Many people think there must be a watertight barrier between their science and their faith, but in fact science and religion must intersect in at least one place: in the person who is both the scientist and the religious believer. The essays below are personal reflections from scientists about their religion and how these aspects of their lives affect one another.
A Biologist’s Perspective on Science and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition
Article 7 pages Level: high school and above This 2011 article in the Journal of Religion and Society is by Charles Brockhouse of Creighton University. This article provides perspectives on science from two different Catholic scientists—Brockhouse directly, and indirectly Brockhouse’s father, Bertram Brockhouse, who shared the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physics. Charles Brockhouse writes: No consideration of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition would be complete without a treatment of the development of modern experimental (natural) science. Alas, such a work is beyond my expertise and available time as a practicing scientist and lecturer in the general area of genetics and molecular biology…. [T]his chapter offers a distillation of my personal framework. This perspective developed during a lifetime in a family largely formed of converts to Roman Catholicism (and many non-RCs who did not covert) who also placed an enormous emphasis on scholastic development and intellectual rigor. Click here for this article with addition information, from Creighton University. Click here for the article directly, … Continue reading →
Across the Universe: Stellar Round Up
Article (blog post) 600 words Level: all audiences A post by Vatican Observatory astronomer Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., on The Catholic Astronomer blog. Br. Consolmagno writes about knowing the science of astronomy versus knowing the night sky, and about knowing theology versus knowing God: “Look, along the ecliptic, directly opposite the point where the Sun lies; around midnight, you can see sunlight reflected back to us from the dust of the asteroid belt,” one friend pointed out to me. “It’s called the googenshine!” Actually, that’s gegenschein; but I didn’t correct him. I had studied it in graduate school; I knew how to spell it, and what the German words mean. But unlike my friend, I had never actually seen it before. A lot of professional astronomers never look at the night sky; some of them don’t even know how to find the most basic constellations. Even those of us who came to our professional calling from a teen-aged enthusiasm with small telescopes … Continue reading →
Adventures of a Vatican Astronomer – Br. Guy Consolmagno SJ
Video One hour Level: all audiences Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., an astronomer at the Vatican Observatory, gave this talk at the SETI Institute on February 22, 2013 No scientist is a Spock-like android; a scientist’s work is as intuitive, and just as full of human foibles, as a painting, a symphony, or a prayer. But most of us don’t have the opportunity (or training) to reflect on the human dimensions of our work. Br. Guy Consolmagno does; he is both a Jesuit brother and a planetary scientist at the Vatican Observatory, splitting his time between the meteorite collection in Rome (which he curates) and the Vatican telescope in Arizona. Thanks to his Vatican connections, his work has sent him around the world several times to dozens of countries and every continent (including a meteorite hunting expedition to Antarctica). In this talk he will share some of those adventures, and reflect on the larger meaning of our common experience as … 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 →
An Interview with Reverend George V. Coyne, S.J.
Article 8 pages Level: all audiences This 2018 interview with Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 through 2006, was published as part of John Carroll University’s “Re-engaging Science in Seminary Formation” project. From the introduction to this interview: At every turn during our science in seminaries project, we found ourselves inspired and encouraged by the life and work of Reverend George V. Coyne, S.J., an astrophysicist and former director of the Vatican Observatory for almost 30 years (1978–2006). Father Coyne was not only on the front lines promoting the need for dialogue between scientific and theological communities, but he also unrelentingly advanced the cause of scientific literacy as a critical component of seminary formation. We contacted Father Coyne at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, where he is McDevitt Chair of Religious Philosophy and McDevitt Chair in Physics. He graciously agreed to be interviewed by Reverend John Kartje, Rector-President of Saint Mary … Continue reading →
Astronomy and God: Do anti-religious messages belong in science education?
Article 1000 words Level: all audiences Religion is not part of the pages of Astronomy magazine, but “for some crazy reason, religion creeps into some popular science media”, usually in the form of “religious putdowns” such as were seen in the “Cosmos” TV series. So writes Bob Berman in the August 2014 issue of Astronomy. “The advocacy segments in shows like Cosmos may be well intentioned,” writes Berman, “but I fear they merely harden those who think science is a ‘position’ or ‘view’ of the world rather than an impartial portal to truth.” Click here to access this article courtesy of Astronomy magazine.
Continue reading →Astronomy and Mother Teresa’s Shoes: Relics of the Sacred
Article (blog post) 1100 words Level: all audiences A post on The Catholic Astronomer by Fr. James Kurzynski about Mother Teresa and the idea of “relics”. Fr. Kurzynski writes: As we approach the Canonization of Mother Teresa, let us thank God for the gift she was to the Church and continues to be through her ongoing intercession. Let us give thanks for the wisdom of the Church to value those sacred object, those relics that allow us a connection with the lives of the saints and inspire us to become the people that God calls us to be. And may we also look to the heavens for a different kind of “relic” in the night sky. These relics may not play a central role in our salvation. However, they remind us that without their existence, we would not exist. And for this reason, we can thank God for providing us these sacred reminders of our sacred beginnings, inspiring us to embrace … Continue reading →
Astronomy Bucket List: Experiencing The Wonder!
Article (blog post) 1000 words Level: all audiences Fr. James Kurzynski, writing for The Catholic Astronomer blog, discusses the joy one of his parishioners upon seeing the sun through a Hydrogen-alpha telescope for the first time. Fr. Kurzynski writes: As I drove home to get ready for our evening Mass with the college students, I thanked God for the experience I had with the Welsch family. It revealed to me that, even as a hobby astronomer, I had allowed myself to become a little desensitized while gazing at some of the wonders of the universe. This desensitization reminded me of my faith life and how so many beautiful aspects of Catholicism can become so common place that we forget their beauty and impact. For example, I have prayed the “Our Father” thousands of times in my life. However, do I stop and reflect on the beauty of this prayer or do I simply allow it to ramble from my lips to be quickly … Continue reading →
Astronomy, Religion, and the Art of Storytelling
Video 48 minutes Level: All audiences This March 2020 video presentation by Brother Guy Consolmagno, SJ, Director of the Vatican Observatory, was made for The Catholic Theological Union’s Science For Seminaries conference. Consolmagno says that one thing astronomy and religion have in common is that they are both interested in the big questions; and they depend on the art of storytelling to present their strange and wonderful ideas in ways that people can understand, appreciate, and evaluate. Consolmagno examines why stories are fundamental to our understanding of religion; when being a good storyteller is essential in doing science; and how way we tell these stories influences how we think about the big ideas.
Continue reading →Br. Guy Consolmagno ’70: Faith and Science
Video 6 minutes Level: all audiences Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory and a University of Detroit Jesuit High School graduate, speaks about faith and science for the Science and Engineering Center Groundbreaking at U of D Jesuit on June 16, 2015.
Continue reading →Cosmology, Evolution, and Christian Faith
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.
Continue reading →Discovery in the New Cosmology of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo
Article (PDF) 14 pages, 6100 words Level: university This article for the Paths of Discovery (published by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences) by Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, suggests “three components contained in the notion of discovery: newness, an opening to the future and, in the case of astronomical discovery, a blending of theory and observation. Discovery means that something new comes to light and this generally happens suddenly and unexpectedly.” Click here for a link to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences’ entire Paths of Discovery volume. [Click here to download PDF]
Continue reading →Earth Day and Catholicism: What Is A Christian To Do?
Article (blog post) 1900 words Level: all audiences A post by Fr. James Kurzynski on The Catholic Astronomer blog. Fr. Kurzynski discusses Earth Day, his initial skepticism toward it, and how the writings of Pope St. John Paul II caused him to rethink that skepticism – mostly, but not entirely: Like many Americans, I had a rather suspicious attitude toward such celebrations, thinking of them as merely days of political statements and protests against anyone who didn’t embrace a 100% “Green” lifestyle. As a devout Catholic, I also struggled with expressions of what I would call an Environmental Spiritualism, treating the Earth as if it were God or another type of deity. In short, Earth Day was not high on my priority list. In time, however, my attitude began to change toward Earth Day. The beginning of the change occurred when I was in college and started to delve into Catholic Social Teaching (CST). I was surprised to discover that one of the … Continue reading →
Ethical Implications of Human Origins in the Universe
The conclusion to be drawn for both what we know of the universe and what we can surmise about God is that the supreme moral principle which should guide all of our ethical decisions is to empty oneself for the good of others.
Continue reading →Faith and Reason
Video 30 minutes Level: all audiences Dennis Mammana hosts Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 1985, in a wide ranging discussion on science, religion and the interplay of faith and reason as a part of the series, “UCSD Guestbook” from the University of California – San Diego. The video was made in 2008.
Continue reading →Father George Coyne Interviewed by Richard Dawkins
Video Approximately 1 hour Level: all audiences This is uncut footage of a 2008 interview by Richard Dawkins with Father George Coyne, S. J., who was Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 through 2006. The interview was recorded for Dawkins’ television program “The Genius of Charles Darwin” for Channel 4 in the UK, but was not used.
Continue reading →Freeman Dyson (and others) – Towards an Open-Minded Science
Article 1000 words Level: high school and above 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. Physicist Freeman Dyson and his colleagues write: At a time when the young are lacking in motivation to take up scientific careers, and when science is subject to numerous criticisms, often abusive, or ill-informed, science needs to be as open as possible (among other things to the question of meaning) and should not seal itself off in a way which is characteristic of scientism. This discussion was originally published in French in Le Monde (February 22, 2006) under the title “Pour une science sans a priori”. Click here for an English translation of the Dyson et al discussion, from Inters.org. Click here for the original Dyson et al discussion, from Le Monde.
Continue reading →From MIT to Specola Vaticana: Guy Consolmagno at TEDx via Della Conciliazione
Video 17 minutes Level: all audiences Brother Guy Consolmagno weaves stories about science and seeing things in new ways. From TEDx YouTube: Brother Guy Consolmagno is a Planetary Scientist at the Vatican Observatory. He is the curator of the Vatican meteorite collection, which is one of the largest in the world. He earned a degree from MIT and did post-doctorate work at MIT and the Harvard College Observatory. When he was 29, he joined the Peace Corps in Kenya. There, he taught suffering people about astronomy. He discovered that the desire for scientific knowledge is not limited to educated westerners, but is original and alive in the poor and uneducated. In this way, he discovered that astronomy belongs to us all. In 1992, he became a Jesuit Brother. In 2000, he was honored by the International Astronomical Union for his contributions to the study of meteorites and asteroids with the naming of “Asteroid 4597 Consolmagno”.
