Science and Religion (4)

Religion, Torah and Morality

            The other side of the tension between religion and science, which relates to the revealed part of the Torah, is the ethical significance of modern scientific discoveries. 

 

            The discoveries of astronomy and geology have widened mankind's time-space horizons; miles have become light years.  This extension incurs a sense of the lowliness and insignificance of man, which was expressed not in humility towards the Creator and in a humble bearing, but in the negation of the value and values of human reality.  This goes against the central element of the scriptural account of creation and of the belief in the scriptures.  Rav Kook writes:

 

            "The community of Israel needed to be involved

            with all the idol worshippers, to explain to them that   despite the magnitude of creation, man is not despicable to the point that that there would be no value to his  moral behavior; rather, man's ethical creation is very important, immeasurably more than the more numerous creatures."  (Letter 91)

 

            In Orot Hakodesh (vol. 2, p. 541), Rav Kook again emphasizes the importance of this problem: 

 

            "Cosmological thought has brought about a tremendous change in the process of spiritual life.  The ideas which were absorbed through the tiny picture of the general world, according to the old qualities and in a state of  quiet and smallness, are appropriate for the smallness of  restricted surroundings.  The encompassing new spirit,  [which] comes as a result of the scientific extension of the sense imagery towards the tangible reality, must renew with its enlargement among the masses a new form of the spiritual world and its related thoughts, which   requires much study, [to determine] how to reestablish           everything from scratch in the best possible manner,  successfully inspired by all the basic good that exists in the former state."

 

            From here stems the new need for study which will "place the entire spiritual content on its shining pedestal, which will continually brighten through the goodness, which will be gathered by the extension of all the new encounters, after [they] will make appropriate all the good that is concealed in all the old forms..." (ibid.).

 

            This role is given to religion: "Divine providence is the basis of human morality and its success" (letter 91).  In other words: pure religious faith constitutes the only theoretical basis for morality and the single motivator which can bring humanity to moral life.  And when this basis - providence - "will be well clarified in the world in a great and clear knowledge, it will be the foundation of joy: 'They will not do evil or destruction on all of my holy mountain, for the land will be full of the knowledge of God.'"  This is knowledge of God, the central component of the revealed aspect of the Torah's account of creation.  This general approach allows us to view the entire issue of the relations between science and morality in the modern world:

 

            "Everyone knows that wisdom and talent refer to the ability to strengthen and fortify man's intellectual or  practical abilities.  Morality exists to improve human desire, that it will desire good.  Thus, if the human ability will grow sevenfold, but man's good will does not develop according to the guidance of complete morality, then his increased abilities will be put only to iniquitous use."

 

            Modern man's development is largely expressed in the strengthening of human ability, and it is dependent upon constant progress in two areas: science - "wisdom" and technology - "talent."  The industrial revolution, with all its various compartments, the new scientific equipment, the machines, and, we may add anachronistically, computers, "refer to the ability to strengthen and fortify man's intellectual or practical abilities."  However, until this point we have discussed only one side of reality.  Human activity is measured not only by its potential, but also by the direction of its activity.  This additional aspect, which chooses the goal of human endeavor, is expressed in the text we have before us in placing the "desire" opposite the "ability;" just as at the core of the "ability" lies science, so too within the essence of the "desire" lies morality.  The central problem of progress lies in the danger, that "if human ability will grow sevenfold, but man's good will does not develop according to the guidance of complete morality, then his increased abilities will be put only to iniquitous use."

 

            This point relates to the problem of the relationship between ethics and science.  It is accepted and clear to us today that every attempt to create a theory which will unite science and morality, and which will draw moral commands from scientific statements, is doomed to failure.  This is true not only on a practical level, as stated above - since scientific progress does not bear witness to moral progress - but also from a purely conceptual perspective.  A bridge between science and morality can never be constructed.  There is no passage from the "is" to the "ought," from fact to commandment.  There is no bridge between the reality and the ideal.

 

            Rav Kook understood this fact well; he saw it as one of the crucial problems of our time.  Behind this fact hides the incomplete state of man and his world.  Despite their seemingly parallel nature, these forces "unite in their source," "and as man continues to improve his intellect, thus he will more clearly recognize the unity of the forces that are revealed in different forms."

 

            This unity between morality and science is a kind of "personal connection;" it is apparent in the person who is both a scientist and a moral human being.  However, Rav Kook believed that an "objective connection" is possible as well.  The revelation of this unity is, without a doubt, part of the meaning of redemption.  Human history is the road to redemption, but this rode is not necessarily a straight one.  The existence of the modern world is dependent on the necessity that scientific progress be accompanied by the development of morality and justice.  Here the role of the Torah comes in, which is "close" to that "One," the source of all existence.  "The improvement of man," the building of a righteous world, will be possible only through "the complete union of both forces - the ability and the desire at their best."  Without this union, science and technology are but harmful gift, a poisoned apple. 

 

(This lecture was translated by Gila Weinberg.)

 

Copyright (c)1997 Prof. Shalom Rosenberg, Yeshivat Har Etzion.  All rights reserved.