Teaching Religion in the Secular University

You perhaps recall Napoleon’s question to Pierre-Simon, Marquis de Laplace, the French polymath, about why there was no mention of God in Laplace’s work on celestial mechanics. The French mathematician, astronomer and physicist is said to have replied, “I have no need for that hypothesis.”

Laplace was, of course, expressing his methodological naturalism: that scientific explanations should be based solely on natural causes and laws, without invoking supernatural elements. The movements of celestial bodies could be fully explained through mathematics and physics, without needing to attribute their motions to divine intervention.

The Enlightenment laid bare a deepening divide between science and religion as scientists sought to discover the natural laws governing the universe, emphasized reason and expressed skepticism about religious institutions. The publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species in 1859 widened that divide by providing a naturalistic explanation for biological diversity.

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In 1896 Andrew Dickson White, the first president of Cornell University, published a two-volume book entitled The History of the Warfare Between Science and Theology in Christendom. In his book, he sought to demonstrate that, historically, scientific progress has been repeatedly hindered, opposed or stifled by religious institutions and theological doctrines.

Among the examples he cited: the Copernican heliocentric theory, which opposed the church’s geocentric view; the development of geological sciences, which challenged the biblical chronology of Earth; and the theory of evolution, which contradicted the creationist account of human origins.

White presents the conflict as not merely a series of isolated incidents but as an ongoing ideological warfare between two competing worldviews: a progressive, rational and empirical approach to understanding the natural world, a.k.a. science, and a dogmatic, authoritarian reliance on Scripture and religious tradition, theology. He argues that this conflict arose from fundamentally different methods and goals: science relies on evidence and reason, while theology is based on faith and revelation.

The book traces the gradual victory of scientific thought over religious dogmatism, highlighting the eventual acceptance of scientific truths once considered heretical. He suggests that this progress is inevitable as humanity advances in its understanding of the natural world.

A significant motive behind White’s work was to advocate for academic freedom and the independence of educational institutions from religious control. This is reflected in his role in founding Cornell University as a secular institution, where science could be pursued without theological constraints.

Although the argument White advanced has been extremely influential, his thesis greatly oversimplifies the relationship between science and religion, which has included not only conflict but also periods of mutual support. His “conflict thesis” greatly exaggerates the antagonism while neglecting the contributions of religious individuals and institutions to scientific progress. Among the notable scientists who were deeply religious are:

• Isaac Newton, who spent a considerable amount of time studying the Bible, wrote extensively on Christian theology and saw his scientific work as uncovering the laws created by God to govern the universe.
• Gregor Mendel, the Augustinian monk who laid the foundation for the field of genetics.
• Georges Lemaître, a Belgian priest, astronomer and physicist who proposed the Big Bang theory, which describes the origin of the universe.
• James Clerk Maxwell, the Scottish physicist best known for formulating the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation.
• Charles Townes, a member of the United Church of Christ who won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the development of the laser.
• Dr. Francis Collins, who led the Human Genome Project and is known for his discoveries of disease genes, has written extensively about his faith and science, arguing that belief in God can be an entirely rational choice and that scientific inquiry and faith are complementary.

When I taught at Columbia earlier in this century, the biggest divide among my students was not over politics but religion. On one side were Orthodox Jews and devout Catholics, Protestants and Muslims; on the other side were many avowed atheists. What C. P. Snow said about the conflict between “two cultures” of science and the humanities was true in my classroom: The class was riven into two polarized outlooks, which were not only mutually incomprehensible but also lacked respect for one another.

Among my challenges as an instructor was to bridge this gap and foster a greater degree of mutual respect and understanding.

It’s profoundly ironic that in our identitarian age, campus cultures tend to ignore the oldest divisions of all—those rooted in religion (or irreligion). One can’t begin to understand the conflicts that erupted at Hamline University or Macalester College or more recently at Brandeis without an appreciation of the salience of religious identities.

It’s my view that the more devout students need to learn about doubt, while the nonbelievers need to learn to better understand the religious experience and how such experiences can take secular forms.

Doubt has been a common experience for many people of faith throughout history, and dealing with doubt has often led to deeper spiritual understanding. Doubt is not necessarily antithetical to faith; rather, it can be a part of the journey toward a deeper understanding and relationship with the divine.

Perhaps the most famous example of a believer beset by doubt is Thomas the Apostle, the “doubting Thomas” who refused to believe in the resurrection of Christ until he could see and touch Jesus’s wounds. Others who underwent periods of profound periods of doubt include St. Theresa of Avila, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther and Mother Teresa.

