It has become customary in the West to think of science and
religion as occupying two distinct -- and even opposed -- areas of human
thought and activity. This dichotomy can be characterized in the pairs of antitheses:
faith and reason; value and fact. It is a dichotomy which is foreign to Bahá'í
thought…. The principle of the harmony of science and religion means not only
that religious teachings should be studied with the light of reason and
evidence as well as of faith and inspiration, but also that everything in this
creation, all aspects of human life and knowledge, should be studied in the
light of revelation as well as in that of purely rational investigation. In
other words… when studying a subject, [one] should not lock out of his mind any
aspect of truth that is known to him.
(Memorandum from the Research Department
of the Universal House of Justice on Baha’i Scholarship, accompanied by a
letter written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice dated 3 January
1979; ‘Messages from the Universal House of Justice 1963-1986’)
