7

Kabbalah and Contemporary

Cosmology: Discovering the

Resonances

Daniel C. Matt

Relating Religion and Science

How can one interpret a religious text in the light of contemporary
cosmology?^1 Many would object to any attempt to integrate the
realms of science and religion, either because only one of them is
valid or because, though each is valid, the two should remain sepa-
rate. To a skeptical cosmologist, the biblical account of creation may
seem like a primitive folktale. To a fundamentalist who believes that
God created the world in six days in approximately 3761b.c.e., the
scientific debate over whether the big bang took place 15 or 13.7 bil-
lion years ago is irrelevant. More open-minded scientists and reli-
gious thinkers acknowledge the validity of the other realm of dis-
course but insist that the boundary between the two should not be
blurred: science deals with empirical facts and falsifiable theory,
while religion focuses on the meaning of life and moral values.
My approach is different. I assume that science and religion
each offer different pieces of the puzzle of existence and human ex-
perience. Their approaches and language differ, but an intelligent,
undogmatic person can learn from both. There is no need to rule
out one or the other, nor to insist that the two systems remain her-
metically sealed. Science and religion can enrich one another. For
example, scientists can learn from religion how to cultivate a sense
of wonder. Believers can learn from science that dogma can become
stifling, that theories are provisional and meant to be questioned
and tested.
Look, for example, at how Jewish thinkers interpret the central