Part One: Science and Faith – Discovery vs Invention
The relationship between science and faith has always been a mix of tension, curiosity, and at times, even conflict. But at the heart of this long conversation lies a quiet but crucial distinction: science discovers, while faith often invents.
This isn’t to discredit either side. Instead, it helps us understand their unique roles more clearly. Science uncovers the way the universe works—it observes, tests, asks questions, and gradually refines its understanding. It doesn’t create truth; it reveals what was already there.
Faith, on the other hand, doesn’t just speak to what is known. It dares to explore the unknowable. And in doing so, it invents—language, symbols, stories, and structures that help us relate to things that go beyond measurement or logic. This capacity to invent isn’t a weakness. It’s actually at the heart of how we as humans make sense of deep mystery.
Take, for example, the doctrine of the Trinity, a concept that is not explicitly found in the Muktiveda, similar to the idea of Nishkamya karma in the Gita This wasn’t discovered like a planet or a formula. It was invented—a theological framework early Christians used to express their experience of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Some Christian theologians have tried to map this onto Hindu ideas like the Trimurti (Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva) or Satchidananda (Sat, Chit, Ananda), but the Trinity doesn’t really fit into those categories. (Well, that’s a different discussion altogether.)
Similarly, in Indian philosophy, the concept of Brahman—the ultimate, non-dual reality (sat, or pure being)—didn’t come from a telescope or laboratory. It came from deep reflection and inner insight. These ideas weren’t “discovered” in the scientific sense. They were invented as profound responses to the mystery of existence.
So we need to see the difference between faith-inventions and scientific discoveries.
For example, Advaita Vedanta, though it draws on the Upanishads, is not a simple inheritance. It was shaped by thinkers like Shankara, who gave it form and structure in a specific time in history. That doesn’t make it any less deep or meaningful. But it reminds us that even timeless truths often wear the robes of their own time and culture.
This way of looking at things helps us see that science and faith aren’t enemies. They just operate on different levels. Science explains how the world works. Faith offers meaning—why we’re here and how we relate to what is ultimately Real.
The real problems begin when the two overstep into each other’s space—like when theology tries to speak with scientific authority, or when science dismisses all non-material realities as “unreal.”
Let’s also consider how we often label these domains. If something can be proved through evidence (pramana), we call it rational, scientific, or logical. But if something arises from faith, we might casually dismiss it as “just psychology.” Yet both reason and logic have their own strains of irrationality and illogical tendencies. Consider this famous syllogism: “God is love; love is blind; therefore, God is blind.” Logically, the structure is correct, yet no bhakta (devotee) would ever describe God as blind. A bhakta may sometimes remain blind to his own true needs before God; God, too, might appear blind to the devotee’s prayers or petitions, delaying or denying visible answers. But even so, no one would invent or worship a “blind” God to fulfill their psychological needs.
This reminds us: logic by itself, though formally correct, can still arrive at absurd conclusions if it loses touch with meaning and reality. In this sense, psychology follows its own kind of logic, and logic itself can sometimes collapse into its own kind of illogic.
Think about this:
Science begins with assumptions and curiosity.
Faith begins with relationship—with God, or with the person (a guru, an acharya) who first gave voice to that faith. In science, you study a subject. In faith, you speak to a presence. You receive a response—whether from God Himself, or through the tradition of teachers (guru parampara), even when the original teacher has long passed. You cannot have that kind of living relationship with a subject in science. As noted above, even when someone imagines or creates a concept of God, it is primarily to establish relationship—not to invent a theory or formula for exploring the unknowable.
Science ends with results.
Faith begins with a response.
In faith, you get answers—even if you don’t fully understand or accept them right away. In science, you have to discover the answer. In faith, no question is left hanging forever—you get an answer, even if it’s “wait” or “you won’t understand this now.” In science, many questions remain unanswered and unanswerable, and that’s part of what keeps it going.
Of course, neither science nor faith gives us final answers to every question. But here’s the key difference:
In faith, you can move forward with confidence that some kind of answer will come—even if it’s a no.
In science, even after years of research, you may still not find the answer you were looking for when you started.
Part Two: “Ex Nihilo” – A Theological Invention, Not a Scientific Concept
The tension between science and faith really heated up during the Enlightenment. That’s when scientific discoveries started bumping into literal readings of the Bible. People began to ask:
- How old is the Earth, really?
