“Science—the science to which I’ve devoted so much of my life—doesn’t contradict what I learned up there. But far, far too many people believe it does, because certain members of the scientific community, who are pledged to the materialist worldview, have insisted again and again that science and spirituality cannot coexist… To say that there is still a chasm between our current scientific understanding of the universe and the truth as I saw it is a considerable understatement. I still love physics and cosmology, still love studying our vast and wonderful universe. Only I now have a greatly enlarged conception of what “vast” and “wonderful” really mean. The physical side of the universe is as a speck of dust compared to the invisible and spiritual part. In my past view, spiritual wasn’t a word that I would have employed during a scientific conversation. Now I believe it is a word that we cannot afford to leave out.” – Eben Alexander, MD

Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon who has written several books about his fascinating near death experience, points something out here that I have found myself continually coming back to. The past few weeks my mind has wandered frequently to the gap between modern science and God. It seems that there is no room for both, that in order to have one we must rid ourselves entirely of the other. This is a dangerous mindset. We, as humans, long for understanding of ourselves and the world around us. In our search to define and recognize patterns, we tend to forget that we are observing the universe from a limited perspective. It is the only way we have ever been able to study the world, but that doesn’t mean it is able to interpret everything in the world. This is not to say that we shouldn’t strive to discover all that we can as mankind progresses; it is to say, while incredibly complex, the human brain is still just that- human.

Picture a fish in an aquarium. Now imagine this fish trying to process that there is an entire planet outside of this aquarium. There’s no way. The fish is limited to his immediate environment. His mental capacity could not come even close to processing the information that a human can, but that does not mean reality outside of the fish does not exist. It just means the fish is unaware of it. Think now of the fish trying to understand that outside of the planet he is already unaware of there is an entire universe full of other planets, stars, and unexplored expanse. It was already impossible for the fish to know the earth that he is in… how could he even begin to fathom the entire universe?

Humans may be the most advanced creatures we know of, but who is to say we are all that exists? Who is to say we, with only our five senses, can truly judge the universe in all of its vastness and say, “This is what it means, here is what is going on.” We can’t. So we divert our attention. We get caught up in our careers, relationships, hobbies, sports, chores, materialism, fame, technology… anything and everything that can keep us from focusing on our intimate fears. We long desperately to deny these truths, afraid of the awareness of our own mortality or apparent individual significance. The majority of us cannot handle these thoughts, despite their very real presence in our subconscious, so we continue to suppress them with busyness. We do not rest, we do not feel at peace, but we do feel distracted. The majority of us go through our day to day life ignoring all of the concepts that we say matter the most. We don’t have the time to think about them. We don’t have the energy to think about them. We don’t want to think about them. So we leave it up to other people to figure it out for us. Surely these scientists and philosophers will find the answers for us, right? These people that we admire so much, and rightfully so… but who are also just that- people. People who create amazing work and have inspiring thoughts, but who also make mistakes. People just as imperfect as you and me.

In doing this, we have left the most important part of our life in the hands of others who struggle as heavily with human nature as we do. While learning from their experience is both intelligent and wise, relying entirely on others’ opinions will often lead to ultimate uncertainty. We must begin to ask these questions not only of those who we look up to, but also of ourselves. Is there a God? So many of us have this question, and yet instead of turning to prayer or our Bible, we turn to the internet. We look to other people to convince us. These can be great tools to assist in our search, but when these are the only places we are looking, we are keeping ourselves from truly finding the answers personal to us. How can we be guided in the right direction when we are looking only to mortals for an immortal question?

One of the great tragedies of our world is that we have separated God from logic in our minds. Take a moment to think about that. We have taken the God of the universe, artist of the world that we inhabit, and put Him in a box. We who are still trying to understand the mystery even of our own consciousness. We have come to the conclusion that to be religious is to be stupid. There is a stereotype that goes hand in hand with “religion,” but God is not limited to a human perception of religion. This shows up frequently in articles on Reddit, in conversations with those who consider themselves intelligent, and in many churches who alienate intellectuals. Unfortunately, not only have many in the scientific community mocked the intellect of believers, but many believers refuse to back up their beliefs and insist that faith alone is enough. Let me clarify. Faith is essential in a relationship with God. What is not essential is the assumption that in having faith we cannot delve deeper into the reasons we believe what we do.

If we are to ever truly understand the nature of our existence, we cannot separate God from science. Humans are made in His image. Our intelligence comes directly from Him. Would His logic not then be even more profound than we can imagine? Would His intelligence not be breathtaking? We cannot be so arrogant as to believe we are greater in reason than the God of the universe. To rule out the possibility of God’s existence when studying the world is akin to watching only a clip from a film and then attempting to analyze the entire plot. We may be able to grasp at pieces of the theme, use intuition and parts of the clip itself to develop a vague idea of the work as a whole, but how would the artist feel knowing that you tried to dissect his entire piece based on only one scene? God, like the artist, longs for us to study the complete picture. He will not allow true understanding outside of Him, because there is none.

It is likely that this is why we have difficulty with morality in our society. Many are looking to be as objective as possible in how we run our country, which is a reasonable desire. The problem here is, whether or not we believe in the same moral standards as one another, if God exists morals are not relative. Truth is true regardless of whether or not it is heeded. In trying then to be as objective as possible by removing morality from politics and our everyday lives, we are not actually being objective. In reality, we are taking it to the opposite extreme. In saying that we should not consider morality in how we run our society, we are consequently choosing a lack of morality. This takes us continually farther from the Eden that we were once made for, molding a world ever more difficult to live in. Our souls grow more stifled, and they are forgotten.

(K.M.)