What is the relationship between science, philosophy, and theology? In these articles one finds a more academic analysis, written by people who have training in science and either philosophy or theology. These articles tend to be more academic; for a more immediate, personal take, go to the Personal Reflections section.
A Comprehensible Universe: The Interplay of Science and Theology
- Book
- 160 pages
- General, advanced level
By Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978-2006, and Michael Heller. A short description of the book from the publisher’s web page:
Why is our world comprehensible? This question seems so trivial that few people have dared to ask it. In this book we explore the deep roots of the mystery of rationality. The inquiry into the rationality of the world began over two-and-a-half-thousand years ago, when a few courageous people tried to understand the world with the help of reason alone, rejecting the comforting fabric of myth and legend.
After many philosophical and theological adventures the Greek concept of rationality laid the foundations of a revolutionary way of thinking: the scientific method, which transformed the world.
But looking at the newest fruits of the world’s rationality – relativity theory, quantum mechanics, the unification of physics, quantum gravity – the question arises: what are the limits of the scientific method? The principal tenet of rationality is that you should never stop asking questions until everything has been answered….
Click here for a preview from Google Books.
Click here for publisher’s web page.
A conversation imagined: The meeting of science and faith
Dr. Michelle Francl (quantum chemist at Bryn Mawr and Vatican Observatory adjunct) imagines a conversation between herself and Pope Francis about science and religion
Continue reading →A Theology of Everything?
- Article (PDF)
- 7 pages
- Academic
Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, examines one aspect of the history of the relationship between science and faith, noting that during the Enlightenment most scientists, who were religious believers, were unreasonable in their approach to religious belief, since they sought to found their religious belief on purely rational grounds.
A version of this essay is available in the European Review, Volume 21, Issue S1 (“Reason And Unreason In Twenty–First Century Science”) July 2013, pp. S20-S26.
Across the Universe: Happy Birthday to Us
Article (blog post)- 600 words
- General audiences
Vatican Observatory Director Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J. writes on The Catholic Astronomer blog about the 125th birthday of the Vatican Observatory, and the history that lead to its foundation by Pope Leo XIII. Reflecting on that history, Br. Consolmagno writes:
But our cosmological ideas moved from Copernicus’ fixed sun, through Kepler’s elliptical orbits, to Kant’s idea of galaxies as island universes and Herschel’s measurement of our place in the Milky Way. Our modern speculations about multiple universes carry as much a tinge of science fiction as of natural philosophy. One lesson I hope we’ve learned is that no modern cosmology is a good basis for theological doctrine, simply because no matter how well founded our astronomy is we can expect it will eventually go out of date.
Biology in a Christian University
Article- 5600 words
- General audiences
Alister McGrath is the Andreas Idreos Professor in Science and Religion at the University of Oxford. This excerpt has been selected by the Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science (Inters.org), which is edited by the Advanced School for Interdisciplinary Research, operating at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome, and directed by Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti. In “Biology in a Christian University” McGrath writes:
The complexity and importance of discussions about biological evolution, human identity and human beliefs is of such importance that it is essential to establish an informed forum within which they can be discussed and explored. Modern biology is beginning to rediscover the notion of teleology, and explore its possible implications. Might evolution be much more directed as a process than might hitherto have been realized? Might we begin to speak of islands of stability (Conway Morris) in biological space? This important discussion requires a community which is both biologically and theologically informed – a relative rarity in today’s world. Yet the vision is worth pursuing, not least on account of the intellectual enrichment that it offers. If such an intellectual community does not presently exist, then it must most certainly be invented.
Click here for McGrath’s essay, from Inters.org.
Book Review: A God that Could be Real: Spirituality, Science, and the Future of our Planet
- Article (PDF)
- 3 pages
- Secondary and higher level
Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, reviews the book A God that Could be Real by N. A. Abrams. He concludes, “Each of us walks our own walk at our own pace. Nancy Abrams has shared her personal pilgrimage especially in the Introduction and at times throughout the book and has chosen a wider path to which her trek has led her and which she has eloquently described. Each of us, theist and non-theist alike, would profit immensely by joining her in that pilgrimage, while still walking our own walk at our own pace.”
