Many ancient cultures assumed that we humans and our universe happened by accident, an unintended offshoot of the activities of the gods. Instead, Genesis insist that the universe was made deliberately by God, who exists outside of nature (and thus is super-natural). What does this tell us about God and our relationship as creatures with our Creator?
Br. Guy Consolmagno at University of Illinois: The Unfinished Cosmos: Creation, God, and Hawking’s Grand Design
- Video
- 97 minutes
- General Audience
Br. Guy Consolmagno of the Vatican Observatory delivered a lecture on “The Unfinished Cosmos: Creation, God, and Hawking’s Grand Design” at the University of Illinois on March 7th, 2013. The event was hosted by the St. John’s Catholic Newman Center at the University of Illinois.
Charles Darwin – The Role of a Hypothetical Creator is Compatible with the Evolution of the Biological Species
Charles Darwin resting against pillar covered with vines.
- Article (book excerpt)
- 700 words
- High school level 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 false instincts,—that annually there should be an incalculable waste of eggs and pollen. From death, famine, rapine, and the concealed war of nature we can see that the highest good, which we can conceive, the creation of the higher animals has directly come. Doubtless it at first transcends our humble powers, to conceive laws capable of creating individual organisms, each characterised by the most exquisite workmanship and widely-extended adaptations. It accords better with [our modesty] the lowness of our faculties to suppose each must require the fiat of a creator, but in the game proportion the existence of such laws should exalt our notion of the power of the omniscient Creator.
Click here for an excerpt 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 the above excerpt as published by NYU press (1987).
Cosmology, Evolution, and Christian Faith
- Article (PDF)
- 21 pages
- Elementary / Secondary / Academic / University / University and higher level
Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, writes: “The universe as we know it today through science is one way to derive analogical knowledge of God. For those who accept that modern science does say something to us about God, there is a challenge, an enriching challenge, to traditional beliefs about God.”
[Download PDF]
Canadian_Social_Science
Creation Reveals God’s Glory – St. John Paul II
Article- 1000 words
- General audiences
Pope John Paul II in a March 1986 General Audience discusses creation and scriptural references to how creation proclaims the glory of God :
A new dimension of God’s glory begins with the creation of the visible and invisible world. This glory is called “exterior” to distinguish it from the previous one. Sacred Scripture speaks of it in many passages and in different ways. Some examples will suffice.
Psalm 19 proclaims: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork…. There is no speech, nor are there words whose sound is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world” (Ps 19:1, 2, 4). The Book of Sirach states: “The sun looks down on everything with its light, and the work of the Lord is full of his glory” (42:16). The Book of Baruch has a very singular and evocative expression: “The stars shone in their watches and were glad; he called them, and they said, ‘Here we are!’ They shone with gladness for him who made them” (3:34).
Elsewhere the biblical text sounds like an appeal addressed to creatures to proclaim the glory of God the Creator. For example, the Book of Daniel states: “O all you works of the Lord, bless the Lord, to him be highest glory and praise forever” (3:57). Or Psalm 66: “Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth; sing the glory of his name: give to him glorious praise! Say to God, ‘How glorious are your deeds! So great is your power that your enemies cringe before you. All the earth worships you; they sing praises to you, sing praises to your name'” (1-4).
Sacred Scripture is full of similar expressions: “O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures” (Ps 104:24). The whole created universe is a multiple, powerful and incessant appeal to proclaim the glory of the Creator. “All the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord” (Num 14:21); for “both riches and honor come from you” (1 Chr 29:12).
Click here for the full text of John Paul II’s discussion (Italian) from the Vatican’s web page.
Click here for an English translation of the full text of John Paul II’s discussion, from 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.
Emilie Du Châtelet on the existence of God
- Article
- 6 pages
- High school level and above
Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise Du Châtelet, wrote, among other things, a translation and commentary on Isaac Newton’s Principia (published posthumously in 1759), and a physics textbook for her son, entitled Institutions de Physique (Foundations of Physics, published in 1740). The second chapter of this textbook was addressed to the question of God’s existence.
