Science and Christianity
SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
Cl.
Mario D’Couto SDB
In
recent times, it has been observed that science and religion have been against
each other for various reasons. In as much as both fields of study depend on
reason, the research and opinion from these two fields of study would seem
poles apart. So why is this conflict there in the first place?
To
respond to this question, let us take a brief overview of how these two fields
of study came up. Science is a systematic study of reality which is based on
verified facts while religion deals with the study of one’s faith. Actually, to
be more precise, the word religion can have a broader meaning for in as much as
it refers to the study of one’s faith, it also includes other aspects such as
rites, customs and traditions.
It
would be surprising to note that science owes its origin to religion. Some of
the first scientists were the monks in the monasteries. If such was the case,
then why is it that these 2 fields of study are always against each other?
The
conflict between these two fields of study is not something recent but has
begun from the time of the Renaissance. During the Medieval Ages, every
endeavour that a person took up was centered on God. The whole focus was on
‘faith’. Besides, a ‘fuga mundi’ attitude was the predominant spirit at that
time, where holiness was seen as moving away from the world, as though to say
the world was bad. The Renaissance was a movement that came up to counteract
this trend. Over here, it was the human person that took centre – stage. Hence,
during this time science and reasoning became more important as compared to
faith and belief. Some of the notable figures of this period include Galileo,
Kepler and others, who through their discoveries, discovered many new things.
Ever since then science has always been looking for facts and proofs to verify
and ascertain our reality.
Today,
with the advancement in technology, it would seem that science can go leaps and
bounds and it has, indeed, made our lives more comfortable to live. Yet, while
this is the situation on one hand, today, more than ever, religion,
particularly, Christianity has been the target for many accusations. It would
seem as though Christianity is trying to present some sort of fairy tale land
(heaven) – that each of us is destined for, but is it really true? Let us try
to ascertain the facts first and then pass our judgments, for as Wittgenstein
would say, “Whereof one cannot speak, one
must be silent.”
In a
stunning confirmation of the book of Genesis, modern scientists have discovered
that the universe was created in a primordial explosion of energy and light.
Not only did the universe have a beginning in space and time, but the origin of
the universe was also a beginning for space and time. Space and time did not exist
prior to the universe. If you accept that everything that has a beginning has a
cause, then the material universe has a non – material and a spiritual cause.
This spiritual cause brought the universe into existence using none of the laws
of physics. The creation of the universe was, in the quite literal sense of the
term, a miracle. Its creator is known to be a spiritual cause, that is to say,
a spiritual, eternal being of creativity and power beyond all conceivable
limits. The surprising thing about this fact is that with the help of science
and logic, all this can be rationally demonstrated.
Stephen
Hawking in his book, “A Brief History of
Time,” writes, “It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have
begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create
beings like us.” Having situated the fact that there is a Supernatural
force (whom we call God) behind everything that exists, it would be necessary
to clarify the idea that the universe and the earth were literally made in ‘Six calendar days’. This is something
which many Orthodox Christians have always been accused by secular writers.
In the
Bible, in the second letter of St. Peter, it is written, “with the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are
like a single day.”(2 Peter 3:8) From the earliest Christian times, the
leading Church authorities from Irenaeus to Augustine have given a figurative
interpretation to the ‘days’ in the
book of Genesis. Most traditional Christians have no problem with a creation
account that extends over million or even billion years.
Unlike
some other religions which state that God created the universe out of some pre
– existing stuff (primordial stuff) Judaism, Christianity and even Islam hold
that God created this world out of nothingness (ex – nihilo). Today, modern
science has confirmed this claim. In fact, even space and time was created
along with the universe. The conclusion for this was seen in one of the
questions which confronted one of the early Church Fathers, St. Augustine. The
question was, “Why would God want to sit
around for a long time before deciding to create the universe?” For
Augustine, the question was meaningless since space and time were created along
with the universe.
