This piece is a condensed version of the forty-nine page essay Allen had published in The New Philosophy, in July 2008. He addresses the friction created when science and religion do not meet neatly in the middle. Allen takes a positive view of this conflict and suggests holding sharp things gently. -Editor.
The Writings contain many pieces of information about the natural world. Often, this information is in agreement with contemporary, scientific understanding. Sometimes it is not. One example of conflict between the two regards the topic of life on other planets: the Writings claim that humans live on all planets and satellites of this solar system, but contemporary science does not support this claim. What are New Church readers to do with conflicts like these? I’ve had that question put to me many times. I offer here a few thoughts on the subject, intended not as the final word but as a few ideas to engage the subject.
It is possible to get all knotted up when dealing with conflicts between scientific understanding and revelation. Some people respond to the conflict by dismissing an entire body of religious doctrine because that doctrine includes ideas that are demonstrably false given contemporary information. Some people refuse to accept realities of the natural world because these people are committed to a particular view of spiritual reality and refuse to reconsider that view. Both of these extreme responses are unfortunate. God is Author of both the Word and the world, and therefore both the Word and the world help us consider the Divine.
When addressing the issue of scientific information given in the Writings, it is helpful to put this information in the wider context of the relationship between science and religion in general. To this end, here are six principles or observations which I have found useful in describing the relationship between science and revelation:
1) Concepts of spiritual reality are tenuous so long as we live in the natural world. Therefore, it is easy to develop erroneous ideas about the nature of reality, both spiritual and natural. Often, this happens through misinterpreting sacred texts.
2) Corrective forces must exist to allow people to reconsider their religious ideas. Otherwise false ideas could overwhelm true ones, clouding our ideas of God and of our place and function in creation. In ignorance we might work unwittingly against God.
3) The power of scientific information is that it is as objective as any human concept can be. Our scientific exploration of the physical world can produce experiences that are strong enough to challenge preconceived notions, both scientific and religious.
4) Scientific information itself is not Divine revelation and cannot establish religious belief. Scientific information can serve at least two roles in terms of religious belief: for those who are already committed to faith, it can challenge and refine that faith; and for those committed to naturalism, the very order and wonder of creation can challenge that naturalism.
5) The Writings contain scientific information, but that information is not revelatory and is not necessarily true. To the first point, the Writings do not contain any scientific information that was not already known at the time of the writing. To the second point, the Writings, for the most part, do not critique eighteenth-century scientific understanding but accept it as it exists. This acceptance does not necessarily represent Divine approval of these ideas, but results from the nature of Divine revelation, which is a revelation of spiritual truth rather than of natural process or law.
6) Scientific information in the Writings is present as illustration of spiritual realities. In addition to this immediate, illustrative function, the fact that these examples exist in the Writings suggests that as scientific information increases we can further enrich our ideas of spiritual realities through natural representations. This can go far beyond the scientific illustrations given in the Writings, but only if we allow our understanding of science to evolve. If we fixate on the science in the Writings then we lose this opportunity.
I believe that it is a blessing that scientific information can challenge religious beliefs, and that it can do so even when that scientific information is itself not entirely true. As an example, we can consider the claim made in the Writings that there is human life on the planets and satellites of this solar system.
It was not until the Copernican revolution that people could conceive of the planets as being capable of supporting life, because until then people thought of the earth as the only terrestrial object in the universe. With human life limited to the earth alone, the Christian doctrines of original sin and atonement by Christ’s sacrifice can make sense. These theological concepts, however, do not make sense as soon as we accept that human life can exist elsewhere in the universe. How would people on other planets be descended from Adam and Eve? And would Jesus have to be born on planet after planet to be crucified?
Swedenborg made use of the Copernican view of the cosmos, and the growing belief at that day of life on other worlds, as evidence that these two, key Christian doctrines were incorrect. It does not matter whether or not people actually live on Saturn. The thought that they could be there, or on any planet anywhere in the universe, is sufficient to challenge these Christian ideas. It is not necessary that human life exist on the planets and satellites that Swedenborg mentions. If New Church people insist that human life must exist on those planets then they would be setting up a condition by which those people moved by science, the very ones Swedenborg is appealing to in this argument, would reject New Church doctrine.
As I hope this example shows, one way to approach conflicts between religious and scientific understanding is to avoid insisting that either view is entirely correct in all details, consider the context and primary purpose of the information, and allow the conflicting ideas to enter into a cooperative dialog, remaining respectful of the source and power of each, and in the hope and expectation that in taking this approach we will find our thoughts developing in helpful, productive ways.