Science and Religion 273confi dence that scientifi c investigation can provide theologically valuable
evidence has led the Anglo Australian physicist Paul Davies, author of
such books as God and the New Physics and The Mind of God: The Scientifi c
Basis for a Rational World, to assert that “science offers a surer path to God
than religion.”^43
Critics outside the community of self- described science- and- religion
scholars have inclined more toward maintaining the absolute indepen-
dence of science from religion. For the past quarter century the National
Academy of Sciences has defended the view that “religions and science
answer different questions about the world.” Whereas science asks about
how the universe operates, religion inquires into “whether there is a pur-
pose to the universe or a purpose for human existence.” The eminent pale-
ontologist Stephen J. Gould, an ardent scientifi c naturalist and sometime
president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
echoed this position in his book Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the
Fullness of Life. There Gould insisted that science and religion each possess
“a legitimate magisterium, or domain of teaching authority—and these
magisteria do not overlap.” In contrast to science, which deals with “the
empirical universe: what is it made of (fact) and why does it work this way
(theory),” the “net of religion extends over questions of moral meaning
and value.” Given this division of labor, Gould concluded that determin-
ing the relationship between the two “magisteria” presented the “great
nonproblem of our times.”^44
One of the attractions of the separate- spheres model for scientists is
that it gives them a monopoly in dealing with the world encompassed
in time and space while consigning religion to the more subjective and
private world of value and meaning. More diffi cult to understand is the
appeal of this position for a number of theologians and lay people osten-
sibly sympathetic to the cause of religion, such as Don Cupitt, Dean of
Emmanuel College, Cambridge. The controversial Cupitt, once dubbed a
Christian Buddhist, assigns science the role of “understanding and con-
trolling” the realm of natural phenomena and religion the task of generat-
ing “an order of meanings and values for us to live by.”^45
However they have described the relationship between science and re-
ligion, most modern intellectuals have joined their predecessors in assum-
ing that both enterprises possess distinctive elements and in exploring
their interrelationship. Most have also assumed that science and religion
provide valuable resources for fostering the full fl owering of human life
and society. The enormous popularity of books seeking to “reconcile” sci-
ence and religion would seem to suggest that many readers in the West