Religion, Philosophy and Science

Question:-

As you said several times religion was first and science and philosophy were integrated parts of religion. Later philosophy evolved out of religion and later science evolved out of philosophy. Physics is now a branch of science while before it was a branch of philosophy (called natural philosophy). You also said several times that religion focuses on values, philosophy on meanings and science on facts. In Philosophy we now have a branch called "ethics and morality". Ethics focuses on values. But does this fact not mean that nowadays it is philosophy that deals with values and not so much religion, just like philosophy lost the branch that focuses on physics? Many modern philosophers defend this case and say that religion does not have a monopoly on values. They say religion is quite dogmatic and static when it deals with ethics. Please give me your view on this important issue.

Answer:-

There is another important difference between science, philosophy and Religion, though each also has some features of the other. Science is oriented towards external practical use, to creating a technology. Philosophy is concerned with intellectual understanding. Religion is concerned with personal behaviour, interactions and experience. If we distinguish between three levels of Knowledge, namely Information, Understanding and Consciousness, then science is concerned with Information, Philosophy with understanding and Religion with Consciousness.

It is perfectly possible for science to study ethical and moral behaviour as it does in the Psychology and Biology. But it is not necessary for scientists to understand the implications of the things they study. Philosophers can study and understand ethics intellectually, but there is a big difference between understanding something intellectually and applying it in one's life. This requires thought, motive and action.

Though all human activities require all three, and these interact, we can distinguish between things according to which of these is dominant or has priority or receives greater emphasis.

We could, therefore, see that Philosophy tends to emphasise thought; Science usually places emphasis on action (e.g. research experiment etc), though it also requires thought; Religion places emphasis on motives, though thought and action are also necessary.

We could say that Philosophy is one dimensional, Science is two dimensional and Religion is three dimensional, but only relatively speaking. Philosophy came out of Religion when the complexity of life increased to a sufficient degree to need differentiation of attention to thought, motive and action. While thought was taken over by Philosophy, action was taken over by craft and industry and motive by management and administration.

There is a higher form of behaviour, Spiritual or Conscious Behaviour, which can only be attained when the three are co-ordinated and unified. We can divide the spiritual aspect of man into consciousness, conscience and will which corresponds to the three aspects of mind - thought, feeling and action.

Another way of looking at this question is as follows:- If we divide the human being into three aspects - the Spiritual, Mental and Physical then these correspond to three realms of existence (where the Mental is a result of the combination of the other two - in ancient symbolism, we have father, mother and son). The relationship between these corresponds to that between Religion, Philosophy and Science. That is, Science deals mainly with physical reality, philosophy with the realm of ideas and religion with the spiritual.

When Philosophy came out of Religion and Science came out of Philosophy, they developed in a narrow direction, so that though this is regarded as progress or evolution by those who are now affected by it, they can also be regarded as degenerating from a more profound and comprehensive point of view. Those who know about the lives and thoughts of the early scientists, including Newton, will know that they had much broader interests, including Alchemy and what is known as the Occult Philosophies or Mystics that were transmitted to the West via Muslim Arabs. But their alchemical experiments and wider ideas are ignored in modern times, mainly because they are not understood. Newton, who performed many Alchemical experiments and wrote in an encrypted language, did not believe in the typically Christian doctrines of Trinity, or the divinity of Jesus or Vicarious Atonement. There are, however, some scientists who are beginning to make a more serious examination of Newton's neglected works.

Question:-

People who had a wider field of knowledge were called homo-universalis. One of them was Averroes (Ibn Rushd). Newton was one of them too I suppose. But is not the absence of such geniuses in modern time the result of specialisation and progress in all sciences? It is hardly possible for one human being to master a few sciences let alone all sciences in modern time. Is it not like a tree that grew so big that because of all the many and long branches you loose control of directing the tree in a direction? Each branch becomes as big as a tree. So now nobody knows where science is heading to. The ghost escaped out of the box.

Comment:-

I was not thinking so much about the width of knowledge as about its depth. But yes, I did point out that it is the accumulation of the results of collective human activity that causes the expansion beyond the possibility of any single mind grasping and controlling all things. But this is because inner mental development has not kept pace with external social development, neither in perception and comprehension, nor in motives and morality, or in ability. This imbalance is what makes life so dangerous not only for humanity but also for the planet as a whole. On the other hand the problems and suffering so caused also provide the incentive to find solutions and the stimulus for development. There is only a choice between destruction and development. The third alternative, stagnation is not possible for long because the Universe has a direction of change.