No work of literature offers more profound reflections on religious belief, faith, doubt and the question of God’s existence than Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. The novel does not present a simple resolution to the problems of faith and doubt but instead affirms the value of wrestling with these eternal questions, proposing that the act of seeking faith in a world riddled with doubt and suffering is itself a deeply meaningful endeavor.

Definitions of religion often emphasize different aspects of religious experience, including beliefs, practices, rituals, institutional structures and the feelings or experiences it invokes. Here are several definitions that illustrate the breadth of what religion can encompass:

• Substantive definitions, which focus on the content or substance of religious belief, such as belief in a particular deity or the supernatural.
• Functional definitions that define religion by the role it plays in society or in the psychological life of an individual.
• Ritualistic definitions, which emphasize the practices and rituals that constitute ways of worship or the observance of sacred things.
• Institutional definitions that highlight the organized aspect of religion, focusing on its structure, hierarchy and the establishment of a religious community.
• Experiential definitions, which focus on the personal, subjective experience of the divine or sacred.
• Ethical definitions that center on the moral or ethical systems provided by religion, guiding behavior and values.
• Phenomenological definitions that seek to understand religion by focusing on the phenomena of religious experience and practice without presupposing the truth of any religious beliefs.
• Social-constructivist definitions, which view religion as a socially constructed system of symbols, narratives, meanings and worldviews that shape individual and collective identity.

Not all religions center around a deity. Some, such as Buddhism and certain schools of Hinduism, as well as philosophical traditions such as Daoism, are considered religions despite a nontheistic focus because they:

• Provide a comprehensive ethical framework for their adherents.
• Emphasize spiritual practices aimed at achieving spiritual goals such as enlightenment, liberation or harmony.
• Have a complex metaphysical system that describes the nature of reality, existence and the universe.
• Have sacred texts that offer profound philosophical insights into the nature of suffering, the mind and how to achieve psychological well-being.
• Offer rites of passage, festivals and community gatherings that mark important life events and seasonal cycles, contributing to the cohesion and identity of the community.

In my classes, I seek to introduce the nonbelievers to William James’s “The Varieties of Religious Experience,” his 1902 lectures that explore religion from the standpoint of individual experiences rather than institutional doctrines or rituals.

In that book, he describes mystical experiences as moments of profound connection to the divine or the ultimate reality characterized by ineffability, a noetic quality, transience and passivity—those fleeting moments, beyond articulation, that impart deep insights and in which individuals are overwhelmed by a power greater than themselves.

James also describes conversion experiences, those sudden or gradual experiences of transformation that lead to a new understanding of the divine and one’s relationship to it; communion, where individuals feel a direct, personal connection with the divine; and religious ecstasy and rapture, those intense experiences of joy, awe and union with the divine, often accompanied by altered states of consciousness.

In her 2014 book, Living With a Wild God, Barbara Ehrenreich, the author and activist who died in 2022 and was a self-described atheist, describes how, at the age of 17, she entered into a dissociative state and exited “the jurisdiction of language, where nothing is left but the vague gurgles of surrender expressed in words such as ‘ineffable’ and ‘transcendent.’” What she came to recognize is that we all have the capacity to experience aspects of reality that transcend our usual sensory and cognitive boundaries.

In a 1917 book, the German theologian and philosopher Rudolf Otto introduced the word “numinous” to describe an experience that evokes a sense of the profound, transcendent, mysterious or spiritual—an encounter with something wholly other than the self, which is both fascinating and terrifying and that conveys a feeling of the presence of a higher power or a reality beyond the ordinary and the material world and that transcends our usual sensory or cognitive boundaries.

All of us, I suspect, experience that sense of awe, wonder and fear, coupled with a recognition of our own finitude and insignificance, when we contemplate nature’s sublimity or majesty or an artwork’s radiance.

‎Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s psychological concept of flow—the cognitive state when individuals are complete immersed in an activity—shares several similarities with the religious experience of awe and reverence, above all, a profound engagement with the present moment and a sense of transcendence beyond the self. In each case, individuals become so absorbed in an activity that they lose self-consciousness, focusing entirely on the task at hand. Both experiences entail an altered perception of time.

Of course, there are profound differences in meaning and purpose. Flow is primarily about the intrinsic satisfaction and personal growth that come from engaging in an activity, while religious experiences serve to connect an individual with a larger spiritual framework, providing meaning, guidance and a sense of belonging to something greater than oneself. Still, the resemblance between flow and religious experiences highlights a universal human capacity for profound engagement and the search for meaning beyond the mundane aspects of life.

