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.
Across the Universe: Stellar Round Up
Article (blog post)- 600 words
- General 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 now spend most of our outdoor nights on high mountaintops: the thin atmosphere there can mean clearer images for our instruments, but it deprives our human eyes of the oxygen we need to see the stars in their full glory.
All sorts of analogies come to mind comparing the world of astronomy with religion. We know theologians whose inability to see the living God makes them seem oxygen deprived. We’ve met the simple believer who couldn’t spell hamartiology but who knows sin when they see it. And yet, the amateur astronomers were delighted to have a few professionals among them… to enrich their enthusiasm.
Adventures of a Vatican Astronomer – Br. Guy Consolmagno SJ
- Video
- One hour
- General Audience
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 scientists… not only what we do, but why we do it.
Allan Sandage – Reflections on Religious Belief
Article- 1500 words
- General 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 to the type of medieval natural theology that attempted to find God by identifying the first cause. Astronomers may have found the first effect, but not, thereby, necessarily the first cause sought by Anselm and Aquinas.
Click here for Sandage’s discussion, from Inters.org.
Click here for Sandage’s discussion, from the website LeadershipU.
An Interview with Reverend George V. Coyne, S.J.
- Article
- 8 pages
- General 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 of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary near Chicago — who also, fittingly, is an astrophysicist.
Click here to download the article in PDF format.
Click here to view the article as a flipbook.
Astronomy and Mother Teresa’s Shoes: Relics of the Sacred
Article (blog post)- 1100 words
- General 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 a saintly life. A life like Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
Astronomy Bucket List: Experiencing The Wonder!
Article (blog post)- 1000 words
- General 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 forgotten? Just as St. Augustine reminds us that the “Our Father” is the perfect prayer, containing within it a prayer of adoration, thanksgiving, petition, and repentance, so, too, does a simple gaze at our star (with the proper filter for eye safety) remind us of the wonders of our solar system, humbling us when seeing a solar storm in which the Earth could easily fit, and the miracle of how our common home is “just right” for life to exist. The lessons our prayer and our wonderment of the universe teach us is that every moment of our lives is to become an act of prayer and that every encounter with creation is to become an opportunity to see God’s glory on full display before us.
Br. Guy Consolmagno ’70: Faith and Science
- Video
- 6 minutes
- General Audience
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.
Cosmology, Evolution, and Christian Faith
- Article (PDF)
- 21 pages
- Elementary / Secondary / Academic / University / University and higher level
Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, writes: “The universe as we know it today through science is one way to derive analogical knowledge of God. For those who accept that modern science does say something to us about God, there is a challenge, an enriching challenge, to traditional beliefs about God.”
[Download PDF]
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Pilgrimage of the Mind and Heart: Embracing the Adventure of Faith and Science.
- Article (blog post)
- 1000 words
- General Audience
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.
Interweaving Stories about Reality – Alister McGrath
Article (book excerpt)- 900 words
- General audiences
Alister McGrath is the Andreas Idreos Professor in Science and Religion at the University of Oxford. This excerpt has been selected by the Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science (Inters.org), which is edited by the Advanced School for Interdisciplinary Research, operating at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome, and directed by Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti. In “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.
Astronomy Bucket List: Experiencing The Wonder!
- Article (blog post)
- 1000 words
- General 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 forgotten? Just as St. Augustine reminds us that the “Our Father” is the perfect prayer, containing within it a prayer of adoration, thanksgiving, petition, and repentance, so, too, does a simple gaze at our star (with the proper filter for eye safety) remind us of the wonders of our solar system, humbling us when seeing a solar storm in which the Earth could easily fit, and the miracle of how our common home is “just right” for life to exist. The lessons our prayer and our wonderment of the universe teach us is that every moment of our lives is to become an act of prayer and that every encounter with creation is to become an opportunity to see God’s glory on full display before us.
When Worlds Collide: Science and Faith
Article- 500 words
- General audience
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 other at warp speed. Science and God, reason and faith, intersected in the question: Is God truly present to us, here and now?
Early Saturday morning, at a conference in Santa Fe, N.M., a science writer whirled us through a tour of her new book. She ended by showing us evidence suggesting spiritual experiences are localized in one part of the brain. Religious people, she remarked, experience these moments as the presence of God, but it is just your neural network firing in a particular way. Science proves it. God is not here.
As it happens, it was the vigil of Corpus Christi and some of the late afternoon chatter in the plaza was about the upcoming Eucharistic procession through the streets. My scientist’s ears pricked up at the comment: “…They did a DNA test and it proved that it was Christ’s own blood in the chalice.” Science proves it. God is here.
