The Meaning of It All (5 page)

But my atheistic scientific colleagues, which does not include all scientists—I cannot tell by their behavior, because of course I am on the same side, that they are particularly different from the religious ones, and it seems that their moral feelings and their understandings of other people and their humanity and so on apply to the believers as well as the disbelievers. It seems to me that there is a kind of independence between the ethical and moral views and the theory of the machinery of the universe.

Science makes, indeed, an impact on many ideas associated with religion, but I do not believe it affects, in any very strong way, the moral conduct and ethical views. Religion has many aspects. It answers all kinds of questions. I would, however, like to emphasize three aspects.

The first is that it tells what things are and where they came from and what man is and what God is and what properties God has and so on. I'd like, for the purposes of this discussion, to call those the
metaphysical
aspects of religion.

And then it says how to behave. I don't mean in the terms of ceremonies or rituals or things like that, but I mean how to behave in general, in a moral way. This we could call the
ethical
aspect of religion.

And finally, people are weak. It takes more than the right conscience to produce right behavior. And even though you may feel you know what you are supposed to do, you all know that you don't do things the way you would like yourself to do them. And one of the powerful aspects of religion is its inspirational aspects. Religion gives inspiration to act well. Not only that, it gives inspiration
to the arts and to many other activities of human beings.

Now these three aspects of religion are very closely interconnected, in the religion's view. First of all, it usually goes something like this: that the moral values are the word of God. Being the word of God connects the ethical and metaphysical aspects of religion. And finally, that also inspires the inspiration, because if you are working for God and obeying God's will, you are in some way connected to the universe, your actions have a meaning in the greater world, and that is an inspiring aspect. So these three aspects are very well integrated and interconnected. The difficulty is that science occasionally conflicts with the first two categories, that is, with the ethical and with the metaphysical aspects of religion.

There was a big struggle when it was discovered that the earth rotates on its axis and goes
around the sun. It was not supposed to be the case according to the religion of the time. There was a terrible argument and the outcome was, in that case, that religion retreated from the position that the earth stood at the center of the universe. But at the end of the retreat there was no change in the moral viewpoint of the religion. There was another tremendous argument when it was found likely that man descended from the animals. Most religions have retreated once again from the metaphysical position that it wasn't true. The result is no particular change in the moral view. You see that the earth moves around the sun, yes, then does that tell us whether it is or is not good to turn the other cheek? It is this conflict associated with these metaphysical aspects that is doubly difficult because the facts conflict. Not only the facts, but the spirits conflict. Not only are there difficulties about whether the sun does or doesn't rotate around the earth, but the spirit or attitude toward the facts is also different in religion from what it is in science. The uncertainty that is necessary in order to appreciate nature is not easily correlated with the feeling of certainty in faith, which is usually associated with deep religious belief. I do not believe that the scientist can have that same certainty of faith that very deeply religious people have. Perhaps they can. I don't know. I think that it is difficult. But anyhow it seems that the metaphysical aspects of religion have nothing to do with the ethical values, that the moral values seem somehow to be outside of the scientific realm. All these conflicts don't seem to affect the ethical value.

I just said that ethical values lie outside the scientific realm. I have to defend that, because many people think the other way. They think that scientifically we should get some conclusions about moral values.

I have several reasons for that. You see, if you don't have a good reason, you have to have several reasons, so I have four reasons to think that moral values lie outside the scientific realm. First, in the past there were conflicts. The metaphysical positions have changed, and there
have been practically no effects on the ethical views. So there must be a hint that there is an independence.

Second, I already pointed out that, I think at least, there are good men who practice Christian ethics and don't believe in the divinity of Christ. Incidentally, I forgot to say earlier that I take a provincial view of religion. I know that there are many people here who have religions that are not Western religions. But in a subject as broad as this it is better to take a special example, and you have to just translate to see how it looks if you are an Arab or a Buddhist, or whatever.

The third thing is that, as far as I know in the gathering of scientific evidence, there doesn't seem to be anywhere, anything that says whether the Golden Rule is a good one or not. I don't have any evidence of it on the basis of scientific study.

And finally I would like to make a little philosophical argument—this I'm not very good at, but I would like to make a little philosophical argument to explain why theoretically I think that science and moral questions are independent. The common human problem, the big question, always is “Should I do this?” It is a question of action. “What should I do? Should I do this?” And how can we answer such a question? We can divide it into two parts. We can say, “If I do this what will happen?” That doesn't tell me whether I should do this. We still have another part, which is “Well, do I want that to happen?” In other words, the first question—
“If I do this what will happen?”—is at least susceptible to scientific investigation; in fact, it is a typical scientific question. It doesn't mean we know what will happen. Far from it. We never know what is going to happen. The science is very rudimentary. But, at least it is in the realm of science we have a method to deal with it. The method is “Try it and see”—we talked about that—and accumulate the information and so on. And so the question “If I do it what will happen?” is a typically scientific question. But the question “Do I want this to happen”—in the ultimate moment—is not. Well, you say, if I do this, I see that everybody is killed, and, of course, I don't want that. Well, how do you know you don't want people killed? You see, at the end you must have some ultimate judgment.