[Download PDF]
DuChatelet-On-Existence-God
Emilie Du Châtelet: Selected Philosophical and Scientific Writings
Book- 424 pages
- High school level and above
Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise Du Châtelet, wrote, among other things, a translation and commentary on Isaac Newton’s Principia (published posthumously in 1759), and a physics textbook for her son, entitled Institutions de Physique (Foundations of Physics, published in 1740). This collection of her philosophical and scientific writings, edited by Judith P. Zinsser, includes translations of substantial portions of these works and others. Zinsser’s translation of Institutions contains all of the Preface (discussing, among other things, the utility of mathematics and the usefulness of experiments), all of the first chapter (discussing principles of knowledge and reasoning), all of the second chapter (which contains logical arguments for the existence of God and for determining the basics of God’s nature), as well as chapters on time, matter, motion, and force. Emilie Du Châtelet was a complex person—she sought education and access to the world of science at a time when women were largely unwelcome in the field, but she focused on her son’s education in science far more than her daughter’s; she attended mass regularly and wrote on the existence of God, but maintained a long-running affair with Voltaire, and in her unpublished writings wrote detailed and harsh criticism of scripture. Zinnser’s book consists largely of translations of Du Châtelet’s work, but also includes some background information.
From the book’s publisher, the University of Chicago Press:
Though most historians remember her as the mistress of Voltaire, Emilie Du Châtelet (1706–49) was an accomplished writer in her own right, who published multiple editions of her scientific writings during her lifetime, as well as a translation of Newton’s Principia Mathematica that is still the standard edition of that work in French. Had she been a man, her reputation as a member of the eighteenth-century French intellectual elite would have been assured.
In the 1970s, feminist historians of science began the slow work of recovering Du Châtelet’s writings and her contributions to history and philosophy. For this edition, Judith P. Zinsser has selected key sections from Du Châtelet’s published and unpublished works, as well as related correspondence, part of her little-known critique of the Old and New Testaments, and a treatise on happiness that is a refreshingly uncensored piece of autobiography—making all of them available for the first time in English. The resulting volume will recover Châtelet’s place in the pantheon of French letters and culture.
Click here for a preview, courtesy of Google Books.
Enrico Fermi – An Umbrian Farmer and the Religious Experience of a Starry Sky
- Article excerpt
- 450 words
- General 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.
[Download PDF]
An Umbrian Farmer and the Religious Experience of a Starry Sky
Faith as Small as a Singularity? BOOM goes The Mustard Seed!
- Article (blog post)
- 1000 words
- General Audience
A post by Fr. James Kurzynski on The Catholic Astronomer website. “Though we rightly distance ourselves from certain false presumptions of the natural world held by our ancient brothers and sisters, the core narrative of an intimate connection with our faith and creation is still true.”
Charles Darwin – The Role of a Hypothetical Creator is Compatible with the Evolution of the Biological Species
Charles Darwin resting against pillar covered with vines.
- Article (book excerpt)
- 700 words
- High school level 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 false instincts,—that annually there should be an incalculable waste of eggs and pollen. From death, famine, rapine, and the concealed war of nature we can see that the highest good, which we can conceive, the creation of the higher animals has directly come. Doubtless it at first transcends our humble powers, to conceive laws capable of creating individual organisms, each characterised by the most exquisite workmanship and widely-extended adaptations. It accords better with [our modesty] the lowness of our faculties to suppose each must require the fiat of a creator, but in the game proportion the existence of such laws should exalt our notion of the power of the omniscient Creator.
Click here for an excerpt 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 the above excerpt as published by NYU press (1987).
Creation Reveals God’s Glory – St. John Paul II
- Article
- 1000 words
- General audiences
Pope John Paul II in a March 1986 General Audience discusses creation and scriptural references to how creation proclaims the glory of God :
A new dimension of God’s glory begins with the creation of the visible and invisible world. This glory is called “exterior” to distinguish it from the previous one. Sacred Scripture speaks of it in many passages and in different ways. Some examples will suffice.
Psalm 19 proclaims: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork…. There is no speech, nor are there words whose sound is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world” (Ps 19:1, 2, 4). The Book of Sirach states: “The sun looks down on everything with its light, and the work of the Lord is full of his glory” (42:16). The Book of Baruch has a very singular and evocative expression: “The stars shone in their watches and were glad; he called them, and they said, ‘Here we are!’ They shone with gladness for him who made them” (3:34).
Elsewhere the biblical text sounds like an appeal addressed to creatures to proclaim the glory of God the Creator. For example, the Book of Daniel states: “O all you works of the Lord, bless the Lord, to him be highest glory and praise forever” (3:57). Or Psalm 66: “Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth; sing the glory of his name: give to him glorious praise! Say to God, ‘How glorious are your deeds! So great is your power that your enemies cringe before you. All the earth worships you; they sing praises to you, sing praises to your name'” (1-4).
