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Religion and Natural Science
| Article
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10256 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1986 |
7,012 Words |
| Author
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Max Planck
Max Planck (1858-1947) was a German physicist who introduced
quantum theory in 1900 and played a central role in the
development of modern physics. He was awarded the Nobel Prize
in 1918. |
In former days, when a natural scientist had to address a general audience of laymen on a subject taken from his own special field of activity, in order to awaken a certain interest in the minds of his listeners, he would be forced to liken his discourse to certain palpable experiences and views of daily life, in the fields of technology, meteorology, or biology, and to use these as his starting points to explain the methods applied by science in order to push forward from concrete individual problems to a knowledge of universal laws. Not so today. The exact methodology now employed by natural science has proved to be so extraordinarily productive in the course of centuries that natural-scientific research nowadays dares approach also problems intuitively less obvious than those lying within the fields just mentioned, and is able to tackle successfully also problems in psychology, in epistemology, indeed even in general attitudes toward life, thereby subjecting these problems to a treatment that is thorough from its own point of view. We may justly say that in these days no question, be it ever so abstract, can arise in our civilization without being related, in one way or another, to a problem that can be handled by the methods of natural science.
Accordingly, I will not appear to be too bold as a student of nature in discussing religious problems. This is a subject the significance of which for our entire civilization is becoming progressively more manifest and which will undoubtedly be of a decisive importance for the question as to the fate that awaits us.
Science Challenges Candid Faith
"Tell me - how do you stand to religion?" - If Goethe's Faust contains at all a simple phrase that captivates even a sophisticated listener and arouses a hidden tension within him, it must be this worried question of an innocent girl, in fear for her newly found happiness, to her lover whom she recognizes as a higher authority. For this very same question is the one which from time immemorial has innerly moved and worried countless human beings in search of peace of mind and knowledge at the same time.
But Faust, slightly embarrassed by this candid question, can think offhand only of this mildly defensive reply: "I want to deprive nobody of his sentiments and his church."
I could choose no better phrase to introduce our subject. I have not the slightest intention to loosen the foundation under the feet of those among you who have made peace
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