Believing in science

In the February broadcast of Biofides on Radio Maria Belgium we talk about the faith that you can attach to science, just as that belief in God is scientifically very justifiable. In fact, modern science has no reason to think in a creative intelligence behind visible and measurable reality. Faith and science are therefore not in conflict with each other in a single way and even need each other. How can we elaborate on that?

Biofides

First of all, let’s explain what Biofides is. He is an initiative of Vincent Kemme, a biology teacher from the Netherlands, coming from a Catholic family but without a religious practice, who came into contact with people who spoke very explicitly about ‘the Lord’ during his studies in Utrecht and for whom the existence of God was beyond doubt. Eventually, he discovers that God really exists and is a living person who can reveal himself to you. After working in the ‘new evangelization’ in his homeland, he taught there and in Belgium, until his health no longer allowed him to do so. This was the beginning of Biofides, an initiative that aims to map and clarify the relationship between science and faith, more specifically theology and biology. That relationship has a theoretical side: the more philosophical questions about the reasonableness of faith, the existence of God, the compatibility of faith and science with the essence of science, meaning and nonsense in the debate around evolution and creation, and more. But in the time and country in which he grew up, the more practical, that is, ethical questions also arose: how to deal with our human sexuality and sexuality, and unborn human life, and terminal life, and the environment? How can you come to reasonable answers to these often delicate life questions from science and faith? That is what Biofides aims for: reasonable answers about biological existence and our dealings with life.

