The Biggest Lie We Were Told: That Science and God Are Enemies

For most of my life, I have refused to accept the idea that science and spirituality belong to two separate worlds. That division never made sense to me. It always felt artificial—like a line drawn in sand that reality itself keeps washing away. The deeper I’ve gone into scripture, philosophy, metaphysics, and modern science, the clearer it has become to me that what we call “science” and what we call “spirituality” are not rivals. They are two poles of the same Reality. Two languages describing the same Mystery from different angles.

When I first encountered the Hermetica, I was struck by how ancient thinkers already understood this unity. “As above, so below” is not poetry. It is metaphysics. It is a statement about correspondence, about continuity between realms. The spiritual is not somewhere “else.” It is expressed here. The material is not separate from the divine. It is one of its modes. This same insight later appears in Neo-Platonism, where the One flows into Mind, and Mind into Soul, and Soul into the world. Nothing is cut off. Everything is participation.

Philo of Alexandria bridged Hebrew Scripture and Greek philosophy in much the same way. He understood Logos not merely as “word,” but as divine Reason, divine Pattern, divine Intelligence expressing itself through creation. When I read Philo alongside John’s Gospel, I see the same vision unfolding. “In the beginning was the Logos.” That is not just theology. That is cosmology. It is saying that Reality itself is grounded in Meaning, Intelligence, and Consciousness. Creation is not random chaos. It is structured expression.

John’s Gospel never presents Jesus as merely a moral teacher. John presents Christ as the living interface between the unseen and the seen. “The Word became flesh.” That is the ultimate statement of unity between spirit and matter. Not separation. Not escape. Incarnation. Embodiment. Participation.

And then Paul reinforces this from another angle. He tells us plainly that “the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.” Hebrews echoes this: “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of what is visible.” In modern language, that is saying: physical reality emerges from an invisible foundation. Paul and Hebrews were not naïve mystics. They were pointing to something fundamental—that matter is not ultimate. Form is not first. The visible flows from the invisible.

Today, science is slowly rediscovering this truth.

Donald Hoffman’s work challenges the assumption that evolution selected us to see reality as it is. He argues that consciousness does not arise from matter, but that matter arises within consciousness. What we experience is an interface, not ultimate reality. We see icons on a screen, not the circuitry beneath. That resonates deeply with me. Scripture has been saying this for two thousand years: “We walk by faith, not by sight.” Faith, in Paul’s sense, is not blind belief. It is trust in the unseen structure beneath appearances.

Bernardo Kastrup takes this even further, arguing for analytic idealism—that mind is fundamental, and matter is derivative. Consciousness is not something that happens in brains. Brains happen in consciousness. That may sound radical to materialists, but it aligns perfectly with mystical Christianity, Hermetic thought, and Platonic philosophy. It also aligns with my own lived experience of spiritual awareness.

Federico Faggin, the inventor of the microprocessor, reached similar conclusions through physics and engineering. After helping build the digital world, he realized that consciousness cannot be reduced to computation. Information requires awareness. Meaning requires mind. Technology itself led him back to metaphysics.

What strikes me is this: people coming from religion, philosophy, neuroscience, physics, and engineering are converging on the same insight. Reality is not dead. It is alive. It is conscious. It is participatory.

This is why I cannot accept the old conflict model between science and faith. That model assumes science studies “facts” and spirituality deals with “feelings.” But that is false. Science studies patterns in experience. Spirituality studies the depth of experience itself. One maps appearances. The other explores essence. Both are necessary.

Materialism tells us that consciousness is an accident of chemistry. Scripture tells us that consciousness is foundational. Hermeticism says mind precedes matter. Platonism says forms precede objects. John says Logos precedes flesh. Paul says the invisible precedes the visible. Modern idealism says mind precedes physics. They are all saying the same thing in different dialects.

In my own journey, I have come to see that science is the study of God’s patterns, and spirituality is the study of God’s presence. Science asks, “How does this work?” Spirituality asks, “Why does it exist?” and “Who am I within it?” When they are separated, science becomes cold and reductionistic, and spirituality becomes superstitious. When they are united, both become wisdom.

I also believe that the reason this unity has been lost in modern Christianity is because theology became obsessed with legalism, guilt, and metaphysical separation. Instead of seeing creation as participation in God, it turned it into a courtroom drama. Instead of seeing salvation as awakening and transformation, it turned it into a transaction. That distortion broke the bridge between spirit and world.

But Jesus never taught separation. He taught union. “I and the Father are one.” “The kingdom is within you.” “Abide in me.” These are not legal metaphors. They are metaphysical statements. They point to shared being.

For me, science is humanity learning how the divine expresses itself in form. Spirituality is humanity remembering that we are participants in that expression. One is outward exploration. The other is inward realization. Together, they form a complete path.

We are not trapped in matter, trying to escape to heaven. We are consciousness learning itself through matter. We are the invisible becoming visible, and the visible awakening to the invisible.

That is why I say science and spirituality are poles of the same Reality. One moves from form to source. The other moves from source to form. One measures. The other contemplates. One builds technology. The other builds wisdom.

And when they finally meet again—fully, humbly, and honestly—I believe we will rediscover what the ancients, the mystics, and even the apostles already knew:

Reality is One.
Consciousness is primary.
Love is its highest expression.
And we are here to remember who we really are.