One way to ease into the topic of moral realism and its implications is to explain how I came to be obsessed with it.

When I was in grade nine, I was lucky enough to have a really fine teacher for Science. He liked Science, and he liked kids, and he liked getting the two together, which is all a good teacher ever really has to do. He impressed the thinking technique called “the scientific method” very deeply into my mind. You get an idea about, or you imagine a model of, how some part of the world around you works – how event A connects to event B. You think of a practical, real-world way to test the idea. You set up the apparatus that you need, then you do the test. All the while, you keep careful records of what you observe. 

Then, you analyze the data to see whether there are patterns in them, patterns that tend to support this theory or model of yours. You then get more ideas for subtler theories or more decisive tests, and you keep on researching. Sometimes you find a way to use your new insights about how the universe works to create technologies that enable humans to live with a little more health and a little less pain. Once in a while, you find a way to formulate one of the basic laws of this universe.   

       

      I could see that by using this method, sharing their findings, and doing more and more research, scientists had expanded human knowledge, created so many helpful technologies, and cured diseases, in a steady march of progress. They had brought most of my way of life to its current state, one that was far safer, more comfortable, and more interesting than that known to any of my ancestors. I was filled with a rush of emotion as I realized not only what had been accomplished, but what might be still to come. It seemed to me then, and it seems to me now, that we are destined for the stars.

               

        On the other hand, between the ages of six and eleven I had spent most of my Sunday mornings attending Sunday school at St. Stephen’s United Church. I had felt similar profound emotions when I had learned about the Being who had made this universe and who loved everything in it. My six-year-old heart ached when I thought that human beings had lost their relationship with God. The evidence which showed that they had was easy to see for myself. Humans are not very moral or even logical most of the time. Even as a boy, I could see this truth in events all about me, from the schoolyard to the Cold War.

But I was uplifted when I was told of one man who had explained to human beings how they might strike a new deal: if they could just learn to truly love one another – to follow his example – then they could regain their relationships with each other and then, finally, their relationship with God. The key thing to see was that following Jesus’ way was what mattered, not whether he really was some kind of "divine" being, and not whether the people I met belonged to one particular group or sect. Love each other. Really love each other. Then peace, progress, and prosperity will all come. All of this was six-year-old naïve, I admit. But it seemed then, and it seems to me now, more profound than the beliefs of many adults because it was clear, heartfelt, and unabashed. 

                              photo of witnesses seeing the miracle at Fatima (Portugal, 1917)   

        Even as a child, I did not believe in "miracles", i.e. events that lie beyond all rational explanation. Still don't. Nor do I believe in the divinity of Jesus. Or, to be exact, I thought then and think now, he had a spark of the divine in him, but so do all living things. He just had a lot more than most of us. But he differed from us in degree, not in kind. And miracles? They turn out to have rational explanations in the end. 

          I knew even as a child that the important thing to understand was what the new deal that Jesus offered humanity represented. The principles being represented in the stories were what mattered, and they seemed to me absolutely bang on. Solve for “x” and a clear path to survival - that is, to humanity’s living in both decency and sense - becomes visible before us. In other words, once a critical mass of humans on this planet share a model of reality that shows them how to fit into the natural world and to get long-term, survival-oriented results there, then, by a few more millions in each generation, humanity will choose to join the walk along that path. Decency and sense will prove fitter than cruelty and folly. Rational persuasion will prevail.

               

        My faith was not destroyed when I gained an understanding of the scientific method. Nor was my passion for Science destroyed by my spiritual beliefs. The two clashed at times, my faith wavered for a while, but as a man, I gradually worked out a way to integrate the two and then to synthesize them into a new belief system, a single, unified, coherent one, whose power to guide, nourish, and inspire is greater than any power residing in science alone or religion alone could ever be.

               

          The question in this Age of Science is “How?”