Science v. Theology, 1960

There need be no conflict between science and religion, says British Biologist Julian Huxley, but there is a sharp conflict between science and Christian theology. "One is destined to replace the other," he argues, a century after the famed Darwinian tussle with religion in which his grandfather. Scientist T. H. Huxley, battled conspicuously on the opposite side of the angels.

Grandson Huxley (outspoken former Director-General of UNESCO, brother of Novelist Aldous) was invited by the London Observer to update the issue in a debate with the Rev. Dr. Eric Lionel Mascall of Christ Church, Oxford, a cleric who holds a bachelor of science degree along with his doctorate of divinity. Huxley insists that the argument is all over, and science has won.

Theology is based, Huxley writes, on "a combination of an elaborate god-theory with a subsidiary but equally elaborate soul-theory," and is limited in applicability and the power of self-correction. Humanism, on the other hand, "is acquiring a well-organized theoretical basis in the form of a comprehensive theory of evolution as a whole"; it is capable of unlimited development, and "its reliance on scientific method" instead of divine intervention and revelation "makes it automatically self-correcting."

Disappearing Soul. God and the soul are hypotheses; so were evolution and the atom, but these two are now theories "with high predictive value and practical applicability." Whereas "the soul-hypothesis, after being promoted by the scholastic theologians to the dignity of high theory, is now increasingly failing to account for psychological and neurological facts: the soul as an entity is disappearing."

The idea that the universe must have been created, hence have a Creator, is scientifically old hat. Dr. Mascall, Huxley says, dealt with this question in his book, Christian Theology and Natural Science, by identifying creation "not with an act in the past by which the world was originated, but with an incessant activity [of God] by which it is conserved in existence . . . Preservation and creation are really identical." This, to Huxley, is nothing but "doubletalk. The whole range of physicochemical and biological phenomena can now be accounted for in principle in naturalistic terms: to invoke the operation of God in the process is not only unnecessary but intellectually dubious."

As for the origin of man, says Huxley, "the assertion of Roman Catholic theology that all mankind is descended from a single couple, instead of from a slowly evolving population, is certainly untrue; and its claim that, though natural evolution can only account for man's body, God is needed to account for his soul. is quite unjustified."

Unique Man. In reply, the Rev. Dr. Mascall is prepared to accept the victory of the Darwinian theory of evolution. But he does not think the story ends there. Biologist Huxley, he says, has overlooked the significance of two "striking conclusions" of biology that are of great importance to theology. The first: man, as an intelligent being, is unique on earth. The second: "With the appearance of an intelligent being, evolution as generally understood . . . has virtually come to an end, or, to state the position in a different way, an entirely new mode of evolution has come into being. For an intelligent being can both decide what he wants his future and that of other living beings to. be. and take steps to modify the environment and the genetic material in order to attain it."

In man's biological uniqueness, Dr. Mascall sees support for the traditional Christian teaching that man is unique on earth in having "an eternal destiny" and in being the species in which God incarnated himself.

"The power which man, as an intelligent being equipped with all the techniques of genetics, neurophysiology, biochemistry and psychology, now possesses over his own future, his power to decide and control his own evolution, while it is not unlimited, is vast and alarming. What secularised man may do with himself, what monstrous organisms he may produce from human genetic material, and what may be his chances of survival we can only guess; the purveyors of science-fiction have here an unrestricted field.

"But although science can raise the question 'What should man try to become?' and can even indicate some of the possibilities, it clearly cannot give an answer . . . For Christianity, the final term of human evolution and of human history is the Total Christ, composed of Head and members sharing a common supernatural life in that ultimate transfiguration of the created world which theology describes as the resurrection of the body for the life everlasting."

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