the complementarity of science and religion 157of theories brings us “closer and closer to the truth.” This optimism is not
shared by all, for how can one say that we are moving closer to the truth without
knowing what the truth is? I prefer to say that scientific theories add new
features to our experience. Einstein’s general theory made us look at the uni-
verse in a different way, and there is no going back. This is not to say that
general relativity is true. The theory is rather, with all of its shortcomings, what
passes for our understanding. It has come to be what Thomas Kuhn calls
“normal science,” and will continue to function in that way until some more
comprehensive theory of gravity prevails.Religion and Truth
So far, some of our discussion of scientific “truth” has assumed that truth is
the right term for the actual state of affairs. We were cautioned by Heisenberg
that the observer and the observed are not to be conceived as “subject and
object,” that there is a more unified way of conceiving of physical reality. It is
in quantum theory that physicists have become quite philosophical in speaking
of relationality. Some philosophers of science have yet to conceive of the ques-
tion of truth in the physical sciences taking this fully into account. Whitehead
is a notable exception to this indictment.
When we turn to a consideration of religion and truth, we must make
every effort to avoid the subject-object model. When this has not been done,
religious conceptions are conceived as “external” to the believer. The time has
come to think of religious truth in a relational way, because this way is most
compatible with religion itself. The believing self is not a subject-self over and
against an object-God. A quotation from Whitehead’sProcess and Realityis
worth noting in this regard:^44
Consider a Christian meditating on the sayings in the Gospels. He
is not judging ‘true or false’; he is eliciting their value as elements
in feeling. In fact, he may ground his judgment of truth upon his
realization of value.
All of the world’s great religions equate believing and knowing, but the
knowing is not of the subject-object kind. Religion is an iconic way of mani-
festing the relationality that lies at the root of all experience, as I have argued
throughout this essay. Relational metaphysics is the notional form of the same
insight. As an iconic manifestation of relatedness, religion emphasizes com-
munity over individualism, altruism over self-interest. It is, as Whitehead said,
“the vision of something which stands beyond, behind and within, the passing
flux of immediate things; something which is real, and yet waiting to be real-
ised.”^45
Religion is a primal knowing which is easier to illustrate than to define.
The finest contemporary example of which I am aware appeared in an inter-