For ages theology was seen as the "Queen" of the sciences, holding monarchical power over all "lesser" disciplines, from the humanities to law to "natural philosophy" (which in time evolved into the natural sciences, and then grew to include the social sciences). For some exclusivist religions, science is even viewed as an intruder into the realm of theology, to be vigorously disputed and defeated by theological truth. In response, a common secular myth arose that science is both triumphant over, and antithetical to, religion and theology. This comforting story replaces the earlier secular myth which put philosophy in the victor's position over theology.
Indeed, in our contemporary discourse there are even scientific voices saying that science has replaced not only theology, but also the philosophy that birthed it. Scientists from Stephen Hawking to Neil deGrasse Tyson to Lawrence Krauss to Sam Harris have all said that philosophy is dying (or dead), and we only need science to pursue our evolution as a species. As comforting as these mythologies of secular triumph may be, we may also wonder if they are not throwing the metaphysical baby out with the cultural bathwater. Is it possible that each of these disciplines— theology, philosophy, and science— all have interdependent origins which implicate each in the other, and as a result they need each other to help us live our fullest lives? Perhaps there are healthier alternatives to the winner-takes-all myths of a collapsing modernity.
The late modern world often perceives the relationship between theology, philosophy, and science as one of perpetual and inevitable conflict, a zero-sum game where the advance of one necessarily demands the retreat of the others. Yet, a rigorous examination of the history of Western ideas reveals a fundamentally different narrative, a complex and essential genealogy of thought. It is just a matter of fact that, in every way that matters, theology is the mother of philosophy, philosophy is the mother of science, and science is the mother of technology. This is not a story of adversarial forces but of a conceptual lineage, where the questions and assumptions of one discipline provided the necessary conditions for the birth of the next.
This conceptual journey begins millennia ago, in the ancient Near East and the Indus Valley, with a primary reliance on divine revelation. Near Eastern Mythology, the Hebrew prophets, and the Hindu Upanishads came before Mediterranean philosophy by centuries (if not millennia). These revealed systems are the deep matrix of human thought, and all of those include hefty doses of Logos (rational word or principle) and Mythos (narrative story) about Theos or Theoi (God or gods), on the basis of revelation.
For instance, the Babylonian "Enuma Elish", composed in the early second millennium BCE, is a creation myth (Mythos) that also functions as a political and cosmological assertion (Logos) about the supremacy of the god Marduk (Theos). In the Hebrew tradition, prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah spoke a revealed Logos from Yahweh (Theos) to guide the ethical and spiritual life of Israel. For instance, in the mid-500's BCE, the writer of Isaiah chapter 45 makes the following deeply theological claim about Ultimate Reality: "I am the LORD, and there is no other [literally "there is nothing else other than me"]; besides me there is no god... I am the LORD, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make well and create woe; I the LORD do all these things".
And even before the Hebrew prophets came to a full awareness of the Divine Unity that holds all creation together, seers in ancient India were composing the Upanishads (c. 800-500 BCE). On the basis of meditative revelation, they explored the relationship between Brahman (the Ultimate Reality, a form of Theos) and Atman (the individual self). To give the briefest of ideas about how Indian theology viewed the world centuries before the flourishing of Greek philosophy, we can look at the Chandogya Upanishad: "In the beginning was only Being, One without a second. Out of himself he brought forth the cosmos And entered into everything in it. There is nothing that does not come from him. Of everything he is the inmost Self. He is the truth; he is the Self supreme. You are that... you are that!"
These revealed traditions of theology did not just happen to precede Mediterranean philosophy; they were the essential soil from which it grew, particularly the traditions of the Greeks and the Buddhists. Mediterranean philosophy, which first hit its stride in the Greek city-states of Ionia c. 600 BCE, did not spring from a secular vacuum. It emerged as an attempt to find a natural, observable Logos (reason) about the logoi (the individual principles of things), but it was built on a foundation laid by the theological inquiries that had preceded it. We may think that the rise of Mediterranean theological traditions and Indian theological traditions were separate from each other, and separate from the rise of classical Greek philosophy. However, scholars such as Thomas McEvilley, Christopher Beckwith, and E.J. Urwick show how many of the central ideas in Greek thought are translations and transformations of theological ideas imported from India.
