Cardinal Clancy Centre for Research in the Spiritual, Moral, Religious and Pastoral Dimensions of Education.
Spiritual, Moral and Religious Education is a Flagship area for Research in Australian Catholic University

The Influence of Young People’s Perceptions of Science on their Emerging Spirituality

By Graham Rossiter, Australian Catholic University, Strathfield NSW 2135

(G.M. Rossiter, 1996,  Young People's Perceptions of Science:  The Influence on their Emerging Spirituality, Catholic School Studies, 69, 2, 53-56.)

Introduction

In threading together patterns of beliefs and values to give meaning to their lives, young people are very eclectic in the way they draw on the spiritual resources of their community. [1]    Their home base is initially the foremost influence on spiritual development.   The Church and religious education in the church school can make a significant contribution.   Increasingly, film and television are recognised as having a major influence on young people’s spirituality that needs to be understood and addressed. [2]    For example, the United States educator, Professor Neil Postman refers to television as the “First Curriculum”. [3]    Some sociologists think that for many children parents have been relegated to the role of being secondary ‘modifiers’ of a primary socialisation mediated through television.

When considering the important influences on young people’s spiritual development, it is unlikely that ‘science’ would readily come to mind.   However, as discussed below, children’s perceptions of science do indeed seem to have a significant correlation with their understanding and appreciation of religion.   Hopefully this will prompt educators to give more thought to the relationship between religion and science and to implications for both religion and science curricula in Catholic schools.

In seeking to understand how perceptions of science can influence young people’s spirituality, the article will look firstly at the relationship between science and religion.

Science and Religion

Science and religion are both concerned with ‘explaining’ the world -- each from a different perspective, and each with different methods.

The broad function of science is to explain the workings of nature in what is called a ‘scientific’ way to contrast with aesthetic, spiritual and religious forms of description.   It does this within the framework of physical and chemical laws, and hypotheses that can be tested.   By definition of science, a condition for the validity and reliability of its explanation is that the personal and spiritual dimension is necessarily excluded.   The principle of empirical verification is impersonal by nature (strictly speaking, it is better named a principle of 'empirical falsifiability', because it is through the disproof of null hypotheses that scientific knowledge progresses.)   It is therefore both natural and appropriate to expect that science will have nothing to say about a spiritual realm that includes human meaning, purpose and values.   Science cannot prove or disprove the existence of such a realm.   Hence, it could be expected that science and religion should never be in conflict.   However, since the time of Galileo there has been a continual history of conflict that at times has been violent.   The reasons for the conflict are important because in principle it will be because either religion or science (or both) has in some way been faulty or wrongly applied.

Conflict between Science and Religion??

In the case of Galileo, the conflict derived from a faulty religious view.   The theological conviction that humans were at the centre of God's universe had spilled over into a view of this world as the physical centre of the solar and star systems.   This physical view was disproved -- just as was the earlier view of the world as flat.   This showed that religious interpretations of human purpose should be careful not to absolutise particular presumptions about the structure of the world that were in vogue at a particular time.   It was not really the Church's prerogative to pronounce in the area of physics.

However, conflicts like this were inevitable because in earlier pre-scientific times people did not have reason to differentiate between religious and scientific interpretations;  or between the superstitious and the scientific.   For many centuries there was no compelling reason why the Genesis stories of creation and of Adam and Eve could not be interpreted literally, while their theological significance remained paramount.   Then, when astronomy and the scientific theory of evolution made it clear that the six day creation of the universe and the instant creation of humans were highly unlikely to have occurred in that historico-physical way, a more sophisticated and more scientific explanation of such origins became necessary.   At the same time, this stimulated a more sophisticated theological and scriptural interpretation of Genesis.   In effect, emerging science had helped refine Theology.   If the Bible is read as if it were a science text on human origins, the reader will be in error -- not the Bible.

Within the last century, science has gradually developed comprehensive theories to explain the origins of the universe, the first life and the emergence of humans.   In its own terms it helped construct a history or 'scientific story' of these origins.   For those who do not have a good conception of the relationships between religion and science, or where the divisions are blurred, the scientific story might function like a religious story:  it provides a comprehensive and plausible story of human origins that goes back hundreds of millions of years to the Big Bang.

For some, this scientific 'story' is a more attractive and realistic alternative than a literal reading of Genesis;  so they dismiss the latter as myth in the negative sense, and as a result, many of them dismiss Christianity (and thus religion) because its validity is presumed to be dependent on the historicity of Genesis.   For some, this view helps rationalise an already established attitude that religion is irrelevant to their lives.

Another group tends to react differently.   Their religious beliefs are bolstered by reading Genesis literally;  this ‘historicises’ the creation stories -- regarding the events described as scientific facts (this amounts to reading Genesis as if it were a science text, dictated by God to the Biblical author).   Ironically, this approach seems to want ‘historical/scientific verification’ of beliefs.   This group seems unable to differentiate the theological message from the literary form.   The stories have taken such 'historical/scientific' roots in their religious world view that any questioning of the stories' historicity is experienced as a threat which might undermine their religious faith.   The logical alternative for this group is to dismiss the scientific account of human origins as false.   This interpretation represents the fundamentalist position.   (As will be considered in a later article, this same mentality is applied consistently by fundamentalists to the New Testament where they are unable to accept anything but a literal interpretation of the Gospels, and thus, according to a more symbolic interpretation, they miss the core meaning.)   The fundamentalist view is strongly evident in Creation science.   This is a movement which seeks to establish a ‘scientific’ case for creation as described in the Genesis.   It is well established in the United States and Australia;  it publishes the Creation science magazine, Ex Nihilo. [4]    It seeks to discredit the common scientific theories of the origins of the universe and humankind.