Continue reading →God and Science, Under the Stars (Interview with Br. Consolmagno)
Article 1500 words Level: all audiences A CBC interview with Br. Guy Consolmagno of the Vatican Observatory. From the CBC: Q & A with Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno Guy Consolmagno is an astronomer and planetary scientist with degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Arizona. He is also a Jesuit Brother, dividing his time between the Vatican observatory in Arizona and Castel Gandolfo, Italy, where he is curator of the Vatican meteorite collection — one of the largest in the world. Brother Consolmagno is steeped in scientific theory, but uses God to account for what can’t be accounted for through science, as a glue that holds together the equations of the universe. Brother Consolmagno is steeped in scientific theory, but uses God to account for what can’t be accounted for through science, as a glue that holds together the equations of the universe. He is also the author of God’s Mechanics: How Scientists and Engineers Make … Continue reading →
God’s Action in Nature’s World
Book 264 pages Level: university God’s Action in Nature’s World, edited by T. Peters and N. Hallenger, is a book of essays in honor of Robert John Russell. In 1981 Robert John Russell founded what would become the leading center of research at the interface of science and religion, the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences. Throughout its twenty-five year history, CTNS under Russell’s leadership has continued to guide and further the dialogue between science and theology. Russell has been an articulate spokesperson in calling for “creative mutual interaction” between the two fields. God’s Action in Nature’s World brings together sixteen internationally-recognized scholars to assess Robert Russell’s impact on the discipline of science and religion. Focusing on three areas of Russell’s work – methodology, cosmology, and divine action in quantum physics – this book celebrates Robert John Russell’s contribution to the interdisciplinary engagement between the natural sciences and theology. It includes an article by George Coyne, “Today’s Playing Field: … Continue reading →
God’s Planet
Book 192 pages Level: high school 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 … Continue reading →
God’s Universe
Book 160 pages Level: high school 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 … Continue reading →
History: Science and the Reformation
Article 1800 words Level: all audiences In this 2017 article in in the journal Nature, author David Wootton writes on the Protestant Reformation and the Copernican Revolution: Were the Reformation and this revolution merely coincident, or did the Reformation somehow facilitate or foster the new science, which rejected traditional authorities such as Aristotle and relied on experiments and empirical information? Suppose Martin Luther had never existed; suppose the Reformation had never taken place. Would the history of science have been fundamentally different? Would there have been no scientific revolution? Would we still be living in the world of the horse and cart, the quill pen and the matchlock firearm? Can we imagine a Catholic Newton, or is Newton’s Protestantism somehow fundamental to his science? Wootton notes that “it is still widely argued by historians of science that the Protestant religion and the new science were inextricably intertwined, as Protestantism turned away from the spirituality of Catholicism and fostered a practical … Continue reading →
How to Have a Religious Argument – Bishop Robert Barron
Video 45 minutes Level: all audiences Bishop Robert Barron of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles speaks at Facebook Headquarters on the role of science, reason, and truth in religious arguments. Bishop Barron is founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries. His abstract for this talk reads: Every day, millions of people argue about religion on social media. The comboxes of religious and atheist sites are among the most visited and the most heated in the virtual space. But what I find interesting is how few people really know how to have a good religious argument. Lots of energy, lots of sharp words, and lots of strong feelings are expressed. But rarely do we come across productive, rational argument about religion. In my talk, I’ll pave a way forward, showing how we all, believer and nonbeliever alike, can share better religious discussions. Click here to view the video via Facebook (no login required).
Continue reading →Intelligent Life in the Universe: Catholic belief and the search for exraterrestrial intelligent life
Booklet 52 pages Level: high school audiences and above In this booklet published by CTS, Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., of the Vatican Observatory, writes on what we know about the search for intelligent life, how we search and why we search, and what it can mean for Catholics and our understanding of our faith: God is bigger than our family problems, our city, our sports teams, our nation. Bigger than bombs; bigger than history. Bigger than the whole world and all its past and future. Bigger than our sky or our Sun or our solar system. Bigger than the galaxy we see spread out above us at night, as far as we can see. Bigger than all the galaxies, seen and unseen. Bigger than whatever parallel universes may or may not exist beyond our own. Indeed, God is so big that, even in all this immenseness, He is able to concentrate His entire effort, energy, and love on each … 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 →Interweaving Stories about Reality – Alister McGrath
Article (book excerpt) 900 words Level: all 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 “Interweaving Stories about Reality” McGrath writes: I have set out something of my own personal journey from a sense of rapturous amazement at nature to discovering initially the intellectual delight of the natural sciences, then the elevating and enriching experience of religious faith, and finally the exploration of the richer vision of reality that resulted from allowing science and faith to inform and illuminate each other. Click here for McGrath’s essay, from Inters.org. Click here for a published version of McGrath’s essay, from the 2015 book The Big Question: Why We Can’t Stop Talking About Science, Faith and God (preview … Continue reading →
Kenneth R. Miller – To Find God in All Things: Grandeur in an Evolutionary View of Life
Video 56 minutes Level: high school and above Kenneth R. Miller, a biologist at Brown University and author of a widely-used textbook for high school biology, gives the St. Albert Award Lecture at the inaugural conference of the Society of Catholic Scientists. Miller gives an overview of conflicts that have arisen when people have opposed teaching evolution as subject matter in high school, discusses the tendency of some scientists to frame evolution in exactly the way foreseen by those who oppose its teaching, and provides a contrasting view of evolution: a view that “Finds God in All Things”. Click here for an article from Our Sunday Visitor entitled “Catholic scientists discuss faith’s role in work”, on the first conference of the Society of Catholic Scientists—“Origins”—held April 21-23, 2017 in Chicago. Click here for the Society of Catholic Scientists “Origins” conference page.
Continue reading →Liberal Education in Crisis
Article 29 pages Level: high school and above A criticism and historical overview of the impact of modern science and the rise of the research university on the liberal arts tradition, by David D. Arndt, published in Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture in 2016. Arndt writes: Liberal education was once understood as a spiritual discipline devoted to the search for wisdom: “There is only one really liberal study. . . . It is the study of wisdom.” This is why even today doctorates in the liberal arts are called doctors of philosophy. But this understanding of liberal education was distorted and obscured with the emergence of the modern sciences, when liberal arts colleges were cast into the mold of the research university and reinterpreted in light of its underlying assumptions. This distortion was not affected by the sciences themselves, but by scientism—the uncritical belief that scientific truths are the only genuine form of truth. Catholic colleges matter … Continue reading →
Life as We Know It
Article 3000 words Level: all audiences A 2012 article from Notre Dame Magazine, by Michael J. Crowe, a historian of science with the University of Notre Dame, and Christopher M. Graney. Crowe and Graney write: The Aristotelians were wrong; the Copernicans were right. Our home is not the center of the universe; it is merely one planet circling one star in an incomprehensibly vast universe. But what is the deeper significance of this important claim? David Wootton suggests an answer in his recent biography, Galileo: Watcher of the Skies. The Copernican theory, he writes, “[O]ffered a view of the cosmos in which humankind, and the things that matter to humankind — love and hatred, virtue and vice, mortality and immortality, salvation and damnation — were irrelevant. Far from embodying a scheme of values, far from embodying a telos or purpose, [this] universe appeared to be indifferent to moral and metaphysical issues, and even indifferent to our own existence. . . . Galileo’s … Continue reading →
Magisterium Is Concerned with Question of Evolution for It Involves Conception of Man – St. John Paul II
Article 900 words Level: all audiences Pope John Paul II in an October 22, 1996 address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences discusses evolution and why the broader church has particular interest in that area of scientific investigation: I am pleased with the first theme you have chosen, that of the origins of life and evolution, an essential subject which deeply interests the Church, since Revelation, for its part, contains teaching concerning the nature and origins of man. How do the conclusions reached by the various scientific disciplines coincide with those contained in the message of Revelation? And if, at first sight, there are apparent contradictions, in what direction do we look for their solution? We know, in fact, that truth cannot contradict truth…. The Church’s Magisterium is directly concerned with the question of evolution, for it involves the conception of man: Revelation teaches us that he was created in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gn 1:27-29) The Conciliar Constitution Gaudium … Continue reading →
Matrix Thinking: An Adaptation at the Foundation of Human Science, Religion, and Art
Article 28 pages Level: university A paper by Margaret Boone Rappaport and Fr. Christopher Corbally, an astronomer with the Vatican Observatory, published in Zygon: The Journal of Religion and Science. From Zygon: Abstract: Intrigued by Robinson and Southgate’s 2010 work on “entering a semiotic matrix,” we expand their model to include the juxtaposition of all signs, symbols, and mental categories, and to explore the underpinnings of creativity in science, religion, and art. We rely on an interdisciplinary review of human sentience in archaeology, evolutionary biology, the cognitive science of religion, and literature, and speculate on the development of sentience in response to strong selection pressure on the hominin evolutionary line, leaving us the “lone survivors” of complex, multiple lines of physical and cultural evolution. What we call Matrix Thinking—the creative driver of human sentience—has important cognitive and intellectual features, but also equally important characteristics traced to our intense sociability and use of emotionality in vetting rational models. Scientist, theologian, and … Continue reading →
Max Planck on Johannes Kepler and Faith in Science
Article (book excerpt) 600 words Level: all audiences Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918 “in recognition of the services he rendered to the advancement of Physics by his discovery of energy quanta”. Planck made many contributions to physics, but is remembered primarily for his role as the originator of quantum theory. This selection is from an interview. Planck responds to a question from James Murphy about the general skepticism found in the world, a skepticism which Murphy says attacks religion, art, and literature, as well as science. From Where is Science Going? (London, 1933), pages 214-16. Click here to access the original article in its entirety, courtesy of Archive.org. [Click here to download PDF]
Continue reading →Max Planck on Religion and Science
Article (book excerpt) 600 pages Level: all audiences Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918 “in recognition of the services he rendered to the advancement of Physics by his discovery of energy quanta”. Planck made many contributions to physics, but is remembered primarily for his role as the originator of quantum theory. This excerpt is from his Where is Science Going? (London, 1933), pages 167-69. Click here to access the entirety of the original text of this article, courtesy of Archive.org. [Click here to download PDF]
Continue reading →Modern Cosmology, a Resource for Elementary School Education
Book chapter (PDF) 9 pages, 7000 words Level: all audiences A book chapter from the 2001 book The Challenges for Science. Education for the Twenty-First Century, published by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. In this chapter Fr. George Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, writes: (1) We should start teaching children from where they are at present, their current knowledge, interests, fears, and so on; (2) all of us humans, those who teach and those who are taught, “have been made in heaven”, it has been said. This refers to the well known need for stellar nucleosynthesis to provide the chemical abundances required for life in the universe. It has been indicated that one of principal goals of teaching children should be an awareness of this birth of ours from star dust, if only at an elementary level. I would suggest that the didactic order be reversed and that this awareness should be the beginning … Continue reading →
On Being with Krista Tippett: Asteroids, Stars, and the Love of God
Audio One hour Level: all audiences An interview with two Vatican Observatory astronomers from the radio show On Being with Krista Tippett: “Guy Consolmagno and George Coyne—Asteroids, Stars, and the Love of God”. More than 30 objects on the moon are named after the Jesuits who mapped it. A Jesuit was one of the founders of modern astrophysics. And four Jesuits in history, including Ignatius of Loyola, have had asteroids named after them – Brother Guy Consolmagno and Father George Coyne being the two living men with this distinction. In a conversation filled with friendship and laughter, and in honor of the visit of Pope Francis to the U.S., we experience the spacious way they think about science, the universe, and the love of God. Click here for the audio and a transcript of the interview from “On Being”.
