FAITH AND REASON

Had the Professor compared the first part of science to the first part of religion and the second part of science to the second part of religion, his inferiority complex (as a man of religion) would have ceased to exist. He would have felt that, purely as a matter of principle, wrong parallels had been drawn. The argument used in the first part of science is equally applicable to the first part of religion. Similarly, the argument applied to the second part of science is equally applicable to the second part of religion. This is a truth which has been acknowledged even by a staunch and leading atheist like Bertrand Russell. At the beginning of his book Why I am not a Christian, he has set forth what he considers a valid argument. He points out that in his view, all the great religions of the world Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam and Communism—were all untrue and harmful and that it is not possible to prove their validity from the logical point of view. Those who have opted for one religion or the other have done so, according to Russell, under the influence of their traditions and environment, rather than on the strength of argument. However, Bertrand Russell has admitted this fact—that a belief based on rational argument is valid—when he says, “There is one of these arguments which is not purely illogical. I mean the argument from design. This argument, however, was destroyed by Darwin.” He intends here to say that the existence of God is proved by the argument that in this world where there is design there should be a designer. He admits that this method of argument in its nature is the same as that used to prove scientific concepts. However, even after this admission, he rejects this argument by saying that it has been destroyed by Darwinism. This is, however, a wholly baseless point, as Darwin’s theory is related to the Creator’s process of creation rather than to the existence of the Creator. To put it briefly, Darwinism states that the various species found in the world were not separate creations but had changed from one species into separate species over a prolonged period of evolution by a process of natural selection. It is obvious that this theory is not related to the existence or nonexistence of God. It deals with the process of creation instead of the Creator. That is to say, if it was hitherto believed that God created each species separately, now, after accepting the theory of evolution, it has to be believed that God originally created an initial species