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Non-overlapping magisteria - Special Issue: Science and Religion: Conflict or Conciliation? - religion and science have their own respective domains of teaching authority
Skeptical Inquirer, July-August, 1999 by Stephen Jay Gould
As a moral position (and therefore not as a deduction from my knowledge of nature's factuality), I prefer the "cold bath" theory that nature can be truly "cruel" and "indifferent" in the utterly inappropriate terms of our ethical discourse - because nature does not exist for us, didn't know we were coming (we are, after all, interlopers of the latest geological moment), and doesn't give a damn about us (speaking metaphorically). I regard such a position as liberating, not depressing, because we then gain the capacity to conduct moral discourse - and nothing could be more important - in our own terms, free from the delusion that we might read moral truth passively from nature's factuality.
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But I recognize that such a position frightens many people, and that a more spiritual view of nature retains broad appeal (acknowledging the factuality of evolution, but still seeking some intrinsic meaning in human terms, and from the magisterium of religion). I do appreciate, for example, the struggles of a man who wrote to The New York Times on November 3, 1996, to declare both his pain and his endorsement of John Paul's statement:
Pope John Paul II's acceptance of evolution touches the doubt in my heart. The problem of pain and suffering in a world created by a God who is all love and light is hard enough to bear, even if one is a creationist. But at least a creationist can say that the original creation, coming from the hand of God, was good, harmonious, innocent and gentle. What can one say about evolution, even a spiritual theory of evolution? Pain and suffering, mindless cruelty and terror are its means of creation. Evolution's engine is the grinding of predatory teeth upon the screaming, living flesh and bones of prey. . . . If evolution be true, my faith has rougher seas to sail.
I don't agree with this man, but we could have a terrific argument. 1 would push the "cold bath" theory; he would (presumably) advocate the theme of inherent spiritual meaning in nature, however opaque the signal. But we would both be enlightened and filled with better understanding of these deep and ultimately unanswerable issues. Here, I believe, lies the greatest strength and necessity of NOMA, the non-overlapping magisteria of science and religion. NOMA permits - indeed enjoins - the prospect of respectful discourse, of constant input from both magisteria toward the common goal of wisdom. If human beings can lay claim to anything special, we evolved as the only creatures that must ponder and talk. Pope John Paul II would surely point out to me that his magisterium has always recognized this uniqueness, for John's gospel begins by stating in principio erat verbum - in the beginning was the word.
I thank about a dozen correspondents for pointing out this error, and the Vatican's acknowledgment, to me. I am especially grateful to Boyce Rensberger, one of America's most astute journalists on evolutionary subjects, and David M. Byers, executive director of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Science and Human Values. Byers affirms the NOMA principle by writing to me: "Thank you for your recent article . . . It admirably captures the relationship between science and religion that the Catholic Bishops' Committee works to promote and to realize. The text of the October 1996 papal statement from which you were working contains a mistranslation of a key phrase; the correct translation supports your thesis with even greater force."
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