This essay is a continuation of three prior posts:
Genes, Genesis and God: Introduction
Genes, Genesis and God: Natural Genesis
Genes, Genesis and God: Cultural Genesis, Part I
Genes, Genesis and God: Cultural Genesis, Part II

As mentioned in the introduction to this series, Holmes Rolston does not explicitly describe how science and religion might come together in dialogue, however, I have culled out what I believe to be two important spaces for conversation. These include the following:

• Science and religion can meet in the recognition and appreciation of the build up of value over evolutionary and cultural history.
• Science and religion each represent an important part in the story of the genesis of value. Science represents natural history. Religion represents the emergence of culture.

A deepening of value has occurred throughout evolutionary history. According to Rolston, an advantage of Darwinian theory is that it has demonstrated that nature actually does have value: evolutionary science has discovered that nature is “red in tooth and claw,” while also discovering “the value in teeth in claws” (360). Biologists are witnesses to this value and to the amazing diversity of life on Earth. Rolston tells us that most biologists, including hard-core neo-Darwinists like E.O. Wilson and Daniel Dennett, are not immune to the spiritual force of nature; in Dennett’s words, ‘the world is sacred’ (362). Hence Rolston’s claim that the “secular evolves into the sacred” (Rolston 362). Ernst Mayr is even more succinct: ‘Most biologists are religious’ (362). Nature, however is not self-explanatory, and biology provides only partial insight into its value.

Rolston argues that religion, like science, arose in confrontation with nature. Its role is the “finding, creating, saving, and redeeming” of the sacred in the world, which perpetuates and perishes through the cycle of life and death. Religion, then, must be more than socialized; it must also be naturalized. Biology points us in the direction of value in nature, but religion must present a sacred account of human experience. It must share the truths it discovers about our very real encounters with the numinous. It must help us understand what makes life meaningful and worth living.

Works cited
Rolston III, Holmes. Genes, Genesis and God. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1999.

Photo: “Dialogue” by Doc Ross. copyright Doc Ross. New Zealand Photography.