Where was faith in all this? The science writer wants me to believe there is no one to have faith in; the murmurs in the streets seem to say science has made faith unnecessary.
This serendipitous juxtaposition of believers and unbelievers looking to science to address matters of faith sent me in prayer to the moment in the Gospels where faith and empirical evidence collide in the person of Thomas.
The scientist in me sympathizes with St. Thomas’ desire for proof he can literally lay his hands on: “Unless I can put my hand into his side, I refuse to believe.” Christ offers him the certainty of the experiment. But was the experiment alone sufficient to convince him? I wonder. John’s Gospel does not even tell us whether Thomas took Jesus up on the offer.
I think the mere appearance of a wounded man claiming to have risen from the dead would not have been enough to convince Thomas of the resurrection. He was instead confronted with a man he already knew intimately in life and death. To believe in Jesus risen, he had to have already known Jesus alive, known His voice and heard His Word. The tangible evidence could only take him so far, without the experience of God, without the existence of faith.
Scientific evidence may show that certain parts of our brains fire when we have a transcendent experience, but it is faith that tells us that this is God working through His own marvelous creation, touching our hearts through our minds. Not surprisingly, without faith, you might think it’s just your neurons.
The DNA proof of God hinges on faith as well. If you don’t have a sample of DNA known to come from Jesus, you can’t match it. We need to have already had an experience of God, a certain knowledge of God, to prove God in this way. What is this, but faith?
We believe. Not in spite of science, not because of science, but because we have encountered Christ, in Word and Flesh, and He has blessed us with faith.
Father,
Keep before us the wisdom and love
You have revealed in your Son.
Help us to be like Him
In word and deed,
For He lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Matrix Thinking: An Adaptation at the Foundation of Human Science, Religion, and Art
- Article
- 28 pages
- Academic specialist level
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 artist create new cultural knowledge within a social context even if alone. They are rewarded by emotional validation from group members, and guided by the ever present question, “Does it feel right?”
Click here to access this paper from the journal’s publisher.
The Popular Creation Story of Astronomy Is Wrong
Article- 3000 words
- General 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.
Life as We Know It
Article- 3000 words
- General 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 greatest and at the same time most disturbing achievement was to recognize that the universe was not made for the sake of human beings.”
Thus many see the significance of the Copernican theory as summed up in what is called the “Copernican Principle” or sometimes the “Principle of Mediocrity”: the claim that there is nothing special about our Earth, and by extension, nothing special about its inhabitants.
We, however, suggest the surprising conclusion that a number of important scientific results indicate that our great-grandchildren may live in a world where the “Copernican Principle” has been consigned to the dustbin. In their world Earth will be understood to be special indeed, possibly even unique, swimming in a vast alien universe that speaks to them about Earth’s specialness.
Moreover, in this universe they will still recognize the universe that many early Copernicans originally envisioned. For although the first Copernicans did see the Earth as orbiting the sun, most viewed the sun and solar system as being unique within a vast and alien cosmos of strange bodies that had little in common with the Earth, the sun and the solar system — a cosmos that spoke to Earth’s inhabitants of the power of God….
Certainly future generations will develop some equally interesting ideas regarding what science has told them about the universe and what it has to say about them and the special world on which they (and we) live, ideas that will affect their perception of religion and their popular culture, just as the “Copernican Principle” had an impact on Paine and Adams and brought us Star Wars. Their view of the universe will be as different from ours as ours is from that of the Aristotelians.
Click here to access this article from Notre Dame Magazine.
Click here to download a PDF of this article.
Modern Cosmology, a Resource for Elementary School Education
Book chapter (PDF)- 9 pages, 7000 words
- General audience
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 point of elementary school education; (3) the aim to develop “scientific literacy” has been a recurrent theme but I have not heard it defined. I propose an elementary definition which suits the purposes of my presentation: To be scientifically literate means to have an understanding of ourselves in the physical universe (the emphasis being on physical, but with the implication that I am speaking of all of the natural sciences: biology, physics chemistry and their derivatives); (4) Much has been made of the distinction between the methodology and the content of teaching. I would like to suggest that these two aspects of elementary school teaching find a unity in an ideology, a guiding theme, a single dominant perspective on ourselves in the physical universe.
Click here to download the chapter from the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
How to Have a Religious Argument – Bishop Robert Barron
Click here or click the image for the video.