You could take a different example. You could say, for instance, “If I follow this economic policy, I see there is going to be a depression, and, of course, I don't want a depression.” Wait. You see, only knowing that it is a depression doesn't tell you that you do not want it. You have then to judge whether the feelings of power you would get from this, whether the importance of the country moving in this direction is better than the cost to the people who are suffering. Or maybe there would be some sufferers and not others. And so there must at the end be some ultimate judgment somewhere along the line as to what is valuable, whether people are valuable, whether life is valuable. Deep in the end—you may
follow the argument of what will happen further and further along—but ultimately you have to decide “Yeah, I want that” or “No, I don't.” And the judgment there is of a different nature. I do not see how by knowing what will happen alone it is possible to know if ultimately you want the last of the things. I believe, therefore, that it is impossible to decide moral questions by the scientific technique, and that the two things are independent.

Now the inspirational aspect, the third aspect of religion, is what I would like to turn to, and that brings me to a central question that I would like to ask you all, because I have no idea of the answer. The source of inspiration today, the source of strength and comfort in any religion, is closely knit with the metaphysical aspects. That is, the inspiration comes from working for God, from obeying His will, and so on. Now an emotional tie expressed in this manner, the strong feeling that you are doing right, is weakened when the slightest amount of doubt is expressed as to the existence of God. So when a belief in God is uncertain, this particular method of obtaining inspiration fails. I don't know the answer to this problem, the problem of maintaining the real value of religion as a source of strength and of courage to most men while at the same time not requiring an absolute faith in the metaphysical system. You may think that it might be possible to invent a metaphysical system for religion which will state things in such a way that science
will never find itself in disagreement. But I do not think that it is possible to take an adventurous and ever-expanding science that is going into an unknown, and to tell the answer to questions ahead of time and not expect that sooner or later, no matter what you do, you will find that some answers of this kind are wrong. So I do not think that it is possible to not get into a conflict if you require an absolute faith in metaphysical aspects, and at the same time I don't understand how to maintain the real value of religion for inspiration if we have some doubt as to that. That's a serious problem.

Western civilization, it seems to me, stands by two great heritages. One is the scientific spirit of adventure—the adventure into the unknown, an unknown that must be recognized as unknown in order to be explored, the demand that the unanswerable mysteries of the universe remain unanswered, the attitude that all is uncertain. To summarize it: humility of the intellect.

The other great heritage is Christian ethics—the basis of action on love, the brotherhood of all men, the value of the individual, the humility of the spirit. These two heritages are logically, thoroughly consistent. But logic is not all. One needs one's heart to follow an idea. If people are going back to religion, what are they going back to? Is the modern church a place to give comfort to a man who doubts God? More, one who disbelieves in God? Is the modern church the place to give comfort and encouragement to the value of such doubts? So far,
haven't we drawn strength and comfort to maintain the one or the other of these consistent heritages in a way which attacks the values of the other? Is this unavoidable? How can we draw inspiration to support these two pillars of Western civilization so that they may stand together in full vigor, mutually unafraid? That, I don't know. But that, I think, is the best I can do on the relationship of science and religion, the religion which has been in the past and still is, therefore, a source of moral code as well as inspiration to follow that code.

Today we find, as always, a conflict between nations, in particular a conflict between the two great sides, Russia and the United States. I insist that we are uncertain of our moral views. Different people have different ideas of what is right and wrong. If we are uncertain of our ideas of what is right and wrong, how can we choose in this conflict? Where is the conflict? With economic capitalism versus government control of economics, is it absolutely clear and perfectly important which side is right? We must remain uncertain. We may be pretty sure that capitalism is better than government control, but we have our own government controls. We have 52 percent; that is the corporate income tax control.

There are arguments between religion on the one hand, usually meant to represent our country, and atheism on the other hand, supposed to represent the Russians. Two points of view—they are only two points of view—no way to decide. There is a problem of human
values, or the value of the state, the question of how to deal with crimes against the state—different points of view—we can only be uncertain. Do we have a real conflict? There is perhaps some progress of dictatorial government toward the confusion of democracy and the confusion of democracy toward somewhat more dictatorial government. Uncertainty apparently means no conflict. How nice. But I don't believe it. I think there is a definite conflict. I think that Russia represents danger in saying that the solution to human problems is known, that all effort should be for the state, for that means there is no novelty. The human machine is not allowed to develop its potentialities, its surprises, its varieties, its new solutions for difficult problems, its new points of view.

The government of the United States was developed under the idea that nobody knew how to make a government, or how to govern. The result is to invent a system to govern when you don't know how. And the way to arrange it is to permit a system, like we have, wherein new ideas can be developed and tried out and thrown away. The writers of the Constitution knew of the value of doubt. In the age that they lived, for instance, science had already developed far enough to show the possibilities and potentialities that are the result of having uncertainty, the value of having the openness of possibility. The fact that you are not sure means that it is possible that there is another way some day. That openness of possibility
is an opportunity. Doubt and discussion are essential to progress. The United States government, in that respect, is new, it's modern, and it is scientific. It is all messed up, too. Senators sell their votes for a dam in their state and discussions get all excited and lobbying replaces the minority's chance to represent itself, and so forth. The government of the United States is not very good, but it, with the possible exception the government of England, is the greatest government on the earth today, is the most satisfactory, the most modern, but not very good.