Gordon Linney
At this time of the year when services are held to give thanks for the harvest, churches are decorated with fruit, vegetables and flowers, visual aids to remind us of the generosity of the good Earth. In Uganda where the land is fertile and rich, the church building is undecorated at the start of the service but in the course of the service groups arrive from different villages with baskets overflowing with local produce. There is a hint of neighbourly rivalry between the various groups keen to impress with their gifts.
Harvest Festival has deep roots in the traditions and customs of the Old Testament but there is clear evidence that humankind from earliest times felt the need to give thanks for the harvest and acknowledge their dependence on a power greater than themselves. And for many there still is an awareness of such a dependence. A harvest hymn puts it simply: “God our maker doth provide, for our wants to be supplied...”
Of course in this “age of change and doubt”, some insist that such religious activities as mere superstition. For them science has advanced to the point where we don’t need religion any more to fill in the gaps in our knowledge; that science can explain everything or almost everything. But some scientists take a different approach. Stuart Firestein, for example, professor of biological sciences at Columbia University, argues that science is about ignorance, the kind of ignorance that comes from a communal gap in our knowledge. The more we know, the more we realise there is yet to be discovered. The purpose of gaining knowledge is, in fact, “to make better ignorance: to come up with higher quality ignorance. The purpose is to be able to frame thoughtful, interesting questions – because that’s where the work is.” Firestein insists he is not religious in any formal sense; he dislikes authoritarian religion by which he means the kind of religion that claims to know it all which in his view is just like bad science.
Over the centuries religion has reacted badly to scientific developments. Galileo is perhaps the best-known example; his correct understanding that the Earth and other planets revolved around the sun was repudiated by the Inquisition but, be it said, by fellow scientists as well. In the 19th century and later Darwin’s theory of evolution was hotly contested by Christian fundamentalists.
Martin Luther King insists that religion and science need each other: “Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary. Science keeps religion from sinking into the valley of irrationalism and paralysing obscurantism. Religion prevents science from falling into the marsh of obsolete materialism and moral nihilism.”
From a religious point of view Firestein’s idea of an informed ignorance has merit, for after all the Athanasian Creed speaks of God as “incomprehensible” – a cautionary statement; and St Paul candidly accepts that “we know in part and we prophesy in part”.
But the part we know including the discoveries of science can encourage us to believe in a God who is present and active in the world. This was the view of Louis Pasteur, the French scientist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination and pasteurisation, who said: “Posterity will someday laugh at the foolishness of modern materialistic philosophy. The more I study nature the more I am amazed at the Creator.”
So we are in good company when we marvel at the wonders of creation and give thanks for and celebrate the bounty of harvest. The psalmist expressed it beautifully when he wrote: “Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy clouds drop fatness. They shall drop upon the dwellings of the wilderness; and the little hills shall rejoice on every side. The folds shall be full of sheep; the valleys also shall stand so thick with corn that they shall laugh and sing.”