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Jesuits, with their centuries of expertise in astronomy, view science as a way of deepening respect and love for God, humanity, and the natural world. Understanding the physical and chemical foundations of life certainly inspires a sense of awe at God’s creation that even goes beyond the big picture, says Matthew Pinson SJ. In this interview with David McMahon, he says it removes magical thinking, and reminds us that our actions have consequences, which becomes particularly important in the context of caring for the environment.
How do Jesuit astronomers embody the unique intersection of faith and science?
I would say that these are both areas with a lot of depth, such that serious time spent in the fields, whether in academic study or something similarly conscious, not just general interest, takes one to a level that doesn’t have a short cut. And Jesuit astronomers are in the somewhat small set of people who have had the serious engagement in both fields. To a large extent, we could find a similar intersection between other major areas of human endeavor; for example, in literature, economics, business and education.
But there is something metaphysically foundational about both faith and science. I can’t speak for Jesuit astronomers themselves, but I think I have an uncompromising desire for coherence that just doesn’t come up as centrally for many people. So if I make a faith claim, it’s very important that it not contradict what I know from a scientific perspective. Of course, for many people astronomy in particular captures the imagination and the breadth of exploration that the human spirit has.
Does science lead to a deepening of faith?
Doing good science makes it much harder to believe in bad theology. The problem is that many of the implicit theological ideas that float around are bad, and many people move from a bad theology to an only slightly less bad atheology (there is an intellectually strong atheist viewpoint, but it takes just as much effort to construct as intellectually strong faith).
So if science can help us move away from a very naive understanding of God’s plan for us – a belief in reward and punishment, so I’ll pray and do good things because then God will bless me, etc. – it can lead to a deepening of faith, but it doesn’t happen automatically. As believers in a revealed religion, we have to cope with the reality that our sacred texts were written in a time when the world view was very different and certainly not coherent with modern science. The modern trend was to try to understand them in our terms, but I think there’s now a move towards a greater acceptance that they speak from their own time about a mystery, and we can engage with them a bit more directly, while recognising that in our own time we have to do our own grappling with the same mystery.
Read the whole story here: Learning from the galaxies
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