Orthodox Church and Science

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titlePravoslavna crkva i nauka
3. Language term Serbian
4. lemma author Stevanovic, Aleksandra
5. lemma category Education, Science and Orthodoxy
6. Publication date 7-8-2016
7. lemma work Bigovic, Radovan [Author]. Church in the Modern World
8. lemma manifestations Church in the Modern World - Belgrade: Sluzbeni glasnik, 2010.
9. Keywords
   1. Bigovic, Radovan
10. Keywords dialogue
11. Lemma body

    1. Professor Radovan Bigovic argues that a plethora of different theories between Christianity and science exist. In a broad sense, they can be classified into three basic groups regarding the following characteristics: excommunication, complementation and sameness. Complementation is found to be necessary in fostering the dialogue between religion and science. Bigovic implies that many scientists admit science has been created on the basis of Christianity and Christian thought and stresses that Modern science has emerged from the Scholastic thought. However, in the 18^th and 19^th century, theology and religion itself have been denied by the scientific thought rooted in the belief that nothing exists outside science. 20^th century has preserved this belief; however, a necessity for the science–religion dialogue has been slightly raised. Bigovic provides the example of a famous physicist Werner Heisenberg who pointed out the importance of science–religion relation due to the notion that the most fruitful development exists where two different ways of thoughts coincide.

       The paper of Bigovic’s is very important for the awareness of the dialogue necessity raising. Bigovic believes that science without religion is often one-sided, even cruel. On the other hand, religion without science can easily turn into superstition, even magic. To support his idea, Bigovic names some of the important scientists such as Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg and thinkers such as Alfred Whitehead and Nikolai Berdyaev and thus promotes the importance of science-religion dialogue among other scholars. 

       The paper of Bigovic’s was first presented during panel discussion that led up to the scientific proceedings titled Science, Religion, Society in 2002. Later, it was incorporated into his book. Although this chapter of the book by Professor Bigovic has not depicted science–religion thought, nor relationship in detail, it is an insightful work that opens the possibility of such an endeavor in order to answer the questions or lighten the new perspective up in both scientific and religious papers. It also reveals the perspective of an important Orthodox theologian about science and its importance since he argues that they cannot yield answers respectively.