Human history, it is said, can be broadly divided into two parts: an age of superstition and an age of science. In recent times this division of human history has found great favour with a number of western philosophers, especially Bertrand Russell, and it is accurate enough in itself. In several books, notably; ‘Why I am not a Christian’ and ‘The Impact of Science on Society,’ Russell has traced convincingly and eloquently the emergence of human society from an age of darkness and superstition to an age of scientific enlightenment.
But Russell makes one fundamental error. In defining the root-causes of superstition and scientific thinking, he postulates that superstition stems from religion, and science from freedom from the illusions of religious thought.
Russell would be right in his first hypothesis if he qualified “religion” as “religion based on polytheism” or “distorted religion,” for polytheism, indeed, is the root-cause of superstition. Polytheism is to treat what is not God, as God. Clearly this kind of religious unrealism can only generate unrealistic thinking in every walk of life, and superstition is just another name for an unrealistic approach.
If polytheism is the root-cause of superstition, what, then, is the root-cause of scientific thought? The answer, as Arnold Toynbee has shown, is monotheism. Monotheism is to worship the one and only God who has created and sustains the universe. It is a fact that there is only one God; our acknowledgement of that fact, and our submission and allegiance to Him alone, are acts of the utmost realism. When this belief enters one’s heart, one adopts a realistic approach to life, and science is just another name for a realistic approach.
The direct result of the superstition that comes from polytheism is that phenomena of creation are considered as objects of worship. Inevitably, this belief inhibits any objective study regarding their nature, thus preventing any advance in the field of science. But when God is considered as the object of worship, then all these phenomena become objects of investigation. The way becomes open for scientific research. This is how monotheism, or true religion, cultivates scientific thought. □