- Video
- 45 minutes
- General 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).
Faith and Reason
- Video
- 30 minutes
- General audience
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.
Adventures of a Vatican Astronomer – Br. Guy Consolmagno SJ
- Video
- One hour
- General Audience
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 scientists… not only what we do, but why we do it.
The Unfinished Cosmos: Creation, God, and Hawking’s Grand Design
- Video
- 1 hour talk, with 45 minutes more of Q&A
- General audience
Br. Guy Consolmagno of the Vatican Observatory delivered a lecture on The Unfinished Cosmos: Creation, God, and Hawking’s Grand Design at the University of Illinois on March 7th, 2013. The event was hosted by the St. John’s Catholic Newman Center at the University of Illinois. 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.
Science, Religion, and the Art of Storytelling
- Video
- 90 minutes
- University level
A 2015 presentation at Loyola Marymount University by Br Guy Consolmagno, S. J., of the Vatican Observatory, 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.”
Interview: God’s Mechanics: How Scientists and Engineers Make Sense of Religion
Video- One hour
- General Audience
A Grace Cathedral Episcopal Church (San Francisco) interview with Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J. of the Vatican Observatory. Topics covered include Galileo, being a Vatican Astronomer, The Bible and Scientific Data, Fundamentalist Techies, Scientists, Science as a Religious Act, Law, and hot-button issues.
Click here for the video. This is not a YouTube video, and to play it requires a browser with Flash.
From MIT to Specola Vaticana: Guy Consolmagno at TEDx via Della Conciliazione
- Video (TEDx Talk)
- 17 minutes
- General Audience
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”.
The New Physics and the Old Metaphysics (The Nash Lecture at Campion College, University of Regina)
- Video
- 55 minutes
- University level
The 2012 Nash Lecture at Campion College, University of Regina. 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.
Interview with Eugene Selk for Creighton’s Center for Catholic thought
- Audio program
- 15 minutes
- General Audience
A 2010 audio program produced by Creighton University’s Center for Catholic Thought for their podcast Catholic Comments:
Dr. Eugene Selk of Creighon University’s Philosophy department discusses the relationship between the Catholic Church and modern science. Topics include the harmony of faith and reason, the Church’s conflict with Galileo, and the reasons so many people seem to think that they much choose between science and God.
Click here for the audio podcast from the Center for Catholic Thought.
On Being with Krista Tippett: Asteroids, Stars, and the Love of God
- Audio
- One hour
- General audience
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”.
We Saw His Star in the East: BBC Radio Sunday Worship for Epiphany
- Audio program
- 40 minutes
- General Audience
From the BBC Radio 4:
“We saw his star in the east”. On the feast of Epiphany, Fr James Hanvey SJ travels to the Pope’s summer palace outside Rome, home to the Vatican Space Observatory, to explore how God can speak through space and science. Preacher: Dr Guy Consolmagno SJ, Chair of the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society and planetary scientist at the Vatican Observatory.
First heard in 2008
This program first aired on BBC Radio’s Sunday religious program for Epiphany. This program, hosted by Fr. James Hanvey, explores the meaning of Epiphany, with readings and music as well as a visit to the Vatican Observatory.
Click here to see the original BBC web site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01946pc.
Max Planck on Religion and Science
- Article (book excerpt)
- 600 pages
- General 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.
Ethical Implications of Human Origins in the Universe
- Article (PDF)
- 19 pages
- Academic / University / University and higher level
Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, writes that 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.
A version of this article was published in Science and Society: New Ethical Interactions (Proceedings of the International Symposium, Milan, 25 November 2005).
[Download PDF]
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Discovery in the New Cosmology of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo
Article (PDF)- 14 pages, 6100 words
- University and higher level
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.
Quantum Cosmology and Creation
- Article (PDF)
- 11 pages
- Secondary / University and higher level
Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, writes: “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.”
Click here for a shorter variant of this paper.
[Download PDF]
Gustavus_A_paper
Intelligent Life in the Universe: Catholic belief and the search for exraterrestrial intelligent life
- Booklet
- 52 pages
- High school level and above
In this booklet published by CTS, Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., of the Vatican Observatory, writes:
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 one of us tiny individuals on this tiny planet. And, I have confidence, on any other individuals on any other planet, as well
[Download PDF]
Intelligent-Life
Cosmology, Evolution, and Christian Faith
- Article (PDF)
- 21 pages
- Elementary / Secondary / Academic / University / University and higher level
Fr. George V. Coyne, S. J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978 to 2006, writes: “The universe as we know it today through science is one way to derive analogical knowledge of God. For those who accept that modern science does say something to us about God, there is a challenge, an enriching challenge, to traditional beliefs about God.”
