What is Truth?
By Heidi Wyman
11-19-07

Truth, what does this word mean? Some people will tell you that truth relies solely on proof that comes from science or fact. Others will tell you that truth is what your traditional beliefs are. Webster tells us that truth is the body of real things, events and facts. Or is truth a compromise between science and faith /traditional beliefs. Throughout history we see many examples of conflict between the church and science over what is true. Even though many of these issues have been resolved, today there continue to be conflicts between religion and science.

In the scientific revolution from 1600-1800 (the Enlightenment), there were many conflicts between science and religion. One major conflict was between Galileo and the church over the Copernican theory. This theory stated that the earth revolved around the sun. Galileo took the position of supporting the Copernican theory. Galileo proceeded to build a telescope and is the first to use it in astronomy. He uses the telescope to observe the Milky Way, his observations lead him to believe that the Earth moves around the sun. The church however takes the opposing side supporting the traditional belief that the sun revolves around the Earth. The church supports this belief because it has always been the traditional church belief that we are at the center of the Universe and the Universe revolves around us. The Earth as the center had been accepted as the truth for hundreds of years. At first, the Pope compromises with Galileo allowing him to publish his findings in a book as long as he states that his work is only a theory and not proven true. Galileo took this opportunity and wrote a book called, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems that outlined his theory. Eventually this issue was resolved with the scientific evidence provided by Galileo. People accepted the proof of Galileo's work and eventually began to believe that the Earth revolves around the sun. Of course today, this is the accepted truth of the rotation of the galaxy.

A second area of conflict between science and religion during this time period was around the encyclopedia and the underlying concepts in the encyclopedia. The encyclopedia was the circle of teachings for the eighteenth century. It was a place for scientists and philosophers to

put their findings into one place where anyone could access the knowledge easily. The church reviewed the encyclopedia and were appalled. The church believed that the encyclopedia was giving people false information about them. One example of this comes from the Encyclopedia article on consecrated bread. This article states that, "some will find my estimate to low. Still 40,000 pieces of bread for communion will cost 80,000 livers which, multiplied by 52 Sundays adds up to more then 4 million livers. Why can't we be spared this experience? We are to childish and slaves to custom to see that there are more truly religious ways of worship." This of course infuriated the church and is one example of why they were opposed to the encyclopedia. Even though the church was against the encyclopedia, it was very popular in the general society. People liked the accessibility of knowledge and truth in one place. The church wanted to resolve this issue by condemning the volumes already printed, however the author and scientists were tipped off to the churches plans and were able to collect the manuscript and send it away to continue the work in secret. Eventually, Diderot completed twenty eight volumes and a second editor added seven volumes for a total of a thirty five volume encyclopedia. This issue was eventually resolved by the church not fighting the publishing and spread of the encyclopedia. The editors and scientists did not back down or stop publishing their ideas, studies and opinions that were eventually accepted by many people. In 1775, Charles Joseph Pankoucke gained the rights to reissue the encyclopedia in.


The conflict between science and religion is still seen today in many ways. One current issue is the conflict between the story of creation and Evolution. The religious belief is that God created the world, mankind and all living things in seven days. The church believes this because it is written in the first five books of Genesis and it is their tradition. Scientists believe in Evolution, a theory proposed by Charles Darwin which stated that "we came into existence through a process in which organisms adapt to their environments by natural selection or interactions of their genetic makeup with the existing environmental conditions." Natural selection and changes in genetic makeup cause species to change and develop as they need to constantly improving and adapting over long periods of time. Scientists believe this theory based on fossil record and the research done by Charles Darwin on the Galapegos Islands. All of his research provided evidence and proof for the theory of Evolution. This conflict has not been resolved and I believe that it will never be resolved. There will always be religious people who rely totally on faith, people who will not be open minded to physical scientific evidence. Though there have been no solutions for this issue, there have been many proposed compromises but only two commonly known. The first is the belief that evolution and the creation story can both be true. There are those that believe that the seven days that it took for God to create the world as described in the bible are not seven days as we know them to be. The seven days from the story represent a longer period of time such as eons which will allow both the creation story and evolution to exist together. The second compromise, is the theory of intelligent design. This theory states that various forms of life began abruptly, through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact, such as fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks and wings. This theory is not as accepted as others because it is inferring that God is the intelligent agent and is just another copy of the creation theory. This issue is not currently resolved but the minds of society may be changed if more evidence and proof is discovered.

