Science and Religion . . . Again

The LA Times has had two point/counterpoint pieces written by Michael Shermer, the publisher of Skpetic, a magazine, and a contributor to Scientific American, and Francisco Ayala, a biology professor at UC Irvine, member of the US National Academy of Acience, and a recipient of the US National Medal of Science in 2001. The first piece I saw was on the relationship between science and religion, using Stephen J. Gould's understanding of science and religion representing two different, but not conflictual, magisteria. The link to it is: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-oew-ayala-shermer30-2009jul30,0,1435073.story

Shermer concluded his piece with these words:
In conclusion, I go so far as to conclude that there is no such thing as the supernatural or the paranormal. There is only the natural, the normal and mysteries we have yet to explain. God is a mystery, and the God of Abraham may very well be an eternal mystery for the simple reason that any god explicable through science and the laws of nature would, by definition, lose the status of supernatural and enter the realm of the natural. A god definable by science is not a god at all.

Here is Ayala's conclusion:
Just as many other religious authorities have said, Pope John Paul II put the matter correctly when he asserted that the "Bible itself speaks to us of the origins of the universe and its make-up in order to state the correct relationships of man with God and with the universe. ... Any other teaching about the origin and make-up of the universe is alien to the intentions of the Bible, which does not wish to teach how heaven was made but how one goes to heaven."

I do agree with you, Michael: A god definable by science is not God.

There are many who would use the Bible as a science textbook and conclude that any discovery by modern science that contradicts their understanding of the teachings of the Bible is false. I feel they are wrong to use the scripture in that way. I take scripture very seriously. Scripture illuminates great truths about the reality of humanity and the relationship between the human and the divine; it does not, though, teach us biology or cosmology or physics. Nor should we try to make it do so.