Continue reading →One of America’s top climate scientists is an evangelical Christian
Article 2300 words Level: all audiences This 2019 article written by Dan Zak of the Washington Post discusses Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University, and a lead author on the U.S. government’s latest National Climate Assessment. Hayhoe is an evangelical Christian. Her husband is a pastor of a non-denominational Christian church. Hayhoe is known for being able to lead and foster discussions on climate science with a broad range of people. Zak writes: Her skills of communication do seem miraculous by the standards of modern climate politics: She can convert nonbelievers — or, to put it in her terms, make people realize that they’ve believed in the importance of this issue all along. She knows how to speak to oilmen, to Christians, to farmers and ranchers, having lived for years in Lubbock, Tex., with her pastor husband. She is a scientist who thinks that we’ve talked enough about science, that we need to talk more about … Continue reading →
Origins, Time and Complexity
Book 500 pages, two volumes Level: university A volume sponsored by the Vatican Observatory, featuring papers presented at the 4th European Conference on Science and Theology held Mar. 23-29, 1992, in Mondo Migliore near Rome; organized by the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology. From the back cover of Volume 1: The aim of the conference was to study the origins of various aspects of the universe in an interdisciplinary way, taking into account not only science but also theology and philosophy. Special attention was given to the way in which recent developments in physical complexity theory influence our view of these origins and the underlying understanding of time. Click here from a preview from Google Books.
Continue reading →Physics Today: Thinking differently about science and religion
Article (Letter to Editor) and Responses 9 pages (total) Level: all audiences In February 2018 the journal Physics Today published a letter by Tom McLeish, Professor of Physics at Durham University, chair of the Royal Society’s education committee, and author of the book Faith and Wisdom in Science (Oxford University Press, 2014). The following June Physics Today published a number of responses to McLeish’s letter, along with additional remarks from McLeish. McLeish writes: Driving an unhistorical and unrealistic wedge between science and religion has got to stop. It leads, in part, to the optionalism that we see in some public and political attitudes toward science, from climate change to vaccination. It damages the educational experience of our children, and it impoverishes our understanding of our own science’s historical context. Human beings live not only in a physical world but within historical narratives that give us values, purpose, and identity. Science sits on the branches and draws from the sap of … Continue reading →
Pilgrimage of the Mind and Heart: Embracing the Adventure of Faith and Science.
A post by Fr. James Kurzynski on The Catholic Astronomer. The Faith and Astronomy Workshop were on a pilgrimage to understand the relationship between faith and astronomy. If we explore faith and astronomy properly, we never really come to “an end” of the journey, but simply find new roads, new questions, and new experiences that take us in a new direction when exploring the relationship between Creator and creation.
Continue reading →Podróż przez Wszechświat: Poszukiwanie sensu przez człowieka
Polish translation of Wayfarers in the Cosmos: The Human Quest for Meaning
Continue reading →Prayer and Time: What does the universe teach us about contemplation?
A post by Fr. James Kurzynski on The Catholic Astronomer: a spiritual reflection on the nature of time.
Continue reading →Quantum Cosmology and Creation
Any attempt to simply identify the nothing (nihilo) of the theologians with the quantum fluctuations of one of the preexisting states or with the unbounded regime of quantum cosmology would only create confusion. But the one concept may illuminate the other.
Continue reading →Quantum leaps of faith
Philosophical reflection on the news media’s coverage of Hawking’s book The Grand Design.
Continue reading →Rather than working against one another, faith and science together offer a fuller picture of creation
Article 850 words Level: all audiences Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., an astronomer with the Vatican Observatory, discusses in this article from from Our Sunday Visitor Newsweekly how science and religion sometimes give us different pictures of God’s universe. Click here to access this article directly from Our Sunday Visitor Newsweekly. Rather than working against one another, faith and science together offer a fuller picture of creation We shouldn’t be afraid if science and religion sometimes give us different pictures of God’s universe Brother Guy Consolmagno OSV Newsweekly 10/29/2014 “What do I do if science tells me one thing but religion tells me another thing? Which do I believe?” There’s a false assumption at the center of that question, because neither science nor religion are about believing in “things.” Our religious belief is not in a “thing,” but in a person — indeed, three persons. Our faith is in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as described and identified in the creed, and in … Continue reading →
Religion and Natural Science – Max Planck
Article 37 pages Level: high school and above Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918 “in recognition of the services he rendered to the advancement of Physics by his discovery of energy quanta”. Planck made many contributions to physics, but is remembered primarily for his role as the originator of quantum theory. This essay is from a lecture Planck gave in 1937 entitled “Religion und Naturwissenschaft”. This English translation was published in 1950 in a collection entitled Scientific Autobiography And Other Papers. Click here to access the essay courtesy of Archive.org. Click here for a preview courtesy of Google Books. Planck concludes this essay with— To the religious person, God is directly and immediately given. He and His omnipotent Will are the fountainhead of all life and all happenings, both in the mundane world and in the world of the spirit. Even though He cannot be grasped by reason, the religious symbols give a direct view … Continue reading →
Religion and Science: Roman Catholicism
Encyclopedia article 6 pages Level: high school and above An article entitled “Christianity, Roman Catholic, Issues in Science and Religion” in the Encyclopedia Of Science And Religion. This article was written by Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J. (Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006). Coyne writes: The most distinctive features of Roman Catholicism that influence the religion-science dialogue are its hierarchical and authoritative structure and its emphasis upon the rational foundations for religious belief. Many of the divisions that have occurred within Christianity in the course of history have their origins in one or both of these characteristics of Roman Catholicism. The history of the interaction within Roman Catholicism between science and religion has been dominated by its hierarchical structure. On the other hand the insistence on reason as fundamental to the relationship of human beings to the universe and, therefore, to the creator of the universe has played an important role in the birth of modern … Continue reading →
Religion, Medicine, and Miracles – Jacalyn Duffin
Article (book excerpt) 3400 words Level: high school and above An excerpt from the 2009 book Medical Miracles: Doctors, Saints, and Healing in the Modern World, written by Jacalyn Duffin, who holds the Hannah Chair for the History of Medicine, Queen’s University, Ontario Historian and published by Oxford University Press. Duffin writes: For doctors, the medical canon is immersed in an antideistic tradition, as described above: only nature — not God — can ever be the cause or cure of diseases. For religion, all plausible scientific explanations, be they human or natural, must first be eliminated before the case becomes a contender as a reliable sign of transcendence or holiness. In both cases, what is left is that which is unknown; religious observers are prepared to call it God. They accept divine agency within their interpretive framework through belief in God and the inspirational nature of scripture; such faith is often described as a miracle itself. It is the source … Continue reading →
Science + religion
Article 3200 words Level: high school and above Tom McLeish argues in this 2019 article from Aeon for the importance of theology in addressing and understanding modern scientific questions. Noting that the idea of science and religion as being in conflict has long been intellectually unsupportable, McLeish, who is professor of natural philosophy in the Department of Physics at the University of York in the UK, asks: All well and good – so the history, philosophy and sociology of science and religion are richer and more interesting than the media-tales and high-school stories of opposition we were all brought up on. It seems a good time to ask the ‘so what?’ questions, however, especially since there has been less work in that direction. If Islamic, Jewish and Christian theologies were demonstrably central in the construction of our current scientific methodologies, for example, then what might such a reassessment imply for fruitful development of the role that science plays in our … Continue reading →
Science, Religion, and the Art of Storytelling
Video (90 minutes) of a presentation by Br Guy Consolmagno on the similarities in structure and theme between fantasy and science fiction stories, actual scientific papers, and the way we approach religion. “Seeing the world as it might be makes me more aware of the world as it is.”
