“No animal may continue to exist, no bird fly in the air, or insect roam at will, except by the will of man. He now chooses which trees, plants and grasses are useful to him at present, and eliminates the remainder. Modern medicine keeps alive the unfit, who would not have survived under the natural conditions where mankind evolved from lower forms of life, and allows them to breed. This control of all life on the planet throws a very great responsibility on the shoulders of mankind. Unwise action, whether in ignorance or deliberate, could result in irretrievable harm. Only increasing knowledge can ensure that man’s mistakes are few, and this can come only from researches in the basic sciences.”
These are the words of Sir Mark Oliphant, one of Australia’s greatest scientists, as he surveyed the awesome possibilities now before mankind. He was arguing that we have for too long put up with the idea that there may be two cultures, a scientific culture and one more closely connected with the humanities. His thought is that this will not do for the needs of our day. Unless there is a greater willingness all round to see life as one whole, we will be in trouble.
This is, of course, a position that many Christian thinkers have also been arguing for a long time. They have been pointing out that on New Testament premises it is not possible to confine one’s Christianity to any one part of life. Either Christ is Lord of all we do and are or we have no real claim to be among his followers. All of life is God’s.
Sir Mark is not writing as a Christian apologist. He is a man of science, and he sees the dangers in which we stand with frightening clarity. Man is supreme over his environment, holding in his power the fate of birds, animals, trees, plants, grasses, and more. He has already altered the face of much of the earth, with his destruction of forests, creation of dust bowls, building of dams to form artificial lakes, and much more.
But man’s activities are now at the point where he is endangering large sections of animal life and himself as well. The horrible consequences of pollution of the environment are becoming plainer and plainer. And the threat of a nuclear holocaust hangs as a grim shadow over all that man does.
Most of us pay little heed to all this. It is outside the range of our knowledge. We differ from men in earlier and simpler ages when to know all knowledge was a legitimate aim. Leonardo da Vinci could be an outstanding expert in several fields and feel that he had not overlooked any really significant area of human knowledge. And, while lesser mortals did not quite reach that pinnacle, they yet thought it quite natural that their studies, of whatever sort they were, should extend over a variety of fields. In principle all knowledge was open to everyone.
This is no longer possible. In our age of increasing specialization, when an expert knows “more and more about less and less,” most of us are quite reconciled to the fact that we will never know anything about quite large areas of knowledge. Our men of science must spend so much time on science that they normally find little to spare for becoming skilled in any of the humanities. A few especially gifted persons manage this. But most accept the fact they never will.
So with our men of letters. In principle they might well hold that they should know something about science. But they tend to be deterred by the difficulty of entering the scientist’s kingdom. To get a real grip on any science seems to require so much time and so much detailed knowledge that our experts in the arts simply decline to make the attempt. They extend their range of knowledge and activity to disciplines other than their own in the endeavor to avoid a narrow specialization. But they beg to be excused from coming to grips with science.
The result is that, whatever our theory, we are building up two cultures. A few brave souls are trying to bridge the gap, but by and large we go our several ways and become either scientists or students of the humanities. And this is only the first of our divisions. Our technicians may take no interest in science, and many of us simply live out our lives for our own enjoyment without taking seriously either the humanities or the sciences.
In this situation there is the danger that we will drift into ever wider destruction. We have done this before. Most of the pollution of our environment has been accidental. We have not set out deliberately to ruin our world. We have simply found out how to do something, for pleasure or for gain, and have been no little surprised to find that when we have done it we have harmed our surroundings.
But now, as Oliphant reminds us, the potential for disaster is much greater. Any species in this whole wide world is at man’s mercy. Not evil intent but simple carelessness can cause incalculable destruction.
It is time we took stock of our situation. Oliphant’s counsel is that our scientists should know more of non-scientific aspects of life, and that politicians and others should know more of science. In this way we will all act more responsibly. And who knows? If we take action soon enough, we may yet be in time to save life on our planet.
There is undoubtedly something in this. Our too ready acceptance of a dichotomy of knowledge is dangerous. Granted that none of us any longer can become an expert in more than one field, there is nothing to stop us from becoming intelligently informed about what others are thinking and doing. We can recapture some sense of the wholeness of life, and so make a contribution to survival.
This is an area in which Christian men should have something to say. We are usually quick to denounce the scientist who intrudes into the field of religion with theologically naïve pronouncements. But we are not nearly so apt to be informed enough scientifically to speak to our scientific brothers. The theologian must earn his right to speak to the scientist.
And the word he must speak is that knowledge is not enough. We cannot act sensibly without knowledge, it is true. Anything our scientists can contribute to our understanding of ourselves and our environment is to be welcomed and used.
But we do not need profound theology to know that up till now men have not acted rightly simply on the basis of knowledge. An elementary acquaintance with history is all we need to make that clear. If there is to be one culture and if we are to live the harmonious life rather than the disjointed one, there is need for a right religious faith in that culture and that life. It is still the case that if we try to live without God, we lack an essential dimension.
