The Limits of Science and the Unfinished Puzzle

“We are meaning-seeking beings,” writes physicist Marcelo Gleiser, “and science is one offspring of our perennial urge to make sense of existence.” The process of scientific investigation supplies methods to explore, discover, categorize and do some of the fitting.

But science is not our only source of knowledge. We must also consider the evidence given by Scripture. After all, the statement “In the beginning God made the heavens and the earth” seems to set the frame of the puzzle itself. Of course, to believe this is true—that, to put it simply, God is at the core of reality—is a matter of faith.

Science also has its own conditions of faith, but it’s a faith that limits access to some aspects of the puzzle. Depending on our own persuasions, we may discount one over the other, but both science and faith claim to bring clarity to the mystery of existence, and both provide their own angle and perspective.

Although this metaphorical puzzle encompasses all things and can seem chaotic and disjointed, it is, in the end, a unified whole. There is only one solution: we could call it the ultimate truth. Answers to our deepest questions—Why is there something rather than nothing? Why do I exist? Is this human experience for anything?—would come to light if we could complete the picture. Then we would know what is and why it is. The late cosmologist Stephen Hawking noted (tongue in cheek, because his faith was not religious) that understanding the big picture would reveal “the mind of God.”

A Unified Picture

In Navigating Faith and Science, Joseph Vukov, professor of philosophy at Loyola University Chicago, speaks to this goal of a unity of understanding. He also notes that we have mixed opinions concerning what we’ve found so far. Vukov recognizes that science and religion may not always agree about the details of certain puzzle pieces—evidence for the Big Bang, the origin of life or the age of the earth, for example. “But insofar as both pursuits are aimed at truth,” he says, “there can’t be any deep conflict between them. Any differences must be superficial, obscuring a deeper harmony.”

In the 1920s, American astronomer Edwin Hubble (1889–1953) used the telescopes on Mt. Wilson above Pasadena, California, to determine that the Milky Way was merely one of many galaxies. (Now we know there are billions, maybe trillions.) He later provided data pivotal to supporting the hypothesis that the universe is expanding. Like shaking more pieces out of the puzzle box, Hubble’s namesake telescope, along with its companion, the James Webb Space Telescope, continues to add new data points in searching out the mysteries of the cosmos.

Hubble once described how glimpsing what Vukov termed “a deeper harmony” differs from simply looking at star fields and doing calculations. In a small collection of his writings and speeches titled The Nature of Science, Hubble noted that, beyond a temporal view of the universe, an “eternal, ultimate truth” is also “earnestly sought.”

However, he continued, this cannot be discovered in data-diving or theorizing alone. It’s something more felt than seen, more intuited than enumerated. “Sometimes, through the strangely compelling experience of mystical insight,” he reflected, “man knows beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he has been in touch with a reality that lies behind mere phenomena.”

The problem for the scientist, Hubble explained, is that this experience is personal and therefore not subject to statistical analysis. “He himself is completely convinced, but he cannot communicate the certainty. It is a private revelation. He may be right, but unless we share his ecstasy we cannot know.”

“There is a unity in science, connecting all its various fields. Men attempt to understand the universe, and they will follow clues which excite their curiosity wherever the clues may lead.”

The sense that there is something more than meets the eye is a common experience that many people share. This “mystical insight” is subjective—as Hubble described it, a personal revelation. Although not quantifiable in an empirical, objective and therefore perfectly verifiable form (in contrast to a measured number of stars in a section of the sky, for instance), our experience is real, part of the reality of the human condition that points to a greater reality. As Solomon suggested, God has endowed us with a sensitivity that reaches beyond the mere physicality of existence. “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11, New International Version).

Although we may exist in the throes of the unfathomable, Vukov suggests that the tools of science and faith together can lead us forward. “Truth unites; it doesn’t divide. In short, insofar as science and religion both aim at the truth, they cannot be fundamentally opposed.” Thus, rather than being in conflict, each approaches questions of what, where, how and why from different vantage points—like jigsaw puzzle solvers working from opposite ends of the table.

Getting a God’s-Eye View

Theologians, Vukov continues, put this in a form called “the Augustinian thesis, the idea that ‘all truth is God’s truth.’” Regardless of perspective—theist, atheist or agnostic—we must all agree that there is one reality, that we exist within it, and that we desire to use all the tools possible to increase our understanding. The fact that we’re able to conjure up such tools as physics and mathematics, which together reveal physical truths about the world, is itself a kind of miracle. As physicist Eugene Wigner once wrote, “the enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious and . . . there is no rational explanation for it.”

That’s a puzzle in itself: How is a discipline developed for counting apples or measuring land also capable of describing quantum mechanics or relativity? Einstein put it this way: “The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.” Does the effectiveness of mathematics therefore hint at a deeper metaphysical or theological reality?