Continue reading →Seeking the Face of God: The Lives and Discoveries of Catholic Scientists
Audio series 3 hours Level: all audiences This is a series of conversations between Dr. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory, and Dr. Michelle Francl-Donnay, professor of chemistry and the chair of the chemistry department at Bryn Mawr College, and an adjunct scholar of the Vatican Observatory. The interviews are published by Now You Know Media. From the web site of Now You Know: In Seeking the Face of God, two leading scientists from the Vatican Observatory debate what it means to be a practicing Catholic and a professional scientist. Tracing back across 1,000 years of history, you’ll reflect on the role of faith in science…. Beginning with a brief overview of the history of science, Consolmagno and Francl-Donnay highlight Catholic contributions to medicine, mathematics, computer science, astronomy, and chemistry before arriving at the question of our place in the cosmos. While some, like Gregor Mendel, are famous for their discoveries, Consolmagno and Francl-Donnay introduce you to … Continue reading →
Søren Kierkegaard – A Criticism to Materialistic Naturalism of the 19th Century
Article (book excerpt) 1700 words Level: university Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard offers a strong criticism of those who focus too strongly on science and actually have very limited understanding. Kierkegaard writes: If someone knew that even though he picked every leaf from the flower, separated the fibers of the stem, and observed every part microscopically, and still could not explain what is constitutive in plants—why does he do it then? Or is he not keeping the student in a completely wrong kind of self-contradiction? Instead of saying summarily, “I cannot understand this,” he encumbers the student with a mass of detail and very fascinating, engaging knowledge, which nevertheless always ends with the fact that he cannot, after all, explain the ultimate. But it is precisely this kind of preoccupation with much knowledge which results in one’s losing the impress of the purely ethical. Instead of hungrily beginning to eat, instead of enthusiastically beginning with the ethical, lightly armed and unencumbered … Continue reading →
Talking science and God with Science Magazine
This link to an interview with Br. Guy Consolmagno explores some of the assumptions behind the question of baptism and Ets.
Continue reading →The Creator and the Co-Creators: Exploring the Intimate Connection between God and the World.
A post by Fr. James Kurzynski on The Catholic Astronomer arguing that one of the clear traits left within the human soul by God is to be co-creators in imitation of the Creator.
Continue reading →The Ethics of Exploration: Planetary Astronomy
Article 3000 words Level: all audiences Br. Guy Consolmagno, S.J. of the Vatican Observatory writes that while we might not expect many ethical questions to arise in astronomy, since it is a science based on remote observations of distant objects, such questions do crop up nevertheless. He addresses some of these in this 2008 paper. [Click here to download PDF]
Continue reading →The most important thing you can do to fight climate change: talk about it
Video 17 minutes Level: all audiences A 2019 TED Talk by climate scientist and evangelical Christian Katherine Hayhoe. Hayhoe argues that rehashing data and facts does not help with achieving mutual understanding and progress on the subject of climate change. Rather, what is needed is that we talk with each other, and the key to that is to connect over shared values like family, community and religion.
Continue reading →The New Physics and the Old Metaphysics (The Nash Lecture at Campion College, University of Regina)
Video (50 minutes) or a presentation by Br Guy Consomagno on how advances in modern physics work with traditional metaphysics. God is not one force among many, to be invoked to explain evolution or the big bang, but the author of the universe that allows evolution or the big bang to occur.
Continue reading →The Popular Creation Story of Astronomy Is Wrong
Article 3000 words Level: all audiences In this May 2018 article in Nautilus, author C. M. Graney discusses Johannes Kepler’s view of the universe, a view that does not conform at all to modern ideas. Graney argues that understanding the views of scientists such as Kepler, even when they are unusual, is important to understanding science today, and important to countering anti-science attitudes. Graney writes: In the early years of the 17th century, Johannes Kepler argued that the universe contained thousands of mighty bodies, bodies so huge that they could be universes themselves. These giant bodies, said Kepler, testified to the immense power of, as well as the personal tastes of, an omnipotent Creator God. The giant bodies were the stars, and they were arrayed around the sun, the universe’s comparatively tiny central body, itself orbited by its retinue of still tinier planets. Click here to access this article from Nautilus.
Continue reading →The Unfinished Cosmos: Creation, God, and Hawking’s Grand Design
Video 1 hour talk, with 45 minutes more of Q&A Level: all audiences 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. An extensive Q&A followed with Greg Moorehouse; the sound in that part is not particularly clear, unfortunately. The main point of the lecture is that Creation from Nothing is different from the Big Bang, and different from what Hawking was talking about.
Continue reading →The Vatican Observatory
Video 5 minutes Level: all audiences A short video from the Vatican Observatory Foundation about the history and work of the Vatican Observatory, featuring interviews with members of the Observatory and views of their telescopes in Arizona and Rome.
Continue reading →Twelve Lectures on the Connection Between Science and Revealed Religion – Nicholas Wiseman
Book (and book excerpt) 448 pages (excerpt is 3200 words) Level: high school and above Nicolás Patricio Esteban Wiseman was Cardinal and first Archbishop of Westminster upon the re-establishment of the Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales in 1850. His discussions of religion and science in the early nineteenth century became well-known. The complete text of Wiseman’s lectures is available from Google Books (click here). 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. In this excerpt Wiseman defends Rome as a center of learning and writes of various early figures in the church who promoted the study of mathematics or the natural world, including Clement of Alexandria: Clement of Alexandria … devoted several chapters of his learned Stromata to the vindication of his favorite studies. He observes very justly, that “varied and … Continue reading →
Vatican II – Joseph Ratzinger on The Christian and the Technological World
Article (book excerpt, PDF) 1200 words Level: university An excerpt from the 1966 Theological Highlights of Vatican II, by Fr. Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI). The topic is the third chapter of the first part of Gaudium et Spes (“Man’s Activity throughout the World”), which treats science and technology. Fr. Ratzinger notes: The objectivity of science is much more in line with the idea of creation than a false divinization of the world which science and faith equally reject…. The scientific view of the world, which presupposes both the world’s non-divinity and its logical and comprehensible structure, is profoundly in accord with the view of the world as created (and thus non-divine): the world as produced by the Logos, God’s Spirit-filled Word. Thus, like the Logos, the world is rationally and spiritually structured. One might even say that only such a basic attitude makes natural science possible in its full scope. Click here for a preview, courtesy of Google … Continue reading →
We Saw His Star in the East: BBC Radio Sunday Worship for Epiphany
This program first aired on BBC Radio’s Sunday religious program for Ephiphany.
Continue reading →What God “Whispers” through Radio Telescopes
Article 2500 words Level: all audiences Jennifer Wiseman is a senior astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, where she serves as the senior project scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope. She is also Director of the Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion (DoSER) program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Wiseman writes: Radio telescopes, and indeed all telescopes, reveal a universe of complexity and beauty that speaks of great care and creativity in its design. This very reality tells us that our lives mean more than simply survival. Indeed, we can even see that God is very good for even choosing to make a universe of beauty that leads to life, and thus everything good must proceed from God. 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 … Continue reading →
What is the Relationship Between Faith and Astronomy? Reflections on a Personal Journey.
A post by Fr. James Kurzynski on The Catholic Astronomer, reflecting on the Faith and Astronomy Workshops. “: The more we learn about the world we live in, the more there is to learn about the world we live in. To explore the topic of faith and astronomy is to explore the virtue of humility.”
Continue reading →When the Sacred Cows of Religion and Science Meet
Video 1 Hour Level: all audiences Fr. George Coyne. S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, lectures at the University of Washington in 2004, discussing our place in the universe in the face of our assumptions, the sacred cows, of both our scientific and religious cosmologies. Click here to watch the YouTube video, starting at 11 minutes (skipping a long introduction).
Continue reading →When Worlds Collide: Science and Faith
Article 500 words Level: all audiences This article by Michelle Francl-Donnay, professor of chemistry at Bryn Mawr College and an adjunct scholar of the Vatican Observatory, first appeared in the Catholic Standard & Times (the diocesan newspaper of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia), 12 June 2008. Click here to read this article on Michelle Francl-Donnay’s blog. When Worlds Collide: Science and Faith Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jn 20:27-28 “When Worlds Collide” sounds like the title of a campy 1950s science fiction film, which it is. But it could be the perfect title for my biography. Colliding worlds are my lot in life. My trajectory crisscrosses the orbits of family, students, science and faith. Most days I succeed in avoiding astronomical catastrophes, but last week two of my worlds came brushing past each … Continue reading →
A Biologist’s Perspective on Science and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition
Article 7 pages Level: high school and above This 2011 article in the Journal of Religion and Society is by Charles Brockhouse of Creighton University. This article provides perspectives on science from two different Catholic scientists—Brockhouse directly, and indirectly Brockhouse’s father, Bertram Brockhouse, who shared the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physics. Charles Brockhouse writes: No consideration of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition would be complete without a treatment of the development of modern experimental (natural) science. Alas, such a work is beyond my expertise and available time as a practicing scientist and lecturer in the general area of genetics and molecular biology…. [T]his chapter offers a distillation of my personal framework. This perspective developed during a lifetime in a family largely formed of converts to Roman Catholicism (and many non-RCs who did not covert) who also placed an enormous emphasis on scholastic development and intellectual rigor. Click here for this article with addition information, from Creighton University. Click here for the article directly, … Continue reading →
Across the Universe: Stellar Round Up
Article (blog post) 600 words Level: all audiences A post by Vatican Observatory astronomer Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., on The Catholic Astronomer blog. Br. Consolmagno writes about knowing the science of astronomy versus knowing the night sky, and about knowing theology versus knowing God: “Look, along the ecliptic, directly opposite the point where the Sun lies; around midnight, you can see sunlight reflected back to us from the dust of the asteroid belt,” one friend pointed out to me. “It’s called the googenshine!” Actually, that’s gegenschein; but I didn’t correct him. I had studied it in graduate school; I knew how to spell it, and what the German words mean. But unlike my friend, I had never actually seen it before. A lot of professional astronomers never look at the night sky; some of them don’t even know how to find the most basic constellations. Even those of us who came to our professional calling from a teen-aged enthusiasm with small telescopes … 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 →
An Interview with Reverend George V. Coyne, S.J.
