Reflections on Faith, Art, and Science

I take it on faith that there is such a thing as an objectively true reality. The universe is under no compulsion to be so ordered, but most of the people I am aware of who have put the notion to the test seem to be in agreement that their experiences do not refute it.

There are several sorts of people who have attempted to ferret out the true nature of reality. Among them are scientists and artists. I might go so far as to propose that the central goal of either science or art is precisely to illuminate some aspect of the ultimate truth of reality. These people, of course, have had other goals: to make a living, to create useful tools, to have fun, to entertain — in some cases, to maim, kill, or destroy. But those goals, I think, are peripheral. The scientist and the artist want to reveal truth.

During the brief period when I was a practicing scientist, I never thought that I would discover the complete nature of reality. I merely revealed a small bit about the relationship between the moisture content of soils in the Great Plains and the brightness temperature measured by a satellite-borne radiometer. In just the same way, my poems, if they are any good, can reveal only very small bit of reality. Both efforts, if they are to be successful, must be tightly focused.

Both endeavors must proceed from the assumption — at minimum, a tentative assumption — that there is a true reality that might be discoverable. These two pursuits use different methods and seek different sorts of knowledge. Nevertheless, the mental habits instilled by an extensive education in a science can transfer to the practice of an art, and vice versa. The great scientists — Einstein, Newton, Feynman, Hawking, etc. — have all been highly creative, in addition to being the methodical sort that we associate with science. And the great artists, in addition to their obvious creativity, must have had a healthy dose of method. In short, both sorts are humans who are intensely interested and use all of the human cognitive faculties at their disposal to scratch that itch.

But, you protest, isn’t art about creating things of beauty? Of course! But what is beauty? To many people, a thing of beauty is simply something with a pleasing appearance or sound. That is a most shallow notion of beauty. I might refer you to a dialogue, in Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, in which Jubal Harshaw explained that a Rodin statue titled She Who Used to Be the Beautiful Heaulmière – which showed a very old woman with a time-ravaged body – was beautiful. Not pretty, but beautiful. As another character then explained, “She has her own face”, a face built by a lifetime of living out her own story. Beauty is not necessarily about prettiness.

Theoretical physicists sometimes use the phrase “truth and beauty”, in reference to this or that elegant theoretical construct. To the uninitiated, such things may not seem beautiful. To the physicist, truth is beauty. The same can be said of poets.

The title of this little essay suggests that I’m not talking about only arts and sciences, but faith as well. Perhaps you wonder when I will get to that. But I started there. Neither science nor art can get anywhere without first accepting, solely on faith, that there is a reality to be explored.

So, of course, the scientist and the artist both can feel at home with holding and practicing a faith. Not all, of course, will be comfortable with any of the recognized religions. But those who claim that they totally eschew faith, in favor of objective reality, are fooling themselves.