The Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, who has worked as an astronomer and planetary scientist at the Vatican for more than 20 years, told journalists Monday that faith and reason are hardly at odds.
“If you have no faith in your faith, that is when you will fear science,” Brother Guy Consolmagno, S.J., said May 8.
He spoke to journalists at a press conference ahead of a May 9-12 summit on “Black Holes, Gravitational Waves, and Space-Time Singularities” being held in Castel Gandolfo at the Vatican Observatory, just outside Rome.
“The Vatican Observatory was founded in 1891 by Pope Leo XIII to show that the Church supports good science, and to do that we have to have good science,” Br. Consolmagno said, explaining the reasoning behind the conference.
The hope is that the encounter will foster good science, good discussion, and even friendship. Among the speakers will be a Nobel Prize winner in physics and a Wolf Prize winner.
Among the topics of papers being presented at the conference are Strong evidence for an accelerating universe; Black hole perturbations: a review of recent analytical results; and Observing the Signature of Dynamical Space-Time through Gravitational Waves.
The summit is also taking place in recognition of Fr. Georges Lemaître, the Belgian physicist and mathematician who is widely credited with developing the “Big Bang” theory to explain the origin of the physical universe.
Addressing common misconceptions surrounding the Big Bang, such as the idea that it did away with the need for a creator, Br. Consolmagno said the solution isn’t just to put God at the beginning of things and call that good, either.
“The creative act of God is not something that happened 13.8 billion years ago,” he said. “God is already there before space and time exist. You can’t even say ‘before’ because he is outside of time and space.”
The creative act is happening continuously: “If you look at God as merely the thing that started the Big Bang, then you get a nature god, like Jupiter throwing around lightning bolts.”
“That’s not the God that we as Christians believe in,” he went on. “We must believe in a God that is supernatural. We then recognize God as the one responsible for the existence of the universe, and our science tells us how he did it.”
Br. Consolmagno commented that “God is not something we arrive at the end of our science, it’s what we assume at the beginning. I am afraid of a God who can be proved by science, because I know my science well enough to not trust it!”
“An atheist could assume something very different, and have a very different view of the universe, but we can talk and learn from each other. The search for truth unites us.”
Full story at Catholic News Agency.
Thank you for posting this article. What a wonderful story. Faith and reason are not in opposition to one another!
When i see the Creation-Scientists (credentialed men in their field) given the same chance to present their side to the Popes and the Vatican then i will take this prelate seriously. It’s been a left leaning one sided affair for decades no wonder the Pope falls for the climate changing nonsense
“Creation-Scientists” are not “credentialed men”. Well maybe in THEIR field. Which, whatever it is, is not science.
Besides which, are their credentialed women who are “creation-scientists”, or does sexism go hand-in-hand with “creation-science”.?
Usually they have Ph.D.s in geology or physics or astronomy or biology, so they do possess valid academic and scientific professional credentials.
“Men” can be a gender-inclusive term.
The thing about science is that its true, even if you don’t believe it. Creationism is a belief. Evolution is a scientific theory. Vastly different. Remember General Science you Freshman year in high school? A theory is developed after proving a postulate. One postulates, then one gathers evidence and test out the postulate. If it works, then we try to replicate it time after time. A belief cannot be replicated and therefore is not science. Science is neither left or right leaning.
Although Carl Sagon was an atheist, and I disagreed with him on many things, I liked listening to his astronomy program because he was very good at putting astronomy into laymen’s terms. He was against most of the theories in the book “Chariots of the Gods”, too, and I agreed with him on that since I think some of those events were supernatural and not necessarily astronauts from outer space.
Of course, Brother Consolmagno knows — or should know — that God’s existence can and has been proven by metaphysical philosophical demonstration. The Catholic Church formally has taught that the existence of God can be known with certainty by human reason, independent of revelation.
If Sawyer’s second sentence is meant to bolster his first sentence, it doesn’t. To say that “the existence of God can be KNOWN with certainty by human reason” alone does not equate to saying that it can be PROVEN by human reason alone. Example: I know with certainty that I love my wife; but I cannot prove that to anyone else to a certainty.
If RV’s example is meant to refute my points, it doesn’t. Interior states of mind are not accessible to others, so of course he cannot prove with certainty to anyone else that he loves his wife. His example is not analogous to proving the existence of God, which is an extra-mental reality accessible to all minds.
CCC 36 affirms God can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason. That is, God can be known with certainty via deductive proofs utilizing evidence and reason. Aquinas offered five such proofs in his Summa.
Both of my points are true and interrelated: God can be known by being proven, with certainty, independent of revelation.
Roberto,
I had the same question. I think what Sawyer meant was that God can be known to exist with certainty, philosophically. But that this shouldn’t be confused with a scientific proof. Am I right?
Yes, God can be known to exist with certainty by proof through philosophical methods. The deductive method used in such proofs is metaphysical, not scientific: it proves the existence of a reality (namely, God) that transcends the physical order that is the domain of scientific investigation. God cannot be the object of scientific investigation nor scientific proof, but he can be the object of philosophical inquiry, knowledge and proof.
Aquinas’ proofs are forms of the same general argument: the universe is not self-explanatory, so it requires an explanation for its existence and properties; that explanation is God. Since the universe exists as dependent (non-self-explanatory), God must exist as independent (the self-explanatory cause).
Sawyer,
Excellent! I’m glad that I intuited correctly. :)
The post regarding creation scientists is unclear. I’m uncertain what the antecedent of the IT part of ‘It’s’ is.
I find Br. Consulmogno very clear that he believes a Supreme Being created the physical universe.
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The present conflict is not between Faith and Reason, but rather between the party of the first part, hereinafter known as Jesuitism, and the party of the second part, hereinafter known as Faith & Reason. This continuing crisis can also be referred to as Irreconcilable Differences.