Science and religion are perfect partners, says professor

JORDAN MOSHE

So says Professor Barry Schoub, emeritus professor in virology at the University of the Witwatersrand, and former director of the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD).

Schoub’s passion for science and expertise in medicine have culminated in the recent publication of Seeing G-d Through Science: Exploring the Science Narrative to Strengthen and Deepen Faith in the Creator. The book was launched at an event hosted by the Academy of Jewish Thought & Learning in Glenhazel on Tuesday night.

Schoub marries his Orthodox observance with his professional career in the book. “It’s really a personal journey,” he says. “I’ve had a career of close on 50 years in biomedical science, and having rubbed shoulders with local and international colleagues, I’ve found that religion isn’t popular among them.

“A religious scientist is analogous to a vegan butcher. We really stand out,” says Schoub. “Science has been the bedrock of atheism, which is why atheism has promoted itself as an intellectual option. It’s very sad.”

According to a study conducted at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, only one third of the institute’s scientists believe in G-d, as do a mere 14.3% of mathematicians at the National Academy of Sciences. Even among biological scientists, only 5.5% believe in a personal G-d.

Many scientists maintain that religion is based on baseless optimism and obfuscation, the antithesis of scientific inquiry and methodology, says Schoub. Quoting famed philosopher Bertrand Russell, Schoub says, “Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence. It will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.”

However, most classical scientists going back to Galileo were deeply religious people. Schoub says that Isaac Newton was fervently religious (harbouring a love of Judaism and ability to speak Hebrew to boot), and that the founder of genetics was an Augustinian friar, Gregor Mendel.

Even contemporary religious scientists like Francis Collins, the leader of the Human Genome Project, and John Polkinghorne, a science professor at Cambridge University, promote science alongside religion.

There have also been certain Jewish thinkers who have paired science with religion, among them Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks and Rabbi Natan Slifkin, whose books emphasise the compatibility of science with religion.

However, Schoub aims to achieve something more specific. “I’ve tried to suggest not only compatibility, but that science fosters faith,” he says.

Alluding to the book’s title, he says, “Seeing G-d is metaphorical. It’s a fundamental tenet of Judaism that G-d is hidden.

“Modern science is coming to prove G-d. You can’t really prove G-d. The purpose of the book is to strengthen and deepen faith, to show that science supports and enhances the triple-truth statement – that G-d exists, that he created the world, and that he continues to govern the world.

Schoub acknowledges that there are many thinkers within Jewish philosophy who don’t want faith to be contaminated by science. “They want faith to be pure, unrelated to scientific inquiry. Indeed, many people have faith without science. However, I’m suggesting that science isn’t an answer. Rather, it reveals supporting evidence which strengthens faith without being a hard-and-fast rule.”

Science poses the questions, and Torah study consolidates and tries to answer those questions, Schoub says. Like religion, science is devoted to the quest for truth. However, it differs in its methods.

“Religion uses a top-down approach, beginning with a conclusion and then setting out to find supporting facts,” says Schoub. “Science is the reverse. It uses facts to come to a logical conclusion.” Science also emphasises a rigorous process of testing findings, replicating outcomes, scrutinising results, and the importance of peer review.

“In short, science strives to be reasonably reliable, to be based on a provable truth. Religion, on the other hand, adopts a different approach.”

Schoub outlines the two approaches to religion, namely the pragmatic and the ideological schools of thought. Whereas the former bases religious belief on either utility (such as comfort or support) or identity, the latter is driven by the belief that G-d created the world. This is also known as theism.

“Theism is, of course, the opposite of atheism,” Schoub says. “Theism can be divided into two categories, evidential and non-evidential, each of which has a different approach to using evidence to prove G-d.” Non-evidential theism avoids the taint of proof by advocating for pure faith, while evidential theism uses proof to bolster faith, without relying on proof for its existence.

In spite of their differences, Schoub ultimately believes that science promotes faith, and faith offers avenues which science lacks.

“Many sceptics believe that the universe’s existence needs no explanation,” Schoub says. “As Russell says, ‘the universe just exists, and that’s that’. This approach leaves it as a materialistic explanation but doesn’t go further than that.”

Likewise, the universe’s fine tuning and the precision of its existence can’t be proven through any scientific method, and theories such as the multiverse theory can’t be tested with the tools of science itself.

Says Schoub, “It’s just thumb sucked – it’s not science. The much better, more direct, and logical explanation is that G-d created the parameters. It’s the obvious explanation.”

He stresses that while science has many gaps and unknowns, they cannot be used to prove G-d’s existence. If we don’t know something, we can’t just say that G-d is the explanation.

Similarly, using scripture to prove everything in science has its limitations. Still, this doesn’t change the fact that science and religion can strengthen each other.

“The atheist regards the world as ‘that’s that’, but the theist regards the world as ‘that’s why’. Science poses the questions, and religion delivers the answers.”