Cosmology Archives - Page 3 of 8 - Vatican Observatory Foundation Faith and Science

Charles Darwin – The Role of a Hypothetical Creator is Compatible with the Evolution of the Biological Species

Article (book excerpt) 700 words Level: high school and above Charles Darwin argues that the idea of evolution is a more elegant explanation for the action of a Creator than the idea that each species was individually created as is. Darwin writes: It accords with what we know of the law impressed on matter by the Creator, that the creation and extinction of forms, like the birth and death of individuals should be the effect of secondary [laws] means. It is derogatory that the Creator of countless systems of worlds should have created each of the myriads of creeping parasites and [slimy] worms which have swarmed each day of life on land and water (on) [this] one globe. We cease being astonished, however much we may deplore, that a group of animals should have been directly created to lay their eggs in bowels and flesh of other,— that some organisms should delight in cruelty,—that animals should be led away by … Continue reading →

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz – The Ultimate Origin of Things

Article (book excerpt) 3800 words Level: high school and above Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz is credited with the invention of the mathematics of Calculus. Isaac Newton is also so credited, but it is the notation and language of Leibniz that is used in modern calculus. Here Leibniz argues that reason points to the existence of a being outside the universe who governs it and built it: In addition to the world or aggregate of finite things, there is some unique Being who governs, not only like the soul in me, or rather like the Ego itself in my body, but in a much higher relation. For one Being dominating the universe not only rules the world but he creates and fashions it, is superior to the world, and, so to speak, extra mundane, and by this very fact is the ultimate reason of things. For the sufficient reason of existence can be found neither in any particular thing nor in the whole … Continue reading →

Robert Boyle – A Classical Example of Anglican Apologetics, from “Christian Virtuoso”

Article (book excerpt) 2400 words Level: university Robert Boyle is an important figure in the history of science. Indeed, students in chemistry classes of all levels learn of “Boyle’s Law” of gasses. This is an excerpt from Boyle’s 1690 work The Christian Virtuoso. This article 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. Click here for an excerpt from Inters.org. Click here for this material from Boyle’s original work, courtesy of Archive.org.

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Kepler’s Prayers to God in Harmony of the World

Articles 2200 words total Level: high school and above Johannes Kepler is one of the major figures in the history of astronomy. He was a profoundly religious man who interspersed prayers and hymns within his scientific writings. One example of this is his 1619 book Harmony of the World, which contains, among other things, this prayer for his scientific work: Holy Father, keep us safe in the concord of our love for one another, that we may be one, just as Thou art one with Thy Son, Our Lord, and with the Holy Ghost, and just as through the sweetest bonds of harmonies Thou hast made all Thy works one; and that from the bringing of Thy people into concord the body of Thy Church may be rebuilt up in the Earth, as Thou didst erect the heavens themselves out of harmonies. Click here for an excerpt from the Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science (Inters.org), which is edited by the Advanced … Continue reading →

St. Bonaventure – on the value of sensing and measuring the world

Articles (book excerpts) 5200 words total Level: university Two excerpts from the twelfth-century The Mind’s Road to God of Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, both of which focus on the use of the senses to study the world. St. Bonaventure writes of the use of the sense to observe the world, noting measurements of size, type, number, order etc. of the created things of this world. And, he writes, the …creatures of this sensible world signify the invisible things of God, partly because God is the Origin, Exemplar and End, of every creature, and (because) every effect is a sign of a cause, and an example of an exemplar, and a way for the end, towards which it leads: partly from itsown representation; partly from a prophetic prefiguration; partly from angelic activity; partly from a superadded institution. For every creature by [ex] its nature is a certain likeness and similitude of that eternal Wisdom, and especially those things which have been assumed in the book of … Continue reading →

St. Anselm – God is not in place or time but all things are in Him

Article (book excerpt) 1200 words Level: high school and above An excerpt from the eleventh-century Proslogion of Anselm of Canterbury on the mind-bending nature of God and God’s existence beyond space and time. This article 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. Anselm writes: And You are the being who exists in a strict and absolute sense because You have neither past nor future existence but only present existence; nor can You be thought not to exist at any time. And You are life and light and wisdom and blessedness and eternity and many suchlike good things; and yet You are nothing save the one and supreme good, You who are completely sufﬁcient unto Yourself, needing nothing, but rather He whom all things need in order that they may have being … Continue reading →

Allan Sandage – Reflections on Religious Belief

Article 1500 words Level: all audiences A discussion by the noted astronomer and cosmologist Allan Sandage. 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. Sandage writes: If there is no God, nothing makes sense. The atheist’s case is based on a deception they wish to play upon themselves that follows already from their initial premise. And if there is a God, he must be true both to science and religion. If it seems not so, then one’s hermeneutics (either the pastor’s or the scientist’s) must wrong. But Sandage also asks “Do recent astronomical discoveries have theological significance?” and answers: I would say not, although the discovery of the expansion of the Universe with its consequences concerning the possibility that astronomers have identified the creation event does put astronomical cosmology close … Continue reading →

Enrico Fermi – An Umbrian Farmer and the Religious Experience of a Starry Sky

Article excerpt 450 words Level: all audiences A short recollection by physicist Enrico Fermi. Fermi notes: A venerable Hebrew prophet some three thousand years ago decreed: “The Heavens declare the glory of God.” One of the most celebrated philosophers of modern times wrote: “Two things fill me with awe, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.” That Umbrian farmer did not even know how to read. But in his heart, safeguarded by an honest and hard-working life, there was a small corner in which the light of God descended with a power not much inferior to that of the prophets and perhaps greater than that of philosophers. 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. Click here for Fermi’s discussion (English translation), from Inters.org. [Click here to … Continue reading →

St. Thomas Aquinas – The Knowledge of the Creatures is Useful to Avoid Errors Concerning God

Book excerpt 1400 words Level: university 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 →

Thomas Aquinas – On Creation and Time

Book excerpt 1600 words Level: university This discussion on creation and time, from the Summa contra Gentiles of Thomas Aquinas, contrasts and compares in interesting ways with the modern understanding of the origin of the universe as described in the “Big Bang” theory (in which neither matter, nor time, nor space exist prior to the “bang”). For example, St. Thomas argues that the act of creation is not a change of one thing that exists into another thing. Rather, appealing to both reason and to St. Basil, St. Thomas argues that both material things and time itself were formed when God created the universe, a process which St. Thomas argues was instantaneous. He says, “And so it is that holy Scripture proclaims the creation of things to have been effected in an indivisible instant; for it is written: ‘In the beginning God created heaven and earth’ (Gen. 1:1). And Basil explains that this beginning is ‘the beginning of time’.” This excerpt … Continue reading →

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Category Archives: Cosmology