Can Science lead to God?
When addressing the challenges posed by science to religion, I've heard many people take the wrong approach. They start by critiquing science and the philosophy of science. So they talk about the problem of induction and how science doesn't and cannot deliver absolute truths and how religion belongs to the domain of the absolute. And thats right. But this is step 2 or 3 in a sequence of arguments, not step 1.
We as Muslims are necessarily required to start each and every discourse of ours from the Quran.
Not from philosophy, not from hadith, not from Fiqh. Start with the Quran.
So the first question to ask is- What does the Quran have to say about science?
The answer is simple. In so far as science can be described as a study of the physical world, it will lead one closer to Allah.
Why? Allah says all throughout the Quran that the physical world is the biggest and most manifest sign of His existence. (3:190) Allah created the world around us and gave us intellects so that we would infer His existence and attributes by a deep and reflective study of the world.
Thus, it follows that an unbiased study of the physical world must necessarily lead to Him Most High.
Islamic history is the best example of how the study of science led to God. Muslim scientists formulated the Scientific Method- the foundation of all sciences, under the influence of the Quranic and 'tawhidic' worldview.
Now step 2:
The problem is that somehow we find science being presented as an alternative to religion and in some cases even an indispensable instrument for atheistic arguments?
Thus we will have to conclude that there is something not right here. Something is amiss. The way science is being conducted and subsequently presented is seriously flawed and antithetical to the Islamic worldview.
The job of the modern Muslim is to sift the wheat from the chaff and to separate the science which has the potential to lead us closer to Allah (swt) from its atheistic, naturalistic and materialistic underpinnings that have been installed by the current world order. We need to learn who to separate the 'science' from the philosophy on which it rests. Nowadays the all pervasive philosophical framework within which scientific research is conducted is naturalistic, materialistic and seriously at odds with the Islamic outlook on the subject. Think of science as clear water and philosophy of science as the container that holds it. The color of the container will make the water inside also appear coloured. But in order to appreciate the water and its true nature, the container needs to be free from anything that will appear to alter the true nature of water.
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