SOME ASPECTS OF THE CONTROVERSIAL NEXUS BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Abstract

The present paper takes into consideration a few aspects related to the relation between the two disputed domains of knowledge: science and religion. After having pointed out the main eight warfare and nonwarfare models of interaction between science and religion, the study focuses on the motives of Eastern and Western Christianity breach, which resides on the very different attitude to Science and Nature. The main part of depicting the nexus between the two fields of research is focusing on the doctrine of creation, the one Christian theology truly revolutionized. The Christian Weltanschauung was so new in comparison with Greek cosmology that it had to raise new questions and make radical modifications, especially regarding the understanding of space and time. The Fathers of the Orthodox Church were happy to use the science and philosophy of their time in their theological thinking. However, they did not pursue a natural theology in the sense the term is often now understood based on scholastic theology. According to the Orthodox understanding, the intellect provides not knowledge about the creation but rather a direct apprehension or spiritual perception of the divine Logos (Word) incarnate in Christ, and of the inner essences or principles (logoi) of the cosmos components created by that Logos. The arguments of Orthodox Christian theology proof that the quantum universe was created out of nothing and that it is kept in existence only by God's relationship with creation through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. In relation to itself, the universe is reduced to nothing, because God is in Himself, while any other created thing is dependent upon Him, into an indissoluble connection with Him. According to creation theology, God gives the world its rational, intelligible structure as described by the laws of nature through the transcendent and eternal act of bringing the world into existence ex nihilo. As immanent creator, God also continues to create (creatio continua) and providentially direct processes and events towards their consummation in the eschaton. Overall, there is a poignant reason for keeping science and religion together once “science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind” (Einstein).