Why is the question “Is faith compatible with science?” even being asked? Because we live in an age where (at least in some circles) faith and science have seemingly been drafted into war with one another.
There are even books such as Jerry Coyne’s Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible (2015), in which science is championed as virtuous and religion is degraded as venomous. As the common argument goes, science is a reliable method to ascertain what is true by making claims based on testable facts and empirical study. Hence, science is objective and can be trusted to tell us what is really true—in fact, a healthy dose of skepticism fuels scientific growth and more rigorous explanations. Religion, on the other hand, makes unreliable claims based on “faith,” untestable speculations, or revelation. Hence, religion is subjective and cannot be trusted to tell us what is really true. Here, “just believing” blindly is regarded as a virtue, and skepticism is fervently suppressed. In other words, science is a sensible step into the light of day, while faith is a blind leap into a dark abyss. Cognizant of how this confrontation has been constructed, two burning questions become immediately obvious: (1) “What happens when we encounter a part of reality that cannot be tested or that science may never explain?” and (2) “What happens when religion makes claims that are verifiable and based on reliable facts?”
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