Jesus in the Lab: the Relationship Between Science and Religion

The aim of relationship between science and religion essay is to understand what kind of relation these opposited has. And for this science and religion must be defined. The definition of science used in the context of science and religion is a natural or experimental philosophy. It is concerned with the natural world and it doesn’t appeal to supernatural entities such as gods or angels or non-natural forces like Karma. Scientists rely on the capacity of the human mind to make sense of the world around them. They cherish the truth of what can be produced in a lab and can be repeated with reliable results. Granted, there is never an absolute truth to science so they are willing to have some degree of uncertainty. Scientists may encounter doubts if they hold religious beliefs. Their studies may find contradictions to their interpretation of their religious background and can cause a loss of identity and feeling of purposelessness. There is high variability in the theories that scientists have come up with. For example, scientists in the mid-1400s believed that if one was to sail across the Atlantic Ocean, they would end up in India. This is an example of the everchanging theories in the field of natural law and our understanding of our world. Furthermore, science “seems to take away mystery” according to Chet Raymo. He argues that an understanding of all things would create a boring or uninteresting situation for humanity. There would be no curiosity that drives adventure. Some things are better left unknown like when and how we are going to die or what goes on in our parents’ bedroom.

Religion, as described by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of United States v. Seeger claims religion to be a “belief that is sincere and meaningful [and] occupies a place in the life of its possessor parallel to that filled by the orthodox belief in God”. Followers of the Roman Catholic faith, outsource their desire to understand the universe to an outside entity such as God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit. Catholics perpetuate an established set of traditions that can be dated back to the time Jesus was alive. Instead of testable theories like science, they rely on the interpretation of the sacred text to gain an explanation for the universe and spread the truth they uncovered to others. There is low flexibility to the foundation of what Catholics believe. There are no exceptions to the miracles Jesus Christ performed such as exorcisms, natural spectacles, and healings. Everything is written in stone and is believed to be one hundred percent true without uncertainty.

The Roman Catholic faith is a denomination of Christianity that started in the first century in the province of Judea of the Roman Empire. There are an estimated 2.3 billion Christians in the world and Roman Catholics make up 1.3 billion of them. With the Pope being the head of the church, Catholicism teaches that Jesus is the son of God and that he rose from the dead after being crucified on a cross. In the Bible, the official sacred text of Catholicism, Jesus is present in the mass in the form of the Eucharist. Bread and wine are consecrated with the real presence of God which the congregation may consume. This is considered the “source and summit of the Christian life” as quoted directly from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Christians are different from Catholics because the former does not participate in the same sacraments and have different interpretations of saints and the Virgin Mary. I was born and raised into the Roman Catholic faith where I learned about miracles and the teachings of Jesus which were a part of the school curriculum alongside math, science, and English. As a child, I learned that the teachings in Roman Catholicism were just as true as the Pythagorean theorem, as an example. The miraculous events I learned about were so instilled in my mind that they became the evidence for my faith rather than supporting it.

Miracles are the most fundamental way in which science and religion have the most controversy. According to Keith Ward, “a divine miracle, for a believer in God, is an expression of the presence and power and purpose of God in an extraordinary impressive event. To be more specific, a Catholic miracle is an extraordinary intercession of the Spirit that is intended for the common good if the Church. The Vatican has very strict criteria in order to consider a miracle to be valid under the Roman Catholic faith. Most miracles that are brought to the attention of the Vatican pertain to the medical field. According to David Van Biema, Pope Benedict XIV established the criteria for a miracle: the disease is serious, proof of illness, no other treatments that worked, and the cure was lasting and rapid. The miracle has to be unexplainable by doctors and must be confirmed by the International Medical Committee for the shrine at Lourdes. Furthermore, a caucus of Cardinals accompanied by the Pope are brought together and discuss the legitimacy and decide if the miracle happened as a direct result of prayer. After all of these actions are approved, the event is deemed a miracle. For early Christians, they viewed miracles as “continuing evidence of God’s blessing” and was an important factor in keeping their faith.

One of the most prevalent Eucharistic miracles is called the Miracle of Lanciano, which is an ancient Italian city off the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Twelve centuries ago a Basilian priest was struggling to believe in the real presence of Christ in the bread and wine during mass. As he was reciting the words of consecration, the bread “transformed into living Flesh and the wine into living Blood”. The bread was seen to appear pinkish in the sun and the blood coagulated into five equally weighing globules that have stayed consistent since the miracle in the eighth century. The miracle was first recognized by Archbishop Gaspare Rodriguez in 1574 when he weighed the blood clots. In November of 1970, Pope John Paul the II approved further scientific research into the miracle. Dr. Odoardo Linoli, head of the hospital in Arezzo and anatomy, history, chemistry, and clinical microscopy professor, took samples and concluded his research on March 4, 1971. He concluded that the sample of the flesh consists of the muscular tissue of the heart, the tissue and blood sample is blood type AB, and there are no preservatives that could have protected the samples from decay. Science is shown to testify with the miracle of Lanciano and provide absolute certainty that this is a true Eucharistic miracle. It acts to show that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist at every mass as said in the Bible. Despite the differences in the fields of science and religion, they work in conjunction to further understand the Catholic faith and the natural universe. When science works with religion rather than against it, it can work to fortify one’s faith and challenge the beliefs of scientists and nonbelievers. The two subject fields are seen as fact versus fiction when they can sometimes act to prove each other.

