The Double Refuge 🔬 Science & Mystery

Possible Explanations

To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible. —Thomas Aquinas

This aphorism gets at key differences between belief, disbelief, and doubt. For believers, the first part of the aphorism — To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary — has been true since the end of the late Classical Age, and continues to be true to this day. It suggests that faith doesn't need to be explained in any way — not by the logic of Augustine or Aquinas, and not even by a biblical chronology that starts in 4004 BC. In this lies the enduring quality of the statement: if it doesn't matter whether or not faith can be explained, faith can't be explained away.

The second half of Aquinas’ statement— To one without faith, no explanation is possible — is trickier to get at, and looks different depending on whether you’re an atheist or an agnostic. For most atheists, a scientific explanation for the meaning of life has not only become possible; it’s also become inevitable. Paradoxically, the scientific explanation — which historically has featured geology and astronomy, evolution and DNA — is almost an article of faith among atheists. This is hardly surprising, since science offers the most reasonable explanation we’ve got.

There will always be reason and the physical world, and there will always be ideas about everything that merges with or lies beyond that world. The aim of the double refuge is to make the connection between the two as easy and as enlightening as possible.

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While almost all atheists believe in science, not all scientists are atheists. Some are agnostics, and some are believers. This suggests the immense power of science and the scientific method. You can believe that everything comes together and has meaning, or you can not believe that. Science will remain the same.

While the scientific method is respected by theists and atheists alike, it’s closest to agnosticism: both share a radical sense of doubt and a perpetually open mind to all possibilities. For agnostics and scientists, proof is contingent on the moment and is always subject to further verification. The scientific explanation holds for now, but there might be another order of explanation. What that might be, no one can say. Religions, myths, science-fiction, and scientific theories hint at possibilities, but none of these are as solid as the scientific method itself.

Yet still, for double refugees the scientific explanation alone lacks a certain ils ne savent quoi. It speaks to the head and body, but has less to say to the heart and spirit. It’s powerful in terms of a coherent epistemology, but less powerful in terms of emotion, art, imagination, and meaning. It can never go beyond itself. To return to Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale,” it can never follow the bird’s song into the forest, rise aloft a mountain, and sweep downward into a new valley. It’s clearly the most reasonable explanation we’ve got, but many still wonder, Could there be more? 

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Next: 🔬Dante’s Journey

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