"Test of Faith" launch
The launch of "Test of Faith" gave me an opportunity to visit the Royal Society for the first time. This is a learned scientific society, founded in 1660, during the Restoration of Charles II, and considered to be the oldest in the world. Past Presidents of the Society include such as Sir Isaac Newton, Sir Humphrey Davy, Thomas Huxley, Lord Kelvin and Joseph Lister.
This was a treat for me because I have had a keen interest in the natural sciences since before I was ten years old and persuaded my parents to get me a chemistry set. At school, my interest was fostered by enthusiastic and engaging teachers so that in the sixth form (age 16-18) I studied A-levels in Physics, Chemistry and Biology: originally intending to follow my sister's footsteps into medicine; but the good Lord had other ideas.
Fr Roger Nesbitt, who studied Chemistry at Imperial College and has an MSc in Nuclear Chemistry inspired me and many other young men to see science and religion as complementary, and not in competition: in the natural world we uncover the wisdom of God in creation, in the teaching of the Catholic Church, we come to know the wisdom of God in those things He has revealed. The Faith Movement was founded to promote just such an understanding of science and religion and to illuminate the path from science to God.
It was fascinating to see part of the "Test of Faith" DVD (and other educational materials) and see many of the same ideas promoted by the Faraday Institute. Fr Hugh McKenzie, the editor of Faith Magazine was also there casting a critical philosophical eye on things.
The highlight of the evening was a question and answer session, brilliantly managed by Professor John Polkinghorne, one of the key figures in the "Test of Faith" project. I think that the DVD will help many young people to see their way out of the quite false opposition that has been put up between science and faith. Professor Polkinghorne quite properly outlined the limits of natural theology and persuasively argued that from our scientific knowledge of the world it is reasonable to believe in God.
Fr Hugh and I had one or two quibbles. Our position would be to say that the evidence from science does indeed demonstrate the existence of God, not simply show that it is reasonable to believe it. One evangelical questioner quoted Romans 1.20 to which Professor Polkinghorne replied candidly that he disagreed with St Paul since he did not think his atheist friends to be stupid. However, minds can be "darkened" in various ways, not only through stupidity. Professor Polkinghorne would also consider the "Intelligent Design" school to be mistaken but would presumably not regard them as stupid. It is possible for intelligent men to be mistaken about the force of evidence. I certainly do not regard Richard Dawkins as a stupid man and greatly admire his presentation of the evidence for natural selection; but I think he is wrong about the existence of God and I would argue that the evidence shows him to be wrong.
Let us not end on a negative note, however. The "Test of Faith" project is a powerful presentation of the reasonableness of belief in God on the basis of looking at the evidence. In that way, it fulfils the motto of the Royal Society "Nullius in Verba" which means literally "into the words of nobody" and has the sense of "I don't take anyone's word for things but look at the evidence." In terms of the natural sciences, that is the right thing to do - look at the evidence and see where it leads you. The evidence of our ordered universe with its precise laws and constants leads us inexorably to the affirmation of a supreme mind who transcends the material universe.
14 comments:
The Revd. Professor Polkinghorne, if you please.
"Professor Polkinghorne ... persuasively argued that from our scientific knowledge of the world it is reasonable to believe in God. [sed contra], our position would be to say that the evidence from science does indeed demonstrate the existence of God, not simply show that it is reasonable to believe it."
This looks to me to be as much a disagreement as to the appropriate bounds of science as a disagreement about the force of the conclusions natural theology.
Any chance of you being elected a Fellow of The Royal Society? After all, you have the FR already!
Gabriel - I would agree with Richard Dawkins in rejecting the idea of "non-overlapping magisteria". I do think that science can tell us about the real.
Hm, not sure about this, but I would think that the conclusions of the natural sciences only prove the existence of God through a large step, i.e., by leading those who hold the conclusions of the natural sciences to engage in the study of metaphysics, the conclusions of which do include the proposition "God exists."
Surely scientific knowledge is, by its nature, simply based upon a balance of evidence and is thus inferior in its "proofs" to metaphysics. If it can not be demonstrated metaphysically that God exists then it cannot be proved in the true sense of the word.
To reason to a proof or disproof for the existence of God one needs to start by establishing what one means by "truth" and upon which basis one justifies reality. In short, one must establish First Principles. Once this is done then one can use metaphysics to prove the existence of God and thus render any so called "scientific" proof of his existence as little more than corroborative evidence.
Presumably prof polkinghorne was echoing Aquinas in that whilst we can know the existence of God, there are some things such as the Trinity which we have to take on faith.
Most of this is way over my head, but for what its worth I have had the fortune of attending one of Polkinghorne's lectures.
Quibbles... when questioned on whether God creates each individual in unique seperate acts of creation, Polkinghorne stated that for the first humans, yes. God indeed created them. (Ok so far). But, he says that through evolution humans create themselves.... which i believe is fairly heretical?
God's hand no longer creates each human being, rather we are merely derived from the first creation through the process of evolution.
"the evidence from science does indeed demonstrate the existence of God" - I would suppose that Aquinas 5 ways offer a description of God much in the same way that science might, if you see what I mean. Romans 1.20 can then be understood as people not matching the description to their concept of God?
Apols Fr, I can't see how so many scientists might understand the evidence which supposedly demonstrates the existence of God, and yet they don't believe... it doesn't seem plausible. They either misunderstand the evidence, in which case they don't have all the evidence, or they have flawed logic ...
When you have done all the science, there is still some explaining to do - why we do in fact find an ordered universe whose laws we can describe and whose constants we can specify.
This does take us into the realm of metaphysics but necessarily so ("after the physics") on the foundation of what we can observe. This is simply a development of St Thomas whose five ways were related to how the world works.
On the creation of human people, Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis (36) allowed that we could discuss the evolution of the human body provided that we recognise that the soul is immediately created by God.
This makes the important distinction between matter and spirit - a real distinction between two orders of being and a distinction that has often been blurred in theology in the last century. Matter is the kind of stuff that can be part of the process of evolution; spirit is not.
I agree with both Prof. Polkinghorne and Fr. Finigan. The results of natural science make it reasonable to raise the question whether something not comprised by the universe accounts for there being a universe ordered as ours is. Of course that question cannot be answered by the methods of natural science. But if one reasons to the existence of God metaphysically, then what we have learned from natural science is explained as a whole by God as creator and designer, and makes sense in those terms as well as in terms of natural science itself. In that sense, natural science provides evidence for God, even though its own canons and methods use different criteria of evidence.
A relevant point which I think is missed by Polkinghorne at al and some prominent contemporary Catholic Cardinals, is that (i) science investigates the whole, holistic, inter-related structure of the physical and (ii) metaphysics investigates exactly the same realm as it relates to the spiritual, as well as, and flowing from this, the spiritual realm per se. Thus they must influence each other and cannot be non-overlapping magisteria. It is all based upon our observation of the physical.
There has grown up the idea that the physical object of science and metaphysics are different dimensions of the physical –thus insulating metaphysics from the influence of science.
I mis-spoke, Polkinghorne suggested more than that we just create ourselves (materially). Rather, after seeking clarification he stated that he thought we create our own souls. In the beginning, the first souls were created by God, and now we create ourselves. I don't know if this lines up with other messed up theology.
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