Another miraculous event is the incorruptible bodies of saints. Saint Bernadette is a holy Catholic woman that died on April 16, 1879, but to this day, her body is preserved from decomposition. She claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary fourteen different times and the Catholic Church validated these encounters after an investigation. On September twenty-second, 1909 her body was examined by doctors C. David and A. Jourdan. They concluded that the body had been exposed to the open air and there had not been any way of preserving the body and no noticeable odor. The body of Saint Bernadette is currently on display in a chapel in Nervers, France. It allows disciples of Jesus to see that their faith is spiritual as well as physical. The scientific aspect of reasoning found in the analysis of the doctors along with the spiritual reasoning creates an explanation for the miracle. Hence, without the two individual fields working in conjunction, there would be an unexplained anomaly in the universe. The lack of a scientific explanation serves to show that there is a realm of possibility outside our current scientific understanding.

There are many ways in which religion can contradict what is scientifically possible. However, there are ways in which the two can work together to provide a greater understanding of the universe.

Religion and science are typically not used in conjunction when it comes to explaining how the universe came to be. When the two intersect in miracles, the realms of science and faith argue to seem as if they are on opposite sides of the spectrum. In every miracle, there is some doubt that arises because of a lack of complete understanding of what is going on. Believers accept that when a miracle occurs, it is a direct cause of some divine intervention. A scientist must remain skeptical and operate outside the realm of religion; they are to question an extraordinary event’s legitimacy due to human intervention or manipulation. For example, the miracles listed above could easily be made up or falsely interpreted as miracles when there is an underlying cause. Science can take away the sense of hope and undermine the foundations of one’s philosophy by denying that the evidence was untampered. It is seen as a more bleak view on the universe that there is no higher being that cares and loves humanity. Science and religion can be seen as separate as Chet Raymo, claims that “none of the miracles [he] had been offered in [his] religious training were as impressively revealing of God’s power as the facts [he] was learning in science”. He mentions that the tangible and repeatable aspects of science can play a greater role in convincing a person of a different mindset. There is a comfort to know that one plus one will always equal two as opposed to knowing that the bread and blood are truly the body and blood of Christ every time at Church for example. The way that science has its truth can be seen as a separate entity from the truths of the Church. It is more believable and more readily available for people of ignorance to become followers. Furthermore, Pope John Paul II sees the story of creation as a more religion-based story than a scientific one when he said, “The Bible itself tells us about the origin of the universe and its constitution, not to provide us with a scientific treatise, but to clarify the right relationship of man with God and the universe. Sacred Scripture simply wants to declare that the world was created by God, and to teach this truth it is expressed with the terms of cosmology in use at the time of the writer”. As he was addressing the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, he shows that the two subject fields are based on different aspects of human experience. In some cases, the focus isn’t so much on what happened but rather on what the lesson is from that story. Religion provides an explanation that is more tailored towards the internal needs to know about our origins. In a sense, religion provides emotional support for its believers. It gives followers a sense of security that a higher power is watching over them and reassurance that there is some type of life after we die. To reference an earlier metaphor, following the scientific realm, touching the hot iron satisfies an intellectual curiosity. For nonbelievers, they find their sense of security through mathematics, physics, peer-reviewed scientific studies, and universities to provide research-based satisfaction in life so they don’t fall into a false sense of security. This separates the two into different philosophies but both serve to teach us a lesson. When the two conflict or overlap, it creates skepticism which can cause a greater distinction between the two.

At the same time, the relationship between fact and faith can work in a dynamic relationship that satisfies the yearning to understand life’s meaning when working together. Modern science has an explanation for the universe to a certain extent. It covers a large majority of our daily lives but fails to explain the bigger questions of humanity's purpose. Science can only reach so far with its ever-changing theories and where science fails to explain the truth, faith can take its place and give humanity a sense of satisfaction for their burning curiosity. Working together will encompass a divine explanation for everything we don’t understand and give a scientific explanation to the functions of our daily life. Together they can solve humanity’s greatest questions about our origin and purpose. Pope John Paul II claims that “science can purify religion from error and superstition, and religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes”. Science sets up the parameters of what is seen as common and explainable in our daily lives; it provides explanations and establishes the norms. Miracles are by definition, one time occurrences that defy the laws of nature. We would not be able to have miracles without first having an understanding of what is miraculous. Religion and science do not impede each other but rather work and cohesively prove each other. You can not have miracles and faith without first having science. Faith and science are what makes humanity unique. Forms of religion can be seen as far back to cave drawings giving thanks to the animals that roamed the Earth. Science is seen through our technological advancements from fire to where we are now. Both aspects have shaped humanity into a complex civilization that is continuing to further understand our existence. Faith created a social network of believers that formed communities and encouraged technological advancements. Religion and science do not make each other obsolete, but rather are necessary for a practical understanding of the world. For instance, we needed a basic scientific structure to create medicines. It would be impractical for humanity to completely depend on a faith-based explanation of the world where all types of healing are based on prayer.

In conclusion, the relationship between science and religion has been seen as separate fields of study when they can be found working in a dynamic relationship like The Miracle of Lanciano or the incorruptible body of Saint Bernadette in Roman Catholicism. The faith has established itself as the predominant religion throughout the world. With the miraculous event in the city of Lanciano, it is seen that science and religion can contradict each other and have different definitions of truths. The scientific realm can only explain so much before it fails to answer with complete certainty as religion does. This is where a religious affiliation can fulfill those needs. Not only does the complex relationship between the two provide emotional and intellectual support, but they can give us a deeper understanding of our world to show that the iron is blisteringly hot and parents just want their children to behave.