Essay: What Scientists Should Learn from Theologians
Scientists used to have mystical powers in our society. If you wore a white lab coat, you had mastered the world through experiments, theorems, and machines. You were among the experts who shot people into space safely, invented new surgeries, and defeated polio. If you said that cigarettes cause cancer, none but evil corporations questioned you.
Mystery is the turbo charge propelling this kind of authority. What do the people in lab coats do? How did they figure out where astronauts could meet the moon? How did they discover the ingredients for a polio-destroying serum? Few people knew or cared. The marvels spoke for themselves: moon landings and healthy children.
A class with mystical powers doesn’t have to persuade, argue its case, or negotiate. It makes declarations. There has been a class like this in every society down through time—witch doctors, priests, professors, rock stars. To outsiders, the authority figures in another culture look ridiculous. Why don’t you yank that mask off the dancing fire-eater? Why do you obey an old man in a white pointy hat? Who cares what Bono thinks? But one person’s clown is another person’s sage.
This authority seems to be omnipotent right up to the moment it shatters. And its mystique might continue to impress people for a while.
I first noticed that scientific authority had shattered when I became a pastor and started praying with people about their health crises. Increasingly, what the doctor said no longer mattered to them. The doctor didn’t listen. The doctor was dismissive. The doctor had said five other treatments would work, but now he couldn’t even give a clear diagnosis.
These people wanted a doctor who would “listen.” That is, they wanted pills—maybe opioids, maybe antidepressants. They would go from doctor to doctor until they found the listener they were looking for.
Somehow, a doctor went from an authority figure to a service provider.
The mystique shattered in private—even in secrecy—for different people at different times. A doctor gave a woman birth control that was later shown to be the cause of her miscarriages. A man watched a hospital cover up a mistake in care for his wife. A couple walked a Via Dolorosa of medications that drained their bank account but cured nothing.
The Covid-19 pandemic has been World War I for scientists: a comprehensive screw-up. You know the litany of overconfident directives. Stop buying masks. Masks will save your life. A 15-day lockdown will stop the spread. If you get the vaccine, you won’t have to wear a mask. Wear a mask anyway. The mystique is broken.
Theologians used to have mystical powers too. They had their own white robes and secret conclaves. They had marvels, explanations, and declarations. People obeyed them. Such a state of affairs seems cartoonish now, like a Monty Python sketch that lasted centuries. That is because the authority of theologians shattered hundreds of years ago.
Many public howlers shattered it: the overconfident claims that the earth was flat or that the cosmos revolved around the earth, the elaborate arguments to justify the enslavement of blacks in the U.S. Those are notorious. Far more damaging were the theological arguments that upheld the alliance of throne and altar in Europe, claiming authority over nations, sanctifying wars, and invoking God’s name in routine factional disputes. Modernity has not been kind to centuries of risible declarations.
But it is the shattering of pastoral authority in private, like the loss of confidence in doctors, that has most harmed the standing of theologians. When someone goes to a pastor for help with their spiritual problems only to find that he is a mere marketing director, an amateur psychologist, or worse yet a political activist, they treat him like the service provider he is.
Whose fault is that? The disappointed individual looking for answers, or the careerist who has forgotten all sense of calling?
Scientists are now like theologians. Without their mystical powers, they’re just like everybody else—a tangle of political opinions. From the negative example of theologians, scientists can learn how not to be arrogant.
Imagine what might have happened in March of 2020 if scientists had said something like this about Covid-19: “We don’t know very much about this disease. We don’t know how severe it is for most people, how it spreads, or how best to treat it. We don’t have any definite guidance for you, and we won’t have any until we learn more. It seems reasonable for you to take precautions. We will give advice to help your personal decision-making as we learn more.”
At least that statement would’ve had the virtue of being true. It also would have clarified that our personal decisions have consequences. To be sure, scientists would have acknowledged that they have no mystical powers and no special claim to obedience. But everyone already knew that. Such modesty might have gained people’s attention—which scientists no longer have.
Now do another thought-experiment.
Suppose theologians began to say something like this about contemporary life: “We don’t know very much about the collapse of our civic life, the deterioration of schools, hospitals, ethnic relations, and sexual health, or the rise of animosity and violence. With so many things out of control, we don’t have directions that will save your finances, health, or family. But we can give you guidance about how God has helped us through disasters in the past. He is the same God today. Knowing him will empower all of our personal decisions.”
Three liberating, true words that have a chance to build respect: We don’t know. If you recognize what you don’t know, we may listen to what you do know.