Science, Religion, and the
Search for Meaning
by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
The book is organized, well researched and fluently written. Three parts of the book are followed by a letter to the scientific atheist. The first part "God and the Search for Meaning" asserts that man is a meaning seeking animal that science alone can not, by itself, satisfy. The second part addresses the question of "Why it matters" ending in a chapter titled "A meaningful life". Part three addresses "Faith and Its Challenges" which addresses the confusion brought on by the modern understanding of evolution, why religion goes wrong, evil and the answer that addresses our need for meaning: God. One of the finest parts of the book is the letter to the scientific atheist.
The truths we hold for life are often metaphors we have to manage our view of reality. They approximate reality, but if we mistake them for the literal truth we can make a leap too far. The book early and often uses the separate hemispheres of the brain which are called upon to explain how religion and science relate to each other. We must come to grips with the limits of the metaphor for that metaphor to serve us. The author warns us that this is the trap of fundamentalism in the faithful and materialism in the scientific.
The author reminds us throughout the book that science breaks things down and analyzes them. Religion creates and builds meaning. He systematically juxtapositions treatment of faith and scientific reasoning so that the reader can clearly see the contrast. In the end science and religion address different questions and when they overlap an issue it may be that there is a misunderstanding of religion or of the science or of both.
Surprising to me was the extensive treatment of culture and politics. Eventually it dawned on me, because of the book's careful development, that science flourishes where there is freedom. Freedom only flourishes where there is the recognition of the divine dignity because we are all made in the image of God. The connection between freedom and science had escaped me until reading this book.
The greatest feature of the book is the large number of quotes. The impressive array of thoughtful reflections on the the place of faith and science in our lives as humans make this book a real treasure. It is the type of book put on the shelf to be reread well into the future.
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My highlighted quotes had to be redacted because there were so many. In addition Rabbi Saks quotes a variety of writers and thinkers.
PART I: God and the Search for Meaning
"Science takes things apart to see how they work. Religion puts things together to see what they mean." pg 2
"When you treat things as they were people, the result is myth: light is from the sun god, rain from the sky god, natural disasters from the clash of deities, and so on. Science was born when people stopped telling stories about nature and instead observed it; when, in short they relinquished myth.
"When you treat people as if they were things, the result is dehumanization: people categorized by color, class or creed and treated differently as a result. The religion of Abraham was born when people stopped seeing people as objects and began to see each individual as unique, sacrosanct, the image of God."
pg 3
"Religion and Science [They] perform different functions and if one is damaged or the connections between them are broken, the result is dysfunction."
pg 6
"People who are confident in their beliefs feel no need to pillory or caricature their opponents. We need genuine, open, serious, respectful conversations between scientists and religious believers if we are to integrate their different but cojointly necessary perspectives."
pg 15
"Faith begins with the search for meaning, because it is the discovery of meaning that creates human freedom and dignity. Finding God's freedom we discover our own."
pg 15
"Science is the search for explanation. Religion is the search for meaning. Meaning is not accidental to the human condition because we are a meaning seeking animal. To believe on the basis of science that the universe has no meaning is to confuse two disciplines of thought: explanation and interpretation."
pg 37
"There is only one thing capable of defeating tragedy, which is a belief in God who in love sets his image on the human person, thus endowing each of us with non-negotiable, unconditional dignity."
pg 38
"Science takes things apart to see how they work. Religion puts things together to see what they mean."
pg 39
"When the Hebrew Bible want to explain something, it does not articulate a theory. It tells a story."
"When the Hebrew Bible want to explain something, it does not articulate a theory. It tells a story."
pg 44
"Europe lived with the heritage of Democritus and his successors who believed the physical universe was made up of atoms, and who thought in terms of the analysis of substances into the smallest component parts. For the Chinese by contrast, 'Their universe was a continuous medium or matrix within which interactions took place, not by the clash of atoms but by radiating influences.'"
pg 47
"Argument appeals to verifiable truth, story appeals to verisimilitude, lifelikeness. Argument comes together with theory, analysis, logical coherence and empirical testing. Narrative speaks to imagination and the emotions."
pg 53
"There are truths we can express in systems, but others we can only tell through story. There is a kind of knowledge for which we need detachment, but another kind of knowledge we can only achieve through attachment - through empathy and identification with an other."
pg 54
"Christendom drew its philosophy, science and art from Greece, its religion from Israel."