The Big
Bang resolves one of the apparent contradictions in the book of Genesis. For
more than two centuries, critics of
the Bible have pointed out that in the beginning, on the first day, God created
light. Then on the 4th day God separated the night from the day. The
problem is pointed out by the philosopher Leo Strauss, “Light is presented as preceding the sun.” Christians have long
struggled to explain this anomaly but without much success. The writer of
Genesis seemed to have made an obvious mistake.
However,
it turns out that there is no mistake.
The universe was created in a burst of light, fifteen million years ago.
Our sun and our planet came into existence much later. So light did precede the
sun. The first reference to light in Genesis 1:3 can be seen to refer to the
‘Big Bang’ itself. The separation of the day and night described in Genesis 1:4
clearly refer to the formation of the sun and the earth. The day and night which
we experience as a result of the earth’s rotation were indeed created much
later than the universe itself. Thus we see that the Genesis enigma is solved
and its account of the creation is vindicated not as some vague possibility but
a strikingly accurate account of how the universe came to be. The universe is
therefore ‘caused’ and because it is
‘caused’ it has a Creator. Many
scientists have come to believe this fact. They may, perhaps, not use the word
‘God’ but they certainly accept the fact that there is something supernatural
about the origin of the universe. Here are a few of those scientists, who
testify to this fact,
1.
“The commentaries (scripture) were not
composed in response to cosmological discoveries as an attempt to force an
agreement between theology and cosmology. Theology presents a fixed view of the
universe. Science, through its progressively improved understanding of the
world, has come to agree with theology.” – Gerald Schroeder
2.
“The best data we have are exactly what
I have predicted had I nothing to go on but the fine books of Moses, the Psalms
and the Bible as a whole.” – Arno Penzias
3.
“For the scientist who has lived by his
faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled
the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak. As he
pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who
have been sitting there for centuries.” – Robert Jastrov
The
above proof and the statements made by the scientists as mentioned above
clearly show that the Biblical account of how the universe was created is
substantially correct. The Bible is not a science textbook. It does not
attempt, as science does, to give a detailed account of how the universe and
the earth were formed into their current shapes. But what it does say about
creation, namely, the fact of creation and the order of creation turns out to
be accurate. In a manner that once would have seemed impossible, the Bible has
therefore been vindicated by the findings of modern science.
Having
proved the fact that the universe did have an origin, this therefore implies
that the universe had a cause. Unfortunately some scientists and atheists do
not want to accept this fact since they want to believe that the origin of the
universe was just a matter of chance and because it is a matter of chance, they
would also want to believe that there is no Creator. However, as noted before,
this is not the case.
Sometime
back there was an article in the newspaper (Times
of India, Mumbai edition dated 3rd August 2013 on page 19) which
stated that the story of Adam and Eve was just a myth since science has proven
that the so called ‘first couple’ did not mutually co – exist together side by
side. The earth is believed to have been populated by mitochondrial Eve and Y –
chromosome Adam – two individuals who passed down a portion of their genomes to
the vast expanse of humanity. But the ‘couple’ known to be our ‘ancestors’ did not really know
each other, as claimed by scientists from the Stanford University School of
Medicine.
Most
men alive today can trace their origin to one man who lived between 120,000 to
155,000 years ago while women came from a single lady between 99,000 and
148,000 years ago. The study that comes from the most complete analysis of the
male sex chromosome or the Y chromosome, to date, therefore shows that the two
did not live together at the same evolutionary time, leave alone to mate. The
results overturn earlier records which suggest that the human person’s most
recent common ancestor lived just 50,000 to 60,000 years ago.
With
regard to how the human race began to flourish, it has been stated that these
two individuals simply had the good fortune of successfully passing on specific
portions of DNA called the Y chromosome and the mitochondrial genome, through
the millennia to most of us, while the corresponding sequences of others have
largely died out due to natural selection or through a random process called ‘genetic drift.’ The DNA sequences
traced by the researchers were chosen because of their unique way they are
inherited: the Y chromosome is passed only from father to son, and the
mitochondrial genome is passed from a mother to her children.
