Noted scientist and best-selling novelist Alan Lightman, a Memphis native, asks what are the boundaries between science and religion, the two greatest forces that have shaped human civilization. What are the different kinds of knowledge in science and in religion? And how do we come by those different kinds of knowledge? Members of the Faith in Memphis panel respond.

On the way to appreciating the kind of knowledge that religion produces, we might consider, briefly, the kind of knowledge that math produces. Math, we presume, produces an empirical kind of knowledge, a kind of knowledge that is rooted in a shared reality, since math is merely the symbolic description of what really happens in the real world. “2 + 2 = 4″, then, is a mathematical kind of knowledge, because the logical premises of the mathematical expression correspond with arrangements of quantities that we can all reproduce readily with bananas, automobiles, and one-legged dogs.

But math is not so straightforward. What is the square root of negative one? The math we learn in elementary school says there is no such thing. It’s like Santa Claus. You can say there’s a square root of negative one, but you’d just be saying.

On the other hand, saying that there is a square root of negative one makes possible all sorts of things we call “knowledge”. The electrical wiring in our houses and the computer hardware that we use to write interrogations of epistemology depend on saying that there is a square root of negative one. “Imaginary numbers” — that’s what mathematicians really call things like √-1 — lie at the root of a kind of knowledge on which we all, collectively, depend.

Marcus du Sautoy, a real-life, Oxford University mathematician, says this about √-1: “We could have said, ‘this number doesn’t exist’. But we say, ‘no, come on, let’s imagine something that would work.’” Imaginary numbers exist not to express what we have to think, but to express what we can think.

Imaginary numbers aren’t simply practical. Some mathematicians say that Euler’s Identity, which uses an imaginary number, is math’s most beautiful equation. They use that word, mathematicians do: beautiful.

And no wonder. There’s something about math — especially the math of imaginary numbers — that’s like art.

Religion, too, is like art. Religion, like poetry, like painting, like music, does not affirm what we have to think, but appeals to us through the ways it expresses what we can think.

Perhaps there’s a distinct difference between the knowledge that “2 + 2 = 4″ represents and the knowledge that “god exists” represents. If so, we might very well speak of different kinds of knowledge. But the concept of “knowledge” may be useless if it is infinitely divided into categories and subcategories that are distinctly different from each other.

Perhaps “knowledge” is one, and it arises from the uniquely human creativity of thought that we find in math and biology and epics and physics and sonatas and scriptures. When science, art, and religion really work, they don’t settle for what is, but similarly see what can be.

Noted scientist and best-selling novelist Alan Lightman, a Memphis native, asks what are the boundaries between science and religion, the two greatest forces that have shaped human civilization. What are the different kinds of knowledge in science and in religion? And how do we come by those different kinds of knowledge? Members of the Faith in Memphis panel respond.

I believe faith is necessary to yield a comprehensive synthesis in understanding life and the universe. Faith according to Hebrews 11:1 is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. The physical side of life is only one dimension of existence. In fact, without faith I believe it is impossible to fully explain scientific phenomena. For example, according to atomic theory and the law of electro magnetism the physical universe beyond the element of hydrogen does not make sense. Positively charged protons within the nucleus of an atom should repel each other causing the atom to split apart and hence, the resulting disintegration of the physical universe. The only explanation that I have found for this not happening is contained in Colossians 1:17, which states “… by Him (Jesus Christ) all things consist.”

On the other hand, faith that is only used to explain gaps in human knowledge is not faith. I agree with the theologian Paul Tillich, who wrote that “argumentum ex ignoratia” is a “weak and disgusting form of apologetics.”

In summation, historians divide the Middle Ages from the early Modern period by labeling the former the Age of Belief and the latter the Age of Reason. I would suggest that this is an artificial compartmentalization. For example, Saint Thomas Aquinas believed because he reasoned. Hence, he had a reasonable faith.

Noted scientist and best-selling novelist Alan Lightman, a Memphis native, asks what are the boundaries between science and religion, the two greatest forces that have shaped human civilization. What are the different kinds of knowledge in science and in religion? And how do we come by those different kinds of knowledge? Members of the Faith in Memphis panel respond.

From my perspective, there need not be a conflict between scientific knowledge and faith’s knowledge. For the latter, I prefer the word “wisdom” and see it as applying to the Christian faith’s experience of the nature of our human existence and the redeeming power of God’s Love in Jesus Christ. So, for example, the classic affirmation, “I know that my Redeemer liveth” is a statement from the experience of a believer that is not subject to the same kinds of empirical measurement we apply in science.

Noted scientist and best-selling novelist Alan Lightman, a Memphis native, asks what are the boundaries between science and religion, the two greatest forces that have shaped human civilization. What are the different kinds of knowledge in science and in religion? And how do we come by those different kinds of knowledge? Members of the Faith in Memphis panel respond.

Science and religion are human enterprises, twin siblings born from one of the defining characteristics of our species. Each proceeds from our insatiable curiosity. Science is the response to the question of how the physical world works. Religion is the response to the question of why we exist.

Science seeks facts, laws and principles that give us knowledge about the universe we live in. Religion seeks to discover what purpose or meaning lies between the dual reality of being born and having to die. Science addresses how life began and evolved while religion addresses what the good life consists of.

There is a difference between the kind of knowledge science presents and the kind of knowing that religion explores. Science establishes the facts about a tree while religion writes poetry about its beauty or uses it as a metaphor that points to the depth of human experience.

Science has a language and so does religion. We have evolved not only physically but also spiritually. We are homo sapiens but also homo religiosus, and I use the language of the spirit. The spirit is not a thing but it is real. The spirit is our capacity for appreciative awareness. It is the human ability to see, to feel, to hear, to understand, to discern value and quality. The spirit sees things in relationship and finally in right relationship. The life of the spirit leads us to recognize that our contentment or fulfillment must be found in a place beyond earning, deserving and rewarding. The life of the spirit calls us out from ourselves to a larger life—the abundant life, the meaningful life, the aware life, the moral life, the good life or the knowing life.

Science increases our knowledge about the connections of the physical world while religion helps us to understand the connectedness of our life. Knowledge as fact is different from the appreciate awareness of knowing. Both are essential to us. One talks about the how of material life, and the other talks about the qualities of the spiritual life like humility, compassion, love, and justice. There is the poetry of how (science) and the poetry of why (religion), and both serve the sense of Mystery in which we live and move and have our being.

Noted scientist and best-selling novelist Alan Lightman, a Memphis native, asks what are the boundaries between science and religion, the two greatest forces that have shaped human civilization. What are the different kinds of knowledge in science and in religion? And how do we come by those different kinds of knowledge? Members of the Faith in Memphis panel respond.

If science has knowledge about the physical world, what kind of knowledge does faith have?

Faith has knowledge about the metaphysical world in the form of (1) detailed descriptions of psycho-spiritual stages of development and processes of developmental advancement, (2) explanations of how people behave at various states of psycho-spiritual disposition, (3) power to predict, based on those explanations, how people will behave in given situations, both current and future, and (4) underlying principles of long-term developmental success (blessedness) or loss.

For example, Christ’s Sermon On The Mount gives us the beatitudes (“Blessed are…). The Qur’an gives us the three stages of the nafs (self or soul) and multiple behavioral descriptions of those who ultimately develop and those who ultimately end in loss. All of these things constitute psycho-spiritual knowledge which has also been referred to as “knowledge of self and others.”