When the simplest and most sensible interpretation of Evolution is a religious one, it means that religion is carried into every nook and cranny of everyday life. Gravity and the exploration of the heavens and its galaxies, atomic physics and the wave-mechanics and the quantum-mechanics, are the foundations of science; but the heart of science is the exploration of life, and that means Evolution rather than the mere mechanics of living. So if the simplest “explanation” or interpretation of Evolution is a religious one, it means that religion goes to the heart of all science. And this is only what you would expect in a God-created world.
Such a view of Nature and the Universe does not alter the results of a single experiment that scientists perform in the laboratory or in the field. But scientists have always known that the sense-perceptions which are the results of their experiments enable them to grasp tentatively the real-world which is always beyond their reach; and as Canon Raven said in his Riddell Lecture in 1936 the chief effect of the scientific movement and in particular the fact of evolution on our outlook has been to give to mankind a knowledge and appreciation of the physical universe he has never had before, and ultimately in his conception of the relation of the universe to God. And that, of course, is exactly what I was suggesting in Chapter 17 of a Religious View of Nature, when I wrote that the simplest “explanation” of Evolution was the mind of God seeking and gradually finding an interpenetration with the slowly dawning consciousness of man. One does not actually “explain” anything; but the simplest idea that fits all the facts has for long enough been assumed to be the one nearest to the truth. And any self-respecting scientist has to accept this, or else he disowns his own science; and if he does that, how does he differ from the magician, or the alchemist? I called Chapter 17 “The Opium of the People?”, in order to reciprocate a contempt for Marx, equal to his contempt for religion. This is the climax of the book; the rest is a deliberate anti-climax.
Indeed it is the climax of all three of my books. The first says in terms that it is an account of a spiritual adventure, told obliquely. And the principal tenet is that all true relationships preclude analysis; and that if you try to analyse them, you destroy them. In a sentence, I was not prepared to admit that falling in love was a fantasy, that can be explained away. It is when you try to explain it away, that you destroy in the mind anything that makes it worth preserving. The climax of this book comes two thirds of the way through, with the exhortation to try to view things through the eyes of the Creator; then with luck things will begin to fall into place, and you will see things in perspective.
Religion Rewritten, a religious view of nature and the universe.
Essay 3 - What Does The Future Hold?