Another modern disagreement between religion and science is about stem cell research. The religious belief is that an embryo has life as soon as it is fertilized. On the other hand, scientists believe that a cluster of cells that is only five days old in not yet life. They believe that it is a pre-embryo, a cell that can not live on its own. The churches belief/position is based on their belief that taking any life is morally wrong. They believe that these embryos have the potential to become human beings so it is wrong to use them in research. The scientists position is that this cell is only five days old and does not have any way of living on its own. They also see that the cell is not guaranteed to develop into a living organism. In this situation, science faces impediments with stem cell research. The primary impediment is that there are laws forbidding stem cell research. On two occasions scientists and researchers have tried to pass legislation to allow stem cell research but each time have failed. However, since there is still an interest by scientist to proceed with stem cell research the issue is not resolved. Scientists continue to propose different compromises that abide by the law.

There are many similarities between the scientific time period of the Enlightenment and modern conflict between science and religion. First, in both times the conflicts were to determine who had the actual truth. Both parties believe that they had/have the truth then and now. Secondly, the way we resolve the issues in the past are similar to how we will eventually resolve modern issues. The issues in the past were resolved with time, knowledge and evidence. We will find resolutions for the modern issues using the same three factors. Based upon historical conflicts between religion and science my prediction for the resolution of modern conflicts will be very similar. Most of the conflicts from the past have been resolved using science and the proof provided by science. Science and scientists have been the ones who have held the truth and proven that truth with evidence and observations that you can not deny. You can see that the modern conflicts between religion and science should follow with the same resolution with science eventually providing evidence and proof to show what they had hypothesized was the truth.

Although these two time periods have similarities in the conflicts between science and religion there are also differences. First, current scientists do not have to worry about being excommunicated from the church. Scientists in the 1600-1800's worried about the church banning them. Galileo gave up on his findings in fear of being banned from his church. Secondly, with modern conflicts we have more technology and freedom to prove scientific theories true. During the Enlightenment, they had to invent technology that was used to gain scientific knowledge. In modern times, we have a huge amount of technology available to use at anytime. A third difference from the Enlightenment conflicts and modern conflicts is the churches power. In the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, the church had the power to stop the spread of knowledge, such as Galileo's finding and the encyclopedia. In modern conflicts, knowledge is not restrained by the church. It is easily accessible to anyone who would like to have it. You can post your ideas, beliefs and scientific theories online and in book found all over. No one has the power to restrain information.

You may still be wondering how you determine truth? The answer to this question is not what is actually true but what your belief of truth is. Do you believe that truth is something you can see and prove? Or do you believe that truth is based solely on your faith in something? With religion, you have your faith and the teachings from the bible to defend your idea of truth. With science, you have an abundance of proof and evidence to defend your idea of truth. Religion is based solely on the bible, when looking at evolution religion looks to the creation story in genesis, a story that you have to put your faith into to think that it is true. For a scientist to believe something is true they have to go through a process. The first step to this process is to take observations and then collect evidence from their observations. The next step is to create a hypothesis explaining their evidence. The scientist then designs a plan to prove or disprove their hypothesis. The test is then conducted and if their hypothesis is incorrect they must go back to step two and create a new hypothesis. If their hypothesis is correct the scientist published his finding for other scientists. If other scientists can conduct the same test and get the same results, the information is published for everyone. This is called the scientific method. This is a precise way of finding the truth, you have to prove something with evidence and you have to prove it more then once. Many of the conflicts between science and religion are solved using proof and evidence from science. In the end, I can not tell you what truth is, I can tell you what I believe truth to be but each person has to determine what their own truth is going to be.