Believing in science

As a person of faith, can you also believe in science? And can the scientist believe in God with his full mind? First, let’s ask ourselves what “believing” actually is? We would define it as having or placing a trust in something or someone: God, a neighbor, a public figure or a view in society, in science, to the extent that this “something” or “someone” is worthy of your trust, it deserves, he be it whether it is “true” or “true”, “good”, “reasonable”. To determine that, you use your mind, your feelings, your intuition. Curiously enough, ‘beauty’ also appears to play a role and whether it begets ‘joy’ in you, although these are less ‘objective’ criteria. If anyone meets these criteria, it is God, assuming He exists. And we know that He exists because God reveals Himself to us: in nature, if you want to see it. God is just visible enough in the natural order to infer his existence from it, but just invisible enough to leave our freedom in tact, so that we are not forced to believe in his existence. That also makes it reasonable to call God ‘love’, because in love you release each other and do not impose yourself on the other, but you also do not stay at an unbridgeable distance. In the history of mankind (also called “salvation history” from a religious perspective), God reveals himself through the speaking of prophets, through the calling of great figures such as Abraham and Moses, through signs and wonders and to the highest extent in the person of Jesus. And God can also reveal Himself to us through personal “experiences of God,” deep in your heart or in the “inner chamber” of your personal life. That’s how it went for me, as a biology student in Utrecht in the early eighties, and that’s how it goes for many: think of the lives of the saints. For saints are people like all of us who open ourselves to the loving presence of God and seek to do His will in their lives— by trial and error. That means that the psalm can say that only the fool claims that God does not exist. We do not want to be counted among the fools, and so we believe in his existence, perhaps groping, perhaps with more certainty of faith. But it goes even further: because God is love and mercy, it is precisely our stupidities and mistakes that can be ways through which we come to know God. Normally we would deserve to perish, but because God’s love is merciful, He meets us precisely there when we cry out for Him: He visits us in our misery. So God is excessively good, we get more than we deserve. The American philosopher Peter Kreeft says: the only two types of consistent people are atheists and saints: either you reject his existence and do not trust Him at all, or you believe in his existence, but then also trust 100% in him. The fattening of us are somewhere in between, but we should fully trust Him, no matter what happens to us. What nothing escapes God’s attention and providence. He allows nasty things but it’s never out of his reach. trust believe in a human being, a cause, science: yes but be more careful people are very well created but can be disappointing trust, but not blind trust What is science? – both systematically obtained and ordered objective human knowledge, – and the process of knowledge acquisition – and the community in which this knowledge is acquired. broad classical meaning all domain of science, also philosophy and theology modern meaning all the visible, measurable world: space, time, matter and energy, life, human natural sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, geology, cosmology) human sciences (anthropology, logic and mathematics assumption: natural laws, reliability, that is a reduction of the knowable reality often also explained as a truth claim: there is only the observable reality discussion between empiricists and rationalists disregard for transcendent reality, God, philosophical naturalism, methodological naturalism, believe in science to the extent that it is a fruit of man’s perception and rationality to the extent that it seeks truth about our world (nature, man, the universe to the extent that it responds to man’s vocation to subjugate and manage the world as a good steward to the extent that it recognizes that that world is given to it is not a total right of disposition to the extent that it is in the service of people, humanity and nature ( Pope Francis: anthropocentrism, biocentrism to the extent that it does not operate at the expense of people or greetings of people unborn human life, disabled, poor peoples a service to mankind, in the name of God to the extent that it does not make statements about areas in which it is not competent, such as philosophy or theology science is not atheistic, but rather often behaves atheistically hence the distrust of many believers, Catholic and Protestants, towards science Real science advocates faith? science has not proven anything that God does not exist science gives many clues to the existence of God and therefore reasons to believe the universe four fundamental forces gravity electromagnetic force strong knowing force weak nuclear forces determined: 1 millionth of a second after the big bang, those values are established the smallest change of those values: the universe we know could not exist stars would not have been able to form that all that ‘coincidentally’ is going to throw a quintillion times cross or coin against our common sense? (1018) Fred Hoyle (‘Big Bang’: my atheism is enormously suitable because of this discovery Big Bang: the universe has a beginning, so a cause because nothing arises ‘just like that’ out of nothing: there must be a ‘something’ that explains the origin of the universe out of nothing: that’s what we call God Paul Davies (theoretical physicist): the clues to design in the universe are overwhelming Christopher Hitchens (atheist): The fine tuning argument is the most powerful argument of the other party. 1 John Lennox, Oxford mathematician: “The more we learn about the universe, the more the hypothesis that there is a Creator gains credibility as the best explanation for our existence. Life on Earth2 Carl Sagan3 two factors needed for life on Earth: octillion plates in the universe (1024) septillion planets with life (1021) S.E.T.I (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence): telescopes deafening silence in the universe many more factors needed for life, certainly intelligent life 50 factors > a few thousand planets conceivable with life Peter Schenkel: IN the light of new finds and insights it seems appropriate to bury exaggerated euphoria and adopt a lake with both bene on the ground – look at the matter … We should calmly assume that previous estimates — that there might be a million, a hundred-thousand, or ten thousand advanced extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy — are no longer tenable. 4 now we know: 200 factors needed for life on a planet, precisely tuned Jupiter protects us from meteorite impacts chance of life is very small: yet we exist and we know that coincidence cannot be the explanation: the probability is too small an intelligent cause is much more credible Evolution: more and more evidence that evolution: the emergence of higher life forms from lower ones, a fact is more and more imagining how matter is able to organize itself into complex structures and ‘life’ however, the chance that this would happen ‘just like that’ is untold and goes against the laws of physics that predict a decay of matter life is thus a process that goes against that flow the more we weep of evolution, the more unlikely it becomes that it happens ‘just like that’ it clearly has a direction, towards man who gets the matter in time and space the ability to organize and produce self-conscious life also evolutionary biology points in the direction of an entity that wants it and leads it to a goal evolutionary biology is therefore not necessarily atheistic as many think there are atheist evolutionary biologists, but they deny a God in whom we do not believe: a God who would be incapable of creating a universe that can evolve into intelligent, human life, through natural processes; he must always work miracles to steer the cause in the right direction ‘intelligent design’ can easily happen along the way of evolution Thomas: God’s providence encloses natural causality human freedom coincidence in our eyes is not always coincidence in God’s eyes the transition from not to something, from inanimate to living and from animal to man may be a moment of special intervention from God: we don’t know exactly, but biological evolution without God is unthinkable. The human mind: brain/soul self-awareness spread over many areas in the brain: a network, not one organ near-death experiences: human consciousness can exist if the brain is dead clinical death biological death: lasts several hours after clinical death ontological death: complete separation soul-body symptoms outside the body there remain dark tunnel, sucked ar a white light deep peace being of light, present revised life, complete, without guilt or fear, good and evil return, resuscitated duration: can be a minut, they experience it timelessly unforgettable many silence, is not believed yet the eesten want to stay there a sign of heaven publications in leading scientific journals: Lancet, Nature 1-1.4 million French, 2 million or more Dr. Moody USA similar pet apparitions Lourdes, miraculous healings, ecstasy, etc the brain, the body as a substrate of the mind, the soul mind precedes matter, body evangelism The origin of science – in the Middle Ages in the Catholic West the correct conceptions around God, man, world the world is logically created God ‘spoke’ the ‘word’ became flesh and lived among us God is d author of the laws of nature, but not bound by them methodical limitation to the natural order the universals are only names (nominalism, William of Occam) the success of the scientific method: quantifying, exactness the philosophical separation between faith and science by Descartes, who threw away everything that had been thought for him: Plato, Aristotle, Augustinian, Thomas science continued without faith or even turned against faith at that time we still live in part today but science seems to be increasingly coming to the aid of faith Challenge of our time rediscovery of philosophy and theology in culture other layers of science: metaphysics and faith metaphysics: existence and non-existence existence is the essence of God there exist universals (love, peace, justice, goodness, happiness…) the world cannot be understood without metaphysics – Plato the world is therefore not bad or inferior (Aristotle) the higher: that is the world of God (Augustine) the perception and the mind can give us the higher, God, make discover (Thomas) theology God has revealed himself the history of revelation is coherent, the faith is reasonable we can assume that it is the truth the Church ultimately assures us by the magisterium that God has provided we can reasonably assume that there is a supernatural order os we can rationally defend our faith the revelation and its interpretation by the Catholic tradition is credible rational theology is a science with the revelation facts as data and reasonableness as a method of thinking: logic (as in natural science): reasonableness faith does not go against the mind do not separate theological and biological arguments and just mix with lekaar: reason is the bridge and can lead to dialogue two truths cannot contradict each other Conclusion do not be afraid of science understand that our faith is also reasonably trusted, but don’t ask blindly: info@biofides.eu Biofides your support website emails