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Vatican II – Joseph Ratzinger on The Christian and the Technological World
- Article (book excerpt, PDF)
- 1200 words
- University level
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 Books.
Click here for Part I, Chapter III of Gaudium et Spes.
Life as We Know It
- Article
- 3000 words
- General 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 greatest and at the same time most disturbing achievement was to recognize that the universe was not made for the sake of human beings.”
Thus many see the significance of the Copernican theory as summed up in what is called the “Copernican Principle” or sometimes the “Principle of Mediocrity”: the claim that there is nothing special about our Earth, and by extension, nothing special about its inhabitants.
We, however, suggest the surprising conclusion that a number of important scientific results indicate that our great-grandchildren may live in a world where the “Copernican Principle” has been consigned to the dustbin. In their world Earth will be understood to be special indeed, possibly even unique, swimming in a vast alien universe that speaks to them about Earth’s specialness.
Moreover, in this universe they will still recognize the universe that many early Copernicans originally envisioned. For although the first Copernicans did see the Earth as orbiting the sun, most viewed the sun and solar system as being unique within a vast and alien cosmos of strange bodies that had little in common with the Earth, the sun and the solar system — a cosmos that spoke to Earth’s inhabitants of the power of God….
Certainly future generations will develop some equally interesting ideas regarding what science has told them about the universe and what it has to say about them and the special world on which they (and we) live, ideas that will affect their perception of religion and their popular culture, just as the “Copernican Principle” had an impact on Paine and Adams and brought us Star Wars. Their view of the universe will be as different from ours as ours is from that of the Aristotelians.
Click here to access this article from Notre Dame Magazine.
Click here to download a PDF of this article.
Podróż przez Wszechświat: Poszukiwanie sensu przez człowieka
Book- 164 pages
- General Audiences (Polish)
A book by Fr. George Coyne, S. J., and Fr. Alessandro Omizollo, S. J., both astronomers with the Vatican Observatory. From the publisher:
Książka, napisana przez dwóch astronomów słynnego Obserwatorium Watykańskiego, podejmuje problem harmonii nauki i wiary. Autorzy przedstawiają swoje poglądy na rozwój naszej wiedzy o Wszechświecie w ciągu minionych 400 lat. Swoją wędrówkę po wierzeniach o Kosmosie zaczynają jednak od starożytnego Egiptu, by poprzez włoski renesans dojść do epokowych odkryć Kopernika, Galileusza i Newtona, a skończyć na wspaniałych osiągnięciach mechaniki kwantowej, ogólnej teorii względności oraz rozszerzającego się Wszechświata. Jako zaś wierzący ludzie dostrzegają Boga w każdym szczególe naszego zadziwiającego Kosmosu.
Click here for information from the publisher.
Twelve Lectures on the Connection Between Science and Revealed Religion – Nicholas Wiseman
Book (and book excerpt)- 448 pages (excerpt is 3200 words)
- High school level 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 abundant learning recommends him who proposes the great dogmas of faith, to the credit of his hearers, inspiring his disciples with admiration, and drawing them towards the truth which is in like manner the opinion of Cicero, when he says, “magna est enim vis ad persuadendum scientiae.” Clement then illustrates his argument by many quotations from the Holy Scriptures, and from profane authors. I will read you one remarkable passage.
“Some persons, having a high opinion of their good dispositions, will not apply to philosophy or dialectics, nor even to natural philosophy, but wish to possess faith alone and unadorned: as reasonably as though they expected to gather grapes from a vine which they have left uncultivated. Our Lord is called, allegorically, a vine, from which we gather fruit, by a careful cultivation, according to the eternal Word. We must prune, and dig, and bind, and perform all other necessary labor. And, as in agriculture and in medicine, he is considered the best educated who has applied to the greatest variety of sciences, useful for tilling or for curing, so must we consider him most properly educated, who makes all things bear upon the truth; who from geometry, and music, and grammar and philosophy itself, gathers whatever is useful for the defence of faith. But the champion who has not trained himself well, will surely be despised.”
These words, I must own, afford me no small encouragement. For if, instead of geometry and music we say geology, and ethnography, and history, we may consider ourselves as having, in this passage, a formal confirmation of the views which we have taken in these Lectures, and an approbation of the principles on which they have been conducted.
