] idea [such as evolution, anthropology, cosmology, or biology]…but rather we should build the palace of Torah [the first five books of the Bible] above it. In so doing we are exalted by the Torah, and through this exaltation the ideas are revealed…to raise the banner in the name of God above the blowing of the winds for the benefit of all.”

Do I hope to convince atheists to become believers, or textual literalists to become scientists? Not at all. Not only is it not my intention to try, it actually would be contrary to my intention to try. To the atheists among my readers, I say in all honesty that I respect your considered principles. Nevertheless, I do hope that you live your lives in what I would describe as a “God-fearing” way: one that is caring and respectful of humanity, life, and the Creation. I also want you to know that you are missing something — a rich perspective of thought about complex issues, and a community of love and ritual. As for the religious among my readers who are skeptical (or dismissive) of science, let me be equally clear: I respect your beliefs as well. At the same time, I hope you live your lives realizing that, as God’s stewards of the Earth, we must all apply our most rigorous intellectual efforts in science and technology to the task of caring for our world. Regardless of what you believe, it is vital to have a basic understanding of modern science. And I want you to know that you are missing something as well — a sense of wonder about and appreciation of God’s majestic creation that can come only from a better understanding of it, just as every musician’s appreciation of music has a depth that eludes those who only listen. God has clearly made the world in an ordered way, and given us analytic minds and free choice. These are precious gifts. Surely we are expected to use them; perhaps they have a purpose.

The most frequent question I am asked about this material is, If science and religion can have a dialogue, can religion answer any of the questions raised by science? There was certainly a time when the answer to this question would have been yes. The very questions we are considering in this book, on the origins of the universe, of the Earth, and of life, were posed by philosophers and scientists and answered by theologians for hundreds of years. Today, I think the answer would have to be no. In fact, the various disciplines of science have discovered so much, so quickly, that all of these traditionally religious themes are now firmly in the domain of the natural sciences. It is a curious outcome that science’s ability to address with seriousness, and even answer, many great spiritual mysteries has not in general resulted in its becoming more religiously acceptable. On the contrary, science stands accused of impoverishing the spiritual dimension by providing convincing answers! To me, the spiritual value of a wonder lies not in the ignorance of its particulars, but in the fact that it exists. Will this standoff continue? I don’t know. We will look at a few intransigent mysteries later in this book — consciousness, quantum mechanics, and some aspects of the Creation — and I will leave it to you to arrive at your own conclusions.

I am also asked the opposite question: Can science answer any of the questions posed by religion? Here I am unequivocal: at least in the domain of Jewish mysticism, science is essential to a sophisticated understanding of the nature of the world, the essence of the Creation, the possible meaning of unity, and many other topics, some of which we will address later.

I suggest asking two different questions, namely, Can religion answer any of the questions raised by scientists? and correspondingly, Can science answer any of the questions raised by spiritual seekers? The answer to both of these is surely yes. In the following pages I will present a harmonized account in which religion and science form an alliance that looks beyond literal interpretations to conceptual intent in a mutually enriching synthesis intended to further our understanding of the creation of the universe.

Excerpted from Let There Be Light Copyright © 2006 by New World Library
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