Religion: Science and Religion

• Share

(2 of 3)

Many a theologian thinks the conflict started last century when the advances of science prompted agnostics to declare that it could supersede religion. Result was a rapidly increasing secularization of both men and nations, a trend which Conference Member F. Ernest Johnson of Columbia last week summed up in two points: 1) "from the earliest times until the modern era man's religion has been inseparable from his daily affairs and related to every phase of his life, and our age has made a sharp break with the past in this respect"; 2) "this secularization has occurred during the period that has witnessed the great effort in the West to build democratic states—one of the great anomalies of history, because democracy depends for its validity and permanence upon the sanctions of religion."

The Church's insistence on the dignity of man runs counter to the totalitarian belief that man was made for the State, and its decline has aided the dictatorships. Last week the scientists took a step toward the Church's view, with their fellow delegates condemned the gods of Marxian economic determinism and Fascist racism and nationalism. They proclaimed: "The conference was unanimous in its conviction that modem civilization can only be preserved by a recognition of the supreme worth and moral responsibility of the individual human person."

Said Physicist Philipp Frank of Harvard: "It must be the task of religion, according to the modern conception of science, to do what that science is unable to do, that is, set up certain goals for both private and social human life, and influence the disposition of human beings in favor of these goals."

The delegates threshed some of their differences thin, but left most for later meetings to handle. With thinkers' caution they decided to spend the next two academic years preparing statements of their agreement, to meet again in the fall of 1941 and 1942 to work on their great project: an inclusive system of thought for civilized man. Said the conference: "The departmentalization of human knowledge has been proceeding for more than a century; its integration, with the most valiant efforts, will take more than a meeting of three days."

The size of the job ahead was indicated by the variety of viewpoints represented on an executive committee which was set up. That committee includes Chairman Finkelstein, Critic Van Wyck Brooks, Educators Lyman Bryson and Lawrence K. Frank, Biophysicist Caryl P. Haskins, Political Scientist Harold D. Lasswell, Sociologist Robert M. Maclver, Physicist Robert J. Havighurst, Philosopher Filmer S. C. Northrop, Catholic Theologians Gerald B. Phelan and Gerald G. Walsh, Astronomer Harlow Shapley and Dean Luther A. Weigle of the Yale Divinity School. There was small hope that such men of good will could do the job before them in time to affect World War II.

Realizing that the help of doers as well as thinkers will be needed, the conference will soon appoint such an advisory committee, will have businessmen, lawyers, engineers, etc. take part in the plenary sessions of 1941 and 1942.