Stephen Jay Gould Non Overlapping Magisteria

The debate surrounding God’s role in nature is one of controversy and intertwining beliefs. The most tremendous question of them all — Creationism versus evolutionism — shapes the precedent for one’s view of religion in nature. Nature, a showcase of miraculous feats and horrific scenes, is often unquestioned as the workings of a higher power. Yet, when naturally occurring heinous actions are discovered, the question arises: can an omnipotent and benevolent God really create such cruelty? Stephen Jay Gould, an American paleontologist, takes a peculiar stand on this issue of morality within nature and other scientific entities. To thoroughly articulate his beliefs, Gould created the viewpoint Non-Overlapping Magisteria (NOMA). NOMA, unlike many

Even though stories, just as religion, have an appropriate time and place, Gould emphasizes what we lose when nature is over anthropized. To prove this, Gould quotes the work of J.H. Fabre, where Fabre inappropriately speaks of the ichneumon process as a “saga” of battle and conquest. In his own novel, Fabre says: “The grub is at dinner: head downwards, it is digging into the limp belly of one of the caterpillars…” (Gould, 3, 10). In quoting this line of Fabre’s, Gould hints at the power of such enticing stories to a human’s instinct to moralize it. By saying that the ichneumon is at “dinner” when attacking the caterpillar, an exclusively human activity, Gould criticizes the fusing of the vicious ichneumon and human actions, and subsequently nature and human-rooted morality. Fabre continues this analogy in the end of his excerpt, equating the caterpillar to the ichneumon’s “table”, just as Gould continues it further by describing the ichneumon’s behavior, saying that one “proceeds to feast upon a banquet already well prepared” (Gould, 3, 12). This continued analogy creates an inappropriately anthropocentric viewpoint of a natural occurrence, thus allowing one to wrongfully make the connection of religious virtue to any and all behavior. Gould’s continuation of this analogy further contributes to his sarcastic and condescending tone throughout the essay,

He accuses several naturalists of containing leaps in logic in their arguments, saying that God’s benevolence must be apparent in some way or form with no real proof. Gould includes three references, followed by his own critical rhetoric, to illustrate how ridiculous the association between religion and nature is, for there is no evidence supporting it. First, he criticizes Charles Lyell’s reasoning behind his natural theology beliefs that contain leaps in logic. Gould uses powerful, sarcastic, and condescending language such as “[Lyell] decided that caterpillars posed a threat” and that any outcome “could only reflect well” on a higher creator (Gould, 4, 16). Through this condescending diction, Gould dismisses Lyell’s, and thus all theologists’, case for God’s role in nature, for the concrete proof is non-existent. Likewise, he references William Kirby, a Reverend, and St. George Mivart, a committed Catholic, to further highlight the lapse in reasoning from the overlapping argument. Gould claims Mivart’s argument, that “primitive people suffer less than advanced and cultured folk”, overtly racist and based on pure speculation, while he accuses Kirby, and his appreciation of “motherly love”, of ignoring the truly vicious act. By choosing to include this excerpt on “motherly love”, a very emotional and humanistic concept, Gould shows the reader his opposition’s flaws in deliberately