What does it mean to say that we live in a ‘scientific age’ when that is contrasted with ‘a religious age’? Or again, to say that ‘Because we live in a scientific age we don’t need religion’?

What sort of competition is this, in which two apparently very different kinds of concern are seen as embattled? In particular, what does ‘scientific’ mean when one talks of a scientific age, and just what are the needs that science is now held to satisfy? (The spotlight is usually turned on religion, but I think we should sometimes turn it the other way). These are not just disinterested, sociological questions. We have all been hearing the voice that expresses this rather mysterious faith in science all our lives. The force with which it comes home to us must, I think, show that some of the things it is saying are important. Yet in a dozen obvious ways what it says is muddled and wildly wrong.

I must talk here somewhat crudely, because I am talking about something crude. The voice is part of the imagery out of which our conscious thought arises, merging into a dark background of which we are hardly aware. It is full of crude notions. But they can be very influential. Let’s have a closer look at this one.