Sacred Scripture is full of similar expressions: “O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures” (Ps 104:24). The whole created universe is a multiple, powerful and incessant appeal to proclaim the glory of the Creator. “All the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord” (Num 14:21); for “both riches and honor come from you” (1 Chr 29:12).
Click here for the full text of John Paul II’s discussion (Italian) from the Vatican’s web page.
Click here for an English translation of the full text of John Paul II’s discussion, from 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 – God is not in place or time but all things are in Him
Article (book excerpt)- 1200 words
- High school level 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 and well-being.
Click here for this material from Inters.org.
Click here for this material from a published edition of Anselm’s works.
The Philosophy of St. Bonaventure On Creation – Étienne Gilson
Article (book excerpt)- 2800 words
- University level and above
The twentieth-century French philosopher Étienne Gilson writes on St. Bonaventure and Aristotle:
All order, in fact, starts from a beginning, passes through a middle point and reaches an end. If then there is no first term there is no order; now if the duration of the world and therefore the revolutions of the stars had no beginning, their series would have had no first term and they would possess no order, which amounts to saying that in reality they do not in fact form a series and they do not precede or follow one another. But this the order of the days and seasons plainly proves to be false…. In St. Bonaventure’s Christian universe there is, in reality, no place for Aristotelian accident; his thought shrinks from supposing a series of causes accidentally ordered, that is to say, without order, without law and with its terms following one another at random.
Click here for an excerpt 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. The excerpt is from Gilson’s The Philosophy of St. Bonaventure.
Robert Boyle – A Classical Example of Anglican Apologetics, from “Christian Virtuoso”
Article (book excerpt)- 2400 words
- University level
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.
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 of creatures has its part to play in building the Christian faith. And for this reason it is said: “I will remember the works of the Lord, and I will declare the things I have seen: by the words of the Lord are His works” (Ecc 42:15)
St. Thomas also argues that knowledge of the the works of God serves to destroy errors concerning God:
First, because through ignorance of the nature of creatures men are sometimes so far perverted as to set up as the first cause and as God that which can only receive its being from something else…. Secondly, because they attribute to certain creatures that which belongs only to God…. Thirdly, because through ignorance of the creature’s nature something is subtracted from God’s power in its working upon creatures…. Fourthly, through ignorance of the nature of things, and, consequently, of his own place in the order of the universe, this rational creature, man, who by faith is led to God as his last end, believes that he is subject to other creatures [such as the stars] to which he is in fact superior…. It is, therefore, evident that the opinion is false of those who asserted that it made no difference to the truth of the faith what anyone holds about creatures, so long as one thinks rightly about God, as Augustine tells us in his book On the Origin of the Soul [IV, 4]. For error concerning creatures, by subjecting them to causes other than God, spills over into false opinion about God, and takes men’s minds away from Him, to whom faith seeks to lead them.
Click here for Thomas’s discussion, from Inters.org.
Sun and Moon, Bless the Lord: Understanding Our Part of the Hymn of Creation
- Article (blog post)
- 650 words
- General audience
A post by Fr. James Kurzynski on The Catholic Astronomer blog. “Astronomy can be an exercise of seeing a dynamic part of creation giving praise to God… in this ‘Cosmic Liturgy,’ we begin to see that we are invited to participate in this praise of God as well, adding a small, humble, but necessary voice to the vast chorus of creation.”
Reality and Virtual Reality: Speculations On A Potential Overlap Between Faith And Science
Article (blog post)- 1000 words
- General Audience
A post by Fr. James Kurzynski on The Catholic Astronomer: “a true pursuit of the true heaven grounds you more deeply in the real world with the fruits of joy, peace, meaning, and purpose. A false pursuit of a false heaven can lead to escapism, sadness, exclusion, and depression.”
Br. Guy Consolmagno at University of Illinois: The Unfinished Cosmos: Creation, God, and Hawking’s Grand Design
- Video
- 97 minutes
- General Audience
Br. Guy Consolmagno of the Vatican Observatory delivered a lecture on “The Unfinished Cosmos: Creation, God, and Hawking’s Grand Design” at the University of Illinois on March 7th, 2013. The event was hosted by the St. John’s Catholic Newman Center at the University of Illinois.