Article 8 pages Level: all audiences This 2018 interview with Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 through 2006, was published as part of John Carroll University’s “Re-engaging Science in Seminary Formation” project. From the introduction to this interview: At every turn during our science in seminaries project, we found ourselves inspired and encouraged by the life and work of Reverend George V. Coyne, S.J., an astrophysicist and former director of the Vatican Observatory for almost 30 years (1978–2006). Father Coyne was not only on the front lines promoting the need for dialogue between scientific and theological communities, but he also unrelentingly advanced the cause of scientific literacy as a critical component of seminary formation. We contacted Father Coyne at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, where he is McDevitt Chair of Religious Philosophy and McDevitt Chair in Physics. He graciously agreed to be interviewed by Reverend John Kartje, Rector-President of Saint Mary … Continue reading →
Astronomy and God: Do anti-religious messages belong in science education?
Article 1000 words Level: all audiences Religion is not part of the pages of Astronomy magazine, but “for some crazy reason, religion creeps into some popular science media”, usually in the form of “religious putdowns” such as were seen in the “Cosmos” TV series. So writes Bob Berman in the August 2014 issue of Astronomy. “The advocacy segments in shows like Cosmos may be well intentioned,” writes Berman, “but I fear they merely harden those who think science is a ‘position’ or ‘view’ of the world rather than an impartial portal to truth.” Click here to access this article courtesy of Astronomy magazine.
Continue reading →Astronomy and Mother Teresa’s Shoes: Relics of the Sacred
Article (blog post) 1100 words Level: all audiences A post on The Catholic Astronomer by Fr. James Kurzynski about Mother Teresa and the idea of “relics”. Fr. Kurzynski writes: As we approach the Canonization of Mother Teresa, let us thank God for the gift she was to the Church and continues to be through her ongoing intercession. Let us give thanks for the wisdom of the Church to value those sacred object, those relics that allow us a connection with the lives of the saints and inspire us to become the people that God calls us to be. And may we also look to the heavens for a different kind of “relic” in the night sky. These relics may not play a central role in our salvation. However, they remind us that without their existence, we would not exist. And for this reason, we can thank God for providing us these sacred reminders of our sacred beginnings, inspiring us to embrace … Continue reading →
Astronomy Bucket List: Experiencing The Wonder!
Article (blog post) 1000 words Level: all audiences Fr. James Kurzynski, writing for The Catholic Astronomer blog, discusses the joy one of his parishioners upon seeing the sun through a Hydrogen-alpha telescope for the first time. Fr. Kurzynski writes: As I drove home to get ready for our evening Mass with the college students, I thanked God for the experience I had with the Welsch family. It revealed to me that, even as a hobby astronomer, I had allowed myself to become a little desensitized while gazing at some of the wonders of the universe. This desensitization reminded me of my faith life and how so many beautiful aspects of Catholicism can become so common place that we forget their beauty and impact. For example, I have prayed the “Our Father” thousands of times in my life. However, do I stop and reflect on the beauty of this prayer or do I simply allow it to ramble from my lips to be quickly … Continue reading →
Earth Day and Catholicism: What Is A Christian To Do?
Article (blog post) 1900 words Level: all audiences A post by Fr. James Kurzynski on The Catholic Astronomer blog. Fr. Kurzynski discusses Earth Day, his initial skepticism toward it, and how the writings of Pope St. John Paul II caused him to rethink that skepticism – mostly, but not entirely: Like many Americans, I had a rather suspicious attitude toward such celebrations, thinking of them as merely days of political statements and protests against anyone who didn’t embrace a 100% “Green” lifestyle. As a devout Catholic, I also struggled with expressions of what I would call an Environmental Spiritualism, treating the Earth as if it were God or another type of deity. In short, Earth Day was not high on my priority list. In time, however, my attitude began to change toward Earth Day. The beginning of the change occurred when I was in college and started to delve into Catholic Social Teaching (CST). I was surprised to discover that one of the … Continue reading →
Freeman Dyson (and others) – Towards an Open-Minded Science
Article 1000 words Level: high school and above 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. Physicist Freeman Dyson and his colleagues write: At a time when the young are lacking in motivation to take up scientific careers, and when science is subject to numerous criticisms, often abusive, or ill-informed, science needs to be as open as possible (among other things to the question of meaning) and should not seal itself off in a way which is characteristic of scientism. This discussion was originally published in French in Le Monde (February 22, 2006) under the title “Pour une science sans a priori”. Click here for an English translation of the Dyson et al discussion, from Inters.org. Click here for the original Dyson et al discussion, from Le Monde.
Continue reading →God and Science, Under the Stars (Interview with Br. Consolmagno)
Article 1500 words Level: all audiences A CBC interview with Br. Guy Consolmagno of the Vatican Observatory. From the CBC: Q & A with Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno Guy Consolmagno is an astronomer and planetary scientist with degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Arizona. He is also a Jesuit Brother, dividing his time between the Vatican observatory in Arizona and Castel Gandolfo, Italy, where he is curator of the Vatican meteorite collection — one of the largest in the world. Brother Consolmagno is steeped in scientific theory, but uses God to account for what can’t be accounted for through science, as a glue that holds together the equations of the universe. Brother Consolmagno is steeped in scientific theory, but uses God to account for what can’t be accounted for through science, as a glue that holds together the equations of the universe. He is also the author of God’s Mechanics: How Scientists and Engineers Make … Continue reading →
God’s Action in Nature’s World
Book 264 pages Level: university God’s Action in Nature’s World, edited by T. Peters and N. Hallenger, is a book of essays in honor of Robert John Russell. In 1981 Robert John Russell founded what would become the leading center of research at the interface of science and religion, the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences. Throughout its twenty-five year history, CTNS under Russell’s leadership has continued to guide and further the dialogue between science and theology. Russell has been an articulate spokesperson in calling for “creative mutual interaction” between the two fields. God’s Action in Nature’s World brings together sixteen internationally-recognized scholars to assess Robert Russell’s impact on the discipline of science and religion. Focusing on three areas of Russell’s work – methodology, cosmology, and divine action in quantum physics – this book celebrates Robert John Russell’s contribution to the interdisciplinary engagement between the natural sciences and theology. It includes an article by George Coyne, “Today’s Playing Field: … Continue reading →
History: Science and the Reformation
Article 1800 words Level: all audiences In this 2017 article in in the journal Nature, author David Wootton writes on the Protestant Reformation and the Copernican Revolution: Were the Reformation and this revolution merely coincident, or did the Reformation somehow facilitate or foster the new science, which rejected traditional authorities such as Aristotle and relied on experiments and empirical information? Suppose Martin Luther had never existed; suppose the Reformation had never taken place. Would the history of science have been fundamentally different? Would there have been no scientific revolution? Would we still be living in the world of the horse and cart, the quill pen and the matchlock firearm? Can we imagine a Catholic Newton, or is Newton’s Protestantism somehow fundamental to his science? Wootton notes that “it is still widely argued by historians of science that the Protestant religion and the new science were inextricably intertwined, as Protestantism turned away from the spirituality of Catholicism and fostered a practical … Continue reading →
Interweaving Stories about Reality – Alister McGrath
Article (book excerpt) 900 words Level: all 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 “Interweaving Stories about Reality” McGrath writes: I have set out something of my own personal journey from a sense of rapturous amazement at nature to discovering initially the intellectual delight of the natural sciences, then the elevating and enriching experience of religious faith, and finally the exploration of the richer vision of reality that resulted from allowing science and faith to inform and illuminate each other. Click here for McGrath’s essay, from Inters.org. Click here for a published version of McGrath’s essay, from the 2015 book The Big Question: Why We Can’t Stop Talking About Science, Faith and God (preview … Continue reading →
Liberal Education in Crisis
Article 29 pages Level: high school and above A criticism and historical overview of the impact of modern science and the rise of the research university on the liberal arts tradition, by David D. Arndt, published in Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture in 2016. Arndt writes: Liberal education was once understood as a spiritual discipline devoted to the search for wisdom: “There is only one really liberal study. . . . It is the study of wisdom.” This is why even today doctorates in the liberal arts are called doctors of philosophy. But this understanding of liberal education was distorted and obscured with the emergence of the modern sciences, when liberal arts colleges were cast into the mold of the research university and reinterpreted in light of its underlying assumptions. This distortion was not affected by the sciences themselves, but by scientism—the uncritical belief that scientific truths are the only genuine form of truth. Catholic colleges matter … Continue reading →
Life as We Know It
Article 3000 words Level: all audiences A 2012 article from Notre Dame Magazine, by Michael J. Crowe, a historian of science with the University of Notre Dame, and Christopher M. Graney. Crowe and Graney write: The Aristotelians were wrong; the Copernicans were right. Our home is not the center of the universe; it is merely one planet circling one star in an incomprehensibly vast universe. But what is the deeper significance of this important claim? David Wootton suggests an answer in his recent biography, Galileo: Watcher of the Skies. The Copernican theory, he writes, “[O]ffered a view of the cosmos in which humankind, and the things that matter to humankind — love and hatred, virtue and vice, mortality and immortality, salvation and damnation — were irrelevant. Far from embodying a scheme of values, far from embodying a telos or purpose, [this] universe appeared to be indifferent to moral and metaphysical issues, and even indifferent to our own existence. . . . Galileo’s … Continue reading →
Magisterium Is Concerned with Question of Evolution for It Involves Conception of Man – St. John Paul II
Article 900 words Level: all audiences Pope John Paul II in an October 22, 1996 address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences discusses evolution and why the broader church has particular interest in that area of scientific investigation: I am pleased with the first theme you have chosen, that of the origins of life and evolution, an essential subject which deeply interests the Church, since Revelation, for its part, contains teaching concerning the nature and origins of man. How do the conclusions reached by the various scientific disciplines coincide with those contained in the message of Revelation? And if, at first sight, there are apparent contradictions, in what direction do we look for their solution? We know, in fact, that truth cannot contradict truth…. The Church’s Magisterium is directly concerned with the question of evolution, for it involves the conception of man: Revelation teaches us that he was created in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gn 1:27-29) The Conciliar Constitution Gaudium … Continue reading →
Matrix Thinking: An Adaptation at the Foundation of Human Science, Religion, and Art
