Let’s be clear. Humans made religion and not the other way around. We created our myths. We were not created by them. And religion has been, is and will always be no more nor less than our myth making, our dialog with, our effort and yearning to address and connect in a meaningful way with mystical matters of spirit.
Science, on the other hand, and also a discipline of our making, casts ever new light on the physical horizon of mystery. We learn, with the tool of science, about the material manifestation of something we can never fully name. And we use what we learn, for better or worse, to fuel our own evolution.
We want to think that our religions have stood forever. They have not. They have grown from the seed of our awakening. They have adjusted and adapted continually, if often reluctantly, to changes in knowledge and culture. Heresies of only a few centuries ago, like the notion that the earth is a body moving around the sun, are now accepted as simply good science. And archeological finds, like the complete Gospel of Thomas in the scrolls at Nag Hammadi, give us pause and reason to reflect anew on things we once thought certain, like what Jesus did or did not say.
But our view is too often reactionary, when it should be engaging and embracing, welcoming change while being ever in amazement and awe at the new mystery that unfolds continually before us.
Good science and true religion are never at odds. They are simply independent disciplines serving completely different purposes. Science observes and tells us – always provisionally – what and how. I say provisionally because deeper and more complex discoveries constantly change our view and understanding of things.
Religion explores meaning and gives us – always provisionally – a sense of purpose in the void beyond our physical circumstances. Again I say provisionally, because the edge of the void, the event horizon between the measured and mystery, is constantly moving.
This change need not be the threat it is so often perceived to be for religion. We want the event horizon to stay fixed. And so we focus on battles over the fault line. We hold tight to ridiculous claims about the number of years since creation or our vision of a Creator that we, more likely than the other way around, made in our own image.
Religion locked in this backward view sets itself up for little more than an equally immature “told ya’ so” from those that claim the latest finding of science as total and ultimate truth, the undoing of dogmatic religion. But true science is never ultimate and always only provisional. It is just the next tiny discovery in the puzzle in the face of mystery beyond measure, words or imagination.
When we become stuck in scientism or religionism, we waste time heaving rotten eggs and tomatoes at each other across a false divide of our own imagining. Respect and wonder are the appropriate positions as we journey relentlessly and together into our home in mystery. Science pulls back the curtain on amazement at manifestation, things that can be seen and measured. Let us continually appreciate each new discovery, each speck and marvel revealed on the emerging horizon.
Spiritual experience and exploration grant joy, gratitude, a sense of meaning and blind direction in the engagement of the unmanifest, the mystery within and beyond.
May all who go forward into exploration of the void bring back forever the gifts of knowledge and of the spirit, to be enjoyed in fullness, celebration, appreciation and humility, together, under the Tree of Life.
© Two Trees in the Garden. Feel free to quote, as useful, with proper reference.
Jerry Kennell now provides spiritual direction by Skype. Contact jerry@2treegarden.com.
Two Trees in the Garden 