"Christendom drew its philosophy, science and art from Greece, its religion from Israel."
pg 61
"the rabbinic literature records a conversation between Rabbi Judah the Prince, head of the Jewish community in the early third century, and Antoninus, a Roman Sage, about when the soul enters the child. Rabbi Judah says, at birth. Antonius says, at conception. The rabbi then astonishingly declares that Antoninus is right. Thereafter, when he repeats the teaching, the rabbi is careful to say, 'Antoninus taught me this.' This is a religious attitude to science both open-minded and willing to learn."
"the rabbinic literature records a conversation between Rabbi Judah the Prince, head of the Jewish community in the early third century, and Antoninus, a Roman Sage, about when the soul enters the child. Rabbi Judah says, at birth. Antonius says, at conception. The rabbi then astonishingly declares that Antoninus is right. Thereafter, when he repeats the teaching, the rabbi is careful to say, 'Antoninus taught me this.' This is a religious attitude to science both open-minded and willing to learn."
pg 67
Genesis creation commentary:
"It was as if from the outset Jews knew that science - what they called wisdom - was one thing, and religion another. Natural laws are laws that predict and explain, moral laws are laws that command and constrain. Science was about things, religion about people and their freely chosen acts."
"Equally radical is the idea that, since God created everything, he is God of everywhere. For the first time, God and religion are de-territorialised. There is no longer a god of this place or that; a god of these people opposed to those. Abrahamic universalism is born here. ""It was as if from the outset Jews knew that science - what they called wisdom - was one thing, and religion another. Natural laws are laws that predict and explain, moral laws are laws that command and constrain. Science was about things, religion about people and their freely chosen acts."
pg 68
pg 69
"It is about a God who creates and makes a being, Homo Sapiens, able to create; a God who is free and bestows on his most cherished creation the gift of freedom. Virtually everything that follows in the Bible is about this personal relationship between Creator and creation, at times tender, often tense."
pg 70
"It is about a God who creates and makes a being, Homo Sapiens, able to create; a God who is free and bestows on his most cherished creation the gift of freedom. Virtually everything that follows in the Bible is about this personal relationship between Creator and creation, at times tender, often tense."
pg 70
"Faith is not certainty. It is the courage to live with uncertainty."
pg 97
"God lives wherever we open our eyes to his radiance, our hearts to his transforming love."
"God lives wherever we open our eyes to his radiance, our hearts to his transforming love."
pg 98
PART II: Why it Matters
"When religious faith goes five things happen , gradually and imperceptibly. First there is a loss of belief in human dignity and the sanctity of life....
The second sign is the loss of the politics of covenant, the idea that society is a place where we undertake collective responsibility for the common good....
The third is a loss of morality....words that once meant a great deal begin to lose their force - words like duty, obligation, honour, integrity, loyalty and trust...
The fourth sign is the loss of marriage....
The fifth is the possibility of a meaningful life...I mean life with meaning that comes from outside us, as a call, a vocation, a mission"
PART II: Why it Matters
"When religious faith goes five things happen , gradually and imperceptibly. First there is a loss of belief in human dignity and the sanctity of life....
The second sign is the loss of the politics of covenant, the idea that society is a place where we undertake collective responsibility for the common good....
The third is a loss of morality....words that once meant a great deal begin to lose their force - words like duty, obligation, honour, integrity, loyalty and trust...
The fourth sign is the loss of marriage....
The fifth is the possibility of a meaningful life...I mean life with meaning that comes from outside us, as a call, a vocation, a mission"
pg 102-04
"The fact that we occupy a small space in the universe and a small stretch of the totality of time says nothing about our significance or lack of it."
"The fact that we occupy a small space in the universe and a small stretch of the totality of time says nothing about our significance or lack of it."
