V Religion and Science

Religion and Science even at the time it was made, and now science itself has admitted, directly or indirectly, that it had no satisfactory ground for making such a claim. Of what nature was this discovery of science, which attempted to convince people that there was no further need for the concept of God? It was no more than the discovery that the universe is bound by certain laws. In ancient times, man had simply believed that all happenings in the world were directly attributable to God. But modern findings revealed that behind every event there was a cause, which was discoverable by observation. For instance, Newton observed that all the stars and planets in the vastness of space are bound by certain immutable laws and move in strict accordance with those laws. Darwin’s research showed that man had not come into existence through an act of special creation but had evolved, in consonance with general material laws, from the lower species and had gradually developed into homo sapiens, i.e. man as we now know him. Similar observational studies showed that all events seemed to occur as part of a known system called the ‘Law of Nature.’ Significantly, this law of nature functioned with such effective regularity that it was considered entirely predictable. These discoveries were taken to mean that the universe, which we had regarded as God’s domain, was actually subservient to a set of material and physical laws. When these laws were applied, they yielded consistent results, and this further convinced members of the educated elite that they were right in embracing atheism. The German philosopher, Kant, declared: ‘Give me matter and I shall demonstrate how the world is made out of matter.’ Haeckel even went so far as to say that, given water, chemical elements and time, he would be able to create a man. Nietzsche proclaimed with triumphant finality, ‘God is dead.’ Another belief had it that the creator and sustainer of this universe was not an alive, intelligent being possessing power; that the universe, from beginning to end, was material. All movements and all manifestations of the universe, whether related to life or to lifeless matter were nothing but blind material processes. The world