This review can also be found in America Magazine, October 12, 2015 issue.
Cosmology: The Universe in Evolution
- Book chapter
- 20 pages
- University level and above
Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, writes:
There are three principal pieces of evidence which, when taken together, support the notion that the universe as a whole is evolving. These are: (a) the Hubble velocity-distance relationship; (b) the abundance of light elements in the universe; and (c) the three degree cosmic background radiation. The best explanation of these observations is that the universe began, if it had a beginning, in a hot dense state and that it has been expanding and cooling down ever since. In the course of that process, matter came to be out of energy, galaxies and stars formed, and you and I came to exist. In this process the emergence of organic material in general, and human beings in particular, seems to have required a very fine tuning of the evolutionary process itself. We do not have a definitive scientific explanation of that fine tuning and, therefore, we do not yet understand the linkage of the human being to cosmic evolution. But some interesting suggestions can be made.
Click here for a preview of this work, available from Google Books.
CTNS-Vatican Observatory Series on Divine Action
The CTNS/Vatican Observatory 6-voulme series focuses on the theological concept of divine action in relation to contemporary scientific theories featuring an international team of scholars scientists, philosophers, and theologians.
Continue reading →Pierre Duhem, Entropy, and Christian Faith
Article 18 pages University level In this 2008 article published in the journal Physics in Perspective, historian of science Helge Kragh discusses Pierre Duhem and the status of science and religion in the second half of the nineteenth century, when developments in the science of thermodynamics challenged the idea of an eternal, unchanging or cyclic universe. Kragh writes: The French physicist and polymath Pierre Duhem was strongly devoted to Catholicism but insisted that science and religion were wholly independent. In an article of 1905 he reflected at length on the relationship between physics and Christian faith, using as an example the cosmological significance of the laws of thermodynamics. He held that it was unjustified to draw cosmological consequences from thermodynamics or any other science, and even more unjustified to draw consequences of a religious nature. I place Duhem’s thoughts on “the physics of a believer” in their proper contexts by relating them to the late-nineteenth-century discussion concerning the meaning and … Continue reading →
James Clerk Maxwell and the equations of light
Article 5000 words University level An article about physicist James Clerk Maxwell, by historian and philosopher of science Thomas Forsyth Torrance. Maxwell, a devout Christian, is one of the most important figures in the history of science. Students in physics courses everywhere study “Maxwell’s Equations” that mathematically describe electromagnetic waves. These waves include light, radio, x-rays, etc. They are how astronomers learn about the universe and they are the basis of all wireless communication technology, including smart phones. Torrance writes about Maxwell: [I]t is certainly clear that the kind of physical science which he advocated is much more congenial to Christian theology than that which developed when absolute notions of space and time were arbitrarily clamped down upon the empirical world and had the effect of reducing understanding of it to a hard and closed mechanistic system. For Clerk Maxwell himself rigorous scientific inquiry and simple devout Christian faith were life-long partners, each in its own way contributing to the strength … Continue reading →
Kepler and the Laws of Nature
Article 6 pages High school level and above Owen Gingerich, an astronomer and historian of science with Harvard University, discusses Johannes Kepler and the idea of “Laws of Nature” in this 2011 article published in the journal Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith: Kepler is famous for his three laws of planetary motion, but he never assigned a special status to them or called them laws. More than a century and a half passed before they were singled out and ordered in a group of three. Nevertheless, he believed in an underlying, God-given rationale to the universe, something akin to laws of nature, and as he matured he began to use the word archetype for this concept. Most physicists today have, quite independently of religious values, a feeling that deep down the universe is ultimately comprehensible and lawful. Such ultimate laws are here called ontological laws of nature. In contrast, what we have (including Kepler’s third law, for example) are … Continue reading →
Explaining the Unexplainable: The Limits of Language and the Power of Metaphor.