pg 118
"For the sake of human dignity, science must be accompanied by another voice. Not in opposition to science, but as the humanizing voice of what we call the soul. There is no greater defense of human dignity that the phrase from the first chapter of the Bible that dared to call the human being 'the image of God.' "
"For the sake of human dignity, science must be accompanied by another voice. Not in opposition to science, but as the humanizing voice of what we call the soul. There is no greater defense of human dignity that the phrase from the first chapter of the Bible that dared to call the human being 'the image of God.' "
pg 127
Plato talking about signs of decline in the democracy of Athens:
" 'People lose a sense of shame. Rudeness is taken as a sign of sophistication. People pursue the pleasure of the moment. They lose respect for their leaders. The young no longer defer to the old, and the old behave as if they are young. The difference between the sexes is blurred. People get irritated by the least touch of authority and they dislike any rules that inhibit their freedom to do as they like.' [The Republic by Plato 560-64]
pg 161
Plato talking about signs of decline in the democracy of Athens:
" 'People lose a sense of shame. Rudeness is taken as a sign of sophistication. People pursue the pleasure of the moment. They lose respect for their leaders. The young no longer defer to the old, and the old behave as if they are young. The difference between the sexes is blurred. People get irritated by the least touch of authority and they dislike any rules that inhibit their freedom to do as they like.' [The Republic by Plato 560-64]
pg 161
"Faith is about relationship sustained without the use of power."
pg 169
"The story of the first humans in Genesis 2 begins with God giving Adam the ability to use language to classify things. He names the animals..."
"The story of the first humans in Genesis 2 begins with God giving Adam the ability to use language to classify things. He names the animals..."
pg 174
"Faith for the prophets, was a kind of marriage. Marriage is an act of faith."
"Faith for the prophets, was a kind of marriage. Marriage is an act of faith."
pg 181
A Meaningful Life:
"In the age of fiction - what has come to be called the postmodern condition - everything people once thought was true is now seen as merely constructed, invented, a fiction. There is no truth any more, only the various stories humans devise to make sense of their lives...Of course, we can liberate oursleves from these naratives, but there is nothing to put in their place because we are now too sophisticated, too knowing."
A Meaningful Life:
"In the age of fiction - what has come to be called the postmodern condition - everything people once thought was true is now seen as merely constructed, invented, a fiction. There is no truth any more, only the various stories humans devise to make sense of their lives...Of course, we can liberate oursleves from these naratives, but there is nothing to put in their place because we are now too sophisticated, too knowing."
pg 195
"Happiness is a state of being, not having, and still today, as it always did, it depends on a strong and stable personal relationship and a sense of meaning and purpose in life."
"Happiness is a state of being, not having, and still today, as it always did, it depends on a strong and stable personal relationship and a sense of meaning and purpose in life."
pg 202
"Love is what redeems us from the prison cell of the self and all the sickness to which the narcissistic self is prone - from empty pride to deep depression to a sense of nihilism and the abyss."
"Love is what redeems us from the prison cell of the self and all the sickness to which the narcissistic self is prone - from empty pride to deep depression to a sense of nihilism and the abyss."
pg 205
PART THREE: Faith and Its Challenges
"Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery we are trying to solve."
by Max Planck
PART THREE: Faith and Its Challenges
"Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery we are trying to solve."
by Max Planck
pg 209
"The way of testing a scientific hypothesis is to do science, not read scriptures. The way of testing religion is to do religion - to ask, in total honesty, and full understanding, is this really what God wants of us? It is not to make assertions about the truth or falsity of some scientific theory...
For if science is about the world that is, and religion about the world that ought to be, then religion needs science bacause we can not apply God's will to the world if we do not understand the world."
"The way of testing a scientific hypothesis is to do science, not read scriptures. The way of testing religion is to do religion - to ask, in total honesty, and full understanding, is this really what God wants of us? It is not to make assertions about the truth or falsity of some scientific theory...
For if science is about the world that is, and religion about the world that ought to be, then religion needs science bacause we can not apply God's will to the world if we do not understand the world."
pg 214
"Darwinism has immense religious implications.
First is tells us that God delights in diversity...
"Darwinism has immense religious implications.
First is tells us that God delights in diversity...
Second, and this is Darwin's wondrous discovery, the creator made creation creative...
Third, we now know that all life derives from a single source. That is a remarkable unexpected fact....
Fourth, science and Genesis have now converged, in an utterly unexpected way, on the same metaphor. Life is linguistic....discovery of DNA. It has hardware and software. The cell is an information processing system...
Fifth, the interconnectedness of all life."
pg 215-9
"If we give up in belief in the God of justice, we relinquish belief in objective reality and categorical imperative of justice also. In such a world there is no comfort for the sufferer, no rebuke for the oppressor, no hope, just the stoic endurance of hopelessness."
pg 240
Third, we now know that all life derives from a single source. That is a remarkable unexpected fact....
