Max Planck on Religion and Science

One of the ablest of contemporary scientists, Professor Max Planck, delivered a lecture on “Religion and Science.” One of the points which he makes is that the greatest impulse to scientific advance in modern times has come from men who were actuated by a specifically religious motive. He instances Kepler, Newton and Leibnitz, all men who conceived their task as scientists to be that of “thinking God’s thoughts after Him.”

The discovery of the laws of planetary motion was for Kepler a revelation from God, and the prayer with which he dedicated his work is that of a man awed by the greatness of the privilege granted to him. “I thank thee, my Creator and Lord, that thou hast given me these joys in Thy creation, this ecstasy over the works of Thy hands. I have made known the glory of Thy works to men as far as any finite spirit was able to comprehend Thy infinity.

If I have said anything wholly unworthy of Thee, or have aspired after my own glory, graciously forgive me.” Another point which he makes is that for him, as a working scientist, the law behind all laws is that Nature acts throughout as if it were governed by a rational and purposive Will. He takes an illustration from the passage of light from the stars to the earth. It is a well-known fact that when light travels in a slanting direction from a rarer to a denser medium, as from air to water, it is bent aside from its course.

That is what happens when light travels from a star to our earth, passing as it does through many layers of atmosphere of varying density. But the significant fact is that, while the light-ray is thus forced to describe a zigzag path, it takes at any moment the shortest of all possible paths, just as if it were seeking the maximum result for the minimum expenditure of energy.

As Professor Planck rightly urges, that is in no sense a proof of God, but it does mean that the scientist can work with the assumption that all things in heaven and on earth do act as if they were ruled by Mind.