SCIENCE AND MORALITY

Historical Perspective

Science is the product of humanity’s common quests aimed at solving the secrets of the realm of existence. In order to understand the evaluations aimed at understanding the relationship between science, religion, and morality, and to acquire a clear perspective looking toward the future, we can briefly summarize the historical background between religion and science, starting from the 17th century, which is considered the beginning of “modern science”:

Most philosophers accepted the existence of the moral system as it is, as a historical fact, without questioning it, and were not interested in its divine metaphysical reason or objective validity. Many tried to break the traditional understanding of morality within the moral system and attempted to make a supposedly reasonable, scientific, and non-religious definition. However, these initiatives only consisted of reducing the system to social and individual foundations, and everything done was to replace “God” with society or other things.

The person providing the greatest support to materialism was Charles Darwin, who rejected creation and put forward the theory of evolution against it. Darwinism brought a supposedly scientific answer to the question that atheists had been unable to answer for centuries: “How did living beings and humans come into existence?” It claimed that there is a mechanism within nature that animates inanimate matter and then derives millions of different species of living beings from it, and persuaded many people to this thought.

They thought that history and sociology were explained on atheist foundations by Marx and Durkheim, and psychology by Freud. Yet each of these views was demolished by the scientific, political, and social developments in the 20th century. New knowledge, findings, and conclusions in many different fields—from astronomy to biology, from psychology to social morality—fundamentally collapsed all the assumptions of atheism. However, their effects still continue and stand before us as an insurmountable wall.

Current and contemporary researches of the last 25 years have reversed all assumptions and thoughts of previous people, secular and atheist thinkers, regarding the Creator. Modern thinkers had imagined that science would reveal the universe to be even more mechanical and accidental; on the contrary, science has discovered that there is an unimaginably vast “grand design” in the universe. Scientific and technological developments not relying on and not emphasizing divine revelation have stressed man even more. Humanity has experienced two world wars in the last century and realized the destruction in the history of humanity up to now during this period.

Proposing a method taken directly from the Qur’an in understanding and explaining Allah, the Risale-i Nur does not examine the universe with a superficial gaze, like a scientist; but it offers methods for a scientist to study the universe on a “faith-based” foundation. While examining the patterns, color, and scent of a flower, it puts before us the perspective of mânâ-yı harfî (signifying-other) that will lead us to marifetullah (knowledge of Allah). It explains that we must reach from the artwork to the Maker (müessir). In reality, the universe is like a book waiting to be read. Just as a book shows its author, this book of the universe must likewise show its author. From this perspective, many things presented to us as “scientific truth” are evaluated as a “philosophical” perspective in the Risale-i Nur.

We must think of science and other fields primarily together with man. The existence of morality and the areas it governs have been talked about, developed, and discussed ever since man has existed. Morality and science are directly related to the human sphere of existence. Both offer norms aimed at human maturation. While morality sets forth principles aimed at human maturation in the spiritual sphere, science outlines the boundaries of material development. The common goal of both is to incorporate values appropriate to the human sphere of existence and to aim at elevating man. As long as man remained within divine norms, no problems arose in any field of life, including the fields of science and morality. Whenever humanity stepped outside this line, right then the fields of life were distanced from each other, and new areas of discussion were opened.

The priority problem that needs to be resolved regarding the relationship between morality, science, and religion is what the place of science and religion will be. Within this framework, it is seen that the data put forward by science and religion regarding the perception of existence have been subjected to divergence in the modern period within the development of human history; and a problematic point has been reached because the West’s evaluation regarding science is entirely matter-axis and excludes the beyond-matter.

Morality is an inescapable practice of life for humanity. Scientific knowledge—which is necessary for the interrogation of the realm of existence, the understanding of things and the names of Allah, and the analysis of the concepts of good and bad—simultaneously has an obligation to be moral. Because when we evaluate the bio-psycho-social structure of man within physical conditions, it will be seen that the continuity of his existence depends on his relationship with his Creator.

