Nonoverlapping Magisteria

This post was originally written for an assignment under a different name.

 The net of science covers the empirical universe: what is it made of (fact) and why does it work this way(theory). The net of religion extends over questions of moral meaning and value.

—Stephen Jay Gould, “Nonoverlapping Magisteria”

In his essay “Nonoverlapping Magisteria,” Stephen Jay Gould tries to make a truce in the conflict between science and religion. He argues, that, properly understood, these devices have distinct and separate domains, and so cannot truly be opposed to one another. He calls this view “nonoverlapping magisteria” or “NOMA.” This view is much better than, say, Richard Dawkins’s,¹ who, in drawing science and religion as fundamentally opposing forces, fails to acknowledge the role that faith plays in his view of science which clearly extends beyond mere methodological naturalism, but NOMA still fails to totally explain or resolve the tension we observe between these two modes of inquiry.

First, regardless of what jurisdictions Gould believes science and religion ought to stick to, it’s clear that religion and science often do ask questions about the same issues. Religion and science both generate stories about the origin of the world and its people. They both try to explain the phenomena we observe in the world. They both tell us stories about what we are. People take the narratives created by both science and religion in these areas very seriously. To suggest that religion informs us of meaning and value separate from the mechanics of the natural world is to deny the well-established role religion often has in deriving meaning and value through interpretations of the natural world. Likewise, to suggest that the role of science is strictly empirical is to deny the social role it plays and the ethical implications of the philosophical naturalism that it advocates.

Second, the NOMA view is only plausible in a narrow slice of human history. Religion is much older than science, and its domain was not always bordered at all. Religion wasn’t a mode of inquiry. For many societies, religion was the mode of inquiry; it was how truth-finding was done. And before scientific inquiry cast serious doubt on religious doctrine, the goals of science and religion were not clearly separate. We study moral truth to understand God and His creation. We study the natural world to understand God and His creation. Only a world in which the narratives created by science and religion are not totally compatible does NOMA even seem meaningful.

I don’t mean to say that NOMA is meaningless or useless, but I think it’s important to understand why NOMA is meaningful and useful right now. The standoffish relationship between science and religion as we perceive today has not always existed and will not always exist. The social importance of scientific inquiry has changed the domain of religion, and our society is still adjusting to that change. Science and faith may not necessarily be at odds, nor are they necessarily totally separate, but today, for many people, they are in conflict, and that conflict is real and important. I think it’s wise for religious scholars and scientists to consider the appropriate domains for their work according to the NOMA hypothesis, but this will not itself resolve the tension in our social fabric. NOMA is a ceasefire, not a peace treaty.