Fr Michael's Presentation : Church and Science

Note: The first 15 min of the presentation were not recorded due to technical error.

The Foundation of Science

•Christian tradition (and Jewish) envisaged a rational God and a rational creation

•Creation is informed by natural laws

•Science arose in the West, not the East. Coincidence?

•Significant Catholic Scientists:

–St. Albert the Great

–Copernicus -heliocentrism

–Galileo –Copernican system

–Bl. Nicholas Steno –Geography

–The Jesuits –Founders of Seismology

–Louis Pasteur

–GregorMendel –MendelianGenetics

–George Lemaitre –The Big Bang

Galileo

•“I have been received and shown favor by many illustrious cardinals, prelates, and princes of the city.” Letter of Galileo to friend, 1611

•Church instructed Galileo to teach heliocentrismas a theory, not fact. Galileo refused

•Galileo insisted that Scripture must be reinterpreted

•Stellar Parallax –little scientific proof for his theory

•Reduced dynamic process into static geometry

•Placed under house arrest –in a villa. His daughter did his penance for him

•Bottom Line… GROSS HISTORICAL IGNORANCE! Or, intentional malice!

Quantum Theory

•The motion of subatomic particles

•Wave-Particle Duality

•Demonstrated that our knowledge of particles is only probable

–Then how do we arrive at certainty, which science purports to know?

–The position of the observer

–The observer must have a non-material faculty enabling judgment

Substance vsRelations

•Scientism and material reductionism

–Sees only discreet isolated particles

–Doesn’t recognize relations between particles

•Relations are just as real as particle substances (Trinity)

•Relations are not material

–Relations have real consequences

–The existence of forms

–Terminate in Primary Natural Units (ends)

Entropy

•Processes tend to go in one direction

•From organized to unorganized; usable to non-usable

•Demonstration that the universe is not eternal

•Conversion into heat

•The Eucharist

Evolution

•There is nothing in organisms that explain the direction of evolution; it requires history

•“Those who dedicate themselves to the purpose of proving there is no purpose constitute an interesting object of study.”

•Levels of dependency in evolution

–Genetic mutations, environmental changes

–Changing material things cannot explain their own movement. Principle of Causality

•Cambrian explosion

–5 million years

References

•Chance or Purpose? Creation, Evolution, and a Rational Faith –Cardinal ChristophSchonborn

•Modern Physics and Ancient Faith –Dr. Stephen M. Barr

•How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization –Dr. Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

•Science and Creation: From Eternal Cycles to an Oscillating Universe –Rev. Stanley Jaki

•HumaniGeneris –Pius XII

Fr Michael's Presentation : Faith and Reason

 June 3, 2011

Faith and Reason

The Two Wings upon which the Human Spirit Soars

Reason

Traditionally: Three parts

• Apprehension or Understanding
• Judgment
• Induction and Deduction
• Not just logic but intuition, too

Modernity: Just hard logic and scientific fact

• Discursive thought alone is sufficient (ex. Calculation)
• Intuition is suspected as emotionalism (chauvinism?)
• Example: So-Called Homosexual Marriage

Reason’s object: Reality

Reason's Goal

• Traditionally: The Truth of all things
• Sought to go beyond accidental and contingent into the substantial and infinite
• Ultimate task: Discover Meaning
• Modernity: Technical Knowledge
• Nothing exists beyond the empirical (scientific method)
• Ultimate task: Control Nature
• Different Questions posed by two approaches:
• Modern: How do I open a Facebookaccount?
• Tradition: What is the purpose of communication?
• Modern: What do we have to do to get married?
• Tradition: What is the meaning of human love?
• Modern: How can we extract stem cells from an embryo?
• Tradition: What does it mean to be human?

Faith
Entrusting oneself to another

• All human knowledge is based on faith (ex. Nutrition)
• Personal adherence to someone in the truth. Truth forms relationships. Taking a stand on someone’s word

Catholic Faith

• Personal adherence to God who is the most trustworthy. Taking a stand on God’s Word
• Therefore, faith is more certain than reason

Faith perfects reason

• What reason can not reach, faith supplies
• Faith’s object: God’s own self-knowledge

Faith's Goal

Belief: Resting on the authority of God, not on discursive methods (ex. The Eucharist)

Provides the meaning Reason would never reach; therefore, completes the human person

• Ex. 1: Substance vsRelations
• The Councils of Nicea325 AD and Constantinople I 381 AD
• Ex. 2: Nature vsPerson
• The Great Council of Chalcedon 451 AD

History of Faith and Reason

Reason frees Faith from myth

• Ex.: The anger of God; He will smite His enemies!
• Helps to develop a systematic presentation of the Faith
• Greek philosophy empowered Christianity

Faith frees Reason

• Without faith could we ever know the ultimate answers?
• Christian Faith and Theology favored progress
• Conquering the myth of nature made science possible
• Reason is wounded by sin

Resources

• Fides et Ratio –John Paul II
• The Victory of Reason –Rodney Stark
• Introduction to Christianity –Joseph Ratzinger
• Dei Filius–Vatican Council I
• Gaudiumet Spes–Vatican Council II
• HumaniGeneris –Pius XII