Individualization in this era where we experience freedoms rejects impositions coming from the external world. There is a need for the internalization of moral norms trying to understand the realm of existence. The effort of people to seek the truth will give meaning to science in this process. If scientific research wants to give meaning to the personal and social life of man, it must be in an effort that also investigates the meaning of the universe.

One of the biggest dilemmas of contemporary popular science is its distant stance toward the non-experimental. Diverse interpretations between persons and fundamental concepts of beliefs—which are as old as the period when the phenomenon of existence began to be questioned in human history—multiplied as experimental science became established, but became all the more an element of conflict. While carrying out existence interrogations on both a person-based and belief-based basis, man must be handled as a whole with his biological, psychological, and sociological dimensions.

The Meaning of Existence

The most important problem standing before the scientific world today stems from the interpretation in its view of events and the realm of existence. The Wise Qur’an explains the purpose of human creation in verse 56 of Surah Ad-Dhariyat with the following expressions: “And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me [li-yebudûn].” By the intent of “to worship” above, as we understand from the Risale-i Nur, the meaning “to know Me through the path of science” also emerges. The Prophet’s asking Allah “to teach him the reality of things” is important from this perspective. The emphasis in a hadith on the truth that “I was sent only to perfect good morality” likewise draws our attention to the relationship between learning the reality of things and good morality. The connection between those who know and those who do not know is presented to our view. Allah’s wanting to be known as a hidden treasure resulted in the creation of man. If the goal of creation and existence is the happiness of man and humanity through the way of knowing and recognizing Allah, this is also through keeping the individual’s forces such as intellect, lust, and wrath under control. And this is only possible with divine morality, since it is from a human phenomenon and fitrah.

Bediüzzaman Said Nursi tried to overcome the negatively perceived understanding between science and religion with his statement, “The light of the intellect is the civilizational sciences [fünun-u medeniye]; the radiance of the conscience is the religious sciences [ulûm-u diniye]. When they separate, bigotry is born from the one, and deceit and doubt from the other.” Thus, he tried to develop an understanding of science based on Tawhid (Divine Unity) and always looked at the universe with this eye. That is, without making a separation of religious science and physical science, both should be perceived as a whole, and the secret of the realm of existence should be solved thus. As we will understand from the conclusions to be drawn from these evaluations, while reading the universe like a book, one must never forget the author of that book. On the contrary, one must try to understand the greatness of the author through his book. As man’s knowledge regarding the book he reads increases, he will feel more responsible toward its author.

While discussing the universe, Bediüzzaman Said Nursi uses many similes such as “an exhibition,” “a field,” “a guesthouse,” and “a palace”; but his likening it to “a book”—that is, something to be read—is particularly descriptive of the Risale-i Nur path and method. It is stated that man’s effort to understand the universe should be directed toward reading and understanding these Names. Approaches other than this have no meaning. From this perspective, especially the researches of scientists into events and laws in the universe have failed to reach their primary goal; they have remained half-done, deficient, and even distorted studies. Because in these studies, the universe exists; there is a universe that is artistic, purposeful, and loaded with much wisdom in every part and piece. However, the existence of the owner of the universe is not drawn attention to; sometimes it is denied with an exact opposite view. Yet all researches concerning the universe can only point to the Divine Names (Esmâ-i İlâhiye) and be a mirror to it. They achieve their purpose when they introduce their Lord to people.

People have called the divine laws placed by Allah in the universe—which are also called “Sharia of creation” (Şeriat-ı tekviniye)—”nature” and brought the laws in nature to the forefront as the doer of deeds. Yet nature and events related to it are nothing other than the divine Sharia operating in the universe.

Since “knowledge” was taught to the first human on earth, it is understood that the primary source belongs to Allah; thus, it is seen that all kinds of discoveries, inventions, and findings of people are essentially nothing other than the unearthing by researchers of all already existing rules, doctrines, theories, and laws; of knowledge infused and spread all over the universe from the microcosm to the macrocosm, from atoms to galactic systems. The striking conclusion arising from this is: There can be no physical, chemical, biological, geological knowledge—in short, no knowledge whatsoever—outside of Allah’s knowledge. Even before Kepler was born, Kepler’s Laws were being applied and planets were revolving around the Sun at specific periods. Electricity existed before Edison. The marvelous, flexible, and harmonious equations of space-time dimensions were valid before Einstein.