The result of the specialisation has been:- (1) The expansion of collective human abilities. (2) The differentiation of humanity. (3) Disintegration, the loss of communication and understanding between people and the increase in mutual contradictions and conflicts. (4) The Loss of the Unitary view of life and existence, increasing superficiality and the loss of control over affairs. (5) The imposition of external forces of unification and co-ordination through organisation, administrators, managers, governors, formal laws and rules (6) A human community or nation has become like a machine, but it is likely that in the future it will become more like a multi-cellular organism in which the individuals are like cells within tissues. (7) An increasing pressure and tendency towards re-synthesis by the progressive forging of link and increasing generalisation. It could be that humanity may become a single consciousness which may merge eventually with Universal Consciousness (He is the Aware 6:18, 104-107, 11:1, 34:1 etc). Humanity probably has a Collective Sub-conscious and Unconscious mind, in so far as Spirit of Allah is in them (32:9). But all this is not asserted with certainty.

There are certainly an increasing number of inter-disciplinary sciences and bridges between science, industry, economics, politics, social life, ethics and art. And certain common patterns that apply to all these departments equally are also observable and some have been studied and are being applied.

One of these is what can be called the "Law of Analysis and Re-synthesis". There is disintegration and reconstruction, degeneration and regeneration, anabolism and catabolism, evolution and involution. It is part of the "Law of Cycles" which is itself a consequence of the existence of "Universal Pair" of positive/negative, as mentioned in the Quran. There is a descent from Unity to increasing multiplicity and an ascent towards Unity.

"He knows that which goes down into the earth and that which comes out of it, and that which descends from the heaven and that which ascends up to it; and He is the Merciful, the Forgiving." 34:2

See also 3:27, 3:190-191, 10:68, 23:80, 25:47 and many others.

This takes place simultaneously but also cyclically, like night and day and the change of the seasons. These cycles describe creation. We are, however, required to transcend these, to seek a balance and return to our source, the Creator 51:49-50.

Question:-

You said: Theology is included in science and/or philosophy. It is also an aspect of religion. It depends on how it is treated, just as physics can be a Science or Natural philosophy, and Ethics can be a subject in Philosophy or an aspect of Religion. It can also be studied as science. Can you explain a little more?

Answer:-

The Quran recognises three sources of knowledge:- (a) Conscious perception, Gnosis, Revelation, inspiration, insight. (b) Reason (c) Experience through outer and inner senses. Though system of ideas may require all three faculties, they do so to different extents and they can be distinguished from each other accordingly. When Theology is a part of Religion then it is a revelation and it is taken as an integral part of life - it informs perception, thought, motive and action. When it is part of Philosophy then it is the product of reason and thought. When it is a Science then it is a question of experience.

It is perfectly possible to do research and experiments. One can for instance, investigate the meaning and significance of the various terms used and one can apply and test the various instructions and recommended techniques of contacting God, understanding the nature of His creation and spiritual development. It is perfectly possible to make new discoveries. Indeed, it is also possible for those who have the expertise to create new techniques, and formulation.

Question:-

You said: Theology is included in science and/or philosophy. It is also an aspect of religion. It depends on how it is treated, just as physics can be a Science or Natural philosophy, and Ethics can be a subject in Philosophy or an aspect of Religion. It can also be studied as science. Can you explain a little more?

Answer:-

The Quran recognises three sources of knowledge:- (a) Conscious perception, Gnosis, Revelation, inspiration, insight. (b) Reason (c) Experience through outer and inner senses. Though system of ideas may require all three faculties, they do so to different extents and they can be distinguished from each other accordingly. When Theology is a part of Religion then it is a revelation and it is taken as an integral part of life - it informs perception, thought, motive and action. When it is part of Philosophy then it is the product of reason and thought. When it is a Science then it is a question of experience.

It is perfectly possible to do research and experiments. One can for instance, investigate the meaning and significance of the various terms used and one can apply and test the various instructions and recommended techniques of contacting God, understanding the nature of His creation and spiritual development. It is perfectly possible to make new discoveries. Indeed, it is also possible for those who have the expertise to create new techniques, and formulation. All this has been done.

I see the sciences as forming a series:- Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Psychology, Sociology, Theology. Whereas the subject dealt with by each successive science consists of parts that are the subject of the previous science, it is also distinct from it owing to the organisation of those parts. As the whole is always more than the sum of the parts owing to the organisation, it is not possible to reduce a science to the previous one. Each requires its own concepts and techniques for study. There are stages and levels of existence.

Here we have what could be called a vertical series as opposed to a horizontal series of sciences - e.g. one can study certain objects or systems on earth, the planet as a whole, the Solar system, the Galaxy, and the Universe as whole.

Note:- It is necessary to understand that what is called "science" changes over time and from subject to subject in its concepts and methods as well as what it regards as its discovered truths. Some people like to confine the word to refer only to modern Physics and dismiss other subjects because they do not have the same methods and mathematical rigour. Others allow Chemistry and Biology, but not Psychology or Sociology. But these subjects are also changing. In fact, sciences have evolved and will continue to do so. It might be that what is called science at some future date will not include what is now regarded as science, just as some people want to exclude some past systems that were known as science.

Controversies and misunderstandings can arise because the word "Science" has different meanings to different people. I use it to refer to all methods that place emphasis on empirical investigation, asking nature, rather than pure intellectual or rational thinking or only on inspiration and revelation.

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