A post by Fr. James Kurzinski on the Catholic Astronomer website. “Of the many blessings I have received from writing for The Catholic Astronomer, one of them has been deepening my awareness of how we can come to understand God through understanding creation. That being said, I have also learned that there are limits to this understanding, pointing to a transcendent reality in which all language and human expression ultimately breaks down. “
Continue reading →Science and Religious Belief
Book chapter 8 pages General audience A chapter by Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J. (Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006) in International Symposium on Astrophysics Research and Science Education a book published by the Vatican Observatory in 1999. Fr. Coyne writes: In our age, perhaps more than at any other time, the scientific view of the world has been the principal spur to a more unified view of the world. It has opened our minds to the vast richness of the universe which cannot be appropriated by any one discipline alone. Science invites us to that vision. It also cautions us not to absolutize scientific results. We must beware of a serious temptation of the cosmologists. Within their culture God is essentially, if not exclusively, seen as an explanation and not as a person. God is the ideal mathematical structure, the theory of everything. God is Mind. It must remain a firm tenet of the reflecting … Continue reading →
Biology in a Christian University
Article 5600 words General audiences Alister McGrath is the Andreas Idreos Professor in Science and Religion at the University of Oxford. This excerpt has been selected by the Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science (Inters.org), which is edited by the Advanced School for Interdisciplinary Research, operating at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome, and directed by Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti. In “Biology in a Christian University” McGrath writes: The complexity and importance of discussions about biological evolution, human identity and human beliefs is of such importance that it is essential to establish an informed forum within which they can be discussed and explored. Modern biology is beginning to rediscover the notion of teleology, and explore its possible implications. Might evolution be much more directed as a process than might hitherto have been realized? Might we begin to speak of islands of stability (Conway Morris) in biological space? This important discussion requires a community which is both biologically and theologically informed – … Continue reading →
St. Thomas Aquinas – The Knowledge of the Creatures is Useful to Avoid Errors Concerning God
Book excerpt 1400 words University level In this Summa contra Gentiles discussion on created things (that is, on the creatures or the works of God), Thomas Aquinas comments on the value for Faith inherent in understanding these things. This excerpt has been selected by the Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science (Inters.org), which is edited by the Advanced School for Interdisciplinary Research, operating at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome, and directed by Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti. St. Thomas gives a number of reasons for studying the works of God: First, because meditation on His works enables us in some measure to admire and reflect upon His wisdom…. Secondly, this consideration [of God’s works] leads to admiration of God’s sublime power, and consequently inspires in men’s hearts reverence for God…. Thirdly, this consideration incites the souls of men to the love of God’s goodness…. Fourthly, this consideration endows men with a certain likeness to God’s perfection…. It is therefore evident that the consideration … Continue reading →
God and Contemporary Thought – Étienne Gilson
Article (book excerpt) 2800 words High school level and above The twentieth-century French philosopher Étienne Gilson writes on God, Immanuel Kant, Auguste Comte, and science: The present-day position of the problem of God is wholly dominated by the thought of Immanuel Kant and of Auguste Comte. Their doctrines are about as widely different as two philosophical doctrines can possible be. Yet the Criticism of Kant and the Positivism of Comte have this in common, that in both doctrines the notion of knowledge is reduced to that of scientific knowledge, and the notion of scientific knowledge itself to the type of intelligibility provided by the physics of Newton. The verb “to know” then means to express observable relations between given facts in terms of mathematical relations…. When a man falls to wondering whether there is such a being as God, he is not conscious of raising a scientific problem, or hoping to give it a scientific solution. Scientific problems are all … Continue reading →
The Scientism Delusion? Ian Hutchinson Explores Science and Faith at Emory University