Upon a group of students coming to him in Kastamonu and saying, “Introduce our Creator to us, our teachers do not talk about Allah,” Said Nursi tells them: “Every science that you study constantly talks about Allah with its own specific tongue and introduces the Creator. Do not listen to the teachers, listen to them [the sciences].” Attention must be paid to the address “with its own specific tongue.” As is known, biology in the most general sense means the science of living beings. Those working in this field can present their own interpretations, philosophical and ideological preferences to us in the name of the science of biology while examining the world of living beings. What we need to do is not listen to the biologists, but to the language of biology. While a biologist examining the same subject makes his examination a stepping stone to marifetullah, another scientist with an opposite approach can plunge into multiplicity (kesret) with a material view in what he examines and draw different results. The point that needs to be drawn attention to here is the evaluation of the biologist rather than biology. Yet “Every science constantly talks about Allah with its own specific tongue and introduces the Creator.” That is, the language of biology actually narrates Allah. While scientific morality requires this, pressures in the world of science tell us only about the artworks, not about the Creator.

The science of biology, taking into consideration only material values, evaluates and examines living beings as an object. It does not see the “Active Chooser (Fâil-i Muhtar)” behind the deeds. Yet, as clearly stated in many places of the Risale-i Nur, the Wise Qur’an evaluates life as the blending of matter and meaning, spirit and corpse. Today there is a branch of science dealing with the existence and structure of the spirit; biological knowledge put forward with only a material view cannot understand the human reality in this sense, and puts forward interpretations of its own.

For a scientist to be able to exhibit such an approach, he must possess features such as being free, possessing moral values, carrying a positive understanding, appreciating, being open to change, shedding prejudices, being a researcher, internalizing his knowledge, and protecting the sublimity of knowledge.

Science Develops with Freedom

Science develops in a free environment; and morality develops permanence and internality in such free environments. Various pressures in the world of science are the biggest obstacle to free science, especially in Turkey. A hadith stating that those who lose are people, those who win are those who know; those who know lose, those who internalize their knowledge win; and that they are on the verge of a danger, needs to be recalled here. Viewed from this perspective, periods where intellect is used, new ideas are produced, man questions existence, and moral norms are taken as basis are expressed in Bediüzzaman’s words as periods possessing the qualification of a “madrasah of thoughts [medrese-i efkâr]” as the “future [müstakbel]”; whereas periods where actions are taken not with intellect but with emotions, despotism, imitation, and bigotry become widespread in every field and force dominates are expressed as the “past [mazi]”. The scientist must reflect the main sources he benefits from and must not be a curtain to it.

Conclusion

The importance and impact of knowledge, and consequently science, in the development of humanity cannot be denied. Today we owe a significant portion of the civilization and common accumulations we possess to the development of scientific knowledge and the triggering of technology. Popular science, however, wraps itself with walls of doubt, coincidence, anxiety, selfishness, individuality, and hedonism. At the same time, the concept of morality—which cannot be thought of separately from man’s practical life—must not be allowed to degenerate in the grip of popular science’s captivity.

To the extent that knowledge cannot be moralized, morality is secularizing. Science containing mere secular concerns and a secular/hedonistic understanding of morality make people unhappy and insatiable. Science and wisdom—which are an effort of man’s quests regarding his own sphere of existence—have degenerated and gone off track to the extent they remained under the influence of materialistic understandings. This going off track affects other fields of life as well and shakes moral understandings. What needs to be done is to bring understandings that have exceeded boundaries back within boundaries. And this will be realized by returning to the sacred. Science, as an effort to understand existence, must descend to the essence of man and make sense of its moral foundations. It is not necessary to distance oneself from the sacred, but on the contrary, to approach it. Science—which directly has no language of its own, but is perhaps an effort to understand His works—will regain the moral foundations it lost to the extent it approaches Him.