- Did God create everything in six days?
- And most puzzling of all—did the universe actually come into existence out of absolutely nothing?
Science, which depends on observation and evidence, has never found a way to make “something from nothing” work. The laws of physics, like the conservation of energy (that energy can’t be created or destroyed), make the idea of creation out of total nothingness a tough one for science to accept.
But in Abrahamic religions—especially Christianity and Judaism—ex nihilo (Latin for “out of nothing”) is a central idea. So here’s the real question: Should we treat ex nihilo as a scientific claim? Probably not.
It makes more sense to see creatio ex nihilo as a theological invention—a way of expressing something about God’s power and nature, rather than a literal description of how the universe mechanically began.
Trying to prove ex nihilo scientifically would remain absurd, especially when we consider the evidence of life forms and cosmic phenomena dating back millions—even billions—of years. Similarly, the idea that “first there existed nothing but a void” is itself contradictory: how can one even conceive of “void” without something else to compare it against? What does “nothing” mean in a world where even emptiness must have some kind of context?1
Thus, ex nihilo is not a scientific theory or statement, but a theological expression—born out of the need to affirm God’s absolute sovereignty and creative freedom.
Many Bible scholars would agree. They now see the first eleven chapters of Genesis not as scientific history but as myth—not “myth” in the sense of fake stories, but as deep, symbolic narratives full of meaning. As the saying goes, “Myth is real, but it never happened.” The purpose of those stories wasn’t to teach us astrophysics. It was to tell us about human origins, divine purpose, and cosmic order.
Hindu cosmologies never really claimed that creation came from nothing. Instead, they speak of emanation, cycles, and transformation—ideas that strangely line up with some modern physics and thermodynamics. Neo-Vedanta thinkers like Swami Vivekananda and Dr. Radhakrishnan even argued that Hinduism feels more “scientific” because it never leaned on the idea of a one-time creation from nothing.
When believers in the West cling tightly to ex nihilo as a literal event, they often feel pushed to prove their faith with science—digging for Noah’s Ark, trying to recreate Paul’s travels, or digging through archaeology to “verify” Bible stories. But if we let go of ex nihilo as a scientific claim and see it as a beautiful metaphor or theological statement, a lot of that pressure falls away. Faith doesn’t need science’s approval. It has its own language and power to create meaning.
Imagine a painter sitting in front of a blank canvas. There’s nothing there—just empty white space. She starts painting a beautiful landscape. Of course, she uses things that already exist—paint, brushes, canvas—and maybe she has seen other landscapes before. But the moment she finishes her work, that specific painting didn’t exist before. She didn’t discover it like a scientist finds a new star; she invented or created it.
Stretching this illustration further, if we visualize the entire cosmos as a blank screen, we can imagine that either a Creator—or something unnamed, or even nature itself—brought forth the cosmic painting, of which only a tiny part is visible to us. Whatever the arguments for or against, the very notion of creation presupposes a creator. Science can only construct—it can rearrange existing materials, as in the building of space stations or artificial islands. But science cannot create a new planet or even a new asteroid moving in space. At best, we leave behind space debris from our rockets and expeditions, but true creation remains beyond our reach.
This distinction between creation and construction is crucial when we think about the origins of the universe.
While philosophical debates about the necessity of a Creator are important, they often remain abstract for most people. It is true, as Rodney Stock2 rightly points out, that modern cosmology—especially the overwhelming evidence for the Big Bang—has reopened the fundamental question of origins, striking a blow to the earlier presumption of an eternal, self-existing universe. Yet, beyond the scientific and philosophical need to explain how the universe began, lies a deeper, more personal human reality: the existential need for God.
For ordinary human beings, faith does not hinge upon theories of creation or cosmic origins. Their experience of God arises not from metaphysical arguments but from an inner necessity to address the vulnerabilities and uncertainties of human existence.
Agreed. But do we really need a creation theory to affirm the existence of God or to validate the authenticity of a religion—especially if we accept Stark’s definition that revelation alone marks true religion? As I have already pointed out, the so-called “supernatural” works only in the realm of human beings, not in the natural world, as the Indian term amanushya (“non-human”) suggests. Given this, God as a supernatural reality is primarily for human beings; He does not require a proof of creation, whether He be considered as an efficient cause, a material cause, or as eternal.