Religion, Medicine, and Miracles – Jacalyn Duffin
Article (book excerpt)- 3400 words
- High school level 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 of a burgeoning, hoary literature of theological explication on such questions as “Why does God send plague?”.
But medical scientists are not prepared to attribute the unknown to God. As described above, their discomfort also arises from a kind of faith-the absolute belief in the nontranscendence of earthly events. Like those who believe in God, they believe in the existence of a natural explanation, as yet unknown but open for discovery. A commitment to this article of secular faith is found in the popular writing of atheists, who strive to contrast religion with reason. But as Mark Corner wrote, “there can be no certainty (since we obviously cannot anticipate what medical science will know in a century’s time) that a miracle has taken place. At the same time, however, there is no certainty that a miracle has not taken place”. As outlined above, only another form of belief sustains that interpretation.
Click here for an excerpt selected by the Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science (Inters.org), which is edited by the Advanced School for Interdisciplinary Research, operating at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome, and directed by Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti.
Click here for additional information from Oxford University Press.
Click here for a preview of this book, courtesy of Google Books.
God’s Planet
Book- 192 pages
- High school level and above
This short book was published in 2014 by Harvard University Press. It is by Harvard astronomer and historian of science Owen Gingerich. From the publisher:
With exoplanets being discovered daily, Earth is still the only planet we know of that is home to creatures who seek a coherent explanation for the structure, origins, and fate of the universe, and of humanity’s place within it. Today, science and religion are the two major cultural entities on our planet that share this goal of coherent understanding, though their interpretation of evidence differs dramatically. Many scientists look at the known universe and conclude we are here by chance. The renowned astronomer and historian of science Owen Gingerich looks at the same evidence—along with the fact that the universe is comprehensible to our minds—and sees it as proof for the planning and intentions of a Creator-God. He believes that the idea of a universe without God is an oxymoron, a self-contradiction. God’s Planet exposes the fallacy in thinking that science and religion can be kept apart.
Gingerich frames his argument around three questions: Was Copernicus right, in dethroning Earth from its place at the center of the universe? Was Darwin right, in placing humans securely in an evolving animal kingdom? And was Hoyle right, in identifying physical constants in nature that seem singularly tuned to allow the existence of intelligent life on planet Earth? Using these episodes from the history of science, Gingerich demonstrates that cultural attitudes, including religious or antireligious beliefs, play a significant role in what passes as scientific understanding. The more rigorous science becomes over time, the more clearly God’s handiwork can be comprehended.
Click here for additional information from the publisher, Harvard University Press
Click here for a preview from Google Books.
Interweaving Stories about Reality – Alister McGrath
- Article (book excerpt)
- 900 words
- General audiences
Alister McGrath is the Andreas Idreos Professor in Science and Religion at the University of Oxford. This excerpt has been selected by the Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia of Religion and Science (Inters.org), which is edited by the Advanced School for Interdisciplinary Research, operating at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome, and directed by Giuseppe Tanzella-Nitti. In “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.
God’s Universe
Book- 160 pages
- High school level and above
A short book by Harvard University astronomer and historian of science Owen Gingerich, published in 2006 by Harvard University Press. Gingerich addresses whether “mediocrity” (the “Copernican Principle”) is a good idea, whether a scientist dare believe in design, and the idea of questions without answers (persuasion vs. proof in science). From the publisher:
We live in a universe with a very long history, a vast cosmos where things are being worked out over unimaginably long ages. Stars and galaxies have formed, and elements come forth from great stellar cauldrons. The necessary elements are present, the environment is fit for life, and slowly life forms have populated the earth. Are the creative forces purposeful, and in fact divine?
Owen Gingerich believes in a universe of intention and purpose. We can at least conjecture that we are part of that purpose and have just enough freedom that conscience and responsibility may be part of the mix. They may even be the reason that pain and suffering are present in the world. The universe might actually be comprehensible.
Taking Johannes Kepler as his guide, Gingerich argues that an individual can be both a creative scientist and a believer in divine design—that indeed the very motivation for scientific research can derive from a desire to trace God’s handiwork. The scientist with theistic metaphysics will approach laboratory problems much the same as does his atheistic colleague across the hall. Both are likely to view the astonishing adaptations in nature with a sense of surprise, wonder, and mystery.
In God’s Universe Gingerich carves out “a theistic space” from which it is possible to contemplate a universe where God plays an interactive role, unnoticed yet not excluded by science.
Click here for additional information from the publisher, Harvard University Press.
Click here for a preview from Google Books.