Science and Faith: Twin Mysteries by William G. Pollard (review)

Books 365 film still from ‘Triumph of the Will’, showing a group of Nazis worshipping their daggers. I am not against exposing the numerous perversities or vulgarizations committed by man under the name of art, worship and religion, if that is the purpose of a research. To suggest that popular religiosity on a mundane and limited level are the prime movers of the ‘Holy’ in art and society is a serious misunderstanding of the fact that the great religions of the world were founded on a hierarchy within a society-with the populace having to do their job in elevating their awareness. Religious folk art can be very beautiful and has its place in societybut it never succeedsin elevatingthe religious experience in the same way as do great works of art. Why, then, have the authors chosen only a very few photographs of great works of art, such as the thirteenth-century ‘Sun Wheel’ of Konorack, India? For example, are Georges Rouault and Stanley Spencer the only twentieth-century artists concerned with the power and magic of the religious, transcendental or spiritual experience? Why not includeatleast oneadditionalreproduction cf awcrk by Kandinsky, Klee, Mondrian, Malevich, Dali, Sutherland, Chagall, Francis Bacon, Beckmann or a painting by the great masters of the Renaissance and Baroque, any one of which would have helped to take the authors’ effort out of an extremely limited view on what constitutes ‘society’,‘religion’, ‘art’ or ‘worship’. The three pictorial sections of the book are organized into a concept of past, present and future, by which the authors mean ‘paststands for custom, the category of present stands for ritual and ceremonial life,and the category offuturestandsfor immortality either for the individual or for humanity as a whole’. This framework can provide stimulating and interesting analysis and discussion. For the artist addresses himself to the highest possible achievements in his embrace of past, present and future, just asthe true religiousexperiencedoes not separate them. For him, the act of ‘seeing’a Tantric painting, such as the reproduced eighteenth century ‘Creation of the Universe’, unites ‘the living cosmic forces’ in a specific and time-transgressing Now. In social terms, the artist’s exceptional spiritual talent is often an irritant for the profane man to whom accepted customs have their limited and circumscribed setting only. Worship as ‘cosmic’consciousness is a threat to any sheltered, dogmatic and parochial life, as is any religious revelation. On the social level, art and the religious experience face the same dilemma: the consistent attempt on the part of the general public to vulgarize and thereby destroy its cultural hierarchy from whichthis same public receives its own true life impetus. A contribution ‘Worship’ does make: it will cause anger in those people who are sincerely concerned about the subject of worship, art and society, so that they may do something on their own to demonstrate the vital interdependence not only of the object of worship and the worshipper but between popular art and prophetic art. Without the inspiration vibrating from the masterpieces of world art, popular religious customs will fade away into the sterile world of kitch, no matter how much words may seek to prevent it. Science and Faith: Twin Mysteries. William G. Pollard. Thomas Nelson, New York, 1970. 116 pp. $1.95. Reviewed by: Richard H. Rogers* This book by a pioneer in atomic research, takes as its premise the idea that through the mysteries revealed to us by science we can discover Godthe ultimate mystery. This idea is historically the antithesis of most scientific thought that, up until the earlypart of this century, was that sciencewould relentlesslyuncover the secrets of nature and explain away their mysteries, eventually exposing the universe as a sort of giant puzzle with a simple, ultimate answer. The author points out that becauseof the scientific emphasis on the natural reality of space and time, and the objects and events in it, our vision of reality has been severely limited and our ability to respond to supernatural orders of reality has been restricted. Previous defenders of religious thought against this scientificpoint of view had relied upon those things that science seemed unable to explain in order to keep a place for God...