Alana Diener

Professor Butenhoff
Ways of Knowing
030315
Is There A God? Critical Analysis
In his piece Is There A God? Morris argues that science has no place in proving or disproving
the existence of a god. He states that there will never be an empirical test to see if there is a god,
and that scientists will never be able to build a solid argument for or against the existence of a
higher power. Simply put, according to Morris, whether or not there is a god has nothing to do
with what science is truly concerned with. Religious debates are the territory of the theological
world, and the question of whether or not there is a god just does not belong in the scientific
realm, as it cannot be answered with the same methods that are used to answer scientific
questions.
Personally, I am inclined to agree entirely with Morris on this issue. Religion handles questions
of purpose, afterlives, deities, and other philosophical, transcendental concepts, while science
deals with issues of the physical and material world. Science handles what can be proven
through observation and logic, while religion is concerned with what cannot truly be proven in
the same way that scientific hypotheses can be. While science and religion definitely have some
areas of overlap and conflictfor example, people in both fields are concerned with how the
universe came to exist, and both areas of study have wildly different answersultimately, the
existence or nonexistence of a higher power has little, if anything, to do with science. Much like
Goulds idea of science and religion being non-overlapping areas of knowledge, I believe that
science and religion handle different aspects of the world, ask different questions, and contribute

different things to the world at large. While there are places where they overlap, ultimately,
science is not qualified or designed to answer questions about god. Scientists argue their claims
much differently than religious people argue theirs. Scientists and religious people seem to see
the world in completely different ways and back their ideas with different ways of knowing, so
not only do science and faith tend to form conflicting beliefs about the world, but they also argue
their beliefs in incompatible ways.
Many theists claim that religion and higher powers operate under laws other than the ones that
govern the physical world that science is concerned with. In this sense, many religious people
might believe, just as many scientists do, that science cannot prove or disprove the claims they
make. In an epistemological sense, science and religion tend to depend on different ways of
knowing and proving their own truths. While science demands the backing of reason and sense
perception, religion relies almost fully on faith; many theists are content to believe in their gods
without placing on themselves the same burden of proof that scientists do for the claims they
make. These ways of knowing cannot really be switched from one field to the other; a scientific
argument backed with nothing but faith would be immediately discarded, and a theological
argument cannot be proven through sense perception or reason simply because many of the
arguments made by religious people do not seem to operate under the same rules as science;
many of the arguments for the existence of a god rely heavily on simply having faith that there is
a god. Just as Morris states, there will never be a reliable scientific test made to prove or
disprove god. The differences in the way scientific and religious arguments are structured is part
of the reason why, when it comes to topics like the initial creation of the universe, the arguments

that science makes are more often than not far better backed up than the ones made by religion.
In the minds of scientists and religious people, the world itself operates under separate sets of
rules, which makes it very challenging for science to pose its opinions on the existence of god,
just as it is very difficult for religious people to make convincing arguments on the veracity of
scientific theories.
Many arguments that religious people make in favor of god, intelligent design, or other
theological doctrines rely on logical fallacies that would be dismantled and dismissed if posed in
a scientific context. For example, a religious person might assume that there are only two
possible answers for how the universe was created; it was either the big bang and everything just
happened by chance, or everything was done by god, and there are no other potential answers to
consider. A religious person might look at the world and say that everything works too smoothly
to ever have happened by chance or without any intervention from a divine power, but this
argument is problematic because it relies very heavily on faith and the automatic assumption that
a higher power exists to intervene in the first place. For example, Morris talks about the
philosopher Richard Swinburnes argument in favor of intelligent design: Swinburne says that he
sees evidence of design in the beauty and orderliness of the universe. This argument, first off,
is completely subjective; many people would reasonably refute it by saying that the universe is
not beautiful or orderly, and that it is just as chaotic and ugly as Swinburne claims that its not.
For all of the things in the world that creationists see as proof of divine planning, there are a
whole host of things that do not operate nearly as smoothly. Secondly, Swinburnes argument
assumes that evolution could not have created beauty and orderliness, and that the only
possible explanation for the beauty and orderliness is a higher power overseeing and directing

the creation and existence of everything in the universe. It does not accommodate alternate
possibilities at all. Scientific arguments are generally not structured in a way where the
hypothesis is argued with logical fallacies and faith, and because of this, religious doctrines are
difficult to attempt to prove with the scientific method of argument. Religious doctrines and the
people behind them often resist scientific scrutiny by claiming that their deities, like their
arguments, do not adhere to the same laws as things in the scientific world. If something, like a
deity or a creation myth, does not abide by the laws of science and the physical world, then
science is not able to inform its existence at all. Science just isnt equipped to deal with things
that supposedly exist outside the realm of the physical or material world; the supernatural and
theological are not compatible with sciences ways of knowing and understanding the universe.
However, I dont really think that believing in science means that one can only be either an
atheist or an antitheist. Individuals are free to combine their scientific and religious beliefs as
they please, in whatever way they feel helps them understand and come to terms with their lives
and the world around them. I see religion as something that can serve as a vehicle of hope,
meaning, culture, and community for those who feel like they need that kind of support in their
lives. Humans learn and gain different things from science and religion. Due to the fact that
science does not concern itself with questions of purpose or meaning, some people may find that
it can be intrinsically nihilistic at times. I think that religion can be used to help round out
peoples lives and offer meaning and answers where science is not able to. Despite the fact that
science and religion are not completely free of conflicting ideologies and overlaps, they do offer
different things to the world and both, for the most part, ask their own, different questions.

Therefore, I would think that it is possible to believe in the teachings of both, even if the
knowledge of one field is not able to prove, disprove, or even at all inform the ideas of the other.
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