8

The Complementarity of

Science and Religion

Harold H. Oliver

Ge ́rard de Vaucoleurs published a popular account of astronomy in
which he stated that man was an infinitesimal speck on an insignifi-
cant planet revolving around a garden variety star in a spiral arm of
a galaxy in a small corner of the universe. When the Basel theolo-
gian, Fritz Buri, became aware of these words, he replied: “Man is
the astronomer,” thus reminding us that science always has a hu-
man face. All cosmological theories are human creations. Some phi-
losophers would say the same about religious symbols. It is about
the nature and scope of science and religion that I wish to write,
specifically, about the complementarity of science and religion.
The late Alfred North Whitehead, pioneer in the philosophy of
science, will be long remembered for his twofold claim that “science
and religion are the two strongest general forces which influence
[humanity]” and that “it is no exaggeration to say that the future
course of history depends upon the decision of this generation as to
the relations between them.”^1 While he did not offer a scheme of
their relationship through time, as others have done, he insisted that
we must distinguish genuine science from pseudoscience and in-
formed religion from superstition. Several published schemata of
the relationship between science and religion have appeared since
his time, one of which I first suggested in an article in 1978.^2 So far
as I can tell, this was this first time anyone made the notion of “do-
main” essential to the schema. According to the “domain” theory,
science and religion are either about the same or different domains.
These claims further subdivide as follows: science and religion say
the same things about the same domain, or they say different, possi-