Article 28 pages Level: university A paper by Margaret Boone Rappaport and Fr. Christopher Corbally, an astronomer with the Vatican Observatory, published in Zygon: The Journal of Religion and Science. From Zygon: Abstract: Intrigued by Robinson and Southgate’s 2010 work on “entering a semiotic matrix,” we expand their model to include the juxtaposition of all signs, symbols, and mental categories, and to explore the underpinnings of creativity in science, religion, and art. We rely on an interdisciplinary review of human sentience in archaeology, evolutionary biology, the cognitive science of religion, and literature, and speculate on the development of sentience in response to strong selection pressure on the hominin evolutionary line, leaving us the “lone survivors” of complex, multiple lines of physical and cultural evolution. What we call Matrix Thinking—the creative driver of human sentience—has important cognitive and intellectual features, but also equally important characteristics traced to our intense sociability and use of emotionality in vetting rational models. Scientist, theologian, and … Continue reading →
Max Planck on Johannes Kepler and Faith in Science
Article (book excerpt) 600 words Level: all audiences Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918 “in recognition of the services he rendered to the advancement of Physics by his discovery of energy quanta”. Planck made many contributions to physics, but is remembered primarily for his role as the originator of quantum theory. This selection is from an interview. Planck responds to a question from James Murphy about the general skepticism found in the world, a skepticism which Murphy says attacks religion, art, and literature, as well as science. From Where is Science Going? (London, 1933), pages 214-16. Click here to access the original article in its entirety, courtesy of Archive.org. [Click here to download PDF]
Continue reading →Max Planck on Religion and Science
Article (book excerpt) 600 pages Level: all audiences Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918 “in recognition of the services he rendered to the advancement of Physics by his discovery of energy quanta”. Planck made many contributions to physics, but is remembered primarily for his role as the originator of quantum theory. This excerpt is from his Where is Science Going? (London, 1933), pages 167-69. Click here to access the entirety of the original text of this article, courtesy of Archive.org. [Click here to download PDF]
Continue reading →Modern Cosmology, a Resource for Elementary School Education
Book chapter (PDF) 9 pages, 7000 words Level: all audiences A book chapter from the 2001 book The Challenges for Science. Education for the Twenty-First Century, published by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. In this chapter Fr. George Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, writes: (1) We should start teaching children from where they are at present, their current knowledge, interests, fears, and so on; (2) all of us humans, those who teach and those who are taught, “have been made in heaven”, it has been said. This refers to the well known need for stellar nucleosynthesis to provide the chemical abundances required for life in the universe. It has been indicated that one of principal goals of teaching children should be an awareness of this birth of ours from star dust, if only at an elementary level. I would suggest that the didactic order be reversed and that this awareness should be the beginning … Continue reading →
One of America’s top climate scientists is an evangelical Christian
Article 2300 words Level: all audiences This 2019 article written by Dan Zak of the Washington Post discusses Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University, and a lead author on the U.S. government’s latest National Climate Assessment. Hayhoe is an evangelical Christian. Her husband is a pastor of a non-denominational Christian church. Hayhoe is known for being able to lead and foster discussions on climate science with a broad range of people. Zak writes: Her skills of communication do seem miraculous by the standards of modern climate politics: She can convert nonbelievers — or, to put it in her terms, make people realize that they’ve believed in the importance of this issue all along. She knows how to speak to oilmen, to Christians, to farmers and ranchers, having lived for years in Lubbock, Tex., with her pastor husband. She is a scientist who thinks that we’ve talked enough about science, that we need to talk more about … Continue reading →
Origins, Time and Complexity
Book 500 pages, two volumes Level: university A volume sponsored by the Vatican Observatory, featuring papers presented at the 4th European Conference on Science and Theology held Mar. 23-29, 1992, in Mondo Migliore near Rome; organized by the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology. From the back cover of Volume 1: The aim of the conference was to study the origins of various aspects of the universe in an interdisciplinary way, taking into account not only science but also theology and philosophy. Special attention was given to the way in which recent developments in physical complexity theory influence our view of these origins and the underlying understanding of time. Click here from a preview from Google Books.
Continue reading →Physics Today: Thinking differently about science and religion
Article (Letter to Editor) and Responses 9 pages (total) Level: all audiences In February 2018 the journal Physics Today published a letter by Tom McLeish, Professor of Physics at Durham University, chair of the Royal Society’s education committee, and author of the book Faith and Wisdom in Science (Oxford University Press, 2014). The following June Physics Today published a number of responses to McLeish’s letter, along with additional remarks from McLeish. McLeish writes: Driving an unhistorical and unrealistic wedge between science and religion has got to stop. It leads, in part, to the optionalism that we see in some public and political attitudes toward science, from climate change to vaccination. It damages the educational experience of our children, and it impoverishes our understanding of our own science’s historical context. Human beings live not only in a physical world but within historical narratives that give us values, purpose, and identity. Science sits on the branches and draws from the sap of … Continue reading →
Pilgrimage of the Mind and Heart: Embracing the Adventure of Faith and Science.
A post by Fr. James Kurzynski on The Catholic Astronomer. The Faith and Astronomy Workshop were on a pilgrimage to understand the relationship between faith and astronomy. If we explore faith and astronomy properly, we never really come to “an end” of the journey, but simply find new roads, new questions, and new experiences that take us in a new direction when exploring the relationship between Creator and creation.
Continue reading →Prayer and Time: What does the universe teach us about contemplation?
A post by Fr. James Kurzynski on The Catholic Astronomer: a spiritual reflection on the nature of time.
Continue reading →Quantum leaps of faith
Philosophical reflection on the news media’s coverage of Hawking’s book The Grand Design.
Continue reading →Rather than working against one another, faith and science together offer a fuller picture of creation
Article 850 words Level: all audiences Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., an astronomer with the Vatican Observatory, discusses in this article from from Our Sunday Visitor Newsweekly how science and religion sometimes give us different pictures of God’s universe. Click here to access this article directly from Our Sunday Visitor Newsweekly. Rather than working against one another, faith and science together offer a fuller picture of creation We shouldn’t be afraid if science and religion sometimes give us different pictures of God’s universe Brother Guy Consolmagno OSV Newsweekly 10/29/2014 “What do I do if science tells me one thing but religion tells me another thing? Which do I believe?” There’s a false assumption at the center of that question, because neither science nor religion are about believing in “things.” Our religious belief is not in a “thing,” but in a person — indeed, three persons. Our faith is in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as described and identified in the creed, and in … Continue reading →
Religion and Natural Science – Max Planck
Article 37 pages Level: high school and above Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918 “in recognition of the services he rendered to the advancement of Physics by his discovery of energy quanta”. Planck made many contributions to physics, but is remembered primarily for his role as the originator of quantum theory. This essay is from a lecture Planck gave in 1937 entitled “Religion und Naturwissenschaft”. This English translation was published in 1950 in a collection entitled Scientific Autobiography And Other Papers. Click here to access the essay courtesy of Archive.org. Click here for a preview courtesy of Google Books. Planck concludes this essay with— To the religious person, God is directly and immediately given. He and His omnipotent Will are the fountainhead of all life and all happenings, both in the mundane world and in the world of the spirit. Even though He cannot be grasped by reason, the religious symbols give a direct view … Continue reading →
Religion and Science: Roman Catholicism
Encyclopedia article 6 pages Level: high school and above An article entitled “Christianity, Roman Catholic, Issues in Science and Religion” in the Encyclopedia Of Science And Religion. This article was written by Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J. (Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006). Coyne writes: The most distinctive features of Roman Catholicism that influence the religion-science dialogue are its hierarchical and authoritative structure and its emphasis upon the rational foundations for religious belief. Many of the divisions that have occurred within Christianity in the course of history have their origins in one or both of these characteristics of Roman Catholicism. The history of the interaction within Roman Catholicism between science and religion has been dominated by its hierarchical structure. On the other hand the insistence on reason as fundamental to the relationship of human beings to the universe and, therefore, to the creator of the universe has played an important role in the birth of modern … Continue reading →
Religion, Medicine, and Miracles – Jacalyn Duffin
Article (book excerpt) 3400 words Level: high school and above An excerpt from the 2009 book Medical Miracles: Doctors, Saints, and Healing in the Modern World, written by Jacalyn Duffin, who holds the Hannah Chair for the History of Medicine, Queen’s University, Ontario Historian and published by Oxford University Press. Duffin writes: For doctors, the medical canon is immersed in an antideistic tradition, as described above: only nature — not God — can ever be the cause or cure of diseases. For religion, all plausible scientific explanations, be they human or natural, must first be eliminated before the case becomes a contender as a reliable sign of transcendence or holiness. In both cases, what is left is that which is unknown; religious observers are prepared to call it God. They accept divine agency within their interpretive framework through belief in God and the inspirational nature of scripture; such faith is often described as a miracle itself. It is the source … Continue reading →
Science + religion
Article 3200 words Level: high school and above Tom McLeish argues in this 2019 article from Aeon for the importance of theology in addressing and understanding modern scientific questions. Noting that the idea of science and religion as being in conflict has long been intellectually unsupportable, McLeish, who is professor of natural philosophy in the Department of Physics at the University of York in the UK, asks: All well and good – so the history, philosophy and sociology of science and religion are richer and more interesting than the media-tales and high-school stories of opposition we were all brought up on. It seems a good time to ask the ‘so what?’ questions, however, especially since there has been less work in that direction. If Islamic, Jewish and Christian theologies were demonstrably central in the construction of our current scientific methodologies, for example, then what might such a reassessment imply for fruitful development of the role that science plays in our … Continue reading →
Søren Kierkegaard – A Criticism to Materialistic Naturalism of the 19th Century
Article (book excerpt) 1700 words Level: university Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard offers a strong criticism of those who focus too strongly on science and actually have very limited understanding. Kierkegaard writes: If someone knew that even though he picked every leaf from the flower, separated the fibers of the stem, and observed every part microscopically, and still could not explain what is constitutive in plants—why does he do it then? Or is he not keeping the student in a completely wrong kind of self-contradiction? Instead of saying summarily, “I cannot understand this,” he encumbers the student with a mass of detail and very fascinating, engaging knowledge, which nevertheless always ends with the fact that he cannot, after all, explain the ultimate. But it is precisely this kind of preoccupation with much knowledge which results in one’s losing the impress of the purely ethical. Instead of hungrily beginning to eat, instead of enthusiastically beginning with the ethical, lightly armed and unencumbered … Continue reading →
Talking science and God with Science Magazine
This link to an interview with Br. Guy Consolmagno explores some of the assumptions behind the question of baptism and Ets.