To social philosopher Steve Fuller, for one, it does. He argues that it’s because we are created in the image of God that our consciousness can engage with the cosmos. Early investigators such as Copernicus, Galileo and Newton were encouraged to continue their efforts because, Fuller told Vision, “[they] believed there was a God who created an intelligible order waiting to be discovered. For these guys the Bible provided clues to orienting their minds into the psychological profile of the scientist.”

“Science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgments of all kinds remain necessary.”

The idea that access to God’s creation and purpose comes via a spiritually inspired intellectual capacity is certainly intriguing. The apostle Paul seems to have made this same point when he asked, “Who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God” (1 Corinthians 2:11, English Standard Version). The view that human consciousness has a nonphysical component, and that there is a relationship between humans and God through that spiritual link, is certainly in accord with the Bible. But that profile of humankind, and the kind of overview it allows, is no longer incorporated into the framework of modern science.

The Faith of Science

The scientific method is not merely a series of steps, as we may have learned in science class. Rather, we can think of science as two broad processes. First, we collect facts through ever more finely tuned observations. Using myriad tools, we collect and classify, organize and analyze. Second, we try to find patterns and themes, creating theories and hypotheses concerning the causes behind the observed facts.

The scientist, like the philosopher, works to give context and explanation for the observations; a resulting theory provides a storyline that ties them together in a logical way. Both observation and explanation can be performed in either a neutral or a biased way. Science often claims neutrality, but being a human construct, it will often be weighted toward preconceived ideas. Theories are extremely important, but they may mistakenly lead us to see what we want to see rather than what really is.

“As long as we approach the world with imperfect human intellects, our knowledge will be partial and incomplete, even if truth itself is complete and unified.”

While the belief that God is the First Cause of all things still rings true for a majority of us, including many scientists, an approach called positivism now dominates the way science is done—science’s leaning or bias toward a natural rather than a supernatural explanation. It’s more than just a slight slant. Positivism assumes a completely physical approach to knowledge, an approach that seeks and can accept only natural causes for what we observe about nature. Neal C. Gillespie, emeritus professor of history at Georgia State University, defines the metaphysics of positivism as “the belief that all events are part of an inviolable web of natural, even material causation.”

According to Gillespie, the historical shift from the creationist view that Fuller describes to this positivist view dates to the late 1800s. The change restricted scientific investigation to secondary rather than first causes. A secondary cause can be thought of as a theory that unites a set of observations—a rule or explanation that describes why something happens and that predicts future findings. For example, the theory of gravity describes the speed at which things fall, while the cell theory predicts that all living things will be composed of cells. One could choose to believe such patterns were God-ordained or not. Either way, to be a scientist would entail leaving God out of the processes of observation and explanation.

The motivation for this was not atheism per se. The fear was that the lingering idea of God’s intervention, or miracles that broke the rules undergirding the observed world, would derail the scientific process. As Gillespie writes, attributing phenomena to unnatural sources “would be a constant threat to scientific generalization and prediction. Such a world would defy scientific investigation. The supernatural, the immaterial, another order of being penetrating nature but not part of it, made science (as the positivist viewed science) impossible.”

One must admit that this seems reasonable in the sense that it would be difficult to understand the world through its general rules if God just switched them on and off at will. Claiming that the laws that hold the universe together are indeed God’s laws, God’s inventions and evidence of His hand in creation (Colossians 1:16–17 and Psalm 90, for example) obviously did not deter the founders of the scientific era. But modern science turned to a different faith, a faith not in the reliability of God but in the certainty of physical laws.

American engineer and science administrator Vannevar Bush (1890–1974) noted this distinction in a 1955 essay. Bush was clear that the faith embedded in the positive naturalism, or materialism, of science concerns the laws of nature, not whether or not God exists. “For the scientist lives by faith quite as much as the man of deep religious conviction. He operates on faith because he can operate in no other way. His dependence on the principle of causality is an act of faith in a principle unproved and unprovable. Yet he builds on it all his reasoning in regard to nature.”

“Neither science nor faith need contradict the other; in fact, if one appreciates the essence of each, they can enrich each other in a person’s life.”

The Scientist’s Limited Playing Field

The boundaries of the field that science examines became limited to the physical, material world alone. God was out of place on the playing field of science. As one scholar put it, “to be an empiricist is to withhold belief in anything that goes beyond the actual, observable phenomena, and to recognize no objective modality [or nonnatural effects] in nature.” What you see is what you get.

Can creation then exist without a creator? Science must say yes by default, because science leaves God off the table. Scientists with an atheistic worldview often use this fact, combined with their faith in positivism, to argue “yes” unequivocally. They may go so far as declaring “science says” God doesn’t exist. But metaphysical positivism doesn’t demand this conclusion. It does mean, however, that scientific exploration and theory-making are going to operate as if He doesn’t. Even scientists who are also theists must toe this line.

