Adam Frank, The Constant Fire: Beyond the Science vs. Religion Debate (Berkley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2009), xi + 288 Pps., $24.95.
Emerson stated that the religion that is afraid of science dishonours God and commits suicide. Adam Frank, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Rochester and a regular contributor to Discover and Astronomy magazines, agrees with that assessment. Writing as an ‘evangelical’ scientist, Frank seeks to address the supposed confliction in the relationship between science and religion. His personal experiences serve as the motivation and foundation of this title. He admits to being profoundly inspired – perhaps even religiously – by his work within the sciences. His interior responses to the practice of science have led him to read widely in philosophy, religious studies and mythology, which is everywhere apparent in this volume. He largely argues that science and religion can both be sources of wisdom, and he sets this argument out in the nine chapters of the book now under review, some of which shall be highlighted in what follows.
No fan of the word religion, Frank tends to avoid it in this book, preferring rather to speak of ‘spirituality’. In this manner, one could say that he follows the lead of William James, as James focused upon the experience of spirituality more so than the experience of religiosity. Frank uses this experience of spirituality as the point of contact with science, an experience which often leads scientists to view their experiences with the world as ‘sacred’. He agrees, however, with Wilson’s characterization of science as being neither a philosophy nor a belief system per se (8). The term ‘sacred’ allows Frank to cut across specific religious delineations and get at the heart of what is meant by being ‘religious’. So, in using the term ‘sacred’, Frank is referring to the character of the experience, and not to any object beyond the experience itself. After all, both spirituality and science are responses to the world’s great mystery. The place that Frank begins his exploration of science as a spiritual endeavour is the narratives of mythology. An understanding of mythology as narrative, Frank deems it true, can help bridge the lacuna between (post)modern religious and scientific perspectives (12). He asserts that in view of the pressures we face as a species, humanity would do well to draw from both science and religion as sources of wisdom for skillful action. Moreover, by approaching science as a way to apprehend the sacred, its practitioners may no longer see it as a mere means to an end.
In chapter one, which chronicles the roots of the conflict between science and religion, Frank notes that at the beginning, science and religion had a passionate marriage with one another. However, in the late Enlightenment period, science established its own codes and norms for generating truth, which onset the separation of itself from the church. Chapter two covers the growing debate in the nineteenth century regarding science and design, highlighting the contributions of Paley and Darwin, respectively. Interestingly, Frank draws from Schleiermacher in chapter three in order to lay out his revisioning of religion and science as a pursuit of the sacred, noting that Schleiermacher highlighted the role of experience in religion. Frank is quite right in highlighting this fact; however, Frank does not acknowledge that for Schleiermacher religious feelings were specified as the “feeling of absolute dependence” on the deity (cf. The Christian Faith). Frank’s ‘oversight’ here cannot be overlooked. Chapter five catalogues various scientists – Goodenough and Newton for example – that have encountered science as an expression of spiritual existence. The fifth chapter elaborates on the title of the book, characterizing our response to the world’s beauty, elegance, and power as a constant fire, captured in mythology and narrative (109–111).
Part II explores the sacred narratives in science and myth. He notes that the narratives of cosmology connect us with what James would have called religious myths (145).Cosmology, he avers, was the first and most obvious domain where the intersection of science and myth became apparent (168). Part III transitions to the future, discussing the import of science, myth, and truth for the generations to come. In the epilogue, Frank summarizes his new perspective on science and religion, some points of which are worth noting. For example, warfare is not the only way to tell the story of science and religion, he contends. Further, religious experience is more important than doctrine when thinking about connections with science. Additionally, the existence or non-existence of transcendent realities is inconsequential to for science to be understood as a pathway to reveal the sacred. Science, in both its practice and fruits, can manifest hierophanies (i.e. awareness of the sacred). Lastly, he contends that the common roots of both science and religious in myth can support a global ethos for the application of science in the twenty-first century.
In sum, Frank argues that science and the spiritual endeavour emerge from the same elemental experience of the world’s sacred character. From that experience, an aspiration, the constant fire, arises to understand our predicament. Frank’s title takes the religion and science dialogue in new directions. While the book is atheistic – or at least agnostic – in terms of affiliation, the practice of science as told by Frank is spiritual. Highly recommended to graduate students in philosophy.
Bradford McCall, Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA