Warren Nunn
Religion? Science? Science or religion? Which one requires most faith?
Back in March 1900, about 20 men gathered in the English county of Hertfordshire—probably at St Albans about 40 km (25 miles) from London—for a debate on the topic “Has science or religion been the most benefit to mankind?”1
At the end of the evening those gathered voted overwhelmingly (15 to 3) in favour of “religion”, according to a newspaper report of the evening.
St Albans Market Square in 1893. The men who took part in the 1900 debate would have been familiar with this scene.
It seems to have been a most lively, yet cordial debate with speakers acknowledging that both “sides” had helped humanity.
Many of the same arguments put forward by those debaters more than a century ago are still used today.
Rather than just refer to the individuals who took part in that discussion by their surname and initial, a search of the 1901 census records gives the probable identity of some of them.
The chairman that night was the society’s vice-president Rev. H.W.Taylor. On the 1901 census there is a Henry Taylor, aged 53, Baptist minister, living at St Albans who seems likely to be the same person.
Of others who participated, research revealed the following:
• W. Westell may be either William Westell senior, aged 70, a retired straw hat maker living at St Albans, or his son William, junior, aged 47, also a straw hat maker.
• F. Gladwell may be Frank Gladwell, aged 46, an elementary school head teacher, of St Albans.
• J. Tomlin may be James Tomlin, aged 28, school teacher, of St Albans.
• J. Morley may be John Morley, aged 44, shorthand writer, of St Albans.
• F. W. Dunham, may be Francis William Dunham, aged 46, straw hat worker, of St Albans.
• G. W. Simmons, may be George Thomas Wagstaffe Simmons, aged 34, managing director of a newspaper and printing company, of St Albans. He eventually became a sports journalist.
What this tells us is that the participants came from varied backgrounds and were individuals who thought about weighty matters at more than a superficial level.
Mr W.Westell spoke first, and said religion had done a great deal, but science had done more. “Science was a matter of fact, but religion was a matter of faith,” he said.1
The-science-is-fact, religion-is-faith card is still used today in an evolutionism-soaked society where few people dare question what they are being taught.
The definition of ‘science’ has long haunted philosophers of science. The approach of Bacon, who is considered the founder of the scientific method, was pretty straightforward:
observation → induction → hypothesis → test hypothesis by experiment → proof/disproof → knowledge. 2
As is the case when the same subject is discussed today, it’s doubtful that Mr Westell and his colleagues would have agreed on any definition of science, in particular a cogent description of evolution.
Mr F. M. Gladwell made several points about the practical benefits of Christianity’s Gospel outreach through missionaries throughout the world which of course is based on a biblical understanding that we are all descendants of Adam and Eve and that we all need salvation.
He also pointed out that, for example, science had nothing to do with the abolition of slavery; people of faith like William Wilberforce and John Newton in particular pushed to end that abhorrent practice.
Mr Gladwell made a telling observation about the impact of what is taught in schools, no doubt drawn from his experience as a teacher.
It had been proposed, he said, that if science was “taught in the schools they would do away with much of the evil that at present existed”. From personal observation he said that was not the case.
“Scientific men wanted them to take science as their guide, but it would be a poor guide,” he said.1
Mr J. Tomlin proposed that religion plus science helped countries such as England and Germany to prosper but, in a very odd conclusion, saw the rise of science as leading to the revival of learning and, therefore, as the catalyst for the Reformation. Nothing could be further from the truth, as Peter Harrison showed in his book The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science.3
During the debate, and in contrast to Mr Tomlin, Mr J. Morley rightly connected the rise of science in England and Germany with people having the Bible to read for themselves. He also said science could never be such a power in the world as religion was because science was an ever-changing quantity.1
Mr Morley was partly right and partly wrong in this observation. However, he can be forgiven for not having predicted the rise and extent of evolutionary indoctrination. He was right though to point out how science changes as knowledge increases. It is not that the information was not there 100-plus years ago, it’s just that we now better understand so much more as a result of scientific inquiry.
The conflict (so-called) between science and religion is that evolution views all data by first assuming that evolution is true and rules out, a priori, any other explanation. That’s plainly dogmatic science. Of course, the only other explanation is special creation.
Mr F. W. Dunham noted how humans also used scientific advancements to produce weapons used in wars. He was not to know at the time that an atomic weapon would be built and used for mass killings but, nevertheless, pointed out the dangers of misusing scientific knowledge.
Mr G. W. Simmons acknowledged the role of science and the good it had done, particularly in helping to alleviate suffering. He also astutely noted that humans had an in-built desire for happiness, something which he attributed to the Creator.
Scientific knowledge, when examined with a starting point of special creation, particularly as articulated in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, does make sense. In other words, when we look, for example, at enormous fossil graveyards that contain animals that died together but did not live together, it is reasonable to assume that a catastrophic flooding event could have caused such mass extermination.
Noah’s Flood was a worldwide, catastrophic flooding event and the fossil graveyards we find are best explained with a known, historical occurrence that was written down for future generations. Add to that the existence in various cultures of flood “legends” and the evidence positively builds for the biblical account that this was a real historical event.
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