Dr Metin GUNGORMUS
What Chiristians Can learn from Islam’s approach to Science? And
What Can Scientists Learn from Islam’s Approach to Science?
Rev. John A. Mills
UCC STN – The United Church of Christ Science and Technology Taskforce
Who was the first recorded human to fly? If you say the Wright Brothers you would be… at least partially … wrong. If you say Leonardo Da Vinci, you would be wrong again. He designed a flying machine, but as far as we know he never built it. If you said Abbas Ibn Firnas then you would be right. In
These were gliders and not powered airplanes, such as the Wright Brothers were first to fly in 1903. But they illustrate a period in Islamic history that is overlooked in the bitterness and fear of our present age. We live in a very divisive age. We have the West and the Moslem World in a terrible cultural and political conflict and we have Christianity and Science at odds over a number of high profile issues, including evolution and stem-cell research. These conflicts obscure that Christianity, Islam and science are all gifts from God.
As people of faith we need to have the courage and the understanding to step out of these conflicts and look for what God is doing and calling us to do to be agents of Love, Reconciliation and Hope. I think one such approach to this is to be willing to listen and understand our supposed adversaries. One of Jesus’ teachings is to love your enemies and thereby as Martin Luther King observed, you will make a friend.
A lot has been written on the synergy between religion (aka Christianity) and science. Many thinkers have risen above the Christianity vs. Science conflict to illustrate how God Works through both. Today I want to add another stream in that discussion and suggest that if we look at what has been written about Islam and Science we will learn some ideas that we as Christians can utilize in understanding God’s gift of science.
I need to make it clear that I am not a scholar of Islam. My understanding comes from reading essays and books by Moslem experts on Islam and Science, such as Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Muzaffar Iqbal. I can’t guarantee that they are representative of a wide number of Moslems, but they raise issues and ideas that I have found enlightening.
So here are some ideas.
For starters, I visited the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City and they had an exhibit on just this topic of Islam and Science. They had a placard at an entry that reported that in one of the Prophet Mohammad’s early revelations he reported that God commanded Moslems to seek knowledge. And indeed they did. From the 9th to the 16th century Islam was experiencing a Golden Age. They excelled in medicine, mathematics, astronomy and engineering. Abu Rayhan al-Biruni (973-1046) accurately calculated the diameter of the earth. A Moslem invented the Astrolabe used for navigation. The Moslems transmitted to the West the mathematical ideas of zero and Algebra and preserved much of Greek mathematics while the West lived through a Dark Age.
Guided by the Qur’an, medicine flourished. It was the Moslems who started hospitals and understood the value of cleanliness. For example, they discovered that alcohol was an antiseptic. They trained their doctors professionally. They were experts in the eye, in medicines, in surgery and in the circulatory system. In the 9th century they established the first pharmacy.
Because of the teachings of Islam, they sought out God in nature and used that knowledge for the good of humanity.
Secondly, the primary teaching of Islam is that God is One. Moslem scientists interpret this to mean that creation is a unity. The parts are not distinct from one another, but are part of whole greater than the parts. Science is not just discovering pieces of creation, its discovering God and the wonder that God has done through the creation. Sayyeed Nasr writes, "Islamic science is related profoundly to the Islamic world view. It is rooted deeply in knowledge based upon the unity of Allah or al-tawhid and a view of the universe in which Allah's Wisdom and Will rule and in which all things are interrelated [reflecting] unity on the cosmic level.” (A Young Muslim's Guide to the Modern World, p. 182) The aim of Islamic science is to show the unity and interrelatedness of all that exists, the contemplation of which leads humanity to the unity of God. The unity of nature is an image of the unity of God. Therefore, priority should be given to the whole, not the parts.
Thirdly, Sadr suggests that we need to re-enchant nature. Western science separates the physical from the spiritual and treats it as an independent reality which can be studied and known without reference to a higher level of being. We need to recover the spiritual meaning and the sense of sacredness in God's creation. We need to be aware of the continuous presence of God as Creator and Sustainer of creation. God’s spirit not only shines through us, but through each creature and each plant in nature.