The Kalam Cosmological Argument
- Video
- 4 minutes
- General audiences
A short discussion of a “cosmological argument” for the existence of God, with brief references to modern science, including Fr. Georges Lemaître. The emphasis of the video is that belief in God is an act of reason.
Enrico Fermi – An Umbrian Farmer and the Religious Experience of a Starry Sky
- Article excerpt
- 450 words
- General 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.
[Download PDF]
An Umbrian Farmer and the Religious Experience of a Starry Sky
How to Search for the Truth
- Article
- 800 words
- General audiences
An essay by George Washington Carver on science, nature, God, and truth. Carver interprets in a scientific sense the verse from John that reads: “And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free”.
[Download PDF]How to Search for the Truth
Cosmology, Evolution, and Christian Faith
- Article (PDF)
- 21 pages
- Elementary / Secondary / Academic / University / University and higher level
Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, writes: “The universe as we know it today through science is one way to derive analogical knowledge of God. For those who accept that modern science does say something to us about God, there is a challenge, an enriching challenge, to traditional beliefs about God.”
[Download PDF]
Canadian_Social_Science
Science Does Not Need God… or Does It?
- Article (PDF)
- 9 pages
- Secondary / University level
Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, argues two points:
- that the Intelligent Design movement, while evoking a God of power and might, a designer God, actually belittles God, making God too small and paltry
- that our scientific understanding of the universe, untainted by religious considerations, provides for those who believe in God a marvelous opportunity to reflect upon their beliefs.
[Download PDF]
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Emilie Du Châtelet on the existence of God
- Article
- 6 pages
- High school level and above
Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise Du Châtelet, wrote, among other things, a translation and commentary on Isaac Newton’s Principia (published posthumously in 1759), and a physics textbook for her son, entitled Institutions de Physique (Foundations of Physics, published in 1740). The second chapter of this textbook was addressed to the question of God’s existence.
[Download PDF]
DuChatelet-On-Existence-God
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 light of the Sun, and from every system light passes into all the other systems. And lest the systems of the fixed Stars should, by their gravity, fall on each other mutually, he hath placed those Systems at immense distances from one another.
This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all: And on account of his dominion he is wont to be called Lord God παντοκράτωρ [Pantokrator], or Universal Ruler. For God is a relative word, and has a respect to servants; and Deity is the dominion of God, not over his own body, as those imagine who fancy God to be the soul of the world, but over servants. The supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect; but a being, however perfect, without dominion, cannot be said to be Lord God; for we say, my God, your God, the God of Israel, the God of Gods, and Lord of Lords; but we do not say, my Eternal, your Eternal, the Eternal of Israel, the Eternal of Gods; we do not say, my Infinite, or my Perfect: These are titles which have no respect to servants. The word God usually signifies Lord; but every lord is not a God. It is the dominion of a spiritual being which constitutes a God; a true, supreme, or imaginary dominion makes a true, supreme, or imaginary God. And from his true dominion it follows that the true God is a Living, Intelligent, and Powerful Being; and, from his other perfections, that he is Supreme or most Perfect. He is Eternal and Infinite, Omnipotent and Omniscient; that is, his duration reaches from Eternity to Eternity; his presence from Infinity to Infinity; he governs all things, and knows all things that are or can be done. He is not Eternity and Infinity, but Eternal and Infinite; he is not Duration and Space, but he endures and is present. He endures forever, and is every where present; and, by existing always and every where, he constitutes Duration and Space.
God’s Universe
Book- 160 pages
- High school level and above
A short book by Harvard University astronomer and historian of science Owen Gingerich, published in 2006 by Harvard University Press. Gingerich addresses whether “mediocrity” (the “Copernican Principle”) is a good idea, whether a scientist dare believe in design, and the idea of questions without answers (persuasion vs. proof in science). From the publisher:
We live in a universe with a very long history, a vast cosmos where things are being worked out over unimaginably long ages. Stars and galaxies have formed, and elements come forth from great stellar cauldrons. The necessary elements are present, the environment is fit for life, and slowly life forms have populated the earth. Are the creative forces purposeful, and in fact divine?
Owen Gingerich believes in a universe of intention and purpose. We can at least conjecture that we are part of that purpose and have just enough freedom that conscience and responsibility may be part of the mix. They may even be the reason that pain and suffering are present in the world. The universe might actually be comprehensible.
