Two Wings

Faith and the Foundation of the Modern Scientific Worldview

Wow, what a difficult but interesting prompt this month in Grill a Christian.

I was a social scientist. Now I am simply an ordinary reader interested in the big questions about the universe and human origin; although they are not always at the forefront of my mind, I must admit.

Recently I also became a believer in the Catholic faith, and reading the Bible has changed or added to the way I think about these questions. I no longer see the discussion as a simple choice between science and religion. Instead, I find myself asking whether both can contribute to our understanding of reality.

That approach is compatible with the Catholic intellectual tradition, I think. The Catholic Church has generally held that faith and reason are not enemies but work together. I found that Pope John Paul II summarized this in Fides et Ratio (1998): “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.” A very beautiful way of answering this prompt!

Before I began reading the Bible seriously, I tended to accept scientific explanations without asking many questions about their underlying assumptions.

As a matter of fact, I rejected Scripture as being incompatible with Science. Therefore, it was just a story, although sometimes beautiful, but no more than the cultural foundation of the Western world.

As I began reading Scripture as a new believer, especially the opening chapters of Genesis and verses such as John 1, I began to see creation not only as a scientific question but also as a philosophical and theological one. For instance, I was interested in the rectification of Eve as the main culprit in eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden.

The Bible speaks about meaning, purpose, and the relationship between God, the Creator, and His creation. Science, on the other hand, seeks to explain natural processes and the physical history of the universe. How do I relate to both?

I think these are not necessarily the same kind of questions.

I try to attempt to understand four major ideas that are often presented as the foundation of the modern scientific worldview.

The Big Bang theory says that the universe began suddenly in an extremely hot, dense state and has been expanding ever since.

The ancient age of the universe: modern cosmology estimates that the universe is about 13.8 billion years old, while the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old.

Abiogenesis, the hypothesis that life first arose from non-living matter through natural chemical processes on the early Earth.

And biological evolution through common ancestry. That all living organisms are related through descent from earlier life forms, with species changing over time.

I do not approach these topics as an expert, and I am not able now to research how strong the evidence is, what the limits of scientific explanation are, etc., but I approach these pillars as a newbie Catholic Christian who might think about these questions without rejecting either faith or reason.

One distinction seems especially important: the difference between evidence and explanation.

Scientific observations are real and valuable, but the theories that explain them may carry different levels of certainty. Some scientific models are strongly supported by evidence, while others remain incomplete or speculative.

It is a reminder that science is a human pursuit that grows through questioning, testing, and revision. As a former Theoretical Psychologist, I can very much relate to this notion. Especially since Psychology never has been a hard science, despite its beta embedding.

As a new Catholic, I have been encouraged by the Church's long tradition of valuing reason. It is one of the core interests in my reading the bible and believing. It’s not just a mere story but founded and grounded. Although the mystic side of the Faith is also of great interest to me.

I read that Catholic thinkers such as St. Augustine and St. Thomas of Aquinas argued that truth cannot ultimately contradict truth because God is the author of both the book of Scripture and the book of nature. Compelling ideas!

That idea gives me the freedom to look at these questions without fear. If a scientific theory is true, it should not threaten God. If a theological interpretation is mistaken, it should be open to deeper understanding.

My goal is not to prove that science is wrong or that faith is right. How can I, only three months a believer? But I want to go beyond a simple ”I don’t know”.

Rather, it is to explore the prompt and whether the Christian vision of creation offers something that science, by its very method, may not be able to provide.

The four pillars stand next to the creation of God and the story of Adam and Eve with the snake, the devil. I am just at the start of trying to comprehend both their significance. This wrestle with this month’s prompt is therefore a great contribution to my new process into the faith.

I try to use both my mind and my heart to understand God and the bible. Science and Faith!

But if I be honest, the beautiful stories in the Bible trump the scientific explanation by their very poetic words, their strong plot and wording above the dry language of science. A matter of perspective, as the writer I also am.

WC: 895

Note ▶︎

AUGUST PROMPT

Consider the four pillars of modern science: Are they in conflict with, or complementary to, or irrelevant to your faith?

This question is a little ambitious but long overdue in the context of this contest. Some will suggest that I should have separated the four pillars into separate contest prompts. I have not done so because I am most interested in how you approach the big question here of how faith and science should interact in situations where the scientific method alone cannot prove the veracity of a particular model – only ascribe a degree of probability to it. Given a spaceship and a piece of paper a credible proof can be provided by math and observation that the earth is not flat and orbits the sun, but the below theories cannot be proven to the same level of certainty.

In the last few centuries, the consensus of modern science has grown to affirm four main pillars of a scientific worldview relating to the universe and humanity’s origins:

1) Big Bang - The idea of a beginning to the Universe replaced the earlier steady state theory argued by Aristotle and the Eternal Reoccurrence view of Hinduism (Physics - based on red shift and background noise)
2) Ancient Universe - (Physics – based on evaluation of laws of EM radiation)
3) Abiogenesis - Biological life evolved from non-biological matter by chemical processes (Chemistry – no supporting facts)
4) Biological ‘Macro-Evolution’ and Common Ancestry - explains the development of life on Earth. (Biology)

Modern Christian responses often contrast with the theological reflection of Thomas Aquinas for example. Thomas Aquinas did not think that human reason could prove whether there was a beginning of the universe nor indeed decide its actual age. He accepted the bible said there was a beginning but avoided Augustinian dating of that.

How credible are these pillars of modern science? How important is the distinction between plausible probability and proof in evaluating the legitimacy of scientific models? How credible is a simple ‘I don’t know’ as an alternative to a workable scientific theory? Is materialism sufficient to explain origins? Can we set a scope for the naturalistic method of science, or a hierarchy of credibility to its models? On what basis can we evaluate scientific models without the scientific method – should we? Is uniformitarianism or catastrophism a better basis for historical trend analysis? Can we always make analogies or are some things/events entirely unique? How does the discovery that Dark Matter/Energy (the unseen material) forms 90% of the mass of the universe change things?

Do these four pillars undermine/conflict with supernatural views of the universe, do they complement them or are they irrelevant to them? How would you reconcile your faith with your answer to this question?

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Review of "Two Wings"