Consciousness itself is dialectical. It is not at all surprising that aspects of consciousness which we identify as "religious" and aspects of consciousness that we identify as "scientific" have existed side-by-side throughout the history of our species, as means by which we observe, reflect, ponder, and investigate. Properly understood, these two impulses do not oppose each other, except to the extent that they goad each other on to explanations that are more-and-more adequate to the complexity of existence, as we experience it.

By way of analogy: a child, one day, takes a science class and begins to think of his mother as an assortment of amino acids, molecules and cells, not altogether different from the chemical soup that is his morning bowl of oatmeal. This new perspective stands alongside the perspective (frame of mind) in which mom is still "mom," to whom he is profoundly grateful, in a way he would not be if he were merely assessing the nature of her derivation from the elements of the periodic table. The one perspective does not preclude the other. The "religious impulse" can be described as that sense of "creaturely dependence" (Rudolph Otto) that can persist--as one lens through which reality is understood--within the mind of even the most astute and rigorous scientist.

These two impulses each can become dangerous, though, when they are artificially separated and put at odds with each other. When that happens, either from the "scientific" or the "religious" side, critical aspects of our full human reality become reduced, to fit into the confines of our preferred theory. So, for example, there are real dangers if the boy thinks that his perception of mom as molecules means he needs to discard his notion of mom as "mom," as being a mere illusion. So, too, if he refuses to recognize the ways in which she is chemical soup, out of fear of losing "mom," he forfeits the endless potential for exploration of the natural world which is opened up by that perspective. At the same time, he demonstrates a rigidity of thought, incapable of viewing phenomena through more than one exclusive paradigm or lens.