WORLD CONGRESS OF FAITHS: YOUNGHUSBAND LECTURE, 2020
An Indian Christian view of science and religion
by
David L. Gosling
Clare Hall
University of Cambridge
By profession a physicist, I have lived and worked in India for a number of years, during which I learned basic Sanskrit, and associated with members of the major Indian religions, namely the Hindu tradition, Islam and Christianity. All three of these traditions have manifested varying levels of knowledge and interest in particular aspects of science – notably astronomy, mathematics, medicine and chemistry – but it was not until the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that the full range of the sciences and the scientific method began to capture the imagination of educated India.
Not surprisingly, the Hindu majority were the first to take advantage of the floodgates of European knowledge which became available to them, especially after 1835 when English became the medium of instruction for higher education. Ram Mohan Roy, founder of the Brahmo Samaj, like Jawaharlal Nehru more than a century later, saw in science the vehicle which had enabled the foreign rulers to become politically powerful, and therefore wanted it for India. It was the third leader of the Brahmo Samaj, Keshub Chunder Sen, who almost became a Christian, who articulated the primacy of science most strongly:
Science will be your religion … above the Vedas, above the Bible. Astronomy, geology, botany and chemistry, anatomy and physiology are the living scriptures of the God of Nature. 1
The Hindu leaders of the so-called renaissance of the first half and middle of the nineteenth century were ahead of Muslims and Christians in their desire to advocate a scientifically credible version of their religion, but it is worth noting that educational institutions founded by Christians – and in at least one case, Muslims – enabled talented young members of all religious traditions to explore the frontiers between science and religion. Thus in 1844 an Indian Christian science professor, lecturing in Arabic at the Delhi College, originally a madrasa, not only left a mark on all his students, but managed to upset many of the traditional Muslim leaders in the city. 2 Colleges such as the Scottish Churches College in Kolkata were founded by Christian missionaries, but enabled outstanding thinkers such as Swami Vivekananda to incorporate scientific knowledge into their religious beliefs.
There was a Muslim renaissance similar to, but lesser than, its Hindu counterpart. It was based initially on the Delhi College, then what became Aligarh Muslim University. Muhammad Iqbal had a deep love of science and spoke enthusiastically of Einstein’s “new vision of the universe”. 3 Abus Salam, who became Pakistan’s first Nobel prizewinner in physics, was deeply religious, though a member of a branch of Islam which was controversial.
Indian Christians had no reason to embrace science for political purposes, and with a few exceptions, were slower to pay serious attention to it. As we have indicated, Christian institutions encouraged a freedom of expression which was conducive to scientific questioning, but Christians – both missionaries and local church members – also had other priorities, such as the need for social reform. Thus Alexander Duff collaborated with Ram Mohan Roy in removing some of the superstitions in popular Hindu practices, such as widow burning. Many Indian Christians subsequently maintained a high level of social commitment.
Indian responses to Darwinism in Europe were interesting, and raise questions about why Europeans reacted as they did. Extensive studies of Bengali and Urdu scientific and popular literature following the publication of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859 indicate that there was virtually no reaction to this mammoth event. This should not be surprising because Indian religious traditions assume a much closer relationship between human and animal life than in the West. But this raises questions as to why there was such a strong reaction in Europe – particularly England. Was it, as is often supposed, on account of a rift between the scientific and church establishments, or because of a popular revulsion at the notion of humans and animals having a common ancestry? In the 1860s Paul du Chaillu had discovered the first gorillas in Central Africa and many people disliked the idea that we and they share a common ancestry.
Some European missionaries believed that Darwinism was incompatible with biblical Christianity, but many Indian Christians did not agree, among them Pandipeddi Chenchiah, a south Indian lay theologian, who saw Christ as the fulfilment of the evolutionary process:
He is adi-purusha [first person] of a new creation … In Jesus, creation mounts a step higher … Jesus is the origin of the species of the [children] of God. 4
Where Chenchiah solved the problem of the relationship between God, humanity and the universe with the concept of evolution, Paul D. Devanandan, founder of the Christian Institute for the Study of Religion and Society (CISRS) in Bangalore, adopted a more empirical approach. In Samkhya thought purusha is the creative principle which operates on prakriti to produce the world. Devanandan believed that it is therefore ideally suited to convey the concept of human personality in a manner which does not draw unnecessarily sharp distinctions between God and the universe.
Devanandan believed that, correctly interpreted, religion and science need not come into any kind of conflict, but that the crux of their relationship hinges on the nature of the attitude adopted by religion to creation. M M Thomas shared many of the theological views of his predecessor as director of CISRS, and is credited with contributing “significant theological signposts for the emergence of Dalit Christian theology”. But Dalit Christians are primarily concerned with issues about social justice rather than what they perceive as more esoteric discussions between science and religion.