Continue reading →The Creator and the Co-Creators: Exploring the Intimate Connection between God and the World.
A post by Fr. James Kurzynski on The Catholic Astronomer arguing that one of the clear traits left within the human soul by God is to be co-creators in imitation of the Creator.
Continue reading →The Popular Creation Story of Astronomy Is Wrong
Article 3000 words Level: all audiences In this May 2018 article in Nautilus, author C. M. Graney discusses Johannes Kepler’s view of the universe, a view that does not conform at all to modern ideas. Graney argues that understanding the views of scientists such as Kepler, even when they are unusual, is important to understanding science today, and important to countering anti-science attitudes. Graney writes: In the early years of the 17th century, Johannes Kepler argued that the universe contained thousands of mighty bodies, bodies so huge that they could be universes themselves. These giant bodies, said Kepler, testified to the immense power of, as well as the personal tastes of, an omnipotent Creator God. The giant bodies were the stars, and they were arrayed around the sun, the universe’s comparatively tiny central body, itself orbited by its retinue of still tinier planets. Click here to access this article from Nautilus.
Continue reading →Twelve Lectures on the Connection Between Science and Revealed Religion – Nicholas Wiseman
Book (and book excerpt) 448 pages (excerpt is 3200 words) Level: high school and above Nicolás Patricio Esteban Wiseman was Cardinal and first Archbishop of Westminster upon the re-establishment of the Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales in 1850. His discussions of religion and science in the early nineteenth century became well-known. The complete text of Wiseman’s lectures is available from Google Books (click here). 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. In this excerpt Wiseman defends Rome as a center of learning and writes of various early figures in the church who promoted the study of mathematics or the natural world, including Clement of Alexandria: Clement of Alexandria … devoted several chapters of his learned Stromata to the vindication of his favorite studies. He observes very justly, that “varied and … Continue reading →
Vatican II – Joseph Ratzinger on The Christian and the Technological World
Article (book excerpt, PDF) 1200 words Level: university An excerpt from the 1966 Theological Highlights of Vatican II, by Fr. Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI). The topic is the third chapter of the first part of Gaudium et Spes (“Man’s Activity throughout the World”), which treats science and technology. Fr. Ratzinger notes: The objectivity of science is much more in line with the idea of creation than a false divinization of the world which science and faith equally reject…. The scientific view of the world, which presupposes both the world’s non-divinity and its logical and comprehensible structure, is profoundly in accord with the view of the world as created (and thus non-divine): the world as produced by the Logos, God’s Spirit-filled Word. Thus, like the Logos, the world is rationally and spiritually structured. One might even say that only such a basic attitude makes natural science possible in its full scope. Click here for a preview, courtesy of Google … Continue reading →
What God “Whispers” through Radio Telescopes
Article 2500 words Level: all audiences Jennifer Wiseman is a senior astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, where she serves as the senior project scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope. She is also Director of the Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion (DoSER) program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Wiseman writes: Radio telescopes, and indeed all telescopes, reveal a universe of complexity and beauty that speaks of great care and creativity in its design. This very reality tells us that our lives mean more than simply survival. Indeed, we can even see that God is very good for even choosing to make a universe of beauty that leads to life, and thus everything good must proceed from God. 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 … Continue reading →
What is the Relationship Between Faith and Astronomy? Reflections on a Personal Journey.
A post by Fr. James Kurzynski on The Catholic Astronomer, reflecting on the Faith and Astronomy Workshops. “: The more we learn about the world we live in, the more there is to learn about the world we live in. To explore the topic of faith and astronomy is to explore the virtue of humility.”
Continue reading →When the Sacred Cows of Religion and Science Meet
Video 1 Hour Level: all audiences Fr. George Coyne. S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, lectures at the University of Washington in 2004, discussing our place in the universe in the face of our assumptions, the sacred cows, of both our scientific and religious cosmologies. Click here to watch the YouTube video, starting at 11 minutes (skipping a long introduction).
Continue reading →When Worlds Collide: Science and Faith
Article 500 words Level: all audiences This article by Michelle Francl-Donnay, professor of chemistry at Bryn Mawr College and an adjunct scholar of the Vatican Observatory, first appeared in the Catholic Standard & Times (the diocesan newspaper of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia), 12 June 2008. Click here to read this article on Michelle Francl-Donnay’s blog. When Worlds Collide: Science and Faith Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jn 20:27-28 “When Worlds Collide” sounds like the title of a campy 1950s science fiction film, which it is. But it could be the perfect title for my biography. Colliding worlds are my lot in life. My trajectory crisscrosses the orbits of family, students, science and faith. Most days I succeed in avoiding astronomical catastrophes, but last week two of my worlds came brushing past each … Continue reading →
Adventures of a Vatican Astronomer – Br. Guy Consolmagno SJ
Video One hour Level: all audiences Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., an astronomer at the Vatican Observatory, gave this talk at the SETI Institute on February 22, 2013 No scientist is a Spock-like android; a scientist’s work is as intuitive, and just as full of human foibles, as a painting, a symphony, or a prayer. But most of us don’t have the opportunity (or training) to reflect on the human dimensions of our work. Br. Guy Consolmagno does; he is both a Jesuit brother and a planetary scientist at the Vatican Observatory, splitting his time between the meteorite collection in Rome (which he curates) and the Vatican telescope in Arizona. Thanks to his Vatican connections, his work has sent him around the world several times to dozens of countries and every continent (including a meteorite hunting expedition to Antarctica). In this talk he will share some of those adventures, and reflect on the larger meaning of our common experience as … Continue reading →
Astronomy, Religion, and the Art of Storytelling
Video 48 minutes Level: All audiences This March 2020 video presentation by Brother Guy Consolmagno, SJ, Director of the Vatican Observatory, was made for The Catholic Theological Union’s Science For Seminaries conference. Consolmagno says that one thing astronomy and religion have in common is that they are both interested in the big questions; and they depend on the art of storytelling to present their strange and wonderful ideas in ways that people can understand, appreciate, and evaluate. Consolmagno examines why stories are fundamental to our understanding of religion; when being a good storyteller is essential in doing science; and how way we tell these stories influences how we think about the big ideas.
Continue reading →Br. Guy Consolmagno ’70: Faith and Science
Video 6 minutes Level: all audiences Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory and a University of Detroit Jesuit High School graduate, speaks about faith and science for the Science and Engineering Center Groundbreaking at U of D Jesuit on June 16, 2015.
Continue reading →Faith and Reason
Video 30 minutes Level: all audiences Dennis Mammana hosts Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 1985, in a wide ranging discussion on science, religion and the interplay of faith and reason as a part of the series, “UCSD Guestbook” from the University of California – San Diego. The video was made in 2008.
Continue reading →Father George Coyne Interviewed by Richard Dawkins
Video Approximately 1 hour Level: all audiences This is uncut footage of a 2008 interview by Richard Dawkins with Father George Coyne, S. J., who was Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 through 2006. The interview was recorded for Dawkins’ television program “The Genius of Charles Darwin” for Channel 4 in the UK, but was not used.
Continue reading →From MIT to Specola Vaticana: Guy Consolmagno at TEDx via Della Conciliazione
Video 17 minutes Level: all audiences Brother Guy Consolmagno weaves stories about science and seeing things in new ways. From TEDx YouTube: Brother Guy Consolmagno is a Planetary Scientist at the Vatican Observatory. He is the curator of the Vatican meteorite collection, which is one of the largest in the world. He earned a degree from MIT and did post-doctorate work at MIT and the Harvard College Observatory. When he was 29, he joined the Peace Corps in Kenya. There, he taught suffering people about astronomy. He discovered that the desire for scientific knowledge is not limited to educated westerners, but is original and alive in the poor and uneducated. In this way, he discovered that astronomy belongs to us all. In 1992, he became a Jesuit Brother. In 2000, he was honored by the International Astronomical Union for his contributions to the study of meteorites and asteroids with the naming of “Asteroid 4597 Consolmagno”.
Continue reading →How to Have a Religious Argument – Bishop Robert Barron
Video 45 minutes Level: all audiences Bishop Robert Barron of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles speaks at Facebook Headquarters on the role of science, reason, and truth in religious arguments. Bishop Barron is founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries. His abstract for this talk reads: Every day, millions of people argue about religion on social media. The comboxes of religious and atheist sites are among the most visited and the most heated in the virtual space. But what I find interesting is how few people really know how to have a good religious argument. Lots of energy, lots of sharp words, and lots of strong feelings are expressed. But rarely do we come across productive, rational argument about religion. In my talk, I’ll pave a way forward, showing how we all, believer and nonbeliever alike, can share better religious discussions. Click here to view the video via Facebook (no login required).
Continue reading →Kenneth R. Miller – To Find God in All Things: Grandeur in an Evolutionary View of Life
Video 56 minutes Level: high school and above Kenneth R. Miller, a biologist at Brown University and author of a widely-used textbook for high school biology, gives the St. Albert Award Lecture at the inaugural conference of the Society of Catholic Scientists. Miller gives an overview of conflicts that have arisen when people have opposed teaching evolution as subject matter in high school, discusses the tendency of some scientists to frame evolution in exactly the way foreseen by those who oppose its teaching, and provides a contrasting view of evolution: a view that “Finds God in All Things”. Click here for an article from Our Sunday Visitor entitled “Catholic scientists discuss faith’s role in work”, on the first conference of the Society of Catholic Scientists—“Origins”—held April 21-23, 2017 in Chicago. Click here for the Society of Catholic Scientists “Origins” conference page.
Continue reading →Science, Religion, and the Art of Storytelling
Video (90 minutes) of a presentation by Br Guy Consolmagno on the similarities in structure and theme between fantasy and science fiction stories, actual scientific papers, and the way we approach religion. “Seeing the world as it might be makes me more aware of the world as it is.”
