Bertrand Russell on the fusion of science & religion

Russell, Bertrand. The Scientific Outlook. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1954 (based on 2nd ed., 1949; 1st ed, 1931).

In Chapter 4, "Scientific Metaphysics", Russell notes that science is losing confidence in itself, in its grip on objective reality, hastened by the conundrums of the new physics. Russell is unhappy with Arthur Eddington's account of physics and thinks his prediction of the ultimate death of the universe will undermine faith in science, belying Eddington's optimistic tone. Russell himself is possessed by a skepticism that denies the unity and lawfulness of the universe. This development is welcomed by partisans of religion. Russell finds a bifurcation in two notions of science, one as metaphysics, the other as practical utility. Practically, science is advancing even while faith in its metaphysical foundations is weakening. Russell has his own doubts about the reality of the external world, but what is not justified is the retreat to religion on the part of James Jeans. The former quasi-religious status of scientists as a priesthood of religion is giving way to a new timidity on the part of scientists.

Chapter 5 directly addresses the question of "Science and Religion". Scientists themselves are returning to religion in face of World War I and the Russian Revolution. Russell dismantles attempts to link quantum mechanics to the rehabilitation of free will. Eddington, for example, is guilty of this. Jeans, on the other hand, argues that God is a mathematician. Russell makes short shrift of this notion and ultimately finds it a rehash of old theological arguments, which do not pass muster from the standpoint of the fundamentally naturalistic basis of science.  Russell also has a few words to say about Lloyd Morgan's idealistic notion of emergent evolution.

Russell's own indulgence in skepticism--although briefly in these two chapters--does not significantly detract from his demolition of the merger of science, religion, mysticism, and idealism, perpetrated by scientists themselves. We should also remember that Russell's erstwhile colleague Alfred North Whitehead, author of process philosophy, also took up the cudgels of idealistic metaphysics. (Not a word is said about Whitehead in this book, though I think we know what Russell thought.) This development shows up the ineluctable duality of bourgeois thought, as it vacillates between positivism and irrationalism. World War I was indeed a watershed, which generated a peak in the merger of science and mysticism among the intelligentsia in the 1920s. Yet this was minuscule compared to what followed in the wake of World War II, with the explosion of New Age thought, beginning with the Beats, then the counterculture of the '60s and '70s, and finally the yuppification of the New Age bringing it back to where it belongs among the affluent, the privileged, and the comfortable.

E. Haldeman-Julius on science vs. mysticism

"An accurate definition of a mystic is one who believes that he can reach truth intuitively; that he can reach truth within himself without reference to man's experiences; that he has mystical power to reach in himself and achieve what he would call truth; while the realist, of course, follows the scientific method of laboratory tests, scrupulous regarding of every fact and very careful observation. They are two separate mentalities, two hopelessly different personalities, and I can't imagine a good scientist permitting himself to become a mystic, though there are a few, and the few mystical scientists are those who are giving such comfort to the theologians; men like Eddington and Millikan, who are very good physicists, who are men of science in their own laboratories, but when they step out in the arena of philosophical thought they utter ideas that would pass for pretty good coin among the fanatics in a Salvation Army band. I think I am speaking pretty literally, because some of their arguments are the same arguments used on the street corners. In Eddington's latest plea before the Society of Friends in London, just a few months ago, and of course for that reason more important than his book, 'The Nature of the Physical World,' that he wrote about three years ago, he says that the reason the religious idea is sound is because there is proof of it in man's experience, man has experienced religion, he has experienced God, therefore it is true. Well, according to that, same logic, the poor moron who gets up on the street corner and gives his testimonial is scientific and it is absolutely right and everything that he says is true, every philosophical point that he is bringing out must be so, because he says he has experienced it; and that, of course, is mysticism. Eddington does not reach that conclusion through scientific means. He does not take the same methods that he used in his laboratory, to bring out that idea. He just simply reaches down into his insides and intuitively reaches that opinion, and I leave it to any reasonable person that it is completely without validity."

SOURCE: Is Theism A Logical Philosophy: Debate between E. Haldeman-Julius and Rev. Burris Jenkins, April 13, 1930.