Religion and Science
5. Religion and Science
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5. RELIGION AND SCIENCE
The words religion and Science have vast
connotations. Religion is generally understood to
mean the recognition of the existence of a
supernatural ruling power, the creator and
controller of the universe, who has given to man a
spiritual nature, which continues to exist after the
death of the body, and of man’s duty to be obedient
to this power. As a concept of life, it is all-
encompassing. Science, on the other hand, is the
study of the perceptible world. Both are extremely
broad-ranging subjects, and their respective spheres
are in many aspects quite separate from each other.
It is not my intention here to go into the details of
these two subjects, but to deal only with the clash —
real, or unreal — which has taken place between
science and religion on an academic level, and
certain of its consequences. One of the reasons for
this clash is the claim that scientific discoveries have
proved religion baseless, and it is principally this
point on which I wish to focus attention.
The traditional conflict between science and religion
made itself felt in the eighteenth and nineteenth