The
above description about our early ancestors has been taken as it is from the
article in the newspaper. Apparently, with all the convincing arguments and
evidences that have been found, it would seem to put one’s faith in the docs. I
know, for instance, that there are many good Christians who would want to fight
tooth and nail to prove the authenticity of the Creation story. Yet there is
nothing to be alarmed about or to feel threatened since in the first place, we
should always understand that the Bible was and is not some science textbook or
encyclopedia about facts. Yet, that does not diminish the authenticity of
Sacred Scripture for what has been written, has been written for a specific
purpose which is to convey a particular message.
Going
by what we find in 2 Peter 3:8, we can truly say that science has just
confirmed what has been written in the Scriptures, for a million years are like
a single day for God. Hence, basing ourselves on this particular statement from
the second letter of St. Peter, it is but true that what science is saying is
also true.
In
Genesis 2:18 – 24, it is written, “It is not good that man should be alone; I
will make him a helper as his partner. So out of the ground, the Lord God formed every animal of the field
and every bird of the air and brought them to the man to see what he would call
them and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle
and to the birds of the air and to every animal of the field, but for the man
there was not found a helper as his partner. So the Lord God caused a deep
sleep to fall upon him and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up
its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, He
made into a woman and brought her to the man.” In comparing the
scientific evidence of our early human ancestors and the Genesis account of
“Adam and Eve”, there is no contradiction for the only difference that lies
between them is the way it is expressed. In the Bible, it has been expressed in
the form of a story but it is just the same as the one proven by science, it is
therefore not to be taken in the literal sense.
If one
were to think that science is at loggerhead with Christianity, then we are
probably mistaken. Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Brake, Descartes, Boyle,
Newton, Leibniz, Gassendi, Pascal, Mersenne, Cuvier, Harvey, Dalton, Faraday,
Herschel, Joule, Lavoisier, Priestley, Kelvin, Ohm, Ampere, Steno, Pasteur,
Maxwell, Planck, Mendel, Lemaitre and a good number of these scientists were
either clergymen or committed Christians. Gassendi and Mersenne were priests.
So was George Lemaitre, the Belgian astronomer who first proposed the ‘Big
Bang’ theory for the origin of the universe. Mendel, whose discovery for the
principles of heredity would provide vital support for the theory of evolution,
spent his entire adult life as a monk in an Augustinian monastery. Where would
modern science be without these men? Some were Protestant and some were
Catholic, but all their scientific vocation is distinctively on Christian
terms.
Copernicus,
who was a canon in the cathedral of Krakow, celebrated astronomy as “a
science more divine than human” and viewed his heliocentric theory as
revealing God’s grand scheme for the cosmos. Boyle was a pious Anglican who
declared scientists to be on a divinely appointed mission to serve as ‘priests of the book of nature.’ Boyle’s
work includes both scientific studies and theological treatises. In his will,
he left money to find a series of lectures combating atheism. Newton was
virtually a Christian mystic who wrote long commentaries on Biblical prophecy form
both the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation. Perhaps the greatest
scientist of all time, Newton viewed his discoveries as showing the creative
genius of God’s handiwork in nature. “The most beautiful system of sun, planets
and comets,’ he wrote, ‘could only proceed from the counsel and
dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being.’ Newton’s God was not a
watchmaker who wound up the universe and then withdrew from it. Rather, his
understanding of God was an active agent sustaining the heavenly bodies in their
position and solicitous of His special creation, the human person.
The example
of Kepler shows that the Christian convictions of the towering figures of
science were not something accidental to their work. Rather, these convictions
were the scientists’ guiding inspiration. “For a long time,” Kepler wrote, “I
wanted to become a theologian. Now, however, behold how through my effort God
is being celebrated through astronomy.”
Einstein
once confessed, “In every true searcher of nature there is a kind of religious
reverence.” The very belief in God enables or enriches the study of
science and this is because science is nothing but an exploration of God’s
creation. The lives of the scientists that we have just seen testify to it. Perhaps
the best description that can be given is that God has blessed us with His
creation and we, on our part, through the exploration of His creation, will be
able to give glory and thanks for all that He has done.
