During the positivist era, the idea emerged that only science can provide true knowledge. Since it is not possible to prove the existence of God through a genuine scientific process, much less to prove the dogmas and ethical principles of religion, one must conclude that religious faith is not true knowledge.

This idea, although surpassed by the very conception of science itself, still persists today: many people think that one should believe in science because it is demonstrable, and not in religion because it cannot be scientifically demonstrated.

In reality, however, it seems evident to me that science and faith cannot be opposed to one another.

Science presents truths that are considered such as long as they correspond to experiments; for example, water is H₂O unless this is falsified. Yet only a very small number of people (scientists in various fields) can actually conduct these experiments, and their results are accepted by everyone. It may seem strange to me that water is composed of two gases, but I certainly do not doubt it. Over the last centuries, science has been the basis of many inventions that have profoundly changed our lives.

But while we passively accept scientific truths, which are the same for everyone, we then develop our own way of viewing reality in ethical, political, and artistic matters, and according to this view we live and sometimes die. We are all different, and we change over time in our way of thinking and in the human truths in which we place our trust. Thus we conceive love, the education of children, political organization, modern and ancient art, and countless other things that guide our lives: our entire life is marked, regulated, and directed by conceptions of reality that are not scientific.

It is within this sphere that the religious conception is situated: there are billions of people who believe in God and billions who do not. We cannot think that all these billions of people, on one side or the other, are foolish or irrational.

However, an objection can be raised that does not seem trivial to me. Human conceptions are our interpretations—or rather our organizations—of reality, and therefore they may vary according to times and places, in short, according to the civilization in which they are developed.

But the existence of God is an objective fact, true or false forever, independent of personal interpretation. The question therefore arises spontaneously: why does God not reveal himself openly, so that we human beings could no longer doubt his existence?

The following answer has been given to the fact that God does not reveal himself: if God were to reveal himself, man would no longer be free. God, however, created us free, and it is we who choose. It is also thought that the choice depends not so much on reason as on morality: it is said that to believe in God one must not add proof upon proof, but free oneself from one’s vices.

If God appeared openly before us, who would dare disobey? Who could commit sin in the presence of God?

I would also note that, in the end, the existence of a higher being who created the world may even be considered a logically undeniable fact. Nothing exists without having begun, and therefore one must postulate a being that exists absolutely, that is eternal and immutable, which we call God.

However, even accepting this argument (which not everyone accepts), we must note that merely thinking that there is a first cause of the universe (which we may call God) has little importance in our lives: it is like talking about the Big Bang. What may instead determine our whole life is thinking that this higher being is concerned with us.

In essence, being religious means believing in divine intervention, not only in divine existence. Yet divine intervention does not appear clearly when we continually see evil triumph over good, misfortunes strike the innocent, and fortune reward the wicked.

One must then think that the true reward and the true punishment are not on this earth but in another life, the eternal one. But this entails a personal choice that not everyone is willing to make.