Fourth, science and Genesis have now converged, in an utterly unexpected way, on the same metaphor. Life is linguistic....discovery of DNA. It has hardware and software. The cell is an information processing system...
Fifth, the interconnectedness of all life."
pg 215-9
"If we give up in belief in the God of justice, we relinquish belief in objective reality and categorical imperative of justice also. In such a world there is no comfort for the sufferer, no rebuke for the oppressor, no hope, just the stoic endurance of hopelessness."
pg 240
"Bad things happen when religion ceases to hold itself answerable to empirical reality, when it creates devastation and cruelty on Earth for the sake of salvation in heaven. And bad things happen when science declares itself the last word on the human condition and engages in social or bio-engineering, treating humans as objects rather than as subjects, and substituting cause and effect for reflection, will and choice."
pg 265
pg 265
"Human self consciousness lies at the heart of all art, metaphysics, poetry; of all science, mathematics and cosmology; of everything that makes humanity different, distinct, unique. The least significant fact about Homo sapiens is that we evolved to survive....What makes us different is that we are meaning seeking animal"
pg 271
"Science gives us a sense of wonder. It does not disclose the source and origin of that wonder."
pg 273
"Science gives us a sense of wonder. It does not disclose the source and origin of that wonder."
pg 273
"Tested on attitudes, religiosity as measured by church attendance turns out to be the best predictor of altruism and empathy: better than education, age, income, gender and race."
summary of R. Putnam, D. Campbell, S Garrett
American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, Simon-Schuster 2010
pg 278
summary of R. Putnam, D. Campbell, S Garrett
American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, Simon-Schuster 2010
pg 278
"To explain the world we have science. To control it we have technology. To negotiate power we have democratic politics. To achieve prosperity we have a market economy. If we are ill we go to a doctor, not a priest. If we feel guilty we can go to a psychotherapist; we have no need of a confessor. If we are depressed we can take Prozac, we do not need the book of Psalms. Schools and welfare are provided by the state, not by the church. And if we seek salvation, we can visit the new cathedrals - the shopping malls at which the consumer society pays homage to its gods.
Faith would seem to be redundant in the contemporary world. And yet far from disappearing it is alive and well and flourishing in every part of the world except Europe.....In Russia , where religion was exiled for seventy years, a poll in 2006 showed 84% of the population believed in God. ANd as the Editor in the Economist writes, whereas in the past religion has been associated with poverty, today the growth in faith has coincided with a growth in prosperity. [Micklethwaite, Wooldridge God is Back (2009)]"
pg 281-2
"The Bible is not proto-science, pseudo science or myth masquerading as science. It is interested in other questions entirely. "
Faith would seem to be redundant in the contemporary world. And yet far from disappearing it is alive and well and flourishing in every part of the world except Europe.....In Russia , where religion was exiled for seventy years, a poll in 2006 showed 84% of the population believed in God. ANd as the Editor in the Economist writes, whereas in the past religion has been associated with poverty, today the growth in faith has coincided with a growth in prosperity. [Micklethwaite, Wooldridge God is Back (2009)]"
pg 281-2
"The Bible is not proto-science, pseudo science or myth masquerading as science. It is interested in other questions entirely. "
pg 285
"Without belief in a transcendent God-the God of freedom who acts because he chooses - it is ultimately impossible to sustain the idea that we are free, that we have a choice, that we are made by our decisions, that we are morally responsible agents."
pg 289
"Without belief in a transcendent God-the God of freedom who acts because he chooses - it is ultimately impossible to sustain the idea that we are free, that we have a choice, that we are made by our decisions, that we are morally responsible agents."
pg 289
Letter to a Scientific Atheist
"Science fulfils three functions...It diminishes human ignorance. It increases human power. And it exemplifies the fact that we are in God's image."
pg 292
"We are desecularising in a destablilising age. That brings fear, and few things are worse than the politics of fear. It creates a sense of victimhood and a willingness to demonize those from who we differ...The best thing to do in such a circumstance is for moderates of all sides to seek and find common ground."
pg 295
pg 292
"We are desecularising in a destablilising age. That brings fear, and few things are worse than the politics of fear. It creates a sense of victimhood and a willingness to demonize those from who we differ...The best thing to do in such a circumstance is for moderates of all sides to seek and find common ground."
pg 295
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