Christianity and Science

13.JUL.07

EDITOR: A dichotomy need not exist between science and Christianity; indeed, none have ever existed between Catholic Christianity and any of the sciences. It was science that determined that the image on the shroud of Turin; Christ’s burial shroud, was formed by the dehydration of the cellulose fibers on the surface of the fabric.{{more}} The same science also determines that this effect, which preserves Christ’s image on the Shroud, has yet to be reproduced. In this case particularly cooperation between faith and reason is most visible; here reason serves, as it should, to embolden faith. There has never been a dichotomy between science and Catholicism precisely because the Church has always understood that the “One” who created faith also gave men the ability to reason.

If one examines the history of the sciences we see that significant progress in the sciences only came out of the Christian world through the achievements of men like Copernicus, Galileo, Sir Isaac Newton, and Gregor Mendel to name a few. Though not all were orthodox their belief in one God is what influenced their science. The Greeks for example made little progress and between the Christian era and that of the Greeks little progress if any was made. What inhibited the Greeks and the Romans who came after them was their polytheistic worldview. How could anyone who believed that there was a different god fire than for wind, and another god for the sea ever have a sense that the natural world formed a coherent whole? How could they have a sense that this coherent whole could be studied for “intelligent design” and for “intelligible laws”?

The apparent dichotomies that have come about have been the results of men of science, talented though they were, presuming to teach theology, and from those who rely wholly and solely on the Bible for their theology feeling threatened by science. Theology is the discipline that teaches and informs humanity about the nature of God and human nature. We must be clear on the difference between human nature, and human biology. Human nature delves into areas such as the immortal soul, dignity of man, the realities of sin and grace. It is trained theologians who must inform theology. An uninformed person attempting to understand theology on his own, using only the Bible and his own limited intellect and experience may well end in error. Simply put not everything believed and taught in Orthodox Christianity in its 2000 year history is written in the Bible.

Theology is informed largely by scripture, and by Christian tradition handed on from the time of Christ. People down through ages seem to have forgotten that before St. Paul began his ministry he visited St. Peter (Galatians 1) to make sure that what he was teaching was in line with the theology Peter received from Christ. This learned scholar submitted to the authority of the “Fisherman” talented though Paul was he understood that when it came to theology he had to teach what Peter and the other Apostles taught. This presuming to teach theology was the reason the Church reacted to Galileo, Copernicus who before him had espoused the same theory of heliocentricity as Galileo and drew no reaction from the Church. It is the Church who must inform theology and scientists who must inform Science.

Human biology deals with the intricate workings of the human body, clearly it is a biologist who must inform biology. In the case of natural selection and evolution, the controversial laws defined and named by Charles Darwin, there also never existed any dichotomy. These laws though named by Darwin like all of other laws of nature are God’s laws, they no more belong to Darwin than does the Earth’s orbit belongs to Galileo.

The fact that God uses the Laws of Nature to achieve his ends in no way takes away from the fact that, every human being is the result of a loving thought from the Heart of God. Indeed, it is science that points in “Creation” to the inestimable intelligence of the “Creator”.

Salt