Open Serious people still disagree; the evidence is not in.
A British survey in 2022 found that 57% of people think science and religion are incompatible. Yet the man who first proposed the Big Bang, Georges Lemaître, was a Catholic priest. The scientist who led the Human Genome Project, Francis Collins, is an evangelical Christian. A Jordanian Muslim biologist, Rana Dajani, teaches evolution to students in Amman. And the physicist Jim Al-Khalili, a former president of Humanists UK, says the most wondrous thing about the universe is that it makes sense at all.
So what is the real relationship? It is not a war, and it is not a perfect match. It is a long, unfinished conversation, and anyone can join it.
“In the creation of the heavens and the earth, and in the alternation of night and day, there are signs for people of understanding: those who remember God standing, sitting and lying on their sides, and reflect on the creation of the heavens and the earth: “Lo! In the creation of the heavens and the earth and (in) the difference of night and day are tokens (of His Sovereignty) for men of understanding, Such as remember Allah, standing, sitting, and reclining, and consider the creation of the heavens and the earth, (and say): Our Lord! Thou createdst not this in vain. Glory be to Thee! Preserve us from the doom of Fire.”
Qur'an 3:190–191 · Pickthall (1930)
These verses close Surah Al ‘Imran. Muslim tradition records that the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ (peace be upon him) would recite them when he woke at night and looked at the sky (Bukhari 4569). They invite reflection, not calculation. The Psalms had already sung it in their own way: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork” (Psalm 19:2, JPS 1917).
What scientists actually say
Science is a method for finding out how the natural world works, by testing ideas against observation. It has been astonishingly successful. It has also, by its own rules, limits: it studies what can be measured and repeated. Questions like “why is there a universe at all?” and “what is life for?” are not the kind of thing an experiment can settle. The Nobel prize-winning biologist Peter Medawar called these “first and last things”, and said science cannot answer them.
On the big questions, scientists are divided. A 2009 Pew survey of members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science found that 33% believed in God, 18% in a universal spirit or higher power, and 41% in neither. Elaine Ecklund’s surveys of UK scientists found that only about a third see science and religion as in conflict.
Here is what the current evidence shows on four famous questions. The beginning: the Big Bang model is the consensus, but whether there was a first moment is open; Alexander Vilenkin, co-author of the best-known theorem that the universe had a beginning, says it doesn’t settle God “one way or another”. Fine-tuning: some of nature’s numbers sit in narrow ranges that allow stars and chemistry, but physicists argue about how narrow, and whether a multiverse, a designer or brute fact explains it. The origin of life: chemists have found routes to many of life’s building blocks, but no complete pathway from chemistry to the first cell. Consciousness: in 2025, two leading theories were tested head to head in a major study published in Nature, and neither clearly won.
What both sides share is wonder. The physicist Eugene Wigner called the fit between mathematics and the physical world “a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve” (1960). Albert Einstein wrote that “the fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle” (1936). Believers see in this order a sign of a rational Creator. Sceptics see a happy fit between evolved minds and the world they evolved in.
The arguments, fairly
Science and God answer different questions. Science says how; faith asks why and what for. The palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould called these “non-overlapping magisteria”. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks put it this way: “science takes things apart to see how they work; religion puts things together to see what they mean.”
The order of nature points beyond itself. Many founders of modern science, from Kepler to Newton, studied nature because they expected a rational Creator to have made a rational world. John Polkinghorne, a Cambridge physicist who became a priest, argued that the world’s intelligibility is itself a clue.
Two kinds of knowing, in the Jewish tradition. Long before Sacks, Maimonides held that true science and true faith cannot finally conflict. He wrote that he would reread Genesis if the eternity of the world were ever demonstrated (The Guide for the Perplexed II:25).
Religions make factual claims. Richard Dawkins argues that miracles, resurrection and answered prayer are claims about the world, so science cannot stay neutral.
God explains too little. Sean Carroll argues that a theory compatible with any possible universe predicts nothing, so naturalism is the better scientific bet.
Gaps close. Every time religion has pinned God to something science couldn’t yet explain, the gap has tended to shrink. Many believers agree, and reject this “God of the gaps” too.
Where it stands
Science has not ruled God in or out. Many scientists believe; many do not. Both are part of the conversation. Popular claims on both sides, such as “science has shown there is no God” or “a verse foretold modern physics”, go beyond the evidence.
What each faith says
Judaism
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork”
Psalms 19:2 · JPS 1917
Jewish tradition has long prized learning about the world. Maimonides taught that studying nature is a path to loving and fearing God: when a person reflects on God’s wondrous and great works and creatures, he wrote, they are moved to love and praise (Mishneh Torah, Foundations of the Torah 2:2). The medieval scholar Gersonides made original contributions to astronomy and invented a navigation instrument, Jacob’s staff.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the UK from 1991 to 2013, argued in The Great Partnership (2011) that science and religion are two different ways of knowing, and that a person needs both: one to understand the world, the other to know what to do with that understanding.
Christianity
“For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity”
Romans 1:20 · WEB
Christians speak of God’s two books: the book of scripture and the book of nature, both written by the same Author. Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle and Michael Faraday all thought of science this way. Today the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion in Cambridge and BioLogos, founded by Francis Collins, work to show that faith and mainstream science, including evolution, can sit together.