Continue reading →The most important thing you can do to fight climate change: talk about it
Video 17 minutes Level: all audiences A 2019 TED Talk by climate scientist and evangelical Christian Katherine Hayhoe. Hayhoe argues that rehashing data and facts does not help with achieving mutual understanding and progress on the subject of climate change. Rather, what is needed is that we talk with each other, and the key to that is to connect over shared values like family, community and religion.
Continue reading →The New Physics and the Old Metaphysics (The Nash Lecture at Campion College, University of Regina)
Video (50 minutes) or a presentation by Br Guy Consomagno on how advances in modern physics work with traditional metaphysics. God is not one force among many, to be invoked to explain evolution or the big bang, but the author of the universe that allows evolution or the big bang to occur.
Continue reading →The Unfinished Cosmos: Creation, God, and Hawking’s Grand Design
Video 1 hour talk, with 45 minutes more of Q&A Level: all audiences 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. An extensive Q&A followed with Greg Moorehouse; the sound in that part is not particularly clear, unfortunately. The main point of the lecture is that Creation from Nothing is different from the Big Bang, and different from what Hawking was talking about.
Continue reading →The Vatican Observatory
Video 5 minutes Level: all audiences A short video from the Vatican Observatory Foundation about the history and work of the Vatican Observatory, featuring interviews with members of the Observatory and views of their telescopes in Arizona and Rome.
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 →On Being with Krista Tippett: Asteroids, Stars, and the Love of God
Audio One hour Level: all audiences An interview with two Vatican Observatory astronomers from the radio show On Being with Krista Tippett: “Guy Consolmagno and George Coyne—Asteroids, Stars, and the Love of God”. More than 30 objects on the moon are named after the Jesuits who mapped it. A Jesuit was one of the founders of modern astrophysics. And four Jesuits in history, including Ignatius of Loyola, have had asteroids named after them – Brother Guy Consolmagno and Father George Coyne being the two living men with this distinction. In a conversation filled with friendship and laughter, and in honor of the visit of Pope Francis to the U.S., we experience the spacious way they think about science, the universe, and the love of God. Click here for the audio and a transcript of the interview from “On Being”.
Continue reading →Seeking the Face of God: The Lives and Discoveries of Catholic Scientists
Audio series 3 hours Level: all audiences This is a series of conversations between Dr. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory, and Dr. Michelle Francl-Donnay, professor of chemistry and the chair of the chemistry department at Bryn Mawr College, and an adjunct scholar of the Vatican Observatory. The interviews are published by Now You Know Media. From the web site of Now You Know: In Seeking the Face of God, two leading scientists from the Vatican Observatory debate what it means to be a practicing Catholic and a professional scientist. Tracing back across 1,000 years of history, you’ll reflect on the role of faith in science…. Beginning with a brief overview of the history of science, Consolmagno and Francl-Donnay highlight Catholic contributions to medicine, mathematics, computer science, astronomy, and chemistry before arriving at the question of our place in the cosmos. While some, like Gregor Mendel, are famous for their discoveries, Consolmagno and Francl-Donnay introduce you to … Continue reading →
We Saw His Star in the East: BBC Radio Sunday Worship for Epiphany
This program first aired on BBC Radio’s Sunday religious program for Ephiphany.
Continue reading →Cosmology, Evolution, and Christian Faith
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.
Continue reading →Discovery in the New Cosmology of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo
Article (PDF) 14 pages, 6100 words Level: university This article for the Paths of Discovery (published by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences) by Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, suggests “three components contained in the notion of discovery: newness, an opening to the future and, in the case of astronomical discovery, a blending of theory and observation. Discovery means that something new comes to light and this generally happens suddenly and unexpectedly.” Click here for a link to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences’ entire Paths of Discovery volume. [Click here to download PDF]
Continue reading →Ethical Implications of Human Origins in the Universe
The conclusion to be drawn for both what we know of the universe and what we can surmise about God is that the supreme moral principle which should guide all of our ethical decisions is to empty oneself for the good of others.
Continue reading →Intelligent Life in the Universe: Catholic belief and the search for exraterrestrial intelligent life
Booklet 52 pages Level: high school audiences and above In this booklet published by CTS, Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., of the Vatican Observatory, writes on what we know about the search for intelligent life, how we search and why we search, and what it can mean for Catholics and our understanding of our faith: God is bigger than our family problems, our city, our sports teams, our nation. Bigger than bombs; bigger than history. Bigger than the whole world and all its past and future. Bigger than our sky or our Sun or our solar system. Bigger than the galaxy we see spread out above us at night, as far as we can see. Bigger than all the galaxies, seen and unseen. Bigger than whatever parallel universes may or may not exist beyond our own. Indeed, God is so big that, even in all this immenseness, He is able to concentrate His entire effort, energy, and love on each … Continue reading →
Life as We Know It
Article 3000 words Level: all audiences A 2012 article from Notre Dame Magazine, by Michael J. Crowe, a historian of science with the University of Notre Dame, and Christopher M. Graney. Crowe and Graney write: The Aristotelians were wrong; the Copernicans were right. Our home is not the center of the universe; it is merely one planet circling one star in an incomprehensibly vast universe. But what is the deeper significance of this important claim? David Wootton suggests an answer in his recent biography, Galileo: Watcher of the Skies. The Copernican theory, he writes, “[O]ffered a view of the cosmos in which humankind, and the things that matter to humankind — love and hatred, virtue and vice, mortality and immortality, salvation and damnation — were irrelevant. Far from embodying a scheme of values, far from embodying a telos or purpose, [this] universe appeared to be indifferent to moral and metaphysical issues, and even indifferent to our own existence. . . . Galileo’s … Continue reading →
Max Planck on Johannes Kepler and Faith in Science
Article (book excerpt) 600 words Level: all audiences Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918 “in recognition of the services he rendered to the advancement of Physics by his discovery of energy quanta”. Planck made many contributions to physics, but is remembered primarily for his role as the originator of quantum theory. This selection is from an interview. Planck responds to a question from James Murphy about the general skepticism found in the world, a skepticism which Murphy says attacks religion, art, and literature, as well as science. From Where is Science Going? (London, 1933), pages 214-16. Click here to access the original article in its entirety, courtesy of Archive.org. [Click here to download PDF]
Continue reading →Max Planck on Religion and Science
Article (book excerpt) 600 pages Level: all audiences Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918 “in recognition of the services he rendered to the advancement of Physics by his discovery of energy quanta”. Planck made many contributions to physics, but is remembered primarily for his role as the originator of quantum theory. This excerpt is from his Where is Science Going? (London, 1933), pages 167-69. Click here to access the entirety of the original text of this article, courtesy of Archive.org. [Click here to download PDF]
Continue reading →Quantum Cosmology and Creation
Any attempt to simply identify the nothing (nihilo) of the theologians with the quantum fluctuations of one of the preexisting states or with the unbounded regime of quantum cosmology would only create confusion. But the one concept may illuminate the other.
Continue reading →Vatican II – Joseph Ratzinger on The Christian and the Technological World
Article (book excerpt, PDF) 1200 words Level: university An excerpt from the 1966 Theological Highlights of Vatican II, by Fr. Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI). The topic is the third chapter of the first part of Gaudium et Spes (“Man’s Activity throughout the World”), which treats science and technology. Fr. Ratzinger notes: The objectivity of science is much more in line with the idea of creation than a false divinization of the world which science and faith equally reject…. The scientific view of the world, which presupposes both the world’s non-divinity and its logical and comprehensible structure, is profoundly in accord with the view of the world as created (and thus non-divine): the world as produced by the Logos, God’s Spirit-filled Word. Thus, like the Logos, the world is rationally and spiritually structured. One might even say that only such a basic attitude makes natural science possible in its full scope. Click here for a preview, courtesy of Google … Continue reading →
God’s Planet
Book 192 pages Level: high school 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 … Continue reading →
God’s Universe
Book 160 pages Level: high school 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 … Continue reading →
Interweaving Stories about Reality – Alister McGrath
Article (book excerpt) 900 words Level: all 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 “Interweaving Stories about Reality” McGrath writes: I have set out something of my own personal journey from a sense of rapturous amazement at nature to discovering initially the intellectual delight of the natural sciences, then the elevating and enriching experience of religious faith, and finally the exploration of the richer vision of reality that resulted from allowing science and faith to inform and illuminate each other. Click here for McGrath’s essay, from Inters.org. Click here for a published version of McGrath’s essay, from the 2015 book The Big Question: Why We Can’t Stop Talking About Science, Faith and God (preview … Continue reading →
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Polish translation of Wayfarers in the Cosmos: The Human Quest for Meaning
Continue reading →Religion, Medicine, and Miracles – Jacalyn Duffin
Article (book excerpt) 3400 words Level: high school and above An excerpt from the 2009 book Medical Miracles: Doctors, Saints, and Healing in the Modern World, written by Jacalyn Duffin, who holds the Hannah Chair for the History of Medicine, Queen’s University, Ontario Historian and published by Oxford University Press. Duffin writes: For doctors, the medical canon is immersed in an antideistic tradition, as described above: only nature — not God — can ever be the cause or cure of diseases. For religion, all plausible scientific explanations, be they human or natural, must first be eliminated before the case becomes a contender as a reliable sign of transcendence or holiness. In both cases, what is left is that which is unknown; religious observers are prepared to call it God. They accept divine agency within their interpretive framework through belief in God and the inspirational nature of scripture; such faith is often described as a miracle itself. It is the source … Continue reading →
Twelve Lectures on the Connection Between Science and Revealed Religion – Nicholas Wiseman
Book (and book excerpt) 448 pages (excerpt is 3200 words) Level: high school and above Nicolás Patricio Esteban Wiseman was Cardinal and first Archbishop of Westminster upon the re-establishment of the Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales in 1850. His discussions of religion and science in the early nineteenth century became well-known. The complete text of Wiseman’s lectures is available from Google Books (click here). 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. In this excerpt Wiseman defends Rome as a center of learning and writes of various early figures in the church who promoted the study of mathematics or the natural world, including Clement of Alexandria: Clement of Alexandria … devoted several chapters of his learned Stromata to the vindication of his favorite studies. He observes very justly, that “varied and … Continue reading →