Taking Johannes Kepler as his guide, Gingerich argues that an individual can be both a creative scientist and a believer in divine design—that indeed the very motivation for scientific research can derive from a desire to trace God’s handiwork. The scientist with theistic metaphysics will approach laboratory problems much the same as does his atheistic colleague across the hall. Both are likely to view the astonishing adaptations in nature with a sense of surprise, wonder, and mystery.
In God’s Universe Gingerich carves out “a theistic space” from which it is possible to contemplate a universe where God plays an interactive role, unnoticed yet not excluded by science.
Click here for additional information from the publisher, Harvard University Press.
Click here for a preview from Google Books.
Emilie Du Châtelet: Selected Philosophical and Scientific Writings
- Book
- 424 pages
- High school level and above
Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise Du Châtelet, wrote, among other things, a translation and commentary on Isaac Newton’s Principia (published posthumously in 1759), and a physics textbook for her son, entitled Institutions de Physique (Foundations of Physics, published in 1740). This collection of her philosophical and scientific writings, edited by Judith P. Zinsser, includes translations of substantial portions of these works and others. Zinsser’s translation of Institutions contains all of the Preface (discussing, among other things, the utility of mathematics and the usefulness of experiments), all of the first chapter (discussing principles of knowledge and reasoning), all of the second chapter (which contains logical arguments for the existence of God and for determining the basics of God’s nature), as well as chapters on time, matter, motion, and force. Emilie Du Châtelet was a complex person—she sought education and access to the world of science at a time when women were largely unwelcome in the field, but she focused on her son’s education in science far more than her daughter’s; she attended mass regularly and wrote on the existence of God, but maintained a long-running affair with Voltaire, and in her unpublished writings wrote detailed and harsh criticism of scripture. Zinnser’s book consists largely of translations of Du Châtelet’s work, but also includes some background information.
From the book’s publisher, the University of Chicago Press:
Though most historians remember her as the mistress of Voltaire, Emilie Du Châtelet (1706–49) was an accomplished writer in her own right, who published multiple editions of her scientific writings during her lifetime, as well as a translation of Newton’s Principia Mathematica that is still the standard edition of that work in French. Had she been a man, her reputation as a member of the eighteenth-century French intellectual elite would have been assured.
In the 1970s, feminist historians of science began the slow work of recovering Du Châtelet’s writings and her contributions to history and philosophy. For this edition, Judith P. Zinsser has selected key sections from Du Châtelet’s published and unpublished works, as well as related correspondence, part of her little-known critique of the Old and New Testaments, and a treatise on happiness that is a refreshingly uncensored piece of autobiography—making all of them available for the first time in English. The resulting volume will recover Châtelet’s place in the pantheon of French letters and culture.
Click here for a preview, courtesy of Google Books.
God’s Planet
Book- 192 pages
- High school level and above
This short book was published in 2014 by Harvard University Press. It is by Harvard astronomer and historian of science Owen Gingerich. From the publisher:
With exoplanets being discovered daily, Earth is still the only planet we know of that is home to creatures who seek a coherent explanation for the structure, origins, and fate of the universe, and of humanity’s place within it. Today, science and religion are the two major cultural entities on our planet that share this goal of coherent understanding, though their interpretation of evidence differs dramatically. Many scientists look at the known universe and conclude we are here by chance. The renowned astronomer and historian of science Owen Gingerich looks at the same evidence—along with the fact that the universe is comprehensible to our minds—and sees it as proof for the planning and intentions of a Creator-God. He believes that the idea of a universe without God is an oxymoron, a self-contradiction. God’s Planet exposes the fallacy in thinking that science and religion can be kept apart.
Gingerich frames his argument around three questions: Was Copernicus right, in dethroning Earth from its place at the center of the universe? Was Darwin right, in placing humans securely in an evolving animal kingdom? And was Hoyle right, in identifying physical constants in nature that seem singularly tuned to allow the existence of intelligent life on planet Earth? Using these episodes from the history of science, Gingerich demonstrates that cultural attitudes, including religious or antireligious beliefs, play a significant role in what passes as scientific understanding. The more rigorous science becomes over time, the more clearly God’s handiwork can be comprehended.
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The Road of Science and the Ways to God
Book (link to publisher)- 478 pages
- University level
This book, by Stanley L. Jaki, OSB, is a judicious and tightly reasoned treatise on the interconnections of science and religion. (University of Chicago Press, 1978)
An outline of the book’s contents can be found by clicking here.