“Science is competent to analyze the material universe in terms of physical, chemical, and biological properties, and that’s it,” molecular scientist Kenneth Miller told Vision. Miller, professor emeritus of molecular biology, cell biology and biochemistry at Rhode Island’s Brown University, has written several books over the last 25 years describing his religious convictions in relation to his work as a scientist.

“As a biologist I have spent much of my career analyzing the structure and function of biological membranes,” Miller noted further. “However, if I were to begin my research presentation at the American Society of Cell Biology meetings by stating, ‘From my laboratory work on the photosynthetic membrane I have discovered the meaning and purpose of life!’ I would surely be laughed out of the room. Considerations of meaning, value, and purpose are simply outside the realm of science, and I can guarantee that my colleagues at the meeting would be whispering to each other that ‘Miller is losing it!’ And they’d be right.”

They’d be right because scientists are expected to work within their limited perspective. It would also be overstepping for an atheist scientist to use his faith in scientism to attack the spiritual beliefs of others. For the scientist to insist that the only answer to the puzzle of existence is a secular one is what Miller calls “a lack of humility on the part of many scientists regarding the very clear limitations of science.”

When a conflict exists between science and religion, it’s rooted in the misunderstanding that either side has the complete instructions to finish the puzzle and therefore has no use for the other. Believing that our own perspective gives a superior view concerning every missing piece and where it should go is hubris. In this conflict, science morphs into scientism, and religion into fundamentalism. Both sides are then pitted against each other: faith against faith.

Even Richard Dawkins, one of today’s most outspokenly anti-God and anti-religion scientists, is not completely closed-minded. “My mind is open to the most wonderful range of future possibilities,” he said to Francis Collins in a debate published in Time magazine. (Collins, who led the Human Genome Project in the 1990s and oversaw the development of the COVID vaccine in 2021, is an evangelical Christian.)

“If there is a God, it’s going to be a whole lot bigger and a whole lot more incomprehensible than anything that any theologian of any religion has ever proposed.”

Aligning Our Faith

Just as Dawkins understands that there could be more to the story, Vannevar Bush also warned against putting too much faith in science and scientism. Bush noted this mistake in his 1965 Fortune essay, “Science Pauses,” at a time when science was in a heyday. Throwing off the stereotype of absent-minded boffins in white coats, scientists were now viewed as modern supermen. They could do almost anything, he observed, from harnessing the energy of the atom to even putting a man on the moon: “Just gather enough thousands of scientists, pour in the money, and the man will get there. He may even get back.”

Although the moon landing was ultimately spectacularly successful, Bush warned that we must be careful not to regard the technological success of positive science as evidence of all-knowingness. “Much is spoken today about the power of science, and rightly. It is awesome. But little is said about the inherent limitations of science.”

“In such moonbeams,” Bush continued, “there is a misconception about scientists and the nature of science.” One common error is thinking that all things are possible through technology. Yet Bush emphasized a deeper misunderstanding—that science can reveal all one needs to know about the universe or the human condition. “This,” he wrote, “is the misconception that scientists can establish a complete set of facts and relations about the universe, all neatly proved . . .” (emphasis added). Scientific knowledge by definition is never complete or proven; the scientific process can only give a best estimate of what is and how it happens to be this way. The conclusions are always contingent and subject to revision as new data is collected. Bush cautioned against making the mistake of imagining “that on this firm basis men can securely establish their personal philosophy, their personal religion, free from doubt or error.”

This means that neither the scientist nor the rest of us should cling to the materialism of science as providing the only answers concerning life’s puzzles. It doesn’t merely imply that the door is still ajar for God—that “gaps” exist to squeeze God into. There remains a spiritual dimension to understanding that has never really gone away. It is reasonable to say: “Through faith we understand that the worlds came into being, and still exist, at the command of God, so that what is seen does not owe its existence to that which is visible” (Hebrews 11:3, Weymouth New Testament). Other Bible versions translate “came into being” as “ordered” or “framed.” God set the parameters of what is: He created the image on the box as well as the reality.

Fanning the flames of a battle between scientism (those who have faith that science has all the answers and access to all the pieces of our metaphorical puzzle of life) and fundamentalism (those who have faith that their interpretation of Scripture is absolute, that they know the nuance of every piece, seen or unseen) is to no one’s benefit.

Are we voluntarily blinding ourselves to some aspects of reality? We are when we make the mistake of believing that science has all the answers. Can the puzzle be solved? Of course, but not without the humility to realize our need for God’s insights to reveal the critical pieces.

At some future point, the harmony that eludes us will come into view and there will be agreement; the flames of conflict will be extinguished. The unsolvable will be solved; the picture will become clear; all the pieces will fit.