MM Thomas was an activist with a passionate concern for social justice. He played a major part in the work of the World Council of Churches, became the Governor of the north-eastern state of Nagaland, and might have become president of India, but for his untimely death in 1996. He was primarily concerned with a comprehensive Christian theology in which religious faith could relate to the social revolutions in modern, secular societies, including their scientific and technological components.
The discussions which occurred in 1930 between Albert Einstein and Rabindranath Tagore do not involve Indian Christians as such, but are significant pointers to directions which Indian Christian theology might take in responding to science. 5 These discussions were based on the manner in which Einstein and Tagore perceived reality. Thus Einstein proposed a realist conception of truth in terms of metaphysical realism, while Tagore tended to view truth more in terms of our personal appropriation of reality. But Einstein should not be seen as an archetypical spokesperson for science – Niels Bohr would have argued quite differently, And Tagore, essentially more a poet than a philosopher, does not represent any of the major Hindu schools of thought, though he was a significant part of the Hindu renaissance with its strong scientific leanings.
An important but much under-rated contemporary of Tagore was the Roman Catholic theologian, Brahmabandhab Upadhyaya, who in his earlier years was influenced by the Hindu renaissance reformers, especially Keshub Sen. Upadhyaya was an enthusiastic scientist and taught mathematics at St. Patrick’s school in Karachi. But it was in the area of religious philosophy that he made his most important contributions, opening up the way for a more positive and comprehensive understanding between science and religion.
Upadhyaya set out rational arguments similar to those of Thomas Aquinas designed to establish the existence of God. His understanding of God – “omniscient, omnipotent, spiritual First Cause, infinite in the sense that [God] … has ‘no parts’ ”, to which nothing can be added and from which nothing can be subtracted – is comparable with advaita Vedanta. 6 Thus, Julius Lipner concludes, he wanted to make his thesis “in accord with modern scientific thinking … to strengthen its cogency.” 7
How far can the natural light of reason penetrate the divine essence? Upadhyaya answered this important question in terms of an interpretation of the Vedantic conception of the nature of God as sat-cit-ananda (being, consciousness and bliss), and of the production of the world as maya. Most Christian theologians, especially in the West, have explored inter-faith dialogue with Hindus in terms of Hindu theism – Shaivism and Vaishnavism, for example. But Upadhyaya took the bull by the horns by relating to the more mainstream advaita Vedanta first proposed by Shankara (and very popular among educated Hindus during the second half of the nineteenth century).
Upadhyaya’s theological work was very much in line with attempts by the Roman Catholic Church to justify natural theology in terms of an appeal to reconstructed Thomism. The nineteenth century had seen attempts by positivists and idealists to challenge Christianity (especially in continental Europe) by claiming that only mathematics and the natural sciences can yield truth (eg via logic or verifiable evidence of the senses). In the light of such critiques the claims of natural theology are invalid. The Roman Catholic Church tried to counter this sort of empiricism with the kind of arguments adduced by the First Vatican Council (1869-70).
Upadhyaya paved the way for a philosophically credible understanding of natural theology within a framework that was still essentially Thomistic, but which also contained advaitic elements.
In recent years there have been a number of publications, mostly by Roman Catholic authors, attempting to commend Christianity in the light of modern developments in science. Some are published by the Association of Science, Society and Religion, an interdisciplinary venture led by Job Kozhamthadam, currently based in Delhi. There is also the Institute of Science and Religion at Aluva in Kerala. The publications by these and other Roman Catholic bodies are important contributions by Indian Christians to a mutual understanding between science and religion.
An Indian Christian view of science and religion was influenced by the events of the nineteenth and early twentieth century reform movements, primarily among Hindus. It lacked the unease which many Europeans felt about Darwinism and was often characterized by a strong sense of the need for social improvement. Theologians such as Paul Devanandan and MM Thomas encouraged Christians to participate in the social revolutions surrounding them, and where possible to contribute values for nation building. And Brahmabandhab Upadhyaya and his successors have built bridges between scientifically credible theological beliefs and mainstream Hindu philosophy.
Notes
1
Keshub Sen, Epistle to Indian Brethren, quoted in David L Gosling Science and the Indian Tradition: When Einstein met Tagore, Abingdon (Oxford) and New York, Routledge, 2007, p. 17.
2
David L Gosling, Ibid., p. 16.
3
Muhammad Iqbal, Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, quoted in David L Gosling, Ibid., p. 26.
4
Pandipeddi Chenchiah, editorial, National Christian Council Review 1943, quoted in David L Gosling, Ibid., p. 42.
5
David L Gosling, Ibid., p. 161.
6
Julius J Lipner, Brahmabandhab Upadhyaya: The Life and Thought of a Revolutionary, New Delhi, Oxford University Press (India), 1999, p. 111.
7
Julius J Lipner, Ibid., p. 114.
