A couple of weeks ago, Peter Mansbridge, the anchor of CBC National TV News, had an one to one interview with Chris Hadfield who has been on the space shuttle. It was very excited to watch the program. The astronaut Chris said that it is an awesome and very special experience for him to spend a significant amount of time living in the space. Especially to the question of having any religious or spiritual experience through watching over the earth from the space, he shared his own unique experience of the splendour of the sun rising and showed various interesting pictures of many special parts of the earth. Since people have been occupied the earth, almost every corner of the earth has been explored and somebody has been there. But space is still an unknown world and so far only a handful people have been granted the privilege to go there.
An interesting thing in the conversation between one of the most prominent TV anchors on the earth and one of the most famous astronauts in space program was for them to chat about a religious and spiritual experience. Of course, having a religion is each individual's own freedom of choice and it has to be respected regardless of what and who they are. The key point is that in witnessing the awesome, grandeur and spectacular natural beauty and mysterious power of nature, people have religious and spiritual experience. And this numinous experience and feeling naturally lead into why and how questions; why is it there? How does it work out? Becoming a religious or spiritual person does not only happen through participating in religious ritual activities regularly but also through this kind of a special personal experience of ineffable awesome feeling.
This awesome religious feeling can happen to anyone and at any time in our daily life. No matter what the question we have, whether it is a big or small, important or trivial, complicate or simple, any and every question always somehow relates to a religious matter. Why and how? Because there is always an incomprehensible, inscrutable, and unimaginable factor and element beyond, between and behind the reality when we search for an answer. Therefore this why question ultimately plays a role that leads to the fundamental question, who God is, the first cause of everything, called proto-cause in theological terms. On the other hand, "how" is an intellectual or scientific question. It requires knowledge about principles or logic to draw a conclusion of how to happen or came to be. The word "science" came from Latin, "scientia", its meaning is to know and discern, knowledge. So it is a very interesting point that the highlight of knowledge, science, is to know the first cause of everything, God.
The most fundamental and serious question in all of human history is why innocent people have to suffer? To this question from Job why, instead of God answering him directly (Job 38-40), God does his questions to Job so that he may know who God is. "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding" (Job. 38:4). Nobody is able to answer to this simple question. No one has any understanding, idea, clue, knowledge nor any wisdom to have an answer to this simple question from God; where were human beings when creation occurred. When science opposes religion and over steps it or visa verse, there is no solution at all on either side. However as long as why (religion) and how (science) work together in collaborative ways in order to deal with all kinds of why and how questions, then our life is surely much enriched and prosperous in many ways.