Video 45 minute talk (+ 45 minutes of questions and answers) General audiences Ian Hutchinson is Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering and Plasma Science and Fusion Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This is a Veritas Forum talk Hutchinson gave at Emory University. From the Veritas Forum: Since its beginning, science has demonstrated its uncapped ability to uncover and explain our universe… or has it? MIT Professor and Christian Ian Hutchinson argues that the fairly recent view that science can explain everything, or scientism, makes unrealistic promises of the scientific method. Instead, Hutchinson opens up a world in which multiple ways of knowing, including science, are equally legitimate. Among them, Hutchinson argues, is faith. Join Dr. Hutchinson and the Emory audience for a discussion about science, faith, and how we come to know the world. Over the past two decades, The Veritas Forum has been hosting vibrant discussions on life’s … Continue reading →
Meaning: Exploring the Big Questions of the Cosmos with a Vatican Scientist
Videos series 12 twenty five minute programs, approx. 6 hours total General audience A series of lectures by Br. Guy Consolmagno, Director of the Vatican Observatory. From the publisher, Now You Know Media: Explore the big questions of science and religion with a Jesuit astronomer. While science and religion have often been seen as contradictory forces, in reality they complement each other. Indeed, Catholics have often been at the forefront of scientific discovery; the Augustinian friar Gregor Mendel innovated the study of genetics, and the Jesuit Georges Lemaître first proposed the Big Bang Theory. More recently, Pope Francis issued Laudato Si, an encyclical that addresses global warming. Now, you can join a leading Catholic scientist in examining the most vital questions about the universe. Your guide, Br. Guy Consolmagno, S.J., an astronomer and President of the Vatican Observatory Foundation, deals with big things—stars, galaxies, and unfathomable distances—but that’s not the kind of “bigness” that you will explore here. Instead, you … Continue reading →
Interview with Eugene Selk for Creighton’s Center for Catholic thought
Fifteen minute podcast covering a range of science and faith issues, including Galileo, with a philosophy professor at Creighton University.
Continue reading →Book Review: A God that Could be Real: Spirituality, Science, and the Future of our Planet
Fr. George Coyne reviews the book A God that Could be Real by N. A. Abrams
Continue reading →Letter of His Holiness John Paul II to Reverend George V. Coyne, S.J.
Article 3900 words High school level and above A 1988 letter from Pope John Paul II to Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., then Director of the Vatican Observatory, on the three hundredth anniversary of the publication of Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Click here to access this text via the Vatican’s website. … Continue reading →
A Theology of Everything?
During the Enlightenment most scientists, who were religious believers, were unreasonable in their approach to religious belief, since they sought to found their religious belief on purely rational grounds.
Continue reading →The Two Books
Book 424 pages University level This book by Olaf Pedersen and published originally by Vatican Observatory Publications in 2007, is distributed by The University of Notre Dame Press. “In The Two Books, Olaf Pedersen traces the historical continuity of the science-religion dialogue from its pre-Socratic roots to our current pursuit of the interactions between the natural sciences and religion. In so doing, he makes a unique and important contribution to the field.” Click here for additional information from The University of Notre Dame Press. … Continue reading →
A Comprehensible Universe: The Interplay of Science and Theology
This book explores the deep roots of the mystery of rationality, from the Greek concept of rationality; to the scientific method; to relativity theory, quantum mechanics, the unification of physics, quantum gravity.
Continue reading →Isaac Newton – The ‘General Scholium’ of the Principia
Book chapter 5 pages University level Isaac Newton, for his Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, arguably the most important work of science ever produced (first published in 1687), wrote a ‘General Scholium’ which discusses the solar system and the physics behind the solar system as the work of God. Newton is often said to have written more about theology than about mathematics and physics, although his views on the nature of God were unorthodox and much of what he wrote regarding matters relating to religion was never published. From the ‘General Scholium’: This most beautiful System of the Sun, Planets, and Comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being. And if the fixed Stars are the centers of other like systems, these, being form’d by the like wise counsel, must be all subject to the dominion of One; especially since the light of the fixed Stars is of the same nature with the … Continue reading →
Esplorare l’universo, ultima delle periferie: le sfide della scienza alla teologia
In Italian. Book of chapters on science and faith topics by a number of authors, designed for use in Italian seminaries.
Continue reading →CTNS-Vatican Observatory Series on Divine Action
The CTNS/Vatican Observatory 6-voulme series focuses on the theological concept of divine action in relation to contemporary scientific theories featuring an international team of scholars scientists, philosophers, and theologians.
Continue reading →