When I engage in contemplation, I do not always appear to be at prayer. Sometimes I can be found seated in my reclining chair with ‘The Bub’ (Bubba the pug) on my lap, a book on a scientific subject in my hands, and a note pad and pen beside me. But be assured I am contemplating.
I often take myself to that place and moment where people of faith and people of science both find inspiration. We stand there together, side by side, shoulder to shoulder, without discomfort, suspicions, feelings of strangeness, or contentious debates. No! At that place and moment there is no room for such pettiness, competitiveness, or presumptions of superiority. There are no words for either of us to speak or thoughts for us to contribute. Instead, we stand there in awe, with our mouths agape, lost in wonder, and stricken dumb by the mystery and immensity of it all.
I am speaking about the ultimate mystery of creation, the bursting forth of the Universe, the primordial beginning of ‘being’. Colloquially we call it the ‘Big Bang’. There is a more dignified term for it, of course. Physicists call it the ‘Singularity’ because, after all, that is what it is. The Genesis event was an utterly unique, one-of-a-kind, unprecedented, and unrepeatable occurrence for which there is no equal.
The products of creation are the four realities we know as Matter, Energy, Space and Time, and they burst into being simultaneously and apparently out of nothing. They thundered into existence at a ‘place’ and ‘moment’ neither of which even existed until they ‘were’. And, together, those dynamics constituted the entire potential for what the universe became, is, and will yet become.
In the presence of that creation event, people of faith and people of science are both alike humbled. Even the questions that come to our minds make no sense. For instance, it makes no sense to wonder what there was before there was something, because before there was ‘some’ thing there could only have been ‘no’ thing, and our minds cannot even visualize the concept of ‘no-thing-ness’. Likewise, wondering what there was ‘before’ makes no sense because there was no ‘before’. Even time itself began when it began and not before.
None the less, whether we be people of science or people of faith, the problem of logical absurdity does not deter either of us from wondering what provoked Creation to happen.
Science and faith share the conviction that ‘existence’ had a finite beginning, and we each try to account for that as best we can. But neither of us has exclusive dibs on the mystery. It is a fundamental human quest. Since time immemorial it has fascinated story tellers, artists, mystics, magi, philosophers, lovers, scholars, and song writers. Indeed, it is so primary that even little children wonder about it and pose the awkward question, “Mommy, Daddy, where did I come from?”. It is a simple, honest, and insistent question, and no one among us has yet come up with an answer that scratches every itch.
Science, for its part, focusses upon the physical reality where Cause and Effect are as inter-dependent as ‘up’ and ’down’. And, undeterred by the absurdity of doing so, scientists do feel compelled to speculate that the universe, the Mother of all Effects, must surely have proceeded from something prior.
Faith, for its part, focusses upon the very real but intangible realities such as life, consciousness, love, meaning, moral imperative, creativity, responsibility, personality, conscience, values, and other such imponderables. And, equally undeterred by the absurdity of doing so, faith also reasons that such phenomena surely must derive from a pre-existent source. Religion customarily identifies that alleged source as ‘God’ (‘Theos’ in Greek).
Thus, science and religion both engage in speculations about the ultimate mystery, and both have discovered by now that it appears to be inexhaustible. It is one of those unsolvable mysteries that becomes deeper and ever more fascinating the more we learn about it.
And, though some may be surprised to know it, science and faith are not two solitudes, as they are so often presumed to be. Many of science’s pioneers were also people of faith, seekers in whose minds scientific insights and spiritual insights cross-pollinated. The list would include the names of such luminaries as the Astronomers Nicolaus Copernicus, and Galileo Galilei, the Father of Modern Genetics Gregor Mendel, and the Paleontologist Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. And just as surely, many of today’s scientists, some notable and some the quite familiar professionals in our communities, are also people of faith.
In a letter Galileo once wrote to the Grand Duchess Christina, he defended his scientific endeavors.
“But I do not feel obliged to believe that that same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. He would not require us to deny sense and reason in physical matters which are set before our eyes and minds by direct experience or necessary demonstrations.”
By now, and certainly in our ‘western’ culture, science has replaced faith institutions, including the Christian Church, as the dominant influence in our lives and society, and I cannot deny that the cultural shift does feel a bit like a demotion. But it does not move me to regard science as an enemy, or to resent its accomplishments. I am aware that Jesus instructs us to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28: 19). But for the life of me I cannot find any place in the Gospels where he instructs us to dominate, or even to strive to dominate.
For my own part, my feet are firmly planted on the faith side. As a young adult I chose to respond to a religious vocation, spent the requisite number of years in training for it, and then occupied the full span of my working career serving in it. It has been my primary and serious quest for ultimate Truth. But at many places along my faith journey, I have been confronted, informed, corrected, challenged, and stimulated by insights from other branches of learning … from humanities disciplines like History, Languages, and Philosophy, and from science disciplines like Archaeology, Anthropology, Physics, and Cosmology. I readily acknowledge my indebtedness to them and my respect for them. Unwittingly, they have made me a better theologian.