Skip to main content

Verified by Psychology Today

Religion

Could God Be Science?

Is God miracles, or is God science?

People typically look for God in miracles, in the perceived exceptions to the laws of nature or medicine. But what if we are all looking in the wrong place? Is God science?

I do a lot of research on the psychological science of religious belief (here and here for instance). Religious people sometimes get upset with me for conducting this research. They think (I presume) that if I, for instance, uncover the causes of afterlife belief (or how to weaken it or increase it), that I will somehow be trying to prove that religion is false, and can be deducible to science.

I guess I can't blame them. A lot of the (let's be honest) anti-religion crowd in scientific circles do actually try and argue that science, at best, makes the idea of God unnecessary, and at worst, disproves the existence of God. But, that isn't my intention at all.

In fact, I often wonder if God is science, and everyone has this all crazy backwards.

I think it makes sense that, if God created everything, then God is behind any type of science that attempts to uncover the truth about the universe, people, or whatever else. From this view, science actually, in pursuit of truth, would be finding God. But, people tend to see it as the opposite.

I don't think it makes much sense for someone to create everything in the world according to these laws and principles, and then to forsake these principles, as is implied with miracles. The act of, for instance, making a bush talk, would oppose the very laws God would have created the universe by.

It all seems very counter-intuitive to me.

Maybe, science is the pursuit of God. And, humans have it totally backwards when they think that miracles prove God's existence, or that science makes God unnecessary.

advertisement
More from Nathan A Heflick Ph.D.
More from Psychology Today
More from Nathan A Heflick Ph.D.
More from Psychology Today