Now, I don’t want to leave you with the impression that Islam is the answer to the
controversy between Christianity and Science. It isn’t. For example, Moslem scholars struggle with Darwinian Evolution just as Christians do and are uncomfortable that it contradicts the literal statements in the Qur’an just as many Christians are uncomfortable with Evolution contradicting the literal desccriptions in the Bible. Also some Moslem scholars lay the disenchantment of nature at the feet of Evolution and criticize it for reducing the creation to matter without spirit. They often thereby reject Evolution. I would claim that it is not the fault of the theory that nature was disenchanted, but the fault of its advocates and its antagonists in their interpretation of the spiritual meaning of the theory. Nonetheless, Moslems like Christians struggle with much of the new science.
But I suggest that we Christians can learn from the principles that I have outlined and that we can find these comfortable. I don’t think any of them is all that alien to us. Too long have we viewed Christianity vs. Science. We need to practice Christianity with Science.
Christians too seek knowledge. Particularly since the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, Christians have made wondrous discoveries in science and invented wondrous new contraptions. But we need to remember that knowledge comes from God. We are prone to making knowledge an idol. Too often, we believe that if we just knew how to do something, we would be saved from what we fear. If only we knew how to solve world hunger, or we knew how to eradicate old-age, or we knew this, that, or the other, our lives would be so much better. But we can never know everything. Knowledge and discovery are some of the ways we can see God’s grace and love around us. More than one scientist has seen God in the telescope and the microscope. Mathematics has been called the handwriting of God. But we must first and foremost have faith that God is good and that the creation is good. Otherwise our knowledge is far too often turned to evil.
Secondly, we are learning through our concern for the environment how God calls us to an ecological vision of creation as an interrelated web of life and love. God is one and the Creation is a unity. As we Christians take up our call to be good stewards of this diverse and beautiful creation, we have the opportunity to partake of God’s unity. Additionally, we Christians with are Trinitarian theology can see also God’s diversity within that unity. We can go beyond hierarchy to a web of grace, love, and wonder. God is One, but God is also infinitely diverse.
And Christians have found God in nature since the beginning … we’ve had our fights with the pagans, just as the Moslems have. But we need to never forget that God’s spirit shines through the trees, the mountains, the animals, as well as ourselves. We have re-discovered Celtic Christianity and Native American spirituality, both of which remind us that nature is in the image of God as much as we are.
Interestingly we have a sort of triangle of antagonism and thereby a triangle of opportunity. We can either see the triangle as Christianity vs. Islam vs. Science or we can see it as Christianity, Islam and Science as each overlapping parts of God’s revelation. God, thereby, gives us three (actually more when we include Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.) different channels to the divine with enormous opportunity to know God. I think if we are willing to listen and dialog with Moslems and scientists, we will find that we have beliefs in common. We will also find we have beliefs on which we will never agree … and we need to agree to disagree. We will also have differences on which we need to reflect and learn from each and possibly modify our beliefs accordingly, thereby; we deepen and enrich our faith. If we are willing to be humble enough to work with are so-called antagonists, I think we will discover that we have more in common than we have in disagreement … and much to learn about each other, about nature and especially about God.
At Liberty Science Center there is a fun exhibit for kids and adults. It’s a bubble screen. There’s a long rod sitting in a bath of water and detergent. You pull the rod up rails with a rope very slowly so that a “bubble screen” forms between the rod and the bath. The goal is to get the rod as high as possible before breaking the bubble. Further, if you and someone else are willing to put your hands in the bath so they are coated with the soapy water, you can reach through the bubble screen and shake each other’s hands … without breaking the screen.
I suggest that the barrier between ourselves and Moslems and scientists is really bubble thin. If we are willing to dip our hands in the bath of apparent conflicting beliefs and reach through the barrier, we can at least shake hands and start talking. Eventually the bubble will break and we will be flesh to flesh … and all working together with integrity, honesty, and hope. God’s grace and love be with you …
Amen.
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