The Face to Faith commentary section in today’s Guardian contains this article, by Mark Vernon, a priest turned agnostic journalist and author of Atheism: Science, Religion and the Meaning of Life.

Vernon argues that if we view scientific knowledge as being limitless in its scope, we are eroding our ability to engage in “contemplative wonder” at things which science cannot explain.

He draws a distinction between contemplative and “instrumental” wonder: the instrumental variety is the sort of wonder we might feel when solving a puzzle, a wonder that fires a desire to see the puzzle solved; the contemplative variety is the wonder “which does not undo, but lets be” – this type of wonder is the type our ancestors might have felt on seeing an approaching storm: an awestruck sense of connectedness between human beings, the natural world and the divine.

Having no problem with either type of wonder, one may be forgiven for asking what all the fuss is about. It turns out that Vernon is worried that our obsession with the instrumental type of wonder means that nothing is left sacred. There are some things, he asserts, that are beyond the comprehension of science: “consciousness, morality and existence itself” he gives as examples.

Apparently, the artistic, religious and moral imagination are well-equipped to ponder these matters. This leaves one thinking that the effect of Vernon’s assertions about the nature of contemplative wonder is to set up a series of intellectual “no-go” areas where science cannot and should not probe.

The examples he gives of consciousness and morality in particular are areas where science is just starting to have the ability to explore. There’s no problem with the idea of contemplating something “as it is” without wishing to probe any further, but seeking after a particular area of knowledge should not be prohibited simply because someone thinks it ought to be “sacred”.

Auguste Comte said that mankind would never know the nature of the stars shortly before the invention of the spectroscope which yielded a treasure trove of information about their structure. Although he didn’t make a moral case for not inquiring as to their nature, where would humanity’s knowledge of astronomy be if everybody had believed him and turned their attentions elsewhere?

Vernon’s remark about contemplative wonder being something which “does not undo but lets be” sounds a little like Tolkien saying “He who breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom”. Although in the case of a computer it might well be a bad idea to trash it in order to find out how it works, in particle physics it is more or less the only way that progress can be made.

If we set up arbitrary barriers to knowledge on the grounds that some things must be sacred, we risk depriving ourselves of a valuable insight into the human condition. A life without meaning is indeed an impoverished one, but there’s absolutely no reason why we can’t create our own meaning.