Re Two Kinds Of Knowledge
Science rests on the presupposition that the phenomenal world is perceived only through the five senses. Anything beyond that is not a fact and scientifically verifiable. Religion, on the other hand, is based on experience. This experience is communicated from person to person and generation to generation through rituals, dogma, theology and so on. More often than not, these instruments or vehicles of communication become institutionalised and substitutes for The Experience.
The two are not comparable but not mutually exclusive. They are also not absolute. Scientific inquiry continues. Old theories are dismantled and replaced by new. Similarly, religious experience continues from one stage to the higher one – For now we see dimly as in a mirror, but one day we will see face to face. I believe that religion, in its essence, is an expression of the innate human quest for transcendence, for a glimpse of the reality beyond reality, for meaning. The quest for scientific knowledge is integral to human existence; so is religion properly understood.
As Dr. McLellend mentions, both the great scientist as well theologians recognise this. Science can tell us how the phenomenal universe works in a way it does but not why.
