It is time for scientists to come forth with a theodicy of Science.

God, when believers doubt, has to be explained and excused for the ills of his kingdom; then so does any replacement to God.

Science did all it could to get rid of God. It fought against the dark side of religion, for a luminous reign of reason. It taught us not to serve God but to serve ourselves.

With reason, Science rose to disenchant the world [1] and to replace God. It was very successful in this. Today most people believe whatever scientists affirm and follow most of their advice; but not because scientists justify belief with facts and reason. not because science offers experimental proofs. The reasons and facts of science, its proofs, its theories of everything, became much too complicated and out of reach for the common mortal mind; almost as far away as the Heavens. People believe scientists because of science’s authority as they believed the priests before; and that is enough.

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Science is omniscient – potentially. We learn in school that knowing everything is only a matter of time; the advance of knowledge is inexorable.

Science is also omnipotent – potentially. As the miracles of technology show, yesterday’s impossible is possible today or will be tomorrow.

Science is good, in its own terms, because it proved to be so useful to us; and just because it serves impartial Truth, reality as it is, the new ultimate value. Science is good because it promises freedom of knowledge, power of action and progress.

Or is it serving something else, not us, say, Truth and Knowledge for their own sake? Another art for the sake of art?

If fact, science is non-moral, beyond moral, as it is impersonal. What? Does this sound a nietzschean ring?

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I mind my words: Our new God, Science deserves to be defended;

If it is omniscient, omnipotent and good - and omnipresent too - why is there so much evil, misery and injustice in the world?

Since Science, like God, knows potentially everything, can potentially everything, and is certain to be good, as it leaves no space for alternatives, the high priests of science will have to explain us why is it that this world conquered by science does not become more understandable, better and happier?

Why is the human being still so wretched?

Why are we still such fools?

Why aren’t people better with science?

Why do we seem to head to destruction?

What is the wisdom science teaches to us in order to live a life worth living? Is science wise?

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Someone please stand up and defend Science; not against the dark enslavers of freedom of thought, knowledge and speech but from the accusation of arrogance, amorality, irresponsibility and wrongdoing.

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Explain the impression contemporary science gives that as everything that can be known must be known, so everything that can be said must be said and everything that can be done must be done.

Isn’t this playing god?

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Why are scientists working so well for the worst causes?

Why does science serve so obviously greed, power and violence?

Why is science ruled by money if it is so sacred?

Why does science serve ambition, dispute and pride?

Why is science such a permanent danger of unleashing something that cannot be stopped and which would result in the destruction of the planet and of humanity?

Why is science so intolerant with error and ignorance - in the name of its own unique truth - as intolerant as the religious bigots are with each other?

Our disobedient critical sense needs answers to all this.

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 Who keeps the priests of science free of corruption?

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Religions promised us good news, without proof, always undecidable; that good actions are rewarded and bad ones punished, that we will live after death, forever, in a better world. Hope. We need hope.

What is the good news of science? That we are not souls but mere biological machines made of spare parts? That death is annihilation, and even the Planet, nay, the Universe is doomed? That in the cosmic infinity we are specks of nothing, so that in good reason, nothing really counts? That nature’s way is the law of the strongest and the selection of the fittest? Where is the hope?

Do we science-bred generations need to wait for a techno-future life or a last judgement revolution after which all will be well in a better world?

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Maybe a theodicy of science will be easier to do than God's: science does not really know all yet, cannot all, yet, it only hopes to do, in an ever receding future, all being well before the implosion of the Universe. Maybe it cannot be all-good either because it is human, so human: or because it is not human enough, yet.

Not science, but persons, scientists, do evil with science as believers do wrong in the name of God.

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On reflection, it may be that Science is not God, perhaps it is merely one human endeavour among several others, limited to what it does well. Maybe science should confess and draw clearly its limits and the many important things that are not its business. Then it would not need a theodicy.

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Some will brush my critique aside, saying that I did not understand, but I say that this is how I understand it**, and other people may think silently the same in a quietly growing spiral of silence. Like it or not, a theodicy of science is timely. I hope a saviour Nobel prised genius will rise who will do it soon.

There may be more truth than merit in criticising the unwisdom of science in the XXth century, but I feel deeply that this work must be done, in the interest of Science and of Reason. Science deserves to be defended. A time of changing idols seems to come again. A troubled century ahead for our children.

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[1]Weber, Max  (1919), Le savant et le politique, Paris, Union Générale d’Éditions, 1963, p 14
* Universum Heikenwaelder Hugo, Austria, www.heikenwaelder.at

**I would prefer not to be stoned or burned, according to time-honoured traditions, for my words against the divinity of the day. If needed, better drown me in silence. We are civilised people, aren’t we?

“What happens to me is because of me!”

I need to recall it more often.

This is how free people think, without however bragging carelessly, nor taking on themselves all the guilt of the World.
For they are not madmen, deluded that anything goes, only awakened minds who understand that some things are given but some you make.

To be a person, not a toy of fate, you observe and respect that which is given, but you are the one who made the choices, right or poor; for this reason, sooner or later, what you live is your own doing.

Paraphrasing what someone, maybe Joseph de Maistre, said about nations, it is true about individuals too, that those who are unable to fight for their freedom, or to withdraw in the inner exile of their reflective life, or to flee, or perish, deserve their situation.

Psychology has a name for this in its jargon - it is called locus of control [1], the place from which you feel that you are controlled; from inside you or from somewhere else, outside.

Those who expect everything that happens to them to be determined from an external place out of their reach - commanded by the forces of economy, God, history, chance, rulers and hidden power-groups or even by the inexorable progress of objective natural processes - those people live like objects, doomed to be some kind of puppets, helpless and submissive.

Those who on the contrary hold the they are the main cause of what happens to them - by what they, decide, do and avoid - are able of substantial control. In mind, and possibly in deed, they are free. They may fail but even then, they lived free. As a classic Romanian poem claims:

"We owe a death, we all, death reigns
but it is not at all the same
to die a roaring lion
or a dog in chains" [2]

In the infinite ocean of lawful causalities there is always some room to be an agent, author of  events, to start something [3], while you navigate your little boat. The complication and the myriad of forces at work is such immensity, the potential scenarios so many, that the choices you make are acts of free will.

What you cannot master and you do not want, you can often avoid and work your way around. You can wait and persist like water always ready to flow its way and your choice will come to pass. But keep away from the places where “everything not forbidden is compulsory” [4]; or run away from there as soon as you can. Do the same when you see that the wheels of history start to turn [5] around you.

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[1] Locus of control: Rotter, J. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcements. Psychological Monographs, 80, Whole No. 609

[2] George Coşbuc, Decebal catre popor: C-o moarte tot suntem datori!/…/Dar nu-i totuna leu să mori/Ori câine-nlănţuit.
 
 [3] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1998

[4] T.H.White, The Once and Future King

[5] Martin Luther: "Blood alone moves the wheels of history" (but I never found the historic source where Luther wrote this.