It is a common error to view the birth of Greek philosophy as the triumphant replacement of religious mythology with secular reason. On the contrary, the biggest names in Greek philosophy all rooted their philosophy in a theological metaphysics. Indeed, Socrates, Plato, Plotinus, the Neo-Platonist schools, the Stoics, and even Aristotle are all rooted in a definite theology, and both Logos and Theos were central to the main schools of Greek philosophy. When we look at their work, most ancient Greek and Roman philosophers were self-consciously unpacking what was implicit in their views of the relation between this world and the Ultimate Reality of Theos or Logos or Nous (or whatever their name for the Divine Source was).
For Plato (c. 427-347 BCE), philosophy was the unpacking of the relation between the transient world of "becoming" and the eternal world of "being," which was governed by the supreme "Form of the Good" or, as he called it in the Timaeus, the "Demiurge" (a divine craftsman or Nous). For Aristotle (384-322 BCE), the central metaphysical question was the nature of substance, which led him in his Metaphysics to the postulation of an "Unmoved Mover" or "Prime Mover" as the necessary first and final cause of all motion and existence, a concept he explicitly equated with Theos. The Stoics (emerging c. 300 BCE) viewed the cosmos as permeating with a divine, rational principle they called Logos (logic, word) or Pneuma (breath), which guided all things. They believed a flourishing life meant living in accordance with this divine Logos. In short, these foundational Greek and Roman philosophers were doing non-Christian theology first, and their philosophy flowed from those theological first principles.
It is true that classical thought was not entirely theological. Yes, there were some materialists like Democritus and Epicurus and select Cynics. Democritus (c. 460-370 BCE) proposed a cosmos made of indivisible particles (atoms) and void, explicitly rejecting divine intervention. This view was later adopted and adapted by Epicurus (341-270 BCE) as a way to alleviate the fear of the gods, and establish a life of moderated pleasures as the highest good we can pursue. However, these figures were not dominant in the overall classical conversation. Instead, they become much more important in 1800 CE than they were in 300 BCE as the newly birthed European secularism was looking for sources to build a secular worldview on.
We also find significant exceptions that prove the rule beyond the Mediterranean. The Charvaka school in India was a radical materialist and skeptical tradition that rejected any metaphysical premise. And the Buddha, while dealing with spiritual concerns, was not a clear-cut exception. Is Anatta (no-self) a rejection of metaphysics or a metaphysical postulate? Buddhism is not simple atheism. It is a complex philosophical and spiritual tradition built around the four noble truths and the cessation of suffering (dukkha), all tied into a doctrine of the metaphysical inter-relatedness of the whole cosmos within the web of dharma (universal law). So, even in these non-theistic voices we do not find a clear-cut rejection of theology, but instead systems of thought built on metaphysical underpinnings. And even when there were clear cut rejections of theology, they are not a major voice in the overall discourse of the classical age.
Following the classical age, the genealogical link between theology and philosophy became even more explicit. For the next 1200-1500 years after the classical age, all major philosophers were theologians. From the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West (c. 476 CE) through the high Middle Ages and into the early modern period, philosophy was treated as the "handmaid of theology" (Latin: ancilla theologiae), used to illuminate and explain revealed truths. There was not a major literary philosopher in the Western world-- Jewish, Christian, Muslim-- who was not also a top level theologian, and who did not root their philosophy in their theological first principles. If we just confine ourselves to the letter "A", we can see how deep this current runs: The Christian tradition includes philosophical giants such as Augustine (354-430), Anselm (1033–1109), Abelard (1079–1142), Albert (1200–1280), and Aquinas (1225-1274). The Muslim tradition includes Avicenna/Ibn Sina (980–1037), Al-Ghazali (1058–1111), and Averroes/ Ibn Rushd (1126–1198). All of these are taught in any introductory book on philosophy.