In recent years, a number of important books—including Ian Buruma’s Spinoza: Freedom’s Messiah, Jonathan Israel’s Spinoza, Life and Legacy, Steven Nadler’s Think Least of Death: Spinoza on How to Live and How to Die, and Tracie Matysik’s When Spinoza Met Marx—have turned to the Dutch philosopher of Jewish Portuguese ancestry and his views on metaphysics, epistemology, politics, ethics and religion to better understand the relationship between science and religion. His bold reimagining of God, his emphasis on rational inquiry and his commitment to freedom of thought and expression continue to resonate in contemporary debates on religion, morality and the nature of the universe.

Unlike the traditional theistic conception of God as a transcendent creator and ruler of the universe, Spinoza’s God is immanent, constituting the essence of the universe itself. Highly critical of religious dogmatism and superstition, Spinoza’s ethical philosophy promotes the cultivation of rational understanding and the alignment of one’s life with the natural order.

When asked about his religious beliefs, Albert Einstein famously remarked, in a 1947 letter,

This letter draws on Spinoza’s idea of God as an impersonal, abstract principle that underlies and orders the universe, rather than a personal deity involved in the lives of individuals or the affairs of the world. Einstein was drawn to the elegance and rationality of Spinoza’s system, in which God is synonymous with nature or the universe itself, operating through immutable laws. The letter aligns closely with Spinoza’s emphasis on the importance of reason and the intellectual love of God and awe and reverence for the universe’s complexity as paths to human fulfillment and ethical living.

The human quest for meaning, connection and transcendence does not disappear in a secularized society but rather is channeled into different forms of expression. Secularization is not merely a decline in religious belief or practice, but rather a displacement of religious impulses onto other forms of expression and devotion.

Art can evoke profound emotional responses, inspire awe and offer a sense of connection to something greater than oneself. For many, engagement with art fulfills a similar function to religious rituals or contemplation, providing a space for reflection, catharsis and the search for meaning. In this way, art becomes a secular sacred space, where the transcendent is felt and the existential queries of life are explored.

The natural world is another realm where people often report feelings traditionally associated with the religious or spiritual. Experiences of awe and wonder in nature, from the vastness of the cosmos to the intricate details of a single leaf, can elicit a sense of connectedness and an appreciation for the beauty and complexity of existence. Nature, thus, becomes a source of spiritual fulfillment, grounding individuals in the present and the physical world.

Romantic and familial love can be seen as another avenue where religious impulses are redirected. The devotion, sacrifice and sense of transcendence that love can inspire are akin to religious experiences. Love becomes a means through which individuals find purpose, fulfillment and a sense of belonging, mirroring the communal and transformative aspects of religious practice.

For some, science and the pursuit of knowledge fulfill a role similar to that of religion in providing a framework for understanding the world and our place within it. The wonder and awe inspired by scientific discoveries can provoke a profound sense of the sublime, traditionally associated with the divine. Science, in this sense, becomes a secular way to seek and worship the truth about the cosmos.

Sex, too, can be a domain where the quest for transcendence, unity and ecstasy finds expression outside traditional religious contexts. The intense physical and emotional experiences associated with sexuality can evoke a sense of merging with another, offering a momentary escape from the self and a feeling of profound connection, reminiscent of mystical experiences described in religious texts.

Our secular campuses often justify the study of religion as a way to nurture cultural literacy, promote tolerance and help students better understand current events. But a better reason is to prompt self-reflection and a deeper understanding of the worldviews, ethics and the questions of meaning and purpose that religion addresses.

The experiences of awe, wonder and the quest for transcendence and meaning are fundamental aspects of the human condition that transcend religious boundaries. We all seek meaning and purpose in our lives and try to understand our place in the world and the reasons behind our existence.

The drive to live according to certain moral and ethical principles, too, is not grounded solely in religious belief. Nonbelievers also grapple with questions of right and wrong, justice and how to live a good life. Like religious individuals who find community and a sense of belonging within their faith traditions, nonbelievers often seek connection, support and a common collective identity through secular organizations, social groups and shared interests.

While nonbelievers may not seek salvation in a religious sense, many pursue forms of liberation and healing that parallel the concept of redemption or transformation.

These religion-like experiences and impulses among nonbelievers highlight the shared human capacity for wonder, the search for meaning, ethical reflection and the desire for connection and transcendence. They underscore the fact that the longing for a deeper understanding of life and the quest for fulfillment and ethical living are, expressed across a wide spectrum of belief systems, both religious and secular.