The normal human being, who genuinely needs God, does not worry about the theory of creation in order to have faith. That is the concern of philosophers and theologians, who create intricate models of the God-world-soul relationship and invent speculative theories about the origin of the world and the soul. For the common person, however, God IS. She does not require elaborate philosophy or theology to experience His or Her presence, nor does she need scientific proof about creation. Her need for God is rooted in her existential questions about survival, not in intellectual curiosity. Her faith stands not on theology but on her living relationship with her God or gods.
That’s why we talk about creative arts or creative activity. We don’t usually call science “creative” (except maybe in quantum physics). The artist brought something into the world that wasn’t there before. It’s not exactly “ex nihilo,” but it’s close. There’s a message in that painting, a theme behind it. And something beautiful happens: there’s a kind of silent conversation between the artist and the artwork. The painting reflects the artist’s skill and imagination, and the artist feels a sense of connection with what she’s made.
Faith works like that. It invents. Science discovers.
This isn’t to say faith is “fantasy” or that science is cold and lifeless. In the end, both involve imagination. Science imagines models of atoms and galaxies. Faith imagines stories and symbols of grace and purpose. Both are valid in their own domains.
And when we see that clearly, we can respect both—without forcing one to be like the other.
Conclusion: Shared Wonder, Different Tools
So rather than arguing about which is “more true,” it might be better to ask: What is each one trying to do?
- Science is good at answering the how questions.
- Faith is good at asking the why questions.
They may speak in different languages, but both grow from the same human wonder before the mystery of existence.
Though we cannot fully explain either science or faith with just one word—like “invention” or “discovery”—in any single language, say English, still, for the sake of argument, I would put it this way:
When we speak of creative art and scientific discovery (and not the other way around), sometimes we discover to express that wonder, and sometimes we invent.
This thought of mine might sound foolish to both scientists and theologians. But remember: pushing boundaries and asking honest questions has always seemed foolish to someone. That does not make it any less important.
Ashram, 26-4-2025
Notes
1 Philosophically, even the concept of “void” or “nothing” becomes problematic, since “nothing” cannot be conceived apart from “something.” As Heidegger explores in his essay “What Is Metaphysics?” (1929), the experience of nothingness is still an experience—and thus, paradoxically, a kind of “something.”
The line “Das Nichts nichtet” — literally “The nothing nothings” — appears in his famous lecture-essay “Was ist Metaphysik?” (“What Is Metaphysics?”), first delivered in 1929 at the University of Freiburg.
Martin Heidegger, What Is Metaphysics? (1929), English translation by David Farrell Krell (in Basic Writings, Harper & Row, 1977).
✅ In that essay, Heidegger argues that “nothing” is not simply the absence of beings; it has its own kind of reality — we encounter “nothingness” in anxiety (Angst) and in the fundamental questioning of Being itself.
✅ His famous phrase “Das Nichts nichtet” is found when he says:
“The nothing itself nihilates.” (Das Nichts selbst nichtet.)
Meaning: Nothingness is not a passive absence — it actively reveals itself when beings as a whole lose their meaning or presence to us.—accessed by ChatGPT on April 26, 2025
2 …for a long time Western opponents of religion claimed that all notions of a Creation were “fairy tales” because the universe had no beginning. It is difficult to grasp how the notion of an eternal universe is less of a fairy tale than the notion of an eternal Creator, other than that the former is (p.395) purely material and the latter spiritual. Nevertheless, the assumption that the universe is eternal was routinely used by opponents of religion to “prove” that there is no need to assume the existence of God—because there is nothing to “explain.” The overwhelming evidence supporting the “Big Bang” came as a stunning blow to these irreligious presumptions—the universe did have a beginning! So, now what? It may have been feasible to argue that an eternal universe posed no question of origins, but that no longer applies. How did it all begin? What existed before the Big Bang? Of even greater significance is that, Big Bang or not, a compel-ling case for Intelligent Design can be made-not only as demonstrated by science, but in the very existence of science!—Rodney Stock, Discovering God, New York, HarperOne, 2007, pp. 395-96
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