Islam and Modern Life — Page 3
3 The Historical Relationship Between Religion and Science Now in one sense the problem is one of degree and not of kind. It is not of kind inasmuch as reduced to its simplest factors, as it is useful and wise always to do so with complicated problems. It is the question of the application of power. And therefore, as I said it is a problem of degree. It is not a problem which is new in the field of ethics or in the field of the spirit. So, through the ages religion has been the principal source of the determination and of the provision also of moral and spiritual s tandards and values. And therefore, it is to religion that people first turn when the question of the adequacy of moral and spiritual values and standards arises. And this problem in its essence, though in its primitive stages as it were, arose almost as s oon as man began to apply his mind to the discovery of the operation of the laws of nature. And it was very early assumed, though we believe wrongly assumed, that there was a conflict between religion, or if you choose to put it so, between revelation and science. And for a long time, and still during the time when we were, our generation was at school and college, religion versus science used to be often a subject of debate. Why did this conflict arise? And why did it become so sharpened in men’s minds? The conflict arose because it was assumed that religion not merely furnished standards and values