Moving beyond the letter "A", we must also note how Jewish theologians such as Moses Maimonides (1135-1204) shaped the development of philosophy. His "Guide for the Perplexed" sought to harmonize Aristotelian philosophy with Torah. These themes dovetail with Avicenna, who used Neo-Platonism and Aristotelianism to explain Islamic doctrine. And we see it most clearly in the work of Thomas Aquinas, whose "Summa Theologiae" is a magnificent synthesis of Christian theology and Aristotelian philosophy, showing how reason can support and illuminate faith. For these "theological philosophers," there was no conflict. Philosophy was simply one of the tools God had given for understanding Divine truth.
It is only after 1500 CE or so that you started to get anything like secular philosophy, and that only hit its stride by 1700 CE. We can see this transition in figures like René Descartes (1596-1650), who, while seeking a new foundation for knowledge through his method of radical doubt, still relied on the existence of a non-deceiving God to guarantee the reliability of reason and empirical observation. Or in Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), whose radical philosophy equated "God" with "Nature" (Latin: Deus sive Natura). Even when philosophy began to declare its independence, it was still grappling with its theological inheritance. And I would argue that we cannot even get to secular philosophy at all without piggybacking on the work of theological philosophy.
Just as philosophy was birthed in theological metaphysical questions, and later became a distinct discipline, so philosophy was the necessary matrix from which science emerged. But science itself rests on a number of assumptions which are theological in nature. We can trace this lineage directly. What we now call "science" was, until the 19th century, called "natural philosophy." Early scientists like Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), Isaac Newton (1642-1727), and Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) viewed their work as the philosophical study of God's "Book of Nature," and they were explicit that their scientific work rested on theological metaphysical assumptions.
Science assumes the rationality and intelligibility of the cosmos, and a cosmos that operates on a universal "logos" of knowable and dependable constants and laws. This is rooted in a theological assumption that the universe was made by a rational and intelligent Creator (a Logos), and that this Creator's rational laws— such as the laws of gravity or motion— are dependable, objective, and universal across space and time. Galileo famously said that "the Book of Nature is written in the language of mathematics." Isaac Newton, in his "Principia Mathematica", was careful to state that the laws of gravity he described was not an explanation of gravity's cause, which he attributed to the continuing action of God. Thus, the origins of science rest on a "theological" assumption: That empirical observation is fundamentally reliable and true because the nature of the world we perceive is dependable and objective. This begins as a belief that our senses and reason have been made reliable by a trustworthy God who is not a deceiver, and only transitions to a secular axiom of thought after this theological birth.
Thus, the adversarial narrative advocated by fundamentalist religious adherents, as well as fundamentalist secularists, is factually incorrect. Far from being enemies, these three great domains of human thought are linked by a profound, genealogical logic. All three approach different kinds of questions about human existence, and all three have their own norms and types of evidence for answering these questions. By correcting the standard historical errors and including the necessary historical context, we can see that this is a story of conceptual development, not conceptual combat. To properly value and use these three disciplines for our own human thriving, we must first understand the true story of how they were made.
The great scientist Albert Einstein once said, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." Centuries earlier, the theologian and philosopher Thomas Aquinas taught that God has written "two books" for us to study: The Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature. From the overlapping perspectives of science and philosophy and theology, there is a deep recognition that these three ways of knowing need each other to form a complete picture of reality. To over-simplify, we can best understand the relationship by looking at the kinds of questions they are designed to answer:
Science answers HOW questions about the physical, observable world. It asks: How did the universe begin with a Big Bang? How does gravity work? How did life evolve on this planet? Science uses literal language, deals with testable data, and presents its findings like a "lab report." It gives us the mechanics, the processes, and the facts of the natural world.
Theology answers WHY questions about meaning, purpose, and value that cannot be physically tested. It asks: Why does the universe exist at all? Why is there good and evil? Why are we capable of experiencing love, beauty, and justice? Why should we care about the facts that science uncovers? Scripture uses symbolic language, speaking in poems, visions, laws, and epic dramas to reveal the meaning and purpose behind the facts.
Philosophy answers WHAT questions about the meaning and implications of our ideas. What does God or cosmos or science mean? What are our sources of knowledge for our claims? What is the link between our ideas about Ultimate Reality and our ideas about empirical reality? Philosophy carefully interrogates each claim to see if it is logically consistent, if the definitions are clear, and if they correspond to the world we live in.