A third group, representing the preferred position, reads the Genesis account theologically, with an appreciation of the literary form of creation myths.   And it reads the scientific account of creation strictly as such -- a complementary, non-contradictory historico-scientific story.

Young people's beliefs about religion and science

If adults confuse religious and scientific stories then it is likely that children and adolescents will do so too, even if this is a phase of their spiritual development.   It will thus be important for their school education (both in religion and other subjects such as science) to give special attention to learning how to differentiate between religious and scientific interpretations.

Research studies indicate that measures of young people's attitudes to belief in God change markedly during early adolescence.   In the United Kingdom, while 44% of a sample of 11 year olds agreed that "God is very real to me", the level dropped to 18% for the 15 year olds. [5]    Repeated surveys between 1974 and 1986 showed a continual decline.   Correspondingly, the percentage of 11-15 year olds agreeing with the statement "I find it hard to believe in God" increased from 36% to 50%.   There is no reason to believe that the situation in Australia is different.

In 1964, Ronald Goldman in his book Religious Thinking from Childhood to Adolescence [6] suggested that two prominent factors which made their attitudes to belief more liable to change were:-

*     The problem of evil and suffering and how this is to be reconciled with a God who is all-powerful and all-loving;

*     A perceived conflict between what was taught in science lessons and what is thought to be involved in holding religious beliefs.

Another British study of young people's beliefs in the mid 1970s suggested that if early adolescents did not make a transition from a simple literal view of Genesis to a more theological interpretation, then it was increasingly likely that they would give up their religious beliefs at about the same time they stopped believing in fairy stories:

Childhood belief is breached with incredible ease on the basis of a simplistic scientism. . .  the first incursion into a simple Biblical literalism seems to be the automatic death blow to 'belief'.   There is in fact a complete vacuum at the point in intellectual development where the 'fairy story version' ends and anything more 'grown up' might take its place.   What takes over is a vocabulary of empirical science.   Any sort of idea, however fantastic, will be given house room if it can be dressed up in a scientific, or more accurately perhaps, a 'science fiction' garb. [7]

A further study by Francis revealed more about the science religion clash. [8]    Only 20% of the sample of 11-15 year olds disagreed with the statement "True Christians believe the Universe was made in 6 days".  19% thought that Christians could not believe in Darwin's theory of evolution while a further 65% were unsure whether Darwin's theory was compatible with Christian belief.  28% considered that "Nothing should be believed unless it can be proved scientifically", while a further 22% were unsure whether this was the case.   44% thought that "Theories in science can be proved to be definitely true", while a further 37% thought this might possibly be true.

In these British samples, a simple 'scientism' seems to have influenced adolescent thinking significantly.   Just how pupils in Australian Catholic schools stand on this question remains to be determined.   In any case, the science religion interface remains an important issue for religious education.

Implications for school religious education

As young people put together their own idiosyncratic spiritual story they draw on various 'stories' from the culture, one of which is science.   Science offers a powerful explanatory story precisely because of the spectacular success of science and technology in human advancement in the 20th century.   Young people's education, and their religious education in particular, needs to help make them more conscious of the range of stories that may be contributing to their emerging world view, even in an unconscious way.   An adequate understanding of science and of the possibilities and limitations of scientific explanation is an important aim for education in both science and religion.

In particular, the relationship between science and religion needs to be considered carefully at least once in junior classes and again in the senior school.   Below are a series of science/religion issues that need to be addressed strategically in the school religion curriculum:-

*     Scientific theories of the origin of the universe, the origins of life and the evolutionary emergence of humans and how and why these theories have clashed with the beliefs of some Christians.

*     The theological and critical interpretation of Scripture (especially the creation stories) contrasted with a more literal, fundamentalist interpretation.

*     Some basic knowledge of the Creation Science argument;  how and why it differs from standard scientific view of cosmic and human origins;  and how it differs from theological interpretation of Scripture.

*     The scope and limitations of scientific and religious explanations;  consequences for developing an integrated world view;  the potential for clash and the potential for complementarity.

*     Miracles:  What are they?   Were they exaggerated in pre-scientific times?   Do they still occur?   How are miracles to be interpreted in the New Testament?

*     Contemporary thinking about the relationships between modern physics, a spiritual dimension to life, creation and the existence of God.   A mechanistic or atomistic interpretation of reality has been called into question by the most recent discoveries about the sub-quantal nature of matter and about the origins and age of the universe.   This raises interesting questions for Theology.

*     Contraception and population control:  Many young people see the Church's position as out of date, and out of tune with the views of the medical profession and the majority of the community.

*     Bioethics:  The opposition of the Church to in-vitro fertilisation.   Moral issues to do with human embryos and genetic engineering.

*     Euthanasia:  Catholic Church opposition to euthanasia;  the arguments in favour and against.

Conclusion

Helping students understand the shaping influence that science (or rather, perceptions of science) can have on their beliefs should be an important part of their school religious education.   They often take up relatively uninformed criticism of their Church but may be unable to sustain a critical interrogation of the wider cultural conditioning that can be subtly affecting their thinking, beliefs and values.   This article has drawn attention to some aspects of the science religion interface;  it may help educators in Catholic schools consider ways of addressing the impact of science on the developing spirituality of their students.

Endnotes

[8] .   L.J. Francis, H.M. Gibson, and P. Fulljames, 1990  Attitude towards Christianity, Creationism, Scientism and Interest in Science among 11-15 Year Olds, British Journal of Religious Education, 13, 1, 4-17.

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