Christian thinkers also stress humility. The Galileo affair of 1633 is often told as a clash between science and faith. Historians such as John Hedley Brooke show it was more tangled, involving politics, personalities and the science of the day. Most Christians today accept the age of the universe and evolution, and see them as the way creation unfolds.
Islam
“We shall show them Our portents on the horizons and within themselves until it will be manifest unto them that it is the Truth. Doth not thy Lord suffice, since He is Witness over all things?”
Qur'an 41:53 · Pickthall (1930)
The Qur’an asks people again and again to look, think and reflect on the signs (ayat) in nature. During the Islamic golden age, scholars such as al-Khwarizmi (whose name gives us “algorithm”), Ibn al-Haytham (a founder of the science of optics) and al-Biruni (who estimated the Earth’s radius) saw careful study of creation as part of faith.
Muslim scientists today hold a range of views. The astrophysicist Nidhal Guessoum argues for full acceptance of mainstream science, and warns against claims that the Qur’an contains “scientific miracles”. The philosopher Shoaib Ahmad Malik has shown how classical Islamic theology can meet modern evolutionary biology. The common thread: the Qur’an is a book of signs and guidance, not a science textbook.
Without religion
“Roughly speaking, the word humanist has come to mean someone who trusts to the scientific method when it comes to understanding how the universe works”
Humanists UK, ‘What is humanism?’ · original English
Most non-religious people in Britain are not at war with religion. They simply find that science gives them the best account of how the world works. Humanists UK says a humanist is someone who trusts the scientific method for that. The physicist Jim Al-Khalili, a vice-president of Humanists UK, finds the wonder in the universe being rational and explicable at all.
Non-religious voices differ in tone. Richard Dawkins argues that religion makes claims about the world, so science cannot stay neutral. The geneticist Adam Rutherford, another Humanists UK vice-president, mostly prefers to show how thrilling the science is in its own right. And the novelist Douglas Adams called himself a radical atheist. He asked whether it is not enough to see that a garden is beautiful, without believing there are fairies at the bottom of it too.
Same and different
All three faiths say that the world is God’s creation and that studying it is a good thing to do, even an act of worship. All three have produced great scientists, and all three now have members who accept mainstream science and members who resist parts of it, especially evolution. They differ in how they read the opening chapters of scripture: many Jews and Christians read Genesis 1 as poetry or theology rather than history, while many Muslims stress that the Qur’an speaks of creation in stages and signs without giving a scientific account. Non-religious people share the wonder and the method, but not the conclusion.
A moment to reflect
- Is there a question you care about that science cannot answer? What makes it different?
- Have you ever felt that learning how something works made it more wonderful, or less?
- Where did you first hear that science and religion are at war, and does it match your own experience?
- What would change your mind about this question, in either direction?
Watch
Rabbi Sacks and Richard Dawkins in a generous, honest conversation about science and God.
John Polkinghorne, physicist and priest, introduces the dialogue between science and religion.
The historian John Hedley Brooke on where the idea of a science–religion war came from.
Rana Dajani on teaching evolution to Muslim students.
Francis Collins on why many scientists find belief hard, and why he believes.
Do it together
Print 12 statements (for example, “the universe is 13.8 billion years old”, “there was a first moment”, “life has a purpose”). In groups, sort them into Settled, Open and Philosophy. Compare and argue.
Each person researches one scientist (Ibn al-Haytham, Maimonides, Faraday, Lemaître, Abdus Salam, Al-Khalili) and gives a two-minute talk on what they believed and why.
Visit the Science Museum in London, the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford or your nearest science centre together. Look for the instruments made by scientists of different faiths.
Jewish tradition has a blessing for seeing lightning, a rainbow, the sea, even a wise scholar of any people (Talmud, Berakhot, chapter 9). Learn what each blessing is for, then go outside and make your own list of everyday wonders that deserve one, whatever you believe.
Michael Faraday, a devout member of a small Christian church, the Sandemanians, gave Christmas lectures for children at the Royal Institution, including ‘The Chemical History of a Candle’ (1848). Light a candle, read a page of it together, and talk about what he saw in a flame.
Go deeper
- Religion and Science (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) · article
- The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion · article
- Christianity and science, GCSE RS (BBC Bitesize) · article
- Qur'an 3:190 (Quran.com) · scripture
- Wigner, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics (1960) · paper
- Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, The Great Partnership (rabbisacks.org) · book
- What is humanism? (Humanists UK) · article
Check yourself
Three quick questions. No score, nothing saved.
1. In a 2022 survey, what share of Britons thought science and religion are incompatible?
2. Who first proposed what became the Big Bang theory?
3. Who led the Human Genome Project?
Sources (8)
- Pew 2009: 33% of AAAS scientists believe in God: Pew Research Center, Scientists and Belief, 5 Nov 2009
- 57% of Britons see science and religion as incompatible: Theos and the Faraday Institute, Science and Religion: Moving away from the shallow end, 2022
- Vilenkin: the theorem doesn’t prove anything about God: Tufts Now, 29 May 2012
- Adversarial test of IIT and GNWT, 2025: Cogitate Consortium, Nature, 2025
- Wigner quote: Wigner, Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics 13, 1960
- Fine-tuning debate, multiverse and objections: Friederich, Fine-Tuning, SEP
- Gould, Nonoverlapping Magisteria, 1997: Natural History, March 1997 (Stephen Jay Gould archive)
- Origin of life: Miller–Urey reanalysis, building blocks not life: Johnson et al., Science 322:404, 2008
