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Notes on the Religious Orientation of Scientists
| Article
# : |
10929 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1986 |
3,823 Words |
| Author
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Gerald Holton
Gerald Holton is the Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and
also professor of the history of science at Harvard
University. |
I have set myself the task of sketching some of the religious background of a particular set of scientists. In speaking of the religious positions and motivations underlying the work of some scientists, I shall leave out those who have been untypical to a marked degree--either very irreligious or, like Boyle and Pascal, very strongly religious. Also I shall limit myself mostly to physical scientists because it was in the physical sciences, and particularly in celestial mechanics, that modern scientists first found themselves in conflict with theologians on a large scale. The case history of that struggle stretches over several hundred years, and it is now happily closed. Therefore one may, I think, seek in it some general guidelines for the resolution of conflicts between scientific and religious positions.
Johannes Kepler
A key figure in the period which saw the beginning of modern physical science was Johannes Kepler, the German astronomer who lived from 1571 to 1630. It was he who provided the link between Copernicus and Newton. While he was writing his first book, the Mysterium Cosmographicum, Kepler, who had initially trained for the ministry, wrote, "I wanted to become a theologian; for a long time I was restless. Now, however, observe how through my efforts God is being celebrated in astronomy." More than a few times in his later writing, he referred to astronomers as "priests of the Deity in the Book of Nature."
From his earliest writings to his last, Kepler maintained the direction and intensity of his religio-philosophical interest. His whole life was one of uncompromising piety; he was incessantly struggling to uphold his strong and often nonconformist convictions in religion as in science. Caught in the turmoil of the Counter-Reformation and the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, and while faced with bitter difficulties and hardships, he never compromised on issues of belief. Expelled from communion in the Lutheran Church for his unyielding individualism in religious matters, expelled from home and position at Graz for refusing to embrace Roman Catholicism, he could truly be believed when he wrote, "I take religion seriously, I do not play with it," or "In all science there is nothing which could prevent me from holding an opinion, nothing which could deter me from acknowledging openly an opinion of mine, except solely the authority of the Holy Bible, which is being twisted badly by many."
But as his work shows us again and again, Kepler's soul bears a dual image on this subject. For next to the Lutheran God,
...
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