Let's use an analogy. Think about your favorite sport. Science can answer all the HOW questions: How does a curveball curve? How many calories does an athlete burn? How do the rules of the game work? But science can never answer the WHY questions: Why do you love this sport? Why does it bring you joy? Why is it a good and beautiful thing to play? And the HOW and the WHY questions are also rooted in the WHAT questions: What is the sport? What are the roles? What is the equipment? You need the "how", "why", and "what" to be a complete athlete. In the same way, we need theology, philosophy, and science to become complete human beings trying to understand our place in the cosmos. Science gives us the amazing "how" of creation. Religion gives us the life-giving "why". And Philosophy helps us stay clear headed and consistent in "what" our claims are.
Now, I will not deny that we could find that we have outgrown certain academic disciplines. It is possible that we find out that all the questions that used to be answered by one discipline are better answered by another. For instance, astronomy grew out of a broader field of study that included what we now call "astrology": The art of discerning fate and future from the movement of the stars. To determine the "divine patterns" the stars pointed to required learning very exact ways to determine where the stars were, and how they moved. But as we have grown as a species, we realized that the movements of the stars carry no intrinsic meaning or value in a metaphysical sense. Yet, we also found that tracking and predicting stars does carry great utility for predicting everything from weather patterns to where to land on the moon. Thus, we have dropped astrology as a legitimate field of knowledge while keeping astronomy. And it could be that the relationship between science and philosophy and theology is like that. Perhaps we don't need the questions or the answers that theology, or even philosophy, offers us. We have outgrown them. But this would take a very well defined argument, drawing on sufficient evidence of the right kind, to show we have outgrown them. And, if you notice, these are precisely the realms of philosophy, particularly logic and epistemology. So, to show we do not need philosophy requires— you guessed it— philosophy. And using philosophy to show we don't need philosophy is an argument that is both circular and self refuting. At least that is what a philosopher would say. Likewise, to show we do not need theology, one would have to prove, or assume, what Ultimate Reality is like. Specifically, we would have to show that the Ultimate Reality is matter, and there is no Ultimate Reality beyond that (no spiritual essence, divinity, or "mind" behind the "matter"). The problem, of course, is that if there is Mind behind matter, or Ultimate Reality beyond the physical reality we experience, we could not prove or disprove it using tools that only work in the physical world. Empiricism is great at demonstrating empirical things. But non-empirical things are beyond the reach of empirical observations. So, to say there is nothing beyond empirical reality is not an empirical claim. It rests on, well, theology and philosophy. One has to do theology— or at least the philosophical discipline of metaphysics— to claim that theology is no longer needed. Which, as we've noted above, is the kind of claim that is both circular and self refuting. And so, it seems to me that the relationship between science, philosophy, and theology is not like the relationship between astronomy and astrology. It is more like the relationship between the sciences and arts we use to explore and understand what it means to be human. First, there is biology, which gives us the basic framework of the kinds of things humans can do, feel, and need. Then we need sociology to understand group dynamics, while psychology helps us understand individual dynamics. Then history and archaeology and anthropology give us the sweep of how we have lived, and the patterns of how we might live in the future. Arts and literature explore how we express our desires, understand ourselves and communicate our insights. We could quickly add layer upon layer, and connect sub-discipline to sub-discipline, in an effort to get a complete account of human existence. And I am sure more could and should be said. If this level of complexity and depth of layering is required to explain the life of a medium sized biped on the third planet orbiting a medium sized star, why would we expect that explaining the totality of reality would be any less rich and nuanced? It is safe to say that the sciences— all of them, and more we have not discovered yet— are needed to understand reality. But not only the sciences. We need philosophy and theology too. There are aspects of reality which will never be glimpsed or detected by a strictly empirical methodology. Theology births philosophy which births science. From origins to implementation, the domains of science and philosophy and theology are inter-dependent and mutually implicating, answering different kinds of questions, to give us a deep and layered account of the awe-inspiring reality that we live in.
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